#this isn't really a criticism

[laurelsofhighever]

Today on Useless Worldbuilding Nitpicks That Bother No One But Me:

Why does Redcliffe have a windmill? It make sno sense for Redcliffe to have a windmill.

Why?

Windmills are generally built on flat, clear ground (think The Netherlands) to take advantage of wind coming from all directions. Redcliffe is, well, on the side of a cliff

The village already has a watermill. Water from the stream running through the village would be a much more reliable source of kinetic energy for whatver milling is going on, especially if a millpond was dug above the wheel to ensure water could be stored in times of drought

Watermills are easier to build. they don’t have to be tall enough or robust enough to support the size and weight of the sails, you can just stick a wheel on the side of a house and off you go

So what is the windmill for? How did it get there? Maybe it wasn’t originally intended as a windmill, but some sort of beacon tower or a lighthouse to warn sailors away from the edge of the lake, which for some reason fell into disuse and was repurposed later. The Orlesians were probably to blame.

[fox-guardian]

starting to feel like part of the reason that Sam and Celia's romance thing feels a little off rn is cuz like. what do you mean they're actually dating. he asked her on a date and she said yes. and it's working out so far. it's chill and fine. what do you mean they're not pining for 4 seasons, not communicating, and then getting together only after one of them walked through hell to drag the other out and make sure they know they're loved and wanted. they haven't even patched each other's wounds yet hello. aren't y'all moving a little fast.

[benevolenterrancy]

("Always. Continuously. With increasing apprehension, and decreasing hope. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this." -- paraphrased from The Beatrice Letters, Lemony Snicket)

[yashley]

Then why are you here? What is it you want? I want to free you.

[deadrocks]

Very funny to me that the gods will *not* smite any of the Hells for knowing how they brought down Aeor, but the Wildmother *will* knock the shit out of Chetney for trying to stick his wood chisel in her magic tree.

[bixels]

The Ryoko Kui interview's reception is such a disaster over a pretty normal (yet still flawed) interview between a non-Japanese fan and Japanese artistic. This is discourse for discourse's sake, and it's no surprise that almost every Twitter user I've looked at who's using this interview to parade Kui around as a goated mangaka standing strong against Western ideology is anti-trans.

Like, I do think the interview was kinda wonky with its focus on fandom culture, which Kui clearly didn't have much interest in. But sometimes that happens. Sometimes interactions between two people, especially a fan and a creator, two people who view and interact with a piece of media in completely opposite perspectives, don't click. Does this really need to get blown up into a "West vs. East culture war" issue.

Anyways, Kui saying "I don't consider my audience's interpretations when writing. I leave it to their imaginations, but I have my own read on things too" is the healthiest, most normal thing an artist/writer who wants a non-parasocial audience could say. Artists and writers use this line all the time. If Kui didn't enjoy autistic Laius or Farcille headcanons, she would have probably voiced/signalled her discomfort, like she did on the topic of Senshi fanservice. Overall, Kui handled the interview really well. Props to her to sticking to her guns and keeping a healthy disconnect from the fandom. While I think the interviewer could've/should've been more tactful and restrained, the flaws in their questions is not a symptom of the woke mind virus trying to wriggle its way into the pure Japanese psyche. It's the sign of an over-eager fan who sees a piece of fiction differently than its creator.

[pstelwitchcraft]

Since I was screaming at the TV at the cast forgetting all the cool stuff they've done, I've decided to live up to my blog name and list all of my favorite Bells Hells achievements:

Those towers in Jrusar are now forever haunted by a little girl with a flower basket

Won the deathwish race

Took down the Paragon's headquarters in Bassuras

Saved Imahara Joe and Dancer + united them to help save Exandria

Zephran tourists are forever banned from flying the glider thingies

Saved the city of Uthodurn from a massive celestial bull

Helped the Hearthdell village

Gathered and united the two shards of Primordial Titans bringing their powers back to life

Saved Keyleth's life after the Solstice

Were the first ones to infiltrate the malleus key and step on Ruidus that weren't Ruby Vanguard

