#it very much was not a solution

[the-quotable-alberta-hansard]

May 7, 2024

Ms Notley: Her scheme to go it alone to get children’s medication is another example of a disaster that happens; $80 million and counting. We still haven’t received 3 million bottles. No other province will touch it. Hospitals in Alberta won’t use it, and it’s close to expiring. To the Premier: will she admit that she was wrong and her desperate pre-election scheme was an embarrassing waste of money for Albertans?

Ms Smith: I remember the desperation of members opposite as they were going around pharmacy to pharmacy trying to find medication for mothers who were looking for it. I remember the posts of people online talking about how mothers were trying to trade it, talking about mothers going down to America or . . . [interjections]

The Speaker: The hon. the Premier.

Ms Smith: . . . Mexico to bring back quantities of this medication so it could be shared, talking about taking adult medication and crushing it into yogourt so that kids would be able to eat it. I remember, Mr. Speaker, what those days were like. People looked to us to find solutions, and we found a solution.

[knightofleo]

Angela Orosco Silent Hill 2

[aingeal98]

Ultimately the resolution of Jason and Cass fights comes down to the fact that while he has his own ideals that don't mesh with the bats, Jason can be flexible. DC skipped the whole reconciliation with the family but while he's willing to kill it's generally a means to an end to him, not the whole entire point unless you're talking about Joker. Meanwhile for Cass the question of killing vs not killing is dead serious to her which means any time they're working together and things start going off track it's like:

Jason: Look if we kill this guy we send a message to his boss which makes it easier for us to negotiate with him from a position of power and I just think that-

Cass, snatching one of his guns and pointing it at her own head: Go on, pull the trigger. Kill him. Kill me. Go tell Batman that you let his daughter die to make a negotiation easier. He already let you die so no problem right? You think we should die? You think our life only worthwhile as part of a plan, just because we're killers? Are we doomed? Are we rotten to the core with no hope of redemption? Go on then, kill us and kill part of your soul alongside it. You clearly don't care for it so why are you even trying? Kill yourself along with us, come on Jason let's all just die right?

Jason, slowly backing away: I think you may be projecting a tiny bit so just. Calm down before I call the suicide hotline please.

Cass, slowly lowering the gun and knocking the random henchman unconscious: Yeah that's what I thought, fucking pussy.

Jason: Mm yeah you know what I hate you actually. Fuck this mission I'll just shoot you right now if you're going to be this annoying about it.

Jason, explaining things later to Dick: So I just kept shooting at her until I ran out of bullets and we both calmed down enough to call a truce. We tracked the guy down and didn't kill anyone but I did blow up the batplane just as a last minute screw you. Is she always this uh... intense?

Dick: Yeah, one time I broke up with Barbara and she threw me out a window. She's just like that.

[kyo-yun]

Percy Jackson: God of the Tides

[bukashki]

@ninadove YOU.

Thank you for making me appreciate the tragic nature of slithering-out-of-grasp design of Aspik. I could not resist :(( I BLAME YOU FOR EVERYTHING <3

rest of you read It brings the world back into tune

Bonus: A familiar voice

[vaguely-concerned]

This might be due to the fact that on my first playthrough I ended up creating a Rook more emotionally guarded than any of the companions except Minrathous-route Lucanis and perhaps Neve, so I was primed to look for it, but I never got the sense that the companions don’t care for Rook (the thought never even occurred to me until I saw other people post about it) — to me it seems much more like it’s Rook who keeps the last bit of distance, Rook who pulls away when the companions try to extend their care or worry too directly, who keeps themselves slightly apart. (Rook who is so full of grief they cannot know as grief and thus process that there’s no room inside them to let anything else all the way in, perhaps.) They deflect and flinch back when someone gets too close or approaches them too overtly about their feelings — especially when it brushes up against the theme of grief. They can offer care to all the companions who are grieving, come along to any number of funerals as emotional support, but the moment someone turns that towards them they shut that shit down Immediately, like when Taash almost gives the whole game away with ‘Like you’d know? You act like you haven’t lost anyone!’ and Rook just blandly responds ‘We’re talking about you’ and doesn’t engage. But they can also admit that they struggle with accepting compliments, or knowing what to say, or having confidence in themselves without Varric’s help.

