#and also some random thoughts about representation in IF

[whatifitis]

♡ come home with me - LN 4 ♡

Summary: what will happen when lando is finally in the same room as his crush? Will he play his cards right as a mastermind or will he fumble the deck?

Authors Note: this is my first fic in a month so bear with the shit as I try to relearn lol

WC: 1840

CW: Lando being tipsy, lando slightly panicking, fluff, I think that’s it

Everyone knew who Lando's crush was. The boy couldn’t make it any more obvious. Anywhere he went, all he could do was talk about you. He was always praising you for the work you did and how down to earth you were. Lando would also be caught practically drooling over any picture of you whether it was you on a billboard in the middle of the city or a photo on his feed.

Oscar is pretty sure there’s footage from a Mclaren video shoot where Lando spotted a poster of you on a wall and asked Oscar to take a photo of him next to it. The boy had the cheesiest smile on his face as crinkles appeared near his eyes.

Lando was often teased for being so down bad for you. A lot of the guys in the garage would joke about how he would probably faint if he ever got to meet you, or even be in the same room as you. However, the boy always insisted that he would remain calm and collected if that day ever came, claiming that he would pretend to not know you and play the role of the dark and mysterious guy that would intrigue you to the point where he would be all you thought about.

One day, Zak Brown got the idea to make a bet with Lando. There was an event coming up soon where all the F1 drivers and their teams would be in attendance to raise money for a few charities. Many celebrities were invited to bolster the event, you being one of them.

Zak had bet Lando that if you ended up making an appearance, that Lando would be a fumbling mess and would not be able to get your number. Lando being Lando took on the bet. With a firm handshake and $1,000 on the line, the deal was set.

The day of the event comes up and Lando is absolutely shitting bricks. He’s getting ready in the hotel room and losing his mind about the rumors that you’ll actually be at the event.

“Mate, they’re saying she’s actually coming. Even this fan account said it and whenever they post something, it’s true! Oh my god, Max. I might meet her today!” Lando all but yells as he drops his phone in disbelief.

“Listen, mate. Breathe. You assigned me the role of wingman for tonight so it’ll be okay. Right?” Max states calmly, trying to get his best friend to tone it down for a second.

“Right. How does my hair look? Is it okay? Does it look shit? Fuck, I knew I should’ve had it cut ages ago. What if she thinks I don’t clean up?! What if she thinks I’m a mess?! Fuuuuuck! It’s over. I’ve already fucked it.”

“You haven’t fucked it…yet.”

Lando scoffs and pulls a face at Max’s words.

“I’m kidding you muppet. Your hair is fine-”

“Fine?! Just fine?! This is Y/n we’re talking about. Not just some random person. Y/n deserves the best. I have to be the best.”

“Okay… Your hair is amazing. Literally the best it’s ever looked. She is goin-”

“I don't appreciate your sarcasm…”

“I’m no-” Max tries to argue but quickly gives up. Instead opting to pinch the bridge of his nose and take some breaths himself, “Just put your shoes on. We’re leaving in 5 minutes.” he says as he turns his back to Lando and walks towards the bathroom.

“Wait but-”

“5 minutes!” Max says with his back still towards Lando, raising 5 fingers above his head just to give Lando a visual representation of how long he has.

-=+=-

The boys hadn’t even been at the event for an hour and Lando was already quite tipsy. To calm his nerves, Lando decided to have a drink… or 4… This whole time, Lando stood in a corner with a drink in one hand and his phone in the other, constantly checking his feed to see if you’d arrived yet. As time passed, he began to wonder if you were really gonna show.

Lando was about to give up and leave the event when an echo of screams could be heard from a distance. The boy immediately pulled out his phone and checked social media, refreshing the page over and over again until he saw it. At the top of his feed was a blurry video of you walking through the doors of the building he was currently standing in.

“Max! Max! MAX!” Lando yelled, trying to get his friends' attention.

“What? What? WHAT?!” Max yelled back.

“Y/n just walked into the building!”

“Oh yeah. I know.”

“... You know?”

“Yeah. I was talking to Zak earlier and he said that she was on her way.”

“You knew and you didn’t tell me?!”

Max giggled “Yeah. Wanted to see your reaction when she walked through the doors after you moped around for an hour.”

“I was not moping.” Lando frowned.

“You were and you-” Max’s voice drifted into silence as Lando’s gaze shifted to the main entrance. He watched as you walked through the doors and it was like time stopped. You were enchanting. Lando watched your beauty in real time, breath slowing as he tried to process.

You were wearing a blush pink dress that hugged your figure perfectly, flowing down to your feet with a slit on the side. Your skin glowed in the dim light, sparkles appearing in your eyes as you smiled at everyone around you. It was like you were the only girl in the world, at least that’s how it seemed to Lando. It was like you took all the air in the room and replaced it with a feeling that was so overwhelming yet so gratifying.

Lando was stuck in place as you elegantly wandered through the room, sharing smiles with strangers as Lando wished he was one of them. Just for a moment. He wished that he could be one of those strangers, even if it meant he only got a small moment with you, knowing it may never lead to anything more.

He was only able to escape your enchantment when he watched your silhouette make its way towards him. Lando shook his head and panicked, quickly chugging the rest of his drink and turning to place it on the table behind him.

“Don’t come on too strong.” Max had leaned over and whispered into Lando’s ear as you approached.

In the blink of an eye, you were standing in front of Lando and it was as if he had the air knocked out of him. He couldn’t believe that you were in front of him. That you had walked over to him… on purpose.

You smiled with rosy cheeks as you opened your mouth to speak “Hi, I’m-”

“Come home with me.” Lando had blurted out.

“Sorry?” you asked, confusion spread across your face.

“I’m the man who’s gonna marry you.” Lando gulped, “I’m Lando.”

Your eyes moved to look at Max as you asked “Is he always like this?”

With a tight smile, Max replied “Yes”

“I’m Y/n.”

Lando smiled “Your name is like a melody.”

“Are you a musician or?” you asked. You had known of Lando. People often tagged you in videos or photos of him and your friends loved to send you any video of him where he fawned over you. You weren’t gonna lie, you did think he was cute. To be completely honest, he was the main reason you even came to this event. You always tried to avoid attending events like this to avoid unnecessary headlines of “who was y/n with at this party?!”. But, you made an exception tonight.

“I drive cars… and I like to play video games.”

“Oh a driver and a player. I’ve met a lot of guys like you.” you tease.

“No, wait. I’m not like that.” Lando says, panic lacing his face as he fears he’s already messed up his chance.

Max watches as Lando begins to throw himself in the deep end and decides to butt in for a moment, “He’s not like any man you’ve met.”

“How so?” you question, raising an eyebrow at Lando.

“I’m not perfect by any means. And I can’t promise that, if given the chance, being with me will be easy and happy all the time. I mess up a lot. But I can promise to do everything in my power to make all the time with me worth it. I’ll take any broken pieces and make them whole, well, as whole as they can be. We could be something and make something so beautiful that the world seems in tune.” he smiles before it drops and he panics again, “I’M NOT SAYING ANYTHING LIKE BABIES. I MEAN I WANT THEM ONE DAY BUT NOT SOON. I DON’T WANNA PRESSURE YOU. FUCK! Okay, just- All I’ll say is all the flowers will bloom when you become my wife.”

“Oh! He’s crazy.” you joke and spare a look at Max, “Why would I become his wife?”

“Maybe because he’ll make you feel alive.” Max states matter of factly.

“Alive? That’s worth a lot, ya know. What else ya got?” you excitingly ask Lando.

“Uhm, I won’t make you relate to ‘All Too Well’ by Taylor Swift?”

“That sounds good, Mr. Norris. I’ll be in touch.” you say whilst trying to stifle a laugh, turning your back to the two boys and making your way to mingle with some of your colleagues and friends.

Watching you walk away, Lando lets out a breath that he didn’t know he was holding and basks in the fact that he shot his shot and now he’s one step closer to achieving his dream. Also not to mention that Zak now owes him $1,000. Maybe Zak will tattoo today’s date as well.

After a moment, Lando felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He goes to grab it and stills when he sees the most recent notification.

“HOLY FUCK!!” you heard from a distance, “SHE JUST FOLLOWED ME BACK! HOLY FUCK! OH MY GOD! THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!.... FUCK WINNING MIAMI! THIS IS MY GREATEST ACCOMPLISHMENT!... wait… how did she-”

“She probably gave the go ahead to her social media manager.” Max mentions.

