#that says a lot I think

[speedgifposting]

chat will i be put down for this

[blood-starved-beast]

hi hello just came here to say that i *really* enjoyed your musings on lady maria, you just analyse her in such a realistic scrupulous way it's very delectable♡

Thanks! I'll admit my interpretations are a bit atypical to what the fandom usually sees of her ( I mean, I have discussions on other platforms about this). But I just, as someone who has worked in Research involving animals that ultimately have to be put down for science, how the narrative presents Maria is very damning.

We first learn of Maria from the patients at the Research Hall, not having known of her beforehand other than vaguely alluded to via the Doll and the Hunter's Bone. The patients who are medically/scientifically tortured, dissected/vivisected, are living in abject squalor, are being turned into giant heads and are literally losing their minds, and their bodies dumped to rot as fertilizer in the gardens (for the flowers Maria loves I might add) once they no longer serve their purpose. And yet, they love her. These people tortured and denied any form of humanity cling to her like she were a Saint, like the Virgin Mary even, despite her not actually doing anything to improve or prevent the situation.

That is a very powerful first impression - that Maria cared enough about these subjects to give them kindness enough that they automatically cling to her yet lacks the absolute empathy to actually, you know, not experiment on them. That mentality is necessary when working with research animals, but these are people. And that initial impression is not something I can easily overlook regardless of what her actual aim was with the laboratory. This impression is heighten if you take the popular fan interpretation that Maria had some affection for Saint Adeline. Like, oh boy.

What that leaves me to interpret then, is that Maria at best someone of compromised morals, at worst someone who is somewhat two-faced. To assail her failing morals, her kindness is meant to be more self-gratifying, to "prove" to herself that she is a better person than she actually is. It is, in part, a performance cause at the very least it is not reality. There is delusion there but unlike some male Bloodborne simps on reddit it's cause she's deluding herself at the very least, or at most she is doing enough to give the impression she is helping somewhat. You know, like those rich fucks who hand out water bottles during a crisis and then go "that's enough philanthropy for one day :)" while being in a position of power to do actual meaningful change and doing nothing. Or that even if she is an awful person, there are people who are worst than her out there. And maybe that's enough.

I do think she gets to a point that she realizes it though. How fucked up she is/what she's done. That in part of is ultimately what kills her, that and the ultimate futility of her actions, how she slowly chipped and chipped away whatever person she was when she started to ultimately become the monster of her own creation. No better than the Vileblood family she rejected at first (if not worse than them in some respects). But instead of doing anything more meaningful about that Heel Realization she kills herself, dooming herself to being constantly minded that amongst all the Living Failures, she herself reigns Supreme.

[djuvlipen]

I think German men are a special kind of predatory. No German man I've interacted with has ever been normal. They take male degeneracy up to the next level. The second they come up to me and say guten tag or entschuldigung bitte I just know they are up to no good. They are more dangerous than average white males and we both know it

[adriles]

they are Cancelling me for dealing with my grief as best i can . also for the vicious war Crimes

[sparrowlucero]

The greatest injustice ever faced is that I almost certainly started the still thriving "clown husbandry" tag on here, but any discussion about it (from a know your meme page to a youtube video with 500k views) says it's a joke of "unknown origin" or credited to this post, likely bouncing off of mine (which was actively circulating at the time with like 30k notes):

This is a tragedy for many reasons, most of all because it wasn't just an offhand joke but actually a direct response to some of the funniest online hate I ever got:

They're erasing the truest history of tumblr: its desperate need to seethe and argue over every obvious joke with more than 10 notes.

anyways here is the canonical pet clown. according to me

[catmask]

does anyone have like an anti aesthetic. like something you look at and can recognize as a complete fashion/interior design/artistic movement and understand it but it makes you shudder seeing it. i am not talking like “its morally bad” “its poorly structured” like just sheerly devoid of joy for you actually invites a repulse response.

[tadfools]

You guys are commenting on the fics you read right? You’re at least leaving kudos on the Astarion smut and the pairs that have less than 20 fics for them too? You’re bookmarking stories you really like that are still being updated and ones that haven’t been touched in over a year right?

You know that even the smallest interactions are like cocaine to fic writers right? You understand how important a string of emoji hearts left behind on a chapter at three am is right?? Right????

You’re treating AO3 like a community and not a content factory….right?

[bacchuschucklefuck]

typical tavern scene

[brucie-baby]

the fact that alfred was the one to put up jason's memorial is so important to me

[illusioncanthurtme--art]

Physically? I am sitting in my bedroom. Mentally? Spiritually? I AM DEAD ON THE FLOOR!!!!! THESE TWO HAVE KILLED ME!!!!

(Another drawing! This was originally attempt #1 at drawing stan, and then fiddleford just showed up. Kinda feels like them five minutes after the above acting like nothing happened though, so it works sdjkgkjfshj)

[catshinji]

hmm.

[hinamie]

unconditionally

[cottagedreamy]

They're such a good duo...Pls let's talk about them more.....

[chloesimaginationthings]

Vanny finally meets FNAF tape girl in person...

[unforth]

Gentle reminder that very little fandom labor is automated, because I think people forget that a lot.

That blog with a tagging system you love? A person curates those tags by hand.

That rec blog with a great organization scheme and pretty graphics? Someone designed and implemented that organization scheme and made those graphics.

That network that posts a cool variety of stuff? People track down all that variety and queue it by hand, and other people made all the individual pieces.

That post with umpteen links to helpful resources, and information about them? Someone gathered those links, researched the sources, wrote up the information about them.

That graphic about fandom statistics? Someone compiled those statistics, analyzed them, organized them, figured out a useful way to convey the information to others, and made the post.

That event that you think looks neat? Someone wrote the rules, created the blogs and Discords, designed the graphics, did their best to promo the event so it'd succeed.

None of this was done automatically. None of it just appears whole out of the internet ether.

I think everyone realizes that fic writing and fanart creation are work, and at least some folks have got it through their heads that gif creation and graphics and moodboards take effort, and meta is usually respected for the effort that goes into it, at least as far as I've seen, but I feel like a lot of people don't really get how much labor goes into curation, too.

If people are creating resources, curating content, organizing the creations of others, gathering information, and doing other fandom activities that aren't necessarily the direct action of creation, they're doing a lot of fandom labor, and it's often largely unrecognized.

Celebrate fan work!

To folks doing this kind of labor: I see you, and I thank you. You are the backbones of our fandoms and I love you.

[an-established-butt-dent]

Soooooo after the new details that have been revealed about Veilguard, how do we all imagine a Solavellan reunion is going down? Trapped in the fade together? Lighthouse makeout sessions? A very sad mural dedicated to his Vhenan? My brain is infested with new headcanons.