#yes my knowledge includes

[mako-neexu]

ive consumed a lot of japanese idol-based media...maybe.. i should apply it to both gudas becoming an idol too... 

[gingermintpepper]

So, one of the most interesting things that's come from my recent exercises in writing the Olympians as young deities is all of the very fun and somewhat painful conversations that come from the young deities acquiring and consequently settling into their domains.

Apollo and Artemis especially have been really fascinating under the microscope. They start off identically, with extremely similar interests and similar domains over the hunt and wilderness. They spend their days under the stars and foraging for fruit and dancing and singing in the fields, two rustic god-children exploring and learning together. Then Apollo goes off on his own to slay Python.

Now, a lot of things change when Apollo kills Python. That is the act which transforms the bow from a tool of survival and sport to an instrument of murder, bloodshed and ultimately war. It is Apollo's first act of wrath which separates him from Artemis - both spiritually because she has not yet shed blood herself as a goddess and physically because it leads to his exile. Most importantly however, the slaying of Python is the act that grants Apollo his knowledge.

If violence is what first separates Apollo from Artemis then it is knowledge which keeps them apart.

This can refer to a lot of things; that Artemis continued to be at home with the wild beasts of the forests and mountains while Apollo grew to prefer the domesticated sheep and cattle, that Artemis continued to avoid mortals while Apollo grew to know their ways and endeavoured to teach them more. The point that has been the most interesting to me however has been Artemis, who remains free of slaughter, and thus remains pure and Apollo, who becomes acutely and entirely too aware of it, and thus must be constantly purified.

Apollo's infatuation with medicine specifically is the place where this becomes most apparent. When he leaves for his exile to travel as a mortal, without nectar or ambrosia, without power, Apollo is without the privileges of the divine for the very first time. He sweats, he smells, he grows weary when he travels, he grows hungry and thirsty. He experiences fatigue and nausea, the fever of sickness, the chill of infection, the delirium of poison. The blood Apollo shed does not only make him impure spiritually, it strips him of the purity of his birth and station. Likewise, medicine is not a divine practice. What use do the unkillable immortals have for something as finicky as medicine when they have nectar and ambrosia? Apollo however, knows of the pains of the flesh and the suffering of the mortal coil. He pursues medicine in all its horrors and difficulties because of the knowledge he gained with blood.

Artemis then, cannot understand the medical Apollo. When her brother returns possessed by this spectre of ill-gained knowledge, she does not recognise him. Who is this boy who scores the deer and studies the shape of their intestines before he cooks them? What good is there in rescuing a chick with a broken wing? The Apollo-of-the-Wild in her memories would have done the correct thing and left the thing for dead - let the forest take what is its due. Who is this Apollo whose hands are always stained to the wrist in the blood and gore of the living? What is his fascination with the mechanics of mortal bodies? Artemis does not know and Apollo does not tell her.

That has, by far, been my favourite effect of the whole Python watershed moment to explore recently.

[mikashisus]

connections between venti and arlecchino that i found particularly interesting, a rambling 🗣️

ARLECCHINO STORY QUEST SPOILERS‼️‼️

(these r just some cool things i found kinda sus and interesting. this was for fun.)

1. first, my thoughts on clervie — specifically what she says in response to learning about mondstadt:

2. the similarities between arlecchino and venti regarding “freedom”:

venti fought for freedom that was earned, and eventually became the god of freedom shortly after he earned said freedom.

he also tested vennessa. he tested her by saying he could grant her freedom and waited to see if she would leave the cell with him, but she didn’t. she stayed and showed him how freedom was meant to be earned, not given. venti was more than satisfied with her answer and left.

venti has shown time and time again that he believes freedom is meant to be earned. at least, that’s how i see his character and his ideals.

now i want to bring up what arlecchino said towards the end of her story quest. i find it interesting how she also believes that freedom is meant to be earned, not given.

pretty interesting.

