#(or I will. because its clear they wont do it themselves.

[corntired]

LMFAO

I had such a stressful day at work that the app connected to a smartband im usually wearing told me to listen to some calming music as it detected very elevated stress levels.

Lol. Lmao, even.

[recountinggaulwithgaius]

For the Helvetians of the Celts (or Gauls), they were also highly regarded, but specifically for their bravery, quod fere cotidianis proeliis cum Germanis contendunt

[booty-uprooter]

some tips on how to make bosses easier if youre feeling theyre too hard:

play a ranged physical dps class. that way you can hang back to keep an eye on the arena and what the boss is doing without having to worry about needing to stand still long enough to complete an induction

on that note, inductions are considered finished before the bar is full. you can usually move right before it fills and still have it go off, but it takes some trial and error to figure out how close you can cut it

move your ui around. my own life was made immeasurably easier when i put the target right above my hotbar so i wouldnt have to pay attention to both the top and bottom of the screen at the same time, but try stuff out and see what works best for you

the best time to mitigate an attack is right before the boss finishes casting it. the second best time is as soon as the mit becomes available, every time it becomes available

use addle and feint. you almost never see these used in casual content and it's a waste because they really are extremely useful skills at any level

use arm's length and surecast. there are some knockbacks they dont work on but those are rare. if you know youre gonna get pushed, use these and you probably won't get pushed

take advantage of duty support. the npcs know the mechanics. watch them and let them teach you

particle effects cant hurt you (usually). with the exception of puddles that stay on the ground for a while or layered stacks like akh morn, as long as youre not standing on the marker when it disappears (or are if it's a stack), you're in the clear. feel free to move through the animation if necessary. more and more mechanics require you to do so to be in position for the next one in time

it's usually fine to let spread markers overlap. just, yknow, make sure another person isnt in yours (though its the responsibility of anyone without a spread to keep themselves out of harms way)

when in doubt, ask your party members. it's extremely rare to match with a group of randos and have everyone be a first-timer. most players are happy to help, and the ones that know the mechanics but are bad at explaining them will usually just stick a marker on themselves (usually a triangle) for you to follow

read your tool tips. boss fights are as much a test of how well you know your class as they are your ability to read and react to mechanics. unless youre playing a healer or paladin, youre going to use your entire kit, so make sure you know what everything does

on that note, freecure is a scam. once you get cure ii/benefic ii, you will never need cure or benefic again. keep them on your hotbar for when you get synced content if you wish, but otherwise you do not need them. do not use them

if you play multiple classes, try to keep skills that do the same/similar things at the same spot on your hotbar. this isn't always possible bc despite what some may claim, not all classes of the same type are actually identical, but it will save you a lot of headaches

entirely new and unique mechanics are rare to the point of being nigh nonexistent. everything is a remix of something else and practicing in lower level content can actually be a big help

look up guides. the internet is full of them in pretty much whatever form works best for you (though they can be of admittedly variable quality)

turn down party effects. theyre on one of the tabs under character configuration > controls. if you put them on minimum you can still see heals and such but you wont have your screen constantly full of explosions

turn on target health percentage. this one is under character configuration > ui. it lets you better see how close the boss is to going down

make summons smaller. we all love titan's ass but not when it's the only thing you can see. "/petsize all small" will make this problem go away

relax and have fun. panicking leads to mistakes, which can lead to worse mistakes. if you need to take a second to breathe, do so. your party members probably wont mind waiting a minute or two between pulls

[coriphallus]

The Dark Urge thoughts (and prayers)

anyone whos been following me knows im absolutely not normal about durge and i wanna share some tidbits that are implied, but not necessarily canonised, from their story;

I already made a post about it but it seems like bhaal has a degree of control over whether they live or die. he can deny them death, if they fail the duel with orin.

bhaal can command the slayer. he forces orin to transform if you talk to her about sarevok and the scene makes it clear that its against her will.

bhaal manipulates his kin in a subtler way. in the colony you can find a letter from old durge thats apologising to his father for 'liking' gortash. you can interpret their relationship as something deeper but even if it wasnt, this reads to me as terrified and desperate.

the reason being, if you have a LI in act 2 you get the famous bondage scene. coupled up with the letter above makes me think this is a pattern. bhaal can use their feelings against them. he did it with sarevok and orin's mother, orin's mother and orin, etc... it's not as straightforward as 'if you disobey ill kill the one you love'. you will. durge will.

bhaal is testing them in act 2, he revels in chaos, sure, but in the grand scheme of things he doesn't care about isobel. even if you tell scel that you'll kill her you're told that youre too late, you ignored your urges. from durge, bhaal doesn't expect calm calculated murder, he expects blind obedience. failing to receive that his first punishment is to take away something they cherish. there are no half measures, theres no bargaining with a god.

we get so many snippets of information that this has happened before, their foster family being their first victims. theyre made to kill their support system with their own hands, with no one to blame but themselves. they are actually apologising to their father for being fond of gortash because (in my humble opinion) theyre genuinely afraid.

how many times could this have happened, how many nights durge couldve woken up covered in the blood of someone they love until they gave in, became daddys obedient puppet?

durge is groomed for murder. scel says 'you always failed to conduct yourself without me' and given who he is i dont think hes talking about table manners when he says 'conduct'. durge needs 24/7 oversight to set themselves right lest they get tempted by softer things. lest they dare to step away from bhaals grand plan.

durge do have a choice. just as shadowheart had a choice, just as wyll or astarion had a choice. its a choice only in name.

theres no ending besides refusing bhaal that their friends and LI wont die by their hands. the entire lore of bhaalspawn is that theyre meant to conquer the world in his name and slit their own throat a top the mountain of corpses. as cazador aptly put, 'theyre made to be consumed.'

you can pray to bhaal and the narrator says he won't accept [any offering] but the entire world.

durge (and bhaalspawn) do get some sort of euphoria from murder. they crave it like an addict, but bhaalspawn (on prev games) don't constantly have to grapple with these urges as durge does.

now durge is a slightly special case but not in a good way. its implied that theyre not like a regular bhaalspawn, that theyre made by bhaal directly -so to speak-. which is to say, if youre playing a drow, they are bhaals closest approximation of a drow rather than a drow flesh and blood.

thats why theyre fighting tooth and nail against these urges every step of the way, they are literally bhaal himself(in essence). the personality they develop, the person who calls themselves 'tainted' and 'wretched', the character thats making choices throughout the game, theyre the tumour.

theirs is the story of cycle of abuse cranked up to 1000 and it is in parallel to all other origin companions.

