#what are the known limitations

[seethinglikeme]

osamu dazai is so funny imagine trying to kill yourself like five times and only getting it right once and then like 60 years later some random guy makes you into an anime twink. and he’s just as if not more popular than you

[crackedhrglass]

despite alex's original plan for jimmy snakes (being "cursed, ghost rider style") my personal hc will always be that he is normal and completely detached from any supernatural weirdness and anomalies because i think it fits better with where i see him in stan's life (especially compared to ford).

BUT. the thought of stan flirting with a sexy cursed biker has so much potential for jealous, hypocritical ford.

the way i see it, ford can't stand anyone flirting with stan, but if it's a hot mermaid? a tall, spooky ghost biker? a spider babe? it's infinitely worse because in ford's eyes, those are things he can't compete with. ford has always been drawn to the strange and inhuman, even when it comes to romantic/sexual attraction, and he assumes stan must be just as fond of them, even though stan has only ever had eyes for his brother.

stan calls him out on his hypocrisy, considering his relationship history with bill, and ford just rolls his eyes with his arms folded like, "that's different! we were business partners first and foremost! and we were only intimate in my dreams, so it barely counts!" while desperately trying to convince stan that the handsome undead biker that keeps winking at him and ruffling his hair is more dangerous than whatever tf he had with bill.

[hybbat]

One thing I don't like is characterizing Jimmy's canary curse as a fault of his ego/stupid mistakes. He can be and has done those things, but that's not the root of why he loses.

In third life his last death was from a stray arrow that managed to slip through a half block from half a desert away, absolutely a freak accident and crazy shot into a box that was supposed to protect him. Two of his deaths happened back to back in this game, staying completely safe the rest of the time and in both he wasn't the only one.

In last life the man started with two lives and spent the whole game on those two lives! He died in the middle of a big fight where he was not the only one to perma die.

In double life Tango was at fault for the first death, and Jimmy WAS being extra cautious. Even Tango noted how long Jimmy went without dying. And can we acknowledge how incredibly crazy it is that he got knocked off from an arrow that hit him on the BACK of his head? All four were leaned out, and Scar made it out safe, because their attackers were specifically hunting the ranchers based on misunderstanding and bullying. And the enderman death. He was the third to die that way, lasted the longest with the least (on a food run, shield almost dead, no safe trees, abandoned) and that enderman came out of nowhere. That was the purest of bad luck.

And in limited life. Well, there's a lot of deaths, and some of them were silly. But several of his deaths were to Grian and HIS mistakes/malice. He fell off their base the least and his final death was one not even unique to him. The real nail in the coffin was Etho's boogie kill which was never intended to be him but Etho attacked a group after Impulse stole his kill. But the important thing to note is despite all that, Jimmy still died one of if not the fewest times in limited life!

Jimmy's problem isn't making stupid mistakes like Scar. He doesn't make them more often than any other player. He died the fewest times in two seperate series! His problem is his refusal to pvp. He never gets boogieman, he never knocked anyone else down, and when he does end up in group fights he tends to lose or run away. Limited life he got probably the fewest kills besides Tango, and three of them were willingly given to him. He never gained any lives in last life except his brief moment stealing martyn's. Jimmy's biggest problem is that he is too cautious and has zero fighting instinct, he never takes the risks to get ahead, and each time he even thinks of it he's punished for it so who can blame him.

And also Grian. Honestly, mostly Grian.

[clarasghosts]

I know a lot of people are really hoping to see more of the daniel/armand backstory, to see if their 70s/80s relationship in the show was like it was for their book counterparts, but a take I haven't seen yet is that it all really comes down to pacing. and that pacing is tied to their emotional states in the 2020s storyline (not to mention how louis' story takes precedent, of course).

in season one, daniel's dream memory of armand at the bar didn't happen until after he was already suspicious of rashid - louis catching his thought about rashid's weight was a big sign of his suspicion (which he later voiced, pointing out that rashid didn't exhibit any weakness due to the blood loss). rashid revealing himself as armand only, of course, increased those suspicions hundredfold, since now daniel knew armand had something to hide. that combined with armand's increasing anxiety stemming from louis' lack of control over the interview are the sources of tension and hostility between them in the first couple episodes of season two, which leads to daniel's further glimpses of memory leaking through. and then that's what leads to the episode five discovery. with the emotional pacing of the show, that episode could really only show the hostile beginning.

my guess is, if there is more to their relationship in the past, we won't actually see any of it until they grow closer in the 2020s storyline. everything that happened to all these characters in the past is already done, the story is driven by their present selves - how their present selves affect their perception of the past, and how that ever-evolving perception affects their present.

