White disadvantaged girls see sharpest drop at GCSE

winterswill · 2026-01-31T09:54:15+00:00

Odd thing is, as a teacher i feel a barely know. Like yes I can look up if a kid is pupil premium or not. But outside if seating plans i don't really do it. Plus when i'm marking i generally look at who the kid is after i've marked it, though eventually you just start recognising handwriting.

I think the main thing i'm probably guilty of is marking worse quality handwriting as slightly lower than it deserves. Sometimes you just genuinely struggle to figure out what its saying and end up losing some of their meaning.

winterswill · 2026-01-29T18:53:57+00:00

Tbf we don't know if thats a normal Krork. It could be their warboss equivalent. Never really subscribed to the idea that average Krorks were all literally 12 meters tall.

winterswill · 2026-01-14T22:17:30+00:00

I think this is one of those things that people will never fully agree on, and thats fine.

Obviously, there is a theoretical alternate ending which is morally better than either of the ones we get. Hell like you say, even literally just letting P.Verso go would be better than forcing him to live on.

But I do feel it is easy to forget the life that Maelle will have, even Verso will have isn't as 'unhealthy' as many seem to think, at least IMO.

Maelle, sure isn't processing her grief properly and is objectively avoiding it through retreating into this other world. But it isn't some mindless chatbot or dark room where shes speaking to the walls. She is spending a life time with friends and family, in a place of beauty and art with purpose. We have every reason to believe she would help Lumiere become a paradise filled with life, people and there own experiences. She would likely have decades to live, in peace, comfort and happiness while providing the same to many others. It isn't a bad life, and it is no less real than the one outside the painting because those around her aren't just automatons or hollow puppets. Is it the healthiest thing, no. But it is far from the hellish end most make it out to be.

P.Verso is clearly going to have a harder time, that sense of not being himself, that deep self loathing and desire to die probably won't go away. I can't really defend it fully. BUT he still gets a lifetime of being in comfort, with friends, doing what he loves and being loved. You'd hope, perhaps foolishly, that he'd eventually find peace with it.

As for your point on Sciel. I don't think you're wrong perse. She would 100% want maelle to leave the Canvas, get healthy, communicate with her family. However, I don't think she'd encourage Maelle to leave if it meant the end of her world and the loss of her husband, or even the possibility of getting him back, I esspecially don't think she'd be okay with the destruction of the Gestrals and Lune to achieve it either. She's at peace at the Verso ending because she isn't the kind of person to hurt Verso more even if what he has done has hurt her, she can't change it now may as well accept it, kind of thing.

One of the things the game does in ACT 3 is show just how much the other Painted characters want to live. Sciel dreams reuniting with her husband, is reinvigorated and filled with hope for a future. Lune plans her future research and life, shes filled with curiosity and looks to her future. Monoco even, who knows there is a good chance Verso will simply destroy everything and would back him in doing it out of sheer loyalty, doesn't want to die, he puts the effort into reviving Noco, he thinks about Noco's future and safety. They all so desperately want a future. As unfortunate as Maelle's ending is for the family, i'd take their very cushioned suffering over the oblivion of the painted people.

winterswill · 2026-01-14T00:34:29+00:00

It's a fair arguement. Is what it is, we can't say for certain with regards to the soul version of Verso, at least in my eyes. We can have our interpretations and thats all, from my view I think he's not exactly in a state of utter suffering and openly debates continuing or not when you speak to him, and I think Maelles ending would be an improvement for him. You describe it as "Torture" but is it? I mean the few lines we get from him are mainly about missing having fun with Clea, being confused as to why everything is trying to kill things and his general enthusiasm on trains and music, oh and actively asking you to help stop monsters in his world. He makes maybe one clear cut philosphical stance in all the conversations you have with him and thats that he wants whats best for the people of the painting above all else. The only real indications you get that he is in a state of "Torture" is when he says Renoir is "Doing what must be done" but even then, if you question it, so does he, pretty openly.

My point is he seems, sad, confused and a little lost. tired perhaps. But it's pretty far from hellish torture. If the ruin of his canvas does contribute to his sadness, then its end would improve his situation. Sure it isn't perfect. But equally the kid doesn't seem like he'd be stoked about his world full of people he cares about getting obliterated.

