#like on the astral plane

[kaelio]

Someone asked me to write up a bit more of what Anne Rice was thinking making Marius a verna (a type of slave in Rome, a status from which we can infer he was manumitted). I've uploaded that here (intro excerpt below):

Marius in TVC: Implications of References to Roman Society

continue reading here.

Minimally, you'll come away having learned something about vernae and about the process of manumission (freedom from slavery in the Roman system, heavily implied to have occurred). I'm not an expert on the Servile Wars or manumission or what-have-you so there are a lot of direct citations in the link.

(- Dr. R. Conn)

[eonars]

Last summer I was on a very expedited acid come up at a music festival and my entirely unaware mother thousands of miles away was at costco and texted me incredulous at how they already had halloween stuff out for sale in the summer but all I saw was a message preview of a giant 10 foot tall skeleton with glowing eyes and "can u believe it??"

[hedgehog-moss]

One mistake I made a lot when I started learning English was writing both the auxiliary and the main verb in past tense—as in, "Did the rain stopped?" My English teacher had to really drill this grammar point into my head, she was like "the point of 'did' here is to indicate past tense, there's no need for another time marker." Me, genuinely baffled: "Why not?" Teacher: "Think of the 'ed' in 'stopped' as having migrated to the beginning of the sentence and become 'did'. So it's no longer in 'stopped'." Well I was sad to see it go. I pointed out that in French you'd say "The rain (itself) has it stopped?" and 'the rain' feels welcome to stay even though the whole point of the pronoun 'it' should be to replace it in a quicker way. But it would be sad if the noun & its pronoun never got to hang out together so we keep both <3

My teacher had a British look on her face that made my middle-school self wonder if maybe she thought my language wasn't optimally designed, and then she said that in English it would feel clunky to give the same piece of grammatical information twice, and "if you use 'did' then the -ed in 'stopped' doesn't add anything." That just sounded offensive, I mean since when do letters need to add something to a sentence? isn't it enough that they adorn the end of words & frolic with the others in friendship. If it bothers you so much just don't pronounce them. Idk, "did the rain stopped" felt so right to me. In the end my teacher said that "The rain has it stopped?" with the redundant pronoun is the more formal French phrasing anyway, and I was like yeah true we'd rather say "is it that it (itself) has stopped to rain?" and I felt like this really proved my point and I think she felt the same way

[taliawinters]

Boundless, timeless. Like every dream that ever was, stitched together.

[artemis-pendragon]

Aeor: *flies into a suspiciously large storm*

The Cognouza Ward:

[teslacarbombz]

im still not over it. heehee silly lawyer from breaking bad lets make a spinoff show about his life before becoming saul goodman. AND LETS GIVE HIM THE MOST VOMIT INDUCING HEARTWRENCHING BACKSTORY TO EXIST IN TELEVISION HISTORY !!!

[fia-bonkginya]

okay okay okay obviously this zerxus characterization (and a little bit of the story) doesn't FULLY line up with exu calamity but like. you can very much extrapolate and see how he could have gotten to this point!! he already sort of blamed laerryn for what happened to evandrin and to the city, and you can imagine that festering for a thousand years in a place like the hells.

and his line about how "there's no difference between the gods above and the ones below" perfectly mirrors his statements in the campaign- at one point he says something about how "once you bow to one you bow to them all," so that's always been something he's thought

plus, his fortress being called the brass skull- clearly some of his connection with his old friends is still there, even if he's trying to pretend it's not

i think it's a fun interpretation!!! and of course seeing the aspects of calamity depicted in stained glass like that (especially the ring of brass, evandrin, and elias) was. so so so good. what an excellent artistic choice. i cried

[stagefoureddiediaz]

Something something about Bucks downstairs bathroom and it representing his innermost and truest self - almost a representation of his heart.

Because the door to Bucks bathroom being open and the room lit blue when Tommy came over, both of them crossing in front of that doorway has got me thinking because the bathroom door was firmly closed when Eddie was at the loft in 7x05.

This did a couple of things, it removed the blue light from the space so it was overwhelmingly yellow. But it also closed of a part of Bucks loft, metaphorically closing off a part of Buck.

I’m not 100% sure but I’m pretty sure we’ve only ever seen that door closed or very slightly ajar (I think when Taylor was around we saw it ajar - I’m going to have to go rewatch to be categorically sure) before now, the one big exception being when Buck was in that bathroom putting on a bullet proof vest in 4x14.

The other aspect is that Bucks bathroom has a glass door - and we all know about Buck and glass doors. Buck has metaphorically opened the glass door to his inner most self to Tommy, but he’s not able to do that for Eddie.

Because this isn’t about coming out, this is about opening up to the possibility of love and being loved in return - in a romantic sense.

If I’m right about the door being ajar around Taylor (not always but at certain points) this shows he was still somewhat closed off - he was open, but not all the way. He went into that room - into his innermost heart - when Eddie was injured - and put on a bullet proof vest - protecting his heart (and don’t get me started on that artwork about shouting at the top of your voice that is now also at the diaz house).

