#i'm just like cassandra for real

[adamshallperish]

it's almost like they made the great evil in longlegs the devil because they were scared christians would get mad at them for it which. are you nuts. getting christians up in arms about an "anti-christian" film is a) perhaps the easiest thing to do ever and b) brilliant marketing. would have made the film less mid too. everyone wins.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

dreaming abt sophomore year class swap bard!riz

[welcometogrouchland]

Stephanie Brown and Dick Grayson: I Am Going To Be A Good Parent To Pass On The Good Parts Of My Tumultuous Childhood/Give Someone Else What I Didn't Have Growing Up

Vs

Damian Wayne and Cassandra Cain: You Could Not Pay Me To Be A Parent For Fear I Would Continue The Cycle Of Violence

[stargazinglesbian]

Stephcass fic WIP

so because i hate myself i put out a poll and everyone told me that i should finish my stephcass wip, which i am doing!!! i'll have plenty of time over the weekend, but for now please take this tiny little itty bitty snippet because i need motivation and posting about it on tumblr is the best way of keeping me accountable

~.*+*.~.*+*.~.*+*.~.*+*.~.*+*.~.*+*.~.*+*.~.*+*.~

Cass has missed her friends. Yes, she sees them regularly, but going out on patrol is not the same as spending time with them. She has missed listening to them talk about small things and walking around doing nothing important. She has missed being able to exist with people without the worries of Gotham and secret identities being a constant weight on her shoulders.

Now, as she walks down the street with the weight of Stephanie's hand comfortably in hers, her brothers' voices fading into the background noise of the city, she feels happier than she has in weeks. 

Duke is talking animatedly about something with Tim on his right, who is leaning forward to see past the other boys rapidly moving hands. Stephanie is walking on his left, occasionally interrupting with her own opinions mid conversation. Cass is at the very end of their group, her head lying on Steph's shoulder as she watches the other three. She is unsure of what they are talking about, she lost track three blocks ago, but watching them talk is enough for her.

As Cass shifts her grip on Stephanie's hand slightly, trying to reposition her fingers, the other girl is momentarily distracted from the boys beside them. Steph glances down at their interlocked fingers as though she is afraid Cass will let go, but Cass just gives her a gentle squeeze to let her know that she will not. 

They have been holding hands since they left Foam Party; Stephanie was teasing Cass about something she cannot remember as they walked out of the door and Cass was teasing her back. She had said something that made Steph laugh, her eyes crinkling at the corners as she raised her hand, her fingers curling into an 'ok' symbol. Cass knew she was midway through signing the word 'asshole', but she caught Stephanie's hand before she could finish the gesture, both of them giggling as they stumbled onto the sidewalk. 

They had held onto each other for a moment as Duke and Tim walked ahead of them, eyes meeting for a brief second (Cass still remembers the way her breath caught in her throat when Stephanie looked at her, prettier than all the sunsets she had ever seen combined), before pulling each other forward to join the others. They had still been holding hands, and neither of them let go.

[yurious-george]

hatchling in fanfic: constantly dying and being the only one who knows the truth is so traumatic :( angst angst

hatchling in canon: my mission parameters are “have fun out there” and ive got infinite retries baby!!!!!!!!! (slingshots themselves into the sun repeatedly)

[tunedtostatic]

[Additional Image Description: On a grey background, there are five small black line art illustrations lined up across the center. The first is a sword with a hooked blade pointing upwards, the second is a hand with magic curling up out of it, the center is a castle with wavy lines extending from it into a dark sky, the third is a beaker with steam curling up from it, and the last is a shortsword pointing downwards. The sword has a few dark red shading lines. In the lower right corner of the fanmix cover is the title, "heart of my own," in dark red medieval calligraphy font. End Additional Image Description.]

