#it's become a black hole

[sekwar]

oh tumblr... you've really gone and done it now huh

[linusbenjamin]

Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to man. For this he was chained to a rock and tortured for eternity. Oppenheimer (2023) dir. Christopher Nolan

[padfootastic]

my sirius & harry thought of the day:

harry kept that firebolt alive for all 137 years of his remaining life through sheer willpower and magical strength. he did not let a single twig of it die off. not only was he absolutely unhinged about taking care of it, not letting anyone near it after 5th year, but he also basically single-handedly reinvented the field of broom-crafting just so he could keep his godfather’s gift to him alive. he didn’t do anything with this skill, basically driving everywhere who knew him spare bc !!! ‘harry do u know what u just did? most brooms don’t last over 6-7 years, not even a fraction of that if used at the pace and frequency as u. if u could just—‘

and he just flat out shuts them up bc how does he tell them that the reason his firebolt is still alive is bc sirius’ love runs thru it and harry would die himself before he let it bc he can’t lose the last piece of sirius he has left. he cannot perform this miracle on any other broom, tho he can probably make the single best non-sirius-gifted broom that the WW has ever seen just bc of how extensive his knowledge is now

and the thing, right, is he doesn’t keep the firebolt locked up in some display like some artefact. sirius would’ve never wanted that. his dad would’ve hated it. brooms were meant to be flown. so fly, he does. wonderfully. it’s forever his primary broom and he puts it thru all the paces, keeping up with all sorts of newer, flashier, pro models w utter ease.

it’s like this: when he uses this firebolt, it feels like perhaps he has his godfather back for just a second. and harry is forever weak to that feeling.

[seilon]

my only complaint about 2005 dw is that we didn’t get more episodes with gung-ho mortal baby jack harkness. absolutely smitten by that fucker

[silna-pdf]

In my eyes - Indisposed

In disguises no one knows - Hides the face

Lies the snake - And the sun in my disgrace

[lime-bloods]

so long as I've been talking gravity, it feels like I'm obviously missing something by not talking about the Green Sun, which formed the gravitational center of Homestuck's cosmos long before black holes became part of the equation. it's emblematic of Lord English, obviously, the villain who keeps our heroes gravitationally bound to their homes, but that felt too simplistic... I think I've hit on something more solid, though.

Cascade, part 6.

in the sense that the Green Sun - being composed of the rendered-down remains of both of Homestuck's universes - is a very literal representation of the comic's incestuous slurry of ideas, Dave and Rose emerging from the Sun's radioactive green sludge very much reads as their being reconstituted from ectoplasm. indeed: Hussie suggested years ago that to "die spectacularly in an explosion of green fire" is actually a requirement for reaching the god tiers without a dream self, and while this doesn't turn out to be exactly true, the central premise remains; the old self must be immolated completely to make way for the new self. in this exact same way, trolls find themselves gravitating toward the cocoons they were born from and are completely destroyed via explosion in the process of ascension - for Dave and Rose, the Green Sun is the figurative birth-cocoon they return to in order to be broken down into slime and built back up again.

(so it's interesting, at the very least, that the very same black hole that usurped the Green Sun's position as the center of reality is now the cocoon Vriska Serket finds herself trapped within - complete with lain-thick imagery of fire and death!)

p. 2728

compare as well the Matriorb and Tumor, obvious visual twins which also serve the same purpose as malignant growths which must kill their previous host so as to give rise to a new brood. for Rose, in particular, the gravity that keeps the suburban family unit together - the Green Sun's gravity - is also the gravity that pulls her toward the familial role Sburb has lined up for her, that of the mother. and the icons of the Green Sun hidden, womb-like, within the guts of Rose's planet tell us everything we need to know about the role the Green Sun is supposed to play in this motherhood destiny.

(from Hussie's commentary in Book 5, p. 271: "This is another one of those things that makes it feel like this quest is narratively what is demanded of her [...] it's supposed to feel that way to her, and has a strange sense of obligatory gravity surrounding it.")

