#if i ever don't post this I'm dead

[kaliade]

Support your libraries! Do you know how many times I've heard people say "Oh, I didn't know it was this nice in here." the past 3 weeks while early voting was going on upstairs?! Yes, we have a nice building. We have fantastic staff. We have more programs than you can shake a stick at. As the social media person for my library it takes me roughly 3-4 hours to get all our social media posts done for a month and those are just the ones advertising our events.

Go! To! Your! Library!

[seance]

DEAD BOY DETECTIVES + the onion headlines

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Look what we've become.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[evostrashbin]

the curse of immortality (spoiler: Kiran is also on this picture 👍)

[offjumpoladulkittiporn]

oh ALRIGHT!!!

+

[camellcat]

first xander brought her back with human breath and determination... then willow with supernatural power and love.... smth smth two halves to keep their third in balance from drifting too far into either side and losing herself.....

[whosname]

Here I am again.

[yujeong]

I've made my fascination with filth and how it connects to VP loud and clear at least three times on my blog, but I seriously can't state enough how much it occupies my mind. There's just something really powerful about someone not only being not grossed out by your filth, but, on the contrary, being attracted to it. Pulled into it. Turned on by it. That's what happens to Vegas at the safehouse. Pete is at the worst state he's ever been (debatable, since we don't know much about his past), and yet it's at these moments Vegas starts to become obsessed with him. I love how it's kind of subtle in its presentation. After all, KinnPorsche The Series is a very polished and "clean" show. Everyone is dressed nicely and the fight scenes never get too dirty or too bloody. The sex scenes never get too messy, either. And yet, at the safehouse, Pete is allowed to show parts of his filth to the audience. His hair is greasy, his skin is feverish, his lips are parched, there's black under his eyes, his voice changes, not even mentioning the dirt on him and the blood trickling down his chest. The rest is implied: the bad breath, the yellow teeth, the smell, the digestive problems he 100% has. What's implied is more important, because it's those filthy parts of Pete that Vegas embraces with fervor: he kisses a pill into Pete's unwashed mouth, and he eats Pete's unwashed ass. I love thinking about the juxtaposition of internal vs external filth as well, because to me, the VP arc kind of flips them on their head: Pete's filth is, as I explained above, external. He's filthy in appearance, in body, while Vegas' filth is internal, in his mind, in his heart. By the end of the show, Vegas ends up with external filth (another thing I've posted about that got some mixed reactions lol) that he has to find how to navigate his life with, and this time, it's Pete who embraces it. Don't get me wrong here. Both of these men have internal filth. Pete isn't some innocent, pure angel and he knows it, and Vegas does, too. Self-loathing just doesn't let him remember it most of the time. I'm going to end this post with this screenshot, which is probably one of my favourite VP moments (besides the sex itself), and that's because it's one of the most beautiful things I've ever witnessed on my screen. Look at the pores on their skin, at Vegas' bags under his eyes, at Pete's wet hair above his ear, at the stubble on Pete's chin and Vegas' upper lip. Look at them being filthy and at home. Aren't they gorgeous?

[brionysea]

for the record I'm keeping my #arcane and #arcane critical tags separate because 1) it's rude to go into a show's main tag to complain about it and 2) this way I can still go into the arcane tag on my own blog to enjoy season 1 stuff without being perpetually disappointed by season 2

[thefirstknife]

rip gambit you will be missed 😔

Don't even know what to say tbh.

For those that don't know, the big State of the Game article came out detailing incoming changes and adjustments and all the big stuff. Gambit was mentioned! But at what cost. Basically, they are ceasing any kind of support for Gambit. What we have now is what it is. We will get the Dreaming City map back in TFS and they will add Shadow Legion and Lucent Hive as enemy factions in TFS. That's all.

Full text:

As many of you have noticed, we’ve been quiet on Gambit since last year’s overhaul that launched alongside The Witch Queen. In that revamp, the team made significant changes across five categories in Gambit: core activity fundamentals, Primeval tuning, invasions, ammo economy, and rewards. Unfortunately, these updates didn’t move the needle for player engagement. Although we know our Gambit fans mostly care about new or returning maps, this is an area of the game with lower engagement that would take resources away from more popular parts of the game to shore up.   While we don’t have plans to dedicate more resources to significantly transform Gambit, we do have a few updates planned for the year of The Final Shape. These include porting the Cathedral of Scars map and its beautiful Dreaming City setting into the latest version of Destiny 2, as well as adding the Shadow Legion and Lucent Hive enemy types. 

