#NO OPTIMISM IS ALLOWED

[zahri-melitor]

Well, in terms of news to wake up to, my DMs being full of people rushing to tell me solicits have a Dinah solo is certainly up there.

So the good thing is that I already know Dinah is cursed and not allowed to have a decent solo that I can recommend to other people by DC, so I don’t have any expectations to raise.

Even if, were I a less cynical person, that premise is right in my wheelhouse of what I’d love to see for Dinah.

But I’m not getting excited, you understand. Even as it sounds like we might finally get Dinah Drake confirmed retconned back to her JSA pre-Flashpoint self, and Ted Grant is in it, and my brain has a dozen directions such a story could go if I were writing it…I am not allowed to have any hopes.

Even without discussing the writer, it’s a Black Canary solo, and Black Canary solos are never anything that I can hand to someone to explain my love for Dinah, so why would DC start now?

On the other hand this will almost certainly not contain Kurt Lance or a white slavery storyline so it’s starting out middle of the pack for a Black Canary solo…

[arcane-gold]

hello rookanis nation. can i present rel and lucanis’s dynamic. sun and moon trope, one with boundless energy and one who gets 2 hours of sleep a night, guy i pulled by being an idiot, etc. they’re special to me

[qunaributts]

hey so this is your permission not to improve at your hobbies. you dont gotta do more or try new things with it. you arent obligated. are you happy drawing the same 3/4 profile headshot of your blorbo??? do that. enjoy walking but dont wanna go further than your usual route at your usual pace? dont. enjoy collecting trading cards but dont actually like playing the game? never play the game. like learning the names of birds but dont care about their calls? just learn those names babeeeyyyy.

do what you want as you want and as many times as you want in the ways you want to. i am actually asking you to do this. you dont even need to get better. crush that weird feeling that you need to be doing 'more'. the goal doesnt have to be improvement. it might happen incidentally but like, thats whatever. you can set the goalposts and then just sit by them and enjoy the scenery. if you decide to move them or get up and sit somewhere else thats cool, but you dont gotta. doing things that make you happy is enough

[cloudprincesslady]

ok I'm literally in love with nick marini like. keeping track of all his own shit (FOUR CLASSES), tracking the uses of his buffs on other characters to keep them honest, helping noshir keep track of all HIS shit, defense rules lawyering for the whole table, getting it all RIGHT. LIKE. MARRY ME.

[posletsvet]

I had another one of those thoughts that are bordering on slightly delusional.

Chances are it's already been pointed out by someone before me, but. How come Geto's body reacting to Gojo calling out to him was 'a first' for Kenjaku? Did they only ever choose those who happened to have no loved ones that would want their person back? But we have Itadori's parents, and they deeply loved each other and didn't stop loving till the very end. Is the bond between Satoru and Suguru really so strong as to surpass the one between a happily married couple? And then it sort of struck me that perhaps it's the first time Kenjaku so openly and directly violates their host body's will.

I like to entertain the thought that Kenjaku is not at all detached from human connections and emotion. While they are capable of seperating their conscious from the experience that comes along with the body they're inhabiting, this experience is still an intrinsic part of that body. All romanticization aside, one's personality is dictated by one's physiology. Our feelings are something biological, a network of interconnected structures and chemical levels within our bodies. Who we are is engraved upon our hearts, in a literal sense. To quote Kenjaku themself, 'The body is the soul, and the soul the body'. If it were otherwise, they probably wouldn't be able to mimic various people's personalities so accurately and convincingly as to fool their closest friends and family.

So maybe Kenjaku does feel their host's lingering emotions and is to some degree influenced by its impulses. Maybe while in Kaori's body they did feel the love that remained in her for Jin, did feel the body's budding affection towards a child it gave birth to, did have some maternal instinct. But knowing full well those feelings are but a product of their current body, I imagine they have a far better grasp on them, too, and treat them as tools at their disposal, just sometimes indulging in what the body tells them to do. In Kaori's case, I think they could afford to go with the flow more. They felt the body's urges and responded by acting upon them -- because why not? They're an epitome of 'mess around and find out'.

With them taking over Geto's body, it's different. They're no longer eminence grise operating from the shadows, they've entered the game they'd been orchestrating for so long. Now they're truly proactive, and no longer being under disguise they're more themself than ever, too. And it directly contradicts with the person Geto is (or was). We do not yet know what Kenjaku's true intentions are, but it's unlikely they align with what Geto would want to put his mind to.

And Geto never wanted to do any harm to Gojo. In those ten years, never once did he make a move directly against him. Meanwhile it's an inherent part of Kenjaku's plans. So when it comes to it, Geto's very nature, those tiny glimpses of him still lingering somewhere within his body, cries out against it.