All of a sudden, Lando felt a hard smack land on the back of his head, turning to look at Max.

“What the hell?!”

“You’re lucky you’re rich and handsome. Who the fuck says “come home with me” to someone they’ve never spoken to?! If you were just a random man, you would’ve ended up with a restraining order and not an instagram follow.”

“Well, I never said I was smart.”

“Yeah. We know.” Max says as he pats Lando on the back and drapes his arm over the boys shoulders, “Let’s get you back to the hotel, mate. Before you’re too drunk to walk and I have to carry you.”

“Drunk off joy.” Lando smiles.

[alanisstonedd]

deeblockduke hcs

duke dennis x black!reader

cw: cussing, fluffffff, lil spice no full smut, mention of public & butt stuff, food play

an: ran back this song by my hubby & realized it reminds me of dukey 🥹 so here’s some hcs my shmookies

✯ you fr thought the relationship was finna be TOO CALM bcs he be acting nonchalant let’s be real. but boy was yo ass wronggg. it takes him a sec to warm up but once he does, he literally falls deeper & more passionately in love with you every fuckin day. you literally become his rock, his safe space, his muse girl. his actual everything.

✯ calls you randomly just to hear your voice. the vibrations in your voice literally release dopamine in his body stg. he’ll be like “whatchu doin bae” “oh yuh, how dat goin” “wait, lemme see whatchu got on” “but you saw me leave this morning bae” “i know baby, just show me again i’m tryna see you” “oooo damn you perfect…. okay…. i miss you mane, text me later bae?” just running his damn mouth tryna get whatever you’ll give him while yall not physically together

✯ leaves you love notes in your stuff. in RANDOM ASS SPOTS. like in your pockets - that’s his main spot. very frequently in your purse or folded up in the back of your phone case. on his pillow when he’s up earlier than you. on the bathroom mirror. & it’s not affirmations and shit either girl. it’s like “seeing you happy is like seeing 1,000,000 stars light up the sky. more beautiful & incredible than i could’ve ever imagined or dreamed.” jaw dropped the fuck, all jokes aside you really start to bring out the lil poet in him. “the smallest inch of your skin on mine feels electrocuting. burns like the sweetest paradise. you light me on fire fr bae”

✯ you often wake up with VERY LARGE flower arrangements set up, no matter where you wake up - his room or your place (that’s also lwk his fr). he really gets creative with it too - roses, daisies, tulips, orchids, lilacs, really whatever flower he feels like embodies his love for you that day. & he really gets detailed with it, adding in smaller decorative flowers & weeds to make each arrangement diverse, unique, and an accurate representation of how he feels. tuh, ykw lemme just show yall his masterpieces. that was a collection you had built up bcs he went back to back one week. he puts the bouquet on the bed with a note & scatters extra petals on the bed and the floor. if he’s with you he’ll take petals and sprinkle them over u to wake you up just to get your reaction. every time.

✯ will pick up and fly you anywhere. you won’t stop goin on about the beach during this cold winter? yall on the next jet to turks. private beach, fucking on jet skis, fucking everywhere really, on the beach laid up napping, drunk at the pool bar, yall being water babies for a sec & playing in the water. fucking on the beach. yall rlly bring out the inner child in eachother & heal them by just being together :,)

✯ gifts after every date nighttttt!!! he takes you out somewhere five star or a hole in the wall gem just for the bomb food. wines & dines you, yall yap and rlly grub bcs yall BOTH always getting full fr. when you get homeeee, boxes & bags in the room every time without fail. LV, Hermes, Gucci, YSL, Goyard, Balenciaga, Chanel, IN ADDITION to any other clothes, shoes, or jewelry you might’ve mentioned recently. you def have really shed tears a few times. WILL demand a fashion show - “nah wait, where u goin? you not finna model??” “nah get yo ass back here and model wit yo sexy ass, mhm. i’m not playin, im tryna see what i done bought” - that almost always leads to yall hunchin in whatever set his ass off. new louboutins, ur new iced out cuban link dancing, or some lacy draws he picked out. he tearin that ass up in whatever u got on.

✯ is a freak 🤷🏽‍♀️ WILL pull some whipped cream outta nowhere and lick ts off ur nipples, tummy, ass, thighs, WHATEVERRR. will surprise you with freaky shit “okay i got us sum, it’s a surprise tho so u gotta wait” meanwhile he giggling with that pop pop laugh. you wait ALL DAY, pussy soakinnnnn bcs he’s constantly teasing you, then he wanna pull out some anal beads…. also yall film everythingggg 😭 u thought it was just carry over from him always having to make content but nah he just a freak fr. he will set up a camera wherever yall gettin down. kitchen, room, bathroom, closet & best believe he’ll hold that shit if he can’t set it down

✯ if you have a following & are in the spotlight he’s absolutely reposting so many edits of you. starts posting more often bcs of you and will 100% will make posts of just you lmfao he not even in it at all. always posting you & showing you off everywhere. loves PDA, but in a classy way. he just loves knowing that everyone knows you’re his. his ass get carried away off the drink tho & u gotta keep him in check bcs again, he’ll indulge in fat ma ANYWHERE

✯ do yall sometimes match fits?….. what yall think

✯he lowkey a sleepy mf and will fall asleep on you anywhere, no exceptions. he love a nap or a snuggle - just being close af like smelling u and shit. uses ur booty as a nap pillow (or ur tummy). loves being tangled up wit uuuu all up on eachother. it’s really his peace

✯ loves cooking with u bcs it makes him feel like yall married lollll. he loveeeee the domestic shit. he wants to get better at cooking (wants to spoil u in even more ways) so he always wanna do cooking dates

✯ yall guilty of being the couple that EVERYONE in the vicinity can hear fucking bcs he don’t EVER make yo ass shut up. except when yall could actually get caught teehee. but at home?? he like “yeah let that shit out baby” “fuck, im tryna hear you, yeah” “fuckkkk i know bae, i know” “yeah who making you scream baby? who?” “oh yeah? that’s ‘fuckkk’?”

✯ loves feeding you for some reason?? always tryna feed you your snacks & even meals sometimes. and always silently with the straightest face lol. if he ever says “you want one” just know you’re never grabbing your own. it’s 100% getting fed to you.

[vigilskeep]

hello! you know a lot of dragon age lore so i thought id ask you— i saw a post earlier that was discouraging to me aa trans person where the op said that veilguard having top surgery scars in the cc goes against established worldbuilding. does it make sense for top surgery to be possible in thedas? thanks

my rule of thumb is that in a world where healing spells exist, there’s absolutely no logical, believable reason for it not to be possible. you don’t have to go back and provide sources about historical surgeries—which is something i personally know nothing about—for this to be true

like, i just can’t take this line of thought seriously. ohhh we can have floating cities and magical neon lights and spirit healers who can mend injuries just by passively standing next to you, but we draw the line as soon as it’s something that would make our trans players happy! it’s so transparent. do not listen to these people or let them discourage you

if you want to get into the worldbuilding potential of it—which is just fun to do—we can probably guess that for the top surgery scars to be as neat as they seem to look in the veilguard character creator, similar to modern ones, magical healing was involved. now i do believe that the chantry might get suspicious of body-altering magic, that magical power is hoarded by the circles in the south and the wealthy in the north, and also that “out” trans people are a minority in thedas. so i’m not saying that this is something easy for your average guy to get hold of. that’s where you can feed it into backstory. are they powerful and connected enough that they could find specialists willing to go beyond the ordinary? or do they have underground connections to hidden apostate healers, whose only priority is what helps (or perhaps just how much you’re willing to pay)? do they belong to a culture that might not be restricted by the chantry’s norms about gender or magic, like the dalish or the rivaini? or do they belong to a mage-focused community or order, who among themselves do whatever they like? endless options

some might be referring to a line in dai from krem, a trans man, where you can ask him about potentially changing his body with magic and he essentially says he wouldn’t let magic that could do that anywhere near his body, though when he was younger he might have dreamed about the possibilities. firstly, krem is absolutely not the gold standard for trans representation and nobody should care about being flexible from what bioware put out a decade ago. secondly, krem is a random mercenary who knows one (1) mage, who spends the entire time insisting she’s not a mage. i very much doubt he’s the no. 1 source for what might be magically possible in this or any regard

also ultimately, and i cannot express this enough, you can do whatever you want forever. it could be absolutely fundamentally impossible in-world somehow and it would still not be that serious to be “unrealistic” in the dragon video games. don’t let anyone discourage you from making the character you want to make. it being an option makes it canonically part of thedas, end of. they put it in the game and nobody bitching about it can take it out

[zegawega]

why lord dominator is canonically a lesbian essay(provided with actual evidence… for those who don’t think she is)

Aren’t you sick and tired of deathstar shippers spreading misinformation on dominator’s canon sexuality when the evidence is right in front of their face? Especially when they try to deny it so badly after explaining to them why it's considered disrespectful to just freely headcanon her on whatever because it goes against her character?(Talk about Dominator ‘lovers’ am i right?) It takes about only one google search to find the answer, but Lord Dominator IS in fact canonically a lesbian and heavily implied to be aroace and there's enough provided evidence to support it. I'm gonna explain using reliable sources such as Dave Thomas's tumblr page, the charity stream, etc. and also demonstrating how the show already depicts that representation.

