pepsi (don’t ask why forgotten is the only tainted one idk either)

the thing is there's like, a point of oversaturation for everything, and it's why so many things get dropped after a few minutes. and we act like millennials or gen z kids "have short attention spans" but... that's not quite it. it's more like - we did like it. you just ruined it.

capitalism sees product A having moderate success, and then everything has to come out with their "own version" of product A (which is often exactly the same). and they dump extreme amounts of money and environmental waste into each horrible simulacrum they trot out each season.

now it's not just tiktokkers making videos; it's that instagram and even fucking tumblr both think you want live feeds and video-first programming. and it helps them, because videos are easier to sneak native ads into. the books coming out all have to have 78 buzzwords in them for SEO, or otherwise they don't get published. they are making a live-action remake of moana. i haven't googled it, but there's probably another marvel or starwars something coming out, no matter when you're reading this post.

and we are like "hi, this clone of project A completely misses the point of the original. it is soulless and colorless and miserable." and the company nods and says "yes totally. here is a different clone, but special." and we look at clone 2 and we say "nope, this one is still flat and bad, y'all" and they're like "no, totally, we hear you," and then they make another clone but this time it's, like, a joyless prequel. and by the time they've successfully rolled out "clone 89", the market is incredibly oversaturated, and the consumer is blamed because the company isn't turning a profit.

and like - take even something digital like the tumblr "live streaming" function i just mentioned. that has to take up server space and some amount of carbon footprint; just so this brokenass blue hellsite can roll out a feature that literally none of its userbase actually wants. the thing that's the kicker here: even something that doesn't have a physical production plant still impacts the environment.

and it all just feels like it's rolling out of control because like, you watch companies pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into a remake of a remake of something nobody wants anymore and you're like, not able to afford eggs anymore. and you tell the company that really what you want is a good story about survival and they say "okay so you mean a YA white protagonist has some kind of 'spicy' love triangle" and you're like - hey man i think you're misunderstanding the point of storytelling but they've already printed 76 versions of "city of blood and magic" and "queen of diamond rule" and spent literally millions of dollars on the movie "Candy Crush Killer: Coming to Eat You".

it's like being stuck in a room with a clown that keeps telling the same joke over and over but it's worse every time. and that would be fine but he keeps fucking charging you 6.99. and you keep being like "no, i know it made me laugh the first time, but that's because it was different and new" and the clown is just aggressively sitting there saying "well! plenty of people like my jokes! the reason you're bored of this is because maybe there's something wrong with you!"

putting my prediction on record now that the coming decade is going to see the rise of viral-marketed fancy at-home water filtration systems, driving and driven by a drastic reduction in the quality of U.S. tap water (given that we are in a 'replacement era' where our current infrastructure is reaching the end of its lifespan--but isn't being replaced). also guessing that by the 2030s access to drinkable tap water will be a mainstream class issue, with low-income & unstably housed people increasingly forced to rely on expensive bottled water when they can't afford the up-front cost of at-home filtration--and with this being portrayed in media as a "moral failing" and short-sighted "choice," rather than a basic failure of our political & economic systems. really hope i'm just being alarmist, but plenty of this already happens in other countries, and the U.S. is in a state of decline, so. here's praying this post ages into irrelevance. timestamped April 2023

just me thinking abt the insidiousness of the Familiar Clinic

a place where every familiar is recommended to be put down

not because of any injury or disease

but because their vampire cared about them enough to take them there in the first place

My two cents on Aziraphale's "I forgive you" is that he was straightforwardly lashing out. He knows how little Crowley wants to be forgiven. He knows because Crowley just told him. Crowley rejects forgiveness so absolutely that he rejects Aziraphale right along with it. It's the whole fight in a microcosm: Aziraphale standing there offering forgiveness and Crowley saying, I don't want it.

So maybe the words are Aziraphale showing he finally understands Crowley. He knows now that "I forgive you" is the very worst thing he could say to Crowley. That's why he says it. That's how he means it.

Game night ruined.

