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the-canine-king · 6 months

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Okay I was gonna post this review of The Ichinose Family's Deadly Sins somewhere else but I chickened out so I'm just posting my thoughts here lol

Overall, 5/10 (Average) and idk if I'd recommend or not recommend it from the writing so far (45 chapters)

Honestly, the first few chapters made my expectations go way too high. It's definitely an interesting premise with interesting twists but the further the story goes the more I feel like the author is trying to desperately grasp on to something to make the reader stick around.

It wastes no time diving deep into the mystery and it does an excellent job of having a strong hook in the opening.

However, it has little to no time for the reader to actually CARE about the characters and as the plot progresses, it's hard to care any more after what has been revealed. It's slowly turning into repetitive scenes with dialogue, conflict, and "solutions" too similar to each other. "The Truth" feels a lot more intriguing than the actual characters and their journey towards the end at this point. Sure, the situations the characters are put in are pretty dark and you turn sympathetic, but it's turning more into a drag if the author doesn't take the time to set things in stone and have our characters develop or show that they're worth caring about to see them develop. Every chapter has some sort of crying scene, some dark implications, some argument, etc. and it's getting unfortunately repetitive.

Almost every chapter has a Plot Twist. And if not, every second chapter. This manga depends so much on keeping its readers to the Plot Twists rather than actual development of the story AND its characters. It worked for me for ~30 chapters, then it quickly turned into a bore. Everytime some sort of clue happens, plot twist. Every "conclusion" of a part, the story says "wait but actually–!!" Any sort of progress in the story, it gives you another thing to deal with and balance on your plate. It's getting tiring. It almost feels like the author doesn't want to commit to anything that would give the story a ledge to hold on to. You can argue that every manga that has been published depends on leaving the reader with a plot twist or cliff hanger. However, this story has so much new information given to you that there's absolutely no satisfying conclusion of plot points resulting in lame, lackluster scenes that don't amp it up more and more.

There is little to no progress into actually solving anything about the mystery. I mean, there IS some progression but it feels so small that the plot just keeps going back to square one where "not everything is what it seems". Instead of learning new information, the story throws a curveball at you and you're back to the feeling of chapter one where you're wondering what the hell is going on. The sister knows something, no actually the grandpa knows something, no actually the grandma knows something, no actually… etc. etc. Yes, it's a mystery and mysteries are meant to misdirect you, but the story absolutely refuses to let the pieces build up into the end where everything can be "solved". Instead of giving you pieces to work with, the story yanks it away with yet another "what you thought was happening is actually wrong".

Plot Twists always has some sort of huge impact but after Plot Twist #67 the impact is no longer there. I guess I'm getting really annoyed at how hopeless this all feels? Like it feels like it's never going to reach an actual satisfying conclusion or even clue to uncover the truth of what happened. Which, if that's the point of it (and it turns into some tragedy) then kudos to the author, but if not then it's really annoying. It's a mystery drama which I could've expected something like this, but it's agonizing to read something where the author constantly edges you with no "conclusion" of anything and gives you no clues but only Plot Twists. And if not a conclusion (due to it being a mystery of course) it shows little snowball effect of how everything is going downhill due to "the same" scenes being played over and over again.

It's surprising but not surprising that others mention confusion over the plot so far. It may be because of awkward panels/ weird text bubble placements. And at the speed of which information is being given to you, it's difficult to keep track of who is speaking and what they mean and might require some rereading of pages to grasp it. The art isn't bad, the semi chibi style is kind of charming while also being able to capture some darker tones and emotions despite the simplified art style. The detailing is nice when needed and some wide shots of the characters in different settings are great too. The only annoyance I have is the panel work and text placements. It's not prevalent in every chapter/ page, but a handful of them. Not a huge nitpick but something to note at least when you need to pay attention at almost every scene.

Basically, a strong opening and it's starting to slowly go downhill. I do want to continue reading just to see the ending at this point.

#king reviews #tbh i didn't expect myself to review this #but it's been brewing in my head #i'm just really :/#i might do more reviews if i feel like it for other things i'm reading

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frontproofmedia · 1 year

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The Writers Block: The Growing Apathy Toward The Sweet Science-Part 1

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By Hector Franco

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Published: December 31, 2022

The views and opinions expressed on this web site are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of Frontproof Media, the Frontproofmedia.com staff, and/or any/all contributors to this site.

2022 was a middling year for the sport of boxing. Some aspects saw improvements, specifically in women's boxing. However, in another year where the top fighters continue to fight less and less, fans and pundits centering conversations more on the minutia of boxing politics rather than what happens inside the ring, I've come to the point where I don't care anymore.

Boxing has become the worst thing it can be, and that's boring.

Will one of the most important boxing fights occur between Errol Spence Jr and Terence Crawford? At this point, I'm not excited about that matchup anymore. Sure, I will watch the fight if it does take place, but for me, its importance has taken a major slump. The back and forth of each fighter's fan base, including the boxing media that chooses to take sides, has become so tiresome that it's groan-inducing anytime these fighters are brought up. From a media standpoint, when I approached a site about writing a piece on Crawford and Spence, they responded that they both don't move the needle enough and will pass. These guys aren't Mayweather and Pacquiao and certainly aren't De La Hoya or Trinidad.

There are likely numerous fans who may have similar feelings towards Spence and Crawford at this point, but the problem has now become that I feel nothing but apathy for the rest of the sport. In today's era, boxers simply don't fight often enough. There is no momentum gained for a fighter when the next time you'll see them again is in 6 months or the following year. While there has been an influx of unification title bouts and fighters becoming undisputed in their weight class, the top fighters need to step in the ring more often. Over half of the current top ten fighters, pound-for-pound, fought just once this year. The rest only fought twice. This trend is acceptable for established veterans who have already accumulated enough credentials to enter the hall of fame. But it's detrimental to the sport when fighters in their mid-20s sit back and let their prime slip away.

Sports, in general, may have better pharmaceuticals, training methods, and overall knowledge of keeping a fighter healthy, but boxing is a skill-based sport that requires repetition. No amount of training will get you ready for actual combat inside the ring. The lack of activity is one of the reasons why the techniques and skill levels have plateaued. Not only has the sport's growth staggered, but we have yet to see the best of the fighters inside the ring. Subpar performances have become the norm, and with activity levels at twice a year, it will stay that way. It doesn't help that the sport is so fractured that there is a plethora of overpriced PPVs. And just as many different streaming services with climbing prices that watching fights has become a chore.

There are a variety of reasons to support a specific fighter, from nationality and ability to promote to the way they behave outside the ring. But the main reason should be what they do when they step inside the squared circle. Anything other than that is secondary. Having said that, IBF women's bantamweight champion Ebanie Bridges is the best overall package currently in the sport. She provides excellent interviews, has proven her naysayers wrong as an underdog multiple times, and always delivers first-rate action in the ring. The Australian champion does it all when it comes to promotion, and with that devotion and passion, I can only hope to be inspired enough to continue watching boxing.

While my aspiration and overall interest in boxing have slowly dwindled, not everything has been negative. The brightest moment of 2022 for me was in April when Amanda Serrano and Katie Taylor faced off at Madison Square Garden. The bout was the first women's boxing match to headline the world's most famous arena, and the crowd in attendance elevated the fight to an all-time classic. 2022 might have been a forgettable year; however, in that rubble, Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano provided a diamond. Hopefully, in 2023, more passion will return, and more diamonds will be produced.

Sidenote: Roman Gonzalez continues to be underrated and underappreciated. His skill level is the top of the line, and on my scorecards, he has only tasted defeat once in the rematch with Srisaket Sor Rungvisai. He should be 1-1 with the Thai fighter and 3-0 against his rival Juan Francisco Estrada.

Featured Image: ESNEWS/Boxingscene

#HF #Terence Crawford #Errol Spence Jr.#Ebanie Bridges #Amanda Serrano #Katie Taylor

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lettrespromises · 4 years

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╰┄───➤ LettresPromises informs you : you have one notification. ❜ Letter object : ‘Screaming into the abyss’ - Katsuki Bakugou.

╰──➤ Katsuki Bakugou sent you a letter, would you like to read it? ❜

Letter object : Injured, Bakugou is forced to stay at home under the orders of the medical unit where he will begin being tormented by his own emotions and the guilt of not being able to help you. As the emotions build up within him, he finally explodes, and you’re here to pick up all the shattered pieces and glue them back together.

Author’s letter : ❝dear reader, I had to, I’m so sorry but I had to write something about this following the catastrophe of chapter 285. I do hope, however, that you will like this (and I might have gotten lost in descriptions once again so I apologize in advance.) also, bonus point if you’ve read nietzsche or heard about his theory on the abyss (wink, wonk @ the last line of the letter.) sending lots of love your way! sealed with a kiss, nikki.❞ Genre : Angst, fluff, comfort. Warnings : Cursing. Word count : 2.6K.

Maybe, the mask deserved to fall. Maybe, the mask was meant to be shattered. Maybe, the mask belonged amongst the ashes. The crimson mask which, to the common eye, echoed to the imagery of a surge of flames which were fueled by passion and perfectionism. These flames were scary, almost untamable in a way, but they were beautiful, tempting— and here laid mankind’s first paradox : feeling the urge to approach and tame a wild entity. But today, the shine reflecting in this suffering inferno has changed. It’s not longer crimson, it barely holds any shade of red. This fire used to burn to intimidate others, now, it burns just enough to survive. It has changed.

And that’s how everything became blurry— the crimson orbs found themselves to be the martyrs of the emotions draining them. Pearls of salt gathered at the corner of his eyes and fell while following the path created by the dry tears which had previously rolled down the flesh of his cheeks. It was like a cascade, and the rhythm of the tears almost seemed mechanic— as soon as a tear hung from his chin, another one started taking form to replace it right away.

Knowing that he couldn’t control his own emotions drove him insane, but he fell in the trap set by his subconscious— the more he was thinking about how to gain the upper hand over his emotions, the more he felt constricted by the invisible knots forming in his throat. Perhaps knowing that there was no other solution left was yet another motive to cry about.

Bakugou’s head hung low, his crimson orbs never leaving the floor as he was doomed to observe his own downfall through the repetitive drops of his tears. He didn’t dare to blink either, judging that it would only make the tears grow bigger until he would not be able to perceive something clearly anymore. His nails were dug into the skin of his palms, imprints of crescents trailed behind as a testimony of his frustration. His mouth was wide open, too, Bakugou was inviting his body to scream its pain, force the illness out of his body, and although he forced himself to voice vividly his agony, no sound came out of his mouth— he was screaming into the abyss.

« God-fucking-damnit, why is it so fucking hard, hah? W-Why can’t I fucking get this out?! » A crescendo shadowed his intonation, but failed to cover the betraying breaks accompanying his voice. The surprising cracks in his voice made him shut silent, and for a second, he wished no sound could leave his parted lips if it meant he was going to show even more vulnerability. But most of all, he wished that you would not come home earlier and perhaps in the nick of time, he would have re-gained the possession of his own emotions. He couldn’t find himself to imagine a scenario where you would burst out of the door and see him naked, in a way— what were you going to say to him? Were you going to call him ‘weak’? Were you going to break up with him? Were you going to be disgusted? If it meant losing you, then Bakugou was willing to be a silent martyr.

He was way past trying to find an answer to the enigma and thus find why his emotions were filling his senses, he knew that said answer was not going to fall straight from above, perhaps there was no answer. But he couldn’t help and reminisce the events which took place a few weeks prior to that— he failed to arrest a villain and, whilst battling them, got severely injured and was forced to stay off of hero duty for a few weeks. Bakugou felt useless, and guilt for not being able to save citizens was exuding from his every pore, sometimes, he wondered if he really deserved the status of hero in these conditions. The sole heroic acts he was allowed to do was send a text to ‘Shitty Hair’ and congratulate him on his work, not that he would ever openly admit that he was willing to do anything and everything to take his spot.

His work was dangerous, he would wake up every morning wondering if today was the last time he was going to kiss you goodbye, and perhaps he started pouring more bits of genuine adoration in his morning pecks since this epiphany struck him. But his work was also addictive, the sensation of feeling adrenaline course through his veins until hitting his brain was a marvel and he just wanted to know what it felt like to save civilians, prevent crimes from happening— he wanted to witness this all over again, as if he had been overwhelmed by a sudden wave of amnesia.

The sound of keys rattling in the lock didn’t even startle him, he stopped crying, and that was enough of a victory to him already. But as soon as you stepped foot in your shared apartment and were welcomed with silence, your guts were quick to tell you that something was off. You ventured in the vicinity with cautious steps, as if you were discovering your apartment all over again under the heavy influence of silence, but you couldn’t see Bakugou anywhere.

« Katsuki? Are you here? » You called, not sincerely expecting an answer. « Oh, fuck off already. » He responded silently, sincerity abandoning his words.

You had tried to look for him in every room, but failed to find him. Sure, there was one last option and the most intimate one, but knowing that Bakugou could possibly be stuck in your bedroom felt like breaking his own intimacy. You had tried to be by his side as much as you could during his time at home, but you were a hero yourself, and perhaps you felt like staying away from him for a bit would diminish the burning sensations of his pain.

You found yourself knocking against the door and immediately forgetting about your own advice on how to give him intimacy, « Katsuki, I know you’re in there. » but you met silence as a response. Pursuing your intentions, you tried opening the door but you realized soon after that it was locked, your brows were furrowed in incomprehension. You allowed yourself to release a breath you ignored you were holding until feeling the invading sensation of several knots forming in your stomach under the feeling of guilt, and thus, you fell on your knees near the door, weakened.

« Katsuki, love, do you want to talk about it? » You inquired, the sound of your voice coming out as a hushed confession.

« Talk about what? » He barked but it was innocent.

« Don’t tell me you locked yourself in our bedroom because you actually like it. »

« I do whatever I fucking want, that’s none of your goddamn business. » This is why he should have stayed silent, to avoid the crack to distort his voice.

« Katsuki, open the door before I destroy it with my bare hands. »

You were met once more with silence, but this time it hurt more, probably because Bakugou chose not to respond deliberately. Still, you waited for a few seconds, never leaving your position nor moving by an inch— after all, you still had the hope that he silent because he was on his way to come open the door. But, oh well, what a disillusion!

« Come out of the bedroom whenever you want, I’m out. » your actions accompanied your words and you got up, dusting yourself off in the process.

And while your hands swatted away the bits of dust clinging onto the fabric of your pants, the deafening sound of your bedroom door swinging wide open caught you off by surprise. You were met with the dim fire dancing in his crimson orbs before acknowledging the invading sensation of his limbs encompassing your waist in a (literally) breathtaking hold. You were rendered stiff, not only because of the rapidity of this action, but also because this was not a characteristic of Bakugou. His head was nestled in the crook of your neck, not that he had the courage to willingly show his face marked by the torment of his emotions anyway, and his fingertips almost turnt white under the pressure applied on your lower back.

« Don’t go anywhere, stay here. » hot breaths crashed against your skin. « I’m not going anywhere, I’m here, I won’t go away. » you responded equally as intimate, your fingertips brushed the roots of his hair in circular motions. « Now, » you let your hands travel down his face until cupping his cheeks and making him bore his eyes into yours, « do you still refuse to talk to me? »

He blinked once, to make sure he had heard correctly, and then a second time, to prevent the tears from finding the familiar path drawn on his cheeks. He couldn’t stand looking at you, or rather, he couldn’t stand the fact you were looking at him in all his shameful glory, bare with all his emotions written all over his face. But from your perspective, never once did he look as beautiful as now— the reddish tone of his eyes married the scarlet color of his iris, the color of his cheeks matched the color of his eyes, too. But most of all, he was beautiful because he let his emotions speak for him.

He was hesitant, unsure of how his body was bound to react, unsure of how you were going to react as the haunting thoughts of you finding him weak were still clouding his mind. And yet, he couldn’t gather enough strength to look elsewhere but in your eyes, as if a calming bliss were attracting his orbs like magnets would do. He took one breath, it was solemn, but necessary for both the sake of his tirade but also for the sake of unifying his thoughts upon exposing them to daylight.

« I fucking feel like shit ‘cause I haven’t done anything since I’m injured. You, Shitty Hair, Dunce Face, everyone is busting their ass off to fight shitty villains left and right and I gotta’ stay at home doing nothing. I can’t do shit to help you. For fuck’s sake, I can’t even cook to help you out after your day on patrol— I’m fucking useless, you hear me? I’m fucking useless while you’re risking your life out there every day. What the fuck am I supposed to do? Sit here and not do shit? Sit here until I have a fucking confirmation that you’re safe and sound? I fucking hate this, I fucking hate feeling like a burden to you, I fucking hate feeling useless! » The more he talked, the more venom he spat, the more his voice was breaking under the tight grip of his emotions.

