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renthony · 1 year

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I haven't enjoyed a Marvel movie since I stopped bothering to keep up with the MCU in 2014. I don't care for most Marvel movies. I think Marvel Studios is a case study in things that are shitty in the entertainment industry. But holy shit, pretentious posts along the lines of "haha, I don't watch Marvel films, I have real taste, go watch another movie!" are so fucking annoying.

Like, go put up your middle finger at some preps or something. People are allowed to watch whatever they want and enjoy whatever movies they want and make whatever fandom stuff they want, and that doesn't say anything about their intelligence or morals or character. It doesn't mean they are somehow bad at watching movies, or are too stupid to realize whatever nugget of wisdom ye high-and-mighty Marvel Haters think you're the only ones to understand.

Again, not personally a Marvel fan, but this whole "haha, I'm better than Marvel fans" relates to something I've been musing on about media analysis as a whole. There is a persistent idea that mass entertainment is inherently lower quality or less artistic because it's made for a wide audience, and that bad art isn't worth analyzing or engaging with just because it's low quality. In this mindset, the only art that has the possibility to be any good at all is 100% independent projects made by amateurs, and anything produced by a studio or with wide appeal is inherently poser art with absolutely nothing meaningful to say. In this mindset, you can't possibly learn anything or take anything from bad art, and if you find meaning in bad art, you're clearly just stupid and uneducated and have bad taste.

The thing is? Liking bad art is not a sin. Having a different opinion about what constitutes "bad art" is not a sin. Finding something entertaining despite its flaws is not a sin. Studying bad art is not a sin. You can learn a lot from bad art, you can learn a lot from interpreting propaganda, you can learn a lot from engaging with things even if you don't think they're very "good."

My vaudeville research keeps turning up author after author who talks about vaudeville as some sort of "point of no return," like the performing arts all turned to shit the second things were intended to be seen by more than a single audience for a single show. Popularity gets equated with lack of skill or quality, because all the performers were "just pandering to the audience" instead of relying on "real skill."

For one, what the fuck does that even mean, but for two, the theatrical quality of vaudeville isn't what makes it interesting and worth engaging with. Every single thing that ever came out of vaudeville could be 100% total utter garbage, but vaudeville would still be worth studying because of how influential it still is on arts and entertainment today. It has significant historical and educational merit. And some of it is still genuinely fun and entertaining, once you pick out all the things that didn't age well or were just plain bigoted. There's artistic merit in those old sketches and songs, and there's meaning to be drawn from plenty of it even here in 2023.

You want to learn about the Hays Code? Well, let's talk about how early films were shown on projectors on vaudeville stages, so vaudeville censorship went on to influence American film censorship. Let's talk about how we still use slang to this day that originated on vaudeville, such as "skit" or "one night stand" or "ad lib" or "the big time." Vaudeville is still in the bones of the modern American entertainment industry and pop culture, and you can't really escape that influence.

People in modern day use Marvel movies as proof that big studio films are singlehandedly responsible for the decline of art, and there is nothing to learn from them or see in them at all, ever. But to me, "Marvel movies are bad" is such a flat, uninteresting observation, because when it comes to media analysis, it doesn't really matter if Marvel films are good or entertaining. If you want to actually dig into the problems with big-budget summer Hollywood blockbusters, and the way they're impacting the industry as a whole, you have to go deeper than "pop culture is all stupid stuff for stupid people, unlike me, who isn't like other girls actually has good taste in media!"

There are so many more factors at play than "mass entertainment = bad art." Let's look at the ways capitalism screws over small creators and forces them to seek funding from the very same studios that fuck them over. Let's talk about how the actual workers in the industry are fighting tooth and fucking nail against the exact same things all the Marvel haters harp on about. Let's talk about studios that accept funding from the United States Government to turn superhero comics into propaganda films, and then threaten the actual workers with never having a career again if they complain or quit. Let's talk about how the actors are regularly abused and treated to hostile work environments.

Let's talk about the people who made the films, because the films were not made by a CEO pressing the "make movie" button. The workers made those films. The workers were exploited by those studios. Let's try giving a shit about them, instead of taking the "haha, Marvel fans are stupid and cringe" route.

There is so much more fucking nuance and detail and conversation about mass media as a topic, and boiling it down to, "art made for a wide audience is inherently shitty and has nothing to say."

You're not a better, more intelligent, more educated person just because you don't like Marvel movies. Making posts about how much better you are than Marvel fans does nothing to either explain or tackle the issues in the entertainment industry.

It just makes you look like a dickhead.

#original post

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hazbin-but-good · 2 months

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another hazbin hotel rewrite/redesign?

yup! and i'm so serious about it that i made a whole blog for it. i'm a white queer ex-cath tran doing this as an art and writing exercise, so feedback from other creatives + jewish and/or racialized folks is especially welcome.

i'm putting this post and only this post in the main tags for visibility. also, not gonna link my main, but i do make my own original stuff, and i encourage fans and haters alike to do the same.

anyway, here's a mostly good-faith 1.7k-word essay on the original. i think it's pretty funny and brings up some less talked-about points. correct me on the facts, disagree with my opinions, and ask clarifying questions, but don't come at me with any piss-poor reading comprehension.

the hellaverse is garbage, and here's why

cw: strong language, stronger opinions, intersectional feminist critical discourse analysis

1. vivienne medrano, the person

medrano was born as a well-off white-passing latina (salvadoran-american) in bougieass frederick, maryland. while attending new york's top art school, she got popular on deviantart-tumblr-twitter by being a prolific multifandom fujoshi furry who's more into ornamental character design than storytelling. upon graduation, she leveraged her fanbase and industry connections to make the hazbin and helluva boss pilots, get helluva made for youtube, and get hazbin made for amazon prime.

like every woman online, she gets harassed for no good reason, and as a certified autist, i will defend her right to be dumb, weird, annoying, and bad with words. however, there are legit reasons to criticize her:

racism, misogyny, homophobia, fatphobia, some antisemitism, past transphobia, past ableism

shitty boss, bad friend

cowardly, vindictive, manipulative, thoughtless behavior

skeevy friends

sucks at taking criticism

in short, i think she desperately needs a PR person and someone to clean up her digital footprint.

2. medrano's art

incurious

inauthentic

noncommittal

creatively stagnant

overindulgent, and the indulgence isn't even fun

shallow and childish framed as complex and mature

bland and boring framed as shocking and subversive

to be clear, i'm at peace with the existence of suckass art like this; i just think the money, attention, and praise it gets are unearned and should go to more interesting works, of which there are infinite.

medrano's had the time, money, and social cache to grow as an artist, learn from the best, and take creative risks, but she hasn't. if she truly has nothing more to offer, she should let her collaborators take the wheel, but she doesn't do that either. instead, she keeps getting more and more resources to make the same baby bullshit, and that pisses me off. she could be the nicest person ever, and this fundamental arrogance would still make her art blow.

stop with the pointless guilt: liking medrano's work does not make you stupid or evil. however, if you stay in the kiddie pool of culture, if you refuse to engage with a diversity of art, if the hellaverse is your point of reference for anything media-related, you can't expect to have your opinions on art, media, or culture taken seriously. you have not earned a seat at the table. you gotta hit the books first.

i cannot emphasize enough how much incredible stuff is out there if you're willing to look further than what social media and streaming services put right in front of you. if you come away from this blog having learned about just one new artist or piece of art, i'll be a happy camper.

