#solely impressive

[drenched-in-sunlight]

*SoTE spoilers undercut

This is a continued discussion in light of Marika's newly discovered tragedy. It changes so many things about how we look at the story thus far but more importantly - the DLC story trailer, especially this scene:

think about how Messmer knows, very acutely, that at one point his mother could have been cut up and put in a jar. and that his other kins were not so lucky....... it gives that scene such a tragic edge.

he wasn't doing this just for the violence. this is his answer to Marika's love and all she has done for him. yeah it's not right, it's not justified, but as something done to avenge for the kind of pain she went through? it won't be logical nor right but it's something he will do again without hesitation.

the infirmary in Shadow's Keep shows that he's trying to care for and save whatever left of her people. their people.

the line he said in his armor set description hits different when you consider all that. he wants to be the heir to all her sorrow and all of her pain. wishing that he could alleviate even just a bit of the burden of her grief and survivor guilt.

i wonder if, when Marika hid him in the Land of Shadow, fearing people will judge him for the malevolent snake he carried, she raised him in her home village? this will explain why the Tree Sentinels guarding the village drop two Blessing of Marika - the blessing that specifically stated Marika made it for Messmer's sake and him alone. it will also explain how he knew of his Mother's tragic past and took it upon himself to carry out her wish of vengeance for her people.

(also if you wanted to get to Marika's village, you have to perform the O Mother gesture before her statue in his Shadow Keep, implying he's guarding the way to her home village as well.)

One other thing I like is that in the story trailer, the heroic music sounds like it's for Miquella. and it is, in a way. it is his boss music, but the lyrics has "Ave Marika Aeterna" (Hail, Marika The Eternal).

Given that the boss arena is where Marika - the sole survivor of a whole village, walked through to salvage the remains of her people, making them the symbol of her divine ascension, I wonder if that OST is actually for her - the God, the woman whose story is finally realized in this DLC, and those female voices singing in honour of her are the spirits of her fallen kins: cheering on their last hope for justice. Through this girl, those people who had been wronged and died there will live on eternally.

All this of course seems like such a charitable take on all this, after all Marika ended up being just like the oppressors who used to put her people in jars, but I think I just want to appreciate how the environmental storytelling of this DLC is simply amazing. and once you consider that this is, in the end, Marika's story, everything will make a lot more sense.

[the-phantom-otaku]

So when I first showed my friend Nero, she immediately said, “He looks like he only eats his sandwiches if they’re cut into triangles” and idk I just thought that wisdom should be shared

[spectrumspace]

doggy

[jays-doodle-spool]

i have quite literally never been endeared by a protagonist so quickly

this was supposed to be a quick doodle but i just kept going

[jakeperalta]

I know after every rerecording I go "wow this is so good! definitely no cause for complaints!" but like for real this time if I see anyone complaining I will be baffled because these songs sound SO similar

[singingcicadas]

The way it's depicted, Cybertron's pre-war societal issues had a lot less to do with Functionism and more to do with unchecked government corruption, massive wealth disparity, high layoff/unemployment rates, and disenfranchisement.

People were starving, they needed work, they weren’t getting any. Those that were fortunate enough to have work didn’t get paid living wages, much less have anything to spare for health contingencies. Even then stability’s still the luxury of the top few tiers; they live one cut away from layoff. The government cared only enough to exacerbate these issues by coming up with new ways for exploitation. Any attempts to protest or lobby were shut down through political persecution. As a result the masses turned increasingly to crime, drug abuse, thuggery, and violence. Extreme acts of terrorism gets lauded as long as the collateral damage's suffered by someone else. Morality and caution are eroded in the face of desperation.

