#but i just wanted to get some stuff out of my system

[ultramaga]

What shits me is the way my phone number is being linked even if I don't provide it, because that's how google/android works, and I have to fight their system if I don't want my files to be uploaded to computers in foreign lands. The iphone leaks should have been a warning. Celebs suddenly found their nudes being leaked on the black market. How? Because iphone copies your stuff onto what is called THE CLOWWWWWD, which is a obfuscation for their servers. They have copies of whatever they can grab, and they do it without asking, and if you block it, they can switch it on remotely, and you end up pouring over hacks that they are trying to stop through legislation, hacks to stop them arse raping your life. We are slipping into the dystopia of shit, the gradual tofu dreggery of everything. The only hope at the moment is maybe some tech savvy radicals will get a voice in the political arena and speak up about it. I do laugh when I read that the EU actually has some good privacy laws, because otherwise they seem to be far closer to a police state. My phone has an ai. I turn it off. The mandatory 'patch' turns it back on. My phone sends my voice to their ai to be analysed. I turn that off. The mandatory 'patch' turns it back on. I say no. They say ok, we'll do it later. You can keep trying to say no, but one slip of the finger and we take that as a yes, and we harvest your data and sell it off. One of the reasons old people are attacked by scammers is because they can get extensive profiles on likely victims. All this data harvesting is deliberate and harmful, and the companies know it will be used to harm the most vulnerable people in the world, but they don't care. That old lady being swindled out of her life savings because a call centre in India bought gigs of data about her to make up convincing lies, she's not responsible, the companies that harvest us and then sell that are, just as surely as if the post office was making wax prints of our locks and selling them to thugs at the pub. When all of this started, I wanted to avoid a mobile phone because I hated having to be tracked all the time by the government, and yet if I needed help, the government suddenly has no idea where I am. All this stuff is not to benefit us, it's about benefitting a few malicious elites take control over us.

And the most galling thing? Every time they kick, every time they smash a tooth out of our faces, they repeat:

WE ARE HERE TO HELP. STOP STRUGGLING. YOU ARE MAKING IT WORSE.

I don't know I'm not done talking about it. It's insane that I can't just uninstall Edge or Copilot. That websites require my phone number to sign up. That people share their contacts to find their friends on social media.

I wouldn't use an adblocker if ads were just banners on the side funding a website I enjoy using and want to support. Ads pop up invasively and fill my whole screen, I misclick and get warped away to another page just for trying to read an article or get a recipe.

Every app shouldn't be like every other app. Instagram didn't need reels and a shop. TikTok doesn't need a store. Instagram doesn't need to be connected to Facebook. I don't want my apps to do everything, I want a hub for a specific thing, and I'll go to that place accordingly.

I love discord, but so much information gets lost to it. I don't want to join to view things. I want to lurk on forums. I want to be a user who can log in and join a conversation by replying to a thread, even if that conversation was two days ago. I know discord has threads, it's not the same. I don't want to have to verify my account with a phone number. I understand safety and digital concerns, but I'm concerned about information like that with leaks everywhere, even with password managers.

I shouldn't have to pay subscriptions to use services and get locked out of old versions. My old disk copy of photoshop should work. I should want to upgrade eventually because I like photoshop and supporting the business. Adobe is a whole other can of worms here.

Streaming is so splintered across everything. Shows release so fast. Things don't get physical releases. I can't stream a movie I own digitally to friends because the share-screen blocks it, even though I own two digital copies, even though I own a physical copy.

I have an iPod, and I had to install a third party OS to easily put my music on it without having to tangle with iTunes. Spotify bricked hardware I purchased because they were unwillingly to upkeep it. They don't pay their artists. iTunes isn't even iTunes anymore and Apple struggles to upkeep it.

My TV shows me ads on the home screen. My dad lost access to eBook he purchased because they were digital and got revoked by the company distributing them. Hitman 1-3 only runs online most of the time. Flash died and is staying alive because people love it and made efforts to keep it up.

I have to click "not now" and can't click "no". I don't just get emails, they want to text me to purchase things online too. My windows start search bar searches online, not just my computer. Everything is blindly called an app now. Everything wants me to upload to the cloud. These are good tools! But why am I forced to use them! Why am I not allowed to own or control them?

No more!!!!! I love my iPod with so much storage and FLAC files. I love having all my fics on my harddrive. I love having USBs and backups. I love running scripts to gut suck stuff out of my Windows computer I don't want that spies on me. I love having forums. I love sending letters. I love neocities and webpages and webrings. I will not be scanning QR codes. Please hand me a physical menu. If I didn't need a smartphone for work I'd get a "dumb" phone so fast. I want things to have buttons. I want to use a mouse. I want replaceable batteries. I want the right to repair. I grew up online and I won't forget how it was!

[egophiliac]

I have a question about the jp server pickups, since I really want knight Sebek, but I’m trying to save gems for bloom malleus + the 3rd tsum event that’s gonna show up sooner or later. Iirc, after knight Sebek, the next story update’s pickup had all of the previous story cards (ie cerberus Ortho, general Lilia, and knight Sebek). Is this true, and if it is, did it include a token system like the dorm pickups where you can just do 100 pulls and then buy the specific card you want directly? Because if that is how it works, then I can wait until then and be sure I won’t have to go to 200 for him.

we did indeed get a second chance at those three when 7-7 came out! I'm pretty sure there was not a token system -- though admittedly I don't 100% remember, sorry! 🙇 I took a quick search through some past posts/videos from people who tend to include the gacha and news stuff, but I didn't see any mention of it, so I'm inclined to think there really wasn't one. :( they were all separate pickups with their own pull counts rather than a combined one, if that info helps at all.

speaking as a strict f2p who hoards keys/gems like the lovechild of a dragon and a magpie, given the choice between saving for a story card and a birthday card, I'd go for story -- it does require a lot of patience, but there are way more opportunities to get past birthday cards, both from the anniversary events and the rerun pickups! tsums is a bit harder to say anything on because Eng doesn't follow the same event schedule, but it's a longish event and those pickups let you have a free 10-roll, so I think they're also a bit easier to save up for.

(ALSO speaking of free rolls, starting with the fifth round of birthdays -- the kutsurogi my room ones -- the birthday boy/union jacket/bloom cards have had a separate pickup that you can get two free 10-pulls at by doing missions! I got a bloom Jade from it a couple weeks ago. :D meanwhile general Lilia is the only story card I've ever managed to pull, so...I'm probably kinda biased. whoops.)

[mdhwrites]

THE. HERTA.

The writers from the Intelligentsia Guild wanted to give me an extra title. Something like "Herta Prime" to separate me from my puppets. How banal. Are the puppets not "me" as well? So, I gave them a suggestion — if they dared to write that, then I would call myself THE Herta. It's short, simple, straight to the point, and elegant.

