#a century’s worth of time??

[frogayyyy]

they went from "when i feel friendship for you, i feel ashamed" to their souls reuniting in death holding hands watching the sunset

[heybiji]

(and is that not reason enough?)

[tempests-bards-and-birds]

please god make the "three time winner of the best bard of mondstadt" one of the earliest pieces of evidence we got for the samsara without us knowing it at the time because it would be so fucking funny

[canisalbus]

For how much Machete is described by others as off-putting, he really is a beautiful dog. Does Vasco ever tell him so? That his eyes make him look earnest, his fur the most comforting shade of white like cream, the way his ears catch light like stained glass? If someone doesn't tell him so, he'd forever think he was ugliest duckling

I think Vasco definitely tries, sincerely and often, but Machete is very reluctant to accept compliments and positive feedback. Especially if it's about something as personal and innate as his looks.

[finelythreadedsky]

 On one level the book is about the life of a woman who is hardly more than a token in a great epic poem, on another it’s about how history and context shape how we are seen, and the brief moment there is to act between the inescapable past and the unknowable future. Perhaps to write Lavinia Le Guin had to live long enough to see her own early books read in a different context from the one where they were written, and to think about what that means.

-Jo Walton

[crystallllines]

Other approaches teach students methods for evaluating the credibility of news and information sources, in part by determining the goals and incentives of those sources. They teach students to ask: Who created the content and why? And what do other sources say? But these methods are relatively new and have not been widely studied.

How new is “relatively new??” Because I feel like I was already being prompted to do this back in 5th grade, all the way back in 2000!! but i may be misremembering. it was sometime between 2000 and 2004, i think

edit: i’m not trying to suggest that i think i have any refined bullshitting skills; quite the contrary, i feel like part of the reason disinfo makes me want to die is because i worry that i can’t, that i’m both too gullible and too cynical, and that both traits are leading to stagnation in the development of both me as a person and of my ability to be part of the world

edit 2:

They found that whereas historians and students were often fooled by manipulative websites, journalism fact-checkers were not.

lmfao i hate/love this

edit 3:

historians and students tried to assess the validity of websites and information by reading vertically, navigating within a site to learn more about it, but fact-checkers read laterally, opening new browser tabs for different sources and running searches to judge the original website’s credibility.

this makes sense! & not just because i feel somewhat comforted by the notion that my adhd brain’s pesky proclivities are actually helpful here! i can absolutely see how “reading vertically” would fuck with someone (but also, so could “reading laterally;” you can really spin out of control doing this shit). i can also see how reading pre-tabbed browsers and post-cell phones with browsers that don’t show new tabs on screen could inhibit bullshit checking. i also see how being exhausted could limit one’s ability to screen bullshit.

slightly related question: are historians as exhausted as i feel they must be all the time? not based on what i just read, just. as much as i love history, i feel like it makes you a tired person.

Age 14 is when kids often start believing in unproven conspiratorial ideas, according to a study published in September 2021 in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology.

Schoolkids Are Falling Victim to Disinformation and Conspiracy Fantasies

a part of me suspects that this is may have to do with being at an age when the desires to consciously develop a unique identity and to expand one’s understanding of the world coincide but that could just be me

[bcneheaded]

I was just thinking and... Artemis is not kind. yes, for all his friendliness, and all the fancy and amicable language and behaviors he displays outwardly to just about everyone who enters his shop... he's not genuinely nice. Artemis is a demon. in any verse of his, he used to be something akin to a spirit/god of LOVE, but was twisted into Wrath, or Hatred - which is the opposite. After leaving the pits of hell, having his little demonic tantrum and breakdown and finally growing weary and finding some semblance of clarity, he's grown out of what he was once again, and became something new. He's still wrathful, hateful, angry, and morose, but now he's so much more without even realizing. He's evolved and will continue to do so over time even if he stagnates for decades, centuries even. The friendships and relationships with other muses that he develops will influence his personality and the way he views things in time, as we've seen it happen already countless times ofc! And for those who did earn his respect and care, he does truly care for them and would gladly go out of his way for them (to what degree depends entirely on the level of closeness). But again.... Artemis is not kind, by nature and he hasn't been for a very, very long time. He was genuinely just plain and simple EVIL He was a villain - a monster, unrecognizable to how he acts now- doing horrible, unspeakable deeds for the pleasure of it. It's how he got the bones he wears in and on his body. So while he might be polite, charming even, and friendly - if he does not know you... he doesn't care about you nor what happens to you. If say for example, he sees you wandering that ruined cityside he lives in - rampant with entities that prey on the Living - and he saves you from being taken by evil spirits or demons? Chances are good that he did it for himself, or to be spiteful - to deny the other entities their prize (you / your soul). If he doesn't know you, the likelihood that he'll go out of his way for you is very low. But if there's something in it for him, some kind of reason as to why it might be worth his time and energy to actually step in... he might! But like all demons, it's good to be wary and to assume he doesn't care about you or your well-being, at least at first!! Artemis is not nice, but that doesn't mean he's malicious or cruel (anymore. not intentionally - he's quite literally under the mindset that he's just 'too old and tired for that nonsense'.) Artemis is manipulative, charming, cunning - he's everything you expect from a demon (though without a host, so he's certainly not attractive in any semblance of a conventional manner lmao - but he dresses well! and I think it's also telling just how-- *gestures at all that* --that he actually is, considering he's NOT attractive... but still puts people at ease, mostly, and can charm them to hell and back if he wanted to. He uses that not to manipulate people per say ?? like, he does not have an evil agenda by any means. He's just existing at this point, distanced from the gods and devils and just living his... life(?) if you can call it that. He's TRYING to do better. But he's still just... a demonic entity. A greater demon, for sure, if he had to be equated to some kind of level or whatever, but a demon nonetheless. But even for demons, there can be growth! and he is growing, very very slowly.

