#so I could see either of them in the role

[kumkaniudaku]

Askew

Summary: Terry makes good on a promise.

Pairing: Terry Richmond x Black!OC

Word Count: 2.1k

Warnings: SMUT (18+)

Previous: At Last: Part Two

“I’m gonna fuck the glasses off your face tonight. Okay?” 

A simple sentence. No fanfare. No lingering touch or a suggestive look. Not even a repeat of his matter-of-fact declaration despite the words nearly being lost to the pockets of conversation in Corey’s kitchen during a rowdier than usual Friendsgiving gathering. Terry calmly whispered the plain statement into Patrice’s ear as he passed by on the way out of the door to join the other men in the backyard. 

Patrice tried to appear unphased while she sipped from her plastic cup of white wine. “Now?”

“I’ll let you know.” 

He’d made up his mind to have her babbling incoherent sentences while he bent her over the living room couch before they could make it out of the house, but holding in his little secret had proven difficult. Terry wished he could blame it on the tequila shots or the haze of weed smoke blown out of mouths far too federally employed to still be dabbling with the plant. Either would be an acceptable lie because the truth was too trivial to share. It was the North Carolina A&T crew neck and black cat-eye glasses Patrice had chosen to sport for the night. His mind dreamt up all the times he’d missed her studying for exams in the sweater a hair too large, and glasses that made her look like a professor during office hours while she bounced around the room making small talk with people he hardly recognized. His social butterfly moving her lips a mile a minute when all he wanted to do was feel those lips on every square inch of his body.

Terry needed her in the worst way. The bathroom might’ve sufficed. Maybe even the backseat of his truck. But neither option provided the sound insulation he needed to fulfill his raging desire. He’d need the privacy of their home and a TV turned all the way up to avoid disturbing the neighbors. 

The signal to leave came with a quick tap on Patrice’s hip in the middle of a spirited talk with her best friend, Vicky, about something he couldn’t care less about. 

“I guess that’s my cue, girl,” Patrice laughed, trying to play her role as the chatty wife being called away by her quiet husband. “Talk to you later?” 

Their exit featured hurried goodbyes and promises to return for the Christmas game night that they likely wouldn’t remember come daylight. Hands fumbled with keyfobs and door handles in their mad dash to somewhere a little more secluded. Blue lights from the dashboard reflected from Patrice’s glasses as they made out in front of their childhood friend’s house like maniacs, too intoxicated with lust to care if someone saw them from the open front door. 

One hand on the steering and the other middle and ring fingers deep in warm pussy had Terry breaking speed limits and running stop signs to turn a twenty-minute journey into ten if he were lucky. 

They didn’t waste time with light switches or picking up discarded clothing on the clumsy journey to the bedroom. A split second of clarity told Terry to flip on the lamp as Patrice made the descent to his dick one sloppy kiss on his chest and stomach at a time. 

“What you got for me?” 

More than he’d bargained for should’ve been the answer had she taken the time to use her mouth for anything more than making his muscled thighs tense like he’d been tased. 

With a pillow folded between her legs while she lay on her stomach and eyes looking up at Terry over the rim of her spectacles, Patrice put on an oral demonstration fit for a professional. Her glasses fogged from the cold air and steamy situation unfolding on their marital bed. 

The corners of her mouth stinging from the stretch of him and the ache building in her core kept her tethered to reality when she wanted to escape into the pleasure of seeing her man so vulnerable from her touch. 

He hissed and cursed as she ran a flat tongue on the underside of his dick. “Fuck, girl. I knew I’d get all of this up out you one day. Damn…” 

Gobbsmacked. Astounded. Sucked into oblivion. Terry had transcended time and space once Patrice made a home for him at the back of her throat over and over again. Spit coated her hands, chin, and his lap while she focused on leaving him too stupefied to utter anything that had more than one syllable. She could’ve swiped every dollar from his wallet, bank account, and retirement fund and he’d still thank her for inviting him into her mouth. 

Low groans and rough requests for more sounded like applause as Patrice went to work on her lover. His approach to the mountaintop matched hers as she desperately searched for friction from the pillow below her. 

“Hell yeah, like that, baby. You know what you doin’. Shit.” Praise came in heeps. Her silk press had long turned into reigns for Terry to keep her head stable. Tears mixed with saliva for extra lubrication. She looked gorgeous under amber light to her husband. 

Up and down, up and down. Take it. Gargle it down. Breathe through your nose. Looping mantras played in her head as he took control to finish what she’d started.  

His release came in a photo finish. His toes curled from pure ecstasy. Body seized up in beautiful suspension, each bulging muscle in his arms and torso on display. Head thrown back to direct his loud moan to the ceiling. Eyeballs rolled behind fluttering lids. Kids drained down the hatch, never to reach their full potential. 

She cleaned up the remnants with her tongue, splitting her attention between Terry and the building orgasm as she swiveled her hips against firm cotton. He stared down at her, taking in the way her jaw dropped to form that ‘o’ he loved so much. Her brow furrowed once her teeth took hold of her bottom lip. 

“That feel good to you, baby?” 

“Mhmm.” Patrice tried to give a more accurate description of her mind state. All she could manage was a slurred hum in the affirmative while he watched her unravel at the seams without his help. 

“Show me. I wanna watch.” 

And watch he did. Dick in hand and back pressed against the headboard, Terry used his refractory period to watch Patrice turn his pillow into her personal fuck toy. Her hips bucked slowly under his attention while she searched for her first eruption. 

His stroke matched her movements blow for blow while she admired her lone audience member. Siren eyes and a confident smirk, hands kneading bountiful breasts, and his name rolling from her lips kept him engrossed in her one-woman show. 

The inevitable approached like a crashing wave against a calm shore. “Let me cum for you, Terrence. Can I do that? Tell me.” 

Patrice knew the trouble she’d started. Using his first name, and asking for permission, it was all to elicit the reaction Terry so eagerly provided. He scrambled to his knees for the chance to hover over her with his forehead pressed so tightly against hers that they shared pools of sweat. 

Intense blue-green eyes peered down at her, wordlessly edging her closer to paradise. 

“Nuh uh, eyes up here,” Patrice instructed when the view of quaking thighs and waxed lower lips became too distracting for Terry. “Tell me when, my love. I’m all yours.” 

Her voice climbed, sounding like a symphony to his ears. He waited and watched until she met the brink of too much stimulation. “Now. Right now.” 

A rush of emotions forever intertwining two bodies flowed between them through a kiss dominated by silky tongues and Patrice’s swallowed mewls. Terry had perfected the art of kissing. Knowing when to suck at her bottom lip, when to wrap his large hand around Patrice’s throat to keep her head angled upward, and when to pull away for other pursuits. 

Normally, hickeys were childish evidence of adult activities, but tonight they were trophies for a job well done. 

“I love you so much.” Even in furious fucking where feelings took a backseat to more carnal desires, Terry refused to miss an opportunity to utter his favorite phrase. He sucked a nipple into his mouth, letting his tongue trace the outline of her areola to his heart’s content before pulling away to show the other the same attention. He listened to her sigh and smiled. “I love the way you sound.” 

“What else?” 

A lick up her sternum before a kiss. “I love the way you say my name.” 

“Yeah?” 

“I love your body. You’re perfect.” An open-mouthed kiss at the base of her neck as he gripped her waist. “I love the way you take dick. Especially tonight. Think you can take some more for me, pretty?”

Like a magnet, Terry’s fingers found their way to Patrice’s slick inner lips as he gathered wetness to drag skilled digits around her clit. Her breath audibly hitched from the contact, making him chuckle with his lips pressed against her cheek. Slow circles, maddeningly slow and gentle enough to feel like nothing at all had her willing to agree to just about anything to get off.

“Whatever you say, baby.”

Terry didn’t say much. It wasn’t his nature. Only short, honey-sweet directions for Patrice to press her chest to crumpled sheets and spread her knees wide. He made it so easy to comply. So easy to contort herself into any position he wanted because she knew what awaited her on the other side. 

He had her at his mercy. Her sat ass high up in the air with her flower on display from a gloriously deep arch. Terry felt an animalistic switch flip to remind him of his promise. Pupils dilated and reinvigorated by the lewd image manifesting at his fingertip, he went to work. 

