#anyway I just want to know xD

[fortune-maiden]

Thank you Bridon Ep 4 for answering a question I had just thought of at the start of the episode

If CXS dives into the body of an English speaker, would he be able to speak/understand English himself?

[starshine-cal]

My brain off adderall: ugh work sucks when can I leave

My brain when properly medicated at work:

(I pinky promise this is my own tweet that’s why I blocked the username LOL)(also this post brought to you by every Jedi we know post-order falling getting into romantic relationships with seemingly very little conflicting feelings after living their whole lives with the orders teachings haha)(guy who was young padawan when the order fell: “but I can’t date people! Only the sith date people!” Skdkdkdl)

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2024: WELCOME TO YOUR WORLD: How the Built Environment Shapes Our Lives by Sarah Williams Goldhagen.

[hyog-blog]

Fangs of Fortune (ep. 1) [rewatch]

Oh god I couldn't help myself and started rewatching (a little :D) This rabbit hole just doesn't want to let go XD Eveyrone is flirting like there's no tomorrow and now I know it's not just my imagination running wild)))

One of the first scenes - when Zhao Yuanzhou comes to meet Zhuo Yichen, and he uses his magic to fix the plate with the name of the Demon Hunting Bureau because it's not hanging right - oh come on! D: It's such a giveaway that his character is not what it seems, but then the fight begins and we forget that ever happened XD (well at least I did).

Also, Wen Xiao is so obviously bi XD She flirts like she breathes)))

Zhao Yuanzhou is also flirting right from day one XD Putting some images into Zhuo Yichen's head already, ahah))) No whispering into our boy's ear before you do that marriage thing at the marriage stone, please)))

Aaand again, more flirting - this time with Wen Xiao XD The first episode really sets the tone for the whole show. But watching their meet-cute right now is so bittersweet since we know what's happened to her Shifu and their whole story that will unfold next.

Also, Zhuo Yichen is so stunningly beautiful right from the start - oof, he's breathtaking.

And also him - suddenly not knowing who he's supposed to protect :D His 'huh?' face is solid))

I love the juxtaposition of showing all three of them - lonely and separate and on their own. This is indeed the beginning of their journey together as they step into a different kind of relationship together (and become a throuple :D)

[pekoeboo]

I've been thinking about the Ravenwood RP and Melvin and Khalan's precious father/son dynamic again recently, so I felt like sketching a really rough height difference thing just because it was on the brain! ;o; the fact that Khalan is soooo much smaller than Mel gets my heart, man. I love them 😭💕

Melvin Darke belongs to @baskervilleshound. please do not repost. (reblogs are ok) also on deviantart

[thedeafprophet]

I do feel like part of the problem with fallen london's writing is that many christians and many cultural christians don't understand that it is in fact offputting to constantly have it assumed, forced upon you, and just the constant pervasiveness of the christian ideology acting like no other ideology exists. having the bible quoted to you in a game is not exactly fun? for a lot of people? and will severely turn off some of those who might otherwise enjoy the story?

this is specifically an issue in a roleplaying game, where you are playing as your own character, from your own pov, and the story acts as if there's only one background you could possibly be - as if there's only one view of text and story that matters. one story after the next, from the latest big story, to the latest ES, and even Mask of the rose's assumptions of the player character and the heavily church centered plot, it just keeps happening over and over again with the constant focus on christanity without any other even slight options.

in a game with a set protagonist this wouldnt be as big of a deal - or even one that straight up says theyre only writing for specific people, if that was admitted. I would just know from the get go not to play it. instead of this halfway point and wishy washy.

theres been some really great points of aknowledgment and feedback response, with the freehold and city in silver portion, but it seems any time a step forward is made, the game doubles down in its assumptions the next time around.

I don't know. maybe the game just isn't made for people like me. perhaps i've been unrealistic in what i want from it. perhaps im simply not what is wanted within the audience.

