#i'm lost and don't understand a thing

[caeslxys]

Something I think is extremely interesting thematically when it comes to connecting what Downfall and the ideas it tackled to the overarching narrative of campaign three is that the things Downfall made a point to showcase of Aeor—Cassida, Hallis, the visual of an aeormaton proposing to her partner, the specific and intentional decision to shed light on a far from insignificant amount of the population being civilians or refugees—is that it plays in perfect parallel across from what is happening (and, really, has been happening) to the ruidusborn on Exandria in present.

Bear with me for a moment. Aeor is ultimately a city that was collectively punished for the decisions of its leadership. We could (and, judging by the amount of discourse around this particular topic already, probably will) argue about what the Gods’ motivation for all of this was—whether it be that they could not, in the end, bear to kill their siblings or that they were terrified at the prospect of mortality—for me it is a very healthy dose of both—but for this I am much more interested in the latter. They were scared. That, really, is the driving force behind both this arc and their role in c3 as a whole.

Why I point this out is: It is far more interesting to me, especially as we go back to Bells Hells this week, to dissect the Gods and their decisions not purely on sympathetic motivation alone but as beings in the highest seat of power in the highest social class in Exandria.

So, having established that the Gods (in relation to mortals) are more a higher social class than anything we could compare to our real life understanding of divinity and that Aeor was eviscerated largely because of their fear—what is the difference between those innocents in Aeor caught in the trappings of their autocratic government leadership and a divine war on the ground, and those of the ruidusborn being manipulated both by Ludinus and by the very thing that inspired such visceral fear in the Gods to start with. I would argue very little.

I think of Cassida, doing what she genuinely thought was right and good and would save people, her son, and the object of her worship—and how that did not matter enough to any of them to spare her because of the fear they held at the very concept of mortality. I think of Liliana and Imogen, one of which we know begged for the gods to help her or send her a sign for years on years, and how every single one of their largest struggles could have been avoided had the gods loved them, their supposed children, as much as they feared what they could be. I think of how the thing that did save Imogen, in the end, was a woman who herself existed in direct defiance of the gods will. I think of that young boy, sixteen years old, that Laudna exalted on Ruidus.

I think it’s completely fair to judge Aeor’s overall society as deeply corrupt—it was!—but its leadership and police force are not a reflection of every one of its citizens. Similarly, it is fair to judge the Ruby Vanguard as corrupt—it is!—but its multiple heads of leadership and even the god-eater further are not a reflection of every one of its members.

Notably, and what I think the Hells will latch onto, this did not matter to the Gods. It did not matter that Cassida was trying to help. She was still too much of a risk. Will it matter, what Imogen does? Will it matter, if that young boy is in the blast radius when they decide to take no further chances?

I’ve seen a lot of people say that the Hells will side with the gods and I don’t think I agree. Especially as Imogen has been scolded and villainized over and over for daring to try and save her mother—who herself has been seen by some as an irredeemable evil in spite of her drive being the exact same—her family—but when it’s the Gods it’s justified? When it’s the Gods, it’s sympathetic? Too sympathetic to criticize further than “they’re family”?

I obviously do not think the Gods should die or be eaten or what have you, and I certainly don’t agree with Ludinus (though I find him much more compelling than just a variation of hubris wizard), but when talking about the Gods in Aeor and in present it isn’t really at all about their motivation or their family. It can’t be. Too many people, including our active protagonists, lives have been effected for it to be as cut and dry as “they’re family”. These are your children. They are your family, too.

[souenkun]

I don't see this talked about often in the english side of the fandom, as this tidbit got lost in translation, but:

In the japanese versions for both texts and voice lines in the middle-aged opposites venet, kabu addresses larry with "—kun (くん)" in their second meeting in front of the restaurant. It's a japanese honorific to address someone who is a junior than you, in terms of either age or work experience/status. Inferring from this, kabu may either (1) be slightly older than larry in age (as I think they both have equal years of experience, just that larry happened be slightly superior to kabu in terms of their workplace status because he is also an elite four member), (2) be that friendly and warm as a person that he calls larry with "—kun (くん)" right away in the second part of their event's story, or (3) both.