Despite all their determination and even in their most stoic no-nonsense incarnation, Rook is awkward, with the struggles that entails. Someone who is eager and happy to be the helper wherever they can, and helplessly unequipped to know how to be the helpee, as it were. It’s not that the companions don’t return Rook’s attachment to them, there’s MUCH more of a ‘okay so what are the ways you will allow me to be good to you??’ desperation of care vibe behind all their invitations to conversations and hangouts together, to my mind. They bring Rook to their favourite places and share the things they love with them, they ask to spend time together (many times just to have their company, not because they have a problem they need help with! Sometimes the problem arises anyway b/c video game quest narrative of course), they bring them out for some direly needed grass touching, they introduce them to their families. Everyone is clearly getting the sense that Rook does Not want to talk about Varric especially (this is in fact what Harding says in banter, if she’s still alive after the reveal :’( ), but they are absolutely SCRAMBLING to find ways to show that they’re there for them even so. AND from the companions’ perspective, with the situation as they have the means to understand it, accepting that Rook isn’t ready to have that conversation and backing off is also a kind thing to do. (tl;dr: To Me Rook is that weirdly socialized friend who is a great hang once they’re actually there but you have to directly invite them or they don’t quite know how to initiate the contact themselves lol) 

Just as a crushing sense of responsibility for their family is a trait that is built into Hawke no matter how you play them or how you make them respond to that, I feel like Rook — however helpful and earnest, warm, charming, jocular, stoic or straightforward they seem at a surface glance — is always someone who struggles deeply with connecting to themselves and other people. (Emotional Intimacy, the Final Frontier.) As, indeed, is the case with all of the Veilguard companions too! It’s clearly a deliberate theme. These are all lonely people struggling with their sense of identity and belonging in some sort of way. AND having, working on and eventually starting to overcome these difficulties also makes Rook a direct foil for Solas, who doesn’t learn that lesson unless you corner him at the end of the world to force feed him his medicine lmao. They don’t manage to break out of the regret prison under their own steam, it’s because even struggling and grieving they have managed to create mutual bonds with other people who show up for them in turn now — and with all the protective walls of denial around what happened to Varric crumbling and making them less of a stranger to themselves, Rook is finally able to let them. An outcome Solas seemingly didn’t even consider to guard against, because he’s become that deeply entrenched in his loneliness, the utter isolation of the self — he can no longer truly imagine an alternative. (It’s not that he can’t form these bonds, obviously, it’s that he resolutely refuses to value them. Whether it’s because he feels like he doesn’t deserve it or out of a need for control or the martyr complex where he must sacrifice everything he loves on the sacrificial pyre of fixing his mistakes, all of the above and more, the result is the same. Mind!Varric, who I think is mostly Solas speaking, even calls this out directly. So yet again a situation where he has some self awareness about it and it doesn’t help At All haha. Solas falls to the temptation of making people into tools again and again and again, no matter how many times it comes back to bite him in the ass and the eternal solitude it traps him in.) 

And that deep deep loneliness… There but for the grace of… well the theological state of thedas being what it is right now, let’s just go with the grace of Something, Presumably go you as well, Rook. The same capacity/tendency to pull away from connection clearly lives in them as well in some form (again, for whatever reason and with whatever motivations and instincts behind it for any individual Rook). Solas and Rook coming together to create a blood magic paper doll of the mind Varric in response to acute loss and loneliness is one of the most deep , deeply fucked up and invasive acts of intimacy I’ve ever contemplated. I don’t think that’s accidental, there’s something There’s Something Wrong With You (there’s something wrong with you that’s also wrong with me (derogatory)) here that resonates no matter how both parties would hate to hear it. (A fitting legacy for Varric and his wild ‘I made my best friend into a story because it’s the only way I know how to love with this desperation of sincerity’ brain to leave in the narrative, methinks. I feel he’d appreciate it on a craft level, if nothing else.)