[mikimeiko]

The Hexgates

[secretmellowblog]

One thing I feel people almost always overlook about Javert is that:

The book’s narrator is usually harsh/sarcastic towards Javert, and that harshness is why his character has pathos. Javert is able to be sympathetic because Victor Hugo has basically no respect for his beliefs. Javert is so pitiable because Hugo mocks and drags him on basically every page he appears.

I’ve mentioned before that the message of Les Mis is (paraphrasing) that ACAB— Javert is the best police officer it is possible to be, and he is terrible, because the laws he enforces are terrible. His law & order ideology is terrible. Everything he believes is fundamentally wrong, and so deeply wrong that it deserves no respect.

Yes, Hugo acknowledges that Javert occasionally has a misguided kind of nobility— the nobility of holding yourself honestly to a set of bad rules, the nobility of following a terrible moral code even when it hurts you. But Hugo has no respect for Javert’s bigotry, or his bootlicking, or his deranged obsessive worship of law and order. Hugo portrays the way that Javert martyrs himself for his ideology as strangely honorable— but the ideology itself is mocked and condemned. Hugo thinks martyrdom is cool, but that Javert is martyring himself for a terrible cause.

In his most sympathetic moments, Javert’s worldview is portrayed as pitiable…. not a worldview that’s worthy of true total genuine respect, but a worldview that’s deeply pathetic in its wrongness.

Without himself suspecting the fact, Javert in his formidable happiness was to be pitied, as is every ignorant man who triumphs.

This is part of why those old 2012-era les mis fanfics always threw me off, if anyone remembers the fandom trends at the time. XD People used to write Valjean and pre-barricades Javert having political debates, as if the two of them could make arguments about law that were equally valid and worthy of respect, and pre-barricades Javert had a worthwhile set of beliefs that Valjean could learn from. But to me it’s personally kinda like, no XD. Nah. The whole thing about pre-barricades Javert is that he does not have any valid points to make. He has nothing resembling a point. He is “ignorant” and determined to stay that way because he literally believes that thinking is evil. He is a violent authoritarian whose worldview is just “mindless self-destructive bootlicking and bigotry.” I joked about it in a previous post but if we want a character who offers a genuinely meaningful counterpoint to Valjean’s philosophy, who could debate him on politics, and who could represent justice while Valjean represents mercy— that character is Enjolras, not Javert.

Valjean has a fascinating complicated relationship with law and politics and violence, but Javert is just a deeply pitiable brainwashed creature who martyrs himself for Wrong things.

Hugo pities Javert, but he does not treat Javert’s worldview --‘authority is always right, rigid social hierarchies must always be enforced, human life has no intrinsic value, the police must violently suppress any kind of crime or rebellion’— as something that deserves to be genuinely respected. It is not something that’s even worthy of debate. It is wrong, it is nonsense, it is an incoherent cruel self-contradicting ideology, and Javert only believes it because (to quote Hugo’s sarcastic narration) “thought was something to which he was unused.” (Or to be more charitable, Javert believes these terrible things because he was born inside a prison and has been brainwashed from birth into internalizing a cruel carceral view of the world.)

And I think Hugo generally does a good job of walking that tightrope — having pity for Javert without portraying Javert’s ideology as something worthy of genuine admiration. He sympathizes with how rigidly Javert holds himself to his own moral code, while condemning the moral code itself for being idiotic. He has empathy with Javert’s sincere self-destructive dedication to what he believes in, while pointing out the things he believes in are all stupid. He pities Javert’s martyrdom, while condemning the nonsense that Javert martyrs himself for.

One of my Top Ten Favorite Pathetic Javert Moments is this one, when Javert recognizes Marius’s body after the barricades:

A spy of the first quality, who had observed everything, listened to everything, and taken in everything, even when he thought that he was to die; who had played the spy even in his agony, and who, with his elbows leaning on the first step of the sepulchre, had taken notes.

Because Javert martyrs himself so earnestly for this terrible cause! He “takes notes” even when he believes he’s going to die and the notes cannot possibly be of any use to anyone, simply because taking notes is the thing he has been ordered to do. He’s so self-destructively dedicated to performing these useless pointless tasks because he believes there is real ~dignity~ to his mindless bootlicking— when there isn’t.