Take what you will from this, friends! 🫡

[uncanny-tranny]

I love you smile lines and worry lines and grey and white hair and wrinkles and purple spiderweb veins and the process of aging and living in a body that is standing the test of times. I love you experiences that make you wiser and stories that make you laugh, and every little process that happens to get to the point where you have so many memories because you have the fortune to be here and be so radiant

[theangrypomeranian]

I just want my passion back man idk why that's so much to ask for

[essektheylyss]

I know I joked about DVDs but in all seriousness, I'm really glad that there's an option for watching VODs that isn't on Twitch and YouTube. It's been mentioned a few times today, but both of the interfaces of these platforms have been increasingly enshittified. I simply do not use YouTube anymore because of how horrid the interface is. I caught up on campaign 2 entirely on YouTube (and sometimes via podcast) in 2019 with no issues, but it is straight up maddening trying to use it now, and I don't know that I would have made it through the campaign if I was trying to catch up today.

I absolutely understand being tired of additional streaming services and I am absolutely in the same boat, but I also don't know how many people really recognize how gutted media distribution has become in the last ten years in the name of convenience. We all kind of realize it, but it's hard to grasp just how extensive it is. We can talk about independent business choices separately, and we should, but when the only platforms on which you have the option to distribute your work are at best frustrating to use and at worst hostile to human life, when monetization services can censor anyone they please with little explanation and have been cracking down on any content they arbitrarily deem inappropriate, when it is not clear that centralized conglomerate social media sites will continue to exist in the next year let alone decade, it is genuinely crucial for independent creators to start building alternative avenues of distribution that they control now.

[a-tale-of-legends]

( random conversation I thought of, not sure if it's something that I would consider canon. Might be ooc for characters)

Blue: Aaaaand that's everything that happened today! Which.... isn't a lot but whatever.

Red: ....

Blue: .....( Leans back) Sooooooooo. How's things for you? You haven't, ah, really said much since you came back down Mt. Silver...( Tries to perk up a bit,forcing a smile) You're usually such a chatter box, you know?! Gotta be something interesting for ya today, right?

Red: .....

Blue: ........( Grimaces slightly, still trying to keep smiling. His voices lowers, as if the whole world would hear if he goes any louder) Come on Red, you- throw me a bone here, something-

Red: ( his eyebrows furrow slightly) .....

Blue: ( immediately back pedals) O-only if you wanna, I don't - you don't - ( he sighs, exasperated) Green? H-have you at least talked to Green?

Red: ( he flinches at that. The punch to his face still fresh in his mind. It was a year ago. And even so-) .....

Blue: ( he should back off. He really should-) Your mom? Have you at least talked to your mom?

Red: ( that causes him to outright glare at his....friend? Rival? Babysitter? What are they now? He doesn't know. But he doesn't like this conversation.) . . . .

Blue: R-right! Right, of course you- ( he takes in a breath. Why does he feel so sweaty.) Sorry. Sorry, that was just- Let's just forget I said anything, yeah?

Red: ( his glare softens, looking at his....whatever they are to each other, with concern. He doesn't know if he'll get used to Blue Oak apologizing for anything ever. He raises his hand to sign-)

Blue: ( he raises his hand before Red does, eyes pleading) Let's just forget I said anything, okay? ( Please )

Red: ..... ( He lowers his hand. He hates the look blue is giving him. He blames himself for it, as always) ( Okay )

[tinystepsforward]

ngl it makes me want to die a little bit that it's so often trans people who feel that sex is mutable but oppression is always-forever based on asab in ways that allow them to demand that information from other trans people. like it feels fucking bad. it feels bad when it's people holding up someone who posts a lot of selfies as transition goals to a degree they have to clarify what they have or haven't done or what "direction" they're going in, it feels worse when people are out there like "caster semenya is not tma" or whatever the fuck. i am, as always, not a trans woman, but here's a sentiment echoed by many of the trans women around me who log the fuck off, quoted directly from one: "people who draw a clear line where they say that semenya or khelif are tme and then call me tma are just calling me male at this point".

like i get it. i really do. we seek community and shared experiences, and we feel betrayed when people have less in common with us than we thought they did. [*more on this later.] but that's not those people's faults and my god in the case i'm seeing play out on twitter rn this poor person did absolutely nothing to intentionally mislead people, just posted pictures of their actual kid self. who looks a lot like i did, because shockingly enough "we can always tell" doesn't fucking work for trans people either!

