#at our current point

[enixamyram]

I once made an "Unpopular Opinion" post and a few responses were along the lines of; my opinions weren't actually that unpopular after all.

Now THIS opinion, I know is definitely gonna be unpopular. So... Be nice? XD

*Deep breath* Okay... I do not necessarily want it... But. I would be open to a redemption storyline for Valentino or the other Vee's.

HEAR ME OUT!

I personally, do believe in redemption. I believe that that, for example, people in prison should have a chance to be better and if someone truly wants to make up for the bad they have done (so long as they are doing it for unselfish reasons) then it is possible. Obviously, I do not believe everyone is capable of this and there are certain crimes that cannot be redeemed given our human lifespan is limited and I think time is an important factor in a redemption.

However, in a world like Helluva Boss where the sinners are immortal, if an evil character put in the genuine effort and time (I'm talking hundred and hundred, maybe even thousands of years)... I think it would be an interesting idea to play out. I'm not saying they should get a happy ending or anything, but the goal of a true redemption is not so you can have a better life (hence, my unselfish reasons comment earlier). It is to make up for past deeds for the sake of others.

Now, this is a very sensitive matter. So the writing would truly need to be top-notch for it to really work. I for one, would be one of the most critical of it because I am very critical of redemption storylines. I think there are a number of points that need to be hit for it to work but, in general, I think it would make an interesting thought.

Maybe even that could end up being what the Vee spinoff is about. The Vee's, the worst of the worst, trying to achieve what should be impossible for them. And raising the question, how hard does the worst person have to work before they can truly make up for all their evil?

[sotiredmostnights]

i know everyone likes to put tharja in the "yandere goth girl" category but tbh i feel like pigeonholing her into one specific archetype does a huge disservice to her character. is she obsessed with curses and robin? yes. is she constantly shoved into a fanservice role by intsys? absolutely.

but i think a lot of people forget just how impactful a lot of her supports are...there's something about tharja that makes nearly everyone who interacts with her divulge their deepest secrets and points of anxiety with her. we see this with libra, who tells her of the abandonment he endured at the hands of his parents. we see it with nowi, whose cheerful demeanor slips off as she tells tharja of her missing parents. and although tharja is not the only one lon'qu confides in regarding ke'ri, their support is notably the only one in which lon'qu divulges that there was romantic involvement between he and his childhood friend.

and despite her antisocial exterior, she always listens mindfully and offers to help! she even goes out of her way to discreetly help the shepherds (getting virion to do odd jobs that benefit civilians, interrogating henry to make sure he bears no ill will towards ylisse, etc).

a big thing about tharja is that she IS kind. she IS considerate. she just also has a reputation to uphold as a dark mage and that (paired with her overall awkwardness ofc) makes her true nature hard to see at first glance

[sophsicle]

"yeah but, communism doesn't work , we know that."

I totally understand where you're coming from, but that's American propaganda. not because i think communism necessarily does work - socialism absolutely does, and has, and can. but if you wanna talk about the breadlines in the Soviet Union than i want to talk about the lines outside food banks in major Canadian cities, I want to talk about our grocery bills, or how Americans have started rationing their eggs, I want to talk about how many people in this country are homeless, I want to talk about how education is becoming more and more inaccessible and how most of us will die paying off our student debt. I want to talk about the number of mass shootings in the states. I want to talk about how they don't have healthcare. I want to talk about how, in our democratic system, private industry always has more influence on government policy than voters, something that is seen clearly in the wealthy unelected tech oligarchy currently running America. my point is not, that i think communist governments are better, my point is not to diminish the injustices faced by people under those regimes, my point, is that if the crimes of past communist governments justify the entire theory being completely discarded and dismissed, than i do not understand why the crimes of our capitalist liberal democracy do not warrant the same treatment. i do not understand how you can look at the society we live in and think this is what working looks like. our governments tell us that our problems are reasonable and the problems of other governments are unreasonable so that you will accept the unacceptable. That is propaganda.

[transmechanicus]

Kills me inside that Dustin Bates has a masters degree in aeronautical engineering and has done research and taught classes on space exploration, and this bleeds from the first two Starset albums how full of hope and promise he was for space travel and science, and in retrospect the arc of story and tone of songs across TRIALS, HORIZONS, and [REDACTED] is deeply sad to me. All he wanted to do was explore and learn and teach, and now those dreams are doubtlessly being crushed by all the wicked problems of the world that drag us down into darkness and dirt.