Starting off, Nate Stevenson, which is one of the writers for the show, confirmed in a charity stream that lord dominator was intentionally written to be a lesbian. Especially in one of the episodes, ‘The Night out’ where she interacts with sylvia which is the first and only episode she only showed a bit of interest and it was with a woman. Althoe Nate DID claimed he did not have full authority over everything, he still wrote for the show and SPECIFICALLY for dominator. The intent was there from the start, and It makes it pretty clear for what they were going for. The only character Nate didn’t have much influence over is sylvia’s , considering she was more of craig mccracken’s focus.

While others might disagree and claim that “it was just a little head canon from a random crew member” this argument holds low values. Nate stevenson is more than just a ‘random crew member’. In fact, he’s a well known creator who made shows like ‘She-Ra’, one of the most well-known queer animated series, and a person who direct hand in shaping dominators character. If a person who helped shaped a character say they were written as a lesbian, then it’s canon. He’s not just some fan throwing out a headcanon, he’s an established writer who does have authority over characters he works on for peak sake.

Another thing, it’s not just one writer explicitly saying dominators sexuality. The entire crew does agree with the fact that dominator is a lesbian. Craig McCracken who created the show and ALSO works as a writer for the show holds confirmation and allows other people’s ideas for the episodes or characters dialogue and thoughts. Heck, he literally wrote the idea for ‘The Night Out’ episode and worked alongside with Nate and other writers who shipped sylava. That’s honestly enough of confirmation that he holds. on the side of Dave Thomas, a writer and animator for the series, he replied on a tumblr post to someone asking along the lines about sylava being implied stating “Their sails will be filled with wind, i can assure you.” This obviously doesn’t mean lord dominator is a lesbian only because of her interaction with sylvia in that episode per-se, she was going to have her own sapphic joke that originally said “blaster? i hardly KNOW her!” but got censored by disney and decidedly switched to “annihilation? i thought her name was susan!”

In complementary to that, This goes for the fact that the show in general basically depicts how she is a lesbian, not just the night out. She shows no interest in any other male character in the show, whenever a male character tries to flirt with her or hit on her (whether that’d be emperor awesome, lord hater, etc.) she does show strong discomfort and/or even mocks it. Commander peepers literally said in the show word by word “i don’t think dominator is the type of person to date anyone��� However , if she were to date someone, she would want that person to “make her feel good about herself” and “someone who inspired her be the best version of her evil self she could be” stated by dave thomas.

Of course she’s not gonna tell it straight to your face that she’s a lesbian and go onto detail how she likes when big black woman twerk on screen(considering that would have nothing to do with the plot) but they do show signs in front of you where she clearly doesn’t like men at all, those type of signs for you to catch on and understand. Take it as an example with wander’s character and his OCD, he shows so much signs in front of you that he does have it but doesn’t explicitly say that he does.That is honestly what makes WOY’s representation likable, they don’t TELL you but they show you. And it’s ridiculous to me how people think representation on media is only when a character is actually stating it and deny once the truth is told cause it doesn’t fit their ships preferences.

For more information how she can be aroace, it was never really the writers intent for her to be labeled as that, nor was it really canonically said. HOWEVER based on what i said before how she wouldn’t date anyone, it does align with the fact how she can heavily implied to be one.

Clearly stating, lord dominator is canonically a lesbian and heavily implied to be aroace based off of the crew’s intent for her character and what they were going for. The show itself already shows that, so there shouldn’t really be a huge debate over it.

[communistkenobi]

I’ve watched the first three Mission Impossible movies now and it’s crazy how they’re all completely different films from one another lol. which probably has to do with the fact that they all had radically different directors (Brian de Palma, John Woo, JJ Abrahams), but the only real consistent through line is Tom Cruise. Because even within the ten year time-span between their releases, the series is already unrecognisable from itself

The first one is a 1990s genre-defining heist spy movie and its concerns are very much rooted in the fact that the CIA is now basically this massive institutional leftover of the Cold War with many hanging threads that need to be dealt with (one of the main McGuffins being a list of names of undercover CIA agents scattered throughout ‘Eastern Europe’). When I first watched it I thought it was pretty good but not like great, but after having watched two of its sequels and thought about it some more I’m a lot more positive on it. The imagery of that movie is unforgettable, the highlight being the completely silent scene where Tom Cruise hangs from a wire in an all-white room trying desperately not to touch the floor. It’s crazy that de Palma directed this and Carrie and Scarface, all films with scenes permanently lodged into the cultural consciousness. And like it is a distinctly ‘cool’ movie, but not in the insane rabid jarhead post-9/11 action movie cool way, like there isn’t this fascistic military masculinity grafted onto it, its way more sleek genius spy guy shit. Anyway this one is really good.

The second movie is pretty bad and often barely comprehensible, like the scene-to-scene editing is hard to follow and the pacing is horrible. The experience of watching it is like watching Face-Off (another John Woo movie), like same weird ass vibe and editing except in this case the movie is boring and bad. Some of the stunts are pretty cool but they can’t really rise above the film they take place in. It’s also not a spy movie, it’s just a bad action movie. I feel like MI2’s biggest crime is trivialising Tom Cruise, like he has no presence or command in that film at all, he’s literally just a random guy with long hair. It’s insane the immediate drop in quality. This one is about a bio-engineered virus that the villains want to use to start a pandemic, but the concern feels very far away and immaterial ? Idk I really didn’t like this one

And then the third one is also just as bizarre because it looks and sounds and is written exactly like a Michael Bay film, down to the same vibrant ugly orange-blue colour palette and quippy dialogue and saccharine ending. And it’s also not a spy movie either lmao!!!! Like god the jump in representation of US intelligence agencies from 1996 to 2006 is staggering, it’s moved from using fantastical spy gadgets to very real military hardware and technology, only keeping the spy-magic tech in MI3 (like 3D printing the villain’s face as a mask disguise) because it was already established in the first one. And the action scenes are straightforwardly action scenes, shootouts with military helicopters and dodging precision drone strikes. Tom Cruise does an insane amount of running in this movie and it looks sooooo good, like there are so many long-ass shots of him just fucking booking it at full speed and that dude’s running form was made to be captured on film. But MI3 is like so deeply entrenched in Bush era catch-the-terrorists stuff, though somewhat offset by having Philip Seymour Hoffman as the main villain instead of like Al-Qaeda (although the main anxiety has still firmly shifted from a post-Soviet ‘Eastern Europe’ to a scary generalised terrorist ‘Middle East’). But again it feels so incredibly different in tone and fixation and motivation than the first film. 9/11 really did permanently break the brains of every USAmerican. Anyway I can’t wait to watch the next one

[elusiiev]

Basil's Somethings

YIPPEEE OK I HAVE WANTED TO TALK ABOUT MY HEADCANONS FOR HIS SOMETHINGS FOR A WHILE NOW AND now i can because theres a visual so

spoilers for the truth a little !!!!

coming from front -

this is when basil's guilt is catching up to him. it resembles mari's dead body more clearly, with hair strands extending towards him and strange misshapen arms doing the same. this reaching out both feels like the creature is begging for basil not to hang her, but at the same time reaching to drag him down too. this is more for gradual thoughts of guilt and shame throughout the course of a day. (tactile + visual hallucination)

coming from behind -

this one is more based on hellmari's appearance, however it shows itself to basil in multiple ways. for example, lying, especially in terms of mari's death, causes this monster to appear. it grabs for his mouth as he feels out of control spewing lies just to keep him and sunny safe, and tugs at his heart, actively making him feel worse about himself as the lies go on. it can also show itself during random intrusive thoughts, with the hair tendrils seeming to choke basil in every way. (vivid tactile + visual hallucination)

corrupted basil -

this is one of the strongest ones, it is a hallucination onto himself. he feels the darkness and lies spewing out of his mouth while he's covered in the blood of his best friend, a rope tied around his neck - this rope gets tighter especially in panic attacks. basil sees this in his mirror or when he looks at himself, normally around the hours of the night. to him, this is a representation of the monster he believes he is as the evidence overtakes him. hair tendrils continue to swirl, especially around the head, to where he can feel headaches after. this is not a constant hallucination and mostly appears during major depressive episodes, panic attacks, and anxiety attacks. (tactile + visual hallucination)

YAY OK THOSE ARE THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i plan on drawing how basil sees sunny because i have some ideas for him that would be super interesting !!! these are just my personal headcanons, and i know they most likely do not align with the canon but honestly thats fine im just being Silly!!!!!!

