#because if one thing is constant

[varpusvaras]

You know, I'm just as big of a fan of all the angst when it comes to Fox and the Coruscant Guard and their brother's in the GAR, of all the scenarios where their brother's just go "oh, they have changed, they think they are better than us, in their easy posting, war changes everyone, they are not just who they used to be", as everybody else is, but I'm also a bigger fan of all their brother's noticing the change and not being okay with it, but in a way that it makes them realise that something is wrong and they do something about it. They notice the lessening messages and calls, and just call and message more often. They notice how the Guard doesn't seem to have time to come and see them anymore, so they go to them instead.

Cody notices how Fox keeps getting busier and busier, way busier than Cody himself, even though they're supposed to have to same workload, and Cody asks. He asks what Fox is doing, and is confused and angered by what he hears.

Wolffe notices that Fox jokes less and less, that his smiles are becoming more and more rare, and he makes sure that he gives Fox reasons to smile on the double, making sure that absolutely no one mentions anything about work while they are out.

Bly notices that Fox looks even more tired than the last time every time they meet, and if Fox starts to dose off, he pretends he doesn't notice, and let's him take a nap, while making sure that no one can disturb them.

Ponds notices how Fox looks thinner, first from the face and then overall under his armor, and he keeps giving him snacks, taking him out to eat or bringing food to the office or the barracks, and stuffs Fox's desk full of vitamins and sweets.

Rex notices how every time they come across the Chancellor while he is seeing Fox, which happens more often than not, because Rex is waiting for General Skywalker to come back from a meeting with the man, Fox tenses up. It's subtle, like he is trying his hardest not to, but like it has been ingrained in him, like a reflex. And Rex looks harder, and he notices the fading marks on his brother's skin.

And they all sit down together and talk about it, and they realise that something is wrong, and they need to help.

[coddda]

I wish we could have met in some other way.

Lawlight Week Day 2: Soulmates

If you saw me repost and re-edit this several times uh No you didn't </3

Still frames/Individual gifs:

If you know what every frame is from you get a free cookie. by the way

[blorbologist]

Y'know, I think I figured out why the Hells still feel like a new low-level party to me, even though they're level 13 and almost 100 episodes in.

I don't quite think it's the lack of conversations, or the fact half the party's plot hooks are big ties to past campaigns - though that definitely plays a part.

... Bell's Hells still primarily rely on quest givers.

Most of their goals are given to them and do not feel organic to the party, and constantly remind us that the Hells are pretty much never the most powerful people in the room. Which is usually something you see with a low-level party.

NPCs offering jobs is not a bad thing; it's a very common plot hook. Matt has been extremely skilled with using NPC quest givers in those two campaigns. Not only do they provide an obvious plot thread, but they can put the party in the path of others (say, the Nein running into the Iron Shepherds while doing a job for the Gentleman and everything that came of that). And the Hells had a solid start with it too - Eshteross was an excellent quest giver!

The problem is that Bell's Hells have never really not had a quest giver.

Maybe it's a byproduct of the more plot-heavy structure of this campaign? But while prior parties have felt like they decided on their course of action and what they prioritized, Bell's Hells feels less like level 13 (13! Level 13!) experienced adventurers and more like an MMO group clicking on the exclamation point over an NPC's head. Where does the plot demand we go next? Who do we report back to?

They're level 13.

At level 13, Vox Machina had just defeated a necromantic city-state to clear their name and Percy's conscience. And, you know, the Conclave just destroyed Emon. No one was explicitly telling the group to gather Vestiges and save the world (though Matt guided them there), and they were usually among the most powerful people in the room. They chose which Vestiges to prioritize, which dragons to tackle when, even if the over-all plot was pretty clear.

At level 13, the Mighty Nein were celebrating Traveler Con (another PC goal, I'll note) after brokering peace between two nations, accidentally becoming pirates and heroes of the Dynasty. The Nein regularly chose what to do based on personal goals, not grand ones. Though definitely smaller fish than Vox Machina at this level, they were very independent and gaining solid political clout.

