#the people have spoken...

[lazylittledragon]

can't believe we're all adults being forced into the club penguin level of censorship in 2024

[liquidstar]

If my mom sees a significant amount of blood she gets lightheaded, and has fainted on some occasions. Once it happened when we were kids, I wasn't there to witness it but I heard the story from my dad. Basically my brothers, around 7 or 8 at the time, were playing outside while my mom was making their lunch, and she accidentally cut her finger. It wasn't anything serious, but it drew a fair bit of blood and she passed out. My dad saw this and rushed over, but he didn't really know what to do so he just sort of started slapping her to wake her up (not recommended, but he had no idea and panicked)

At that exact moment my brothers both came in from playing, and all they saw was our mom unconscious on the floor and our dad slapping her. So, like, without even saying a word to each other they both just INSTANTLY start whaling on him, like, full blown attack mode to defend our mom. Which obviously didn't help the situation, but she did wake up and everything was fine.

Now our dad says that he's actually really glad they attacked him over what they thought was going on, because it means he raised good boys. And I still think that's true, they're very good boys.

[jennaflare]

So Disco Elysium is the only game you've ever really liked

I get it! It's a phenomenal game with superb art and writing, and its themes are consistent and deeply explored. It sets a high bar for video games. But there are other really, really fantastic games out there. This is a list that is 100% my own taste of things that aren't necessarily similar, other than the fact that they're really fucking good. (A lot of these are on sale for the Steam Summer Sale until July 11 2024!)

In Stars and Time

In Stars and Time is a time loop game where you play as Siffrin, the rogue of a party at the end of their quest to save the day by defeating the King, who is freezing everybody in time! But something is wrong: every time you die, you loop back to the day before you fight the King. You're the only one who remembers the loops, so it's up to you to figure out why it's happening, and how to break out.

In Stars and Time is a heart-wrenching dive into mental health, friendship, and love. It's about feeling alone, and how awful it is when the people who love you don't notice (and how awful it is when they do). It's about falling deeper and deeper into your worst self and your worst tendencies, and how to come back from it.

The creator also did one of my favorite Disco Elysium comics ever, which is only tangentially relevant but worth mentioning.

Roadwarden

In Roadwarden, you play as the titular Roadwarden for an undeveloped and "wild" part of the kingdom. Monsters roam the forests and roads, and it's your job to keep people safe. On paper, anyway. Your real mission is to find out what is of value in the area, and how to take it from its people. How well you perform this task is up to you. It's an oldschool text-based RPG, and I take a lot of notes by hand when I play.

Roadwarden explores exploitation and industrialization by making you look in the face of your potential victims. You can only learn what your bosses want you to report on by getting close to the residents, after all. There are mysteries to be solved, secrets to be gathered, and hearts to win.

The Longing

The Longing is an adventure-idle game where you play as the solitary servant of a sleeping king. Your task is to wait for him, for four hundred days. Time in the game passes in realtime (for the most part). There are caves to explore, books to be read, and drawings to make.

The Longing is about loneliness and depression. It's about whether or not you decide to stay in that hole, and if you do, what you do with yourself while you're there. Maybe you'll wander. Maybe you'll stare at a wall. Maybe you'll just sleep until it's all over.

Papers, Please

Papers, Please casts you as a newly hired customs officer in a country that is rapidly tightening its borders as its fascist government tightens its fist. This game is stressful. Sometimes you intend to help out the revolutionaries when they asked, but then you got so stressed out trying to make your quota so you can feed your family and pay your bills that you didn't notice the name of the person they were hoping to contact while going through their papers. Sometimes someone puts a bomb in front of you and expects you to defuse it. Sometimes someone suggests you steal people's passports so you can get your family out, and with the horror you see daily, the idea tempts you more than you'd like.

Papers, Please is all about hard choices and testing your moral fortitude. Everything you do has consequences. Being a good person in this game is hardly ever rewarded, but not in a way that feels overly cynical. Papers, Please asks you what kind of person you want to be and what you're willing to sacrifice to get there.

The Return of the Obra Dinn

From the creator of Papers, Please, The Return of the Obra Dinn is a game where you play as an insurance investigator for the East India Trading Company. The ship the Obra Dinn has just floated back into port, its entire crew missing or dead. It's your job to figure out what happened aboard the vessel. For insurance reasons.

I don't know how to go into the themes of this too deeply without giving away too much, but the mechanics of the game itself make the game worth playing. You have a magic stopwatch that allows you to go back to the moment of a person's death, allowing you to try and figure out who (or what) killed them, and how. And the soundtrack is extremely good.

Outer Wilds

In Outer Wilds you play as an unnamed alien, and it's your first day going to space! Your planet's space program is pretty new still, so there's still lots to explore and discover on the planets within your system. There are ancient ruins from a mysterious race that once lived in your system, long before your species began to record history. Why were they here? Where did they go? How are they connected to the weird thing that keeps happening to you?