[voice-of-the-sexyman]

"HAHAHAHAHAHA!!"

🏆 VOICE OF THE SEXYMAN CHAMPIONSHIP 🏆

ROUND I PART IV

[Propaganda under the cut]

"You're still not over it, huh?"

"Nope!! HEUDHEHCHWJCJJWJCWKNXKSJD"

"Heh.. alright so, in summary, we did a random draw via wheel to determine who would battle who... and both times, cause we did it twice, these two seemed determined to be pitted against one another."

"EVERY.SINGLE.TIME!! I CAN'T MAKE THIS SHIT UP! HAHHSHSHSHSHSHEHJWJ"

"At least this one needs no introduction. Polite is very prolific in the community for the designs. Hell, it's what sold Mai on making her own voices.

.....

She's still going, so I will give you the artist's thoughts:"

"The ear tufts, the hip wings, the skull mask - he's got it all. Hobbies include wrapping his wings around people in an all encompassing hug and leaning mysteriously in shadowy doorways - @itsonlypolite "

"Salty, or Sal, is also a long time fan. They're more well known for Contrarian, Hero and Contrahero, but they have a very cute artstyle. Mai would describe it like a children's book. And I can see it.

They are very huggable, and I think they started the Paracold ship...not sure though.

..hun. Hun, breathe.

Anyway, here are some of their words about Cold:"

"Flat Fuck Representation. They got a flat ass, flat chest, AND flat face. The flattest of Colds - @salty-an-disco"

"Ok...ok...I am calm"

"Good, we are half way through these so don't start wheezing on me now"

"You still love me though?"

"Of course"

[fallouthomestaedau]

fallout and the "tribal" problem

I've been working on this for a while and I finally feel content enough with my thoughts to talk about it, now for reference I'm mixed first nations and Ukrainian and believe that i am at least somewhat qualified to to talk on the topic

Firstly I will break down what I'm talking about through different paragraphs, primarily based on which game the tribe originates from, and secondly, I'm not an anthropologist or historian, but simply a fan disgruntled with representation of peoples in media

I also wont be speaking on Fallout 76 as I know precious little about it, and due to its shift in gameplay and narrative elements from the rest of the games

one thing of importance though, what is a tribal, and what constitutes a tribe?

now for reference, this will be in the context of the fallout universe, as within most tribes or tribals are too broad or vague to categorize within proper definition

within the games, tribals are mentioned many times, often denoting someone who isn't from or doesn't practice the (often) majority culture of the speaker, usually these people are part of or practice a culture or tradition specific to themselves and their community, that being said, the word tribal or its plural tribals, is often used as a stand-in for "savage" or "primitive", often used insultingly, that being said this broad definition really relies on assumption and stereotypes, as there are many groups who would otherwise be classed as a tribe, such as the new Vegas brotherhood of steel, yet due to being "advanced they are classed as more than a tribe

with that in mind, the definition of tribe is quite loosely defined, a tribe could be a raider gang, a small eccentric community, a religious order or an actual unique culture. this can lead to some reinforcement of stereotypes and harmful depictions however

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fallout 1

despite its age, Fallout has precious little in the way of harmful representation of tribes, there is some discourse on whether the people of shady sand would count as a tribe, or as "tribals", mostly due to Fallout's broad categorization of what counts as a tribe. otherwise, there's not much in the game, if anything in regards to tribals or tribes, at this point the Khans are still just a raider group, though they do take notions and snippets of historic Mongolian culture and tradition in their daily life.

fallout 2

its in 2 we begin to finally see tribes and tribals, with the protagonist specifically being from one of these tribes, the arroyo tribe, specifically descended from vault dwellers, they seem to have lost a great deal of modern ideals and information, though this does make some sense, they had to focus on survival in a harsh environment, you'll teach your children how to hunt and grow crops before small motor repair in a society without motors, that being said certain tropes can be somewhat outdated, such as the tribe building the whole temple section in regards to seemingly being an entirely sedentary culture who are also tent dwelling, which ties in with how seemingly primitive the tribe is as a whole, while some knowledge being lost makes sense, what would take generations of isolation and ack of any unique discovery to really achieve, along with some of the more mystical elements, the second part however can be somewhat forgiven as psychers and other "mystical" people do exist in canon, the mysticism plays heavily into the "indigenous people have magic" type trope. even Moreso they specifically chose to give up their culture in the end to join the ncr instead

there is also mentions of the unnamed "primitive tribe", a coastal tribe with many beliefs in regards to death and spirits throughout the world, while much of their story is cut you still meet one named tribe member and several random tribals, they are however not great examples of an actual culture, having a very cartoonish depiction and belief system, along with speaking broken English but no proper explanation of a tribe specific first language, there is however some redeeming facts as they are still looked at as people, poorly represented people

least unoffensive example however are the cave dwelling cannibal tribals, the name alone is already a mash of offensive stereotypes and depictions of indigenous people, which other tribes within the game are specifically designed to resemble, they are very unintelligent, lacking proper speech, yet are also quite strong and fast, they are every depiction of which "enemy natives" have been depicted as, making the arroyo come across as the "noble savages" in place

second to last we have the vipers, referred to as raiders, a tribe and a cult, within this iteration they worshiped mutant cave dwelling snakes, sacrificing passers by to them and welcoming in the survivors, they however did develop unique traditions and a culture surrounding the snakes before being chased from new california. its heavily unclear what a proper definition of what they are would be

lastly that brings us to the new khans, while not yet a tribe, they have changed much, keeping little in regards to khan tradition with a single leader, along with his personal guard and dog, leading to less loyalty and cohesion. at this time however the khans were fractured into many raiding bands, its actually the death of Darion that unites them once again

within 2 we also begin seeing other groups such as the shi and the yakuza, who represent real world cultures but more specifically the descendants of those cultures, which i am not knowledgeable enough to talk on

fallout 3

in 3, we don't see nearly any tribals in the base game, the treeminders are often referred to as a tribe yet they are in my opinion closer to a religious order with cultural elements, the specific titles and worship of bob and Harold are two of their defining traits at a glance, and are more reminiscent to religion in place of culture, they devote their lives to a "living god" responsible for regrowing nature in a secluded oasis, in truth the group is a cult (a mostly harmless one) and not really a tribe

another halfway example is the unnamed tribe in which the merchant crow was born to, they are specifically referred to as a tribe and have unique cultural beliefs, such as revering eyebots as wind spirits and that is all we know of them. there is literally nothing else to really say about them

finally we get to the point lookout tribals, a "tribe" of people who are sent out to find a seed pod that produces a hallucinogenic gas, to which the initiate is taken back to the tribe to be lobotomized, and in said state may be left unable to care for themselves properly, or worse, dead and those who aren't left vegetative are under the control and influence of a brain in a jar feuding with a ghoul while attempting global domination via telekinesis, as they believe he has ascended his material form and is guiding them to do so as well

not even counting the swampfolk who are somewhere between local cultists to a mutated subspecies of human, there is precious little in the way of positive tribal peoples, with an actual culture, instead getting vague and sometimes offensive examples

