#how to play- rules

[i-eat-deodorant]

trying to make my case on why the "except for one" referred to in the AMA is actually leshy

[heynhay]

playing dirty

[kev-day]

ok yesterday i saw a post about how kevin lost $10 in a bet about neil which was silly goofy and whatever but it got me to thinking about how actually kevin has so much faith in his people that i could bawl my eyes out.

[kacievvbbbb]

God again I’m just so obsessed with how far this family has come and how with every chapter they just behave more and more like a family and less what a family should be like.

Like a couple chapters ago Yor was still calling her Miss Anya and now that’s her mom. She would have never jokingly “lied” to her before and would have even freaked out at the mere question there was something less than normal about her. But here she is your honor this is a family.

My favorite thing about spy x family has always been how consistently Yor has Anya’s back no matter what shit she gets into Anya akways stands ten toes down because she knows Yor is always rocking for her. I think a lot about how the way Loid chose to comfort Yor and reassure her abilities as a mother is by telling her that she makes Anya brave because she know Yor will always, always protect her and just what else is a parent than someone that makes you brave?

It’s even more poignant to come in a chapter where we are introduced to Anya’s birth mother for the first time and there’s definitely the similarity being drawn. Yor loves Anya would give everything up for her but would also do anything to make the world safe for her. When Yor felt there was no reason to go on with her spy work she thought of the little family she’s made for herself, of the little troublesome girl she’d risk it all for and she just knew that there were still people worth making the world safe for.

God I love this family

[vaguely-concerned]

the fact that irving canonically survives through the end of asunder to be at wynne's funeral is so fucking funny to me. nothing but love and respect for MY unstoppable cockroach morally grey machiavellian mage dad!!! he's survived in his position through multiple attempted rites of annulment and blood mage plots popping up left right and center around him. the chantry keeps trying to stamp him out but his dodge game is simply out of this world, divine. civil wars, political machinations and minefields, chantry atrocities, this wily old motherfucker is dodging and weaving his way through it all, not-quite-no-hits-taken-running-it-but-honestly-close-enough-under-the-circumstances style. if solas does succeed in tearing down the veil I would fully believe that one of the like three people still alive at the end of it all would be a very weary 90 year old first enchanter irving going 'oh this shit again huh'. the maker has cursed him for his hubris and his paperwork is never finished (affectionate, it's fine he canonically loves paperwork)

[okayto]

Neopets is so funny right now. It's a 24-year-old website and half its pages haven't been updated in 15 years. Its ostensible audience is children. The core active audience appears to be nostalgic 20-40-year-olds. Old code means no accounts or pets can ever be renamed. The virtual pound is full of virtual pets named after Justin Bieber. It has an economy and inflation is rampant. New ownership is combating this with the stimulus of random super-rare items via daily quests and events, while the equivalent of Neopian Upper-Crust complain that their investments are deflating. You can't say seaweed or grapes.

[inkedberries]

shinlena!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[aflamboyanceofflamingos]

I have a dumb idea

The justice league (Minus Clark and Diana) thinks that Robin is an immortal being that changes form every 5-10ish years because Bruce never told them he had different robins

Robin I and Bruce having issues near the end was just due to the transformation coming near

Robin II only lasting so long and Bruce’s grief after they attribute to something going wrong with the transformation and do think Robin is dead

However when Robin III comes they assume that Bruce’s grumpiness is attributed to him being over protective after the disaster of the last transformation

The Steph comes and goes back to Tim and they’re all thrown but like maybe this version of Robin is genderfluid and they don’t want to be rude so they don’t say anything

And when Damian comes after 5 years it just solidifies this theory as well as Robin probably being genderfluid cause of Carrie

Yes the bat kids have come to the watchtower as Nightwing, Red Hood, Red Robin, and Spoiler

Bruce is unaware

The batkids know and are keeping up the act as they wait for the perfect moment to descend from the celing, all wearing the robin uniform and traumatizing the Justice League

[impishglee]

it’s wild to me the way a lot of skinny people think weight works like they really genuinely believe that fat people could only be the size they are and continue to exist at that size because they eat “too much” and exercise “too little” and that losing weight is a straight forward process.

like, i started a job last spring that meant i went from getting very little physical activity to typically walking 5-7 miles a day on uneven terrain, carrying shit. My eating habits have remained more or less consistent.