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a quick guide to dog lords, telling your arls from your teyrns, and generally how ferelden works

okay, this isn't quite what anon asked for, by which i mean not at all, but unfortunately they activated my interest in some of my favourite lore. it should hopefully contain a lot of the relevant stuff and i’ll try to branch out to less fereldan specific information in other posts!

okay, let’s start with the hierarchy. there’s four kinds of noble in ferelden

royalty: you know who these guys are. except for during the orlesian occupation, ever since ferelden became one kingdom, it’s been ruled by the theirin family. which i think is for 388 years, i really hope that’s right, i got out a calculator

teyrns: these are super powerful lords, basically banns so powerful that other banns swear fealty to them. they’re second only to the king, who is essentially just the most powerful one of them. there used to be a lot of them, but with one dynasty in power for so long, that kind of opposition has been eroded away. there are only two remaining: the couslands of highever in the north, and the mac tirs of gwaren in the south

arls: these are extra special banns. they answer to a teyrn or king and hold a strategic fortress for them. we know of six—amaranthine, south reach, denerim, redcliffe, west hills, and edgehall—but i’m unsure if that’s because they are only six or because there are unnamed others

banns: these are your common or garden noble, the lowest ranking and most common. this is your local lord type. they seem to vary the most in power, though, with some banns having big speaking roles in the landsmeet

but i kind of should have written that list in the opposite direction. what do i mean by that? well, in your standard medieval hierarchy, and in a lot of the rest of thedas, power comes down from the king, who lets you hold the land. but in ferelden, most of the land is owned by freeholders: commoners, well-off enough to own their land but still not by any means nobles.

how does that work? well, let’s say i’m a freeholder.

i own my land, but thedas is a rough place. if i want to keep my land, i’d better swear fealty to a bann. i’ll pay him a portion of the goods produced on my land, and in return, he’ll protect my land from anyone wanting to beat me up and take all my goods... and also, you know, not beat me up himself, as he probably would if i didn’t have any bann looking after me. it kind of sounds like he has all the power, right? like a medieval protection racket? it’s certainly how he gets his power and wealth

so i, freeholder harker, have signed up with bann jeff. it makes sense, because he’s the closest to my freehold, and i want soldiers to actually get here in time if i’m in trouble. that’s why my family has been swearing fealty to his family for generations. it’s just how things are done

but the thing is: i hate bann jeff. maybe he takes too much of my harvests, maybe he sides with a different freeholder when we go to him with a dispute, maybe his men don’t mind their pleases and thank yous when they come for my goods. i’m well within my rights to say fuck bann jeff and leave him. especially if there’s another bann nearby who would be perfectly happy to take my goods instead and treat me right. and the less freeholders bann jeff has, the less resources and men he has to make a fuss about it with. if bann jeff pisses off enough people, he might not have any freeholders left at all. and where will his wealth and power come from then? maybe soon he won’t be a bann at all

of course, bann jeff’s family might feud with the family of the bann that stole me away for a few hundred years. but that’s hardly my problem, is it? “courting” someone else’s vassals is apparently the biggest cause of conflict within the bannorn

anyway, this isn’t just how banns work; it’s how all power theoretically works in ferelden. there are no serfs/“unfree” men. every peasant has a right to go where he will and choose which freeholder he works for, just as every freeholder has the right to choose their bann, and banns who swear to teyrns can break away. (the latter is probably less common because a teyrn could fuck you up. i’m guessing you’d have to get the king’s backing about it to survive that.) and even the king answers to his lessers in the landsmeet, the super ancient gathering of nobles where law is made, which can override the king on any matter of law. (but they’re not going to do it if the king is really popular or powerful, because. you know. there’s a limit to all things called common sense and they would prefer not to get squashed about it.) but generally, everyone who holds power in ferelden has to curry favours with their so-called lessers in order to keep their goodwill.

everywhere else in thedas thinks this is weird as hell, by the way. having to court the approval of those beneath you? even the king having to do that? wtf? but the level of freedom means everything to fereldans. it’s their highest ideal and they’re really proud of it.

(the people who really don’t have a voice are what the ttrpg calls “low freemen”, which according to its handbook, consists of criminals, prostitutes, and elves. they still have the right to freedom of movement and to be paid for their work, but they’re not going to have freeholders and banns seeking their favour and speaking for them, and they typically have to resort to bribery for entrance to cities, their homes are bought and sold by others on a whim, things like that. ultimately it makes their position incredibly vulnerable to abuse, as we see in the games. i’m sure we’ve all played the tabris origin. there’s a reason the potential boon to get a bann for the alienage is so wild.)

