#something about double stars

[ald3r-wolfcak3]

You have no idea how much I love this two-headed pumpkin horse

[buqbite]

Halo

[hegodamask]

“There is a wound that won’t heal at the centre of the galaxy. There is a darkness reaching like rust into everything around us. We let it grow and now it’s here. It’s here, and it’s not visiting anymore.”

ANDOR - Health, disease and the Empire

[m-says-hi]

Hello!

I have more sampo thoughts! Surprisingly, not about the recent event but an old event. Or not even the event itself, but something from after it

The memory bubble you get after Aetherium Wars.

Couple of things about memory bubbles before I bring up Sampo or this particular bubble’s contents. After some (admittedly brief) research on bubbles, I’ve learned they’re created by Memokeepers to preserve memories and are usually stolen from the original memory holder. In the game there are 21 memory bubbles. 20 of them belong to Herta and can be found around the Space Station. The last one is the one from after Aetherium Wars and is found on Jarilo VI.

I haven’t interacted with any of the memory bubbles myself, but I have read through all the dialogue and descriptions on the wiki. The 20 belonging to Herta all seem to put you in the pov of the memory holder. It tells it more like a story, kinda similar to Simulated Universe?

But the Aetherium Wars Bubbles only gives dialogue (very similar to Sampo’s character stories) making us more like an observer and not part of the memory. Unless we’re watching the memory of someone who was watching the conversation, but I feel like there’d be more description of the setting if that were the case.

I could go on about the content of the conversation, but I think we’ve all read through it multiple times. What really caught my attention was the beginning and end dialogue of the bubble.

(taken from the wiki. I haven’t done aetherium wars yet ;-;)

Four things stick out to me right away:

The game/The trailblazer’s thoughts notes this feels different

As I mentioned before, there is no description of the scenery showing up before you, but just two figures. My guess as to why is that this bubble wasn’t created by a stolen memory, but was made by the memory holder (or at least the memory holder was involved in the process). The memory holder being Sampo

2. There’s an implication that this bubble was left on purpose

This only adds to the point above. There’s a strong implication that Sampo left this for the Trailblazer to find. You also get an achievement for finding this bubble called Confessions of the Mask which. That kinda says it all.

But now I have two questions, the first being how? It's not said explicitly, but in a conversation with Herta it's implied that Memory Bubbles are only made by Memokeepers. So, if this was left by Sampo, either he got a memokeeper to help him (extremely possible) or he has the power to do it himself (extremely interesting)

My second question is why? 

Why would he tell us? Why is he telling us in this indirect way? My guess is it has something to do with his mask. The conversation in the bubble mentions Penacony and Sparkle. So,this was probably around the time Sampo started planning to go to Penacony to get his mask. I discussed this with a friend, and she suggested it might even be some sort of warning, which is why it’s done with a memory bubble. 

That sort of reminds me of the recent event, where Sampo spills a lot about the Fools and the Tavern, information that you would only really know as a Fool, but said it in a way that implied he wasn’t a fool. That he heard it from somewhere else, someone else, not that he knew it first hand. I wonder if his mask is sort of.. Making him unstable? (He grew increasingly dark every day) And the 7 day event was another warning. Warning of who he might become when the mask fully takes hold and a warning to not become like him

3. The game/the Trailblazer’s thought recognizes that there are multiple mysterious things about Sampo

Maybe this isn’t as important as I’m making it out to be. After all, we all know something is very Off about Sampo. But the Trailblazer recognizing it feels significant to me. It feels like further confirmation that eventually we will unravel these mysteries. Eventually.

4. “When talking to one who wears a mask, always keep your wits about you.”

