#influencing machine

[lastoneout]

"Violence only leads to more violence" TRUE! The thing is tho, a lot of people in power seem to think the start of the violence was the CEO getting shot, but they're wrong. The start of the violence was that very CEO running a company that turns immense, endless human suffering into money.

Violence did lead to more violence, decades of needless death and suffering willfully enacted by millionaires so they can make just a little bit more money, that was the start of the violence. If they didn't want it to escalate eventually, they should have maybe not made killing people the core functionality their entire company hinges on.

The people being tortured and killed by the health insurance industry are not the ones who started the violence, and tbh I don't really think it's on them to end the violence, either.

[gay-debord]

[texaschainsawmascara]

"One workday, while we were waiting to shoot, Roman [Polanski] was discoursing about the impossibility of long-term monogamy given the brevity of a man's sexual attraction to any woman. An impassioned John Cassavetes responded that Roman knew nothing about women, or relationships, and that he, John, was more attracted than ever to his wife, Gena Rowlands. Roman stared at him and blinked a few times, and for once had no reply."

- from Mia Farrow's memoir

[deadhaven]

Especially the lies.

[divinemachina]

lethe back at it again. vampire v-model

[kitocrystal]

Checking out other Quest AUs as I wait for my will to come back to continue with Inky Mystery.

(The conflict has not let down yet and I’m starting to feel dread)

Anyway, go check out this neato retell of the og Quest story by @thequestfortheinkmachinecomics. The characters’ designs are nicely touched up, their personalities seems more natural now, the art is really cool and oh no, I’ve run out of juice for words… I just know that this retell will be good so I’ll be on along for this ride.

[teleportationmagic]

The thing about Jayce and Mel is that like. She does not view him as an investment. That is just certifiably false. You have to skip over all her scenes to believe that.

In the beginning she does! She absolutely does! She conceives of their relationship as a business one - where she makes profit off his inventions, and he profits from her business and political acumen, both monetarily and powerwise. And overall, she believes she's fulfilled her half of the bargain.

It's only when he comes back to her after Viktor gets sick that she realizes he believes this is something deeper. And it's notable that she responds to that emotion - she opens up about herself too, comforts him, and expresses real emotionality about it. It's then that we see his ideals start to influence her - especially reawakening in her a desire for nonviolence.

Wanting to do things peacefully is something that's been with her since she was a child. It is what guides her away from Noxus, because her pacifism just does not fit there. It's why she loved Piltover so - they aren't a violent expansionist empire, which is a really low bar, but that's what she's grown up in.

She never finds the violence in Zaun, because she never goes looking for it. This is her fault, and her flaw, let me make that clear. She has some of the most power in the city, and should know about what kind of violence is holding up, and work to resolve it, truly. But she doesn't, because she's focused on her own exploits, and has so insulated herself away from the class struggle that it does not register for her until it grows to violence.

And then, once that violence comes, she maintains that pacifism with an iron grip, more than Jayce himself. It is Jayce who constructs (almost) all the HexTech weapons that are used in the Undercity, in Caitlyn's police squadron. He betrays the oaths that he's made to his partner, where Mel keeps the promise she's made to her's. She is the only politician left to try to tamp down on the worst of Ambessa's instincts, and her removal from Piltover is what marks it's descent into militarism.

She is ultimately a complicated woman, with a bunch of interesting relationships to Piltover and Zaun. I think you can divide Piltover as a city neatly between her, Jayce, and Caitlyn - each of them standing for some of Piltover's best instincts, and some of its worst.

[alternativesaga]

Nova sketches because I like him

I expected myself to draw Fool or Sol or maybe even Misuta first from gitm but uhhh this guy was on the mind recently and I want to figure out my style for the bois

Nova is from @venomous-qwille’s gitm fic!

[red-moon-at-night]

Achilles' prophecy about his fate — to stay home and live a long life but in obscurity, or to go to Troy, to war and "my return home is lost, but my glory will be undying" (Caroline Alexander translation of The Iliad) — is also about Helen's fate, by the way. If you even care.

[bluenightfm]

when a couple miscommunicates their intentions towards e/o even tho they are experiencing the same events (the miscommunication isn't from outside forces telling them wrong info) and they both think the other one is misreading them even tho they're thinking "why isn't my beloved picking up my very obvious i like you social signals" that's autism4autism babey!!!!!!!!!

[hussyknee]

I'm really not a villain enjoyer. I love anti-heroes and anti-villains. But I can't see fictional evil separate from real evil. As in not that enjoying dark fiction means you condone it, but that all fiction holds up some kind of mirror to the world as it is. Killing innocent people doesn't make you an iconic lesbian girlboss it just makes you part of the mundane and stultifying black rot of the universe.

"But characters struggling with honour and goodness and the egoism of being good are so boring." Cool well some of us actually struggle with that stuff on the daily because being a good person is complicated and harder than being an edgelord.

Sure you can use fiction to explore the darkness of human nature and learn empathy, but the world doesn't actually suffer from a deficit of empathy for powerful and privileged people who do heinous stuff. You could literally kill a thousand babies in broad daylight and they'll find a way to blame your childhood trauma for it as long as you're white, cisgender, abled and attractive, and you'll be their poor little meow meow by the end of the week. Don't act like you're advocating for Quasimodo when you're just making Elon Musk hot, smart and gay.

[infinitelystrangemachinex]

Viktor transforming Shimmer addicts because they have enough Shimmer in their systems

That's definitely Viktor and he's in a place with a bare grubby floor with people who look like they're barefoot or wearing ill-fitting shoes and wearing cloaks

It's the Glorious Evolution but make it Eldritch horror where Viktor isn't as into metal yet as he is into being mind-controlled by the Hexcore

[alyssa-ai]

Little unexpected visit to the @princessfurqueen shop, I found some little treasures from the 70s 😍😍😍

[commandertartarsmoocher]

How do you feel about O.R.C.A and Order?

Very interesting question you got there!

About O.R.C.A.:

I actually feel pretty neutral about it. The lil bits and pieces we got surrounding the lore of Alterna was pretty neat! But yeah, I got lil to no attachment to O.R.C.A. partially because of their rather passive and neutral personality and role in the story.

About Order/Overlorder/Smollusk:

haha funnee babbu!

Okay, for a more serious answer: I was pretty lukewarm about this guy at first but over time I grew to appreciate it more and more to the point of loving it! Just a silly lil goober representing the fear of uncertainty the future holds..

Incredibly biased too due to the many parallels it has to Commander Tartar...

[silvyslayer42]

here’s an idea: what if the “anti-aging” device that kuusuke made was originally an attempt at finding a way to slow down or even reverse the uncontrollable growth of kusuo’s powers?

[just-a-little-bit-of-sugar]

I can't go to tit tour I don't have 1k to drop on plane tickets & all other expenses 😭😭😭