#i mean hey when it's relevant it's relevant!

[qqueenofhades]

Hi Hilary, thanks for your efforts and deeply informed political posts. I appreciate them and have learned a lot! I have a sincere question if you have the bandwidth for it - why is posting not considered activism? I think it should be. I mean sure it isn't getting out in the world and protesting or working at a soup kitchen and such but isn't sharing information and building community also part of activism? I've learned a lot from posts shared by yourself and others online (and further research they pointed me to) and I'm a better, more progressive person for it. Education is important and that's part of the road that leads people toward those more material acts in the world, isn't it?

There is an important clarification that I should make here, which is that posting cannot be substituted for activism. Too many people, especially on the left-leaning side of the spectrum, think that the only thing that counts as activism is constantly and loudly posting the Correct Opinions on social media, and that's it. There are several fascinating analyses that have been made about how living in late-stage capitalism means that consumerism is the primary actionable force, so you have to make sure that you only "consume" (i.e. post and mindlessly repeat) "morally pure" or "ideologically correct" content, and that if you do that, there is no other action necessary.

This is why we have had the online keyboard warriors who have yelled so loudly at the rest of us and then are absolutely dum-dum-diddlysquat amount of use when the rubber hits the road and it's time for even the smallest amount of practical action -- whether it is voting for Not A Fascist (literally the lowest imaginable bar and one at which they repeatedly and spectacularly fail) or just taking a small action to resist, call their representatives, or do so goddamn much as post "hey it's not all doomed and maybe we have a chance to fix this." That is because accelerationists (the kind who think that everything will get really bad and then The People Will Rise Up and Gloriously Revolute, The End) depend on these kind of constant logical fallacies and displacements, and in some sense, it's beneficial for them to keep feeding the "just let things get a little worse and then this time the Revolution will definitely happen!!!" line, because it keeps them relevant even when they do literally nothing. So. Yeah.

In short: spreading information, awareness, and action tips online, because so much of our socialization and community-building takes place online, is indeed a valid form of activism. But when it's taken to mean "you only have to post the correct opinions and do nothing else because that totally counts as activism," or "actually taking concrete and flawed action outside the black-and-white neo-puritan stricture of an online leftist echo chamber is actively bad and evil," then that's where we run into problems.

[fanonical]

Did you ever get my ask? I asked about what to do when a child loves something by a problematic author. How do you go about telling them if they’re too young? SHOULD you tell them? I’m talking about current 10 year old HP fans and children who like the Coraline movie. What do we do when it’s them and not adults? We forget about the target audience too much when we talk about things like this as if it were exclusively childhood nostalgia of Millenials/Gen Z

For fuck's sake, I didn't want to rise to the bait here, but this is making me mad because it's such a straw argument, so fuck it, I'm taking the bait. For context, this is anon's first ask:

Anon, first off, you are responding to a post that is five years old and about a subject that we pointedly do not post about anymore, and that alone makes me think you're not responding in good faith, but whatever.

Look, I work in a fucking library. We have HP books. If a child comes up to me and asks 'hey where's the HP books' I am not going to a) kick them in the face, b) tell them they're an idiot or c) refuse to answer. I am going to tell them where the fucking HP books are. I don't put them on displays I make, but I don't censor them, because we are legally not allowed to censor books in the library.

But I guess you're asking more if this is a kid who's in my life, as opposed to a kid who I just kinda come across. So, okay, I have a 9 year old neighbour whose family are friends with mine, we play video games together occasionally when her mum and dad need someone to watch her. And this kid reads books! And this kid reads fantasy books.

If I was seriously talking to her about the HP books, I might tell her about JKR! I would say something like 'I used to like the HP books, but then I learned that the author said some really nasty things about trans people like me. Now I don't like them so much any more.' And we could have a conversation about that, you know! I've talked to this kid about transphobia in terms that are appropriate for her age. We've had discussions about gender before. I think she'd listen to me, and form her own fucking opinion about it! 'I don't like the author of the HP books because she has said some nasty things' is a concept you can communicate to a five year old.

