#but thats a whole other story

[antique-lamplight]

thoughts on myhouse.wad, from someone who has never played doom

spoilers, obviously. also genre-typical mind fuckery, maybe. youve been warned

as the title of the post suggests, i have never had any association with doom in my life.

i literally only have sufficient knowledge of this mod because of mindlessly scrolling through tumblr yesterday, and stumbling upon a link to power pak's video essay on the game. seemed interesting enough, i supposed.

perhaps it was not the best idea to watch the entire thing despite warnings to play it blind beforehand, but i did so anyway, justifying it with my aforementioned lack of background with the base game and anything surrounding it. but narrative and technical genius of the mod aside--theres probably so many posts across all manners of sites about that--its just...really inspiring as a passion project. the tributes to both the creator's deceased friend and the doom modding community as a whole is perhaps even more touching to me precisely because it's a circle i was never a part of. celebrating something that brings joy by creating and sharing with others who are, too, pouring their hearts in a similar manner, is just such an innately human experience regardless of what that thing is, and even though its not representative of the scene as a whole, im glad i got to at least slightly understand the object of the creator's passion, and how it ties into his experiences and the bonds he shared.

on an unrelated note...ive noticed that when i search for the game on google, youtube, or the like, the search autofill will erraneously suggest "myhouse.was." a simple mistake by perhaps either too many people making hurried typos or the engine itself "correcting" the searches, but...i think it adds to it. the house indeed was a lot of things. an unfinished project by a nerd inspired by other nerds, a place likely full of unspoken pain. a safeguard for remnants of old memories.

you really dont see art like this every day.

[rameen-ye]

I'd simply like to put this out there for the sake of putting this out there.

Things my Physics Sir has said:

1. *talking about the pendulum and gravity* "you don't necessarily have to use a block of metal you can do this by hanging anything like yourself"

nobody laughed...so he repeated it... HE SAID THIS TWICE AND NOBODY LAUGHED

2. "If your exam question doesn't say otherwise, assume the Earth's gravity to be there, gravity on earth is constant but if you want to make sure during the exam you can go outside to the balcony to check yourselves"

3. *while passing an exam with the biggest grin on his face*

"It feels so nice knowing you guys are filled with anxiety right now, just knowing all of you are filled with nervous energy just feels so good"

(I want to repeat that I have never and I mean NEVER seen this man or ANY man this happy )

4. "Wow this question is so easy, if you guys don't know this you should just kill yourselves"

(in the most nonchalant way possible)

(like seriously he said this like he was talking about the weather but as if he was happy about it)

[non-binary-lil-star]

I have to take some tea while studying Brazilian history. This shits bad for my nerves. I'm like: I'm not gonna get stressed out this time... and then

VARGAS DID WHAT NOW

[sleepy-stitches]

sibling is presently trying to teach my cat to play catch, which has mostly involved calling his name and going "1, 2, 3, CATCH" and (softly) throwing a plush beanbag cat at him. hes pretty bad at it though so i guess we have to keep training him until he stops letting it hit him in the face

[anakin-skyrim]

Might be tripping (tis almost midnight after all), but I do reckon that this could be an Andean Condor

[asthedeathoflight]

I think an underrated angle on 2x05 is something that either Jacob or Assad said in some interview somewhere, which is that in that episode Louis is addicted to heroin. Thats why he has that whole stash of drugs that he gives to Daniel, that's why he gives Daniel the drugs even though he's already got him alone. He didn't just use those 128 boys for sex he was using them to get high. Bring them home, get them to shoot up, and then drain them to get that secondhand high.

It clarifies something that's always confused me about that scene, which is why Armand saves Daniel the first time. He wouldn't save Daniel as a person, he clearly knows Daniel needs to die, but he's not seeing Daniel as a person there. Daniel is just a substance. He rips him away from Louis to stop him from using.

And i think that adds a whole other layer to the fight he and Armand have to think that this is Louis on a bender, with Armand cleaning up after him because he's not stable enough to. Louis in the bed for a week isn't just healing from the burns, he's going through withdrawal. Him at the table with Daniel giving him the "bright young reporter" speech is probably the first time he's been sober in months.