3. the hellaverse

a. empty and confused

hazbin and helluva's content and marketing has no clear target audience. the subjects are inappropiate for teens, but the execution is too childish for adults, and lemme tell you what i don't mean by that, first.

not inherently inappropriate for teens:

sex and sexuality

violence, including when it intersects with the above

politics and religion

not inherently childish:

animation (any style)

comedy

episodic writing and/or loose continuity

young characters

fun, happiness, optimism, the power of friendship, cuteness, tenderness, sincerity, etc.

what i mean is that these shows are literally about adult characters who fuck, smoke, drink, do drugs, go clubbing, work full-time, manage their own finances, and deal with stuff like bureaucracy, sexual violence, domestic abuse, marriage, divorce, late adoption, and family estrangement.

however, none of these "adult" things are given enough specificity to create drama or comedy. it's all too stock, vague, flat, weirdly sanitized, and thus utterly banal—pure aesthetics on top of bad saturday morning cartoons. it's exactly what i'd expect from a sheltered disney kid who needs to log off and get into their local gay scene ASAP so their only contact with things like poverty, policing, addiction, and sex work stops being facile movies and TV.

if the shows were aware of this and played with it, that could be amazing, but they're not. they give you the mickey mouse version of the world with a straight face and then play looney tunes sound effects to try to make you laugh and sad_violin.mp3 to try to make you cry. now that's funny.

b. old and tired

let's make like americans and pretend that the rest of the world doesn't exist. even within the confines of the USA, home of the hays code, the red scare, and reaganite propaganda, this neopuritan fascist state ruled by 1000 megachurches in a trenchcoat, the indie/underground animation scene has been doing crazier shit for decades. anti-war films in the 60's, bakshi movies in the 70's, the simpsons shorts and r-rated movies in the 80's, adult swim and MTV in the 90's, flash/newgrounds/youtube in the 00's, streaming in the 2010's—so what are we doing in the 2020's with this wet white rice drowned in expired ketchup? i feel crazy making this point because it's obvious if you've watched these things, but if you haven't, you're gonna be like "well, there's gotta be something new here". no! there isn't! in the words of jimmy "the scot" jordan, nothing, nothing, NOTHING!

c. ideological purgatory

actually, there is one thing in these shows i've never seen before: the presbysterianism. shout out some interesting or at least intentional presbysterian art in the comments, because the way these ideas are presented here is not compelling. it just makes the rainbow neoliberalism even more confusing and contradictory.

i guess the big presbysterian things are protestanism, calvinism, and, uh, big church government? presbysterians, get your shit together. get your brand down. catholics have BDSM and vampires, evangelicals have TV and corporatism; what do you have? celtic crosses? no wonder medrano has such uninspired ideas on divinity.

d. queer deficiency

when i look at a piece of art, i ask myself: "what does this give me that i can't get from the hunchback of notre dame (1996)?" if the answer is as limp as "uhh, gay people, i guess", i can probably look for my gay shit elsewhere and rewatch the hunchback of notre dame (1996) in the meantime.

but let's say that you have no standards. you've been waiting for ages for a show about gays by the gays for the gays, and by god you're gonna get it. this is it! here we go! time for some

generic twink obliteration

male sexuality as aggression and dominance displays

WLW (sex and chemistry not included)

a couple straight femdoms

and the stalest sex jokes known to man

...yeah, it's not very queer. and by "queer", i mean "questioning or subverting gender norms (including sexual roles) within a given cultural context regardless of creator identity and intent". i'm not a queer studies scholar so LMK if there's a more specific term for this, but whatever you call it, it's not in the hellaverse much.

there's not even any transness, literal or metaphorical, just ancient drag jokes. i guess the writers thought we would've been too controversial. so much for an indie animation studio that prides itself in the diversity of its staff both above and below the line, bakshi-style. i wonder how medrano, a bisexual woman, would've felt if told that a lesbian main couple in hazbin would be "too controversial".

4. spindlehorse and the vivziepop brand

spindlehorse toons underpays its overworked staff and keeps outsourcing more and more labor to even more overworked freelancers overseas to cut costs. a rainbow sweatshop is still a sweatshop, and just because these practices may be "industry standard" doesn't make them any more ethical.

the studio has also been repeatedly accused by current and former employees and contractors of creating a hostile and abusive workplace. AFAIK, it still has no dedicated HR person, and victims are too afraid of retaliation like blacklisting and online harassment to speak out.

this is exactly the stuff that unions exist to prevent. as i'm writing this, the IATSE (the parent union of TAG, which is the parent union of all US animation unions) is negotiating with entertainment industry executives for better working conditions, and if the execs fuck around like last year, it's strike time again. so watch this space, voice your support, and don't cross any picket lines.

i hope spindlehorse unionizes, but until then and for these reasons, i don't think you should give money to the company.

first of all, all content on amazon-owned platforms is ok to pirate, and all youtube ads are ok to block. everyone involved in making the episodes has (or should have) been paid upfront, so you're not taking the bread out of anyone's mouth.

next, let's look at the succulent offerings of the official vivziepop merch shop:

$10 pins and keychains

$15 sticker packs

$20 mugs and acrylic cutouts

$25 shirts

$30 metal cards (not even tarot)

$40 lounge pants

$50 mini backpacks

random $80 skateboard deck

forgive my latin americanness, but this is all stuff you can get made by a local metalsmith, print/sublimation shop, or just crafty people in your life. it's cheaper, customizable, and better for the environment to skip all the shipping and packaging. also, not painting your own skateboard is poser shit.

the hazbin website also has $15 pins, one $20 keychain, and $6 trading card packs. people are weird about trading cards, so if for some reason you wanna gamble for a mass-produced bit of cardboard, plastic, and tinfoil, at least bulk-order for all the vivziepoppers in your area so it's less of a huge waste. better yet, trace the designs and make infinite bootlegs.

at the end of the day, buying merch is not activism. your bulk order of trading cards will not save any wage slaves from getting evicted from their overpriced studio apartments. however, the shop links you to all the credited artists/designers, and more of your bucks will actually reach them if you buy their designs directly, then turn them into body pillows or life-sized bronze statues or whatever the fuck.

go through the credits of any episode of helluva or hazbin, and you'll find even more creatives you might wanna support. get jinkx monsoon's albums on CD. subscribe to actually good artist, animator, and composer gooseworx. lots of voice actors now have patreon, cameo, or self-hosted pages where you can write better lines for their characters and have them read it. these things may not look as shiny as Official Merch™, but we all need less plastic shit and more culture anyway.

#spindlehorse #vivziepop #hellaverse #hazbin hotel #helluva boss #spindlehorse critical #vivziepop critical #hazbin hotel critical #helluva boss critical #hazbin hotel rewrite #hazbin hotel redesign #helluva boss redesign #communism #degrowth

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intersectingparadigms · 1 year

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Forensic science - the "CSI stuff" is one of the least tested areas of the sciences there is, and deserves an overhaul. It does nothing but break peoples lives apart with false courtroom testimonies. The CSI effect means that people believe it is real when it's mostly bullshit.

Stop believing the courts every time an expert testifies. (Or at all. Most judges are cop-loving bootlickers who will gladly send you to your ruin if it speeds up their case log.)

Bite mark analysis is indisputibly fake and wrong, but courts still use it. The very first case was later proven to have had the results faked to fit, but any results after are also

Travel analysis (Where a person has been) from shoes is impossible to prove

Fingernail evidence is easy to fuck up, or confuse the courts with because many cosmetics and foods may distort findings

Hair analysis, hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, as it's interpretive. It uses a shitty test that can false positive hairspray or shampoo to frame people as alcoholic or drug-using (which should not be a crime). It also is used to this day. Look up Motherisk Lab for how garbage the science can be!!! None of the lab members were ever trained. This practice is same all over the world. The science is pretty bad

Fingerprints. Both not unique to each person, and the results easy to fudge. Super interpretive and hard to prove it was them or another with a similar print. Partials used as evidence too often imo

Roadside drug tests cops give? Eaaaasy to set off that mouthwash residue, aspirin, or even chewing gum can get you a positive.