Caring for people around him was Geto's defining trait, and his body still carries those attachments, that love. Responding to Gojo is an instinct his flesh still remembers. Trying to protect him is engraved upon Geto's muscle memory. Kenjaku's actions are essentially at odds with all that, so that puts the body and the soul in discord -- and they clash eventually, getting out a reaction from otherwise dormant and inanimate flesh. No wonder Kenjaku calls that poetic.

[stergeon]

at some point i will figure out how to write the post-canon, post-empire edelgard autonomy fic of my dreams. it just feels like a very big task and maybe like with playing the dane, i’m simply not old and traumatized enough to manage it yet.

but my vision is thus: it’s set years (realistically, decades) after the end of crimson flower, when everything has gone as right as it can possibly go. fódlan is thriving. the social reforms have taken effect. the nobility system is nearly eliminated, if not entirely so, with titles made merely symbolic. social mobility, welfare, and prosperity are high. there’s an explosion in arts and culture and technology. brigid and duscur have gained independence; relations with sreng and almyra are much improved; heck, maybe they've even figured it out with dagda. in my most idealistic version, leicester and faerghus would eventually be ceded back to become autonomous regions, essentially disbanding the adrestian empire. rule is no longer hereditary, but merit-based. there's a roadmap for the future, and everything is on track—and more than that, people at all points on the power spectrum have already seen it bear fruit. with or without edelgard, it will be pursued. there's buy-in. they believe.

of course, it's not perfect—nothing can be—but edelgard's vision has been fulfilled. the people are empowered. humanity is free. fódlan has healed.

and somehow, she's had enough time to resolve her goals outside of politics, too. those who slither in the dark have been eradicated. edelgard and lysithea's second crests have been successfully removed, allowing them to live if not full lives, then substantially longer ones than they would have with their twin crests intact. who knows—maybe she finally gets around to having that wedding.

point for point, every item listed in edelgard's manifesto has been checked off. the ghosts of her past have been laid to rest. she can finally take off her crown. she can finally pursue the quiet, humble life she's wanted for so long. she can finally breathe.

... but can she?

edelgard is nothing if not driven. her intelligence, vision, and sheer willpower allowed her to plan and execute a revolution against two countries and the most powerful institution on the continent, all while she was still a teenager. as royalty, her life was never truly hers even before she became heir to the adrestian throne, with all the additional baggage of survivor's guilt and the desire for vengeance and her need to ensure nothing that happened to her can ever happen to anyone else, ever again.

so what happens when that drive has no outlet? what happens when someone who has been constantly in motion, constantly working and planning and preparing every spare second of every day since she was fourteen years old, suddenly has to stand still? what happens when someone whose hands have been bound for so long—first literally in the dungeons of enbarr, then by the weight and responsibilities of her crown—is set free?

being edelgard, she would step away from the throne, no matter how hard it was for her to give up control. she's always been focused on the endgame, and she knows that if she doesn't let go, she'll be setting the wrong tone for fódlan's future. she's too devoted to that endgame to cling to power much longer than she needs to, though i could see her making some excuses and trying to iron out just a few more things to buy herself some more time to mentally prepare before she's done for good.

but who would she be then? who is the woman without the crown? what becomes of a machine once it is no longer needed, when it has made itself obsolete? what about when that machine is a person with legs and arms and an innate unwillingness to gather dust on a shelf?

what happens when you get everything you want? what happens when all your wanting has been for others to thrive, and now you have to want only for yourself? how do you discover who you are when you've spent decades being everything for everyone else? how do you find meaning again? how do you find purpose?

after a lifetime of devotion and passion and movement, how do you learn to sit with yourself, and be quiet, and be still?

gosh, i would love to meet her. i would love to pick her brain. but boy, i do not envy the work that girl has to do.

[scopophobia-polaris]

first female loz director and the gerudo seem to be written fine enough? wow... there ain't no way I thought we were in the worst timeline after totk

Yeah got through the main quest with the gerudo, it wasn't painful! It wasn't even bad! Still got them outfits but for the most part it was like oh cool!

I would say a lot of that oh cool is from the fact they didn't do a lot to even fuck it up to begin with, I'm gonna be real with yall this game is NOT worth $60USD

Edit: lemme say one thing, you know when people were being like damn totk story wasn't dark or mature at all why was this compared to Majora's mask again? And then all the zeldatwt people came out and said zelda is just a kid series domt expect good writing uH

This one feels like a kid's game. That ain't to say it's terrible I would say, hell I'm not far in it if I get something crazy that's like OH FUCK I'll reblog this post and say something but uh.....game for babies I'm gonna be shocked if anyone struggles with any puzzles cuz you CAN CHEESE THEM EASY ITS 🫢🤭

EDIT EDIT: I SWEAR IM NOT EVEN TRYING TO BE A DOWNER..... @ezlo-x HAS BEEN THERE THE WHOLE TIME IVE BEEN PLAYING....THEY KNOW I HAVENT BEEN A PARTY POOPER.....