[fairuzfan]

I have concern that I may still be technically zionist despite claiming to be pro-palestine. This is because I knew very little about Palestine when October 7th happened, so in the time since I have been reluctant to have a stance on a two-state or one-Palestinian-state solution. I know now that almost all of Isreal is stolen land and recognize Isreal only exists due to colonialism, it took me a long time to learn that but I know it now. Before I knew that, I knew that regardless of the prior history that in current day Palestine is being subjected to a genocide. However, I struggle with politics and therefore struggle with understanding how a one-Palestinian-state could be achieved and have concern about what would happen to any genuinely innocent people who live in Isreal. To be clear, Isreal as a whole is guilty and I just have concern about what will happen to the portion of people in Isreal who are just as horrified as the rest of the world at what their government is doing. I do not personally know any Palestinians, so I have not known who to talk to about this especially since I do not want to overstep in any way. Theres more context I could provide but I wont because this is roughly the gist of where I am currently at when it comes to my concerns about whether or not I am still zionist. Do you have any reccomendations as to what I can do about my concerns? I am not sure whether or not I am overstepping right now by asking you this, but I do not know any other Palestians on a personal level that I can go to.

hey thanks for sending this in. i think we all have zionist biases that we have to unlearn, even i catch myself falling for it sometimes. so it's not necessarily a moral failing if you're trying to undo the zionism you've been taught. thanks for trying to undo it!

i do want to correct you a bit thought, in that *all* of israel is stolen land because israel is a settler colonial society. until it is relabeled as "Palestine" it can't not be stolen land.

I guess my advice is that you read scholarship and perspectives on palestinian thought and heritage. i can't tell you what a free palestine will look like but i can tell you what i imagine it to be. but what i can tell you is that the state of israel is fully intent on erasing all traces of palestinian life no matter what.

i guess i can tell you why "two state solutions" don't really work because there is no.... prevention of settlement building in the west bank and they'll never really promote *not* settling in the west bank. like i really cannot imagine a world where there aren't settlers on palestinian land no matter the case. and that's even not allowing palestinians the right of return to their homes and expecting them to give up what they dedicated their lives to. many palestinians in the west bank and gaza are themselves refugees because they were displaced in '48. so no matter what, palestinians will always get the short end of the stick and told to "just deal with it."

plus, why are we concerned with the supposed future danger towards israelis when the current, very real danger towards palestinians exists? shouldn't we prioritize actual events over hypothetical ones? why should we concern ourselves with the future when for palestinians its not a guarantee? i have no idea what's going to happen to gaza, for example.... shouldn't we prioritize that gaza lives on today?

i think i would question why you think israelis are inherently in danger in a one state solution? like do you assume that palestinians will all universally commit violence on all israelis? is it because you believe that hamas wants to kill every single israeli jew no matter what? if so, i think that's where your problem lies — in the assumption that peace can only be achieved through segregation just in a lighter form (because the state of israel relies on segregation as a principal of its existence as a jewish state). what about the palestinians who fear living side by side with the same people who raped, tortured, and murdered them for 75 years, or advocated for their deaths? aren't they inherently in more danger?

i mean palestinians have consistently been painted as the villains for more than 75 years. like in every aspect. i think to really truly be antizionist you need to prioritize palestinian concerns and worries over israeli ones because of how.... unwilling much of the world is to even consider them.

approaching zionism from an idea of an inequality structure is also necessary — rather than assuming its a one off system, we examine it as a perpetuation of multiple types of systems of inequality embedded into one. i recommend the institute for the critical study of zionism (click) for more information on this. There's also this book by Ismail Zayid written in the 80's (click) about the longtime violence the ideology of zionism has done to multiple communities, not just palestinians.

Here's a great reading list by palipunk about different aspects of palestinian thought and culture (click). i suggest looking through them to help decolonize our way of thought.

i might add on to this later if i think of something else to say.

[gatorbites-imagines]

Helloooo, I can request omega bakugou helping his mate/alpha ace reader with their rut? I thought it might be sfw since u don't feel like writing smut atp :3

Omega Katsuki Bakugou x Ace Alpha male reader

Headcanons

(aged up characters, obviously)

Seeing ace requests in my inbox always make my smile because, hey, that’s me. Where my ace homies at. I’ve very rarely written omegaverse before, but I got so much worldbuilding about it, if you guys are interested.

I have too much worldbuilding and ideas about Omegaverse, so this is a little out of the norm for your usual smut filled rut plot.

For omegaverse, I never imagine that heats or ruts turn you into a horny breeding crazed animal. Yes, with your mate you will feel a lot more arousal and might have moments where you become fueled by your desires, but the majority can still control themselves.

For you, who’s Ace as well, the breeding part isn’t present more than your bodies instincts, but its nothing extreme. It feels the same as when you are really hungry. Sure, the feeling is there, but you can easily go about your day and not let it bother you.

But ruts do more than just make you want to have a lot of pups and crawl all over your omega, even if your omega is as hot as Katsuki is. It tends to cause a lot of stress on the body, from cramping muscles to overheating, dehydration, pacing and other factors that could lead to stress.

So, in Katsuki’s situation, his job during your ruts is mainly to take care of you. To make sure you’re eating and drinking enough fluids. That you aren’t overheating by patting you down with a cold cloth or using ice packs, or even making you cold baths.

He treats it a lot like a very horribly cold for the most part. Sure, your scent also makes him slick up a little and makes his own scent sweeter and riper, but Katsuki is still clear headed and more focused on taking care of you. Especially when he knows you do the same for him when he has heats.

