#(it's understandable why this would occur)

[thedeafprophet]

I do feel like part of the problem with fallen london's writing is that many christians and many cultural christians don't understand that it is in fact offputting to constantly have it assumed, forced upon you, and just the constant pervasiveness of the christian ideology acting like no other ideology exists. having the bible quoted to you in a game is not exactly fun? for a lot of people? and will severely turn off some of those who might otherwise enjoy the story?

this is specifically an issue in a roleplaying game, where you are playing as your own character, from your own pov, and the story acts as if there's only one background you could possibly be - as if there's only one view of text and story that matters. one story after the next, from the latest big story, to the latest ES, and even Mask of the rose's assumptions of the player character and the heavily church centered plot, it just keeps happening over and over again with the constant focus on christanity without any other even slight options.

in a game with a set protagonist this wouldnt be as big of a deal - or even one that straight up says theyre only writing for specific people, if that was admitted. I would just know from the get go not to play it. instead of this halfway point and wishy washy.

theres been some really great points of aknowledgment and feedback response, with the freehold and city in silver portion, but it seems any time a step forward is made, the game doubles down in its assumptions the next time around.

I don't know. maybe the game just isn't made for people like me. perhaps i've been unrealistic in what i want from it. perhaps im simply not what is wanted within the audience.

[beneathsilverstars]

idk it sounds reasonable to me for a teenager to run away bc they didn't want to eat their veggies!

one hopes that by the later stages of childhood a parent will have figured out which veggies and preparation styles work for the kid, and the kid will have resigned themself to what they do and don't have to eat according to their parents, and it's all settled into an equilibrium instead of a daily fight. and hopefully as a teen your palette is expanding and you're even willing to eat more veggies then you did as a child.

however, if the kid is extra picky and stubborn, and the parent is extra determined to make sure they eat a good variety (or just eat whatever the parent prepared no matter what it is), it could absolutely continue to be a regularly-repeated fight. and if something is a continued point of contention throughout childhood then it absolutely makes sense for a teen to go FUCK this, i am nearly an ADULT i am done being told to eat my veggies i am gonna prove my independence and make them realize i don't have to just sit there and let them boss me around!!

like, the childishness of the fight is exactly why a teen would run away about it.

[nostalgebraist]

On the topic of Declare:

A little while ago, on a whim, I prompted several different chat LLMs with a line from the Arabian Nights that has special importance in the novel:

O fish, are you constant to the old covenant?

In the book, this is used as a sign between members of a secret group, and there's a canned response that members are meant to give to identify themselves. (Like "I like your shoelaces" / "Thanks, I stole them from the President.").

I thought it'd be funny and impressive if one of these models responded with the canned phrase from Declare: that would have demonstrated both a command of somewhat obscure information and a humanlike ability to flexibly respond to an unusual input in the same spirit as that input.

None of the models did so, although I was still impressed with Gemini's reaction: it correctly sourced the quote to Arabian Nights in its first message, and was able to guess and/or remember that the quote was also used in Declare in follow-up chat (after a few wrong guesses and hints from me).

On the other hand, GPT-4 confidently stated that the quotation was from Jubilate Agno, a real but unrelated book:

When I asked Claude 3, it asserted that the line was from a real-but unrelated-poem called "The Fish," then proceeded -- without my asking -- to quote (i.e make up) a stanza from its imagined version of that poem:

It is always discomfiting to be reminded that -- no matter how much "safety" tuning these things are put through, and despite how preachy they can be about their own supposed aversion to "misinformation" or whatever -- they are nonetheless happy to confidently bullshit to the user like this.

I'm sure they have an internal sense of how sure or unsure they are of any given claim, but it seems they have (effectively) been trained not to let it influence their answers, and instead project maximum certainty almost all of the time.

[rustedleopard]

I feel like if Chujin was still alive during the events of Undertale Yellow, his and Clover's relationship would be incredibly rocky. Pacifist!Clover could bring him around to tolerating them (after all, they have that sort of effect on everyone), but it would be more in a "this human is the only 'good' human" manner than a "maybe I should reevaluate my opinions on humans overall because you can't judge an entire group based off (very biased) stories and one bad experience." Even then, that opinion would be subject to change should Clover ever get frustrated or behave "too aggressively" or act in any manner that isn't perfectly docile. If Clover ends up attacking a monster then it's "humans are just as horrible as they were in the war stories, I should've known better" regardless of the circumstances that could've pushed Clover to fight. Suffocating expectations and endless demands for patience when he wouldn't ask the same of a fellow monster.

And heaven forbid he ever meet Clover on a No Mercy Run...