I don't know how to tell you this Bungie, but the reason "engagement is low" in Gambit is because Gambit sucks. Ever since half of it was removed with DCV, it just sucked. It has no variety, the gameplay is largely busted, it's not sufficiently updated, ammo changes suck, invasion cycle sucks (why is the enemy even getting a portal when their Primeval is at 5% health and the other team is still in mote collecting phase is beyond me), there are no cool armour sets to chase (just look at Iron Banner and Trials stuff, imagine dedicated cosmetics) and finally there are simply no weapons that are worth anything. Both Vanguard and Crucible have more weapons and also adept versions. There is zero reason to go into Gambit without major changes to Gambit. And now with the further changes to how playlists and challenges will work, there will be even less reason to go into Gambit. Observe:

Before then, we’re making Gambit entirely optional to maximize your rewards unless you’re looking for a piece of gear that’s specific to the mode. Gambit will continue to serve as a source of Exotic engrams via weekly challenges, though as we mentioned above, you’ll be able to complete all your weekly challenges in any ritual you’d like starting in Season 22. If you want to stick to Vanguard or Crucible challenges without touching Gambit, now you can.  We’re also reducing the number of Gambit-specific Seasonal Challenges starting in Season 22, so players won’t need to bank motes to be able to earn that big purse of Bright Dust for completing nearly every challenge in the Season. Finally, we’re adding Fireteam Matchmaking to Gambit next Season, which will replace the Freelance node and should result in faster, better matchmaking by combining both Gambit playlists. We’ll keep an eye on reception and player engagement after these additions take place, and we hope you’ll visit ‘ol Drifter next Season to get your hands on his new Void Machine Gun. 

Ngl, but I don't think anyone besides like a total of 6 people will play Gambit next season. The incentive to go in there is completely removed. You won't even have to go in there for pinnacles or for challenges. The Void Machine Gun will not be enough of an incentive because the chance of that gun being better than two recently available craftable Void Machine Guns (Commemoration and Retrofit Escapade) is very low. And besides, once you get it at the end of your first match, you can leave Gambit forever.

This is the feedback loop that just reinforces the idea that people don't like Gambit. And I mean. Who would at this point. I'm pretty sure that if Crucible had stayed the same as it was at the start of Beyond Light, engagement would be low there too. But you know. Crucible has received major updates pretty much every season since with multiple new modes, several Trials overhauls, Iron Banner overhaul, competitive overhaul, new armours and weapons added and YES, even new maps. God forbid even 5% of these resources went into Gambit.

Anyway, this is the whole section about Gambit in 6500 words. It's basically a "you guys aren't playing this so we're doing the bare minimum of keeping it in the game as is, no new work will be done on it ever." Thanks I guess.

And for the record, something I also added while having a rant in my discord, I want to make it clear that I don't want anyone to spiral into a Bungie hate train. Even for this. I understand perfectly well what's the community attitude towards Gambit and what it's been for years now. People just don't like it and they're not incentivised to like it and they're actively encouraged to hate it. Spending resources into a game mode on the hope that maybe you can change people's minds would be insanity. Like, the amount of change Gambit would need to MAYBE start appealing to gamers would be beyond any reasonable time and resources Bungie can put in. And if you could guarantee that people would love and play Gambit then, fine. But you can't. Most likely, even if major changes happened, people would still just do their weekly stuff and bail. It's simply not worth it. In order for people to like it, it needs to be completely and thoroughly overhauled in a way that would need more time and effort than the entire Light subclass overhaul and it's just not a reasonable expectation, nor is it guaranteed to work. So I get it.

I'm still disappointed and annoyed about it because I believe it wasn't given a fair chance at all. I also know how good it can be and how Gambit Prime could've been improved upon over the years if they tried. Instead, it got removed and that was honestly the death sentence for Gambit. It's unfortunate. It's my favourite game mode that could've been so much better was it given even a fraction of attention of Crucible.

