#the amount of people on reddit i saw who were so disappointed in them not looking like the characters | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mybg3notebook · 3 years

Note

Loving your analyses of Astarion's behaviour and character so far! It has really reaffirmed in my eyes just how much of a bastard he really is. (I say that fondly, of course.) Do you have any thoughts on why the general reaction on tumblr has leaned so much towards woobifying him? After looking at his actual (explicit and implicit) morals in game it seems quite odd that some people are reading him as an edgy soft boi who just needs a hug from the right person to fix him.

Hello!

Thank you very much! I really enjoy seeing chars in a deep way. It makes me change my opinion on them, sometimes. That's why I like to do these analysis, even though it's a lot of work for a person who doesn't speak English as a native.

Lol, please, I won't be offended. Astarion is a bastard in the whole sense of the word, lol.

However, I find Astarion an interesting evil (evil neutral imo) char to explore the narration of “abuser who found a greater abuser”, with all the topics I talked about in those posts. I would feel a bit disappointed if Larian suddenly changes him into a man who always had a gold heart (because for that, you need to give hints, even in EA, and none of that has been seen so far).

An example of how this is done is with Shadowheart, she is evil and she supports a lot of cruelty that Astarion does too, but we got meta-knowledge (and not so much meta when we see her heavily drunk after killing the tieflings) that gives us enough reasons to believe she has some heart in her, despite Shar and her teachings. I do not support the idea of “she is a softie”, because she is not, but she doesn't have the same level of cruelty nor revels in murder so much as Astarion does. They represent different degrees of evilness. What plays in her favour is her face, which gives the idea of more softness than she truly has; the same happens with Astarion. Lae'Zel is less cruel than Astarion in general, with more logical reasons to be so because her brainwashed culture made her to be more pragmatic than a taster of cruelty, and yet, she receives a lot of more hate in the fandom... and it is clear to me why: she is not “beautiful” in the traditional white euro-centric standard sense.

And this is my point to answer your question (remember all this is personal opinion): I think there are many reasons why people woobify Astarion (not only in tumblr, but also in Reddit or in Larian Forums, it's a big part of the EA fandom).

First and foremost, I believe it's his appearance. If he were a bugbear or a goblin, few in this fandom would give a thought about his abuse, his pain, Cazador, etc. They would focus on his “bastard” side and leave it at that (again, Lae'Zel has this treatment). I want to make clear that I'm not questioning people's taste, everyone can like whatever they want to. I'm saying that, for me, there it proof enough to sustain this idea that Astarion is woobified because he is beautiful: when you read that a lot of people in this fandom never had an interest in Larian's previous games, or isometric rpgs, or even turn-based combat games (there are some people who are giving feedback against the game being a turned-based combat one! It's the nonsense because it's basically Larian's style), but they bought bg3 because they saw Astarion, even though they knew nothing about him.... All this, clearly, shows to me that a lot of people approached this game for only one char, for only his design (a big amount of them say it explicitly), and it is not far-fetched to know that people justify more easily beautiful villains than ugly ones. We can explore a lot of examples of this in many fandoms. People can love villains because they have real complex reasons to be so (like Loghain in DAO), but they also can like whimsical villains just because they are “hot”. I feel this is Astarion's case, he is a “beautiful villain” who apparently has always been evil. His reasons for his whimsical evilness is more like “it's always been in his nature”. Unless the family part has a different role in his backstory (mirror option) and it's not a mere line for a player to play a “good aligned” Astarion when picked as Origin. I don't like to read much about it in that scene because the game still doesn't have companion Tags; those options in the mirror can be there just for the player to pick, flavoured with each origin, but not necessarily the three of them are canon. This will be seen once we have the companion tags activated as it happened in DOS2.

What we can say for sure is that Larian knew what they were doing when they picked Astarion's design; they choose a dangerous white guy with white hair and evil alignment: an archetype that catches a lot of people in many fandoms.

Part of his woobyfication process has a deep root there, in my opinion. Again, if he were a bugbear, a goblin, a githyanki, a monster-humanoid... we would not have 90% of the EA fandom collapsed with his image, or Larian focused on him to the point that after 4 patches he had new scenes, lines, corrections, and development, while Wyll is still there, sitting in the bench of “the less developed chars” (with around 2k less lines than the rest of the chars, and his personal quest bugged since the first day). Yes, I don't like the preference on one single companion when I am seeing the “future Beast” (from DOS2) in Wyll.

Second, he is a vampire. Vampires are a great element in any fantasy narrative. You know you will have a lot of fans behind a vampire char. Not by chance Vampire The Masquerade is one, if not the most important product of White Wolf, which keeps still giving them a lot of profit despite being decades old. Vampires are always a good element of personal horror, of lack of control of your own body, and also an allegory of abuse, power, and rape. This concept of “being a monster without control” that they embody helps a bit more for the woobification.

Third, people tend to mix a lot headcanon with what a character gives us as canon. We can have a long useless discussion about which is more worthy: canon or headcanon, or about why one should or should not respect canon, but putting all that discussion aside, and considering the previous two points, I see that a small part of his woobyfication comes from the fact that people love denial and self-projection instead of analysing of what they are given (and let's be honest, we know in tumblr, reddit and others social networks, people lack of reading comprehension skills, which makes analysis all about self projection without a real effort in understanding the character's perspective. It's all about the player unilateral perspective. How can you analyse a char you didn’t play with or explored in all its paths? ).

So if their beautiful character is behaving in a way they don't want to, they start considering him “random” (I read this so much that confuses me, because Astarion has clear patterns for everyone who wants to see them, like the rest of the companions. He is not random, he follows pretty well all what I listed here, that list helps you to predict what he will disapprove or approve) so they end up filling this apparent “randomness” with headcanons and self-projections. Don't get me wrong, I don't despise headcanons, I love them, I have a lot of them and create with them. But I also like honest analysis and separate what I want from what I get from a company (to correctly give them feedback, otherwise I will be giving them my headcanons).

If you don't want an aspect of a given char, and you want to deny it, it's perfectly fine. Do it, it's your entertainment, but be honest with the fandom about it, acknowledge this is a personal denial you enjoy. And mainly, don't use headcanons and self-projections to attack the rest of the chars you don't like in their own tags. We know how aggressive some people in this fandom are, and it's a bit frustrating to see aggression without the slightest effort in understanding the character they hate.

There is also something sad to say, related to self-projection, that contributes to Astarion's woobyfication too: a lot of players are survivors of abuse who connect with him from trauma, and I can understand if denying his past is a way to help them to release any kind of pain or need for vengeance against their abusers. It's a natural and totally understandable projection. The woobyfication, then, ends up in an intense self-projection where they give to the char something that they needed because their own trauma.

This is why I would like Larian to give us other survivor chars that people can project onto, whose stories are really about survivors of abuse who were not evil in the beginning. Because I feel a lot of people approached Astarion as a narration of a “victim who will become a victimiser” or as a “bad behaved victim”, instead of what I think it's shown: an abuser who found a greater abuser (and his story is about punishment of the abuser and the concept of justice in a world which has none), so trauma survivors will end up with disappointment if they think Astarion is something similar to the representation of what they experienced. Plus, vampirism is never good to use as allegories of abusers/victims because the relationship Sire/Childe is too sick and twisted. So, again, this is a mere opinion from all what I've been reading since the game came out.

I hope Larian sticks to the narration they seem to follow with Astarion: an abuser who found a greater one, and now wants to become the next Cazador, and this woobifycation doesn't change the real potential of a dark deep story that I believe they want to give us: not every char is redeemable, and sometimes evilness is capricious. We had chars like these in bg1 and bg2 after all.

#bg3 early access - answers

35 notes · View notes

fastcarsgovroom · 3 years

Text

Don’t really know what to make of still it but here goes (the Lando Norris issue) Pt 1

This is about the Lando Norris and Max Fewtrell (and other involved streamers) issue so you don't need to read it if it's not in your best interest to. I don’t know if this thing is supposed to have blown over or anything, but I’m posting because heck this is my blog and I want to post about things I think are in line with my personal philosophy (and maybe in-group).

I often come to social media to see different takes, perspectives, and experiences that I might not have considered. But sometimes the perspectives are so different from my own that I end up wondering if I’m missing something. So I'm just writing my perspective here and my take on how it went down, as a tumblr user and fan with no connections to the drivers or the bloggers who brought this to our attention. It's also a personal rant, so take of it what you will.

The entire rant is in five parts: Part 1 is where I describe very basically the entire situation, essentially what I saw happening through posts on the tumblr, twitter, and reddit Lando Norris tags Part 2 is me trying to describe why some fans felt what they felt and reacted the way they did Part 3 is the videos and what was said of them and how I interpreted them Part 4 the ‘misinformation’ idk

Part 5 is like, a rant.

Clips

I've watched the relevant clips posted on tumblr (I'm not sure if I should mention the OP, and don't want any hate / negativity / threats / bad juju directed at them through this post. I assume it is fine not to credit because it was posted so people on this platform and on the Lando Norris tag could hear what was said.)

Part 1: What happened

TW for talks about sex, sexism, and misogyny

Under the cut

Essentially, popular race car drivers, streamers, and irl friends Lando Norris and Max Fewtrell discussed what amounts to parts of their ‘love lives’ while playing video games on the latter’s stream, over the course of a few streams. These streams are accessible to the public, and many of Lando's and Max F's fans – including, presumably, teenagers and young adults – often tune in to watch.

The discussions involved references to situations and people (the girls / women) in their personal lives, relationships, and what has been interpreted as sexual innuendos. In certain streams, some of the things Lando, Max F, and whoever else was playing with them at the time, said, particularly about their 'love lives', came across as offensive and triggering to some fans, who voiced their distress, dissatisfaction, and disgust on tumblr.

Some fans posted about the contents of the stream and why they found it distressing and disgusting. Some posted relevant clips. Tumblr users engaged with the Lando Norris tag rallied around the original posters, and called for Max F and Lando.

Posts were made on Twitter, @ Lando Norris, (and in some cases McLaren, and the team managing Lando, ADD Management and people / entities associated with Lando) and reddit, calling out his behavior. Some posts demanded an apology, explanation, or reaction from Lando.

Other users on these platforms reacted with confusion before being given the context of the callout, leading to:

disgust, disappointment, and anger at Lando and Max F;

dismissiveness and anger directed at the people posting callouts;

more confusion.

There was no response from Lando on any these platforms (where he is known to engage with fans), which fans took as callousness and cowardice, causing further disappointment, disgust, and anger.

Max F, Dan Ticktum, (and another steamer I am not familiar with) streamed the next night. They had seen the callout posts on social media, and themselves reacted angrily and defensively in support of Lando, explaining their choice of words (see Part 2) as an attempt to conceal the identity of the people being discussed, that conversations were taken out of context, and that Lando was really a nice guy. Lando himself did not react to the callouts, but was heard in the background, presumably having heard what Max F, Dan Ticktum, and the other streamer had to say (I have not seen the clips so cannot say much except what I've seen written on tumblr).

Part 2

#tw sexism #tw misogyny #tw objectification #tw sex #lando norris #max fewtrell #this is a personal rant sort of #long post

16 notes · View notes

roodllle · 3 years

Text

Year in Review - Animal Crossing New Horizons

I started writing this review/criticism in May of 2020 but decided to update it as the year went along and post it on the anniversary of NH’s release. I would like to preface that this is mostly going to be full of questions of criticisms, I love this game. I have not been able to put it down since I got it on March 20th. My first AC game was NL and then I played HHD. I was ecstatic when they announced NH at E3 2019 and kept trying to find other games to fit in my AC shaped hole in my heart but I wasn’t able to fill it till this game came out. I feel like the pace of the game is great with how you build up to unlocking terraforming and 5 stars, and I feel like the updates are well timed especially with how crazy 2020 was for everybody. That being said there were some things that irked me.

Some of the points I will bring up came from other people/commenters I have seen on here, Discord, Reddit, and Twitter that I also agree with. Some other points are from Youtubers such as ShayMay and ChuyPlays. And others are from me.

With that out of the way, let’s get on with the review. Warning, I guess, don’t expect this to be an essay, this is just a patchwork quilt made up of thoughts.

Terraforming

I wish cliffs/tiers had a smaller level? Like how we’re able to make stepping stones for our rivers if we don’t want to put a bridge down/use our vaulting pole. I just wish there was a cliff alternative.

Another cliff alternative would be if we could put bridges between cliffs. I think we’ve all been there where we see this picture

thought ‘we can do that!!” then realized it was photoshopped

When we go into terraforming, I wish a grid showed up on our island. It would make it much easier to avoid hitting the wrong square when I’m trying to change a river.

Having us be able to “close” a waterfall from a lower level but not create a new on at the same spot.

Also the fact we can add a 4th tier but can’t put anything on it is just strange to me. I know we have to have a limit to how high we can go, but at least let me put nature stuff, such as trees/flowers/bushes, on top of it instead of just a flat piece of land.

