#csdragon rants

[csdragon]

Three main characters, one fighting style

I was thinking about Yashahime today, and it occurred to me, part of what’s been bothering me about the Yashahime fights are how all 3 characters are interchangeable in a fight.

They have surface-level details that are different. Setsuna uses a naginata instead of a sword, and each have their own special finishing move...which are all linear energy blasts. Azure Dragon Wave, Crimson Dragon Wave and Cyclone Burst.

Very early in the show this wasn’t as pronounced. Towa had her spiritual energy absorption and whip. Setsuna used Demon Slayer poisons and tools. Heck, Setsuna even had a special attack that put everyone to sleep. And Moroha used a lot more spiritual energy techniques, as well as her demon form and her father’s old move. 

But as we move forward, each character’s unique traits are used less and less. Fights start with swordplay and acrobatics and end when a rainbow pearl starts glowing and a linear energy attack is used.

Contrast this with Inuyasha where every single character operated on a completely different axis from each other.

Inuyasha of course was the most similar to the Yashahime with his swordplay until his newest big secret technique was used to end the fight. But the others were widely different. Kagome’s spiritual archery was extremely powerful but left her open, often forcing battles to play around protecting her organically. Miroku’s wind tunnel meant he could never be directly approached in a fight, but gave him a glaring weakness to poison, while his sutra and staff abilities gave him supportive utility. And Sango’s Hiraikotsu was this immensely powerful weapon but often kept her up on Kirara away from the direct action, while her demon hunter tools allowed her to surprise enemies and play subterfuge.

Heck, even shippo with his illusion magic while not often effective, was still incredibility unique and offered something nobody on the rest of the team had access to, and Kirara could fly and breath fire.

Each character had a unique weapon, unique fighting style, and unique contributions to the team. 

This coupled with the bloodless fights of Yashahime makes combat just uninteresting. Characters will yell, jump and swing swords and call out special attacks until the bad guy falls and the Yashahime escape without a scratch. And since they're all part demon, they’re allowed superhuman movement, stamina and damage resistance.

While in Inuyasha, while you still always knew the main characters were gonna live, there was REAL tension. Three of the main cast were normal humans who would not survive a direct hit from even a minor demon’s big attack, and every cut and hit they did take would have a lasting effect for the rest of the fight. Characters would get battered and bloodied and knocked unconscious, the wind tunnel would nearly kill Miroku in big fights, Hiraikotsu would break, Kagome would run out of arrows or drain her spiritual energy, Inuyasha would be very glad the robe of the fire-rat was already red.

I don’t really have a conclusion to this post, but like, yeah. That’s why Yashahime fights aren’t as interesting.

[csdragon]

Just watched Re;surrection...Why is Shirley a non-character in the retcon universe?

The only major event that changes between the main universe and the retcon universe is Shirley. So I kinda figured...they'd DO something with her. Considering she's a fan-favorite character. Instead she spends the entirety of the recap movies...on her phone trying to find where Lulu is. And Re;surrection...she's on her phone in like two scenses and that's about it. Like, I get without Mao, there's no mind-wipe, but man this does her character dirty. At least let her get her tragic death moment. At least that would give Rolo a character. He's barely in the recap universe but we're supposed to feel over *his* death? All she needs to do to die is think Lulu is Zero, which she does because she remembers Charles geassing her now. Even without mao, and her dad's death, she's still Lelouch's friend in the recap movies. It's still a hard hitting "wow, I hate Rolo, and Lelouch is sad moment". Heck, you could even kill her off in the FLEYJA if there really wasn't time for that one scene (time saved by removing the scene with Jeremiah telling her not to mess around for some reason. As if he knew the canon version of events) Do that and the retcon universe is 99% in sync with the main universe, so there's no need to distinguish them. They'd just be one and the same. But no, there's a whole universe dedicated to Shirley being alive and she has literally no place in it. The world has not changed one bit as a result. Get my hopes up and then dash it. What on earth even was the point?