fallout 4

plain and simple there aren't any tribes or tribals, a fact which would ordinarily leave this section mostly blank, but i have a nitpick on that fact. my ancestors were originally from the region, the Abenaki, who were allied to other local tribes, and putting modern day tribal identity issues aside, the region had many native peoples, and there could have been an attempt at a positive depiction of a tribe, yet there's nothing, nothing throughout the base game, and all the DLC's, not even an attempt. and that frustrates me somewhat, as they could've shown indigenous people surviving and keeping their culture despite everything but instead did away with anything tribal related

fallout new Vegas

the tribes in new Vegas have such a wide array of representation, from good allegory to horrible caricatures, for instance, the tribe with the longest history in the series, the great khans, who were once the new khans, who originated from the khans. they have finally developed into a unique culture with a focus on personal freedom and and individual strength and yet also a people who believe in unity and cooperation, and they have even been given compelling motives, they are a raiding culture, people who take what they cannot find or make, similar to many real world cultures, they have a history of ethnobotany, something that was enough for the followers of the apocalypse to take notice, they had tradition and honours, and their plight is somewhat reflective of the real world, their non combatants and innocents, gunned down, and the survivors left to pick up the pieces, trying to handle their trauma from the experience, and turning to the substances they sell in order to numb the pain. the great khans aren't necessarily good people, but they are displayed as a genuine people, suffering from the actions of a colonizing power, and that is some of the best representation of native history in recent history.

the boomers are a tribe dedicated to personal security, taking the belief of right to bear arms as a cultural motto, thy originate from an armory vault, and completely shun the outside world. they refer to themselves as a tribe and have unique customs that have formed from their unique lifestyle, all things considered they make a good bit of logical sense in universe and in their formation. there isn't however much more to say on their existence as a tribe.

we even meet several new California raider tribes, the remnants of the vipers, pushed into the Mojave by ncr expansion, they've lost much of their culture, turning to chems and raiding, along with the jackals, they have been reduced to cannibalistic chem addicts, and in all honesty canon fodder, which does bother me slightly less, as theyre not the sole "tribes" within the game, i personally believe there couldve been some more done to show some of their history but they do fit the niche they were designed for

Honest hearts tribes are, rough to say the least, one descended of indigenous people with a unique culture and traditions, and another descended of children who may have been going to a residential school type institution (the lore is vague) who are origionally from a country who has been under the thumb of imperious countries for centuries, such as spain and the us, and yet what little culture they get is a mixture of hodgepodge words from several languages and just oddly spoken English (something historically done to mock native languages), the tribes don't have any real leadership outside of two Mormon missionaries, the two people, who could give us an example of the culture and values are devout followers of these Mormons, one who is being shown to be following in the footsteps of his hated enemy, this being Joshua graham, who is clearly a parallel to Caesar, making a peaceful people into his warriors, to deal a blow to the man who betrayed him, or Moreso a tribe who wish to follow Caesar, not for the safety and peace of the canyon system these people inhabit, but from vengeful hatred, using religion as an excuse to commit bloody war and Daniel, who spends his days infantilizing a culture and treating them as uninformed children, going as far as to hide the death of certain tribes members who had been evacuated from the area from their families and claiming a group of adults, who survive and thrive, being incapable of making their own decisions, as well as all that nonsense, the "good endings" involve fleeing their native lands and worshiping a Mormon missionary as a god, all that being said, the tribes are far from a good depiction. the khans are a much better example of native people than the tribes implied to be actual native peoples

the sorrows, a fitting name for the tribe, originating from a group of stranded children, they are a culture of pacifists who also hunt the largest mammalian carnivores in the region and are deemed "too innocent". the main member we meet near idolizes Daniel, the resident missionary, though this is somewhat understandable as he saved her life while in labour. this presents as a moral dilemma however as we are tasked with withholding the information of her murdered husband and her traumatized children from her, for the benefit of Daniel himself. the other major tribe member we meet is the shaman, who speaks next to nothing, sends us on a "vision quest" via hallucinogens where we fight a great evil being, and receive a marker of tribal status, the tribes primary defining symbol, a Yao guai gauntlet. the whole quest has bad vibes of white saviorism's, especially as if you rush through, you may not learn any actual meanings behind it. you may not even learn that the sorrows have domesticated gecko's. there is the basis for such a unique culture but everything is left so barebones, the tribe doesn't even have actual homes, the entire tribes clothing looks identical, and they have no clear leader, social hierarchy or even defined equality or individualism. there's no sense that they are anything more than a dozen people existing in the same place while ignoring one another. and the endings they get are either to leave, to stay and maybe learn mercy or become aggressive and warlike, all based on the actions of one person, who in their "naive" "innocent"z minds taught them their first act of violence, making them crave more

the dead horses irk me, they are implied to be descended of the Navajo, but aside from language hold no real ties. failed chances to represent native people as surviving cultures theres many things that irk me, they are named for the area in which they live, but hold precious little in regards to horses as a whole, an animal that had become important in their ancestors day to day, they are hunters and foragers, keeping an eye on local environments and the animals within, but have no cultural inclination to herding, something that was their ancestors lifeline, they have a language based on Navajo but next to no cultural identifiers, instead they are shown to tattoo themselves to mark special occasions and important moments in ones life, they have coming of age ceremonies and traditional weapons, personal and cultural taboo's and that's it, its not clear what their homes are like, what their day to day is, if they're agrarian or semi nomadic, they are designed to be the "brave warriors" to the sorrows "peaceful savage" trope, and the main warriors against the "evil tribe", its all face value

the white legs, the evil tribe who don't know how to craft, to farm, to build, a tribe whose sole survival supposedly hinges on the availability of raiding and killing, who are presented as too dimwitted and are offering themselves up to Caesar on a platter, they are the stereotypical enemy tribe, they are canon fodder for the courier to valiantly kill, and either doom them to death right away, or leave them to the mercy of another tribe, either way ending in death. their whole point was to be a culture wiped from the face of the earth

the 80's are a territorial tribe who we know nothing of, outside of their location near the salt flats of salt lake city, their whole existence was to destroy the last of the white legs. there is nothing else to them

in new vegas, we hear the names of many dead tribes, the hang dogs, the twisted hairs, the twin mothers, cultures wiped out and assimilated by the legion, as well as tribes pushed to extinction via people like prospectors, and land owners, killed for the local resources. these two examples are both instances id like to talk about in greater detail in their own post

new vegas tribes, the 4 tribes of new vegas themselves, the three families of the strip, and the kings, each group shedding tribal identity to relive old world "glory", the kings, worshipping a misunderstood depiction of elvis, and living by the rules of an impersonation school, which they turned into a "gang" identity, keeping order of the rabble and the unwanted. the white glove society, the omertas and the chairmen, all under the thumb of mr house, coerced or convinced to become the three families. we know very little of their original cultures, aside from a few names, they have wholly embraced a new identity, disposing of those who would otherwise choose the old ways

there are also cultural groups, such as the new Canaanites who aren't technically a tribe but still a different culture group to the majority culture

afterthoughts:

all in all, I find fallout has so far, had such few positive examples purposefully creating a tribal group or Indigenous allegory, the sole example is the Khans and much of the historical symbolism is lost to so many under the guise of moral vs immoral and general lack of knowledge

it is disheartening, in a world so chock full of symbolism and satire and synchronicity, that there's so little reference to how truly multicultural the world really is, of the hundreds of pre-war tribes and isolated settlements with unique traditions, there's so little within the games to acknowledge any of it

the majority of the tribes we meet are or can be canon fodder for the sole fact of padding enemy numbers, instead of deepening the narrative of old-world concepts returning to harm the present

[markantonys]

3x01 cold open!!!!! between rafe and everyone hyping up this scene for a long time now and people from the brazil con reporting descriptions of it, we knew how it was going to go down, so no huge surprises for me, but so exciting to watch it for myself! it definitely lives up to the hype!

a few quick thoughts

what do liandrin, sharon gilham, lorne balfe, and the vfx team have in common? they're all slaying in this opening sequence! i'm not someone who's at all knowledgeable about or sensitive to production value, but even i can tell they've stepped it up yet another notch this season. it looks decadent! epic! i can see why everyone involved has been boasting about this sequence so much! what a way to start the season.