[alongtidesoflight]

so here's my honest thoughts on dragon age: the veilguard, after ~40 hours of playing. i finished the main quest after having finished all companion quests and major faction quests. just to clear up what content i saw, i played as an elven transmasc rook who is a member of the lords of fortune. he romanced lucanis (although after finishing the game i'm now leaning towards taash). i don't know what's happening in playthroughs that have a different race, gender identity, romance or faction going on.

full spoilers ahead, i mean it. don't read further if you want to avoid them. i don't want complaining about it in my asks.

oh and also, if you're worried because of a few negative reviews online i can comfort you by saying don't give a fuck about a certain big name youtuber who is very much tied to bethesda franchises giving this a negative review. i'll explain why.

i'm starting off with the things i liked

the game looks really pretty. i was worried it wouldn't feel like thedas anymore (with them trying to "focus on northern thedas only" i thought they'd make a clear cut in environmental design. they do and they don't. it's complicated. i'll elaborate on it when talking about the negative stuff). anyway it does. minrathous feels like kirkwall. treviso enchanted me like the winter palace did. the hossberg wetlands reminded me of the hinterlands and a couple other inquisition maps. arlathan looked like... arlathan. the crossroads were different, but familiar. overall i like the way it looks and feels. it's thedas, with a twist. it's a good one, and gives everything a solid but unique feel.

combat is top tier. if you're a hardcore dragon age player you WILL miss the tactical aspect of it for a bit, but i promise you, once you're used to the way the combat works, you will be lapping that shit up. and once you get to ability combos you'll mourn the control you used to have over your companions in battle a bit less

the MAIN quest and its story. i expected worse, way worse. and for a while the game even had me tricked (harr harr you'll get it in a second) it is Really That Much Worse. but holy shit was it good. i walked away satisfied ngl.

your choices have SOLID weight. there's consequences, good AND bad. i got minrathous blighted, ruled over by venatori, and the leader of the shadow dragons ultimately died because of my decisions. i made those at the beginning and throughout the game. he died at the end. DAVRIN died because i didn't expect what i was saying to have that much weight. i thought i was in the clear. he had hero status. well turns out, your choices can still get your companions killed even if you do everything right. i fucking love him. he shouldn't have made that sacrifice just because i told him to do everything it takes once.

the inquisitor, morrigan and dorian being there, surprisingly. there's also negatives to this though, see below.

speaking of companions dying and the inquisitor playing a bigger role: the final quest feels like me2's suicide mission. i was blown away by it and the fact that i got to see the results of all my efforts playing out in front of me.

bioware are NOT trying to redeem solas. they love him as a character yes, but i wasn't forced to see any good in him. he betrays you. he fucked my rook over twice. he fucked him over right back, for good this time (the veil wasn't torn down, i anchored it by binding him to it, he's doomed to uphold it). but solas really lives up to his name as the trickster elven god. rip to all the people who grew really attached to him over the years.

varric died. if you like him that's probably as hard reading it as it was watching it. varric died and the game lies about it until the very end. when the realisation hits, it hurts. but in the very best way.

the amount of care they put into gender expression and trans identities this time around. (i'll add onto this with negative points as well too).

rook feels very much ingrained in the world of thedas. he doesn't ask questions that expose the player to lore through dialogue as if he's stepped foot into thedas for the first time. those conversations feel very solid and good. i hope other faction players got as much joy out of this as i did.

and the things i didn't like and boy there's a lot unfortunately

the music. let's just get that out of the way holy shit. it doesn't feel like it belongs in this universe. it gets so incredibly sci-fi-y at times you'd think it's taken straight from mass effect andromeda. there's not a single song unique to veilguard that i really enjoyed. it broke my immersion, real bad. hearing a busker play the tavern songs from inquisition on a lute right after i killed some venatori with wobbly bass songs playing in the background is just odd. weird tonal shift. don't like it. it's made for people who like flashy light-weight cinema.

tevinter nights is required reading. the podcasts are required listening exercises. the game is so fast paced, especially at the start, that there's no time to introduce you to characters and how much weight their names carry in-game. i would not have known who half these people are if i hadn't skimmed over tevinter nights. i'd care even less about them than i already did. there is no time to get properly attached to them. people will act as if you're talking to a legend personified and you'll be thinking man goddamn which chapter of tevinter night were they in again and what did they do???