A relentless pounding. Punishing strokes that made the bed creak from the stress of it all. The sheer force knocked Patrice’s glasses askew without an opportunity for adjustment. She could only claw at the foot of the bed and push her hips back into his to match the rhythm. 

The sound of smacking skin and mixed moans created a soundtrack for rabid, desperate fucking. His thumbs left impressions on the delicate skin of her back, turning his knuckles white as he dug deeper. 

Patrice took every inch like only she could, earning a rough smack as appreciation. 

“That’s my girl,” Terry gritted through clenched teeth. “Stay with me. I feel you.” 

It was all too much. The angle. The vision of Terry’s chest clenching and releasing for exertion as Patrice looked back at him. The way his brows knitted in concentration. The scent of his cologne wafted with every move. His tattoos glistened under dim lights.

“Oh my God!” 

Early sparks of a white-hot release turned Patrice into putty, forcing Terry to hold her close. 

One hand between her legs and the other putting soft pressure on the sides of her neck kept Patrice and Terry tethered on their quest for joint waves.

“I love you.” 

“I need you.” 

“You feel so good inside me.” 

“Kiss me. Please.”

“Cum for me.”

Terry sank his teeth into Patrice’s shoulder as she clenched around him, no longer able to contain himself as she clenched around him. Shared euphoria. A once in a blue moon experience that neither of them had encountered. 

Moans became indistinguishable. Eyelids clamped shut as hips sputtered. Glasses tumbled from the bed to the floor, having served their purpose. Bodies wrapped themselves around the other until they were spent, toppled over, and basking in the feel of each other. 

“Good job, baby.” Terry praised, his voice soothing her mind while his hands rubbed the peaks and valleys of Patrice’s hips and thighs while they lay on their sides. He couldn’t bring himself to pull out, too engrossed in the subtle aftershocks deep inside her body. “You okay? Talk to me.”

Patrice breathed out a delirious laugh as she turned to look at him over her shoulder. “I can’t see! I can’t believe you fucked me blind. You’re insane.” 

“How much time you got tonight? I got some shit I been wanting to do to you for a long time.” 

“Like what?” 

Whispers of new positions and marathon lovemaking made the hairs on her arms stand at attention. A second promise had entered the mix. 

They’d make a baby or spend the rest of the night and into the morning trying. 

---

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[lapisamethyst]

Absolutely love these designs. I don't see your lore for them posted yet, I hope you don't mind if I give my impression on each just from the design.

The Magician's wide eyes and overall "poofyness" definitely makes me think of the Damsel. Between the name and other details of the design she also appears to be some form of entertainer.

My speculation would be that she perhaps branches off from the "Deconstructed Damsel" ending, instead of said damsel being taken as-is, something happens during that and you die. The Magician then comes into being as a chapter 3, perhaps tapping into a more lucid control of the scenario like Tower or Apotheosis, but instead of using that lucidity to enforce her own power, she's still in the mindset of wanting to "make you happy." And so that's what she does, or at least tries to do. Clearly the problem last time is that she was too passive, she wasn't entertaining, and so now she's going to fix that, using what limited resources she has. She has this cool knife at least, surely there's some entertaining things she can do with it. From there I could envision either us attempting repeatedly to grab the knife from her only for it to vanish in increasingly cartoony ways, or alternatively her repeatedly nearly killing us with it while insisting she's just trying to entertain and make us happy.

The Masquerade's name alone brings certain concepts to mind, and the design fits into those same concepts. Surely there's some form of deception at work, both with getting to her and with her scenario.

I'd guess that she's either a chapter 2 that you reach similar to the Witch, first approaching with good intentions only to betray her later, or perhaps she's a chapter 3 that splits off from one of the Witch's endings where you kill each other on the stairs. The dance of feigned trust followed by betrayal defines her, and this time she's taking a more active role in it. Perhaps she even starts by pretending to offer a branch before the killings, or attempts to kill, begin.

The Plague definitely evokes similar feelings as the Wraith. There's a certain ghostliness to her and she is definitely out for vengeance.

I can't really guess where she'd split off from, but in terms of her scenario, between the ghostliness and her name, perhaps she'd be an alternative take on The Wild? She's there, ever present, haunting you, a part of you, slowly but surely killing you from within, yet a distinct entity from yourself. Fleeing her is useless, confronting her is pointless. A disease isn't something you can stab to rid yourself of. I can easily see her playing into the themes of inevitable change.

Some fan princesses before i go to bed. Lore on them in the morning if anyone cares put ut in the tags if ya want that ig

[aviyx]

Discussing Caitlyn Kiramman

Caitlyn, especially in the second season, reminds me of Macbeth in all the worst and most concerning ways.

At the start of Macbeth, Macdonwald is a character who had committed treason and was killed by Macbeth, as at that point he still had his morality.

This is similar to how at the start of Arcane, Caitlyn was an enforcer who did her job, and did it well without engaging in any of the corruption that seemed pretty rampant at this point.

Later, Macbeth's wife Lady Macbeth, in a self serving manner, manipulates Macbeth into committing regicide by killing the king. He's obviously hesitant to do this as it goes against his morals, but with the encouragement, he does go through with it on his own accord. Despite having the power of being the Thane of Cawdor and Glamis, he still does this in attempt to get more power. After this, he successfully becomes king.

Now, I don't think Caitlyn is acting how she is in attempt of power, however thats definitely one of the outcomes of her actions. Ambessa, who is who I see in Lady Macbeth's role in this analogy, is also manipulating Caitlyn in order to gain personally, and to encourage war so that hextech weapons are made and she can use them to fight her own battles. Caitlyn has a moral code, yet despite this she does do bad things. She uses the grey as a tool to clear out the streets, when that is a literal war crime. She knows this is wrong, emphasised by her mothers words that go starkly against her actions playing right before the scene. She also takes the position of power Ambessa presents her with despite her in earlier episodes likely being against Ambessa's whole cause, and the war that she's about to start.

Macbeth, before this, has a friend called Banquo, who suspects that he killed Duncan for the throne and power. Macbeth then gets him assassinated.

This is, albeit less so, reminiscent of Vi, and how after being called out on her actions, Caitlyn hits her and leaves.

Considering we only have 3 episodes of season 2, I cant be sure whether this continues progressing, but if it does, there are a few things I am assuming will happen in arc 2 and 3.

I think Caitlyn is going to start hallucinating more. The hallucinations might be of Vi, as Macbeth hallucinates seeing Banquo after causing his death, but they could also be of her mother, Jinx or even Isha, as she could've easily killed either of them had Vi not stopped her.

Now if you have read Macbeth, you'll realize i haven't mentioned one of the main reasons Macbeth turns into a usurper. The witches and their prophecy. And this is honestly because I'm not sure.

I think its entirely possible that the witches could be symbolised through the hextech, as we know the hextech weapons act up sometimes, as shown in episode 3. Its possible they may lead to hallucinations, similar to that of Victor, if they're used repeatedly while acting up, which I can imagine Caitlyn doing.

Otherwise, I think the witches could be symbolised through Jinx, and possibly Sevika and Isha to maintain the symbolism of threes. This is because the 3 of them represent the power Caitlyn wishes she has- the power to avenge her mother.

Either way, I'm hoping that Caitlyn doesn't stay on this path, as Macbeth is a tragedy for a reason.