on the one hand i move in intersex circles which are unapologetically welcoming in cis "dyadic" people with pcos, because it serves nobody to draw a clear line where mutilation or genetics or some ineffable childhood suffering are what make somebody intersex, especially when most of us (esp in places like nz) have never been karyotyped and are being treated for symptoms without a pinned-down cause anyway. the more of us there are the stronger we are, the more pressure we can exert on a medical profession which doesn't like to consider how common outliers are, how uneasy sex is at all. and then on the other hand there's dyadic trans people on the internet who've yelled me out of spaces because a couple of traumatised incarcerated trans women i worked with as a prison abolitionist assumed i was also a trans woman and i didn't immediately tell them my entire csa-involved history of being sexed in varying ways as an infant and child and/or exactly how big my phallus was at birth or where in my junk config my urethra lives so they could decide i was tme or whatever.

returning to the * for a related but not identical thought: i think presuming shared experiences leads to some fucked shit in general! "oh we all had a radfem phase" or "oh we all were channers" no we fucking weren't and it's particularly obnoxious when me & mine are trying to build trans community locally to organise and resist the growing wave of far-right backlash against our existence, and there's just white people in there on a spectrum from "straight up being antisemitic and trying to get the n-word pass" through "handwringing about how they need to make space for people who aren't politically correct" to "handwringing about how brown people are right to be mad at them but doing shit fuckall". and then the other fucking brown people in the space are on some identity politics shit where they're like "trans joy inherently excludes those of us who could get deported" or "big city white queers are killing us by being visible instead of going stealth bc it stirs up the discourse" or whatever the fuck i've heard pulled out this year. there's a bunch of reasons i primarily organise outside of trans spaces and that's one of them. i've never felt more alone in spaces where people claim we're all the same than being left as the brownest moderator or organiser in a space full of people to whom "this is a safe trans space" apparently means they get to abdicate all other responsibilities not to lapse into presumed shared patterns that are fucking racist or otherwise alienating. i've never felt more alone than surrounded by exclusively trans people who sort people into boxes and assume everyone in those boxes has the transition goals they have. like i was on cypro until it disagreed with me to the point of endocrine crisis and now i'm on t and at both those points people were so fucking presumptive or entitled to my reasons or journey or personal relationship w my body

literally just submitted on (and was invited to consult on) the nz law commission's review of the human rights act and like. it's straight up fucked how many nz trans people fully do not comprehend that any "sex assigned at birth" type definitions fundamentally exclude migrants who have no way of proving it and many intersex people who happen to have been reassigned later or many times or never assigned at all as a baby. we can't make law with this shit and that's why we have to have symmetrical protections for all genders/sexes/expressions/presentations, bc naming and defining a protected class here often leaves the people who already are left out from those shared experiences of marginalisation out in the cold when they face violence

[saturnaous]

I never stop thinking about them.

SEND ME ART REQUESTS BOY

[desultory-novice]

I think it'd be kinda interesting if Marx, after becoming part God-Clock, is unable to rest. After all, if a part of the Nova lives on in him, it'd surely be running to try do repairs or archive data, and this would mean Marx has developed long term insomnia. The reason this is bad is due to Marx being a Noddy, a group known entirely for sleeping. Imagine trying to get immense power, having a battle you lose in a way you can never truly understand, then lose the activity you love most as a part of you isn't really You anymore.

No wonder Marx went crazy.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH (/POS)

>DESS.EXE HAS STOPPED FUNCTIONING

[justalittlebluetiefling]

Something I've seen a couple people saying is that they want to make sure that Laudna understands that she's not the only one who has been through trauma. But like. Laudna is not the only one who needs to learn that lesson. Actually, it's not even that Laudna needs to learn that she's not the only one that's been through trauma at all, because they're all very aware of what they've all been through. This became an inevitable confrontation when Laudna decided to let Delilah back in, though, and after rewatching the scene, I actually think the only people who managed this situation correctly were Imogen* and Ashton.

Orym and Laudna are both more focused on their own pasts with the sword and not thinking about each other. Orym should have talked to the group and come to a decision with them about using the sword and Laudna should have talked to him about it instead of trying to steal it.