Esteemed member #83 of the Genius Society, human, female, young, beautiful, attractive. It's said that she lives in the far edge of the Cosmos, almost never leaving. Sounds like her appearance this time... must be to deal with an issue that has to be handled herself, right?

Image and above text taken from Hoyo's English account on Twitter.

OH MY GOD I'M HYPED! And just this alone already feels right. I'll admit when I first saw her I went "Teen Lisa" at the design... But it's a teenager which is kind of major to me. Framing her that young fits exceptionally well with who she has been throughout the entire game. Hear me out:

When we first meet her, she's a petulant, uncaring brat who just wants to play with her toys and hardly cares for people who don't make her life more fun. A bad ending to Star Rail's beginning is sticking around and Herta losing interest in you because of the lack of change. All she cares about is her simulated universe.

By the time Ruan Mei is there though, she's spent a lot more time at the Space Station than she ever has before. She now has a group of peers she has been working with for a long while, something implied she hasn't done really, much like Ruan Mei. But instead of just taking charge and telling the others what geniuses they'll recruit, she's asking for input, wanting their thoughts, stuff like that. She is learning her game is more fun with more players.

A sidequest in Penacony pushes her the next step where she is given a heavy weight. A weapon used to destroy entire star systems. She doesn't mock the scientist, the gift or the weapon like she might have at the start. She treats the Stellaron in us as just a weapon to be played with after all. No, she solemnly tucks it away for later, respectful of the wish that someone who can maybe use it for good have it. It's a responsibility that she must accept, properly, with no one like Asta to shirk it off to. Instead of trying to ignore it though, she treats it with respect.

Finally, we have the Unknown Domain which has a LOT to it about Herta potentially opening up due to it being about something so critical to who she is... But the one I want to zoom in on is the ending. For someone who saw themselves as so high and mighty, who theoretically treats the universe as a curiosity to be replicated, who can only be interested in the strange and unknowable, the curiosities of existence... She gives a mundanite comfort. Thanks someone who could never approach her understanding for giving her the first step into being who she is. She knows it's a simulation but she feels that weight enough to feel the need to thank the simulation regardless.

And now she deems something so important that she comes herself? What could that possibly mean? She needs to kiss Ruan Mei? I can't even begin to properly guess but I am excited to put it mildly because we have gotten to see this teenager, some loli bait doll, become a young woman and now we'll get a physical manifestation of it and I LOVE IT.

Also, just a shout out to the description perfectly explaining why she's Ice Erudition again. "The puppets are me." So why would she be anything other than just a refined, perfected version of the puppets? Also she uses a keyblade/staff which makes the Kingdom Hearts fan in me happy and I'm just SO curious what we're going to see with her. A Herta who summons other Hertas? Does she spin with the key? Is the portal cat an actual thing to her? GIVE ME MORE INFORMATION STAR RAIL!

But for now, I am just excited to let my mind expand thanks to this first turn of her key to let us see who she will be. I just hope it's as exciting when she opens the door properly. See you next tale.

======+++++======

A reminder my asks are open and I'd love questions about Star Rail or even story ideas! I struggle more with concepts to write about for Star Rail far more than I wish I did and I'd love to hear your all's thoughts for a font of inspiration.

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[venoooo]

Reddie headcanons ♡

- Rich refers to the act of kissing / making out as "sucking face" and Eddie absolutely despises it. They'll be at one of their homes, or in the clubhouse, and Richie will casually just go "Hey, Eds, you wanna suck face?" or "Suck my face, will ya, hot stuff?"

- Eddie likes staring at bugs but will freak out the moment one comes near him. Richie, on the contrary, has no problem picking bugs up or even having them crawl on him. Which is why, sometimes, when they're in the Barrens, Rich will catch Eddie staring at whatever bug or trying to chase after one to see it. He will gladly grab the bug so his boyfriend can admire it for as long as he wants.

- After they got together, Richie constantly joked about how he got with only one of the two loves of his life; the first being Eddie, the second being Sonia. This genuinely made Eddie feel bad and Richie had never felt guiltier than when Eddie told him how uncomfortable the joke made him.

-Richie is more sensitive to temperature than Eddie, and his hands are (almost) always cold.

-Most of Eddie's music taste is based off Richie's recommendations.

-This is canon in the novel, but I think it's not talked about much; Eddie has an amazing sense of direction. He seldom, if ever, gets lost, but Richie... It's better he doesn't walk around without a map.

-Though Richie has a very poor sense of location, his sense of time is unbelievably accurate. They'll be hanging out in the Quarry and ask what time it is, no clocks in sight, and just by the position of the sun or his own perception, Richie will be able to accurately tell what time it is.

- Richie was a boy scout like Stan during his early childhood, so he knows a lot of basic survival skills, like how to build a fortress from scratch, what plants are safe to consume or how to start a fire. This has saved their asses sometimes.

- Eddie likes sports and he's actually pretty good at them, but Sonia doesn't want him being physically active because she thinks Eddie is "fragile". Richie knowing this will specifically invite Eddie over to play whatever he wants or run track.

- Richie loves Star Wars, Eddie prefers Star Trek.

- Richie loves coffee, but drinking it will make him hyper as well as give him tachycardia. Eddie doesn't mind coffee, but is concerned that consuming caffeine will damage his cardiac / nervous system, so he avoids it as much as possible. Instead he opts for herbal teas, which he gladly shares with Richie.

- Rich loves to drink and will drink often. Eddie can drink, but he's hesitant because of the negative effects etanol can have on the human body. And, sometimes, when Rich gets shitfaced, Eddie will scold him and remind him and remind him of all the terrible, terrible things that will happen to him if he continues to drink that much.

- After having read Romeo and Juliet in school, Richie would visit Eddie's home and go "O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?" from outside his window.

- Richie can't control his mouth, Eddie can't control his expressions.

- Richie once gifted Eddie a pillbox that he thought he might like and Eddie hasn't used another one since.

- Eddie treasures each and every one of Richie's notes / letters / drawings and keeps them hidden inside a box or something so Sonia won't find them.

- Richie had braces at some point, and Eddie wanted braces because of that.

- Eddie probably likes kissing Richie more than Richie himself likes kissing Eddie, but he'll never admit to it.

- Richie will make sure, year after year, that Eddie's birthday is celebrated to the best of his abilities because he knows Sonia doesn't do much for him on that day.

- They were the first to sign each other's year book.

+

That's all I have for now, have a nice day!

[halfmouse]

Last time I went to the library I returned old stuff I had checked out before, checked out a whole bunch of new stuff, put a few coins into the money donation thing (which, by the way, the branch of my local library system that I’ve been going to most often lately has a really cool one), and spoke nicely to the librarians and told them how glad I was that they had all the nice things they had. I also recommended a CD that I actually own at my house to some other patrons because I saw the library had it and that the family next to me was looking for some CDs to try out.

