#whatever. POST.

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

that article going around abt firefox's new ad program is annoying bc it's phrased as though "mozilla has finally TURNED on its people and is SELLING YOU OUT for cold hard cash!!" when. that's not what's happening. it is specifically being implemented to discourage tracking behavior, and literally all the data they are giving to advertisers is aggregate and anonymized, which is like, the opposite of what that post wants you to worry about, lol

[mroddmod]

the queen of the disco or whatever

[yumenikkii]

just another average day in gravity falls

[shigure]

hello. if you thought this post was entertaining please download and play this game my friends made. they're smarter and funnier than i am and everything i do is a commercial for their hard work

i can't delete the poll

send post

[runawaymarbles]

the "is it ok to have sex when your kids are in the house" thing is so funny to me because like. if you have lived with both of your parents at the same time there's a 99.5% chance they have had sex while you were in the house. if you co-slept then your parents probably had sex while you were in the same bed. this is the gender neutral bathroom debate all over again.

[42-clocks]

[image ID: Bernie Sanders meme with a small aromantic flag captioned “I am once again asking for you to include aromantics in your pride art/posts/merch” End ID]

[aesethewitch]

When I was a kid, we moved into a house that had a huge lilac tree out front. It was mostly rotten, and it needed to be taken down before it fell. It took a while, but eventually, it was gone.

Mostly. A couple years later, little lilac babies popped out of the ground in its place. My mom was determined to get rid of them, because she'd planted a beautiful flower garden there, and the lilac trees would overshadow and kill the whole garden. I insisted on saving at least a few saplings. She said fine, but I had to dig them out and put them in pots myself.

So, I did. I spent days digging little lilac bushes out of the ground and putting them into pots. Some couldn't be saved, but some could. When all was said and done, I had five brand-new lilac saplings. Seven or eight years old, and it was my absolute pride and joy.

Three died due to sun scorching, severe drought that no amount of watering could save, and perhaps just being moved from their place in the ground. But two survived, and I was awfully proud of them! I'd go out and talk to them every single day. I watered them by hand and made sure they were fertilized properly. I learned all about their favored environments, and I was determined to make sure they lived.

One of my mom's friends saw what I was doing with the lilacs. She asked if she could have one to put in her backyard, and I agreed on the condition that she take very, very good care of it.

It's now fucking enormous. I'm talking ten feet tall and bursting with beautiful purple flowers every spring. My mom still gets updates each year as they start to bloom, which she forwards to me. And all I can think is, "That's my friend! Thriving some twenty years on, there it is."

The other tree nearly died, too. It lived in a pot for far, far too long. I wanted to plant it somewhere in my parents' yard, but my mom was reluctant. Eventually, we agreed to put it in the far back garden. It grew okay for many years, despite the shade, but in all these years, it's never bloomed.

Last year, the massive tree casting massive shadows over the lilac and the garden cracked in half and fell. It tumbled into the garden, crushing part of the nearby shed and destroying a few plants beneath it.

It missed my lilac by inches.

The clean-up is long done. The rest of the tree has been cut down, and my lilac has full sunlight for the first time in fifteen years. It won't bloom this year, I know. But it's got new shoots up. It's taller than ever. I spent half an hour a few weeks ago praising it for surviving all this time, dreaming about its future and telling it how I believe it'll become the tall beauty it's always been meant to be.

I think next year, I'll see flowers.

[spaceistheplaceart]

thinking about what mabel and ford have in common <3 sweaters, diaries, and bad breakups.

[wintergrofyuri]

"(blank) hates laios!" WRONG WRONG WRONG. SHUT THE FUCK UP

shuro is just as awkward as laios and it is made So clear he considers him a friend and likes him. he defends him when the canaries start talking shit and actively readies himself to physically fight them so they dont get to him.

namari also likes laios. she respects him as a leader and also defends him and readies to fight the canaries.

ive not actually seen anyone claim izutsumi hates laios, but a lot of ppl Are weird abt them. izutsumi and laios' relationship was rocky at the beginning. he struggled to figure out how to interact with her. but by the end, she actively seeks him out to talk with during the lead up to the feast. she hides behind him when falin wakes up. she has already realized shecan do what she wants and does not need to stick around, yet she does. she sleeps near him on the windowsill, waiting with him and marcille for falin to wake up. she has accepted him as part of her life and wants to keep him in it.

marcille does not hate laios. let me say this again.