[christine-ye]

Kamen Rider Blade character name meanings

I was watching an anime lyric video on YouTube last night and recognized one of the kanji in the lyrics also being used for one of the main characters' names in Blade and ended up falling down a rabbit hole (aka Jisho.org) so I made a guide breaking down the Blade cast's names because 1. when do I ever not think about this show and 2. language stuff is fun to look into (also included Shiori and Kotaro because why not, slight spoilers incoming)

♠ Kazuma Kenzaki (剣崎一真)/Kamen Rider Blade ♠

Kenzaki (剣崎): ken (剣) - sword (spade itself also derives from the Spanish and Italian spada meaning 'sword'); zaki (崎) - small peninsula, promontory

Kazuma (一真): kazu (一) - one; ma (真) - true/truth, reality, genuineness (could refer to Kenzaki's genuine love for humanity and eventually Hajime); both characters together could mean "one truth" (could refer to Kenzaki seeking the one true way to allow Hajime to keep living without having the world be destroyed during the finale) or "one reality" (could refer to the current nature of the Battle Fight preventing Kenzaki and Hajime from seeing each other again despite them defying their fates)

Blade: the main part of a sword whose name is derived from the Old English blæd meaning 'leaf' (also hence why the spade is replaced with the leaf in German playing cards), related to the Suit of Swords (Spades) in the Minor Arcana

♦ Sakuya Tachibana (橘朔也)/Kamen Rider Garren ♦

Tachibana (橘): mandarin orange (specifically the Citrus tachibana, also explains why one of his themed drinks from the Kamen Rider Diner was orange-flavored)

Sakuya (朔也): saku (朔) - new moon (symbolizes new beginnings in astrology, which ties into Tachibana's return to being Garren again after initially trying to quit and his character song literally being called Rebirth), the first day of the lunar calendar; ya (也) - to be (classical form), also a common suffix in Japanese male names

Garren: either a corruption of the English word 'currency' in Japanese or phonetically sounds similar to the French carreau meaning 'diamond' (might be a stretch though), related to the Suit of Coins (Diamonds) in the Minor Arcana

♥ Hajime Aikawa (相川始)/Kamen Rider Chalice ♥

Aikawa (相川): ai (相) - mutuality, togetherness (also phonetically sounds the same as the Japanese word for love, which ties into Hajime's character arc and Chalice's heart motif); kawa (川) - river, stream; both characters together could mean "river of mutuality" or "river of togetherness"

Hajime (始): beginning (ironically contrasts his true role as humanity's destroyer)

Chalice: holy cup or goblet whose name is derived from the Latin calix meaning 'cup', related to the Suit of Cups (Hearts) in the Minor Arcana (also symbolic of Hajime's growing love and humanness throughout the show)

♣ Mutsuki Kamijo (上条睦月)/Kamen Rider Leangle ♣

Kamijō (上条): kami (上) - above, up; jō (条) - article, clause

Mutsuki (睦月): mutsu (睦) - intimate, friendly, harmonious (could refer to Mutsuki learning to control the Spider Undead's power with Tachibana's help); tsuki (月) - moon, month; both characters together mean the ancient Japanese name for January

Leangle: an Aboriginal club/polearm-type weapon, related to the Suit of Wands (Clubs) in the Minor Arcana

💻 Shiori Hirose (広瀬栞) 💻

Hirose (広瀬): hiro (広) - vast, broad, spacious; se (瀬) - rapids

Shiori (栞): bookmark, guidebook (could refer to her role as the gang's resident Undead tracker and Kenzaki's closest ally at BOARD)

🥛 Kotaro Shirai (白井虎太郎) 🥛

Shirai (白井): shira (白) - white (callback to his love for milk mayhaps /j); i (井) - well, town, community (could refer to him befriending and providing hospitality for Kenzaki and Shiori after BOARD kicks the bucket, also farmhouse trio ftw)

Kotarō (虎太郎): ko (虎) - tiger, drunkard (for milk obviously /j); ta (太) - thick; rō (郎) - common suffix in Japanese male names

[thedastravelerer]

I just finished the Dragon Age Veilguard and I need to scream my thoughts into the internet void.

My Rook, Lucrezia, was bought along with other kids by the house de Riva when she was 3 years old. She doesn't remember anything before that. When her magic manifested at the age of 8, she begged Viago not to send her to the Circle. Viago saw great potential in the little elven chaos gremlin, so he decided to hire private tutors for her. From the age of 14, she became Viagos apprentice, accompanying him everywhere. Her sunny, bubbly personality was a great distraction in social settings. She was the Robin and Viago was the Batman, basically.

Inquisitor romanced Solas.

So that is the viewpoint, from which I experienced the game.

The good:

The music is AMAZING

The environments are gorgeous

Spellblade is sooo much fun. The perfect mix of rogue and mage.

Treviso is so beautiful. I am never saving Minrathous. That sh*thole can get swallowed by the ocean.

The final missions were great. The tension, the loss, the heartbreak, the betrayal—10/10. No notes.

Baby griffons

The conversations/dynamic between Lucanis/Spite and Taash crack me up

The dynamic between Viago and Lucrezia was everything I could have hoped for. I still laugh when I remember the letter from Viago starting with "IDIOT".

Viago and Teia—I would die for them. Every time they flirt, I picture Lucrezia sticking fingers into her ears and going LALALALA. I don't want those pictures in my head.

Harding wins the competition for the prettiest room in the Lighthouse.

I love the little offhand comments and banter between all of the Crows. It was fun to hear Lucanis or Lucrezia randomly mention Viago or Teia. It really painted a picture of them knowing each other for a long time and being able to poke fun at each other.

I loved Lucanis as a character. Also, the 3-way relationship between Rook-Spite-Lucanis is perfect. I loved that when Lucanis learns about Caterina being alive, he shuts down and Spite is like: "What?! Why are you putting more locks into our prison? I AM GETTING ROOK! :D

The "Solas therapy" ending was heartwarming (and also a bit funny)

I loved Solas as a character. I see, why he is the god of trickery and lies. And how his wisdom turned into pride. I just wish I could slap that stubborn liar. Just once.

You know it is real love when you spent the last few hours chomping on an archedemon and your Vhenan still kisses you.

I liked the relationship progression between Davrin and Lucanis. They went from open hostility to mutual respect to drinking buddies.

Lucanis questioning Bellara and Neve about their business decisions was hilarious. Crows are first and foremost business people.

Isseyas storyline. I just wish they delved deeper into her story instead of getting an infodump. I enjoyed seeing how the blight twisted her grief and regrets. How she remembered only her love for the griffons she saved. And the blight corrupted that love, forcing her into horrible mistakes.

The bad:

The story is so shallow in comparison to previous games. All of the nuance is gone. There is no Loghain, no Meredith and Orsino, no Anders. Everyone is either the good guy or the bad guy. Maybe except for the Butcher and Isseya.

A lot of the darker, complicated, interesting themes are ignored. After the Antaam Qunari (Sten in DAO), the Ben-Hassrath Qunari (Bull in DAI) we finally meet a scholar of Qun and we get NOTHING interesting from her. We can't have a deeper conversation about the Qun. We can't even talk about her hypocrisy of running away from the very rules she forces on Taash. The Antaam are the a$$holes and everyone else following the Qun is good. Until they disagree with their assigned role in life and get their mind broken until they fit the mold again. But we don't get to learn that.

Who TF is Anaris? Why is he the Forgotten One? What does it even mean? What beef did he have with the Evanuris? We don't get to learn that. We get MWHAHAHA I AM SOOO EVIL. Boring and disappointing. It would have been much more interesting if he convinced Cyrian his sister was a pawn for the Dread Wolf. There could have been a conflict between elves choosing Anaris, who promised them power after their gods turned out to be a$$holes, and elves choosing a new, free path.

Are we not going to address the EXECUTIONER in the room? Who is he? Where did he come from? Why is he totally cool working a desk job in the Necropolis?

We finally see Kal-Sharok and we learn almost nothing about the dwarves living there. How did they survive? How do they govern themselves? What is the culture like?

I don't understand the Titan powers Harding has. Like, I get the concept, but the details are confusing.

I am sick of the words "ritual" and "artifact"

The quests "press button in three places" or "destroy/place crystals so they link/unlink" were a bit repetitive.

Characters sometimes have lapses in memory. Ferelden has fallen to the blight, but Emmerich and Harding are going camping there... Mmmmkay. Rook, baby, you have used the teleport vortex like three times before. We have 2 in the Lighthouse.

I love Lucanis, but his romance is very undercooked. I get, that he pushes a lot of emotions down, and flirting is just another weapon the Crows use to get to their targets. But we see no inner turmoil in banter, no notes wondering about Rook. He touches Rook exactly once - in the romance scene at the very end. They never even address the almost kiss.

The brutality of the life of Crow recruits is smoothed over to be nice and family-like. We are talking about an organization that buys enslaved children and forces them into hunger games to shape them into elite assassins.

The widespread Tevinter slavery is mentioned minimally. The only mention might be the codex of Dorians speech in the Magisterium. Their whole social system is built on slavery and caste system. We don't get to talk to Neve about any of it.

Most of the helmets are hideous.

