one of the (many) things that resonated with me after reading the Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers (if you haven't read them yet, GO READ THEM) is Ouloo's opinion on the exhaustion of political activism vs taking the easy way out and letting others do the work for you.

she wants to live a quiet life, and she wants people to stop killing each other. that's the extent of her politics. she doesn't know the complexities of the political landscape of the galactic commons in which she lives, nor is she obligated to become an expert in it: fundamentally, she wants people to get along, and she wants to serve them cake, and she does her best to live her life in exactly those terms. when she's confronted with her own biases, she works doubly hard on herself to overcome them, because her existence is dominated by that one, very very simple thing: be kind to others. some of the other characters look down at her for it, saying it's naive, that the world can't be made better with cake, that if she really cared she'd do something more tangible about it.

but I think there's something really valuable in that mindset. I want to be kind to others, and I want others to get along. I don't have the answers to all of the political questions in our society. but also, I don't have to. not everyone is capable of being loud and angry. I go through so much anxiety and stress, worrying that I'm not doing enough, I'm not loud enough, I'm not doing my part to change the world we live in, what if I'm just being lazy?

sometimes living your own life gently and with kindness and interacting with others from a place of love is enough. we need both kinds of people in the world. and sometimes gentle people get loud, and sometimes loud people need gentleness.

not having all the answers all the time is okay. worrying is not activism. anxiety is not activism. you are allowed to take care of your body and mind.

keris post made me think about how carlos is the thing that grounds cecil but whats the thing that grounds carlos? ive joked about carlos having an identity crisis if his status as a scientist, hero, good neighbor and husband, is being threatened but— hear me out

part of the episode with donnie kevin and charles is charles making it clear that donnie is a part of his life, and therefore he is going to influence it and kevin has to be okay with that in order for them to work…… and thats such a different dynamic to a couple who decide to have a child together after being married, but the point is that children take up space in your life, and they change who you are just be existing….. carlos is no longer just defined by being a scientist, cecil is no longer just defined by being a radio host. they’re parents, fathers. that will always be who they are because this is a choice they have made, and their child will influence their life and choices for the rest of their lives. they can’t run away. they cant move on. they cant go somewhere and decide they like it better (looks at carlos) they cant pretend that their child doesn’t exist to absolve themselves of responsibility (looks at cecils mother😒) so despite the love and care and utter adoration, a child is also a commitment that is to seriously be considered

the adults have all fucked everything up, and they cant see past the despair they’ve been so thoroughly steeped in….. but children are so new to the game, so hopeful, stronger than they realize…… insightful because they’re applying their own logic that is less influenced/curated by the world they’re navigating ( a world, canonically, that is trapped in a time loop where adults literally cant escape the hand they’re been dealt) so what is it time to do? seriously consider the children.

i hope that esteban is the thing that grounds carlos! physically in night vale, but also in who he is as a person, and what he gets up for every single day. Cecil too for that matter— if his station or voice is taken from him— Because how lovely would a story be if it were to be a fathers love of their child trumping all else, for a child’s mere existence and joy and wonder of the world to soothe away the pain of abandonment and loss of direction?

huntokars love of her town became the very thing that destroyed it, but a fathers love for their child can be the very thing to save it!

Something I find interesting about Batman Beyond that isn't discussed much is Blight and whose at fault for his transformation. There's a heavy parallel between the scenes of the joker in the 80's film after his transformation, and when Blight is first revealed. But unlike the Joker, with which his transformation is blamed on Batman through implication or outright dialogue, Blight is never blamed on Terry. Old Man Bruce, at this moment still three seconds away from pressing the button to stop Terry from moving, sees an echo of what happened to him with the villain whose done the most harm to his family and Gotham itself out of them all...and let's it go.

Terry doesn't blame himself. Bruce doesn't blame him. The narrative doesn't imply that there's a connection between Blight and Terry because of the latter's fateful mistake. The only person who blames Terry is Powers himself, and he is shown to obviously be wrong. Power's transformation was brought by his own actions, and his own actions alone. He has to live with thr consequences of his own hubris and greed, like every other poor bastard dead by the nerve gas or his own hand.

