#and people may want an alt!!!

[quinngefail]

All pieces together~

[57sfinest]

i wanted to look at the symbolism of the ocean in disco elysium because it features so prominently in the setting. insulinde being an isola comprised of islands, martinaise as a port town financially anchored by its ocean trade. the divisions brought by water that we see in the geography: how the canal separates the working district of martinaise from the even poorer, commerce-less village-- how the river esperance separates the worst ghettos of revachol and jamrock from the more rebuilt and financially stable districts-- how, for example, lilienne looks across the bay of revachol to the wealthy district of la delta, a poignant moment of separation between someone desperately poor and the towers of wealth built out of the ruins of revachol. we see water, and often the sea specifically, acting as a divider in various contexts. 

the ocean of time and distance that separates dora and harry, that separates klaasje from oranje:

then, further into the idea of the ocean as representative of time: in various contexts i see the ocean as representing the past. memory residing under the waves, and each of us living above water-- in the present-- but often still helpless to the tides when we’re not careful. to me this is cemented by the implication that the pale is commonly theorized as an *outer ocean* (juxtaposed with harry’s introspective skill, inland empire!!): the pale is the past, and if the pale is seen as an outer ocean, then right there is a tangible connection between the two. memory and the past as an ocean, dangerous if you don’t respect its power, but ultimately navigable. there is frequent reference made to the fact that the bombed ruins of martinaise are sinking or lost into the ocean, lost to the past, now only memory. 

and harry, who is living in the past and being consumed by nostalgia like a rot, drives his car into the ocean. harry’s badge, which is conflated with his identity in the aftermath of his amnesia, was underwater before he pulled it from the car: until he got it, his entire identity was lost with his memory in the past. klaasje’s documents, too, presumed lost to the ocean, a loss of who she was or claimed to be (until you meet the phasmid). lilienne’s husband was lost to the waves, and in the same lines she’ll dismiss your concerns-- he’s in the past now, she’s really not too upset. the cleaning lady, abandoned by the world, who has only her own memories for company in her sea-beaten room. in the context of ruby’s near-suicide in the shack, how inland specifies how the “waves had calmed” as she put the gun away: ruby distancing herself from the past that she thinks is chasing her to form a better plan. the working-class husband, who, had his corpse fallen through the boardwalk into the ocean, would have been lost to the past, living only in the memory of billie and their daughters.

for me, the final dream had some of the heaviest but most subtle inclusions of the ocean symbolism. it’s brought on by looking into the ocean around the seafort and takes place under the ocean somewhere. even before the dream, dora is alluded to in the context of the sea. she moved across the ocean and now, to him, she’s lost under it. she’s trapped in his memory.

where we see things half-submerged or partially oceanic, we see a bridge between the past and the present being represented. something partially lost to the past but still with a foot in the here and now. harry’s half-sunken car, in part a representation of his career: part of his past, yes, but still very much in his present. one of the primary spiritual practices we hear of is the volta do mar: originally a palefarer’s practice to keep them grounded in an onslaught by the past, and its meaning is *return from the sea*. when harry tries to turn back time, he wants to go back to a time when the sun had not yet sunk into the sea-- when the light in his life didn’t reside solely in the past.

also in this context, something that really struck me was how harry will sometimes think of himself in the context of the sea. first is the sea monster thought, brought about by the broken plaza: him as a creature submerged in the past, terrorizing the present. and seafaring brought up to represent a kind of compromise between living in the present and acknowledging the draw of nostalgia. even joyce in her limited knowledge of harry compares him to a “half-submerged ruin”. and when harry is prompted into introspection by the dros predicament, inland empire becomes the *inland sea*.

and i really want to make a final, individual point of this. the whirling-in-rags music is sea power’s song “fire escape in the sea”. there is an explicit reference made to the song by shivers as well, and i think the choice of this song is very intentional. the whirling-in-rags is where harry forgot his whole life, the whole world, and it’s where he wakes up and begins to piece it all back together. the whirling-in-rags is harry’s fire escape in the sea. his bridge between his past and his present, his last-ditch attempt at escape from the tortures of his subconscious. 

(this is by no means exhaustive, there are a lot of other moments where the sea comes in, but i included the moments that spoke to me most. you’re welcome to add your own!)