If you read through all of Rook’s potential backstories, one of the common threads through all of them, along with a certain maverick ‘I’ll do whatever it takes’ streak, is a sense of profound alienation. They did something or have some sort of quality that made it hard for them to fit in with the group they’re from, causing a conflict that cuts them off from parts of their identity as it’s been up until now. All of which also adds to how important Varric is to them — he was clearly able to break/see through some of that and be closer with them, even in the relatively short time they spent together. No matter what else goes to shit, they can trust that a) Varric sees them, b) he genuinely likes them and believes in them not despite who they are, but for it, and c) he’s got their back, we’re in this together kid. And then he is gone, and it takes them the whole game to be able to bring themselves to accept that and know themselves again, be able to let new relationships in fully. The very understandable ‘the last time I let someone in, they got stabbed before my eyes and the world ended’ flinch away, even if they’re not consciously aware that’s what it is. Anyway I love Rook. So much space to play around in here as to WHY they might feel or react like this, even when the framework is more defined.

[martyreddie]

one thing i absolutely love about eddie is the fact that he is always on the lookout for ways to sacrifice himself for the people he loves. girlfriend pregnant? i'll provide for her by risking my life in the military. twice. without asking first. my traumatised son is scared that my job is too dangerous? i will transfer to another one that makes me deeply miserable. also without asking first. can't seem to fall in love with my new girlfriend even though my kid loves her? guess i'll just stick it out. my parents hate my wife even after her death? i will push down every bit of anger i ever felt at her and defend her like a rabid dog. hell, i will romanticise that relationship so bad that I literally cannot move on from her and am haunted by her ghost in both a metaphorical and literal way for years to come. and when, as the crowning result of all my disregard for my personal well-being and healing, my kid has run to texas, and now he does not seem to want to come home? i will bear every bit of pain and embarrassment his obvious disdain and my parents' flagrant disinterest in letting us heal from this causes me, and if that doesn't work, i will upend my entire life, forsake every bit of progress I have ever made, and come crawling back to the city i grew up in. without asking first, of course.

eddie diaz will see a cross, ask "is anyone going to die on that thing?" and then not wait for an answer

[dawnscales]

I saw people on twitter talk about how Jack Black and Neil Gaiman are 'good Jews' because they are not 'evil Zionists'. The reason given? They are for a two state solution.

And I don't know how to tell this to none Jewish people kindly but uh.................... that. That's Zionism?

Believing in Palestinians right to have their own State, self determination and the right for a safe home, for education, for a life free of Hamas and Terror in a Two State Deal is Zionism because the other state in this deal???? Is still Israel. it is still a Jewish state. It is still believing in our rights to return and stay in our ancestral homeland.

Being for a two state Solution, for peace and for working together can and is part of being a Zionist !! And also you don't get to call people good or bad Jews that is antisemitic as fuck.

[nenoname]

"yolo" stan (semi)canonically says as he laughs at the idea of eating healthily + doing exercise while he instead lies depressed on the floor every morning.....

while i definitely get everyone's reasoning, it's a bit funny that ford trying to restrict his diet to healthy food is such a popular hc cos the family spoiled stan for a week by giving him all his fave foods (to the point that they just have like. bowls of bacon on the floor) plus we have ford being the one to give stan alcohol on multiple occasions and i doubt anyone can break stan's pitt cola addiction....

also if ford still keeps up his training regime i think stan would bully him for that- 'oh look at me i do 1000 pushups every morning and eat steamed carrots for fun!!' 'nutrition pills actually' 'that's worse!!!!! you do know that right!!!'

[casscainmainly]

Some Thoughts on Lady Shiva and Cass

(This post is me hashing out my feelings on modern-day Shiva + Cass, it's not complete or definitive or even particularly good. Also absolutely no hate towards any writers, but a warning that this post will be critical of/contain spoilers for Batgirl (2024)).

It's interesting to me that comics has trended away from the original David-Shiva-Cass set-up, where David is very emotionally involved with Cass (whether or not you label it 'love') and Shiva is the least emotionally involved - to Shiva being the most important figure in Cass' life, except maybe Bruce, and Cain completely gone. This isn't to criticise Batgirl (2024) (or Batman & The Outsiders, or Batgirls, or WFA...) but this phenomenon is genuinely like. Strange? Because even when Cass was reintroduced in the New 52, Cain was still the most important person in her life; she literally named herself after him. Then, when Detective Comics (2016) rolled around with its not-very-good Shiva writing, Shiva still didn't super care about Cass. But now we're at a point where newer people might think Shiva is her most important parental figure, which I honestly think shouldn't have happened.