The first meeting we see of Powers Bruce though, with Terry in tow. By that point our protagonist had no idea about the actual damage done. How did it feel, to see Powers seem fine after being exposed to something Terry's dad died for? That this is just another mark on the hatchet of Gotham's working class, where Powers seemed to have escape consequence once again through the power of his wealth?

be me

forgets some stuff about/surrounding lesson 16

goes to reread it

becomes even more confused

i only have like 2.5 questions but. what. someone explain this to me like i'm the world's dumbest 5 year old

we became lilith??

so we jump into the past in mammon's room, where the brothers (excluding lucifer) are doing their little prank. they acknowledge us, but we leave smoothly, and hide from our lucifer and our past self in lilith's room. we expect to just wait a bit and then see how the attic door was opened. but then... levi comes into the room, doesn't bring up us and lucifer, and then starts talking about how we're playing hide and seek with belphie, and now we should go look for him. we then go to the attic stairway.

while going up, we can hear lucifer and belphie fighting... despite how at the time, lucifer was with us. he begins to descend, and we manage to hide from him, despite not leaving the stairs or using magic. we then get to the attic, but cannot see a door.

i genuinely have no idea about the lucifer and stairway scene, but i can chalk up levi in lilith's room to be how for these parts, we get treated like we are lilith or at least have her power. why though. is this some really botched attempt at foreshadowing?

2. room time travel for no good reason

why did that have to happen in the first place? did the devs fear the chapters being too short or something? the story flows much better without certain rooms suddenly having scenes from the past. time travel is already tricky, the game doesn't need to make this any more complicated.

3. time loops. fuck you

the chapters are titled "the time loop" until we free belphie. the entire reason we went back in time is to figure out who freed him... which ends up being us... but we're only doing this because we didn't know it was us...????????????????

who freed belphie the first time? was it lilith's ghost or something?? while we're at it, since it's now clear that we've done this before - how many times? did we die those times too? did we get caught in the past?? time loops have to have a logical beginning you guys!!

i can blame the horrible handling of belphie post murder scene because of the game's story constraints and needing to shove the redemption into like. 2 chapters. but i can't excuse this time travel fuckery because the devs actually took time with it! just give a reason as to who let belphie out the first time, and get rid of the time traveling room/us becoming lilith deal. goddamn

the cameron hate is crazy to me bc if wilson was a woman hed literally be like cameron

i always found it weird that whenever a “problematic” person is going through something and people want to defend them or back them up, they go “i know theyre not perfect but-”

like.... as if the only people worth defending in a fucked up situation are “perfect” people? that doesnt even exist. idk i just hate the notion that if someone “bad” goes through something difficult then tough shit to them i guess no ones supposed to offer compassion, or if we do we gotta stipulate it by making sure everyone knows we know theyre “not good”. its just weird

I think I figured out why there's been a split in the pho fandom regarding the show. It's not that the new show is bad far from it. I've been loving it so far but there's something that's been nagging me and I think the water land scene is the perfect example.

The show is like a really lean piece of steak. It's good it's tasty we all love steak but there's zero fat on it and the fat is where you get all the flavor. Essentially by sticking to the modern 8 episode special series format Disney shot itself in the foot because all the character moments aren't allowed room to breath.

So what did we see in the water land episode?

We "saw" a beautiful rendition of the plot that I have zero issues with (saw being debatable half of it was so dark I couldn't figure out what was happening) and it was very serviceable to the plot but a missed opportunity to humanize and do some character work that's not just dialogue. What I'm talking about is the part in the books where the trio stops what they're doing to raid a clothing stand for fresh clothes and supplies, and I just remember being shocked at that part as a kid because I've never seen any show or book that actually addressed the day to day of adventuring.

And just imagine how much it would have gone to make them feel like kids again. Annabeth telling Percy to please change a shirt because he stinks. Percy running her back. And later annabeth almost crying trying to free Percy from the golden throne while wearing a water land shirt, no longer a competent protagonist in adventuring gear but a scared kid in an oversized shirt and out of options.

I think the thing that bothers me about Ted going back to Kansas, is that it would make sense if Ted really was a Mary Poppins character. But he isn't.

Mary Poppins is a static character. Not to say she's not a likeable one, but static characters tend to be those who help advance the story without needing to change themselves. They don't usually need arcs, because they aren't the characters in need of change. They can enter the story, leave an imprint on those around them, and then exit.