Houses

Why no ceiling items? Find it odd they added a bunch of stuff in HHD and didn’t add that to the new mainline game

There’s no reason I can think of to why we can’t access our storage when we’re crafting inside our house.

Buildings

Dodo Airlines

The Dodo Islands right now are very boring and barely use them. I have enough money and materials to not go farming and save up all my NMTs for when I go villager hunting, which has also become a rarity. I think it would be a good idea to make some islands seasoned themed. Have them be all rare, but have an island where it’s fall and has maple leaves falling, a cherry blossom one, one with snowflakes. I wouldn’t recommend they make Holiday themed ones, but having seasonal ones would be nice.

When I mess up a dodo code or accidentally hit ‘make a bridge’ instead of incline, etc. why do I have to restart the ENTIRE conversation instead of the characters just being “oh? did you mean “x” or “would you like to retype it?” like is it that hard??

Resident Services

As much as I love Isabelle this game has made me very indifferent towards her. I think they gave her a role that didn’t need to exist. They could have either let us roam around without any warnings to who was roaming around our island, in the campsite, or any weather updates. Just have us rely on our villagers, the TV, and our eyeballs. OR they could have given us a social media like app and/or a weather app. Instead, they gave us Isabelle that only announces something once a month.

Nook’s Cranny

This might just be me but can they add a little DIY area in the store? Maybe just make to where you can only customize things?? This is more out of convenience than an actual problem

Speaking of customization, since you can make medicine but also buy can we do the same for the custom kits and bait. Like make it where we can buy bait and also make our own custom kits? I just think it’s weird that they give us either/or for medicine but not for the other 2 that I honestly use way more than medicine.

Why do the Able Sisters get to have all of the colors of an item in their shop but Nook’s Cranny can’t? And why can’t we just be able to customize all items that have multiple looks/colors? Example, why can’t I just be able to change the wood type for the antique set instead of having to buy each one? I get that the furniture catalog is already small, but that’s not my fault. They’ve decided to not add past furniture sets into NH.

Able Sisters

Let us multi select clothes instead of it just being how much we can wear. idc if it’ll just put those clothes in our personal storage and then we’ll have to run home and put it in that storage, I just hate having to walk back in and out every time I want a dress in multi colors. ALSO tell us if we already bought it, like a little storage icon or something

Why can’t we hang any article of clothing on the back wall, why do we have to either make it or have the OG qr designer come to our island?

Why can’t we have the transparent option when designing clothes? I think it would make many designer’s lives easier instead of having to make 8 versions of the same outfit.

NPCs

I have played this game almost every day since it came out, minus 2 days. I have also been able to make friends on discord that help with trading/cataloging/etc. I have all of Saharah’s, Kicks’, Label’s, and Redd’s items. I have all of the fish/bug models I want and have no desire to “catch them all”. I haven’t talked to Wisp in months because I have most of the items and his idea of “expensive” is 10k bells. The only NPC I actively look forward to is Celeste because even though I now have all of her DIYs, she still gives out star fragments, regular large or horoscope, when I talk to her.

What I’m wondering is if they’re planning on doing anything else with these characters. Before I speak further I’m going to weed out characters that I am actually fine with. CJ and Flick will always be there if I want a bug/fish model, I understand that Saharah/Kicks/Redd have a ton of stuff to get and w/o the help of my discord friends, I probably wouldn’t have gotten everything till late 2021.

So that leaves Label and Wisp. I understand Wisp is there for beginners, but now that I’m at a point where I am a bell millionaire and have most of the Nook’s items cataloged, there is no reason for me to talk to him. I wish Nintendo had put in a system where depending on the person who Wisp is talking to, it determines how much money you have in your bank account/looks at your catalog, Wisp’s item’s worth goes up.

As for Label...I never saw her as viable. I also thought the tickets were dumb and you don’t even have to talk to her to have her items show up in the shop the next day. I think it would be great if when you bought all of her items, she decided to join the Able’s sisters in their shop like in NL and then have Gracie show up in her place for the weekly NPC.

Where is Blanca? Or Brewster? Or Shrunk, Katrina, Gracie, or Kapp’n and his family? I understand we will probably never see characters like Harriet or Pete because they have been replaced by a new system, but what is the excuse for these other characters? I’m hoping they show up in year 2 of NH but...we’ll see.

Villagers

I think having your first villagers living in basic homes is a good idea but one that quickly gets annoying. I found Sherb while villager hunting for the 1st time and have had him ever since, but his house is stuck at basic lazy setup. Instead of me going back and forth on whether or not i should trust somebody enough to hold Sherb, get somebody else out, then get him to move back to my island, You can have it to where you let them leave, then just wait till he comes to the campsite to visit and reinvite him. You get his actual house and he still remembers you. This could also go for you accidentally letting somebody go or letting somebody go then regretting it. Also it’d be fun to see some old villagers again.

I was curious and looked back on past games to see how many new villagers were released each game and NH has been the least amount. NL released 112 new villagers in total while NH has released 8. I’m hoping they might release more down the line but, hella disappointing imo. Along with the Sanrio update and adding those characters to the game, I am more hopeful that they’ll be adding new characters!

Having an “event” of sorts where you visit a villager’s house and they’re looking inside their closet. They look at you in surprise when you walk in and sheepishly explain that they were going through their clothes/items. They then decide to ask you for help since they can’t decide what to get rid of/what to keep and think you have a good eye for that sort of thing. Basically, a way to get rid of any clothes/items your villager somehow received bc I guess Isabelle scolding them isn’t enough.

A big problem I feel like everybody has is the villager dialogue. Yes they added sub personality types for each personality but they are not perfectly cut in half, ex. are the Sisterly types where there are 4 B types and 20 A types, like?? How I have “fixed” this problem is by having one of each personality type on my island so I always have different conversations with my villagers, but I understand not a lot of people do that. Some people just want normal/peppy types on their island bc they’re cute as hell, I get it. I know it would be...difficult to come up with unique dialogue for all 399 villagers, including Sanrio, but....you could at least for the “gimmicky” villagers. Some examples of these villagers are Ribbot and Sprocket, Lucky and Ankha, the super hero squad, and Kabuki.

Quality Life stuff

Why cant we sit AND wish on stars? And I don’t mean the sit emote; why can’t I sit on a bench and wish on stars?

It sucks when I’m about to hit my rocks or just do a lot of dig work and then my shovel breaks in the middle of it. To show the tool is about to break, cracks should start to form on the handle and get deeper/longer as you keep using it, starting when you have 5 uses left. You can also add an auditory element by making the tool sound like its struggling when you are using it. Net/Shovel/Axe/Fishing Pole can have cracks show up on the handle, Slingshot can have crack show up at the bottom of the 2 spokes while having 1 at the top of the handle. And the watering can have cracks at the base of the can.

If our inventory is full when I dig up a flower, why can’t I replace it with another flower to bury? And if I can dig up an item at an diagonal item, I should be able to bury it again at the same angle.

Other

Having more...liveliness?? on the island, idk how else to say it. Example is whenever you travel by plane there's a chemtrail in the sky afterwards, maybe just seeing other planes go by throughout the day. Maybe you can get a hint Redd or Gulliver will be visiting you tomorrow if you see their boats beyond the horizon, Redd’s just crusin’ and the Gulls’ boats looking messed up. On a week where you don't have a new camper, maybe have an old villager visit. That leads me too

I wish villager’s doors could count as “exterior decorating” and we can just put any ornamental on there instead having to hope that your villager will put the wreath on their own door.

Conclusion

If you read this whole thing holy shit, thanks!! Go treat yourself on my part lol If you disagreed with me or whatever feel free to chat with me about it!

#roodle speaks #animal crossing new horizons #acnh #animal crossing #ac #acnl #animal crossing new leaf #qtiepie

7 notes · View notes

little-merry-go-round · 4 years

Text

There’s a lot of shit that was bothering me lately and i need to get it out of my system. I understand a lot of you don’t wanna read that kind of stuff so i’m tagging discourse and putting the rest of the post under the cut. Hope it’ll work

The first thing i wanna talk about is the way Jack interact with us here on tumblr but also on reddit. Do you remember favouritism drama that happened last february? People were pointing out Jack rebloging from same people all the time, he said he doesn’t do it on purpose, things were talked out and were ok for a while. However we came back to the same place again. I wouldn’t call it necessary favouritism but idk, ignorance maybe? I payed attention who Jack rebloging from, who’s posts he see in reddit vids. Before ya’ll jump on me, i don’t blame artists or people who he interact with at all. I’m glad they post and i hope they continue. The point i’m trying to make is Jack going through most popular most of the times. I don’t know why is this. I tried to ask him, i tried to ignore it, i tried to convince myself that i’m just jealous bitch and he does care about us all still equally. It’s really hard to think that when you see over and over popular creators, who already got good amount of notes, being featured in vids/ rebloged/ interacted with. Again, i don’t blame creators at all. I just feel frustrated that smaller creators doesn’t have chance to be seen, not only by Jack but by anybody really since a lot of people avoid tag to not see tea blogs posts. And then Jack saying in videos that he’s sad creators leaving… Are you surprised? Really? It was going fo so long and nothings changing in that regard.

I remember Jack said something along the line once “it’s better to interact with few than to not interact at all”. That’s true when “few” changes constantly but if it’s same few over and over you shouldn’t be surprised when people feel like worse of a fans and leaving.

“Draw for yourself, not for Jack”. Yeah, i do. I do draw and colour and i’m being creative whenever i have time. I just don’t post that often here anymore. Don’t be hypocrite. You all posting in the tag because you want to be seen. If you wouldn’t be seen you wouldn’t post in tag or even anywhere online. It’s very easy to say “notes doesn’t matter” when you get feedback whatever you post. I don’t want him to interact with everybody. A little bit of variety wouldn’t hurt tho.

I’ll quote something he posted on tumblr early this year: “I know I reblog and interact with certain people here more than others, I don’t think it ever really occurred to me properly because I usually just fly through the tag each day and interact with stuff as I see it and what it pertains to. It’s never been on my mind to do it for some more than others or “play favourites”. Some people are just FAR more active here than others and in the tag way more often, so just by sheer number alone it would make sense that I would see their stuff more as it’s usually more current. I’m sorry if people felt left out or underappreciated as a result of that. It’s a byproduct of things rather than the intent.” First of all I don’t believe he doesn’t recognize people artstyes at this point. Secondly it’s not hard to see the same popular people if you only going through most popular posts.

Another thing that’s bothering me are charity streams. Not that Jack raising money, that’s good. I’m not that much of a bitch. I mean the way streams are handle. Jack seems often unprepared. I don’t talk about games here, but about charity itself. Shouldn’t he know more about them instead of reading what they’re doing from their website? It was especially bothering me with team trees charity because this topic is talked about a lot and it’s really not that hard to find informations about it. “Let’s plant 20mln trees and save the planet!” No hun, it can and will help but it won’t save the planet as you claim.

“You’re going on the board” pissing me off so damn much everytime. I never watch streams if i don’t feel well mentaly because of that board thing mostly. I understand that you wanna reward people somehow, i get where it came from but again, it’s so unfair. Let’s give example. There’s person A who have a good job and earn quite a lot. It’s no problem for them to save thousand or two for charity. They will go on the board for that. There’s person B, who has shitty job, or is unemployed a lot of time. They have health problems and strugling everyday. They still wanna help out and give a dollar for a charity every month. Are you familiar with a biblical story about widow from Luke chapter 21? That’s what i mean with this example. Did you notice the way Jack read donations? How pumped he is when somebody give thousand dollars or at least few hundred and how he rush through one dollar donations? Because i did. Please don’t come to me saying he’s not guilt tripping people because he does. I don’t believe he’s doing it on purpose but don’t tell me you never felt that way. I just don’t believe you.

Forced PMA. This was talked about many times. Jack said it’s not about being happy all the time. Most of the community agree, yet i constantly see PMA = no negativity mentality and Jack incourage that by liking that kind of posts. Jack used to play “serious games” and tried to take opportunities to talk about mental health and about reaching out to friends, parents and getting professional help if it’s needed. I don’t blame him for not playing that kind of games anymore but he switched from that to making meme videos, and God forbid, yelling “a meme a day keeps the depression away”. And people take it seriously. They really do. I saw with my two own eyes on jse discord that somebody said they have depression and they don’t feel too well and another person replied with - go watch some MEMES because a meme a day keeps the depression away hehe. What is this??? Is it really the message you wanna send? Just google those memes. They’re disgusting.

Tea blogs. Again, are you surpriced they’re there? Are you surpriced that when one get deleted another two or three appear? I’m not at all. Because everytime someone try to voice their opinion respectfully (especially more popular people in community) they get anons saying things from “that’s not very pma of you”, “You’re just jealous”, “Jack would be disappointed”, “Jack doesn’t want you here”, “If you don’t like him then leave” to “go kill yourself”. Nobody want to get such lovely message. To avoid that they’re going to tea blogs. Sure, there is a lot of hate there too. Sure, there are people who just wanna talk shit and spread lies. But there are also issues like the ones i wrote above. They won’t disappear if we won’t talk about them. I do care about Jack. I really do. I want him to do well and i want have good time watching his vids. i wanna interact with people who i met in this community. That’s why i’m writing it all, because i believe we’re better than that. I wanna see us improve not go down.

