#bored out of my mind posts

[noweyay]

My mutuals are all actually my partners in crime. We reblog eachothers posts, distract the followers and steal all their money

[ghostlightsahead]

Max Verstappen mentally restraining himslef from kicking his feet up onto Charles Leclerc's lap circa imola 2024

Max seeing Charles with that straw and thinking when is it his turn 🤭

[dorkfruit]

but everything's just come together at last /:

[s-sextape]

i am writing an accidental haiku to attract haiku bot

[sonknuxadow]

i think people give elise too much shit for her little outburst at the end of sonic 06 because if i was running a country at 17 and had been repressing my emotions for 10 years straight and one day i got kidnapped like 500 times and ended up befriending the guy who rescued me and while spending time with him i felt like i really got to be myself and have fun for the first time in forever and formed a really meaningful relationship with him only for some weird demon rat thing to show up and kill him right in front of me just to make me cry so the destructive fire god that my dad sealed inside my body would be unleashed and then in order to save the world i had to reset the timeline and forget we ever met i would have become the joker

[bdoubleowo]

Got super bored in a college lecture and suddenly treebark had possessed me

[accirax]

the costume design was a highlight

[necrotic-nephilim]

there is not enough femslash in batcest circles. the girls deserve to be just as weird about each other as the boys are. if BruDick gets to be weird father/son/brothers/lovers/friends/rivals/soulmates then it is only fair that Babs/Cass get to be mother/daughter/sisters/lovers too. Something about that deep intrinsic but undefinable love that is born out of trauma, especially if you consider Cass not knowing what healthy love looks like in the first place. i think it's fun and deserves just as much fandom content.

besides that, you can get even more niche with rarepairs like Helena/Steph. Huntress/Spoiler: Blunt Trauma is already a fantastic comic and even though it's their only real canon interaction it has so much potential. very comparable to TimJay in how Helena tries to get Steph to understand her morals and the corruption you could play with it.

batman: huntress/spoiler: blunt trauma (1998)

that comic also highlights on how both Steph and Helena are outcasts of the Batfamily and don't have the approval of Bruce to be doing what they do in "his city". I think there's so much Potential in Helena taking Steph under her wing because Bruce won't let her in and it becomes a weird codependent toxic sapphic mess. I think the protectiveness Helena feels over Steph from the get-go is so clear and the way she wants to look out for Steph, wants to make sure Steph understands the real world? I love them. Helena should be allowed to steal Steph, actually. I think it'd be fun.

there are a lot of other possibilities too like Babs/Steph or even getting weird with Helena Bertinelli/Helena Wayne and the existential question of "is it selfcest or not." But these two specifically live in my head rent-free, especially Helena/Steph and one day I'll convince everyone else to ship it too.

[noweyay]

I'm such a fake fan listening to the b-52s instead of weezer

[moeblob]

Look, I just think it's VERY funny and on brand that I thought of an entire premise of colorful characters for half the cast and immediately drew the only one void of color.

[cak31ssuperi04]

fun fact: Them

[luneariaa]

[Y/N] : mike.

Michael : yeah?

[Y/N] : what if i call you my pookie

Michael : *looks at you, bewildered* you want to call me what?

[Y/N] : pookie.

Michael : yeah i heard what you said. i'm just confused as to why.

[Y/N] : it's kinda cute lowkey.

Michael :

Michael : *begins to have a small, teasing grin* so you think i'm cute?

[Y/N] : oh wait no that's not what i mean i'm--

[2hoothoots]

i was having a chuckle to myself last night about Gristol, and how his plans are basically:

Restore Ford Cruller's memory

Find Maligula

???

Profit

but then... of course they are, right? this is Gristol we're talking about. Fatherland Follies drives home again and again that he's still operating on a child's logic, a warped and reductive version of the world that he never bothered to grow out of. both of his memory vaults center on the images of his childhood, this idealized version of the past that he clings to no matter what. and that's still how he remembers Maligula, too - as this saviour figure, who rushes in to help him when he's in trouble.

[ID: Two slides from Gristol's memory vault, Glory to Grulovia! Left: Gristol clings to Maligula's back as she summons waves to sweep away his assailants. Right: Gristol and Maligula waving from a balcony as the people cheer. Gzar Theodore brandishes a dagger in the background.]

like so much else, Maligula represents a return to this idyllic childhood - to the peace and simplicity of his youth, when he was free from worries and responsibilities. in his mind, he doesn't need to make any further plans - once Maligula's back, everything will go back to normal. Maligula will make everything better.