so, let’s say you made it, everyone loves and/or tolerates you, and you’re a noble. what good does that do you and what can you do? firstly, you have a voice in the landsmeet, which is super important and means the king wants your goodwill and advice. more generally, you have three basic functions of a noble: raising taxes/tribute, commanding soldiers, and dispensing justice. nobles are expected to live off the wealth provided by their land and it would be hugely looked down on if they did work instead, with exceptions for, like, military careers and the chantry, which are respectable for their status. they raise militia from the commoners when necessary, and they also have trained soldiers or possibly knights (see postscript) in their service. that means you can protect your land and you can win glory and spoils when the kingdom goes to war, it also means you’ll be expected to provide those men when your liegelord calls for them. and lastly the law is their responsibility. remember how in the awakening dlc you had to make judgements as the arl of amaranthine? like that! the smaller scale you are, the smaller scale it’s going to be. in turn, if you want a dispute sorted by a higher power, you have to go up to your liegelord, maybe a teyrn or the king, or if you can’t get one of them, a more powerful bann or arl in the area. possibly the chantry would be an alternate option? if it’s just about finding someone you will both listen to, which is usually the main issue

some privileges other than the standard “power over those beneath you” that you can typically expect to belong to the noble class, even if it’s not specific to dragon age: the right to carry a sword, the right to have a coat of arms, the right to precedence on formal occasions and a special seat up front in your local chantry... sometimes niche ones, like fabrics and clothing that are only permissible to wear for people of a certain rank, so it distinguishes them. you can expect favours from/common class interests with your king, you would expect to be given a trial or treated chivalrously if things did not go your way, depending on era you might be captured for ransom in battle rather than killed outright, you probably have exemptions from certain royal taxation... etc. etc.

that’s what i have! i hope these are some helpful fundamentals and that anyone who has more knowledge than me on any aspect feels welcome to contribute it

P.S. as an aside, i’m a little confused about the fereldan use of knights. they definitely exist as lesser nobility, but i don’t understand how they fit into the hierarchy. a real knight was typically a vassal who held land from his liegelord and fought for him in exchange. i... don’t know how that works in the context of land ownership mostly going upwards. they’re definitely around, anyone addressed as ser is a knight, you have the knights of redcliffe and people like ser jory and ser cauthrien. (someone in an order like the templars has the rank of knight and gets ser and everything, but is not a noble.) as a rule of thumb i think generally they’re probably just members of noble families with that dedicated military training and no greater title to lay claim to? i’m basing that on stuff like nathaniel howe being sent as a squire to his mother’s cousin, a chevalier; if he’d completed that he probably would have been a knight unless/until he inherited his father’s place? i don’t know. i’m making this up. and on the other hand, there’s very little distinction in fereldan between your regular noble and a some kind of warrior class, which is why i struggle to see the purpose. (there are also inexplicable career soldiers who are not knights. what the hell is funding that upkeep and armour, buddy. you and whose land ownership? this is why you were fighting the darkspawn with your whole arms out, aveline. stop trying to imply ferelden has a standing army you can go off and join. yes i see you carver lore. i will not buy it.) ANYWAY, because knights are more prevalent in certain areas, i do wonder if it’s an import from the long orlesian occuption, based on the knightly order of chevaliers? i don’t fucking know. worth chewing on

bsd fic authors i understand yalls pain SO well right now why is it so fucking HARD to write dazai. like i have a whole fucking spreadsheet dedicated to tireless analysis i have done on my part so i can accurately characterize him but he is such an unpredictable and morally gray character that it's hard knowing his limits and boundaries and where he draws the line for himself.

Raise a Suilen "digital colored pencil" drawings I shared a while ago on my Patreon! I drew a lot of Rei and CHU² in my style, so I wanted to draw the others too. I had lots of fun translating them to my style, not to mention I think I got pretty good at emulating colored pencils on digital <3

[Easter eggs: Masuki wearing a shirt from "MITTERNACHT", a metal band of my retired OCs from like 10 years ago, and a DEATH GALAXY shirt; CHU² holding an LP from Rainbow (the 70s prog rock band)]

commission info | patreon | twitter | Ko-fi | VGen | bluesky

timcassie is so compelling to me. they were not into each other even a little bit. it was such a messy coping mechanism fuelled entirely by grief. they were making out with each other because they were both substituting each other for kon. cassie was far more aware she was doing this than tim was. unironically, dating a girl here is one of the gayest things tim has done

rayman, eden's feel good american dream story; an analysis

guess who's back with taking ubisoft's silly guys and cutting them open. yknow, if you strip rayman of his personality, of all the behind the scenes we get of him, we get a run of the mill news reporter that is an immigrant, who by face alone serves as a shining ray of hope. he's easily something that by all means, can be classified as a diversity hire. immigrant, nonhuman (which in the world of clh can be considered to be equated with poc irl), and notably the only one in his work environment. don't believe me?