I really like what Jack tweeted and deleted "We all need love & support in life but also need someone to call us on our shit now and then. Don’t surround yourself with just “yes” people".

#Jacksepticeye #discourse #personal #not in the tag anymore? awesome

74 notes · View notes

tigerlover16-uk-2 · 4 years

Text

Quick note to Pokemon fans

You know, about two months ago or so, I saw someone on Twitter ranting about Sword and Shield, and as an aside they commented on how "Sad" it was that the games would be some children's first Pokemon games.

This struck a very personal nerve with me for reasons I'll get to, and I made a snappy tweet of my own in response to it and was going to write up a quick post here about why it bothered me.

I decided not to because after being distracted for a bit, I felt like I didn't have the energy to bother with it after.

Something that happened last night made me decide to go ahead with it.

A tweet was going around recounting a story from reddit about how a fan saw a teenager bullying his kid sister for being excited for the games, straight up telling her she was a bad person for supporting a bad product and making her cry.

The girl apparently had a scorbunny plush with her, and the fan who saw this happening speculated that she was just getting into Pokemon, and these games might even be the first new ones her parents were going to buy for her.

Needless to say, I was disgusted and outraged. Not even just because of how cruel and selfish it is to behave in such a manner to a small child, this story resonated with me in a personal way because, honestly... I've seen this sort of thing before.

I've said before I grew up with the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy and the 3D era Sonic the hedgehog games (and media based on them like Sonic X). I loved them both growing up, and Sonic in particular meant the world to me for many years...

Which made it really disheartening to see the visceral hate they got from people online, accusing these things of "ruining" those respective franchises and those older fans own childhoods.

I've seen people called stupid, tasteless or "not real fans" for defending them, a general condescending attitude to every little detail of modern entries in the franchises, and an insistence that people like me who liked them were just innocent fools who were in denial because we didn't know any better.

"You only like them because you don't know what REAL Star Wars/Sonic is like"

I was rather stupid and reserved as a kid, rather depressed and isolated for a lot of my teenage years. I wasn't very critically discerning, so I never knew how to argue in defense of things that I liked. So needless to say, it felt really disheartening and alienating to see a lot of people treat the things that I liked and which resonated with me as so over the top horrible and the bane of some supposedly glorious triumphs of cinema and gaming that I'd missed out on.

There were people who felt differently and shared my appreciation back then, sure, but it sure felt like I wasn't welcome in a lot of fandom spaces.

I'm lucky to say I was never personally bullied by the more obnoxious older fans (I didn't really talk to people online until about a decade ago, and only through private messages on one website at that for a while), but I did hear stories of it, especially with Star Wars.

And the sheer negativity and cynicism from so many people did get me down and feel like maybe I was just stupid and in the wrong. And considering how part of this coincided with my teenage years (some of the worst of my life), it really got me down and took me years to start feeling confident in my own feelings on both franchises again.

Going back to Pokemon now: it's okay to be upset about the National Dex issue in Sword and Shield. It's okay to be disappointed with the overall presentation of the games and a lot of Game Freak's creative choices, and the business decisions that result in several of these problems like the yearly release schedule.

It's encouraged to complain about things like that to a reasonable amount, constructive criticism is necessary. Things don't change for the better if people stay silent all the time or everyone becomes too complacent. I think the whole situation with Sonic's design in the upcoming live action movie is a good demonstration of criticism being a necessity.

I am certainly not without my criticisms and concerns.

But don't ever forget... these games are meant for children. And around the world, there are children who are going to be playing Sword and Shield as some of their first Pokemon games, if not their very first.

There are going to be kids for whom Sword and Shield are a big part of their formative experiences with the franchise, and that'll influence how they view it. There are going to be kids who grow up loving Scorbunny and Sobble and Grookey and a bunch of the other new Pokemon and characters as much as we all loved Charmander and squirtle and bulbasaur and all the rest.

There are going to be kids who's favourite Pokemon games are Sword and Shield.

That doesn't mean you can't complain about them. That doesn't mean you have to pretend to like them, or consider them good. It doesn't mean you can't be cynical about the direction of the franchise if you don't like where it's heading.

But you absolutely should respect those children and their right to still enjoy modern Pokemon freely and openly.

Don't be like that stupid teenager. Don't be condescending and dismissive of people's enjoyment of Sword and Shield, or treat them like they're part of a problem for having fun with a simple video game.

And beyond that... don't ever let me catch you going "Oh, the poor kids, growing up with the worst Pokemon games" or anything like that. Because buddy: you don't care about children. Not really.

You're angry on behalf of yourself and other older fans who are more clearly effected by Dexit and the other controversies. You're just using children as a shield to make your complaints sound noble.

I've no doubt there are plenty of kids who are disappointed with the Dex cut like all of you. But the kids who aren't, the ones that are getting into the series just now, and are going to grow up to view Sword and Shield fondly: they're not going to want your fake pity any more than I did.

Because I did eventually watch the original Star Wars movies and play some of the first 3 Sonic games to see what "REAL Star wars" and "REAL Sonic" were. And you know what?

Wasn't impressed.

It was all fine, but I liked my childhood better anyway, and I'm sorry I was ever dumb and insecure enough to let a bunch of joyless, angry crybabies on the internet convince me I should be embarrassed and ashamed of myself for liking what I got into the franchises through.

Be disappointed and critical all you want. Roll your eyes at adults who are being blatant boot lickers and trying to write off any and all criticism as just baseless hate. People like that are as silly as the genuinely toxic haters and are fair game.

But leave children out of all this, guys. Don't let them grow up thinking that they're a problem or that it's wrong to enjoy the new Pokemon games even if they do have problems.

#Pokemon Sword and Shield #pokemon #Game Freak

49 notes · View notes

positivelypetty · 5 years

Text

A REALLY long rant on the Joint Training Arc.

Okay, so since the Joint Training Arc is basically done, I thought I would share my various opinions and adress certain issues that A LOT of people had with this arc.

But, before we get into the actual rant, I think I should distinguish the difference between an opinion, criticism and just plain antagonism.

Here is an example of just misinformed toxicity:

This is just being TOXIC!!! You can’t shelter these horrible comments by saying “it’s just an opinion.” Please don’t act like after 4 years of really enthralling writing, he’s now the worst writer ever. Instead, explain why you don’t think this was the best story choice, instead of being clearly misinformed. It’s nothing absolutely terrible, but just a simple example on how people can be so demanding and completely inconsiderate to the creator.

“Forbidding” Horikoshi from writing is actually ridiculous. He WROTE AND CREATED your “precious sons” that you love so much. So, if you claim that the manga is now utter trash because it doesn’t personally cater to you, please abandon or take a long break from the manga/anime to maybe clear your head. Thank you.

We don’t need any more toxicity in this fandom than we already do.

Now with that said, let’s talk about the arc! (Also keep in mind that these ideas spurred from Reddit so, I decided to expand on it)

1-B vs 1-A situation:

I've been reading a ton of comments too, the good, and the bad and it's fine, everyone has their opinions and that's cool, but for me, it didn't seem it was about who won or lost, it was more about how each class was taught. And this boils down to both Vlad and Aizawa.

Vlad has obviously been pushing his students and their quirks to the max in regards to working in teams. This shines through in all of the fights they all work together very well and know the strengths and weaknesses of each other as well as their enemies. They go into a battle with a plan and are ready to execute the plan flawlessly.

Whereas Aizawa I believe has pushed for more individualist thinking style, and I think this comes from his basis of fighting villains. No one will come to save you, you have to be able to handle yourself whether escaping or defeating. He doesn't coddle his students, and he does push them to the brink as well. What's interesting is Class A has had more hands-on experience. With Aizawa’s teaching style I think they sometimes have a harder time working with one another and they can fall apart with their teamwork. HOWEVER their real-life experience has taught them that the best-laid out plans can not go as plan, and they are able to utilize their 'individual' thinking to fight regardless of a plan falling through.

I found it really interesting and I think there's value in both ways of thinking for Vlad and Aizawa. For Class B, they will have to learn how to abandon a plan that's not working and strategize on the fly, and Class A will have to hone their teamwork for long-running battles.

And let's be honest, these are just kids, pushing their bodies and minds to the limit, I don't find Class B to be 'trash' just because they lost, they still fought hard and worked better together in the long run then Class A. Class B didn't have any dead weight with their battles, everyone was utilized and contributed to all their fights. People are so set on who “won” or who “lost” the battle, that people overlook everyone’s overall individual quirks and techniques. I personally believe that many of the 1-B students were amazing and are forces to be reckoned with. It’s just that 1-A knows how to handle themselves when things don’t to go to plan rather than 1-B (as mentioned before) which gave 1-A the upper-hand in most of the battles, but I can definitely name a few fights where Class A's members were carried by their team.

Now to address the Shinsou thing:

To everyone who was PRESSED that Shinsou didn’t win....

What do you expect from Shinsou? I feel like people were overestimating him. Even with those cloth bindings and his quirk. All you need to do is shut your mouth, grab his cloth bindings (at best he has a few months training) keep focusing on him,restrain him, and boom you're done.(I obviously know it’s not that simple, but basically) I love Shinsou, I really do, but he’s basically Aizawa (I love Aizawa too don’t get me wrong). Aizawa mentioned that it took FIVE YEARS for him to truly master his quirk, and even though since this is the younger generation, so he’ll probably get the hang of it sooner, how long as he really been “training” his quirk under Aizawa? Definitely not long enough for him to go 1v1 with someone who is a close combat fighter. (It really isn’t that shocking that Deku won, he could probably win without Black Whip). Don't get me wrong Shinsou has improved MONUMENTALLY but not to the extent of 1-A who has direct experience in fighting villains. I just think people are mainly mad that 1-B lost is as because they think Shinsou won’t get into the Hero Course. Like chill. One of the main reasons 1-A won in the first match was because of Shinsou, so I think that proves that he is MORE than capable to get in to the Hero Course.

The whole OP Deku thing:

First off, I honestly don't expect him to ever match All Might at his prime in terms of consistent pure raw strength. Deku isn't a giant man of pure muscle, so I don't think he'd be able to go 100 and maintain it like All Might could. Deku is more of a person of different techniques and strategy, rather than brute force. Like, I don't know if Deku is going to be throwing punches that can blow away a city block.

That being said, each generation is getting stronger. Like, Endeavor will be surpassed by Todoroki by the time he graduates (if it even takes that long). Iida is already faster than Gran Torino. In the very beginning of the manga, they mentioned Deku will be the strongest holder of OFA, since it gets stronger each generation. Deku will have formidable rivals if the other strong students also reach their full potential. Hell, those rowdy kids we saw at the makeup exam already had really strong quirks at their young age. Generational power creep means that everybody around Deku will get way stronger than the current pros.

I understand the sentiment that Deku doesn't need more quirks, but Deku's quirk development was already approaching a plateau in terms of being able to fully control what power he could handle. He'd just work on his technique and slowly get stronger and stronger. Sure, he's gonna eventually be able to punch/kick hard enough to shoot himself around in the air, but we've already seen that stuff (plus Bakugo does that too). I know Horikoshi is creative and will develop some cool moves for Deku, but Deku's struggle to control OfA was mostly over. All he had to do wast master OFA steadily and he’ll be good. More quirks means that he may unlock more quirks when he's able to use more %. So instead of reaching 30% and just being X amount stronger physically, he may unlock a new tool to try and master/incorporate into his combat toolkit.

If this is a negative turn for the story, we won't even be able to tell until many, many more chapters are released. We may look back and decide that this was a bad move, but we shouldn't assume that's the case when it was literally introduced TWO WHOLE CHAPTERS AGO. (even though I don’t think it was a bad move AT ALL)

What I hope to see in future Arcs:

I think what fans would really enjoy and we could all use some real Deku character development. Deku’s my favorite character, but I feel like people can’t connect to him as much as someone like Todoroki, because his lack of emotional development. He’s indeed way more confident then he was in the beginning, I still feel like he has low self esteem. Someone needs to tell him that he’s worthy of this mega powerful quirk. ( he needs it 😭)We know so much about him, but rarely see him living his day to day life outside of training, costume updates and the occasional villain attack. Last time we got anything close to development in was only told through Aoyama's development.

These next few chapters will definitely give us something, but only as it relates to One for All. I'd honestly like to know Deku's thoughts about his situation, he seems determined that's for sure. Does he feel stressed, uninformed, unprepared, scared...resentful? We can infer a bunch, I'd just like to see him talk to All Might, Bakugo or his mom about it.