But also like. You're kind of acting like by taking away HP from this (hypothetical in your ask) kid they don't have any other books. Which...isn't true? If all copies of the HP books disappeared off the face of the earth tomorrow, kids would be reading other stuff, as they are currently reading other stuff! My 9 year old neighbour is a huge Jacqueline Wilson fan, she loves the Daisy Meadows rainbow fairy books. I want to introduce her to the Morrigan Crow books. We could get retro and start introducing kids to the Edge Chronicles, I fucking loved those books. Artemis Fowl. A Series of Unfortunate Events. There are so many other book series for kids in this world. I work in a fucking library! I can tell you that the kids are into Tom Gates, Dogman, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Percy Jackson, Babysitter Club, Dork Diaries, and (exasperated sigh) David Walliams books, based on a sample size of every kid I encounter at work. I get asked for all of them far more than I do for HP, actually.

I don't think you'd be ruining every kid's lives by taking away One Series from them. (Particularly not one that's losing some relevancy every day - and I mean that in the sense that it's not an ongoing series, the last book came out in 2007. Nearly 20 years ago. For a nine or ten year old, that's almost double their entire life.) And I don't think you necessarily would be taking it away from them to say 'hey this is the reason I don't like these books'. I trust your average ten year old to be able to have a reasonably mature conversation. You're making it sound like they're all Oliver Twist holding out their gruel bowl saying 'please sir I only read one book'.

Anyway. All this to say, I think kids have the ability to have conversations about media. And there are other books in the world. So, no, taking HP or Coraline or whatever away from kids is hardly snatching candy from a baby. Kids are smarter than you think.

[cactusnymph]

heal me

Shadowheart is trying to keep her head down and her thoughts away from Lae’zel. It’s shameful enough that they’ve kissed twice now and that Shadowheart can’t stop her subconscious from cooking up all these unwanted dreams about Lae’zel—she really doesn’t need more reminders of her slipping sanity. Perhaps the worm in her brain is making her act unwise after all. None of the symptoms Lae’zel previously explained have surfaced, but theirs seems to be a special case. According to Lae’zel, they should not have survived for so long with a tadpole in their brain, and yet here they all are, walking around as if there’s not a disgusting parasite wiggling through their grey matter.

The last few days have been blessedly peaceful—which is to say, Lae’zel-free—as they’re trudging through the Shadow-Cursed-Lands. None of her other traveling companions find this peaceful, but Shadowheart doesn’t mind the darkness. What kind of cleric to Shar would she be if a few shadows bothered her? Astarion, of course, has been complaining the entire time. And Wyll, who is terribly smitten by him, indulges his whining instead of shutting it down like he should, so Shadowheart is left to tune both of them out and share a few, efficient and relevant comments with Tav who seems to be set on getting this done as quickly as possible and at least doesn’t whine the entire time.

Yes, Shadowheart could do without all the weird family members of the Thorm family constantly turning up and dragging them into their terrible and macabre little hobbies and obsessions, but even those abominations are preferable to her traitorous brain drifting back to a certain someone she doesn’t want to think about. Or being near her.

For all Shadowheart cares Lae’zel can return to the stars and leave Shadowheart in peace forever and a day.

“You’re grinding your teeth”, Astarion complains to her left and pulls Shadowheart out of her thoughts. “Stop it. We have to deal with enough terrible sounds in this godforsaken landscape, you don’t have to add to it.”

She hadn’t even realized that she’d done it.

Shadowheart refuses to grace Astarion’s complain with a witty comeback, instead focusing on unclenching her jaw. Now that she stopped thinking about Lae’zel she realizes that she has a slight headache. Typical. Lae’zel even causes her bother when she’s not within a hundred feet of her, giving Shadowheart a headache and making her teeth grind because she’s so terribly annoyed.

“Hey, back off, alright? We’re all stressed out”, Tav mumbles.

Shadowheart is not stressed. She’s annoyed. There’s a difference.

“You must miss her”, Wyll says. “Excuse me?”, she says and turns her head to stare at Wyll who is walking beside her. His artificial eyes shimmers slightly in the soft light of the small bell they’re carrying around with them so the other three don’t get hurt by the curse.

“Lae’zel, I mean. You two have gotten close these past few weeks, have you not? I assumed your separation was causing you anxiety.”