That’s why Javert’s emotional breakdown and suicide hit so hard for me, in a way that it wouldn’t if the narration was forgiving towards his stupid belief system. The contrast between Javert’s sheer pathetic terror and the often harsh/sarcastic narration is just….wild. It makes Javert sympathetic without making his awful ideology seem good, reasonable, or valuable. (And while this is only adjacent to the point I’m making- the harsh narration in Derailed also emphasizes the way Javert has been trained to view his own thoughts/emotions with contempt.) Javert is deeply pitiable/sympathetic without his ideology being framed as correct. And the whole tragedy of his character comes from the fact that he is utterly entirely wrong.

If I were to summarize the pathos of Javert, I wouldn’t say “he’s sympathetic because he’s a noble anti-hero with good strong morals who makes some valuable points about the importance of law” or w/e. I’d say that you can feel sorry for him because he’s a wretched brainwashed creature who’s never done anything right even though he wants to, and is deeply ridiculously pathetic without ever realizing it.

As Hugo puts it: “without himself suspecting the fact, Javert (…) was to be pitied.”

[knightkaito1412]

Omg, I can't believe my previous doodles had a lot of positive interactions with both reblogs and likes! 👀 That's insanely surreal to me! Seriously, thank you!!! 😭💚 So...

Here is the other page of Kafka doodles on my sketchbook! I included the whole spreadsheet of sketches cause it looked neater.

Anyway, I did some different expressions with his kaiju/human forms, and a few of them were definitely a pain to ink, lol. But because Kafka is soooo expressive, it's genuinely just a lot of fun, and it made me love this silly man more! 🤗

[after-nine-at-the-oasis]

Those of you who haven't watched BigB's Secret Life episode I am begging you to do so.

He lied the entire episode, about everything, for absolutely no reason. It was insane, and hilarious

[selemina]

To the person that said to check out Animation VS Minecraft : How dare you, and you were right. It's great!

[sinvulkt]

Please consider

Mini!warwick Jinx

When Jinx get saved from death by Singed in s1, instead of just injecting her with Shimmer, he actually transform her into a werwolf like Warwick, but younger (so you get Warwick and his cub :3.) Because that’s been a proven method to stop dying people from dying apparently.

Silco now has to care for two wolves now. Because this did successfully make Warwick wake up and Silco and him have things to chat about. Whenever he truly become himself again I mean, since that’s no garantee XD

Meanwhile Vi lurks around ~ and is probably gonna get very confused

[daily-ethoslab]

my bad for not adding skizz won't happen again

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2024: STARLING HOUSE by Alix E. Harrow.

Still in my Haunted House Era™, finished this one this afternoon, had a great time!! Harrow somehow always puts Just Enough of my personal catnip in her books, and I've really enjoyed everything of hers I've read so far (WITCHES, JANUARY, and now this, which was decidedly more modern--I'm a fan!).

Like with THE ONCE AND FUTURE WITCHES, I really enjoyed the sibling dynamics in STARLING HOUSE. Opal and Jasper were delightful, and the ONLY valid Miscommunication Plot Point is one-upping each other on [SPOILER REDACTED]--wholesome, perfect, no notes. I loved how sharp and vicious Opal was, and I loved how insufferable Arthur was, and I loved Jasper (who, me? having a soft spot for clever kind teenage boys?? whaaaat), and Bev, and the hellcat, and THE HOUSE!!! The House was great, I'm making so many NaNo prep notes over here.

I also enjoyed the parallels between Eleanor and Opal and how cyclic violence was emphasized through the circular framing. AND it was fun piecing together the whole manuscript's structure--definitely a break from, say, VanderMeer, or Le Guin, but I liked the footnotes and the offset fonts and figuring out who was telling which stories and Why It Was Framed Like That. Good book! Good time!! Do recommend!

[aroaceleovaldez]

emo Nico x scene Will Solace...