#and ready to have Opinions

[dull-c]

[solarpunkani]

Hot 4am take but I feel like if we want to get people more interested in making their yards a more habitable space for wildlife like insects, we have to acknowledge that ‘Don’t want bugs in your house’ is still a 100% fair and valid point of view. ‘Loves nature’ and ‘doesn’t want roaches spiders and mosquitoes in the house’ aren’t opposites.

And with that in mind, when we propose to people that spraying pesticides around houses is Not A Good Idea, Actually, I feel like we need to give an alternative asides from ‘deal with it.’

[hijinxinprogress]

Whenever the JL starts complaining about YJs public image YJ just straight up gaslights them

[oatmealcrisp-freak]

"shipping saiki is aphobic because he's aroace!"

stares at you with my demiromantic asexual in a committed relationship eyes then looks at the camera like im in the office

[javelinbk]

George Harrison and Dusty Springfield during rehearsals for their first appearance on Ready, Steady, Go!, 4th October 1963. Part 6 (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10)

[sskk-manifesto]

Bungou Stray Dogs: Dead Apple and how “ability users” (opposite to “normal people”) learning to accept themselves through the acceptance of their own abilities is a queer metaphor of acceptance of own's sexual orientation and gender: an essay by me

[fantomette22]

Pretty accurate Bloodborne fandom discourse experience on Tumblr lmao

[puppyeared]

i feel like im not making any sense but does anyone else feel like there are stories that let u run with them and ones that spell everything out for you

[hella1975]

would you like to talk about how bad the mha ending was hella

as much as i would love to give like. a comprehensive response i genuinely dont think i can get my words together just yet without it being a constant unintelligble stream of 'AND ANOTHER THING-' and bc it's become quite torn in the fandom on if the chapter was good or bad i want like. an actual coherent response here. so i will reblog this if/when i can word it but know IM NOT FUCKING HAPPY

[trashyvanillabean]

So, not gonna lie, I do have a few gripes with how the writers handled Taoran. (Image below taken from the fan wiki.)

NOTE: IF YOU HAVEN’T PLAYED/ARE STILL PLAYING 2.5, BEWARE THE SPOILERS!

His first “appearance” (just his voice) was in the Myriad Celestia Trailer: “History of the Xianzhou: Exodus of the Five Dragons.” Anything else so far (because there might be things that I personally missed) comes from the “Preceptor Assembly Chronicle Fragment” readable, which has him and Preceptor Fenghuan accusing Preceptor Xuepu of attempting to replace the High Elder system with the council of Preceptors (basically accusing her of being power-hungry, which is rather hypocritical as some of us will have undoubtedly noted come version 2.5).

The problem with Taoran’s introduction is that, unless players have tried to dig into the lore, this is probably their first time ever seeing, hearing and/or reading about him; so, what small amount of time he has on screen is most likely going to be somewhat lukewarm and have players asking, “Who the fork is this handsome muddlefudger?????” (Not even gonna hide this under a strikethrough: his design is 🔥 but it’s wasted on this lame old man. 🙂‍↕️ No one even points out his horns, unless that turns out to be common among the Preceptors rather than just the High Elders. <- It’s been a while, I can’t remember this part more accurately.)

And while I greatly enjoyed watching Dan Heng get as close to making this guy some kinda piscine-reptile kebab as he might be willing to…Taoran’s first physical introduction is otherwise slightly lukewarm. What little buildup we have comes from Lingsha, Jing Yuan and Dan Heng carrying out their investigations in the Shackling Prison. After that, he’s only given one scene confessing right out of the gate to colluding with Sanctus Medicus and aiding the borisin in freeing Hoolay, throwing out excuses that it’s all to preserve the Vidyadhara from extinction, and trying to hide behind Bailu and the oath between the Vidyadhara with the Xianzhou Alliance to not harm any Vidyadhara on their territory (which should honestly be rendered null in the event where the Vidyadhara in question is a criminal, and could potentially be evading arrest, like what the fudge).