we rarely ever see anyone other than rayman on the show in the form of a coworker. the only time we do see other eden affiliated people, they are both white. "but you can't see red's face!!" there is a reason his dialogue makes you think of more right leaning people with their claims of 'wokeness is destroying everything' under something like april from tmnt being black and not ginger. he's a caricature meant to represent a specific group of people under fascism; those who have successfully consumed the fearmongering and have let it turn from fear of those that they are told are beneath them into hatred for them. there is also the fact that on live tv he throws up a middle finger, refers to an implied group of immigrant people as 'filthy interdimensional alien scum,' and seemingly gains no backlash for it. yes, the other reporter does try to give red a chance to go back on his words, but he sticks to it. and despite all of this, we get no indication that neither red nor the niji 6 had to apologise or received punishment for this. in fact, red is possibly given more chances by eden due to him being weirdly in charge of bullfrog's containment in a way? (i'm not entirely sure WHY he was there, but as he is one of eden's tv personalities, he's at a possibly televised trial of a terrorist.) now if you compare this to rayman, who also acted inappropriately on tv by literally saying fuck, you'd come to realise that rayman was treated so much more harshly. he was IMMEDIATELY replaced by a clone of himself, with no warning nor any indication that eden would do such a thing. it's very likely this was one of, if not the first time that rayman has slipped up like this on live tv. maybe it's a repeat offence considering his personality, but then you could argue that red is a repeat offender of the same shit and then you have to wonder why a soldier like red was not easily replaced but someone who is the literal face and voice of eden was with ease. it's because rayman made himself more than jus a story, he humanised himself by showing a peek of his raw feelings. remember that cute little exposition of the rayman kids show about hybrids? where we see all of these hybrids working as society's grunts and the kids are told to be thankful for hybrids? it's very sweet and gives a good message! now the rayman kids show is a product of eden propaganda, but rayman very much has a hand in it, most likely as a writer. he uses his platform to speak on issues that has happened and affected him. this can be seen in his biopic.

jus sit with this image for a moment. you ever think about why rayman is specifically made as an alien? why he's specifically an immigrant? in real life news reports and speeches, there is a difference in implications when people use immigrants and not aliens. you wanna know why?

as someone apart of an immigrant family myself, i live in a community of other immigrants. majority of them are hispanic, and while i myself am not hispanic, i am very aware of how hispanic immigrants were referred to and treated by politicians under trump's presidency. how couldn't i? even as children in middle school and elementary, we had discussions about what trump was saying because it directly targets my friends and their families. they are people targeted by a man who specifically uses derogatory terms to dehumanise them, to make it easier to justify in the average american mind that the government is doing the right thing by keeping out and protecting america from these so-called 'invading animals.' makes what red was saying earlier feel very on the nose, right? adi shankar, the showrunner for captain laserhawk, is also an immigrant man. immigrated from india, which by the way, did you know has a lot of people immigrating for the purpose of having a better life? that's a common sentiment that can be found in every single immigrant family's story. i've asked my filipino mother why she took an opportunity to live and work in america, and she told me it's because she wanted to give her children a better life than what we would have had in the philippines. hell, i bet if you share a similar background to me, you can ask your own parents the same thing and get the exact same answer, regardless if you came from latin america or africa, or asia. it's because of the concept of the american dream. everyone who has ever engaged with any degree of immigrant discussion has heard of the american dream. it's a concept that seems to be consistently proven via word of mouth, with the biggest examples being celebrities. they will always, without fail, eventually speak about the american dream within their backstories. and typically, they will use their platforms to further empower others within their community. it's why people from specific ethnicities tend to group together, why people make art meant as something akin to a homage to their people. it provides hope to the masses, makes you relate to the person on the screen, and believe that this society is truly a gracious one by providing opportunity. because yeah, it may be bad, but it could be worse. i mean we appreciate you! just look!

dont mind the fact that the majority of opportunities allotted to you is grunt work, the work where you at the base of the pyramid, with the harder jobs and the jobs no one wants to do. dont mind the fact you will be actively dehumanised, forced to work for hours in conditions we wouldn't put anyone else in, but hey. we appreciate you. we thank you. and yknow, you can become more than what you are. yknow, we let someone just like you be more than what you are! nevermind the fact that if they slip up, they'll be met with MUCH harsher criticism in comparison to someone who isn't you! aren't we so gracious? i probably sound a bit like matpat's insane out of context real world examples, but this show is filled with political imagery, so let me be. anyways, let's get back to eden and rayman. rayman, despite being specifically from dimension x as an alien, keeps hybrids in mind when he's doing his work.

