#this post confused me so hard

[ryssbelle]

Drew a bunch of Marinettes in a bunch of different artists styles it was a lot of fun!!

Artists who's styles I mimicked: @buggachat @hamsternamedmarinette @ladybeug @sabertoothwalrus and @anna-scribbles all epic artists 🤟😎

[lizzybeeee]

DATV explaining the 'Regret Prison'

A REGRET PRISON IS STUPID AND I'M TIRED OF PRETENDING THAT ITS NOT

TL;DR: a prison can serve as a metaphor but it shouldn't be entirely comprised of a metaphor.

From what I understood from what the game gave us: Solas has made a new prison to move the God's too - since bringing down the veil would free them from the Black City. This new prison is separate(?) from the fade or so far removed/contained that bringing down the veil would not compromise it...apparently. We interrupt his ritual, Solas gets sucked into the new prison he made, and the elven gods are free.

When Rook gets kicked into the fade they're physically there - which means it's a physical place in the fade, like how it was a mixture of physical/thought when we entered it in DAI. Which makes sense - the gods are real and living beings, they need to be in a place, there must be some aspect of physicality to it.

Alright, cool, it's a Black City 2.0 - I assume it's better defended to prevent people breaking in/out again?

NOPE.

We get there and it's a 'regret prison'?? It's tied to the regrets of those within it? Composed of regrets??? Solas had to wait for the right moment for Rook to be sufficiently 'full of regret' that they could switch places?

So is the prison tied to Solas's regrets? If so, how can Rook escape? The prison seems to work around the idea that it relies on the regrets of the person it's holding to work - which is how/why Rook was able to be trapped and later free themselves (along with whatever remains of the team apparently being able to do something on their end, not that we hear about it).

WHICH IS STUPID!

Are you telling me the prison intended to hold to megalomaniac elven gods was going to imprison them based on their own regrets? Is Solas assuming that Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain are as self-pitying as he is? They'd break out quicker than Rook did! He made a time out corner for the elven gods to sit in and gave them an out if they reflected on their emotions/regrets or decided that they don't regret what they did. Elgar'nan, a spirit of tyranny, is not going to 'regret' his actions - he is going to justify them by telling himself and others that he knows what's best.

We can come across some of Solas's regrets in the prison if you run around a bit and explore:

Remnant of Failure - talking about the orb from Inquisition.

Remnant of Parting - talking about Mythal

Remnant of Reflection - more vague, talking about the Titans I believe.

So maybe he altered it - maybe he intended the prison to be 'locked' with his own regrets because after a millennia of having a pity party he still can't bring himself to self-reflect and look to the future. But what if Solas died? Or if his guilt lessened - would it diminish the strength of the regret prison?

We already have pre-established lore (though DATV has shown they don't really give a crap tbh) that once the being that has claimed/altered an area of the fade is slain, it's influence diminishes both in and outside of the fade. So if the prison was tied to his regrets then it would require Solas to basically live forever to keep it stable - especially if he brought down the veil and removed the one barrier that kept the world and the fade apart.

Rook and Solas needed some assistance to exit - but it doesn't seem like it was much! Solas used his dagger and Rook just...got out through a fade tear? This is Solas's 'more secure' second prison? It has a worse track record than the Black City! If Rook - who is not an elven god - managed to escape the regret prison what is to stop anyone else from breaking in and out of the prison?

And what did Solas intend to do with the blight - the bulk of which is apparently in the black city?? If bringing down the Veil would free the gods in the black city doesn't that mean that the blight would also be released?! Did he have a plan? Why does he go fully ahead with bringing down the veil at the end if the black city is still there and filled with blight?!

I get it: the 'regret prison' is a metaphor for how Solas holds onto the past and how Rook can move past their regrets and grow. He's trapped by the past - it's a prison. Cool. But this prison is supposed to by a physical place to contain the gods - not just to solely contain Solas. The mission is literally called 'A Cage for Gods'.

The Black City is an actual place that's so far out of reach of anywhere else in the fade that no mage can ever reach it while in dreams - let alone physically, which was only done once and took tremendous effort/blood sacrifices. It made sense - it was cool to see floating in the sky in DAO!

Though it's not said specifically, it's strongly implied that Arlathan is the Black City. You can see in the concept art that floating elven city is exactly the same as the black city in DAO! It's this foreboding thing just lurking in the sky - a constant reminder of the sin that led to the horrors of the blights and darkspawn. A real place with lore and history that also serves as a metaphor for the hubris and destruction of those who call themselves gods and act as tyrants -> for both the evanuris and the magisters.

I WANT TO UNDERSTAND THIS BIOWARE!

WHAT IS THIS KINGDOM HEARTS NONSENSE???!!

[sweetsouldhavernas]

Tony DiNozzo and Ziva David ↳ UNDER COVERS

[mari-lair]

Hey do you fw this? I made 1 chapter of it so far.

