star wars, but it’s just the memes

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU

Clip of the first kiss!

They're so cute 🥺

watching Neil's stream and since Bow'ee and Astarion are official now he gets the option to smooch astarion, and he just kept pushing the kiss option and was laughing so much about how fucking tall bowee is, and then was like, "[astarion voice] I'm a little king!!!!" so cutely and happily ;-;

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Lyrics:

Burn me out like cuts Fade out when Centralia does Nostrils offa dust Or like veins too many needles touch

If pain is beauty, im a pretty bitch Got too quiet now they're whispering

If you blink then you might miss it Every hour is a week I dont need sympathetics I just need some room to breathe Do not fucking talk to me My genetics got me tweaked Running from myself I cant blame em' when they leave

Time, slips A, way Burn, out Dont, fade Dance, on, my, grave

I will never be them I will never be them I will never be them I will never be them I will never be them

My mind is a mosh pit Think i might've lost it Starting to believe there's only one way i can stop this

If pain is beauty, im a guillotine You bring the match, ill bring the kerosene

Let the gabapentin set in, suffocate me in my sleep Adderall to wake up, omeprazole to eat Do not fucking look at me, paranoia got me peeved They say they want to help, but they always fucking leave

Leave me by myself Leave me DND Leave me in the dark Leave me with these things

Tell me that you love me, i know all your talk is cheap Baby, im a code mistake, i was never meant to be

(CORPSE)

Time, slips A, way Burn, out Dont, fade Dance, on, my, grave (burn out)

I will never be them (I will never be them) I will never be them (I will never be them) I will never be them (I will never be them) I will never be them (I will never be them) I will never be them

I will never be them

I will always be a Code mistake

Frank Paton - Witness my Act and Deed (1882)

Listen on your preferred platform

Lyrics:

[Verse 1] Come with me into the trees We'll lay on the grass and let the hours pass Take my hand, come back to the land Let's get away just for one day

[Chorus] Let me see you stripped down to the bone Let me see you stripped down to the bone

[Interlude]

[Verse 2] Metropolis has nothing on this You're breathing in fumes, I taste when we kiss Take my hand, come back to the land Where everything's ours for a few hours

[Chorus] Let me see you stripped down to the bone Let me see you stripped down to the bone

[Post-Chorus] Let me hear you make decisions without your television Let me hear you speaking just for me [Interlude]

[Chorus] Let me see you stripped down to the bone (Let me hear you speaking just for me) Let me see you stripped down to the bone (Let me hear you crying just for me) Let me see you stripped down to the bone (Let me hear you speaking just for me) Let me see you stripped down to the bone (Let me hear you crying just for me) Let me see you stripped down to the bone (Let me hear you speaking just for me)

clip from a recent Neil Newbon stream when he's spooked by a dark room in the Shadowlands

"Oh wait, I'm a vampire..." *Astarion voice* "I'm a vampire. I'm not afraid of the dark. I like the dark! You're afraid of the dark."

Original blog post

Le important day in meme history has arrived

Goddamn. Okay

I am proud of your generations. The Millenials, the Zers. You’re doing well. I know you feel as if you’re in conflict with reality, but that is because you were built by this reality for the next one. The reality you have yet to make, but are grinding your teeth to build. Be uncooperative. Fight back. Any way you can. Strike. March. Vote. There’s a young lady and her fifteen friends sitting right now outside of the Secretary of State’s house, pouring red liquid on the ground before his armored vehicles, and Blinken had the nerve to say she was scaring his children. Imagine if they were in Gaza.

There are small ways you can fight back. Find them. Disobey. Their laws weren’t built for your world. Burn bridges. Cut ties.

Be petty.

They built you for this. It’s all physics.

I’m proud of you. Keep learning. Don’t fall into narcissism. Strive to be smarter and more worldly than your predecessors.

Avoid faulty logic. Validate experiences. You have more emotional intelligence than any previous era. I promise you. It went from indifference to fascism, to narcissism, to you—the generation of poise and ferocity.

Keep going. You’ll do it.

THIS. I love how Larian chose to differentiate from typical D&D games. The same template is applied to so many games, and limits storytelling. Breaking those limitations made it possible to make a morally gray, freedom-empowered game which gives the player so much variability! They use that to their advantage too. Can't tell you how many times my expectations were turned on their head, especially when it comes to Astarion.

When I first saw him in promos I thought to myself, "here we go, another appeal to the 'Twilight' crowd," and then the first few days you know him he really does seem to be that way. He's witty, charming, assertive, and very into you—the "vampire seduction" archetype. Then you come to find out (minor spoilers ahead) he's just a traumatized young [elf] man escaping from an abusive home. He doesn't want to seduce you, or even like offering sexual favors... He feels he has to. (Your blood is delicious, though.)

Saw a really long post today where someone was talking about D&D vampire lore, compiling what different sources say about it (including the Baldur's Gate games) and, y'know, for the most part it was a good post, it's a useful and good quick reference on what the different sources have said about vampires.

(readmore because this turned out long oops)

But then at the end, and in an addition to the post replying to a tag someone had put, the post began talking about applying all this lore to BG3 specifically, and it made me think. Because the takeaway that post had seemed to be that the things about vampire lore which are consistent to the rest of D&D do apply to BG3 as well, and that Astarion is simply an exception due to his extremely strong willpower and sense of self. And that just doesn't seem right to me at all. It feels like missing the point.

