#in sympathy with a building

[lawbreaker13]

It’s actually insane how some of you justify your antisemitism. And yes, this time I’m specifically talking about being anti-Israel.

When Israel is attacked by Hamas, it’s their fault for retaliating. When is Israel is attacked by Iran, it’s ok because it’s retaliation. When Israel calls out the UN for being unhelpful, they’re getting what they deserve. When Israel asks the UN to step up, it’s a sad cry for help.

THEY CAN’T ATTACK, THEY CAN’T DEFEND, THEY CAN’T ASK FOR HELP, THEY CAN’T CONDEMN TERRORISTS, WHAT CAN THEY DO?? BE BLOWN TO BITS??? IS THAT WHAT YOU’RE WAITING FOR? WHAT MAKES ISRAEL SO SPECIAL??

It is no coincidence that Israel can’t do anything right and that it houses 7 million Jewish refugees. It’s the oldest excuse in the book. “It’s just the zionists!” Israeli children are children, too. They have no better of a concept of Zionism than you, and yours is scarce. Zionism IS LITERALLY ABOUT JEWS.

Just say you won’t be happy until half the world’s Jews are dead. It’s a lot better to be an antisemite when you’re comfortable with your identity.

[styrofauxm]

so another thing about aos that I love is that when we are first shown Daisy and Jiaying's powers they seem to be opposites in that Daisy's destroy while Jiaying's powers heal. Daisy's rip her sense of self apart while Jiaying is so self-assured in hers.

And then we are shown that Daisy's powers destroy her, but the people who love and care about her work so hard to make it so that they stop hurting her. And through them, she finally finds herself and her identity.

And then we are shown that Jiaying's healing requires killing others. People are dragged, unwillingly, to her so that she can hurt even more people. And through them, she slowly loses herself.

So the opposite nature gets flipped. Daisy's are the ones used to help people and Jiaying's destroy people. Daisy's are her path to self actualization while Jiaying's are her path to self destruction.

[valyrfia]

am I incredibly cynical if I say that him and McLaren PR have noticeably doubled down on Lando’s struggles with mental health since his general misguided cockiness has radicalised a majority of the F1 community against him or

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

I had sort of thought Kanaya's teasing and bullying towards Eridan for wanting to get back together with Vriska may have been an extension of her jealousy towards him that even someone like Eridan could get Vriska's attention, albeit in pitch feelings. As Kanaya was desperate to have a flushed relationship with her. She even cuts of Tavros' legs just AFTER she had seen him kiss Vriska. However, it was Vriska who initiated the kiss, not the bronzeblood himself. Kanaya puts Vriska that high up that she would overlook any behaviors. Only mediating if it means she could have a chance to get close to Vriska while not being open about her real feelings towards her. Which was something Eridan called Kanaya out in their first pesterlog together.

i personally don't read THAT much petty malice in her actions; i think she's mostly just a bit of a doormat, as Space players tend to be. while her retaliation against tavros (basically cutting him out despite being friends with him) IS unwarranted and motivated by jealousy, cutting off his legs is framed as a misguided attempt to be helpful (in fact, one of the potential reasons hussie throws out for why kanaya does this is to enable vriska one last time, by "erasing" one of her biggest asshole moves). as hussie points out, it's not ever really made clear whether or not tavros WANTED the help, so it still doesn't reflect very well on kanaya, but given she goes to Actual Murder when she wants revenge, i don't think "revenge" was quite her motive with "helping" tavros walk again.

let's remember that kanaya's core defining character flaw is "enabler," which ties in with both her Sylph class AND Space aspect, for a double whammy of enabling. even though she clearly has nothing but disdain towards eridan, she never just blocks him and moves on (which is what nearly everyone else on the meteor does), and even ultimately makes him his wand.

while she grapples with this tendency of hers, outright admitting it to be a flaw to rose and eventually getting fed up with eridan, gamzee, and even rose herself, she never fully resolves or confronts this tendency head-on, nor takes any accountability for the people she's helped fuck over. just another character in a long list who never fully completed their arcs.

