#convos in the comments

[predictablesloth]

As an American taking International Policy, I have never been more confused than I am watching the Tiktok -> Rednote pipeline

-> Millions of left wing Americans join a Chinese platform out of spite against racist, radical right Congress

-> Chinese users are very welcoming (they aren't left or right wing because there's a sole ruling party in China)

-> Chinese users and American users get along exceptionally well, and bond over cats and respectful questions

-> American users chose Rednote over Meta because of censorship

-> Rednote is even more censored than Meta, as seen in its terms and agreements, and Americans can't really discuss politics there

-> America will soon be run by a soon-to-be-dictator, and the Americans on Rednote hate him

-> China is controlled by a dictator with a fifteen-year streak, and we don't know how the Chinese people feel about him, because they don't have free speech or protest rights

-> Trump and Jinping get along

-> Jinping doesn't want Americans to give the Chinese people any ideas

-> Trump doesn't want China to give the American people any ideas

I don't---I don't know what to think? I don't think this has ever happened before?

Either this gives MAGA a huge advantage or we're about to see a joint Chinese-American people's revolution.

[vigilskept]

i know it would've been difficult for them to tackle, but it absolutely kills me thinking about the missed opportunities of getting into religious angle of everything that's going on in veilguard.

because it's insane, right? that there are gods in this game. and the game will tell you over and over that they aren't gods, that they're Just Mages, but that's actually not precisely true. they're something very different from what a tevinter magister is, at least, and not only on a power-scale.

powerful spirits are gods in this setting. that was the religion ascribed to by most of humanity, before andraste. the avvar and chasind still ascribe to that belief.

a lot has been said already about how the game fails to engage with belief for dalish characters, and i agree. i think the game also really fails its andrastian characters here though because this is actually huge.

it's not just whether the golden/black city is/was the seat of the maker. it's the very meaning of what god is that's at stake here.

the maker has abandoned humanity. only through the pleas of his prophet andraste is he willing to consider the idea of offering a second chance to his creation. he will not respond to your prayers, and he will not give you answers. his will is inscrutable, to be interpreted only through the words of his prophet which have been changed over the centuries.

and if you are a mage, you are taught that this maker has cursed you. your very being is a curse.

and then you meet elgar'nan. and then you meet ghilan'nain.

they are not your maker. not really. not even if you're an elf.

but these gods are knowable. they will speak to you, personally. they may even do so with kindness. they will tell you what you could do to please them, and even offer you something in return.

and what they ask is terrible. maybe even unfathomable. but in a world where exalted marches have been called in the name of the maker and entire circles annulled, isn't that enough to give you a little pause?

[sparklerzii]

i have something to say.

[bunbunpa]

I feel like we as a society need to acknowledge the media literacy every fan of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein goes through.

Which goes in this order:

-Victor is a monster for what he did/The Creature is the victim.

-The Creature is a monster for what he did/Victor is the victim.

-The Creature AND Victor are simultaneously victims of their circumstances.

-The Creature and Victor are both perpetrators and both show incredible entitlement that ruins the lives of victims around them. You cannot excuse either characters actions no matter how much you empathize with them.

[funhouse-mirror-barbie]

I was so foolish to believe that there wouldn’t be a ton of people hating on Octavia and calling her selfish for being hurt by her father’s neglect…

[pokeninjager-ghost-art]

🥷CALLING ALL NINJA🥷

Spread this like wildfire! I want all you faithful loyal Ninjago fans to vote for LLOYD in this tournament poll >> HERE << for most tragic character!!!

We need to spread the tag #NINJANEVERQUIT to all platforms with the link attached so we may reach out to our community!!!

If you aren't a ninja and need convincing as to why you should vote for Lloyd, then please read this >> google doc << I so heartedly put together on all the bullet points to his tragedies!

[royalarchivist]

Bad: VegettaGaymer we're outside

[ - ] VegettaGaymer

Cellbit: LOL

Bad: >:0

Bad: WHAT THE FUDGE! Why does he do that every time I talk to him?! What the fudge- WHAT THE FUDGE! Every single time- every single time! Do you remember after you had that nightmare and died, and I said, “Hey Vegetta, Dapper just died” and he flipping left? Can you believe this little muffinhead?!