I was confused about what story you wanted me to check at first but then!! I saw this on ao3!!

Yeah! I fw it! LET'S GOOOOOOO >:D

[buttercupshands]

*looking at isat ss discord* my power of being silly got out of control

or how I tried understanding rpg maker basics by literally trying to do one (1) thing I really wanted to see ever since seeing Loop unused sprites lying on wiki months ago

the reason I mentioned isat ss discord was simply bc guys were the first people who saw me trying to draw close to pixel sprite face sprite for Loop to,,, do something at some point just to see how it works

and nope I'm not making this into anything, but I really like the fact that I managed to do this

(now with video post edited into this sentence!)

[deltaruminations]

what if gaster in a future chapter calls out the audience for speculating so much about him. the guy canonically has some amount of access to Real Life Social Media. like i started this mostly as a joke but there are definitely some real metanarrative opportunities for a character with recklessly curious impulses, and possibly a fragile sense of self, having nearly limitless access to streams of debate over whether or not he’s a bastard. rude to talk about someone who’s listening etc

[aurorangen]

The Mini Vinnys

[koinotea]

ONE OF MY FAVES AND I THINK I NEVER POSTED IT HERE WHAATTT

[wackywatchdotcom]

something i genuinely adore about tadc is how painfully flawed everyone in the circus is. and not in a small way

everyone does SOMETHING that negatively impacts the others. but it makes the fact that you are supposed to sympathize with and really connect with them all the more potent. because its easy to want to put a bunch of characters in a bad situation together and to just have them all be nice to each other and everyone and never make mistakes because theres no reason to hurt each other, and most of them dont TRY to, but the way they cope is so, so realistic for each of their personalities, and it doesnt always mesh with the others, and sometimes it exceeds self destructive and Just Hurts Others, Too

they still generally care about each other and the mistakes they make and the ways they end up hurting each other dont lose their weight but like. it doesnt take away from their humanity and the fact that they are all trying so hard to manage in an awful situation

and the characters seem to have sooome sort of understanding of this too. not fully, because the characters dont tend to be 100% communicative, but when they hurt each other, it often makes EVERYONE uncomfortable. because these are the only people they have. these are their friends. and theyre all coping. but it doesnt change how much it affects them (best illustrated by ragathas lines at the start of ep 2 or gangles 'i love her, but after a while it gets kinda hard to tell how genuine shes actually being'). its not all like this, theres a good amnt of variety, but characters knowing this but not really knowing what to do about it is very painful in an effective way

(i think a subtle example of this is how zooble handles gangles situation in ep 4- they were so genuinely trying to help her because they care. but could tell as the day went on that oh, this is not working at all and its making things worse, and they leave gangle alone- something that very genuinely couldve been the moment she abstracted, because of the mask zooble gave her- and we dont get to have a super blatant explanation of zoobles thoughts on it, but they reach a fairly healthy conclusion about it that helps both of them, and i like that a lot, because on paper zooble could be placed at fault but the narrative doesnt dwell on it excessively, because thats not the point. i dont know if that tangent makes sense but i think about it sometimes. i think zooble wasnt 'to blame' but it was still a mistake, which is a hard balance to strike, and having them help at the end feels extremely effective at rounding it off!!!)

but like. in general its complicated balancing making characters in a bad situation act flawed because it can run the risk of seeming like the story is scolding them or blaming them for the situation theyre in, or like youre expected to not sympathize with them despite it (though the inverse also has complications- if characters in a bad situation never mess up, it feels unrealistic and hard to relate to, and can imply that their innocence is why whats happening to them is bad at all), but the show handles it so well

even the characters who are genuinely trying all try in different ways- some of them have similar outlooks or attitudes towards these thing but theres vital differences for ALL of them- sometimes it works and sometimes it doesnt. in fact some of the more painful mistakes characters have made in the show have come from them so genuinely trying (like the thing i mentioned w zooble, or basically Everything Ragatha Does, or pomnis first attempt at helping gangle, etc), which hits harder than if every mistake characters made had wholly selfish and cruel goals.

i mean, there is a selfishness to many of the characters' actions but imo not in a way thats not warranted. because all of them are in a horrible setting. its uncomfortable to watch characters be selfish. but it is a natural instinct to survive. its not the foundation of most of their actions, but when it is, its uncomfortable but hard to completely disparage them for in a way that makes you feel kinda conflicted

and like. it hurts to be doing your best and for that to make things worse, but its what happens often in the show. because no one in a bad situation is gonna handle it well. by the very nature of trying to survive something is gonna give, but it makes the themes of the show so much more powerful. that making sure the people around you dont feel unloved, cherishing them and finding meaning with others is no less important just because everyone is fucking up. it complicates things, for sure, but it doesnt make those characters exempt fromt this. theres a reason pomni tells gummigoo that she doesnt want "anyone" to feel like theyre nothing, and that kinger doesnt add ANY quallifiers to making sure people feel wanted and loved (not that i think either of them were thinking SUPER super hard, but it conveys smth from the perspective of the narrative