it's also fantastic setup for all the tensions and weak points within the tower, because we see our inter-ajah mistrust, we see doubt in siuan's leadership, and of course we see the black ajah. that faceoff outside the hall between red sisters and others was really great - it shows that not all reds are like liandrin and some of them are light-serving, that non-reds can be black ajah, and that light-serving enemy ajahs will have to figure out how to trust each other and work together if they want to be strong enough to fight the shadow. this sequence does a good job establishing that the tower isn't split into just good guys vs. darkfriends, but that the good guys themselves are fractured and opposing each other.

i'd thrown out a wild speculation of diem camille as a surprise tuon since nothing was known about what character she might be playing, but we see her here as a light-serving red sister! i was wishing for the x-ray feature of the normal episodes here to see if any of the new aes sedai have names we might recognize, or if they're just randoms.

i'd have to rewatch closely to take a tally, but we seem to have representation from just about every ajah in liandrin's group: liandrin for red, nyomi for brown (sob!), joiya for gray, the green sister who was glad her warders died, the yellow sister who healed liandrin, and i think i saw a blue sister as well. there might have been a couple others besides these ones too!

in s2 we had a few scraps between channelers, but i think this is the first extended multi-person channeling battle we've seen. it's so exciting!! and awesome to see the gloves come off for our usually-composed and regal siuan, and see what she's capable of. we also see her doing a tricksy evasion of liandrin's accusations about what happened in cairhien, since everything liandrin said is true and siuan can't deny it, so siuan is definitely set up to be in some hot water.

leane also killed it! loved that moment of her beating someone up with her staff - a good visual demonstration of the oaths placing no restriction on non-channeling violence (though i'm sure this would've counted as "the last defense of her life/the life of another sister" anyway). wild theory i'm by no means subscribing to without rewatching to check for it, but just throwing it out there: could leane have been stilled during the battle and that's why she's doing physical fighting here? just thinking about the CV leak that named lelaine as the keeper of the chronicles; that could make sense if leane was stilled here and needs to be replaced. but it's also entirely possible that CV leak was inaccurate or that lelaine is slated to become future keeper in salidar but not yet in s3, and there wasn't any moment calling attention to leane being stilled or anything like that, so probably not.

we got a time-check as well: it's been 1 month since the cairhien events of 2x07, and therefore since falme too since i think that battle takes place basically the next day. that feels like a reasonable timeskip to me. enough time for the gang to gather their wits and come up with the best way to handle the truth bomb of liandrin being a darkfriend (and for rand to grow out his hair a little haha) but not so long that it feels like they've been sitting on their asses when there's stuff to get done.

correct me if i missed her, but i don't think we saw ryma in this sequence, but she is reported to be in s3. so, either we'll see her in the tower later on, or she's still with the seanchan and maybe we'll see her in tanchico (at which time hopefully our gang will free her!). i would most expect her to be relevant to the story via nynaeve again this season, whether that be a tanchico encounter where nynaeve frees her or early-season lessons in the tower if she's already free (we see a reminder of nynaeve's block during the battle, with our poor girl once again failing to channel when she really needs to).

people have pointed out that that shot of joiya sitting on the floor in the trailer looks like it might be the angreal storeroom, so the theory is that she gets captured and taken prisoner in this battle. that would track with the books, where the wondergirls take her prisoner and eventually get out of her that tanchico is the place to go for their hunt.

speaking of the storeroom, people have spotted what looks like a redstone doorway in it!! i've brightened it up to see better:

this is VERY intriguing, as my current theory had been that mat would find it in tanchico towards the end of the season. but i do stand by that his neck doesn't look injured in the tanchico still from ep6, nor is he wearing a medallion (which we can feel pretty confident is coming this season since he has it on the poster), so it could be that this white tower doorway is only an easter egg and the ones that people actually go through are located elsewhere, or it could be that mat does take two trips after all and he gets his answers in the white tower doorway in the early season (perhaps his motivation for going to tanchico instead of joining rand or perrin?) and his items & hanging in a tanchico doorway at the end of the season. but there would also have to be one in rhuidean for moiraine and lanfear to go through, right? so could there be 3 doorways in showverse? tar valon, tanchico, and rhuidean? i don't think there would be any problem with that.

okay, i think that's all the thoughts i had off the top of my head! this is a sequence that happens offscreen in the books, and bringing it onscreen was such a smart choice. it makes great use of our established aes sedai players, sets up the huge tensions brewing in the tower just in time for elaida coming on the scene, and really drives home for the audience that ANYONE can be black ajah/a darkfriend, so we'll be feeling that paranoia and mistrust right alongside the aes sedai.

and this is only the first scene of the season! i can't wait to see everything else that's to come!!

[helluvaartcritique]

I’d love if you critiqued the pride art helluva Twitter acc just dropped, I would but there’s way too much for me to even start with and I wanted to hear your opinion

just the art cause for some reason my brain is so confused.

Apologies for the late response, anon, but here we go!

My eyes.......

As someone who is queer myself, so many of these characters just fall into stereotypes or aren't the best representation.

1. Chaz wanting to fuck everything is a horrible representation of pansexual people.

2. The only Asexual people being a teenager (which is fine) and the fat man who abuses Fizz and is ugly yay /s (Vivziepop has a habit of misrepresenting asexuals, and as one myself, it can be pretty hard to watch.)

3. Sallie Mae is the ONLY lesbian we have? Nothing else? Wow.

4. I'm also including the lack of enby/nonbinary representation. For a queer show you'd think they include them.

5. There's a lot of pansexuals, and while it does seem nice, quality doesn't equal quantity. We have Chaz (mentioned before), Blitz (who sleeps with everyone), Barbie (a literal groomer), Ozzie (which isn't bad since he's the Sin of Lust, but eh), Queen Bee (I actually like this one, mostly because I like Bee) and a bunch of random background extras who I don't even know their names.

6. Why is that parrot guy here? Does he have a name?

7. Andre having feathers in his hair is typically a no go as it feeds into a harmful stereotype about Indigenous people.

8. Where is my boy Cole?

9. Also it'd be nice if these were confirmed in the show instead of the wiki. I don't have to do homework.

Alright, now onto the art! Hoo boy....

First off, all of the characters and flags are fighting for my attention to the point where I'm not sure what I'm looking at.

The first time I saw this, my eyes were led to Bee, as her and her lava lamp made her stand out.

The mishmash of colors made it hard to focus on Bee for long, as I was trying to figure out where everyone was. And yes, I get it, it's a Pride parade, there's gonna be rainbow colors, but at least make it so I know what I'm looking at here. They all blend in.

Apologies if my thoughts are a bit jumbled at the moment, I'm a bit sleep deprived right now.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

I read two days ago that 4book yuu will be a boy، Is that true? 💔😞

That would be false. We currently do not have any official information on our Yuu for the Episode of Scarabia. I believe that this belief originates from a tweet (I saw it the other day, but won't be linking it so as to avoid spreading potential misinformation). The original poster shows a screenshot from an online article which claims that the Scarabia!Yuu is a "boy". However, the website where they got this information from is a random anime news site. Is that credible? What are their sources? Don’t accept everything you read as fact, think about whether it can be trusted or not first.

It's entirely possible that the author of the article mistook Yuu for being male because of precedent. The very first arc, Heartslabyul, featured a boy Yuu. The most recent arc, Octavinelle, also featured a boy Yuu too. The only arc with a girl Yuu, Savanaclaw, is stuck in the middle of the two boy Yuus which makes it more psychologically difficult to notice in a pattern.

It is also possible that the author Google translated the Amazon Japan pre-order listing for the first volume of Scarabia, If fed into Google Translate, the manga synopsis will refer to Yuu by masculine pronouns by default even though the original Japanese text uses NO gendered pronouns. This is entirely possible to do in Japanese--but it's not in English, so the machine most likely inserted he/him pronouns to make the translation make sense in English. In this case, he/him refers to the gender neutral he/him, since a non-human doesn't know how to use they/them in the place of he/him.

Side note: I understand the desire for a femme Yuu--especially seeing as much of the fandom is composed of women. But also??? Some of the comments I’ve seen seem really disappointed or even outright hateful towards the mere possibility of a male Yuu, and that saddens me 💦💦 Like... I understand that people are hype for more femme Yuu representation. Many Twst fans are femme and see themselves in Yuu or have femme Yuusonas. I would never want to detract from that excitement--however, that doesn't make it okay to dismiss male Yuus as a whole. Think about what that says to masculine and/or nonbinary Twst fans or those with masc/nb Yuusonas. It makes them feel alienated and unwelcome :/

With this in mind, let's please be more mindful of how we're phrasing our thoughts regarding Yuu(s) and their genders.