It was your turn to reply, but your brain couldn’t seem to form a comprehensive sentence. Sure, there were words and whatnot, but none clicked to create a real sentence. Your mouth was set agape in anticipation, and you laid your gaze upon him and his features— how he dug his pearly whites into his lower lip to refrain himself to give in to the temptations of his emotions and cry, how his eyes screamed for an answer on your end because he couldn’t stand silence as an answer, how he tried to catch his breath and ease his heart.

Your palms were still covering his cheeks. But if this action came from a place of willing to get his attention, now you just felt as if you were cradling the finest piece of china which threatened to shatter at any given moment. You knew how horrible of a situation this must have been for him, so you allowed to grant him his deserved intimacy, your palms orientated his cranium in the crook of your neck, just enough to give him sentimental privacy. And although you claimed that you were doing this for him, you were also doing this to prevent yourself from breaking into tears. Your hearts beat in unison, so did your emotions.

« I don’t even know where to begin », you begin as your digits ran through his hair to soothe him, « I feel so guilty for not doing something about this before », upon saying this, Bakugou pinched your hip in disagreement to which you let out a hushed yelp in response, « Bakugou Katsuki, I know your pride will tell you not to believe me but listen to me for one second, will you? It’s plain and simple, you’ve always been the person I look up to the most. When we were at U.A, I wanted to be like you and every time I was asked who was my inspiration, I would always say that it was Mount Lady or All Might but the only person I could think about was you. You did injure yourself, it sucks but you did it while fighting off a villain and you allowed a family to escape the zone safe and sound. You’re injured because you saved people, not because you tripped down the stairs. » You finished, allowing your lungs to absorb some much needed oxygen while Bakugou slightly tightened his hold as he already missed your voice.

« If you’re not proud of yourself, you know I’ll always be. And, please, you’re not a burden— if anything, I’m glad to know you’re safe here but I also know that soon enough you’ll be able to cook me something because you hate it when I cook for you. », you continued and obligated him to face you one last time, « whenever you’re in doubt, think of how much I love you, and how great of a hero you are. » you concluded your sentence by reducing the space between your lips and crashing yours against his in a unison of sentiments.

Both protagonist shut their lids close to allow the sensations granted by the kiss to roam their body and mind while they were both persuaded of seeing stars. Sure, you had kissed Bakugou more times than you could remember in the past, but here, you could easily discern the tones of care, gratitude and genuine adoration gracing your lips. And once oxygen failed your lungs and had to break the kiss against your will, you noticed that the crimson inferno was more vivid than earlier— Bakugou thanked your passion for fueling his fire and bringing it back from its ashes, like the fire of a Phoenix.

« ‘Love you, too. » Bakugou whispered against your lips.

« I’m sorry, care to say it again? » you responded, a playful smirked plastered on your facial features.

« Hah? Didn’t you fucking hear what I said? » He stared at you in disbelief, already second-guessing his choices in declarations, « I’ll say this once, so listen well, dumbass : I love you. Got that, now? ‘Cause I’m not saying it again. »

But you heard everything, of course you did, you always do. You hear his odd nicknames, you hear his cursing, you hear his screams, you hear his secret declarations of love and you hear him when he’s screaming into the abyss.

« I love you too, Katsuki, so much. » The abyss stared back at him, and offered him a smile.

#bakugou #bakugou x reader #katsuki bakugo x reader #mha x reader #mha #bnha #bnha x reader #bakugou fluff #bnha bakugo katsuki #bakugou katsuki #bakugo katsuki #bakugou oneshot #bakugou hcs #bakugou smut #bakugou imagines

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jade-marie · 3 years

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The Good Girls writers are just so out of touch with the fans, besides the few "stans" on tumblr or twitter,I see mainly negative comments about the show from fans, like too much Dean,why is Beth never talking about Deans lies and not enough Brio. And having read their last interview,how can anyone be positive about that,its kind of delusional to think they root for Brio, its clear they see them as a fling, she is probably even going to stay with Dean,the writers love him too much sadly.

I agree, anon!

Outside of the really diehard fans, I’ve seen consistently negative comments about the show since season three.

I know lots of people on here will just say “social media is an echo chamber” which is true, to an extent. But the complaints have been very consistent and they’re also fucking valid. Since season three, the main complaints I’ve seen have been:

lack of Rio

lack of Brio

repetitive storytelling

lack of character development

Death marriage

plot holes

unrealistic crime storylines

Beth’s “1 foot in, 1 foot out” mentality towards crime

lack of consequences for the girls’ fuck ups

These are all really valid complaints to have and I think it goes beyond people just repeating what everyone else is saying.

Outside of “fandom”, people I know that actually watch the show casually pretty much all watch the show for Rio/Brio. The marketing department are obviously aware of this, which is why they market the show in the way they do. But apparently the show runners just don’t give a shit what their audience want.

That would be fine if they were in a position where they weren’t willing sacrifice organic storytelling, for the sake of fanservice. I can appreciate that. But when the storytelling is completely nonsensical and it’s also the polar opposite of what the audience want to watch, what the fuck are you trying to achieve?

From what I could tell, based on that interview, they want to be able to keep all three girls in a position where the audience still sees them as “redeemable” and basically just mothers who dabble in crime. But in order to do that, they stall character development and they also refuse to humanise Rio beyond a certain point. They essentially have to keep him as the yardstick for irredeemability. Because it doesn’t matter what Beth does, they always have Rio there as a comparison, as somebody worse than her.

Once again, they brought up Walter White/breaking bad and they were talking about how, after a certain point in the show, Walter was irredeemable and they don’t want that for the girls. So they deliberately tried to keep all of the crime stuff at arm’s-length yada yada yada, but it’s fucking boring to watch, let’s be honest.

Again, this mindset just shows how out of touch with their audience they are - because for the people who enjoy the crime stuff, they find it boring. For the people who watched it as more of a light-hearted dramedy, they found the situation with Lucy a step too far and completely turned on the girls. So you have one side of the aisle who want things to stay lighthearted, another where people want to get darker and for the show to really commit to that. But both sides seem to want Beth, especially, to truly embrace crime.

An analogy I once heard springs to mind when it comes to this show, it’s like if you have one group of people who like sweet food, another who like savoury food and then you decide to bring bacon trifle to dinner. That’s not what anybody fucking wanted🤣

The vast majority of the audience wanted to see a modern day Bonnie and Clyde criminal power couple. That’s not going to happen because apparently the only time realism matters to them is when they want to keep Beth with her fucking piece of shit husband. And yes, I agree, he’s not going anywhere because everybody loves Matthew. Can they work him into the story, in a way that feels organic? Absolutely. Is he intrinsic to the plot? Fuck no.

Sorry, I’m ranting a tad but this whole thing just pisses me off so much. I don’t understand how anybody can take anything positive from the press around the show so far.

Essentially what you have is a show where the writing team who don’t give a fuck about what their audience wants, the same audience who keeps them on the air, even though they don’t fucking deserve it. A writing team who puts less effort into characterisation and storytelling than amateur fanfic authors. A writing team who has absolutely no idea where they want the show to go.

Why are people reacting positively to that? I don’t know if I’m just absorbing everything completely differently to them, if it’s a case of people not speaking their true thoughts, or if it’s denial.

Your guess is as good as mine.

#tl;dr #the writers are dumbfucks who don’t care about their audience #Ranty jade is back babyyyyy #gg season 4 #gg shittalking #good girls nbc #asks #anon

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muertawrites · 4 years

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Aphrodite Kallipygos (Zuko x Plus Size Reader) [Modern AU]

Summary: Zuko takes up an art class as part of his therapy and ends up falling in love with a woman who’s a work of art in her own right.

Word Count: 3,500

Disclaimer: There’s a scene in this fic where a couple of thin girls engage in some rude behavior and are criticized in a few none-too-kind words. I want to make it very clear that this scene does not reflect my views of thin people or body positivity - these characters are meant to be a metaphor for greater culture and its strict, unrealistic views of what women should look like.

Author’s Note: I hate rom coms but after writing this fic it dawned on me that I would be excellent at writing them. Also, this one goes out to all my art hoes out there. I geek out pretty hard about art history in this one.

Speaking of which, I reference real-world cultures within the structure of the Avatar universe in this one as well. Something I like to do when I zone out is think about which actual countries would belong to which bending nations; my heritage is primarily from the British Isles, and what with liths like Stonehenge and the hella castles hanging around out there, I think we’d be earth benders - same with cultures like the ancient Egyptians and the Pueblos. I also love the idea of Pacific Islanders who can bend both water and lava, and Incan air benders, and I really wish the idea of global cultures as benders were explored more in the Avatar universe.

Have I mentioned that I’m a massive fucking nerd?

~ Muerta

Zuko never considered himself much of a creative. When he thought about it, he realized that that part of his life had never really been explored; his father always pushed him to focus solely on his bending and combat skills, never allowing even the consideration of other practices or hobbies. As much as Zuko was passionate about the martial arts he'd mastered, he also came to learn that he never had a choice in being passionate about anything else.

“I think you should take an art class,” his therapist suggested. “It would be a good outlet for you, and one that isn't directly influenced by your family.”

“I don't think I've ever drawn anything, though,” Zuko admitted. “I wouldn't be any good.”

“It's not about being good,” his therapist explained, “it's about exploring things that weren't available to you in your youth, freedom of expression. Consider it - there's a shop in this neighborhood that offers classes.”

She handed him a business card adorned with an array of different art styles, from delicate watercolors to bright, bold cartoons; it read, “classes for everything” in a cheerful, clearface font.

Zuko shrugged and pocketed the card. A week later, he was enrolled in a basic studio art course.

He arrived for his first class embarrassingly early, passing under the bell of the shop’s front door twenty minutes before it was scheduled to begin.

The building that housed the shop looked to be older than the rest of the neighborhood around it; the storefront was tiny, with crowded shelves lining each wall and tables and racks wound throughout the center of the space, creating a maze that led to the checkout counter. The room’s ceilings were high, supported by beams in a dark stained wood that matched the floor below. Paper mache sculptures and handmade lanterns hung from the rafters, and the simple, antique plaster walls were decorated with paintings and sketches, likely given by the shop’s clientele. From somewhere in the back, a radio sang folk music, accompanied by the hum of an electric fan.

Zuko wandered through the labyrinthine merchandise displays until he reached the register, where he was met with the single most beautiful sight he may have ever laid eyes on.

You stood behind the counter, leaned over a textbook with a pencil in hand, tapping it back and forth over the pages; you bit your lip in concentration, a few strands of your hair falling loose from the messy knot atop your head and over your cheeks, though you were too focused on your reading to care. An apron bearing the shop’s logo was tied around your waist, emphasizing your body's dramatic curves.

To Zuko, you were gorgeous. He couldn't place what exactly about you allured him; all he knew was that his pulse had quickened to a near dangerous pace.

You looked up at him when you noticed you were no longer alone, flashing him a kind, somewhat distracted smile. He nodded curtly, too nervous to do anything but stare.

“Can I help you?” you greeted him politely.

He cleared his throat, his voice coming out a pitch higher than normal as he spoke.

“I'm here for the art class,” he told you.

You smirked a little, peering down to check the time on your phone.

“It's a little early,” you said. “I was just about to start setting up. You could help me if you want? So you're not so bored while you wait?”

“Yeah,” Zuko mumbled, “yeah, sure.”

You grinned, waving him behind the counter and through a door to the back room. To his surprise, what he expected to be a minuscule stockroom turned out to be a space larger than the actual shop, lined on one wall with massive warehouse windows that poured late afternoon sunlight into the room. Metal shelves and boxes lay haphazardly about, mixed in with a scattering of easels, pottery spinners, canvases, and other art supplies. You directed your guest to a stack of chairs in the corner, instructing him to line them in a half circle in an empty portion of the room while you placed the easels.

“So, do you have a name?” you asked, attempting to make conversation that could drown out the repetitive radio drone.

“Zuko,” he introduced himself.

You stopped what you were doing, fixing him with an awed, slightly amused gape.

“Firelord Zuko?” you wondered.

He blushed, nodding.

“Oh spirits, I'm sorry I didn't bow!” you exclaimed, dropping into a low curtsy. The gesture was mixed with equal parts mirth and genuine respect; Zuko was unsure how to respond, his heart flickering as he watched you.

“I heard you were living somewhere in the city,” you continued after making your own introduction, setting an easel in front of each chair he positioned. “Not into the whole royalty thing?”

Zuko shrugged. He focused on his work, too nervous to look you in the eye.

“Just weird going back there,” he told you. “I don't really want taxpayer money going to making sure I live above my means.”

You leaned against the last chair he set down, smiling warmly at him.

“That's very respectable,” you responded. “Thank you. Y’know, as someone who pays taxes.”

Zuko chuckled softly as you handed him a bin of art supplies, instructing him to set one of each item at every station. He did as he was told, stealing glances at you whenever he was sure you weren’t looking.

“So, uh… do you own this place?” he asked, fumbling over his words.

“Oh, no, this is my professor’s shop,” you replied. “I just work here part time.”

“You’re a student?”

You shook your head.

“Nope. Graduated last year. I work days at the history museum downtown. I also give art history classes here, and help out with the ones Professor Cong teaches.”

“Oh.”

Zuko paused, unsure of what else to say.

“... They teach a different type of history just for art?” he asked after a moment.

You laughed, covering your mouth to muffle the sound and apologizing, giving him a little nod as you collected yourself.

“Yes. Some people even get whole degrees in it,” you giggled. “Not that it’s a useful field to learn anything about.”

Zuko shrugged, trying to shake off the embarrassment of sounding stupid in front of such a cute girl; little did he know, you found the question beyond endearing.

“It sounds important,” he contested. “I’ve been meeting historians from all over the world to correct all the propaganda from the past hundred years. It never occurred to me that I would need different historians for art.”

You smiled at him, meeting him where he stood and handing him one of the sketch pads from your bin. His cheeks pinkened, his eyes darting away from yours as he took it and mumbled a “thank you”.

“I like you, Firelord Zuko,” you decided aloud. “My classes are on Wednesdays. You can come if you want - free of charge.”

Zuko nodded, swallowing heavily as he met your gaze once again.

“Thank you,” he replied. “I appreciate it.”

You laughed a little bit, taking his now empty bin and returning both to their place on a nearby shelf. The shop’s bell rang from beyond the threshold and you went back to the front counter, telling Zuko to take a spot wherever he liked. He sat in the front row; wherever he thought he could be closest to you.

For the next five weeks, Zuko attended not only his studio art class, but your art history class, showing up early to each lesson so he could spend time alone with you. Despite the fact that you invited him to sit in, he paid the fee for the second course, not wanting you to go without the extra pay for your work - he found a doodle of a turtle duck on his seat the next time he showed up, the fuzzy little penciled duckling telling him he was a terrible listener, but thanking him anyway (with a heart scribbled in beside the words).

With your guidance, Zuko learned that there was much more to art than just vibrant colors and pretty decoration. Everything in art, it turned out, had significance, each piece and work holding insight into the people and cultures who created it; you spoke passionately about the art of the Egyptians, who used specific shapes and colors in their imagery to tell stories beyond the written word, about the mysteries of prehistoric structures that revealed how early humanity was much more sophisticated and interconnected than considered at a glance, about the symbols that translated and influenced across centuries to shape how each nation, each culture, portrayed themselves into the modern world. He found himself hanging on every word, falling even more deeply enamored with you with each moment he spent with you.

It didn’t take you long - what with the easy, pleasant conversations you shared before classes - to discover that Zuko lived relatively close to you, only two stops away on the local metro. Knowing this, you often saw each other on the days you weren't at the shop, meeting at the station between each of your respective neighborhoods and having coffee or dinner in one of its many cafes, talking about anything and everything and managing to pass several hours together in what seemed like the blink of an eye. You loved being with Zuko, finding the more you did it, the less you wanted your rendezvous to end; you thought about him all the time, getting all kinds of giddy whenever he crossed your mind.

On one of your extracurricular excursions, you and Zuko wandered around the local high street, marveling at the different streetside vendors and dreamily window shopping behind the glass of the upscale boutiques, doing little more than enjoying each other’s company. It was a hot day, and along your way, Zuko stopped at a coffee stand to get you each something cold to drink.

A pretty young woman in line in front of you eyed you up and down, her gaze flicking from between you and Zuko with disgust. She jabbed her slim, graceful elbow into her equally as flawless friend’s side, whispering something in the other woman’s ear as they both glared at you, sniggering cruelly behind flat stomachs and angular, willowy frames.