While we're at it: level 13 is one level lower than the Ring of Brass, who had a huge amount of sway over Avalir. They ended the world, and also saved it, while in the grand scheme of things being only a smidge more powerful than Bell's Hells are now.

Can you really see the Hells wielding that amount of influence, when they're constantly being told what to do next?

The god-eater might be unleashed, so Bell's Hells have no time to do anything but what is asked of them. No time for therapy unless stolen from Feywild time, no travel on foot and late-night watches. They haven't even had time to grieve FCG. Percy was grieved in the middle of the Conclave arc. Molly was grieved when half the party was still in irons.

Matt is in the very unfortunate spot of not being able to give the Hells the same agency as the other two parties. Not only because of the world-ending plot introduced so early on; they are surrounded by characters they know (and the cast knows) are stronger and wiser than them - the familiarity of the past PCs and NPCs is to their disadvantage.

Why would the party reasonably ignore Keyleth's task that will help save the world and go off on a romp? Why would the cast when they know well Keyleth has to be sensible and with the best intentions in mind? The stakes are just too high.

It means that the Hells still feel like they're running errands instead of pursuing their own destiny. Their accomplishments are diminished as just being parts of a to-do list, and any stakes feel padded by several level 20 PCs/NPCs standing 5 steps away ready to catch them.

This isn't Bell's Hell's fault, nor is it Matt's. It could be amended, I think, if the Hells are really left to their own devices for a long period of time without support and shortcuts (like during the party split)... which would be really tricky to pull off at this point in the campaign.

They're level 13. They're big fish, but they're stuck in a pond full of friendly sharks, so they don't feel big at all.

[itty-bitty-sunshine]

"You said you love me exactly the way I am"

[vodid]

zero's pressure

[aashiqeddiediaz]

eddie saying "to be fair, you had just died" and then moving to put his thumb on buck's pulse i see you eddie diaz

[halorvic]

The danger is clear and present: COVID isn’t merely a respiratory illness; it’s a multi-dimensional threat impacting brain function, attacking almost all of the body’s organs, producing elevated risks of all kinds, and weakening our ability to fight off other diseases. Reinfections are thought to produce cumulative risks, and Long COVID is on the rise. Unfortunately, Long COVID is now being considered a long-term chronic illness — something many people will never fully recover from. Dr. Phillip Alvelda, a former program manager in DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office that pioneered the synthetic biology industry and the development of mRNA vaccine technology, is the founder of Medio Labs, a COVID diagnostic testing company. He has stepped forward as a strong critic of government COVID management, accusing health agencies of inadequacy and even deception. Alvelda is pushing for accountability and immediate action to tackle Long COVID and fend off future pandemics with stronger public health strategies. Contrary to public belief, he warns, COVID is not like the flu. New variants evolve much faster, making annual shots inadequate. He believes that if things continue as they are, with new COVID variants emerging and reinfections happening rapidly, the majority of Americans may eventually grapple with some form of Long COVID. Let’s repeat that: At the current rate of infection, most Americans may get Long COVID.

[...]

LP: A recent JAMA study found that US adults with Long COVID are more prone to depression and anxiety – and they’re struggling to afford treatment. Given the virus’s impact on the brain, I guess the link to mental health issues isn’t surprising. PA: There are all kinds of weird things going on that could be related to COVID’s cognitive effects. I’ll give you an example. We’ve noticed since the start of the pandemic that accidents are increasing. A report published by TRIP, a transportation research nonprofit, found that traffic fatalities in California increased by 22% from 2019 to 2022. They also found the likelihood of being killed in a traffic crash increased by 28% over that period. Other data, like studies from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, came to similar conclusions, reporting that traffic fatalities hit a 16-year high across the country in 2021. The TRIP report also looked at traffic fatalities on a national level and found that traffic fatalities increased by 19%. LP: What role might COVID play? PA: Research points to the various ways COVID attacks the brain. Some people who have been infected have suffered motor control damage, and that could be a factor in car crashes. News is beginning to emerge about other ways COVID impacts driving. For example, in Ireland, a driver’s COVID-related brain fog was linked to a crash that killed an elderly couple. Damage from COVID could be affecting people who are flying our planes, too. We’ve had pilots that had to quit because they couldn’t control the airplanes anymore. We know that medical events among U.S. military pilots were shown to have risen over 1,700% from 2019 to 2022, which the Pentagon attributes to the virus.