[dunmeshistash]

in regards to skin tone variation in DM, i do think a lot of it is colorism/racism too. theres a few characters of color, but not many (just like how theres some fatter characters, but none of them are main characters (even senshi & other dwarves arent really depicted as fat)).

ryoko kui has surface representation for these people, but it lacks much substance, and the brown characters she does draw arent given brown facial features, and are almost always colored with very ashy skin. a lot of them just look like a recolored white person (especially cithis, kaka, & kiki). her random portraits of characters who dont actually appear in the series otherwise tend to be much better about this, but the actual characters that show up and play a part all seem to suffer from this issue.

im not saying kui is like, super-duper racist and we all need to stop reading DM etc etc, but i think its important to recognize and point out everyday/usually-overlooked colorism & racism when we see it, and i know im not the first or only person to point this out about her character designs. if she can draw fat people and actual brown people as part of the portraits, why cant she or wont she do the same for any of the featured characters in the series?

(i know the orcs are fat, but its not a good thing the only consistently fat people are the ones who are a fantasy race based off of violent racial stereotypes, who are also pig people, while none of the main cast of "real" humans are fat except *maybe* the dwarves, who still have small waists and flat stomachs, and the lord of the island, who is depicted as corrupt & decadent)

Well yeah.

I'm just a lore blog so I don't like to get too into real life issues or make assumptions about how the author feels about these subjects. What I talked about on the skin tone post was assumptions as to why she thought it would be important to show skin tone variations on certain races as a character design choice. (In the sense that her character design is very purposeful)

I realize some people over praise Kui's designs when most of it is pretty safe for what it is, but even if it's just a step closer to better representation it's something that's rare to see in anime. So I understand why some people get so excited about it.

It is important to realize this isn't the ideal either (Dark skinned characters with the same features as the others, mostly well build characters on the thinner side) but I personally don't like to criticize these type of stories on what it "could/should have been".

As someone who is fat and not white, I'm happy we get some diversity in dungeon meshi. I hope this opens up the possibility of better character design in the future even if what we got now wasn't perfect.

It shouldn't be the case that this piece of art filled me with so much joy I teared up cause I had never seen someone with a similar body to mine drawn with so much respect and objectivity. But unfortunately that's the world we live in and I don't think it's wrong to be happy for what we get for now while acknowledging it's not perfect and that it should be better.

I'm also super happy the anime chose to make the dark characters even darker.

[baphometsss]

We need to talk about spirit hand!Inquisitor

I've been trying to put this into words for a while but it's really tricky to explain. I'm gonna try anyway bc I feel like it's an important discussion to have

First though, a disclaimer: I'm not physically disabled. Everything I'm about to say is based on me trying to relate through my own experiences of mental illness, the experiences of a disabled family member who uses a prosthetic leg, and research into how to write disabled characters properly in my own personal projects (thanks to cripplecharacters blog for helping me understand it better!) So, you know, you can take it or leave it--and please feel free to add your own experiences! This isn't a call out post or anything, I'm just trying to put my thoughts into words and start a conversation in good faith

The problem with fanworks where the inquisitor's wooden prosthetic is replaced by a magic/spirit hand is that it falls into a really tiresome trope where the character has the limb replaced with a magical prosthetic that essentially nixes the disability entirely. It's called the Cool Robot Arm or Perfect Prosthetic trope and it plays into disability erasure in a big way. This is pretty frustrating when you know having a limb amputated is a big deal that comes with a lot of pain and long-term effects, even if the amputation procedure itself was free of complications. Prosthetics are also basically a whole thing of their own, but suffice to say they also come with their risks and problems as well.

The thing with representation is that it needs to reflect real life experiences if its going to approach anything good or meaningful. Video games like Dragon Age often attempt to do this, but they also often miss the mark. I know a lot of disabled (and able-bodied) people want to see better representation of disability in media, but when that fails, we have the opportunity to do better in our fanworks. It feels like a lot DAI/DATV fanworks jump into the magical prosthetic trope far too easily and without very much thought for how it negatively impacts that representation. The Inquisitor becomes disabled through losing their left hand, and that would be a complicated journey for them. This is not a part of their character that can be written away without losing a huge part of their story--regardless of how we role-play them.

For me personally, I try to balance it out by being realistic about both the prosthetic, the spirit hand, and the remaining limb. For example, prosthetics rub and cause blisters and other skin conditions. They can be bulky and heavy and cause musculoskeletal problems. Residual limb pain is thing and can be chronic and debilitating. Learning to use a prosthetic usually requires physical therapy, and some people just prefer not to use prosthetics at all, or only some of the time or for specific tasks. Much of the discourse around prosthetics is focused on making them indistinguishable from a natural limb, when practicality and comfort should really be the focus and not this ableist idea that differently limbed people should want a prosthetic that looks identical to the one that was lost. There are so many potential stories that can be written about this experience, yet we almost never see any of them. My mage Inquisitor has a spirit hand, but she doesn't use it much because it's difficult to maintain both that and use offensive magic in battle, and she doesn't have the mental energy to use it 100% of the time. It's also not that easy to use, even when she does have the energy. She only really uses it occasionally anyway (usually to make random shapes with it to amuse other people) and prefers her prosthetic.

To put it another way--consider how deaf/HoH people who get cochlear implants often continue to use sign language afterwards anyway, even if the procedure was successful. This is because a. it's their first language, which means verbal language is a new language to them and b. gaining hearing after a long period without it can be extremely difficult to adjust to. It can be overwhelming and even painful. The point is that just because aids and treatments exist, it doesn't mean that they're a one size fits all and each individual person will have their own journey in figuring it out. That's one of the things we should be writing about, rather than just nixing it away with a magic limb because it's the easier route and it doesn't require us to consider writing outside of our own experiences. And don't get me wrong, I get that it's scary. You don't wanna upset people with your writing or make them feel even more alienated. But you have to start somewhere and be willing to listen to criticism if you're going to get better.

Furthermore: ableism for sure exists in Thedas. Can you imagine how that would affect the Inquisitor? How they'd adjust from being revered as the Herald of Andraste with a divine mark on their hand to being almost killed by it? How their political enemies would use their disability against them? How they would be affected emotionally by having to deal with that ableism potentially for the first time? Would they find community among other veterans who have become disabled through conflict? Or would they isolate themselves and carry the burden alone? Would they experience mental health issues because of it? These are all examples of how ableism affects real people. Of course, none of this is negated by the spirit hand, but it's something I've seen very little attention given in fanworks.

For me personally, I also try to think of this through my own experiences of mental illness. I have chronic depression/Dysthymia, which is not exactly the same as clinical depression. It follows similar patterns to other mood disorders like Bipolar Disorder in that it's cyclical; my baseline is being moderately depressed, and then every 2 or 3 months I will go into 'double depression' which is where I experience an intensification of symptoms that mimic going into an initial depressed state, while aggravating the symptoms I already have. It's hard to explain it, but suffice to say, it requires me to take medication to control it. I don't like it, but it's the way my brain is wired up and I've been told by multiple professionals that I will always have to take medication for it (antidepressants and antipsychotics, although I don't take the antipsychotics atm). This medication causes a variety of annoying side effects that I have to accept as a trade off so I don't regress too far.

This is just one of the mental health conditions I have to contend with, but it's one that probably effects my life the most. I know it's not comparable to amputation or other physical disabilities and I'm not trying to say it is. But I use it to understand writing for disabled characters by, in conjunction with my research, empathising, by thinking of how much it would bother me if someone wrote about my life and did everything they could to ignore this very prominent part of who I am. I would have to ask why they were so keen to ignore it. Dysthymia doesn't define me, it's not something I'm 'proud' of per se, but it does affect a big part of my life; I've struggled with it every day since I was 10 or 11--so of course it's shaped who I am. I use it to imagine how frustrating it would be if someone tried to cover up or negate this part of me and then dressed it up with something like... idk. Magical anti-depression goggles or something, or worse still decided to make my story all about the goggles. It would make me feel like I wasn't a person with experiences worth writing about, that I would be fine if it weren't for this illness I undeniably have and can't help having. That my illness is akin to a personality flaw--an ableist assumption that Dysthymia sufferers in particular have to deal with, because it's a depression that does not go away and people think it's just our personality rather than an illness.