You sneered at them, making a point of hooking your arm within Zuko’s and pressing your much wider hip against his, the poison of the encounter sinking into your skin and infecting your thoughts. Zuko noticed your change in demeanor immediately, steering you away from the scene as soon as your drinks were served.

“You okay?” he asked, still holding tight to your arm.

“Fine,” you quipped, biting back tears. “Just a couple of pretty bitches proving how fucking hideous they are on the inside.”

“Wait, seriously?”

Zuko halted, pulling you to the side of the street and out of the way of traffic. He lay a hand on your shoulder, the firm, able grasp of his palm somehow making you feel even worse.

“Someone would really make fun of you?” he wondered, outraged and incredulous. “Why?”

You shook your head, smiling defeatedly as your lower lip quivered.

“People have made fun of me since I was a kid, Zu,” you told him, speaking as if he should’ve just assumed it. “I’m fat. You can’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”

“So?” Zuko replied. You were so shocked, you physically leaned away from him, raising your eyebrows. “Yeah, you’re fat. That doesn’t mean you’re not pretty. I… I think you’re really pretty. Gorgeous, even. You’re beautiful.”

You blinked at him, taken aback. He gave your shoulder a reassuring squeeze, his eyes never once leaving yours.

“... Did I break you?” he tried after a moment, sounding concerned that it was a genuine possibility.

You laughed, shaking your head in feverish disbelief, attempting to clear the confusion that fogged your battered brain.

“No, I just… Nobody’s ever called me pretty and fat before.”

Zuko shrugged.

“Both are true,” he told you. “I like your body. You look like one of those Greek sculptures. Of the goddesses.”

You stared at him, searching his eyes for any sign of dishonesty or patronization; all you found looking back at you was the clumsily genuine man you were quickly falling in love with.

“... Have I ever told you about Aphrodite Kallipygos?” you asked.

Zuko shook his head, as confused as you had been a few seconds ago.

“She’s a statue of Venus,” you explained. “She’s got her dress raised up over her backside, and when they found her originally, she didn’t have her head; the guy who restored her sculpted it so that she was looking back at herself, admiring her body. There’s even a whole folktale about a pair of brothers who fell in love with two women because they had, like, beautifully fat asses and the town built a temple dedicated to Venus and her butt. The name literally translates to ‘Aphrodite of the Beautiful Buttocks’.”

Zuko chuckled, raising the hand at your shoulder to cup your cheek.

“See?” he said. “Men have worshiped thick, juicy butts since the dawn of time!”

You laughed, your cheeks turning bright red as you buried your face in your hands, leaning forward to rest your forehead on his chest and further hide yourself.

“Zuko, oh my god,” you breathed. “Promise me you’ll never say that out loud in a public setting ever again, please. You’re the fucking Firelord for Tui’s sake.”

Zuko chuckled, wrapping an arm around your waist and hugging you tightly.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, still grinning. “Made you feel better, though.”

You pulled away from him, affectionately punching him in the shoulder. He laughed, gasping at you in mock reproach before pressing a finger into your side, shocking you with a burst of static electricity; you cackled as you jumped away, sticking your tongue out at him.

Zuko felt a rush of lightheadedness as he watched you, savoring the sound of your laugh and the radiance of your smile. It was then he realized he was in love with you.

The next studio art class focused on model drawing - more specifically, a nude model. Zuko, having been raised in what was arguably the most reserved family in the world, was nervous about the idea of having to sit in front of a stranger for an hour, not only staring at their naked body, but immortalizing it in graphite on a page.

He was mortified when he arrived at the class and found you sitting in the corner, wrapped in nothing but a silk dressing gown.

As you climbed the platform you were meant to model on, your limbs rattled. You began to question your sanity, wondering what you thought you were doing offering to pose for the class, what kind of statement you thought it would make. You faced enough judgement from others about your weight with your clothes on - what the hell did you think they would do when you stood before them completely naked, every bump and crevice on full display for them to gawk at and criticize?

You glanced to the side at Professor Cong, seeking some sort of assurance or comfort from him; he, being the seasoned professional in his mid-sixties that he was, sat reclined in a chair in his Hawaiian shirt and flip flops, scrolling totally undisturbed through Pinterest on his phone. Honestly, you expected no less - his obtuse reactions in the face of the awkward and uncomfortable were basically a superpower.

Taking a deep breath, you untied the knot holding your dressing gown together and let it fall, slipping gracefully from your shoulders and to the floor. You assumed a comfortable, classic pose, purposely facing yourself away from the man whose eyes you could feel searing into your back.

Zuko’s breath hitched as he watched you undress. Though he only saw the full of your body for a moment, he was captivated. The swell of your breasts and curve of your stomach sent him into a dizzy spell, his mouth going dry and his skin heating with a noticeable flush. The rolls of your back, the ripples and divots along your thighs and rump, the stripes etched into your skin like the veins through a granite block, he drank in every part of you, moulding every detail with a focused hand as he sketched. He made note every scar and beauty mark. Once or twice, his mind drifted towards the salacious, imagining how your body would feel beneath his, soft and supple, releasing exalted breaths and enraptured moans, your nails dragging down his back as he drove you closer and closer to infinity…

He inhaled sharply, snapping himself back to his work. You were Venus, Minerva, Diana - a goddess among men. He would gladly spend the rest of his life worshiping you.

The moment the class ended, you gathered your dressing gown and made a beeline for the employee bathroom, getting back into your clothes as quickly as you could physically manage. The experience of nude modeling wasn’t nearly as harrowing as you expected it to be; you actually found it kind of freeing, being able to show yourself to a room full of other people and come out of it unscathed, in fact feeling quite beautiful - what had you nervous was the fact that you’d have to face Zuko immediately after the fact, seeing as you took the train home together after classes. His was the only opinion you cared about, and you wanted nothing more than to convince yourself that he hadn’t judged you as harshly as the self-hatred brainwashed into you made you believe.

When you emerged from the bathroom, Professor Cong stood in front of one of the empty easels in the back, smirking at the drawing the student had left there.

“Your boyfriend left you his piece,” he teased.

You blushed, glaring at him as you approached and snatched the sketch from his hands.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” you tried in vain to defend yourself.

Professor Cong just chuckled.

“I’ll believe that when I see evidence to the contrary,” he replied.

You looked down at the paper in your hand and felt the breath drain from your lungs, your heart and stomach soaring into your throat.

Zuko had drawn you in the image of Venus, your body draped in gossamer fabric and your head turned over your shoulder, eyes cast downward and lips slightly parted in a blissful, ethereal expression. In the corner of the page, he’d written “Aphrodite Kallipygos” in his sweeping handsome script, beneath which was his signature and the date. You’d never once seen yourself look so beautiful, let alone in the eyes of someone you loved so fiercely.

You swallowed hard, rolling the drawing and securing it with a hair tie from your bag before exiting the shop through the back, knowing Zuko would be in the alley waiting for you.

“Hey,” he greeted you when you appeared through the storeroom door. “Are you okay? You looked really ner-”

You interrupted him by throwing your arms around his neck, slamming your lips into his in a desirous kiss. It took him less than a second to recover himself from the shock of the action and curl his arms around your waist, pressing his body against yours and lifting you every so slightly off the ground, kissing you just as hard as you kissed him. When you parted, you were breathless, your cheeks fiery red and your lips swollen the color of vermilion. Zuko smiled at you, one side of his mouth curling up slightly higher than the other.

“So you liked it?” he asked.

You laughed, nodding.

“Zuko, I loved it,” you gasped. “I love you. I think I loved you as soon as I met you but that sort of thing is really cliche and stupid to admit.”

Zuko chuckled, raising his hand to your cheek and kissing you again, his lips soft and tender this time around. You sighed happily into his mouth, closing your eyes and losing yourself in the feeling of his body sharing the same space as yours.

“I think I loved you the moment I met you, too,” Zuko confessed, his nose grazing against yours as he pulled away. “But you’re right. That sort of thing is really stupid and cliche.”

You giggled, tugging gently on the collar of his jacket.

“Come on,” you prompted him. “Let’s go back to my apartment. You’ve already seen me naked; we need to make it even.”

Zuko laughed, wrapping an arm around your shoulders and leading you out of the alley, his side pressed firmly against yours.

“Fair,” he agreed. “But if you want me to pose for any art, you’ll have to sign some paperwork. I’m still Firelord, you know.”

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bleachbleachbleach · 3 years

Note

HELLO.

I just wanted to say that I love, love, love your tags on that character/tool post a lot! Some of my favorite shows/books involve characters that can't keep it together and just barely make it to the end of the story or make it there in an "inconvenient way" and tbh I find that usually the narratives that follow these characters don't really work away from them either--the narrative is just usually more questioning instead of fully formed.

Like, 'what if/how would', y'know? There's less of a clear meaning and more just 'what if they hadn't done that. what if they had done that. what if all that meant nothing. what if that struggle was all there was'.

But oh boy, when they DO work away from the narrative. *chefs kiss*

I mean, most of my favorite Bleach characters are narrative nightmares who either hinder or cut off lines of theme in the story entirely. And, in general, I think there are A LOT of characters in shonen--a genre known for very long narratives that can't possibly complete every thought but also can't just abandon all those characters introduced ESPECIALLY the fan favorites or personal favorites--work in the way you described.

Tbh i think your tags really highlight why so many ppl get drawn to these characters/why they're so fun to play with in fanfiction.

If you have more to add or more thoughts about this you want to lay down I am here, eagerly awaiting and ready to pick them up.

Also, who do you think in Bleach is the most fun characters who sort of drop kicked the story, in your opinion? Who's the one you like the most? And who's the one you dislike the most?

[For posterity the referenced post is this one.]

Aww, thank you! That’s really lovely to hear. I was anxious about even putting it in tags because I don’t think I presently have the capacity to explain it well—and even if I did might still sound bananas to many. Or at least the bit about negotiating with characters and how *they* feel about being subjects in stories. Because as much as that really is my practice saying it out loud takes me back to like… FFN in 2003 where every store was prefaced by extensive chat-form back-and-forths between the fic author and their character "musies" and that is not something I think fandom would benefit from bringing back in force, hahaha. But anyway.

Here’s the part where I disappoint because I don’t think I actually know Bleach well enough to speak to it in this context. WHICH SOUNDS DUMB EVEN AS I TYPE IT BECAUSE LOL WTF IS THE NAME OF THIS BLOG WE ARE CHARLATANS AND POSERS FOR CLAIMING AS OUR NAMESAKE NOT ONE BLEACH BUT THREE BLEACHES but truly, my experience of Bleach has a shallow depth of field. I feel like I have weirdly intimate knowledge of some severe rabbit holes but a non-existent to uneasy sense of the gestalt.

Like idek man, in my "slow re-read where I am actually paying attention" Ichigo hasn’t even met Byakuya and Renji yet. ToT

I'm gonna put this behind a cut because it spidered all over the place, but in summary:

characters and their capacity to produce narrative failure

the charm of longform serialized series and their invitations to imagine stuff

me attempting to talk about Hitsugaya and feeling a fool, as usual

I guess in general terms, I’m really interested in characters and their capacity to produce narrative failure. Not failure as in 'bad' but failure as in things that break form or are circuitous or are actively detrimental to a narrative arc. All my strongest examples of what I’m thinking of are from a different fandom and therefore not relevant to this blog, alas. By comparison I think anyone in Bleach can keep it together better than the characters that are immediately coming to mind, lol. But I think this idea dovetails often with trauma narratives, or depression narratives, because these things are often… non-narrative? Like, there’s no fourth or fifth for minor fall or major lift. Sometimes it’s the same thing over and over again, or maybe nothing. Maybe it’s the exact same self-sabotage narrative dictates could have been avoided. Maybe it’s some act that emanates forth but cannot be explained because it cannot be explained and will never be explained. That’s a version of what I’m talking about, in any case, though not the only version.

Your note about longform shounen definitely resonates with me, too. In my mind I don’t like long things and I prefer series that are more self-contained but whenever I have ever landed in a long-term fandom, with a piece of media I felt obliged to carve out chunks of my life for, and to interact with at that level of creative fannishness, it’s always been something stupid long and serialized by the seat of its pants. I know plot holes or dropped threads bother a lot of people (makes total sense, don’t get me wrong) but I find these things incredibly attractive. I see them as invitations to join in the fun. Especially when it’s so much a part of the form and genre to have this, as you said, lack of real expectation that every thread will be followed to its conclusion (or that it would be worthwhile to do so) and every thought completed.

There’s this piece by David Grann that was published in The New Yorker in 2004 that I really love that speaks to part of this idea, albeit in terms of fictional universes versus fictional characters. But Grann is talking about Sherlock Holmes (Doyle original) and the ways that Sherlockians would like, approach apparent lapses in narrative and then solve them according to the established rules of the universe. I just love that. There’s also the line, "Never had so much been written by so many for so few," which LOL if that ain’t fandom I don’t know what is!!

I feel like I’m actually talking about three distinct but related facets of these thoughts in this post, except all at once and without clear transition, uhhhhh.

Gah, I am broken and now can ONLY think of examples from my not-Bleach fandom, but to try a different tack and add yet another facet to this already funhouse-mirror post, my various attempts to write Hitsugaya often feel like they come up against a version of this. I think Hitsugaya has aggressive side character energy, and I find it difficult to make him the center of a story and have it feel right to me. He feels different to me than writing other minor characters, where they can be the center of their own stories even if their story is not the main story. Like, two of my fave characters in my other fandom have literally like… three lines in 350+ episodes and it feels easier to imagine THEM at the center of their story and I think what it comes down to is that Hitsugaya probably prefers what he not be written. And when he does become more narrative I think he’d prefer that none of it was happening in the fist place. But at the same time he always seems to be…around??? whether there is really a good reason for him to be present or not. XD So while, say, he and Bartleby "would prefer not to" (because THAT'S what this post needs, a Melville reference), Bartleby actually opts out and Hitsugaya out here volunteering.

He also often feels non-narrative to me because he feels very declarative, if that makes sense? Like, the coming-to-decisions or coming-to-realizations parts of existence happen pretty quick, or are approached perfunctorily. I feel like I find narrative in the "coming" part of that equation and instead Hitsugaya will be like, well, I’ve already done that part without you, and/or plan to do that part in the future and it will still be without you, the audience. Anyway, here’s the determination I’ve made, here’s what I’m going to do, and here begins the long and probably tedious process of my doing that thing (off 2 go train in a cave for a bit). I don’t think he actually believes the world is that simple, Tab A into Slot B, but I do think he’s already made that assessment and can see coming to terms with that as a horizon, if that makes sense. So even if he doesn’t know the answer to something, or is completely at a loss of what to do (what to say to Hinamori? how to productively address the number Aizen’s done on him) there’s still not necessarily a story there. Maybe the answer is you grind, and it is repetitive and boring. Maybe you just hold things. There’s not even the act of learning how to hold things, necessarily, just the practice of doing so.

Wow, that probably doesn’t sound good! I feel like I need to suffix this with the assurance that Hitsugaya is my absolute runaway character in the whole series and this was true 15 years ago and it is still true now (truer, even) and everything I just said are reasons why I love him.

#i feel like this is one of those 'well.... that sure was a Post' situations #and i will have to try to articulate this better in the future #probably multiple times #ideally with concrete explicated examples for the sake of clarity lol #but please take this as an invitation to talk about YOUR read of Bleach/Bleach characters and/or elaborate on your also excellent tags

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minkdenmilo · 3 years

Text

💙 Autism Trait Listing Time 💙

I am self-diagnosed as of now but I'm in the process of trying to get tested and my diagnosed friend said that a lot of what I told her lines up so it's likely I am autistic.

+ Constant Fidgeting: Bouncing of my leg, Tapping of my fingers - If I stop I am physically uncomfortable and tend to shake my ankle/foot or shake my wrist/hand

+ Sensory Oveload at Noise: Usually it's not the loudness of noise for me, but the overlapping of noises. Hearing a television play a show + someone talking + someone somewhere else talking etc. makes me get a headache and I sometimes feel like crying because I can't focus or really hear myself think.

+ Sensitivity to Sudden/Loud Noises: I flinch and startle at loud noises frequently- to the point in which it is noticeable by friends. If the bell goes off when I don't expect it to or the fire alarm I nearly fall out of my chair. If my dad raises his voice or if anyone gets upset and raises there voice I instantly assume they're yelling and tense up- even if they're just raising their voice a little.