I imagine Katsuki is still his usual snappy growly self, but he doesn’t yell, since ruts also makes your hearing more sensitive. Instead, he just grumbles a lot. With a lot of insults that has no heat thrown in, just because its Katsuki.

As an alpha, you don’t really need a nest, but you bet your damn ass Katsuki makes you one. And only with the best rut materials out there. He won’t accept anything but the best, and Katsuki honestly stresses more about your rut nest than he does his own heat nest.

It reaches a point where, during the early stages of your rut, you just kinda have to thrown yourself in it and show him you like it and accept it.

I could imagine Katsuki worrying a lot, since he knows your ace and he doesn’t want to make you uncomfortable with his own scent. Does it bother you that he starts smelling like preheat? Does it make your rut worse? Better? Does he need to leave?

He would also fear crawling into the nest with you, at least in the beginning. After you pull him in multiple times, or tell him to get in, he starts to calm down. You can’t stop him from worrying though, it’s in his blood.

Being ace also doesn’t mean you don’t feel arousal and the like, so if you need to get off, he’s not gonna stop you, and wont touch you unless you want him too. Katsuki knows it won’t go farther than just some touching, if it even gets to that, and he’s more than satisfied.

Having and Ace partner honestly probably helps take some of the stress of his shoulders. He knows you won’t have the same expectations as some other alphas, that he needs to give up on his hero career and be a “good” omega.

Which is also why he’s ready to bend himself backwards to make sure you are comfortable during your rut. Even if staying nearby and taking as much care of you as possible pushes him into preheat, Katsuki is strong enough mentally to keep it bottled up until your rut it over.

This does mean you end up having to take care of him afterwards too, and you gotta call in favors with your friends to cover Katsuki’s patrols, since he didn’t expect to go into heat.

But all in all, ruts with Katsuki are a very planned out affair. Sure, you feel miserable and like you’re boiling on the inside, never able to find a comfortable sleeping position, and like you need to claw your own flesh off. But at least Katsuki is by your side the entire time, ready to hold your hand or hold you as a whole if you need too.

You do have to put up with his nagging though, but you know its just how he shows affection, so in the end it makes you purr at him. Which just gets Katsuki to get all flustered and pretty.

[catmask]

(hope this isnt weird to say if it is ignore me lol) but your post about abuse and dichotomy really got me thinking, i think this sentiment of abused vs abuser also hurts victims in a specific way, where it can be hard to recognize that youre a victim because youre caught up in the fact your abuser is "good" or not necessarily an "antagonist" or even a victim themselves, it can be hard to recognize abuse when its happening to you because its not "clear" per se like it would be on tv. thank you for sharing your thoughts on this topic :)

yuuuupppppp it also makes it difficult when your abuse makes you act in ways that are less than favorable within the abusive environment itself. like you get brought up hearing 'lying is bad' 'hitting others is bad' but when lying is the only way you wont be denied eating meals for a day or youre a child whos only hitting an adult who hit you first so theyll be too scared to try again, it makes that 'harmless' vs 'harmful' dynamic completely meaningless

the thing with being a victim of abuse is you have to recognize the ways in which experiencing harm warps your ability to exist outside of it. it fucking sucks and it hurts because it ISNT your fault, but it becomes your responsibility to heal from. but like, thats the thing with breaking cycles of abuse... you dont really get to 'break' anything comfortably, it often requires you to do whats most inconvenient to you. because its not how youve learned to behave to survive.

[spookberry]

Its been a while so I cant point to a bunch of specific example outside of like, Hera, Athena, and Hephaestus. But okay, one thing that always bothers me about the Percy Jackson worldbuilding is the fact that its fundamental premise is just "what if the greek gods and their stories were real" so there's nothing you can do about how deeply and unrelentingly sexist the ancient greeks were without just breaking your own premise. Like your options are take them at their word to fulfill the premise or say "nah all of them were wrong I have new lore". So I don't exactly blame Riordon for cherrypicking which myths he was gonna edit.

Its just a little wacky to me though that because of it's status as an adaption(to some degree) people don't really critically analyze the intent behind the source material on the gods. Their context from a meta perspective is often overlooked in the grand scheme of the story. Which I understand, the intrigue is on the demigods afterall, not the gods themselves.

However I just cannot stop myself from thinking about it. Like the fact that a big part of why the greeks respected Athena was because she was born "purely of man" and her birth was umblemished via coming from an icky woman. Shes the perfect woman because she lacks ties to womanhood. Shes the ideal Pick Me girl.

The story of Hephaestus's birth is sucky for him, but personally I think more on Hera. To me its always been fairly clear that the intended message you are meant to get out of that story is literally "no matter what, women are worse then men. Even at the one thing theyre meant to be good at." How dare a woman think she could ever be better than a man at something even if she is a Goddess of this thing.

Hera does bad things in her mythos I wont deny that and youre not meant to like her in Percy Jackson either which is fine. We can have complicated and annoyingly meddlesome girlbosss goddess for the sake of plot. Nonetheless I often find myself feeling sad about how she has been dragged through the mud for centuries because people dont dare to think more critically on why the men telling her stories spoke on her the way they did.

[void-star]

I'm thinking about that augmented human HubSystem, and Three's unnamed feelings towards the other SecUnits it was with, and its unique form of non-verbal communication a lot after the end of System Collapse.

Like, how this impacts its relationship to others, and to itself. My thoughts are this:

Three doesn't receive direction from a machine, it receives direction and command from a human. Obviously this is still a form of control and enslavement. These augmented humans essentially function as slave overseers.

The augmented human HubSystem is (according to MurderBot) easier to fool. They are human, after all, even with all the augmentations and what seem to be really questionable living conditions themselves.

We also see that they can be distracted, that their control of the SecUnits can be disrupted specifically because they are a physical human being existing in a physical space as a person with a body and a nervous system and all that.

Three's non-verbal communication is intentional and distinct, and the way Three defaults to interacting with MurderBot in System Collapse. It takes ART, MurderBot, and others to be able to figure out how to understand it.