there's a weird mismatch with the animations. you'll have beautifully fluid ones, like emmrich casting spells. and then you'll have rook's face animating in the most unnatural manner that's sorta reminiscent of mass effect andromeda's "my face is tired" addison, when their emotions SHOULD be landing with the player rn instead.

i'm not vibing with the art style. sometimes it works. most of the time it doesn't. at points i felt like i was watching tangled.

that also brings me to some of the dialogue. same issue. i am watching frozen. i am watching tangled. someone on the writer's team really likes the adorkable trope. bellara is its victim.

for all the talk about identity, bioware sure doesn't like theirs. the grey warden armor got a redesign again and it just makes them look like a generic army. i hate it lol

in general, i don't like the armor design. the wardrobe/appearances system is fine, but it's just not helping if all the armors are just... kinda bland or downight bad looking? and don't get me started on the lords of fortune armor. that is orientalism personified.

the world states should have been carried over, full stop. i know they said they didn't because they want to separate what happens in the north from what happens in the south, which... i could have lived with that. but the inquisitor sends you letters that keep you up to date on... the south of thedas. you learn that there's a blight again, that people are standing strong but it's difficult, denerim's fallen, the rulers are taking care of it, orlais is fighting and they're successful for a while, etc etc. what's good bioware. i thought we don't care about the south this time around. why are you feeding me so much boring generic information. if you're not gonna show any of it and just write letters, then carrying the world state over should not have been an issue. i have a game dev background. those few lines of code would not have broken your budget or pushed your engine's limits. fuck right off.

this gripe of mine carries over to all the cameos. as a lord of fortune you have to deal with isabela a lot. it's fun. i missed her. you get to go drinking with her and taash and bellara! also my hawke romanced her. she's not mentioned once. they had the opportunity to put a sentence or two about her in there with not a lot of effort, trust me.

when varric dies, all she has is a single line about it. for gold, for fortune, for varric. she only says it if you interact with her on your way to the final push. that's not mandatory.

morrigan is there. kieran isn't. the old god soul that mythal and then solas absorbed? who cares at this point, the gods are dead now and solas is locked away for eternity. i suppose? why is morrigan there. she feels unneeded. i wish they'd just left her down south, at least that way i wouldn't have had to witness her god awful redesign.

dorian at least feels as if he belongs in this story. the shadow dragons are a crucial part to protecting minrathous. he's also weirdly underutilised. isabela and morrigan had more lines than him in my playthrough.

on the topic of romance: bro that was underwhelming. no, genuinely. you know when romance picked up a bit? after the point of no return. i heard maybe two lines of companion banter about it before that. maybe i missed something which i honestly doubt, but romance did not play much of a role in lucanis's storyline. i saved his grandmother as he wished me to (and if you read tevinter nights you know she was rather abusive and their relationship not the healthiest) and told him to focus on his family. a reunified family my rook wasn't even introduced to as a partner at the end of all that.

really, do not buy this game if you're only in it for the romances. others might be better, lucanis's basically gave me nothing. except for an outing (the second coffee date i had with him, it was getting repetitive) all of it played out once i committed to the final quest. the sex scene was a fade to black. annoyingly right after davrin died. if you're looking for well paced and good spice, pick up something else. the sweet talk and the final goodbye were nice though.

for all the good the ever-presence of gender identity does, it is brought up in such a disruptive manner too. it doesn't even play out naturally if you CHOOSE the lines that are meant to be said. hearing the words trans and non-binary in this setting doesn't feel right, and i'm saying this as a trans guy. i think it could have been handled more gracefully. the amount of times my rook went "i'm a MAN" as if he's about to start drumming on his chest and roaring any second now got super nerve-grating. "i'm so glad you're into me... the me who is trans. remember?" just. tell me one trans person who'd talk like that to a person they've grown close with and are trying to romance. this game doesn't handle sexuality well, so all this hey my body might not look like the way you're expecting it to look talk amounts to nothing anyway. i feel about this the way i feel about krem: this is partial exposition to trans experiences... packaged up for cis consumption. the ONLY exception to that is interacting with taash. holy shit was all of that heartwarming and bro did it feel good and natural to talk to them about theirs and rook's gender.