Bad: That’s flipping it- THAT’S FLIPPING IT! PEACE?! Agh- you can rest in pieces! We’re breaking in Dapper, he broke into our house, we're breaking in flipping right now, are you ready?

Dapper: [Nods]

A two-part tragedy and a short-lived one-sided war between Vegetta and Badboyhalo.

[ Full Transcript ↓ ]

Bad: VegettaGaymer we're outside

[ - ] VegettaGaymer

Cellbit: LOL

Bad: >:0

Bad: WHAT THE FUDGE! Why does he do that every time I talk to him?! What the fudge- WHAT THE FUDGE! Every single time- every single time! Do you remember after you had that nightmare and died, and I said, “Hey Vegetta, Dapper just died” and he flipping left? Can you believe this little muffinhead?!

Bad: That’s flipping it- THAT’S FLIPPING IT! PEACE?! Agh- you can rest in pieces! We’re breaking in Dapper, he broke into our house, we're breaking in flipping right now, are you ready?

Dapper: [Nods]

Bad: Alright. This guy thinks his house is secure? What do you think?

[+] VegettaGaymer

Bad: Oh.

Bad: ...I guess he's not that bad, we can wait here. Here he comes! Hello! He's out of range, we'll wait a little bit.

Vegetta: [From far away, slowly increasing in volume] Good morningggggggggggg–

Bad: Hello!

Vegetta: Hello, Badboy!

Bad: Hello! It's been a while.

[fistfuloflightning]

Cloud Recesses was much as he remembered, silent and still beneath a layer of new snow. Pristine and untouched and icily perfect. He… no longer cared for it. Home was loud and boisterous and water lapping the shore and the scent of lotus flowers and dark hair curled around his fingers. Something much more alive. But. It was nice to see snow again. And to share it. Lan Wangji took three steps in the snow, paused, listened.

The telltale crunch of smaller steps behind him, a muffled giggle. Snowflakes caught in his lashes as he kept his gaze steadfastly forward. He took another four steps, purposefully lengthening his stride.

“No fair!”

Lan Yuan’s squeal was as muffled as the white world around them, a far cry from their home in Lotus Pier. When Jiang Cheng had first suggested the visit to Cloud Recesses, Lan Wangji had been suitably uncertain. He had left on less than ideal terms with his uncle and brother and he’d been under the impression that his return would be unwelcome. Even now, returned to Gusu Lan for a conference, he was treated with the characteristic chill politeness due to a sect leader’s spouse who did not act in any political capacity.

But perhaps he should have insisted on accompanying Jiang Cheng to the private meeting with both Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen…? Unsupervised, it was sure to end badly. But he trusted Wanyin.

Lan Wangji turned sharply, catching A’Yuan in the act of attempting his yet unmastered qinggong, four year old A’Ling stumbling along in his wake and trying to use Lan Wangji‘s footsteps as a path.

But the moment he reached the point where the steps grew too far apart, Lan Wangji swooped the boy up. Taking his a distraction as an opportunity, A’Yuan leaped on his back. With A’Ling squirming like an excited puppy in his arms and a gangly A’Yuan hanging around his neck, Lan Wangji swung them around.

He remembered the rules carved into the Wall of Discipline, knew that he should count himself as an offender multiple times over for just this simple act of playing with his sons—but they were alone and he had left his inhibitions in the icy rooms of the Jingshi long ago when Jiang Cheng had come to claim him as his given-groom.

A’Yuan’s skinny arms tightened around his neck. “I’ve got you!” the boy cried.

With a near-silent huff of laughter, Lan Wangji dropped to his knees, pretending to be dragged down by force. The boys fell full-body into the snow, their laughter shattering the stillness like glass. Struggling out of the snow they ambushed him again, both immediately trying to bury him in the drift.

It was this tableau that welcomed Jiang Cheng as he approached on the stone path. Lan Wangji gave his husband a once-over, noting his unscathed form and his calm composure, a unlooked for miracle to come out of the meeting with the clan leaders.

Jiang Cheng stood calmly with his hands laced behind his back. “It appears you are losing the war, Hanguang-jun,” he said, one brow lifting mockingly. “The hero of the Sunshot Campaign, brought low by two urchins. How the mighty have fallen—”

His mouth was stopped by Lan Wangji’s unerringly aimed snowball.

[normalestenstars]

i'm sure this is a rhetorical response but why don't we turn this into a group effort poll instead

[ofthebrownajah]

I'm at this weird halfway point where I agree that the show shouldn't have made Rand OP from the beginning, but on the opposite end we run into problems where he isn't as powerful rn as he should be. Namely, that he hasn't had a raging sun equivalent.

And I do like what they've done with Rand's channeling so far. He channels more like a Forsaken, can handle more weaves and can channel more precisely than most, and has had several powerful channeling moments that were destructive. They just weren't explosive/showcasing him as the Dragon. He needed something to show the world his potential rather than a few people I think is the general consensus

[itsallaboutbl]

Mark, you can be anything you want in my life!!!!

[inaconstantstateofchange]

bg3 modern!au idea where halsin is a conservationist, who mentions kind of despairingly to a younger colleague at a conference the way he's having such a hard time with outreach to get folks in his community aware of the wildlife around them and how important it is. the colleague makes an offhand reference to how tiktok is the way people seem to get connected to that sort of thing most nowadays, although hell if they have the patience to figure out the app, and wanders off to catch up with someone else. they will not realize until later (far, far later) the ramifications of this statement.

halsin is rather quiet for the rest of the event, makes his goodbyes, and then returns home to painstakingly research just how "tiktok" works, with the grim determination of a fighter entering the ring. if this is what it takes to raise awareness, then this is what he'll do. the cause is more than worth it.

the first roadblock he runs into makes him worry the venture will be over before its even started. the first few webpages he finds tell him patronizingly that his phone is too old to work for 'content creation'. and okay, so it's scuffed, and dented, and has maybe taken one or two tumbles into a mud puddle, but it ought to be more than serviceable! he goes outside and finds a patch of wildflowers, pulling up the camera function and shooting a shaky video. he returns to his kitchen table, squinting down at the results. he can see all of the distinguishing features of the plant that would allow him to recognize it in the wild, which means it's good enough to do its job. with a new resolve - that his family would have wryly labeled as stubbornness - he focuses his research efforts until he finally finds a webpage that will tell him how to make the app work with his phone.

when at last it starts up in a blare of sound and over-saturated colors, he grimaces, but presses on. it asks him to set up a username, and he types in his first name. the little circle spins for a moment, then tells him it's taken. he frowns, then adds a random number. 2. it spins again, same response. he frowns harder, then adds another. 6. it spins, spins, spins, then — welcome, new user @.halsin26! upload your first video to start using tiktok!

he decides not to overthink it. it'll either work out or it won't. he looks out the window, and judges there's still just enough light out. he returns to the little patch of wildflowers, and gives it a thumbs up. he starts a recording directly in the app, making note of the 60-second time limit with a grimace. to make the most of the time he has, he doesn't bother with an introduction, just kneels down next to the cluster of plants, careful not to compress the ground too close to their root system, and moves his hand just behind the flowering portion to visually distinguish it, and act as a scale reference. he keeps his voice low, since he doesn't want to overshadow the content itself, and quickly lays out where folks could run into this plant, its importance to its local ecosystem, and ways they could help its conservation. the most important things the average person can do, he states passionately as the timer begins its final warning, is to document the locations where they find said plants, so that the areas can be marked for oversight and protection.

he doesn't bother to look back over the video before he posts it. he knows what he said, after all. he stretches his arms up above his head, then massages the back of his neck where the muscles are growing stiff. as he heads back inside to start dinner for himself, he tosses the phone into a basket on the counter and forgets about it.

the video languishes in the algorithm for the evening, until a random user gets distracted from scrolling away from the potato-quality wildflower video someone's grandma uploaded and chokes on their spit as forearms that very clearly do not belong to anyone's grandmother enter the frame, gently cupping the air around the flower.