people of colour tend to share solidarity with one another due to the fact that surface wise, we share similar struggles. to grossly oversimplify things, we all face discrimination through our appearances and are oppressed by the rules of a society created by our white oppressors. again, hybrids and dimension x immigrants can be equated to irl poc, and despite being different from each other, there is still community. rayman keeps them in mind, hoping to make things better for the overall nonhuman and nonnative (native as in naturally born) population of eden. but, rayman is not what he believes he is. because despite everything he has worked for, despite what he has tried to do, he is still a facilitator of the fascist regime that has an active hand in the perpetual oppression of his own people. one of the core concepts within fascism is us versus them. it's an easy way to instill fear (which is very much needed in fascism to make it easier to lie to the masses) and it's used in multiple layers, beginning with a large group (ex. us versus ussr, capitalism vs communism), then progressively sizing down (ex. saying all eastern europeans are communist, then going smaller and say all those affiliated with eastern europeans are communist) with the goal being to put people against each other and break up community since if you put your minds together, you'll start to realise that the fascist system is bullshit. what i've personally come to find is that in order to hide the fact that there is fascism lurking is that someone that can be considered a 'them,' an other, will be given a seat at the table. it's so they can be used as an excuse, a human shield, when they inevitably slip up and can be paraded to the masses as proof that the other is not as smart or powerful as 'us.' the 'other' within the 'us' is used as something to look down at, while also justifying to oneself that they have a place, that they are not being oppressed. they have an opportunity as much as anyone else! so long as they don't mess up. rayman messes up, and is shunned from 'us.' hes a mistake, impure, clearly not like 'us,' 'us' who had been so gracious to give this 'other' a place. he's cut out and discarded because he has well worn his purpose, and clearly, they can just get another little puppet. they'll dress him up and make him worthy of being one of 'us,' and make sure that this one won't fall to the fault of his little ideas. which is exactly what leads to rayman's transformation of ramon. being forcibly forced out and discarded by eden because he showed his true ideas makes him realise that there was no real place for him within the system. because what good is his work if it leads to what he tried not to create? it's worthless, just as the system it attempts to thrive in is.

tl;dr, rayman is a representation of the american dream, specifically celebrities. he tries to do what he can with his platform, but the fact is that within a fascist system, his impact is not entirely felt in the way he wants it to. that is why he becomes ramon.

anyways if you reached the end of THIS LONG ASS PIECE GOOD LORD thank you!! always open to discuss this and take criticism, my ask box is open in the lil 'who's asking' :^]

i really dont get when ppl are like "liberals need to stop pressuring ppl to vote bc the liberal president is literally doing [x terrible thing]" and its like. yeah? all presidents are going to be fucked up pretty much. but do you want one thats doing some good things and some really bad, or ONLY extremely bad things????

when theres been studies that if all younger of-age people voted this place would be WAY more liberal than it is, i think theres only GOOD that can come out of encouraging more ppl to vote, and consistently. NOT disillusioning them early on and making them feel like nothing fucking matters (esp when you list no alternatives to voting for trying to change things)

it doesnt mean everythings gonna be all fucking sunshine and rainbows just bc theres a democrat president. but if we keep on the trend of liberalism we can get SOME progress done in this godawful country

if the current liberal president is doing shit you dont like. BE LOUD ABOUT IT. LET POLITICIANS KNOW YOU WANT PEOPLE EVEN MORE LIBERAL. AND BE LOUD ABOUT WHAT YOU DO LIKE. SHOW WHAT YOU WILL AND WONT ACCEPT.

THIS SHIT IS A GRADUAL PROCESS AND WE WILL GET INCREASINGLY BETTER PRESIDENTS IF YOU JUST LET US GET OUT OF THE RED HELL THAT IS THIS WHOLE COUNTRY

like holy shit, what would yall have rather TRUMP stayed in office ??????

naruto in that waterfall scene truly was like. the villagers have shunned me all my life and now they love me but its all fake cuz they just love me for what i have done to protect the village i HATE those fuckers, they can shove their autograph requests up their dumb asses and then he is like. well i got the solution. to solve all this hatred. to dissolve it and cure it. i'll just keep trying to become who they want me to be, if i manage to be the person THEY want me to be, they will love me and i'll keep their approval. this is the solution to all my problems ^_^ and then he like, hugs his dark self and it dissolves and the whole thing is done its like sfdfdgdgfs. okay, way to repress ur own feelings and do the exact same thing that youve already Been doing all ur life so far LOL. literally victim-blaming ur own self for what others have put u thru but alright. 👍

Hey here's three minutes of Plane Jane and Katya vibing/flirting you're welcome

i’m sooooooo normal about the god of war series. so incredibly normal i liked it a normal amount and would be so chill talking about it. don’t worry about the sign