#more unsolicited opinions

[dazednstoned]

Hosea and Dutch did good by saving John and Arthur, but that doesn't automatically make them faultless parents.

They molded Arthur and John into ideal outlaws who obeyed them (intentional or not). So much so that BOTH Arthur and John ended up prioritizing the gang over their literal children + the mothers of their children.

Arthur never actually made it out of the outlaw life. John struggled for 8 years trying to leave behind old habits. You cannot tell me that wasn't a direct product of Dutch and Hosea raising them.

I doubt they had any malicious intent, but that doesn't absolve them of everything. I think a big thing rdr fans tend to do is favor intent over the actual results of a character's actions.

It's explicitly clear that the cycle of violence didn't begin with John and proceed with Jack, it began with Hosea and Dutch.

[bunnirabbits]

not sure if i want nanami to be a super experienced older man who will take the reigns in bed straight away, or a poor, overworked soul who’s never gotten the chance to lose his virginity so i can hold his hand and stare lovingly into his eyes as he cums inside a woman for the first time.

[alectoperdita]

Also congrats to us! We're now officially at the 2.5k milestone on AO3! 😍🥳🎉🎊

[4setsofcorsets]

I’m rereading the His Dark Materials trilogy and here are my takeaways so far:

I forgot that the in-universe explanation for the different vibes of the church in Lyra’s world was that John Calvin had become Pope. That’s fucking hilarious

The rules of daemons change as the series go on and if you try to form a consistent picture of daemon lore you will go insane. Perhaps this was Mrs. Coulter’s mistake

Philip Pullman desperately wants a big strong authoritative man to tell him what to do. But in a skeptical way. Love his imagination but for his sake I wish for him to explore the wide world of BDSM

The timeline from Asrael leaving his world to already having built a giant castle to store his god-killing army in is two weeks. If I’m being generous. Probably closer to like 4 days.

Mary Malone should get at least as much love from lesbians with mommy issues as Miss Honey does. She has been robbed

[farfromstrange]

I am officially distancing myself from the country I live in. How can people in a country with a history that precedes it PROUDLY vote for parties in the right-wing sector, one of those openly using Nazi ideology, and now they’re getting seats in the EU parliament? It’s terrifying to see that the Christian conservatives almost have 30% and the aforementioned right-wing party has 16%, making up almost half of our seats (that’s just an estimate). And most of those 16% of votes were younger people between 16 and 24 and it’s fucking terrifying to think people in my age range (even younger) are voting for parties that don’t even care about us. They don’t care about our future.

I know the people in the US and many other countries have similar problems right now and don’t know who to vote for because all options suck absolute balls, so I feel for you. What’s happening in the world right now is fucking scary. I’m ashamed to be part of a country AND society that thinks voting against human rights is even remotely on the table…

[theside-b]

You guys need to make it make sense, a bunch of people keep asking for different stories and narratives, but the moment one comes along it's immediately rejected. Embrace all these different stories, especially when they are well-crafted or you're going to be fed only cookie-dough for the rest of you life.

[chickenoptyrx]

Ngl im perfectly willing to just enjoy Daima.

•Expectations: on the ground

•willingness to just roll with it: high

If i dont like it, oh well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ i still got dragonball and dbz

[psychiclounge]

I don't see a whole lot of fanmission discussion on here, which is a bummer considering they're such a huge part of the classic Thief community and why it's endured so long. With some of the Black Parade hype recently, I think now is the perfect time for this- here's my personal list of TDP/TMA fanmission recs! Not in any particular order (aside from the first 3-5 or so for each game, which are my personal all-time favorites) these are just taken from my highest rated fanmissions in FMSel. Each one links to a Thief Guild page where you can find the mission briefing, screenshots, and downloads.

Thief Gold: Ascend the Dim Valley Endless Rain Rose Garden The Scarlet Cascabel The Black Parade Catacombs of Knoss Alcazar Chalice of Souls Making a Profit The Sound of a Burrick in a Room Whispers Below the Cobblestone Between These Dark Walls Dirty Money Falling, In Love Autumn in Lampfire Hills

Thief 2: Compulsory Egress Into the Odd Bad Debts, and its sequel Disorientation (part of the Talbot series by Melan, along with TG FM Rose Garden) The Violent End of Duncan Malveine Feast of Pilgrims Ominous Bequest, and its sequel Broken Triad Rose Cottage Behind Closed Doors The Turning of the Leaves King Abedzen's Tomb Legacy of Knoss (sequel to TG FM Catacombs of Knoss) The Ties That Bind (the first FM I recall ever playing and, imo, a cute introduction to FMs as a whole) Old Habits and Dead Wives Vanishing Point All For a Night's Sleep The Last Lighthouse Keeper Cracks in the Glass Bloodmist Tower Finals at the Academy Heist at Hilbert's Highrise Hotel The Sun Within and the Sun Without Malazar's Inscrutable Tower Ravensreach Coaxing the Spirit Keyhunt

Here's a TTLG thread on how to set up both games for playing FMs. I personally don't use any fancy loaders, FMSel will be what you get by default, it works perfect and is all you need. TTLG overall is just a great place to be, it's good for FM hints/walkthroughs/recs and general Thief/Looking Glass discussion.

