#win for the world today

[janeya]

ok yeah. her

[wherewolf]

the responses i’ve seen to shiv’s ending seem very quick to write her off as just another sad victim of the cycle, which isn’t without truth BUT!!! that is not even remotely the summation of shiv’s story.

i don’t think she votes yes to “save kendall” or to try to finally set her brothers free. and i don’t think her main concern was that ken was becoming their dad. she absolutely noticed and didn’t love it, but that was not her motivation in betraying him. she was thinking about herself.

it’s tempting to make a martyr out of her as she is the only female child and we see her suffer the onslaught of misogyny that comes with that. but to make her into a saintlike figure who got beat takes away the power and intelligence behind her decision.

at this point she’s stuck between two non ideal choices, but she recognizes that they have accidentally made her the single most important player in the game. because while she can’t have the outcome she’d prefer, she has the power to decide the fates of everyone else. the written off lone woman now holds in her hands the fate of every man in her life.

so she thinks about the long term benefits of both options and realizes that one side leaves her completely without any leverage.

her brothers have proven to her multiple times in the last few days alone that they will cut her out and walk all over her the first chance they get. siding with them leaves her nothing to bargain with. she would just have to hope that ken would actually take care of her. and that level of vulnerability is not only unacceptable to her, it’s stupid. and shiv fuckin roy is not stupid.

so she thinks about the other side and about what she actually wants for her life. and against her better judgment, it’s becomes unfortunately clear that she wants tom. the way she wants him is not altogether loving or even good but it is necessary to her. she sees relationships as having winners and losers and she chose this man specifically so that she could be confident in her ability to win. except now he’s grown some balls and made himself unavailable to her.

she may not like the way her husband is evolving but she already placed her bets on him, so she’s sure as hell not losing to him now. there’s also a part of her that feels intrigued by this new man she’s married to. it’s interesting to have a sparring partner in him instead of having to looking for excitement outside of their marriage.

so for maybe the first time ever, she processes what tom has said to her and thinks about what he actually wants.

he needs her to prove that she cares. he needs to know that she is capable of sacrifice. if she can’t find it within herself to do this for him, then she will lose him, and by extension, she will lose.

siding with tom gives her the opportunity to once and for all make a grand-stand gesture of love, but more importantly, it creates leverage for her. never again will he be able to hold the moral high ground over her head. never again can he say she doesn’t love him. never again can he call her selfish or uncaring. above all, he can never betray her again, because she just removed all of his moral justification for turning on her. he doesn’t realize it yet, but she’s just taken back all the power in their relationship. just in a more subtle way than she’s used to operating.

and just like that, she has the ceo of a multi billion dollar company in her pocket, while situating herself as the only descendant of logan roy to still be playing the game, having removed her brothers from the equation permanently. she may still be far from the top but she’s creating a path for herself to climb.

so yes, she’ll let tom play king for a day, and she’ll have his baby and say “congratulations,” and play the gracious wife, but tomorrow is a new day with lots of room to maneuver. and when her husband puts out his hand, she’ll place her own on top. but she won’t grasp it because she doesn’t need to.

[demigods-posts]

hearing annabeth express genuine confusion at the existence of disney world was incredibly heartbreaking. but it raised a good point about just how unprepared she was for a life outside of camp. it makes me wonder how she settled into a public school environment after training as a child soldier for five years straight. i question what her first active shooter drill was like and if the teachers noticed how prepared she seemed for life or death situations in comparison to her english homework. i wonder how she socialized with kids her age, or if she mostly kept to herself because the anxiety of making a misstep in social situation and risk being neglected was near crippling. i think of the quiet moments at home during bedtime ruined by the slightest movement outside and her father finding her keeping watch outside her brothers' bedroom at three in the morning. how heartbreaking is it that annabeth can't find true solace in any environment she's in?

[balkanradfem]

Do you think that low birth-rates are a problem?

I think they're the opposite of a problem :)

[simplykorra]

sometimes the simple truth of being alive just...moves me

[hamletshoeratio]

"A strong queen is just what this country needs!"