I think it would have gone better if Taoran was introduced much earlier when we first arrived at the Luofu during or after version 1.0, like during the main trailblaze mission when we visit the Alchemy Commission and Scalegorge Waterscape, or during Dan Heng, Bailu or Jingliu’s companion missions. Either set him up as an ally at first, and then have us finding clues and be warned by a few people (Qingzu, Fu Xuan, or Jing Yuan himself <- just tossing Jing Yuan in here as just an example) to not trust Taoran and the Preceptors. Or, have him try to stop us from reaching Scalegorge, and that’s unfortunately where that idea stops because I can’t think of anything else. Sorry. 😅

One thing I liked was the “boss fight” that followed, but that actually felt a bit worse than his introduction…? Like, again, lukewarm, but definitely more like tap-water-that-hasn’t-really-been-boiled-long-enough lukewarm. 😅 (Or maybe my team comp was just that strong enough to bring him and his mooks down in a few hits.) Even the confrontation with him before that fight didn’t feel threatening at all, just…pretty annoying, like having to sit in a really boring lecture in a classroom.

Even Skott’s mechs put up more of a fight, and Skott himself riled me up much more just by opening his mouth. (Note: I was listening to Skott’s English voice, and I think they did a great job of making him obnoxious.)

Taoran was just all pretentious “blah blah blah.”

I’m suddenly reminded of that one post comparing Taoran to the Abundant Ebon Deer, and some people might think I’m crazy for thinking this, but I just… *heavy sighs* I feel like the writers really wasted potential for an interesting villain and following up with a stronger boss fight (even if I hate fighting that darn deer). 😞

Oh well, at least we got to enjoy Dan Heng in the spotlight~ 🥰

@artheresy tagging you in this for funsies. 👀

I’ll also put screenshots of that readable I mentioned under here and the map location, in case anyone wants to read it immediately before searching for it on their own.

[meadow-mellow]

Was no one going to tell me how Magneto has an actual Hero/Good Guy moment in TAS?!

[somegrumpynerd]

Time for a new toy!

Cat toy won by a pretty good margin, so tomorrow there will be a little novelty cat toy in the garden!

So that means...

("Nothing" option will still attract a cat)

[commsroom]

silly question for you: what would Eiffel think of deep dish pizza?

my instinct is to say he enjoys eating it, but he will still argue it's not "real" pizza. i think he kinda just likes feuding over pointless things, though, in the same way he's eager to defend the honor of pineapple on pizza. he wouldn't say that, for example, a pizza with a hot dog stuffed crust isn't a "real pizza"...

^ not directly relevant, but evidence of his regional pizza bias.

[etirabys]

occasionally I get a metaphorical voice in my head saying, "I notice this scary thing will be exhilarating and open up new areas of the world map for you (sometimes literally). you should do it"

these calls are not about boring-aversive tasks but adrenalinefear-aversive tasks, since adrenaline provides propulsion and repulsion towards the aversive thing in a way boredom cannot. I ignore these calls more often than not. when I do go through with them, my world map indeed expands, since the calls are about things that are almost unthinkable. so, once I do them, I feel more range of existential motion

anyway, usually these things are intuitively scary, like partner dancing (from a starting point of being pretty uncomfortable touching strangers), defending an unpopular opinion, hosting a naked event on short notice, or trying mediation on short notice with a blogger I stumbled into beef with

but the latest thing is... D&D

I tried it twice in the past 6 years and gave up within 2 hours both times. this was fine until about a few months ago, when I (1) asked myself what single activity would directly strengthen the writing muscle I'm weakest in, (2) received "D&D" as an answer from my brain, (3) noticed I was actually scared of the thought

which automatically popped up a NEW QUEST modal in my brain, which is so so so annoying. it's ignoble... it's not glorious to overcome one's fear of commitment to a weekly RPG with friends... it's lame as hell to be in that position in fact...

[psybrepunk]

Sometimes I like to remember back in 2020 when I fell HARD for Nick Valentine and was reading every NSFW fic I could find and anyways there was this one smut one-shot where Sole undoes Nick's trousers and he's got an LED LIGHTED CYBERDICK and I've just never really gotten over the shock and mental image of that