I don’t expect a cookie or anything, I promise. I’m far from the perfect library patron. I talk loudly without meaning to because of my autism. I’m frequently late bringing stuff back for a variety of reasons, admittedly some of them selfish. But I can tell the librarians I interact with still welcome me. They’re always so helpful when I ask questions. And I find most librarians have a way of making me feel better when I’m having a hard time.

And right now, I think it’s really important to show them the same kindness they give us. I imagine many librarians didn’t think they’d be signing up to get threats, calumny, and other abuse. I imagine most librarians certainly didn’t go into the job thinking they would have to deal with people who want to reenact the book burnings Hitler used to do. No, they probably figured they were in for a safe, comfortable job where the biggest problems are overdue materials and that one lady that seems to talk in crecendos without realizing.

So to all librarians out there, thank you for always being amazing. Thank you for supplying me and others with awesome books, movies, music, and video games. Thank you for being understanding when four-year-old me just wasn’t quite ready to return Toy Story 2, even after you had to call my mom and ask when I would be ready. Thank you for all the renewals, including the one renewal one of you allowed me on that Toy Story 2 DVD. Thank you for having a nice place for me when I was homeless and my bus left me stranded, and for the Sonic comics you helped me find that day. Thank you for all the help for the homeless that you provide. Thank you for the books about queer people. Thank you for the books about fighting racism. Thank you for the books about everything. Thank you for the endless supply of music. Thank you for storytelling circles. Thank you for maker spaces. Thank you for computer catalogs in your libraries so we can search for just about anything. Thank you for holding things for me. Thank you for lending me a basket to carry my books and CDs and DVDs and Wii game in last time you saw me and I was almost ready to bring all that stuff home but I just wanted to browse the American Girl book section one more time while you finished checking in the last round of stuff I got. Thank you for putting up with me when I’m a little much. Thank you for lifting my spirits time and again. Thank you for the stickers you give to kids and sometimes adults. Thank you for having toys to play with. Thank you for all the community support. Thank you for everything you do for me and every other patron. You guys deserve the best.

Lovely people of tumblr, if I may speak with my librarian hat* on for a moment:

If you are in the US, you may be aware that librarians are Going Through It because some malicious people believe in fascism and have decided to make that our problem. Whether you are in the US or not, there is something you can do to help your local librarians out:**

Say something nice to us.

You can post on social media and tag your library, you can find the library’s main phone number and call, you can go in person, you can send a card (we display cards in our break room)! I guarantee you that you will make the day of the person you talk to, we will immediately go tell all our colleagues how lovely you were, and you will help us live to love and fight another day.

*it is a fetching piece of millinery in purple silk

**I propose we make this an international group project. Whether your librarians are going through it or not, we all appreciate a kind word.

[loulovingho]

Can we have some Rocker kidnapped ideas? Pleaseeeeeee? I need the angst

Gets kinda graphic if you don't wanna deal with that

Okay well it's obviously a case that's being sent to trial and Rocker's testimony is gonna put these bad guys away for life. So they lure him with an ice cream truck outside of his apartment, because of course they do. It's been a lot time since he's had a push up pop, sue him!

20-David is in the situation room when all the screens black out. They're confused, trying to see if there's some sort of system failure or if they've been hacked, when suddenly Rocker's face appears on the screens. Hands and feet bound, duct tape over his mouth. He's very clearly tried to fight these guys and has lots of cuts and bruises on his body.

These bad guys don't want anything. They aren't making demands. They just want Rocker to suffer. Want to torture him before they kill him, and they want his co-workers to watch. They make him stand, chain him up and strip off most of his clothes. That's when the beatings begin. They rip off the duct tape so 20-David can hear him cry out in pain.

Meanwhile, everyone back at headquarters is losing their shit! Hondo is fucking pissed. Hicks is trying to remind them of proper protocols for situations like this, but the team is all, "Fuck protocol! This is Rocker! This is our guy!"

Rocker manages to get signals so them between the beatings. They can also hear some sounds in the background like a train going by, which helps narrow down where he's being held.

There's a lot of stuff happening in between here, but eventually 20-David figure out where to go and they storm the damn castle! It's right on time too, because Rocker is seconds away from being killed when they come in. Hondo takes out two of the men fast, while Deacon pulls one off of Rocker and just beats the shit out of him.

Luca works on untying Rocker, who kinda goes limp and Luca has to help him to the ground. Chris and Street pull Deacon off the guy he's beating and Tan cuffs him. Deacon then goes to Rocker and kinda pulls him into his arms while asking (yelling) why a medic isn't there yet? Rocker grabs onto Deacon's sleeve and holds on tight, trying to catch his breath as the medics run in.

It doesn't end there, but this is what runs through my head on a daily basis!

[chaoticly-shy-dragon]

I'm back with more demigod dead boy detectives (parts one and two for those interested)! In short, Edwin is a son of Athena (born at the turn of the 20th century) who spent seventy years in the fields of punishment by accident - after he escaped it was 1989 and most of the gods had moved to America of all places.

And despite all that, St Hilarion was still functioning as a demigod heaven. Edwin is not happy. At all.

Charles on the other hand is having an interesting time all around. The backstory for him that I came up with starts from before he was born. The OG pjo au that I read had his father be Ares and yes?! I adore the Frank Zang of him?

But his mom and Ares didn't click in my mind until I realized that Ares is in an on-and-off relationship with Aphrodite - who is cutting and sharp and tough but also soft and ditsy and a bit shallow. His past lovers don't all need to be veterans or kickboxers. It was an eureka moment, to be honest.

Charles' mom (name still in the works) met Ares in a museum showcasing ancient pottery and jewelry - some of them Greek - most of which depicted old heroic tales or bore the scars of the years. They started talking completely by chance - Aphrodite had stood Ares up and he didn't feel like going back to what he was doing. He decided to check this collection out - to reminisce or to try and remember fallen friends. Or just to sulk. Either way, he was there.

Charles's future mom sees him and the conflicting aesthetic of his clothing and the display he was looking at makes her want to talk with him. They hit it off. He asks to see her again and the rest is history.

They are together for four months before she gets pregnant. As expected from a god, Ares disappears from her life with only a few words. Charles's mom is left alone with a baby, in a shitty apartment with no family in the country.

It sucks. Like a lot.

Then she meets Paul Richard Rowland.

(I'm sorry but I can't do Paul's name dirty in a pjo au, I just can't. Although the irony was amusing enough to make me consider it for a whole second.)

They hit it off even with the occasionally crying baby in the next room. Soon they are engaged to be married - and married soon afterward. Charles's last name is changed and would you look at that - a happy family.

Not.

Charles is a charming and athletic boy with a love for ska and a bit of a temper. His dad is a cunt and his mom is quiet. That's fine until it isn't.