3. now for my own personal rant and theories:

“freedom” itself is always being mentioned in this game. it started in mondstadt, the nation embodying freedom. the god of freedom himself entered the fray and showed us what freedom truly meant.

liyue was “freed” from their own god, who saw it time to step down from his position as archon and left the task of ruling & protecting liyue to the humans.

wouldn’t say there’s much freedom in inazuma tbh. unless you count the people being “freed” from the vision hunt decree and the sakoku decree.

nahida being freed from the hands of the sages/akademiya.

furina being freed from her curse and the act she played out for 500 years.

i wonder if we’ll see any freedom in natlan too.

ANYWAYS, ALL THIS TO SAY (i didnt mean for this to become a venti rant, i have constant venti brainrot) — i believe that venti and freedom play an ENORMOUS part in the lore of the game and we haven’t seen anything yet.

i am a firm believer that venti is one of the most important characters in this game. bro has lore in literally every nation, maybe with the exception of fontaine (iirc, there hasn’t been anything in fontaine calling back to barbatos).

he even has lore in the chasm and enkanomiya, which says A LOT. i haven’t finished the remuria world quest yet, so idk if there’s any lore about him or istaroth sprinkled there too. tbh i wouldn’t be surprised if there was.

everything always comes full circle when it comes to venti. he’s everywhere, which is pretty cool to think about when you realize that he’s supposed to be the embodiment of the wind, which is everywhere all at once and can hear everything.

which brings me to my last point —

4. this voiceline from arlecchino about the wind.

hmmm.. 🤨

[tyrianludaship]

This isn't completely related to selfshipping but i unironically love making up shipnames for my s/i and the tf2 characters.

[also to note: some of these are not canon; pyro and scout are friends; and saxton hale is just kinda there. idk he's alright.]

Engineer x Morale: Radio Repair

Soldier x Morale: Roger That

Spy x Morale: Esprit de corps, Radio Drama

Medic x Morale: Herzschlag / Heartbeat

Demoman x Morale: Boombox

Sniper x Morale: Radio Silence, National Outback

Heavy x Morale: Tea and Jam

Scout x Morale: Skip Distance

Pyro x Morale: Smoke Signals

Miss Pauling x Morale: Two-way Radio

Saxton Hale x Morale: Mating Calls [this one is just dumb ignore]

Proships DNI

[jupitermelichios]

so you've probably seen the news that riverdale ended with the main 4 in an actual, canonical, poly relationship

and that's amazing for a bunch of reasons, including the fact that the number of canon poly relationships on tv are miniscule and also it brings the number of canonically straight main cast members down to 1. Ethel is legitimately the show's token straight representation. love that for her

but to get the full impact of that news, you really also need to know that in order for the polycule to form:

Jughead's transdimensional angel girlfriend has to destroy multiple other timelines to create a new stable timeline for the polycule to live in. timelines destroyed include the one where jughead is immortal and trapped forever in a bunker underneath riverdale, and one where tony and fangs's magical timetravelling gay baby is fighting an evil wizard for control of a train full of evil ghosts

Jughead's magical transdimensional angel girlfriend then returns to the newly created main timeline, and restores the main cast's memories of all the other timelines, which she does by forcing them to watch the show riverdale. That is not a joke or a metaphor she even goes to the trouble to bring a colour tv back to the 1950s so they can watch in colour, except for Clay and Julian, because they did not exist in any of the previous timelines and they're sad about it and refuse to watch a show they're not in.

(Well, Julian technically did exist in the original timeline, but only as a ghost possessing a haunted doll, which doesn't really count)

(Also for some reason as well as the main cast, she makes dilton doily watch it, despite his only contributions to the show being a) dying as a human sacrifice in the og timeline, b) trying to blow up the planet and then dying because of it in the rivervale timeline, and c) gay kevin telling people he has the biggest dick in the 1950s tlmeline, and honestly, I feel like it would be kinder to just not show him any of that)

(ethel does not get to watch riverdale, because she did the only sensible thing any riverdale character has ever done and fucked off to a normal town to have an actual life, because as well as being the token straight character, she's also the token sane one)