It adds another layer to Armand's desperation, that Louis has been running from both Armand and himself in this way, and of course Armand wants to erase that memory. Of course he wants to pretend that that fight never happened. Not just to protect himself but in a way to protect Louis from having said those things. When he describes the fight to Louis afterwards, he says "you said the worst things you've ever said to me." And he doesn't really know how to forgive Louis for that so he just wants to bury this rock-bottom moment and move on like it never happened. After all, Louis was high, he didn't really mean it, but if he remembers then maybe he might think that he had a point. Better to wipe the whole experience away.

[bluerosefox]

Hmmmm... This one and this one I guess -digs through old AU/Prompts ideas and starts tossing them into a melting pot to make something new-

Royal errors, maybe Ghost King (Or just very powerful and respected by the Infinite Realms) Danny, AND deaged Dan and Ellie. With half-sibling Damian.

Talia is a woman with many, many secrets, this is a cold hard fact.

She has so many secrets its no wonder not a single living soul knows them all...

So when seventeen, almost eighteen, Damian really shouldn't had been surprised (he was though) when out of the blue he gets a call from an unknown number that somehow bypasses his firewalls against unknown numbers about his apparent five year old half-sister and brother Helen 'Ellie' Fenton and Dante 'Dan' Fenton.

That their father, Daniel Fenton was taken (by a shady should had been disbanded government agency) and they couldn't get a hold of their mother Talia at all (she was in a middle of stopping a coup happening, a rival assassin group, AND some idiots trying to revive Ra's at the same time, thus radio silent). About how Ellie and Dan were in danger of being taken as well but they needed to put in them a safe place so they could go rescue Danny before word gets out to... well lets just say some very POWERFUL beings weren't going to be happy and they are working on very limited time to get him back.

Jasmine Fenton tells him she knows he had no clue about his mother being with her brother and having kids with him, its something she and Talia often got into small arguments about but try not to bring it up to often around Danny, Dan, or Ellie, and that his relationship with her is often... rocky but she begs him to please watch over them while she, and her brother's best friends go a rescue mission for him.

That they were two very scared five year olds that had to watch their father be taken away after he barely managed to get them to safety and that Damian was the only one she could think of being able to watch over and least protect them at this serious moment.

Damian, and the rest of the family, are stunned silent when Jasmine finishes explaining, her voice on the verge of breaking and no doubt she was trying so hard not to sob.

[a-sketchy]

persona misogyny is so fucking wild. ignoring literally everything else about the entire rest of the games, every single s.link with a female character is like “entirely for having been born a woman i have had to work twice as hard for a fraction of the benefit. even now, i am stripped of my agency in a position i never wanted in the first place” and/or “i’m put on a pedestal by the people in my life because of my looks. men see me as an object to be conquered, women hate me for ‘stealing’ ‘their’ men. if i’m withdrawn i’m a bitch, if i’m friendly i’m easy. because of this, i’m alone” and/or “because of my personality or hobby or lack of cooking skills, i feel like i’m failing at femininity. if being a woman is something i can fail at, then where does that leave me? i’m scared at the loss of my identity and place in society”

like very consistently they present female characters with complex thoughts towards their place in society as women, femininity as a whole, and facing issues stemming from misogyny, and then the payoff is always “my problems were entirely my own fault. i wasn’t strong enough, i was a coward. but now, i’m gonna work hard to be exactly what society expects me to be (which is what i want to be)! i’m gonna do better at femininity (which is still something tangible i can fail at)! i’m going to try hard at making friends (which was my fault for not doing)! all my problems are solved through personal responsibility (that im totally culpable for), effort (which i previously was not putting in), or you, a man! i am Happy and Satisfied with this outcome, can i be Your woman?”

and like hello? why are we here. what the fuck are we doing. why do we keep doing this every single time. can we not do the constant lukewarm attempts at criticizing misogyny so you can jerk off to your own thoughtfulness, while ultimately reinforcing patriarchal systems and brushing off any deeper misogyny-bred issues as a lack of deference to one’s rightful place in society? like maybe don’t do that? for fucking once? just an idea

[ahsokazworld]

Ok so I have some thoughts about Tai's loving supporting caring gorgeous wife Simone.

Now I think Tai and Van are written as meant to be or whatever and maybe like Tai says in 209 that she needs Van which I fully believe she feels that way BUT I think more so Tai WANTS Van. With sleepwalking Tai as a driving force of that primal wanting feeling.