Meaning that, to me, Three (and potentially other B-E SecUnits), are more accustomed to being able to have a system of relationships... between each other, and with their augmented human HubSystem.

I think Three had feelings for SecUnits 1 and 2 that were reciprocated (it's funny that MurderBot didn't bother to ask Three about it), and they were able to have some kind of relationship to each other through the development of their own specific and unique way to communicate with each other that wouldn't be caught by their augmented human HubSystem.

Maybe Three does have a problem with people pleasing and fawning. I'm actually inclined to believe that part of MurderBot's suspicion of Three's self-autonomy is founded, that it isn't so clear if Three understands it can say no, or that it doesn't have the skills to be able to (big mood).

But I also think MurderBot's opinions about Three are the unique combination of ways that MurderBot assumes its experience is universal, and its own feelings about Three it is not admitting to itself... as it is wont to do.

I do wish that System Collapse involved more of the two of them directly interacting, that they could have started to grow together as a unit. But I also think, given MurderBot's general everything, it would have to be a real slow build up into that.

From the bottom of my heart, though, I think Three was already fond of MurderBot since back in Network Effect, and I think MurderBot deciding they need to figure out what Three "actually wants" after it said it would like to go with Holism to learn about Infrastructure Proposals is because it's fond of Three, too.

But so far, Three has been trying to bond, and MurderBot has been rejecting it.

[knnichs]

it’ll be quick

zhongli, neuvillette x gn!reader

w. implied relationship, gender neutral reader, not proof read (we die like caribert), implied short(?) reader, height difference, a tad bit suggestive for neuvillette wc 1.1k

where you ask them for a favor, and they cant bring themselves to say no

﹢﹒ zhongli

another drowsy evening for the city of liyue. plenty of people coming back to their homes, children that were once playing on the streets are now running back to their parents, and the lights start to become the city’s only source of guidance—aside from the stars and the slowly descending sun.

zhongli was walking around, his gloved hands behind his back, holding each other. his ponytail moving from the wind, along with his coat. although he isn’t walking that fast, it is quite a windy day.

you were about to do a few errands for hu tao. a handful of them being difficult, as she wanted you to collect a few things in a forest you decided never to enter after the test of courage you attended last year with chongyun.

you spot your boyfriend, zhongli, just walking around in the streets, doing absolutely nothing. so, you decided to do something you did best: annoy him.

with slow steps, you walk towards his back and give his shoulder a tap. he looks to the wrong direction, before turning right and facing you.

“dear, i did not expect to see you here. isn’t it your rest day today?” he asks, tone soft and worried. zhongli rests his thumb on your cheek, pinching then pulling it—but not too hard that it hurts you. he just likes the feeling of it, plus, you look so adorable whenever he does it anyway.

he adores the way your eyes shine whenever he looks at you. even if its because of the sun, the lamp, or the streetlights, he likes seeing you looking up at him.

“‘li, thank god i found you. i just came back from the parlor, i was helping hu tao out with a few things.” you say, smiling. you bring his hand to yours, then raise your feet so he can give you a quick kiss on the forehead.

“…speaking of, are you busy right now?” you ask. thinking about the best idea you’ve ever had, because there is no way you are going to enter that forest again.

zhongli shakes his head, and lets out a hum of disagreement.

“you have plans, my love?” he asks, the corner of his lip curling into a small smile. he thinks you’re going to ask him out to dinner.

okay, well, now you feel a pinch of guilt in your heart.

“no.. sorry, but we can eat out when this is finished. i, uh, its actually a little stupid.”

“tell me, i promise i won’t laugh.” he says, chuckling.

your eyes wander around, thoughts going into your brain all at once.

“hu tao asked me if i could get a few flowers and plants in wuwang hill..” your feet start to kick the ground, feeling a little embarrassed by this request.

“arent you terrified of that place, dear?” zhongli asks, eyebrows raising in confusion. why would hu tao send you to that place if she knew you hated it there?

“yeah! exactly—so, i, um… thought it would be, like, okay if i asked you to do it instead?” you look at him with pleading eyes, your mouth in a small, awkward smile.

he brings his lips back to your temple, giving it another kiss. you can feel him smile against your skin.

“im sure it wont take long, please?”

“fine.” he laughs, his lips still ghosting over your head. “but, you have to promise me we’re going to wuwang hill together next time. okay? need to get that fear out of your pretty head.”

﹢﹒neuvillette

surprisingly, todays weather forecast for fontaine was said to be clear blue skies with a bright sun. your boyfriend was out for with the traveler today, he said it wouldn’t take too long and he’d be back by lunch.

you sat in his office chair, a few dishes you’ve just cooked rest on the table. you check the clock, 12:23.

resting your head on the palm of your hand, you begin to wonder how you’ll be asking him this. a folder of papers in your hand, all errands that your boss has asked you to finish and hand in before tomorrow. it was assigned last week, but, being the procrastinator you are, you “forgot”.

you knew neuvillette was good with paperwork, i mean, its his job, is it not? and it was all basic things anyway, you just couldn’t bring yourself to do it yourself since the thickness of the paper was so intimidating.

you hear the front door click open, and you quickly snap out of your daydreams. your goal? get neuvillette agree to help you out with the paperwork without getting too mad. definition of help? for him to do all of it.

he walks in the office, letting out a deep sigh as he takes his shoes off and setting them aside. then, he smells the scent of his favorite meal. he lights up at the sight of his favorite person, you, and a cold glass of water. of course.

“all this for me, sweet thing?” he asks, clearly surprised with the sudden gesture. you nod eagerly.

neuvillette gives a small smile. exactly what he needed right after a few tiring hours of chatting.

but immediately, he senses that something’s amiss. you wouldn’t prepare him food—no, you do prepare food for him. the thing is, you’ve filled his whole desk with dishes! each a from a different reigon in teyvat.

“what is it?” he laughs, already seeing through you. you’re so easy to read after all.

you held the folder behind your back, perhaps he noticed you were hiding it from him? or maybe he heard the light shuffling? either way, you’ve been caught, time to come clean.

