#It's mean spirited and hateful

[wlwitchofwhitestone]

I think what's frustrating me the most about what's going on in campaign 3 right now is that the main idea being talked about and given way too much emphasis runs counter to the theme of the m9. If the Nein were about the idea that you can become better no matter what you did or who you were before, the argument set forth and being entertained as a legitimate conflict right now is very "these guys did bad shit a thousand years ago and they should die. Somehow this is good for everyone despite the centuries of good they've done since." Ashton's point was extremely astute that if that's the case, cleanse the entire world motherfucker because we're no better, but the hypocrisy of that was neatly sidestepped (which is at least consistent with Ludinus and fascists of his ilk in general). It's not a real argument, guys. We're not meant to take him seriously.

The gods are the stewards of the only world anyone living has ever known. The fact that they made bad choices that hurt Ludinus and people he knew is a legitimate grievance. The gods are in fact flawed, capable of selfishness, but when confronted with the enormity of the damage they were causing this world, they removed themselves and a whole chunk of their power to seal themselves behind the divine gate. They didn't abandon the world. They didn't withdraw their power and sulk, leaving everyone without their gifts until they begged for a return. They simply care for mortals on the terms of those mortals and ask for nothing not freely given. The people who follow the gods find them worthy of that patronage and Ludinus does not get to erase the choice of everyone else who doesn't agree with him because he's hurt, even if he did have a point (he doesn't).

He thinks, for some reason, that his actions won't result in the same kind of harm on a global scale and completely ignores the damage he has already wrought in the name of a higher purpose because that's what the gods did and they're no better than him. But they are, dipshit. They are better than you. There are people in the world they may not be better than, salient point, but you're not one of them.

And after the light and love that was the core of the Nein - the very thing that shaped Essek into the campaign 3 NPC that he is - it feels extremely disingenuous for "do the gods deserve their power now that you've seen them at their worst" to be perceived as an actual, legitimate conflict in the endgame and a talking point in the Fandom. Especially when the Hells have already been pretty clear that they're not looking to be judge, jury, and executioner of the gods. This is not the central conflict of campaign 3, it's one dumbass's weird motivation to be a villain that needs to be stopped and the fact that it keeps coming up as anything approaching credible is a condemnation of the purity culture mindset in online spaces today.

[raviollies]

What if Gith had tail

[arktic-rage]

honestly I absolutely love the Avvar in Jaws of Hakkon. How they worship the gods, how they view the world around them, how accepting they are and just how interesting they are too. I absolutely despise how the Inquisitor and Companions make commentary as if they're stupid or wrong in their beliefs, or that they're "just crazy people who worship spirits".

The dialogue you don't choose or even the ones you do are on the line of condescending, and it's frankly insulting, especially that all options on the dialogue wheel fall on that line.

the Avvar are so fucking cool, I hate we only get a DLC with them. (I also miss the Chasind - I wish they weren't forgotten or left in the dirt by BioWare :( )

[welcometogrouchland]

[ID in ALT] Steph and Damian doodle! This taps a bit into their pre-52 dynamic so that's what I was thinking design wise at first but I wanted to draw it w their more recent designs as well to stay hashtag current and topical, so you get both/a fusion, lol

[prommytheus]

straight to hell after these ones, boys

[soleminisanction]

Okay this misconception keeps coming across my dash and it drives me nuts because it means people are lumping two very different versions of the DC universe under one disparaging banner. So let me just say this to get it off my chest because I'm this close to shaking somebody:

The New 52 ended seven years ago in 2016.

That started a section of DC's history called "Rebirth" in which they started bringing elements of the pre-Flashpoint continuity back into the timeline. The first changes came in a big burst called Convergence -- which is how Jon Kent effectively manifested fully formed at 10 years old -- while other reintroductions like Kon-El, Bart Allen, Cass Cain, etc. were more gradual.

The original plan, being forced through by King of Bad Decisions Dan Didio, was that after ~4-5 Rebirth would give way to another full reboot known as 5G. I could go into detail about the plans but they're honestly not important to this post because Didio was (thankfully, finally) ousted from his role as publisher early in 2020, along with something like 80% of the higher-level editorial staff. DC had a complete creative turn-over at the start of the pandemic and completely changed directions as a result. The material being developed for 5G was retooled into the hypothetical future event "Future State" to buy the new staff time to pull together their new direction.