DNA is also interpretive. Sure, you may be able to match it with someone, but what markers say about that person is nothing but a maybe. This is doubled or tripled as a maybe for animals - animal DNA testing is absolutely terribly regulated

Actual science welcomes challenge. Forensics often bars it, and stands by faulty labs and science that often was just imagined up as giving results by a random guy a century ago

#forensics #forensic science #i took forensics so i know #i left for a reason

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sunny-reis · 10 months

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OMG HI I LOVE THE WAY YOU WRITE AKITO!! may i request akito x reader cuddling after a long, rough day? if thats cool. oneshot if you do :) have a good one 🤞

oneshot - tired cuddles with akito

you're the coffee that i need in the morning; you're my sunshine in the rain when it's pouring

an: OUUYDHDHHDFH TYSM !! 🫶🫶 tbh i thought the other akito oneshot would end up being garbage bc i'm not as familiar with him or vivid bad squad (*'-'*) tbh i've been feeling touch starved lately so im gonna focus more on the affection here lolz (worry not it'll be a balance of fluff and mild angst)

tags: gender neutral reader, just a tidbit of angst (having a shitty day), intimacy

there's no way today could possibly get any worse.

at least, you hope so. sometimes you hit rock bottom and think it can only go uphill from there, but life comes back with a pickaxe, ready to dig until you're truly at your worst.

like today. you think you must've woken up on the wrong side, since absolutely nothing went right – you spilled cereal on your kamiyama high school uniform in a hurry, almost missed the bus, nearly fell asleep (and got yelled at for it) in math class, noticed your backpack was ripping just a second too late, and came home at the wrong moment, when the sprinklers were on, and ended walking inside completely soaked. needless to say, you’ve had a miserable day.

the thick piles and piles of homework to do don't help, either. as you lay in bed, mindlessly scrolling through pinterest, the deep pit in your stomach envelopes you in guilt. even though you've been trying to get up and start doing whatever you can get your hands on, maybe pre-calculus worksheets or an analysis of “the most dangerous game,” you find you simply can't, being too drained to do anything but lament in your head. mentally and physically, you barely have the strength to make it through the rest of the day.

hours go by, the bright afternoon sky becoming a beautiful purple-pink sunset around dusk, and you still haven't moved from your bed. your parents came in a handful of times to try and get you to let it out, but to no avail – you don’t foresee yourself getting up any time soon. it's only when your stomach rumbles that you sit up and pad downstairs to grab a snack from the kitchen.

pouring out a handful of cheerios into a bowl, you zone out, staring out the window overlooking the backyard. although you feel slightly better after a session of moping and lying in bed for hours on end, time goes by viscously; you find you’re still not out of the mental slump, and everything feels too overwhelming. the hair on your arms is too prickly, your sweatshirt too warm, and you have the sudden urge to claw at your skin. sighing, you trudge back upstairs and quietly shut the door, sitting down at your desk. after putting your phone on silent, you browse soap2day for a random movie to drown everything out with (and hopefully forget about the rest of the day).

after finish watching howl’s moving castle for the nth time, you sit up in your chair, stretching and yawning. although you still somehow feel like garbage, imagining yourself as a character sure felt relieving (and fed your escapism, but that’s a worry for another day). shutting your laptop down, you crawl into bed to try and sleep; the analog clock on your night stand reads 11:37. placing your phone on the table, you pull the covers over yourself in attempt to drift off.

unfortunately, your attempts were only fruitful for forty-five minutes at most. you awake to an abrupt thud on your window. brows furrowed, you shrug off the covers to see just what’s going on; opening the window, you’re met with the unexpected presence of an abashed akito crouched on the roof.

“akito? what the hell are you doing here, and at this hour?” you ask, eyes wide.

“can you let me in first? it’s cold and windy and i think i might fall.” facepalming, you help him crawl through the window, shivering at the suddend draft and closing it.

“so, care to answer my question?” you pick at him, flopping down on the bed and rubbing the sleep out of your eyes.

“i should be asking you that, honestly,” he shrugs, “i tried texting and calling you but i didn’t get anything back, so here i am.”

“oh…” you laugh sheepishly, “sorry about that, i had a shitty day and couldn’t stand having my phone go off.”

“aw, what happened?” akito asks, joining you in bed. you glance at the door, checking to see if it’s locked. although your parents are more than welcoming of akito, seeing him with you alone would be a bit of an unpleasant shock. leaning on his shoulder and pulling the blanket over the two of you, you recount your eventful day to him as he fiddles with a lock of your hair.

“and i didn’t even get to have lunch in between all that.” you add, whining. although you now find the events just a little funny, you still cringe in embarrassment when thinking about being yelled at by a teacher in public.

“i’m sorry all that happened,” says akito, pulling you closer to him, “but you know you can talk to me about it if you want to, right?”

“yeah,” you pout.

“well, are you feeling any better than before? if not, i know just what to do.”

“i think so? i watched howl’s moving castle and it made me feel a little better.”

“i think christian bale tends to have that effect on people.”

“for sure!” you not, “but yeah, i feel…icky, i guess.”

“maybe you should take a shower, sometimes that helps,” he offers, “but you should probably do that in the morning, you’ll get sick if you shower now.” you roll your eyes.

“really? that’s such a mom thing to say.”

“hey, don’t come to me if you shower and get a cold!”

“nah, i’m too tired to shower right now. since, y’know, i was in the middle of sleeping until someone woke me up.” akito laughs sheepishly.

“is it really my fault if you made me worried sick? i mean, i was just fulfilling my role as the caring boyfriend, don’t you think?”

“sure, whatever helps you sleep at night.” you laugh, laying down on his lap.

the two of you spend a while chatting in bed until god-knows-what time, when you’re rubbing the sleep out of your eyes. akito makes a show out of tucking you in, giving you a quick peck before climbing back out the window. you melt away into a dreamy sleep, feeling warm and fuzzy at the thought of akito’s warm embrace.

#akito shinonome #pjsk #project sekai #akito imagines #akito x reader #akito oneshots #pjsk x reader #pjsk imagines #pjsk oneshots #gn reader #gender-neutral reader

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isa-ghost · 1 month

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hi! I'm a crow that loves talking in depth about q!Phil, good traits, bad traits and everything in between. :D With your last qsmp post, you said Phil isn't "emotionally dense," and I was kinda wondering if you could give me more of your perspective on that? I've always thought that, due to him having been isolated from hardcore for a long time, not reading/understanding emotions all that well is a big weakness of his (I think some ways people word this criticism CAN be borderline if not straight up ableist, so uh, use careful wording, people!). Couple that with him often refusing to address his own emotions/trauma, that can sometimes extend to how he might not be able to read other people's emotions well, either. I figured that him lacking emotional intelligence was a fair critique of his character, but given your post, I'd love to see your thoughts on that piece of criticism. if that's okay, of course!

You're in my notes a lot, you're familiar to me fellow crow. >:3c

I dug around for 900 years to find this post but this explains what I was talking about a bit more.

And yeah the Hardcore isolation is definitely a factor in things, I love that interpretation :D

Basically what I meant is Phil has emotional intelligence, unlike what some shitty takes have said. Phil is extremely observant, of course he can clock emotions and whatnot. He just. Doesn't entirely know what to Do in those situations. He's said he's not great at emotional talk. But he very much has Awareness of it. A lot of it boils down to the fandom being garbage at character analysis, media literacy, and the fact that a lot of bad faith Phil takes that are untrue come from people who don't like him and don't care to understand his character and its complexities.

Also he has chronic It's Fine I Can Handle It Myself I Can't Be A Burden On Anyone At All Ever disease so he doesn't open up about his own issues and emotions bc he thinks he needs to shoulder it all himself. And pair that with his insistence on helping others before himself constantly and yeah. There ya go. Bird Man is a mess. /aff

Specifically when it comes to Chayanne and his parenting, that post I linked is a way better elaboration basically.

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c0rpseductor · 6 months

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twitter is a bad website don’t use it

keep seeing this tweet qrt’d of a clear reactionary like lamenting the fall of the west bc of a booktok display in a bookstore and a lot of the responses are people dunking on him with “it’s good that people are reading AT ALL, it doesn’t matter what they read or how they hear about the books! literally as long as people are reading it’s good!”

and like. i’m sorry but i just don’t agree with the idea that the act of reading is like, inherently valuable. i do not feel more intellectually stimulated than usual when i read scads of misogynist garbage fiction. i read tons of garbage fiction all the time and don’t consider reading garbage to have a lot of value. i enjoy picking it apart in the same way i would better material, i like to read garbage with a mind for intensive literary analysis, but it’s like. at the end of the day it’s garbage. how edifying is it to read and dissect garbage?

i get that quality is subjective. i get that not every book sets out to achieve the same thing. i get that there’s also value in light entertainment and that books like that aren’t inherently worth less. but at the same time i feel like it’s important to recognize that what people are reading is just as important as whether they are reading, and more important still is HOW. plenty of people consider the Act Of Reading more important than reading critically, and simply reading a lot doesn’t inherently grant critical engagement as a skill. if you read a crate of shitty books and just kind of passively accept whatever they say you haven’t really gained anything from it except maybe entertainment. and that’s okay! entertaining oneself is great! but it’s not like, INHERENTLY educational to just read the printed word, and in fact reading passively is like. worse, depending on what you’re reading. a lot of light “turn your brain off” just for fun books have kind of fucked theses, which is important to be able to identify!