After watching Riverdale, all of the main cast except Jughead and Betty decide it sucks and they hate it, and ask tabby to rewipe their memories and only give them the cute bits and not all the serial killers and shit, because the writers have run out of time for subtle metaphors and they weren't sure the audience had fully grasped that the entirely last season of the show is a weird metacommentary on the criticisms people have of the show riverdale so they're just straight up going to have archie andrews look straight to camera and say that the show should have been more like the comics

also I have no idea how only showing them the happy bits works, because that removes 90% of the entire plot so I assume they just have a bunch of completely out of context sex scenes and meals at the diner and nothing else. possibly also some musical numbers, idk if I'd count those as happy memories personally

Betty and Jug chose to keep their memories of the Gargoyle King and Betty's 2 long-lost secret gay serial killer brothers because they're edgy (and also because the writers are annoyed at all the people who say the show should be more like the comics, so they have the smartest characters say they liked the actually and everyone else is being a wimp about all the serial killers, because again, we have run out of time for subtlety)

Having had his memories restored, Jug's like "oh hi tabitha, my secret transdimensional angel girlfriend, I haven't seen you for months, I've really missed you. I'm so glad you're you're back. i love you so much"

And she responds by telling him that she'd chosen to write herself out of the timeline when she fixed in, and she has to return to the great big diner in the sky (not a joke, heaven is a diner in the riverdale universe and, it is heavily implied, also in our universe, so that's something to look forward to), so she freezes time halfway through kissing him and just nopes out of time and space. which is also how I would handle all break ups if I had angel powers tbh

since jug is now single, and all 4 of them just got multiple timeline's worth of fucking one another mainlined straight into their brains, the main 4 decide to all start dating

(they are probably inspired to do this in part by betty's sister, who in the new timeline is a burlesque performer who's stage name is Polly Amorous)

As far as I can tell from the last episode, they tell gay kevin about this and literally no one else, for reasons known only to themselves

also genuinely can't tell if this was the writers wanting a poly relationship for them, or if they just couldn't be bothered with the internet slap fights that would have followed them picking individual monogomous ships to be endgame

they also, hilariously, refuse to say that archie and jug are dating, I assume due to network restrictions, despite archie being canonically bi at this point, so betty's just like 'well sometimes I go to veronica's and we fuck, and the boys do... something we're not going to talk about'

the final episode of the show is a flash forward where as a now old betty is dying, jughead's ghost shows her memories of their teens, in which it's reveal that she has just straight up forgotten about being in a poly relationship

literally she looks at her teen self and is like "wow, I seem weirdly close to veroica jughead and archie" and Jug's ghost has to be like "because we were dating. how do you not remember that we were dating? what the hell? did I mean nothing to you?!"

also old betty specifically seeks out reggie and is like "hey you know how me and you dated, and you and veronica were together for years in multiple timelines, and you archie keep declaring your undying love for one another and nearly fucking, well we're all dating and we specifically decided not to invite you, sucks to be you" and walks away and I have no idea why she did it. justice for reggie

anyway RIP to the greatest television show ever made, it was so gay and so deranged and so meta, and there really will never be anything quite like it again

[pinkfey]

climate change.

[third-doctor]

I think the reason why I feel so strongly about this is I grew up in a white supremacist cult. I only got out because I got out of my small town cult bubble and I was willing to listen to people and learn and change. There's nothing inherently different about me that made me able to break out. I was just willing to listen.

The thing that people miss when talking about this is that white supremacists are people. All of them are people. The woman who told me that being gay was immoral had the most beautiful voice and made the best music and was one of the people who raised me. My father was a piece of shit. He's said awful things about minorities to me and I've chewed him out for it. He's also funny and a great cook and a movie buff. My best friend in high school is one of the kindest people I've ever known. She saved my life and was the first person to show me that I could be loved. I cut her off because she's a missionary and it's still the hardest thing I've ever had to do. Everyone in my online high school was bigoted in some way. We were all various levels of fundamentalist Christians. They were still people with lives and interests and good parts and bad parts and I hope that some of them get out of that mindset. I know some have and I am so proud of them for it.