That new direction is called INFINITE FRONTIER. It started in 2021 and THAT is the era of DC comics we're in now. Infinite Frontier is an active push to bring back the pre-Flashpoint characters, as well as some pre-Crisis ideas and characters, while also keeping the few elements of the New 52 that people actually liked (like Jason Todd's more heroic characterization) and actively pursuing diversity initiatives both in creative staff and in creations. And outside of the big events, they're making a real effort to keep these comics short and self contained in the hopes that that'll make them more accessible. So it's actually really easy, if you read comics pre-Flashpoint and dropped off, to just pick up a series and go with the flow. Anything confusing is just a Google away.

Please, please don't make the mistake of thinking modern comics are as bad as the New 52 just because some people are butthurt their ship isn't getting canonized. There have been some really good comics made in the last few years that you should totally try! Spirit World, Monkey Prince and the entire We Are Legends line has been genuinely fantastic. The new Birds of Prey is shaping up to be a ton of fun. Dark Knights of Steel is an entertaining Elseworld. Urban Legends and Brave & the Bold have done some really fun things with shorter anthology books. One Minute War was a really fun Flash family event and everything Stargirl's done recently is liable to make you cry.

I'm begging people to give these comics a chance. It's just really sad to see them being dismissed out of hand.

[sherokutakari]

Okay but can we have Mary meet Ed

PLEASE can we have Mary meet Ed?

[wanderingtycho]

By far one of my favorite things about the way Disco Elysium handles politics is that Libertarianism is treated as an absolute joke. Like the game is obviously sympathetic towards communists, but there are elements of sympathy towards the moralists and fascists as well. Not sympathy in the sense of “oh can’t we all just get along, we’re all human” BS, but sympathy in the sense that you are able to understand a persons thought process that would lead them to embrace moralism or fascism. Even if that thought process is deeply flawed, and leads to horribly off kilter conclusions, going through the centrist and fash quests gives you meaningful insight into the appeal of those ideologies.

But Ultraliberalism? The game just laughs at you, repeatedly and mercilessly. As it should, you’re a cop so poor a guy you’ve known for one day has to pawn some fancy hubcaps so you can afford rent, yet all you talk about is your grindset. Your hustle, how you’re gonna disrupt the market and groove your way into the lap of luxury. It’s delusion, utter stark raving madness, and characters treat you as such.

Kim is at a loss for words whenever you crank on your libertarian spiel, Evrart calls you a retard, you have to *trick* the mega-rich light bending guy into giving you mercury mining stocks because he’s simply too perplexed by you. Joyce, last of the self identified Ultras, doesn’t take you seriously. Sileng just goes along with it the same way he goes along with any of the other nonsense you can spout, because he’s on his own hustle, and there is no loyalty among charlatans. The only character who is wholeheartedly onboard with the money engineering and the visionary wave making lifestyle is literally named IDIOT DOOM SPIRAL.

But you see, all these things are just incidental, where the game makes it most potent jab at libertarians is when the vision quest stops. Notice I said *stop* not *end*. The communist quest line ends with a Rhetoric check in order to ask The Most Important Question about Communism. The fascist quest has you look yourself in the eye with an Endurance check to see if you can stomach the truth about yourself and your Vöws. The moralist quest ends with a heart wrenching Empathy check as you beg the iron grey and soulless enforcers of the status quo to please god help this district before war breaks out in the streets. There’s real personal stakes for Harry in all these disparate paths he can walk, what does Ultraliberalism get?

You and Kim look at a statue covered in tinsel and disco balls, Kim asks you why you went through with all this, and no matter what response you pick he’s like “Right, yeah, okay. Anyway, let’s finish the case.”

That’s it, no grand moment of pathos, no red Savoir Faire skill check to see if you really are the baddest hustler in the neoliberal hood after all. It’s completely limp, flaccid, lackluster. The game treats all the effort you put into this as exactly what it is: sad, cringe fantasies of a poor old man who’s huffing copium over the embarrassed millionaire mythos.

Disco Elysium doesn’t give libertarianism a poignant, profound conclusion because it’s an ideology undeserving of such treatment. It’s a hyper-capitalist cult mentality of toxic positivity and confirmation bias, a way for desperate people to trick themselves and other chumps into thinking they can bootstrap their way into wealth and prestige. It goes past wishful thinking into pure delirium, the game doesn’t engage with it seriously because it doesn’t have to, the only people who sincerely believe any of its tenants are morons and the clowns who sucker them.