[feroluce]

This was all the way back from the end of 2.3.

Hey Sparkle what the fuck.

[vaguely-concerned]

...you know with a fandom that has lasted 30 years I'm sure I'm not saying anything new here, but 'right after his best friend from when he was thirteen (who he newly reunited with and asked to sleep over at his apartment. For Reasons) seemingly flicked his nipple (!!???? mark I have questions) to set him up for a prank and then cupped the back of his neck with rough affection in a deeply homoerotic way' sure is an incredibly specific moment for the camera to deny us access to fraser's expression fhksjafhas

(especially with the pattern over the many many times we see a woman hitting on him where his face will be clearly visible, with his expression placidly (one could be forgiven for starting to suspect tactically) uncomprehending/confused or uncomfortable. though we see him speak of specifically victoria for the first time turned away from the camera -- from behind, and only getting the faint reflection of his face in the window, to much the same effect. I think I might be on to something here.)

[raelyn-dreams]

Pretty 5 is so beloved bc we have:

Arashi "I dream of being a beautiful woman and also had explicit attraction to girls and my male teacher" Narukami.

Tori "I'm in love with my unit leader but he's in an arranged marriage to my sister and I feel selfish for wishing it was me" Himemiya.

Mika "I'm going to live with my beloved partner in Paris as a direct parallel to the life his queer grandfather never got to have" Kagehira.

Hiyori "I'm a princess in the units with the most fanservice imaginable and almost kissed my partner in an mv 3 times" Tomoe.

And Aira "I blush over idol fanservice and am a tsundere towards my unit leader and enamored with my former online friend" Shiratori

[hot-on-my-watch]

Heaven help me I've fallen down a rabbit hole of looking at different artists' interpretations of 221 Baker Street (again) and I'm internally in hysterics over this completely gorgeous one of Flat B:

My life's mission is now to locate Stephanie of Fox and Chicken and ask her what she meant by "kitchen"! I'm dying!

The airquotes on that room only! Brilliant!

Edit: I've only just noticed the door from the outer hallway to the kitchen. I'm not disputing it because frankly I haven't paid enough attention but will be investigating further!

[serpentface]

What's the Wardi cultural take on Akoshos sleeping with/partnering with/marrying other Akoshos?

It's not highly regulated to a degree that there are overwhelming cultural norms about it. There's a lot of societal focus on akoshos being theoretically suitable sexual partners for both men and women due to being dual-gendered, but not to an extent that relationships with One Another are stigmatized.

They also largely get to escape from the most severe concerns about penetrator/penetrated power dynamics because they're not regarded as Men (they're regarded as dual-gendered, and they're a female social class on every practical level), there's no status of manhood to Lose by receiving sexual penetration. The only real thing you see in that department is people assuming that one acts as 'the man' and one acts as 'the woman', but this is largely due to preoccupation with a notion of sex being Penetration With A Penis (and that Penetration With A Penis means that one person is in a Man's Role and one person is in a Woman's Role). But this will not be regarded as unnatural as in same-gender male relations, akoshos will Have to take up a position in this sexual dichotomy if they want to have Real Sex (Penetration With A Penis) with each other, and this is not unnatural and doesn't involve gaining or losing status since they are simultaneously male and female, not men.

So like you might see individual culture critics finding stuff to nitpick about it as their annoyance of the week or a singular Guy here or there who thinks it's weird, but this isn't a widespread norm. The vast majority of people don't give a shit about akoshos having sex with each other. The worst thing you're likely to experience Solely by virtue of being in an akoshos-akoshos relationship is someone asking you (probably with genuine curiosity) which one does the man stuff and which one does the woman stuff.

Akoshos also don't experience Hard expectations for marriage (though there are societal pressures that make marriage an attractive safety net all the same, ESPECIALLY marriage to a man) so unofficial life-partnerships between akoshos are pretty much the Only same gender partnerships between unwed people that are going to go unquestioned. ((Sworn brotherhood is technically a same gender life partnership for men that is Functionally similar to marriage (in that it's a kin-making practice between unrelated adults), but the tradition is Built upon the assumption that both parties will be married to women and that a primary goal of this kinship is to provide security for both parties' wives and children)). Marriage obligations in general are more lax in the economically secure but not Wealthy lower mercantile classes (as obligations to support and perpetuate one's family are universal, but these obligations can be filled simply by having at least One son who can get hitched, and marriages in the lower classes have no political functions and therefore there's less reason to ensure All your children are wed (there's still incentives like dowry, but this is not desperately needed when a family is economically secure)). So akoshos in this class group tend to have a Lot more freedom in terms of their life arrangements and chosen partners (though still experience the limiting frameworks of structural misogyny in other capacities).