In an argument, it gets out that Richard isn't Charles's actual father (he is 14 when that happens). Stuff gets progressively worse after that (both with Richard and with the monsters - Richard's whole "something is wrong with you" really drives in the "I am different" mindset you really don't want in an untrained demigod) until Charles' mom gets desperate and contacts the boarding school - Ares had assured her that it would always have a spot for Charles.

(The phone number is that of the school board of all the still functioning demigod establishments. Had Charles been a girl they would have referred the mom to one of the all-girls or mixed schools. It's a system run by descendants, wind spirits and satyrs.)

((It's not as efficient as say sending satyrs to schools, but they only have so many satyrs. They do the guardian routine! Honest!))

Fast forward and Charles has been to St Hil for almost a year and a half. He is a semi-full-year camper in the sense he went home once for one summer and then only for two to three days a year.

He gets along with his siblings and the cricket team. He is friendly and nice but 80s racism and classist bullshit exist - he can't be too vocal with his thoughts and opinions less he is ostracized by his peers, he has to play a role he only has half the script of. The demigod thing isn't always a blessing.

He is a deft hand with daggers and knives, he is skilled with a sword - but he would prefer to play cricket or go to concerts. No magical barrier means nightly patrols and the occasional monster attack.

Cue the death scene. It plays like canon but with weapons. He is chased into the freezing lake by his siblings and his former mates. (And Charles had been so excited about having siblings - but this - they - he couldn't call brothers.)

There aren't any naiads during the winter - or they are sleeping deep into it. No one intervenes. He manages to escape his pursuers by going deeper into the woods until he comes across an old shed.

Charles goes in.

(He didn't hear the sharp snap of twigs and branches in the other direction of the one he was going. He didn't notice the second pair of footsteps shadowing his own.)

((He does see the lantern.))

And they finally meet. Isn't it grand? (TBC)

[ell-vellan]

A random collection of Veilguard Thoughts after completing the game, because I need to vent some feelings. spoilers below!

Firstly: I was going to love this game regardless. I came into it with the fewest amount of spoilers possible. I do love this game. I won't argue with anyone - if we have different opinions, that's fine! I won't tolerate hate, though.

This is my messy stream of consciousness, but let's start with the good stuff!

The Good:

-Gameplay was fun! Combat was fun and inventive, for someone who plays on Storyteller mode and tries to get through combat as fast as possible so I can get back to the story, it rarely aggravated me.

-The maps/puzzles are fun. They were usually easy enough to figure out on my own without looking it up, but just complex enough I felt smart when I got it. I like that the game almost always rewards you for looking around and exploring off the beaten path a bit.

-It felt like a spiritual successor to Mass Effect 2 in the way that you have to build your team up in order to save the world. I loved that.

-The griffons coming back is one of the best things in the Dragon Age universe ever, and I love that we could decide what to do with them. (But I'm kind of concerned that there's only 12, and they're...related? I feel like that's not enough individuals to grow the species back...)

-Letting us pet and hug Assan (with different animations!) over and over was one of the best things they ever did. Also, photo mode was a great idea.

-The little hints about Those Beyond The Sea we keep getting?! Dear God, I hope we get another game and get more lore. I'm dying to know. They've teased this for so long, I really, really wanna know what's up with this part of the world.

-i loved being able to choose our body proportions.

-I'm so thankful we got to make our Inquisitor and keep the same vallaslin and voice actor. I hate the outfit they gave them and how we had no choice in it, and I would have also preferred to have a choice in their prosthetic, but I'm grateful for what we did get. The missives from them were also a nice touch, and seeing the letter from the Inquisitor's love interest was SO HEALING. Tbh, in reality, I think the Inquisitor would have been involved WAY more, especially since the crossroads would have made travel basically instant across Thedas. But I get why Rook needed to stand on their own two feet.

-Morrigan/Mythal was a great touch. It made sense logically, there was character growth, and I'm glad Mythal wasn't gone entirely, but I wish we could know what's become of Kieran.

-All the VAs are so good. the world felt lush, magical, twisted, and fun, with just the right amount of tragedy and horror balanced with hope and love. Arlathan was gorgeous and tragic and horrific and I took SO MANY photos.

-we got more Dalish and more Qunlat words!!

-THE LORE. So many questions finally answered. I kind of thought we would learn that the Black City was actually the prison Solas made for the gods, but hey, maybe next time? I also still want to know if Andraste was real and more about the origins of elves as spirits, but alas...

-i loved the inventory system. I wish we could have sold equipment we didn't need instead of just the valuables, but it's a minor quibble. It was so much easier to manage, I didn't have to waste a bunch of time going through everything to find the best items for everyone

-ARCHON DORIAN PAVUS !! He was barely in the game which made me sad, but the fact that he was there at all and so glorious was wonderful. I wonder if people new to the game know or care about the significance of him being in charge of Tevinter, though, since we didn't even really get to have a conversation with him

About Solas:

I played thru DAI on release day. My first Inquisitor romanced him. When Everything Happened(tm) I was PISSED. I wanted revenge on Solas, I wanted to hunt him down. I've thought about him for 10 years, and now I am so wistful for more of him. I want to give him a hug. Moreover I want Lavellan to hug him.

Solas was INCREDIBLE in this. I loved, loved getting to see his memories firsthand - this was more than I'd hoped for - and the banter with Rook was one of the best parts of the game. Seeing him with hair - seeing him change into Fen'harel and fight a DRAGON? him helping us in the fade by baiting Elgar'nan and getting all bloody and beat up trying to help us, thinking he was going to trick us one final time? My wildest dreams came true. He was layered, he was complex, he was incredibly heroic and sympathetic and tortured and clever and absolutely ruthless. He was at turns heartbreakingly sincere and infuriatingly traitorous.

He showed a wide range of emotion; we got to see the real Solas, not the polite pretender of Inquisition. He was the shining star of the game for me. And he was sorely lacking.

We hardly got to speak to him!! It drove me nuts that we couldn't talk to him as much as our other companions. He literally knows the most about our enemies and how to defeat them. And we know he's probably planning some trickery in his lil mind prison. Why are we not checking on Solas at every chance we get?

Learning more about and speaking with Mythal? Chef's kiss. But I so, so wish that a romanced Inquisitor, along with Mythal's release of Solas, was what prompted Solas to realize there could be more to his life than rebellion and penance. He's betrayed everyone he's ever loved, and killed his closest friends, but he didn't kill her. Mythal represents his past, she's the origin of where it all went wrong - I wanted Solas to see a Lavellan that understands and forgives, even after everything, and that universal acceptance is the thing he needs to finally let go of trying to make up for what he's done. (It's fine, I'll just write a fanfic about it, whatever)

My Complaints:

-That we only can choose 3 possible variables for worldbuilding to keep from Inquisition. I think this the biggest, most egregious and disrespectful thing they did in the game, and I'm sure it's been talked about to death, but I'll just add that I hate it. I'll live with it - I'd rather they be vague than ret-con or kill off beloved characters off-screen - but still, what's the point of all of our previous choices if we don't get to see how they shape this world?

