It's Okay To Be Romance Repulsed.

🌈 It's okay to be romance repulsed.

💛 Being romance repulsed doesn't make you heartless or evil.

🐥 Romance is not the height of human connection, and romance repulsed people aren't "missing out."

🌻 We all have different ways of relating to people, especially those we care about, and that's okay.

☀️ Romance repulsed people don't need to change. They're perfect as they are.

⚡Romance repulsed people's boundaries, especially around romantic topics, deserve to and need to be respected.

🌙 Amatonormativity is an extremely prevelant construct in our society, and it hurts those who are romance repulsed.

⭐ Romance repulsed people are important members of the LGBTQ+ community, and deserve much more recognition than they receive.

🍋 Romance repulsed people are valid no matter their orientation, whether they're aro, demiro, grayro, apothiro, or any other orientation.

🌈 Having pride is for romance repulsed people too, and it's important to support and uplift the pride of romance repulsed people.

Does anybody get irritated by mouth noises?

I don’t mean like someone chewing annoys you. I mean that when your near someone eating a burger and their mouth is closed and everything and you can STILL HEAR THEM chewing even though you’re a couple of yards away and it makes you feel like you’re going to throw up bc you suddenly want to claw your ears. Or you’re listening to a podcast for several hours and suddenly the popping noise that person makes when they open their mouth as a tic with their speech pattern (that didn’t bother you before) makes you so angry that you aren’t listening to what they’re saying, just hearing that noise every time they do it, and you have to shut off the podcast and not listen to it for a week or two before hearing their voice doesn’t bother you anymore.

This has been happening to me for years, but I just want to see if anyone else experiences this too. It just is really bad today, especially when someone had an asmr video that they liked and was hoping I would to and I just had a very strong reaction where if felt like my whole body was tensing up until they noticed and turned it off.

The Negative Character Arc of Vito Scaletta Part 2

The first act of a story is structured as exposition, meant to establish relationships, the world they live in, etc. It usually covers about the first fourth of a story. For a negative character arc, it is, naturally, the set up of the story, but it also firmly establishes the character’s Truth and Lie.

Beat 1: The Hook

The hook is important due to the way that it introduces the audience to the character’s everyday life. For a disillusionment arc specifically, it introduces how the Lie that your character believes impacts their life and creates conflict between themselves and the people around them. This is often where we come to understand the character’s Normal World (as referenced in the last part). 

Vito’s hook is plain to see. We are introduced to it through the prologue and The Old Country, seeing how the idea of Vito’s Normal World and his Lie are established through his reflections on his father and how his desire for influence the like Don Carlo has develops. I won’t go to far into that particular nugget, since I did that in the introduction. 

The hook extends into the first part of Home Sweet Home. We see Vito coming back to his “Normal World” after the war. Just in case it hasn’t already been established, let’s go over what the Lie and Normal World are for him.  The Normal World that he lives in is one where those in the system are at the whims of those that run it, so the only way to achieve any sort of happiness is to run the system or be part of a hierarchy that runs it. For him specifically, he’s seen multiple occasions in which people that run the system can do ‘great’ things and are allowed to do them (Don Carlo). Vito’s lie is that, in order to be fulfilled, he needs to have influence, and the group he has seen the most from in that regard is the mob. This is probably more of a cultural thing (being Sicilian), but it is something nonetheless.

During his first night back, we have two examples of where Vito’s Lie impacts his normal life and creates conflict. These are the parts of Home Sweet Home that I refer to. The first incident is with Joe where there is a brief bit of tension when Vito tells Joe that he will have to go back to the war, but Joe gets him out of it. How? By using the influence that Joe has accrued in the time in which Vito was away. This particular act is important for multiple reasons, but mostly in how adult it makes Joe seem. He knows a guy, he can take care of the issue. (This will be important in the next beat). Just like that, Joe frees Vito but assures his friend that it doesn’t really make Vito beholden to him. I’m going to quickly mention it now, but Joe also goes through his own character arc in the story, a stunted positive change arc. I mean stunted, because his story cuts off before it reaches a resolution (I’m pretty sure he got “killed off” right after the midpoint/during the second pinch point aka his act two). That doesn’t really have bearing in this section, but I’ll probably mention it when it becomes relevant.

The second incident occurs basically during the entire night he spends at home, starting with the moment he is asked to pray at the table and up until his mother asks him to see Papalardo the next morning. He is seeing parts where he doesn’t fit, consistently reminded of the life is father built, the one he doesn’t want. His mother is pushing his father’s Lie on him and rejecting his own. She’s not trying to be smothering to him, but this is just how she knows the world works. It is simply too bad that it isn’t how Vito’s does.

Beat 2: The Inciting Event

In a normal story, this is the character’s call to adventure, the way the story really hits it off. For a negative character arc, it takes on another purpose. It is meant to show the first hint for our character (and the audience) that the lie is untrue. This also showcases the main conflict of the story. This hint, by the way, is meant to be subtle. It’s not supposed to hit the character in the face.