Marcille Donato Does Not Hate Laios Touden.

marcille Loves him. in a platonic, familial sense. laios returns this just as readily. she yells at him. she whacks him. she tells him whats on her mind. she uses healing magic to ease his pain during the parasite fiasco. she reattaches his leg when he loses it. she teaches him magic. she lays her head on his corpse and cries before reviving him. she launches herself at him two times, when the canaries interrogate them and when he talks her down in the tower. he is a comforting presence to her. she trusts him, she cares about him, she worries about him, she imagines him as a big fluffy dog that loves and protects her. laios is her rock when falin is taken from them time and time again. and she tries to be his as well. she whole-heartedly, unconditionally, loves and trusts laios.

chilchuck does not hate laios. laios pays him his rates, no questions asked. laios trusts and respects chilchuck's job as a lockpick. laios does not see him as a child (at least, i cant think of an instance where he does so). chilchuck states, outright, he sees him as a friend and doesnt want to see him hurt. he actively worries about him as the falin situation gets worse. chilchuck respects laios. he shows almost 0 hesitation in helping get falin back, nor eating her by the end. he does not think of leaving him once, until he realizes he could lose him. chilchuck is cowardly with emotions and prefers to bottle things, so his first instinct was to bolt. he was angry because he was scared of watching someone he cares about destroy himself. laios is his Friend.

and holy shit. holy Fucking shit. kabru DOES NOT hate laios. kabru has the rockiest start known to man with him, and he Still helps him by occupying the canaries. he warns him about them. he hides the black magic from them just as shuro does. his whole Thing is trusting laios despite himself. kabru has his own baggage regarding other people, just like laios, yet he tries so hard to believe and trust this man. he Wants to. kabru is not very hopeful, but laios makes him Want to be. he states like 3 times he wants to be close to him and sees him as a friend. he stays through the entire feast!! the man who hates monsters, whose biggest trigger is monsters, actively, consciously, Willingly stayed through the entire monster meat feast. all to help his friend get his sister back. he could've left!! the feast was like an entire week!! yet he was there for every single day. he was one of the closest people to the door when falin awoke!! after reuniting with her brother, her friends, the people who knew her the most (plus senshi and izutsumi), the first person she greets is kabru!! he wants to be close to laios, he likes laios, laios is his friend and he cares for him, he wants to meet his sister!!! kabru fucking stays on the island with him as one of his closest, most trusted advisors when he becomes king!!!!! he wants to help him succeed!!!! he wants him to be happy!!!! laios is his friend!!!!!!!!

im just. people like laios!! laios is a nice guy! he is friendly and cares about people! he is weird, he doesn't understand most social cues, he oversteps boundaries, but they stay beside him, because they like him and he is their friend. he is their friend!!!!! friendship is not all sunshine and rainbows, relationships in general are not sunshine and rainbows. you will upset people, people will upset you, you will get into arguments, things will happen, but at the end of the day, the people close to you like you! they love you! they care for you! they want to work it out and get through it because they love you, but they will feel those emotions first! human relationships are complex and messy and life is complicated. even shows for toddlers know this.

if you truly believe any of these characters hate laios you are worse than a toddler. watch some fucking oobi or something. god. fuck.

take this

thanks

[sillylotrpolls]

Before voting, spin the wheel and get a Lord of the Rings character.

Not sure who your character is? You can look them up on this Tolkien Gateway character list, or just vote based on vibes.

For the purposes of the game, assume your vote is not "LaCE compliant." (That is, fucking an elf does not instantly mean marriage or death for that elf.)

Poll concept from @pollsnatural.

[konfizry]

Full BtD spoilers stream of consciousness under the cut

So the part where Nazamil's aim is to erase everyone's free will and personality and charisma to End Racism. You scratch that. Been done better elsewhere, very poorly executed in BtD let's just. I mean I guess you could have gone down that path and still ended up with something palatable but let's just indulge me this time around.

So what we do instead: make it so that Nazamil wants to erase people's memories. Her idea is that if people forget about the great conquest, the subsequent enslavement or Dahnans, the 300 year rule, the humilations, the dehumanization, the crown contest, the loved ones they lost, Lenegis, the Hollowing, if they even forget about the concept of "Dahnan" and "Renan", then the walls between people will break down as a consequence. You can still keep the masks/supressors that were used in BtD, to keep (and imo further reinforce) the callback to Alphen's mask. Erasing memories and pain is what it did, after all (tho for my purposes i'm choosing to focus only on memories. heck nazamil might even correctly come to the conclusion that supressing everyone's sense of pain might lead to Issues that directly threaten everyone's survival so she tweaks the suppressors so they don't do that, if that was ever an issue. or. whatever just come up with a quick explanation, for that)

Anyway. So. First of all in BtD it is stated that Nazamil forces the suppressors on people (and subsequently has supressed people also do it for her)? Too silly. Scratch that as well. Make it so that there were people who were genuinely interested in forgetting. Forgetting the horrors they've witnessed, forgetting the disgrace they've endured, forgetting the unfathomable. So, Nazamil reached to them and they put the suppressors on of their own free will. Which is just a little more disturbing, so we're going with that. Now, what's so bad about a couple weirdos forgetting their most painful memories if they so choose? Your body your choice and all that. Well, maybe there are unfortunate side effects, maybe it messes with their sense of self, maybe their family members don't want to see their relatives lose the experiences that they shared with them, unpleasant though they may be.

But there's worse, and more pressing matters at hand, because the forgetting epidemic is spreading as more and more people --Dahnans and Renans alike-- are going to Nazamil to have their memories erased. Even more alarming: as it turns out, Nazamil's amazing technicolor dungeon headquarters powered by Helganquil technology can also connect to Dahna's will. Her theory is that if she manages to gather enough people with a strong desire to forget in her headquarters, she might be able to hijack Dahna's will into making it so that every person has their memory wiped entirely (Alphen-style. they would still retain all their skills like walk, talk, bake, and also very basic knowledge maybe, but their experiences and identities would be back to square 1. it's magic dont question it). Oh yeah her theory is correct, btw, ofc it is. And now you have this looming grand-scale threat, but also Alphen&co also have very personal stakes in there. And you can sort of explore how each of them feels about their own memories and why they would or would not want them gone. This resonates really well with Alphen especially since he had his memories wiped (or, blocked). Memories of times and places that the Conquest also destroyed. Also worth keeping in mind that Alphen definitely has an ambivalent relationship with his own memories. I believe he states in toarise before losing the mask for good that he's anxious at the thought of regaining his memories, when it does happen it isn't a pleasant experience; the first recollection he gets are of his Most Traumatic Time At The Alien Lab, and later on he suspiciously does not go out of his way to reconnect with his past in any way. Is he scared of what he'll find if he remembers too much of his past on Dahna? Is he grappling with his identity and how new information about himself might make him lose the person he's become? Is it the realization that each loved one he remembers from 300 years ago instantly becomes one more person to mourn? Is it a concern that reminiscing a Past that no living person experienced might drive him away from his friends in the Present? (The answer, naturally is that the writers didn't feel like providing Alphen with substantial backstory or Dahna with History, but let's just pretend that there's depth to this game.)

What I'm saying is, BtD could have been a good opportunity to delve into those issues. You also have to remember the promotional art. It disproporionately featured Alphen and Nazamil specifically (which, duh, MC and new character, obviously, but they could have chosen to make promo art with just Nazamil, or more promo art with Nazamil along with the whole party which does exist but fr there was such a focus on Nazamil looking sad and Alphen looking super serious). This could have hinted at some kind meaningful connection between two, and i believe this idea of Forgetting Stuff could have yielded some interesting results. Naturally Alphen, is not the only person who's invested in erm, keeping their memories. So you can have each character deliver classic JRPG emotion-ridden lines right before the final battle, blah blah blah i don't wanna forget my dad, bla bla bla if kisara can still fish but she forgets that it was her brother who taught her then i don't want to eat it, blah blah blah i know it hurts i'm hurting too but i want to make new memories with you blah blah blah we can share this burden blah blah blah, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to- blah blah blah how can we forgive what we've forgotten? blah blah blah Forgetting and Ignorance cannot bring about emancipation for they are tools that facilitate and maintain systems of oppression nazamil do not be complicit in your own subjugation, ok don't have them say that verbatim let's not do that (then again maybe rinwell).

Also note how Nazamil's powers still work well with this idea of "erasing", she has the ability to cause Hollowing, or rather, it's a byproduct of her healing. i think that's what it was? they don't dwell on it much, do they? seems like she really needed one power that could be characterized as freakish otherwise NPCs couldnt justifiably lash out at her. it's a bit of a shame that it didnt get looked into more. You know just like Dahnan history was erased, people were erased in menancia, mahag saar and ganath haros, even the renans' true history and lineage were erased, nazamil can make herself disappear, she's safe when she's unseen, unexisting. (also theres a semantic connection between the "oblivion" that haunts shionne's dreams and is materialized by the Hollowing and "forgeting". Admittedly this connection would not exist with the word that's used in the original japanese 破滅 (hametsu) afaik but i still like it)

Also the narrative would need to alot more room to Nazamil's memories, just to give us a taste of what it is she wants so desperately to forget. And then we can start to ask the really difficult questions. Should she be allowed to forget, if she so chooses? why, why not? How do you explain to a child who's known nothing but contempt and abuse that she simply must live with those things inside of her? (idk)

And like, i'm barely scratching the surface here. you could also explore how forgiving ties into remembrance. and then into what forgiving does and does not do. Or you could *not* go in that direction at all because forgiving is its own thing, and it doesn't necessarily resonate immediately with Nazamil. Oh, and if you want a little bit of angst, you can have one character be affected by The Forgottening (im calling it that, i hope it sounds very cool) and everyone panicks and maybe the character in question feels their memory fading and they desperately try to cling on to what they cherish the most in their heart and... who knows. (naturally this isnt permanent but like. the characters don't know that) One more thing, I think maybe you can put Nazamil's headquarters be located under Niez? Since it's where she starts off and Shit Went Down (ugghh) there. And Like there's this whole ridge under Niez that's never explored. What if we could explore the lower city and then you go even lower and there's the rift that gives you access to the dungeon proper. Also what if All of Niez is affected by the Forgottening and so as you explore Niez on your way to stop Nazamil, you also get a glimpse at what Nazamil's ideal world would be like and to be honest it's not that bad, everyone is friends :) they just don't know anything? idk idk

notes; idk if realistically ppl actually want to forget painful memories irl. those with flashbacks or other intrusive thoughts might want those gone but it doesnt necessarily mean erasing the information from your brain altogether. in my limited experience with people, the memories most likely to be deemed entirely undesirable are memories of embarrassment/shame rather than trauma where the person was victimized. (by that logic renans might actually be more sucesptible but idk if i can stretch it that far) so we might have to find a compelling explanation as to why so many people want to forget that goes beyond "bad memory makes me feel sad :/" i'd also like to emphasize that this does not in any way fix BtD. here i've discussed one specific aspect, yet there are many others that must be drastically and very seriously re-thought and re-worked if one were to present something palatable to the public (which was never the end goal of BtD) one last thing: it must remain silly

[reallybadblackoutpoems]

meditations on first philosophy (1641) - rene descartes

"who give a shit"

[dearbisexual]

as above (hairy pits), so below (full bush)

[genderkoolaid]

i don't know what autistic person needs to hear this but they are not watching you. the entire world is not constantly waiting for you to do something weird and laugh at you behind your back. you do not need to constantly self-police whenever there's the slightest chance another person might see you. you have a right to be your autistic self in public spaces. stop fighting yourself for their sake.

[sivsii]

also we fucked up as a society the moment we started telling teens and aspiring artists to conflate being an artist with building a brand as if the two things are inextricable. the name of the game if you want to share your art is to work a job and sell yourself as aesthetizied content. back in my day we could just POST SHIT. to deviantart! what the fuck!

[mellosghosts]

that one the pacifier 2005 scene but it's laura annoying logan just a few days before he fucking dies