-The relationships felt SHALLOW. For a game that revolves around your companions, everything felt surface level. While I loved that almost every time you went to the Lighthouse, people were somewhere different and talking to each other, I HATED that Rook couldn't participate in their conversations. We only listened. I hate that we couldn't really ever initiate any long, deep conversations where we got to ask our companions strings of questions about themselves and their histories. I feel like I barely know Neve or Lucanis. I did like getting a bit more in depth with characters during their missions, but still...I feel like I barely know them, not the deep closeness I've felt with Dragon Age companions in the past. Nobody ever argues or disagrees with you, not really, just a couple times and it doesn't truly matter. I loved the companions. Their designs are so cool. I wanted to know everything about them and talk to them more. Why can't we ask Davrin about his vallaslin (it's obviously Ghilan'nain) and how he feels about it now that we are fighting her, especially if we're also an elf? And Bellara, why can't we ask about her tattoo and where her clan is and how she joined the Veil Jumpers? Why can't we ask Neve about her prosthetic? I loved the references to Inquisition in Harding's design, but since we couldn't import more than 3 things, she couldn't even talk about the Inquisition beyond the most vague things. Taash barely speaks at all. Emmrich has no life beyond the dead.

-The companions are so...one-note. Taash brings up being non-binary at every. single. quest, even though their adaari-ness and crossroads between being Qun and being Rivani was super interesting to me. (more on Taash in a minute.) Lucanis likes coffee. Davrin's personal quests mention "torlum" ad nauseum and the fact that Assan eats a lot. Bellara at least talks about other interests, but everyone else is so predictable. Even their banter doesn't seem to give them a lot of individual personality.

-the body models for female elves felt..a bit odd? My Rook always looked bow-legged. And do bras not exist in Thedas anymore? Lol

-The choice of who dies? HEART-WRENCHING. why was it between those two?! Why isn't the romance scene until AFTER this choice? Why doesn't the thing that happens with Harding and The Stone protect her (I thought it would!) and why don't we get any resolution to that if we lose her? I understand that Davrin was prepared to sacrifice himself as a Grey Warden, but making us lose Assan too...? Cruelty. That's what it is.

-I don't like that there are permanent deaths that happen regardless of our choices. That sucks. I know it's realistic, but this is a game, and I want my happily ever after for everyone, DAMN IT! The twist truly shook me, and I didn't see it coming. I didn't think I'd be caught by surprise and I was.

-The characterization of Rook is all over the place. I played an elven Rook with non-traditional vallaslin (figuring that the newer generation of Dalish Veil Jumpers might blend tradition with their new focus of exploring the Veil.) At various times, my Rook has said these things: "I didn't grow up with the Dalish." "I'm Dalish where it counts. "As a fellow Dalish--" WHICH IS IT? I'm in the most elfy faction, it's not even that I picked something unlikely for an elf with a face tattoo. I don't know what you have to do, what flags you have to trigger in the code, but the game still seems so confused about who our characters are. Pick a lane, Rook!

-While I'm on this subject: it would have been so nice to be able to know from the character creator what every kind of tattoo, body paint, and scar pattern went with what faction. And for the Dalish, which god matched to which vallaslin. It would have blown my mind in a good way if our choice of vallaslin came up in any way shape or form

-I would have loved if our race and faction actually like..mattered more. Walking around the Veil Jumper camp at the beginning and nobody talking to me except Strife and Irelin, that was so boring! Nobody recognizes you or asks how you've been. Just silence. Like everyone around you is a cardboard cutout. I expected more from Bioware.

-We got so much amazing lore in this game, and I'm really happy about it! But why did Bioware have to take the most marginalized group of people in Thedas, who were barely clinging to their own language and culture and freedom to begin with, and make everything bad that ever happened THEIR FAULT? What was the thought process there? That they used to have power but their leaders were in fact so terrible that they tore themselves apart and now live on the fringes of society? It makes it feel like the elves deserved their present fate, which is...pretty sucky. I'm glad they did not massacre the elves in this game as they have in the past, and that the elves didn't become even MORE the enemy by joining with the gods, but it really feels like the humans are only going to kill more elves in retribution for their gods almost ending the whole world. Also, related: nobody ever gives us sass about being an elf, not even in Minrathous, where elves are almost entirely slaves?!

-i know everything's changing with the lore stuff we typically know, but why did it seem that existing physically in the Fade is just no big deal anymore?

-at no point does Harding mention Varric dying? They don't have a funeral, a memorial? The Inquisitor says nothing, Morrigan says nothing? I know Solas messed with rook's mind, but even after...?

-the fact that the romance scenes don't happen until after the deaths. So it's possible for your love interest to die before that? Cruelty. Also, weird places to hook up, right after I just found out someone I thought has been alive this whole time DIED AT THE BEGINNING, and another dear friend sacrificed themselves, and we aren't sad at all during this? I understand sex after loss is perfectly normal and I understand that. But at least for the scene I saw, there was no "celebration of being alive" feel, it felt...more lustful than loving? Just an abrupt tonal shift.

-it just...ends. there's the typical little wrap up slides, but they're, again, shallow. A few lines here and there. Apparently the whole of Thedas was nearly destroyed, and not a single country went unscathed, but it's all gonna be ok! The bit of hope was nice, but...I don't feel settled at all. And it seems like we won't get DLC? which...ugh. and they fired the writers, which, again, cruel. If they make another Dragon Age, I can't see it being truly Dragon Age without them.

-i decided to make Taash's whole deal and the Qun a separate post lol

All in all - so thankful we got this game, so thankful we got what we did, I'm still processing a lot of it, and the past 3 weeks of my life I have done little else but live inside this story, but I just really need to scream into the void now!!

[mellonhead58]

A Mathematician's Lament

I've put the introduction below the cut. I think it's worth reading if nothing else.