it gets complicated when you add in jax for sure, since i think on the surface he IS the exception to this concept- none of the characters like him, including pomni or kinger. but i think this is something thats gonna be examined further down the line, bc hes the main complicating factor in this reading of the show, but i feel like thats on purpose. hes universally disliked (and so is caine, in a different way) and his actions arent mistakes. they are him coping. the show has made it clear that he can be a complex person AND also a piece of shit. his actions dont detract from the fact that hes a person and the show reminds us of this. so it makes things so messy, but im genuinely super excited to see how the show examines that. where his character goes is, imo, going to be a massive piece of how this show fleshes out this concept

[angrywarrior69]

What your favorite Janeway ship says about you

Janeway x Chakotay - you're gay

Janeway x Paris - you're gay

Janeway x Seven - you're gay

Janeway x Kashyk - you love bloodshed and violence

Janeway x Ransom - you have a morality inside of you that you will not explain to anyone else

Janeway x Jaffen - how does it feel to hurt? How does it feel to burn?

[cozylittleartblog]

first time i have drawn bonnie, because i cannot draw dogs,

my last lucky post was a year ago :(

[the-bi-space-ace]

I’m gonna be honest with y’all. I try my best but I do not understand half of Star Wars. I’m Din Djarin in this fandom. I don’t understand the storyline, I have no idea what anyone is talking about, I don’t want to be in charge, I got a cool outfit and I have a car let’s ride.

[javierduffy]

“uh … it’s a bit girly … no?” javier examines himself in the reflection of his knife’s blade, looking this-a way and that, the dark blue of a large silken bow now peeking sheepishly around his neck as it sits gently in his hair. next to him, kieran clams up a smidge, hands still held close to his chest nearby his completed ribbon project on javier’s head. he finds it in himself to wring his hands a time or two rather than immediately undo his work as javier seems to continue to formulate his final opinion. “you … think so? look at me?” kieran asks, politely as a mouse. javier easily complies, turns at his hips and looks behind, up at kieran where he sits on the stump above him.

kieran, as he peers over, can’t help the meadow of flush that blooms over his neck, then his ears, then his nose and his cheeks. he can tell javier is deep in thought by the look on his face, mouth twisted just a might sideways, cocking his mustache awry, and the deep wrinkle sat between his brows. the ribbon he used matches javier’s vest perfectly, and the shine of the silk warms bright in the sun, just like every piece of jewelry and metal javier has adorned himself with. with this ribbon, javier’s hair sits lower on his head, ponytail draped down his nape and more hair framing his face in his bangs. kieran resists an urge to tuck one side back behind his ear.

kieran thinks that he looks like a painting, a muse, a love letter so heartbreakingly full of adoration that the only language it could be written in is bright swipes of pigment on a canvas. as he makes eye contact with the silk squinting around the red of a necktie, he thinks that javier may be right, if ‘girly’ could sum up ’poetry written in effeminate reverence’.

kieran always did think women made better art, wrote better books- found a better way to love. softer. warmer. prettier. like javier.

the world sounds like it’s underwater.

“i think … it’s very pretty. it suits you real well.”

earnest to a fault, the look in kieran’s eye dances gingerly with javier’s internal voice. it dips and sways him, and javier, despite his instinct, finds himself charmed by its rhythm.

“-b-but! i could take it out! if you don’t-“ javier looks down at himself in his knife again, the sunlight filtered through the leaves glinting a yellow green around his dark features, and kieran hands him patience on a silver platter. a rich blue makes friends with bright green quite easy, javier thinks. this is how he must look through kieran’s mossy lens.

“pretty … yes. you know, i think you may be right. i’ll keep it. gracias.”

[coquelicoq]

Sous la pergola courait en liseron sur toutes choses et sur les six infirmes le silence particulier des comploteurs fleuri du pavillon pâle et multiple des questions que l'on n'ose poser et qui attendent pour tomber le souffle du plus courageux. ("Le Café des Chasseurs", Daniel Boulanger)

my experience reading this sentence:

Sous la pergola courait en liseron sur toutes choses et sur les six infirmes le silence particulier des comploteurs

makes sense. this is a full sentence.

Sous la pergola courait en liseron sur toutes choses et sur les six infirmes le silence particulier des comploteurs fleuri du pavillon pâle

okay, maybe this makes sense? the silence particular to conspirators [which had] blossomed from the pale pavilion? kind of weird though...maybe it's related to the next part instead.

