#they're fucked guys that's the whole point of this

[rokonrrc]

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Jason “my family doesn’t know im alive” Todd and Danny “my family doesn’t know I’m dead” Fenton going alongside each of their plans my beloved. like Danny will absolutely go head-to-head with all of Gotham to support his new best friend on all his crime lord endeavors while he drags Jason to also attend collage with him. They are roommates and there never seems to a mention of family from either side. It’s an unspoken understanding they have. They met because Crime alley as a ghost lair thrummed with so much loneliness, it was at first the perfect place for Danny to hide his ecto signature in. But then he saw the dumbass whose lair it was lean his motorcycle just a tad too much when making a sharp turn to an alley, he sweeped the floor through a lifted chain link that passed his body but not his helmet. Yep that’s right the red thing got stuck. Danny who at the moment happened to be watching through his window snorted. Much to his horror because if not a ghost that dude could’ve gotten his head flung off.

Still, the scene was ridiculous.

On a whim he irrationally sees the police closing in on the guy and panicked at the thought of the guy using intangibility to free himself so Danny phased them both through his apartment wall and left the guy sprawled in his couch. Jason didn’t freak out but that’s normal when one’s got a concussion, one the guy immediately denied having as Danny laid out the medical supplies. The idiot proceeded to almost flatten four steps to the door with his stubbornness. He also said “I’m asexual” in the most deadpan voice as Danny dropped him back in the couch.

Danny sighed. Clearly though, he’d done so too early in the night because the guy kept trying to go, kept trying to knock Danny out, kept trying to slash him with knifes Danny didn’t know he had stashed. He’d only disarmed the guy from his guns. The visible ones apparently, cause at one point the guy did take out a gun and shoot until the ammo ran out and then teetered the thing like it was an art prop and hit his moon lamp.

Danny "yeah you aren’t officially my friend until you’ve tried to kill me" fenton my guys.

Anyways both keep having the same argument over if Danny technically kidnapped Jason or not. Danny holds the fact that the police at least didn’t see the guy make the ridicule. Jason argued that happened cause he was sporting a concussion. Danny argued he got that after.

Jason at first thinks the guy's a meta, but no. Danny introduces himself, sheepily now that he recognizes this is who the lair he invaded is from. He bandages him and tries to cook for him. If Danny didn’t have ice powers he most certainly would’ve burned the apartment. Jason then proceeds to kick him out of his own kitchen and make them both enchiladas. It’s the most normal both had in a while with another person and the air seems oddly settled. From then on, Jason constantly invited himself over, under the pretense that this was his territory and therefore he could drop in unannounced. Danny who has actual powers says he only allows this because Jason cooks very well.

Danny stays away from the crime fighting business unless his buddy is in deep shit he can’t get himself out. Also it’s Danny’s turn to cover for his vigilante friend which Sam and Tucker give him so much shit for. (but also advice)

And they were roommates. (omg) Danny effectively derails Jason’s big comeback plans by casually dropping ghost lore every two days. Like,

Jason, talking about how he doesn’t want Bats snooping on his territory:

Danny: Just don’t let them in

Jason: ??

Danny: yeah!! Hasn’t Batman died and got revived??? You can totally kick out death touched people you don’t want entering on your lair.

Jason: …I can?

Danny: Yep dude, your lair’s supposed to feel safe.

Jason: wait does that mean I can kick you out?

Danny: First this is my apartment. Second, im dead, not dead touched. Third, it’s too late to get rid of me. bitch.

Anyways Jason is super excited. You mean to tell him he can actually deny people over to his territory haunt?? (Yes it’s only to people who have died and came back but still!! The sample size is exactly the type of people he doesn’t want to see—!)

Joker my beloathed can’t step foot in Crime Alley.

(Jason’d feel a lot safer if the clown was dead but the possibility of his murderer turning into a ghost and their little loophole not applying on the clown is too scary to contemplate.)

Anyways, Jason loves experimenting with the power. It can go from simply making people shudder and not want to enter crime Alley to straight up not letting them enter like there’s an invisible wall blocking the way.