rivain and nevarra are new locations added by veilguard. they're also incredibly underwhelming, small and constricted maps. rivain is a coastline with a few ruins. the hall of valor is a partial ruin nestled into a cave on a beach, with a fighting pit. isabela is there in her skimpy outfit commentating your pit fights. that's it. i'm sorry if you were looking for a bustling pirate cove or whatever. you're not gonna get it. the nevarran crypts btw are a long ass dungeon crawl. that's it.

speaking of maps. i thought people were being dramatic when they said you're gonna be fighting the same enemies on them again and again. i thought they were figure of speeching it. they're not. you WILL fight the same amount of enemies. in the same spot. every time you reload the map. best to stay on a map and clear out the enemies and do as much questing on that map as you can before leaving, because you WILL have to do it all over again once you return.

the three choices i made for my inquisitor didn't matter lol she didn't have to face solas and therefore couldn't stop him at any cost as she had sworn (maybe because my rook tricked solas into binding himself to the veil, there was also an option to fight him. would she have stepped in? who knows). blackwall wasn't mentioned. and either her using a small amount of her forces in the final fight was the reason the civilians of minrathous fared so well..... or it just didn't matter. ultimately i think she had very little impact on anything

[aroaceleovaldez]

once again thinking about the worldbuilding in the riordanverse of "names are power" / "belief is power."

The Tri were only able to become immortal through convincing enough people to worship them that it became true. Monsters and immortals only exist through continued belief, and if enough people believe that they're dead or gone then it becomes true, like Pan. Their varied forms exist and manifest as they're believed in and called upon. Names call attention and epithets summon aspects. They're acknowledgement. Belief. Putting a name to a concept creates it as an individual.

And that's so fascinating when you start applying it to demigods. How much of their abilities are based on belief in themselves, in expectations of each other, in their parents' expectations of them? We've seen mortal figures who became immortal in some form or another because they were remembered. Even the lares - ancestral house gods, who persist because they're remembered. They have a legacy.

At what point does a demigod achieve that status? Rumors and whispers about them so persistent that they slowly become true. "I heard that Jason Grace is the son of two gods, does that make him a god?" "I heard Percy Jackson defeated a titan single-handedly. That he can create hurricanes without breaking a sweat. That he can control blood." After awhile, after enough rumors, does it become impossible to tell where they end and the legends begin? Isn't that what being a demigod is; half-legend?

[ganondoodle]

said this on tiwtter too but im seriously at my limit, people go and be all like "oh my god young people have no idea of basic internet security omggggg" and the same person will immediately make an account on t/hreads that is stealing so much data from you its basically one step away from straight up kidnapping

i get we are all desperate, i really do, but i WILL judge you if you go and sign up for the literally shittiest app on earth thats really just a flimsy disguise of a bunch of data suckers in a trench coat

use tumblr, cohost, pillowfort, (the latter two also allow nsfw) ANYTHING but that suckerberg leech i am BEGGING you

idk how accurate it is but i saw the numbers of 75 MILLION sign ups for the threads bs, what the hell are you doing, i feel like im in one of those old anti technology comics were young people just walk off a cliff en masse bc they only look at their phone and nothing else while im the old guy in a chair watching them do it

[ruvviks]

Mikhail and Vitali were inseparable; when they weren’t studying or getting into fights, they would hang out at Mikhail’s place to smoke and get drunk on cheap rum and vodka, to then pass out in each other’s arms and sleep most of the next day away. They promised each other— no matter what would happen— they would never leave each other’s side. Yet after starting university and college respectively, they did not see each other for a little over six years, leaving them both heartbroken and wondering what went wrong.

by lucas expedidor // catch me if you can; eden // clementine von radics, from 'courtney love prays to oregon' // sam sax, cruising: a broken tiara // 'ceramic home' by heavensghost; quote from john murillo // 'something's changed' by laiikastears // i don't want to watch the world end with someone else; clinton kane // fortesa latifi, from 'the truth about grief' // audre lorde, the evening news // frank o'hara, biotherm (for bill berkson) // heading home; ruben // 'preface to a dream' by alessandra casini // tokyo; caroline kole // langston hughes, poem // haruki murakami, norwegian wood // julie buntin, marlena // by lute // by aleksandr popov // anyway; noah kahan // christa wolf, cassandra: a novel and four essays

[hephaestuscrew]

Minkowski would be so intense about introducing Eiffel and Hera and Lovelace to any of her loved ones back on Earth. She makes the crew sit through a PowerPoint presentation on suitable topics of conversation to discuss with her mother. She gives Dominik a folder of detailed guidance about how to interact with Hera because he's never met an AI before. She asks Eiffel several days beforehand if he has decided what he's going to wear to meet her family, as though Eiffel has ever in his life put thought into an outfit more than 30 seconds before getting dressed.