Stablished communication between Exandria and the Volition

Exploded Ludinus' headquarters

Saved Evoroa and brought the first ever Ruidian to Exandria

Killed OTOHAN THULL

Reunited Imogen with her mother and are now fully bringing her to their side

Have met pretty much every single pc and important npc in CR history save for a few

Trapped Delilah forever and got the closest to killing her anyone in history could since she REFUSES TO DIE

Helped kill a Grand Demon trapped for a 1000 yrs under Aeor (tho I'll admit they mostly fumbled about for that one)

[avengingannie]

ROBBIE WITH THE SENDING STONE NECKLACE ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW???? 😭😭😭😭💙💚

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Market based mistakes.

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[nattikay]

the constant inner struggle of a Na'vi speaker/teacher browsing Na'vi OCs

[the-ace-with-spades]

(another unfinished post i found on the way to glasgow - that was the longest train ride in my life - I'm sorry in advance)

When Ice finally passes away, at the age of 73, in his sleep, Bradley moves Mav into their house the same day.

He gets the call in the morning, while trying to simultaneously cook Jake's breakfast and try to make their daughter put on a rain jacket. It's not Mav, but someone from the hospital. Jake doesn't know this — Bradley's face twitches only for a second and then he's back to the nagging, relaxing tone and telling their daughter it's raining and it won't stop. Jake only finds out when he comes back home from the school drop-off and Mav is already there on their couch. Jake doesn't even get the full explanation until that night, just a quick, "Ice passed away overnight."

There's only their three youngest living with them at the time — their 18-year-old daughter who attends UC San Diego, and their 15-year-old son who is still in high school, and their 7-year-old daughter — so Mav takes one of the vacant bedrooms.

The first few nights, Bradley sleeps in the same bed with him. Neither of them looks like they get much sleep. They don't really eat, either, just drink coffee and nibble on the crackers.

The kids start coming back home, and their oldest helps Jake arrange most of the things for the funeral, at least for the first few days. Mav is... numb, not really there, and Jake understands — he would, too, if he woke up one day and his husband died in his sleep next to him. Bradley is silent, mostly, the way he usually rambles to fill out the silence, the way he hums, the way he sings at any given time when there are no words spoken, it's all gone and Jake doesn't know how to fill out the silence either, how to ask, how to make it better without asking.

Bradley doesn't cry, or at least not the way he knows Mav does — he can see Mav's red eyes every morning — but there's something empty in his gaze, in the way his eyes follow Mav and in the way he melts whenever Mav is around, always close, always brushing against him. Mav spaces out a lot, doesn't talk much, doesn't—well, doesn't do much. Every time he tries to help with something, paperwork, the funeral arrangements, the hospital bills, even just sorting out the kids' school leave or Jake's own work leave, he fumbles a bit, not really able to focus on anything for long, and it's like his mind is completely scrambled. Jake doesn't know how to help him — doesn't know if they even can.

The kids, well, did not take it well, as expected. The oldest two try to be brave and help Jake with everything, keep the house going, but their youngest daughter doesn't really understand why her pops isn't back, the middle kids don't understand why now — Ice was in remission, in good health, would go hiking with them once a month, play with them in the backyard, talking about plans for the future with them, nothing that would tell them to expect their pops passing away. Mav and Ice had taken care of all of them for years, while Jake and Bradley were still deployable, and helping out as much as they could. Ice was a huge part of their lives, since the very beginning.

Bradley is certainly not doing any better but one couldn't be able to tell if they didn't know him well enough. He's always been more for packing his feelings into a tight neat box, compartmentalizing until there is too much and it all overflows in some explosive way. His focus is mostly on Mav and the kids, trusting Jake to take care of anything he can't.

Jake can't even ask him how he's doing until the night before the funeral.

Mav tells Bradley he wants to be alone that night and Bradley lands in their bedroom.