Shadowheart ignores Astarion’s judgmental snort and stares at Wyll. For a full fifteen seconds she considers pushing him off the path and into the shadows just for saying something this offensive to her face without shame or remorse. And he doesn’t even look as if he’s joking, no. There’s only the regular honest smile and open expression that Shadowheart finds pitiful on a good day and annoying on a bad day.

“You must be joking”, she says flippantly, hoping that the dismissal and contempt in her voice bleeds through as much as possible.

“I was not, but I can see that I hit a nerve”, Wyll says, raising his hands in surrender. He looks apologetic and takes a step to the side, no doubt to escape the risk of being throttled by Shadowheart. She can’t deny that she’s contemplating it.

“You hit nothing, much like you didn’t hit anything in that last fight”, she snaps. Astarion’s chuckle is badly disguised as a cough and accompanied by a soft sigh coming from Tav.

“Alright. I request five minutes of silence”, Tav says and Shadowheart is glad that both Wyll and Astarion fall silent so she can seethe in peace. As if she would ever be anxious about not having Lae’zel around. That is the most ridiculous thing she’s ever heard in her entire life.

It takes them five days before they return to camp—five days in which Shadowheart is still grappling with the fact that her entire world has been turned upside down. Betrayed by her goddess, her order, shaken to her core and still she has to deal with bickering companions, with a squirming tadpole in her brain and disgusting shadow creatures attacking them at every corner.

She’s tired, she’s exhausted, she feels as if her entire life has been chewed up and spit out and in addition to all of that there is still that nagging, annoying feeling between her ribs whenever she thinks about Lae’zel.

In the grand scheme of things Lae’zel shouldn’t matter. Except that Shadowheart can’t shake the feelings. And after leaving her mistress Shadowheart doesn’t even have the soothing promise of her memory getting wiped again.

The truth of the matter—however much Shadowheart wants to deny it—is that no one understands her feelings about Shar except Lae’zel. It’s ridiculous. Someone she’s regarded as an enemy from the very beginning is now supposed to be the one person who can relate to how Shadowheart feels.

Gods be damned.

When they finally get close to their camp Shadowheart finds herself walking faster. All she wants is a good night’s sleep and some sweet, sweet oblivion. No more thinking, no more anxious spiraling. Just a big, black void of delicious unconsciousness.

As they approach camp Shadowheart watches Karlach rush up to greet all of them excitedly. Shadowheart ignores the worried looks and whispered questions as she moves past all of them towards her tent and without talking to anyone just crawls into it and rolls her body into the smallest shape she can manage.

Maybe Tav talked to everyone, or maybe the others just know what’s good for them, but no one disturbs her and Shadowheart is allowed to fall asleep. As it turns out though, she is not allowed to stay asleep for longer than what feels like mere seconds, before she’s shaken awake by a calloused hand on her shoulder.

Despite having turned her back on Shar, Shadowheart cannot so easily dismiss her training, so her automatic reaction is to lash out at whoever dares approach her in her vulnerable state. The dagger she sleeps with under her pillow doesn’t connect with anything but her wrist is pinned before she can so much as blink and as she finally wakes up enough to take in her surroundings she recognizes Lae’zel kneeling over her, her cat-like eyes staring down at Shadowheart furiously.

“Pathetic”, she hisses. Shadowheart lets go of her dagger and spits out a curse.

“What do you want?”

There’s an almost haunted look in Lae’zel’s eyes and Shadowheart realizes that her body is reacting to the position she finds herself in right now without her brain having caught up entirely. The last time they were this close they kissed and Shadowheart might have wanted things to go further in the heat of the moment, before they were interrupted by Gale.

“You have been gone for five days and eleven hours”, Lae’zel growls. Shadowheart blinks.

“Good. So you can count up to eleven”, she says. Lae’zel hisses again.

“Tsk’va! You are the most infuriating person on this godforsaken rock!”

Shadowheart manages a smirk as she tries her best to get her body back under control. The rapid heartbeat can easily be explained by the sudden nightly ambush, but there’s something else nesting inside her rib-cage that she cannot quite pinpoint.

“I take that as a compliment”, Shadowheart says and tries to wiggle her wrist free. It doesn’t budge even slightly. That definitely doesn’t make her pulse quicken even further.

“I need you to heal me”, Lae’zel proclaims and the way she says it sounds like an order, as pretty much everything she says does. Shadowheart furrows her brow and looks Lae’zel over as much as she can in their current position. She doesn’t seem to be hurt.