I have not lost weight. My proportions have remained more or less the same. My clothes fit me about the same. I think any fat person would not find this particularly surprising but isn’t calories in calories out the gospel people constantly preach? you’d think dramatically and consistently increasing my physical activity would accomplish this but it obviously didn’t. I am not complaining, changing the size or shape of my body is not a goal of mine, but it’s notable that the actions the medical institutions endorse as ways to achieve that sure don’t actually work.

but while my body has not visibly changed, it’s definitely been great for my health! my mood and energy are significantly better. My resting heart rate dropped by ~10 bpm. I have stronger legs and better stamina. But I do not think anyone would look at me and think of me as someone who lives an “active lifestyle” despite the fact that i do. it’s amazing and depressing to me how many people have bought into the complete lie that you can judge health from appearances and the myth that fat people just lack discipline or someshit

[backpackingspace]

Odysseus with his head in his wife's lap, happily not paying attention to anything, humming one of athenas song and carving something

Some random guy: your majesty----

Odysseus: not bothering to sit up: whatever my wife decided is fine.

[undercover-stories]

REMINDER that according to 'The Banquet', it is canon that apparently Sizhui is a bit of a troublemaker. Maybe I'm blowingthings out of proportion, but I love how among the details mxtx chose to put into the story, one of them is Wei Ying finding all the juniors being punished for breaking sect rules and Sizhui was the leader!

Cause from how mature he is you'd think he was a model student, which he probably is. So the idea that he's liable to break rules and isn't hung up on them the same way Lan Zhan was at his age is funny to me. There's that 'Yiling Patriarch' part of him.

[s0fter-sin]

one of my favourite aspects of supernatural that you very rarely see in paranormal shows is that sam and dean are already versed in the world they live in. there’s no sudden discovery of ghosts and demons and now they have to learn about them along with the audience; they are born into it and already know all about it. it allows the audience to follow their personal story instead of also trying to figure out this new world and its rules

the first season is full of knowledge we never see them learn; “w*ndigoes are in the minnesota woods or- or northern michigan. i’ve never even heard of one this far west.” […] “great. well then this [his gun] is useless.” (1x02), “you don’t break a curse. you get the hell out of its way.” (1x08), d: “it’s a god. a pagan god, anyway.” […] “the annual cycle of its killings? and the fact that the victims are always a man and a woman. like some kind of fertility right.” […] s: “the last meal. given to sacrificial victims. d: “yeah, i’m thinking a ritual sacrifice to appease some pagan god.” (1x11)

almost every episode in the first season is a monster they’ve faced before that they then explain to the audience in a way that should feel patronising; like it’s the same speech given over and over again but instead, the audience almost feels included in the knowledge. it’s stated with such an innate confidence and comfort in said knowledge that it feels like we already knew it too; “spirits and demons don't have to unlock doors. if they want inside, they just go through the walls.” […] “the claws, the speed that it moves; could be a skinwalker, maybe a black dog.” (1x02), “it's biblical numerology. you know noah's ark, it rained for forty days. the number means death.” (1x04), “no no no, not the reaper, a reaper. there's reaper lore in pretty much every culture on earth, it goes by 100 different names.” […] “you said it yourself that the clock stopped, right? reapers stop time. and you can only see 'em when they're coming at you which is why i could see it and you couldn't.” (1x12)

they already know and, at least in the first season, already have what they need to kill whatever they’re hunting; already know to salt and burn bones for spirits, fire for a w*ndigo, exorcisms for demons, a silver bullet to the heart for shapeshifters. there’s only three times in the entire first season that they run into something new to them; 1x14 when sam gets his first vision that leads him to another psychic, 1x16 when dean calls caleb for help on the sigil he put together and he tells him about daevas, and 1x20 when they find out vampires are real- and they only don’t know that bc john thought they were hunted to extinction and not worth mentioning