The inciting event for Vito occurs, at least in my opinion, a combination of when he wakes up and decides that he needs to get his own place and, more importantly, the moment he leaves his mama’s apartment and sees Frankie being harassed by the man their family owes money too. Yes it does blend in a bit with the hook, but storytelling is rarely cut and dry. Keep in mind that Vito left for war a teenager and came back as a young man; seeing his childhood room is a stark reminder for this and pushes him towards the idea that he needs to be an adult and live on his own. Remember how earlier I said that Joe seemed like an adult? A hallmark of maturity (at least where I live) is being able to take care of problems by yourself: scheduling your first doctor appointment, doing your taxes for the first time, having your own place, etc. etc. Joe was able to make Vito’s obligation to the government to go away and allow him to go home, a very different Joe than the one that Vito left and in direct contrast to his father that probably couldn’t rub two pennies together. Yes, I am comparing Joe to Vito’s father, no it’s not about Daddy issues. I mean, it is. But it isn’t? Let’s move on. Anyway, this means that Joe knows what Vito has to do to be an adult, one that isn’t stuck in his mother’s house and working for the man his father worked for.

And then he is spurred into further action when he sees Frankie being hassled about the money that their father owes. This reinforces the Normal World for Vito, as his father took out a lot of money and now his surviving family is stuck paying it back for him, but also gives him the opportunity to be the adult and prove his father’s Lie wrong. His father with all of his hard work had to borrow money from these people, but now Vito was going to use his way to not only pay back the money the Scalettas owed, but also get more money and become independent.

Beat 3: The First Plot Point

This is the first real consequential choice the character makes to show them that their old ways are ineffective. This is what leads the character into the next act and is the threshold the character crosses that prevents the rest of the story from taking place. Now, they will not see the consequences of this act at first, but it will show itself later. 

For Vito, this one is interesting. It could be argued that the rest of Home Sweet Home qualifies as this as it is Joe introducing Vito into the world of the rest of the game, but BUT, I disagree. Honestly, I think it sort of works in as the hook and inciting incident in a way. The only reason this part is probably WHERE it is is because of tutorial reasons. I’m not saying that it doesn’t make sense, but there is a more thematic and appropriate moment coming that fits this act better: going to see Papalardo and what occurs on the docks in Enemy of the State.

Even after going to see Joe, Vito still agrees to go see Papalardo and try and work at the docks for his mama. He’s stuck in this liminal space where he’s not truly embraced his Lie yet, but it’s still there lingering. So, he goes to see Papalardo (from this moment on he will be called Derek) and gets a job moving crates for him. After some time, he makes his choice and refuses to move another crate (I think I only managed about five in my playthrough before he just stopped). Steve comes to see what the fuss is and Vito tells him off before using Joe’s influence inadvertently and getting a better paying job, one that he likes better too, out of it. His choice, both to stop working the warehouse job and to take Steve up on a job that is explicitly exploiting the regular workers there, is the first plot point and one that will come back around in the third act.

Finals are here

I’ve failed three out of my five finals (well, two. I’m just really sure about the other one), one of which dropped me a letter grade for a class. Just finished one I felt good about today, but I felt good about the last two, both of which are the two that I know for sure I’ve screwed the pooch on. I’ve already been pulling C’s this semester, so that’s murdering my soul. I’ve felt pretty numb this whole time, but I only have one final left and I can already feel the depression deciding it’s ready to come play. Despite the fact that I’ve actively been seeking help with my mental health this semester, this is probably the second worst school semester I’ve ever had (grades and depression wise), made worse because I’ve actually been trying. Especially because I did decently well last semester, considering that I had not been in school for a year and was coming back to online classes. I just don’t know.

I’m really fighting to study for my last final. It’s in genetics. I really would just rather play video games, but I want some sort of letter grade to pull me up this semester. I really hope some of the professors curve their grades like the mentioned they were going to. 

I really hope they don’t make me retake physics.

Sorry that I haven’t been posting or anything. My old lady dog’s conditions has been worsening and we had to make an appointment for her to be put to sleep. I haven’t really felt like doing anything.

Today is the day and her appointment is in less than two hours. I’m not doing super great

So I haven’t posted here in a while because I’ve not been doing great, but I had to share this story.

The other day, I’m at the register ringing a lady up for a notebook and a couple of pens when she suddenly demands for me to reiterate the individual prices for the items. I’m thinking that maybe one of the prices was more than offered (but the items only amounted to about three bucks), but go ahead and tell her. She then started screaming at me because our store falsely advertises our prices and that we’re dishonest. That every time she comes in the prices for the items don’t match the prices on the shelves and that someone needs to answer for it, she wants to pay the price she was promised with our sales tags... which was about four bucks more.

Our company has cut our hours. We only have five employees at a time except for during the transition period of 1-4 (including our manager) and two of us can’t leave our stations. The other three are near constantly taking care of customers because people want someone to walk them through everything. We have a very large store with A LOT of items, they change prices on many of them weekly (and we don’t have the manpower or hours to have people dedicated to only doing that), and they are already prepping for back to school season which involves rearranging the store. We are going to make mistakes and miss price tags.

While I’m trying to explain this to her in the most polite way possible (with her getting angry at me saying “they” when referring to the company) and glancing at the line starting to build behind her and her making a scene. My manager walks over and tries to explain we don’t have a way to make her pay the prices she wants to pay (we can make them lower sort of but not charge someone MORE, why would someone program that into the system) and that most people appreciate paying less money. She keeps telling about it while I stand there awkwardly and eventually pays and leaves but not before asking for my name and threatening to report me.

Apparently this is the fourth time she’s done this to an employee at our store and is known for this behavior in the shopping center. She never does anything about it, but some people just seem to want to be angry and find reasons to take it out on people. Jeez.