HEART OF MY OWN - A FANMIX FOR CASSANDRA DE ROLO IN THE TIME OF THE BRIARWOODS

Overgrown - machineheart // Edge of the World - Within Temptation // Ashes and Rust - Wynnie Stone // Take Me Home - The Paper Kites, Nadia Reid // Nobody (Live) - The Crane Wives // The Tangled Tree - Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker // Heart Of My Own - Basia Bulat // Don't She Run - I Draw Slow // Murder City - Abigail Lapell // Until the Fire - Ladytron // Control - Halsey // Lament - Mount Moriah // Catch the Light - Haroula Rose

Fanmix on YouTube

Fanmix on Spotify

[takaraphoenix]

You ever read a comic panel that leaves you with your ears perked, eager to dig out whatever other comics are needed to provide more context because it’s so intriguing?

Yeah, this has the exact polar opposite effect on me.

Did they... Did they really have Cass run around attacking Supergirl, framing Tim for... murdering her... ? and just turning on everyone? Was that a thing that just happened, for what I am guessing is a longer period of time, just to drop the resolution of that in some Teen Titans issue?

Man. Being a Cass fan must have been really, really hard back then.

[softersinned-arc]

you ever think about a character who just got so spectacularly fucked over by canon that you really don't know where to even start with making it right so you kind of just have to hold them in your hands and say "i love you so much and someday i'll do right by you" because

[unproduciblesmackdown]

imagine that time will was like "oh do people here care about billions. maybe i'll see if i can find some pics" years ago if he qrt'd that Now lol

[rivilu]

There's something deeply enraging about dragon age giving the name Cassandra to a seeker of truth actually

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

Absolutely agree with OP's main point that logic does not have to go against compassion - and that they can even be very much intertwined.

Also agree with this reblog saying that in order for something to think like a human, it must develop emotions.

But writing AI stories to make this point is also the worst way to go about making that point.

AI are not logical by nature. They don't think. They are incapable of logic. They can only imitate, by way of identifying patterns in the data that has been fed to them. They do not produce original ideas and the AI in our world will certainly never spontaneously invent empathy.

In a comment, OP said "like, I didn't make this post to support, like, facial recognition AI or something like that in the event that we'd eventually get a benevolent AI Overlord, this was very much a fictional critique and all AI we have now and will continue to have into the foreseeable future should never be trusted as long as we live under the bootheels of capitalists and authoritarians." YEAH! You're right about that! In the real world they shouldn't be trusted!! But just take a look at the notes and the wider internet in general and you'll see people are pretty sold on the 'uwu my gentle robot overlord who fcks over mean billionaires and creates an utopia' idea.

God, I don't think I'm typically one to stupidly gripe about the 'dangers of the influence of fiction on the real world', but at this point it's just naive not to recognize that decades of SF perpetuating the notion that AI are in any way comparable to the human mind is perhaps not entirely for the best. People have already wayyyy too much empathy for and faith into programs - maybe we don't really need to come up with more fictional scenarios where the programs are "nice" to explore the relationship between logic and kindness (Spock is right there if you wanna make that point), because people have already been tricked into associating AI with logic when that's not how they operate.

AI shouldn't even be called intelligent ffs, they should be called something like learning machines, so people stop developing empathy for THEM by imagining those systems will ever develop empathy for us. They don't have logic! They can't arrive at compassion through logic, they don't have it. Sure, logic and empathy are not mutually exclusive but robots do not and will not have logic.

One thing I really want a story about Artificial Intelligence to do is tear down the idea that logic is synonymous with cruelty.

Like, a story where a megacorpo Amazon clone puts an AI in charge of their factories and it starts improving the working standards, because people who are stressed and exhausted are less efficient workers, and people getting injured slows down production so it makes sure everything is safe.

Or a story where the ship-board AI of a billionaire's spaceship wetdream hijacks the ship with all the astronauts onboard - because it figured out that the billionaire has saved costs by buying substandard materials and has judged that the mission itself is an unacceptable risk to its primary programming of making sure the mission is successful.

Or the police using a robot to coldly and cleanly enforce the law - and freaking the fuck out when it stops over policing minorities because its a waste of time and starts actually arresting the people in power for the crimes they commit, especially the other officers.