Lauren Ambrose has done an amazing job as Adult!Van. Her and Tawny totally sell the brewing love and attraction that is very present under the surface and have tons of chemistry (perhaps even more than the teens). I absolutely love watching that. It's great angst and very believable for 2 traumatised individuals who haven't actually dealt with any of that. But I also thought the chemistry between Tawny and Rukiya is very good, I enjoyed their scenes as a married couple and would have loved to explore them and that relationship a little bit more before it imploded so very extreme.

When looking in as an outsider, Tai really doesn't need a partner like Van right now, she needs Simone. She is supportive, caring, loving and has a more healthy outlook on dealing with trauma and very specifically the yellowjackets trauma, Simone is removed from that. Tai needs Simone.

Is all of this fair on Simone and what Simone needs? Uhhh no, she has absolutely done the right thing by removing herself and their son from the unsafe situation with Tai. Also Simone deserves someone who loves her and Tai clearly doesn't. Tai loves Van. Tai felt safe and comfortable with Simone and was attracted to her (I mean Simone is GORGEOUS 😍 so I get it Tai 😁) plus cared for Simone or maybe the life that she was able to live with Simone 🤔 but she didn't love her not really.

Now I know that ain't gonna happen because Simone is in a coma and I don't think we will make such a big time jump in Season 3 but who knows and with the strike going on (which I fully support 👊🏻🙌🏻) it might take some time before we even get a season 3.

I just hope Tai gets some actual goddamn help that isn't provided by one of the yellowjackets. THEY ALL SHOULD GET THERAPY INCLUDING VAN!

Anyways rambling over

So, any thoughts on what Dr. Sandlow had to say, or were you too busy checking your inbox? We just learned our son doesn’t remember any of the things we accused him of. aHe thinks he’s telling the truth.

[ria-starstruck]

and also "putting everyone in a simulation will make it all ok 👍" and also "let's park next to this random system's sun" and also "we can't live on our own planet because of our own folly" and so on

[arovalentines]

time to make your choice only you can be the one

[evelynpr]

Might be a hot take as a bkdk and tgck truther here, but I find izuocha endlessly fascinating, beautiful, but also tearfully tragic.

I see their love for each other as something representative of their innocence and naivety when they only knew so little about who they were, and what was to come.

I think the main barrier of their relationship is that its rooted in how they see each other very idealistically, specifically that they're attached to the image of their Best Heroic Selves, and not the deeply selfish, destructive, freaky, and egotistical parts of them. To each other, they need to keep fulfilling that image or else that same person they looked up to would almost die in front of them, and that would be too cruel. Although that hero is still there, that same person they looked up to is not the same now because of...well...everything.

Izuku had barely even talked to girls when he first met her. She was Izuku's first ever real friend (Sorry Kats, everyone and him knows he was terrible), so he saved her in that entrance exam even if it was so dangerous. She gave a new meaning to his derogatory nickname just by being a friend that believed in him. After that, she saved him several more times (Blackwhip and Megaphone are the biggest samples iirc). It makes perfect sense that she is Deku's hero.

Ochako hardly knew what it meant to be a hero when she first got into UA. Just by reaching out to some kid tripping, she made a new friend who would then save her in that exam, then save him again in return. This boy then became someone who was always working so hard to save everyone in trouble, and she realized she wanted to be just like him too. "I want to save people"

But...Deku changes. The weight of One for All is on his shoulders and he needs someone to carry this burden with him. He continues to want to save other people at the expense of himself, still not letting his true selfishness and ego ever show- and it only grows more and more unbearable.

Then...Ochako fell in love with Himiko. Truly, relentlessly, selfishly and devotedly in love with a girl who then dies giving her blood to her- the greatest expression of love Himiko could ever give.

Not that they can't love each other because of this happening (and...so many other things oh god), I'm honestly not sure how to explain it- But them ending up together after losing that innocence and naivety? After Ochako will forever grieve the girl who showed her love in its most beautiful and ugly form? After Izuku changed so fundamentally as a person that the butterflies of a nice girl talking to you doesn't exist anymore? After that simple image of being a hero and being in love has completely changed for them both?

Even so, I believe they still love each other. There is no label I know of that can properly describe them though. They are each other's image of being a hero when it comes to saving people. Aside from Shoto, no one else can grasp the grief of the person you tried to save dying in your hands. They would no doubt try to cope with these losses together, and just try to get better together...but so much has changed. They've changed. The world changed. What are they now? Who are they now?