[breakbeatbun]

y'all have gotta learn to act normal about other people's characters

just bc you think they're hot doesn't mean the person who made them wants to know if, or how, you'd fuck them. i feel like that's common sense. it doesn't make it OK now just because it's not a real person you're sexualizing. you don't know what they mean to the person who made them, and if you do, well what the fuck, then.

[krakhatoa]

the mfers too stupid to use their goddamn brains and are instead blaming third party voters when Harris would NOT have won even if every single third party voter in the swing states went to her just shows how stupid you bitches be and refuse to ACKNOWLEDGE THAT A PARTY DELIBERATELY ALLOWING A FOREIGN COUNTRY TO CONTROL THEM IS THE FUCKING ISSUE THAT LEAD TO THIS LOSS

do some goddamn math with the data IN FRONT OF YOU TO SEE ITS NOT THE THIRD PARTY VOTERS BUT THE LIBS AND DEMS ALIENATION OF PPL CARING FOR HUMAN RIGHTS THAT LEAD TO THIS LOSS

[moe-broey]

6/11 • Day 3 • Celebration

I Think We Might Be Friends -- Level 40 Convo, featuring my Summoner, Moe! (Uses it/it's pronouns!)

Aka what happens when a mirror reflects a mirror. But like with one of those funhouse mirrors that distort your image. Wouldn't that be fucked up or what

Also also just. Sharena bestie you have me BEWILDERED. I remember so distinctly when I got her 40 convo, waayy back before I had a good read on her character... it struck me, stuck with me for years. I think I finally understand, now, though.

Some close ups of my fave shots!

Also! Coloring this was a last-minute impulse decision, which thankfully paid off! I was sooooo scared though ESP of not making time after. ALL OF THIS TIME. So I took pics beforehand too!

With... kind of inconsistent lighting LMFAO 🧍 I feel like this version has a nice effect too, but! It was important to me to show Moe in full-color, here. Similar, but in opposite directions...

@sharenaweek

[tommo-draws]

I need to draw my sibling's reaction to the most recent dungeon meshi episode. Their face fucking dropped and we both got misty eyed lol.

[autumnrory]

i rmr when all the initial meta around endgame was coming out people were talking about steve being depressed and whatnot and it's like well yeah but he's BEEN depressed, like he woke up alone in this century and he kept going, now i can understand it being worse this time after finding a family and getting bucky back and losing them all except of course that's not why endgame steve was on about so like......the people writing meta were trying to connect these things that of course weren't really there on screen because that simply wasn't our steve

but i think it really could've been SO interesting to see this is the thing that finally makes steve stay down like he's lost so much and he just CAN'T keep fighting like i get some people think that's what they were going for but considering the ending......it's really not. and so i'm just thinking about a version after iw, maybe he gets some of the thor treatment except not turning his depression into a dumb fatphobic joke lol and maybe nat and others are trying to get through to him and it just doesn't work and then we get some flashbacks (which you could have done for all the original avengers actually which would be particularly important for bruce and nat and clint who did not have their own trilogies) including his mom telling him "you always stand up" and THAT being the thing to finally get him moving like it would've been such a perfect way to finally show sarah rogers some respect and ACTUALLY show steve really struggling instead of whatever they tried to do with him in that movie

[birdricks]

thinking about rick admitting to only helping with the war because he wanted bp to respect him. and not realising the irony in admitting this and how it loses him that very respect

[pls-just-let-me-marry-yeung]

Replaying My Time At Portia in hopes that Dr. Xu asks me out this time (some of you might know that I couldn't trigger the question with my first playground) and something just occurred to me-

Is there a possibility that the reason why I couldn't trigger this dialogue :

Is because I hired Ack? In stardew valley, if you don't want to romance/marry anyone, you can ask Krobus to be your roommate - hiring Ack is the equivalent of that???

I'm assuming that you can be married and still hire Ack. What I mean is that, perhaps, the confession doesn't trigger because that scene alone considers hiring Ack as a helper equivalent to dating someone. I don't know, that's why I am asking.

UPDATE : Nevermind, is not Ack's fault. Goddammit

[not-poignant]

So I was thinking about Stain while making lunch, as is now apparently my wont, and I found myself wondering... we know Martingale ousted Joja, and presumably Pierre gets most if not all his fresh goods from him... so does Sebastian go out of his way to avoid buying Martingale's produce, or does he grit his teeth and accept it as an unfortunate but necessary evil for continuing to live in Pelican Town?

Hi hi hi,

So, Sebastian doesn't hate Martingale, and he has no reason to avoid his produce at all.

Sebastian is angry at Martingale, and exasperated with him, but he doesn't hate him. He did, but then he left the town, moved to Zuzu, saw a therapist, got over it, made an absolute mint, learned how to become an even better fighter, and came back with enough bank to build his own house and live his own kind of life.

