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Something something the visceral horror GLaDOS must feel after watching Chell for so long, only for her test subject to literally go off the rails and disappear inside of her.

It's such a fantastic reversal of power! In an instant, it changes the genre from Chell's psychological nightmare into Glados's body horror.

This whole time Glados has been creating a psychosexual connection to her lab rat, and now that rat worms its way through her body in a way she can't track.

There's almost an intimacy about the rooms Chell solves being specifically tailored for her to see. They're a dishonest facade, until Chell escapes from the predetermined path and sees what Glados truly is/looks like, and ventures all the way to the heart of her, stripping her bare.

"What if you were a massive mechanical complex and I skittered through your insides and climbed into the heart of your most private and vital organs? And we were both women?"

This too, is Yuri

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One day I just decided that no matter what happened I would be chillin and let me say it actually has been working

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On the issue of the ‘q slur’...

So, yesterday, I got into a rather stupid internet argument with someone who was peddling what seemed to me to be a rather insidious narrative about slur-reclamation. Someone in the ensuing notes raised a point which I thought was interesting, and worrying, and probably needed to be addressed in it’s own post. So here we go:

The word ‘queer’ itself seems to be especially touchy for many, so let me begin to address this by way of analogy.

Instead of talking about “queer”, let’s start by talking about “Jew” - a word which I believe is very similar in its usage in some significant ways.

Now, the word “Jew” has been used as a derogatory term for literally hundreds of years. It is used both as a noun (eg. “That guy ripped me off - what a dirty Jew”) and as a verb (eg. “That guy really Jew-ed me”). These usages are deeply, fundamentally, horrifically offensive, and should be used under no circumstances, ever. And yet, I myself have heard both, even as recently as this past year, even in an urban location with plenty of Jews, in a social situation where people should have known better. In short – the word “Jew”, as it is used by certain antisemites, is – quite unambiguously – a slur. Not a dead slur, not a former slur – and active, living slur that most Jews will at some point in their life encounter in a context where the term is being used to denigrate them and their religion. 

Now here’s the thing, though: I’m a Jew. I call myself a Jew. I prefer that all non-Jews call me a Jew – so do most Jews I know. “Jew” is the correct term for someone who is part of the religion of Judaism, the same way that “Muslim” is the correct term for someone who is part of the religion of Islam, and “Christian” is the correct term for someone who is part of the religion of Christianity. 

In fact, almost all of the terms that non-Jews use to avoid saying “Jew” (eg. “a member of the Jewish persuasion”, “a follower of the Jewish faith”, “coming from a Jewish family”, “identifying as part of the Jewish religion”, etc) are deeply offensive, because these terms imply to us that the speaker sees the term “Jew” (and by extension, what that term stands for) as a dirty word.

“BUT WAIT” – I hear you say – “didn’t you just say that Jew is used as a slur?!?”

Yes. Yes, I did. And also, it is fundamentally offensive not to call us that, because it is our name and our identity.

Let me back up a little bit, and bring you into the world of one of those 2000s PSAs about not using “that’s so gay”. Think of some word that is your identity – something which you consider to be a fundamental and intrinsic part of yourself. It could be “female” or “male”, or “Black” or “white”, “tall” or “short”, “Atheist” or “Mormon” or “Evangelical” – you name it.

Now imagine that people started using that term as a slur.

“What a female thing to do!” they might say. “That teacher doesn’t know anything, he’s so female!”

Or maybe, “Yikes, look at that idiot who’s driving like an atheist. It’s so embarrassing!”

Or perhaps, “Oh gross, that music is so Black, turn it off!”

Now, what would you say if the same groups of people who had been saying those things for years turned around and avoided using those words to describe anything other than an insult?

“Oh, so I see you’re a member of the female persuasion!”

“Is he… a follower of the atheist beliefs? Like does he identify as part of the community of atheist-aligned individuals?”

“So, as a Black-ish identified person yourself – excuse me, as a person who comes from a Black-ish family…”

Here’s the fundamental problem with treating all words that are used as slurs the same, without any regard for how they are used and how they developed – not all slurs are the same.

No one, and I mean no one (except maybe for a small handful of angsty teens who are deliberately making a point of being edgy) self-identifies as a kike. In contrast, essentially all Jews self-identify as Jews. And when non-Jews get weird about that identity on the grounds that “Jew is used as a slur”, despite the fact that it is the name that the Jewish community as a whole resoundingly identifies with, what they are basically saying is that they think that the slur usage is more important than the Jewish community self-identification usage. They are saying, in essence, “we think that your name should be a slur.” 

Now, at the top I said that the word “Jew” and the word “queer” had some significant similarities in terms of their usage, and I think that’s pretty apparent if you look at what people in those communities are saying about those terms. When American Jews were being actively threatened by neo-Nazis in the 70s, the slogan of choice was “For every Jew a .22!″. When the American Queer community was marching in the 90s in protest of systemic anti-queer violence, the slogan of choice was “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it!” Clearly, these are terms that are used by the communities themselves, in reference to themselves. Clearly, these terms are more than simply slurs.

