#conceptually speaking

[tenshiharmonia]

Okay, I know there are much wilder things happening right now, but am I the only one who'd really like to see Razor Rex' "seven fearsome Corpse Cardinals" ?

[bonyfish]

When I was in the operating theater for my top surgery and my surgeon was doing his little last minute adjustments to the arcane sigils that had been drawn on my chest, I made a comment about how it was like he was putting darts in, and he was like, "yeah, I'll go ahead and add some ruching while I'm at it" and I was so delighted and I still think of that little joke when I'm applying my various healing balms

[meteorstricken]

A little something about why Ultima is...fascinating...to me.

I consider myself spiritual-leaning agnostic, and am a long-time "Exvangelical". (2020 crushed any remaining vestiges of dogmatic faith I had left. It was painful.)

But now that I'm detached from any obligation to affirm any dogma, my mind has been left to peruse possibilities...and I have to say that there is no system or theory of belief or unbelief that does not disturb or upset me. I refuse nihilism, but the notion of having meaning imposed upon me from without is despair-making. I hold my autonomy precious. Yet at the same time, I am but one small person. To concoct my own meaning feels impotent and masturbatory.

And then there is the issue of divinity. If the divine exists, what are the qualifications for calling it so? What, if anything, differentiates a powerful hyperdimensional alien from what man would traditionally refer to as a 'god'? Are they simply one and the same?

At last, we arrive at the subject of intent. If the divine does exist, the power differential between them and man leaves no room for reasonable, open-eyed trust. What do we know of eternity? We can barely conceive of it. Why should we trust anything it has to say or any of its promises?

Perhaps there might be eons of paradise as some traditions suggest, and the faith of many seemingly rewarded...but then, the carpet is pulled. Annihilation. Destruction. Torment. All souls, totally and utterly consumed. That which belongs to the divine, theirs to destroy.

Truth is more important than anything; than any comfort we might derive, but it's so out of reach. And even where we might think we have it, there's an untold risk of being dangerously, cosmically wrong.

FFXVI's Ultima touches upon all these themes of existential existential terror and uncertainty, and I simply cannot look away.

[candont]

Ai Weiwei: Fountain of Light (2007)

[wuntrum]

plasma ball vibrator...its called the orb

[aliettali]

look at this glorious ass vase. i feel like I’ve been possessed

[moonshynecybin]

texts vale sends immediately post rosquez proposal

[leafatlaw]

This series felt more of an accidental metaphor for capitalism than anything else. But the thing that’s going to be keeping me up at night for a while is how even when given the power to remake the world in whatever way he wanted to, Evbo was still not able to imagine a world without parkour.

This world was all he’s ever known and even when trying to make it better he doesn’t think such a thing as solid ground can exist.

[apollos-boyfriend]

mikhail’s genuinely one of the characters ever. crossdressing exorcist/nun who’s also a famous influencer and whose closeness with his male peer and gender presentation is treated Completely Normally. to the point where it took me like halfway into the arc to realize he is crossdressing. i just thought those were the church’s usual uniforms LOL

[yarrowleef]

hey, hold up, hang on

I was doing some random wiki research about Midnight, and I came across this???? apparently there were bonus info videos released with The Last Hope's ebook?

look, this is decade old info, and maybe everyone already knows and stopped caring years ago but like??? I don't think I knew this?? this is news to me!!!

time stamp 1:00 - 2:10

Midnight was supposed to be the twist villain for OotS?? are u kidding me so much of why I remember the last Hope being anticlimactic is because nothing interesting happened, the bad ghosts had been saying "we're going to do a big attack" for books and books, and then they just did that big attack exactly as we had been told and it was the same as any other Big Battle scene and there wasn't really any more interest to the plot. This kind of plot twist might have actually added something interesting to that book!

And Vicky makes it sound like she had this plan for a long time? it was even going to tie back to Midnight secretly having a hand in the badger attack in arc 2?