He's the kind of guy who still has issues but has taken all the thorns out of that particular vine. And also, as we've seen, Sebastian has issues with himself in that relationship as much as he does with Martingale. He's said more and more that his relationship with Martingale wasn't as simple as Martingale just being evil or bad or mean, that it was a joint situation.

So yeah, Sebastian has... really no reason to avoid buying Martingale's produce, and also no reason to grit his teeth or even resent doing it.

I'd say he grows some of his own stuff (he does have a shipping bin, and he is in a section of mountain forest where he'd have arable land - I'd say Alex has never seen it because he only visits at night, and light pollution isn't really a thing), and also has no problems eating at the Stardrop Saloon, and otherwise keeps his fridge stocked via Pierre's.

Like, he knows better than anyone how much Martingale cares about his farm and how much work he's put into it. He was there when Martingale stayed up until 2.00am night after night, and he was there when Martingale nearly died trying to get enough iridium just to upgrade his sprinklers so he could have higher and higher quality goods. He knows he's getting the best, which matters to him.

And then on top of that, he's always been a big believer in fairly compensating someone for their work no matter how he feels about them. He started backing Alex in that long before he considered himself to be friendly towards Alex overall. In fact he was supportive of Alex getting paid better even when he still thought Alex was an active homophobe and bully!

So yeah, Sebastian can be immature in some ways, but that's not one of them!

(Also I feel like Sebastian is the kind of person who wants Martingale to know when he's pissed at him, and then the rest of the time is like 'well, that's a waste of my time.' lksfjas)

[hunnicute]

what if mash but they were severed

[andromedasummer]

dad asking me about the manx gp earlier got me thinking about the body misidentification and incorrect death announcement which took days to correct back in 2022. i'd always wondered whether the inquest would figure out how on earth race and medical officials mixed up the severely injured surviving driver and the deceased sidecar passenger. i now know that, sure enough, it did. i but it has brought host to a whole slew of other questions.

[ruby-red-inky-blue]

i'm seeing maybe THE band of my teenage years live this summer and i could not be more excited!! ...i'm also realising i don't actually know the lyrics to any of their songs, only the nonsense my teenage brain assembled from what english i knew at the time

i've never spared a conscious thought for my conviction that American Idiot contained the line "that's not Plymouth on my flag America" but like. that can't be right. and it fully isn't! it's not. the only correct word in that whole line is "America"

[nostalgia-tblr]

The dark world thought. Loki keeps calling thor brother (mostly to annoy him) in the movie. idk why but i was hoping at least once thor would scream at him and say "STOP CALLING ME THAT"

Note to self: watch Thor 2: The Dark World. See, I think it's the other way round, and my answer involves thoughts I had about the thorki fic I inisist I will never write so fair warning for that BUT of the two it's Loki who's far more likely to insist they're not really brothers and shouldn't call each other that. A thought I had from the first film and then failed to post (I don't post ALL my thoughts on tumblr! Just most of them!) was that the 'worthy' aspect of Mjolnir is very vague and Loki would spend hours and hours trying to pin down 'what does worthy mean,' and utterly convinced that even if he isn't going to fit the criteria there must be a loophole somewhere in the wording that he can use. Whereas Thor probably hasn't spent much time worrying about that - either you're worthy or you're not and the magic hammer just knows which it is. Somehow.

Similarly I don't think Thor cares much about whether he and Loki were technically born to the same parents or even if they're the same species, because they are brothers, they've always been brothers, how can they not be brothers? Meanwhile Loki's upended life largely revolves around the fact that pedantically, legally, whateverly, they aren't really brothers and they never were. Which is why he's open to things getting incestuous now while Thor is still repulsed by his own unbrotherly yearnings. Don't be daft, Thor, we're obviously not brothers, stop calling me that it's not true you're just repeating someone else's lie! But what else would Thor call his brother? It may have been a lie to begin with, and it still might be a lie to other people, but having spent centuries thinking they were brothers and acting like they were then how is that relationship not them being brothers? Had Loki actually been his brother by blood it wouldn't have made a difference so in practical terms how are they suddenly not brothers just because Loki turned out to be a Frost Giant?

Thor wants Loki to stop causing problems and to stop being a dick, but he doesn't want him to stop being his brother (were such a thing even possible in his mind). Whereas Loki's life of crime or even just life on the run would be a lot easier if he didn't have a brother to worry about and who insists on worrying about him.

tl;dr: I got lost about halfway through my answer, sorry. I have more thoughts on this matter than my usually flippant comments might suggest D: D: