#get savvy

[eternal-savvy-blog]

Hello Savvy! I just wanted to take a moment to say, I think you're *incredibly* cool. I finished the ISAT streams a couple days ago and I've been thinking on this. I really REALLY respect how open you are about, well, everything that you choose to share. Whether it's about your identity, your dreams and wants and even the things that inspire you. There's a sincerity to it, that I personally find very moving. I genuinely hope that you're able to achieve the things you want to in life Savvy. I really do.

;_; I cri thank you so much! This means a lot to hear!!

I like to be open about these things because I know how much it helped me to hear it from other people! I only hope that some of the stuff I talk about helps other people out!

I will be doing my best to get things going in my life this year one way or another! So thank you!!! I only hope that when I get myself in gear that the stuff I create will connect with even a single other person

[scurvyboy]

they would get along i think

[starcurtain]

Teyvat's "Most Down Bad" Award Goes to Alhaitham for a Second Year Running

Seeing everyone making fun of Alhaitham for his "stalkerish" tendencies in this event is funny, because I feel like a lot of people missed that "Be literally everywhere Kaveh is" has been Alhaitham's MO from the day Kaveh appeared in the game.

From only grabbing his house keys after Kaveh returned from the desert (he couldn't have had both sets of keys at the end of the Archon Quest unless he went home and got Kaveh's copy) to ditching conversations to get back to his house only after Kaveh came home, to showing up without any warning or explanation in Kaveh's hangout with some ridiculous excuse about hearing his voice through noise-cancelling headphones... Refusing to offer any help in the Temple of Silence story quest other than staying in the library with Kaveh...

Since when does Alhaitham willingly cover anyone else's duties?

But this trend of "Be everywhere Kaveh is" didn't start when they were adults. It was already in place when they were still Akademiya students--and it's a trend that didn't end even when they had their fight.

Even when they weren't speaking, Alhaitham dogged Kaveh's every step through published responses to Kaveh's research articles in academic journals. He insisted on keeping a line of communication between himself and Kaveh open, even if the only way to do that was through very public ideological clashes. Pulling Kaveh's pigtails to get his attention lolol. It's implied that, for at least the few years between their fight and Kaveh moving in, this was the only communication between them--Alhaitham's refusal to allow their connection to entirely fade away. (And the fact that this is revealed in Kaveh's character stories--through his precious journal that records the moments of his life that had the most impact on him--shows just how deeply he values the fact that Alhaitham didn't give up.)

Another relevant side note: Alhaitham never asked Kaveh to give up his half of their house. Knowing half of it belonged to Kaveh, knowing that Kaveh may one day want to reclaim his part of it, knowing that it was listed as theirs, Alhaitham moved into the house and made zero effort to change its ownership. He was completely fine with living in "his and Kaveh's house." The stories suggest it was only months later (or even longer) that Kaveh even noticed he had the house, and he transferred away ownership of his portion without Alhaitham ever asking him (or even seemingly wanting him) to do so.

Please, let that sink in. Alhaitham actively left his grandmother's (presumably comfortable) house to move into "his and Kaveh's house," with no apparent explanation for why, and after doing so, he made no attempt to change that "his and Kaveh's" label. He moved into the house with no promise that Kaveh wouldn't show up on the doorstep the very next day and move in too. It almost feels like another deliberate provocation--I've moved into our house, are you going to come stop me? LBR, if Alhaitham had had his way, Kaveh would have been living there with him from Day 1...

There's also the fact that Kaveh literally can't write on a single message board anywhere in the entire nation of Sumeru without Alhaitham hunting his messages down and responding to them (which absolutely no one else does, by the way).

"NUH-UH!" "UH-HUH." "NUH-UH!"

Alhaitham's own character stories tell us explicitly that one of Alhaitham's defining character traits is "He is never where you need him to be," yet somehow...

Shot, and chaser:

Any time Kaveh is in the slightest bit of need or danger or just wants Alhaitham near, Alhaitham is "coincidentally" exactly where Kaveh needs him to be, whenever Kaveh needs him to be there.

Alhaitham didn't just "happen" to run into Kaveh in Port Ormos, an entirely different city from where he was supposed to be working. He didn't just "happen" to read the same terrible book as Kaveh when we know he otherwise would not waste a moment of his time on poorly-written literature...

He didn't just "happen" to appear when Kaveh was upset and needed a distraction in the House of Daena during Kaveh's hangout. He didn't just "happen" to be sitting around waiting when Kaveh needed answers after the Archon Quest. He didn't just "happen" to find Kaveh's academic publications and every single message board posting and respond to them at length and in public.

The only person for whom Alhaitham just "happens" to be available is Kaveh, over and over and over again--because he is very deliberately making himself a constant presence in Kaveh's life.

Which is exactly what Kaveh's mother told Kaveh he needed.

(Like, out of all things, I think people really underestimate the devs deliberately paralleling the romantic relationship between Kaveh's mother and father with Kaveh and Alhaitham's relationship. If you want to point to one thing that says "These two characters are intentionally queer-coded," it doesn't get any more obvious than this.)

Alhaitham, are you not embarrassed to be this transparent??? 🫣

[anxiousapplepie]

Roleswap Sus event combos Everybody gets a turn being the suspect and the suspectee! Nobody enjoys the experience, though.

[anthropost]

i mean, what a slap in the face to your audience to tease and hype up a paywall of all things

[anistarrose]

to me, the most fascinating (and utterly unintentional) feature of TAZ Balance's narrative structure is the way that on the first listen, Tres Horny Boys are the audience surrogates because they, much like us, have no idea what the fuck is going on, but on all subsequent relistens, then Lucretia, and sometimes Barry, and arguably especially Lup in the umbrella become the new audience stand-ins, because just like us, they are, in fact, painfully aware of what the fuck is going on :)

[bmpmp3]

based off this video. i think teto is a union man

[rocketbirdie]

*enters my own password* "i'm in"

[brainrotcharacters]

whatever level of insanity odysseus was under when he spat "you don't think I know my own palace? I built it" I'm down

[tsartistry]

Listen I know Blitzstone will be in our collective hearts forever

but I need you all to understand my vision when I say Blitzen/Amos Kane.