The Irish who know the queen in question as the famine queen:

[moeblob]

I missed these boys too much..... I spent four hours doing this for my beloved two sons and also Felix. (the foremost is genderbent versions I'm sorry, let me know if I need to tag it)

[artistformerlyknownasbutttrumpet]

Your election post was the most holier-than-thou, performative, bullshit I’ve ever read. Get a grip and get some self awareness.

i will take "missed the entire point" for 500, alex

[onwhatcaptain]

Some days it just makes me unbearably sad that we will never really get spirk because Paramount thinks queerness is acceptable only in non-legacy or "unimportant" side characters because it wouldn't really damage their reputation. Which isn't really queerness at all if the leads can't have it.

[trappedinafantasy37]

All forms of media (video games, TV shows, art, movies, books, etc) are all meant to be social and/or political commentaries. In fact, I can't think of an example of a recent creation that isn't political in some way. And Baldur's Gate 3 is not an exception. It is political. And if you think it is not, it is because you are not paying attention, or you are failing to extrapolate the lessons of the game into real life. One of the points of fiction and entertainment is to provide us with a safe way to view and interact with the evils of the world. To show us how evil happens to begin with, and how it is allowed at all. If we can see what evil looks like, and how it comes to pass, then we will be able to recognize it in real life and potentially stop it.

No, I'm not saying that Larian made this game to be a commentary of the US specifically. The things that happen in the game are happening somewhere in the world. Right. Now. It is fantasy for some, but reality to many others.

There is a reason why so many people, most especially women, flock to a character like Astarion. And no, it's not just because he's a pretty bad boy vampire. But because millions of women (and men) in the world understand what it's like to be sexually assaulted. To be enslaved. To be someone's property and a toy. To be used and abused and denied your autonomy. To scream and cry and yell and shout and beg for mercy from the gods. But no one is listening. No one cares. And they say that it is all your fault. Women cling to him because they find comfort in his story and they see a reflection of themselves in him. And they have extrapolated his character into their personal lives to help them heal from their traumas. Astarion is not real. But he represents the millions of people in the world who have been raped.

There are many different ways you can interpret Shadowheart's story, but I always found it to be an allegory for queerness / transness. She knows who she is deep down, but she has been beaten and indoctrinated over and over to believe that who she is wrong. Everytime she exerted a will of her own, she was forced into conversion therapy and had her mind wiped so she can be reprogrammed. And when that began to fail, her god inserted a permanent tether into her soul. To remind her that god is always watching, and will punish her for her sins. Shadowheart rejects Shar because she feels that she is in a safe environment to do so. That those who are around her will not judge her, ridicule her, or treat her like she ha a moral failure for just being who she is. But that rejection comes at a price where she has to choose her parents or chronic pain for the rest of her life. But if Shadowheart does not feel safe to live as herself, she goes into the closet forever and denies herself and has to put up an act for as long as she may live. She forces herself to subscribe to this dogma because she feels she has no other choice, and to be a blind follower means to be without pain. Shadowheart is not real. But she represents the millions of gay and trans people in the world who have been outcasted and abused by religion and the law. Where they feel it safer to deny who they are, then run the risk of the wrong person finding out who they love.

The grove conflict, is a very real reality right now. Innocent people are experiencing a genocide. And the people conducting such genocide have framed these innocent people as evil monsters. These actual literal genocidal lunatics truly to their core believe that they have the god given right to kill these innocent people because they are an affront to their god and that the land they occupy does not belong to them. There are children in the world right now who are burning alive in a genocide because the people who are burning them believe these children to have been born evil. Of course they claim that these refugees are hiding weapons of mass destruction, how else are they going to justify destroying safe places like schools, hospitals, and actual refugee camps? And the people who have the power to do something to protect these innocent refugees, would rather they be tossed out and left vulnerable to their murderers, because that is more convenient than helping them. That the people who can help are purposefully closing their borders, because they too see these refugees as lures for danger. The tieflings are not real. But they represent the millions of Palestinians and many others who are dying in a genocide right now.