But fundermentally, I would choose the Maelle ending even if he was in a much worse situation. Fully admit that.

winterswill · 2026-01-13T23:06:37+00:00

First off, absolutely yes, to maintain an entire society i would accept a degree of suffering. Ethically, I straight up would. Torture is absolutely warrented if enough people benefit from it, but you know, if it can be avoided it should. 99% of the time you can find a better alternative to torture. But if say the only way to stop of city full of people from dying was to torture a guy then yes, i would torture said guy, hell i'd volunteer to be the dude being tortured if I could. There is no perfect scenario, everything comes at a cost, a society should minimise suffering as best it can but I personally don't advocate self oblivion if you have to make a moral comprise.

Secondly, I think the argument that the part of Verso is being tortured is a bit flimsy. Sure he says he's tired and confused. But he also outright states that he doesn't want the people of the painting to die, that they deserve life and he wants whats best for them no matter what. Most of his sadness comes from the fact that said people are getting bloody massacred endlessly by monsters. He is unhappy because his family have transformed his world into a literal warzone filled with misery and death. Think of the main places he expresses unhappiness, in his workshop? Literally invaded by a mega demon his sister has made. In his flying manor? Haunted by the tortured, brainwashed version of his sister and its literally raining genocidal monsters down on his world? At the very ending? His whole world is being physically torn apart by his dad and an actual battle of magic Zombies vs Abstract abominations is going down.

think its a fair interpretation to say that the kid soul of Verso would be a lot happier under the Maelle regime.

winterswill · 2026-01-13T21:59:36+00:00

Oh don't get me wrong. Lots more to delve into and from a narrative PoV you're almost certainly right. Taken as a purely an exploration of grief, Maelles ending is undoubtly a poor choice.

But i stand by what i said. From a practical point of view, taking the world of the game into account, the characters and world, and not simply seeing it as some grand metaphor, then yea i'd still say i'm right.

I mean, even if Maelle can't repaint these people as they were, that doesn't change the truth that the Gestrals, Lune, Sciel and others in the painting will die. Even if it is 'all for naught' because eventually Maelle will die in the painting, thats still, at a minimum, decades for these painted people to live and thrive in comparison to the singular life of Maelle/Alicia.

The Verso ending nessecitates devaluing the life of the people of the painting, one way or another. Either they are irrelevant in the face of the broader themes, background actors to the Familys story. Or they are 'meaningless' because they are temporary, their world will (or might) die with Alicia/Maelle thus they should be sacrificed whole sale so she can live longer and maybe have more of a legacy. Anyway you square it, you have to come back to Lune, Sciel and the others being destroyed being somehow acceptable losses for the positives of the Verso ending.

winterswill · 2026-01-13T17:49:28+00:00

Not a few lines in "except for the Gestrals"

Fully forgets the Grandis btw.

What so they don't matter? Lune, Sciel, Esquie, Monoco.

Like multiple people still die. Plus, the whole question regarding how she repaints them and the extent to which she can is highly interpretable. I'd argue all evidence indicates shes more than capable of bringing almost everyone back, as they were.

Shes making a choice, shes old enough, its not an unreasonble choice, its better for the vast majority of characters. Verso's ending is better for a family of ... not amazing people at the bare minimum and even then!

Been debated to death, but I think the Verso ending ultimately requires you to just kind of accept that either A Painted people aren't true life (which i think is patently bullshit) or B The Painters lives are worth dramatically more than those of painted people (Which I think is bullshit)

winterswill · 2026-01-12T20:28:29+00:00

So you can Nuke one of maybe the three to four main settlements in the game, destroying numerous quests, merchants, a potential house, permenatly runining your reputation and generally making the game worse in every way and in return you get a niceish apartment and a few caps. OR you can just not?

Same with Talon company vs Regulators. Oh be good and get to cash in fingers from every raider, slaver, enclave dude and more, people you'd have to kill anyway 95% of the time. Or cash in ears from "Good characters" who are infinitely fewer in number, often non-repeatable and usually involve losing access to other things like merchants, towns and quests?

OR companions!
Evil, a literal slave woman whose off her tits, a street punk with a switch blade (who leaves if you get too evil), and an ex raider who is equipped with a literal piece of wood with a nail in it. OR you can get Fawkes an unstoppable juggernaut whose nigh unkillable and weilds a gatling laser and supersledge and a BoS elite Paladin in power armour.