This. THIS. This statement has been driving me mad since I first saw it. When I read those words I immediately thought of the translated statement from Topaz’s trailer:

“One who is unaccountably solicitous is hiding evil intentions”

(if you have no idea what I’m talking about, it’s one of my first posts)

The statements are not the same. But they feel so strongly similar, like they go hand in hand. Both are warnings. Both tell you to be careful about people who are not how they appear, people with masks and people who are falsely sincere. Both are talking about Sampo. Looking into this made me realize just how many times we've been warned about Sampo. Half of those times being Sampo himself

Something about it just makes my brain light up with possibilities and I feel like I keep pushing the statements together waiting for something to make sense and explain everything else, but I’ve yet to figure it out. So I’m left here just kind of going insane

But that’s all I have for now! Maybe someone else will have something

[emeraldspiral]

Girls don’t want to see another attempt at rebuilding the Jedi Order. Girls want Ben Solo back.

[dizzybevvie]

its so sad to me when I (blue eyes haver) say i love brown eyes and people are like, "yeah but i dont have PRETTY brown eyes, i have really dark brown eyes." and its like yeah fella, theyre brown, I meant you too.

[grasstimes]

[bacchuschucklefuck]

What about sorcerer Adaine? It'd keep the way her parents treated her consistent because of in that case they'd see her having the easy way of casting instead of studying to be a "proper" caster

this is a great idea!! the only reason why I'm not gonna pick it up is bc I've already locked down sorcerer for kristen haha

[constantvariations]

I remember someone saying "there's no such thing as a good racism allegory" and it's been bouncing around in my head for a while. I'm someone who typically thinks anything can work if given the right circumstances, but then I really started thinking about it and I believe they're right

Because if you want to talk about racism, you should just talk about racism

(This is unpolished and ramble-y, so strap yourselves in)

Racism is deeply ingrained into our society, no matter where you live. Imperialism and colonialism has ensured that no corner of Earth has been left untouched. Choices from hundreds of years ago are still being felt today. There's practically no end to the discussion of its effects on the world and its people

So, why should anyone feel the need to dress it up in cat ears?

I've consumed a lot of media where writers have consciously echoed in part some aspect of racism in their fantasy story: Bright 2017, Dragon Age, RWBY, the MCU, Harry Potter, Detroit: Become Human, etc. The biggest thing they have in common is that the narrative is told to side with the victims, but it somehow always ends up against them

It always sides with the status quo

It's confusing, maddening even, because the narrative oft goes out of its way to show how horrible the system is and how these folk don't deserve their treatment, so why are we going back to normal as if it's a good thing? Why are the people actively working to improve the system decried as annoying at best and monstrous at worst?

Then you look at the people who write these storylines. The beliefs they hold, the people they vote for, which charities and organizations they give to, and it all makes sense. Centrists (at best) trying to look progressive are the ones who need to dress racism up in cat ears and rainbow freckles. They set aside the long, brutal histories and crushing systemic realities to play pretend that racism is Not That Bad and is only done by Those Bad Individuals

That's why Velvet's ears are tugged instead of culled. That's why the Mantle drunkards say mean things to Blake instead of attempting to assault her. That's why everything surrounding the SDC's labor practices is so vague as to be useless while the biggest evidence of their malice is hand-waved away by a writer who says the victim "had it coming" as if someone can deserve being branded by being too much of a brat

These stories aren't meant to make the audience question why our society works off the bloodied backs of the exploited or demands we take good, hard looks at ourselves and how we've been duped into believing so much garbage about entire swathes of people. They're meant to satisfy the people who only feel bad that these things are happening because they (white folk) look like the bad guys. It's a self-congratulatory wank about how "I'm not like THOSE guys, therefore I'm a good person!"