Jason because he’s hurt that Bruce never even patrols Crime Alley and also because he’s petty put B under the category of “invisible wall” blacklist. His reasoning is that the man doesn’t even attempt to enter Crime Alley. To him it’s surely just a place shadowed in tragedy. (anyways that’s it’s the place he met Jason)

Ironically, Jason totally forgets that Batman does venture into Crime Alley one day in the whole year. The day he met Jason.

Okay. He didn’t forget at first. The first year Jason remembers cause it was only a few months till then but then the next— Jason forgets that today’s the anniversary of the day’s Bruce’s parents died. He forgets to allow B in when he feels a slight tug and dismiss the feeling that prompts Bruce to investigate because he literally can’t enter Crime Alley. He starts the trialsTM, he scouts on the very edge and sees people the whole day enter and get out and cross with no problem but Bruce can’t.

It’s literally just Bruce.

Time to call Constantine, i guess.

[meglosthegreat]

I see a lot of posts on here talking about the Solas/Elgar'nan segment in Blood of Arlathan and how it's one of the best scenes in the game, and they'd be right, but I don't see enough people talking about how comically the whole thing is undercut by quite possibly the most poorly-conceived, terribly-implemented looney-tunes-ass sequence in gaming history that surrounds it.

Like you show up with your friends to this Venatori party, and you're like great, we're sneaking in! Time for disguises. How convenient that these Venatori guys all wear hoods, right? Should be a piece of cake if we're all, you know, wearing hoods that would helpfully hide our identities. But no. We all go waltzing in with our whole-ass faces exposed, you know, the group of guys that have been murdering Venatori left and right and who Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain have definitely all seen in person before. Oh, and don't worry about walking into this notoriously racist elf-sacrificing cult if you happen to be an elf! You're only here in disguise so that you can rescue a GROUP OF ELVES THEY'RE GOING TO SACRIFICE but it's ok because you're dressed as a mercenary and not a dalish so it's all good don't worry about it :) :)

Then you get into this fucking party and oh my fucking god it's like they decided to take all of the most comically over-the-top stereotypes of villainy and put them on display. Because why not! The Venatori are all sickos anyway so of course they'd be out here doing sicko things! There's some guys pulling a halla apart with blood magic! There's other guys using slaves as benches! They're all laughing and joking about how EVIL they are, hahaha, how cool is that? The fucking guy from D'Meta's Crossing is here if you don't let him die, because he's a fucked up evil sicko too! You're supposed to be shocked at this hideous display; recoil in horror, even!

And who do you bring with you to help get through this crowd of absolute lunatics? NEVE FUCKING GALLUS. You know, the person so well-known in Minrathous that a Dalish elf living in Arlathan KNEW HER BY REPUTATION. Yup, Neve Gallus with her INTENSELY RECOGNIZABLE PROSTHETIC just waltzes up to some guy and he just lets her in. Because being EVIL also makes you incapable of coherent thought, apparently.

And then. AND THEN. You walk across the bridge where Elgar'nan makes his thought-sounds at you, and YOUR ENTIRE FUCKING PARTY is already there, just hanging out nbd. Also not wearing hoods or any kind of disguises that couldn't instantly be seen through by a five-year-old with amnesia but ok, cool. Why did we bother walking through all those sickos then when we could've just taken the secret back entrance like the rest of them, idk.

But just when you think you've reached peak stupidity, it keeps going. You're now standing there, at the front of a crowd of about twelve people, approximately five feet away from Elgar'nan himself, inexplicably blending in, when the big guy puts the mind control whammy on everyone. Oh no, you think. We've been found out! Here's the part in the plan where things begin to go wrong! NO. Your mage friends SECRETLY PERFORM MAGICAL GESTURES to block the mind control, and then you LITERALLY FUCKING SIDLE OFF STAGE LEFT without ANYONE NOTICING. I should reiterate that at this point, you are still about FIVE FEET AWAY FROM ELGAR'NAN and his fucking ARCHDEMON.