The original David-Shiva-Cass dynamic is not only good because Shiva's uniqueness as a character shines through, but because it's a deliberate inversion of gendered and racial tropes. Here, the dad is more emotionally invested, and the mom is emotionally aloof - and she's not demonised for it, because she wasn't even originally Cass' mom. As soon as the Shiva mom revelation sets in, their relationship changes to centre that motherhood angle. This is reductive not only to their original relationship but to Shiva herself, who now cannot be adversary, ally, or anything else without it being filtered through 'Cass' mom'. I'm not saying this is problematic, because it's not the worst thing an Asian woman character has gone through, but it is disappointing when so much of the nuance Puckett built between Cass and Shiva has been lessened because of a bio connection.

To bring up the race angle - Cass and Shiva have always been connected through race. From Puckett's Shiva saying 'you and I are alike' to Brenda's mixed-race question prompting Cass to search for Shiva, Cass' understanding of her race has always been tied to Shiva. This is hard to articulate because a lot of Asian girls genuinely do have intergenerational trauma and tricky relationships with their mom, but like - this is a trope. The Asian girl with an all-consuming, contentious relationship to their Asian mom is kind of a trope at this point. What I found so refreshing about the original Cass parent set-up is that it's an exploration of different parental tropes than we usually get for Asian girls. Cass' struggle with a White dad paralleled Asian girls' experiences with the White patriarchy, and her struggles with Babs and Bruce were so realistic for two White people trying to care for, but not fully understanding, this Asian teenager that fell into their lap. But now that we've overemphasised Shiva, we've taken Cass' original struggles and moulded it into a much more typical Asian girl narrative. (I haven't even mentioned that her original set-up spotlights her biracial heritage much more than anything recent).

Brombal is clearly a Shiva fan, and has said that he aims to write a more nuanced Shiva. I'm not trying to call out Brombal - I think he genuinely loves Shiva - but why does 'a more nuanced Shiva' entail her caring/being invested in her daughter? Why should Shiva need that emotional/biological connection to be more fleshed out? Puckett's Shiva was nuanced without that. I'll even say Bryan Hill, in Batman & The Outsiders, walks that line - Shiva does love Cass, but she's not overly invested in her. In Outsiders, Shiva has her own morals, and the most emotional she gets is when her home village is destroyed. This isn't perfect writing, but Hill shows that Shiva has feelings outside of Cass, and motivations beyond motherhood.

Compare that to Batgirl (2024) - everything Shiva has done, and it's implied this extends to stealing the flowers, has been for/centered around Cass. The best Shiva bit was when she opened up about Carolyn, because that gives her something external! I know this is a story about Cass, but Shiva is at this point a deuteragonist - if Cass' connection to the Bats can be emphasised, Shiva can have something external too. Her connection to the Order of Shiva isn't even that fleshed out. Like, Jayesh straight up dies and Shiva has no reaction. (I do think this is a set-up for the resurrection of Jayesh, Shiva, etc. so this is not bad, but it does contribute to issue 6 feeling anticlimactic.).

(Also the Shiva/Bruce opposition was kinda done better in Outsiders too, whereas here the emphasis on 'motherhood' makes it feel like Shiva should be paralleling Babs. BUT I don't think this is Brombal's fault, most likely editorial shenanigans. It still does make the 'motherhood' monologues weird if Bruce is the parallel to Shiva).

All this to say modern-day Shiva and Cass flattens a lot of what I loved about the original Shiva-Cass dynamic. I do think this flattening is partially due to the reduction in Cass' parental figures - if Babs and David were here, it would be a lot more balanced, and we'd be able to see how they ping off each other. I also think Brombal will likely ameliorate or subvert a lot of the things I've said here, so this really isn't criticism against him or the series. But while Batgirl (2024) is far far better than other current portrayals, it also reduces Shiva to her relationship to Cass/motherhood/the 'Asian mother'. If Babs and David were here to offset this, I think Shiva's characterisation could potentially work. But as of right now, Shiva's over-importance isn't quite resonating with me, for either Cass or Shiva's sake.