+ Tactical/Texture Sensitivity: I detest certain textures and actively avoid them like cotton balls (which feel like how nails on a chalkboard sound), fennel/rosemary, any texture in drinks, nuts in bread, etc. in which my family has noticed and teased me over. Where as other textures I adore and constantly seek out like tree bark or soft fur like textures.

+ Stimming(?): I constantly pick at my skin and when I try to stop I can briefly before I go back to doing it without thinking because it's relaxing. I constantly play with the joysticks on my Nintendo Switch to help compensate and give my hands something to do. I use a fidget spinner sometimes as well to help relax and when I get anxious I use it more often cause the noise it makes and the action of spinning it is helpful. I also do the ASL (sign language) alphabet without thinking to myself just cause it's relaxing and when told to stop I get a bit anxious. I tap my fingers together repetitively a lot and my friends have noted this and have mentioned I tend to do it more when I'm stressed or bored.

+ Hyperfixation: I have the habit of finding something I like and then focusing on it violently. When I was a kid I would watch the same three movies (Newsies, Highschool Musical, and Hairspray) on repeat until I memorized the lines. I went through a phase where everyday I watched Total Drama for like half a year- I still remember the events of each episode. If I watch a video on a video game I have to look up the Wikipedia entry on it, read everything in the fan wiki, and watch video after video deconstructing the game until I'm satisfied. I'll listen to the same song for hours at a time for a week or more and then ramble about it to my friends. My habit of infodumping everything I know about a subject bothers my families and friends. I'll ramble for an hour about an idea I have for a play to a friend before realizing I haven't shut up cause I know most people don't care about minute things like I tend to.

+ Being a Kid: As a kid I was definetely the odd one out. I would hug everyone regardless of who they were, how close we were, or if they were receptive. I just had to hug people- I would get upset if I couldn't hug people. To this day I have stuffed animals I hug because I get anxious without the physical sensation of hugging after too long. I never seemed to be on quite the same wavelength and would stare people down just randomly, even I didn't really understand why I'd do it but I would just lock eyes with someone and not stop until they told me to. People would openly mock me and it would go over my head because I genuinely thought they were my friends and were being nice (I would get called werewolf due to my messy hair and sharp teeth and I would just smile and say I preferred being a vampire). I wore the same velcro shoes everyday until they wore out and demanded my mom buy the exact same pair. I'd cry whenever someone hurt my feelings even once I turned 10 and 11. I accidentally hurt my friends by punching them or pinching them cause I didn't realize how much I was hurting them until I drew blood or they demanded I stop.

+ Routine: I hate being late. I hate being on time. I have to be 10 minutes early to everything. If I have to be somewhere at 9 and its a 30 minute drive then I have to leave the house at 8 or 8:10. If it hits 8:11 and we aren't on the road I lose it. I cry and panic and I shake like a leaf until my dad starts the car. In elementary if we were even a second late I'd sob uncontrollably and panic. Now I still cry and shake but it's not as bad. I am an avid rule follower even when I know I'm being silly. My friends and I went to an abandoned building and I was anxious that we'd be arrested despite knowing people did it all the time and it was fine. I had to stay at school after hours for a project and I wouldnt stop worrying we'd get caught and expelled even though our teacher said we could. When I was like 8 or 9 I read about how not turning off your heater started fires so every day before I left for school I'd check to make sure the heater and oven were turned off three times each. Even if we'd never turned them on in the first place. I haven't been able to focus in online school without the structure of being physically in school no matter how hard I try. When my dad takes the family places last minute I feel unbearably anxious and out of it, even when I am aware I am overreacting. I have noticed executive disfunction issues in the past and when presented with multiple things I need to do I get overwhelmed and panic and do nothing instead. I hate clutter and in the desire to clean one item I end up deep cleaning everything just because I start one chore then think of another in the process and it spirals from there.

+ Misc: I have always been the sensitive emotional child. My mom frequently teases that I never get her sarcasm. I can't decipher how people feel unless I can hear their voice and see their face which makes texting and to a lesser extent voice calling anxious and weird for me. I actively avoid eye contact with people I don't know well and avoid conversation on elevators or in public spaces. I adore watching slime videos and stim boards are wonderful now that I've discovered them. Math isn't my strong suit because the numbers don't make sense to me- I can't decipher even simple algebra equations but I've always been great at reading and I pride myself on my vocabulary and way with words. Despite this I can't give speeches or explain things to save my life even if I know exactly what I mean and want to say I just cannot verbalize it properly so I have to write down exactly what I want to say before I say it. Even then I ramble too long and my dad frequently notes I can never "get to the point and trim out the unnecessary details" but like- I can't tell which details are necessary or not. I can never be presented a broad piece of information and understand it, I need every minute detail first otherwise I cannot understand the bigger concept and thus when I speak I provide every detail to make my point crystal clear. I also feel uncomfortable around authority figures and adults- way more than seems normal- and avoid eye contact and tend to be especially anxious and respectful because adults and authority figures just scare me.

These are all just like the immediate things that jump into mind + context around them. Idk if these could actually point to me being autistic but if anyone has any advice or help then please let me know. I'm kinda worried I'm being a hypochondriac but that might just be because my dad doesn't believe in autism so I'm internalizing that.

I've had close friends say some of my symptoms seem like anxiety or OCD but the texture based stuff and the fact that I have purposefully tried to stop stimming and fidgeting and have tried to repress my natural behaviors due to being seen as like weird and "off" makes me think maybe it might be autism and I just didn't realize because I assumed everyone dealt with similar things and I just was bad at handling it.

#autism #possibly autistic #asd #autism advice?#plz help i am very worried im overreacting and i dont want to talk to my parents unless im like 100% i have it

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takaraphoenix · 4 years

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Hi! What are your thoughts about OUAT.

That’s a complex, layered answer because my feelings for OUaT are very complex. The short of it is that, obsession and love level wise, this was my Shadowhunters before Shadowhunters existed as a show. I completely loved and adored this show, I watched every episode as soon as it came out, with a single-minded focus (as in: normally, when watching TV, I use the show as a background noise to my writing. There is only a select handful of TV shows that ever managed to get my full, undivided attention of me turning all else off to only focus on the show).

I love OUaT to bits and pieces. However, much like Shadowhunters, it was far from a flawless show. Very, very, very far. Seriously, it’s an absolute mess in many aspects but damn do I love it.

It appeals to many of the things I love. For one, classic Disney movies. For another, fairy tales - but the very specific niche genre of fairy tale crossovers, which is just... my biggest weakness, possibly. Thirdly, characters you can get invested in and love to bits and pieces.And fourth, shipping.

This is one of the incredibly small, tiny pool of shows where I absolutely adore the canon ships, not just in a “daw it’s cute enough” way that makes me accept that it is The Canon Ship That’s Happening, but in a way that has me actively invested in and rooting for those absolute dumbasses. And. Not just one ship, usually it’s like “huh I am surprisingly invested in this one ship”, but - Rumpel/Belle, Hook/Emma, David/Snow?? Yes, please, inject it into my veins.

Though also just as attached to my non-canon ships - REGINA/EMMA FOR LIFE, Ruby/Snow, Hook/David. And that duality of being really invested in the non-canon ships but still absolutely loving the canon ships? That is... completely and entirely unique to OUaT for me. Never happened outside this show.

I adore that this show did one of the things that I complained Descendants didn’t - it respects Snow White, the very first Disney princess, and puts her front and center. Never-ever made sense to me that Descendants just went “uuuh we at random picked Belle to rule all the kingdoms because I dunno the head writer loves Beauty and the Beast the most”... Snow White was Disney’s very first and I do think she deserves more respect.

The things they did with her! They made her an actual active heroine. Not a little girl hiding out in the woods. They explored possibilities and turned her into a total badass, who never lost the main qualities of Disney’s Snow White though. Her nurturing, loving, gentle soul. That is what I adore about her, because very often when trying to portray strong female characters, media removes their softness, makes them hardened to make them a badass.

Regina and Emma have such a brilliant canon dynamic - even beyond the fanon ship. The way they mended and grew together and became friends. The growth, the softness, the shared custody. I love them.

And with both Regina and Rumpel, I love the day they gradually progressed from “main antagonist from season 1″ to “part of the family”. This show is a found family feast.

It wasn’t flawless. It had some pacing issues, in my opinion. Like the Peter Pan arc was too long. They went hiking for like 12 episodes. That one still sticks with me as having bored me. And I also do think it was a huge mistake to make Peter Pan, one of Disney’s heroes a villain. He was a great villain and his actor absolutely killed it, don’t get me wrong, but in the context of Disney canon, it was a bit jarring.

The same is to be said about Arthur. Don’t take King Arthur, of all people, and turn him into a jackass. That didn’t sit right with me and I think that could, and should, have been handled differently.

As a huge fan of Wizard of Oz canon, I have mixed feelings about Zelina. She was kind of a joke most of the time, her raping Robin was not good at all (beeecause that’s what it is when you shapeshift into the person the other one loves and then have sex with them under pretense to get yourself pregnant), but in the end it - and her - fit relatively well into all of this.

Was completely wasted for the entire Frozen arc, but even I, someone who loathes that movie with a burning passion, genuinely enjoyed the way the show was trying to fix it? Answer all the unanswered question the movie left and actually tie it into the Snow Queen fairy tale? Like, that was a feast and I love that they did that. Also Ingrid was hot and checked all my boxes so there’s that.

In the same way, I adore what they did with Ursula. That they took the scraped canon of Ursula being Triton’s sister and worked with that and that they in the end decided to redeem her too - though I am still very disappointed that we never got to see Ursula actually interact with Ariel at all. That’d have been so interesting. (Also, I admit, they went really overkill with having three Ursulas. Regina pretending to be Ursula, Ursula the ancient golden statue goddess and the actual Ursula, daughter of Poseidon).

I love Hades. I love Greg Germann’s take on Hades. He absolutely killed it. The whole underworld story was incredibly awesome to me personally - though I know others didn’t like that half-season as much. But I really dug that.

I think that it started to fizz out after that though and that after the underworld storyline, they probably should have drawn it to a close, because... after everything, after five whole seasons of watching redemption and working hard to make up for the things you did in the past, they really just decided “and now Regina is gonna physically split off her Evil Queen”... and made that Evil Queen the villain. That felt insanely repetitive of season 1 and like a set-back for Regina.

(The second half of that season didn’t go better because honestly that whole nonsense with “not only is Rumpel the son of Peter Pan, nope, now we bring in his mom the Evil Fairy”, featuring the very overused trope of “baby is magically aged up to be a character who can contribute to the plot”... Not the best.)

Also I refuse to acknowledge the existence of that reboot season. It’s bullshit is what it is. The show had the perfect ending. And then they immediately slapped a reboot onto it... why? If they had taken their time, wait ten years until nostalgia for the show kicks in and the actors all need work again, and do a proper “now Henry goes through shit”, that’d have actually been interesting, but... the moment I saw “so... we keep half the main cast, break up some OTPs, don’t age the adults up but age Henry up and also there is now a second Cinderella”, I knew that’s not gonna be good.

Seriously, the second Cinderella is what really fucked it over for me. What I loved about OUaT was that it gave very specific rules to its universe.

The Author documents the tales. The Author gives them their spin. But they are still the same tale. Be that the Brothers Grimm, who documented Cinderella, or then Walt Disney, it was still Cinderella, from the Enchanted Forest. Their stories were simply written down.

That they then, in the reboot season, went “well, actually There Are Many Cinderellas!!” completely contradicts the previously established rules of this world? Because yes, the concept very similar to Cinderella actually exists in many cultures - and that was the cool thing of OUaT’s take, because pressumably that is because the Author was in said culture at said time and documented the tale, as is the Author’s job.

Especially since it was so... unnecessary? I mean, they gave Rapunzel one half-assed episode in the past, they never tackled Gold Mary, they could have shown what became of Hänsel and Gretel now also grown up, etc. There were other unused characters that could have been brought in instead of throwing the rules out of the window.

But moving on from that; I love that they didn’t limit themselves to Disney movies - that they did prominently put Red Riding Hood (my favorite fairy tale character) in there, that they worked with mythology as well as books.

One thing they absolutely fucked up was their spin-off though. Once Upon a Time in Wonderland. They made that. They decided that, out of everything touched upon in the series, Alice’s tale should get a spin-off... and then they didn’t use any of the actual characters?

Alice herself never got an appearance in OUaT, not prior or after the spin-off (only very much later in the reboot season, with a different Alice)

They had the Queen of Hearts on OUaT, but they didn’t use her as the main antagonist, or at least a huge deal, on Wonderland

They had the freaking Mad Hatter on OUaT, but he doesn’t even have a single cameo on Wonderland

And don’t give me “Seb Stan was too busy!”, because... even then, they could have recast. The Mad Hatter is kind of a big part of Alice in Wonderland, but... they ignored the majority of what is important in AiW in general, so there is that

They named the Red Queen Anastasia and very heavily implied that yes, the Anastasia who was the stepsister of Cinderella - but when OUaT’s original Cinderella got her stepsisters introduced, they suddenly had entirely different names than the Disney stepsisters and of course it wasn’t the same actress either

They introduced Jafar (for some reason) in Wonderland. And then recast him when Aladdin was tackled on OUaT and never addressed any of the things that happened on Wonderland, especially not how Jafar was the son of the sultan which would technically make him Jasmine’s brother

It was nearly dumb to move Will Scarlet to OUaT after the spin-off was axed, because at that point they legit just ignored Wonderland as a whole so this acknowledgment felt very off. But then it’s Michael Socha and I love him so I ain’t gonna complain about that.

So yes, I have mild issues with how they made a spin-off that had basically no inpact on the show, despite many elements that should have crossed over and carried significance in both shows.

Lastly, because we’re on the topic of spin-offs, I still would absolutely kill for a spin-off about Mulan, Merida and Ruby. Those three, exploring the Enchanting Forest together, training together, being gay together, it was the best thing. Which does force me to mention the gay. Because... Mulan was canonically in love with Aurora and when they set her up to find Ruby and journey with her, it came really off as them trying to make Mulan/Ruby happen. Then they introduce Merida, a very famously single princess, and you start to wonder. But in the end, it’s Ruby who ends up with Dorothy, aka two characters not associated with Disney. And it makes you wonder. (It doesn’t. We all know Disney is hugely homophobic. We all know OUaT most likely had some Disney executive yelling at them for even implying one of their characters may be gay. So they backtracked to give the wlw storyline to two characters that weren’t Disney property.)

Ah, I don’t like ending things on a negative note so one last positive - as weirdly as the Dark Swan arc was handled at parts, I absolutely love that Emma’s name being Swan really did pay off in making her the Swan Princess in the end and giving a nudge to Swan Lake with the Dark Swan. That was such a cool pay-off of something as small as a last name.

So, to sum it up, there’s some flaws in the writing, some things I wish would have been explored more, but overall good gods do I love and adore this TV show.

#Once Upon a Time #Once Upon a Time in Wonderland #Disney #Anonymous

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kittenfemme27 · 3 years

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Magrunner: Dark Pulse

"That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die."

That’s the often misquoted line written by H.P. Lovecraft and spoken by his fictional “mad poet” Abdul Ahazred in “The Call of Cthulhu”, a short story written by the very same author. It’s meant to symbolize the same thing that almost all of Lovecraft’s work was meant to symbolize: That there are things that view us the same way we’d view a simple speck of dust, or an ant. As so tiny and insignificant that we’re practically unnoticed in the eyes of this massive and overwhelming force. Lovecraft had an intense fear and at the same time an intense fascination with the idea of being insignificant, of being forgotten and unworthy, of being completely and utterly impotent in the face of power that was greater than himself. Every “Old God” that he wrote about is so far reaching above humanity and so incomprehensible that even the act of knowing of their existence was incomprehensible for the human mind, and would oft drive those with that forbidden knowledge to complete and utter insanity. This isn’t really a disputed interpretation of Lovecraft's work, it's barely an interpretation at all. It’s considered a simple set of facts of the universe that he created.

So imagine my surprise when I started playing “Magrunner: Dark Pulse”, a fairly mundane and simple futuristic sci-fi puzzle game marketed to have a “Lovecraftian Twist” and the final nine levels have good ol’ Cthulhu himself checking in on me from the skies above, literally one hundred thousand times my size, and simply observing me like I’m his personal favourite little human. As he communicates with me and makes it clear that I am in-fact, his personal favourite little human and he just can’t wait for me to ascend to his level. As far as a piece of lovecraftian work goes, this game was a doozy. But we’ll get back to that. Before we even get there, I’d first like to talk about the game itself.