A musician wakes from a terrible nightmare. In his dream he finds himself in a society where music education has been made mandatory. “We are helping our students become more competitive in an increasingly sound-filled world.” Educators, school systems, and the state are put in charge of this vital project. Studies are commissioned, committees are formed, and decisions are made— all without the advice or participation of a single working musician or composer. Since musicians are known to set down their ideas in the form of sheet music, these curious black dots and lines must constitute the “language of music.” It is imperative that students become fluent in this language if they are to attain any degree of musical competence; indeed, it would be ludicrous to expect a child to sing a song or play an instrument without having a thorough grounding in music notation and theory. Playing and listening to music, let alone composing an original piece, are considered very advanced topics and are generally put off until college, and more often graduate school. As for the primary and secondary schools, their mission is to train students to use this language— to jiggle symbols around according to a fixed set of rules: “Music class is where we take out our staff paper, our teacher puts some notes on the board, and we copy them or transpose them into a different key. We have to make sure to get the clefs and key signatures right, and our teacher is very picky about making sure we fill in our quarter-notes completely. One time we had a chromatic scale problem and I did it right, but the teacher gave me no credit because I had the stems pointing the wrong way.” In their wisdom, educators soon realize that even very young children can be given this kind of musical instruction. In fact it is considered quite shameful if one’s third-grader hasn’t completely memorized his circle of fifths. “I’ll have to get my son a music tutor. He simply won’t apply himself to his music homework. He says it’s boring. He just sits there staring out the window, humming tunes to himself and making up silly songs.” In the higher grades the pressure is really on. After all, the students must be prepared for the standardized tests and college admissions exams. Students must take courses in Scales and Modes, Meter, Harmony, and Counterpoint. “It’s a lot for them to learn, but later in college when they finally get to hear all this stuff, they’ll really appreciate all the work they did in high school.” Of course, not many students actually go on to concentrate in music, so only a few will ever get to hear the sounds that the black dots represent. Nevertheless, it is important that every member of society be able to recognize a modulation or a fugal passage, regardless of the fact that they will never hear one. “To tell you the truth, most students just aren’t very good at music. They are bored in class, their skills are terrible, and their homework is barely legible. Most of them couldn’t care less about how important music is in today’s world; they just want to take the minimum number of music courses and be done with it. I guess there are just music people and non-music people. I had this one kid, though, man was she sensational! Her sheets were impeccable— every note in the right place, perfect calligraphy, sharps, flats, just beautiful. She’s going to make one hell of a musician someday.”

Waking up in a cold sweat, the musician realizes, gratefully, that it was all just a crazy dream. “Of course!” he reassures himself, “No society would ever reduce such a beautiful and meaningful art form to something so mindless and trivial; no culture could be so cruel to its children as to deprive them of such a natural, satisfying means of human expression. How absurd!” Meanwhile, on the other side of town, a painter has just awakened from a similar nightmare…

I was surprised to find myself in a regular school classroom— no easels, no tubes of paint. “Oh we don’t actually apply paint until high school,” I was told by the students. “In seventh grade we mostly study colors and applicators.” They showed me a worksheet. On one side were swatches of color with blank spaces next to them. They were told to write in the names. “I like painting,” one of them remarked, “they tell me what to do and I do it. It’s easy!” After class I spoke with the teacher. “So your students don’t actually do any painting?” I asked. “Well, next year they take Pre-Paint-by-Numbers. That prepares them for the main Paint-by-Numbers sequence in high school. So they’ll get to use what they’ve learned here and apply it to real-life painting situations— dipping the brush into paint, wiping it off, stuff like that. Of course we track our students by ability. The really excellent painters— the ones who know their colors and brushes backwards and forwards— they get to the actual painting a little sooner, and some of them even take the Advanced Placement classes for college credit. But mostly we’re just trying to give these kids a good foundation in what painting is all about, so when they get out there in the real world and paint their kitchen they don’t make a total mess of it.” “Um, these high school classes you mentioned…” “You mean Paint-by-Numbers? We’re seeing much higher enrollments lately. I think it’s mostly coming from parents wanting to make sure their kid gets into a good college. Nothing looks better than Advanced Paint-by-Numbers on a high school transcript.” “Why do colleges care if you can fill in numbered regions with the corresponding color?” “Oh, well, you know, it shows clear-headed logical thinking. And of course if a student is planning to major in one of the visual sciences, like fashion or interior decorating, then it’s really a good idea to get your painting requirements out of the way in high school.” “I see. And when do students get to paint freely, on a blank canvas?” “You sound like one of my professors! They were always going on about expressing yourself and your feelings and things like that—really way-out-there abstract stuff. I’ve got a degree in Painting myself, but I’ve never really worked much with blank canvasses. I just use the Paint-by-Numbers kits supplied by the school board.”

pardon the wall of text, tumblr cries and hits itself every time it hears the word "formatting".

I didn't wanna derail the other post but I still wanna spread some love for my favourite subject...

Reblog if you've ever felt genuine joy or excitement from doing and/or thinking about math

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 11/19/2024

no silly little witticism here this week! just heartfelt thanks for helping me pay my rent this month :)

listening

absolutely wild pick from last week's spotify weekly recommenced, Things Will Fall Apart by Louis Cole feat the Metropole Orkest and conductor Jules Buckley. it's been on loop all week for me and im a little sad it won't pop up in my spotify wrapped

when you make a dance pop song with a full orchestra backing, it has a really interesting effect somewhere between Golden Age of Hollywood swashbuckling film score and marching band?

Yes, understood Things will fall apart just likе they should This little shred was good Don't think it through Things will fall apart, they always do At least, something's always true

the syllables are so choppy they don’t even register to me as English at first, i was fully willing to believe this was German for the first couple lines. like @dying-suffering-french-stalkers, i have a deep fondness for works about putting an era to bed. or works focused on the sunsets of things, or one of the last living practitioners of an art. putting the chairs up on the table, sweeping the floors, and turning the lights out and locking the door behind you. this song has that sort of quiet post-wake-party remembrance.

however once you think the song has ended but it keeps going, you can turn it off. you don’t really need that extra minute and a half of strings and light vocalizations.

Lately, Louis Cole has been doing live shows with the Netherlands’ Metropole Orkest and conductor Jules Buckley. Cole recorded nothing with the ensemble. In a press release, he says, “Sometimes, when I’m mixing my own solo stuff, I’ll feel like a song needs a little magical dust. But mixing an entire orchestra and your own rhythm section, there’s so much human energy! You don’t have to add any magic. It was there the whole time.”

i don’t hear many pop songs this millennium with a full orchestral backing. perhaps i need to look harder. unfortunately spotify took this extreme interest in this song as a newfound extreme interest in electroswing, which is really not what this song is. i hope this artist does more albums like this so they can wear grooves in my brain

-

reading

very hard to focus on anything book length this week. some depressing local news (my local paper's links do Not want to preview nicely here, which is annoying:

At a city council meeting in October, district Vice President Dan Joyce told council members that the management district was not attempting to "criminalize homelessness." The city’s civility ordinance bans people from sitting, lying down or placing personal items or bedding on sidewalks from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.

cool piece from our pals at 404 Media. i am So fascinated by crime infrastructure

Based on interviews with malware developers, hackers who use the stolen credentials, and a review of manuals that tell new recruits how to spread the malware, 404 Media has mapped out this industry. Its end result is that a download of an innocent-looking piece of software by a single person can lead to a data breach at a multibillion-dollar company, putting Google and other tech giants in an ever-escalating cat-and-mouse game with the malware developers to keep people and companies safe.