The fun of Outer Wilds is in the discovery and answering your own questions. The game never tells you where to go, and it never outright tells you anything. There are clues scattered through the system, and it's up to you to put them together and figure out your next steps. It's about the way that life always goes on, no matter what, even when it seems like the end of everything, forever. I'd recommend NOT reading anything else about this game. Just go play it. Seriously, the less you know, the more fun this is.

If on a Winter's Night, Four Travelers

In If on a Winter's Night, Four Travelers, you explore the circumstances of the deaths of four individuals.

This is a short one that took me about two and a half hours to play. If for no other reason, play it for the stunning pixel art. The game explores sexism, racism, and homophobia in the Victorian era and leans heavily into horror themes. Best of all: it's completely free!

Pentiment

Pentiment takes you to the 16th century, where you take the role of Andreas Maler, a journeyman artist working on his masterwork in the scriptorium of an abbey. When someone is murdered, Andreas takes responsibility for finding the culprit.

The game is set over 20~ years and you get to watch how Andreas' actions affect the village in various ways (who's alive the next time you come by, have people gotten married and had children...). It's an exploration of how the past affects the future, and what parts of that past we choose to keep or discard. It has beautiful art, and fans of both Disco and Pentiment often compare them.

Other games you might wanna check out

Night in the Woods, Dredge, Oxenfree, A House of Many Doors, Inscryption, Slay the Princess, Citizen Sleeper, Chants of Sennar, Loop Hero, The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood, The Pale Beyond, Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, Elsinore, Her Story, Before Your Eyes, Pathologic (not delved into above because the venn diagram of Pathologic fans and Disco fans is basically a circle)

[sturionic]

HALT! Americans seeking to confidently and wrongly explain other countries' politics, and Canadians who failed 6th grade social studies:

Since I've just seen this for like the 20th time today, let's go over real quick some hot topics about the Canadian political system.

Did Prime Minister Trudeau "use the tariffs" as a power-grab to hold onto his seat? No, he did not. PM Trudeau resigned his seat and then agreed to stay on until the Liberal Party of Canada chose a new leader. He abided by the timeline he set, and did not stay a second longer than would have been expected of him under due Canadian process. He is now fini.

Did the New Democratic Party and the Conservative Party initiate a government shutdown? No. The Governor General initiated Parliament being prorogued (which they usually do under the advice of the sitting PM) - which is not remotely the same thing as a USA government shutdown. "Proroguing" parliament is basically hitting a big ol' pause/reset button on any legislative and funding decisions in progress. Everything else in the government continues on as normal. Whether a given Canadian agrees with the current rationale or not, the fact is that Canadian governments do this all the time. The NDP and Conservatives pledged to a future no-confidence vote, which does unseat the current PM - but this is still not the same thing as a government shutdown, and now the situation may change as the PM went ahead and beat them to it by resigning on his own.

Mark Carney is, as of Sunday, Canada's new PM-Designate. Was he (GASP) unelected?! Is this undemocratic?! This one's for the gajillion Americans I've seen spouting this garbage all over social media. Jesus christ no this is not how Canadian democracy works. If you see other Americans saying this, smack them upside the head for me, please and thank-you. Canadians do not elect the individual Prime Minister. In a federal election, you rock up to the booth and are given a ballot listing the MPs (Members of Parliament) for your riding (electoral district) - the idea being that you're voting for a local person who will then go forth and represent your riding's interests in Parliament. Your vote for an MP is also a vote for the political party they are attached to, unless they are an independent. The Prime Minister is elected by the party. Justin Trudeau stepped down as PM, so it is the responsibility of the LPC to elect his successor, and they chose Mark Carney, who won against several other LPC candidates running. No doubt Carney will trigger a general election soon, and the Canadian populace will have the chance to decide whether they like the LPC with Carney at the head any better than they liked the LPC with Trudeau at the head. 4. Are you saying all of this because you're a Liberal Party apologist/Trudeau defender/Carney fan?! No. The Liberal Party of Canada are a bunch of fucking ghouls and it shrivels my very soul that the federal NDP have fucked up every hand they've been dealt since 2015; so our viable choices are "party of fucking ghouls who have been sitting around in a dark room jerking each other's withered tallywhackers for the past century" or "Party who are very open about the fact that they are going to turn around, drop their pants, and sell the whole country to the USA for 50¢ the literal second they're elected." You can hate Canadian politicians or Canada as a country all you like. That said, holy shit, can we not confidently mislabel other countries' politics as 'undemocratic.' It is really, really, CRUCIALLY, FUCKING VITALLY important right now not to accidentally fall ass-first into the American government's strategy of "trying to make Canada look like an undemocratic backwater in need of 'saving'" because that is how the American government sets the stage for invasions of other countries. Please. Do better.