By treating racism, bigotry, and white supremacy as inherent traits that make someone an irredeemable monster we disregard our own ability to take part in these systems and do harm. It's harder to think that you or your friends could be taking part of this because they're people, they're not like those horrible assholes. They're kind and funny and you love being around them. There's no way that they could cause that kind of harm. There's no way that you can participate in it. And by treating it like an inherent, awful trait you're discouraging people from ever trying to get out of those environments and learn and change.

Everyone has the ability to grow. No one is beyond hope. Anyone can choose to become better, no matter their background. To all the kids who grew up like me and have broken out of it and are actively trying to do better, I love you and I am so proud of you. There's no such thing as good and bad people. There's just people. And what matters is that you're trying today to be better than you were yesterday. The most important step a man can take is the next one.

[magnusmodig]

||. finally going to bed thinking about lore - keeper asgardians . thinking about how intelligence and wisdom are one of their favored traits. thinking about how thor is the best of every asgardian ideal . thinking about how he is wise . thinking about his street - smarts . thinking about how he is also knowledgeable in legends , lore , and folktale. he is adaptable . he takes this knowledge , adapts to it , and crafts himself into something stronger. he is ever growing , and one of those ways is how he seeks out knowledge , and knows well to keep a sharp mind on the tales told by word of mouth or written on a page.

[pinkyjulien]

━ We would like to thank our consultant- Mitch from the Aldecaldos family- for his invaluable aid in the creation of this material. He didn't agree to an interview, but he was a real gas-powered fountain of information, and his comments proved to be an invaluable source of information on the topic.

━ The automotive and aviation industry of 2077 is booming. From all kinds of cars and trucks, to aerial vehicles like planes and helicopters, to speedboats, to drones, the range of vehicles is so broad that everyone can find something to suit their tastes, assuming they can afford (or steal) it. The industry was temporarily stalled by global recession and fuel shortages, but is gaining momentum again as new technologies are developed and implemented by automotive companies. Aerodynes are becoming more and more popular, but are still expensive to produce and operate when compared to other means of transport. Nevertheless, their growing numbers have had an impact on city planning and layout, which is constantly adapting to ever-increasing air traffic. Outside of urban areas, on the wide open roads of America, cars have become a vital part of the Nomad culture. Not only are automobiles a means of transporation for entire families and tribes of the Seven Nations, but a symbol of their independence.

━ Mitch, 2077 (The World of Cyberpunk 2077, 2020)

[shadowsong26x]

So here's an alternate history thought...

I'm not sure I've ever come across this one before (and to be fair I don't know all the alternate history that's out there But).

This is about Edward II of England.

For those of you who don't know, he was some flavor of queer/MLM ((generally considered to be gay; I'm wary of putting specific labels on historical figures for a number of reasons, but that is I believe the general consensus as to his sexuality.))

He also had pretty awful taste in men.

Like, there were revolts against him over his favorites/boyfriends--not actually so much because they were dudes, but because he kept giving them properties and offices and so on. Also the Despensers in particular (probably only Hugh the Younger was his lover; but Hugh the Elder (his father) also got a lot of stuff) were just. Unpleasant Grasping Assholes.

Edward himself was also kind of an asshole.

Anyway, his first favorite was a man named Piers Gaveston. What records we have do seem to indicate that there was Genuine Affection between the two of them. But...well, the above problems applied; one of the most egregious examples was when Edward II married Isabella of France, it...like Gaveston's arms were everywhere; it basically read, according to contemporary accounts, more like a wedding feast for Edward and Piers than Edward and Isabella. Which, in addition to being a Bad Idea politically when celebrating a Political Treaty Marriage, is also just. Rude????

There's more, but that's the Relevant Background to this. Thing. that came into my brain.

And that is this:

What if Edward II did the Edward VIII thing--i.e., abdicated to be with Piers in a way he Could Not as king?

Edward had two half-brothers; the older was Thomas of Brotherton. What kind of king would Thomas I have been? What would all of this mean for the next two centuries of English (and French) history?

Does this alternate history novel already exist???