[...]

LP: You’ve criticized the track record of the CDC and the WHO – particularly their stubborn denial that COVID is airborne. PA: They knew the dangers of airborne transmission but refused to admit it for too long. They were warned repeatedly by scientists who studied aerosols. They instituted protections for themselves and for their kids against airborne transmission, but they didn’t tell the rest of us to do that.

[...]

LP: How would you grade Biden on how he’s handled the pandemic? PA: I’d give him an F. In some ways, he fails worse than Trump because more people have actually died from COVID on his watch than on Trump’s, though blame has to be shared with Republican governors and legislators who picked ideological fights opposing things like responsible masking, testing, vaccination, and ventilation improvements for partisan reasons. Biden’s administration has continued to promote the false idea that the vaccine is all that is needed, perpetuating the notion that the pandemic is over and you don’t need to do anything about it. Biden stopped the funding for surveillance and he stopped the funding for renewing vaccine advancement research. Trump allowed 400,000 people to die unnecessarily. The Biden administration policies have allowed more than 800,000 to 900,000 and counting.

[...]

LP: The situation with bird flu is certainly getting more concerning with the CDC confirming that a third person in the U.S. has tested positive after being exposed to infected cows. PA: Unfortunately, we’re repeating many of the same mistakes because we now know that the bird flu has made the jump to several species. The most important one now, of course, is the dairy cows. The dairy farmers have been refusing to let the government come in and inspect and test the cows. A team from Ohio State tested milk from a supermarket and found that 50% of the milk they tested was positive for bird flu viral particles.

[...]

PA: There’s a serious risk now in allowing the virus to freely evolve within the cow population. Each cow acts as a breeding ground for countless genetic mutations, potentially leading to strains capable of jumping to other species. If any of those countless genetic experiments within each cow prove successful in developing a strain transmissible to humans, we could face another pandemic – only this one could have a 58% death rate. Did you see the movie “Contagion?” It was remarkably accurate in its apocalyptic nature. And that virus only had a 20% death rate. If the bird flu makes the jump to human-to-human transition with even half of its current lethality, that would be disastrous.

[starry-bi-sky]

danny and officer martinez's relationship in "late at night, when the nightingale sings" in a nutshell:

Martinez: FREAK! GET YOUR FUCKING KID!

Battinson, on the other side of the crime scene: he don't bite

Martinez, with Nightingale firmly attached his arm, visibly biting him: YES HE DO!

*points at them* Danny is the Bugs Bunny to Martinez's Elmer Fudd.

Another Officer: i can't believe you're fighting with an actual twelve year old. Martinez: i swear to god that is not a twelve year old, that is a little hellion that crawled out of batman's shadow one dark and stormy night and decided to dedicate his existence to tormenting me. Officer: Are you really that mad about him putting a sticky note on your back-- Martinez: thats not the point

in danny's defense: the word "freak" is. a mini beserker button for him for.... obvious ghostly reasons, so like, even if its not directed at him, he still very much unappreciates Martinez's insults at Battinson. Danny may or may not be projecting.

he's not going to hurt the guy! not in any serious or permanently disfiguring way at least! But he is going to leave mean sticky notes on the square part of his spine that he can't reach, and stick salt in his 3AM Late Night Crime Scene Coffee, and kick the bottom of his heel while he's walking so he stumbles. And other petty, infuriating things that tally up and boil over, over time.

[unnonexistence]

hermann thoughts: if i discredit newton and his approach enough, the martial won't give him the equipment for his kaiju drift, and i can protect him from himself. if he despises me for it, so be it. there is little i wouldn't sacrifice to see him safe.

newt thoughts: this is a Best Science competition and i have to Win

[willowcrowned]

Cressida Cowell's httyd series falls into the trap that a lot of episodic fiction series fall into, which is that with every successive book a fact not-quite-integral to the last one is retconned in favor of the present book's narrative. (I am, by the way, a hater of this. But also who cares.) Unlike a lot of fiction series, though, this actually works for her. Because the person doing the retcons isn't her; it's Hiccup.