The "stealing cultural stuff is wrong and we, the pirates and treasure hunters, are not doing it. We are the good guys!" talk you have with Taash right when you meet her was so jarring. Like, it makes sense, because Isabella is in charge. It would have been funnier and less preachy if they went with "We don't steal cultural stuff, because Isabella stole something from the Qunari once and it was a sh*tshow".

No dirt, no persistent gore

You don't get to have deep conversations with your followers. Instead, you get to read their diaries and letters in the codex. I felt like a creep snooping through their notes and letters to each other. Same feeling with the Lighthouse banter.

I miss the more abrasive followers. Everyone is high on friendship. Why is no one protesting against the demon-possessed assassin cooking all of our meals? Why isn't Bellara more wary about the Tevinter mage? Emmerich gets a lot of sh*t for the creepiness, but nobody questions the morality of using body parts as Legos.

I wish we could choose a class for the Inquisitor. She looked so ridiculous and out of place in the last fight. She is one of the most fearsome fighters in Thedas and she wears the blandest outfit possible. She isn't even armed.

We find out the Andrastian faith is a fairytale and no one except Harding comments on it? All of the human followers grew up in Andrastian cultures. Religion forms the structure of society, customs, inner values, viewpoints on the world, and what is considered "normal" on a subconscious level. In DAI you have a conversation with Josephine about how the Andrastian faith provides common ground for negotiations across cultures. Cassandra walks through an elven temple that is older than her religion and still wonders who could believe this nonsense. Why aren't you more upset, people?!

I am going to pretend the post-credit scene didn't happen. You will not soil the beautiful tragedies of the very human mistakes and choices the imperfect characters like Loghain made. I will not accept some demon whispering over the wonderful multi-faceted people and their rises and falls. F*ck you.

The bug, where the game loads the preset character instead of your custom Rook is annoying and didn't get fixed by the patch.

I hate the UI with a passion

No grey streaks in Inquisitors hair is a crime.

I hate the underwater view in Rooks room. I have an irrational fear of deep waters and sea life. The Ossuary is a prison of my nightmares.

I hate the redesign of the demons. They look like dementors with their robes open.

It is not clear how long was Rook trapped in the prison of regrets.

Anyway... rant over. I enjoyed the game like I enjoy the Marvel movies. With half of my brain turned off.

[vaelynx]

This discussion is dearly missing some Uncle Karl, and I say it as someone who isn't even knee deep in theory.

The first thing is alienation. Notice how the discussion above isn't filled with say, car repairmen wishing they could repair hay carts instead, or sailors wishing they lived in the era of rotten rations and scurvy. (Although I fully admit *I* wish to go back to pre-SMD electronics :P)

If you are stuck doing the job of a servant, without even the sliver of prestige and relative prosperity serving the kind of household who could afford servants provided, of course you're not going to be seeing much bad in an era where you'd likely be a subsistence farmer, because work of that nature is inherently more satisfying to a human mind. Notice how people garden in their spare time, but nobody goes to serve rude people as a way of entertainment (except for BDSM enthusiasts)

This brings in a related point that progress as some single sloped line cutting through history is utter bullshit, and for instance, the Industrial Revolution has made most everyone's lives worse for a long while before it made anyone better off. Living in, say, a victorian poorhouse, you could absolutely honestly say that your ancestors say, three hundred years ago were better off than you.

To this also adds a missing element up above and that is freedom as known necessity. Now, I might be misinterpreting this one, so any marxists are free to correct me, but I've always understood it as this: if you run out of your house because it's on fire, that's a free decision, inasmuch as dictated by circumstance - granted, you're not going to be happy at the fire but you don't feel oppressed. Now, if someone aims a gun at you and tells you to get out, I don't think anyone would consider you "free" in this example - you're subject to the will of another. Now, however, if the person aiming their gun at you knew that there's a fire starting *and* that the propane bottles in the basement will blow if we don't get out *now* and so aimed the gun at you... it was as much of a necessity as in case #1 but what changes things is that you didn't know about it. Hence. Known necessity. How does this apply to our topic? The easiest way is that direct comparison between lifestyles with the whole "You live better than kings" is a fiasco for this reason alone. Yeah, a king didn't have a TV set or a flush toilet, but the absence of one wasn't something that entered his mind. (just like I don't spend my days bemoaning the lack of a gizmotator)

Furthermore, this plays an even bigger role for the lower classes. While the situation sucks either way, I'd say it's somewhat more bearable to be hungry because the harvest was shit, than to be hungry because some asshole in corporate decided not to up your wages despite two digit inflation. Now, as per example #3 - it's hypothetically possible that the asshole in corporate is an asshole because he couldn't balance the books otherwise, but you don't know that, and so still feel squeezed. And of course, in things like service industry, most of your misery does indeed come from shitty other people ,either directly or from ways they've actively chosen to make your life more shit (say, cashiers unable to sit in the US)

So yeah, these aspects are quite important, and then there's further issues to go with the previously mentioned positional goods.

Now, not everyone can, indeed, be a general, but the biggest question here isn't so much how many winners does a society have, as much as how many losers. Because there's societies that allow you to be relatively insolvent with dignity intact, and ones who don't, and the second kind will foment discontent and upset. People being rude to service industry workers is a symptom of this - their positional good is that there's someone underneath them yet that they can vent their bile on. But, this goes for general prestige, status etc.

On a complete different end is how some positional goods have gotten grossly devalued, and/or the "market" of them became deformed.

The easiest example here is say, music skill. Easily reproduced music and the breadth of contact networks has, in a lot of ways, killed the positional good of being an "okay" musician. On one side, those with great talent can make it really big, bigger than in a lot of time, on the other, the guy playing a piano at a cafe, or playing a harmonica at the pub has gotten a very shit end of the whole deal, never mind the many many bands whose main claim to fame was that they were local. The same goes for things like writing and relative easy of translation - it's a lot harder to succeed as a "good" (but not great) writer if the works with which you compete are not just from your country, but the whole world (although the niches of the internet have perhaps mitigated this one a little). And so on and so forth, down to how being the most eligible bachelor/bachelorette in your immediate neighbourhood isn't much of an asset in the era of Tinder.

In sum total, while simplistic calls for returning to the past, either from the "left" or the right are stupid, any claim that we're living better than ever is a fig leaf over the fact we aren't even living better than twenty years ago, for most "we"'s probably reading this message, and uncomfortable truths can be discovered by looking into the past.

I think @Earlgraytay has me blocked, though I don't specifically remember having any arguments with them, but I wanted to respond to a post of theirs which asserts that I live better than *anybody* who lived in a pre-industrial society, and I will phrase my skepticism like so:

"If Plato or Alexander the Great or Gengis Khan or William the Conqueror or Leonardo Da Vinci had the opportunity to work at a minimum wage job that they didn't really enjoy until they were too tired to do anything except go back to their apartment to drink and jerk off until they fell into a shallow, stressful sleep before waking up to do it again tomorrow they would definitely do it because that's obviously way better than how they actually lived."

I'm going to go ahead and say that I don't think this is actually obvious.

I'll even say that the more names I add to that list the more facially absurd it sounds.

I don't want to go back to the past and the people who idolize the past are often deeply confused individuals.

But the result of this is a counter-movement which, rather than attempting to figure out what *aspect* of a past society might have appeal, instead simply argues that it doesn't matter because whatever it is could not possibly be more important than Spotify.

And the problem becomes massively bigger if you actually allow people to compare themselves to "Kings" rather than the working class clods of a previous time.

Yes, I live a lot better than a medieval serf. I am really, *really* not convinced that I am living a wholly better life than Gengis Khan or Alexander the Great (Let alone Socrates, Confucious or Leonardo Da Vinci) just because I have a flush toilet.

[cringecompanionapologist]

Why Turlough Is Rarely Written Well

Classic companions have a habit of falling into Susan/Ian/Barbara archetypes. You have Men (strong, attractive, brave, good at the physical stunts the often older Doctors can't do), you have Women (okay there's actually some variety with this one since they're the most common. There are the sensible women who have none of the Doctor's shit or the plucky girls who love assisting the Doctor but are often written as stupid for plot reasons.), and you have Children (usually girls, but Adric also fits perfectly into the archetype. They're young and vulnerable but usually made abnormally smart to make up for it, with the exception of Dodo because the writers didn't know what to do with her).