Meanwhile the many alleged restrictions of Functionism are just lip service complaints made by the characters which doesn’t match up to most of the stuff we’re shown. Like if Rung could become a psychologist, a specialized job that requires higher education, despite having zero background on top of such a weird alt that he had to be classified as an ornament, then wow the functionists must be open-minded. If Dominus Ambus could be a scientist/doctor/explorer/author/successful social rights advocator during the height of functionist control with a minesweeper military-use alt (assuming that his secondary alt's the same as Minimus'), then wow the functionists must be accommodating. If Tyrest could become chief engineer under Nova and later go into law, a complete change of profession, while being a jet, then wow functionism's flexible. If Ratbat and Momus could become senators in a society that discriminates heavily against beastformers and labor frames, then wow that’s progressive. If every Prime from Nova to Zeta (with the exception of Sentinel, his alt’s a tank, he only has wings in Megatron Origin as part of his Apex armour upgrade), every single named pre-war senator other than Proteus and Momus, and four out of five of Nova Prime’s buddy club (only Galvatron's a grounder) were wingframes in a society that supposedly discriminates against wingframes, then wow that’s… inconsistent worldbuilding.

Megatron didn’t get into bloodsports or start a war because he didn’t get to pursue his dream job. He got driven into the pits and down the slippery slope of moral degeneration because his only source of income was cut off by the mine closure incident. People wanted livelihoods above anything else, it's the failure to provide that that made the miners go off the deep end and resulted in the death of a guard. If Functionism actually ensured that everyone could be guaranteed a job or at least minimized the unemployment rates, then stratified castes or not, there would have been no war. People, or societies, are generally capable of tolerating an incredible amount of injustice as long as the majority still have a chance at scraping by at the end of the day. But the government, and later Megatron, kept yanking the rug out from under everyone over and over until they no longer even had a chance at that; there's no other choice left but fight or die.

[vickyvicarious]

When we were visiting Twing Hall in the summer, sir, I formed a somewhat close friendship with Mr. Heppenstall’s butler. He is good enough to keep me abreast of the local news from time to time. 

Combine this with his club and it's making me imagine Jeeves is just casually hooking up with lots of other servants on a very regular basis. His relationships aren't super serious (because he's pining after Bertie romantically) but they are always friendly. They also are often strategically planned in order to get the best gossip (and support the success of more inevitably buckwild schemes).

[lotus-duckies]

boboiboy: having a silly goofy time

ying: having a mental breakdown

[halfhissandwich]

Actual depiction of Logan leading up to What Makes The Perfect Gift

[crehador]

brother crab's fall 2024 first impressions: kinokoinu

good lord look at this thang. it is so Shaped

so imo this is a show that is going to live or die by how cute this lil guy is or isn't, and it's pretty adorable so far but......

holy shit the first episode was so depressing that for me it was almost a drag to watch. it definitely wasn't bad! it reminded me a bit of hizaue at times, which is one of my favorites of the ctdct (cute thing doing cute things) genre, so i didn't not like it

i guess for me personally i expect cute and funny from shows of this genre, and the humor isn't quite there yet. that's not to say it has to be funny all the time, or that it can't be earnest and emotionally raw as well. i'm just hoping the next episodes will have this funny-looking little guy being a little, well, funny too (which based on the synopsis it does seem like that will happen!)

anyway it was cute but more melancholy than i expected. not a bad thing, just not a thing i was prepared for. might take another week or two to fully solidify my feelings about this one

[tariah23]

I rly don’t see how ppl be 20+ shipping kids anymore tbh… like, it’s so rampant and I don’t see the appeal to it anymore being as tho I’m in my late 20’s.

[mothinabottle]

To the anon who requested more Whitlar...

You are getting your Whitlar alright 😭 People have given me enough reasons to do it and my asks are getting full of Whitlar enjoyers (I also got a whole essay on why they work so well together??? 😶)

Just give me some time to do it cuz y'know, college and stuff.

You win, anon 🏳

[crossdressingdeath]

If people could stop making massive, largely baseless assumptions about DAV based on a playtest build that only contains six hours of the game and that we haven't even seen all of that'd be great.

[user-needs-new-hyperfixation]

[ultrainfinitepit]

Do you like Good Omens?

I like the fanart I see for it! But I haven't seen/read it.

When I tried to watch the show a while back I just couldn't get into it. A few people told me to try the books but I don't have much time for reading these days. It seems very popular, I see lots of posts about the demon and angel characters! So I hope to give it another shot one day.

[marley-manson]

Fraser/Ray V 🤝 Hawkeye/Trapper

character is forced to leave without getting a chance to say goodbye, still manages to give the most homoerotic alternative to goodbye possible