idk I just need to be a hater about it bc I am sick of hearing like “it’s so good that people are reading more than before!” and then people are reading dogshit and don’t even fucking comprehend the point of what they were reading. and in my personal opinion pushing the idea that the physical act of reading is in and of itself important as opposed to engaging with ideas as the important part is a huge contributor to how we get asinine takes about literally every piece of media known to man

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emsylcatac · 2 years

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One thing I love with Evolution is how much it parallels Strike Back: Marinette had good intentions, lost the Miraculous, had a panic attack and reconciled with Chat Noir, whereas in Evolution Gabriel acts just as shitty as usual, which makes him lose a precious Miraculous, have a panic attack and (seemingly) loses Nathalie. One chose love, the other power. I love me some narrative foils, especially if that means Maribug and Adrichat can thrive while Garbage Agreste ends up alone 👀

Anon this is so funny because I was discussing the episode with friends two days ago and I said basically this haha! That Marinette lost the miraculous but got her partner "back" (not that he was gone but you get what I mean, they reconciled like you said), while Gabriel got the miraculous but lost his partner! Because he took her for granted and didn't show Nathalie he wanted her by his side, while Marinette showed Chat Noir she wanted him. So their reactions parallel but in the end, Marinette didn't loose what mattered the most while Gabriel did

The way Evolution showed her trusting Chat Noir and listening more to him and them being back as a team, really, contrasted the whole episode with how Gabriel ignored Nathalie and hung up on her and talked over her. And like you say I think what we're heading towards is Ladybug getting all the support that Gabriel looses, and he'll end up alone.

@amimons had some really good analysis about it all, I don't know if she'll share them in a post on Tumblr 👀

It was so satisfying to see this and Gabriel's reaction, that he was finally facing some consequences for his actions and realising it, I really loved seeing him panicking 😏😌 I think it's the first time we see him having this reaction of going into some sort of shock because he understands he truly messed up and really..satisfying is the word, I'm excited to see how this will drive him even more over the edge!

#ask #anon #ml spoilers #evolution #evolution spoilers

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sage-the-unwise · 2 years

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I wanna hear some thoughts on my pathetic baby loser failson (beloved) five pebbles

oh hell yeah i love hate love this guy and i have SO many thoughts

so, some fun hcs for starters (only one and a half of which pertain to him in canon, the others are just vague sketches of what his vibe is like):

he would like tame impala but only partially in a male manipulator way

if he were a smoker i think he'd vape and then switch to menthols (something tells me he'd be the kind of guy to start smoking because he thinks it looks cool)

hes transmasc coded. real he/they energy

his construction suffered pretty extreme budget cuts due to the political controversy surrounding his placement over the Anointed Citadel (there was a defund five pebbles campaign led by the spiritual leaders there lmao) and thus he is noticeably smaller than the other iterators

he'd be a pretty great poet, and would make a killing in clout off posting poetry to instagram if that existed in rain world lmao (if his iterator comrades appreciated it, he'd post poetry to one of their global message boards, but not many of them care for artistic pursuits. he'd get a temp ban for wasting space)

if you dug through enough pearls in garbage wastes you'd find the equivalent of amateur tumblr poetry from 2012, all written (and some partially scrambled) by pebs himself. before moon's collapse, NSH made it a project to get their hands on some of it so they could make fun of him by reading it aloud in vc. that never panned out

pebs and NSH would've collabed to produce shitty soundcloud rap, but they'd have a falling out over the duo's artistic direction and they'd split up. pebs would try to produce his own backing tracks, fail at it, and give up, and NSH would go on to make insane 120 bpm hyperpop you could mosh to and open for 100 gecs

and now for some sad character analysis:

i think pebs has like, very big feelings and not a great grip on how to handle them. he isn't maliciously selfish but he experiences his own pain as so all consuming that he forgets that his actions affect other people and simply follows his impulses without much thought. this obviously doesn't excuse his actions - he's harmed his friends in some very real, tangible and painful ways and they should hold him accountable for that (were i to write a 5p recovery arc he would definitely get taken to task by the others, who are also Messy. it would perhaps be a very dramatic fight, but i think if their heads were clear enough and moon had some means of communicating with them you could get a good approximation of what restorative justice might look like for a bunch of alien supercomputers).

it's also implied that he's like the baby of the group, or is at least younger, and therefore has had less time to get to know everyone else and establish himself as part of the local group's regular social dynamic, so i would imagine he has insecurities about that which might fuel his impulse to isolate when he feels Bad. which was, of course, disastrous on one particular occasion. i think he feels deep guilt over that and it's eating him (like the rot), but he has no idea how to express his remorse, or that the person he killed has been revived and can be talked to directly (if only via slugcat messenger). i've always read moon as someone who, in pursuit of being the group big sister/mom friend, learned to repress her feelings in order to preserve group cohesion at all costs. i think a conversation between the two of them would either be really explosively messy (timeline where moon learns to let herself feel things and be angry) or it would have the longest silences you've ever heard (timeline where moon does not learn to stop repressing her emotions). either way it would take a while for them to make peace with each other, but i think they could pull it off. neither of them want to spend the rest of eternity lonely and bitter.

#rain world #rainworld #rain world game #rw five pebbles #five pebbles #rw iterators #iterator #sorry that took me like 5000 years to answer i've been in trapped in a hole filled with various papers i have to write #and also im incredibly burnt out lmao #thanks for sending me an ask btw!! i've missed drafting silly hcs abt rain world :)#wisdom of the sage

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dykepuppet · 5 months

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i ought to write about this at length, but my awful high school never made us read any classical novels with any mind for analysis. I remember reading excerpts of a Merchant of Venice at 14, a modern translation of Hamlet at 17, Of Mice and Men at 16... Catcher in the Rye at 13 and the Outsiders at maybe 12? The other books we read were, in no particular order, the boy in the striped pajamas, the notoriously fabricated Go Ask Alice, Divergent, the Maze Runner, the Hunger Games, the Breadwinner (which they were teaching to a grade 8 class after I had already read it for school in SIXTH GRADE)... In each and every case, these books, especially the classics, were not given any historical context, to the point where I don't think that the English teachers were very sure what exactly was so special about something as simple as the Outsiders or Catcher in the Rye, leaving us high and dry, unable to make connections and just eating up YA slop.

All this to say, I honestly think that people who grew up being forced to read classical literature to not know how good they've had it, how much I wish I had grown up in an environment where someone had the nerve to ask "why are the curtains blue?" And yes, absolutely I could have picked up Brave New World or 1984 when I was 16 and enjoyed it, but I think discussing literature in guided groups is a net positive for someone's development, definitely more than.... writing chapter summaries of what Beatrice or Katniss did in whatever book on a Q-card. I remember my grade 11 teacher would come in and put on the divergent movie for 2 weeks straight. Obviously there is an onus on me to have done more for myself, and im making up for it in spades now, but it doesn't change the fact that I find myself jealous of the learning environments other people had access to, even if it was garbage. Fuck the callouts, I would have had winston smith kin drama if I read that book in high school.

It makes me feel extremely juvenile to love books like BNW and 1984 so much because kids are essentially already "over it" but so many times it feels like having these books prescribed to you as a young person is maybe not a privilege but such a stark difference from the complete ignorance i grew up in. No one encouraged you to read classic literature. no one encouraged you to read, period. i am envious of people who were permitted an environment with which they had some freedom to exercise their critical thinking skills in some capacity.

Has no one else ever gone to a shitty high school where they don't care about literature or history or like anything that makes life worth living? It's so dry and isolating and awful.

There's also the idea that maybe i wouldn't have understood the basics of these books to begin with if i had read them in high school bc i had no context and I was pretty stupid, or at least not confident in my takes. so i guess in that respect i should be glad i had the opportunity to read these books now that im older. But i remain, i'm jealous of the formative experiences lost. I'll just be on Aldous's dick as a 30 yr old.