And to conclude this absolute comedy of idiocy, as soon as you enter back into combat mode, you immediately ditch all of your disguises. And of course then, ONLY THEN, Elgar'nan notices you've been there. Cut to the end of the actual good sequence, this dramatic conversation performed by excellent voice actors and written miles better than most other things in this game, and you reach your final prize: about six guys trapped in a little cube. Cool, you tell yourself. This was definitely worth it. You take your fade-to-black teleporter back to the Lighthouse and they're never heard from again.

This was the quest that broke me. This was the moment that all hope for Veilguard finally snapped. I consider myself to be a very resilient person in the face of camp and goofy writing, but this was too much disbelief for my brain to suspend. The mental gymnastics necessary to make this whole sequence make any kind of sense were simply beyond me. Even Solas's dulcet tones could not salvage it for me after that.

[hotvintagepoll]

Musidora (Les Vampires)—That batty lady just scrungles across the screen! [editor's note: musidora is not the batty ballerina from the original clip. a new clip has been put for her under the cut.]

Peter Lorre (The Maltese Falcon, Arsenic and Old Lace, Casablanca)—to me he DEFINES scrungle hes the first person i think of every time the term comes up! i want to fold him up like a paper accordion and put him in my pocket. guy that spawned a million voice artists and impersonators. they made a ghost version of him for halloween cereal staple boo berry. bewitched by his nervous mania and tooth gap <3 (for the purposes of propaganda im linking a photo from his extremely short appearance in muscle beach party bc ive been obsessed w it for years and i couldnt find any video for it :/ anyway imagine youre frankie avalon spending the whole movie battling a bodybuilder faction thats taking over your beach and your girl and then you find out this fucking guy is their mastermind mystery leader and hes stronger than all the bodybuilders combined. like Huh. What.)

This is round 3 of the contest. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. If you’re confused on what a scrungle is, or any of the rules of the contest, click here.

[additional submitted propaganda + scrungly videos under the cut]

Musidora:

[Editor's note: the original clip from "Les Vampires" submitted for Musidora was in fact not footage of Musidora, but Stacia Napierkowska. I picked this clip at random to hopefully show the right Musidora this time.]

Peter Lorre:

he's pretty much the archetype of the scrungly little guy. the blueprint. the example by which all other scrungly little guys are judged

The entire point of his iconic role in Casablanca (apart from introducing the central plot mcguffin) was to be LITTLE and SCRUNGLY to make Bogie look even cooler. And Maggot in Corpse Bride - the littlest scrungliest guy in that film - was a parody of him.

Between his big eyes, wheezy laugh, short stature, and expressive faces, Peter Lorre achieved icon status as the scrungliest, littlest guy in Hollywood. His scrungly little guy energy was often contrasted with the more typical masculinity of the leading man, but whether this contrast was meant to make him seem especially sinister, comedic, or pathetic, it always left an unforgettable impression!

The perfect sniveling character actor, “scrungly” is the first word that comes to mind when I think of him.

I'm sure somebody else has already submitted him (if not then ???) but he's a cute kind of scrungly little guy. He's got a distinctive nasal voice with an accent that is instantly recognizable and often imitated. His later horror movies are so much fun, especially when he's playing off of Vincent Price. He's so good at being unhinged, creepy, or manic, but also pathetic and sympathetic.

Classic scrungly hollywood golden age little guy who was friends with Humphrey Bogart and still played some of the wettest most sniveling characters ever committed to celluloid (complimentary) there is a deep despair and darkness in many of his characters that enhances his scrungly

To be clear, I am one of those people who will argue that Lorre is one of the most underrated film actors, but the POINT is that he's also just a scrungly delight. A delightfully pocket-sized man. Somehow endearing even when he is being actively amoral (see esp. Casablanca. "I found myself much more reasonable!") The faces he makes while doing the Russian cossack dance with a butter knife between his teeth in Silk Stockings make me laugh just thinking about them.