[ube-bluebay]

i have a problem

really long rambling in tags

[mxtxfanatic]

*sighing* ... It's time for me to unburden myself to a kindred soul. I end up seeing so many meta posts about jgy and his various situations or justifications for whatever he did... And I'm like... Did you all forget that he burned women alive? Along with any servants or children that were in the brothel with them? Did you forget that he mass raped women by proxy and forced them to have sex with a corpse before killing them too? Did you forget that he happily killed children by setting fierce corpses on them and iirc "blamed" He Su for "making" him do it? Are we seriously going to sit here and debate about "was he really the villain for killing nmj" and "do we really have evidence that he killed jin rusong?" or "no one appreciates him for the watchtowers" ?? He would have gladly killed all the juniors too including Jin Ling? Is everyone really buying that he felt bad about that? I also just...you can tell how much those sex workers don't count as people in so many readers' eyes, they don't even think about those murders when explaining why jgy is their morally grey fave. HE'S JUST BAD, GUYS HE'S JUST BAD. I'm so tired. 😢

I think you and @jiangwanyinscatmom would get along swimmingly.

[solargeist]

tbh i hate those confession tumblr pages i have to actually block them bc otherwise i read things and think they're about Me

[oceanwithouthermoon]

heh... is that a mean-spirited take on my favorite character..? well, heh... lets just say... *block*

[magicicephoenix]

i think bendy is really really really into halloween. like “gets excited the moment autumn starts” into halloween. peak of his year.

bonus:

and if you can’t read my chicken scratch the dialogue is under the cut :)

(in order of when dialogue appears in the different drawings)

Bendy: HALLOWEEN!

Boris: It’s October 13th??

Bendy: …

Bendy: Alice. Halloween.

Alice: Isn’t that in a few weeks?

sfx: THWACK, CIRCLE, STOP

Bendy: Halloween.

Alice & Boris: …

Alice: Bendy, darling, you’ve just pointed to the entirety of October.

Boris: What she said.

(the bonus:)

Bendy: Pumpkin big!!

Someone: You’re just small.

Bendy: …

[alllgator-blood]

It really seems like everytime you post you add new kallamar trauma.

FKJSDGFKJDF I DON'T EVEN MEAN TO DO IT, IT JUST HAPPENS. It's so funny because before I started up this blog I did not give two fucks about kallamar, and now I'm oddly invested in his balancing act between posh, vain queen and horribly paranoid, distrusting recluse. Whoever sent in the first kallamar ask did NOT know what kind of pandora's box they'd open, and neither did I apparently.....

My next kallamar asks are quite nice though so I think he'll be spared from my wrath for a few more drawings. I definitely am beating the shit out of shamura in my personal projects rn though so I'll give squidward a break to focus on spider angst. I'm actually drawing him right now so here is my photo evidence I don't always want to throw him into a brick wall, he's just fun to pick on </3

[nocherrybombs]

Orientation Day at Zapolyarny

Young Arlecchino, during her Fatui Harbinger onboarding session: Greetings, small wooden child. I understand that your mother abandoned you as a baby to fend for yourself in an empty domain because she thought you were weak.

Scaramouche: Wow, okay. Even if it wasn't incredibly rude to call someone a "small wooden child", I'm still at least 470 years older than you are. And where do you get off talking about me and my mother like that?

Arlecchino: My mother was also a wretched, awful woman, so I killed her. Would you like me to kill your mother as well?

Scaramouche: Are you asking me if I want you to kill the Raiden Shogun? I mean, you can try if you're up for it. It's your funeral.

Arlecchino: Very well. After I kill her, would you mind terribly if I then adopted you as my son?

Scaramouche: What the fuck are you talking about?! Yes, of course I would mind! I don't want you to be my mom!

Arlecchino: That is good to hear, seeing as how I will be your father.

Scaramouche: Alright, this has gotten too goddamn weird, even for me. Jester, is this really who we're bringing in to fill the Knave position?

Pierro: Yes, she is. Would you prefer us to find someone more like Crucabena instead?

Scaramouche: ...point taken. Welcome to the team, newbie.

[unordinaries]

presented without comment

(chapters 280 + 344)