what is UP my friend (internet stranger) you (i) came to the right place (your askbox) as i have in fact watched half of the empires s1 series and am making my way through the other half atm! here's v brief analysis off the top of my head from those i Did see:

- gem! WANTS to do good. find it easier to just keep things peaceful around herself and her allies (mainly fwhip and sausage, and also pearl but that's less so i would say). peaceful.. meaning that there's no active fights.. except against xornoth that one time. beyond her relationships with other kingdoms (mostly positive, as she's friends with almost everyone), she has ambitions to grow her own magic and create a school to teach it to others. overall a very "i care about everyone but mostly my allies" character who genuinely tries to do good when she can. side notes: she is twin sister of s1!fwhip, this has canon confirmation iirc; she is good friends with scott despite a few more dramatic s1 events that normally would turn another character against him

- joel. hey man he does not do lore. he mainly builds and it's pretty epic. marries lizzie, can't actually see or hear xornoth mostly so pretends/insists he doesn't exist but in a "you guys are crazy there's no demon" way. honestly that's about it i can't lie .. he's good allies with jimmy but is always making fun of him

- pearl.. i love her. she's literally a girlboss tbh. genuinely so cracked at pvp, 1v1ed a player who was oped for a Long time, v v v cool buildings too. she is very connected to her land and farms, pretty much to the point her soul is bound to it. her strongest relationship is with sausage, and even when he gets corrupted she sticks by him when she can and tries to keep him from Evil evil. kinda sticks to herself a little bit tho, which might be her fatal flaw imo. there's sausage and then there's her kingdom... it's all she has

- jimmy OH my god is SO fun to watch. he's like a bit of a loser but i mean that so affectionately and he has this really fun lore with his cod head?? anyway this guy is just trying to rule his kingdom but he goes so far in gestures that he forgets the meaning of the place i think. he wants to do his best tho despite some people (cough cough fwhip and sausage) antagonising him a lot. lizzie is his sister and joel's his best friend, and tbh things just Happen to this bewildered man. bit silly. big fan.

- katherine!!!!! v soft style lotsa flowers, she collects heads and many find this ominous. in reality she just has a lot of friends and allies. hard worker, tries to keep life alive and fulfill her role, petty when she needs to be but can justify everything she does tbh. cool af imo

- joey ayy this guyyy.. loveeed his pov he just wants to kill people tbh. had an altercation with lizzie and another with katherine and another with the whole damn server. hints of friendship with shrub i think.. she wants him to be better. he was always this evil. he's mostly isolated in terms of allies (besides i Think gem?? a little) but is always Interacting with people yknow? social but in a "not this guy agai- AH FUCK" way. one sided romance with xornoth but if you ask me he always wanted to kill the others so.

okay that's where i am up to hope this helpssss also -> wither rose alliance (fwhip gem sausage) are the best frfr. source: trust me

ty ty! character analysis <333

the thing about art is that it was always supposed to be about us, about the human-ness of us, the impossible and beautiful reality that we (for centuries) have stood still, transfixed by music. that we can close our eyes and cry about the same book passage; the events of which aren't real and never happened. theatre in shakespeare's time was as real as it is now; we all laugh at the same cue (pursued by bear), separated hundreds of years apart.

three years ago my housemates were jamming outdoors, just messing around with their instruments, mostly just making noise. our neighbors - shy, cautious, a little sheepish - sat down and started playing. i don't really know how it happened; i was somehow in charge of dancing, barefoot and laughing - but i looked up, and our yard was full of people. kids stacked on the shoulders of parents. old couples holding hands. someone had brought sidewalk chalk; our front walk became a riot of color. someone ran in with a flute and played the most astounding solo i've ever heard in my life, upright and wiggling, skipping as she did so. she only paused because the violin player was kicking his heels up and she was laughing too hard to continue.

two weeks ago my friend and i met in the basement of her apartment complex so she could work out a piece of choreography. we have a language barrier - i'm not as good at ASL as i'd like to be (i'm still learning!) so we communicate mostly through the notes app and this strange secret language of dancers - we have the same movement vocabulary. the two of us cracking jokes at each other, giggling. there were kids in the basement too, who had been playing soccer until we took up the far corner of the room. one by one they made their slow way over like feral cats - they laid down, belly-flat against the floor, just watching. my friend and i were not in tutus - we were in slouchy shirts and leggings and socks. nothing fancy. but when i asked the kids would you like to dance too? they were immediately on their feet and spinning. i love when people dance with abandon, the wild and leggy fervor of childhood. i think it is gorgeous.