...is what i thought, but then i remembered this line:

[Screenshot source. ID: Gristol, in Truman's body, bows on his hands and knees in front of the newly-awaked Maligula. The caption reads: "Yes, High Priestess! I am here to correct the mistakes made by my father!"]

and that's kind of interesting, right?

to be clear: this happens directly after Maligula sees Helmut-in-Gristol's-body, and recognises him. her line before this is:

"Little Gzesaravich! Have you come to pay for your father's sins?"

my first thought was that Gristol hadn't expected to still be in Truman's body by the time he managed to find Maligula, and this was him trying to placate her and buy some time until he could explain the situation. but watching the cutscene back, that's clearly not what's happening here. Gristol is answering as himself, and his response of throwing himself to his knees before her is, as far as i can tell, genuine.

so what is going on here?

in Fatherland Follies, there's this line in the ride narration that stuck out to me:

"Why didn't the Gzar help Maligula in her time of need? No one knows, but historians agree - it is Gzar Theodore's biggest failure."

other lines mention Gzar Theodore's "mistake", and it's wording Gristol himself echoes in the screencap above. evidently, he believes that his father abandoned Maligula, leaving her to her fate at the hands of the Psychonauts, and it was that mistake that lead to them being driven out of the country - that mistake which he seeks to correct. maybe he even feels like he has a debt to repay to her for his family turning their backs on her all those years ago.

the 'High Priestess' thing, though - that's kinda weird, and threw me for a loop the first time i played the game. it took me until my second playthrough to connect the dots, and remember how the room in the Lady Luctopus - Gristol's room - was full of Delugionist scribblings and symbols.

[Screenshot source. ID: left, the walls of the hidden backroom in Gristol's hotel suite, covered in scrawlings of eyeballs and Maligula's name. Right, the pinboard from the hidden backroom. On its surface are photographs and newspaper clippings connected by pieces of string.]

i mean, look at this stuff! he had a whole conspiracy board and everything!

we learn very little about the Delugionists and their beliefs as a whole during the game, but i think drawing the connection here suggests two important things. one: that Gristol was in deep with this stuff. i don't know how he linked up with them - maybe via old family connections, or just good old-fashioned digging (we know he's skilled at worming his way into peoples' good graces, after all) - but it seems likely that he's begun to internalise their ideas, maybe even warping his own memories of events. and two: the Delugionists themselves are, if you'll pardon the pun, pretty far off the deep end.

like... i understand why PN2 didn't go heavy on the "mass-murderer cult worship" aspect of things, in the end, but man this is such a tantalising glimpse into the wider mythos around Maligula. Gristol is proud and haughty and thinks himself above everyone else; the fact that his first reaction seeing Maligula is to throw himself to the ground at her feet says so much about the way he's come to see her. he's not just trying to bring back Maligula, his childhood bodyguard. he's trying to bring back Maligula, the High Priestess of the deluge, the semi-mythical figure whose supporters believe even death couldn't stop. he doesn't even flinch at the way she confronts him, and maybe it's because he's bought in so completely to this deified figurehead, this idea of Maligula; more a living force of nature than a person. and it all comes back to the same place: an abdication of responsibility, not just to the person who protected him when he was little but to this avatar of floods and destruction. Maligula will make everything better.

i'd write more about my thoughts on the Delugionists but that'd be taking a hard turn into speculation, and this is already kind of long and rambling so i'd better end it here. but what an unexpected and evocative line, right? it's some of the only stuff we have to go off of regarding the Delugionists as a whole, but i think it does such a good job of hinting at the wider story - at teasing another layer to the mythos surrounding Maligula, one whose ripples we see throughout the game but which never quite breaches the surface.

[asmodeauxx]

let me love you whole, let me bite your tendrils and gnaw on your bones I hate you I love you I hope you die don't go I'll kill you

[lagosbratzdoll]

On Daenerys, Colonisation and Race Discourse within the ASOIAF Fandom

This has been on my mind for a good long while and honestly, as much as I would like to leave discourse in the pits, it has been bugging me intermittently over the past few weeks.

Far too many of you get on here and call people who like the fictional dragon-riding family, neo-Nazis and that sentiment is so prevalent, that white people feel comfortable telling me a black woman that I am a neo-Nazi for rooting for Daenerys Targaryen. I am upholding neo-Nazi power fantasies for wanting to see a little girl live at the end of a story. I am a neo-Nazi for wanting to see the rape survivor have the family she aches for and children with the man (or men) she loves.

Then, those same people go on spiels about how the systemic erasure of those who sing the song of the earth and other old races is not colonialism. That their removal from their home is not displacement but an agreement between two equal parties. The fact that the only place where those who sing the song of the earth exist in the present timeline is north of the wall, surrounded by the bones of their dead, is not a travesty. That the expulsion of the old races from their home isn't that bad and should not be condemned. 

Instead, people argue, completely seriously, that the harm that the First Men and Andals have caused is centuries in the past, so essentially the slate has been wiped clean. The logical leaps that are required to arrive at such a boneheaded conclusion are truly mind-boggling, and those who make such arguments are not good people. 

I am unsure how one could read those books and come away with the impression that the old races do not mourn the loss of their home. I am unsure how one could read The Last of the Giants[1] and Ygritte’s reaction to both the song and Jon’s dismissal of the ethnic cleansing of the giants then believe that the old races and the free folk have moved past their displacement. 