And now the door was fully opened when he had his first queer kiss - Buck being open to possibility- but firmly shut when he comes out to Eddie.

Something something about it no ring shut to Eddie, because he’s not ready to open the door to the possibility of Eddie yet (Eddie is also not available at the moment). But I think when he is and when Eddie is also ready or nearly ready, we’ll see that door open again when Eddie is in the loft.

[spicyraeman]

Kinda blows my mind how many people still don't know that Lae'zel didn't come from the Astral Plane, like she legit tells you on one of the first nights that shes from an asteroid following the moon??

[dekariosclan]

Tav the morning after sleeping with Gale, having gotten the full benefit of his ‘practiced tongue’ along with his lovemaking / astral sex skills, thinking about how Mystra really tossed this wholeass incredible man into the garbage and now he’s alllll Tav’s:

[x-mensirens]

[katkalis-the-horror-fanartist]

Tnmn drawing idea reminder for myself:

A normal 1955 household of a single person and theyre getting ready to go out on a nighttime stroll

Little do they know that Barbatos is lurking outside their home hidden among foliage, hunting weapon at the ready

[margina1ia]

Idk where it was, but I think I saw a post about how Cassandra couldn't finish saying the word "fair" without being consumed by the rage shard. Going back and watching the moment when it starts to go wrong in the wizard synod, Cassandra says "it's not fair" immediately before the shard rips through her and she begins bleeding out.

Thinking about this with the Bad Kids' convo with Lydia Barkrock and how the pit fiend in her chest couldn't say the name of the dead fallen god he served or he could only say it in certain contexts... I wonder if Cassandra had another sibling aside from Galicaea and Sol (or maybe it is Sol?? Or Helio???) that she was a right hand to or had a contract with (now I'm thinking about rules and relationships re: figs warlock classes????), and maybe what Lydia's party invoked is what happened to Cassandra. I wonder if, when the Bad Kids find out more about the ritual, they will recognize elements of what happened at the wizard synod.

Anywayyyyys, maybe I'm just drowning in red strings lol

[mftm1987]

it's called mode look it up : dave, montreux rock festival 1987

[galedekarios]

larian truly revealing bit by bit how they actively chose to make their game worse

[oddeyes588]

A little late to the party but I do have some thoughts about Fantasy High Junior Year now that it's over. First of all, overall? Great season, had lots of laughs... but man, is it just me, or were there a lot of parts in this season that just... were kind of annoying? For me specifically, two big things... and no, I'm not talking about the Rat Grinders. While I'm a little disappointed with how that ended, I'm not too bothered.

Like, idk if this is a hot take or not, because they were arguably the biggest parts of this season... but I found myself especially annoyed and/or disappointed about K2 and Porter.

Like, don't get me wrong, I thought K2 was funny—especially at first—and Porter being the main villain of the season was 100% for the bit and I can respect that... but man, I couldn't help but be disappointed with Porter going full irredeemably evil, as well as just straight-up annoyed by K2's existence (at least in regards to the story. gameplaywise, making a homunculus of their cleric was VERY smart) (oh god if K2 exists in our world now she might come after me. dont forget me).

In regards to Porter... he was for sure an ass, he caused Gorgug a lot of grief with the MCAT, but he also had such a really sweet moment with him when that thing finally got signed?? It was very, like, not a perfect teacher but someone who did have his best interests in mind, paired with a really nice message about how it's alright to get mad. It was an important part of Gorgug's character growth this season! Integral to unlocking his Barbificer subclass!

...and then all of that just gets thrown away because turns out Porter was evil the whole time and this was all just leading up to his big master plan of killing a god and becoming a god of war. He was never offering genuine advice, he never cared about Gorgug or had his best interests in mind, he thought Gorgug's fascination with Artificing was stupid... and now he's dead. The End.

And that just feels... really disappointing, honestly. He was a chill guy, and yeah he had no right to bar Gorgug from pursuing what he wants and force him to take so many years of school in a single year, but it also resulted in some serious growth on Gorgug's part! It was great! Him being Evil The Whole Time felt... almost like a character assassination, honestly.

And then... there's K2...

I'm gonna be real here. I don't care if using a homunculus and shit for multiple divine intervention rolls is how it actually works in the rulebooks, and I know that objectively having more rolls is always better, especially when the stakes are high... and especially considering that Ally was not getting the rolls they needed otherwise.

This was hilarious. It was also supremely annoying, because it just fully took away from any big moment Kristen could've had this season regarding her and Cassandra after her creation... and this happened TWICE.

Like, from a storytelling perspective, I feel Brennan's pain viscerally. These episodes were truly such an experience for me, because on one hand, I was laughing at the sheer comedy of it all... but there was another part of my brain thinking this truly, truly sucked.

Kristen was figuring out her devotion to Cassandra, finding an understanding in what her role as Cassandra's cleric is... and right at the end of the season all of that kind of comes to a halt because in the end K2 did the divine interventions.

...Well, at least that still leaves some room for whatever Kristen will have to deal with in Senior year. Unlike Porter, who is dead and gone and we're definitely not bringing him back.