Wikipedia described his typical characters as "timidly devious", lots of weird little villains and evil sidekicks that are pretty horrifying but still manage to be sort of pathetic and the very definition of "poor little meow meow". His look and voice and mannerisms are so iconic they're still imitated

Cartoons for the next century have and will continue to include Peter Lorre-esque characters when needed to up the scrunge factor (see Bugs Bunny and so many more).

Youtube link for characters inspired by Lorre [editor's note: I'm not actually sure how many of these characters are directly, verifiably influenced by Peter Lorre, so take with a grain of salt. tw for suicide depiction.]

I think Arsenic and Old Lace is his quintessential "scrungly" performance. He's so put-upon and tired...all he wants is sleep and some schnapps! I love the way his shoulders fall slowly when he thinks he's caught (he looks like a sad puppy!), only to gleefully sprint out the door when he realizes how dumb those police officers are.

[scoobydoodean]

wait that video includes 4.01... the scene where sam thinks dean is a demon/trick and both him and bobby were prepared for a violent reaction because they had no fucking clue what could raise dean from hell so he Should be a trick? the same episode where dean has to fight bobby because he ALSO thinks dean is a demon?????? bro. the bias. (the point is that those scenes are some of the most justified violence in the show and i bet none of the characters hold it against each other)

I guess it is a little funny that we brush right over Sam and Bobby both immediately attacking Dean with knives and refusing to believe him at first. Also, I would like to point out that samgirls make a huge deal out of bodily autonomy, but only if it's Sam's, because they don't give a shit about Sam's shady ass behavior all season 3. In fact, they're more likely to argue that Dean refusing to agree to shady plans Sam comes up with in the name of saving Dean's life is Dean controlling Sam lmao. While Dean may get aggressive when it comes to demanding answers on how he was revived in 4.01 (that whole scene is so silly and overdramatic lmao) assuming Sam is the one who brought him back isn't exactly shocking, given they had multiple fights in season 3 where Sam expressed a desire to and acted on plans to deliberately disrespect Dean's wishes about his own life/body. And in 4.01, Sam says "I wish I had done it" and screams at Dean that he tried to make a demon deal and he even tried to open the devil's gate (which could have killed hundreds or thousands of people)... all in the name of a guy who begged him not to do that in his name. Sam's history of misleading Dean regarding "saving" him starts as early as 1.12 "Faith" and is extremely heavy-handed in season 3, to the point that demons repeatedly try to get Sam to believe that Dean needs Sam to be in control of his life because he can't take care of himself and isn't it so sad how "troubled" and "stupid" Dean is, not knowing what's best for himself (ex1 ex2 ex3).

[clickety-clacker]

OHO.... @crabussy You do bring up a good point... his alternate outfit DOES include a beautiful, tempting slit up the side....

BUT. As you can clearly see, the powerpoint was referencing their CURRENT outfits that you see in-game. The alternate here with that long delightful window to his most likely gorgeous legs is not what we see in game. The top, while beautiful, does not match!

He is very clearly wearing this very outfit below, which includes a long, pleated skirt, with... well okay I'm assuming there's no slit on this one but now I'm imagining it. Krosis.

...

Ahem, anyway.

I suppose you could say, "Rhi we literally cant see whats under there. Maybe he's mixing and matching his outfits" and to THAT I would say:

Okay yeah. You have a point. I mean, theoretically he could have his whole dang business out, and we would be none the wiser. I have no fucking clue. But based on empirical evidence, I feel comfortable assuming that, in-game, he is wearing the outfit shown above. Which is [drum roll]... DECENT.

AND EVEN IF!!!!!!!!!!! He had his yummy lala ass god legs poking out of his slit skirt ... whos to say theyre not covered too? Leggings? Tall socks? He seems like a tall socks guy to me.

But even if they are UTTERLY DEVOID OF LAYERED COVERING, there's another point to consider: as you can see in the image above, Thespie is hovering.