And this man is not real, but he is the president elect of the United States. Gortash won. The Absolute won.

And I wish we had a simple and easy explanation of 72 million Americans have tadpoles in their brains and were forced to vote for Gortash. But in reality, not everyone in the Absolute had a tadpole. Not everyone was a True Soul. A mass majority were willing participants of the Absolute. They never once communed with the elder brain and have never received direct orders from it. They saw what the Absolute is, they saw what it can do, and it was not a deal breaker for them. They chose to follow along with it willingly, thinking that the Absolute was here for them. They were not mind controlled, but they were brainwashed in their own way. And for those who are not brainwashed, they simply do not care. They want to revel in the Absolute's cruelty and how it is going to hurt the people of the world because they themselves want to deal the cruelty.

Gortash is a slaver and a tyrant and he is very up front and in your face about it. He feels no guilt, he feels no shame, and he is well aware of how he induces suffering on those around him. And the moment he became Archduke, he slaughtered everyone who got him into power because he didn't want to share it nor run the risk of them turning against him. You may be able to make a deal with Gortash but he was never going to keep up his end of the bargain. Just like an embraced Durge betrays their romance partner, Gortash would have betrayed you (and even Durge). Because tyrants do not share, and they do not step down. Tyrants are not just tyrants only on day one or for just one term. They are tyrannical always and will do everything they can to stay in power permanently. Tyrants do not play fair. They get into power through perceivingly legitimate means. But when you find out it wasn't legitimate, it's too late. They've removed your ability to not only remove them from power, but prevent you from getting anyone else to replace them.

Gortash didn't just come from nowhere. He has been a duke in the city for a very long time. People know who he is and what he is about. The people at his coronation were there out of genuine support for him, knowing exactly who he is and saw no issue with what he was doing because they all benefited from it. The only one at that coronation who was not a willing participate, was Ulder Ravengard (A BLACK MAN). Gortash used a literal puppet government to get himself into power and silenced all dissent.

I do not know about you, but who Gortash represents was pretty damn obvious to me. The game demonstrated how people like Gortash can get into power at all and remain in power. Gortash manipulated people's fear of the world, and he used religion to do it. He implemented the Steel Watch and militarized the police, and to have constant surveillance on the people. Where any slight transgression will be met with hostility, and the people will cheer because they see violence as a necessary means of keeping the peace. Where if you just didn't step out of line, then maybe the Steel Watcher wouldn't need to pulverize you in the street. He uses the media and is constantly pumping out propaganda to love him. He created a problem, news of the problem spread, and then he sold a solution. He promised to keep everyone safe, protected, and made promises of law and order against this unruly chaos (a chaos he created). Where any opposing opinion is othered and regarded as being too radical to be a sane or legitimate opinion. He enslaved a group of racial minorities and used the livelihoods of their children as collateral. And instead of putting the blame on the slaver, radicals like Wulbren put the blame on the slaves.

The events surrounding Gortash and the Absolute have been unfolding here in the States for a very long time and all of this did not just come out of nowhere. This didn't just start happening 8 years ago in 2016, this was decades in the making and there is still plans for more to come. This wasn't an accident, everything is working by design.

Gortash is not real. But Donald Trump is. That should scare you.

[jabeur]

you know i'm so happy for carlitos, the way people criticized him at the end of last season/beginning of this one even saying he's not as good as he seemed and won't be winning consistently.. and he went and won rg and wimbledon back to back and proved them all wrong and most importantly he's happy