(via longreads) my interest in how and why systems fail extends to invasive species management. plus i used to live in florida just above the everglades and these fuckers (the snakes) were everywhere

[I]magine thousands upon thousands of pythons, their slow digestion transforming each corpse into python muscle and fat. Unaided, Florida’s native wildlife doesn’t stand a chance. “That’s what I think about with every python I catch,” Kalil says. “What it ate to get this big, and the lives I’m saving by removing it.” Biologists are taking a multipronged approach to the issue. They have experimented with enlisting dogs to sniff out both pythons and nests—a technique that has proved difficult in such hot weather and inhospitable landscapes. Ongoing projects use telemetry to track pythons to find “associate snakes.” Researchers use drones, go out in airboats, or even take to helicopters to locate their subjects in the interiors of the Everglades. Always, agencies and individuals are looking for the next best methods. “But for now, the python contractor program is the most successful management effort in the history of the issue,” Kirkland says. “We’re capturing more and more—something that is indicative of the python population out there and indicative of us getting better at what we do.”

-

watching

continuing noirvember, watched hitchcock's Notorious to see if i still dislike hitchcock. the answer is yes. there are bond girls and there are hitchcock girls, and not that bond girls are paragons of female agency in film, but hitchcock girls are mostly fluttering little pathetic things. a scrap of agency they showed in the beginning of the film becomes a running joke and something their noses are rubbed in for the rest of the film. not for me!

patrick mcgoohan is leading me into some real dad-ass movies. Ice Station Zebra (1968, dir. Sturges) is a real you're stuck at home sick with your dad and it's on TV for the whole afternoon kind of movie. they truly do not make two and a half cold war submarine espionage films in super panavision with an overture, intermission, and interact music any more. i get why howard hughes was really obsessed with this one. it is a suspense film, but full of people competently going about their business, which i find oddly comforting.

unfortunately i do not feel this really needed to be two and a half hours long. the loving closeups of sub interiors and instrumentation really did keep me amused, though. despite how cluttered every shot is with actors, there is tremendous clarity of purpose and motion with the camera movement. just a really technically brilliant film.

how similar the russian and american control rooms and instrumentation were made me chortle. ties nicely into a little diatribe mcgoohan goes on much later in the film, "The Russians put our camera made by our German scientists and your film made by your German scientists into their satellite made by their German scientists." funny and darkly true! every allied nation had some sort of Operation Paperclip going on! mcgoohan is the focus of every scene he's in, as a spy who is really hanging on by the last remaining shreds of his fingernails.

i had a good time with it, but one of many cold war suspense films im glad exist in the world but don't necessarily need to see again. it might join Escape from New York as a film i put on when im very sick though.

-

playing

this pc needs some sort of replacement something, bc it has a really persistent overheating problem. it only tolerates powerwasher simulator on the lowest possible settings and genshin impact on basically mobile settings. it does not even want to run new vegas. i popped my head out of goodsprings to look out over the desert at the Strip and it said no thank you! too many polygons! naptime!

speaking of genshin, major update this week and new character i will be pulling for. she has a sister who died in the last patch, which i do Not care for as someone with a beloved little sister, but her moveset and skills are unique so far in the game. i feel like her skills are little too complicated for me to fully take advantage of with my "hit enemy very hard until he is dead" playstyle but she has a limited flight ability that will genuinely be very useful for exploration.

if i do not get her when i hit pity on the banner i won't bother pulling another nine times or whatever, bc the next patch has a character i really desperately want and i am saving for her

-

making

the local crew is all getting art this year, bc i already have bristol board and a selection of small frames and zero budget. people who have pets are So easy to get gifts for bc u can simply get them stuff for their pet or that looks like their pet. way less gray cat than black cat merch in the world tho

aiming to send out international holiday cards by the end of the week, and canadian cards by american thanksgiving. the rest of you they'll get there when they get there ok

[ganondoodle]

(Original art) Xaror, any pronouns, species (?), age (?)

short summary about them; they act as both an antagonist and an ally since they are only really interested in what they want or whats fun to them, they are immortal and call themselves 'death itself' since they have a special connection to souls (being the only one able to communicate with them) and the ability to seperate souls from their bodies in such a way that nothing can harm the soul afterwards their main goal is to .. bother and disturb the 'celestials'*, which they hate, as much as they can, breaking into their palace, freeing prisoners, destroying research, destroying the place, and most importantly, making as many souls unusable to them as possible-

they dont want to destroy the celestials though, they cant fight them anyway and this game of doing 'good' only with the goal of annoying them is their most treasured activity, so Xaror doesnt intend to stop them from killing or hurting anyone, only from harvesting what they are actually after (though Xaror doesnt actually care as little as they think they do about people, and has a soft spot for demons)

most of their appearance is later into the story; Zaphira (the empress) had been in coma and the medical facility she was treated in was destroyed by Shargon (orange eyed demon who acts as her bodyguard for the first part) in an attempt to save her from her estranged relatives taking over her country after they heard of her decline in health, she is believed dead but washes up on the shore of the mountain Xaror resides at years later (it has a reason, too much to write here) and they slowly nurse her back to health, the reason they give for it is that they found their first encounter very fun, thats all (is it?)

(more lore under the cut bc this is already so long .. im trying to keep it short q-q ......... this is stuff i have been working on since i was a kid so uh, some things might be cheesy but i cant change them anymore ..)

just to get some basics out of the way; theres three worlds, the celestials palace, human world and demon world, each are their own planet connected via different gateways

*celestials (possibly not final name, loosely based on angels) are the last remaining "survivors" of their planets demise, when their world died the most powerful among them cannibalized the weaker to sustain themselves until there were only less than 10 left, who each turned into different beings from it and dont resemble their own people much anymore, they built a palace from what was left on their world that protects them from space as its atmosphere collapsed shortly after- however they still needed something to live off; they discover the human world and are delighted to find rather short lived people with powerful souls, the best kind of sustenance for them (now), they aim to herd them like cattle, but a problem arose when it turned out another world has long been in contact with the human world; demons

demons are semi immortal creatures that act as protectors for their world, protection they extended, more or less secretely, to the human world ensuring them a long and secure life- the celestials need them to die at their whim though (demons are few in numbers, hard to kill and rarely have offspring, not an ideal target); as they worked out a plan on how to get rid of demons one of the celestials, Xanthriel (time) grew somewhat fond of people as they spent alot of time in the human world to observe and research them; in the end turning on their own completely, but losing the fight against Uriel (knowledge)