If you're not moving your legs to walk around, they're never gonna poke out of that slit. As someone who actually owns a slitted skirt because I like feeling a lil cunty at times when I do present more femininely, theyre actually borderline disappointing with how well covered they keep you unless you really stick your leggy out/walk around. Standing there you can hardly tell its there.

And uh. Ngl if i could hover I wouldnt be moving my legs. Are you kidding. that would look fucking stupid. he can do whatever he wants tho dont tell thespius I said that

Now. With ALL of that said... even if they were BARE, even if he was STICKIN HIS NAKED ASS LEGS ALL THE WAY OUT...

...this is still a really decent look. Like. Look hes even wearing socks and shoes and a tucked in shirt and shawl which this model here isn't, and she still looks presentable. I would still stand by my rating of "could take him to meet my parents."

I mean. That's not a high bar. I......... actually whatever im about to say about my parents right here is unnecessary because I suddenly realized that no, I wouldn't take him to meet them, for his sake. Im so sorry thespius i even considered it. good lort

ahem. anyway.

Even if all of that did take away a star... you are forgetting the most important thing:

He still has a cute pen.

And that cute pen's bonus star keeps him at the top.

RATING: ★★★★★ MY BOY IS STILL DECENT!

GOOD EVENING EVERYBODY!!!!

have you ever wondered:

Gee, I wonder if I went to McDonalds in the company of A God, would they get arrested for public indecency?

or

...Are you wearing clothes????

I have good news: IVE ALSO WONDERED THOSE THINGS! Aaaand... I may or may not be able to provide answers! So I am happy to announce: the GREAT GOD GROVE PANTHEON DECENCY SCALE POWERPOINT !!!!

Warnings included on the powerpoint include: NSFW-adjacent jokes (often relating to nudity), spoilers, and moving/flashing gifs.

[sergle]

I love to hear what people say about Youtube Drama* but it's SO tacky when it gets so offbase that the posts people make start to be about completely off topic infighting within the Watcher fanbase

[welcometogrouchland]

Noticing that TV and film will often have a character either have had an abortion in the past that isn't showcased on screen (and just used as part of the character's ~fucked up and twisted backstory~) OR contemplate getting an abortion in the present day but not to through with it. Just once I want to see someone delete that fetus within the events of the plot and not be like. Extremely majorly punished for it and/or be in the wrong

[rolandkaros]

forever hilarious to me that tennis is promoted as this prestigious highbrow big-brain sport when most tennis fans these days are like. yeah this is my favorite player. yeah i don't know why they're like that. yes they are stupid. no i will not choose somebody else.

[sparklyfaerie]

Great characters don't have to be good people. How many people love a good villain? Or a morally grey anti-hero? People love dynamic, interesting characters. That doesn't mean we ignore or condone their acts of evil; it just means that they're entertaining to watch.

I'm a Spike fan and a Xander hater, myself, but I don't ignore Spike's badness or Xander's goodness. It just so happens that where I fall on my opinion of the characters depends largely on their narrative treatment, rather than their actions.

Xander has a habit of talking down to and slut shaming a lot of the female characters in the show. Buffy in particular. He weaponises his jealousy in the early seasons. He's a bad boyfriend to both of his girlfriends (puts down Cordelia consistently and cheats on her, which he is never shown to have any remorse for, and constantly talks down to Anya), and is weirdly obsessed with Buffy's sex life.

He lies to Buffy about important things (remembering the SA attempt when he was possessed, Willow trying to curse Angel again, told Buffy that 'no one said anything [to him]' about Buffy and Riley's relationship imploding when Riley had actually come to Xander with concerns that Buffy didn't love him beforehand) and is never held accountable for it.

He gets away with bespelling the whole town when he tried to use magic to get back at Cordelia when she spurned him. That it was unintentional that it affected all the women in town is irrelevant; he still attempted to take Cordelia's free will away in order to humiliate her, which is kinda evil of him, ngl. Yeah the way she treated him kinda sucked at that point, but a) the narrative treats it as such, and b) he was just as bad if not worse.