In Conclusion:

Honestly, to me,It never seemed to matter who won or lost any of these matches people were gonna complain regardless. When Class A wins they call it predictable and when class B won they say call it BS or plot amor. Even when it’s a draw people got upset saying Todoroki was disappointing. Some people wanted the matches to be fleshed out over a couple of chapters rather than rushed, then a few weeks later complained that it was taking to long. Bakugo wins his match quickly and those same people lose their minds about how they wanted the match to be longer. People complained about Horikoshi not letting the girls shine in battle after the second match, but conveniently forgets Tsuyu was the MVP of the first match and Kendo and Mushroom girl made 1-B win the second match. (AND WE’RE NOT GONNA FORGET HOW URARAKA AND MINA DOMINATED THE MATCH)Then you have the people who say all of 1-B is worthless and then Juzo and Tetsutetsu prove otherwise. Now we have people think Deku is OP but in this new chapter it seems that he much has a limit to using these other abilities but I’m sure that won’t stop the myriad of complaints. Every week the same people come to see the spoilers and complain based off of a fragmented non-contextualized summary of the chapter and wonder why they enjoy the chapter itself less. Maybe going into a chapter with a negative outlook will do that. The part that irks me is that virtually everyone whose binge-read this arc seems to enjoy it only seems to be us week to week readers with a issue. Either way I hope the discussion going into the next arc are far more level-headed constructive than they have been.

I think this will be one of the arcs that played out better once it was animated. Individual panels maybe favored over the anime, but overall pacing will surely favor the anime. Waiting week in and week out, over analyzing every short chapter has really done no favors for fans and Horikoshi.

#mha #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #deku #midoriya izuku #bnha #mha 213 #mha 214 #mha 215 #mha 200-215 #mha 216 #thanks for coming to my ted talk #yall are so annoying #i stg #rant #anime #manga #manga spoliers #bnha spoilers

389 notes · View notes

maplesweater · 5 years

Note

Okay so I am really disappointed with how the dawn front event went down. I am not „horny“ for shade and i find it dumb that salty players reduce us to that. You’re freaking ace and I’m on the spectrum too. We’re not salting about people for picking their queen kimi either jeez. Let people allow to pick characters they want, its not hard.

Ya know what me too

((RANT INCOMING BOIS))

Like I'm sure there are some people who picked Flynn bc "he's hot" to them-and don't get me wrong that's perfectly fine-but just assuming that's the only reason anyone would ever pick said character is just honestly kind of rude to everyone who chose him. As if he doesn't have his own story, personality, motivations, etc. that might make him an appealing choice to players. No he's just an edgy uwu animu boi fangirl bait design right?

Thing is we're only having this discussion because we won. If the majority of night order players flocked to Shade but the dawn wings ended up winning no one would give two shits about who chose Flynn or why. Lemme tell y'all something. I chose Flynn because as an aspiring author I found all of the good guys boring and stealth has always been my shit. Yes all of them. Louie is barely a character as of right now, Orlando is fine but he's so typical morally just man in a suit. Kimi is overrated imo and don't even get me started on Bai Yongxi. I know we have a dreamweaver for this guy but I still feel like I've never met him before. So then, what about the night order? We barely know Reid and the guy he teamed up with so that choice was out for me, and Nidhogg's abrasive personality just wasn't doin it for me personally.

Who does that leave? Flynn. Shade. The secret weapon. The assassin with two names.

Ever since I was young I've always found sharpshooters, assassins, ninjas-basically anyone who could outsmart their opponent with not only tactics but agility and speed-cool. I'm a small girl and I was never very strong, so that kind of thing was the kind of stuff I idolized-and part of what lead me to develop my aesthetic the way I did. THAT's why I picked Flynn. It was my personal opinion and preference.

Do I expect anyone to know that? Of course not. Only my close friends know about my childhood. However, I'm not the only person who picks characters based on things other than "how hot I find them," clearly. I'll admit, Flynn's character design is aesthetically pleasing to an edgelord like myself. But if that was the only reason, I'd just go with anyone who remotely resembled that sort of style.

Not to mention the psychological aspects of it all. Morally grey characters are always more interesting from a psychological standpoint, as they present as more human-more relatable to the average person.

I'm getting a little bit off topic but my point is that there's more than one reason Shade won the war. Something else I need to mention is the pre-war salt.

All over the facebook, amino, reddit, etc. before we even got the event implemented were people salting about losing last time and making passive aggressive comments about how they'd lose to " Shade's thirst army" again. Now I had already made up my mind to choose him again, but think for a second about how a new player would feel seeing all that. Do you really think new players would want to join a team full of passive aggressive people who can't let the fact that their fave lost essentially a fictional popularity contest go after a full year? Because I sure as hell wouldn't. That's an extremely unwelcoming environment right there.

So what do I have left to cover? The morality speeches? Yeahh.....

So listen. I saw this mostly on the facebook, but I'll mention it here.

Fiction and real life are two separate things. People are allowed to like problematic charas so long as they understand that said chara is in fact problematic. Supporting a character who's done morally wrong things does not mean said person supports said morally wrong things. If you sit there and try to guilt trip people who just wanted to pick their favorite character in a fictional event that effects nothing ever because they like a specific character and tell them that means they support murder or whatever, I'm sorry but you need to go back to elementary school or something because that's not how anything has worked in the history of things working.

Now with all this said I want to stress that not everyone is like this of course. There are people who remained silent. There are people who know how to make jokes about their loss, and I thank those of you who have done so-you're bridging the gap, my friends. Of course I don't believe everyone is like this. But the sheer amount of people degrading others and belittling them because of a character preference both pre and post event is astounding.

In the end this whole event was basically just a popularity contest. And you know what I see? I see people who can't handle that not everyone shared their character preferences. I see people who don't understand that just because someone favors one character over another doesn't mean they automatically hate the other character. I see people who are so petty that they'll go out of their way to make excuses as to why they lost. Yeah, it was a population imbalance. But you know what? That's just how it happened. If the population imbalance had favored Kimi, or Orlando, or Bai, or Louie, would we be seeing this level of garbage? No. This event effects nothing. Not the story, not real life, nothing.

But you know what does? Unbearable amounts of salty people pointing fingers and yelling "thirst" to the point where I've started to wonder why I got involved in this godforsaken community in the first place. Let people enjoy their dressup game, ya watery salt cubes. You'll get another chance next time around, and I'm just saying-maybe you'd do better if you focused a bit less on yelling about how it's other people's fault you lost. Yea, losing sucks. But in order for there to be a winner, someone has to lose. That's how competitions work.

I feel like I had more points but I'm just so done with this garbage. Whatever. Point is let people like the characters they like instead of getting salty that everyone doesn't worship Kimi as much as you do. It's not that deep.

I'm done here. This stupid. Sorry to anyone who isn't contributing to this who had to see this. I appreciate you. So much. Oh and by the way, I have nothing against Kimi stans, so long as y'all don't do this kinda shit. Everyone has the right to have whatever character be their favorite no matter which one it is.

#salt #love nikki #love nikki dress up queen #love nikki dressup queen #love nikki event #love nikki game

6 notes · View notes

littlemisssquiggles · 5 years

Note

Hello, Miss Squiggles. I just wanted to say that I've really enjoyed your RWBY Squiggle Scripts. You mentioned that you were planning to do two scripts of what happened after the team's departure, right? If so, then I might have an idea on how Ruby would confront Oscar after his out burst. Oscar could plan on leaving Atlas to find out how to stop Salem all on his own, but Ruby does whatever she could to stop him. It a little similar to Axel's confrontation with Xion when she tried to leave XIII.

HelloBlack.Correction fam,I was planning on doing two scripts as a continuation tothis script righthere based on a prompt by @miggy97

Andat the time, I was excited to write this idea, so much so that I had planned onexpanding on it for two more parts. However, that changed once I got wind ofsome negativity involving my script over on RWBY Reddit and I readthe comments on there. They weren’t nice.

Iwas really proud of Script #012 becauseit was my first time writing a script that featured the full JNR_QROWMBY. Itwas a challenge but I was pleased that I got it done. And even more pleasedwhen I saw how much folks liked it here on Tumblr. Thank you so much to theTumblr RWBY fans who liked that script. Your comments were really nice andhelped inspired this second part. However I’d be lying if I said the negativitymy last script received over on Reddit didn’t kill my enthusiasm to continueworking on the scripts I promised. I struggled to finish this second scriptbecause I was concerned by how folks would take it. I went back and forth onideas and dialogue. I panicked over certain lines because I was nervous aboutit being ‘toooverdramatic’ or whatnot. I’ve saidbefore that I create these squiggle scripts for fun. This kind of feeling isnot fun.

Allthat culminated in a script concept that I no longer have the drive to finish. Becauseof this, I decided to scrap the third script all together. But I’m going to atleast share what I had for the second part since you brought it up Black. Thisdoesn’t mean I won’t write other RWBY Squiggle Scripts. I will if I feel up toit. It’s just unfortunate that I don’t feel like working on this particularscript idea anymore so sorry if that disappoints anyone or you Black.

I’mgoing to use this script to answer your question since ironically you and Iwere almost on the same page on how I went about this second script. Almost.

RWBY SquiggleScript #017: As You Go

“…The worldI know can hate you,The world Iknow can break you,But as you go, remember I’m by your side

The lovewithin you can heal these tears that burn,And throughit all remember, I’m by your sideAs you go…”

Picture it. Ruby has had a long day. She just spent the past couple of hours concerned forher friends. For the second time since Argus, the team had fallen apart and fora second time, Ruby was at a loss on what to do. Despite Nora and Yang’smessages assuring her that things were fine, at least on their side with Jauneand Weiss, Ruby dreamed her ventures was just as successful.

Ruby must’ve walked the whole block of Atlassearching for Oscar. He was nowhere to be found. Though she revisited everyplace in Atlas she and her comrades had toured during their stay within thekingdom, asked everyone she thought might know his whereabouts, she couldn’tfind him and for a second time since Argus, Ruby panicked for him.

She didn’t want to lose Oscar. Not again. Notever. She hardly doubt that he left to go shopping this time. No shopping spreein Atlas was going to dispel the terse overwrought note Oscar left the groupon. She had never seen the former farm boy so mad before; not even back at thedojo in Mistral.

This revelation only served to worsen Ruby’sanxiety at finding her friend. So you could imagine her honest surprise whenshe went up to the rooftop of the resident apartment the heroes were stationedtemporarily only to find Oscar up there too.

Ruby had only gone up there as a means ofclearing her head before returning to her search. Who would have thought thiswas where she would discover her missing friend. There was Oscar. His smallboyish form leant against the metal railing, separating him from the edge ofthe building. Hazel eyes, plagued with melancholy, gazed longingly into thedistance as the cold evening air caressed his dark brown hair which appeared fluffier than usual.Probably due to the amount of times Oscar ran his fingers through them insilent frustration as he did right before Ruby’s eyes.

Though Ruby’s face melted in unadulterated relief at the sight ofher friend, Oscar’s greeting towards her didn’t mimic the same compassion.Anger and annoyance, retained from that afternoon’s earlier events stillreflected heavily on his face and lingered in his voice as he sharply turnedtoward Ruby and met her gaze with a scowl.

Oscar: *snappily*If you’ve come up here to try and convince me to forgive your sister,save your breathe.

Ruby: *a mixture of relief and surprise* You’re… here?

Oscar: *passively*You sound surprised. Did I disappoint you?

Ruby: No, of course not!I’m just—I’m just really relieved thatyou’re still here.

Oscar scoffs at this; returning his gaze to theview of Atlas.

Oscar: *passively* Yeah well…don’t get used to it. Tomorrow I’m going to talk to GeneralIronwood. Ask if he’d be okay with probably arranging an airship to take mehome.

Ruby: *incredulously* Ta—Take you…home? Back to Mistral! Why—Why would you dothat?

Oscar: *passively*Well it is where I’m from, right?

He trains his gaze back on Ruby who is still tryingto process the absurdity of his last answer. Her reaction only makes Oscar sneerfurther.

Oscar: You know I had somany chances to leave. I could’ve walked away after the first time Ozpinhijacked my body to fight off Hazel. I could’ve walked away after Ozpin left.No matter where I turn, it just feels like fate keeps telling me that Ishouldn’t be here. That I should’ve never left the farm. I left my family for this! My whole life—my home and for what? To be threatened, blamed for mistakes I nevermade, nearly eaten alive by Grimm on multiple occasions, punched in the face, slammed against the wall, yelled at and of course,let’s not forget the biggest kicker, lied to. Deceived by people who made me believe I was fighting for the rightreasons.

Ruby: But…you are.Oscar, you left home because you wanted to be more than just a farmhand. Youwanted to do more. Be more. Do what you canto help protect humanity and save the world. Do what you can to help the teambecause you’re kind and brave.

Ruby tries toreach for Oscar’s hand but for a second time, he wrenches it out of her reachas he pushes past her roughly.

Oscar: *crossly*Why bother fighting withpeople who don’t care about me?

Ruby: That’s not true.I—we care about youOscar.

Oscar: No you only care about half of me. Because I’m the half that never lied to you, right? At least, notyet.

Ruby: …You don’t mean that.

Oscar: *crossly* Yes Ido!

Ruby: …Oscar…you can’t go. You can’t just…leave!

Oscar: I’m sorry Ms. Rose but that’s not your decision to make.