Ted's not like that, even if, at first glance, that's the archetype he was positioned as. One of the reasons I liked Ted from the start was because he was a stereotypical static character who was allowed to grow, even needing to grow. So to say "he went back to Kansas because he's serving a Mary Poppins role" I think robs him of the growth that he experienced over the course of three seasons.

It makes sense realistically (I say, also being someone living abroad and far away from home in a temporary work position) but to me, it misses the mark narratively.

At the risk of actually having an opinion on the anti/proship fandom wank, something that I see often and would just like to take a moment to refute is the idea that propaganda and transgressive content have the same effect. 

I often hear the argument that “media affects reality, i.e Jaws made people afraid of sharks”. Yes. Some people are afraid of sharks because they saw the movie Jaws and that made them scared of sharks. HOWEVER, you are forgetting that humans have been afraid of sharks for centuries. Jaws was made because people have always been afraid of sharks. There was a market for that type of thrill. Horror movies are supposed to scare people, and had Jaws not been made, people would have been scared of sharks all the same. Jaws is a product of a fear, not a cause. 

This same idea goes for fear mongering propaganda against marginalized people. People in 1920s Germany were already anti-semitic, whether they watch Triumph of the Will or not didn’t make them hate Jewish people more, it just made them more confident in this belief. This kind of hateful propaganda is something that gets whipped up by news media, artists, and interpersonal relationships and is built off preconceived biases. It’s the kind of things that permeates the entire world of people who are already more susceptible to this sort of confirmation bias. They get so consumed by their hate because they literally never experience anything outside of it. However, that still doesn’t mean the fictional content they’re consuming caused this hate. New stories, misinfo or not, social biases, upbringing, and pseudo science are more often the culprits for making people into bigots than film or literature, though it does play a part. 

This is not taboo/fetish content though. This is targeted hate at an already marginalized group. They are not born from the same stock and they do not serve the same conversation. There is a very real and legitimate conversation to be had about the effects of propaganda and the damage it does, but that conversation does not carry over to incest porn or whatever. 

Taboo content is oft created because it is extremely interesting to the creator as either a storytelling device or as jerk off material or even because of something suffered in their past and now they make weird art to vent about it. None of these motivations have nearly the same end goal as the men who created Birth of a Nation. Sometimes transgressive content is made to make people afraid, uncomfortable, horny, or all three at once, and that’s okay. It’s important to make weird shit that shakes up the rather drab status quo. 

It’s also important to remember that there are better and worse ways to handle dark topics in fiction, but for that conversation, I would like to direct you all to Folding Ideas video “A Lukewarm Defence of Fifty Shades of Grey” as he is a better writer and presenter than I. 

Also please remember to block any tags that make you uncomfortable, shit talk things amongst friends, and bear in mind that not everything is for you and that’s okay. You don’t have to like taboo content, I truly don’t care, but it’s not worth it to bother other people about it. If you feel the need to rb something that makes you uncomfortable with mean words, please go outside and touch some grass, listen to some birds, and go for a walk. 

TL:DR please stop using racist propaganda to justify your discomfort as shitty false equivalency. They are not the same at all actually and both deserve more nuance than just comparing them. Block things liberally. 

why do people complain about spawncamping non-stop every splatfest. I've played a decent amount of games (enough to get to champion) and I've got spawncamped maybe once or twice??? and like if it's happening to you too much for your liking take a break and go outside (or at least off your switch???)

Probably part of the reason Paz hates (hated?) Din is that Din was the one of the Tribe who got to leave the covert on Nevarro.

Like they establish in the first episode only one leaves the covert at a time right and from what it seems like Din has been the one for a long time.

Honestly a lot of the latest arknights events have been a bit disappointing. I LOVED Who is Real, it was a great fun event that was also a complete story. Nian asks Lava to go find her sister and bring her back to RI, Lava, Kroos and Nothing go on a quest to find her, and in the end with Saga and Nian’s help they succeed and all of them go back to Rhodes together with Dusk. Beginning, Middle, End. Done. And then Invitation To Wine comes out and its a long confusing ramble where the big star, Ling, barely has any screentime and we spend most of the event juggling 12 different new characters, political struggles, and set ups for a sequel. Even though most of her screentime was at the end, i still felt like i got a complete picture of Dusk and who she is. I cant say the same for Ling.