Gameplay:

Magrunner is a first person physics based puzzle game featuring magnetism as its element in which you interact with the puzzles in each room. Your goal in each puzzle room is to use various platforms, blocks, and other bits of very clearly marked tech in each room that may be magnetized with either a positive polarity or a negative polarity, and combine that with the physics of the Unreal 3 engine to solve challenges and make it to the next room. To be blunt, the game is squarely a Portal rip-off from its design ideals. Your makeshift magnet glove-gun hybrid can fire 2 colors, one being a negative polarity and one being a positive. Like-colors are attracted to themselves, whereas opposite colors reflect each other. The idea of using magnets in a physics based first person puzzler isn’t an awful one, and neither is the fact it clearly wants to ape Portal’s ideas. Where it fails, unfortunately, is execution. The physics aren’t up to snuff with what you do most of the time and it leads a lot of the puzzles to be confusing or simply frustrating, as even when you know what you’re doing you still have to rely on the physics system of the engine to cooperate with you. Early on, you are tasked with getting 4 small magnetizable cubes together to form into a large one. What this actually has you end up doing is fighting with the cubes and the level as they fling themselves wildly off of each other and into unreachable parts of the level itself. The entire game functions this way and it really removes any sense of challenge or control you have over each puzzle, often feeling like you lucked your way into a solution rather than figured out the puzzle yourself in any meaningful way.

Buggy physics in the Unreal engine are not the developers fault entirely though, the game is an indie project that was kickstarted and for that alone i’m willing to give them a pass on engine problems that they likely did not have the programmers to fix. But, unfortunately, I can’t give a pass on the game failing to iteratively teach you how the mechanics work level by level. Whenever you magnetize an object, it creates a field, and you can see this field thankfully by pressing a key. Anything in that field will automatically interact with anything else that is magnetized in it. In general, these fields are wildly inconsistent in how they operate. Usually, they’re spheres centered around the magnetized object and cause objects within the sphere to either attract or repel. On occasion though you’ll find pads that create a cone of magnetism going the direction that it faces, up to what is an arbitrary height. Later on, you’re given the ability to place your own fields on any flat surface, allowing the levels to become more bare-bones as you have to create the magnetism points yourself. All of this combined means that If you learn that something works in a previous level, there is no guarantee that it will work in the next level the exact same way. Experimentation in this game is often fraught with a frustrating sigh of not knowing if the game intended for something to work that way, or if you just broke the physics again. Don’t even get me started on the fact there are multiple combat sections inside a puzzle game, ugh.

Art & Sound:

Magrunners similarities to Portal do not end with the gameplay and design, however. Aesthetically, the first and second half of the three act game are ripped directly from Portal and Portal 2. The first half of the game features sleek interiors inside of a testing facility for yourself and other “Magrunners” where everything is cleanly lit, sparse on color and detail, as space-age and sci-fi as you could imagine. These first set of aperture inspired levels lack any sort of hard edge or detail, with every single element in the room being curved and well lit and as minimalist as possible. The second half of the game takes places in facilities “underneath” the one you were in prior and are dilapidated grey and brown ruins of previous testing facilities, complete with all the same tools and magnetizable pads and tech that you had seen previously but this time a much older and “70’s” style of sci-fi aesthetic, but covered in grime and dirt and dust from the years of abandonment and rot. I cannot understate how unsubtle this is. The first third of the game is Aperture Science bonafide and part right after is Old Aperture from Portal 2. Magrunner’s aesthetic inspirations are worn very clearly on their sleeve, and it makes the game feel very boring and bland by comparison. It’s impossible to play Magrunner: Dark Pulse and not feel as though it was simply a junior developer exclaiming: “What if Portal/Portal 2, but Magnets?!” while the rest of the developers collectively lose their minds from excitement.

The music of the game was provided, as far as i can tell by the credits, by Incomptech AKA Kevin Macleod. A musician known for releasing thousands of free songs for use in any creative project. This isn’t, by default, a bad thing. Most of the music was not things I had heard from his library before and thus I didn’t immediately twig that it was his library, but unfortunately the music selection isn’t enough. As in, there are not enough tracks to fit the game. There are 39 levels in total and each level features a music track, but often and especially in the later parts, the music tracks are entirely re-used. This is most apparent when one of the tracks is a rising piercing noise, like the type you’d hear in a horror movie right before the slasher stabs into someone, but it never ends or pays off. It just loops upon itself and becomes this droning nightmare of a track for however long the physics force you to stay in a level. I counted 6 times this happened and each time it was so loud and obnoxious and frustrating that I had to simply turn off the game audio to be able to bare the level at all.

None of the other sound effects are worth writing home about, either, unfortunately. In something like Portal, there are pretty iconic sounds within its soundscape. The sound of the portal gun firing and portals being created, the soft and child-like speech of the turrets, the chiding and derogatory AI voice of GLaDOS, yet Dark Pulse lacks anything even half as memorable. Aside from the repetitive music, you are only given small bits of dialogue between each level and that’s really it. There’s a lot of character they could have created here, for example: When you gain the ability to create your own magnetic fields at will, the center of them is a dog-robot that your player character created in his spare time as a child. Creating one of these points could’ve been met with an adorable puppy squeak or bark, anything like that. Your character or the various ones that speak to you could’ve chimed in at any point in levels outside of the beginning or end of them, and yet they do not. It’s a big missed opportunity.

Story:

Speaking of characters, whew boy, are there a lot of them

Magrunner takes place in the distant future where a corporation that is effectively Facebook has taken over the planet by connecting every single person to its service essentially from birth and making it as essential to daily life as possible. Because of this, this corporation has become the de-facto richest company in the world. Its founder, Xander Gruckzeber, whose last name is literally an anagram of Zuckerberg, has started a contest in which 7 contestants can compete to become “Magrunners” and take a trip to outer space in a ship that is being powered on experimental magnetic based technology. The contest involves each contestant going through a series of puzzles that prove their aptitude with the magnetic tech that Xander’s company has developed.

Your character, an orphan named Dax C. Ward, is the only one of the 7 contestants that does not have a corporate sponsor. Instead, he’s a boy genius who built his own robotic puppy at age 10 and at age 21 built his own magnetic glove that interacts with the magnetic technology and allows him to compete. Ever the underdog, you’re helped along by your adoptive uncle Gamaji who himself is a six-armed mutant and an outcast among humanity for it.

Sound a little on the nose? Like it may be lacking subtlety in any form? Yeah, the entire game is like that. From Xander’s last name anagram to the fact that your own character’s name is itself a reference to “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward” which was a short horror novel written by Lovecraft, the game never really had a chance at subtlety in the first place. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, mind you, but in between the re-hashed artstyle and the immediate and obvious references, and the fact that It tries to throw a very by the numbers cyber punk aesthetic ripped straight out of Blade Runner at you in an opening cutscene that it immediately abandons afterwards. It all just feels tired from the moment you hit New Game and incredibly confused about its own direction. It can’t decide if it’s a Lovecraftian setting, a Sci-fi setting, if it’s trying to say something about Facebook or if it's just going to be Portal: The Magnetic Spin-off.

As the game progresses and Act 1 ends, you find the corpse of another Magrunner being eaten by an anthropomorphic fish person. You are then told by Gamaji that he’s going to help you escape the facility, but this will require you to go through the older parts of the facility as he slowly hacks into the mainframe and tries to get you out via service elevators. Inside these older puzzle rooms are repeated writings on the wall, ravings of someone gone mad with the knowledge of the Old Ones, and giant sculptures depicting various Cthulhu-esque monsters. This would be bad and scary enough on its own, but Gamaji is quick to let you know that portals to some unknown dimension and fish monsters are being spotted in cities all over the world causing havoc and terror.

About halfway through Act 2, Gamaji drops the bombshell on Dax that his parents didn’t actually die in a car crash like he’s told him all his life, but that they were Old God worshipping cultists and that Dax’s birth in and of itself may somehow be related to that cult and its actions. This tracks, then, because Dax continually receives strange visions in the form of uncovered memories of “The Seven” attempting some ritual to seal off some force from beyond. Act 2 ends with the revelation that Xanders assistant, Kram, is actually behind all the ritual sacrifice and is attempting to summon Cthulhu himself to our world from the Great Beyond. So far, Act 1 and 2 have been rather cliche but haven’t been anything i’d call unremarkable or strange in a Lovecraftian inspired story.

And then Act 3 happens.

Act 3 sees you flung into the far reaches of Actually Literally Space, with various bits of the test chambers around that you must use to get to portals that are marked by a cute little icon of Cthulhu himself that transport you further into space and to the next level. You can quite literally see our pale blue dot to your side if you look, including a gigantic eldritch device that seems to be either siphoning souls to it, or depositing monsters onto the planet. The fact you can breathe in space is just handwaved as “Something Kram must be doing.” and is never brought up again. What really struck me more than anything in these levels, though, is that Cthulhu himself literally appears before you every 2 minutes in each level and simply watches you while repeating “Cthulhu... Fhtagn... R'lyeh...” over and over and over. This was the moment the game honestly lost any credibility from me. Simply seeing a statue in Act 2 caused Dax to go into a screaming panic as he was able to perceive how a human may be turned into a fish person. But seeing the literal Old God himself doesn’t bother him? And why is Cthulhu so interested in you in the first place? Unfortunately, we get an answer to both of those questions and it might be the most insane thing i’ve ever seen in a piece of Lovecraft inspired media.

Dax, somehow through the work of the cult that his parents were part of, is the chosen one. Cthulhu not only cares about him and wants to see him succeed, but even helps him to literally ascend and become an Old God himself. But not, of course, before letting Dax have a heart to heart with Gamaji wherein he tells him that he has seen through Cthulhu’s eyes himself and must now ascend, as he has no other option. Because Cthulhu is a big softie on adoptive relationships, I guess. The game’s final level has you face off against Kram in a boss battle where you fling explosive cubes at each other and attempt to destroy the esoteric relay connected to Earth. During their fight, Dax taunts Kram who tells him that what he is doing is the will of his Master, Cthulhu, and Dax knowingly retorts that what Kram is doing is “Not what He wants.” As if he has a direct line into the Old Gods mind itself.

I cannot overstate how much of an absolute failure of the mythos itself that this entire story arc is. The Lovecraft mythos was not, and never has been, made for “Chosen One” stories. If you survive an encounter in the first place, you’re often left with horrible scars that never truly leave you because Cthulhu and the Old Gods are in some ways meant to be representative of trauma and a fear of your own trauma. Making Dax suddenly an Old One and a special Chosen One is a complete and utter failure on a scale I've never, ever seen before. It’s been days and I'm honestly still reeling from the fact that was a design decision someone agreed on.

Conclusion:

Magrunner: Dark Pulse is a confusing and often frustrating game with a story that utterly fails its mythos and setting in just about every way possible. But I don’t want to pretend that I didn’t have any fun playing it. I did, and it’s not the worst game I've ever played. It’s not even so much a “so bad it’s good” game, but it’s more of an indie game that clearly tried its hardest and for that I can’t fault it. It’s developers clearly love the Cthulhu and Lovecraftian mythos and really, really, really loved the Portal series and wanted to combine those things into their own spin on it and in that respect, it’s competent enough that I could recommend it to someone who really enjoys those sort of puzzle platformer based games. But... man. That ending. Yikes.

#Magrunner: Dark Pulse #Review #Played on: PC

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sickaede · 6 years

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Art and Writing Q & A

Ok so my askbox has gotten crazy amounts of people asking me questions about my art, writing, etc. and I figured instead of replying individually (since most are anons) I would just throw up a Q & A to get everyone’s questions all at once. As an added bonus, since I am terrible with explaining things in writing I made a little time-lapse to show the art process as well. Hopefully this satisfies everyone’s questions, but if something you wanted to know was not answered here feel free to send me an ask, they are always welcome!

The video is at the bottom of the Q/A, click read more and scroll down to see it please!

Questions about comissions, other social media, etc. Q: Do you take commissions? A: Yes! All my comission info can be found on webiste commissions page. If you’d like to donate as well, I also have a Ko-Fi page, and offer (optional) doodle rewards for donors. Q: You don’t post on tumblr frequently anymore, are there other websites I can find your art on? A: Yes! I don’t post as frequently as I used to anywhere anymore due to my projects taking up the majority of my time, HOWEVER...there are other wesites I post on. TMVIX.NET - My website will remain the most up-to-date with all recent art, writing, videos, projects, etc. Twitter - I like to post doodles, WIPs, and updates on my twitter as much as possible. NSFW Twitter - The good shit. 👌 🌶️ 🔥 I rarely post here, and it is a private account, but no need to ask just click the follow button and I will accept ASAP. Deviantart - Again, rarely post here it’s mostly reposts from tumblr, but it is where the majority of my original content (OC’s, and stuff of that nature) is posted. Questions about my art process. Q: What programs do you use for your art? A: Paint Tool Sai for almost everything, Photoshop CS4 for editing and transparency.

Q: What brushes do you use, and what are your brush settings? A: I pretty much only use the Brush tool, Pen tool, Marker tool, and Watercolor tool for drawing, painting, etc. Here are screenshots of their settings. (The size varies, I chage it a lot.)

Q: What canvas size do you use when you draw? A: As much as SAI and my computer hate me for it, I typically draw on a 4,000x4,000PX canvas. Once I finish my artwork I shrink it down to 50%-75%, this helps get rid of small mistakes in the piece. Q: Do you use a tablet, if so what kind? A: Nothing fancy, but it gets the job done. I use a Wacom Intuos USB Graphics Tablet - 8.5" x 5.3" Q: What kind of pens, markers, paper, etc. do you use on traditional work? A: My art classes have beaten brand loyalty into me, so I am spoiled with the types of pens, markers, pencils, etc. I use. Graphite pencils - Ticonderoga Colored pencils - Prismacolor Markers - Prismacolor Inking pens - Faber Castell Paper - I don’t have a specific brand I draw on, but I like drawing on big paper, usually A2 or A3. Q: How long does a digital drawing usually take. A: Its dependent on how complex and how I'm feeling when I'm drawing it but on average (cutting out time I spend doing other things).

Simple drawings/doodles take me about an hour a pop or less.

Flat colored and shaded drawings with line art usually take me about 2-3 hours.

Paintings and other complex art usually takes 5-6 hours or more.

Comics can take anywhere from 3-7 hours depending on how much detail goes into them.

Q: How long does a traditional drawing usually take? A: Again, depending on complexity about 5-10 hours. Colored pencils are a difficult medium to get right and blending is very touch-and go. Markers usually take a bit less time. Don’t even get me started on graphite and painting... Q: How do you make your line art so clean? A: Erasing/cleaning as you go instead of doing it all at the end usually helps me a bit...and I keep SAI’s stabalizer on S2 most of the time, but if there is a long line I need to make I crank it up to S7. If you want to see the exact process you can watch the video at the bottom of this post.

Q: How do you do your shading? A: I do multiple types of shading, painted, cell, gradient, etc. but the most popular seems to be the painted so I will assume you mean that.

You can watch the video below to see how it's done exactly, but to explain it simply I paint with white on a layer of solid color above my coloring layer, set it to multiply, and bam. Shading.

Q: How you do highlights, lowlights, etc.? A: Those are a bit trickier, and I didn't show them in the video but I will do my best to explain.

I like to treat lowlights like cell shading for the most part, think of them as a place where the darkest shadows would fall. Don't get carried away, lowlights are supposed to be subtle, and extenuate the depth of where those shadows fall. I use multiply for this shading layer too, and typically use a darker shade of the same color I did for the base shading.

Highlights are easier, just think of where the light falling would be the brightest on your piece. I like to do more than one set of highlights - usually two or three - but make sure if you do multiple sets to make the secondary highlights smaller and subtler than the primary ones or you will end up with a big shiny blob. I also typically use a brighter color than the one I used for shading (for example if purple is the shading color try pastel pink or orange for the highlight color) or sometimes I just use white. I switch between the 'screen' and 'overlay' blending options for them.

Q: What fonts do you use for your art, comics, etc.? A: Honestly, I usually just write out my own text, my handwriting is terrible but it's easier than opening photoshop and hunting for a good font... When I do use fonts, I HATE the factory ones for the most part, so I use stuff from Dafont.com.

Q: How do you clean your traditional art and digitalize it? A: I don’t do much traditional anymore, but I actually made an in-depth tutorial awhile back about it and I still use the same method. It can be found here.

Q: What are your inspirations for your art? A: My friends are my biggest inspiration, I am lucky enough to know a lot of talented artists that always inspire and encourage me to improve and keep drawing what I love.

Questions about my writing process.

