Scrapyard Station: More Words on Winnowers

To the limited extent that Winnowers interact, they don’t have the same taboo against social “backstabbers” that humans do. Ploys to elevate your social standing are generally legitimate, and aren’t expected to cause grudges unless you do something really awful. There are still a few standards, though, like “don’t frame people for crimes.”

Winnower “insight” can hilariously derail a social ploy sometimes. You have an idea to discredit them, and then they suddenly know what you’re doing while you’re still setting up.

Winnower “insight” is a massive security risk. If you know classified information, you cannot meet face-to-face with Winnowers. There seems to be a range limit on “insight,” though, so phone calls are still fine.

Winnowers don’t packbond, but they can still come to value someone in their own way. The Winnower word for this is roughly equivalent to “esteemed rival.”

Winnowers can intellectually understand the concept of altruism, and some Winnowers band together to protect folks from starvation, natural disasters, etc. It’s not universal, but it’s not universal for us to help homeless people, either.

(no subject)

I was posting about men who are emotionally constipated, and I concluded that Steven Universe has emotional diarrhea.

I’m reading TV Tropes

“Nisha's only real friend was a puppy that she adored - until it was bitten by something either venomous or rabid. After an accident, the puppy went berserk and attacked her, tearing at her throat, while her mother laughed. Once her father had bandaged her injuries, Nisha killed the dog with a shovel. Ever since that event, she's developed a hatred of small animals such as puppies.”

Presented without comment.

(no subject)

I feel like Persona 5 had a really good initial idea for Ann, and then failed to build on that. Which is fair, because I don’t know how I would build on it either.

Ann is clearly supposed to be the “seductress” character, right? Except Ann never actually seduces anyone. That’s Kamoshida’s mental model of her, someone who lured him in and then cruelly rejected him. Ann is a teenager who never asked for any of this.

In a sense, she achieves her Persona by claiming the stereotype. A girl who’s attractive and yet refuses to have sex is “evil,” but also free, compared to a “good” girl who submits. So she wields a whip and the power of flames to “dominate” her enemies. “Squeal, piggie!” But then where do you go from that? How do you take the dubious “power” of people wanting to have sex with you and turn it into something truly liberating? In Persona 5, you faff around a lot and never really come up with an answer. It aims for something to do with her modeling, but that just retreads Rise’s character arc in 4, which frankly wasn’t that good in the first place.