their adults showed up eventually, and a few of them said hey, let's not bother the nice ladies. but they weren't bothering us, they were just having fun - so. a few of the adults started dancing awkwardly along, and then most of the adults. someone brought down a better sound system. someone opened a watermelon and started handing out slices. it was 8 PM on a tuesday and nothing about that day was particularly special; we might as well party.

one time i hosted a free "paint along party" and about 20 adults worked quietly while i taught them how to paint nessie. one time i taught community dance classes and so many people showed up we had to move the whole thing outside. we used chairs and coatracks to balance. one time i showed up to a random band playing in a random location, and the whole thing got packed so quickly we had to open every door and window in the place.

i don't think i can tell you how much people want to be making art and engaging with art. they want to, desperately. so many people would be stunning artists, but they are lied to and told from a very young age that art only matters if it is planned, purposeful, beautiful. that if you have an idea, you need to be able to express it perfectly. this is not true. you don't get only 1 chance to communicate. you can spend a lifetime trying to display exactly 1 thing you can never quite language. you can just express the "!!??!!!"-ing-ness of being alive; that is something none of us really have a full grasp on creating. and even when we can't make what we want - god, it feels fucking good to try. and even just enjoying other artists - art inherently rewards the act of participating.

i wasn't raised wealthy. whenever i make a post about art, someone inevitably says something along the lines of well some of us aren't that lucky. i am not lucky; i am dedicated. i have a chronic condition, my hands are constantly in pain. i am not neurotypical, nor was i raised safe. i worked 5-7 jobs while some of these memories happened. i chose art because it mattered to me more than anything on this fucking planet - i would work 80 hours a week just so i could afford to write in 3 of them.

and i am still telling you - if you are called to make art, you are called to the part of you that is human. you do not have to be good at it. you do not have to have enormous amounts of privilege. you can just... give yourself permission. you can just say i'm going to make something now and then - go out and make it. raquel it won't be good though that is okay, i don't make good things every time either. besides. who decides what good even is?

you weren't called to make something because you wanted it to be good, you were called to make something because it is a basic instinct. you were taught to judge its worth and over-value perfection. you are doing something impossible. a god's ability: from nothing springs creation.

a few months ago i found a piece of sidewalk chalk and started drawing. within an hour i had somehow collected a small classroom of young children. their adults often brought their own chalk. i looked up and about fifteen families had joined me from around the block. we drew scrangly unicorns and messed up flowers and one girl asked me to draw charizard. i am not good at drawing. i basically drew an orb with wings. you would have thought i drew her the mona lisa. she dragged her mother over and pointed and said look! look what she drew for me and, in the moment, i admit i flinched (sorry, i don't -). but the mother just grinned at me. he's beautiful. and then she sat down and started drawing.

someone took a picture of it. it was in the local newspaper. the summary underneath said joyful and spontaneous artwork from local artists springs up in public gallery. in the picture, a little girl covered in chalk dust has her head thrown back, delighted. laughing.

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

This close to making a d&d team from my tinder matches

substitute

This is one of my favorite minor details in Dungeon Meshi, firstly because what in the femme fatale, but also because it's one of those little things that raises so many questions about worldbuilding.

The Occam's Razor defense attorney in me says that Ryoko Kui gave Kabru a boot knife because she wanted him to escape from his bonds here. And Kabru is a very competent swordsman, why wouldn't he have a boot knife, sure. He's already got a dagger, he can have this too.

And yet: the implications. Kabru, why do you have that? That is not remotely something that could be easily accessed or used in combat. Nobody is pulling out a pen knife from the heel of their boot during a fight with a monster. It's useless in the dungeon ... unless you're the type of person who isn't just worried about monsters.

I've mentioned this before, but I consider one of Kabru's functions in the narrative as being the character who fully brings the idea of human ecosystems into the story. There's a reason why he's always connected to large groups of people (Toshiro's party, the Canaries). He (along with Mr. Tansu, briefly) introduces the reader to the social and political forces working on the dungeon, showing us that none of this is happening in a monster-filled vacuum. His confrontation with the corpse retrievers, who very nearly kill Kabru's party permanently with their reckless murder-for-money scheme, reminds us that monsters are not the only things that prey on humans. Kabru understands the ways the dungeon causes people to put profit over human lives.