But while there are useful similarities between how the terms “Jew” and “Queer” are used by bigots and by their own communities, I’d also like to point out that there is pretty substantial and important difference:

Unlike for “queer”, there is no organized group of Jewish antisemites who are using the catchphrase “Jew is a slur!” in order to selectively silence and disenfranchise Jews who are part of minority groups within Judaism. 

This is the real rub with the term queer – no one was campaigning about it being a slur until less than a decade ago. No one was saying that you needed to warn for the word queer when queer people were establishing the academic discipline of queer studies. No one was ‘think of the children”-ing the umbrella term when queer activists were literally marching for their lives. Go back to even 2010 and the term “q slur” would have been basically unparseable – if I saw someone tag something “q slur”, like most queer people I would have wracked my brains trying to figure out what slur even started with q, and if I learned that it was supposed to be “queer”, my default assumption would be that the post was made by a well-meaning but extremely clueless straight person.

I literally remember this shift – and I remember who started it. Exclusionists didn’t like the fact that queer was an umbrella term. Terfs (or radfems as they like to be called now) didn’t like that queer history included trans history; biphobes and aphobes didn’t like that the queer community was also a community to bisexuals and asexuals. And so what could they possibly say, to drive people away from the term that was protecting the sorts of queer people that they wanted to exclude?

Well, naturally, they turned to “queer is a slur.”

And here’s the thing – queer is a slur, just like Jew is a slur, and no one is denying that. And that fact makes “queer is a slur so don’t use it” a very convincing argument on the surface: 1) queer is still often used as a slur, and 2) you shouldn’t ever use slurs without carefully tagging and warning people about them (and better yet, you should never use them at all), and so therefore 3) you need to tag for “the q slur” and you need to warn people not to call the community “the queer community” or it’s members “queer people” or its study “queer studies” – because it’s a slur!

But the crucial step that’s missing here is exactly the same one above, for the word “Jew” – and that step is that not all slurs are the same. When a term is both used as a slur and used as a self-identity term, then favoring the slur meaning instead of the identity meaning is picking the side of the slur-users over the disadvantaged group! 

If you say or tag “q slur” you are sending the message, whether you realize it or not, that people who use “queer” as a slur are more right about its meaning than those who use it as their identity. Tagging for “queer” is one thing. People can filter for “queer” if it triggers them, just like people can filter for anything else. Not everyone has to personally use the term queer, or like the term queer. But there is no circumstance where the term “q slur” does not indicate that you think queer is more of a slur than of an accurate description of a community.

If I, as a Jew, ever came across a post where someone had warned for innocent, positive, non-antisemitic content relating to Judaism with the tag “J slur”, I would be incensed. So would any Jew. The act of tagging a post “J slur” is in and of itself antisemitic and offensive.

Queer people are allowed to feel the same about “q slur”. It is not a neutral warning term – it is an attack on our identity.

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A while back I saw a "what Veilguard faction would your Inquisitor be?" poll and since then I've been thinking about how it applies for all my Inquisitors.

Elanna Lavellan (no screenshots)

Rogue (archer, assassin)

My very first Inquisitor, so I have much less sense of her specific personality than others. The most notable thing is that I somehow started romancing Blackwall without intending to, and then he had a million unrelated cut scenes before I was allowed to break up with him. Elanna let that man rot in Orlesian prison after his Big Reveal.

She romanced Cullen and is presumably spending a fair amount of her time at the Fereldan Home For Old Dogs and Templars.

But Heir trained her in assassination so she has that connection with the Crows

Meriam Lavellan

Mage (Knight Enchanter)

My One True Inquisitor, the one I 100%ed the game with (technically 99.9% because she did NOT collect the mosaic piece that required desecrating the Dalish cemetery). I played through Trespasser maybe 3 or 4 times with her over a year as I got incrementally closer to completion.

She romanced Solas and she was so sad and tired about it for my ~100 hours of post-breakup play. She tried to hit every wolf statue in the Exalted Plains with her spirit blade, because she didn't *technically* know his big secret? But the vibe was there.

She was a massive nerd about Elven history, so I think she would have been in regular touch with the Veil Jumpers, but she probably also spent a fair amount of time with the Shadow Dragons because Dorian was her BFF.

In my first Veilguard playthrough I got her back together with her toxic ex. I will probably remake her at some point now that I'm better at using the Veilguard character creator. Who knows, maybe I'll make a version of her who still has her Sylaise vallaslin from back before Solas took that and also her arm.

Kaaras Adaar

Mage (rift)

The world's fanciest Tal-Vashoth. He romanced Dorian and I like to think the two of them have been taking time out of their busy schedules to level up the Minrathous queer scene.

He punched Solas and got the rival-who-figured-out-Solas's-deal dialogue in Trespasser so it was honestly pretty funny to see him pretend they were ever friends.

It feels possible that the other Adaars have teamed up with the Lords of Fortune but given his relationship with Dorian, I think he's mostly connected with the Shadow Dragons.