[kaseyskat]

since ive already been pretty open about this and im not afraid to whack a hornets nest i'll go ahead and say it: if you were raising a kid in a pseudo-apocalyptic setting and then you found out that said kid was going to be the one to defeat the eldritch god that you have tried to defeat for half your lifetime and could never manage. that she was going to FACE that eldritch god it was prophesied. you would teach her how to defend herself and how to fight. like god i am not saying hero's trauma from it wasn't justified because i do think the twins took it too far but the initial process of training her makes so much more sense if you approach it at the angle of "this kid is going to do something we've been trying to do since we were twelve and couldn't manage and we might not even be there to help her so we have to make sure she doesn't die in the process" and not "we're going to make her fix our mistakes" it makes sense. goes along with lark's running theme of not being strong enough in the moments that matter and wanting to make sure nobody else ever feels as helpless as he did when walter was injured. goes along with sparrow desperately tempting fate with normal's name- not because normal was an accident, but because sparrow never wanted to lose even one kid to the doodler and it was a fervent, desperate wish to let normal get to be normal

[waywardmillennial]

watcher tv supporters who love WWW are being fed so well today -- the 3x06 finale and now the horseback riding ep to rewatch on youtube

[alexturner]

i see so many people complain about "having to see so much of the olympics," but... how do you not love watching it? how are you not in tears watching all these people with special stories pushing themselves to the limit and making history?

[hyperbolicgrinch]

✨ weekend wip exposure club ✨

rules: post 7 sentences or a snippet of an unfinished work

@theotherwhybietoldmeso & @killerandhealerqueen .... I return (but at what cost) <⁠(⁠￣⁠︶⁠￣⁠)⁠>

I aggressively scrolled down and picked the part it randomly stopped at so ,,,,

Law found himself far too focused on that last part. He hid it away, nodding.

Dammit. The less he talked about or to Eustass Kid, the faster and cleaner this would go.

They reached another door, this one cut into the length of the hall, and Heat pulled up.

"Give me a second to give Boss a head's up." He stopped with his hand on the handle and glanced at Law. “Dont need to tell me. I'll make it quick.”

Law didn't argue. There was no use rushing in if he was going to hit the roadblock that was Eustass Kid's idiocy. Faster to let his crew get it by him. They seemed to have a system for worming things into his thick head.

Bepo gave a nod of acknowledgement on Law's behalf, and Heat headed in, slipping through the door and leaving it open a slither.

“Oi, Boss.”

"There you are, Heat.” Eustass' voice was pitched far flatter than usual. Less grating screech and more deep tremors below the earth. Lower than Law had heard it all night but close to how he'd spoken when they had been, if he was generous, strategising to use their awakened powers to finally take down Big Mom. “Did ya track down a quack yet? He keeps drifting off."

"We’ve got one,” Heat said, “but you're not gonna like it."

Blushing slightly, Bepo glanced at Law. As though they were eavesdropping instead of waiting like they'd been instructed to.

Law zipped his jacket up further, bringing it to his chin. “You don't have to stay.”

Bepo’s face set, becoming painfully determined. “I’m not leaving you here alone, Captain.”

Law hid his smile on the opposite side of his mouth to what Bepo was standing on, letting the corner twitch up.

"I don't care who it is,” Eustass said on the other side of the door. “Get them in here. Killer's—"

"It's Trafalgar Law."

The silence was stark. A shockwave climbing out of an impact crater, or the remnants of a bare seabed after the waves had been dragged out by the hand of mother nature. Promising ruptured ear drums or terminal drowning if you didn't get far enough away.

Bepo turned his determination on the gap between the door and its frame. Apparently trying to scare off the tension leaking out.

Ignoring the urgency growing in his hands and the impatience in his sternum, Law tapped the toe of his boot on the floor.

“Trafalgar?” As always, Eustass pulled Law’s name apart with his teeth as he said it. The meat of it coming off the bone like something slow cooked.

Law ignored the usual spark it ignited in his gut and tapped his boot again. Getting worked up wouldn't get him through this without a bigger headache.

“Wire figured he was closest,” Heat offered.

Gonna tag @schwazombie and @lolacouldnotcareless incase they've got anything they feel like sharing (but no pressure, of course) (⁠◠⁠‿⁠・⁠)⁠—⁠☆

[megumi-fm]

.