Ideally you have T2Fix already installed, but for setting your game up for FMs, you should do a quick reinstall and make sure that two options are ticked: common script modules, and T2FMDML. T2FMDML is a collection of fixes for Thief 2 FMs that wouldn't otherwise play nice with NewDark, and the scripts as I understand are for FMs that need them but either come packaged with older versions or without the scripts at all- there's a lot of older FMs out there that will be broken for you if you don't have both installed. You can just rerun the T2Fix installer for this, you don't need to reinstall the game or anything.

Thief Guild is where all the links lead, and it's a great site for finding FMs. You can filter by genre (city, thieves' highway, cathedral, etc.) or look through the usermade collections- for a start, I'd recommend looking at the collections specifically to find classic/early FMs, a category that I know I'm not hitting on much in my list here but is definitely worth checking out if you're at all interested.

Bonus Dark Mod rec: The Dark Mod is a fanmade, free, Thief-inspired stealth game. I haven't played nearly as many missions for it as I have for Thief, but it's still absolutely worth checking out to see if it clicks for you. If you only play one TDM mission, though, my personal rec is Iris.

If you have any, add on with your own FM recs also! Feel free to send asks or dms about anything FM-related, as well ^^ I'm always looking for more to check out, and always open to talk about them if anyone wants.

[evyltalks]

Oh, what a delightful surprise, yet another round of the 'you-can't-tell-an-artist-what-to-do-and-how-to-do-it' debate. Because apparently, some folks missed the memo on respecting boundaries and basic decency. If you can't grasp that concept, well, it's not my job to enlighten you. But between you and me, it seems like a serious lack of etiquette and respect for someone else's creative process.

On a brighter note, massive shoutout to all the lovely souls who bring good vibes and simple joy to our interactions. You guys are the real MVPs. And hey, you're always welcome to swing by for a chat about art, ask questions or even just some fun prompts for future art. Let's keep up with the good vibes 🤍

[marielschism]

Good luck with your paper. ^^

Your HCs were so much fun to read, I like how well rounded the Marquis' character is. The JW wiki says that Skarsgård came up with the idea the the Marquis came fromman empoverished background and worked himself to the top.

When I read I thought there could be so much potential in that backstory.

thank you so much, you're very kind!

so many possibilities!!!!! i need to learn more about him. i need to study him under a microscope. i need to submerge him in resin.

i'm interested in learning more about the marquis' ascent — like what the hell did he do to get to this point, at such a young age? how did it shape the dangerously arrogant marquis we all know and love today? how did a street rat become a marquis? or maybe he wasn't a street rat — maybe the gramonts are a disgraced family under the high table. maybe their seat was revoked for some ungodly reason, forcing vincent into a life of poverty, taking away the privileges he enjoyed for most of his childhood. what did he do to get his wealth back? what did he do to survive? who did he hurt? was he ever loved?

(i wish we could have seen him physically fight john — i have a feeling he's a savant with bladed weapons, and seeing bill skarsgard wield a sword would have sent me into a coma idk )

and now you got me thinking of younger vincent de gramont x childhood friend!reader. you meet him after he's lost everything.

the two of you are street rats navigating through the underworld. you're looking for a way to survive, and vincent's looking for a way to get back to his old world. the two of you end up taking increasingly difficult jobs at an incredibly young age, and the high table takes notice. the two of you get separated when the high table employs him as one of their agents. you make a living working as a freelance bounty hunter, and you don't see him again until nearly a decade later.

when the two of you meet again, vincent is an entirely different person. he is a marquis now, and you will address him as such. he has a job for you. and refusal is not an option.

[mercurialmilk]

i think that the reason miniature crafts are becoming so popular is because people literally dont have space for larger projects

[ceescedasticity]

Assertion: A substantial portion of House of the Dragon fandom — possibly also the show itself, I don't know, I don't watch it — fundamentally misunderstands the nature of the relationship between the Faith of the Seven and House Hightower.