“so… i got a few assignments from last week, and i don’t understand half of it?” you smile, trying to convince him to help you.

he chuckles, a hand to his mouth. “you mean; i forgot to do them. right?”

your eyes widen, cheeks feeling warm. god, why’d he have to be so smart?

“uh… yeaaah?” you say, in the worst possible way possible. its obvious you made up the lie earlier.

“figured as much, you wouldn’t prepare me this much food unless it was a special occasion.” neuvillette goes to your side and gives a quick peck on the cheek.

“by special occassion, i mean you asking me for a favor. dont think i can’t see through you, little fox.” he teases, then goes to another chair and starts to take a sip of the soup.

“ill do it,” he says inbetween sips. “but you owe me big time, lovely. maybe you can make it up to me later?”

@staarri 's work - do not repost, translate or modify.

[notedchampagne]

finished reading exordia! its a book about people having fucked up relationships and making terrible decisions all while staying true to themselves. it took me a while to get into the flow because seth dickinson loves his slow buildup and 5 billion chess pieces and ultra-detailed sci-fi worldbuilding, but i think it all came together fantastically and im left with an emotion i cant parse after the ending.

my book rec below, no spoilers:

youll like this book if you like: unhealthy relationships, seeking out truth through well-done worldbuilding, fun new dynamics classifications! homestucks in looking at you; the agony of feeling like a wallflower and being at odds with your family (this is specifically targeted to one character, chaya panaguiton, a ugandan-filipino butch with issues on how she matters to other people), aliens that fascinate and disgust, morality questions, and ESPECIALLY meta commentary on the essence of narratives itself

things that may frustrate you about this book if youre not fond of them: multiple POVs, intricate details on worldbuilding, im talking physics and aircraft and geopolitics mentions - but to be fair, dickinson tends to be good at clearing up the more abstract concepts. he likes to retierate and reclassify terms he WANTS you to remember in metaphor upon metaphor, so if you have the patience then you wont mind - pop culture references (not a dealbreaker, just a bit annoying as someone who lives under a rock), loss and the feeling of grief piling upon itself trolley-question style. seth doesnt shy away from giving you death and loss to understand the gravity of the situation, and i think he is good at playing with tragedy and hope in this way.

you should definitely have a little translator app ready with you. theres a lot of interjections from multiple languages that give nice snippets of insight if you do translate them

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Aita for blocking a friend on instinct? So i (f16) have this friend, (m16) we can call him D, who i've been friends with since kindergarten.

About a year ago, i started growing very close to D through our friend group's dnd campaign we held every friday. I knew him for a long time but that was the first time we had started hanging out out of school. We were talking on snapchat every night just chatting and after a while he started to send much more... revealing snaps. Just his bare shoulders but like without a shirt. He said it was because he had to let his medication for his back dry. I was a little uncomfortable, but we were friends so i didnt think that it would escalate into anything weird.

After about a month, D starts sending snaps in a towel and pictures of his chest which made me very uncomfortable. I kind of let the chatting die down after that because it was the only way i could think of that would be enough to gently let him down easy (i was wrong). I stopped going to the hangouts with that group and kind of distanced myself because how uncomfortable D made me. This only made D try harder to get my attention.

I was still friends with the others in the group so i would often have one-on-one hangouts with the others and watch tv. One thing we watched was Miraculous and we laughed and joked about it all the time. D overheard us or something and went home and binge watched the entire series in a week. Then everytime i ate lunch with that friend group, D would always make direct references to Miraculous or sing the theme song really loud. This wasnt once a day, D would make miraculous references every single minute. He became obsessed with the show (which, for reference of how weird it was, D is a very religious Christian boy. He gets upset if he gets an A- and never drinks caffeine (no problem with any of those things but just understand that kind of guy being deep within the fandom of Miraculous out of all shows 😭)). It was so bad, and it once again was making me very uncomfortable.

Eventually, it got to an insufferable point where D changed his route to go home and made sure to pass me every day after school and wave. I started avoiding him in the halls, he would always ask obscure questions that werent that important. I couldn't understand why he couldn't get that i didnt want to be friends with him anymore so i set boundaries.

A text i sent to D: i apologize if i ever caused any misunderstanding, but i would like to make it clear that im not romantically interested in you. i can see that you have been trying to grow closer, but i dont feel the same way. i don't appreciate being followed around, and i dont like when people force themselves to like the same things i like. its not attractive to be a copy of someone. i enjoy being your friend but it's difficult to disregard these things. if im being totally honest, when you do things like this, it makes me really uncomfortable and borderline creeped out. i know crushes wont disappear overnight but i would appreciate more space. if youre looking for a girlfriend, this isnt the right person, nor the right way to get it. and i wont tell anyone about this so dont worry about word spreading or anything. thank you

D's response: Oh, I'm so sorry I made you think that! I don't have a crush on you, I just noticed how you don't hang out with our friend group as often and I just wanted to make sure that I was being as nice as possible to make sure you weren't mad at us or anything. I did start to think that maybe me trying all that made me seem clingy or annoying, so I'm really sorry for all of that. Thanks for bringing this to my attention, I'll try to do better now!

This didnt sit right with me because after all of that i cannot fathom how that translates to "i wanted to include you". This made me question a lot about the situation.

Reasons i feel like i MBTA: i'm over thinking things and D could be a genuinely a nice person. Its hard for me to read the room and i need to work on that and probably apologize to D.

Reasons i feel like i MNBTA: i should trust my instincts rather than ignore them. I've had a psychological abuser in my family before and the situation could be a stalker behavior that i've learned is not ok to have.

What are these acronyms?

[libraford]

While I'm bitching.

I dont mean to make this a bitching blog, but with them leaving on monday I have time to reconfigure my brain about all of it.

We live in a suburb that butts up to a nature preserve. So we see all kinds of wildlife from coyotes to deer. Most of the wildlife pics from my photo blog are from a nearby park.

There are mice in the garage.

It's a garage. It's an unsealed part of the house that's safe from predators and snow. It's going to get mice.