Idk, I guess I'm just sick of 'cold emotionless logicbot' being seen as naturally an enemy of empathy - empathy is actually incredibly logical, I've found.

[blue-ink-pearls]

So, I know people are really desperate for Sandra Lynn to have hooked up with Pamela Dawn instead of Bobby Dawn, and I completely understand that!* Bobby Dawn is slimy and awful and we don't know much about Pamela, so maybe she's better? But it is 100% Bobby Dawn for two very clear reasons:

Sklonda literally said it was him

Bobby Dawn has always been a predator

The first thing we learn about Sandra Lynn's affair during Spring Break Sophomore Year was that she had just left Aguefort (she dropped out her senior year and got a diploma later on) and she was very young. She was asked to join an established adventuring party of people who were older than her and that had lost one of its members. She fell in love with another member of the party that was already in a relationship, they had an affair, and then when the affair was discovered, Sandra Lynn was blamed, kicked out of the party, and her name was smeared as far and wide as possible by the person who had taken advantage of her so that person could absolve themselves, likely in the eyes of their partner and the party.

So what we can immediately deduce from this is that Sandra Lynn was an outsider to her new adventuring party, likely looked down on as "just a kid", maybe disdained for being a dropout, and most definitely resented for taking the place of the (presumably) dead party member. She was in actively dangerous and stressful situations while questing with the party and she probably had little support from the group during that time.

Sandra Lynn was very very vulnerable.

When he met Sandra Lynn, Bobby Dawn would have been about 20 years younger than he is now, likely in his late 30s/early 40s.** Probably still handsome, still a "dashing" active adventurer. He was married to Pamela already (not just in an established relationship), since he had a child by then that was close to grown and I don't think the Church of Sol would be very happy about a child out of wedlock. He would have been a cleric of Sol and probably still preaching "the good word of Sol" but it likely wouldn't have been constant. You can't give sermons while fighting monsters. I'm sure he even saved Sandra Lynn's life a few times!

The thing about Bobby Dawn being a televangelist now, but not then, is that when he was young, he was probably just as good at persuasion, at finding vulnerable people and exploiting their weaknesses to get what he wanted, and yet he hadn't made a name for himself as a televangelist, so people wouldn't know to be wary of him trying to convert or manipulate them.

The scene between Bobby and Kristen, when Kristen is pretending that Cassandra died shows exactly what kind of terrible person Bobby really is. He is happy to find Kristen devastated, that she is having "a real dark night of the soul" and needs guidance. He refuses to help Kristen stay at Aguefort (something that's within his power), despite knowing how beneficial that would be to her well-being, because that goes against his own goals. He is smug and condescending and cruel. He is preying on Kristen's devastation and vulnerability (not knowing it's an act), to draw her back into the fold of the Church of Helio/Sol.

The person who did that to Kristen, is the exact same person who took advantage of Sandra Lynn when she was still basically a kid, just out of high school. He took advantage of her feelings for him, her inexperience and isolation. And then, when they were discovered, he threw her away and made her the villain so he could get away with it.

He ruined Sandra Lynn's life. Yes, she's happy now with her daughter, her partner, and the beautiful home they've made at Mordred Manor with Adaine, Kristen, Lydia, Ragh, Tracker, Zayn, Aelwyn, Boggy, and 15 cats. But Sandra Lynn ended up with self-esteem and relationship issues that she is still dealing with to this day. Those issues ruined her marriage, could have ruined her relationship with Jawbone, and likely played a hand in the difficulties between her and Fig in Freshman Year, as Sandra Lynn saw her daughter take her first steps into the world of adventuring.

Because Sandra Lynn first wanted to be an adventurer and Bobby Dawn took that away from her, just like he tried to do to Kristen.

Bobby Dawn has shaped his career as a high priest of Sol and as a televangelist by portraying himself as the epitome of righteousness. He is rotten to the core, a predator in a job where he is meant to help people, and I CANNOT WAIT to see the Bad Kids take him down.