god i wish that were me, they type before they can stop themself. debating whether to bother hitting send, they choke again as an absolutely unfair voice begins to narrate the ecological importance of this particular plant. the voice is smooth and deep, just above a murmur with a pleasant backing rumble. they have never given a moment's thought to plants in their entire life, but all of a sudden they are invested. they don't even notice when their thumb hits 'send' on their comment, too busy swiping over to the profile to see if there are any other videos. it's empty of literally everything, default user icon, only-barely-not-randomly-generated username, only one video posted earlier that day. they go back to the video and copy the link to send to their friends, needing someone - anyone - else to understand the experience they just had.

a few more interactions like that, and the algorithm takes notice. it bumps the video to a few more users outside of the current sphere, and those ones like it too. more importantly, they are very likely to share the video with others, increasing the engagement far beyond anything it had right to expect.

by two days later, when halsin remembers to actually check the thing, it is sitting at a comfortable 2500 likes, and there is a whole fleet of comments waiting for him to review. some of them - many of them, actually - don't seem that relevant at all, and he frowns, but then he sees a few that actually seem interested in more information on the plant he'd described, asking questions about how wide its range is, if it could be found in this or that coloration, etc. these he responds to swiftly, then grimaces as he runs up against a 'character limit'? who ever heard of such a foolish thing. after a moment of glaring down at his phone, he sees that it will allow him to answer by video, and does so, stepping onto his porch and zooming in on the plants. (this blurs them into barely discernible blobs of pixels, but he does not notice.)

still others are curious about what other plants and wildlife he might be able to share about, and he leaves short comments under each letting them know that he will plan to upload some more videos soon, if there is an interest. one user has left a comment that he almost files into his mental "ignore" category, but goes back to reread at the last moment.

not convinced this isn't one of those 'booktok bait' things again but i stg there's a big ass patch of those fuckers behind a parking lot somewhere around here?

halsin responds to this one with a video too. now that he's getting the hang of it, it's actually a bit more convenient than having to type everything out. he thanks the commenter for sharing, then asks if they might be willing to do him a favor sometime – only if it wasn't any trouble, of course! – and grab a video or two of the area they referenced, and share it with him — or their local wildlife foundation, at least.

a few days later, he opens the app to check in to find that he's been tagged in a video by some user. bemused, he clicks on the popup, and it takes him to a slightly shaky but pristine quality video of an empty lot filled with tall grass. the person filming moves a bit closer, then zooms in, and halsin spots multiple cluster of that recognizable wildflowers, before the video ends and restarts. there's no narration to this one, only a barely audible music wheel spinning in the corner. the caption on the video says, @.halsin26 just in case you're not actually some weird account for a fetish i haven't heard of before, here's some of those plants you mentioned looking for.

[ratatatastic]

Who is the best and who is the worst to sit next to on the plane?

no one could agree who unanimously is the best insisting their seatmate, previous or otherwise, was (ekky→benny, benny→reino, sasha⇆bobby, swaggy→forsy, luosty→mikksy)

but the worst? with a whopping two votes against him (benny, swaggy) is ekky because hes loud and forces guys into joining the poker table 😭😭😭

special mention forsy and mikksy copping out of the question like theyre carebear incarnates and going everyone is the best :)

Primetime Panthers | 10.30.24 (x)

[thehalfbloodfreak]

On Jedha if Merrin watches Cal meditate she comments on it and it’s the cutest thing ever—

Merrin: You look peaceful when you do that.

Cal *probably blushing*: You were watching me?

Merrin: Yes.

[doueverwonder]

listen reasonably I know Gov probably speaks french bc it was the lingua franca for a good while BUT it'd be funnier if he doesn't bc I stand firm on about half the states speaking French as their first language and I think half the country deserves to be able to have public side bars during meetings while Gov and the rest of the states sit there like "?????"

[tls12lessthan3]

yoohankim soulmate au where the first words your soulmate ever speak to you are somewhere on your body, but because they've all been split into multiple parts with their soulmarks being split accordingly they don't realise they're soulmates until the epilogue........