He acts normal — checks the kids are in bed, checks on Mav, prepares stuff for breakfast in the morning, has a shower. Only when he sits down in their bed, their dress blues, cleaned and pressed sitting on the hangers hooked up on their wardrobe, right in front of him—only then he freezes, a blank stare still on the uniforms.

Jake sits down next to him on the bed. "Talk to me, Bradley."

"I knew it was going to happen at some point, I just," "I just thought we would have a few more years."

Bradley sleeps curled up on his chest — he sleeps the whole night, soundlessly, and Jake is almost settled.

Almost. Mav is a couple doors down, alone.

Ice's been—had been retired many years now, but he had been high enough in the ranks that the Navy still insists on making a military funeral. Jake tried to take away as much of the flashy bullshit as possible, but there are still things leftover — the sailors with the flag, the flyover. But there's no one who wasn't close with the family at the ceremony, there's no speeches, and no one tries to hand either Mav or Bradley a flag.

The wake has an even smaller amount of people, all packed in their house — Mav hasn't been at his own house since — and thanks to Slider, mostly, and his 'the bastard wouldn't want us to mope around', it's less sad and quiet.

Mav eats two slices of cake, which is the most Jake's seen him eat since, and even laughs at some stories about Ice people are exchanging.

Ice had a good life. A big family. A big happy family that loved him.

But life goes on without him. Jake goes back to work first, then the kids have to go back to school, then Bradley has to back to work. After a couple of days alone at their house, Mav starts bringing up moving back to his own house.

He's not really doing great. He's still quiet, still spaces out more often than not, still forgets himself sometimes, still freezes whenever he tries to say something and the we he uses is one person short. He's—lifeless, for a lack of better word, and seems like he's noticing it now that Bradley isn't with him most of the waking hours.

"That is our home," Mav tells them. "I can't abandon it forever, I'd be abandoning him, too, if I—"

Jake—Jake gets it. He doesn't like it, but he gets it.

Bradley's been fielding off any suggestions of Mav moving out but he's pretty sure that soon Mav is going to pack his stuff and up and leave without asking for permission.

"If he wants to move back home, we can't exactly hold him here. against his will."

"Jake," Bradley says. "I feel like—if we let Mav go back there alone, he's going to die of a broken heart and I won't have either of them anymore."

"Sweetheart—"

"I know it's selfish," he interrupts, "but I can't lose him, too. Not now."

Jake can't make Mav stay with them — so he finds the best solution he can and instead, they all move in with Mav. Hell with it, he's going to try to get everyone to live their lives to the end. They'd done it before, Mav, Ice, Bradley, Jake and their two kids under one roof, when their oldest two were their only two kids.

The two of them and two of their youngest; two of their kids move into their house so they don't have to sell it.

Mav lives on. They try to occupy his mind by throwing their youngest at him — ask him to take her to school, pick her up from school, take her to her gymnastics class, do her homework with her, teach her how to play piano. The other kids pick up on it, too, and their high schoolers would wrap Mav into doing math workbooks with them, or ask him to drive them to their friends' house, and the kids that have moved out ask Mav to go to lunch together or call him to ask him things about car and house repairs that don't exist.

Mav gets brighter every day. Never as bright as before, but no longer so numb.

Their daughter ends up never moving out and so do they.

They all get older but Mav holds up pretty well. He does break his hip when trying to wash the windows, had a limp and terrible back ache ever since, had to stop driving because he can't see shit, had to stop piloting even sooner, and his memory is also shit, but Jake is pretty sure his cholesterol is lower than his own and he has better blood pressure than Bradley. Bradley and Mav are the ones cooking after all, Jake is the one eating all the tasty but not healthiest food, and Mav's life revolves around spoiling his cute great-grandkids and Bradley's is filled with the constant stress of managing Navy's top flying school.

For his ninetieth birthday, Mav flies a fighter jet as a passenger, the oldest person to ever do that — his youngest granddaughter is the one to take him up in the air, a junior grade lieutenant herself. They have a birthday party held at their house, Mav falls asleep in the armchair, Bradley makes fun of him and promptly falls asleep on the couch, too. Jake loves them both so much and still kind of can't believe he has this — house full of grown-up kids and grandkids of his own, his graying husband of over thirty years, his father-in-law coming to an age he wanted to see his mother at.