She wants to live on a farm some day. But she sees a mouse in the garage and suddenly has to rearrange the entire space because the way 'we' store things is attracting rodents. But not the way she just leaves piles and piles of cardboard from chewy or her amazon purchases (seriously a $300 inversion table that she used once and used her partner's credit card to get).

And I dont have much choice in how i store my stuff because the day we moved in they had already decided there was no room for my craft storage (its ugly, basically.) And it all got shoved in the garage.

Where the mice are.

So she sees a mouse and spends the whole day freaking out and moving our stuff around because we're slobs who dont know how to organize our stuff.

And now we cant find anything.

About a year ago, she got on an exercise kick and demanded that I clear my stuff from the garage so they could have an exercise room for themselves. Me and pock are still sharing a small nook that serves as our craft room, and the is no space to really spread out. But she gets an exercise room.

She never exercises. She has a back injury that makes it difficult for her to sit up for long periods of time.

Like... I tried to clear the garage, but I got 4 bins in before I ran out of room in the craft room, and now there's no way for me to access the things in there, either.

So sorry she didnt get her exercise room. We have a porch. We have a living room where you can move the couch. You can go to the park. You have a rec center membership. Sorry you didnt get a poorly ventilated exercise room full of mice.

If I can do yoga three times a week in this house, you can figure it out.

Later, I overhear her talking to her mom on the phone about why she wants to move to North Carolina and she says it's because theres no nature here. Its barren. Nothing will grow in ohio because of the chemicals they use on the farms. Theres no wildlife.

I'm assuming the mice dont count. But our town literally calls itself 'the city of parks.' Theres over 5000 acres of green spaces including a waterfowl preserve and more than one refuge. My boss at parks and rec is a conservationist. My job is to water all the fucking trees we planted last year.

Youd see all kinds of nature if you'd get outside the house, but you never fucking leave.

Which is kind of a minor point in the scheme of things. But it really pisses me off like 'oh poor me I'm a fucking liar.'

I'm so lazy, I wont repurpose an entire room for her benefit while shoving all my shit in a 5×10 space. I'm so awful.

[snarksalon]

MHA has a gender problem.

Before I begin unpacking my thoughts, I would like to make clear that I am aware that Shonen is a genre which caters to boys. I do not think that a genre catering to a specific demographic excuses poor writing choices.

I am not by any means the first person to make a case for the importance of well-written female characters, however, as a lifelong anime fan, poorly-written women are a consistent issue in many anime/manga. The treatment of female characters in MHA limits the story's potential and at times makes the manga utterly unbearable.

MHA presents us with an unequal society, however, in the world of MHA, women uniquely lose out. In the hero world, women are sexualised and clearly provided with fewer opportunities than men. This is reflected in both the gender distribution of the classes at UA as well as the hero rankings themselves. There are six girls in both class 1a and class 1b and there are only two women in the top 10 of the hero billboard chart, those being Mirko and Ryukyu. The costumes which female heroes in the story wear are often highly sexualised and impractical, and on numerous occasions in the story the sexualisation of these women is openly demonstrated to the watcher/reader. In our first interaction with Mt Lady, she is sexualised with her butt being focused on.

Need I say much more.

This isn't the only example of the sexism within the narrative. During the internships following the sports festival, Momo and Kendo internships with Uwabami, and instead of gaining valuable experience they participate in a hair commercial. To make matters even worse, the message that Uwabami imparts to them is that keeping up appearances is crucial. Here, Momo and Kendo are deprived of gaining training and development and the harsh reality of what the hero world is like for women sets in. This experience is humiliating, and the narrative plays this off as joke.

Beyond these two examples, other sexist things occur within the narrative which are barely commented on. There's a headline in a newspaper which references a rescue that Tsuyu and Uraraka are responsible for which refers to them not by name but as "two cuties". Endeavour literally purchases Rei to be his wife and domestically abuses her (let's not even get into the horrific power dynamics here). The women in class 1-a are sidelined and frequently saved by their male counterparts. Mineta frequently sexually harasses and violates women in the story (grabbing Tsuyu's chest in the USJ arc comes to mind here). Momo is made to wear a revealing costume because she wont be able to phase the items she creates through the fabric but Mirio's costume can stay on as the fabric in his costume is interwoven with his own hair.

Additionally, power scaling in this manga is gendered. The majority of female characters have non-combative quirks, and the female characters who have combat-oriented quirks are usually weaker than their male counterparts. Ryuku for example, struggles to take down Rikiya Katsukame in the overhaul arc and has to utilise her three student interns to accomplish this. In the overhaul arc, the girls are majorly sidelined and are thrust into a support role. Many of the women in the manga are sidekicks, and a lot of the female pro-heroes don't have heavy-hitting quirks. When characters do have heavy-hitting quirks, Horikoshi's poor power scaling becomes most obvious. For example, Mina's quirk allows her to produce acid capable of melting metal and she isn't regarded as having a formidable quirk within the story. Similarly, Neijire's wave motion quirk is under utilised.

Most disturbingly, though sexism is deeply entrenched throughout the story, none of the female characters acknowledge its existence and this is a bad writing choice because it is antithetical to the values held by someone who is pursuing a career as a hero. In the MHA universe, heroism is pursued to help others and to achieve justice within society. Within the story, heroes are presented as the protectors of the weak and the facilitators of order within society. Thus, as a reader it is hard to believe that women who are pursuing heroism as a career path would be content with their own oppression. The women in the story also do not strive to be at the top, save for Mirko who is the main exception.

UA is the top hero school in the country and has a highly selective admission process. It is astounding that the majority (if not all) of female students that we meet are comfortable with becoming support or rescue heroes. In classes 1a and 1b there isn't a single female student who has the ambition of becoming one of the school's top three. The female students are not as ambitious or competitive as their male peers and are forced into gendered rivalries with other women in the story (see the Kendo and Momo rivalry, Ochacho vs Toga).