[csdragon]

The curve is flattening

...vertically

[csdragon]

4 AM Insomnia Ramblings

Why is my first response to “That’s a cool new shirt” for some reason “You’ve seen this shirt before”? Why on earth is my personality like this?

I can think of dumber stuff I’ve done, but it’s like, after everything I’ve been working on to fix my dumber personality quirks, I’m still so hung up on making sure that the truth is known at all costs, that I don’t take the obvious conversation hook and compliment and instead turn it around into an accidental insult. It doesn’t matter that my friend has seen this shirt before. We’re having a conversation dang it, not a law review. The flow and fun of the conversation are what matter, and that means talking about stuff like why I chose it orthe overall change in my wardrobe, not the history of the exact time and dates she’d seen it before! Why do I care so much about everything being correct?

I don’t even take joy in correcting, I have this insane *NEED* for things to be 100% correct, both myself and others. When it really DOES NOT MATTER.

But it would be one thing if I was correcting something that nobody cared about. But just flat out saying “you’ve seen this shirt before” shows further inability to understand other people’s feelings. Because there’s no way to read that other than “your memory sucks”. Straight up an insult. Not even a joke or a tease. An insult. And that’s very much not ok.

I’m sure this one instance had very little effect. Not only is my friend used me being me by now, but she’s fairly thick skinned. But that’s not the point. I do this crud *constantly*. And that grates on people.

How do I stop? Why do I care so much about correcting dumb stuff that doesn’t matter

[csdragon]

*Weighs self before going to bed, after several days of sticking to my diet and exercise regimen, hungry but hydrated* 180.2

“How did I gain 2 pounds?!”

*Weighs self morning after, after hydrating and showering, but before breakfast, with water still in my hair* 176.7

“...scales are fake”

[csdragon]

asdfjk;

I hate this prison of a hotel room so much.

I’ve been cooped up here for a freakin month, and it’s so completely boring but I can’t do a single other thing.

Yeah there’s just 4 days left, but these last few days just go by so slowly.

Heck, it’s not even being at work that goes slowly. That moves at a decent clip. It’s lying here on this dang bed, just idly surfing the net, waiting for bed time, so I can sleep and be that much closer to getting home.

I’m never going on a business trip for this long ever again. If I ever am told I’m doing another one of these office exchange programs, I’m quitting on the spot.

And all my co-workers were like “oh you’ll have so much fun in Vienna, it’s a great time” well maybe it would be if I wasn’t stuck in a logistical paradox.

I’m stuck on this freakin island with the only way on or off being the metro. Which is fine and all if going on the metro without access to google maps wasn’t a death sentence. I’d never find my way back. I can’t read the signs and can’t ask anyone for help, because I don’t know German. Nobody in the office told me to get an EU pre-paid SIM card BEFORE I left, not that I would even know how to get one on my own.

But even then, like, there’s still not really anything that interests me here. All the places I’d maybe want to go, like a gaming cafe or something aren’t guaranteed to be English-friendly. Not to mention it’s either snowing or raining half the days here. And if it isn’t, it’s too cold to go out. IN MARCH.

Like, I can’t even go out to a restaurant most days, and instead have to eat at this hotel’s restaurant, which is hilariously overpriced and isn’t even good. I’ve spent more on food here in a month than I spend in year on groceries (minor exaggeration). At least the breakfast is both good and free, and I’m given some slight relief in $20 per day in food expenses, which is like $600 total, but like, again, I spent maybe $100 a month on groceries normally. And I get that food money, no matter how much I actually spend, so it’s still money I’m losing compared to if I could get cheap food.

Not that I’d really want to go out anyway when the entire place reeks of cigarette smoke. Freakin’ everyone smokes here. It’s unbearable. At least the days it’s snowing/raining it clears the air.

Oh and would you believe it, this hotel has no laundry facilities. Nor does the ENTIRE ISLAND. The nearest Laundromat is a 20 minute walk after using the train off the island. I packed 8 days of clothes because I expected to do laundry, so I’ve had to wash my shirts, socks and underwear in the sink with hand soap and hang them up to dry every day just to keep myself from smelling like absolute garbage.