[ratcandy]

I remember the poll when you were going to change your username on DA,,, so long ago,, wild.

Also the content of your blog is amazing and I get to learn so many cool bug facts. There are many benefits to being an entomologist.

AGH we needn’t reminisce on the deviantart days … We don’t need to remember MothBlood or the accursed username that preceded it . The utterance of which never fails to send a shiver down my spine

and AA fjfjfnfkck I am glad u think so my guy <3 I love sharing my Cool Bug Facts so I am more than happy to provide !!

[judas-had-a-crown]

I wanted to be loved so badly that I disrespected myself.

– Dorn

[unproduciblesmackdown]

love my own like theatrical relationship to shakespeare which is a) being so slow to realize like "oh, i've loved theatre? everyone doesn't just feel this way & go 'of course acting onstage would fucking kick ass' & adore rehearsals and hanging around backstage and in greenrooms and changing and performing & etc?' never really occurred to me" and b) my response to most encounters w/shakespeare being "wha" when it comes to anything granular yet the relevance still in the spirit of things lol

namely one prominent example being i was an on campus college student where said campus has a shakespearean theater literally three blocks away, and we had like a freshmen orientation weekly class there doing shit with actors and checking out the theater, not to mention like punchcards to see four shows free (to write up about afterwards but yeah sure whatever) and this wherein also you always got student discount tickets And there were pwyw performances....kicked ass. i went there for shows so many times. i have never fucking known what tf is going on in any of the like dozen shows i saw there when a) audio processing can be tricky enough for real life modern vernacular parsing and b) sure am not used to ye old very stylized language nor any other qualities of shakespearean material so lots of times when i finally started to kind of acclimate to the language it would be like "oh wait that was the conclusion? ok. hoorayyyyy" like also c) You Have A Great Time Seeing Shakespeare Productions Anyways like again i loved going anytime. it's Theatrical and if people are just putting their damn backs into delivering and performing the material it's An Experience even if you're really not following lmfao. and i suppose one can read the text / familiarize oneself beforehand

also like my first and really one of my only like regular theatre performing experiences was my literature class in fourth grade doing a few scenes from julius caesar. i was so hype for getting cassius like one of the most prominent roles? a guy? an antagonist if you're caesar or dante??? oh Fuck yes. b/c of technical difficulties we got to perform it twice in a row when we did a field trip to some other school to perform our respective [scenes from various shakespeare plays] altogether. even back then i was way into it and cared about stuff like "we have like no Effects to make it that dramatic when we kill caesar. or like, non silent. bit awkward" and "also i like, don't know how to act and am just winging it. and of course, i'm also like 9" like in theory i do like to know How to do something vs trying to make it up myself. somewhat lol. a balance, who can argue w/that

beyond that there's also lots of things i just didn't quite realize "counted" lmfao like, when you're a theatre gay with a parent req'ing you go to church every week but you have a good time being in the choir....i was sure on those tenor harmonies & singing loud. and going relatively often to various live theatrical events, having an engaging enough time there, but also would've assumed anyone would be into it And that that's not really the same as actually being in them, of course. but that most of my firsthand experience was just sticking w/ballet for like a decade, and kind of live theatrical performance adjacency there. don't say shit, for years was effectively just like, an ensemble for the occasional performances, but even then it's like hoorayyy i Love rehearsing and being onstage and backstage and dealing w/costumes and coordination behind the scenes and shit. and eventually being like, a distinct individual character in shows, so despite again nobody saying shit you're still somewhat interpreting and doing whatever character work while also enjoying the bennies of [it's dance, so also it's choreographed]....even more clear like oh i love backstage and rehearsing and behind the scenes and onstage and putting together stage character makeup, and i don't mind tackling technical difficulties, and etc etc. didn't even necessarily have the reference like, idk, wouldn't / doesn't everyone feel similarly. classic ye old memory of like being idfk 7 or some shit simply getting to walk with classmates behind a backdrop to the opposite wing of a stage, and loving that lmao. combines a love for [backstage] and [secret passages] type deal lol, big fan of these elements