The only thing that is out of the picture is akoshos/akoshos marriage. Marriage in this society has a predominantly reproductive function, the concept of reproductively non-viable marriages is generally considered absurd. This is not JUST this culture's form of homophobia, as marriage is a very practical arrangement at its core - both in a reproductive capacity and as bedrock for the patriarchal blood-kinship family system that forms the core social unit. The idea of same gender marriage isn't just absurd because 'ewwww weird' it's like, that Cannot work within this system, it Cannot fill core functions of what a marriage intends to do here, the ways on which marriage and kinship are BUILT makes same gender marriage practically (rather than just socially) untenable.

The sole exception to the 'marriage = reproductively viable" rule is that akoshos can be married to men (which in practice is almost always as a remarriage after a man has secured At Least an heir). This has a Little bit of internal logic here in that they perform predominantly female social roles (thus are suited to being a wife, even if they can't bear children) (and also on practical levels of them having the same legal status as women) but it's really more of a 'this is just how it's always been' kind of thing. A lot of the older pre-Wardi identity dual-gender roles that got mashed together under the 'akoshos' name would have involved marriage to a man as a second wife/concubine, in addition to his primary wife who would bear his children. Men potentially having multiple spouses has not been retained as a cultural practice, but the notion that an akoshos Can be a wife to a man has survived into modern day legal and doctrinal practices around marriage.

So like this being said, marriage as it is legally defined is only between a man and a woman, a man and an akoshos, or a woman and an akoshos. In practice the latter two are comparatively VERY rare- a man/akoshos marriage cannot provide children (though an akoshos can practically fulfill all other obligations and duties of a wife), a woman/akoshos marriage Can provide children (and while akoshos cannot function as a male heir, these children Will take their akoshos-parent's family name (though the wife retains her father's family name)), but akoshos are legally grouped with women in terms of rights and privileges (including being permanently under legal domain of their father unless they have been legally handed off to a male husband) and Cannot provide hard power patriarchal support that this family system is built upon and therefore depends upon, which makes these marriages socio-economically insecure. They can obviously still be a good partner and parent, but this is not the same as having the Legal hard power of a patriarch.

Akoshos marrying each other would be reproductively and socially nonviable, and is treated as a similarly absurd concept to a man marrying a man or a woman marrying a woman. It's just not a part of the marriage and kinship framework, it's not a thing that you can Do.

[sysig]

Webkinz collecting fever (Patreon)

[muirmarie]

i do think one of the funniest things people do is, sometimes when we have a group of friends, you just know that someone doesn't like you. i don't mean they hate your guts or anything, but they just Do Not Like You. but you're in the same group of friends, so it's whatever, you're both nice and polite to each other, and if you ever told another of your friends, they'd be like nooo, don't be silly, so-and-so absolutely likes you! so you just don't mention it, and they don't mention it, and sometimes you end up in situations with just the two of you, and it feels vaguely like you're making polite small talk with your worst coworker, and the two of you never admit what you're both absolutely aware of, and this can easily go on for years. i just think that's a funny thing we do.

[legionofpotatoes]

god our country is so cooked lmao

[midnight197]

Erumon finally has a proper Ref-Sheet!

I have created him 2 years ago as an Example-Picture for my Digimon-Fusions and grew in love with him! He's my Baby!

Hope you guys like it!

[meteorologistaustenlonek]

"While the collapse of the AMOC was once considered “low probability,” the likelihood of it happening is increasing. In fact, it’s becoming so concerning to oceanographers that 44 of them, from various countries, wrote and published a call to action, warning that the risk of the AMOC reaching a disastrous tipping point is “greatly underestimated” and will have “devastating and irreversible impacts.”

[phantom-chirp]

I have been slowly collecting a bunch of songs that remind me of shuake and making a playlist for myself to listen to. if you even care

[jellbell]

my other thought about the general importance (or lack thereof) of the wilderness cult is that all the criticisms about the girls not teaming up against shauna by 310 could be explained if they were all mostly believers. if the prophet who has anointed every leader without complaint from the group has now claimed shauna, then we have an actual reason to accept what’s happening. maybe she still scares them, but maybe it’s scarier to imagine what might happen if they go against It’s will.