But y’know. All of that could be forgiven if I had decent internet. If I could just do what I normally do most days on the computer. But nah, the dumb thing is slow and I have to sign in to the wifi like every 30 minutes, so I can’t even really play online games.

And of course time zone differences make hanging out with my friends near impossible. Though thankfully, @ifeeloddlyviolated​‘s sleep schedule is bad enough we’re usually awake and not at work/school at the same time. The only thing keeping me from going absolutely bonkers were the few times I was able to chat with him and @naniyou. You guys are life-savers.

But no, literally nobody in my office believed me when I said this was gonna be miserable. That I was gonna be miserable.

I leave Saturday, but every day seems to go by slower. The agonizing feeling that freedom is JUST out of my reach. And of course, they couldn’t fly me back on a work day, since I’m flying for my job. Nah, they gotta take up my weekend. At least flying back to the US I only lose Saturday, where as when I left I lost both Saturday and Sunday and had to come to work dang near immediately.

And what ruffles my feathers more than anything else is that this trip had 3 purposes.

1) Meet my fellow Support people in EU 2 weeks

2) Work inside the Engineering department for 2 weeks.

3) Meet the CEO.

Well all 3 were so poorly botched, it wasn’t even funny, making the trip utterly pointless. I got no instruction when I got here, just here’s your desk, do your work. At no point was I introduced to EU 1st level. Engineering wasn’t even told I was gonna be working in their Sprint (2 week plan) until the DAY BEFORE, and as such had planned nothing for me to do, giving me a couple busywork tests to do just not much to do for two whole weeks. And meeting the CEO? They forgot about it! It’s gonna be this Thursday, the day before my last day, because I had to remind my boss that I was supposed to do that at some point. Like, my boss and the boss of EU support were constantly telling me to ask the other person any time I had questions about arrangements.

This whole thing is stupid, and I hate it. It’s just...everything I hate. A loss of autonomy (both physical and digital), being unable to communicate, wasteful spending, separation from the things I love, bad management (which is weird because my boss is usually good. the problem was the lack of communication between bosses).

Thank you for listening.

[csdragon]

ASL’s place in modern progressivism when everyone has a smartphone

It’s kinda crazy to me how much emphasis I see put on ASL in the last 5 years or so. People saying ASL should be a required class, akin to taking a forign language. You see ASL interpreters on public broadcasts to show how woke, liberal and inclusive the speaker is. Games and shows make a point to include characters who only sign to communicate and don’t subtitle them so you can “get the full experience”. Videos of kids “rapping” in sign. But like....

TEXT EXISTS! AND DOESN’T REQUIRE LEARNING A 2ND LANGUAGE AND ADVANCED SKILLSET TO USE

15 years ago pushing ASL made sense. Writing is slow, it requires a hard surface and materials on hand, most of which don’t fit well in a pocket at a legible size.

But we have better tools now! Typing is more or less the same speed as signing, depending on the user, and straight up faster than using letter signs. Just type out what you have to say, and show it to the person you’re talking to, or send it as a message. And even better, speech to text allows people who talk to communicate with deaf people without even having to type, letting them communicate at speaking speed, so there’s no downside for able-bodied people

There’s even offline messaging apps that let you send a message to everyone in a certain distance of you (using the app), so deaf people can even talk to each other without direct line of sight, or with more than one person talking at a time.

Heck, with the power of Google Translate, you can type to almost anyone, regardless of the languages y’all know. That’s a million times better than having to learn an entire separate language of word-signs to use.

Every tool has its place. If people want to learn it and enjoy using it, that’s fine, but can we stop acting like something is more progressive because it pushes using sign language??

[csdragon]

Remember when 2016 was “This is not fine”

2015 was trash, 2016 was the breaking point

And every year since has been more and more insane than the last

I wish I had even 1/10th the energy to participate in anything like BLM or Politics or whatever, but it takes all the effort I can just to block out all the negativity in the world not even beginning to actually try to DO anything.