Sometimes things can mix. Leela and Ace basically functions as all three categories at once. It's why they get so much EU material. They can fill basically any companion role depending on what you need. Some are sort of vague in their roles. Victoria switches between Woman and Child, not as a combination, but as if the writers didn't always agree on which one she was. Nyssa probably isn't a child, at least not by Season 20, but she generally plays the Child companion role. And, as I said, the Woman companion role is all over the place.

But, generally, Man doesn't have to be male if you're willing to let a girl fight and Child doesn't have to be a child if they still come across as innocent and/or unfamiliar with the world around them.

Throughout the 60s and 70s, Woman evolved (compare Barbara's role in the show to Jo's. This isn't bashing Jo. The character were just handled very differently) and Child was sort of phased out due to not fitting the UNIT setting. Man was also phased out once the Doctor learned space martial arts. You could also say that UNIT collectively was Man. This led the show to slowly transition from three companion teams (Man/Woman/Child) to two companion teams (Man/Woman or Man/Child depending on the team) to the single Woman companion you see throughout most of the 70s. Harry Sullivan was a brief revival of Man but you once again had a Doctor who could do the action stuff himself, so the writer's weren't sure where to go with him and he was written out after one season. The show stopped having male companions (unless you count K9, but I'd put him the secret fourth category of Robot).

The the 80s happened at the decided to have male companions again, but Tom Baker was still Tom Baker, and Peter Davison was the youngest, most physically capable Doctor yet. So, they took the Child archetype that had previously been exclusively female (Susan, Vicki, Dodo, Victoria sometimes, Zoe) and gender flipped it. Adric is basically a gender flip of Zoe, a teenage mathematical genius that stows away in the TARDIS and basically forces the Doctor to adopt them.

But then Adric blew up, but they still wanted a male companion around, and we got Turlough. And Turlough doesn't really fit any of the archetypes. He's not the brave, physically strong Man and he's too generally familiar with the world to be a Child. He's an alien, an outsider to what the audience thinks of as normal, like Leela and Nyssa, but he's lived on Earth for a while and is familiar with it enough to hate it. He doesn't carry that same sense of innocence.

That leaves Woman and though female companions had covered Man before, they'd never really reversed it. The sort of did at times with Steven, since he was sort of a merge of Ian and Barbara, but that was because the writers were used to having Barbara around and weren't sure how to make the show work without that role.

Turlough doesn't really fit the Woman archetype either. The Sensible Woman variant has to have a certain moral high ground and Turlough's morally ambiguous. The Plucky Girl variant needs to either be enthusiastic about travel, or be either very brave or borderline oblivious to danger. Turlough is very much aware of danger and is not a fan of it.

So Turlough doesn't really fit anywhere. Writers struggled to figure out what to do with him. Too much of the traditional companion role, especially for Men, was defined by courage and selflessness. Turlough had to learn to be that way as a character arc. There had been companions that struggled with being brave before. Susan and Victoria come to mind. But Susan was kind of all over the place and Victoria started off being pretty brave before being in constant peril made her a nervous wreck and she chose to leave the TARDIS to save her sanity.

So, you end up with a companion that didn't really fit any archetype and the previous companions he could most easily be compared to were Susan and Victoria.

So, when writing Turlough, writers end up with two choices: to lean in or back out. They could write Turlough in a way similar to Susan and Victoria, intelligent enough to be reasonable competent, but physically and emotionally fragile. Or, they could try to make the character a bit more like earlier male companions, except he's complaining about it the entire time.

Writers prefer backing out to leaning in. That's because there's a bit of a double standard when it comes to gender stereotypes. You give a woman traits more associated with men, it's usually received positively. Leela stabs people, Ace beats up a Dalek with a baseball bat, everyone loves it. And they should. It's great. But when it's the other way around, giving a man traits more associated with women, it's usually based in negative traits and not received well.

It isn't always that straightforward. A female character who's assertive and tries to take charge but doesn't usually stab or beat people up will be classified as a "bitch". Strangely, a male character who's cowardly might also be called the same word. "Bitch" is apparently an insult specifically connected to gender nonconformity. Women who are too bold and men who aren't bold enough.

I've written before about how this affects fandom (and a good number writers) attitude towards Tegan. She's assertive, but not in a beat-up-daleks-with-a-baseball-bat sort of way.

This makes the TARDIS team of Tegan and Turlough interesting. They both play gender in a way that's usually seen as negative. Writers, if they want the characters to be likable, have to tone it down. Or, they play it as annoying and something for the audience to make fun of. They can't just accept it. Which would be the most interesting thing to do.

In my previous Tegan rant, I said there should be a story where the Doctor has to overcome his pride and listen to Tegan in order to save the day. She might not be a STEM genius, but she can be right about something. I also have another vague idea, a conflict between Tegan and Turlough, that would focus on Turlough saving the day by being non-confrontational.

The premise is that Tegan and Turlough get captured and locked up in a prison. Tegan fights with the guards and tries to escape, while Turlough tells her not to bother because the Doctor will show up and rescue them. Time goes by, the Doctor gets stuck in another plotline, and Tegan and Turlough are at risk of being executed. They can't just wait this out. Tegan gets more frantic in her escape attempts and more annoyed with Turlough, who is intimidated by the guards and doesn't really seem to be trying.

Then, there's a brief period where Tegan and Turlough are outside their cells, quite close to the keys to their cell. The guards are keeping a close eye on Tegan in case she tries anything, but they're not watching Turlough as closely. They don't think he's going to try anything. He basically uses Tegan's usual quarrel with the guards as a diversion so he can grab the key. Tegan catches on to the plan.

They're returned to their cell but Turlough doesn't actually have the key. Tegan gets pissed that he wimped out and this was all for nothing, only for Turlough to reveal that the cell is unlocked. He didn't take the key. There were keys to multiple cells around and he swapped their cell's key with another key, so the guards used the wrong key on their cell, leaving it unlocked. No one expected anything of him and there wasn't a missing key to attract attention. He found a way out to get around the guards without confronting them.

Then, to avoid making Tegan look bad for being defiant, she frees the other prisoners and rallies them to overpower the guards and escape, because sometimes the direct approach works too. Then they both have to rescue the Doctor.

I should probably just write this fanfic, but I don't have enough specific details yet.

Anyway, writers who try to make Turlough more "masculine" are cowards and boring.

[theoutcastrogue]

Bounded Accuracy, why it was necessary, and why it doesn't have to apply to skills

"Why Bounded Accuracy?", by Justin Alexander

"Let’s start by talking about bounded accuracy. Endless ink has been spilt on this topic, but I think one of the clearest way to understand bounded accuracy — what it is, why it works the way it does, how it’s supposed to be used — is to look at the design lineage which created it.

To do that, we need to go back about twenty years to the development of the Epic Level Handbook for 3rd Edition. The concept was to extend play past 20th level, allowing players to continue leveling up their characters forever.

The big problem the designers faced was that different classes gained bonuses to core abilities — attacks, saving throws, etc. — at different rates, which meant that their values diverged over time. By 20th level, the highest and lowest bonuses had already diverged so much that the difference exceeded the range of the d20 roll. This meant that any AC or DC you set would either be an automatic success for some PCs or impossible for others.

The designers of the Epic Level Handbook tried jumping through a whole bunch of hoops to solve or ameliorate this problem, but largely failed. As a result, the Epic Level Handbook was a pretty flawed experience at a fundamental level (and its failure may have actually played a major role in Wizards of the Coast abandoning the OGL and the doom of 4th Edition, but that’s a tale for another time)."

[The Rogue notes: I think the big problem with 3.5 was that the breaking of the d20 roll (where the AC or DC you set could be auto-fail for some and auto-success for others) happened LONG before epic levels, if players made characters with different levels of optimisation. Which was sometimes a result of, well, studying, pouring through splatbooks and looking up combos on the internet, but other times it just happened, without any effort. Some classes had to jump through hoops to keep up with the rest, and that was bad.]

"On that note, fast forward to 4th Edition: The designers knew this was a problem. (Several of the designers had actually worked on the Epic Level Handbook.) They wanted to avoid this problem with the new edition.

Their solution was to level up everyone’s bonuses across the board: Classes would be strong at some things and weak at others, but the values wouldn’t diverge. This methodology was, furthermore, wedded to 4th Edition’s design ethos of “level up the whole world with the PCs” and more or less fundamental to its My Precious Encounter school of encounter design.