*my feelings about this are still up in the air don't read into this too much

[burningfaith]

oh my god, and of course 99% of complaints about Natlan characters' designs come from people who "fix" characters from other nations by blackwashing them

I myself would love to see bigger diversity in genshin, but they're forgetting that 1) there are white people in the countries Natlan is based on (same goes for Sumeru btw) & 2) hoyoverse is a CHINESE company making games mainly for ASIAN market, where pale skin is a beauty standard, they don't care about representation or what western fans think

can't wait for Snezhnaya only to read the most ridiculous things about Slavic nations or (in case if hoyo gonna fuck it up) that white online knights don't care about us, because we're too white and not exotic enough, so we don't need proper representation

[respectthepetty]

Are there colors in OMG! Vampire?

Um . . .

No?

But I am getting the rainbow IKEA bag since IKEA is for the queers!

And I'm getting Big kisses!

Which is always pleasing since I want him to kiss ALL the homies.

Sidenote: his character cannot be dead and I think his "twin" is him since the twin asked for Poom's number.

Because if there really are colors in this show, it'd be real convenient for a character to change his color

And see the light after he takes someone else's life.

Because that is the saddest part of all of this is that people have to die for them to cross over, and even though I feel bad for homeboy being left behind, his person is going to meet his ending soon too.

And these store-brand Twilight parents saying they have sex like rabbits to cover up for the kids helped to lighten up the fact that the kids are about to be hunted by the vampire po-po.

So thank goodness these two can realize they like each other before all hell breaks loose!

But seriously, are they color coded boys in love because my eyes are unsure?

[greppelheks]

I don't know how you've all experienced the year 2024, but I barely witnessed it, and I've been fighting for my life

[superfluouskeys]

i know you're probably not into maleficent/aurora anymore, but since you were like THE malora writer, i'm curious in what do you think would happen to maleficent when aurora dies? either from natural causes like old age or somethiing terrible happened

My friend, this is so kind of you to say!! This is also, unfortunately, MY JAM LOL

So in my personal interpretation, I think once Aurora became more sure of herself and the relationship, she would learn (passively, not even really thinking of it as such) to de-fuse Maleficent a lot of the time. Maleficent is naturally temperamental and always about 3 bad steps away from starting a fight. Once Aurora learns that this is just sort of how she is and she isn't actually mad, and doesn't even usually mean anything by it, Aurora learns to just kind of skillfully sidestep like 99% of Maleficent's bad moods. As a result, because she isn't being fought at every turn, Maleficent (also without realizing it) calms down a LOT, and tends to stop seeing everything as a challenge or threat, even from ppl who are not Aurora. This mostly just freaks ppl out, because you know she always seems super calm until she is suddenly Not LOL, and the average person does not know how to tell Maleficent's "actually calm" from her "quietly seething."

Additionally, while I believe that Maleficent operates on her own code of ethics and doesn't just do whatever, I also think her ethics and what she considers "wrong" differ significantly from where the average human would draw the line. As she grows more comfortable in her relationship with Aurora, I think she would be surprisingly willing to draw lines where Aurora wants her to, at least most of the time, because in her mind, e.g. not harassing someone who mildly annoyed her is important to Aurora, while it's not that important to Maleficent.

However, I think both of these changes, no matter how long Aurora lives, are utterly temporary. Once Aurora is gone, Maleficent will go back to the way she was before, if not ultimately worse, because in a sense kindness will remind her of Aurora, and I don't think she will ever reach a place where that is a good thing for her.

I think Maleficent's first reaction would be a kind of desperate fury, sort of like a wounded wild animal but with very powerful magic. She would be absolutely terrorizing the countryside, especially anyone she perceived to be responsible. It's almost worse if Aurora dies of old age, because then the fault in her mind would lie with...everything, the nature of life itself. This phase could last forever, depending on other factors, and I think it would be a very long time before Maleficent is even slightly functional again.

Even in eg. Prisoner-verse where Maleficent has other friends, I can see her getting into terrible fights with almost all of them. Girl can be next-level vicious when she wants to be, and even if her friends have known grief, most of them don't know exactly what she's going through, and therefore from Maleficent's perspective are not in a position to comment. Also I think "Aurora wouldn't want you to live like this" or similar would be like, the worst possible thing you could say to her, and might send her spiraling into a murderous rage all over again, because how DARE you presume to tell her what Aurora would want?