[radiantmists]

man especially having now read the flashbacks i think about how hard xie lian always tries and how many people have told him that he tries too hard, that he never should have bothered and that doing so made things worse, or even more commonly just hating on him for not fixing things or being arrogant or whatever they think his problem is. and some of those people are probably even coming from caring places!

but before hua cheng, had anyone ever sat next to him and said, you tried and that's good, it matters that you cared, you did your best. nobody could have done better than you.

how badly must xie lian have needed that?

[y-rhywbeth2]

While replaying BG2, I had sudden moment of inspiration regarding a headcanon on how my Durge could be elven while tying it back to the first games (could also apply to half-elven). Throwing ideas around: Back in BG2 Irenicus tried to join the Seldarine by draining/fusing himself with the Tree of Life, an avatar of Rillifane Rallathil, claiming his divinity for himself and becoming a god... The act of draining the tree also had the side effect of killing and draining the life out of every elf in the city of Suldanesselar, but hey.

The second time he did this he had the stolen soul of a Bhaalspawn, which means that for a time the essence of Bhaal, the essence of an elven god, and the divine essence of Corellon/Elven-ness were all intermingled in an act of mass murder. Titans can be created entirely by accident; it could be possible for some of the divine essence of the Seldarine/Rilifane to be carried back to Bhaal, or even for Durge to have been born as a consequence of Irenicus' attack on the Tree.

There were these things, parasites formed from dark magic that the elves didn't recognise that Irenicus used to drain the essence from the tree (they were also kind of cute, imo, but that's beside the point): if those were, in some roundabout fashion, the "flesh" of Bhaal, slain, then reanimated and shaped into elven form by the stolen divine essence of one of the Seldarine... it would put Durge's birth in 1369, probably sometime in Kythorn (June-ish).

... It also sort of makes Durge part tree and maybe gives them two or three parents (Bhaal and Rillifane, and maybe Irenicus if you want to be cruel).

Also might make Queen Ellesime their half-sister or something (I'm not entirely clear on how she's related to the Leaflord, just that she's descended from him).

The Seldarine probably wouldn't be terribly comfortable with such a child existing (Sehanine might make an attempt at kindness as she does with Eilistraee and Shevarash, but when things don't fit into their ideal, things get very uncomfortable in this family). The elves wouldn't be keen on them either once/if they worked out what the infant was, what with them being both a reminder of a horrific and traumatic crime against them, and also a Bhaalspawn. They don't like those: "None of the elven forest folk want to be near me." - Charname, after being ushered out of Suldanesselar and out into a world where Bhaalspawn are being subjected to witch hunts, shortly after saving said elves and their city. Even if they are an elf.

[kavehater]

Chappel Roan saying she’s sad she’s demisexual and then there’s me being aroace as a whole like don’t you think I’m even more sad 😭

[emeraldotter]

I have normal fantasies about fictional characters.

[rocklain]

Betrań my beloved, he jus keeps on winnin.

[chiropteracupola]

curse of. thinking about the vampires instead of the assignmence again.

[citrine-elephant]

still waiting for leon's body to ship. and because i desperately want that particular model, i'm waiting a few more days before messaging the seller.

but my god am i feeling ANTSY

[butchlifeguard]

the she/theys vs he/theys and wlw vs mlm posts are symptoms of a larger problem within the queer community 👍

[the-busy-ghost]

Warning- this is a very petty post, but I think I'm entitled to at least one petty, pissed-off reaction every time I finish a classic novel that hit harder than I expected so take this as my quota for the year.

Also spoiler warning for a book that came out over a century ago but still, I didn't know the plot going in so don't want to ruin it for anyone else, if you haven't read it shut your eyes. (Also Local Tumblr User Going Wild Over Book Published a Hundred Years Ago That Everybody Else Already Read should probably be categorised as akey part of indigenous tumblr culture at this point).

Anyway I just finished the War of the Worlds and in between studying I've thinking about Themes and Motifs as you do, and idly looking for further analysis. I then accidentally ran into an article called 'A Quiet Place II Succeeds Where the War of the Worlds Failed' and:

Now I haven't seen any of the Quiet Place films, this is not a rant against them and of course everyone is entitled to their own opinions. But re: the ending of The War of the Worlds, I have to ask, did this guy somehow miss, uh, the entire point of the book or am I just utterly insane?