I keep seeing them cast as ultra-devout fanatics utterly opposed to sinful behavior and other religions — true Defenders of the Faith. They do call themselves that.

They also:

Almost certainly murdered a High Septon to better appease Maegor the Cruel

Had an agreement with Jaehaerys that they'd influence the election of the High Septon so his preferred candidate got it if they then got a pass on making sure the High Septon after that was someone from House Hightower

Are very soon going to ignore religious opinions on marrying one's stepmother and be not at all conciliatory about it until a new High Septon lets them have their way

Next recorded Hightower Hand of the King is going to be importing a reputed sorceress from Lys to be Aegon the Unworthy's next mistress

In the Game of Thrones era they're looking into sorcery to deal with their Ironborn problem and don't seem to have any unmendable quarrel with Lynesse Hightower's chosen position of concubine

Individuals are going to vary, but overall: This is not ultra-devout behavior. They Defend the Faith only as long as it comes to heel when they demand it, and ignore its dictates when they feel like it. This is not analogous to the Catholicism of the Inquisition; it's closer to the Catholicism of the Medicis.

From the top of the Hightower they light the way, sure, but it's also a great place to tell which way the wind is blowing. They negotiated their way into the Kingdom of the Reach rather than get conquered; they allied with the Andals rather than get conquered; they converted to the Seven quickly and got an enormous amount of influence over the Faith for their trouble. This is not a House with the goal of starting a culture war; their historical goal is to get in on the winning side and then do what they want anyway.

(…It says something interesting about fandom that I feel like I'm defending them by arguing that they're not morally upright/uptight but mainly slippery pragmatists who are good at publicity. Well, no one likes the morality police.)

Also: While I'm sure they have a lot of Andal ancestry at this point, they're a First Men house with reputed origins in the Age of Heroes, who decided to set up and build their tower on a weird freaky black stone island no one can explain. This is not a mundane house either.

[moki-dokie]

Doing a barbenheimer night with the partner tonight and just finished with barbie, it was great! However, something happened before going in that was ironically relevant to the movie.

As our tickets were being scanned, the guy scanning them looks at my partner and says "oh I'm so sorry sir" with like genuine remorse so we obv give him a questioning look and this dude says, straight over me and to him "I'm sorry you're being dragged to see barbie." Which caught us both off guard. He recovered faster than me tho, said like "why? It was my idea." Which, it was. So the ticket guy huffs a little and continues to speak over me like I don't exist, "you should take HER to see Oppenheimer then, see how she likes it." To which I just grit my teeth and smiled and said "yeah, we are after barbie actually." And walked away.

Men like that are exactly why the Barbie movie even needs to be made to begin with. Seriously, fuck that guy.

[estrangedandwayward]

Not fanart art dump

[spectordameron]

predictably, someone griped on my gifset paralleling the ot and st gang's motivations being drawn from throw away lines in rotj that George Lucas does nothing with, because "it doesn't give characters growth"

Apart from, I didn't fucking ask, you're missing the point. Certainly, if you want characters to be fucking unrecognizable from their younger selves, by all means, watch the prequels and originals back to back and enjoy how Vader, Obi-Wan and Yoda feel nothing like their initial counter parts to the point that it feels so inconsistent that it's required [checks notes] two separate shows to fill in the blanks, but I digress, back to my original point.

Which is that their arcs in the sequels are built off throw away lines, that go fucking nowhere in rotj. Luke feels as if he's jeopardizing the mission and his first instinct is that he needs to leave — which makes sense when you consider his presence in tesb on cloud city, made things go from "bad" to "worse" — it's that same, split second character tick that isn't mined anywhere else, that lands us with a Luke who thinks the galaxy is better without him. It's the way that Leia, committed to the cause Leia Organa, pleads with Luke to run away because she can't lose her family again. It's that small facet, that glimpse, that fuels Leia's desire to not lose anyone else and be so hard on her protegés and be overly protective. It's Han, loving Leia so much, that he selflessly will stand out of her way so that she can be happy, even if it's without him, because he'd sacrifice himself in a heartbeat.

They grew in plenty of other ways, the sequels just found a hidden path that they could explore and make entire character motivations, and you know what? That's good fucking writing.

[draculagerard]

oml berry anon here. realized I typed squash instead of pumpkin for some inexplicable reason. I don't actually know if all squash are considered berries, but pumpkins are

I was relieved for a second but then I looked it up.

Anon apparently your mistyping was literally correct…. Wild as fuck to me. Well at least I’d im understanding those words right. Cause like idk 90% of the words used in that answer.

Also sure. Pumpkins. Why not