#perso

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aedificloudio · 11 months

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JUST REALISED IM LIKE 66% OF THE MAFUAKI TAG????? AND NO ONES POSTED CRAZY INSANE BRAINROT HERE??? IM ALONE??? WHAT THE FUCK MAN

ok whatever i’ll i i here’s more insanity under the cut

this is genuinely just brainrot, headcanons, and random character analysis abt mafuaki and their dynamic

mafuyu is aromantic in my brain 🫶 so her dating him is genuinely just her fucking around bc shes bored and wants to feel something

also mafuyu is good at everything too so its double hitting the complex

hes never gonna be good enough

LIKE mafuyu's whole thing is being the perfect daughter who is good at everything despite not giving a shit about any of it, so she finds it really funny that akito has self esteem issues and is constantly comparing his abilities to other people

shes probably like

wow. this is smth i really dont experience

and ig she also compares it to ena's behaviour and shes defs like "oh yeah they sure as fuck are related'

coz the shinonomes are teeming with jealousy and inferiority because they can never live up to the standard they want

ena has complicated feelings about art because all her life she's being told she'll never make it

and akito knows hes nowhere near as good as the rest of vbs and he tries to hide it behind a tough guy persona

its so gap moe...

MAFUYU drags him to her room one day and keeps him in a fucking garbage bag/bodybag duct taped and cuffed and hes like freaking out bc even tho he did consent to this (he wanted to see her room) the fact she WENT THROUGH w this at all w/o a hint of remorse is downright terrifying

also when he looks around her room and how barren it is hes like 😟

"ohhh im so fucked why am i here"

he also accidentally finds out mafuyu composes music and its better than anything hes ever written to the point he fucking cries LOL

i would assume like

their rls is super casual coz theyre both busy

but they make time to see each other because a) akito gets to flex he has a girlfriend b) mafuyu finds him decently entertaining to which she's surprised about c) its a win-win

AND IDK its just super entertaining to me

thinking abt a shitty crack beach episode 25ji and vbs crossover.....

mafuyu in a swimsuit 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

mizuki in a sun dress or some shit and refusing to go in the water

kanade fucking dies.png

ena is there for her socmed

kohane and an in couple drip and they fucking slay

toya is barely allowed to go and hes in some expensive swimsuit and kinda pathetic. like. hes all "wow this is my first time!"

akito thinks ena is so embarassing rn but Holy Shit Mafuyu Has D Cups

hes so repressed abt being gay he tricks himself into liking boobs. or maybe hes bi idk

teenage boy crisis of "NO i cant like men i love boobs ☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️"

(guy who dreams about making out with toya)

also i just think its funny that toya is completely oblivious in this au until either halfway or the end bc hes fr just

"yayy i have friends!!"

😭😭😭

akito is scared shitless of mafuyu tho bc he's begun to notice her smiles don't reach her eyes

and any friend of ena's has hella issues

i don't think mafuyu ever really opens up to him about her mental issues but akito isnt completely dumb, he can kinda sense that theres smth wrong w her, especially like. the fact she has an empty aquarium in her room is fucking FREAKY

also the way he has to be snuck in there is just 💀 ermm rip girlie

mafuyu's parents knock on her door and she throws him out the window

i’m so normal abt them

#mafuaki #project sekai #mafuyu asahina #akito shinonome

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quaddmgd · 9 months

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Happy Birthday, Crystal

So today (August 25th) marks one year since I started playing Cyberpunk 2077 and created Crystal. A year is a really long time for me to still play the same singleplayer game with no subsequent playthroughs. Things like that don't happen often, and Crystal means a world to me, so why not ramble for a bit about my memories, feelings towards the game and other stuff. Keep in mind, it's nothing more than a journal entry. Unless you know me a bit better than a typical mutual, you won't find anything of value here.

[VERY LONG POST AHEAD]

Long time ago...

I was really hyped about the game before its release in December 2020, my s/o even more than me. There were some signs that it's going to turn out disappointing, but we were keeping our hopes up. Alas, came the release date, the game hit headlines due to it's poor technical state and some broken promises. We were very upset, especially since all we had to play it on was Xbox One and low-spec by today's standards PCs. First updates showed that CDPR has much more to fix than we expected, so our hype has slowly died down.

Since then, I played through Cruelty Squad, Red Dead Redemption 2, multiple Yakuza, Devil May Cry and Resident Evil games, and I couldn't care less about the game at the start of 2022.

Why I got the game?

I only purchased Cyberpunk 2077 in May-June 2022, along with Kao The Kangaroo (2022) which, to be honest, was the main attraction for me. Both games were physical Xbox releases and I only was hyped to play Cyberpunk thanks my to lil bro, who has finished the game twice, and showed me this trailer with a beautiful cover of Never Fade Away - a song very in-line with my music taste.

Speaking as a seasoned video editor, the trailer was masterfully realized, with multiple great cuts showing off the diverse cast and some of the action. Editing, music and the scenes they chose made the entire trailer feel more like a tribute video - obviously this was made with love.

Now, I played The Witcher 3, and I knew that this game will require time and dedication from me - something I couldn't afford at the time. And despite hearing about the next gen patch (update 1.5) bringing the game to a state it should've been released in, I remained skeptical about it being good. No offense, but people (especially on Twitter) tend to overreact and talk about stuff they know nothing about. Even with recent title releases, folks just assume the latest patch made them better and fixed important issues. But then you sit with the game and a proper frame rate analysis is enough to prove such reports to be false.

My life in corpo

Before we get to August 2022, I want to provide some more context regarding the state I was in. I was working a piss-poor corpo job, which was gradually eating away my soul for longer than I'd like to admit. It wasn't fulfilling and it was (and probably still is) full of ungrateful pricks, that were coming up with issues to justify their payrolls, only to send QA on us to not detect any issues mentioned. To keep it brief, it was a very hostile work environment, that was treating people like garbage. But hey, at least they were smiling, right?

Come summer 2022, I was feeling like a shell of a human being, and I'm happy that fate decided that it's time for me get out and take care of myself. I'm not sure where would I be right now if I didn't.

So, my time at the job was coming to an end and I couldn't give less of a fuck about looking for another one. I needed some well-deserved vacation. I was supposed to work until August 31st and during these last few days I was trying to take it really easy.

Still the work was going as usual, so despite of having only few days left, my mental and physical state was as shitty as before. After each remaining day I was a walking corpse, drinking coffee at 10pm to squeeze these additional two hours from a day and try to enjoy some of my hobbies before going to sleep and repeating the cycle.

Starting the playthrough

My job is the reason why my memory is hazy on how I decided that it's time to start Cyberpunk 2077, but it's possible that it was my s/o that encouraged me to do it. She surely wanted to see the character creator with her own eyes, and was always interested in me creating OCs - something I wasn't doing often back then.

So, on August 25th 2022, I started playing Cyberpunk 2077, knowing nothing about the lore, with a sole intention of creating my character and seeing what happens. It was already late and my entire evening was sponsored by coffee, but whatever.

Crystal/Valerie/V

I'm not really sure how long it took me to create Crystal, but I spent an ungodly amount of time on perfecting her looks. I wanted her to look badass and beautiful, maybe end up being a cooler version of me. While I don't think I based her off my looks, my partner noticed that we have similar jawlines and hairstyles (well, I'm a natural blonde, which later I consciously reflected on her while creating her flashback version).

Needless to say, I instantly fell in love with her. And I know I wouldn't create a female character I wouldn't wanna date :>, but I really mean it. She was, and still is, simply perfect.

Her name was Crystal since the moment I was adding finishing touches (like makeup and tattoos), but I wasn't planning on giving her a standalone story. She was supposed to be V, with her name later revealed to be Valerie - a name I really like the sound of, and it fits her nicely. Still, in my mind her name was Crystal - and I have no idea why... she just looks like Crystal.

So here I was with my nomad V, ready to play through the prologue and possibly the rest of the game.

Playing through the game

My first evening of playing ended on me visiting Wakako (I don't even remember the reason you are supposed to go there tbh but if you played, you know these are still introductory quests) and photographing the hell out of C. My lesbian ass couldn't even be bothered to change FOV (and back then I couldn't really see the issue with default FOV screenshots - it took me months to adjust my eyes tbh) but she looked so badass. The photo mode, for industry standards, isn't that bad too, so I was really hyped to play the game, meet more people and shoot pics. While I already loved her friendship with Jackie and the way CDPR handled introduction to some of the cast, I wasn't sold on the story yet.

some of pics made on the first night :>

Then on the next day I went through The Heist and Love Like Fire, and learned that my actions as Johnny led to 2023 Night City Holocaust. Everyone who played through these quests know how full of events and emotions they are. It was 3/4am on Friday (technically Saturday) night, mind you, and I still was living mostly off coffee. That's a lot to take in for a tired mind and in some way it might have helped me immerse in Crystal's position even more. After waking up as her, with Jackie dead, and a parasite in my head that actively wants me to join him, I was just as clueless as to what the fuck happened. All I knew was that she/we need to survive. I can't let her/us die.