[sisterdivinium]

Finding "the meaning" to a show that could have had up to five or seven seasons but was cancelled after the second is somewhat like trying to understand a novel composed of seventy chapters by having read only twenty — there is a whole wealth of information which we do not possess that could alter our reading of any given element or of the entire thing in itself.

Still, there are always patterns that weave a story into a cohesive unit and they can help us to better grope in darkness towards comprehension. One such pattern in Warrior Nun appears to be how the consequences to mistakes, "sins" or evil deeds committed by characters manifest.

Basic storytelling usually requires characters to act on something so that complications or resolutions may arise from their choices and move the plot forwards. In Warrior Nun, many of these actions are quite tragic in nature: Suzanne's arrogance and pride lead to the death of her Mother Superion; Vincent's allegiance to the higher power he believed Adriel to be inspired him to kill Shannon; Ava's flight from the Cat's Cradle ends up damning Lilith as she is mortally wounded and taken away by a tarask... All of these events have negative outcomes and heavy repercussions on all characters directly or indirectly involved. Something changes permanently because of them, be it in the world around them or within the characters themselves.

And yet, it would seem that all of these dark deeds not only move the story forwards but might also have overall positive results. We would have had no protagonist without Ava — and she would arguably never have received the halo to begin with had she not been murdered. What's more, on a personal scale, the horrifying crime she suffers is, in the end, the very thing that allows her a second chance in life, a new life.

An act of outside evil permits Ava to grow and develop, shows her a path she would not otherwise have found. Without her own season in some sort of hell, Lilith would not have been able to advance towards other ways of being and understanding beyond her very strict limitations. Vincent and Suzanne would not have embarked on their own journeys of enlightenment without having caused the pain they are responsible for.

Beatrice might have been paying for someone else's mistakes, but she, too, is given the chance to grow into herself through it. The afflictions that torment these characters advance the overall plot, but they also advance them, as individuals, as long as they are willing to learn and keep going despite the calamities large and small that they are faced with. Beatrice keeps going after parental rejection, Mary keeps going after losing Shannon, Jillian keeps going after losing her son (in part through her own actions, adding insult to injury)... Trouble and the adaptation that follows it, if one is open enough to learn from the experience, motivates the characters, propels them forward, teaches them.

The problem of evil has occupied the minds of many a thinker throughout the ages, given how the very existence of it, evil, might call into question that of God (a good, omniscient, omnipotent one, anyway). A common way of justifying suffering (and also God), then, is by claiming, as Saint Augustine, that "God judged it better to bring good out of evil than not to permit any evil to exist".

Now, it would be rather ridiculous to say of Warrior Nun that it follows in Leibniz's footsteps, also because this philosopher, expanding on the augustinian concept, attempted to defend the goodness of a real God with his "best of all possible worlds" while all we have is... Well, whatever/whoever Reya is.

But there seems to be an inclination towards some sort of optimism as a worldview nonetheless.

Betrayals reveal truth and grant knowledge (Vincent's culminates with the coming of Adriel, which allows us to know of the threat of a "Holy War" and thus prepare for it; Kristian's gives Jillian much needed insight, William's lights up the fuse for the fight to be taken more seriously...), crimes committed willingly or not open the way for Ava (Suzanne's killing of her Mother Superion causes the loss of the halo, which is transferred to Shannon, whose death opens the gates for Ava to walk through after being herself murdered by sister Frances)... The magnitude of these positive outcomes is perhaps not "balanced" when compared to the evil that brings them about, but there is still something to take out of the catastrophe.

However tragic the tones of a given event, the show itself appears to shun the predetermination that makes tragedy as a genre; if everything is connected, here it at least appears to not necessarily drag everyone into their horrible dooms.

What's more is that this lurking "optimism" matches really well with our own protagonist's personality.

And it makes perfect sense that Ava would do the best she could with whatever she is given.

Life for her, in the conditions she experienced after the accident, would have been unbearable without some sort of positive outlook on life. However deadpan, the joking and the "obscene gestures" and whatever other forms of goofing around beside Diego are a way of turning a portion of the situation in her own favour. Proverbial eggs have, after all, already been broken right and left — might as well make an omelette of whatever remains.

Humour is just another way of looking at the bright side of something, or, at the every least, of mitigating the utter horror it might bring. If the show allows for moments of lightness, if it lets us laugh, if it takes us through a perilous voyage which still bears ripe, succulent fruit instead of the rot of pessimism and its necessary contempt for humanity, it is because Ava herself sees things in this way. It isn't gratuitous or naïve in this case, but a true survival strategy, especially as it is confronted with the morbidity of Catholicism.