Fast forward again, this time to 5th Edition: The 4th Edition of the game had burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp, and 5th Edition’s mission was to win back the D&D players they had lost. The whole “level up the world” ethos was widely identified as one of the things people who hated 4th Edition hated about 4th Edition, so it had go.

Bounded accuracy was the solution. Importantly, bounded accuracy was about two things:

Controlling AC & DC so that the target numbers never become impossible for some of the PCs.

Controlling bonuses so that the results don’t become automatic successes for some of the PCs.

In other words, all of the results exist within that boundary. Hence, “bounded accuracy.”

If you go back to the original problem experienced in 3rd Edition (and which metastasized in the Epic Level Handbook), you can see how this solves the problem. It also avoids the 4th Edition problem where your numbers get bigger, but your results never actually improve because the numbers increase in lockstep: As long as the DCs remain consistently in bounds, the moderate increases to the PCs’ bonuses will see them succeed more often as they increase in level, resulting in high-level characters who feel (and are!) more effective than 1st level characters."

– Justin Alexander | The Alexandrian, September 2022

Commentary: Bounded Accuracy and Skills

This very well-written summary was part of an article roasting the 5e skill system, and specifically arguing that Expertise is bad because it breaks Bounded Accuracy, and Reliable Talent makes it worse. And with this, I disagree.

I think that Bounded Accuracy is excellent for combat's standard rolls: attack vs AC, and saving throw vs DC. That's when you need numbers that challenge the whole party: some characters may have a better chance than others, sure, but the d20 roll doesn't become irrelevant because this one is guaranteed to succeed and that one is doomed to fail.

But for otherwise interacting with the world, I actually don't think the numbers need to challenge the whole party. I think immersion and simulation (I like these!) are better served by making such challenges tricky. Occasionally they will be too easy for some, and/or too hard for others, depending on where the characters focused their training. And when that happens, it's up to the party to figure out ways to make up for it, to look for other, creative solutions rather than get stuck on a skill check that one or more of them are doomed to fail, and in the end to acknowledge that some tasks are suited for only some of them.

So maybe half the party auto-failing to scale that wall means they need to find another way in, or use their spells, or have the athletic ones climb up and throw down a knotted rope. That's good! It's a complication that requires a solution other than rolling a single check! Maybe only the Wizard (with 2024 rules) has a chance of making that extreme Arcana check about a long lost artifact. That's great! It makes sense and it's immersive, they should be the only one able to make it. And maybe, if your goal is to stealthily scout ahead, don't send forth the clanging armoured warriors, only send the sneaky rogues. That's fantastic! It's basic tactics! What's not to like?

I have BIG beefs with the 5e skill system, on account that it's half-baked (and 5.5 is somehow even less baked), and doesn't give details or DCs even for the most bog-standard skill uses that you expect to come up at every campaign. A generic DC table from very easy to nearly impossible is great as a guideline for niche cases, and crazy things the players came up with. But things like climbing walls and picking pockets should come with instructions and numbers. As is, the DM is either winging it every time and the players are in the dark, or the DM is doing the designers' work for them, and homebrewing DC tables for everything. But bounded accuracy is not the problem here, imo.

[sturnina]

Showtime

Matt Sturniolo x actress!reader

— tags;; resolved angst, relationship angst, jealousy, arguments, happy ending

— wc;; 2.8k

— author's note;; based on this ask, i changed the setting to a theatre performance since that's easier for me to relate to, i hope that's okay <3 + the ending sucks, sorry for that

The energy backstage is unmistakable. The air is buzzing with excitement, garments are rustling, and you can hear the faint whispers of people rehearsing their roles one last time before it is time to step on stage.

You’re standing at the end of the room, arms crossed over your dress, and trying to ignore the nervous pit in your stomach. This is not the first time you’ll be standing on a stage in front of hundreds of people, far from it. It will also not be the last time, hopefully far from it as well. It’s also not your first time having a huge role, so that’s not what you’re worried about either.

What makes this premiere such a big thing for you is that your boyfriend of a few months will be watching. You got Matt and his brothers first-row tickets, and the way you know him he forced them to leave early so he could guarantee that he’s on time. It’s the first time he’ll be seeing you on stage, and you refused to tell him anything about the play or your part — except that you might just have got the main role (and are very proud of that fact).

You must’ve looked absolutely frozen because your friend walks up to you and lays a hand on your shoulder.

“It’s gonna be alright,” she promises, an encouraging smile on her lips. “You rocked the rehearsals.”

Grinning, you quickly shake your stiffness off. “Yeah, it’s gonna be great,” you agree.

“Your boy Matt, he’s coming, right?”

“Yeah,” you say, even just the thought of him lighting your face up in a smile.

“And he’s okay with… you know, that scene with Oliver?” she asks, nodding over to the guy who plays your love interest, aka Odysseus, the Greek hero lost on the sea for a decade. He‘s standing in front of a wall, staring at it intently, challenging the plaster as if it were Poseidon keeping him from returning home. He’s locked in already.

Smacking your lips, you nod. “He’ll know it’s not real,” you say, nodding, almost as if to convince yourself. “It should be fine.”

“Girl… you didn’t tell him?” your friend asks, clearly doubting what you said.

“He knows nothing about the Odyssey, so I didn’t tell him,” you justify yourself. “Especially not a major spoiler like that.”

“I don’t think that was a good idea,” she sighs, “but you do you.”

Someone claps twice, and everyone immediately turns around. “Alright, it’s time,” the boy responsible for time-keeping says, his voice awkwardly loud in the sudden silence.

All you can hear is the audience, even through the thick doors to the dressing rooms. It’s barely there, even the whirring of the lamps above is louder, but it immediately multiplies your nervosity as you remember how many people will see you tonight. The tickets were sold out only two weeks after the performance was announced. Sold out. You can still barely fathom it, even after so many years of theatre.

“Break a leg,” you whisper to your friend who squeezes your shoulder one last time before hopping off the table and joining the group leaving the dressing room.

You follow her silently, well aware that the audience is slowly calming down, the lights are tuned lower and an almost electric atmosphere fills the room. It finds its way into your lungs, too, but you keep breathing steadily, nonetheless. You got this.

It‘s already there, the well-known feeling of slipping into a role. The person who walks on stage isn‘t you, it is Penelope, waiting for her husband to return home and tending to his land and wealth.

The murmurs behind the curtain eventually stop completely. Anticipation floods the room and replaces the pit in your stomach. The light changes. The actors and actresses are behind the stage. Except for you. And slowly, the curtain opens, revealing you, alone, in the middle of the stage. In the spotlight. Showtime, baby.

Time passes quickly when you‘re on stage. With your thoughts constantly ready for the next costume change, the next scene, the next text, you can hardly focus on the now, and yet that’s the only place where your consciousness lies. You show grief, desperation, hope, and most importantly determination every second you‘re on stage. And every time you look at the audience, you can see Matt‘s eyes looking at you with utter fascination and wonder, making your heart warm with confidence.

And then the last scene arrives. Odysseus, clothed as a poor beggar, reveals himself. Oliver tenderly takes your face in his hands. You look up at him, lips parted in awe and shock, just as you rehearsed.

“Odysseus,“ you stage-whisper, running a hand along his temple. “Is it truly you? Or have the gods deceived my eyes and feasted on my hope?“

“Penelope,“ he whispers back, the name falling so sweetly from his lips. “It’s me.” And then he leans down, pressing his lips against yours. You can‘t see Matt‘s stiffness or the bitter tug that lies around the corners of his mouth after that single movement. 

The audience sighs collectively, so much pent-up tension releasing. It‘s almost palpable as you melt into Oliver‘s- no, Odysseus‘ arms and rest your head against his chest while the curtains slowly close.

The room explodes with people cheering and clapping while the other actors and actresses quickly hurry onto the stage. With a euphoric grin on your lips, you lay your arms around the shoulders of Oliver and whoever happens to be on the other side of you, waiting for the curtains to open again. And then you bow and bow again, and run off the stage, and run back, and bow, and look for Matt in the audience, and almost trip over your own feet, and bow again, and everyone‘s laughing and cheering…

Backstage, the room is buzzing with energy as everyone hurries to change out of their Greek dresses and clean up their makeup. No one‘s actually talking, the air is filled with rustling and clinking and occasional questions like, “Can you help me open my dress?” or, “Where‘s my blush?” And then the director enters and congratulates everyone, and everyone is smiling but no one is listening.