Scratch's deception regarding the Green Sun then takes on a characteristically insidious subtext: he's tricking Rose into giving birth. and not just to the Green Sun, or to Lord English, but - in the characteristically incestuous, cyclical nature of things in Homestuck - to her own ascended self! and as such, in the inverse: when Rose flies out to the Furthest Ring believing that she's about to defy the role Sburb has laid out for her by aborting the Tumor, she's also unknowingly setting out to abort herself - a "suicide mission" in more ways than just one.

[zeb-z]

saw someone saying Etoiles death was like a supernova and fuck man.

the death of a star, collapsing in on itself, unable to bear its own weight. this great, unbelievable fallout from its death, a phenomenon that’s colossal, that’s celestial. Etoiles who’s confidence collapses, who’s streak is ruined, because he took on so many codes at once assuming there were no tricks he wasn’t aware of, and lost. the loss of a star can mean the doom of the planets it provides for - Etoiles loss means he can no longer properly protect the island from the codes. no more heat to provide warmth and growth, no more shield to provide protection.

stars die like anything else, but to witness such a thing in this lifetime? it seems like it should be impossible. and yet here we are

[catboygirljoker]

hey you ever think about how its implied that you have to be turned into a nobody to get norted, like, every member of the real org13 who isnt literally xehanort or literally possessed by xehanort is a nobody (except maybe vanitas but *gestures* thats a . different can of worms), and the people who were recompleted had to then become nobodies again in order to be in the real org13 and serve as a vessel for xehanort, like perhaps your heart has to be removed in order to make room for another heart,

and then do you ever think about the one character who canonically got norted before becoming a nobody and is still norted even after being recompleted and thus canonically didnt need to become a nobody in order to be norted, and then lose your mind a little bit

[celestialdaily]

The celestial object of the day is IGR J17091-3624!

This black hole has in its accretion disk the fastest winds ever discovered, at 32 million km/h (20 million miles per hour) or 3% of the speed of light. And just like the black hole GRS 1915+105, it also has X-ray variability patterns or 'heartbeats.' While fainter than the ones of GRS 1915+105, IGR J17091's are faster!

[pocketjeeble]

If I had a dollar for every time I saw 'rizz' mentioned in ZZZ, I'd have 2 dollars. If I also had a dollar for every time it didn't give me mental damage, I'd still have 2 dollars.

[ray-the-art-demon]

Yet another drawing based off a dream. This time in the dream tpot 10 was a musical episode for some reason and BH and Tree had a duet where they did a little ribbon dance and it was cute as hell

Alt version

[genericpuff]

welp, i finished the Dawntrial MSQ last night

it was

uh.

i actually enjoyed a lot of the things people were complaining about in the beginning, because while i could understand their criticisms, to me its flaws felt like something it would grow past as it was establishing a new foundation for a new story, which was what was promised to us, and obviously that's gonna require slowing down the pacing and lowering the stakes, which is fine!

but then the second half of the MSQ hit and i just-

on paper it should have been amazing

on paper i should have fucking loved it

but in execution, i stg trying to finish the lvl 98-100 MSQ took years off my life, even tho the majority of them took me a single night to beat, it still felt like it both overstayed its welcome and also did way too little with what it was trying to present us with

i know this is vagueposting because i don't wanna spoil, but man. "divisive" is definitely a word to describe the Dawntrail MSQ with, especially considering how many people were telling me "it gets better in the second half!" and again, I thought the first half of it wasn't as bad as people were saying, so I was HYPED for the second half, and instead I was brutally disappointed by what I got instead u.u

that said, the dungeon and trial gameplay mechanics are great, when the expansion remembers that it is in fact a video game it does it really well, it's just unfortunately not often enough for it to make up for the sloggy pacing of the story

the music is a bop, there are a couple tracks that i was a little eeeh on because they just felt really saccharine in a way that just clashed entirely with the tone of XIV and made me want to throw my headphones in the garbage, but the majority of the soundtrack was otherwise really well done, soken was really channelling his inner david wise here with the donkey kong vibes LOL but there are some somber tracks that are great too, there's a lot of range here in the soundtrack that should be appreciated despite the odd cringe track

environment design was solid, there were some zones that were questionable in their design because some of them felt pitifully empty despite promising bustling populations (looking at you, Tuliyollal and Solution Nine >:x)