Let me tell you, waking up in her apartment, to the original version of Never Fade Away on the radio, was one of the most powerful moments in the game. To me, it has become a theme song for the rest of the playthrough. Leaving the apartment after getting some irl sleep was just as powerful.

the first time C left her apartment after Jackie's death and Johnny's flashback

The playthrough was going alright and I was hooked. I don't think there are many things worth talking about here. One thing worth mentioning is that I was starting to feel a strong connection with Crystal - something I've never felt to such an extent in any game. Maybe it's my background in corpo, which was only coming to an end. Or maybe I subconsciously designed her to help me with some of identity issues I had back then. I will never know for sure, but either way, she has helped me. She was exactly who I wanted her to be, who she wanted herself to be and was constantly brave and punk about it. I was feeling a growing mix of immersion and adoration as I progressed through the game.

And progress through the game I did! I finished plenty of gigs/ncpd jobs and all available side quests before starting the last mission chain (or so I thought - in the end I totally missed the vending machine one and the entirety of Kerry's questline lmao). During this time I was put out of misery of working my job, each day feeling more alive than the last, playing more and more hours of Cyberpunk 2077, shooting many pictures, enjoying my time in Night City and being Crystal.

yeah it might be using default fov but it's still one of my favorite shots

Last Tapeworm, Chipping In and dying

To me, Cyberpunk 2077 was at its best when it was focusing on the relationship between V and Johnny. Last part of Tapeworm was a very powerful moment. There's no way I'll ever forget the conversation she had with Johnny in that apartment. Going from a foe that actively eating your life away, to possibly the only person that's ready to sacrifice their life to save yours, Johnny and his redemption arc are some of the biggest highlights of the game.

The conversation was of course followed by a side quest sequence started with Chipping In, with another memorable scene at Johnny's grave. Seeing how far we've come together, how many people we met, how often we were agreeing with each other - it was like talking to a friend who was right by your side for every important event in your life. And to think that only few days ago I was watching him trying to smash her head against the window...

side quests really were the best part of the story

It's hard to say which moment was more impactful, but for me it all clicked just after the Tapeworm cutscene. If I remember it right, I spent a few minutes more in this apartment block, staring away at the sunset, listening to waves breaking Pacifica's silence. Not even sure if I'll manage to save Crystal, I wasn't ready to finish it anytime soon. I still had a lot to do and it took me an additional day to finish everything and start Nocturne OP55N1, but I was looking at the game differently than before.

It might sound dramatic, but I mean it. For the remaining duration of the game, each time I didn't hear any music, it was just silence of a big city dying from heatstroke and sandstorms, echoing conversations with people I met during my journey, and uncertainty, if I'll even make it out alive in the end. Unfortunately, I can't convey it any better, but it has to do with the atmosphere of this city and CDPR's natural talent for creating gray characters, which Cyberpunk 2077 is full of, and last but not least, my connection to Crystal.

Nocturne OP55N1

So the time has come for me to start the last mission sequence and I knew that it might go bad. The moment I was warned that it's a point of no return, I backed out and went for a walk around the city. Don't know if it was scripted, but the weather was overcast and NC was covered in fog. In my experience it's such a rare occurrence, that either I was "lucky" or it was planned. I visited Judy (VCrystal's sweetheart) for the last time, disappointed by the lack of new dialogues to start, and went back to Megabuilding H10 to see a cute heart made out of consumables by her. I went to sleep in my own bed, probably for the last time.

During my last journey to Embers, Major Crimes by Health started playing on the radio, and I got emotional. Not often games make me cry, but I really didn't want Crystal to die, or my journey to end. It really felt like I was saying goodbye to everyone and not going back.

just look at the weather - shot outside of Embers, before starting Nocturne Op55N1

In the end I managed to go through the Embers section just fine, but very stressed. Then, after suffering through heartbreaking moments at Viktor's Clinic, I got to the rooftop.

Now, I'm not really sure how much time I spent there. Seems like an eternity, looking back on it. No choice felt right (and in the end, none was perfect), but I had to choose something. Unable to decide, I did something I really hate doing - I looked up endings to see which one will let me live happily with Judy... or survive at the very least.

While I didn't know it yet, I chose the happiest ending of the bunch. All I knew is that Crystal will be able to leave Night City with Judy - I didn't know that it'll be impossible to remove the chip in Mikoshi and that there's hope of achieving it in Arizona. Yes, I chose The Star ending.

I still was on the edge of my sit and really scared for C, but deep down, I knew that I probably won't get another chance to mess it up.

The ending was bittersweet and I got an instant hangover. I needed some time to come to terms with it, and make peace with me not getting the happy ending. In the end I managed to create a brief scenario where that guy Panam knows somehow manages to remove the chip, and Crystal and Judy got to live happily ever after.

I beat the game on September 4th.

Feelings Feelings Feelings

See, there's a reason I'm talking about the ending and my feelings about it in such detail. I really fell in love with Crystal. After all, it's the first time I got so immersed into a character and I can't put my finger on why exactly.

Maybe it's because it's the prettiest character I have ever created, maybe I just saw parallels in our stories or feelings, maybe I subconsciously made up all the connections in my head. Meh, it's probably a bit of everything, on top of a really good story, even if most of it is hidden in side content.

The thing is, I was in the right place, at the right time and, like I said, it all just clicked.

Back then, I was tired, angry, feeling exploited and robbed of soul. She was there to help me stop thinking about it, get revenge in a way, even if on a fictional corporation, however dumb it might sound. And the more I was thinking about her, dressing her up in cool clothing (bra + edgerunner combo ftw), the more I strived to be like her. I learned to love myself a bit more, I started dressing up for myself again, putting some makeup on just to stare at the mirror and enjoy the end result, maybe even shoot some selfies. It's almost like, on top of everything I already said, I was trying to express myself through her, which has in return influenced me. I hope that makes sense.

Crystal Hartley

Now, it took me some time to create her own story and separate her from V. And I wouldn't probably do it if it wasn't for my s/o. She was already working on her OCs story, and after many tries she finally talked me into writing my girl. The last modification date of the document with the initial version of the story is February 25th - exactly 6 months after starting the game. Since then, I made some changes and the end result can be seen here. It helped me further resonate with her and she didn't have a deadly chip inside anymore, at the cost of her not getting to know Johnny. She remained a warrior, a true badass who's not scared of anything.

Honestly she was and still is inspiring me. Being it her as V or real Crystal I wrote a few months back, she suffered hardships, she had her all-time low moment not that long ago, but she recovered and she always stands brave against all odds - knowing that in the end everything will turn out just fine.

For now, C has got some closure. She's living in Night City, she has a loving and beautiful girlfriend she's thinking about all the time, they're still doing gigs and getting in trouble together <3 While she still recovers from what happened in her nomad family, she has Elegy, Misty, Claire and Saul to help her deal with it. She's in a good place right now.

Other girls

Some time ago I made EV, a girl that was originally a Cyberpunk version of my Evie from Red Dead Online, albeit I made her personality a polar opposite to Evie's. I don't have a lot about her, really - she's beautiful, photogenic, conveys vibes the best out of all of my OCs. She's probably going to end up as my canon V. She and Johnny are a match made in heaven... or hell. Actually if I put them together in the same body Night City might end up in flames.

Then there's Thalia. A girl I initially only mentioned as a friendly gang member in Crystal's mega lore post. She wasn't hanging around with Crystal's group of friends, but they got really close after getting to know each other during a party. Officially, she sacrificed herself to save Crystal and the rest when they got overrun by enemies. She did survive, with help of [REDACTED] and is looking for Crystal in Night City to reunite with her and [REDACTED]. Hopefully they meet soon! It'll probably bring some unpleasant memories back, but in the end Crystal will reunite with Thalia and, with Elegy, they'll make a dream team.

Some stats!

Why not wrap it up with some interesting data!

