phantasticalforce:

PSIV: 183cm isn’t short by ~Mirinee

Seeing them both dual-wielding shields actually amuses me more than the actual joke.

phantasticalforce:

Vengeance by ~GaryStorkamp

That is a nice looking Dark Force.

This may just be the best way to sell vegetables I’ve ever seen.

noonturnsmidnight:

Oh boy, don’t even get me started on the portrayal of romance in mainstream media.
It’s probably my No. 1 pet peeve. I loathe it with the burning passion of a billion supernovae. Mostly because it’s fucking EVERYWHERE.

Seriously, turn on the tv. Go to a bookshop. Listen to the radio. 
Everything is about love, love, love, and not any kind of love, romantic love. Romance is the ultimate everything, the ultimate goal - according to society, life without romance is empty and unfulfilling. 

That’s a problem in and off itself, but it’s not even the focus on romantic love that makes me foam from the mouth, it’s the extremely narrow definition of what this “love” actually is: It’s when two usually white, conventionally attractive, able-bodied, young people want to bang each other at first sight and somehow end up in a codependent, emotionally unhealthy, unsubstantial, monogamous cishet relationship.  

Not that there is anything wrong with monogamous cishet relationships, it’s just that not every person in the world is in one, wants to have one or could ever be happy in one, but those are the only positively portrayed relationships that infiltrate literally everything while stories about people of colour, disabled people, LGBT+ people and/or polyamorous people in love are either labelled “special interest” or used as a punchline/throwaway background event/cheap gimmick. 

Even if you ignore all of that, romantic love is ridiculously romantised in our society. 
Love in fiction can do ANYTHING. It can end wars, break curses, overcome borders, end oppression, cure illnesses both mental and physical and save people from themselves.

Love in real life is nothing like that. 
So you fall in love. Sometimes you enter a relationship. Sometimes you don’t. Sometimes that relationship is happy, for many, many years or even forever. Sometimes it’s unhappy, unhealthy or even abusive. Sometimes you fall in love with the wrong person, someone who is bad for you or someone you are bad for and no amount of love can change that. 
Love doesn’t automatically bring out the best in you. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it brings out the worst in you instead.

Love is diverse. Love is very human, very flawed, very trivial. Some people don’t fall in love, but most people do it all the time. There is no magic involved. You don’t need to be in a romantic relationship to be happy, to be fulfilled, to be whole. 

Yet that’s what stories tell you all the time. And it leads to people everywhere being disappointed with life because they have never had a fairytale romance. Teenagers wonder whether they will die alone simply because they haven’t been in a relationship yet at age 16 or even younger.

And so you fall in love and you enter a relationship and it’s a happy one. And because all of your life you have been told that you haven’t been whole until now. That this person that makes you happy better be the one. That you can’t live without them. 
But things don’t go the way they should t go and suddenly you’re unhappy. You split. And you blame your partner, demonise them like angry love songs told you to, blame yourself, try to change, think you’re going to die like sad love songs told you to.

And maybe a little bit of that is actually you, but most of it is just how you’ve learnt to love and react to love.

Still, there’s love stories everywhere. Every action flick, every crime procedural, every fantasy novel has a romance subplot that is completely superfluous to the rest of the story, but has to be there, because that’s just how things are.

They tell you the same story over and over again: Two people making googly eyes at each other upon their first meeting, exchanging meaningful glances, kissing tearfully in the pale moonlight, declaring that they can’t live without each other despite the fact that they barely know each other at all. Because that’s what romance is, at the end of the day: Empty phrases and superficial gestures mimicking a meaningful connection.

We all swallow it because we don’t know any better. But I’m sick of it. Sick of being excluded, otherised and erased, sick of being constricted and fed lies. Sick of being told that I’d be just half a person on my own. 

[Rebloggable by request.]

I think “two usually white, conventionally attractive, able-bodied, young people want to bang each other at first sight and somehow end up in a codependent, emotionally unhealthy, unsubstantial, monogamous cishet relationship” might be the best sentence I’ve read all day.

(via theoreticalconstruct)

phantasticalforce:

The World of Phantasy Star - Examining the Best Five I, II, and III Characters

Let’s examine the five comrades who made the deepest impressions in a series glowing with character charm.

4th Place: Shilka (II)

Though the character doesn’t have much of a taste for engaging enemies in battle, her “occupation” of “thief” has a supreme charm. If you take her to the “Friends’ Home” [Baggage Room - odd name for it, unless it’s a euphenism] in Paseo on Parma when she reaches level 10, it is possible for her to steal an item called the Visiphone. This item enables you to save anywhere - in dungeons, say, or in the overworld. The game’s degree of challenge changes dramatically based on whether or not you have this item, and if only for that, Shilka can absolutely not be left behind.