I personally found these posts x x x really helpful in figuring out how to write my inquisitor. Tbh cripplecharacters is invaluable anyway, especially their 'magic aids' tag for writing Inky. I really strongly recommend that you read them before writing about your inquisitor's prosthetic and their perspective on losing their arm. Listening to actual disabled people when writing disabled characters is the most important part of the process and it'll only make your work better. You really have nothing to lose by doing it.

Like I said, I'm not trying to call anyone out. I have most likely missed the mark just in writing this post, because it's not my personal experience. I do think the spirit hand is a cool concept. It's just not a quick fix and writing about it needs to be done more consciously than I think most people do.

[coolryptid]

Hey, so there’s a few posts like this going around. While I have no problem with people headcanoning Gangle with comorbidities like bpd or autism, you are engaging with ableism if you try to say Gangle isn’t bipolar. You are erasing canonical bipolar representation.

Comparing bpd to “being mostly the same with faster mood swings” than bipolar is a gross misrepresentation of both disorders, and you are doing everyone a disservice by keeping this post with misinformation up.

Impulsivity and heightened emotions are about where the similarities between bpd and bd end.

Borderline personality disorder stems from childhood trauma and a history of abuse. The intense emotions that come from this disorder are primarily triggered by relationships and identity issues from experiencing hurt in the past - euphoria from having a close friendship, explosive anger at being wronged, fear of abandonment, etc. It’s a disorder that stems from thought patterns and is possible to improve with therapy.

Bipolar disorder is a genetic mood disorder that progresses if untreated over time. The moods are not a “build up of things”, they are chemical and happen at random or can be substance induced. In this episode, the mania is induced by the mask which acts as a metaphor for medication. Bipolar comes with a spectrum of experiences, and some would contribute to faster “mood swings”, like rapid cycling.

The emotional dysregulation from bipolar disorder is related to energy levels. Depression is a feeling of low energy and isn’t necessarily always accompanied by sadness. It can look like dulled emotions, social isolation, moving and talking slower, etc. Hypomania and mania are periods of elevated energy. Racing thoughts, restlessness, animated expression - but the emotions in a manic episode aren’t necessarily always one emotion or being too “happy”. You can be sad in a manic episode, you can be angry, euphoric, paranoid, anxious, and most often irritable. A lot of people get mixed episodes, where you can be simultaneously depressed and restless! All the emotions that Gangle is experiencing with the happy mask is part of a consistent period of elevated energy. Saying an episode only has 1 constant emotion contributes to bipolar stereotypes that aren’t true.

Comparing euphoria in bpd to bipolar hypo/mania isn’t really accurate. People who have both will usually tell you as much that these disorders are completely different.

Gangle’s statement of having a manic episode canonizes her as bipolar. Only bipolar people naturally experience mania, with the exception of people who experience drug induced mania. People compare the experience of bipolar mania to being on *methamphetamines*. The animated expressiveness we see from Gangle, the pressured speech, having enough energy for the whole team, irritability at her employees, extreme anxiety align with mania. You could argue that yeah, medically hypomania and mania have to last a few days, but this is a show where we don’t know how much time has passed and they have one episode to cover this adventure. We also don’t know how much more we will see from Gangle’s struggle yet, we’re only 4 episodes in.

Having this post up with misinformation is harmful to people who might be questioning bpd or bipolar, and either disorder being misdiagnosed is extremely dangerous. The OP of this post has also silenced any criticism from bipolar people by blocking them, which is why I’m making this post.

If you are in this fandom, please be wary of engaging with bipolar erasure and listen to bipolar people on the matter.

[grouper]

thinking about the implications of THIS THING

long post, just exploring the question of what changes turbo made to his own code to become king candy.

in this scene, king candy moves the "medal" asset from the trophy pot to his own node. when he does so, it materializes and appears around his neck.

if that implies that every asset within his node acts upon his code in some way, we can quantify the changes he's made. each asset represents a change. over 15 years, he's accumulated this many modifications, integrated this many assets into his own code. since the "medal" asset's symbol associates directly with the physical medal object, it can be assumed that each symbol also accounts for a physical object*.

in this close up, we're offered a glimpse into what assets he's integrated into his node. we see:

assorted candy symbols. visible in the image are jawbreakers, wafer cookies, pastries, candy canes, cookies, ice cream cones, lollipops, chocolate chip cookies, and slices of cake. not going to attempt to count these, as i believe they function as space filler on the part of the animators. attention to detail can only go so far, even in a wonderfully detailed movie like WIR. conversely, we could interpret the assorted candy symbols as Turbo filling his node with random junk. you decide!

NINE cups. they are of course stylized and simplified, but their distinctive shape belongs to glasses used for brandy, sherry, or liqueur. out of all the symbols in the image, they occur most often. their placement close to the action front and center in the frame further highlights their importance. Alcoholic!Turbo is canon!

four symbols (demarcated with a question mark),which look like.... puppies. four visible here. the animators decided he needed 4 puppies.

and 2 race cart symbols (circled). pretty self explanatory, but still a cool and thoughtful addition. it would make sense that he'd want multiple race carts!

*it isn't depicted here, but i'd assume some of the assets would also have to do with his physical appearance, since each node is supposed to be a representation of the raw data of the game. not to mention, the "medal" node was not originally from Sugar Rush, it was from Hero's Duty. that means external assets can be integrated into his node. it's also explained in the movie that things like programmed memories can be affected by modifying nodes. altogether, we are given the sense that pretty much anything can be changed or added via the game's code.

what else did turbo add to his program? what did he change? what did he lose?

[tanadrin]

Honestly, I *don't* want to mix things with proportional representation. I see proportional representation as an excellent way of increasing the importance of dealings between politicians and reducing the incentive effects of the voters. But in my ideal world I'll need to negotiate with people who do like proportional representation, and this system is a compromise I could get behind. Plus you can plug and play any three different electoral systems for different compromises.

First past the post is a bad, undemocratic electoral system. First past the post privileges large parties by making small ones unviable, and distorts the composition of parliaments by wasting votes. It can be gerrymandered in a way proportional representation cannot be. It produces highly unrepresentative outcomes. It is a bad electoral system! All good voting systems are to some degree inclined to more proportional results.

I've never heard the accusation that PR "increases the importance of dealings between politicians," but look. I don't know how else to put this. That is a stupid objection. Just absolutely boneheaded. You haven't thought about this at all, I reckon.

People hate on "politicians" as a generic class, but it's like hating on lawyers as a generic class. You need politicians. You want politicians. You want people whose specialized job it is to read legislation, fight about what should go in it, represent your interests, and come to balanced compromises about those interests. People percieve politics as messy, venal, and corrupt, and it can be all those things, but guess what? The alternative to career politicians is part-time citizens who don't know what the fuck they're doing, have no expertise in the legislative process, and therefore are at the mercy of lobbyists who can walk them like a dog because they're naive and inexperienced.

There's this especially (but not exclusively) American pathology that is a suspicion of government that works too well. This peculiar notion that if only we sabotage government a little bit it will keep tyranny in check and make politicians more honest... somehow. But filling government with random yahoos doesn't get you a noble collegium of Tocquevillian citizen-lawmakers, it gets you a pack of Marjorie Taylor Greens and Lauren Boberts. You know--morons. Americans will support all these ballot initiatives that fuck up government on purpose, like term-limiting legislators and keeping their salaries low so only rich people can afford to go into politics (and even then are only willing to do it as a stepping stone to other gigs), and vote for people who promise to make government work even worse by cutting the budget and lowering taxes, and then have the absolute gall to whine about how badly the government works. My fellow Americans, you did that on purpose.

(And there's this weird paradox where Americans all loathe Congress. Who keeps voting these creeps in? Well. You do. Congresscritters are generally pretty highly approved of by their own constituents. The stereotype of lazy, stupid, venal politicians always seems to apply to the other guys.)

And you will also note that since the abolition of things that used to facilitate deals between politicians in the U.S. congress--since the abolition of earmarks and chummy socials between congressmen and the post--generally, since the post-Gingrich upheaval in the House--it has gotten harder to pass even necessary, basic legislation, because it is harder to make the basic compromises necessary to keep government functioning. Having three separate legislatures that each can claim a different sort of democratic mandate isn't a recipe for good legislation, it's a recipe for paralysis and constitutional crisis.