"What happened...to us?"

[i-am-dulaman]

Why I hate Golf

This is the Takapuna Golf Course in Auckland, New Zealand.

It is in the middle of Auckland's north shore suburbs.

According to their website, they are one of the most popular golf courses in Aotearoa and have an annual visitor count of 60,000 people. They don't clarify if that is individual unique visitors or recounts, but lets be generous and say its unique visitors. 60,000, not bad.

This is Eden Park Stadium (the little square on the right) and oh look there's another golf course on the left there, ignore that one for now.

(the above two images are at the same scale)

Eden park has a capacity of 50,000 people. Ed Sheeran was here earlier this year and sold out the two nights he performed. That's 100,000 people in a weekend all in that little red square. 60,000 in a year no longer seems so great.

60,000 people per year is also only 160 people per day. 160 visitors to a golf course that is 470,000 square meters in area. Now the average property size in Auckland is 500 square meters. So the golf course takes up the area of 940 houses.

940 homes worth of land for 160 people.

And that is Auckland housing sizes. Auckland is horribly designed and very spread out. Let's instead look at Barcelona, considered one of the most well designed cities in the world.

This is Takapuna golf course side by side with Barcelona

(The scale is as close to being equal as I could get them, I don't have ArcGIS data for Barcelona so had to use google maps)

Each red square overlaid on Takapuna Golf Course is exactly 133m in height/width, the same size as each city block in Barcelona, road width included.

There are 23 Barcelona blocks worth of space in Takapuna Golf Course with room to spare. About 640 people live in each Barcelona block, that's 15000 people.

15000 peoples worth of homes and living spaces, sacrificed so 160 people can play golf in a day.

Now this is just one golf course in a big city, what's 15,000 people to a city of 1.6 million, who cares right?

Here is a wider shot of Auckland City.

Those red dots? They're golf courses.

There are 16 golf courses inside the metropolitan area of Auckland City (4 not pictured as Auckland is too spread out to get one clean screenshot). Keep in mind these are not rural golf courses out in the country, these are right beside housing developments and shopping malls. And for the record I could not find a single golf course in the Barcelona metropolitan area, you had to go out into the country before finding one.

So lets multiply that 15,000 people by 16 golf courses?

240,000 people.

With Auckland City's golf courses you could house 240,000 people comfortably with some good urban planning.

That is why I hate golf.

[dvnieldraws]

dandelions

[starry-bi-sky]

okay so i was thinking of a joke earlier about how in DPDC Amity Park's slogan "a great place to live" is not only city propaganda but also the city lording it over the rest of America for being normal. But then I remembered that, despite how many DCU Cities with heroes in it there are, the amount of cities in America without heroes still far outnumber the amount of cities in America WITH heroes.

So I did a little digging so the joke would still land. Something most heroes have in common is that they operate in major cities. What makes a major city? I found that the general consensus is that the population is roughly over or around a million. THEN I looked up the populations of cities in the DCU that I thought of off the top of my head. So Gotham, Metropolis, Starling City, Central City, Jump City. All of them ranked up to millions in population (most of them were in the tens of millions).

Amity Park's wikipedia describes it as being similar to specifically Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco.

Philadelphia's Population: 1.576 million as of 2021 Chicago's Population: 2.697 million as of 2021 San Francisco: 815,201 as of 2021

Whiiich means that Amity Park if we take that from canon, is probably a major city. There are approximately 19,000 cities in America with probably less than a hundred that are major cities. Adding the DCU major cities wouldn't skew the data too much.

Which MEANS that I can make the joke that Amity Park's "great place to live" is not only just typical city propaganda, but also its Amity Park lording it over the other major cities for being one of the only major cities that doesn't have problems bad enough to warrant a superhero or a vigilante. Cue stage left the Fentons and Phantom :)

Amity Parkers were probably SO proud that they didn't need a superhero. They didn't have to worry about things like 'world ending threats' and 'super-powered individuals' and 'staggering property damage'. And then enter Fentons.

It also could be used as an excuse for why nobody took notice to Amity Park getting ghosts if folks like me aren't huge fans of the notion of a media blackout via Tucker, Technus, or the US Government. Or if you want to keep Amity Park as its urban city self. Amity Park's news on ghosts gets drowned out in a week because there's news on more popular, well-known cities going on every other day. The shit going on in Amity Park is every other major city's regular Tuesday and it gets filtered as such.