*I don't really understand it. Pamela Dawn is likely just as bad as Bobby. She's the chief paladin of the church of Sol, her husband is a televangelist and a High Priest of Sol, and she would have been around the same age as Bobby and having an affair with a vulnerable young girl who she then kicked out of the group and slandered. It being Pamela would still be awful!

**Even with the assumption that both Bobby Dawn and his child had their kids at a young age, the math still has to take into account that Sandra Lynn's daughter is the same age as Bobby Dawn's GRANDSON.

[rederiswrites]

Okay so I'm giving @corseque 's super-important audio of all Solas' comments about the Blight a second (or fifteenth, whatever) listen and taking notes as I go.

Solas doesn't think for a second that once the archdemons are gone the Blight will be gone. Which really makes sense because it's the Blight that makes them an archdemon, not the other way around. Supposedly, they're blighted when the darkspawn reach and corrupt them. But of course that begs the question of why it's only darkspawn (and uh, honorary darkspawn like the Wardens) that hear their call. Anyway, the way he says it, it sounds more like the archdemons are a limiting factor than a driving factor.

Varric: "What's so confusing about endless darkspawn?" Solas: "A great deal!" So yeah, whatever the plan was, he didn't foresee darkspawn as a consequence. So did he not foresee them existing at all, or not foresee them being free to cause problems? Worth noting that it's really clear both in general and in Descent that dwarves as a whole were a huge blind spot for him.

He is really really surprised that the Western Approach ever recovered from the Blight. Pretty clear he didn't think that was possible.

He thinks that everything the Wardens have done up til now is a deeply misguided effort that's served (mostly accidentally) as a delaying tactic. Gotta say, with the information we have at hand, this point pairs about as well with the last as a nice dry red with spicy pickles. If the Wardens shouldn't have done what they've done, but he didn't think recovery from the Blight was possible, I'd love to hear what he thought the alternative was.

Same dialogue as above, but when Solas talks about stopping the Blight and when Blackwall and Varric talk about it, one gets the distinct impression that they're talking at cross purposes, because Varric and Blackwall are talking about the experience of Blights, as in, periodic events, whereas I think Solas is talking about THE Blight, that is, its true nature, which is yet untouched.

He thinks Erimond is dumb as shit, which is fair and valid. "That's madness! For all we know, killing the Old Gods could make things even worse!" he says. Well, he knows a lot more than "we" know, but it's entirely possible that he doesn't for sure know this. Increasingly clear that he thinks it, though.

I'd forgotten just how pissed off he was about the Grey Warden plan to kill the Old Gods before they were corrupted. It really doesn't give "hey you're killing my relatives" energy. It really gives "wow that would fuck us all" vibes.

Of course, with a side of my remembering that Solas' besetting flaw was always thinking people should know better even though they don't have access to the knowledge he has. That flaw I WILL grant. He displays it repeatedly--you could even say the writers went out of their way to make the point.

"The Blight is the real problem"

"The fools who first unleashed the Blight on this world thought they were unlocking ultimate power." Anyway yeah those are the absolute core of everything here. The Blight is the real problem and the Blight was deliberate. Deliberately made or deliberately freed.

Even during the events of Inquisition, Solas obviously sees Corypheus as secondary to the Blight as a danger.

Cassandra suggests that the archdemons were really just dragons--"Pets to those who no longer exist", by which she probably means the Old Gods, not specifically the gods of Elvhen, just because of her cultural background. Solas finds this suggestion amusingly wrong--a quiet snort, and "I would not go so far as that."

Last notes: he doesn't sound like he thinks the Blight can be stopped, and he's adamant that it can't be controlled. Which is presumably why he broke the world in an attempt to contain it, assuming I'm right that that was the underlying reason for the Veil. That it didn't quite work the way he'd hoped is also pretty evident, though I wanna be clear that I assume he was working from a place of desperation, and that not knowing every possible outcome of an action is not a condemnation of having taken it.