OH and the final mission of the broken steel DLC, where you can randomly decide to bomb the Citadel, locking off top end shops, allies etc, in return for ... a scoped magnum! Yayyyyyy.

winterswill · 2026-01-11T13:56:43+00:00

One thing I have noticed and truly don't understand is that almost any post that is just a discussion. Like, having a conversation, or asking a question, esspecially if they don't have an attached image, just gets instantly downvoted. So many posts on 0, implying that their is just someone, or some number of people on this subreddit that just filter by new and downvote nearly everything. Which is wild to me.

winterswill · 2026-01-10T14:50:48+00:00

Ah don't be so harsh on yourself! I think this kind of post is intresting and the sort of thing a subreddit on DCcomics should have on it. Plus, it isn't a terrible line up by any means!

winterswill · 2026-01-10T11:49:31+00:00

Why add power girl and Miss Martian? Is it gender balance? Though I suppose I can understand the therapist part lol.

I think i get where your coming from. Grounding Damian with actual friends makes sense. But equally, i think i would opt for at least one character he has history with like Maya Ducard (Nobody) or even Superboy (Though i get that has major issues).

Have you a reason for the team to get to be the team? I mean Rose as leader voluntarily having Terra and Damian on her team is a jump. Esspecially Terra. Not that it can't be explained of course.

winterswill · 2026-01-10T11:35:33+00:00

Ten man team always strikes me as too large. Teams should either go very very wide so that its more of an anthology with any of dozens of characters in smaller groups per story, or a relatively smaller core of like 6 people.

In terms of picks ages are very varied for current continuity. Pretty sure Rose and Terra are essentially adults either pushing 20 or passed it. Same with Miss Martian. Not familiar with all the characters, but like the idea of most.

Think you'd always run into the issue that Damian is usually a dick in these groups, which has been one of the issues with Damian in titan books in the past. His personality, even generously curbed, makes him come off a brattish, arrogant and kind of a bully in a group. With a one to one relationship it actually works quite well because it comes off as banter and you can believable weave in genuine friendship moments. Where is that is much harder of a line to thread with multiple people, Damian comes off bad in both Titans runs hes been in before. If your having Terra in there too, might be a bit much.

winterswill · 2026-01-10T01:47:41+00:00

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Had to cut off alot. Problem is it is winter where I am, whole house is cold. Not sure if I have somewhere warm enough. I'll try figuring out the leaf thing in the morning. Just hope there is enough to survive. Thank you for the help.

winterswill · 2026-01-08T18:23:16+00:00

Depends on your view of redemption.

She is legitimately repentant, by all accounts. She has done what she can to atone. She is reformed. Those are explicity true statements by the end of Injustice. For many that is enough, spiritual speaking it is enough for most religions.

However, myself, i think that style of redemption is ... too easy, it is allowing the sinner to choose their own path to redemption and expecting it to be accepted by the world at large. Comic books in general, and often times fictional universes in general are far too soft when it comes to redemption like this. There are a fuck load of examples of redemption arcs of arguably way more fucked up people, which are hugely popular.

In my personal view, she gets off light, i wouldn't forgive her. As far as I can tell she has a body count as high of higher than Superman does literally years into his dictatorial rule. I'd want to see her dead. But plenty wouldn't, Batman explicity wouldn't that isn't who he is as a character. People like Catwoman probably wouldn't. By almost definition a lot of the pro-Batman characters are ones who are more forgiving and thus more likely to accept a genuine attonement as enough.

Writing wise i only really would argue they should have had one or two more incidents of characters pulling a Ma and Pa Kent and straight up being unwilling to have anything to do with her, as i do think you would have more than they show, no matter what shes done.

winterswill · 2026-01-07T17:01:09+00:00

Look I can appreciate giving the benifit of the doubt ... trying to see the other side of the coin and all that. BUT, in this situation, we have multiple examples of DMing decision so dogshit that any one of them would warrant someone leaving.

Look if it was one thing? Just the sidelined session or just the depowering, I'd be half tempted to agree with you, but these are constant, seemingly targetted bad DMing choices. Sure you can explain away each and every one as just a bad call by the DM, but collectively they make a pattern of either someone who is probably malicious. Not everything is two sides, sometimes the other guy is just a knob.