Caption as seen here

 [Caption: Eusis’s item screen with Visiphone]
Though Shilka is not very useful, she knows how to steal the Visiphone - coinciding with the proper rise in her experience level, naturally.

Welp, now I have to play PSII again for the 73rd time. Thanks, internet.

phantasticalforce:

The World of Phantasy Star - Another World: Phantasy Star III

Why did Phantasy Star III go wrong?

[Note: the verb used above is “shippai suru”, which can mean “to blunder”, “to err”, or to outright “fail”. I felt that “go wrong” was the most encompassing translation, but there’re harsher ones possible.]

Compared to I and II, the multiple endings and, moreover, the story were on a rather large scale. But the development period was comparatively short, and the game was created by different staff members than those of I or II.

One lone member of II’s staff, Hirondo Saiki, was in charge of the game design, but III was the first time the programmers and graphic designers had been assembled as a team. For this reason, the game differed from the Phantasy Star-game image I and II held. The effect was that the product ended up as an intense disappointment to fans from I.

To cite a reason, the game’s serious material and staged-in-the-Middle-Ages atmosphere didn’t match the series’s image well.

The thin charm of the characters who appeared in the game, the enemy graphics that looked so Western, which provoked rejective reactions from a lot of fans, and the stress that piled up when playing the game from the slow speed of the characters could also be cited.

What’s more, the multiple endings, III’s greatest selling point, didn’t differ much in how they ended or their content, so III didn’t leave the emotional impression a game does after it’s over - it lacked impact as a game.

Yeah. The problem was that the graphics were “too western.” Sure.

…I’d still play the hell out of a PSIII remake if someone managed to fix its numerous issues. They had a great concept there. Just too bad they fumbled it as badly as they did.

rydiaasuka:

Regret? What is regret?

“#NO REGRETS”

wildcat2030:

Eyeball discovery may mean safer surgery

-

Scientists have found a previously undetected layer in the cornea, the clear window at the front of the human eye.

The breakthrough, announced in the journal Ophthalmology, could help surgeons to dramatically improve outcomes for patients undergoing corneal grafts and transplants.

“This is a major discovery that will mean that ophthalmology textbooks will literally need to be re-written. Having identified this new and distinct layer deep in the tissue of the cornea, we can now exploit its presence to make operations much safer and simpler for patients,” says Harminder Dua, professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences at the University of Nottingham, for whom the new layer has been named.

“From a clinical perspective, there are many diseases that affect the back of the cornea which clinicians across the world are already beginning to relate to the presence, absence or tear in this layer.”

The human cornea is the clear protective lens on the front of the eye through which light enters the eye. Scientists previously believed the cornea to be comprised of five layers, from front to back, the corneal epithelium, Bowman’s layer, the corneal stroma, Descemet’s membrane, and the corneal endothelium.

The new layer that has been discovered is located at the back of the cornea between the corneal stroma and Descemet’s membrane. Although it is just 15 microns thick—the entire cornea is around 550 microns thick or 0.5mm—it is incredibly tough and is strong enough to be able to withstand one and a half to two bars of pressure.

Science can be really neat sometimes.

(via thenyxmidnight)

dallyingminstrel:

flyawaymax:

ayellowbirds:

oohmanada:

Reposted from Pixie Belle

Just thought I’d give a heads up to everyone at the con this year:

If you got a photo with Image Solutions please read this:

So since I wanted to talk about this. Apparently if you have ever taken photos with a photographer in image solutions…well…you’re a body pillow now. I found this horrible thing in the dealers room. Apparently it’s legal because it’s a “promotional item”. Since when did promotions gets charged? All I can say is I wasn’t told these were going to be made when I SPECIFICALLY talked to him last year what he was going to do with the photos and I do not approve of it at all. He was selling these in the dealers room of the convention he took them at last year thinking the cosplayers would be okay with it. Obviously this man is beyond stupid. He had small pillows and larger ones too. When me, and two friends confronted him he had the AUDACITY to tell me that I was a popular seller, as if that would make me feel more comfortable about this. There were many others who had pillows made and every other person I talked to was disgusted with this.

Here’s the Article

Here’s his deviantart.

And here’s his “Professional” page.

Be careful of his unsavory business tactics, and if you find out he’s selling you as a product, make sure to confront him and demand a physical copy of whatever crap he had you sign, Also, he doesn’t ask for ages when he does photos, so that being said, there is a chance that some of these photos are of underaged girls. Regardless, it’s shoddy, its horrible, and this guy needs to stop, or get his camera broken. (When I discovered my girlfriend on a pillow and a sticker set…I wasn’t too happy).

 

This is absolutely atrocious behavior.

Are you fucking kidding me.

Signal booooooost

aaaaaaaaaa what

(via theoreticalconstruct)