Since I started Cyberpunk 2077:

I got all the achievements and I intend on doing the same for Phantom Liberty

according to Xbox I played the game for 268 hours* **

I made 3405 captures, taking up a whopping 36 GB of space*

421 of these captures were made during my initial playthrough

* - at the time of writing ** - including time I was afk

Conclusion

So... I just wanted to post some thoughts about Cyberpunk 2077 and, especially, Crystal. Going from a game I wasn't even that stoked to play, to an ongoing hyperfixation, that has helped me through tough times and still influences me to this very day! I even made some internet friends!

When I was working on a standalone story for Crystal, I decided that her birthday is the day I first played the game - 25th August... today.

Happy birthday, Crystal <3

#oc: crystal hartley #text.qd

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thebreadmundfitzgerald · 8 months

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I love how I've been in college for like three and a bit years now and have just discovered within the past week that the secret to Actually Doing Work and Not Feeling Shitty About It was just succumbing to high school Dr. Who brainrot. And I'm not talking about the new shit, I'm talking about 1960s shoot it in one take/fuck up half the lines/air it anyways/burn the film for fun Dr. Who. Cuz that shit is so goddamn boring. But like in a way that I still love, that's still super charming and stupid and makes me all happy and excited the whole time, but like nothing's actually happening and so I still have so much Thinking Room leftover. And these stories are fucking hours long, so I can just sit there using the black-and-white brainrot factory to burn through a key analysis of 1800s Tone Poems or, heaven forbid, an actual creative project and not feel like spent garbage afterwards. It's great.

#dr who #brainrot productivity hours #college may be stupid but luckily i am stupider

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lesbiansanemi · 2 years

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I've never watched devilman crybaby but I would def read an essay about why it's a garbage fire lmao

OMG YES more people to convert to my "hating devilman crybaby, stop claiming it's high fucking art" agenda. I actually already typed out the entire thing and sent it to a mutual, but!! Here it is lmao

OKAY SO before we begin, I want to preface this by saying I've watched the whole devilman crybaby series all the way through twice, and the first half of it... three times, I believe? Also watched multiple "analysis" videos on it because my friend and I genuinely thought we were missing something, given the praise everyone else on the internet seem to give it (we were not, none of the analysis made sense and was all reaching lol). Also did some research on the original writer's intents and messages, to see if it lined up with the ways people were interpreting it (unsurprisingly, it did not haha).

I would also like to say that I am coming at this from the angle of an ace lesbian, so absolutely none of the male gaze driven horniness was appealing to me and thus could not distract me from how bad it actually was. I also was raised by a family of preachers and given Christian-based curriculum until I was thirteen and also then taught the Bible to other people, so I'm also very knowledgable about Biblical canon, and from that angle, can rip apart any of the Biblical "symbolism." I'm also a semester away from a Bachelors in professional writing, so the writing itself is also dicey. Basically I think I am qualified to abso-fucking-lutely just rip into this series at every angle, I like to cover my bases lmao. (I also genuinely really wanted to like the series just based on basic premise, because I adore things with Christian-religious angles, especially when they're deconstructions and supposedly "super gay" so it's not even that I went into it expecting/wanting to hate it)

First and foremost, the supposed romance between Akira and Ryo, which is generally what people like to point to for "how gay" the series, and how this segways into one of my main reasons for absolutely fucking hating the series. For one, the romance is not explicit. It does that typical anime thing where it's teased that they could have "deeper feelings than normal" but no part of it, in series is actually confirmed. However, it is more heavily implied on Ryo's side, which I know you said you've only seen the first episode, it's revealed that Ryo is literally Satan (which I will get more into that). The only other "confirmed" queer characters (two random side characters who get a graphic gay sex scene together and then become demons, and a lesbian who is brutally killed as soon as she (sort of) confesses to a straight girl), are also demons.

This is extremely shitty because in series it is canon that becoming a demon means you're more "entranced" in sin than the people who aren't. And the only gay characters are demons (the girl the lesbian confessed to who was straight was still human). Satan himself is queer. Which... sure, in certain circumstances I would absolutely love and think would be really cool, but given the context, it feels super gross to only have the gay characters become demons. It also implies that having casual sex or doing drugs is also "immoral" because only characters who become demons do those things. As seen in the first episode when literally everyone in that club becomes a demon.

Overall, there are a ton of super conservative subtle messages that people either ignore or just don't pick up on. It's not some pinnacle of "gay art" or a "tragic gay romance" it's just... vaguely uncomfortable and subtlety insinuates that queer romance is "other" or "sinful."

ON TOP OF ALL OF THIS, the series absolutely brutalizes all the female characters. For one, there are only three of significance in the entire series. Miki, the lead, underage girl who is constantly sexualized, and shown completely nude, and who has a weird psuedo-incestuous romance with the MC, Akira. The lesbian girl I mentioned above that I can't even remember the name of, if that tells you how relevant she actually was, and one female villain who had a graphic sex scene with Akira because she was in love with the demon who was possessing him and then immediately got killed.

So obviously, there is the general sexualization of all these female characters, but a lot of it was... nonconsensual? I won't go into much detail because all of it was so gross but both Miki and the lesbian character were taken advantage of graphically and violently.

The female characters' deaths were also a lot more graphic and violent than the male characters'? Everyone in the series dies except Ryo. The end of the series is God destroying the Earth and killing literally everyone (something I also have a lot of thoughts about). But for example, Akira, the main character, is killed after a really badly animated space battle between him and Ryo by being ripped in half. It is not shown, we just see part of his body afterwards. It's supposed to be very impactful (it is not, and very lackluster). Miki is literally ripped into pieces, impaled on sticks, and paraded around to taunt Akira. She's fridged in one of the most violent and brutal ways I have ever seen.

Basically, not only does the series insinuate that being queer in sinful, it also hates women. But hey! That's the closest to Biblically accurate it ever gets lmao

Now, absolutely disgusting handling of women and queer characters aside, the writing itself is... so terrible, and one of the things that ruined it was the weird horniness? Like for example there was the one scene that was supposed to be very intense and emotional, where Akira and Ryo are fighting (verbally), but the shot is for some reason focused on Miki's bare boobs (as she is unconscious and completely nude in Akira's arms during this entire scene?). This kind of thing happens over and over, and ruins so many supposedly emotional and impactful scenes.

But.... weird sexualization that ruins tone aside... the actual plot itself. I do not have much to say about it, because it is difficult to discern... what the actual plot is supposed to be. The series is rather unclear on that. But for the first 6-7 of the 10 episodes, it seems that it might be that Ryo is trying to figure out why people are turning into demons with Akira's help. The entire "investigation" is very haphazard, none of the information they find is coherent or makes sense, and then... Ryo decides to reveal the existence of demons to the entire world, and vast swaths of the population become demons. The last couple of episodes are basically a post-apocalyptic setting where so many people are becoming demons that the world is literally falling apart. Two of the ten episodes are about this. It is so rushed, and confusing, and makes no sense. The first time we watched it, my friend and I literally thought we missed an episode.

And then.... in the last episode... Ryo reveals he is Satan. There is no buildup. There is no reason for it. The episode starts and he's just like "haha! I am Satan!" (Also I feel it's important you know he is completely nude during this entire episode you do see his dick)

Kind of interesting that he's Satan? Except there was no foreshadowing, and it really just came way out of left field. Akira kills of a bunch of demons, and then begins fighting Ryo in outer space. This is when God destroys the entire Earth because... reasons. The existence of God had never even been discussed until this point, suddenly there's just meteors falling and boom, Earth is being destroyed, while Ryo and Akira are still fighting in.... outer space?

Like I mentioned above, Ryo ends up killing Akira, and there's this scene of them laying on an asteriod and Ryo is talking to Akira's corpse and then says "Why am I the only one still talking?" and it's supposed to be like... really sad (visually it was hysterical, I was laughing so fucking hard), and the whole point is that he supposedly "fell in love" with Akira and was doomed to kill him as a form of torture from God? Again, somewhat interesting, if any of this had actually been explored, or foreshadowed, or anything before like the final ten minutes of the entire series. Essentially it's a massive time loop designed to torture Satan. The Earth begins, Satan becomes a concept, human history unfolds, Satan is born as a human (??? for reasons that aren't clearly explained, or if they were I do not remember), "falls in love" while God destroys the Earth, rinse and repeat. Which like... dear god.