We get, in the very final installment, Hiccup-the-Narrator admitting his own fallibility as a storyteller, making good on the promise from the very first book: that he and Hiccup-the-Character are not the same, that these stories did happen to a different person, and therefore they are subject to the uncertain nature of secondhand accounts. Hiccup-the-Narrator, in his final comments, admits that he himself has started to believe his own lies, that at times even he has begun to believe the dragons never existed.

Hiccup-the-Narrator is not, in the end, telling his own story as it happened, but telling the story of a mythic figure, embellished on by the storytellers of the Viking tribes since the very moment of his crowning, when a Bashem Oik shouted that he was being lifted by the hand of Thor. It just so happens that once, long ago, he was the basis for the mythic figure.

So really, the retcons and inaccuracies do not have to be Cowell rewriting her own lore to make her next wacky adventure fit. (They are! But they don't have to be.) They're Hiccup-the-Narrator, old and forgetful, writing down the myths of Hiccup-the-Character's adventures as they may have happened. And like any good storyteller, every time he tells it, he adds something new.

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

Do you think if the trolls all came back, like everything in the main comic did happen and they were alive again. Do you think Feferi would actually forgive Eridan? Or want to even be his friend after everything? I don't personally like the erisol and fefertasprite interaction…felt rushed…..so I just wanted to know your opinion if things were different! :)

Yeah, I think they would be! Feferi is one of the trolls who takes dying the least badly (relentless optimism) and Eridan does genuinely feel bad, which means a lot when it's Eridan. I think she really is genuine when she says she wants them to be friends and also that she's really not the type of person to hold a grudge, and like... death is SUPER cheap in Homestuck, it's really not the horrific, irredeemable, irreperable damage that it is IRL - and if you're talking about (Feferi) and (Eridan), then they're both dead (and irrelevent) now, so the score is kind of even.

In general, the fandom - I mean, people in general, really - tend to have difficulty divorcing themselves from other people. We tend to assume that the people and characters they like will hold similar opinions to themselves. This is how people who like Karkat and don't like Eridan can mentally gloss over or even block out their clear, close friendship, or how people who dislike Cronus can end up overlooking that Meenah actually takes his opinion seriously and unironically defends his wizard thing. Feferi really isn't mad at Eridan or upset about dying the way we probably would be, because she's friends with the horrorterrors, relentlessly cheerful, comfortable with death in general, and death is also just not really that big of a deal in this setting. "I'm really sorry about that, that was shitty of me" is honestly probably all the apology she needs, especially if they came back to life anyway.

[pokimoko]

The fact that Main-verse Ooo is as good and as kind as it is (relative to the other universes shown so far, at least, it's obviously not perfect) all because of the same character that starts off as the OG series' antagonist, the person we were made to see as the bad guy (albeit an often ineffectual one) for several seasons, is making me lose my mind.

Imagine finding out the guy you spent your childhood beating up and saving princesses from is in fact a driving catalyst behind you being able to exist, and not only exist but also live in a world that knows what kindness is. All because that man, the same man who you've witnessed do terrible things, once met a little girl and taught her how to be good.

Simon's story really shows us that even if you lose your way and forget how it is to be good yourself, the world keeps the memory for you. That act of love Simon showed Marcy by protecting her and seeing her as more than the monster she thought herself to be created ripples upon ripples, small at first but eventually enough to help give their wreckage of a world—a world that easily could have been forsaken, its goodness overlooked because of its inhospitable remains—a chance to grow into something beautiful. Because of those very same ripples Simon created, the people of Ooo grew up in a world where they know enough about kindness that they were able and willing to spare the 'bad guy' some, to see beyond the wreckage and allow him to grow too.

In saving Marceline, Simon helped to not only to save the world, but also himself.