I'll still be playing it. You will find me in the Gambit queue waiting for 2 hours to find 7 other lunatics to play with, don't worry about it. But I'm absolutely incredibly sad about them being basically forced to axe the potential of the whole game mode that is incredibly creative and fits with the type of game Destiny is perfectly.

There's other interesting stuff in the article and some upcoming really cool improvements and changes to the game. But if you're a fan of Gambit in any capacity, this is a death certificate for the mode. I suggest coming to terms with it quickly because Bungie changing their minds about this is highly unlikely.

[sisterdivinium]

You know, the reason why I'm sceptical over communities on Tumblr is because I think the issue is not how it was lacking in a community feature but how there seems to be a lack of a community mindframe for a lot of the userbase. There's only so much you can do when a lot of people have devolved into only ever using likes rather than actually getting in touch with others -- and there's only so much conversation you can withstand when every new addition equates to reblogging a post in full and potentially annoying your followers with "walls of text" (since, let's be real, this isn't a text-forward website)...

[zerodaryls]

it's so funny (read: sad) that if bigoted fuckheads didn't insist i was a woman simply by virtue of my body at birth, i'd probably be chill with she/her pronouns in addition to he/they. if my mom didn't insist i was her daughter, i'd probably let her call me that, and we could still have a relationship.

i'm nonbinary and 'gendered' words are hypothetically meaningless, but because there are so many people who are more interested in telling me who i am rather than lovingly and curiously letting me express my own sense of self, those words carry trauma.

there's no reason a nonbinary person like myself can't be a son and a child and a daughter. there's no reason a nonbinary person like me can't go by he, they, and she.

'she' is not a slur. 'daughter' is not derogatory. 'beautiful' 'pretty' 'gorgeous' 'feminine' are not insults.

to the contrary, they're parts of language that express certain facets of a multi-faceted human existence, like mine.

and i have this sad, mournful feeling that if it weren't for unloving, condescending people, i'd probably be down to be called any of those things alongside my usual masculine/neutral terminology.

but i'd rather die than let anyone tell me what i have to be called.

[utilitycaster]

At the risk of sounding like some kind of "in my day" person, it does strike me as odd how, in a fairly packed three weeks of Critical Role shows (two full one-shots, Candela Obscura, various Candela Obscura supporting content, probably a 4SD episode), people are referring to it as a "hiatus"; and also how some people seem to treat Candela as some kind of inconvenience or consolation prize.

Maybe this was just the nature of my corner of the fandom at the time but during the pretty intense programming of 2018-2019 I felt like I was kind of weird for never bothering with Pub Draw and Mame Drop; it felt like most people were watching all or at least most of the completely tangential hangout shows of that era, plus the weekly episodes, Talks Machina, and whatever one-shots popped up. And I obviously don't think you should be obligated to watch anything you don't want to; but now it feels like it's flipped not just to people only watching the main campaign and maybe 4 Sided Dive; but genuinely seeing anything else as an interruption, even when it's something the cast is clearly pretty passionate about or when it's one of the best things they're putting out right now (see also: Calamity) or, to be honest, when it was Campaign 3 during the solstice split and you weren't seeing some of the characters week to week.

Your taste is your taste, but genuinely, one day Campaign 3 will come to a natural end. I think if you treat everything put out by Critical Role that isn't Campaign 3 as detracting from it, that will not be something you'll be able to handle well. And if you cannot handle seeing The Character for three weeks...you need to perhaps look at your life and find something else to fill it.

[shannonsketches]

something something foils moving in opposite directions Goku's always happy to seek and fight stronger opponents because he spent most of his life being the strongest guy in the room and Vegeta wants to be the strongest/is always exhausted to find stronger opponents because he spent most of his life having to navigate his survival around the whims of the strongest guy in the universe room and so Goku has a foundation of safety and stability and so spends his time craving challenge and adventure and Vegeta has a foundation of challenge and adventure and spends his time craving safety and stability and the overlaid section of their venn diagram is that the only way they know how acquire and maintain those things is through battle

[cbab-freak]

"Oh, you simp for Rick? EWWW You're disgusting!"

YOU'RE DISGUSTING FOR NOT LETTING ME HAVE FUCKING FUN.

[kyouka-supremacy]

Well.