But like, he bespelled the women of the town into throwing themselves at him and at the end Buffy thanks him for not taking advantage of her??? Nuh-uh, sorry, you don't get a thank you for being a decent human being after already doing something so incredibly fucked up.

What really, really gets me in season 5 though is that he scolds Buffy for letting Riley go, even though the man just cheated on her (and in a way that was really dangerous, he could have gotten turned) and attempted to gaslight her into thinking it was her fault, and then proceeded to give her an ultimatum that she had to fix the relationship or he was gone. Buffy initially saw through his BS, but Xander was the one who convinced her that Riley was in the right??? And then lied to her that no one told him anything about the relationship not going well??? To make her feel stupid or like a bad partner or something??? Riley was the only one of Buffy's love interests that Xander approved of, and that was only because he was the epitome of Xander's masculine ideal and he could project onto him.

(Actually no one but Buffy even attempted to hold Riley accountable for any of his BS in season 5 but that's a whole other rant.)

There's more reasons I hate Xander, but they're mostly in season 6, and I won't be That Guy™ and spoil it. The point is, the narrative never, ever holds Xander accountable for any of these things. He's always framed as being in the right, or if not, then the incident is just ignored entirely. He's even occasionally rewarded for his bad behaviour, like when Cordelia publicly took him back after the aforementioned bespelling of the entire town.

He never grows in any significant way. He's still essentially the same person in season 1 as in season 7. And I hate that.

Spike on the other hand goes through a ton of changes and very rarely gets away with anything bad. I want to say 'never', but I'm not 100% confident about that and may be misremembering. Point is, given how hard it is to remember if he does get away with anything, that says something about his narrative treatment. Hell, he's punished simply for being non-human by a literal torture device inserted into his brain.

He's a problematic character, to be sure. He does a lot of fucked up and morally questionable things; no one is denying that. The stalking is... yeesh. Crush is just an entire cringefest. The bot is gross. To say nothing of the 120ish years of mass murder behind him. But he's punished for all of these things. He was wrong and the narrative treats him as such, and this will continue as the show goes on. Again, I'm not going to spoil, but Spike does some really fucked up things and his character really goes through a lot punishment and changes as a result in the later seasons.

The reasons people love him are many and varied. He's a little pathetic. He's a romantic (even if it's a twisted, fucked up kind). He has sensuality and sex appeal. He's funny. He's a great character to watch because he's so different from the main cast that it's always interesting to see what he'll do.

That's all I can really say about him without talking about seasons 6 and 7. Of course, you may despise him, and that's your prerogative. There are a lot of people who hate Spike for completely valid reasons. But no one can claim that he's boring or doesn't grow and change.

ok I’m only on season 5 but can someone explain to me how Xander is the universally hated one for, from what I can tell, some bad choices and worse jokes, while Spike, the fandom’s babygirl and beloved heartthrob, literally stalks Buffy, holds her captive, and then commissions a robot version of her when it’s made clear he’ll never have her. like someone please explain it because the math is not mathing.

[lupins-hehim-pussy]

I wanna know ur Fontaine msq criticisms 👁️👁️👂I’m all ears

I'm not sure if you wanted me to talk about this secretly or publicly but! Here I go!

The TLDR: Fontaine MSQ aestheticised prison, poverty, child abuse, the justice system/court and didn't properly address any of it.

More:

Focalors/Furina has way too much of a sympathetic angle for a dictator who's lets people drown with her inaction.

Neuvillette feels Bad for sentencing some people to death/prison, but that's it. He's one of the most powerful people in Fontaine. If he felt like there are systemic injustices, I.E sending an abused Child to prison, he should be the first person to DO something about it, not just cry and be sad so the audience can be like aw, that's complex character writing isn't it? No it's not! And guilt doesn't absolve you!!!!!!! (These are stuff we deal with in OTCOJ read my fic now /j)

Meropide has children in it, both Sentenced there (Wriothesley) and BORN THERE (Lanoire), and this is just a quirk of the place. Not only that, Meropide accepts prisoners of all genders and crimes. There are abusers and abuse victims in one place. Do you know how bad that is? How much potential for crimes to happen in a place like that— oh wait, Meropide isn't under Fontaine's jurisdiction. If you are assaulted as an inmate it literally means nothing to the court.