“You seem fine”, Shadowheart says and Lae’zel finally lets go of her wrist and sits up. Only now does Shadowheart note the haunted look in her eyes and the nervous pinch of her lips.

“I am not fine. I am experiencing physical symptoms of some sort of cursed Faerûn malady! You must heal me!”

Shadow sits up and rubs at her eyes.

“What are those supposed symptoms?”, she says and leans forward slightly, reaching up a hand to feel Lae’zel’s forehead. Lae’zel looks as if she’s ready to leap backwards like a cat sprayed with water.

“There is a painful pull in my chest”, she says. “I barely slept for days and my pulse is quickened even when I am not engaged in battle or sexual activity.”

Shadowheart raises an eyebrow.

“Sounds like anxiety. Are you saying you’ve been worried about me?”, she teases. Lae’zel flinches back as if Shadowheart slapped her in the face.

“Ridiculous”, she hisses.

It is entirely ridiculous. Much like Wyll asking whether Shadowheart missed Lae’zel.

A painful pull in her chest.

Shadowheart tilts her head and reaches out a hand, placing it just below the collarbone.

“So? Do you feel the painful pull in your chest right now?”, she asks. Lae’zel opens her mouth as if to insult her, but she closes it again and seems to listen to her own body for a few seconds before furrowing her brow.

“What is this? Have you healed me already? If this is supposed to be one of your jokes—“

“Not a joke. Just something Wyll said”, Shadowheart mumbles and pulls her tingling fingers back.

Gods be damned, this cannot be happening.

“And what about the other symptoms?”, Shadowheart asks, even though she’s already sure of the answer.

“There is—there is nothing”, Lae’zel says. She puts her hand over the space where Shadowheart’s fingers were just moments ago. It’s almost cute.

“Well then, I must be quite the healer, to cure you with just my presence”, she says and raises one eyebrow. There is a moment of silence that stretches and stretches as Lae’zel stares at her, the wheels in her mind turning.

“You say that I was experiencing these symptoms because of your absence”, Lae’zel says. Shadowheart shrugs, but her heart stumbles in her chest. She wants to make a witty comment and shoo Lae’zel out of her tent so she can finally go back to sleep, but something inside her makes it hard to speak.

Lae’zel mumbles “Tsk” and then, before Shadowheart can say anything, she lies down next to Shadowheart’s bedroll and curls up as if to sleep.

“What are you doing?”, she asks slowly.

“What does it look like?”, Lae’zel grumbles. “If you are correct, then to cure my sleeplessness I must remain in your presence. Shut up and go back to sleep.”

Shadowheart sits there in stunned silence as her blood rushes in her ears and she stares at Lae’zel’s back. She really is going insane.

As she lies back down on her bedroll and pulls her blanket over herself she realizes that she does feel calmer. Thankfully she’s tired enough to not have to think about that any further and instead Shadowheart closes her eyes and goes back to sleep to the sound of Lae’zel’s evened out breathing.

[yellowhollyhock]

remember that 1987 episode when Donatello fell out of the boat and nobody noticed so he swam to catch up and when he got back in Leonardo was like 'why haven't you been rowing?' and Donatello was just 'but but--ugh nevermind!' without even trying to explain to anyone that he fell out of the boat?

And then it wasn't relevant at all to the rest of the episode

[risingsunresistance]

sorry him saying he has no idea where the misogyny thing comes from when ludwig just talked about how he sent him a big apology for calling his friend a whore when it was about THE WRONG WOMAN is funny as fuck

i dont think he realizes that the reason no one gives a shit about his apologies and honestly just straight up ignores them is because EVEN IN THE EVENT THAT THEY ARE TRUE he's been proven to lie soooooo many times to the point where you really cant believe a word that comes out of his mouth. he says something and im like "damn maybe i was wrong about that one... i'll look into it" and you get more info and go "oh. he just made that part up. and misworded that. and lied about that part... oh it was actually WORSE than i initially thought!"

[kindaorangey]

well i'm comforted by the knowledge that book!armand has some faith in the christian god (and, like, that this faith is vital to his character) because it means theres absolutely no fucking way they'd just do that one-to-one in the show and so we're one step closer to an exploration of show!armand's relationship with islam

[itspileofgoodthings]

Random thought but I do think that fun can be such a good marker of whether or not something is healthy for you or even sometimes if it’s just good in general.

[blujayonthewing]

I wish I had any way of knowing whether people have gotten Weirder™ about my name in recent years or if this has been happening behind the scenes the entire time

I've been going by Jay since I was 11. At the time nobody objected to or questioned this, at least not to me; I found out many years later that Jay is supposedly a "boy's name," but nobody ever said 'you can't use that as a nickname, it's a boy's name' and it went completely uncontested by anyone when I switched. Lots of kids announced some manner of name change at the start of a new school year in middle school; it was all normal and fine. My mom and, you know, grandmas and other relatives kept calling me Jessica, which was also fine! I didn't make a big family announcement or correct any relatives on this, I just wanted to differentiate myself from the half dozen other Jessicas in school.

For twenty years!! This has gone on being perfectly normal! My Real Name™ is an increasingly obscure bit of trivia I get to spring on friends who didn't realize I had one, which is always funny (my brother in law didn't believe me and demanded to see my driver's license). My mom and grandmas have largely still called me Jess, and that's also fine! It's nice, even! There's a particular intimacy there of having a name only my mother uses-- but, crucially, I have never asked her not to, or said that I don't like it. And as FAR AS I KNOW, this has all been true and fine for TWENTY YEARS.

My own feelings about it have never changed, and feel, to me, very straightforward: if I tell you that my name is Jay, and you decide that no it isn't, that is a problem. That's the rule. That's literally it. I had a high school teacher who asked on the syllabus for us to write down if we went by something other than our full name, who was nonetheless UNIQUE among all of my teachers from 6th grade onward in always and only ever calling me Jess, even though I signed all my work Jay, all the other teachers called me Jay, he literally asked whether anyone wanted to be called something else and I answered Jay, and I had him for two semesters. I met a work friend of Justin's once who asked upon introduction whether Jay was short for something, and when I told him it was short for Jessica he took it upon himself to call me Jess instead. This isn't me having a problem with any particular iteration of my name, this is just asshole behavior! I told you what my name was and you said 'no it isn't'. The problem here does not seem complex to me?

But within the last [hand wiggle] handful of years I feel like it keeps getting weirder? Apparently my dad and grandma argued about it at my wedding rehearsal-- she, dramatically, insisting 'I don't care, her name is Jessica, I'm going to call her that ;n;' and my dad angrily defensive that no it isn't, I go by Jay, that should be respected. And I'm sitting here listening to my dad relay this in utter bewilderment like. Well dad I love the energy but I have never been bothered at all if grandma calls me Jessica. I have never even once asked her not to or complained to anyone that she does. But also this is the grandma who HAS called me Jay more often than not?? My mom's mom never picked it up, but I was astonished to hear my dad's mom was acting like this was some New Dramatic Change that she Hated and not a thing she's literally already been doing for, again, twenty entire years. Why are you suddenly making it weird! Last weekend Justin's stepmom mentioned seeing my mom at the hospital where mom works, and how she said something like 'yes I'm Jessica's mom-- wait, no, Jay, she hates it when I do that' and I just?? I literally don't, the only problem now is that people who know me won't know who the fuck you're talking about

all of this and I'm just. I am literally just sitting here. why are we inventing problems out of this two decades later. what is going on

[aromanticasterisms]

haha xbox wings [reads the description] hey what the fuck

[scarefox]

Just heard that everyone who has 1000+ followers on whatever social media site counts as influencer

oh 💀

but many of them are bots, spam or dead accounts lol ... I think. realistically there are only like 10 people interacting with my untagged posts.

(would love to have better access to that list so I could block bot accounts and inactive blogs better)

[unproduciblesmackdown]

maybe bsol is that time jen tepper mentions when she was so upset about a review of a show of joe's that she broke a glass (&/or threw it out a window)

[every-eye-evermore]

tell me your ancient names pt.i revelation bestie share your wisdom

There are a lot of different interpretations on the fortune telling from ancient names, but now that we can see the scene for ourselves, we know exactly what went down!