THIS!? This is why she told Sol that info about the eclipse?? and then never explained why??? Like!!!! is this why Sol was Like That!?? a guy set up to be a big mysterious deal, but then he didn't really do anything and just fizzled out of existence??? because he was conceived of for an idea that was scrapped before going anywhere, but he was already sort of part of a (presumably already started) plot mid PoT so it was too late to cut him 'cause they still needed SOME minor antagonist there to fill pages, right? .... but he had no where to go and no (good) reason to do anything, no ending, since HIS BOSS, his Motive, suddenly stopped existing as a concept??? bro??? no wonder his random tie to SkyClan felt so unfitting as a reasoning for this kind of villain

Erica!! Erica wtf!! I don't care if it felt absurd, absurd is better then underwhelming! so what if Midnight was nice and helpful to some cats, maybe she has complex feelings about certain clan cats despite still secretly wishing to unleash chaos on the society as a whole for personal reasons, heaven forbid there be a complicated villain :'(

anyway I am going to be thinking about this lost timeline forever.

[kwamiwayzz]

I know this is super cliche but now I'm imagining Flip Side but as a time loop game with Jecka as the player trying to save Nicole/keep her out of trouble (and it would actually be accurate to the title since the player would be seeing Jecka's POV on everything that's happened in the first game and Re-Up).

It's basically just Life is Strange all over again.

Except whenever she plays through a new route, and ultimately tries to make a choice that would help Nicole, sometimes the game would fuck with the player and force it to pick the other option.

The only time it wouldn't fuck with the player is when choosing between saving Nicole during the Suicide Ending or just letting her off herself. But the player wouldn't have this choice until they play/witness all other routes (meaning she'd have to witness her friend off herself the first time).

It would leave Jecka to think about if she should let Nicole give into her mental illnesses (which would eliminate a bad influence in her life) or if she should save Nicole (but be roped into all the trouble experienced from the first two games, and potential future trouble).

No tornado, no butterfly effect or anything--just a dilemma for a teenage girl to choose what would affect her life (for better or worse).

[dennisboobs]

I've decided the only way to try to make my brainrot even slightly coherent is by offering up a playlist that orders things chronologically, so. here it is. Dennis' life, as narrated by Trent Reznor and Mariqueen Maandig as Victoria

Incredibly rough/quick notes I took while putting this together, mostly in terms of timeline and mental state. I didn't bother for Pretty Hate Machine or Downward Spiral because they're way more straightforward to me, either taking place pre-show or skipping ahead a bit to correspond with seasons 5-9

Pretty Hate Machine (and Broken) sets the stage, with Dennis coming to terms with his trauma, and realizing that sex and drugs are going to be his coping strategies of choice after Klinsky's abuse also Sin and The Only Time are him sucking and fucking dudes this whole album is certified faggotry. Downward Spiral is in large part the DENNIS system and torturing women. Throwing himself headlong into automation until he runs almost completely on autopilot, becomes emotionless, hates the monster he's become, always trying to seize control through sex. Jealousy of the women that he fucks, both for what he perceives as an inherent power they hold over him thank you barbara and klinsky, but also because this is where Victoria first appears in the form of what Dennis perceives as his own sexual deviance.

[unlimitedbutchworks]

i will never understand the “I can’t do [xyz transition related change] even though I want to because it’d make me less hot” cuz like dude do you like being hot like this? no? it makes you dysphoric? then how does this serve you?? why not look how you actually want to look??

[hickeygender]

my old star wars mutuals are like siblings-in-arms to me. if you've been around since the beginning of my blog back when mando was good and we still posted about it during s2? we've been forever bonded by our shared service in the discourse trenches. if you remember the ENDLESS cult discourse, the frog egg discourse, the birth of dincobb, the recanonization of jaste(r mereel), the helmet discourse 1.0, the finale marking the decline of the show as a whole, the helmet discourse 2.0 post finale, and the birth of dinluke?? man. i would do ANYTHING for you. you get me on a visceral level. our mutualship has been forged in fire and flame.

[creative-shine]

every day I miss when shadows house used to be like this

[bumblingbabooshka]

It's impossible to write a TOS x Any other Series crossover [for me] without having to think about whose lens it's going to primarily be from because the vibe of TOS is so distinct and I think quite different from all series that follow it. The way the characters speak and are presented is so theatrical and of course steeped in the past that I find myself considering if this is, say, Janeway meeting Kirk (through a VOY perspective) or if I should write Janeway as she would appear if she stepped through a portal and was in TOS' universe.