the-lovely-lady-luck

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Sorry we're closed doodles

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the author's barely disguised longing for a kinder world

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Had to draw the most important character from "Sorry We're Closed" :) (pls no spoilers)

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this has been on my mind for at least 5 days so now you have to see it too. if you know you know

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I'm WHEEZING at arcane twitter's general consensus on this moment

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Me when I give the league of legends show a chance because my friend says it's good and I go in expecting an overrated wet fart and I'm slowly forced to acknowledge that it has layered and interesting characters, incredible art direction and animation, deeply engaging political intrigue and gripping drama and I realize that despite any flaws it may have it's ultimately one of the most mature and well rounded pieces of animated television I've ever seen come out of the western world and I end the most recent episode sitting leaned forward staring at the TV actively crying at 5 am

I'm so fucking mad

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da2 isn't the best dragon age game *because* it's openly a tragedy, but being a tragedy forces a level of narrative coherence that the other games in the series don't have, and *that's* what makes it a better game.

okay, so. dragon age 2 runs on nested foreshadowing and a limited set of themes that almost every character and plot beat fall into: love is not enough, wealth is not enough, power is not enough, good intent is not enough. the problems you run into are structural, rather than individual, and your ability to resolve them as one person is strictly limited. the arishok is a central figure for this, because he prefigures every other tragedy and makes the game's thesis statement as clear as possible. he doesn't want to be in kirkwall, but he is compelled to remain until he gets back what was stolen. he doesn't want to lead a coup attempt, but he is compelled by qunari codes of justice to act. he does not want to die and fail his duty, but but he is compelled to by the other two impossible demands. every tragedy in kirkwall is the result of too many people with wildly different definitions of justice crammed into one place specifically designed to maximize human misery and suffering, and so you get a wonderfully nested narrative onion where each quest reinforces that idea, where there are no good options, just positions you can take — even the affinity system plays into that, where constantly gassing up your friends or constantly pushing them to change are equally correct ways to go, but ones that won't ultimately make a huge difference in their lives or characters, because no matter how much they like you, they're not under your control.

this coherence is even justified by the framing device. of *course* the moral of the game is "insisting on a dogmatic, narrow idea of justice destroys individuals and societies," it's a yarn being spun by varric the con artist to a chantry cop!

neither origins or inquisition play with that sort of narrative complexity. origins is a jaundiced hero's quest, certainly, but it's still basically a hero's quest; inquisition has a number of characters who question what you're doing and why, but the multitude of voices pulls the game in too many potential directions. DA2 was so constrained in its production that it pulled on decidedly ancient theatrical traditions, and it worked so, so well

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i need to have sesbian lex with her right now

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you know, and another thing. bigotry isn’t all about feelings, there is material benefit to oppressing people. women are oppressed because there is material benefit to having a domestic sex servant who will do your laundry for you, chattel slavery existed (and continues to exist) because there is material benefit to having a labor force you don’t have to pay. native peoples all over the world have been and continue to be murdered and brutally oppressed because colonial powers wanted to steal their shit! some people are really in it for the money, and you can’t reason with those people. you can only stop them

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If you’re concerned that by removing her from this place she could get violent with you, there are men we can talk to about making sure she can’t hurt you. I don’t want to hear that again. Not from you, not from the other girls, ever. When no one in the world… no one… no one… could care less about what those men were doing to me on the beach, she did. That means something to me. So for as long as she desires, this place will be a safe place for her.

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Sorry for endearing myself to you. As if it's my fault I have a sweet and charming disposition.

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please think of the disabled people of gaza. please think of the diabetic people of gaza. please think of the neurodivergent people of gaza. please think of those whose lives are relying on medicine that has either stopped coming in due to the blockade, or is available in such scarcity that its price has skyrocketed.

we're approaching winter. on top of the challenge of securing waterproof tents and sufficiently warm clothing, some diabetic people in gaza have stopped taking their insulin as they can no longer afford it. those who are able to acquire it for now know every shot may be their last.

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*grits teeth* im hopeful i believe there is good in the world im fucking hopeful

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I've been thinking about the horrible years in the 1850s and the kind of hopelessness that came over people in that time. And specifically, I am thinking that speech that Frederick Douglass gave that was, to be kind of idealogically technical about it, breaking with William Garrison's ideas about moral persuasion, but to give a summary was about expressing that hopelessness and despair and what to do with it, what was now possible...

But Sojourner Truth was in that audience and while Douglass was an extremely educated man whose ideas and understanding of the world was very aligned with what 21st century people's worldview, Sojourner Truth was not that. She was not able to read and, unlike Douglass, she did not learn about her human dignity by reading philosophy but because Jesus Christ appeared to her personally to affirm it. And after she listened to Douglass eloquently expressing his despair and the unfixable vileness of America and of human beings, Truth asked loudly, but firmly from the audience, "Frederick, IS GOD GONE?"

and it became famous and people printed it and some people suggested that what she'd actually said was the even more provacative, "IS GOD DEAD?"

And what's difficult is that it's pretty hard to say who was vindicated by events. Slave power was overthrown and America endures and multiracial democracy was born after the most destructive war the world had ever seen. But I can have faith that she was right when she took Truth for her name because "The Truth is All Powerful and Will Prevail"

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It is what it is but like. Can it be something else

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my favorite video of all time ever

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