And then there's the characters meant to convey this story in the first place: always inoffensive, mostly aimless, "not like the other girl" types that pander to that delicate palate. Blake - a conventionally attractive, pale skinned girl in fashionable clothes - used to be passionate about equality but only in the right way, and demonizes anyone who does not conform to this mindset despite having no reasoning to back it up while never once demanding better of the privileged people around her even when they do racially insensitive things

The biggest downfall of these racial allegories, be they about cat girls or orcs or elves or robots, is that they do something that marginalized folk have been forced to endure since the dawn of time: literal dehumanization. There are tangible differences between humans and whatever the allegory is, which undermines the very fundamental fact that black/asian/queer/neurodivergent/disabled/whatever folk are unapologetically, undeniably, exceedingly human. By dressing up their plights in cat ears or spottled blue skin, you're creating theater not for the people who actually live through these struggles as a means of connecting with them and providing them a safe outlet for their feelings, but giving the people who benefit from passively allowing the system to enforce said struggles a pat on the head for not being the grand wizard

I don't really know where I'm going or how to end this, so I'll just sign off with if you're going to talk about racism, just talk about racism

[fucktheroyals]

everyone watching ahsoka: Anakin!

me seeing anakin, knowing ahsoka is probably gonna tear him a new one and we are probably about to find out things we don’t wanna know:

[braceletofteeth]

Just Joong's characters saying คิดถึง-คิดถึง (I missed you so much)

[saturdays--sun]

FIANCÉ MENTION !?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

[onigiram]

TAGS. i didn't like the other ones asjbfjbsdjgb

[stormyoceans]

https://x.com/iIygemini/status/1809296803394908411

a little fun on a Saturday morning. Did you have any moments when you saw staff in shot instead of the actors?

i apologize for answering this so late anon (it's sunday afternoon now ;;;;;) but i hope we can still have fun together!!!!! ESPECIALLY SINCE THIS

MADE ME LAUGH WAY TOO MUCH IM SO SORRYYSHFJGFKHSKFHSHGKSGFKGFJFS

it actually makes perfect sense to use stunt doubles for a scene where the characters are rolling down a hill because that's not as 'easy' as it looks and that also often happens in movies as well (i remember reading they used stunts for a similar scene in the princess bride) but still. for some reason it's always so funny when you're able to catch the obvious stand-in sfjkshfksg

i don't think i've ever personally caught any tbh, except maybe for some scenes in the kind of italian series my mom likes to watch and in star trek tos where they liked to use a lot of stunt doubles for william shatner but those are like. so plain to see i think pretty much everyone noticed ;;;;;;;;

[tusken-apologist]

Keep seeing people shipping that one apprentice lady and Sabine together and I want to take them by the shoulders and say. Look. You deserve better. You deserve better than a ship between an ooc Rebels character and a cardboard box. Do not let the fact that she’s white and skinny you distract you from the fact that her only personality trait is evil. And that by this point in the story Reva had far more complexity to her and yet nobody ships her with anyone. I don’t even know the apprentice lady’s name because that’s how little they put into her. Please. You deserve better lesbian ships. Go read Doctor Aphra and maybe you’ll have a better time

[deeranddragons]

“Doubles raised an arm, shuddering, convulsive, fingers flexing like he’d forgotten how to move them. Then he thrust his open palm at Loch's throat. She spluttered and let go. He took advantage of the opening to tackle her to the ground. They rolled across the cave, grappling.

“I’m trying to help you!” she yelled, but he wasn’t listening.

Even though he moved all wrong, sinusoidal, he still out muscled her. He pinned her to the ground, arms across her chest. Gravel dug into her cheek. A strange clicking noise came from the back of his throat. She felt a worm slide up her neck as he held her there, the trail of slime cool against her skin. Panic rose in her throat, blacking out all thought, and she thrashed against the hold. His grip tightened, viselike. Whatever those things had done to Doubles, she did not want done to her.

Loch has always struggled with jedi master Korin’s lessons on letting go of her emotions. But as a mission to assassinate the geonosian queen goes horribly awry, she’s going to need to step up if she wants her squad to make it out alive.”

I’ve spent over a year writing this fic on and off, and it’s finally done! I’m really proud of it, and really happy I got back into writing after all of these years. It’s about me and sailor’s joint Star Wars OCs, finding yourself, and how love makes us stronger. I hope that you enjoy it too.