Q:Can you give some writing tips? (There we a lot of these.) A: Well, i’m not sure what you mean specifically but I will do my best! Sorry this is a bit long-winded, but hopefully it will be helpful.

The most helpful thing you can do for your writing is to read other people’s work, of course that does not mean you need to copy their writing style...however, seeing the way other people put words together is very helpful to get out of your own head. It is easy to get stuck in a sort of ‘writing loop’ and end up writing similar things over and over again in different contexts. Taking a look at other’s view on things can help get you out of that loop.

Make sure you change up your wording! It’s easy to end up using the same descriptive terminology over and over again without meaning to. What I like to do when I write is to just get a big chunk done without worrying about grammar, repetition, etc. Then when I finish I go back and look over it, change up the words to sound fresh and different, and fix any grammar mistakes. Don’t be afraid to look up synonyms for stuff too if you can’t think of a different word, it isn’t a crime. Getting someone else's opinion on your writing after you’ve finished is also helpful! Proof readers are the best way to help you see your work in the eyes of your readers and make it exciting and interesting to them.

Get in the mood of the scene you are trying to set, be descriptive in what your characters are feeling and seeing. Often times people forget that even in simply scenes there is a whole world around your character that the reader cannot see. It’s your job as the writer to describe that world, so that the reader can see it in their head as clearly as you did when you were writing it. Listening to music while I'm writing really helps me with this, for example if you are writing an action scene listen to some high energy music. Get pumped up for that fight scene!

Build your world, even if it's not an original work. Fanfiction authors tend to forget that despite their fandom’s world being pre-built, it’s still YOUR writing! Leave hints, foreshadow, throw in some background characters to fill up your world and make it unique. Make your readers think about how the world around your characters work, what might happen next, etc.

Keep the rules and timeline of your world consistent and understandable. Yes, I know, it sounds boring, but it’s very helpful to make your writing sound more interesting and easy to comprehend. Is there magic in your story, how does that magic work, can everyone use it, are there different types? Apply simple rules like this to your world that apply consistently throughout your writing. Your readers will thank you for it.

Do your research, yes again, boring I know. It's easy to project yourself and how you view the world on your own characters, making their personalities similar or identical. Think about how someone in their circumstances would act, if they’ve been through a traumatic experience how might that affect the way things work in their head? The way they interact with others and the world around them? Make sure to diversify your cast, not everyone in the world is alike, and your characters shouldn’t be either.

Give yourself time, formulate ideas on how your storyline will connect and where it will go. You don’t have to crank out an entire book in a day, think everything over before you go through like a whirlwind and post stuff that you may not like. However, don’t take forever either. (I tend to do this a lot...) Overthinking your story can also hurt, don’t fret over every single tiny little detail. Making a timeframe for yourself and sticking to it can be helpful to keeping yourself on track and posting chapters regularly.

Lastly, never get discouraged. This goes for both artists and writers. Just because you aren’t entirely happy with how your art or writing looks or sounds at the moment, or you see someone doing it better than you does not mean you should give up. Use those that you look up to as inspiration to improve your own work. Keep going, keep practicing, you will get better! Keep doing what you love doing.

Q: What has your experience been with writing? A: I will try to keep this shorter than the last one, but here goes...

I honestly don’t have that much experience with writing, but I've always enjoyed it. I’ve been writing about my OC’s for MUCH, MUCH longer than I've been writing fics, in fact I can’t remember a time when I didn’t make up little stories for my various characters. Pretty much every drawing you see of mine has some storyline behind it. However, my fanfiction writing was more recent, I didn’t write anything fan-related until a few years ago, and I didn’t post any of it until I put OSR up. The majority of my experience comes from original content, role playing, etc. but I am so happy to be writing fics that people enjoy and hope to continue and eventually adapt OSR into a comic.

Q: Do you have original stories, can we read any of them? A: Yes, and no. I do have original stories, but I have not published them anywhere and they are still very much works in progress. Eventually I would love to share them with everyone, but it won’t be for a long time. For now, I hope you can enjoy the small amount of content I post about my OCs, and I will keep everyone updated when I do decide to share my own personal stories.

Enjoy the video, hope this helped! ✨

youtube

#Sick's shit #Q & A #Ask #Art process #art #writing #writing process #???#Idk what to tag #Archive

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silenceisbanished · 6 years

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a chauvinist pig in love with his sister

My favorite part of Susan Sontag’s “Under the Sign of Saturn”, among some interesting thoughts on Riefenstahl and Barthes, is definitely her essay about Antonin Artaud – a man known best for his concept of Theatre of Cruelty (on which he elaborates in an amazing collection of essays called The Theatre and its Double). I won’t get into Artaud’s theory of theater, though, because it’s not all that important for understanding the most interesting part of Sontag’s piece – a very refreshing view of how pop-culture approaches things it finds hard to accept.

The part I’m talking about feels like a self-reflection of an accalimed author/writer/journalist (and all these labels seem fitting since this essay was originally printed in The New Yorker), and it helped me come to terms with starting a lot of books of highly praised authors, yet taking so long to actually finishing them. Especially since I’m currently reading through various works of Bataille and starting to feel like I’d either have to accept that I won’t fully comprehend what’s going on in them, or I will never manage to finish reading his stuff at all.

What Sontag had to say about Artaud rings true about plenty of authors – be it Comte de Lautréamont or Maurice Blanchot. In our current climate it’s easier to hear things about them, then to actually hear them – their books are not only hard to get in modern bookshops, but also getting a proper translation might be challenging (if we’re talking about obscure authors such as Lautréamont, not Nietzsche in whose case the sheer amount of available translations is a problem, not lack of them). On a side note: it’s easier to find books about Borges in bookshops all around me, then his writings.

Anyway, Sontag packs a lot of topics in a very short paragraph of her essay. She says, for example, that:

Unknown outside a small circle of admirers ten years ago, Artaud is a classic today. He is an example of a willed classic-an author whom the culture attempts to assimilate but who remains profoundly indigestible.

And it’s an interesting sentiment. This indigestible quality of some authors seems to be precisely the factor that still separates certain ideas from the mainstream thought and popular culture. Artaud or Bataille remain resistant to pop-cultural appropriation we’ve seen happening with Nietzsche or Baudrillard – it’s hard to trap them in a cage of regurgitated aphorisms (”And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you”, and others, ad nauseam) or misunderstandings and misconceptions (as in the case of simulacra/simulation and The Matrix – beautifully summarized by Baudrillard himself as: “The Matrix is surely the kind of film about the matrix that the matrix would have been able to produce”).

However, even thought it might find certain things hard to digest, the pop culture (The Mainstream, understood as "what’s acceptable”) never stops in its attempts to consume and regurgitate things that seem dangerous to its existence –– because, it seems, that’s the only approach to preventing its own internal explosion that it knows. I know, it might seem like a juvenile and oh-my-god-how-edgy thought, but at the same time it’s an interesting phenomenon that might prove to be a handy guide in predicting what’s going to be acceptable and treated as normal by the society (or media) in years to come.

Philip K. Dick summarized this cycle beautifully in “Valis”, where he said:

To fight the Empire is to be infected by its derangement. This is a paradox; whoever defeats a segment of the Empire becomes the Empire; it proliferates like a virus, imposing its form on its enemies. Thereby it becomes its enemies.

It’s a beautiful, visceral description of a snake eating its own tail, a cycle that never ends – and of war that’s never going to be won. However, it feels refreshing to consider whether approaching this problem with a dualistic mindset (even describing it with words such as “the Empire” or “a virus”), isn’t what actually creates this particular problem of an endless loop of attempts of appropriation and regurgitation. Fighting the Empire is what forces it to actually make an effort.

On the other hand, Sontag says:

One use of literary respectability in our time and an important part of the complex career of literary modernism-is to make acceptable an outrageous, essentially forbidding author, who becomes a classic on the basis of the many interesting things to be said about the work that scarcely convey (perhaps even conceal) the real nature of the work itself, which may be, among other things, extremely boring or morally monstrous or terribly painful to read.

It feels like an interesting case to think about – how the names of such authors as Artaud or Bataille live in our culture mostly thanks to things said about their work by other people. People who had more luck in “fighting the Empire” (thus becoming a part of the mainstream, being widely known and, consequently, discarded as mad or boring), and so gained literary respectability/made careers, that allowed them to spread the words of long forgotten visionaries – creating “classics” that everyone knows but nobody reads. It’s like creating a virus that infects a virus: passing on a thought that needs to spend time in other minds in order to bloom. Because even though Bataille or Artaud had dreams of fighting the Empire (be it through revolutionary thinking or a shift towards existence-without-a-project, embracing the void), their influence needed time to infect other minds –– and precisely because their writing is extremely hard to internalize in its whole, it essentially acts like infection. Like an unwanted influence that the mind constantly feels –– and can’t shake off, even though it tries. And so their thoughts still don’t constitute what’s normal (they can’t). They’re still on the sidelines – and here’s a beautiful paradox: thanks to being outside the mainstream, it feels like their influence might only become stronger with time. Because even though they’re not widely read, they’re not, and won’t be, forgotten.

As to the hardship of actually reading them: maybe it’s their degree of introspection that makes them extremely hard to approach with a clear mind and good intentions – to read them is to accept you’re not going to spend time in a pleasurable company of friends, but rather rolling in thorns that somebody laid in from of himself precisely in order to not be approached, read or understood. Or maybe it’s the other way around: it’s only a desperate cry for someone to finally understand, and that – being visceral and gut-wrenching as it turns out to be (at least in case of Bataille) – makes it only worse.

As Sontag wraps it up:

Certain authors become literary or intellectual classics because they are not read, being in some intrinsic way unreadable. Sade, Artaud, and Wilhelm Reich belong in this company: authors who were jailed or locked up in insane asylums because they were screaming, because they were out of control; immoderate, obsessed, strident authors who repeat themselves endlessly, who are rewarding to quote and read bits of, but who overpower and exhaust if read in large quantities.

And that seems to be the crucial part: reading them feels like watching them being consumed, eaten alive, by thoughts they couldn’t control – hence the endless repetitions, entire unreadable chapters of their books or lack of focus mixed with heuristics based on knowledge that’s never explained (as if – locked within the author, whereas the whole point was to let it get out, making the whole ordeal of writing a book ultimately a failure). What’s interesting, though, is that maybe precisely this tiresome obsessiveness of Sade, Artaud or Bataille, make them so hard to be appropriated by pop culture in their original form – as if “the Empire” needed other’s people interpretation of their works in order to consume and regurgitate them in an easily digestible format.

It’s not like it never happened before: when taken to an extreme, the Empire needed Nazis to help it with Nietzsche, and when Nazis failed (because after the War his thinking became more widely understood than ever before), it eventually used Hollywood to preach that he was nothing more than: “a chauvinist pig, who was in love with his sister.”

#susan sontag #georges bataille #antonin artaud #friedrich nietzsche #under the sign of saturn

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ethan1220world-blog · 5 years

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Audience Studies (3P18) Blog Post #1 - Ethan Limsana

During the introduction of our text, we learn many different ways to describe the concept of an audience and how a particular audience has and can function over time. A critical piece in learning about where we are now, is to examine how they began and evolved overtime based on popularity of politics and social needs. In order to relate to these teachings, I will apply them to my modern life with a form of entertainment that I access daily in many different ways and social settings depending on context: music. Whether it be walking through the supermarket with a pair of headphones on, or at a live concert surrounded by crowds of rowdy young adults, music demonstrates a multitude of ways an audience can be affected. I listen to music daily on my phone with the goal of finding melodies that are addicting, and artists that write lyrics that heighten my emotions either by making me feel excited when I’m energized, or depressed when I’m sad. Once I’ve found the right song, I can listen to it many times before I get bored, and look at other works the author has to offer through streaming platforms like Spotify and YouTube to choose what else I do and don’t like. This work that I’m doing to curate my music tastes are demonstrating an information based audience by simply listening to the artist and what they have to say about a given topic. It also demonstrates a meaning based view because by choosing I like and don’t like, the artist will see those tracks and adapt future works based on the reviews. Although, these messages would be much different face-to-face by exact knowledge given to one another, I am a part of the mass audience and communicate through my views, likes, and shares. This is my role in obtaining music for low cost, often free, for the large profit organizations that provide me music. Like any other job, I perform these roles when I am the audience member, and when I stop listening, I am no longer an audience member. Although I enjoy listening to 1980s music, my music taste has changed due to shifts in society and me as a demographic. As streaming services kept offering me to listen to rap music for being a young adult male, I eventually tried it, giving into Drake, Young Thug, Tupac, and more. Here, my shift in music taste was a result of the audience-as-outcome model because the media altered my taste. As mentioned before, I filter into the grand scheme of advertising and ratings as an individual on my phone, without a public space to listen or review the music, where most others are listening too. Since this experience is primarily alone, and I have no connection with other listeners, I am part of the audience-as-mass model. Not to say I have no power in this situation, I demonstrate audience-as-agent too by telling social media, and the entertainment providers what I think and ultimately making the final decisions of my interests on my own; in this case I happened to not enjoy older rap music, but enjoy modern rap music because it heightened my excitement. I chose to keep what I enjoyed because it fits me and my lifestyle, as an act of my free will.

A small percentage of the time I spend with music is live because it costs more money, often requires travel, and isn’t nice for time management, but it's the most engaging and memorable musical experiences I’ve ever had because of the nature of crowds. As a practice dating back to ancient Greek and Roman audiences, concerts are the same in essence; hundreds or thousands of people leave their homes to gather in one specific location to listen to a select few. Here, it is entirely dependent on the people on stage to determine the energy of the crowd. At rap concerts, loud music is played, and messages of substance abuse, and violence are in the lyrics. The crowd responds to this content by showing up to the concert dressed in fashionable clothes, drinking, getting high, and most of all, being rowdy by pushing, shoving, crying, and sometimes even fighting. As feared by the end of the 19th century, live concerts often display the potentially destructive qualities of crowds. As an individual listening to music alone, the reality is relatively unchanged from regular society, but when a crowd gets together, it is a temporary change in that particular society as a collective because individual actions have less consequences associated with them and immediate emotions can freely be demonstrated by all. The positives of the crowd are also unchanged; they create a physical setting for me to go, and create a memorable experience for me to worship someone who was already in power, to reinstate my value in enjoying their music, and keep them in power.

This power opens up new opportunities for record labels and artists to scheme new ways to alter our decision making process to make choices that continue their revenue flow and keep them in power for as long as possible. For example, Drake and his label OVO, use advertising and multimedia to keep us thinking about his music and persona even when we’re not listening. The money made from live events and music sales, goes into buying and selling merchandise, buying restaurants, maintaining an entertaining Instagram page, and utilizing television and film for documentary and selling the idea of his rich lifestyle. Although it is our own agency and free will to choose what we enjoy, these power moves are made to trigger appeal and to trick us into a cycle of worship.

It is the complete truth that modern rap music is a gold mine for those in power: it is repetitive, subject matter is relatively the same throughout different artists, and it is insanely popular among young viewers who make up most of the internet’s usage in North America. It can be tough for myself to take a moment to realize all that I see online is not real, but I’m one of millions, with many that don’t have the education to consider that. The effects perspective is a lens I can use to think about how I am affected by these powers in media that influence me now, and over time. In order to be informed, and understand why I’ll be advertised certain types of content in the future, is to study why my demographic reacts so positively to rap music.

As part of mass society, I and others are listening to this music alone, with little to no exposure of the themes suggested aside from movies and tv shows. Mixed with being a young adult, male and naive, this ignorance to the rapper lifestyle is exactly what advertisers capitalize on to gain and keep my attention. We live in a progressive time where racial equality, specifically black, is at the forefront of all media concerns and therefore, our concerns. The issue is that I have no first hand idea what is different in their culture as opposed to mine. There are few popular media that demonstrates African American’s as regular people who do regular daily things; instead the popular discourse uses selective exposure to say they grew up on the street and have become rich and surpassed whites. When music videos and lyrics suggest their lifestyles include endless amounts of money, having sex with multiple women, and killing people they don’t like, there’s actually very little I can actually do to disprove that even though its highly unlikely. Early concerns with mass persuasion worry that even though I have the critical ability to deem what is true and what isn’t, my brain wants to imagine something before it experiences it. I’m only shown stereotypes, so that's all I have the capacity to imagine for the time being. The artists acts as a barrier between me and their affairs; they only let me imagine how rich their lifestyle is for their specific interest of me believing that listening to what they have to say will elevate my life in some way, or keep me racially diverse.

