#generic and unique

[t3acupz]

god gives his toughest battles (wanting to draw randall tier) to his strongest soldiers (artists trying desperately to figure out how to draw mark o’brien’s face)

[mynnthia]

was talking with a friend about how some of dunmeshi fаndom misunderstands kabru's initial feelings towards laios.

to sum up kabru's situation via a self-contained modernized metaphor:

kabru is like a guy who lost his entire family in a highly traumatic car accident. years later he joins a discord server and takes note of laios, another server member who seems interesting, so they start chatting. then laios reveals his special interest and favorite movie of all time is David Cronenberg's Crash (1996), and invites kabru to go watch a demolition derby with him

[otaku553]

Cooking up something reaaaalllyyy silly right now

Uhhhh cookie run kingdom tgcf au with pure vanilla as xie lian and shadow milk as jun wu. Do you see the vision

[randomness-is-my-order]

another thing that is simply amazing about wei wuxian is that he doesn’t give a fuck about hoarding the knowledge he attains. in the cultivation world where clans jealously hold their resources close and have techniques unique to their families because progress is meant for them and theirs–wei wuxian utterly breaks the mould with his inventions. the products of his genius are spread far and wide and his way of doing things is disseminated within the cultivation society as crucial pieces of information. the spirit attraction flag and the compass are used not only by the clans but also the rogues–the bottom most people in their hierarchy. all of them benefit from wei wuxian’s knowlege in a way that the clans are simply incapable of replicating because they would never allow their own methods to leave the boundaries of their clans. and when wei wuxian is back, he takes to teaching instantly and has no qualms against sharing both his experiences and hard-earned wisdom with the juniors and i think it’s important to note that he has literally no affiliation to them prior to meeting them, except jin ling. he doesn’t know sizhui is a-yuan, he just knows they’re lans and later the boys he leads at yi city belong to several different clans–clans that were responsible for his own death and the death of the wen remnants, mind you. but wei wuxian would never make the children bear the sins of their forefathers, of course, just that painting the background helps in understanding how open and willing wei wuxian is about sharing his knowledge with others. it’s very lovely, really. the cultivation society only took from wei wuxian but he only ever gave them back.

[blondie-drawings]

(Worf voice) SLAY

[10001gecs]

one 100 word email written with ai costs roughly one bottle of water to produce. the discussion of whether or not using ai for work is lazy becomes a non issue when you understand there is no ethical way to use it regardless of your intentions or your personal capabilities for the task at hand

with all due respect, this isnt true. *training* generative ai takes a ton of power, but actually using it takes about as much energy as a google search (with image generation being slightly more expensive). we can talk about resource costs when averaged over the amount of work that any model does, but its unhelpful to put a smokescreen over that fact. when you approach it like an issue of scale (i.e. "training ai is bad for the environment, we should think better about where we deploy it/boycott it/otherwise organize abt this) it has power as a movement. but otherwise it becomes a personal choice, moralizing "you personally are harming the environment by using chatgpt" which is not really effective messaging. and that in turn drives the sort of "you are stupid/evil for using ai" rhetoric that i hate. my point is not whether or not using ai is immoral (i mean, i dont think it is, but beyond that). its that the most common arguments against it from ostensible progressives end up just being reactionary

i like this quote a little more- its perfectly fine to have reservations about the current state of gen ai, but its not just going to go away.

[humming-fly]

Delighted to discover that the way shadow unlocks new abilities in sxsg is a perfect parallel of the pringles iron maiden

[ojamayellow]

Transformers Funnies [Earthspark Style]

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / ?

[starry-bi-sky]

i think i'm hilarious -- aka i made blood blossom danny au memes

all of these come from my DpxDC prompt "i am pushing the batdad agenda--" and it's corresponding additions in the reblogs ksdjlf.

i am. rotating them in my head. forever and always. personally i think there should be more batdad aus in dpxdc, their dynamic could be neat. :)

[lighthouse-guardian]

Ægir deserve to have fat slappy fish tails i believe

[black-is-beautiful18]

Since Disney hasn’t said anything outside of the trailer we got like…almost a month ago: Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire is out today on Disney+. It is a 10 part anthology series that honestly deals with a variety of things. African lore, aliens, spirits, etc. Each story is unique and has its own unique style. The stories are also by and animated by a variety of African artists so that makes it even better.

Update: Don’t know how this happened but I forgot to put the trailer so here it is along with a teaser

[alyssa-ai]

A little morning Gift from my friend @dryndelicate What better way to start the day? A quick shot of LoRA to slip into these outfits, and that's it.

Thanks a lot my friend, Dryndelicate, you're a sweetheart 😘

Stylist and designer @dryndelicate

[simcardiac-arrested]

ATTENTION: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS TREE? IF YOU HAVE, YOU MIGHT HAVE FALLEN INTO SOME SORT OF RIP IN THE FABRIC OF TIME

alt version because i also liek it :)

[annabelle--cane]

never try to post anything vaguely nuanced about drug use on tumblr dot edu. never do it.