You’re the first to leave, unable to wait any longer before seeing the triplets. But especially Matt, you can‘t wait to see his reaction.

The cold air bites your lungs, but you can‘t bring yourself to care about that as you run across the pavement, heading to the front doors of the building. With rosy cheeks and out of breath, you stop before the entrance.

But there‘s no trace of the triplets in the crowd. Assuming that they only needed to use the toilet or something, you lean against the wall, making sure to keep the doors that swing open regularly in your peripheral while you let your gaze wander over the crowd. Every time someone walks out, your head snaps back in their direction, but it‘s never a familiar face.

It takes you at least ten minutes before you realise to check your phone. The second you pull it out, a sense of dread washes over you. Nick sent you a message, a quick, “Matt wasn‘t feeling well, we needed to leave soon. Absolutely loved your performance tho, you crushed it!!” You respond with a nervous, “Okay, and thanks!”

Matt isn‘t feeling well. Now you‘re feeling ill too, the pit in your stomach coming back even worse than before the performance.

The others are going to party all evening, celebrating the premiere. You wanted to invite Matt, but now you‘re torn between going home to him or staying with a bad feeling for the rest of the night. The choice isn’t difficult, and you order an Uber.

The second you walk up to the porch of the house, Nick has already whipped it open, running to hug you first.

“Oh. My. God. That was a-maz-ing!” he exclaims, almost lifting you from the ground with his embrace. You giggle, another rush of blood flooding your cheeks as you relish in his compliments.

“Like girl, I know nothing about Greek mythology but I just know that that was exactly what Penelope felt all that time!” he continues, guiding you to the house. “So vulnerable and yet so strong. Unbelievable.”

Not knowing what to say except for thousands of thank you‘s, you just grin and sheepishly look away until you enter the house, looking for Matt. But he isn‘t here, not even as you enter the living room. Chris is lounging on the couch, lazily scrolling on his phone. He looks up as you enter, and all you can see is his slightly tense expression.

“Matt‘s in his room,” he says, just a bit too quick for your taste. And then he adds, “Great performance, by the way. I really liked… everything about it.”

You chuckle slightly at his cluelessness. Muttering a quick, “Thanks,” you proceed down the hallway to Matt‘s room.

He doesn‘t react when you knock the first time, so you do it again, even fiercer.

“Matt,” you say before you open the door and enter the room. He‘s lying in the dark on his bed, staring at his phone screen. He doesn‘t even look up.

Not that you expected him to shower you with compliments—well, you kind of did, but was that so wrong of you?—but at least something would‘ve been nice. Instead, he just keeps ignoring you. You cross your arms in front of your chest, the hurt obvious in your eyes. But he can‘t see it because his back is turned to you.

“Matt,” you say again. The air in the room is thick, but not because it smells bad. It just feels bad.

The adrenaline after the show has disappeared by now, leaving you completely drained. If you could just have this one thing—have one performance to be happy about. But no. Your boyfriend won‘t even congratulate you.

Tears dwell up in your eyes and you don‘t even try to suppress them. Everything was so much half an hour ago, and now it‘s nothing, worth absolutely nothing. The euphoria before and after the performance has dissolved, and you miss it already.

You know this feeling and hate it so, so much. Every time you get time to think after a play, everything feels like shit. You feel weak. Empty. And Matt is ignoring you. People have often wondered why you still have so much energy after acting for two hours. This is the reason: if you let go of the energy, it will absolutely wreck you.

A strained sob finally escapes your lips. Matt tenses up immediately, and he turns around to face you in the darkness of his room.

“Baby?” he whispers. “Are you crying?”

A thousand and one answers lie on your tongue, but you have the energy for none of them. Instead, another weak sob claws its way out of your chest.

Matt bites his lower lip, obviously hesitant about what to do.

“Why did you… why are you ignoring me?” you ask, feeling pathetic for the tears and sobs and choked-out words. But you don’t care to pull yourself together.

“C‘mere,” he mutters, patting the bed beside him. He‘s avoiding the question, but you don’t care. The exhaustion in your movements is obvious as you flop down next to him.

The silence is thick, despite your occasional laboured breaths and sniffles while Matt awkwardly keeps his arm around your shoulder. Eventually, when you have calmed down enough for his measures, he clears his throat.

“You didn‘t tell me.” Your heart drops.

“Tell you what?” you ask and immediately regret it.

“About… him.”

“Oliver,” you say, and he nods. “I didn‘t think there was anything to tell.”

He pulls his arm back, and you know that if there were light in the room right now, you‘d see his hurt expression.

“What do you mean, there wasn’t anything to tell? You made out with him in front of hundreds of people!” he exclaims.

“I didn‘t mean it obviously,” you try to reason. “It‘s my job, remember?”

“I know, but that doesn’t make it better.” The bitterness in his tone, the way you already know he won‘t give in, makes you grind your teeth.

“You apparently don‘t know, if you‘re behaving like this now,” you snap, scooting away from him slightly.

You just spent the entire day with last-minute rehearsals and the final play. You‘ve been up since six in the morning, working hard for it all to be perfect, for it all to work out, and all he can think about is a moment that lasted less than three seconds? Your exhaustion is gone again, blasted away by another wave of adrenaline which your body apparently can‘t get enough of.

“I can‘t help it,” he mutters, “I don‘t want to see you like that.”

“Like what?” you demand. “Doing what I love? Making it my job? Properly fulfilling my dreams?”

“That‘s not what I meant-”

“But it‘s obviously the only thing you can remember.”

“Can you stop?” he groans, running a hand over his face. “I‘m just saying, you could‘ve warned me at least. I wasn‘t expecting… that.”

You sigh, laying back on the bed. “I‘m sorry, okay? I just wanted to keep the entire thing a secret because you didn‘t know the Odyssey. I didn’t think it‘d be that big of a deal.”

He stays silent for a second, staring at his hands. “But it is,” he finally mutters. “Next time you kiss a guy, I want you to tell me.”

“Alright, fine,” you mutter, looking up at him. But the hurt and disappointment don‘t recede. “Next time I have a play, I‘ll just tell you everything about it so you can‘t complain.”

“Don‘t say that,” he says sternly. “The play was great, I just…”

“You just can’t remember any of it because you got fixated on one single moment.”

“Stop doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“Putting words in my mouth.”

“But I‘m not, am I? I‘m just reading between the lines,” you scoff.

“You‘re making me sound like an asshole who can‘t appreciate…” Your eyes snap up to meet his, and his voice slowly trails off.

“Yeah? Tell me more about this asshole I‘m making you be that‘s definitely not you.” Your voice is sarcastic and relentless.

“Fuck, I didn‘t mean it like that.”

You look at him. One eyebrow arched, arms crossed, and not going to let go of it soon.

“I‘m just jealous,“ he mutters, avoiding your gaze. “No one should get to see you like that, much less be the one to kiss you.“

Your gaze softens, but you keep looking at him. “I know. But it meant nothing. It was just for a job, and you should know that. You need to trust me.“

“I do,“ he says without hesitation. “I just don’t trust him.”

His voice is bitter again, and his eyes are focused on his hands, the fingers on his right hand twisting his ring around. You lay a hand over his, stopping the anxious movement.

“He’s an idiot,” you say firmly, “I’d never voluntarily spend time with him. But he’s a good actor, and we work well together. I promise you that all there’s ever going to be between us is respect for the others’ acting.”

The conviction in your tone seems to calm him, but he’s still not looking at you.

“God,” he eventually whispers, “I’m such a dick. I ruined your evening, didn’t I?”

“No, you…” you quickly reply, but then you hesitate. “Well…”

“You should be out celebrating with your friends because you did great at your performance, but you’re here, making sure I don’t feel bad about it, that’s not fair…”

“I’m not gonna argue against that,” you mutter, “but I get it. I should’ve told you.”

“You wanna go out?” he offers, but you shake your head.

“Next time. ‘m too tired now.” Sighing, you lean against him. He immediately stretches his arm out and lays it around your shoulders, pulling you closer again and leaning back until you’re lying in bed next to him.