Ruby: *taken aback*… Ms. Rose?

Oscar: *impassively* Yeah. Why bother with familiarities anymore, right?

Ruby: *imploringly* Oscar…please canwe just…talk. Talk to me.

Oscar: *exploding* There is nothing for us totalk about! I meant what I said when I said I was done! I’m officially done! Ican’t take any more of this! I don’t want to be here! I want to be home with myfamily. My family who loves me and who I can trust. Who would never lie to meever.

Ruby: …Oscar—

Oscar: That’s why I’m up here. To get one last look atthe city. You only get to see Atlas once so might as well soak up as much ofthe view as I can before I—

Ruby: *sharply* NO!

Oscar: What?

Ruby: You’re NOT leaving! You can’t leave!

The coldness inhis eyes was what broke Ruby’s heart the most.

Oscar: *sternly* Like I said, that’s not your decision to make.

Now it was Ruby’s turn to get agitated.

Ruby: Oscar…we have come so far. We’re finally inAtlas. We’re finally safe in Atlas.The Relics are safe. We’re safe. You’re safe. If you go back to Mistral now, whatdo you think is going to happen? You think things are going to be the same? Youthink you could just waltz right back home and return to your normal old farmboy life just like that? As if the last few months never happened?

Oscar: *nonchalantly* Andwhat’s so wrong about that? Forgetting everything.

Ruby: *testily; voice rising* Because you can’t! Salem’s forces know who you are. Chancesare Hazel, Emerald and Mercury already returned to Salem and told her thatyou’re Ozpin. What if she sends someone to attack you? What if she sends theGrimm to attack you? To kidnap you?

Ruby closes her eyes as memories of the longjourney to Mistral resurfaced and flooded her vision; rewriting her face withnothing but guilt.

Ruby: *regrettably* …I almost got Jaune, Nora and Ren killed becauseSalem made me her target after what I did to Cinder. Uncle Qrowalmost died protecting me because Salem sent one of her goonsafter me. If you go home now, what would you do if she came after you forOzpin?

Oscar: *tensing up* …Stop.

Ruby: *pressing* Whatwould you do if she went after your family? Ozpin is gone andyou’re still barely a huntsman! You can’t even handle one Grimm on yourown; how would you defend yourself against Salem!

Oscar: *voice rising*…I said stop!

Ruby: *shouting* Howwould you feel if your aunt got hurt trying to protect you or worse, killedbecause of you!

Oscar: *shouting* Stopit!

That did it. Oscar glared; face red in anger. Hisfrustration and annoyance was only rivalled by Ruby’s who stood her ground withher arms crossed.

Ruby: No! You need to hearthis!

Oscar: No I don’t! Why don’t you go lecture your liar of a sister! Save your precious words of wisdom forher!

Ruby: This isn’t about Yang. This is about you.You’re being unreasonable!

Oscar: I am being reasonable! Going back home is the mostreasonable thing I’ve thought of in months. I should’ve done that a long timeago. At least then I could spent whatever time I have left with someone who reallycares about me. At least then I wouldn’t have to listen to you prattle on likeyou understand how I feel! You don’t!

Ruby: *taken aback*…I…I couldn’t understand how youfeel?

Oscar: No you don’t and stop pretending like you do! Howcould you possibly understand how I feel. Any of it? Do you have two souls? Doyou have lifetimes of mistakes to fix and duties to uphold?

No you don’t! That’s all me! Me alone!

Ruby: …Oscar I——

Oscar: You’re constantly surrounded by your friends andyour family. You have your sister, your uncle, your teammates, your friends.You even have Maria—a seasoned mentor who can teach you everything aboutbecoming a Silver Eyed Warrior and provide you with all the answers you need.

But me, what do I have, huh? I have no team.No family here. Sure, Maria might like me but I can’t ask heranything about who or what I’m going tobecome. My mentor—the one who’s supposed to give me all the answers is gone!

Oscar’s fist clenched and it is at this moment hiseyes met Ruby’s, revealing the puddle of tears that had been welding in hiseyes the moment his anger dropped and his true fears started to surface. It ishere where Ruby saw Oscar’s sadness. His pain and it hurt.

Oscar: I don’t want to hurt my aunt. I don’t want herkilled because of me. That’s the last thing I want. But I don’t want to be hereeither. At least at home, I don’t have to be this alone anymore. I don’t wantto feel alone anymore. So if I want to go then please let me go. At least homewill be better than staying here feeling like this!

I’m not even sure I have any real friends. You might say youlike me now but is this really friendship or is it just tolerance? I have no bonds withanyone. I have no one.

And when I change, how much will you tolerate me then, huh? I am alone,Ruby.

*voice cracking* I am…alone in all of this.

Ruby: …Oscar, listen to me. I’m…

Rubystops when she noticed something off about Oscar.He was no longer making eye contact with her. Instead he just stood with hishand on his chest, face scrunched up as he breathed heavily. A little too heavily.

Ruby: Oscar?

Noresponse. Only heavier breathing. Immediately Ruby inched closer to Oscar. Heseemed a bit unsettled from Ruby’s point of view.

Ruby: *concernedly* Oscar?

OnOscar’s end, things were disorienting. Oddly enough it wasn’t an unexperiencedfeeling. Oscar has felt anxious before. Onthe contrary often times he would praise himself with how well he was able tohold himself together even in the most hair-raising ofmoments.

But thisfeeling. This particular feeling was a darkness he hadn’t felt in along time. But now, as his heart thundered in his chest and the world aroundhim spiralled downward as if the very ground underneath him would open up andswallow him whole, he could feel this familiar darkness slinking its darktendrils up his body dragging him underneath its depths. It was suffocating.Suddenly he forgot how to breathe and then…he couldn’t.

Ruby: Oscar, tell me what’s wrong.

Oscar: *hyperventilating*…Crap! I…I think …

Oscarinhales sharply.

Oscar: *breathlessly* I’m having…a panicattack…

Oscarstaggered a bit and instinctively, Ruby placed her hand on his shoulder tosteady him.

Ruby: *nervous but trying to remain calm* Easythere. Okay. S–Sit down? Do you want to sit down or…Oscar doesn’t answer. This time his heavy breathing didn’t permit him to speakso the most he could muster was a frantic nod. Gently, Ruby helped Oscar to sitdown on the ground before seating herself right next to him, eyeing himclosely.

You would thinkthat being an experienced huntress who faced more than her fair share ofchallenges; Ruby would be better equipped to handle any scenario thrown at her.

Unfortunately the does and don’ts of what to do when someone is having a panicattack in front of you was not a lesson Ruby recalled being taught duringBeacon’s curriculum.

She felt out of her element, unsure of what would be thebest course of action to take next. All she knew was that she had to dosomething for Oscar’s sake. Next to her, Oscar’s breathing hastened; both ofhis hands resting firmly in front of him as he tried his best to catch hisbreath but to no avail.

Ruby: What….What do you need? What can I do to help? Anything.

With a trembling hand, Oscar taps his back.

Ruby: …Your back? You…want me to rub your back?

Oscar nods affirmatively and Ruby complies as shegently starts rubbing Oscar’s back. Back on Oscar’s end, the storm inside hismind kept raging on. But rather than allow it to further consume him, insteadhe did his best to concentrate his focus on the movement of Ruby’s hand as shedrew circles on his back.

With each motion she made, Oscar attempted to matchhis breathing to the pattern. Eventually it started to work a little and hisbreathing eased to even pants.

Ruby: *hesitantly* Do you…wantme to call someone? Maria? Qrow? Jaune? Weiss? Nora? Ya—I can go call someonefor help.

Oscar shakes his head.

Oscar: *through faint breathes* Don’t leave!

Oscar looks Ruby dead in the face.

Oscar: *gasping*…Please…don’t leave!

Ruby gazed into Oscar’s eyes deeply before herexpression hardened with a look, determined but soft at the same time.

Ruby: Okay I won’t. I won’tleave your side, I promise.

To prove her point, Ruby rested her free hand on topof Oscar’s, rubbing her thumb against his knuckles soothingly.

Ruby: *kindly* Take allthe time you need. I’ll stay with you till you catch your breath. Everything isgoing to be okay, Oscar. I’m here for you.

Ruby then beams, bright and beautiful. Between her comfortinghands and her radiant smile, Oscar felt his once frantic heart finally put atease; like sunshine peeking through the heavens after a tempest.

Though hestill needed time to regain his composure against the tides, if there was onething Oscar was certain of, it was that the storm was beginning to billow over withour freckled farm boy finally resurfacing from the darkness he’d once fellunder and into the caress of the ruby sunset awaiting him on the other side.

15 minutes. Thatwas how long it took for everything to settle back to normal. Ruby glanced overat Oscar. Though his initial panic had subsided, he hadn’t uttered another wordto her since it passed. In spite of this, Ruby sat patiently next to him, one handstand still rubbing his back while the other held his, every once in a while givingit a small assuring squeeze. Eventually Oscar finally regains his composureenough to speak. With one heavy sigh, he looks up at Ruby, expression solemn.

Oscar: Hey.

Ruby: Hey.*comfortingly* How are you feeling?

Oscar: Better but…embarrassed. *shakes head miserably* I’m sorry about before.

Ruby: Don’t be. You don’t have to apologize for that.I’m just happy you’re ok.

Oscar: *sadly* … But I’m not.

Ruby frowns.

Ruby: Was… that your first time having a panic attack?

Oscar: …No. I…

Oscar pauses momentarily to close his eyes,frowning as the memories of an unknown part of his childhood flooded his mind.A vision of a bloodied figure. A child—a young boy hunchedover bawling his eyes out; his screams as thunderous as the lighting thatroared through the stormy skies outside a broken door. And eyes— red and burning like embers that loomed in the background slowlyeclipsing said child—drowning him in a sea of black until his screams werenothing but a pained whimper. Eventually Oscar brushes these thoughts away withhitched breath.

Oscar: *solemnly* I…used to have them. After…

Oscar paused again. The memories attempting tosnake their way back into his thoughts but, again he rejects them firmly.

Oscar: …I just used to have them. Haven’t had one in ayear.

Oscar makes a face; an expression full of deep regretthat makes Ruby’s heart sink.

Oscar: *awkwardly*… I’m sorry.

Ruby: *reassuringly* No—it’s okay.

Ruby takes both of Oscar’s hands in consolation.

Ruby:Everything’s fine, Oscar.

Rubyflashes Oscar her warmest, more encouraging smile in hopes of gettingone in return. But much to Ruby’s disappointment, Oscar shakes his head glumly.

Oscar: *sadly* NoRuby, stop. Stop saying everything is fine. It’s not! We just spent the last fewminutes screaming at each other. You just saw me have a panic attack right in front of you. This isn’t fine! So… can you pleasejust…stop saying it’s fine.

Ruby opens hermouth to retort but her answer gets caught in her throat at the depressed lookon Oscar’s face. Instead she sighs, patting Oscar’s hand.

Ruby:*honestly*…Okay. It’s…not fine.Everything’s…a mess, isn’t it?

Oscar: *solemnly*…Yeah.

Silence fallsbetween them and another few beats pass before Oscar speaks again.

Oscar: … I’msorry I lashed out at you earlier. Those things I said, I—that’s wasn’t…me.

Ruby: Oscarit’s….*pauses torethink her response* …Me too. I’m sorry too.

Oscarsighs.

Ruby: *cautiously* Areyou… really thinking of leaving? Going back to Mistral?

Oscar: I—

Oscar runs his fingers through his hair with a longsigh of exasperation.

Oscar:…No. I just… wanted to be mad.

Ruby: What?

Oscar: *frustrated* I just wanted to be mad,okay. I wanted to be mad and allowed to be madabout everything for once!

Ruby: *cautious but supportive* Oscar… you’re allowedto be upset. You can be mad. You can be mad all you want. Youcan scream. You can yell. You can cry. As much as you want. As much as you need.

Ruby gently cups Oscar’s face, making sure that shewas looking directly into his eyes to prove that she meant her next words.

Ruby: You don’t need anyone’s permission to be yourself. Not mine, not Ozpin’s,not Ironwood’s, not anyone. You don’thave to be anyone else but you.

Oscar: You’re…your ownperson.

Ruby: Hmm?

Oscar: That’s what you saidto me that time. Back when Ozpin first left. You told me that I’m still my ownperson.

Ruby: *gently strokesOscar’s cheeks reassuringly* Becauseyou are.

Oscar: *gloomily*Am Ithough? Am I really?Because it hasn’t felt like that at all in… months.

Oscargets up and walks away from Ruby. He returned to the railing overlooking theAtlesian cityscape, wind blowing through his hair. Ruby got up too, watchingOscar’s back from a distance. She wanted to move closer but opted for standing ata respectable foot away from Oscar.