[vaugarde]

looks from side to side........... are pregnancy jokes ok yet

[cr0wc0rpse]

Happy pride month. Here are selfies from last night when I went to the goth club. Many goth trans and gay people to be found in the club

[figbian]

wip wednesday dump!!!

small dunmeshi thing im playing around w to Kill Writer's Block:

ingrid fic:

frat au sylvix fic:

fences (i havent forgotten Her):

[parallelunivrses]

it was recently announced that Billie Piper is going to be at Gallifrey One in February, and that made me really want to paint some Rose-themed art! these will be available at the art auction at the convention

if you are interested in commissioning a space-themed art piece, feel free to reach out! I also paint on denim clothing (which you can see a sample of in this post)

[benchtrioupdates]

Tommy posted on Twitter!

[autumn-may]

Sora (Character Bingo)

I am the number one “sora follows in the path of xehanort and baldr, subconsciously using a character highly associated with light he is close to as a way to defend against the heightened darkness he can feel, and almost losing himself to it” enjoyer

[axvwriter]

Twst En August 2024 server news

Early August we have SSR Rollo appearing?! His banner will have a separate pull counter to the rest of the event banners. So you either pull for him or you do not.

I’m surprised, I thought we’d have to wait until the next halloween- well I guess it is August and the newest halloween event should be the Pinocchio donkey island, so I suppose now would be the time to rerun previous halloween events so there’s time for the new one during actual halloween time.

Late August we will get SSR Spelldrive/club outfit Ruggie.

We also have Ortho and Riddle’s birthdays this month.

There’s also the Joint Exams and later an anime expo thing. I suggest making sure to open the game at least once every day of this anime thing as there’s usually free login gifts.

Would people like little post updates about what’s coming on the English server for Twisted Wonderland? I recall at least one person telling me that they don’t read the in-game upcoming notices. I can also give updates on the day that there’s a weekly login gift thing going on? Since I don’t know when it’ll start until it starts.

I have also noticed hype for what’s coming for the Japanese server, but not really anyone acknowledging the English server is getting Rollo very soon?! Like yooo burn everything to the ground freakishly tall boi who gives off small gremlin vibes

Would anyone like to be tagged for this?

@officialdaydreamer00 @daedalusslabyrinth @identity-theft-101

Sorry for tagging, but I would like to hear your thoughts on this? Also would any of you like to exchange Twst Ids in dms so we can add each other as friends? I have Malleus Dorm as my support card since I think he could potentially be the strongest card?

Screenshots from in-game about news

[kinnoth]

I like everybody else terminally online watched the plagiarism video this weekend

And maybe I'm just coming at this from a perspective of someone who was not exposed to j som before he got exposed but like Jesus fuck what the shit

Plagiarism notwithstanding, that man makes some bogus ass, shit ass claims that on a very basic level just do not pass a sniff test by anyone who knows even a little bit about anything

I mean, the man waxes on longingly about the beautiful aryan nazi bodies to serve the conclusion that US troops volunteered for service to.....prove that it wasn't just the nazis who had perfectly sculpted hairless asses? Is that like......even something anyone thinks smells a little bit true? Like on a basic motivational level, for a nation, for a people, for a single person?

Making claims that the Roman empire was 70% slaves and 30% patricians.........does that even sound correct? Like, even if all you know about ancient Rome is from memes and shit, where are the plebs? You know, the thing we still call people today, when they're acting common and unwashed

The thing about how no songs prior to 1956 made references to kissing....I mean guys.....

And like ......not to like.... But like ..... The man has the charisma of a slow growing fungus. Granted I've only ever seen clips bc by the time I got there, he'd nuked his channel, but like.... I've heard AI voices reading tiktok subtitles inject more urgency and personality into text. J som reads text like he not only doesn't know what he's saying, he doesn't know any of the individual words and how they interact with one another. Like who voluntarily listens to this boring dumbass badly read from a script that has no coherent style tying it together?

Like I know people are gagging for gay rep but fuckin seriously, not only is he a plagiarizing douche who makes shit up wholecloth, he's not even a decent entertainer

Is this what y'all are settling for? Is the bar really that fuckin low?