also in 7th grade doing a theatre/drama class for a few months and we couldn't really get like all this in depth extensive stuff b/c you know, intro course for like 8 weeks for rando middle schoolers, but idk it was just illustrative lmao like after julius caesar, us slapping together some kind of script and my getting to be this fun little theatrical(tm) antagonist guy again? feedback was "what was supposed to be happening" but could've stood to have learned that the enthusiasm and affinity i felt for acting onstage was perhaps indicative of enthusiasm and affinity for acting onstage rather than just, idk, the exact kind of baseline experience any & everyone would have lol. not that i would've necessarily had the chance to really do anything with that knowledge, but even now, ofc i don't particularly anticipate getting to use it, but it's great having that knowledge like ohhh i see. the entire time i've been huge into doing theatre with all these kind of adjacent & gently overlapping brushes with it. gotcha

[quietwingsinthesky]

anthropomorphizes angel blade anthropomorphizes the tablet anthropomorphizes the bunker anthro-

[theabstruseone]

I slept in and just woke up, so here's what I've been able to figure out while sipping coffee:

Twitter has officially rebranded to X just a day or two after the move was announced.

The official branding is that a tweet is now called "an X", for which there are too many jokes to make.

The official account is still @twitter because someone else owns @X and they didn't reclaim the username first.

The logo is 𝕏 which is the Unicode character Unicode U+1D54F so the logo cannot be copyrighted and it is highly likely that it cannot be protected as a trademark.

Outside the visual logo, the trademark for the use of the name "X" in social media is held by Meta/Facebook, while the trademark for "X" in finance/commerce is owned by Microsoft.

The rebranding has been stopped in Japan as the term "X Japan" is trademarked by the band X JAPAN.

Elon had workers taking down the "Twitter" name from the side of the building. He did not have any permits to do this. The building owner called the cops who stopped the crew midway through so the sign just says "er".

He still plans to call his streaming and media hosting branch of the company as "Xvideo". Nobody tell him.

This man wants you to give him control over all of your financial information.

Edit to add further developments:

Yes, this is all real. Check the notes and people have pictures. I understand the skepticism because it feels like a joke, but to the best of my knowledge, everything in the above is accurate.

Microsoft also owns the trademark on X for chatting and gaming because, y'know, X-box.

The logo came from a random podcaster who tweeted it at Musk.

The act of sending a tweet is now known as "Xeet". They even added a guide for how to Xeet.

The branding change is inconsistent. Some icons have changed, some have not, and the words "tweet" and "Twitter" are still all over the place on the site.

TweetDeck is currently unaffected and I hope it's because they forgot that it exists again. The complete negligence toward that tool and just leaving it the hell alone is the only thing that makes the site usable (and some of us are stuck on there for work).

This is likely because Musk was forced out of PayPal due to a failed credit line project and because he wanted to rename the site to "X-Paypal" and eventually just to "X".

This became a big deal behind the scenes as Musk paid over $1 million for the domain X.com and wanted to rebrand the company that already had the brand awareness people were using it as a verb to "pay online" (as in "I'll paypal you the money")

X.com is not currently owned by Musk. It is held by a domain registrar (I believe GoDaddy but I'm not entirely sure). Meaning as long as he's hung onto this idea of making X Corp a thing, he couldn't be arsed to pay the $15/year domain renewal.

Bloomberg estimates the rebranding wiped between $4 to $20 billion from the valuation of Twitter due to the loss of brand awareness.

The company was already worth less than half of the $44 billion Musk paid for it in the first place, meaning this may end up a worse deal than when Yahoo bought Tumblr.

One estimation (though this is with a grain of salt) said that Twitter is three months from defaulting on its loans taken out to buy the site. Those loans were secured with Tesla stock. Meaning the bank will seize that stock and, since it won't be enough to pay the debt (since it's worth around 50-75% of what it was at the time of the loan), they can start seizing personal assets of Elon Musk including the Twitter company itself and his interest in SpaceX.

Sesame Street's official accounts mocked the rebranding.