Here’s everything lady Moonbeam tells Buck:

- You’re looking for a woman

- To find her, follow the emerald star

That is literally it. That’s all. Outside of asking for Lee’s sign and that it’s “difficult to say” that’s all she says.

SO WHERE THE HELL DID HE GET THIS?

ARE WE GONNA ELABORATE ON THAT?

And we still have no clue what this was all about

What the hell is going on in ancient names part 1.

I’m not even going to get started on the vide noir hotline

My theories are

- plot changed (boring)

- he’s talking about the second time he spoke to lady moonbeam, under the bridge when she told him in no uncertain terms that what he was doing was a bad idea. But that still doesn’t fully account for

- what the hell is going on with the vide noir hotline seriously we don’t talk about this enough the world ender was barely a character in vide noir so what was all of that about what’s going on here why are there ghosts in the semi-realistic neo-noir movie

[variousqueerthings]

not negating that chris eccleston had a bad time on dw and rightfully wouldn't want to work with that team again for his own sake (minus billie i assume), but i have reservations about people in fandom jumping on the "yeah rtd is a dick who's incredibly hated in television actually, it's just a big secret," train when i have never heard anything to that effect outside of this working relationship that ended poorly and that as far as im aware rtd has never spoken about, so it's still a relatively private affair (of which we know a scant few details/that rtd didn't stick up for eccleston when he needed that support). i mean, he might be the worst guy ever, i've never worked with him, but i don't think the people saying this have either, and i think it's way too easy for people to assume the worst and go looking for confirmation bias, because it can justify their own dislike of rtd as a showrunner or his return as pure "nostalgia baiting" (that's another post). but yeah, if i see one more person go "oh i just have a feeling he's probably an asshole actually and the fact that we know that eccleston doesn't like him (as if that's new news) confirms that" as a roundabout way of going actually his era of the show wasn't that good or that him coming back to the show is a mistake, im simply not taking that seriously. just say you don't like the writing or whatever, don't make up a guy to personally dislike. there'll be another showrunner after him.

[lieutenantselnia]

This is super random, but I've recently been watching more German movies (I really enjoyed the performances of some Downfall actors and wanted to see some of their other works), and like what the hell is it with 2000s German movies that there's way too often one entirely random scene with someone having their bare ass out😭😂

Of course it doesn't happen in every movie but still often enough that it's somehow noticeable? I'm not sure if it's more of a time or a country dependent thing, but at least in my perception I just don't feel like this occurs as often in more recent movies and series especially in those from the US (like, I feel I'd have noticed if it did because I'd probably be lowkey annoyed by it😂)

[thefirstknife]

Is the Witness cutscene viewable to people who did not pay for access to the season (or will it be post-year)? Like people who only bought the expansion and not the season pass? I know they shove important story and lore info behind timegated paywalls constantly (reason I hate the season model), but that seems like a really especially vital scene I would hope would be viewable in-game by everyone

Right now, it's only a part of the season. Obviously it's available for free online on their official and non-official channels, but in-game it's only for those that have Season of the Deep, for now, since it's a part of this season.

As for the future, honestly no clue. I will assume yes because of one simple fact: you will no longer be able to buy the past seasons when Lightfall year ends. That would mean that only people who bought the season during this year would continue to have access to the cutscene going forward, but no new players would have the same access, which kinda defeats the purpose of having it accessible in the game later.

So I can assume that they might be working on some universally accessible cutscene viewer that will allow all players to see cutscenes from content no longer in the game, regardless of whether they've previously purchased it or not. That's the best scenario because it would mean we'd get all other cutscenes in the game too. The middle scenario is that only the Witness cutscene will be viewable somewhere as part of another mission or some quest, also without having to have purchased Season of the Deep (since you won't be able to once TFS starts: technically you'll be able to purchase Lightfall so maybe it will require you to at least have purchased that, but the season itself will no longer exist).

We'll have to wait for more info on that. As of now, I would assume that once this year is done and the season is no longer purchasable, the cutscene will be a part of content that is available to everyone. While it's still purchasable, it's only in-game for those that bought it, but can be viewed with no problem on their official channel (and elsewhere).

[trollbreak]

just dropping by to say all of the emoji adopts you're doing are SO cool lookin like you are on a roll

Thank you! I’m enjoying designing them, and it’s made for a nice thing to focus on when I’ve got the spoons today