The inclusion of moments of critical reflection by the female characters within the story would have made them feel more three-dimensional. If Momo's self-doubt during the final exam arc had been the result of being chosen for an internship due to her looks rather then her hero ability, it would have made her self-doubt more understandable and would have demonstrated her discontent with her physical appearance being valued over her talent. If Tsuyu and Uraraka had been disheartened that the major takeaway from their rescue was the result of their physical appearance, this would have added another dimension to these characters. Hakagure having to be naked all of the time is played as a joke at her expense, but understanding Hakagure's thoughts and feelings about this would have allowed us as an audience to greater empathise with her rather than viewing her as a spectacle.

Ultimately, MHA's depiction of women is disappointing and a lot of potential is wasted here.

[juni-ravenhall]

long post about ydris & circus worker / traveller / romani stereotypes (+ unrelated but related heterochromia)

(.... and sse's behaviour around one traveller-coded character and then of a masc-ish woman of colour while they dont do this with their plain white toast characters)

yasmin told me to write a post about this after i was telling her about it, so here it is.

first for canon: ydris is obvs pandorian, non-human, and his human form does not necessarily read as a specific ethnicity or cultural belonging (but i will get back to his looks later in the post!). he throws in french words but he is pandorian. why he speaks french (or uses it for flair?) is not clear from the lore afaik.

anyway. there are stereotypes about people who work in the travelling circus (or in any circus at all, depending). these stereotypes often go hand in hand with stereotypes about romani people and other travelling people. (im talking both about circus people of the past and present.)

here are some examples of harmful stereotypes about travelling people, circus people, and romani people (often these are founded in being an "outsider", people dont like to trust outsiders and consider them strange for not being exactly the same as themselves, aka xenophobia):

thief, criminal, dangerous

trickery, lying, cheating

seduction, enchanting (can come back to ^ trickery etc)

unreliable, untrustworthy

immoral, and/or follows other morals/laws than "the norm" in the places they travelled to [and this is seen in a negative way]

promiscuous, unfaithful

mysterious, intriguing

using magic / reading fortunes (these can be connected back to trickery, mystery, seduction...)

wild, untamed

"are they good or bad?"

speaks a foreign language or a secret language (and may use this to talk behind the backs of locals / to trick locals)

sexualised on behalf of above points (immoral, mysterious, seductive, enchanting, wild, untamed...)

objectified and/or dehumanised on behalf of above points (i think you get it by now.)

these stereotypes can affect people who are, for example, european or american white people who work in a travelling circus. however, romani people, on behalf of their ethnicity, can be affected by these stereotypes about nomadic people even if that romani person doesn't live a nomadic lifestyle, because these stereotypes about romani people persist as racist and cultural stereotypes even when you take the travelling out of the equation. (i think irish travellers also face the stereotypes regardless of if they live as settled or as nomads?)

now, i want to say some things about ydris looks before i move on with the topic of these stereotypes, but first its important to note that sso is a swedish game made by swedish people, and whats considered "white" or "white passing" in the US is not the same as what it is in scandinavia or northern europe (i cant speak for other parts of europe well enough so i wont). its also more like "what part of europe"-passing rather than just "white" passing.

in sweden, you're not going to meet hispanic americans or african americans, for example, but you will see romani people and kurdish people, for example, and ofc, polish people, estonian people, people from around the area.... the minority groups are different in europe vs the US (vs anywhere else ofc. i hope USamericans learn that nowhere else is the US and you need to stop projecting shit on other places). the idea of whats "swedish ethnicity" or "scandinavian ethnicity" or "european ethnicity" and so on are not equal to "white american ethnicity". remember that many white ppl here can trace back their history like a thousand years in the same country, while white ppl in america are generally like, "my great grandpa came from germany, my great grandma from poland, and my girlfriend's family came from ireland" and so on. theres a mash of different cultures and ethnicities, which isnt the average case for white people in europe. (please: obviously im not saying "everyone is this" just on average. plenty of ppl are mixed here, or have grandparents who moved here, etc.)

i am a swede with dark brown hair and dark brown eyes and i have experienced white ppl colorism (im still not sure if colorism is the right word, but i think so. however its mostly harmless idiocy, but frustrating to hear over and over). i dont mind it anymore, i just think its stupid, now, as an adult. and colorism(?) within white people is not at all as bad as racism that poc experience in the same country - just to be clear. the reason i bring it up isnt to say "boohoo me", but to try to explain what "white passing" or "swedish passing" is in sweden, from a person who literally is white but is not considered swedish enough due to having darker eyes and darker hair.

anyway! ydris has black hair. from a swedish developer and swedish audience perspective, black hair is enough to make a character read as "foreign". (thats why we had this whole tangent ^ above.) but, we also dont need to rely on a vague hint of foreignness, because he throws in french words, and he's from pandoria. and a lot of people will associate the travelling circus and ydris' wagon with romani culture to some degree, whether or not that's accurate (again, circus culture and romani culture and other nomadic cultures can become mixed up). the black hair ties well into the image of a travelling circus person.

ydris is a sort of "chaotic neutral" in the story so far. he has different intentions than the "heroes" and "villains" both, and he is largely self-centered (focusing on his own desires - tho he seems to care about pandoria as well - and he likely experiences different feelings than the average jorvegian does, and his sense of morals and social rules are different). now, im sure you can see how that ties back into some of the stereotypes ive listed: he's a foreign outsider who cant be trusted, he is mysterious, is he good or bad?, he tricks people, he behaves chaotically (wild)...... etc

he also comes across as flirty towards the player, which im sure you can see, ties back in to things from the stereotype list like seduction, enchantment, and being promiscuous. if it helps, consider Esmeralda from Hunchback of Notre Dame, as an example of the harmful stereotype of seductive romani. (i loved disney hunchback when i was a kid, and i also want to point out that that movie handles the topic of how esmeralda has to do things just to scrape by, and she is demonised in the eyes of a rich white religious man in power, who is evil, while she herself is a good person and being oppressed and dehumanised. just leaving that here as food for thought, not to really defend or cancel anything, but to encourage ppl to view things in a nuanced way. the stereotypes are harmful and disney is an evil company, but there are also parts in that story that are criticising the right things. then theres other parts that are just ??? )

also, there is a significant population of romani in france, but ofc there are romani across many countries. yasmin pointed out when we talked that french is also seen as a "sexy language" - so it kind of both ties into the "foreign traveller from further down in europe" and "seductive romani" by having him use a language considered "sexy".