Wriothesley had no qualifications when he took over. Depending on how long he lived on the streets, how old he was when he killed his parents, how old he was when he was first taken in by the orphanage, etc, the man might never have more than 4–5 years of formal education. Sigewinne probably had to teach him how to write reports. And do Meropide's spreadsheets. Edit because I forgot to elaborate on this one: This isn't a point brought up anywhere, which is bad, because when poverty and incarceration robs you of a proper education (and the rights to vote in many places too, too, by the way), it reduces your prospects for jobs, reduces many people's ability to get a home etc etc. Wriothesley was just, narratively, Given his position.

Meropide is an industrialized prison, and they portray this as a good thing. Prisoners are paid in coupons for their labour, and this is also portrayed as a good thing.

The One-Meal-A-Day reform was something Paimon gushed about being so great of a perk, that people might want to go to jail for food (could be interesting and reflective of systemic poverty if MHY had brains, but they don't, so I was just Pissed because essentially all Paimon wanted to say was "Prison isn't so bad, but still don't go to prison guys! Prison labour is really hard!"). By the way, in most real-world prisons they are obligated to feed you three meals a day. Because that's how much food a human needs. MHY went with one meal just so they can say "if you want to eat more, you have to work." And then the welfare meal is a goddamn gacha. So imagine you're a starving child who's too weak to work in the fucking robot assembly line, and you wander up for your first meal in 24 hours, only to luck in with a shit one. I'd kill myself.

They wrote Wriothesley, who's a victim of the system, into a guy who's say shit like "I'm the Duke I can do whatever I want" for a cool moment where he choke-slams an inmate (I know he was a bad guy. But also, in copaganda when cops are violent/disregarding protocols, they are always only portrayed to do that against bad guys, so what does our critical thinking tells us about this one?) They wrote Wriothesley, who was an inmate of a prison so bad, so notorious that it is the literal boogeyman of Fontaine, that has a legal (???) fighting pit, with an administrator who abuses his position to be unreasonable, to willingly stay in the place and become an Administrator who would choke-slam an inmate while saying a cool line about how he has the power to do whatever he wants. They wrote him, the guy who had to be fed on the streets by melusines, to think one-meal-a-day was a good enough reform (while he spends god-knows how much on his boat). This wasn't a victim-turns-into-abuser narrative either, they want all this to be seen as positive character growth.

And then, the final kicker is, they gloss over his entire abuse. You can only read about these shit in his profile, which most people don't because they don't Have Him or doesn't care to unlock it/read it online, and they jammed his entire backstory into a flaccid info-dump at the end of his character story quest. This man isn't Allowed to feel abused and neglected and show any reaction to it within the narrative of Fontaine itself, because if they actually Gave Weight to what happened to him, they'd have to confront THE FUCKING JUSTICE SYSTEM they had NO PLANS on criticising. I don't think they ever explicitly said the fucking Crime-Theatre nonsense was Bad either.

I could go on, but this is already so long. But yeah, I hope this gave you an idea.

[herd-reject-arts]

Pulled from videos I put on my Instagram, but they're better together.

Went to clean my car and found I had a stowaway. Little dude was hiding under my passenger seat and would have almost certainly gotten vacuumed up if it had not come out swinging (I think. I don't know mantid behavior too well, but it was jabbing with its foremost legs, so that seems like an attack to me).

I was able to get the mantis onto a Gatorade bottle and out of my way while I cleaned. I was hoping it would leave in the meantime so I didn't have to deal with a tiny animal who was probably just as confused as I was on how it got there. But nope! Dude stuck around and listened to the honky tonk music the car wash was playing, or at least it seemed to be listening based on how it was swaying (note: I'm joking. I'm pretty sure it didn't care about the music. I just kept making comments to it about dancing to the tunes).