[3nigm4art]

Bonus

[thoughtfulfelony]

hey. hey don't cry. Tubbo has 50 k viewers while Dream has 11 k

[who-do-i-know-this-man]

PSA for my fellow lactose intolerant cousins: Go to your local pharmacy. Look for something labeled "dairy digestive supplement" or something similar. Follow the instructions on the container for how many to take. You are no longer lactose intolerant for the duration of that meal. And it is literally just a supplement of the thing that everyone else's bodies produces naturally that allows them to eat dairy, so you don't have to worry about "abusing them".

[theacecouple]

For the first time in history, we are pleased to announce that the state of Kansas is formally recognizing Ace Week!!!

[dol--blathanna]

I have mixed feelings about Zerxus in season 3 of TLOVM, but I’ve gotta say hearing him give a Totally Unbiased Account of EXU: Calamity with Definitely No Omissions Whatsoever was kind of funny. Like “ooh I thought I could count on my friends….they condemned our civilisation….” Ok Zerxus. Buddy. Last time I checked, Nydas was actually the only one trying to stop Laerryn from blighting the tree. You sat there like a chump and did not help whatsoever. And uh. “They condemned our civilisation with their hubris” ummm pal I think you’re missing an important detail there. Like yes the point of EXU: Calamity is that everyone played a role in the disaster, everyone was responsible in some ways for that ship crashing into the iceberg, but uh. Zerxus I think some people were maybe a little more responsible than others. Like, for example, the certain someone who pulled the Lord of the Hells into Exandria. I think that individual’s hubris is maaaaaybe a little bit more important than some of the other hubris on the table here.

And like, this isn’t me bashing the writing, I think it is in-character for TLOVM!Zerxus to say this, since he’s been a jaded miserable devil for a thousand years. But omg when he had the CHEEK to be like “in the chaos I found myself face-to-face with the Lord of Torment himself” like EXCUSE ME??? Buddy you just happened to “find yourself” face-to-face with Asmodeus huh??? Just coincidentally, on accident??? You were just taking a stroll around Avalir and he ran into you without warning??

Zerxus. Please. Be serious for a moment. Would you like to explain to Pike the exact circumstances of HOW you found yourself face-to-face with Asmodeus, hmmmmm? A certain “pulling Asmodeus through the tree and unleashing him upon the world” situation?

Like, I know it was meant to be a serious moment with lots of Calamity-related hype but like, it was really giving “Girl what were YOU doing at the devil’s sacrament��� energy. In the most literal way possible

[lazylittledragon]

taking all my american followers by the shoulders. listen to me. just because you have a more promising candidate now doesn't mean you just assume it's going to be fine and don't bother voting. assuming trump wasn't going to win is how you got here in the first place so you go out and fucking vote for harris and give everyone a fighting chance.

also if you're still in the 'they're both as bad as eachother' delirium, please take your head out from between your cheeks and consider that your options are an imperfect president and the literal worst person alive who is going to get masses of people killed. i've said it like this before, but it's like deciding between maybe getting food poisoning or definitely having a brain aneurysm. take your pick i guess but don't be surprised when you drop dead.

[onenicebugperday]

Brush lily weevil, Brachycerus fascicularis, Curculionidae

Found in southern Africa

Photos 1-2 by mr_fab, 3-4 by ottob-c, 5 by jan-hendrik, and 6 by rjbasson

[fishbloc]

day 1: dancing and holding - pas de deux

@triplehearts @desert-duo-week

[shigayokagayama]

a moment i think about a lot is the bit in 7th division arc where mob wakes up in the cursed room and gives ritsu a hug bc a little detail i never see anyone talk about

teru breathes a sigh of relief. like. he barely knew anything about their interpersonal situation before they went in, all he knew is ritsu went mad with power then got kidnapped. based on the fact that ritsu was up an about when mob got up and that they're all untied, i assume ritsu's probably been up for a while. did he tell teru about their situation? their history? his fear that his brother wouldn't forgive him? idk it sticks out in my mind a lot.

[notsocooljess]

a silly headcanon i have for peeta is that he is just LOUD. not just his feet when he walks. he has a voice that you can pinpoint out in a crowded room. his laugh can be heard above everyone else’s. sometimes when he gets excited his voice gets even louder and he has to ask katniss “i’m yelling, aren’t i?” when he notices her eyes getting wider. he can command a space with his words but also his sheer volume.

[maulfucker]

racism in star wars will have wikis saying shit like "this species that is inspired on a real life non-white people is just too stupid to use the Force"

[goodishgirlx]

tiny girls are so easy to use