She tries to control every parameter of the interaction in a way that actually makes it more uncomfortable for everyone involved. She spends the entire time sitting right on the edge of her chair, looking anxiously between each of these people she cares about, trying to tell whether they are getting on, and attempting to communicate with them individually through urgent expressions.

And of course it doesn't work. Eiffel puts his foot in his mouth. Dominik is confused and curious about all the wrong things. Minkowski dares to leave the room for a few minutes and when she comes back, her mother is showing the crew her baby photos, and Minkowski knows she'll never live this down.

[zukkaoru]

sorry i'm thinking abt megumi's incessant desire to be the first to die vs. the narrative keeping him alive despite and how the most tragic ending for him is not actually dying, but being left behind. for megumi, the worst fate is living a long life

[delightful-dorks]

NumbuhPhenon's Cold Reception is really making me think about the Interesting Twins and Rowdy Hooligans in light of how the Delightful Children came to be. The way the fic sets up Sector Z is just so gutting and horrifyingly plausible that the mere existence of other delightful children suggests so much about Father as a character; namely that for all the awful things he had to do to turn Sector Z into the DCFDTL, there's proof that they're not the only ones he's done this to-- and they might not have even been the first!

(And even if you aren't familiar with Cold Reception's specific recounting of how that happened, ZERO still implies a lot about them; the fic just illustrates one possible scenario in such devastating clarity it made me think about their Whole Deal a lot more.)

I think it's interesting that, out of the many delightfulized groups, the DC are the only group of children that Father actually claims as his own-- the Interesting Twins and Rowdy Hooligans don't live with him, and I think it's interpret-able from the way both of them talk about him whether or not they consider him their Father, or if he's just their boss. It's really making me look at Father as an embodiment of an abusive, selfish parent in a whole new light, in that perhaps the Twins and Hooligans represent the way some fathers have children that they either don't claim as their own or abandon for one reason or another.

Father says that the DC are his "perfect" delightful children, made from his original machine, but we don't ever see him mention any other attempts or children other than them. We know he must have done some experimentation, given how many delightfulization machines we see over the course of the series; it's probably his life's work that the DC were a culmination of, so.... where is all of his previous work? Whether he "made" the IT and RH before or after would probably give us some insight into his view of the DC-- maybe they weren't as effective as he had hoped and kept trying, or maybe his first few attempts before the DC weren't as driven or disciplined as he wanted. Either way, though, it doesn't help that both the IT and RH are never seen with parents and are conveniently not in America where the DC and people that know Father might see them. The two groups definitely strike me as being either too prone to failure (IT) or not willing to hold grudges enough (RH) for Father to accept-- probably seeing them as failed experiments that he distanced himself from. But honestly that's just the beginning of my questions. Do they even know about each other? What if they all think they're Father's only real kids, with Father maintaining a separate lie for all three? And, barring that, who were either group before?? We know the Delightful Children are Sector Z, but who were the Twins before? Who were the Hooligans before? Were they all KND, or was that where Father went wrong? Did he kidnap regular kids and expect them to be just as tactical and strong as Sector Z was (no doubt giving his machine too much credit for their efficacy) and thus abandoned them when they couldn't perform?

Much to consider....

[cyndrastic]

hey remember when i said i was drawing Vic Chaos as a milf?

alternates with different lighting (with and without words) and a time lapse under the cut! (btw the words on the cover all have to do with lore in my post covid au so send asks if you’re interested <3)

tw for nudity (without genitalia) in the time lapse cause i shaded the whole body before drawing the dress

[mildcicada]

[marc--chilton]

(wcau) due to his patch of territory being on clan borders, house has plenty of neighboring clan enemies (plainsclan territory and his overlap but since he's an ally and codstar's close friend, he's safe to hunt there even in winter when prey is scarcer; hunting on other clan territories is not as easily overlooked)

the deputy of this other (as of yet unnamed) clan has a particular bone to pick with him. ternstorm (tritter, name may change) isn't afraid to harm a free-roaming medicine cat, nor is he worried his torment -- more than is necessary for chasing someone from clan territory -- could end in his demotion as volestar (vogler) doesn't like house either. volestar, however, doesn't sign off on house's death either, as doing so would end in war

[purgetrooperfox]

I know Senshi's new here but this is so funny 😭 perception WARPED

[james-spooky]

this is a test