I am really a sucker for these kinds of villain backstories LOL, you can play me the same tune over and over and I will never get tired of it. I think the only kind of person who could reach Maleficent would be someone who's sort of similar to Aurora, at least in unfailing kindness. I'm imagining someone just trying to save her village or w/e from being razed to the ground showing sympathy to Maleficent for her lost love, and Maleficent showing just the smallest amount of mercy in memory of Aurora, even if ultimately she hasn't changed or healed at all. (oh my godddddd don't look at me I want to write this now lol)

So anyway, it was 5:30 in the morning, a very normal time to be awake, and I was thinking, well, would anyone in Prisoner-verse be able to calm her down at all? I think she and Kinsale would absolutely get into a really bad fight, and Zenovia would try to be chill about it but she would also pretty quickly be like okay well talk to me when you've calmed down lol. And then I realized............

--

“Hey.”

Maleficent doesn’t move.  She doesn’t know how long she’s been sitting here.  Odd, that she doesn’t feel a fresh wave of fury at Joy’s presence.  Then again, perhaps she is simply too tired to feel much of anything.

“I’m not going to say anything.”  Joy holds out her hands in a show of defense.

Maleficent inhales, sighs.  Her throat is burning.  She only distantly remembers the sound of screaming, and realizes now that the memory was of her own voice.

“Good,” says Maleficent.  Joy of all people should know that there is nothing to say.

A long silence follows.  Joy joins her on the floor some distance away, and pretends to train her gaze upon the fire.

“I do have one question, actually,” says Maleficent.

“Hm?”

Maleficent closes her eyes.  She tries to imagine Joy the way she looked in pictures, with long, beautiful hair that she wore in intricate curls, and a radiant smile full of youthful mischief.  “How did you…not…”

But words fail her.  She holds out her hand, grasping at nothing.

“What,” says Joy, “burn down the world?”

Maleficent sighs again.  It is as apt a question as any.

“Well, it was perhaps to my benefit that I am not nearly so powerful as you, Mistress Maleficent,” says Joy, although her characteristic attempt at wryness comes out remarkably strained.  “I wouldn’t have gotten very far.”

Maleficent opens her eyes.  The flames of the fire flicker and dance, enticing in their destruction.  “I’m not sure I would have cared.”

Joy chuckles, dry and mirthless.  “Yes, well,” she says.  She does not continue.

Outside, a terrible wind howls, desperate and mournful.  The windows rattle and the fire flickers low, casting them both in dramatic shadow.

Maleficent inhales.  She closes her eyes again.  “Does it ever…?” 

The words catch in her throat.  She already knows the answer.

“No,” says Joy quietly.  A long silence follows.  The embers from the fire crackle meekly, and the mournful wind falls deadly silent.

“But…I don’t know.  You find…other reasons.  To, you know…”  She waves her hand vaguely at the fire, and stokes it back to life.

Maleficent shakes her head.  Reasons?  The word feels foreign, meaningless.  “I don’t know that I ever had a reason for anything, before…”

Before her, she means to say, but she cannot.  There was always a before her, yes, but now there is an after her.  Everything from now on is after her, without her, and the mere idea of it is something akin to drowning, or perhaps slowly suffocating, deep underground, with the weight of the earth sinking down upon her chest.  What did she do before?  How did she live?  However is she to live now, knowing what she has lost?

“Yeah,” says Joy simply.

Maleficent doesn’t know how long they sit together in silence after that.  It hardly matters.

--

ANYWAY THANK YOU ANONYMOUS FRIEND I HAD FUN LOL

[rabbithaver]

every so often i will see a post from a leftist on this website that is so egregiously ableist that i remember that like. oh yeah the userbase of leftists on this website is violently anti-disabled people and will jump at any chance to demonize any of us for any reason. i just forget that fact because i'm extremely dedicated to curating my space

i'm paraphrasing here but i saw a post that said, "every time i see an American [disabled person] mention being scared about the election because they're afraid of losing their benefits i have to laugh. anybody who wants blood-soaked money from the US government deserves to starve" which. like. goodness that's a lot to unpack. i think we should burn the whole suitcase instead !

[elizabeth-mitchells]

i won't make it an actual poll because the last one that broke containment still haunts me so you can reply to this post or reblog and answer in the tags. anyway here's my question: how do you feel about watching only a ship/character's scenes of a show you haven't watched before?