In the end, it hopped off the bottle (only after I moved it to the trash can, though I wasn't going to throw it away if it hadn't jumped off) and I got a really cool video of a praying mantis jumping.

And the frame-by-frame of that jump, because why not.

[vaguely-concerned]

my oc blorbo brainrot has reached the point where I'm learning (very VERY basic to be clear) video editing for the first time in my life. The Power of Dragon Age Insanity

(honestly after having to try to fineagle things in the PS5 clip editor this is kind of a relief and waaay less fiddly haha. I will say that having the ability to isolate and loop line deliveries that make my echolalia brain spin around happily is making me too powerful this rules)

[drinkingdeadpeopletea]

and shout-out to weepe's guards! competent enough to move quicker than kozma's people, strong enough to overpower them despite being outnumbered, and seemingly didn't even blink at not just killing other people but at doing it with horrific weaponized tearror-blood. weepe found these guys in the fucking TRUST?

[invinciblerodent]

I don't really have time to play him more than like an hour every few days, but man, Marcus really is insufferably pretty. Half the time, I've got my finger glued to the screenshot button, lol.

His personality is slowly taking shape in my head too: so far, he's been a far kinder, more emotional person than the broody, analytical scholar I thought he was going to be (I'm leaning into the "arcane grief councilor, magic is not just engineering but also psychology/philosophy" angle a bit more, so he's approaching all from a place of emotion and analysis), and his softness is a choice that comes from a place of rigorous, painful self-awareness.

In his head, so far Marcus is kind of the king of compartmentalization: he's constantly picking through his own thoughts and feelings and slotting them away into neatly labeled boxes, while choosing which ones he'll let himself feel (and chastising himself for the rest), which then also translates to him being very cautious, guarded... maybe even somewhat cynical. He's keeping his distance in general (as one would probably expect from someone who has never much experienced a warm, emotionally fulfilling environment, and has not really been outside of an academic setting much).

I'm thinking that his personal arc is going to be based around his unspoken suspicions continuing to be confirmed over and over again in the worst ways, causing him to sort of recede more and more into himself, but it'll be the others daring to let their feelings be felt (with Neve forgiving him, and Bellara both relying on him in his field of expertise and dragging him out into the light with her exuberance) that's going to create some much-needed balance in the end.

I like to think that where Ver embodied the moniker of "Rook" from a place of strength and forthrightness (acting as Solas' foil in that way, as a leader), Marcus embodies it more from a literal sense: from being stuck, in the highest room of that (ivory) tower.

He's... probably more like Solas than either of them would like to admit, really.

[gingerswagfreckles]

Every day on this website people log on and hate women.

[who-is-page]

Life is hard! Consider buying my stuff!

My life isn't quite falling apart, but things have gotten really tricky lately. One housemate (and their super destructive, permanent houseguest) is refusing to pay their share of rent or utilities for the next three months, and another is refusing to pay their full share of rent for that same amount of time and is making us cover around $75 every month, and I'm having to double-up my hours at work while still being a full-time student (and also one of my professors, who we're 99% sure is using ChatGPT to generate her citations because none of them exist and we pointed this out, hates my guts and has been grading me really harshly and forcing me to go full-sail on every assignment to ridiculous degrees in order to pass this required class).

My spouse is working on getting full-time at their job, but it looks like they won't be able to until December, and we also have no idea how much rent is going to increase this year-- my guess is it's going to go up another $500, same as last year, to a total of $3,000, so things are gonna get really fucking bumpy until around January, probably.

So basically, if you like the work I've done, consider throwing me a tip on Ko-Fi or buying my stuff on Itch.io:

(Also I promise we have more stuff lined up that we want to polish and publish, life has just been super-duper fucking busy! There is so much more going on right now than what I've mentioned here, especially in terms of surprise medical bills and other horrible surprises. And we haven't forgotten about Inky Paws issue 2, either, which we're still hoping to have done by December and which will STILL always be entirely 100% free to download, no matter what our living or money situation looks like. That will never ever change, so please don't worry!)