ydris also has heterochromia (one light blue eye and one dark blue) which isnt related to the idea of the traveller, but it *is* considered "mysterious", "strange", and potentially "untrustworthy". this is ofc really weird - heterochromia is a real life condition that completely normal people have. having heterochromia shouldnt be portrayed as anything weird or special - there is nothing mysterious or strange about it, or something "untrustworthy" (playing into things like being two-faced).

if you go back up to the list of harmful stereotypes, keeping the things ive said in mind, and how ydris behaves in the game..... im sure you can understand what im saying about the bigger picture. the combination of living in a circus wagon, being mysterious and flirtatious and living by his own rules, being untrustworthy, having black hair, throwing in french words, theres a lot of things that maybe seem okay out of context, but when you put them together, to me, it makes it clear that ydris is like.... romani coded, or something close to romani coded, despite, yes, technically being pandorian, i get it, thank you, its not relevant, he is not real, the staff at sse are real and their biases are real.

theres nothing wrong in itself with being flirty or promiscuous or seductive and whatnot - or with fictional villains, or chaotic, untrustworthy characters - the problem is the stereotype of a group of real people. especially when you're passing these stereotypes on to an audience of impressionable children. why is ydris the character being handled this way? why is sabine the character to be handled this way? why dont they handle plain white toast characters this way?

an important point is that i dont think neither ydris or sabine are really sexualised within the game itself - the more blatant stuff happens on sse's official social media. ydris is sexualised to some degree in the way that he flirts: again, it alludes to the seductive romani person, even if its very mild flirting (the stereotype is still perpetuated). sabine is mostly not sexualised in the game, just hyped up in general, but the social media team keeps milking the fact that ppl are thirsty for sabine. the post is not really about sexualisation as the focus. its about general questionable or outright harmful design choices, that sometimes also has to do with sexualisation and objectification.

this, as usual, isnt about cancelling sso or sse. its about being analytical and critical about the media you consume, and about biases both from creators and from audiences. its about learning how to be more understanding and respectful towards other people. and about raising your voice and holding ppl accountable when they perpetuate harmful things (esp if its people in power, like companies, celebrities, and politicians).

personally, i dont think you arent allowed to think ydris or sabine are hot. its okay if they are your type or if you relate to them or whatever, because like, ultimately we're surrounded by all these characters and real people everywhere in media that are affected by biases. but i DO think you need to actually think about this shit if you are thirsting for sabine or thirsting for ydris. i dont think its great to just be like, omg, typical ydris, he tricked me again and then he seduced me, typical circus people. or to be like, wow, sabine is so hot and should step on me, beefy women of colour are scarier than beefy white women, thats so hot. do you get it? you can be attracted to these charas without being racist or xenophobic or misogynist or whatever, they just happen to be your type, and thats nice, but you do need to think about how you view them and why, and how you talk about them and why, bc a lot of people have biases they arent even aware to, and might not understand what kind of biases you perpetuate. example: how apparently most ppl didnt think about the romani / traveller stereotype implications of ydris so i had to write this post. stay woke and pay attention to potential harmful stereotypes in media, so i dont have to write this shit anymore

[proxy0moxy]

Push and Fossil

okay, so I’m here to just ramble my thoughts about this with the small info I have. So what I have right now is that Fossil and Push broke apart somehow and Fossil seemed to take it personal or something. Fossil seems to be annoyed at even the mention of Push for some unknown reason,

as shown in Episode 13, Bug Catching.

this is a scene from the episode. As you can see, Fossil doesn’t consider Push a so called “Butt Buddy”, aka somebody shes close with despite the fact they worked in the same department, Reaching Gardens. Its also proven here that Painkiller knows something about Push and I wonder if Fossil told them about her or if they found out themselves.

Okay, next thing. I’m now gonna talk about is the release art for Episode 44, Horde. In the release art, you can see two parts of Painkiller’s past, most likely when their mom passed away and we also see Push which is surprising. I will show the picture of the release art.

There. As you can see, Push is indeed there in the bottom left, middle top, and also a glimpse of her and Fossil’s hand on the right. In the bottom left, we can see a slight bit of Fossil’s defect hand and I can tell because of the slight scales and the nails. I can’t figure out just yet if she’s touching Push’s shoulder or holding her hand, but I say shoulder.

Push is seen to be blushing which indicates she started developing feeling for Fossil. In the middle top Push is seen to be holding a bouquet of flowers with a assumed love letter in the flowers and having a nervous look. I assume here that Push decided to confess to Fossil, telling her feelings which explains the note with the heart and her nervous look.

Now, in the right. We can see Fossil and Push’s hand, Push’s hand being on top of Fossil’s. This here confuses my brain a small bit but I’m just going to say what I think.

To be honest, I think Fossil accepted Push’s confession. And that right drawing is them almost holding hands, but that may be far from it because Fossil is a confirmed aromantic and confirmed by the artist, Chester, that Fossil has had a past with people confessing and her having to always turn them down because of her sexuality, (I hope I got that correct, I may have not worded it word for word but it’s something like that.) so I do not believe it was different for Push.

The reason they broke apart, unsure obviously. I want to think that Push may have did something to Fossil which caused her to be pissed and annoyed at Push and even the mention of her. I think this a bit because in Episode 44, Horde, Fossil says the following lines. : “Pushpin. I’ll do it all without you!”. She’s clearly annoyed at her or something because in that frame she had a clear expression of anger but I believe she misses Push. (Not going into detail for that its corny.) So yeah. Until the next Fossil and Pk episode, I wont have any more clues at anything. I may update if I find out anything else.

TY FOR READING XOXO 🙏🙏🙏🙏

PS, take this fanart I’m working on! Its human Push!!