Oscar: *solemnly*…Suddenly I feel like my emotions aren’tmy own anymore. That I have to constantly put someone else’s feelings above myown and think like them. All the time. Like I’m supposed to act like someoneelse. Walk like someone else. Talk like someone else. Fight like someone else.Accept the responsibilities, memories and mistakes of someone else. Keepsecrets like someone else. React to problems like someone else. Behave entirelylike someone else and completely forget what’s it like to be… me.Because…how long am I going to be me? How do I know I’m not going to wake uptomorrow and just…be someone else I don’t even recognize? Will I even be able totell the difference? Will I remember…at all? Who I am? Who I was? I…

Ruby: *concerned but cautious* Oscar…

Rubystruggles to find the right question.

Ruby: …Oscar, are you okay? Really okay?With everything?

Finally,Oscar turns around to meet Ruby’s gaze again, face full of tears.

Oscar: *voice breaking* I… don’t know anymore. Idon’t know anything anymore. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do anymore. AllI know now is that… I’m scared. And angry and frustrated and confused! But worse of all, I feel…alone. I’m…alone.

Oscarlooks down at his hands which were shaking.

Oscar: Jinn said the God ofLight created the reincarnation cycle so that Ozma would never have to bealone. Never have to fight alone. Never have to feel like he had the weight ofthe world only on his shoulders because he shared the responsibility withoutsomeone else. A likeminded soul, he said. So then why do I feel like this? We’re supposed to be two minds. We’re supposed to do this together.How did I end up being the only one trying to fix all of his problems bymyself? How did I end up having to mend his broken bonds by myself? I’m just a kid! I never wanted any of this. I never asked for any ofthis. It’s not fair!

Ruby: Oscar…

Oscar: *voice cracking; tears of frustrationsoaking his cheeks* Ifthis cycle is meant for us never having to gothrough anything alone then how did I still end up alone? Ozpin is gone and Idon’t know if he’ll ever come back again. And even if he does, what would itmatter? No one trusts him! No one wants him here. Everyone turned their backson him and I can’t fix that. Nothing I do can fix that!

Ruby: Oscar…

Oscar: … And when I change,everyone’s going to turn their backs on me too! *gaze turns to Ruby’s slowly* Even you.

FinallyRuby speaks up.

Ruby: Oscar, that’s not true.You have me.I’m on your side.

In an instant, Ruby was before Oscar, takinghis hands again with a smile.

Ruby: I’m here for you.

Oscar: *shakes head roughly* Yeah but…why? Youknow I don’t get you at all. Why do you care so much about me? I’ve been tryingto wrap my mind around why you care somuch. At first I thought maybe it’s because of Ozpin. Then after Ozpin left, Ifigured it’s because you pitied me. You barely know anything about me so…that’swhat it is, right? It’s pity.

Ruby: … It’s not pity, Ijust….

Rubytakes a step back and looks Oscar dead in the face.

Ruby: …You’re right. We’vebeen together for only a few months and there’s still a lot about you I don’tknow and fully understand. But the thing is that I want toknow. I care about you Oscar because I consider you a friend. Someone I woulddo anything for and anything to protect. That’s who you are to me.

Backin Mistral, when we met it didn’t matter to me that you and Ozpin shared a body. I mean I was definitely surprised—it’s not every day youmeet someone with two souls with one of them being the former headmaster ofyour old school. But that’s not what made me seek you out. It never was.

When I look at you, I don’t see Ozpin. I see theface of a boy who was…thrust into a battle he wasn’t prepared for at first,overwhelmed by a new sense of purpose he’s been saddled with. I recognize that face. I know that faceall too well because… it’s same face I wore when I started Beacon. You are nothing like Ozpin.You’re like me!

Oscar: *stunned expression* Like…you?

Ruby: *nodding*You’re just a 14 year old farmhand from Anima. Well, I was just a15-year-old girl from Patch, barely out of combat school. One minute I’mstanding inside a dust shop reading comic books and the next thing I know I’mfighting armed henchmen robbing the dust shop. Even chased their boss up to therooftop trying to stop him from making his getaway.

Oscar: …Wasn’t that a bit…reckless?

Ruby:*sarcastically* Have you met me? *chuckling*You’re right, it was reckless. That was the night I met Professor Ozpin for thefirst time and he invited to attend Beacon. As a girl who’s dreamed aboutbecoming a huntress, I was beyond excited but…on the inside, I was also really,really scared. I was the youngest student back at Beacon. Everyone there wereeither better than me or had more experience and yet there I wastrying to fit in. To prove myself. To prove to everyone that doubted me that Ideserved to be there even though I was just a child. It wasn’t easy but… I gotthrough it because I wasn’t alone.

I would have never gotten to where I am now if Ididn’t have the support of my family and friends. Back at combat school, UncleQrow took me under his wing and taught me everything I know about being ascythe wielder. And Yang helped me to socialize and that helped me to makefriends with everyone. It’s actually kind of funny now when I look back. Tothink, I used to think I didn’t need to make friends.

Oscar: *in disbelief* Really?You?

Ruby: *chuckling softly* Hard to believe right? Itwasn’t an easy change but it was a welcomed one in the right direction. Achange for the better which is why I know it’s going to be okay for you too.

Oscar: …But this is different.*sulks,disappointedly* Change for me means…loss.

Ruby: How do you know that?

Oscar: What?

Ruby: What if you’re wrongabout the Merge? How do you know you’re not going to be just fine? Jinn saidOzma learned the importance of living with the souls he was paired withand…Ozpin did say he’s the one that’s going to change but his memories staybehind.

Oscar: *skeptically*How do I know that’s not another thing he lied to me about?

Ruby: How do you know it wasn’t one of the times he wasactually telling the whole truth?

Oscar: I….

Oscar trails off, head dropping.

Oscar: …I…really don’t knowanymore.

This prompts Ruby to rest her hands on Oscar’sshoulders, urging him to look at her.

Ruby: Listen, I may not be able to tell you the kind ofperson you’re going become after the Merge. I…can’t give you those answers nomatter how much I wish I could.

Oscar: *guiltily* …Ruby…

Ruby: But…*determinedly* What I can dois give you someone you can always count on. WhatI can promise you is someone who would never turnher back on you. I may not have two souls but… when I look at you; Isee a lot of myself. You and I are nothing like anyone else. We both understandwhat it’s like to be young and inexperienced but still carry a huge badge ofresponsibility on our chests. We’re the only ones who can do the things we cando and be the people we’re expected to be. And we both share a power that wasgranted to us by the God of Light. It’s what connects usand because of that, I’ll stand by you no matter what.

Oscar: But… if I change—

Ruby: *firmly* If you changethen I’d still stand by your side. Even if you don’t remember theOscar you used to be, I won’t forget him and you can bet your butt that I won’tlet you forget him either. I’ll be right there to remind you of the amazingperson you used to be and help you to become the amazing person you’re going tobe. Because RubyRose is a friend toOscar Pine and she will continue to be his friend for all ofhis lifetimes.

Oscar’s eyes widened.

Oscar: ….You…really mean that?

Rubylifts Oscar’s chin, flashing him a big smile.

Ruby: *confidently*I promise you that.

Oscar: *laughingly*You’re…not giving me much of choice now, aren’t you?

Ruby: *cheekily*Nope. Afraid you’re stuck with me, farm boy.

This earns Ruby a genuine laugh from Oscar and itwarmed her heart to see him smiling again.

Oscar: So…what are wesupposed to be exactly? What do you call a pair with a girl who can vaporizemonsters with the blink of an eye and a guy who’s both fourteen and over athousand years old?

Ruby taps her finger in thought.

Ruby: *wisely* We’re … justtwo small,honest souls. We may be just kids but we’re also so much more. We’rehuntsmen.Symbols of hope and protectors of humanity. But more than that, we’re our own people who forge our own paths together.

I may be a Silver Eyed Warrior but I’m nothing likethe ones before me. They all lived their lives doing what they can to protectothers but they also lived by their own rules. I am me and I’m learning to dothis my own way even if I might not fully understand everything as yet. Just ashow you’re not Ozpin or Ozma or any of the others before you. You might gaintheir memories and have to shoulder their duties but even if you change, Idon’t think you’ll be anything like them. Never mind that you’re anotherlikeminded soul in a whole line of likeminded souls. You are Oscar Pine. And that’sperfectly okay because from what I know, Oscar Pine is pretty darn great.

Oscar smiles; chuckling slightly.

Oscar: *coyly*…Ruby Rose is pretty darn great too.

Ruby returns the smile, bright and pretty.

Oscar: *skeptically* …Hey Ruby…about Yang, I don’t know if I’m readyto—

Ruby: I know. And it’s okay. This…wasn’t about that anyways. And that doesn’t affect this. I meant what I said when I said I’m herefor you. Us honestsouls got to stick together, right?

Rubyextends her hand for a handshake. Oscar grins and accepts it, looking genuinelytouched by Ruby’s support. However that expression didn’t last long as his facebecame blue again. Ruby stiffened. She could feel Oscar’s hands tremblingbetween her finger tips and at first, she figured he was going to have another meltdownin front of her. But instead Oscar does something he’s never done before. Hecloses the gap between him and Ruby, suddenly pulling her forward as he wrappedhis arms around her neck; embracing her tightly.

Thisgesture honestly surprised Ruby and for a beat she just stood there awkwardlystaring at the top of Oscar’s head. She could feel him burying his nose into hershoulder, his hair tickling her neck. This was surely a first. Not to say that Oscarwasn’t an affectionate person; it’s just that in Ruby’s experience with him, itwas unlike the farm boy to actually initiate physicalcontact between them. Usually that’s her department.

Oscar: *through tears* …What did I do to deserve a friend like you?

Ruby’s initial shock melts into warmth. A smile tugsat her lips as she returns the hug to Oscar’s sobbing form; her cheeks touchinghis hair as she stroked his head soothingly.

Ruby: By just being you.

And scene.That’s it. That’s all folks. That’s all I got. (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻

This is pretty much all I got for this script. LikeI said, I was originally going to include a third installement to thisfeaturing Oscar reconcilingwith Yang. But not gonna go there, guys. Sorry. Will need somedowntime to recharge because I really wish to keep the spontaneous nature ofthis scripts and this one took me too freaking long. And even now that it’scomplete, I dunno what to make of it.

There are elements in there that fit into a favouriteRosegardeningRosebuds headcanon of mine whereOscar suffers a meltdown from all the pressure he’s feeling and Ruby is thereto reassure him that she’s got his back always; making a promise tohim that no matter what happens, she will be there for Oscar. She is in hiscourt.

This is something that I was hoping the main serieswould have touched on in V6, especially since it teased the divide among theheroes and the tension with Ozpin. I was hoping for some scene where Ruby andOscar just talk things out and Ruby makes a solemn vow to be the closeconfidant that Oscar needs. That…didn’t really happened…well kinda-ish.

But not in the immense detail as this. I’m not sureif we’ll see something to this level done in the canon. Definitely not to thislevel of two people talking this much on screen.

But at least it fits into things I would like tosee explored for Oscar’s character and his friendship with Ruby. Not sure whatto make of this script. I’m just glad that it’s finally done and the verdict asalways is up to the readers. Don’t chastise me too much guys.

~LittleMissSquiggles (2019)

#blackhakumen #squiggles scripts: rwby #oscar pine #ruby rose #oscar and ruby #rwby rosegarden #rwby rosebuds #rwby theories

39 notes · View notes

i-am-the-entertainer · 5 years

Text

A Mid-Volume RevieWBY

Let’s be honest. Most of us were holding our breath for the entire hiatus: we’ve been burned before by this show.

RWBY has always been a show with potential, but has been unable to get as big as it wants to be just due to the nature of how it’s made. Rooster Teeth is still an independent production studio, they can only put out so many episodes a year, and for the past two volumes it was just two guys writing basically everything.

It’s also worth pointing out that RWBY wasn’t originally a masterpiece on its own. What made it stand out was a) the fact that the mostly comedy-driven Rooster Teeth was making an original IP and b) the fights. People jumped onto this show because even if the animation quality was subpar, the vocal performances were all over the place, and the writing was slow as hell, there was charm to it, and part of that charm was watching the show gradually improve.

Which is why everything started to feel stagnant when the show stopped improving. Sure, they upgraded to a more professional-looking animation engine, they started hiring more professional voice actors and the original cast’s performances improved with experience, but with the loss of the series’ creator, visionary, and key animator, the ability to have epic fights was lost, as was a major guiding force for where the show could go. Couple that with key missteps in major storytelling in Volume 4 and 5 (including storylines that were just completely dropped or failed to receive any focus) and wildly inconsistent fight quality from chapter to chapter, the show was getting so many things wrong. Yeah, some of the criticism was just unnecessarily toxic, and I recognize the CRWBY’s discomfort at the level of hate they were getting (no one’s forcing you to watch the show, people), but seriously, it got to the point that even some of the show’s more positive fans were calling RWBY out for its problems. These issues were finally acknowledged by the team in a Reddit AMA following the Volume 5 finale, and they promised they would try to fix them. Miles himself posted this:

A couple of us went into this Volume with cautious optimism. While Volume 5 had been a disappointment, some of the new guiding philosophies they were claiming to use to fix RWBY for the next Volume had been used surprisingly successfully for Nomad of Nowhere. Everyone thought that show was going to be another cancelled-after-one-season failure for RT Animations, but surprisingly it turned out to be one of their best shows. If they could create another entirely new world and actually do some really good storytelling, maybe there was hope for RWBY.

If you saw the Volume 6 premiere in theaters like me, you may have watched with baited breath. They felt the need to screen the last hour of Volume 5 first, which just served as a reminder of how disappointing the overall product had been. Then they showed a behind the scenes video where the CRWBY discussed changes to the pipeline: a new co-director for the series, an actual writing team to assist Miles and Kerry, the animators being given more control on certain scenes, etc. etc. Overall, suggesting “We heard you and we’re going to try to improve.”

And then the first episode was shown. And honestly? It was pretty good. Good balance of humor and action while starting up some of the major storylines of the season. The fight scenes were well-choreographed, they’d clearly spent a lot of time working on the episode, they even had time to add little details and quirks to the character. It’s probably one of the best premieres of the entire show: it felt like it was doing a better job of marking a new era for the show than the Volume 4 premiere had been trying to do.

So, let’s assess how things have gone, at least so far.

Focus

This has been the biggest improvement for the show. The big problem in Volume 4 and 5 was having the team split up and attempting to give each their individual focus, while also giving secondary characters basically the same amount of focus, which was waaaay beyond what this kind of show could do. There were simply too many story threads and events going on that made following the show fun to watch––whole storylines would be dropped for several episodes at a time. I mean, the whole reason the Apathy didn’t appear in Volume 4 despite what they’d planned was because there just wasn’t any time to include them. As of now, there are only two major story threads we’ve been concerned with: Team QRWBYOM and Team Melted Ice Cream. A third could be Salem’s faction, but they’ve only had one scene so far: I suspect they’re going to play a more major role in the second half of this volume, though, considering they were waiting for the heroes to reach Argus. A fourth is Adam, but he also has only had one actual scene so far, I wouldn’t be surprised if they pushed him aside for the first half so they could focus on the main characters and he’ll have a bigger role later on.

This renewed focus has allowed us to finally get some proper interaction within the main team, plus actual character development. So, good on that.

Pacing

So much better. Volumes 4 and 5 relied way too much on cliffhangers to get people to come back each episode, instead of relying on a story playing out in single chapters. When I say cliffhangers, I mean cutting off a key story moment in the name of shock or not allowing the episodes to stand on their own. We’ve gotten a lot of episodes with an individual focus where they could potentially stand as an independent episode of the show, even the more arc-like episodes like what happened with Brunswick Farms: "The Coming Storm,” the second episode of that arc, had the Cinder vs. Neo fight that everyone adored and some amazing interactions with Blake and Yang and Weiss and Ruby.

I had a concern that having major revelations/moments in only the first few chapters was going to kill the pacing for the entire volume, and I still kind of have that concern. That said, I am surprised that they’ve kept up the momentum this far into the volume, so I’m cautiously optimistic. With maybe the exception of Chapter 4, each episode had a major story beat that packed a punch the volume needed to keep going.

Tone

This has been another problem for the past two volumes: the show kind of established itself with the anime vibe of visual comedy mixed with legitimate drama, but hasn’t really kept up that momentum volume-to-volume. In the cases of Volumes 4 and 5, they both began with some anime-like humor but failed to use it consistently. These seven chapters, meanwhile, have been pretty consistent in delivering those humorous moments: even Brunswick Farms, the most horror-based arc in the series thus far, has some laugh out loud scenes.

And on that note: the horror elements of the Brunswick Farm arc were really well done. Sure, there was no way anyone was going to die, but that doesn’t really matter (repeat: THAT DOES NOT MATTER, CERTAIN PEOPLE) because a combination of writing, animation, and even sound design made for a couple of episodes that were legitimately terrifying.

Animation

I don’t want to make too many calls on this because I’m not that great at assessing this kind of thing (writing’s more my forte), and @hypeathon writes some really great analyses on the topic, much better than I ever could. But overall I think it’s safe to say the animation quality has really improved. You can really tell with certain episodes that more time was spent to make them look their best, especially Chapter 1, which had these little touches that I wouldn’t have expected at all from the show five years ago. Minus a couple of animation errors here and there, things are looking good. No random teleportation, all the fight scenes we’ve gotten have been sufficiently epic, they’ve been placed at points in the show that satisfy our epic fight cravings, overall, good work. Kind of the payoff to the mention from the premiere documentary that they’re leaving a lot of creative decisions in the hands of the animators, which has overall made a much prettier-looking show.

Character Development

One of the problems of juggling multiple storylines in Volumes 4 and 5 was that we weren’t given a whole lot to work with in terms of character development: a lot of it seemed to just happen offscreen, we weren’t really shown what changed a character from the start of a volume to the end of one. The biggest victims of this problem were the core four, who were often pushed aside in favor of development for side characters. Ruby has been the biggest victim of this problem, with a planned arc about her survivor’s guilt in Volume 4 getting pushed aside to focus on Ren’s story, and only really getting one legit moment of development in Volume 5 in her brief talk with Oscar. Yang’s arc about recovering from the Battle of Beacon was almost non-existent in Volume 4, with only a few drops of it popping up at moments in Volume 5 that didn’t form a cohesive development arc. Blake and Weiss actually had a decent arc, but Weiss wasn’t given a whole lot to do in Volume 5 and then kinda sorta got fridged for an episode or two.

With the characters reunited and a renewed focus on the core team, we’re finally seeing some actual on-screen development. Chapter 5 “The Coming Storm” is the clearest example of that, with the team dealing with the fallout from Jinn’s story in (what appeared to be) a lower-stakes setting. Key moments included Blake and Yang’s interaction, which brought the much-desired angst everyone was waiting for, knowing how betrayed Yang felt when Blake abandoned her at the end of Volume 3. Ruby and Weiss, who were set up from the beginning of the whole show as partners, weren’t really interacting a lot, even when they reunited midway through Volume 5. We get a nice moment of their dynamic while they’re looking for food.

Jaune

Well. That might explain why he’s gone for most of the first half.

(listen rwde, they’re never gonna get rid of him completely. He’s an established character, they can only push him aside for most of the volume, stop chasing your tail and get over it already. If they abruptly killed him I’m sure you’d be celebrating but all of us would be thinking “What...what purpose does that serve to the overall plot?”)

Storytelling

This is probably the best Volume in terms of storytelling. After years of World of Remnants and exposition dumps delivered by characters standing around talking, the philosophy of “Show, don’t tell” finally actually happened on this show. Flashbacks, which didn’t happen much (if at all) before, were finally used, and we ended up with some great material: again, the Grimm Reaper flashback in Chapter 7 continues the volume riding high on good quality fight animation, but also gives us a sense of the world the characters inhabit. More than before, a lot of minor things in this world are implied rather than fed to us, like the danger Silver-Eyed Warriors have to live with, the efforts people will go to to live out normal lives in Grimm-infested territory, etc.

I brought this up earlier, but Chapter 3 “The Lost Fable” was basically to RWBY what “El Rey” was to Nomad of Nowhere: a massive lore-dump that provided some much-needed context to what the heroes were doing, completely changing the stakes of the show up to that point and potentially changing the course of everything for the rest of the season. And we desperately needed that kind of episode, where we were shown instead of told the background of Ozpin and Salem, instead of just blindly thinking “Here’s the good guy and here’s the bad guy.”

And yet if I’m being honest, I can’t say I really liked it. I’m not sure why, maybe I’ve gotten cynical like the rest of the angry commenters on YouTube, it feels a bit like this is happening way too late, like it should not have taken this many years for something like this to be revealed, or there should have been a much better buildup to that reveal. At the same time, I understand that some major events in RWBY’s production (the least of which was the way too large scope of Volume 4 and the biggest of which was the shocking loss of its creator right when the show was about to enter a shift in tone) meant any proper buildup had to be killed in favor of telling cohesive stories volume-to-volume. So yeah, I can’t say I liked that episode individually, but I know the greater purpose it serves to the show so it doesn’t really bother me that much.

Conclusions

I try to be positive with my reviews of RWBY, especially considering how vitriolic reviews of this show can get. That said, this volume’s not perfect. The big criticism I have right now is that this is a show that wants to tell an epic story on a grand scale but can only tell it in fourteen 10-20 minute episodes per season. It doesn’t help that the last two volumes were the attempted execution of that plan, while this one seems to be scaling that back so the show doesn’t lose focus. But that’s just my issue with how the show has tried to established itself in the post-V3 era and how we’re no longer getting that. I think the biggest improvement this show could have would be longer episodes, and I could sacrifice having a volume per year if it meant they could spend more time on the episodes and tell the big story they want to tell. But I know Rooster Teeth can’t function as a production studio while only putting out one volume of RWBY, its flagship show (sorry RvB), every few years. Actually, I suspect that might be the model gen:LOCK is gonna follow, considering the first season alone has taken a year and a half to produce.

At the conclusion of Volume 5 I remarked that even though it was a disappointment, it was an obvious step in the creative direction the show needed to go in. Even if the fight animation was very often subpar and it felt like they were trying to clean things up after Volume 4 got too big to handle, there was a better blend of storytelling and action.

This volume so far has been the payoff. I haven’t felt the urge to seethe through my teeth with disappointment after a single episode this volume: each one was satisfying in its own way, I no longer feel like I have to keep track of 200 different characters and what they’re up to, and I walk away from the fight scenes feeling like something epic actually occurred rather than “Okay, so they punched things defied gravity and that somehow defeated their enemies.”

Yes, there are problems, but the show is showing clear signs of improvement. I think it’s safe to say after seven fairly good episodes that Volume 6 could very well become the best volume of RWBY. Any clear issues with the story and scope for this volume should’ve come up by now, and nothing really comes to mind. As far as I’m concerned, as a serialized TV show RWBY is succeeding. Whether that will all payoff for the final overall volume? Well, we’ll have to wait til the finale airs in February.

#rwby6 #reviewby #rwby #crtq #rwby volume 6

11 notes · View notes

fishylife · 5 years

Text

My thoughts on the state of Tumblr

As I said, I’m going to continue using Tumblr but I think that over time I’ll become less and less active. Of course, that is all dependent on the Tumblr community as well, because most of my stuff is just reblogged from others.

I haven’t decided what new platform(s) I’m going to use because frankly, I don’t think there’s a good substitute for Tumblr as of now (for fandom content, anyway, which is mostly what I use Tumblr for).

Why I’ll miss Tumblr as we know it

(1) The fandom aspect

Tumblr was often my go-to source for fan reactions for movies, TV shows, books, sports, etc. Watch a movie and hardcore ship two characters? Check out Tumblr to see who ships them and what headcanons they have. Saw something happen during a game and want to see it gif’ed? Check out Tumblr to see if anyone else caught it. Finished the end of a TV series and want to speculate what will happen next season? Check out Tumblr to see who has cool theories.

Maybe this is a weird way to put it, but Tumblr has a high amount of people who have the same “fan perspective” as I do. You can take anything as seriously as you want to. If you want to go in depth and do character analyses, there is also an audience for that, but this is also something you can get on other sites (in fact, I find more serious discussions of this kind on Reddit). For fanfiction, we have AO3 (which honest is such a godsent. That website is totally free and I can’t express how much I appreciate the staff there). If you want to make a dumb joke, start an incorrect quotes blog, or talk about a headcanon that popped into your mind, there will be people who are also into that. This less serious, “supplemental” stuff is what I’ll struggle to find outside of Tumblr.

I think part of this is attributed to the fact that you can make different kinds of posts on Tumblr. You can have image posts, long introspective pieces, videos, short rants, one-line jokes, etc. Tumblr is pretty all-encompassing when it comes to fan content. This is sort of related to my next point.

(2) The community aspect

The reason why people can make all sorts of posts and it still works is that people’s posts are tied to their personal blogs. Contrast this with Reddit, where most posts are tied to subreddits, so if you want to make a short post with a joke or something it has to pass the rules of the subreddit, which might not be possible.

However, on Tumblr, you can make a post just shouting into the void. I’ve made posts about obscure stuff (e.g. about a TV show that no one I know has watched), and months later someone likes it. It’s easier for people to shout into the void to look for people with similar interests without having to make it as formal as having to set up a subcommunity. For example, if I just wanted to check out some magic AU headcanons, maybe on Reddit I might have to look for a magic AU subreddit, which is pretty damn specific so there’s a near zero chance of finding something like that. I’d probably look for a magic subreddit (not sure if that exists) or the worldbuilding subreddit, but that’s way too broad to find magic AU. Meanwhile, on Tumblr, I can just look for a tag and anything related will pop up. What I’m trying to say is that it’s a lot easier to look for people who have the same specific interests as you.

I may have mentioned this before, but Tumblr was the first place where I actually got o participate in fandom. I was a lurker on Livejournal and I scarcely commented on fanfiction, and almost never posted original content. On the other hand, Tumblr offered baby steps for me to participate in fandom. It started with lurking and liking posts. Then it grew to reblogging. Then it grew to commenting in the tags, and eventually I felt more comfortable making my own posts about my own thoughts (and writing fanfiction).

I’m also just going to miss having a personal blog. My blog is a mix of all of my interests, and the mix of interests is what makes it unique to me. I like that my blog is a mix of hockey, soccer, Sailor Moon, Bleach, dolls, movie reviews, and a ton of other stuff. At the same time, other people’s blogs are going to be a mix of things they like, and that’s the beauty of being able to build a personal blog.

(3) Types of posts

This ties back to my earlier point about how people can make all sorts of posts. Text posts, images, videos, audio, etc. A lot of people have discussed what platforms they’ll be moving to. The popular ones I’ve seen are Twitter, Instagram, Pixiv, Pillowfort, etc.

I haven’t used Pillowfort before, but from what I hear it’s similar to Tumblr. I hear it’s still in Beta though (and currently has a one-time fee) so I probably won’t be using it for the time being.

In the past, I’ve tried using Twitter but honestly, I don’t like the interface at all. It’s hard to use, it’s a pain to look for old stuff, etc. The biggest thing is that it only allows for short posts. And I’m the kind of person who hates those multi-part tweets. If what you need to say is more than 3 tweets long, you should really be writing a blog post. That’s my opinion. But clearly that platform isn’t the best for longer type posts, like fanfiction, fan theories, character analysis, etc.

Instagram and Pixiv are image-focused. So they’re great for fanart, photography, aesthetic blogs, etc. But it cuts out a lot of other stuff. I suppose you can fit in short witty jokes and stuff in the description parts, but you can’t fit an essay or anything longer than, say, a paragraph. Not to mention these platforms are really more about the visuals.

Livejournal would have offered the freedom to make all sorts of posts, but fandom is pretty dead there. Also, I hear that it had a similar breakdown on adult content.

Why Tumblr will change

I realize I haven’t addressed the actual reason why this is happening though. As I understand it, Tumblr is enforcing stricter rules on adult content.

For the past while, I’m sure a lot of people have been dealing with pornbots. The other problem that I haven’t had contact with is child pornography. However, Tumblr hasn’t been able to effectively handle these issues. They attempted to take down inappropriate and illegal content but as a result, a lot of normal blogs were being taken down.

I don’t post much nsfw content here so I can’t comment much, but there will be many people who are disappointed because they do post nsfw but inoffensive content. I just think it’s unfortunate that Tumblr hasn’t been able to come up with a solution to address the specific problem. They’ve tried to come up with a blanket solution. Although the blanket solution might address the problem, it’s also affecting the ability of a lot of normal users to carry out their usual activities. I know nothing about the sorts of algorithms used to combat these issues but I think it’s just unfortunate that a solution can’t be found.

Next steps

Honestly, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’ve always been late to fandoms, so I’ll be waiting and seeing where fandoms move. Maybe when Pillowfort is officially released, I might check it out (if it ever becomes free). Maybe I’ll go back to Livejournal. Maybe I’ll lurk on Instagram. Or finally check out Dreamwidth. I really don’t know.

But I have a post with some of my contact info outside of Tumblr. Please feel free to ask me for contact info. I’ve never made internet friends before Tumblr, and honestly I think I’m going to miss how easy it is to talk to others purely on the basis of sharing similar interests.

#thinking out loud #tumblr #thoughts

1 note · View note

mostlysignssomeportents · 6 years

Text

#5yrsago RIP, Aaron Swartz

To the extent possible under law, Cory Doctorow has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to "RIP, Aaron Swartz."

Update: Go read Lessig: "He was brilliant, and funny. A kid genius. A soul, a conscience, the source of a question I have asked myself a million times: What would Aaron think? That person is gone today, driven to the edge by what a decent society would only call bullying. I get wrong. But I also get proportionality. And if you don’t get both, you don’t deserve to have the power of the United States government behind you."

My friend Aaron Swartz committed suicide yesterday, Jan 11. He was 26. I got woken up with the news about an hour ago. I'm still digesting it -- I suspect I'll be digesting it for a long time -- but I thought it was important to put something public up so that we could talk about it. Aaron was a public guy.

I met Aaron when he was 14 or 15. He was working on XML stuff (he co-wrote the RSS specification when he was 14) and came to San Francisco often, and would stay with Lisa Rein, a friend of mine who was also an XML person and who took care of him and assured his parents he had adult supervision. In so many ways, he was an adult, even then, with a kind of intense, fast intellect that really made me feel like he was part and parcel of the Internet society, like he belonged in the place where your thoughts are what matter, and not who you are or how old you are.

But he was also unmistakably a kid then, too. He would only eat white food. We'd go to a Chinese restaurant and he'd order steamed rice. I suggested that he might be a supertaster and told him how to check it out, and he did, and decided that he was. We had a good talk about the stomach problems he faced and about how he would need to be careful because supertasters have a tendency to avoid "bitter" vegetables and end up deficient in fibre and vitamins. He immediately researched the hell out of the subject, figured out a strategy for eating better, and sorted it. The next time I saw him (in Chicago, where he lived -- he took the El a long way from the suburbs to sit down and chat with me about distributed hash caching), he had a whole program in place.

I introduced him to Larry Lessig, and he was active in the original Creative Commons technical team, and became very involved in technology-freedom issues. Aaron had powerful, deeply felt ideals, but he was also always an impressionable young man, someone who often found himself moved by new passions. He always seemed somehow in search of mentors, and none of those mentors ever seemed to match the impossible standards he held them (and himself) to.

This was cause for real pain and distress for Aaron, and it was the root of his really unfortunate pattern of making high-profile, public denunciations of his friends and mentors. And it's a testament to Aaron's intellect, heart, and friendship that he was always forgiven for this. Many of us "grown ups" in Aaron's life have, over the years, sat down to talk about this, and about our protective feelings for him, and to check in with one another and make sure that no one was too stung by Aaron's disappointment in us. I think we all knew that, whatever the disappointment that Aaron expressed about us, it also reflected a disappointment in himself and the world.

Aaron accomplished some incredible things in his life. He was one of the early builders of Reddit (someone always turns up to point out that he was technically not a co-founder, but he was close enough as makes no damn), got bought by Wired/Conde Nast, engineered his own dismissal and got cashed out, and then became a full-time, uncompromising, reckless and delightful shit-disturber.

The post-Reddit era in Aaron's life was really his coming of age. His stunts were breathtaking. At one point, he singlehandedly liberated 20 percent of US law. PACER, the system that gives Americans access to their own (public domain) case-law, charged a fee for each such access. After activists built RECAP (which allowed its users to put any caselaw they paid for into a free/public repository), Aaron spent a small fortune fetching a titanic amount of data and putting it into the public domain. The feds hated this. They smeared him, the FBI investigated him, and for a while, it looked like he'd be on the pointy end of some bad legal stuff, but he escaped it all, and emerged triumphant.

He also founded a group called DemandProgress, which used his technological savvy, money and passion to leverage victories in huge public policy fights. DemandProgress's work was one of the decisive factors in last year's victory over SOPA/PIPA, and that was only the start of his ambition.

I wrote to Aaron for help with Homeland, the sequel to Little Brother to get his ideas on a next-generation electioneering tool that could be used by committed, passionate candidates who didn't want to end up beholden to monied interests and power-brokers. Here's what he wrote back:

First he decides to take over the whole California Senate, so he can do things at scale. He finds a friend in each Senate district to run and plugs them into a web app he's made for managing their campaigns. It has a database of all the local reporters, so there's lots of local coverage for each of their campaign announcements.

Then it's just a vote-finding machine. First it goes through your contacts list (via Facebook, twitter, IM, email, etc.) and lets you go down the list and try to recruit everyone to be a supporter. Every supporter is then asked to do the same thing with their contacts list. Once it's done people you know, it has you go after local activists who are likely to be supportive. Once all those people are recruited, it does donors (grabbing the local campaign donor records). And then it moves on to voters and people you could register to vote. All the while, it's doing massive A/B testing to optimize talking points for all these things. So as more calls are made and more supporters are recruited, it just keeps getting better and better at figuring out what will persuade people to volunteer. Plus the whole thing is built into a larger game/karma/points thing that makes it utterly addictive, with you always trying to stay one step ahead of your friends.

Meanwhile GIS software that knows where every voter is is calculating the optimal places to hold events around the district. The press database is blasting them out -- and the press is coming, because they're actually fun. Instead of sober speeches about random words, they're much more like standup or the Daily Show -- full of great, witty soundbites that work perfectly in an evening newscast or a newspaper story. And because they're so entertaining and always a little different, they bring quite a following; they become events. And a big part of all of them getting the people there to pull out their smartphones and actually do some recruiting in the app, getting more people hooked on the game.

He doesn't talk like a politician -- he knows you're sick of politicians spouting lies and politicians complaining about politicians spouting lies and the whole damn thing. He admits up front you don't trust a word he says -- and you shouldn't! But here's the difference: he's not in the pocket of the big corporations. And you know how you can tell? Because each week he brings out a new whistleblower to tell a story about how a big corporation has mistreated its workers or the environment or its customers -- just the kind of thing the current corruption in Sacramento is trying to cover up and that only he is going to fix.

(Obviously shades of Sinclair here...)

also you have to read http://books.theinfo.org/go/B005HE8ED4

For his TV ads, his volunteer base all take a stab at making an ad for him and the program automatically A/B tests them by asking people in the district to review a new TV show. The ads are then inserted into the commercial breaks and at the end of the show, when you ask the user how they liked it, you also sneak in some political questions. Web ads are tested by getting people to click on ads for a free personality test and then giving them a personality test with your political ad along the side and asking them some political questions. (Ever see ads for a free personality test? That's what they really are. Everybody turns out to have the personality of a sparkle fish, which is nice and pleasant except when it meets someone it doesn't like, ...) Since it's random, whichever group scores closest to you on the political questions must be most affected by the ad. Then they're bought at what research shows to be the optimal time before the election, with careful selection of television show to maximize the appropriate voter demographics based on Nielsen data.

anyway, i could go on, but i should actually take a break and do some of this... hope you're well

This was so perfect that I basically ran it verbatim in the book. Aaron had an unbeatable combination of political insight, technical skill, and intelligence about people and issues. I think he could have revolutionized American (and worldwide) politics. His legacy may still yet do so.

Somewhere in there, Aaron's recklessness put him right in harm's way. Aaron snuck into MIT and planted a laptop in a utility closet, used it to download a lot of journal articles (many in the public domain), and then snuck in and retrieved it. This sort of thing is pretty par for the course around MIT, and though Aaron wasn't an MIT student, he was a fixture in the Cambridge hacker scene, and associated with Harvard, and generally part of that gang, and Aaron hadn't done anything with the articles (yet), so it seemed likely that it would just fizzle out.

Instead, they threw the book at him. Even though MIT and JSTOR (the journal publisher) backed down, the prosecution kept on. I heard lots of theories: the feds who'd tried unsuccessfully to nail him for the PACER/RECAP stunt had a serious hate-on for him; the feds were chasing down all the Cambridge hackers who had any connection to Bradley Manning in the hopes of turning one of them, and other, less credible theories. A couple of lawyers close to the case told me that they thought Aaron would go to jail.

This morning, a lot of people are speculating that Aaron killed himself because he was worried about doing time. That might be so. Imprisonment is one of my most visceral terrors, and it's at least credible that fear of losing his liberty, of being subjected to violence (and perhaps sexual violence) in prison, was what drove Aaron to take this step.

But Aaron was also a person who'd had problems with depression for many years. He'd written about the subject publicly, and talked about it with his friends.

I don't know if it's productive to speculate about that, but here's a thing that I do wonder about this morning, and that I hope you'll think about, too. I don't know for sure whether Aaron understood that any of us, any of his friends, would have taken a call from him at any hour of the day or night. I don't know if he understood that wherever he was, there were people who cared about him, who admired him, who would get on a plane or a bus or on a video-call and talk to him.

Because whatever problems Aaron was facing, killing himself didn't solve them. Whatever problems Aaron was facing, they will go unsolved forever. If he was lonely, he will never again be embraced by his friends. If he was despairing of the fight, he will never again rally his comrades with brilliant strategies and leadership. If he was sorrowing, he will never again be lifted from it.

Depression strikes so many of us. I've struggled with it, been so low I couldn't see the sky, and found my way back again, though I never thought I would. Talking to people, doing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, seeking out a counsellor or a Samaritan -- all of these have a chance of bringing you back from those depths. Where there's life, there's hope. Living people can change things, dead people cannot.

I'm so sorry for Aaron, and sorry about Aaron. My sincere condolences to his parents, whom I never met, but who loved their brilliant, magnificently weird son and made sure he always had chaperonage when he went abroad on his adventures. My condolences to his friends, especially Quinn and Lisa, and the ones I know and the ones I don't, and to his comrades at DemandProgress. To the world: we have all lost someone today who had more work to do, and who made the world a better place when he did it.

Goodbye, Aaron.

https://boingboing.net/2013/01/12/rip-aaron-swartz.html

56 notes · View notes