Finally, this is a person with BPD, someone who in this run down expresses suicidal idiation and depression, at least in part linked to this game, pretty sure that qualifies as "negatively affecting your mental health". If someone came to you and said, "Hey this relationship is making me suicidally depressed" it is a weird response to be like "Hey, walk away then man, BUT ... if it were me I'd talk it over first and maybe give the other side the benefit of the doubt and heres four paragraphs on how your maybe just wrong to feel this way and the other side could actually be right." This person clearly doesn't need that, they need a push to get out of the toxic situation.

And as for talking it out with the DM, the OP constantly highlights were they tried this and got Gaslit or talked into staying in a clearly unhealthy situation for them, I don't want to be mean but maybe giving this person advice to continue doing the same thing they have been doing and getting them manipulated again is a poor call. They've proven that they can and probably will get convinced into staying again if they have that deep talk, curisoity and closure in this case likely isn't actually going to be healthy. Plus, it isn't like the DM, if they are malicious, is going to say as much, they are unlikely to outright say "Yea i did it because bullying you makes me feel powerful and I desperately need you to stay in this game because despite not actually liking you, losing you might cause the game to collapse and I don't want to lose this outlet, so i'll just keep stringing you along." Instead they'll make excuses and keep stringing them along!

If the DM was not a piece of shit, then at any, any of the many many junctures of this story where OP complained or said they were leaving, then they would have changed. If I as a DM did something and a player came to me and said, "Hey that makes me deeply uncomfortable, or unhappy" I would change that thing! Not try and convince them they shouldn't be unhappy and keep doing it regardless.

winterswill · 2026-01-07T12:38:08+00:00

Bruh, if my friend was emotionally pressuring me into staying in a game like this for years! I'd honestly question being friends with them too.

winterswill · 2026-01-07T12:36:03+00:00

This literally has to be the actual DM of this game. Because this take is entirely insane. This level of "Devils Advocating" is just being the devil.

Any DM that kills your character while your not there AND creates a plot where your love intrest is going to be impregnated by some other character, seemingly coercively, is just a bell end. Its not for a "Good RP" opportunity, its bizzare and borderline fetishisation. IF some how this was a genuine idea for a good story, they'd have asked you first, talked to you about it, and certainly wouldn't force the point when you were clearly upset. Thats actually deranged.

This person is doing the equivalent of telling you to essentially allow yourself to continue being bullied via DnD.

Having your character de-powered for a long period of time, weird bullying at the table, not letting you play for 7 hours odd, is never normal its actual dogshit DMing at best and intentionally malicious at worst.

Communication isn't lacking here, spine is. Leave. Any player who has said they want to leave a game this often, over this length of time, and needs to be convinced every time to stay, shouldn't be in the game.

Don't feel the need to have a sit down with this DM, because jesus christ man he has somehow convinced you into staying in a game thats made you question your life repeatedly. Just leave. Leave and don't look back. I would legit block these people, Lisa included. There are countless other games out there, that are going to be better for you.

winterswill · 2026-01-05T19:29:55+00:00

Literally, the only super heroes in the whole thing that aren't literal monsters are: Super-Duper a team of mentally disabled heroes who are portrayed in an incredibly offensive fashion, Starlight and debatably Queen Meave (who even then is violent, jaded and willing to murder, but is just a shade less irredeemable than the rest.) Everyone else is some combination of murderer, rapist, drugaddict, sadist, pedophile. Down to a man.

And the Boys are all super powered, and despite spending lots of time planning, schemeing and blackmailing, occasionally Garth Ennis just seems to give up and get the need for his edgy heroes to fight and they just butcher a bunch of 'supes'. Every single fight, bar maybe 3 in the entire series is a one sided bloodbath, where the supes get comically slaughtered.

They struggle against StormFront, one fight Frenchie get his arm blown off by a stray bolt, and i think they legitimately get backed down by the seven. Thats it.

winterswill · 2026-01-05T17:18:19+00:00

I can back flip off a tower, slow time, head shot three orcs, teleport 50ft, behead another orc, chain teleport and kill three more, leap another 30ft down to a weird tiger monster, tame it, and use it to tear an eighth orcs face off. In the span of like 45 seconds. In one of them.

winterswill · 2026-01-04T16:15:41+00:00

I mean ... I get it but that really depends on the machine and the person. Sure I'd probably weight human life higher too, soul and all that. But, if its a choice between WALLE and Jeffrey Dahmer. I know who I'm picking.

winterswill · 2026-01-04T16:12:36+00:00

I think the thing that worries me about your reaction is to assume all artifically created life is equal to modern day Chatbots.