[brownnbears]

The discourse around Jinx’s sexuality recently is crazy because ever since I first saw Arcane Jinx has always been like completely sexless to me lmao

Maybe it’s just my aroace bias but I was so confused when her and Ekko were sort of a thing in s2 bc I don’t even think they interacted up to that point other than the fight on the bridge and a literal alternate universe. I’m sure it’s implied like “they grew up together” but it just never really worked for me, probably s2’s pacing problem striking again

But fr you can hc jinx as whatever you want bc that’s the great thing about fandom culture lol

What really needs to happen is people need to stop feeding into the guys intentionally trying to get a rise out of you by saying “erm canonically jinx is straight 🤓” because you don’t need to validate your hcs to some random and it’s annoying to see on my tl

[valzhangism]

i watched jurassic world rebirth. it was a fun movie. there should've been yaoi between jonathan bailey and mahershala ali. but still a solid 6/10 👍

[skitskatdacat63]

Dude the way Mr Robot is so good at building tension with reveals is insane, it literally has me tensing my whole body in stress gaaahhhhhhh

[marietheran]

huh. so syril did grow out of his nazi phase.

[xoxohomicidal-cougarxoxo]

One day, I will tell my twist on the fnaf story...

maybe then the fandom would be long dead to even enjoy it, lol.

[philomaela]

Okay so Michael Hirst is doing a show about Erik BloodAxe... at first I thought Hirst had just been reading my tumblr, but now I see that that's definitely not the case. Hirst appears to be following Erik and Gunnhild as adults battling for Norway which is not where I would start the story at all. I would start the story (and I have said this before) with Harald Fairhair dividing his kingdom, but I suppose if you do that you can't pretend there's continuity with Vikings... also you'd have some issues with your protagonist aging and all, but still.

[licantropa]

I had to hear him call mot a white knight, c!sparklez is not a feminist I’m sorry

[werewolfsonpage211]

i just have to write through my feelings about predathos rn cause WOW i was truly leaning heavily in oryms direction of we dont know what that shit do youd have to be stupid to even try. like i was feeling okay with the prospect of them releasing predathos cause it is objectivly the most interesting choice you could make, narratively, from a doylist perspective etc etc, but i wasnt feeling it yknow. and i gotta be honest a big part of that was because i do sympathise with the gods some more than others like on a fundamental level i feel theyve got just as much a right to exist as every other living being in the world, theyre people to me and i simply dont like the idea of them dying/having to flee. and yes okay melora is my blorbo out of them and i hate thinking about her being forced to leave exandria leave nature leave everything she loves and has become and is. i was way more hoping for the resolution of bh not releasing predathos and instead remembering RQs hint that they could strike a deal with the gods as a reward for saving their asses.

and then 114 happened. and i fear it changed me irrevokably. matt did something horrible. he gave me hope. like i already had a sliver of hope that if the gods left maybe vax would be free and alive but also maybe hed just be dead or just gone and anyway he wouldnt want to be saved in exchange for such a sacrifice (not that the people making the choice would be anyone he knew...) but but BUT then matt rq gave him a night. vox machina was given a night. and all of a sudden i cant imagine going back to the way things were. if the gods are saved the world may still be changed forever, but not for vax. he only has a night. then he goes back to her. but. if the gods leave, it can't stay the same, not even for him. im not even sure, despite the hope that matt/rq gave me, that he would be freed if rq left. maybe he is kept by her divine power. maybe he would die, or disappear forever (who knows what happens after death when there are no gods?). or maybe he, given a night of life, would simply feel her grip on his string loosen and fade away, leaving him as he is right now, where he is right now, as the raven queen's last parting gift. either way, death or life, it would be change. either he would get a chance to keep living, or keyleth would get a better chance to move on. and that spark of hope for change killed whatever part of me that still could tolerate him being in her service in perpetuum. i cant stand it anymore. i dont accept it.

despite my deep and complicated feelings regarding this rn i am also remembering that it is all a work of fiction and i am fascinated by the way my opinion on the predathos conundrum could be swayed so quickly and, dare i say, decidedly, by new emotions being stirred in me. and i am examining how even tho i was backing up my opinion with (what i see as) logical and objective arguments, i was still being affected by my sympathies for different fictional characters the whole time - from melora (and the pcs i associate her with) to vax and vm. going through it has taught me something about how people can be swayed on much more serious, real life matters. i truely dont know if ive ever changed my mind so dramatically (regarding both strenght and character of the opinion as well as swiftness of the change) in my life before. before i watched c3e114 i was hesitant at best to the releasing predathos idea, now im rooting for it to happen. and dont get me wrong, i still think orym's argument is the most sane and safe one and if i myself had to live in exandria i would most surely be on his side of the debate. but i dont, im the audience of a fictional story and right now i would love to know just what the fuck that shit do.