In Westeros, from the Wall to the broken arm of Dorne, they all speak one language despite the fact they are all different ethnicities and they all landed on the shores at different times. That is not the case in Essos, we have been introduced to at least six languages and in A Dance with Dragons, Tyrion notes that the Valyrian spoken in the Free Cities has evolved into nine distinct dialects, and they are well on their way to becoming different languages.

How would a continent as large and diverse as Westeros maintain its hegemony over the people if not for forced assimilation, discriminatory practices and violence? The brutal repression required to keep one house in power for thousands of years is nothing to sniff at. The suppression required to keep the vast majority of Westeros worshipping one (or seven) gods. The systems in place ensure that language does not grow or evolve amongst the highborns at least.

Centuries before Aegon's Landing the maesters were the definitive educational authority and even now centuries after, nothing has changed. The grey rats still decide who learns what and when they learn it. There's one in every highborn home, all correspondence passes through them, they are the healers and the councillors.

The circular logic gets even more blockheaded when you factor in the fact that Daenerys is far from the only white character in the books. She is not the only character who wishes for home. She is not the only character who draws strength from her ancestors, her bloodline and her magical creatures. 

Cersei draws strength from her family’s iconography, and the Stark children (Jon included) all draw strength from their direwolves, their home and their blood. Sansa, Arya and Bran wish to return home and their home was built on the indiscriminate murder and displacement of the indigenous peoples. Their home is built on centuries of rape, murder, exclusionary practices and sexual slavery. 

However, if we give the nonsensical argument that time erases crimes air; the Starks, Lannisters and Tullys are warring to settle personal grievances in the present timeline. As a consequence of that war, thousands (a modest guesstimate) of small folk, minor nobles and even some major ones have been raped, tortured, maimed and killed.

Despite all this, no one writes meta after meta about how Sansa and her siblings must surely die for justice to be had for those who sing the song of the earth, the free folk, the giants and all the old races that fled beyond the wall.  

People write meta about Cersei and how she must die, but those are typically more misogynistic nature. They typically argue that she must die not for the “crime” of being Lannister, but for the “crime” of being Cersei and “ruining” Jamie. 

I would not mind criticisms of Dany and her peace-focused approach to ending slavery because the approach is naïve and she gives the slavers far too much ground. However, she is learning, growing and self-critiquing. At the end of A Dance with Dragons, she has decided to embrace fire and blood, her knight is breaking the false peace which is a necessary step forward.

What I find offensive is people saying that she should have planned better before she abolished slavery. And that the death, violence, and sickness that arises from her quest to eradicate slavery is somehow worse than the death, violence, and sickness that already existed in Slaver’s Bay. 

This argument often downplays the horrific conditions and suffering that exist(ed) under the slave system in Slaver's Bay. Such arguments are often in poor taste and prioritise the lives and comforts of the slavers more than the people they have enslaved.

I would not mind criticisms of Dany if people applied that same critique even-handedly. The same people who believe that Jon and Bran have done much to rectify the evil that their ancestors perpetuated believe that Dany has not done anything to right the wrongs of her ethnic kin. They praise them for the non-existent steps that they have taken, but in the same breath, they condemn Dany for not being able to immediately end the plague that is slavery. 

It is perfectly alright to not like fictional characters, no law requires you to like certain fictional characters over others. However, what is not right is making broad accusations about those who do, it is beyond the pale. It is disgusting, and annoying, and trivialises real-world issues to score cheap points against fictional characters.

Equating the survival of a teenage survivor to the restoration of a fascist house or neo-Nazi power fantasy when such designations do not exist in the world of ice and fire is strange behaviour. Saying that the teenage survivor will eventually be manipulated and raped (again) before ending up dead on her manipulator's blade is also strange behaviour. 

Dismissing the horrors of colonialism, especially when the text shows you that the involved parties are still affected by it, is not normal and often veers into real-world imperialism apologia. While criticism and analysis of characters and their actions are valid and even encouraged, it is essential that we do not resort to sweeping generalisations about other people and that we keep criticisms of characters grounded in the text. 

[1]  

Ooooooh, I am the last of the giants, my people are gone from the earth.

The last of the great mountain giants, who ruled all the world at my birth

Oh, the smallfolk have stolen my forests, they’ve stolen my rivers and hills.

And they’ve built a great wall through my valleys, and fished all the fish from my rills

In stone halls they burn their great fires, in stone halls they forge their sharp spears.

Whilst I walk alone in the mountains, with no true companion but tears.

They hunt me with dogs in the daylight, they hunt me with torches by night.

For these men who are small can never stand tall, whilst giants still walk in the light.

Oooooooh, I am the LAST of the giants, so learn well the words of my song.

For when I am gone the singing will fade, and the silence shall last long and long.