(there’s also technically two half instances if you count one of them knowing something the other doesn’t - sam figuring out the tulpa in 1x17 and dean already knowing about the shtriga in 1x18 - but those still rely on sam and dean having prior knowledge)

even when they’re uncertain about facing something, it’s not bc they don’t know what it is; it’s precisely bc they know what it is and acknowledge that it’ll be a difficult hunt (“i don't know, man. this isn't our normal gig. i mean, demons, they don't want anything, just death and destruction for its own sake. this is big. and i wish dad was here.” 1x04)

so much of the tension in paranormal shows typically comes from the main character(s) not knowing what is happening to them/the people around them and having to find out how to resolve it. supernatural is unique in that it operates more like a police procedural. the tension comes from solving the clues and identifying patterns to figure out who (what) the killer is and intercepting before they can take another victim

it’s such a different tone to go for when compared to other shows that came both before, during, and after its run. it sets sam and dean on even footing with each other since they both have the same knowledge going in, and it puts them in a place of authority usually reserved for an outside character

the shows i compare spn to most is charmed, buffy and teen wolf; every main character in those shows are brought into the paranormal world knowing nothing, putting them on the same level as the audience, and they have their mc interact with others already knowledgeable about that world in order to overcome their problem/monster of the week. the audience organically learns about this new world as the characters learn about it. it’s a sound writing strategy that prevents “as we already know”-style exposition but something that complicates it is if your world building isn’t unique or intriguing enough, this slow introduction can become boring

we’ve seen shows like these before; sitting through the same tropes of characters learning to use their powers, struggling with no longer feeling normal/relating to the regular world around them, and not knowing how much they can trust the people already involved in this new world gets repetitive. all three shows eventually reach the same level of comfort with their new world that spn starts with but if the characters aren’t enough to draw you in, you can end up dropping it before they reach that point (and often, before the overarching plot can really kick in and evolve the show beyond the villain of the week format)

it’s the superhero origin movie in tv format; dragged out and overplayed. dropping the audience into an established world of course comes with its own problems but you also have the benefit of pre-existing established character dynamics that let the audience slot in like they’ve always been there instead of just getting to know all the characters while the characters also get to know each other

sam and dean already knowing about the supernatural lets the audience immediately get to the core of the story; the conflict between sam and dean, the search for their father, and the mystery of what killed their mother

[twstinginthewind]

.... okay am I losing my mind a little or is there a McDonald's in the Heartslabyul gardens?

[stealingpotatoes]

hands you all this cal to announce i’ve FINALLY finished fallen order (by which i mean i finally picked it up again after those couple hours i played a few months ago and then finished the whole game in 2 days lol)

[mikansei]

we know jade's cornerstone can read people's desires, and there's no visual indicator on her person that gives away when she's using it. it only makes sense she'd use it to interrogate the suspect in the egyhazo case, especially since she was asking into his motive. her cornerstone would give her a way to either verify he was truthful or catch him in a lie.

(she ended this interaction by telling him "may your schemes be forever concealed," by the way.)

point being, she had the means to know - really know - his deepest desires.

egyhazo was an elaborate scheme to land himself in front of someone powerful, to wager his life in exchange for a chance. he said as much. he even said why: to ask for a measly 30 tanbas, and use that symbolic pittance to rise to even greater heights. what he didn't say is that he didn't want wealth and power and status for its own sake - even if it wasn't a full-fledged plan at the time, everything he wagered, everything he gained, he wanted to use to help the avgins. to repay their faith in him. to lead them to prosperity like he was supposed to.

and jade had to have known what he wanted - what he desired - too.

jade gave him the chance. she took him under her wing, guiding him through the corporate ranks all the way to missions like iymanika, the test for obtaining his own cornerstone. it had to have been some time between the interrogation and iymanika - between being a prisoner in rags with nothing to his name, not even personhood, and sending a warlord into financial ruin and subsequently pulling off the double indemnity gambit with jade - all the while aiming for the status being a stoneheart would grant him to save his people.

but he found out from jade that the avgins were gone only after he'd been given the aventurine stone.

all that time, jade knew they were gone - and deliberately hadn't told him so.

after all, if he'd known beforehand that his goal was unachievable, he might not have wanted to become a stoneheart anymore - and then her investment in him would never pay off.

is it any wonder his voiceline about jade is "be careful, her kindness always comes with a price"?

[arthursfuckinghat]

The tragedy that is Arthur Morgan is something that keeps me up at night.

That man lived day to day thinking life was just a tally chart of his sins and that he was forever damned, to the point where he was silently suicidal.

He lived and died thinking that no matter what good he did, it would never make up for his existence - in the type of life he didn't get to choose.

And what's worse is that he still tried. He tried and gave absolutely everything to the people he cared about, to the people he loved, and he watched all of it crumble before him.

He was a dog that was tricked into thinking it was a wolf, a stag who was taught to be a moose, that died to unwavering loyalty.