[aroaceleovaldez]

Mark Oshiro confuses me a little bit not going to lie. In the press tour for the first book all they ever talked about was how Nico is their son and Will is fine I guess. Then they said like 2 weeks before TSATS came out that they didn't understand Will's character at all and it's one of the main reasons why Will has so little POV.

Possibly unpopular opinion but I don't think it's a good, encouraging sign when the writer admits to not really caring about the deuteragonist or not even having a sense of how to write them...

Yeah, no. If you have no interest in 1/2 of the POV characters of your book, you REALLY shouldn't be writing it (or at least, not have that be a main character). Especially when the main way TSATS could have been improved is if it was primarily Will-centric instead of Nico-centric. Will basically had next to no established character prior to TSATS! He was practically a blank slate! But all the new stuff we got for Will in TSATS was so clearly disinterested and had no regard for his previously established traits (or the established timeline/canon). Which is annoying because fleshing out Will would have been the PERFECT opportunity to actually incorporate a lot of the topics that Mark Oshiro specializes in as a sensitivity reader, which was the ENTIRE REASON THEY WERE BROUGHT ON AS A CO-AUTHOR!!!!

As TSATS stands, there is no reason for Mark Oshiro specifically to have been the co-author instead of someone else. It's so clearly just a PR move from RR following the huge backlash Rick received due to his response to criticism on how he wrote Piper and Samirah (and Reyna and etc etc). This was immediately following Rick saying he wasn't going to write what would become TSATS because "it [wasn't his] place to." Most of the topics that Mark Oshiro specializes in either weren't relevant at all to TSATS or written very poorly (to downright offensively) in TSATS, so either Mark Oshiro wasn't doing their job or was not able to do their job for some reason, but either way it basically makes the theoretical justification for Mark Oshiro being the co-author/sensitivity reader irrelevant.

With Will, it was HUGE fanon back in the day for him to be trans. Trans!Will and photokinesis!Will were basically the two biggest headcanons for him (both largely popularized by Cherryandsisters). We know Rick is aware of this old fanon because he canonized photokinesis!Will. If we had gotten trans!Will, that would have been great! And then made sense why we specifically got a trans co-author! (Instead, if anything, TSATS canonized Will being cis.) If we had gotten Will being latino, that would have been amazing!!!! And also then made sense as to why they chose Mark Oshiro for the job as a latinx author/sensitivity-reader, versus potentially choosing an Italian co-author since Nico being Italian/Venetian was emphasized so much in the book (and done poorly! Yknow what they could have done to fix that? GOTTEN A SENSITIVITY READER FOR IT)! Based on the themes and focuses actually present in the book, it would have been most logical to get a queer, neurodivergent, Italian co-author or sensitivity reader who specializes in those three topics at least. But we didn't! So why was Mark Oshiro chosen instead when they only specialize in one of those topics? PR reasons. It's blatantly entirely PR reasons and no actual thought or care was put into this book (or, likely, TSATS 2 either).

It doesn't help that we're also actively being told that the published version of TSATS was a rough draft. Or that their editor blatantly isn't doing her job. Or that "The Sun And The Star" was the working title that they just kept cause they didn't bother to make an actual title. And that the final version is full of explicitly last-minute scenes that weren't checked over at all (the final Bianca scene, for one). Or the ACTIVELY ADMITTING TO SOURCING IDEAS AND INFORMATION FROM FANS! That last one is kind of important because at this level of publishing that is a HUGE no-no for legal reasons. You can get into a lot of trouble for that and there is a reason why it is Ye Olde Fandom Law to never try to pitch your ideas or headcanons to the source creator(s) and keep fandom separate from the creators. There is a REASON why Rick Riordan is so distant from the community these days and it's for PROTECTION AGAINST LEGAL REPERCUSSION. Mark Oshiro being the exact opposite while also ACTIVELY ACKNOWLEDGING sourcing concepts from fans does not bode well! It has to do with copyright stuff.

It's just. So. Sighhhhhhhh >->o <- me lying on the floor about all of this. It's sad being able to see the glimmer of what could have been at the very least a decent book underneath all this. If anyone involved in the process had actually cared just the tiniest amount.