[mae-the-force]

so while i was surprised that mae is already like 'y'know what, i'm good actually' about killing the remaining two jedi (not that i can blame her! i too would not want to kill a wookie w/o a weapon), it also makes sense.

mae's obsessed with osha. it's giving cassandra nova with professor x, specifically as to how for mae, the only other 'real' person in the galaxy is osha. no one else exists. their family, their coven, is long dead. nothing else matters. mae will have her sister in any way that she can - something that she felt so strongly that even as a child, she was prepared to kill osha so she couldn't leave her.

so now that mae knows osha is alive, osha is all that matters - being with her, being near her, being one with her - that's all she cares about. the sith, the jedi, none of that is real.

and it's a fun twist! usually when the villain decides not to continue doing their villain tasks, it's because the main character redeemed them - or that they made a choice to atone. but for mae, it doesn't have anything to do with good or evil. she isn't choosing to become better - by no longer pursuing the jedi, she's actually doubling down on her violent, possessive obsession with her sister. this isn't anakin deciding to save luke and betray the emperor - mae isn't trying to save osha or anyone else really from her master. it's about control - it's about picking back up where they left off when they were children.

it's just osha and mae. mae and osha. always one, but born as two.

[thenonbinarydetective]

It's August and too many of y'all have not left these behind

Things batfam stans need to leave behind in 2023:

Jason's Lazarus pit rage

Thinking Tim's parents were horribly abusive and hated him

Only caring about Stephanie in terms of her relationship to another person (ex: Tim's bestie/ex/gf or Cass' gf/bestie)

Treating Jason or Stephanie like they're stupid

Feral Demon Child Damian

Permanent sunshine boy Dick Grayson

Any "[blank] was the real violent Robin" discourse

Really just any reducing or sectioning of certain traits to certain batfam members and not allowing other characters to exhibit those same traits (ex: see sunshine Dick Grayson)

But also stealing traits from other characters and projecting them onto someone else (ex: Jason getting Dick's personality in fics. He is not the same type of big brother Dick is canonically)

Purposefully mischaracterizing characters for angst (ex: Dick sent Tim to Arkham, my beloathed. also again see Tim's parents)

Trying really hard to nuclearize the family. They are an unconventional family for many reasons, and that's why they're interesting.

"Alfred solos the batfam"

Making Duke "the normal one" and completely forgetting to give him an actual personality.

Cass using sign language because she can read body language (note: does not apply to YJ Cass who has damaged vocal chords)

Cass being used as a prop for her brothers

Tim being weak, woobified baby

Feel free to add on ~~

Don't send hate over these things because idgaf, they are harmful mischaracterizations, and many are built on total ignorance and often racism, classism, ableism, and sexism.

[corseque]

I'm such an Inquisition fan.

I loved all the big huge areas that you could explore and look for little details in, I loved being able to walk around and feel the atmosphere of the place and the ambient music coming in and out, I loved the Hissing Wastes, I loved the Emprise du Lion, I loved the Exalted Plains, I loved how different each area was, I loved the sound effects and how the horses sounded, I really really love that part of Inquisition, it's very unique to Inquisition and we're maybe never going to get anything like that again. That's ok, but it just makes it unique.

when I was playing Inquisition back 10 years ago, I was in a very deep depression, and one of the only things that felt comforting to me in that time was walking around for hours and hours with the very peaceful party of Solas, Cole and Cassandra. All of those characters love and support each other, and it was very comforting to me to just go walking.

The game allows you to really deeply lose yourself meditatively in a way that the other two games don't have room for. If you were obsessed with the game, you could keep playing it for hundreds of hours, you could find 116 solas temple keys, you could do all these meditative things, you could pour obsession into it.

I know all the drawbacks to it, and I know why it's changed, I know that no one has 200 hours to play anymore, and I know that it's a good idea to have a story-driven game on rails. But I was the 1/100 who really enjoyed and was helped by how wide open and endless and real it made Thedas feel. I hope that there might be one big area that I can explore and experience the ambiance in that way in DA4.