Theodosia Trevelyan

Mage (knight enchanter)

She is prickly and unlikable. She's also the only devout Andrastian I've created for any Dragon Age, and my only True Believer Inquisitor.

She romanced Blackwall, and gave him divine forgiveness after his secret got out. (I honestly put down this save after I got through the Winter Palace and the Blackwall personal quest, but I like to rotate her in my head)

Her secret agenda in my current Veilguard save is to get Solas to admit the Maker is real. I don't know if she's especially affiliated with any of the Veilguard factions but I feel like she and the First Warden would get along well.

Isaac (Tettares) Lavellan

Mage (necromancer)

I made Isaac for my pre-Veilguard replay in October and became low-key obsessed with this gremlin. He was trans and romancing Dorian and I got really up in my head about how bad things went for Krem in Tevinter and what that meant for the Isaac/Dorian future? And then Veilguard came out and I learned that Dorian's Tevinter social group is mostly trans people and Minrathous has become the trans headquarters for all of Thedas and it honestly felt like I was being called out for worrying so much

On the one hand, I don't want to put him in Veilguard, because my headcanon is that he tried to end the Inquisition as soon as Corypheus was dealt with, and then ran away and is undercover as a low level Shadow Dragon. OTOH I do want to see if I can recreate his cartoon face proportions in Veilguard.

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This leads me to assume we missed Medusa and Charon having the fattest gossip sesh previously off screen about his ex who killed him for the fucking fates- peak mlm/wlw solidarity

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important tarquin based on a post by @spellandblade

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having a freeze response to stress is so funny in the context of normal adult stressors. millions of years of evolution are trying to tell me that the email will not find me if i stay very still and do nothing

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my ‘unreliable narrator’ tshirt has people asking a lot of questions i can’t be trusted to answer correctly

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you've got 2 admit that the oft repeated command to "touch grass" in itself illustrates a great disconnect from the tru wholesomeness of the offline world. unless you meant a kind of wild grass, a lovely tassel cord rush or even the humble rattlesnake grass. but we know that's not what they mean. to the chronically online, grass = lawn and nothing more. and a lawn is an abomination on par with the worst brainworms big online has to offer. touching a lawn will not help you. You've got to go injure yourself on some swordgrass for god's sake

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I kinda lived half of 2023 (maybe more) like a drowning rat in a bucket but this year I'll live like a normal rat. outside of a bucket

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Honestly bizarre that tomatoes get all the flack for “not being a vegetable” because they're technically a fruit when:

A) There are a ton of fruits that get categorised as vegetables. Like this also applies to pumpkins, squashes and cucumbers.

B) The fucking mushrooms are standing there at the back of the crowd in this witch trial, trying to look inconspicuous because they somehow got into the vegetable club with no fucking controversy despite the fact that they're not even plants.

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This blog has been telling you not to trust pelicans for over a decade and this is why

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MESSAGE TO ALL BITCHES: WE ARE SURVIVING THIS YEAR NO MATTER WHAT.

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imagine a bajoran teenager living on ds9 who's trying to decide what to do with her life and feels compelled to get closer to the Emissary, but gets the sense that Sisko is a little uncomfortable with being approached in that way, and she's a little young to join the bajoran military and try to get stationed under him, so she looks for another pretense to like have a conversation with him or something

and she overhears Jake talking about playing baseball with his dad, and maybe at the temple she overhears Kira talking about going to the holosuites with them for a baseball game, and she gets the sense that baseball is Important

so she gets up her courage and approaches him on the promenade some time when he doesn't seem too busy, like "excuse me Emissary, I wonder if you would allow me to ask a favor of you."

and Sisko tries not to look like he's steeling himself

"I would like to learn about Baseball."

and he gets this big grin. and tells her what day and time to show up to Quark's for the next time he and Jake are gonna play (and ngl maybe part of him is thinking she's closer to Jake's age than Mardah is...)

and like as they're doing warmups, and she's taking things Very Seriously trying to learn the ropes, Sisko makes an offhanded comment about how Cestus III would be the place to be if you really wanted to get immersed in the sport. and of course she takes this a lot more seriously than he meant it. like a direction in life given to her from the Prophets, directly from their Emissary.

so after all of one (1) time playing baseball in a holosuite she approaches Kassidy to learn more about Cestus III and works like a short internship under her to earn passage there. and shows up in like Pike City or someplace like "hi, does anyone around here hire non-federation citizens? i don't care what type of job. also when are baseball tryouts?"

and like after several years spent getting good, bc she approaches the sport with y'know religious devotion, she returns to her people. and starts a training camp on Bajor that's like basically a monastery. like teenagers who want to pursue religious studies but can't sit still long enough to have hope of becoming a ranjen, they get sent to her to learn to practice Baseball

like imagine a young adult with a really elaborate earring and also like the baseball shoes and the short pants tucked into tall socks going "you know, waiting for a sign from the Prophets is a lot like playing left field..."

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Diictodon, who survived the most brutal extinction event on Earth, is happy to see you made it to the other side of that year. Eat well and rest for a bit, you deserved it

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Reblog if you've made at least one friend because of a fandom.