Like I adore a good time loop (Madoka Magica got the time loop of gay yearning so right, Devilman Crybaby is like the opposite end of the spectrum), but this one was so haphazard and awfully put together that it felt cheap and almost like a deus ex machina. I'm convinced the time loop idea was conceived super last minute because the writers genuinely did not know how to fix everything they'd fucked up at that point, and knew if God just blew up the world at the end with no other "explanation" people would be pissed

Ultimately and finally, the original writer of the series DMCB was based on wrote it to have an anti-war message, nothing to do with Satan "finding love" or anything like that. Any of these supposed "messages" people are reaching to find in it aren't... completely connected to the text, and not what the writer actually intended. And while it's true people can interpret art however they please, it just feels... like such a bad interpretation, all things considered, in this scenario

Essentially, horrible, awful series, unbearably horny (like bad bad horny, certain types of horny are very good, this was the worst horny imaginable), ugly animation, terrible treatment of characters, shitty plot. But if you like... disconnect your brain enough while trying to watch it it becomes hysterical because of how bad it is (bonus points if you watch it dubbed because the voice acting is so bad lmao). My friend and I have a rewatch every now and then and lose our minds because of how bad it is, it's actually fun haha

Anyways, this is my Devilman Crybaby rant/essay, I do hope it was mildly enjoyable for you alkdjfdkla

Like ultimately it could have been a good series? But it just... literally wasn't. It was so bad at like every angle, and I just think people who watch the series and come away from it thinking "wow that was such a good tragic queer love story" need to uh.... reexamine. I feel like some disconnect happened

#asks #kaz rambles #long post

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retphienix · 1 year

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I ain't goin' full "Game Analysis" mode on the game because it's zelda, 9 thousand people are going to do that, argue, and come to one of three general conclusions being either "It's pretty good" or "A masterpiece" or "Overrated."

I don't care.

I just wanted to say I found the durability in Botw tedious. Not a damning part of the game, not something I groaned about while playing, but I did find it mildly constricting in ways I didn't find to improve my experience as much as it seems to have wanted to by pushing me to cycle my inventory etc.

I find the durability in Totk LEAGUES better, like WHOA am I not only unbothered but I'm HAVING MORE FUN because of what the durability ADDS to this game vs the luke warm inclusion in Botw.

And I just wanted to say I think it's 2 things that made a "Meh" feature become a genuinely enjoyed one for me.

Fuse and the plethora of "extra durability" weapons you find.

You find so many more durable "sturdy" weapons in this game so my inventory never feels like it's about to break down at a moments notice, instead it feels like carrying a few "Really sturdy" weapons and then some glass cannon weapons and that makes me think about what I use where more often. Since sturdy weapons are EVERYWHERE since enemies use them all the time I always seem to have a few on hand, my cycling inventory feels way more stable thanks to that :)

And FUSE SAVES IT lol because the worst thing that could happen to you in Botw was finding that you just have zero good weapons- nothing of worth- all garbage. Fuse means you pretty much CAN'T get in that scenario without actively trying to.

Down to a shitty club? Fuse a random monster part or rock to it and BAM it's actually a viable and good weapon all of a sudden.

EVERY weapon becomes good thanks to Fuse so you can't end up in a scenario where you're toothpick arsenal is both too weak to hurt things AND falling apart- both got remedied all while keeping the cycling inventory aspect, I love it :)

#RetPlays #The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom #totk

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whothef0ckisalice-hons · 1 year

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Discard Anthropology (GARBAGE) with Dr. Robin Nagle

Trash/Garbage Looking at the discarded item and how we view things that are damaged as broken and there for its concidered trash while also looking at garbage itself and looking at the sustainability of art where does that end up at the end of the day (Specifically for students that use “sustainability" as a key attribute to there work but there work just ends up in the skip there goes the sustainability aspect) While I feel like my work could be described as sustainable in some aspects both this year and during my bfa most of it ended up in the skip so I never used sustainable to describe my practice as at the end of the day its not

I just found this particularly interesting to look at in the grand scheme of things which is why Im adding it to my blog

Aside: So, to say something is discarded, implies that it’s useless to the person discarding it, but not inherently valueless. Garbage can mean food waste or useless stuff. But does even waste have an inherent value? We shall discuss.

Robin: its the same with the word garbage What exactly do we mean by that word? Because it’s a multifaceted category of material and depending on how it’s defined, that dictates, I’ll say, what happens next, and where it goes, and what workforce is responsible for it, and what harms does it cause or do we prevent it from causing, all by the definition.

It also allows for thinking about forms of land, categories of people, ways of using time. Do we waste time, do we save time, are we discarding time? It’s just far more... it’s a far broader and thus, perhaps more exciting way to think about both the problem, the analysis, and then some of the potential solutions.

Alie: And there are so many triangles with the number in the middle. Robin: Those don’t mean anything. Alie: What?!

Robin: So, the chasing arrow symbol was... A college student won an award when there was a design competition in the ‘70s to come up with some way of indicating recycling matters. But then it got co-opted and most people believe, if the chasing arrow symbol is on the bottom of a plastic container, it’s recyclable. Nah-uh.

Alie: And so, when you see, you know, three different trash cans, one says “Recyclables,” one says, “Composting,” and one says, “Landfill,” which is a good way to make you think, “Am I going to be lazy and put it all in the landfill thing?" You're like, "No that makes me a shitty person! I'm going to sit here and figure out which of these napkins is compostable." Do those things really make it to those destinations?

Aside: My internal monologue here was like, “Whaaat?” And yes, I looked it up. Keep America Beautiful is a nonprofit, it was founded in 1953 by... the beverage and packaging industry, and Philip Morris, and other tobacco giants. So, by campaigning to have volunteers picking up cigarette butts on their weekends, they could sway legislation away from smoking bans on beaches and in parks. So, Pepsi, Coke, Nestle, McDonald’s, Dow Chemical, and other places with deep pockets and high stakes, fund Keep America Beautiful to make sure that the focus stays on litter, and recycling, and your personal responsibility, instead of the responsibility of the manufacturers and the distributors of plastics in the first place.

“People start pollution, people can stop it,” does that include companies? The PSA seems to skirt over the American notion of corporate personhood. But if you don’t own a multi- billion-dollar company that sells sugar water in plastic bottles, how much responsibility can a person bear? We can make a difference though, right?

Alie: What about you, on the collection route, did you ever see an antique hutch that you were like, “Well holy shit, I’m going to come back here with a truck later and get that myself.”

Robin: Yeah. So, that’s a category of garbage called mongo. And mongo is either the thing itself, or the act of deciding to retrieve that thing.

So, that’s like mongo madness, mongo majesty, mongo beauty. And the stuff that people threw out... Baptismal certificates, and wedding photos, and really beautifully framed diplomas from, like, Columbia Law and Harvard, things you think, “Woah, these are for life.” Aside: If you want to feel sad, and scared, and oddly invigorated, look up Swedish Death Cleaning, which is like Marie Kondo-ing your life, but while asking the question “Do I want my bereaved loved ones sobbing into this casserole dish I never used, unsure if they should give it to Goodwill?” So, clean out your stuff so that other people don’t have to make decisions for you after you die. It’s pretty simple and the stakes seem very high, which is what I need to get motivated to clean out a cabinet.

On that note, a dear friend of mine recently went to an estate sale in LA and left with a box of items that they were going to throw in the trash. They were like, “Go ahead and take it.” Seemed like it had some cool stuff in it. Turns out, the house belonged to a local archaeology professor and inside the box were some colorful pottery shards. She asked me if I could find out anything about these pottery shards. And via social media, y’all connected me to an expert in this type of ceramics and the box that my friend acquired from the late professor contained irreplaceable artifacts from a 1986 Central American archaeological dig.

And as my friend looked deeper in the box, she texted me in horror, that there was a Ziploc of human bones from a burial ground in Guatemala. So, this friend tried to save some pottery from a landfill, and now we’re literally working with the State Department and the Consulate to repatriate human remains to Central America that should have never been in a box in a closet.

So, spring cleaning, once a year, let’s go through all of our shit as if we were about to die. Return your desecrated human remains back to their country of origin before a stranger accidentally buys them at your estate sale. Sell some sweaters on eBay, put a lamp on Mercari, Marketplace, Craigslist, I don’t care. Use the Buy Nothing groups on Facebook in your area. Do not accidentally horde archaeological artifacts... ever.

#Spotify

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