[eternal-savvy-blog]

hey sav what's sparkle on raven who are all these anime women on my dash what is happening

SPARKLE ON RAVEN THE LIFE OF DRILLGIRL IS AMAZING! I'm Slightly obsessed with it! XD

I have a soft spot for a particular brand of "intentionally shitty" that this youtube series perfectly nails and it makes me laugh harder than it should!

If you have ever heard of Nyan Neko Sugar Girls, it's very much inspired by that but with a bit more of an intention to simultaneously poke fun at old "Fanime" as well as generally appreciate it and show it some love

Not to get overly cerebral about it or whatever, but Sparkle On Raven speaks to me so deeply because it has an attitude about "cringe" old things we used to indulge in as 2000's teenage anime fans that feels extremely positive and healthy! I feel as if it celebrates it!

I still remember being a Teenager sat with my Weeb friends talking about the "totally rad manga we're all gonna write together one day and all our cool OC's"

Anyways! It's fuckin silly, very funny, watch it all! Here

[d8tl55c]

oh boy !! ! ! ! !!! ! thANK y0u all for the kind words on my last art posts. you all get it and i was/still am so happy about it

as promised, here's some close-ups of the comic for image quality's sake, and other screenshots i rescued from the community whiteboard (and something else)

first up another sketch of mystery gender-ambiguous being. (please send me more name ideas for them if you got one- i like to hear em! (reminder it's the side character that appeared for <10 seconds in AvM Ep. 30))

a few fav scenes

emotional support cwab

they weren't meant for this purpose exactly, but i do have countless "fluffy sticks" loose in my notes and homework sheets from the school years.

papery critter.

even when i wasn't confident in fur or feathers, they helped me practice posing and create some satisfying gradients/flowing poses. (im a sucker for good tail poses) (oh yay! i found a good pic...)

and finally, little sneak peak for you for reading so far ;3

i realized that whiteboardfox is pretty great for my working needs. simple and to the point and all. feels nice with the mouse and the tablet.

so i started hashing out a big project idea just to see if it holds up and

[

several hours later ...

]

oh

oh man

it's a little bigger than i expected

<next>

[qiu-yan]

my instinct is to say that wei wuxian is also the sort of guy who guesses the plot twist to a tv show 10 minutes into the first episode, but he did very much also fail to guess any of the plot twists in his actual life. so maybe not that genre-savvy after all

[shushmal]

steve wearing a shirt that says dingus

eddie wearing a shirt that says doofus

on the back 'if lost, return to robin'

robin's shirt says 'i'm robin WHERE IS MY DINGUS AND DOOFUS???'

[karlastarion]

I'm so curious about Kagha, because she's so different from Halsin. She and Halsin are both wood elves, and I get the sense that Kagha is probably not ~young~ but she's not nearly as old as Halsin. When you deal with the Shadow Druids, she's very quick to defer to him and treat him like a teacher she's disappointed. He probably mentored her, if he's chosen her as his second in command - though, I would bet it's in more of a general thing in the way that the First Druid is everyone's mentor, rather than the clearly more direct and specific mentorship he has with Nettie as a healer.

Canonically, Halsin isn't an exceptionally good leader. He's not bad at it, and he has good instincts. He correctly surmises that after the dust-up with Kagha and the tieflings, the Emerald Grove needs an outsider to step in and lead without being tied to any particular grudges or politics. That's savvy enough that I think Halsin was a good First Druid, he just wasn't especially good or great at it and clearly didn't like the position. At worst, I think he let some situations fester because of his focus on the Shadow Curse.

But I'm not ready to say that he didn't realize Kagha was a proverbial snake in the grass ~the whole time~, because I don't think she was. I think she was genuinely and recently radicalized by the Shadow Druids. I think she probably had something of an edge before, maybe she was a hardass or had a mean streak or something. Regardless of how I feel about the quality of the Shadow Druid subplot (which is that I think its pacing is meh and Kagha's face-turn is way too fast and kind of shitty), I think it speaks to the fact that her care for the Grove is genuine. That perhaps Halsin's failure with her wasn't in not realizing she was A Bad Person Actually, but in not tending to her insecurities or noticing that she might be feeling isolated, if she was so effectively shaken by the Shadow Druids' fearmongering.

The recent wave of IRL cults should have taught us all by now that everyone is susceptible to cult tactics if they're sufficiently scared and alone, and BG3 is a game riddled with various cults. You don't have to already be a bad person, or a stupid or weak person, to fall for them. And I think Kagha's story is way less interesting if you just think she's an evil power hungry shrew too stupid to keep herself from being radicalized.

She clearly has a nasty streak, but her apologies and regrets also sound sincere, if you manage to hear them. Even when she isn't "redeemed", she accepts her punishments, even if she does so bitterly and not believing she was wrong. And I have to wonder just how much of that mean streak is self-defensive rather than inherent in her, how much of it is that she struggles to admit failure and learn from it. Or how much is her modeling Halsin's level of single-minded commitment, picking a methodology or an action and throwing all of her weight behind it, even when it may no longer be working.

I wish characters like Kagha got nearly as much love and fandom development and benefit of the doubt as someone like Ketheric. I think she has a ton of potential for that, and way fewer crimes to her name than other fandom favorites who just happen to also be, you know. Men.

[inumbrapugnabimus-maybe]

Everything I see returns to you somehow