They're cleaning up, their two daughters who still don't have kids and didn't need to go home helping, and Mav tells them he's going to get some fresh air on their veranda. "I've got a terrible headache," is all he says.

Half an hour passes, they've packed all the clean and dirty dishes, and Bradley huffs to himself. "He fell asleep on the bench again, didn't he," and goes outside.

Bradley shouts for him in less than a minute. The ambulance is there in eight. Within the half-hour and a CT scan in the hospital, the neurologist tells them Mav is too far gone to survive the day. Within six hours, every single person from their family has come to say goodbye. When they pass the seven hours mark, Jake stands up from the plastic chair behind Bradley — he's not about to tell Bradley he should rest, but he's been holding Mav's hand since the minute they admitted Mav to the ward and hasn't eaten or drunk anything all day. He tells him he'll go grab them a coffee and bagels and gets a little nod and a smile.

Jake comes back twenty minutes later and Bradley doesn't even look up from where he's gripping Mav's hand.

"Can you get the nurse for me?"

[leia-leek]

EA is a triple A gaming company worth billions. But BioWare? It's a subsidiary that is smaller than you think. (EA has about 13k employees, but BW has about 500).

Not pre-ordering or buying on the day of release isn't going to send a message to EA to improve its practices. It's only going to hurt BioWare and their remaining employees. (This isn't aimed at people who can't afford it, or don't like the game(s), or don't like what they've seen so far, or are very skeptical and want to hold off. I'm talking to people who are excited about the game and have the $60 to spare.)

Yes, there are things to criticize about BioWare and EA, I get it, I really do. What happened to Mary Kirby and those like her is awful. Fuck them for that, truly. The merchandise packages that don't include the game, kinda scummy. But if you don't take that as a sign that EA is pushing down, hard, on BioWare, then I don't know what to tell you. Do you think BioWare is somehow immune from EA's scrutiny? BioWare has two big misses in their recent history, after MEA and Anthem, they are on thin ice.

Will the game be buggy on release? Maybe. They do have a history of it. Hell, DAO is still buggy af, but we love it anyway. Will the game be bad? Possibly. There are story elements in each game that still piss me off to this day. It is a gamble, but if you like what you see and are excited, there is no reason not to support the franchise you love. Do you want more Dragon Age games? Do you want more Mass Effect games? If yes, then the best way to get more games is to buy this game.

The only thing that will happen if DATV sales suck, will be for EA to believe that Dragon Age games no longer sell and to nix or hold off on all future projects for it. By waiting for it to be on sale or pirating it, you could very well damn the future of BioWare and the DA franchise. You're not fucking up EA when you choose not to buy DATV, you are screwing BioWare, which is not the same as EA. BioWare can be dissolved, but EA won't. They won't care, EA will happily get rid of something that isn't making them money. EA is not gonna be hurt by DATV doing poorly in sales, they have their sports franchises that will always make them money. It will only hurt BioWare and the remaining developers. Do you like Weekes? Epler? Busche? Support them!

So if you are excited about Dragon Age: The Veilguard and want to see more Dragon Age games, don't let anyone convince you not to buy it, or pre-order it. Don't let anyone make you feel bad for doing so. If you have the money and like what you see, I encourage you to buy it and show support for your favorite franchise.

(Those worried about the SAG-AFTRA strike, don't be, DATV isn't included in the strike. More here.)