(But I really am not a Shiva expert so take everything with a grain of salt, and I know many people do love Shiva-Cass in BG '24 so this is really my singular take!! It's not meant to invalidate anyone's enjoyment of anything.)

[ganondoodle]

(wip? possibly?)

this is a part of the painting that made me cry yesterday bc nothing worked, its not like i had it in mind, but maybe not all is lost yet

(OCs, at the bottom there, Zaphira she/her, and big lad, Shargon he/they)

[basket-of-radiants]

In my Rhythm of War rewrite, Odium never switches his attention from Venli to Moash. As a downstream consequence of this, 100% of my complaints for both characters are resolved.

[ahollowgrave]

i gave selenite more piercings and a different hair and i'm biting her you know??

[motsimages]

As per Tumblr recommendation, I started Kevin can fuck himself yesterday. I see people comment on how the sitcom part makes it look the way people see an abuser and how the abuse can be disguised. People think he is just a funny guy and the abuse goes unnoticed. I personally see it otherwise, although it's similar.

People know he is an asshole. He spends a whole episode being mean to the new neighbours just because. He meets a dangerous guy at a bar, in public. He is an alcoholic who throws weird parties with lots of other people at home. Patty's boyfriend tells her twice in the 3 or 4 conversations we see that he is an idiot. People know, and people avoid him.

And his bubble know, but they justify it and excuse it. And that's the sitcom. The sitcom is the theater of excuses Allison has (and then other characters too) about his behaviour.

"Can you believe it? We were in our anniversary, such a fun party, we were both super drunk and I don't know how it ended, that I was face down on the floor and the table was broken! Anniversa-rager we call it lol"

"He is such a clumsy guy that just as I was leaving the house, you won't believe that I don't know how he managed to cover me in chilli sauce! What a silly goose!"

"He is so helpless without me, he couldn't find the printer and he called me all day because he needed me to explain to him how to work it. And he worries too! He called the cops because he didn't know where I was, maybe I forgot to tell him".

The conversations with her coworker about husbands help drive this point. That's what mariage is. You find ways to justify it and to avoid certain fights and that's it. We got lucky.

But he did all these things on purpose. And the unreliable narrator of the sitcom makes the joke of it and makes the audience consider that maybe it isn't *that bad*. Allison needs to believe that's what it is, so it is. It really isn't that bad, she thinks, he is just like that.

And we can actually see the worrying things and the threatening parts from minute one. It's only a joke because we have been trained to dismiss it. To justify it and to move on. He isn't doing any heavy lifting here.

In episode 1, just the fact that he ends up standing on the table (when she doesn't want him to even put glasses on without protection) says a lot. But then the table breaks and he fixes it poorly and visibly. It would be bad enough just like this, but I personally think there is more to it. It's just that Allison doesn't want to speak about it or look at it so it is just the table, but it's the switch that turns on for her, the last drop. But she did end face down on her living room, on top of the broken table. It's a very elegant narrative tool where we don't see, but if we wanted to see, it's there.

And the more she notices, the more off-putting the sitcom is. It's still played as a joke, with the laugh track, but she is more aware now, so we can notice too.

We start the series with her turning point, but if the series started a year before that, it would only be happening in her house, as it is her life, her only frame of reference, and it would only be a sitcom because isn't he such a clumsy but caring guy?

[carpe-mamilia]

someone. appears to have uploaded the entireity of the terror to youtube?

if you want to bully people into watching it your time is now, I guess?

Hot diggetty pig!

Everyone watch this or I'll come to your house and make slightly hurtful remarks about your storage solutions. But I won't be held responsible for any subsequent obsessions relating to Men Suffering on Boats. It's a life-changing series and you'll just have to deal with the consequences of that yourselves.

[anabetel35]

The Magnus archives more like the marson archives because. They commit like so much arson in that podcast it's crazy