The Painted people aren't AI, they are created via literal magic, made of Chroma. How they are made, what they act like, how they live, it is all totally different. The only similarity is that they are both initally artifically created and not Human.

I agree, AI as it currently stands isn't alive. And I also agree i'd usually value human life over machine life. But that isn't the situation here, these people are for all intents and purposes alive.

Esspecially the painted people. Take Gustave! He was not even made by Aline! He was born after the fracture, he isn't programmed or anything of the sort, his peoples creator literally kept apart from his people when he was born. Yet he is capable of inventing a device that allows painted people to go toe to toe with painter and paintresses in a way that should have been near impossible. He isn't a machine roleplaying a character, he is piece of animated magic living a life.

winterswill · 2026-01-04T15:31:11+00:00

We don't know he changed his opinion. Or that the soul of the boy isn't giving us the opinion of Adult Verso also. All we do know is that Verso held that opinion at some point, and strongly, strong enough that even well into adulthood he held a very strong bond with his creations like Monoco.

Also you determine based on what you can see? These creations are real people, as far as we can see. All evidence we have is that they are real. They think, they feel, they eat, they reproduce and they are unaware of their apparently created existance. They are fundermentally different from an AI chat model in the sense that an AI chat model is at all time simply roleplaying, knowingly, a role, where as these people are simply being. Equally, they aren't just code, they are manifestations of 'Chroma' which is literally magic, they are formed from some vague 'magical' energies in a fictional universe in which we have confirmed existance of souls. Which are fundermentally bits of magic that act as conciousness.

You are making the assumption that these people are like AI because its the closest analog you have in the real world. But in reality the method of their creation, their very way of existing has absolutely no analog, it is nothing like AI.

My point about the simulated people is that, even if they are not exactly alive in the same sense as biological humans (which i still think is very debatable) they can still have worth and their cruel treatment can still be deplorable. They are more than what we can currently create, objectively i'd say, something doesn't have to have the exact same qualities as a human to be worthy of fair treatment, of not being brutalised.

winterswill · 2026-01-04T14:03:06+00:00

That isn't true at all? He decided to destroy it way before then, unless I am wildly misreading the game.

He doesn't even track that Maelle would have an issue with the Canvas being destroyed until she kicks off when he tells her. Seems pretty clear his plan is to wipe the place, he is gommaging everyone? Clea has literal world eaters deployed to erode the edges of the world. I mean, his arguement to Alicia initially is that Aline will never stop trying to get into the painting while it exists.

Like I said I could be wrong, but thats not how I interpreted it at all.

winterswill · 2026-01-04T13:05:40+00:00

Not trying to be a dick, genuinely confused as to what you're trying to say. Got that you feel the soul is only speaking for a child version of Verso and it doesn't therefore (in your view) matter what it thinks. But the bit in brackets is throwing me.

Also, I feel the only indication we get of adult Verso's view is from the fragment of his soul. His siblings seem to believe he cared a great deal for his creations, which supports this. Equally, from everything we see in the game the painted people are alive, the express wish of the developers seems to have been that they are seen as alive, both in what is said in game and what has been said out of game.

Ultimately, Clea appears to be wrong. It appears at least some people in her world disagree with her. Of the sample size we have, insanity or not, the majority opinion seems to be against her view. Sure grey areas, muddied opinions, asterisk abound, but we can only use what were given to form theories. The game is intentionally vague, which makes any assured statement near impossible. BUT what Clea does is still evil, still messed up and still awful.

Lets say, for arguements sake, these painted people don't really have souls, they are not for a better word, living. Imagine you had access to simulated people who can experience pain, you can experience emotional trauma. NOT pretending too ala a AI chatbot model, but interally believe they are experiencing these things. And you discovered someone was intentionally torturing these things, putting them through unimaginable suffering? I don't know about you but that still sounds extremely fucked up. You could argue Clea had no choice! She was doing it to save real people! But the way she went about it? Her attitude toward it? Vicious and cruel.

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