[whatudottu]

My own personal idea regarding how Blitzwing got his different faceplates: one of the more…shall we say, “eccentric” scientists working on the Triple Changer project saw Blitzwing developing his alters as a result the trauma he experienced along with the mental strain of becoming a Triple Changer, went “Hey Ferb, I know what we’re gonna do today”, asked each fronting alter to draw how they saw themselves, and basically forced Blitzwing to undergo a second surgery to give each one their own face just to see what would happen if a system was given the ability to switch near-instantaneously. Needless to say, things didn’t go nearly as well as what they had originally anticipated.

Blitzwing thought being asked about his alters would've made their experience go on an upswing but unfortunately it was Surgery 2: Electric Boogaloo 😔, and that was only the fronting alters- The system would have very good reasons not to trust anyone with a medical or science degree...

I also see that 'each fronting alter' you wrote and I also like to imagine that Icy, the presumed original Blitzwing due to his preference for a jet mode, is also an alter but one that acts as either 'host' or otherwise 'the face that identifies the closest with the designation Blitzwing'. Like- the original Blitzwing is an alt in the same way a little is for an a) childless species and b) a DID-like dissociative disorder occuring due to triple changer coding plus abuse; an original frame alter who doesn't front (or is gatekept from fronting) because by proxy of being pre-BETC, being completely fucking rebuilt not once but twice will NOT go too well for his mental health.

Certainly a little more logical than 'triple changers transform new faces without intervention', and this little explanation fits with the TFA Autobot's ideology of 'you are cog in the great [Autobot] machine'; labeling your little cogs and gears goes a long way to making them 'function'.

[khaoticqueer]

i love dressing alt but i hate standing out. this is forever my curse

[dearest-meat-mutt]

Holding myself back from flying off the handle at a friend bc they said wearing white to a wedding would be a very me thing to do, WHAT DOES THAT MEAN-

[safyresky]

assigned scary spice at lunch by the work friends

[considernature]

EEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEE EEEEEEE

That's right! It's International Bat Appreciation Day! We share our planet with over 1400 species of bat, making the second most abundant mammal order, and they perform a wide variety of ecological roles, from dispersing seeds to pollinating flowers to eating thousands of insects in a single night! Over 200 bat species are listed as Threatened by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature--that is over 14 percent of all bats!

YOU can help endangered bats today by donating to Pennsylvania Bat Rescue at this link. This PA-based organization rehabilitates sick or injured bats and helps educate people like you and me in how we can create more bat-friendly environments.

If you want to learn about particularly-cool bat species native to New Zealand, check out this Consider Nature article on the Pekapeka, the bat that walks:

For the rest of the day, Consider Nature will be bat-bombing Tumblr with some of our favorite bat species to share them with the world!

Alt text: a small brown bat stretching its wings with the kind of fabulous flourish that would impress Ryan Evans.

[katy-l-wood]

Wildfire Preparedness Day 2024

(Alt text included within image.)

May 4th is not just Star Wars day, it's also Wildfire Preparedness day! So what better time to finally share my new preparedness poster?

One thing I hear a lot when discussing wildfire preparedness is that people want to protect their most treasured items, so they have them pre-packed to make them easy to grab in the event of an emergency. I've always found this kind of sad. Understandable! But sad. You shouldn't have to hide away the things you love.

Which is where the concept of a preparedness shelf comes in. The idea here is to keep all your evacuation based stuff AND your "save first" items in one spot where they can be displayed instead of hidden away, but still easily grabbed and evacuated.

This has several advantages. For one, you don't have to hide away the things you love but they will still be easy to access in one central spot. For two, if you are not home at the time of evacuation and someone else is (maybe a partner, or your neighbor, or an older child) and they call you and ask what you want them to grab, you do not have to direct them all over your house, just to one central location.

As always, use your best judgement about the hazards in your area and what works for you.

If you are in the U.S.A. and experiencing disaster related anxiety, call the Disaster Distress Hotline at 1-800-985-5990 for support and resources.

If you would like a print of this poster, you can get the high quality digital file on my website for $3, and discounted rates are available if you would like to purchase the right to make more prints! You can get files of the evacuation prep poster the same way!