Here is a religion that soothes its faithful with the promise of reward in the afterlife — how else does one charge into battle against the unknown, risking one's own death along with that of one's sisters, without the balm of believing that we shall all meet again eventually, "in this life or the next"? How else does one come to terms with the ugliness and the pain of this existence if not by looking forward to a paradise perfect enough to make all trials and tribulations here worth it?

True nihilism would have annihilated Ava. Her present perspective is what avoided the abyss.

And there is nothing Panglossian to her attitude or what the show might imply by giving us her view on things. This isn't about "the best of all possible worlds", but of making the best of whatever situation we're in, of taking what we have and doing something with it, something good, something of ourselves. It isn't God making good out of evil, but our choices.

Killing innocent people and feeling no remorse will never be the best someone can aspire to do. Sister Frances, cardinal William, Adriel all learn this the hard way.

Those who do their best find that, somehow, they can move on from whatever it was that paralysed them. Ava, most of all, knows what it is to be stuck, frozen in place; she can never be the character who refuses to grow, even through pain, lest she condemns her spirit to the same fate her body is all too familiarised with. Those around her wise enough to let themselves be touched by her, by the dynamic power she carries, walk forth with her and live.

It says very little about "God" that Warrior Nun should adopt its heroine's views and seem "optimistic" as it progresses — but it speaks volumes about the values it presents for pondering, of the inspiration its protagonists provide, and of the multiple reasons why this is a story unlike most others.

[partyhardyontitanic]

I have finally finally finally decided on a story for my deponia s/i and it's basically gonna be Cletus being besties with him before the story and being there for him post-story because she's the only person (aside from Goal) who can tell that's Cletus in Rufus' outfit (not to mention Kristen is the only one who actually missed Cletus) And then they have to live on deponia together where Cletus' knowledge of the planet and Kristen's enthusiasm let them thrive together ❤️

Also snuggles 💗

[chirpos-pencil]

A conversation between Makoto and a peculiar old man

[symbologic]

Recently saw a discussion on Twitter about why Skypiea gets more hate in the West than in the East

The easy answer is: Blame dudebros and powerscalers who care more about fights than about story (to which they will argue arcs like Impel Down and Marineford were FULL of story), or privileged people feeling uncomfy about the anti-colonialist themes (even though, let's be real, those themes are probably lost on the average Western reader :/)

But Skypiea hate in the West wasn't always a thing. At the time it was being released, most English-speaking fans who were keeping up with OP scanlations and K-F fansubs genuinely enjoyed it.

I honestly think part of the Skypiea hate has to do with a trend we've seen over the past decade, where Western audiences are so, so quick to label certain story elements as "filler" without considering their thematic importance and how it ties into the story the author wants to tell.

Basically, Western audiences have become obsessed with hyper-optimized, fast-paced storytelling that leaves little room to breathe

If the people and politics of an arc are beyond the scope or interest of the story's main antagonists, it's suddenly dismissed as filler that detracts from "more important" things

This attitude is not limited to One Piece alone.

[mantisgodsaus]

If ZB-856 was capable of it, it would absolutely have overhauled its entire body and half of its brain years ago. Unfortunately, it lives in a persistent resource desert, and its experimental hardware is very close to being the single most delicate, finicky, and difficult-to-modify set in the entire colony, because almost all of its brain is formed on crystal shards delicately pieced together into its neural core, and moving almost anything has a high probability of breaking the entire array. There is no one more disappointed about this than Vi.

[calliopechild]

"In the November election, the U.S. faces two futures. In one, the new president offers the country better prospects, relying on science, solid evidence and the willingness to learn from experience. She pushes policies that boost good jobs nationwide by embracing technology and clean energy. She supports education, public health and reproductive rights. She treats the climate crisis as the emergency it is and seeks to mitigate its catastrophic storms, fires and droughts. In the other future, the new president endangers public health and safety and rejects evidence, preferring instead nonsensical conspiracy fantasies. He ignores the climate crisis in favor of more pollution. He requires that federal officials show personal loyalty to him rather than upholding U.S. laws. He fills positions in federal science and other agencies with unqualified ideologues. He goads people into hate and division, and he inspires extremists at state and local levels to pass laws that disrupt education and make it harder to earn a living. Only one of these futures will improve the fate of this country and the world. That is why, for only the second time in our magazine’s 179-year history, the editors of Scientific American are endorsing a candidate for president. That person is Kamala Harris."

[manyblinkinglights]

I have gotten really good at, specifically, this!

I can’t wait to get the script all updated and everything working so other people can use my project. The ultimate flex is being so good at something you make other people better at it also.

[chaiaurchaandni]

free palestine! <3

freedom is not a matter of 'if,' but 'when'

[hal1aetus]

i love my friends :]