I think part of the reason I don't relate to much monster x human content is because 1) a lot of the content is for a fem/afab reader and 2) I kinda want to be the monster. being a weak human is boring to me. I want to have a tail that could toss someone with ease. I want teeth sharp enough that skin breaks with a simple tap. i want to be the rumored beast, lurking in the dark corners of town. I'm not attracted to the monster in a "I want to fuck them" kinda way. I'm attracted to them in a "I want to be them" kinda way. being a human tires me, to no end.

I've seen so much talk about the Internet Archive case and I'm so annoyed that IA is getting to present themselves as the downtrodden hero when they royally fucked up. Even if you support controlled digital lending and the Open Library (or especially if you support CDL and the Open Library), you should be criticizing IA's actions.

The context that people seem to be missing is IA has been loaning out books with a controlled digital lending model for years without backlash. CDL means that they only loaned out as many copies as they physically owned. Many traditional libraries have also digitized copies of books in their collection and offered them for CDL for years. Until now, this has been a gray area of fair use. Publishers, being publishers, certainly did not like CDL, but it was never worth it for them to sue IA or any of the libraries to figure out whether or not it's actually legal.

Then at the beginning of the pandemic, IA dropped the "controlled" part of CDL and announced that they'd loan out infinite copies of a book regardless of how many copies they actually owned. And that's . . . just called piracy. Regardless of how you feel about piracy, IA was blatantly breaking the law, and of course publishers were going to go after them. Publishers would be idiots to ignore such a blatant and well publicized violation of copyright law. And naturally, while they're taking down IA for piracy they might as well go after CDL as a whole, too!

I had some small hope that the judge would rule that CDL qualifies as fair use, but that chance was always slim because our copyright law is already broken when it comes to digital works, and judges make rulings based on precedent. There are ways to break the law to change the law, but IA didn't have a leg to stand on here, and they should have known that.

IA losing this court case sets a strong precedent to rule against future CDL cases. Now IA is going to have to remove any copyrighted work from their Open Library. Other libraries will likely take any copyrighted works out of CDL circulation. Thanks, Internet Archive! You ruined it for everyone!

i was talking w my grandparents a few weeks ago abt the abortion bans being proposed everywhere nd my virgo grandpa whom i love dearly goes ‘why are they always trying to punish the ppl getting pregnant? start cracking down on the ppl doing the impregnating. esp when it’s old ass men preying on younger girls??? make them pay!!!!!!!!’ i was like ooh! not my grandpa being an honorary tumblrina with these takes!!!!!!!!

Me, rotating blorbos in my head in teams instead of individually? Sometimes more likely than not

Anyways, I'd been thinking about Ren and Nyra a lot and their relationship over the years. They're friends as of EoD, but the progression of that friendship is very interesting on its own.

They met in Ebonhawke, when Nyra was on one of her first missions with Forgal (aka PS lvl40 for Vigil guys.) Ren was there to help out some agents (they do have a base there in game that you can access if you're in the Whispers) and they met by accident. Nyra and Forgal stayed there to rest for a bit, it was a big mission after all, and she used some of that time exploring her family's native city but also going on dates w/ Ren

Ren was taken by Nyra's charisma and chivalry (which is something she does in romantic situations involving more femme presenting women) and Nyra by Ren's charm, stature and confidence. There was a great deal of sexual attraction as well and it culminated in them sleeping together, right

But Nyra then realised that Ren didn't really want a romantic relationship. Mutual infatuation was there, but Ren decided to distance herself from the situation a little because being that close to the Hero of Shaemoor would just be bad for her career. It was a wake up call to Nyra that casual dating and/or sex wasn't it, that she did need a committed relationship to be fully intimate with someone (Mirka being an exception but that's a story for another day!)

They met again when the Pact was formed, this time as colleagues. It was a little awkward at first but they were both professional and the awkwardness was quickly gone. Yet their bond wouldn't really develop till season 3, when they were together in Siren's landing. Trying to survive in a land like that really does make sure you bond with the other person ✨

Nyra's one of the few people who know that Ren's been blessed by Abaddon. In return for keeping that a secret, Ren won't mention the near-fatal journey of Nyra's post-HoT. That solidified their friendship and though they're not necessarily besties, they know personal things about each other that makes them deeper than just colleagues

Btw Ren was an early shipper of Trammander before they got together 😌