We only get hints of it in the story, but like any gold-rush-style economic boom, it's implied that there is a lot of crime and corruption surrounding the dungeon.

So yeah, it really makes me wonder why Kabru keeps a tiny knife in his boot, meant to be carried on him even in situations where he would otherwise be unarmed. Stored exactly in the place where it's easy to reach, even if, for some reason, your hands are tied behind your back.

girlbossing too close to the sun.

I was waiting out there for hours!

this is so bad that people are asking you when your comic updates are so they can sleep.

Yall really SHOULDN'T do that, its messed up, im just speaking from my standpoint but hearing stuff like that i wouldn't even Want to update anymore or announce wips or anything with all this "when is it coming out? can i sleep? can i do this? is it coming out soon?" i mean asking for WIPS of the comic seems fine but asking when its coming out bc its affecting you is wild. and not good. imagine what type of stress that is on a person to know that people arent taking care of themselves until the comic comes out.

idk it feels like some of yall dont know how to act. this comic is a passion project if anything. it just seems. so unhealthy and offputting to deal with this from an audience. idk.

:т

if you struggle with mental health, one piece of advice i would genuinely give you is learn to knit.

or crochet: something repetitive to do with your hands, assuming you're capable of it. if you're like me and learnt to knit as a kid but let it lie fallow for a long time, it may be that starting a large, simple project (for me it was a cloak, but a blanket could work too) gets you back into it. or maybe doing something smaller, idk. i personally found socks really hard for a while because they felt smaller than my cloak but weren't getting Done quick enough for me. as i've sped up i find it more interesting to knit socks.

regardless, a repetitive task is great for emotional regulation (also see: autistic stimming), and something that you can look at and go hey i've done something, unlike simply using a fidget toy, can also help to pick your mood up when the brain is being cruel.

it's also useful as a conversation starter or distracter if you don't know what to talk about. if you're wanting to talk to older people also you're more likely to reel them in with knitting (i work better with older people, and 99% of people who ask what i'm knitting are older than me). it also gives you the opportunity to not make eye contact because you're busy knitting, even if you're still carrying on a conversation. if you're absolutely stuck for conversation you can count your stitches and people might stop bothering you.

if you have trouble focusing without doing something with your hands, you can knit! i knit a lot in church, and it helps me to focus on what's being said.

i probably have more reasons you should pick up knitting, but i can't recall them right now, so yeah.

#a man who DESERVES A SLICE OF PIE

Not trying to be rude or anything but you shouldn't use the word 'manic' or 'manic period' etc. unless you actually have manic/depressive episodes because it downplays how severe those disorders can actually be. They're just words but unlearning harmful terminology like that can help destigmatise mental illness and I would hope youi would want to do that.

yeah it's almost like i used those words specifically because i DO understand how severe they are

The comedy of Trolls getting its flowers finally and being recognized as a fun series after the most recent movie when the first one has had me in a chokehold for years. When I used to have Netflix I would just watch that whenever I wanted to have fun.

Sometimes adulthood is looking at a jukebox musical based on a kids toy, and just deciding "yeah actually this is a good movie."

truly what a guy

Jason Sudeikis as Ted Lasso Seasons 1-3 » T-shirts

idk why this fandom has such an issue with acknowledging abuse when it isn't Astarion but Gale was pretty obviously abused and groomed and I would rather people in denial of this unfollow me :|

grooming is also not a minor-specific act so trying to use his age as a reason he wasn't abused is pretty dumb and shows both your ignorance and that you don't take abuse on adults seriously. like suddenly cults and brainwashing and power imbalances and human trafficking doesn't exist because you just don't want to see Gale as a survivor of abuse himself lol?

it basically comes down to people being ignorant about what grooming is in wider terms. and even if you want to ignore the actual definition of grooming and how adult survivors are impacted, Mystra is still a GODDESS. if anyone is able to exact a power imbalance on someone equivalent to the traditional child-grooming that you think is the only type to exist, it would be a Goddess to her Chosen

this is also ignoring the fact that he started discovering his powers around 8 and Mystra would have been aware of him immediately?

also-also ignoring Minsc outright describing how magical boys in his village were hidden away from Mystra?

just how is this even an argument? you are simply wrong...