BG3 did some very specific, very interesting things with the lore of D&D. In terms of vampires, yes, but also more generally, BG3 pretty consistently gives the message that the things that are said in the rulebooks are not necessarily true, but are oversimplifications and generalizations that are believed to be true in universe.

BG3 got rid of racial ability scores, giving every race the same "choose a +2 and a +1" that variant humans can have in D&D. BG3 not only got rid of racial alignments, but got rid of alignments entirely - there is no detect evil and good, protection against evil and good has been replaced with a spell that mechanically protects against outsiders of various kinds, there is no alignment selection for player characters, no alignment showing up on inspection despite pretty much entire stat blocks being visible, and the companion characters all have complex morality that doesn't fit neatly into any alignment box. BG3 establishes and many times repeats that Volo, the in-universe author of a lot of the texts we have access to about Faerûn, is an incredibly unreliable source. BG3 has Halsin, a large-built and hairy elf (something which the rulebooks claim is impossible as elves are slender and graceful and have no body hair), say that "sometimes I think conventional wisdom is too narrow about what someone can or cannot be".

On the topic of vampirism specifically, BG3 has Jaheira (who is established to be wise and knowledgeable due to being an experienced and well travelled adventurer) say "They say that the only thing a vampire can feel is hunger. Nothing else touches them - not grief, or mercy. Or any sense of what is just. Who knows. There is often more ignorance than insight in what 'they' say", in response to Astarion remaining a spawn. And, on an Astarion origin run, it is established that at least half of his siblings can be convinced to want to oppose Cazador (it's just that non-origin Astarion chooses to antagonize them instead), and they can be persuaded not to feed off of people, and even without Astarion suggesting it Dalyria will take the initiative to help and take care of the other spawn. And, and this I think is crucial, every vampire we see in BG3 aside from possibly Vellioth is established to have been through circumstances which could easily twist someone and turn them horrible, no magical twisting of emotions or inherent existential evil required.

To play Baldur's Gate 3 and take away from it that the things which D&D lore has previously said about vampires apply to this game, and that Astarion is just somehow Special because of his Extremely Strong Willpower and Sense of Self feels like completely missing the point. Vampires in BG3 are evil because they're stuck in a cycle of violence and suffering and aren't able to escape, and when they are given an escape from that cycle they are able to heal and recover and be more than what they were made. Astarion does not have exceptional willpower, Astarion got lucky. He got out, he made some connections, he got a chance to heal and unlearn the things he'd been taught before being thrust back into Cazador's presence, and that's why he's able to break the cycle. Or, alternately, if the people he finds when he gets out don't push him to unlearn the things Cazador taught him and instead reinforce those beliefs, he becomes just like him. Again, no magical twisting of emotions required.

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Lyrics:

Deep in my sleep (give it up, give it up now) Deep in my sleep (give it up, give it up now)

I don't, I don't, I don't know why, I don't know why I don't know why but I can see you far away As you grow and change and I stay the same but But I, I'm just like you I've got, got no name at all The whole world against you You give everything

Sometimes I think of doing terrible things I know I shouldn't think it but I do anyway, oh oh Maybe I'm just crazy like I got a disease Feels like I got things that go deep in my sleep I'm doing terrible things Give it up, give it up now T-t-t-terrible things Give it up, give it up now

In the sky, in my mind, between my eyes Within my eyes, I don't know why But can you feel me melt away As the colors seem to fade and save the day but

Well I, I'm just like you I've got, got no name at all The whole world against you You did everything (deep in my sleep)

Sometimes I think of doing terrible things I know I shouldn't think it but I do anyway, oh oh Maybe I'm just crazy like I got a disease Feels like I got things that go deep in my sleep I'm doing terrible things T-t-t-terrible things

Everything you need, everything you need Give it up, give it up now It's bigger than your dreams Bigger than your dreams Give it up, give it up now I had a dream so far away It hit me in a different way (give it up, give it up now) I had a dream so far away

Sometimes I think of doing terrible things (give it up, give it up now) I know I shouldn't think it but I do anyway, oh oh (give it up, give it up now) Maybe I'm just crazy like I got a disease (give it up, give it up now) Feels like I got things that go deep in my sleep I'm doing terrible things (give it up, give it up now) T-t-t-terrible things (give it up, give it up now) T-t-t-terrible things Give it up, give it up now

“how did you get into writing” girl nobody gets into writing. writing shows up one day at your door and gets into you

have you seen this man's kiss in freecam. he just goes for it. he just grabs it two-fisted by the handful anytime anywhere. are you telling me nobody has anything to say about this.

‘The Profound Bond’ - A new romantic comedy starring Jensen Ackles and Misha Collins. When Federal Agent Dean Winchester gets paired with an angel as part of the Bureau’s new Human-Angel Cooperation Initiative, the partnership seems less than ideal. Castiel is arrogant, painfully inept in the ways of normal human interaction, and less than stellar at routine questioning. But as time passes, the human and angel begin to find themselves growing less at odds and more endeared to each other. Loosely inspired by aesc’s Below Skyscrapers. (Watch on Youtube)

renaissance in the 21st century

Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)

Director: Jim Jarmusch

Cinematographer: Yorick Le Saux