Xanthriel was supposed to be executed for their betrayal, but it doesnt work, instead they are splintered into many parts after a lot of struggle, most body, memory and most strength is one part (ending up as motionless forever bleeding corpse kept locked up in the palace), the rest is some time later gathered together and reforms as a seperate, weak mockery of them, they embody Xanthriels emotion- Xaror, without memory, strangely cut to pieces (hence all the missing limbs and broken halo) but driven by an unstoppable desire to disturb the celestials (they live seperate long enough to each become their own person, at some point Xaror discovers Xanthriels body after all and they merge back together, though as they are now two, Xanthriel only takes over once directly after merging, stays silent for a long time and lets Xaror be themselves, only later revealing that they are there at all .. hiding perhaps- i rarely have specific ideas for voices, but Xanthriels is like, like coarse rocks being violently rubbed against each other, less voice more noise)

(also, the celestials use Xanthriels blood from the day of their execution to create a plague that nearly wipes out all demons, only the youngest of them survived, effectively robbing them of everything, culture, history, knowledge etc- as demons rarely have children, like a complete restart of their society, they disappeared from the human world, and over time being largely forgotten as actually existing- the celestials wanted them all gone however, so they kept kidnapping them to try and find somethign that would work similarly against the young ones too (and then in general, bc the only usable blood of Xanthriel was from the day of their fall, and that has long since been used up) one of the young ones was Shargon, he was the only one still alive from his group

(also, the celestials use Xanthriels blood from the day of their execution to create a plague that nearly wipes out all demons, only the youngest of them survived, effectively robbing them of everything, culture, history, knowledge etc- as demons rarely have children, like a complete restart of their society, they disappeared from the human world, and over time being largely forgotten as actually existing- the celestials wanted them all gone however, so they kept kidnapping them to try and find somethign that would work similarly against the young ones too (and then in general, bc the only usable blood of Xanthriel was from the day of their fall, and that has long since been used up) one of the young ones was Shargon, he was the only one still alive from his group (he wasnt the strongest or special, he was jsut the last in the row and always got the lowest dosage) when Xaror found them in yet another break in into the palace and got him back to the demon world .. where he was promptly blamed for the others that were taken and treated like a pretender/fake/spy bc what he got put through changed his eye color (something that demons cannot change in any form) to one that does not exist among 'real' demons (orange ... notice the inner color of Xarors broken halo? :) ), some even suggesting killing him, but none of them were brave enough to do it (they were all kids still) .. except Eadrya (the big blue-ish one, largely regarded as the strongest demon alive) but Shargon managed to escape, and since then lived largely in isolation- this is part of why he is so hated, and why he starts to spend so much time in the human world after rediscovering the pathway there)

[lagomorphics]

lucky card au thoughts..... smiles

i want the crowns to exist in some way (in this au the 'cults' are represented as the bishops influence over the specific area of Olden Faith Ave) + love it when theres magic going on sooo ive had a few ideas

i think the bishops 'god' status would be represented by something On their person (for nari; she has a pin on her vest that looks like the red crown! and has a giant tattoo on her back as well <3), and also theyre just straight up immortal/way stronger than a regular person

stuff like the mini bosses perhaps have a small accessory of sorts on them that is kinda like a statement of "more trusted/has more power", and definitely stronger than the average person (the witnesses would be even stronger) (hierarchy would be like. bishops > witnesses > mini bosses > lackeys)

these little accessories are also kinda like a 'bind' of sorts? kinda like saying to everyone that "this one has MY power and represents me", im also having way more fun and just saying that its kinda like the bishops are sharing a small bit of power directly from their 'crown'/'godlihood' (i'll find a better way to describe it eventually LMAO)

for Nari + Ines; she gave them a pretty big portion of that power in the form of a ring, did NOT tell them what it was for until they realised "holy shit, this thing can turn into a weapon. and i am Way stronger. what." and then later turned it into an earring because it being a ring flustered them way too much

Nari did this because Ines is the only person she has to deal with her siblings (still doesnt trust Jahel to not betray them lol), and so hes trying to give them a Massive fighting chance here.

"but what about Jahel?" well, they also have some of this power. wonder how they got that though 👀.....

[fleshengine]

STOP VOTING NO, YOU'RE WRONG

I'm going to copy paste what I said on that post about Elesh Norn. It's kinda long, apologies...

-Begin copy paste section-

While the phrase itself "conventionally attractive phyrexian" is kinda silly, I believe it is fitting for Elesh Norn specifically because of her metacharacter archetype.

Elesh Norn is what I've taken to calling a Corruption Mommy. A largely anthropomorphic woman whose body would be conventionally attractive if not for the corruption, who holds a position of status in whatever faction the corruption consists of. (She's even explicitly referred to as a mother.) We typically see this in IPs that appeal to nerds/gamers/geeks/whatever.

If you want another example, take a look at Sarah Kerrigan from Starcraft (finding official art for her is hard because starcraft is old as balls and the wiki doesn't help me)

So again, we have female, largely anthropomorphic, high status in the corruption faction, who would be conventionally attractive if not for the bits added onto her by the corruption (in this case the Zerg).

Spoilers for starcraft I guess but we even see her get uncorrupted/deinfested later in the story and hey would you look at that, she's a conventionally attractive scifi woman under all that zerg stuff.

If you uncorrupted Elesh Norn (technically possible but highly unlikely) then she would be a skinny flatchested woman with hips to die for and a tiny waist. I think she would count as conventionally attractive, and that's because she's designed to be.

Elesh Norn, Sarah Kerrigan, and others that I can't call to mind at the moment because I have a headache, are designed to be on the barest edge of what gamers will find attractive. They have thin waists, and prominent chests, and at least a semblance of a human face to appeal to men. They also have definably non human characteristics, as a sort of shield to hide behind should the studio that created them face criticism for "sexualizing women." Because clearly Elesh Norn isn't sexualized, "she has a boomerang designed by H.R. Geiger instead of a face please listen to yourself."

In short, Elesh Norn is conventionally attractive. She was designed to turn on nerds with plausible deniability. This is what @hemipenal-system (and I) meant. If Elesh Norn is your "hear me out" then I'm sorry but you're just normal. I'm trying not to sound like a gatekeeping elitist or something, but Norn is blase from a monsterfucking perspective.

-End copy pasted section-

Honestly writing all that earlier was mostly just a way for me to get my thoughts about the marketability of some stuff out of my head and into words. The Corruption Mommy has been a phrase kicking around in my head for I think three years now? Feels good to finally talk about it, though I wish i could remember what the other instances of it I've thought of are. Anyway yeah Norn's literally called a mother, is domineering and looks... like that. She's designed to get nerds hard, and I'm a nerd.

Alright fine, let's do this

(based on this post)

[icewindandboringhorror]

finally finished all of one character's entire quests/optional dialogue/questions/etc.... 100,000 words... .... aughhh

[mintowls]

FIRST EVER ARTIST ALLEY TABLE DONE!!!

[pokimoko]

I have had it with these motherfucking spam bots on this motherfucking site.