[bulldog-butch]

.

[anghraine]

Other tangentially related gaming thing: my bff J agreed to yet another run of Mass Effect to help me decompress/distract myself/maintain the even keel that's kind of required by the whole situation, but also difficult as an intensely anxious (if usually composed!) person.

For context: our first Shepard, who romanced Liara, was about as squeaky-clean Paragon as possible to be while still murdering the fuck out of Kai Leng. I had a blast with that one!

Then, we constructed a whole tragic arc for our second Shep, a somewhat older woman with maximal emotional scars (survivor of Mindoir + butcher of Torfan) and a lot more capacity for ruthlessness (we did every Renegade choice we could square with our consciences—no space racism but lots of space murder).

We decided she'd start to find love again with Kaidan, only for him, like everyone else in her life, to die (at Virmire in this case). Then she would experience a more mature and profound love with Thane that would be very gentle and fully reciprocated, yet bittersweet given that they both know he's dying soon. We had the idea that this initially harsh, ruthless Shepard coming to love Thane and diverge from her previous path of bloody vengeance would be really endearing, especially when the dying Thane wants the prayer read for her rather than himself, and then the rapport between Shep and Kolyat would also have this extra pathos, and killing Kai Leng would be even more satisfying.

(It totally was: our Shep was a Vanguard so there was a lot of punching involved, and then J indignantly went "this is for Thane, you fucker" as we stabbed KL.)

Anyway, the storyline did mostly work out, apart from any degree of nuance being rewarded by the game locking us out of cool dialogue options at particularly critical moments. Still, she was super enjoyable and I liked how we got her arc to weave into Thane's despite a bit of underwriting at times, and the idea of Shepard as this ultimately tragic figure who just keeps on living as her loved ones die over and over and over (we chose Destroy to underscore that fate!).

This time, we thought it'd be fun to go for a Shepard who isn't quiiiiiite as squeaky-clean as the first one, but more of a Paragon type than our tragic Shepard. Basically noble, but with more of an edge. She's a survivor of both Mindoir and Akuze, so she's seen some shit, but she's still quite young (we wanted her to be fresh-faced, pretty, yet also visibly scarred and managed all three :D). We particularly wanted a more youthful, impetuous Shepard who is less straitlaced and less world-weary than the previous ones for the Garrus romance, which after all these years, J has never done! And he's played both male and female Shepards to see how most of the romances play out, but not Garrus's specifically.

We thought it'd be especially fun for this Shepard to be a full Adept and for her to be basically a good influence on Garrus's unfortunate cowboy cop ways (we just shout out "RED TAPE!!!!" as a household joke at this point). But we didn't want her to be an elder mentor figure to him or an incredibly noble icon he'd revere so much as for them to be Reaper-fighting bros who help each other grow as people -> FWBs -> whatever happens in ME3.

So we've started our new run with our very attractive scarred Shepard (J: "I think it works for her, she's probably into scars"; me: "I bet Garrus is"; J: "Oh, for sure!") and it's a really nice distraction. Though now I'm thinking about the ME/P&P AU that's been percolating through my brain for upwards of seven months >_>

[skrunksthatwunk]

just finished s2 of kaiji and it was good i really liked it but i hope i never see that fuckass pachinko machine again!!!

[seaglassdinosaur]

Honestly I kinda love the subtle jabs about Camp culture not being the greatest for the kids. It’s based around their parents, and about preparing them for the world, but little points about it make it clear this isn’t the best place for the kids to grow up.

The emphasis on showing off and growing your name for the sake of gaining your parent’s notice, as though it’s something to earn and not a minimum of parenthood. The open acknowledgment of the undercurrent of bullying and the fact that nothing is done about it; campers are just expected to measure up so people move on from picking on them. The encouragement of self-sacrifice in the name of the gods which starts small with giving up the piece of food you’ll miss the most.

The camp’s culture is an excellent subtle set-up for recognizing the shortcomings and toxicity of the way the Olympians interact with their kids. Big things like the unclaimed kids are good on their own, but the permeation of it all even into smaller moments really gives an idea of how deep the poison goes, and how the day to day would wear down on a kid, justifying a desire for rebellion.