[short-wooloo]

Because the stupid acolyte witches have brought it back to the forefront with their nonsense, I need to remind everyone

DARTH PLAGUEIS DID NOT CREATE ANAKIN

People who either never read or haven't read the Darth Plagueis book in a long time always seem to forget that Plagueis' experiments FAILED

He tried-TRIED to create life through the Force, it didn't work, badly, it didn't work so badly that it managed to piss off the Force which in turn retaliated by creating Anakin, Plagueis' attempt at creating life was so unnatural, such a perversion, so offensive that the Force created a life form for the purpose of destroying the sith

[antianakin]

I'm not a huge fan of Jedi Kryptonite suddenly starting to show up everywhere. It feels lazy, like the only way you can make your particular bad guy seem powerful and the Jedi less so is to introduce a random Kryptonite that just makes the Jedi incapable of fighting at their normal level. If the only way you can conceive of your bad guy being scary is to neuter the Jedi, maybe you're just not that good of a writer. Food for thought.

[bruciemilf]

Somebody tell me if this is a bad take, or if my love for Bruce is causing my objective brain to glitch, but-- something about advertising Batman, a hero who's very popular for being good with children, for being NURTURING with children, a bad father kinda defeats the whole purpose of what he's supposed to represent.

Batman is a protector; He protects people the world (and especially law enforcement) does not care about. That's literally the point of him.

Something about marketing " you can be incredibly violent to people you care about! And Its fine, because you care about them even if you abuse them, and that's what matters!" towards people, but especially men and young boys, is REALLY fucked up to me.

[genericpuff]

I'm not sure if anyone else has made this connection, but I've never seen it mentioned before. I think, similar to Lolita, RS was also inspired by the art of Trevor Brown. His work has a lot of young girls and medical fetish themes (to put it lightly) in a style reminiscent of RS's earlier stuff.

sigh

CW: medical fetish art often depicting children / child-like characters and medical equipment such as needles, gas masks, etc. seriously don't hit the jump if medical equipment or young girls in nurse's outfits or with open wounds makes you squeamish, I will not blame you for turning around now LOL

OP I was about to just... dismiss this. Wave it away as a funny coincidence that is indeed funny, but doesn't have any real evidence to back it up. I had a post typed up in response already declaring this, after which posting I was gonna move on with my day, work on Rekindled, play some XIV.

Because sure, there are a lot of resemblances between Trevor Brown's work and Rachel's old art, but nothing that can't be dismissed in good faith as a simple coincidence of being within the same genre of fetish art (first three are Trevor's, last three are Rachel's).

But then that little voice in the back of my head whispered in my ear, "Puff. You should double check. Just to be sure. Do your due diligence." And I once again found myself on the precipice of the rabbithole that somehow becomes deeper every time I jump. This time though, I knew it couldn't be that bad, I mean, I had enough confidence in knowing that there's no fucking way she listed Trevor Brown as one of her favorite artists-

God fucking dammit. How in the world did I miss this? I mean, I suppose I missed it simply because I'm not familiar with the works of Trevor Brown, but you can bet your ass I became familiar with it in my digging. Yeah, this guy is a supreme creep.

Again, I am not going to accuse Rachel of being a pedophile because that's just not an accusation that should be thrown around without undeniable evidence. What I will say, which has largely remained the same - though even more confidently now than ever before - is that she's clearly someone who took a lot of inspiration and influence from very problematic artists when she was young (I'm talking in her late teens which has me wondering if she started making medical fetish art when she was still a minor-) and then, BEST guess, she started to drop the medical fetish stuff around the time she went to college (which was also the same time she dropped The Doctor Pepper Show, which later got reworked into The Doctor Foxglove Show which was a lot less reminiscent of her medical fetish style from the early 2000's, but still had some of her usual preferences at play) and that's led up to today where she's drawing comics that look like they're for kids but tackle heavy adult subject matter in the worst way possible that straight up perpetuates grooming.

No matter how much experience I have with this already, no matter how much I think I've already seen, I always find more, and this time was no different. In fact - though unrelated to the original topic - thanks to this one fucking ask, I even found the full Mads Mikkelson comic with the completed caption. You know, that one.

And apparently Mads Mikkelson did very much replace her crush on Jeremy Irons.

Who's Jeremy Irons?

Oh yeah.

I just... y'all I can't. This is un-fucking-real. I'm gonna go take a shower, I need to scrub myself off of this 😭