but man , the last zone was brutal and that sucks because again, on paper, the concept SHOULD have been awesome, but ultimately it's still relying on the exact same plot devices in the past (insert lost civilization whose previous inhabitants/rulers are hellbent on keeping it alive even at the expense of current civilizations here) and the gameplay itself deadass forgot it's a game because there isn't a SINGLE instance of necessary combat or gameplay during all of it and so when the final quest (as per tradition, named "Dawntrail") finally pops up, it's like wait what ? that's it?? thankfully the last quest has both a dungeon and trial in it but it feels less like thought out design and more like the game devs remembering they had to actually include some gaming in their video game at the last minute LOL

i think the extra burden of directing FF XVI definitely caught up to Yoshi-P on this one, as well as the budgeting problems that still exist from COVID, and the fact that much of that budget clearly went to overall QOL changes like the graphics engine getting an almost complete rehaul (even in the previous expansions which is. a lot of work. like they want to re-texture ALL of the gear in this game and THAT'S A LOT, literally thousands of items!). where this expansion wins, it wins big, but those wins aren't enough to carry an overall lackluster experience that drags itself out way too fucking long for its own good. the story could have absolutely used a few more rounds in the writing room, if they couldn't afford more voice acted scenes then they should have simply just cut down on the amount of cutscenes, and i think the devs need to seriously ask themselves if the Trust system is worth dragging the Scions back into every adventure even when they have nothing to do (and it shows). like idk, just spitballing here, but the Trust system might be a good chance to re-introduce the GC squadrons, no? maybe go back to the roots a little bit and buff up the stuff that could still have a lot more life if given a chance?

anyways my experience with DT has been about a 6/10 and that score in the end will depend on how the patch quests go over the next couple years, I still prefer it over Stormblood (fr fuck SB lol) but it definitely feels like it's trying too hard to be like EW and ShB while missing what made EW and ShB so good in the first place (or acknowledging why its flaws were forgivable within the context of their respective designs, like yeah EW's pacing was iffy too but it at least had a lot more going on in it to justify it, DT is just grasping at straws by comparison). and in that sense it winds up being a lot more like ARR, where it's just kind of lost in what it's trying to do and creates a worse experience by the end. hopefully like with ARR back in the day the devs will figure out it's time to shake things up and try something new without using the old as a crutch.

[16ruedelaverrerie]

Hey... hello.... do you have any like.... merchandise to sell or something... or do you accept donations may be

Because I admire your work (both writing and art) and I wanna throw money at you, you know

What would I do with your money, anon, except take it gratefully and yet continue to produce exactly zero fandom output.......... Mostly the exercise would just make you poorer and make me guiltier! Let us not do this to each other!!! Instead, while I shake my fist at work deadlines and keep adding endless bullet points about Gavin's self-destructive downward spiral to my Notes app, you might keep your wallet closed and know that it was the prudent thing to do. And then, depending on what time of day it is for you when you have done that, maybe you could toss a drive-by AO3 comment in the direction of me or anyone whose work you've enjoyed. It is, or at least it still is for me, a gift economy too. I love you and I will vanquish your enemies.

[smoosnoom]

not to sound crazy but does anyone else experience a constant feeling of impending doom

[i3utterflyeffect]

What if stick!noogai goes to the fair that day and gets to go to the machine right before Gold gets there so Gold has to wait in line, and then Chosen rescues noogai when the machine breaks. Thus leaving everyone alive, though noogai gets another thing to haunt his nightmares.

i genuinely think he's not going to be able to sleep for a week if that happens to him

[swordmaid]

I like using 90s shalom harlow as shri’iia’s face ref esp for her eyes. I think she’d have that similar foxy, half mischievous half intimidating glare. esp the fact that shri’iia has no eyebrows, her eyes being expressive is one of the key parts in her chara design…!! i think she can say a lot with just a glare. also with her heavy eye makeup, eye tattoos, bright red eyes against the white lashes i think her eyes are def quite striking lol - which is intentional since the red eyes are a gift from lolth so one should cherish it and all that