[invinciblerodent]

This is going to be very ranty and disjointed, probably borderline incomprehensible post, but with the "return" of Dragon Age Discourse (and really, did it ever go anywhere?) and me repeatedly seeing the complaints and dismissals of DA:I as a "chosen one"-type of a narrative, I just.... I keep finding myself thinking about the relationship of truth and lies within the game.

Throughout the course of DA:I, the idea of a malleable, flexible personal identity, and a painful confrontation with an uncomfortable truth replacing a soothing falsehood, follows pretty much every character throughout their respective arcs.

There are some more obvious ones, Solas, Blackwall, The Iron Bull, their identities and deceptions (of both those around them and themselves) are clearly front and center in the stories told about them, but this theme of deception (both of the self- and the outside world) is clearly present in the stories of the others as well.

Like, for example, ones that come immediately to mind are stories like that of Cullen, who presents an image of a composed and disciplined military man, a commander- all to hide the desperate and traumatized addict that he sees himself as.

Dorian grappled with the expectations of presenting the image of the perfect heir to his father's legacy, the prideful scion of his house, his entire life (he even introduces himself as the result of "careful breeding", like one might speak about a prized horse)- all while knowing that his family would rather see him lobotomized and obedient, than anything even just resembling his vibrant and passionate self.

Cassandra calls herself a Seeker of Truth, and takes pride in that identity- only to learn that in reality, she has been made a liar, a keeper of secrets, without her knowledge or consent, and it is up to her to either uproot the entire organization and painfully cut out the abscess it is to build it back from the ground up into something respectable, or let the information she had revealed sit, and continue to fester.

And this theme continues and reframes itself in, among others, things like Sera's own inner conflict between her elven heritage and her human upbringing, or in Cole being caught in this unconscionable space in-between human and spirit, between person and concept, etc.

The Inquisitor isn't exempt from this either.

I feel like this is where the core of the many misunderstandings of this plot come from, why so many people continue to believe that Inquisition is a "chosen one" or "divinely appointed" type of story, because I think many might just... not realize, that the protagonist's identity is also malleable, and what they are told in the setup/first act of the game is not necessarily the truth.

The tale of the Inquisitor is the exact opposite of that of a "chosen one" story: it's an examination and reflection of the trope, in that it is the story of an assumption that all wrongly believe to be the truth, and thrust upon you, even if you protest. The very point is that no matter who you choose to say that you are, you will be known as the Herald of a prophet you don't even necessarily believe in, and then that belief will be proven wrong, leaving you to cope with either a devastating disappointment if you believed it, or a bitter kind of vindication if you didn't.

There's a moment just after Here Lies the Abyss (when you learn of the lie you've been fed your entire journey in the game) that I don't often see mentioned, but I think it's one of the most emotionally impactful character moments, if you are playing an Andrastian Inquisitor who had actually believed themselves chosen (which I realize is a rather unpopular pick, lol): it's when Ser Ruth, a Grey Warden, realizes what she had done and is horrified by her own deeds, and turns herself in asking to be tried for the murder of another of her order. As far as she is concerned, she had spilled blood for power, and regardless of whether she was acting of her own volition at the time, whether she had agency in the moment, is irrelevant to her: she seeks no absolution, but willingly submits to any punishment you see fit.

And only if you play as an Inquisitor who, through prior dialogue choices, had established themselves as a devout Andrastian, can you offer her forgiveness, for a deed that was objectively not her fault- not really.

You can, in Andraste's name, forgive her- even though you, at that point, know that you have no real right to do so. That you're not Andraste's Herald, that Andraste may or may not even exist, and that you can't grant anyone "divine forgiveness", because you, yourself, don't have a drop of divinity within you. You know that you were no more than an unlucky idiot who stumbled their way into meddling with forces beyond their ken.

You know you're a fraud. You know. The game forces you to realize, as it slowly drip-drip-drips the memories knocked loose by the blast back into your head, that what all have been telling you that you are up to this point, is false. And yet, you can still choose to keep up the lie, and tell this woman who stands in front of you with blood on her hands and tears in her eyes, that you, with authority you don't have, grant her forgiveness for a crime that wasn't hers to commit.

Because it's the right thing to do. Because to lie to Ser Ruth is far kinder than anything else you could possibly do to her, short of refusing to make a decision altogether.

There are any number of criticisms of this game that I can accept (I may or may not agree depending on what it is, but I'm from the school of thought that any interpretation can be equally valid as long as there's text that supports it, and no text that contradicts it), but I will always continue to uphold that the Inquisitor is absolutely not- and never was a "chosen one".

They're just as small, and sad, and lost, as all the other protagonists- the only difference is that they didn't need to fight for their mantle, because instead of a symbol of honor, it acted as a straitjacket.

[dennisboobs]

the season 7 trailers that originally prompted me to start archiving in the first place are finally up on my channel <3

along with a couple more behind the scenes videos from season 5