“I know that I didn’t make it clear enough, but I loved it. You’re such an incredible-”

“Matt,” you interrupt him. “Not now.” Not after he refused to think about anything but the scene with the kiss.

“Okay,” Matt whispers, pressing a kiss to your temple. “I’ll come watch again tomorrow, and then I’ll say all the beautiful things you deserve.”

You can’t help but let out a small giggle. “It’s sold out,” you say, shaking your head. “But…”

“But?”

“I could get you in from the back, so you’ll meet Oliver as well,” you say. He visibly cringes at the thought, but then he seems to think about it.

“Maybe that’s a good idea,” he says hesitantly, pulling you flush against his chest.

A small smile is painted on your lips for the rest of the evening.

[edwardallenpoe]

Just off the bat: sex =/= gender identity. It's not accurate to say that intersex people are "both genders" and it's not true for many of us to have "parts" that "correlate with both sexes" (i for one have mostly typical female parts but my hormones make me intersex. Many intersex people have hormonal or gonadal variations but everything else is "perfectly normal" for the sex they were assigned at birth) There are so many different variations, so many different ways to be intersex and it's kinda ignorant to say that intersex people just have "both parts" and then correlate our variations to gender identity.

And like another person said, our intersexuality actually makes it way harder to be accepted for the genders we choose to identify with. A lot of intersex people were forced into a gender role either medically, legally, or both, and while some intersex people can live their lives as the gender they were assigned at birth, most of us get shamed and oppressed a thousand times more just because we're "broken" (even within the trans community, we have to be either or, even though binary language serves no one but especially doesn't serve intersex people). It is very very rare that an intersex person chooses how to present themself and gets respected for it, even for cis people. (I for example again, was assigned female/girl at birth, and even before I came out, everyone still had a problem because I wasn't the "right" kind of girl, which could have been a mixture of racism, fatphobia and intersexism.)

It's pretty inaccurate and offensive also to say that intersex people are just "physically nonbinary/gender nonconforming/genderqueer ect." Bc every body is nonbinary. Every body is gender nonconforming. And genderqueer. Bc gender is a social construct that you can't see. But intersex bodies are something you can see. (You didn't say explicitly but it still goes with the point that intersex people are the perfect example of gender identity. What does "perfect example of gender identity" even mean?)

Anyways, i know you meant well but. Yeah. Assuming you're mtf friend is perisex, please take the time to talk to and make friends with more intersex people and ask them about different things that aren't invasive.

I recommend looking at these blogs to learn more. @/interactyouth @/intersexfairy @/intersex-support @/intersexcat-tboy @/intersex-questions @/intersex-support @/genderqueerdykes @/dabwax

correct me if i’m wrong, but a lot of intersex people are some of the best examples of gender identity. they’re born with parts that correlate with both sexes, yet a lot of intersex people choose to identify as male or female during their life. their gender identity doesn’t always perfectly match their biology, but we accept them as women/men nonetheless. and of course there are also intersex people who might identify with neither male/female, and that’s okay too.

(sincerely, a cis woman who’s been studying gender theory lately because i was inspired by my MTF friend!)

[scorndotexe]

Out of curiosity, why do you dislike Midnight Mass? It's really like hear your opinions.

it's just so fucking BORING!! the concept is interesting i do find the concept interesting (vampire priest who believes his vampirism is a gift from god) but somehow it was done in the least interesting way possible. sometimes there's like a minute where i thought "holy shit is it finally gonna get better" and then i watched the next episode and it continued to be exactly the same.

all the characters are basically exactly the same. i know it's by monologue flanagan but can they at least monologue in DIFFERENT ways??? dear god. he edited it himself and you can REALLY tell. the fucking ten minute scene that's just "what do you think happens after we die? vcnvncmrnwbvnjef vdmnnc cmnennwneetnewnnwbefnbrtnbemrbermnbmrbtrtbwnrebeb" is crazy who thought that was a good idea. god every character was so forgettable i think i remember like 4 names. genuinely i see people talking about a character and i have to look them up and i STILL don't remember them. don't get me started on the fucking therapy speak. also riley flynn is the most boring protagonist i've ever seen i can't think of a single personality trait he has. i can barely think of ANY personality traits ANY characters have.

i know we shit on his adaptations a lot (as we should) and at the very fucking least he didn't ruin another excellent work of horror with midnight mass but he is NOT a good writer with his own stuff either!! it's so BLAND. even when it's not boring it's bland and uninteresting. i know i'm biased i know i watch extreme horror to find artistic value in underlooked pieces of media so i'm used to "that freak shit" but he did nothing!!! he did nothing with his vampire priest! he was literally irrelevant by the end because he gave that antagonist role to some other character and he was never really the protagonist either. he was just there for a really dumb late-game romance plot/plot twist.

it's such an unbearable show and the ending isn't even good!!! its tone is so fucking weird like everyone dies and yet there's still a weirdly hopeful tone to it. i feel like that's a moment to REALLY lean into the tragedy. it doesn't have a happy ending but it also doesn't let you feel sad enough for it to be truly tragic.

also there's like three different types of vampire in the show and it makes NO sense why they're so different from each other. i'm not asking for extensive lore i'm just asking for consistency.

it's like 8 hours long and i know i've probably spent way more than that complaining about this fucking show but still a waste of my time. it just sucks so much. it could have been an okay movie but as a whole show it's so dragged out and doesn't DO anything with those eight hours. i don't mind a slow burn i really don't but a) the build up has to be worth something and b) it has to have something really really good at the end of the build up.

honestly it looks SO good in gifs and screenshots and fanart that it makes me wish the show was better because you could have a much better experience just looking at those and imagining a good show than actually watching it.

on the plus side if you DO watch the actual show riley's death scene is the funniest shit in the whole thing.

[whenthegoldrays]

[chiropteracupola]

granby + iskierka + keynes

[underwaterspaghetti314]

Ok, so I wanna bring these tags up because they gave me an idea. Maybe Tauva isn’t actually the Warp God of the Greater Good. As mentioned, the Tau are a relatively small faction, and the psychically active members of the faction is even smaller still, and they managed to create a minor Warp God. Meanwhile the Mechanicus have been doing their thing for well over 10,000 years and all they got was either Vashtorr or nothing at all. And the Eldar, THE most psychically powerful species in the galaxy, had to have a millennia-long, galaxy wide murder orgy to make their god (which is admittedly a lot bigger and scarier than Tauva but still).

So maybe Tauva is an entity that sees this up-and-coming faction, one that may rise to the level of the Imperium as it crumbles as the Imperium did with the Eldar, and intends to use them and their beliefs to grow further and ascend to full godhood. Sure, the Tau Empire is small now, but if the cycle of history continues to repeat the ways it has been for a while, the Imperium will undergo some catastrophic collapse before too long and the Tau are free to take the galaxy in its place, with many newly free Imperial worlds available to bring into the Greater Good. A much larger Empire, where even the scraps of energy from the dim souls of Tau will provide it a decent amount of power. And maybe Tauva could twist the Greater Good to fit whatever it is they really wants (tyrannical god of order perhaps? Please?) in the same way that Khorne does with the warrior’s honor and Slaanesh the artist’s drive to create beauty.

And their plan is pretty solid, because the other chaos gods are likely to disregard the Tau entirely for right now. The most numerous species in the empire is the Tau, whose souls are extremely dim in the Warp and not very good for feeding the thirsting gods. Why even bother with them? So now some independent warp entity strolls in, sees this very large but very dim light in the Warp, and notices the much brighter bits within it, from species in the Empire much more psychically active than the dominant one, and the energy those bright bits emit in the name of “The Greater Good.” Our warp entity decides to step into the role of this Greater Good, to fill the space where the it was and feed off of their beliefs. And the Empire continues to expand, taking world after world from the decaying Imperium, taking new species under the Empire’s wing, and eventually growing to become the galaxy’s largest superpower. And by the time this happens and the Tau become significant enough to gain the other gods’ attention, it’s too late to start really subverting Tauva.

If we follow that thread, and the nature of the warp, and the timing involved, then the Omnissiah is probably Vashtorr

[lilidawnonthemoon]

[sylphwing]

hm. i do not like chilshi 🤔