I keep listening to these fake notions of black culture because, well, it's addicting for me. The Payne studies showed some important facts: intense violence and action scenes were more memorable for boys, the more exposure of similar themes created pronounced beliefs within children, and the interest in sexual themes became more engaging in children as they grew older. The themes I’m exposed to represent delinquencies that parents and teachers have taught me to stay away from, so they are exciting for me to see and fantasize about. It is an over-saturated market also, so I have more pronounced internal feelings about the content. Also, it is at a point in my life that I am more gullible to what is shown to me online. If these reasons weren’t enough to argue why I don’t stop listening, the presence of opinion leaders and emotional contagion make it increasingly difficult to leave the genre. Opinion leaders rise within my friend group, and reviewers I find online. Being so close to Toronto, most of my friends fall into the same demographic trap and see Toronto rappers as something to take pride in and constantly keep up with celebrities’ internal drama. Online reviewers, although they have more credibility, often promote the popular opinion in order to keep fans happy, sharing, and make their program more popular, and they might even be incentivised by outside sources to create and artificial opinion. Seemingly everywhere wants me to keep listening to this music, and when it consistently keeps my friends and I in an energized mood through emotional contagion, it at least feels like it's doing more good than bad in the moment.

As an audience member, mass media has treated me like an object whose attention can be persuaded, changed, and sold, but it's too early for me to see long term detrimental effects. I spend about 6-8 hours looking at screens everyday with heights of around 12-14 hours. Some of this is because of work, but more than half is for consuming entertainment and social media. It often gives me a fictionalized perspective of different topics which is why I’ve worked hard in the last two years to improve my lifestyle and create more unique experiences. Most of this leisure time is worse spent than when the media originally pulled me into addiction at the beginning of high-school. I was recommended to watch things I’ve already seen, or are so similar, it offers no unique ideas, so constantly being offered what I already like has put me in a rut. Also, I am weary of gaining emotions because of my viewing habits. Since most of my interests in entertainment are associated with delinquent themes, I recognize that when I’m out, I am not outgoing with strangers because I don’t trust them. Commonly in mob related movies, they give the feeling that you can’t trust anyone, and those feelings lie somewhere within me.

Public opinion is the most powerful information a company use to always have the upper-hand over the consumer when it comes to buying and selling. The information can be private or public depending on if it is beneficial to the company. It can be used to gain honest opinions about what the population thinks about a product, or a survey can be made specifically to trick the public into conforming to a certain ideal by use of question-wording-effects. The information can be used to alienate consumers into bandwagoning onto a perceived public opinion. The potential to mix and match these uses seems like a modern day superpower to me. To examine the ways public opinion is measured and used by large corporations for profit, I’ll relate to myself working in sales at Best Buy and Virgin Mobile to compare and contrast by looking at what I do to earn an individuals’ opinion on a much smaller scale.

When working with a customer, I want to ensure my commission is made whether or not it is in the buyers’ best interests when they walk in. First, I want to find out why they’re in the store. I ask about what issues they have with a current device, and move further to find out important things about their lifestyle: if they have kids, are they in school, where they live, and what hobbies they have. At this stage, I am giving my customer a person-to-person interview where I establish rapport, and my most advantageous position as a salesperson to both learn about the client, and earn a degree of trust so I can be given true answers to my questions. Here, I avoid leading questions because the answers wouldn’t accurately depict the information I want to offer a product that is relevant. The tactics of my survey change depending on what part of the sale we’re at for my benefit. Once we find the right phone for the user, we talk about the price which is where response effects are wildly useful. If the first thing I say is the actual price per month, the customer would be unsatisfied with the number and feel entitled to bargain, or wait for another sale, or go to a different company entirely. Instead, I show the original price for the phone, and their mobile plan separately which is always high, then show them what I can save them by signing up with a new contract; the response is almost always positive. This is because the original price has nothing to contrast except for some kind of number they’ve had before, or seen in a flyer which isn’t obtainable for me. In the second example, I’ve given a realistic, yet unfavourable example for them to contrast instead to get rid of any pre-existing notions of price. Once the customer has decided to buy the service or product, they will be less likely to buy anything else because they either don’t have enough money, or are weary of me taking advantage of them. When defenses are high, question-wording-effects can be used to make the customer think they want more. The last thing I have to sell is extra insurance for your phone, which everyone is accustomed to say no to because of negative connotations of other insurances like car, or life. Once they tell me they don’t want insurance, I proceed with the process and move on to the next topic, but realistically, I’m using this time to include specific words and body language to make them feel unsafe about their new product. I will begin using words in our conversation that have to do with the length of their contract, the price of the phone, specific words like fragile, stuck, lost, regret. My body language also changes to be more loose and clumsy, and often I place my drink uncomfortably close to the new device. When I ask again later in the process, the customer feels they have made the decision for themselves, drop their defense and buy.

Sometimes, other means of gathering opinion are beneficial as well. Although a personal interview offers me the most advantages, a telephone interview is a cheaper and time efficient way of gathering information. There is a possibility I could employ the same tactics into this interview, but that poses a couple problems. I cannot establish rapport as well, so if I ask too many personal questions, the customer will feel uncomfortable and hang up. I generally need to avoid leading questions, and keep the call strictly about the sale. This is a good way to earn information to use in the future, not the present. I can filter their answers to find out what may be a successful offer for the future. For use of large companies, this type of information could be used to find out where and when to sell things, but not as precise to find out what type of product to make. The final type of survey I look for is an email survey. These help me to gain a higher personal rating to gain recognition within my company, but as the text suggests, these are borderline useless way of gathering and asking for information. Just about all ways of surveying have some kind of flaw which skews the data gathered with varied impact, but email has to be the most negative impact. It requires the customer to actively do it during their leisure time, and it holds no benefit to themselves. Out of every ten customers I offer the online survey to, one may actually do it. This means they would have an outstanding reason to do it; either they really liked, or really hated the service. The numbers of completions are low, and the sources are not credible.

After information is acquired, the Government and large corporations use qualitative and quantitative data to use audiences in ways that far exceed the possibilities of an individual. They use this information to operationalize their audience; keep their viewing habits the same, and constantly sell their time to advertisers without suspicion. In order to find examples of political economy today, I will examine myself as an audience member of advertisements specifically through my phone on social media platforms and entertainment streaming services. Now that I can identify how advertisers obtain my personal habits and information, I can assume who is buying it based on what advertisements, or entertainment I’m offered.

As a consumer, I actually pay for many of the streaming services I use which I know isn’t the norm for post-millenials. I pay monthly to access Netflix, Spotify, and YouTube, which means I don’t receive advertisements through these entertainment services, which is great for some of my leisure time, but I do not escape advertisements altogether. In fact, each of these streaming services, including the phone I bought, have a mandatory a lengthy multi-page terms of service agreement which states that they are services which I use while I pay for them, and during this time, they can gather as much information about my viewing habits as they want to improve their services. In exchange for signing this contract, I am given thousands of choices of the most popular movies, TV shows, and music of today with a service that knows what I want to watch even before I know what its about. In the meantime, however, all information of my demographic including how much I am paying for streaming is being sold to google, to then sell to advertisers in similar markets. I’m still not rid of the blindspot that advertisers use to steal my leisure time. Often while watching a show, I browse on my phone, and during that time I get ads for tv shows and movies on subscription services I have yet to pay for. The luxury of using Netflix services is paid for by me enduring ads for other similar subscription-based websites, which I am then working for free to review by looking at them and seeing whether or not they are worthwhile, just for it to be advertised again when there's a new incentive for me to consider again. This same operation happens to everyone who uses streaming services, as the audience is a commodity to be bought and sold by advertisers.

I’m treated very well as a subscriber of these services; the servers send the program are reliable with few buffers, the websites don’t have malware or bugs that slow down the speed of my computer, and I even get special features such as the option for subtitles on any show, and even an automatic option to skip opening credits. The same can’t be said for those who can’t afford to pay monthly, or who are using ad blockers. For example, my girlfriend is the daughter of Asain immigrants and she watches Korean TV, but she doesn’t pay for streaming services, and there are no channels for her to watch them for free. She streams these shows from free servers she finds online. These are often filled with malware, regular ads, and pop-up ads that ruin the viewing experience as well as poor servers from outside of the country which buffer and crash often. I am labelled as a priority customer because my viewing consists of popular American TV and I pay for the service, meaning I will most likely respond well to the advertisements that are sent to me and have a higher chance of purchasing, so my leisure time is improved to keep me as a customer. My girlfriend is exactly what advertisers will ignore, she enjoys foreign shows and doesn’t pay for her streaming service, so her leisure time is not cared for or valued, so is less important. This is a slightly different take on what the text has to explains, but it is a similar issue. Racial formation is causing someone close to me to not enjoy their leisure time as much as me because of their background and taste.

Adding market value to certain demographics does show signs of massive potential in new technologies though. Our viewership is measured on any platform we visit through server logs, and cookies. Even now with Google assistant and Google Home and smart home devices and surveillance systems, our voices are being monitored too. I had a conversation with my mother about what Halloween costume I am going to wear this year, and Google offered me advertisements for Halloween costumes the next day. This is the evolution of peoplemeters that tracked TV viewing habits, but on a much smarter and efficient scale that people meters couldn't achieve. Because of psychographics, we are not purely treated as a mass audience in this situation. I am not being offered to listen to Drake because Drake is popular with men my age, I am being offered curated advertisements that are relevant to me based on my demographics, psychology, and my actual web searches and needs described through conversation. This conclusion is very controversial because devices that listen to your voice at all times is creepy, but it is the peak of what target marketing strives to be in its most efficient form. When this form of information gathering and target marketing is perfected, it is hard to say whether our thoughts are truly our own because of the power of suggestion.

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tipsycad147 · 5 years

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Five hard truths about magick

Posted by Michelle Gruben on Mar 29, 2019

Of the many laws of magick, there are a few that you’ll never see on a T-shirt or affirmation board. Here, we’ll cover some of the tough stuff: The harsh, the unsettling, the ambiguous facts of living an enchanted life.

This article was inspired by some recent discussions of false positivity—that is, the habitual repetition of encouraging words and images. In short, false positivity means well, but it does harm by shutting down discussion of anything problematic. You can’t hide the truth forever—and when you try, it seeps out in sneaky and unexpected ways.

There are certain aspects of magick that are difficult to come to terms with. The purpose of airing them is not to discourage anyone from their path, but to counter some of the shallow advice and empty promises that the witchy blogosphere churns out.

It’s time for some straight talk about magick—some Swords to go with your Cups, some Rue with your Roses.

1. It's not for everybody.

Can anyone become a Witch? Any honest answer to this question is complicated. In some ways, yes—the magickal arts are open to all who seek them. In other ways, no. Some people lack the gifts, the learning—but most often, the dedication—to become effective practitioners of the Craft.

These two are the fundamental magickal skills: The ability to alter reality through will. And, the ability to perceive things beyond the normal senses. These experiences are part of our natural state of being. They are, in a sense, the birthright of every conscious creature.

Yet these abilities are constrained on our earthly plane and must be located and cultivated. You need a strong will to accomplish this. It takes repetition. It takes humility. It often requires help from others—partners, spirits, plants, disparate parts of self—whose cooperation you must earn.

In short, excelling in magick is just like excelling in business or music or athletics. Not every aspirant will have what it takes. Talent only gets you so far. Hard work isn’t always enough. Sometimes you do everything right and still don’t get the results you want.

It’s not easy. It’s not for everyone (or at least, not all of the time).

2. Real witchcraft isn't photogenic.

Thick black eyeliner, a bespoke cloak, moon tattoos, and a table full of Amethysts—that’s what magick is made of, right? Sure, if you believe the internet. Like so many other things, witchcraft has been co-opted in recent years by lifestyle bloggers and taste makers, advertisers and influences. Super-stylish, just-edgy-enough witchy pics go hand-in-hand with the idea that magick is a piece of cake.

What’s wrong with enjoying all these highly preformative images of witchcraft? Nothing! There’s no reason a person can’t be genuinely magickal and also extremely good at self-presentation. Visual art is a kind of magick, too. However, let’s not make the mistake of confusing Instagram witches with the real thing.

It’s even possible for personal magick and social media to work at cross-purposes. Oversharing violates the principle of magickal silence—the idea that talking about your workings can dilute or disperse their energy. People who endlessly photograph their working tools, altars, and ritual garments are arguably siphoning off some of their power for the sake of likes and followers.

Thinking back about the most powerful magick I’ve witnessed, much of it has been in the dark, among old or shabbily dressed people, with nary a smartphone in sight. The most eye-opening books I own are crappy dog-eared paperbacks that would look terrible in a tableau with a crystal pendant and a sprig of Rosemary. Pinterest offers no altar porn for the third eye…you’ll have to find those goodies on your own.

3. Magick is dangerous.

The Satanic Panic of the 1990s was in full swing when I first embarked on my magickal studies. The media often reported on the addiction, insanity, and death that were the obvious consequences of dabbling in the occult. Religious tracts and books warned against the dangers of “gateway” activities like drum circles and Harry Potter books. I used to hoard these writings and snicker at them. What a quaint idea—that devils stalk the earth, seeking the ruin of souls through Ouija boards and zodiac pendants!

With more experience, I see a grain of truth in those zealous warnings. It’s not all rainbows and butterflies out there, folks. Different magicians have different opinions about whether spirit entities have an external reality or only dwell within the mind of the magick worker. I can’t prove it either way, of course. But my own instinct says that entities are real, they have independent consciousness, and not all of them have your best interests in mind.

Not scared of spirits? Fine—let’s go to the energy model of magick. Playing with spiritual technologies—meditation, invocation, astral travel—can cause extreme and rapid shifts in your energy body. They can wreck your appetite and mess with your sex life. They can effect changes in your mood and sleep cycle that will disrupt every aspect of your daily existence.

Other hazards of the occult are more pedestrian: You can become arrogant (common!). You can turn into a colossal bore who only talks to plants (and even the plants wish you would shut up). You can invite the scorn of people who don’t approve of your path, people who formerly respected you. It’s hard to keep your spiritual and mundane lives in balance—but it’s absolutely necessary if you want to make magick a lifelong quest.

Anything worthwhile carries some risk. With magick, we are talking about nothing less than the rapid evolution of the soul…so it only makes sense than the risks would be commensurate with the reward. Only you can weigh the dangers and decide if it’s worth doing. (See #1: It’s not for everybody.)

4. You (probably) need tools for effective spellwork.

“Cast spells without tools!”

“The secret of mental magick!”

“Advanced witchcraft!”

There’s a whole slew of authors and teachers offering instruction in tool-less spellcraft. And yeah, technically they’re correct: The only tool you really need is your focused, unadulterated Will.

But therein lies the problem. How many of us actually possess a focused, unadulterated Will? We’re human! Our thoughts are always mixed with distractions, mental noise, memories, and misgivings. Magick without tools is theoretically do-able…but in practice, it’s rarely as effective.

It’s true that intention is the most important component in spellwork. It’s true, also, that the more practised you become with certain skills (visualisation and trance induction), the less you tend to rely on the externals. However…

Magickal tools—and I’m not just saying this as a shop owner—tools play a very important role. Several roles, actually. That’s why Witches—yes, even “advanced” ones, have employed them for centuries.

What do tools accomplish that thoughts alone do not? Here’s a sampling:

1. Anchoring: Tools link your intention in the physical plane (which is where you want the results to manifest, right?) Most magick spells can be conceived as a kind of cycle—from earthly need to thought/will and back to physical action. Tools complete the loop by grounding your petition in the present time and place.

2. Distraction: Tools subvert the less-magickal parts of the brain (mental chatter, worries, skepticism) by engaging the older, more primal parts. Tying knots, lighting incense, and dressing candles are all classic ways to activate spells. You could say these actions let your magickal self do its work by keeping the mind and body busy.

3. Correspondence: Spell ingredients like herbs and candles contribute allied energies to your spell. The magickal brain is both literal and sensual. To a person who is very familiar with lemons, the thought of a lemon is enough to invoke Solar energy. But if you have an actual lemon—bright and yellow and soaked in the summer sun—that’s better, you know? I refer to Randall Garrett’s maxim: “The best symbol for a sharp knife is a sharp knife.”

4. Effort: The extra work of using tools is a gatekeeper that separates the worthy spells from the unworthy ones. When you go through the trouble to acquire and prepare materials, you’re signalling to your unconscious that this spell actually matters—and that will generally translate to better results.

Magickal tools don’t have to be complicated, and they don’t have to be expensive. (See our list of cheap and free witchcraft tools.) A candle and some oil. A pen and a piece of paper. Keep it focused: An over-encumbered spell is just as a bad as a flimsy one.