[legionofpotatoes]

I know the discourse well is poisoned and no one hates bioware games more than bioware fans, but I am just 🫠 having so much fun with veilguard it's unreal. It is selfishly the dragon age game I always wanted. with less emphasis on cRPG, a more focused story, curated mission based design that spotlights the high fantasy stuff, slowburn structure with companions, significantly less sidequest bloat, and a fully real-time action-oriented combat system that isn't riddled with the growing pains of previous titles. when I first played origins I imagined something almost exactly like this as my ideal version of a sequel; and it was one of those dirty, selfish thoughts that I knew was disrespectful to the then-established DNA of the thing, but I can't help but feel giddy about having it here and now. like down to the shift away from the childishly dark tone and to something more inherently flexible with a baseline aspirational quality. I hate aesthetically depressing games so much. am I not alive right here and right now already

When I say "aesthetically" there though I do mean it. I'm fully on the opposite side when it comes to tone and positions expressed in the story itself. I am just not including that in my analysis because I am not done yet - so please no spoilers! I think I am where most people consider to be the second act, and I definitely have my gripes with the narrative framework and some of the optics, but I won't put the cart before the horse and will see how it wraps things up first. Above that level, in terms of how it presents itself, of how it plays, of how it balances its core pillars - it is such a bioware-ass game and I could not be any cozier in it. So grateful it exists

[jesuis-assez]

↠ Tim & Lucy ↳ 5x04 - The Choice

[serpentface]

reading all about the white calf, love your work, can i just say. gonna put some hibrides appreciation out there because damn. nobody in this story is lucky but she in particular seems to be having a Bad Time

Yeah a lot of things suck pretty bad for her. Unwittingly in a lavender marriage, mutual dislike between her and her dogshit husband, extremely strained relationship to her former best friend/gay quasi-boyfriend/father of her children who alternates between avoiding her and desperate attempts to make her love him again, having to constantly maintain multiple levels of facade to socially protect their throuple and therefore herself, shy and socially isolated, dealing with trauma that she doesn't even begin to recognize as such because 'nothing bad actually happened', pretty sure something is deeply wrong with her, living under a damocles sword of catastrophic social consequences should her children be exposed as bastards, has discovered an unexpected and mostly unwanted pregnancy while on a months long cross-country trek, etc.

She's also someone who prides herself in being rational, put together, stoic against adversity, and not overly emotional and weak, which basically means all of this is getting suppressed and compartmentalized away like crazy.

She HAS managed to fall into a rhythm with it all and her life IS NOT constant misery and agony. But the situation she's in for the duration of the story completely tears her out of this rhythm and makes all these factors very acute (though also opens her up to new opportunities, new and more positive/differently complex relationships, and much bigger things to worry about than her domestic life).

Unrelated drawing of her struggling not to lose her shit in public (in this case trying not to laugh)

[howlsofbloodhounds]

The way people are complaining that jinx isn’t the same character this season because she’s “sane” (aka not actively having an episode of psychosis, even though she literally did experience a hallucination when seeing vi with the enforcers), is strange.

also I find it strange that people talk about jinx and powder as if they’re separate people. they aren’t. jinx is powder, grown up and traumatized and mentally ill. like i completely understand that jinx likely struggles to realize this, because extremes are often the stable of bpd and she shows all the signs, and well—a personality disorder is a personality disorder.

but no jinx did not kill powder and taint her memory. powder is not gone. jinx can not exist without powder, and vice versa—because they are eachother. that’s what vi needs to realize and accept as well—her sister is not gone.

her sister just grew up and changed and is traumatized and mentally ill. it’s impossible for jinx to kill powder, or for powder to “come back,” the exact same she was. vi could never have powder back because the powder vi remembers was a scared, helpless little girl who depended on her for almost everything. powder was never going to remain that way forever—not if she wanted to survive.

powder has grown up and changed without her. that was always going to happen, it happens to everyone. if nothing happened as it did, their family was still alive, vi was never thrown in jail and powder never taken in by silco; powder still would’ve changed, somehow, someway. She’d likely still just be going by powder rather than jinx.