Sous la pergola courait en liseron sur toutes choses et sur les six infirmes le silence particulier des comploteurs fleuri du pavillon pâle et multiple

what

Sous la pergola courait en liseron sur toutes choses et sur les six infirmes le silence particulier des comploteurs fleuri du pavillon pâle et multiple des questions

WHAT????

richard coward translates this as

Beneath the pergola, convolvulus-like, the peculiar silence of the plotters spread over everything and over the six invalids, and the many questions that no one dared utter, and which waited to be asked for the breath of the bravest amongst them, fluttered above them like as many pale flags. (New Penguin Parallel Text Short Stories in French, p 115)

he also has an endnote after "courait" which reads

The subject of this verb is le silence particulier. Boulanger uses the inversion to convey stylistically the all-embracing secrecy of the meeting.

this is making me cuckoo. obviously the subject of courait is le silence particulier. what else could it possibly be!! that's the least confusing thing about the sentence!

what is actually confusing is everything that happens after le silence particulier. fleuri is a past participle which i would think is acting as an adjective because there's no auxiliary. what's it modifying? silence? are we saying [le silence [particulier des comploteurs] [fleuri du pavillon pâle]]? and where is the pavillon pâle coming from? this is the first use of the word pavillon. the translator takes it as figurative language, which maybe it is, but i can't figure out what it's doing in the sentence because...

what the fuck is going on with multiple? if it's an adjective modifying pavillon, then shouldn't it (and pavillon!) be plural? like by definition?? the translator has clearly interpreted it this way by the inclusion of "many pale flags". however, i originally interpreted pavillon not as flag (flags have not been mentioned in the story at all so far) but as outbuilding, because on the previous page the pergola was described as having "murs aveugles" which the translator thought was odd because pergolas don't have walls, let alone windowless ones, so he thought maybe it was referring to an outbuilding. also, if multiple is somehow modifying pavillon despite the fact that they're both singular, everything up to and including multiple is a complete sentence. what is des questions and everything after it doing? that's a completely new noun phrase. what verb phrase is it part of?

at one point i was thinking, could multiple be a verb? but it would have to be a verb in the 3rd person singular present indicative (or i guess subjunctive), so it can't parallel courait. there are present indicative verbs in this sentence, but they're both in the subordinate clause after "des questions". the subject would either have to be le silence (which doesn't make sense because courait also has silence as the subject and is in the imparfait) or le pavillon, which doesn't make sense because there's an et in between pavillon and multiple.

i can't say the translation is incorrect because i don't understand the original sentence. but if i start from the translation and try to work backward, the biggest problem i run into isn't "many pale flags" (maybe le pavillon pâle et multiple could be a plural noun phrase stylistically?) but rather "fluttered". he's added a completely new main verb that doesn't exist in the original. and at first i was assuming that he was getting fluttered from fleuri somehow, but i can't make that make sense either semantically or syntactically which maybe is a skill issue, i don't know!!

if we try to line up the correspondences between original and translation by color:

Sous la pergola courait en liseron sur toutes choses et sur les six infirmes le silence particulier des comploteurs fleuri du pavillon pâle et multiple des questions que l'on n'ose poser et qui attendent pour tomber le souffle du plus courageux.

Beneath the pergola, convolvulus-like, the peculiar silence of the plotters spread over everything and over the six invalids, and the many questions that no one dared utter, and which waited to be asked for the breath of the bravest amongst them, fluttered above them like as many pale flags.

it does seem like fluttered and fleuri have to be related somehow. maybe fleuri is actually supposed to be fleurit (most of the story is in the passé simple)...but if des questions is the subject, it would have to be fleurirent because questions is plural. and it still seems pretty weird not to have a conjuction in the french (he's added "and" in the translation). and where did the "above them" come from in "fluttered above them"? i am losing my mind. what am i missing.

[tchaikovskaya]

🫥

[saturnniidae]

"I should've seen the signs" I feel like Stoick was basically reliving the way he lost Valka.

To him, after a lifetime of wanting nothing but to kill a dragon, Hiccup's suddenly and inexplicably changed his mind. To him, Hiccup saying he can't kill them is just like when Valka refused to and tried convincing others as well, then as a result was 'killed' by one herself.

To him, way Hiccup tossed his weapon and shield to the side then approached Hookfang while speaking about how dragons aren't what people think they are probably bares an uncomfortable resemblance to the way Valka put down her weapon and stared a dragon in the eyes and as a result was taken.

To him, attempting to do anything but preemptively defend yourself against a dragon will only end in tragedy, so he has to do anything he can to stop Hiccup before it's too late.

(And just like with Valka, he unintentionally escalated the situation by trying to protect Hiccup but only agitated the dragon, causing it to panic and react, inadvertently putting someone he loves in danger. again)

Stoick of course, wasn't acting rationally, but it makes sense when you think about how traumatizing Valka's 'death' must've been for him (and how much Hiccup reminss him of her); he watched her get taken, presumably killed, and couldn't do anything about it.