Unless you are a super-adept—like, the kind of master that comes along once in a zillion years—you probably can’t just speak or dream your desires into being. Spells without tools are more akin to…wishes. It’s fun to make a wish, but they usually don’t come true on their own.

5. There are no experts.

“We’re all apprentices in a craft where no one becomes a master.” Ernest Hemingway was referring to writing, but the same can certainly be said of the metaphysical arts.

Magick is a vast and mysterious topic. There’s a natural instinct to look up to people who have been at it longer than you, or who seem to be more sure of themselves. But while some people are objectively more accomplished, there’s nobody who’s got it all figured out. We are all grappling with the inexplicable mystery of consciousness. We are all grasping at forms we can’t possibly see the shape of.

It’s scary to realise that everybody else is basically flying blind. But it’s liberating, too. When you stop relying on others to show you the way, you can begin to truly explore your own power.

And there you have it...five tough nuggets. I don't expect that this will become one of my most popular blog posts ever, but I'm happy that I published it. What are your hard-won magickal truths? Share with other readers in the comments!

https://www.groveandgrotto.com/blogs/articles/five-hard-truths-about-magick

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illusivegore · 5 years

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Gore Reviews Rage

Release Date: October 4, 2011 Platforms: Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 (reviewed), OS X

Rage starts out like so many other games from recent memory. Some catastrophic event has turned the world into a post-apocalyptic wasteland and somehow you’ve been chosen as the hero who’s going to save humanity. Before this event you and a small group have volunteered to be preserved in a contraption called an Ark (basically a vault) in order to help ensure that the human race will live on. Fast forward 106 years and you are finally released from your pod to find that you are the only survivor of your Ark. Once you get your bearings back you escape and are promptly attacked by some hideous mutant. Just when things are looking pretty grim you are saved by none other than John Goodman, well his name is actually Dan Hagar. You hop in Hagar’s buggy and he gets you up to speed with what’s going on in the wasteland. What follows is a series of fetch quests, repetitive corridor shooter sequences and quite possibly one of the worst endings to a game ever.

The first thing you’ll probably notice about Rage would be the graphics. They are absolutely gorgeous and just might be the best I’ve seen on a console this generation. Environments are detailed (even though they mostly fall into the brown and grey trap that so many post-apocalyptic games do) and each character you meet along the way has their own unique qualities. As beautiful as the graphics may be they aren’t without their issues. During my time with Rage I noticed texture pop-in quite frequently (even with the game installed). This happens when you load into a new area and sometimes just by making a quick turn. While it’s nothing that hinders your experience, it is quite noticeable at times. In order to keep the graphics looking their best the game needs to be installed to the hard drive (you’re actually prompted to do so). If you don’t have the space (22 total gigs across 3 discs on the 360, but each disc can be installed separately and 8 gigs on the PS3) then you’re in for a rough experience. I started off without the game installed and there was a considerable amount of screen tearing and constant frame rate drops. So if there’s no way for you to install that could very well be a deal breaker.

While the graphics are great, the sound of Rage is a bit of a mixed bag. I found the music was okay, but completely forgettable. The score was also a bit over dramatic for my taste. During most battles over-the-top music would be blaring in the background while nothing was actually going on. It did add a slight sense of urgency, but most of the time it was just a little much. Sound effects were also lacking. I noticed that every enemy that could speak had the same voice and said the same five or six phrases over and over. Weapons, explosions and other ambient noises were all fine, but didn’t stand out as particularly special. All of the voice acting in Rage was rather good. There are a few instances where the actor just seemed to phone it in, but all in all every character ended up having their own personality and charm. Sadly, as good as some of the voice work was, most of the time I honestly couldn’t have cared less what the characters were actually talking about. This is due in large part to Rage’s terribly lazy narrative.

The story of Rage is uninspired at best and completely awful at its lowest points. It is your cliché tale of some authoritative group trying to hold down the population and control all aspects of life. This time that group is known as “The Authority” (very clever indeed) and they are looking to find any Ark survivors and take control of the wasteland. Everything about the story is bland and lifeless and only exists to push you to the next bland and lifeless area of the game. There have been plenty offenders of this type of writing, but Rage has set a new low.

What’s worse than the overall narrative is how abruptly the game ends. While the story isn’t strong at any point in the game it really takes a nose dive in the second half and then completely goes down the toilet in the final sequence of events. The final mission of Rage is quite possibly the laziest and most unsatisfying end to a game I’ve ever seen from both story and gameplay aspects. The game resorts to making you play some sick game of “Whack-a-Mole” which is neither fun nor creative. Then all of a sudden I was seeing the final cutscene (which was all of about three minutes long) then the credits ran and I was left scratching my head.

When you throw the horrible story out of the way and really get to the core of Rage you’ll find a very competent first-person shooter. It doesn’t break the mold when it comes to the genre, but it definitely does right by it when it comes to gameplay and this really shouldn’t be a surprise since the game was created by FPS pioneers id Software (creators of Wolfenstein, Doom and Quake). You’ll be given your standard set of weapons (assault rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles, etc.), as well as some more unique items to use in combat. These items include sentry bots (which look like robotic spiders that will attack your enemies), sentry turrets and (my personal favorite) wing sticks. I would describe the wing sticks as a cross between a throwing star and a boomerang. These are extremely powerful and on normal difficulty will take out most enemies in a single hit. These special items can be engineered using items you find in the wasteland or buy from vendors. You’ll also be able to create a variety of ammo types and other items (such as health restoration) as you progress through the game.

While the shooting in Rage is well done and can be fun at times, there are numerous issues that hinder it and end up making it feel just as boring as the narrative. First and foremost is the way quests are presented to you. Almost every one of them involves going to a “dungeon” and fighting through a horde of enemies, grabbing what you came for and fighting your way out. This would be fine if I felt like what I was doing actually mattered. That brings me to my next issue; there is absolutely no gratification in completing a quest or killing an enemy. You don’t gain XP, your character doesn’t get more powerful over time, and your weapons don’t improve much over the course of the game. So from beginning to end, it all feels exactly the same and it all feels completely pointless. If I’m going to be grinding through fetch quest after fetch quest I want to feel like I’m earning something worthwhile.

Another issue that makes combat feel repetitive are the enemies (or lack thereof). Throughout Rage you’ll basically encounter the same three enemies over and over: mutants, bandits and the Authority. I have no issue with the mutants because they are the most unpredictable of the three and each battle feels a little different from the last. Sadly you’ll see them the least of the three. The bandits and the Authority are basically the same enemy with different weapons and they will simply take cover and chuck grenades at you until you decide to snipe them or rush them with a shotgun. Having to fight the same fight dozens of times over the course of the game really began to test my patience. Then we get to the boss fights, which are very few and far between. The bosses are as uninspired as the story and all of them are easy to take down. No patterns to learn just shoot them until they’re dead.

My biggest complaint about Rage is that it tries to fool you into thinking you are getting an RPG style game by giving you the ability to talk to the townsfolk, pick up side quests and encouraging you to loot and explore. However all these are completely shallow experiences. You can talk to most people, but very rarely will you pick up a quest from them and most of the dialog you receive is nothing more than small talk. There is absolutely no character development anywhere in Rage, so being able to talk to various characters seems like nothing more than a waste of time. Exploration in Rage is also a complete joke. On various load screens the game encourages you to explore the wasteland, so I found myself checking around every corner and in every dark crevice looking for any sort of loot. However, nine times out of ten there was nothing to be found. When I was lucky enough to find something it was simply a can of beans or an empty beer bottle (which fetch the amazing price of around $4), so eventually I got sick of wasting time and just stopped looking. Almost every piece of loot is blatantly thrown in your face (and shining bright as the sun no less) so that you won’t miss it.

The biggest offender in this RPG mirage is the side quest system. I think I may have found three or four side quests from talking to NPCs found in the game and most of those were less than impressive. Then I saw a small glimmer of hope that there might be something greater to be found in the wasteland when I found the Bounty Board. Little did I know that I would get a big whopping total of six side quests. What’s even worse is that most of these were quests that sent me back to locations I had previously visited in the main storyline to do pretty much the same thing. There is honestly no point in doing side quests in Rage, unless you’re just bored. What little loot and money you’ll find usually won’t even cover what you waste in ammo and equipment, all of which would be better suited to help you get through the main story as quickly as possible.

I’ll admit that Rage does try to throw in a little variety by implementing the use of vehicles. Throughout the campaign you’ll be able to buy and upgrade your own rides to travel the wasteland in. As you travel from location to location you’ll be engaged in vehicular combat and in the beginning this can be fun, but just like the gunplay it eventually grows stale when the same enemies pop up in the same locations every time. Towards the end of the game I found that I’d rather just ignore the enemies altogether and get to my next destination. There are also races that you can enter which will help you upgrade your rides, if you so desire. One other way Rage tries to spice things up is through mini-games. They come in a few varieties and provide ways of making money and breaking some of the monotony of the game, but they are largely forgettable.

Outside of the single player campaign you’ll find a couple of multiplayer options. The first is a co-op mode known as Wasteland Legends where you and a partner run through maps from the single player campaign and try to complete objectives and accumulate the highest score possible. You can do this split screen or with a partner online. As I couldn’t find anyone online to team up with I tried it out split screen and I have to say it was far more enjoyable than the single player. This could simply be because playing with someone, especially in the same room, usually lead to some pretty fun experiences, but it also offered a much greater challenge than the campaign. Not to mention when you killed an enemy you actually got a little gratification by earning points, unlike the single player where every kill felt completely pointless. There are nine separate mission to play through, so if you can find a friend who has the game or who is willing to play some split screen you might find some fun here.

The other multiplayer option comes in the form of a competitive car combat mode know as “Road Rage” (another clever name). Here you and three other people (online only) will compete in one of four types of “races”. These vary from straight-up death match to more objective based modes. This way by far the most fun I had with Rage. I’ve never been a big fan of Twisted Metal style games, but after the lackluster campaign this was a much needed breath of fresh air. Unlike the single player, here you will actually gain XP and level up as you play. This allows you to unlock new weapons, vehicles and power-ups. While this is probably the most satisfying and enjoyable aspect of the game I’m not sure how long this will be a viable option as I found it difficult to get into lobbies during my time playing. However, if I can continue to find games, Road Rage might actually have me putting the Rage disc back in the tray from time to time.

Rage succeeds in being a pretty game to look at and also in creating two fun combat systems. However, both of these positives suffer due to Rage’s shortcomings. No matter how fun something is, when you are forced to do it over and over in exactly the same way, eventually it will grow tiresome. When you couple this with the terrible story and false promises of an RPG style experience, Rage ends up being one of the shallowest gaming experiences I‘ve had in a long time. The only slight saving grace for Rage is that the multiplayer options are both twice as fun as the single player campaign and show off what the solo experience could have been.

Score: 2 out of 5

#Rage #video games #games #bethesda #xbox #xbox 360 #ps3 #playstation #playstation 3

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largepotato · 7 years

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Stormblood thoughts

There’s current 1,064 players in queue.

I tweeted doing tthis earlier so I figured I’d write it while i wait to log in. I figured it’d be nice to give one coherent summary of my thoughts i guess, because i feel like talking to friends makes us kind of piecemeal our opinions together and are something imprecise or vague about what specifically we enjoyed or not, so organizing my thoughts on the game so far might be nice.

First, i guess, aesthetic. I think it did great, i think it made zones that are interesting, easily navigated and most of all coherent. So many of Heavensward zones just had this slight incoherence to them that doesn’t make sense to me, as a natural or even semi-seamless part of a broader geographical area. Obviously the limitations of the game make it such that we only see a small part of these regions, but stormblood managed to make it feel like the zones captured a part of a broader picture that feels natural intertwined with the areas that aren’t shown as well as its neighboring regions. It takes care to be mindful of its geography, the paths and routes feel detailed enough to be realistic, but not so mcuh that they’re a chore to navigate. It deos a better job than heavensward in encouraging you to explore the regions, but it also has lots of areas to explore with nothing significant there. Little nooks and crannies with a suprising amount of detail put into them, but nothing of actual substance. EAch zone feels different and captures its feeling very well, so overall i love the experience it has, but not w/o some issue.

The new gear provided is a mixed bag. The new gear introduced is all gorgeous and detailed in subtle simple ways that doesn’t make it feel overly wrought or cluttered for the most part. The recycled models are unique ones that I enjoy seeing again, but some were used too much or without sufficient changes to the model or the class it was on. I think the 67 dungeon is the worst offender of this, bc it is slight recolors of doman gear without any departures from the blue gear models or associated classes. The first dungeon being dyeable, the i270 and i300 green weapons being the same model, as well as several grey gear repeated from HW grey gear is also a bit bland. That some of the high end glamor gear is also now gatherer/crafter gear feels weird, but not being able to glamor that unto combat gear changes that. Most of this is outweighed by the new gear looking absolutely gorgeous, but it feel like lost potential in some ways.

Second, i guess should be plot. I’ll do things I liked, then disliked, then things i’m optimistic and looking forward to.

I’ll begin by saying I loved the plot as a whole. It delivered more than i was expecting in being this exciting journey to the east kind of quest. It managed to tie this kind of fantasy theme with something more earthly by having the back drop being a campaign to liberate nations long occupied, and it managed to do it in a way that was reasonably well nuanced. I wasn’t expecting much in terms of how it talked about ideas like occupation, and liberty, and rule, and cooperation with one’s occupiers, but I think it mostly managed to delivery in these regards. I think the dialogue was mostly really good at a mix of banter and serious deliveries, and I think it did good at using both ends of conversation to give characterization to people in the quests as well as your own character. Its overall quality made me realize the chaff that heavensward still had, despite that itself being a great improvement over ARR. For the most part, it had likeable protagonists who showed human flaws, villains who played specific roles as villains and served that ends well, and companions who grew and explored the same world and struggles as you did as a player character.

The things i didn’t like were mostly in a lack of conclusion, or willingness to come to certain conclusions and closure with the narrative and characterization given to the characters. Primarily, this is in characters like Yotsuyu and Zenos, but kinda sprinkled through out. The game is uncertain what it wants from these characters or what role they should play in the narrative, and sometimes feels like the ending is overly flattening or just a dramatic shift that weakens the impact of the personality cultivated over the course of the plot.

In Yotsuyu’s case, she’s presented as this self-determined and violent pragmatist who begins to be given a sympathetic background, that’s ignored for a dramatic one-dimensional ending (yes, i know i know). That it fails to give her opportunity to explore and understand her in a way that makes her and her collaboration with the empire more sympathetic is a huge short coming, and makes it feel wasted as a time to develop as a character.

Zenos is what i might see as a quinessential JRPG villain, with morbid and truly baseless, and irrational ideas of human violence and instinct, and in most cases this would just be boring, but his position and role makes this more interesting because of the power he commands and the influence he offers. How he manipulates and affects someone like Fordola and how he perceives his conflict with you is so out of touch with the reality of the rest of the narrative that it almost works because that divide is so clearly shown.... until the end, and you go to the menagerie, and he’s just... He monologues and becomes a dragon and you fight and none of what he did before make sense. His imperial position and rule and authority to command armies at his call are irrelevant, and his brutally primitive world view isn’t given a context except its own word. It becomes uninteresting to me, and never really gives a closure on why his view is wrong, only that in some ways he validates himself and dies.

In a similar vein, the game wants to make a parallel between Lyse and Fordola, as a characters who mirror each other, and all of the pieces are there, but the game doesn’t or isn’t interested in making something from it, but that may be somethin to be developed as more patches are released. But its also indicative as a whole where the game almost wants to say something or provide this kind of insight or even the vaguest of messages, and shirks away and fails to do so in any way, or with any substance. (This also brings up my disappointment in the Lakshmi detour, in that it is a regression in where the plot has gone with discussing the nature of primals and primal summoning, and the vaguest of messages that can be gleaned from the arc falls unto deaf ears of the main cast, and leaves a bad taste in my mouth, especially in the context of Lakshmi being a real hindu goddess that’s depicted with an all too similar appearance. Even with that issue aside, it fails to do anything interesting or substantive, even though every piece is supplied and presented within the game).

For all those grievances, this also means i have a lot that I want out of the game and that I think it has the potential to deliver on. The end of the quest begins to raise more and more questions on the nature of leadership, or rule and authority, and what it takes to provide these things. They’re situated there both at the beginning and the ending, and I think it has a lot of promise both for an overarching story and post-game , as well as exploration through side quests and so on.

I’m kinda running out of things to say that don’t feel like repetition, but thats that I guess. I could talk about mechanical things another time, but I wanted to put this down I guess. enjoy.

#Final Fantasy XIV #Final Fantasy 14

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