#learn something from them!!!

[egophiliac]

don't think I'm not still obsessing over 7-12

[mlobsters]

jared padalecki, jensen ackles, rob benedict, richard speight jr jib con 2025 panel (amberdreams)

slaphappy and punchdrunk (no wonder it ended up in a piggyback ride)

+bonus

[flwrkid14]

Tim Drake Accidentally Takes Over the World (and Didn’t Think to Mention It)

So, Janet somehow spent decades climbing her way into every government worth a damn, ruling the entire world from behind the scenes. And then, because the universe is apparently wild, she left it all to Tim.

Cut to Tim Drake, the brand-new, completely reluctant secret ruler of the entire planet. And he just… never really thought it was worth mentioning?

The Batfam finds out when Bruce stumbles across an encrypted memo traced to a mysterious Gotham office with Tim’s name on it.

Bruce, holding up the memo: “Tim. Want to explain why this document about, oh, international finance reforms is signed with your encryption key?”

Tim, not even looking up from his laptop: “Oh, yeah. That. Janet left me her ‘global influence portfolio’ or whatever. Mostly paperwork.”

The Batfam stares in total shock.

Dick sputters nearly dropping his coffee: "Wait—you’ve been managing world policies?!”

Tim, shrugging, barely paying attention as he emails the president of Germany: “Well, yeah. I figured someone had to keep things running. It's not that big a deal. I mostly just redirect some policies. You know, keep things running smoothly.”

Jason, absolutely cackling: “Are you telling me that little Replacement here is the reason for half the ‘global cooperation’ headlines?”

Tim, scrolling through emails: “They send me reports; I send suggestions. And honestly, they make it way more dramatic than it is. It's not that hard."

Barbara stares at him, half horrified, half impressed. “How did we not notice this?”

Tim blinks. “I mean, it’s not like I was actively hiding it. I assumed you guys knew I was… kind of managing these things?”

Cue utter disbelief.

Stephanie, laughing too hard to breathe: “Tim, do you have world leaders on speed dial?”

Tim, completely unfazed: “Only the important ones. They text, mostly. Oh—by the way, I might’ve influenced a minor arms control thing last week. Don’t worry; it’s all sorted.”

Bruce, looking like he’s two seconds from fainting: “Sorted? Tim, we're talking about you having global authority here. People notice these things."

Tim shrugs again as his phone buzzes with notifications. “Sure, but it’s not like they’re going to do anything too crazy. I just suggest stuff, and they listen. Honestly, it’s like herding really powerful, really overdramatic cats.”

Damian, scandalized: “You mean to tell me, Drake, that you’re manipulating world politics like it’s a game of checkers?”

Tim, still casual: “Manipulating’s a strong word. Like I said, it’s more just nudging things along.” His phone buzzes again. “Oh, hang on. France is panicking about their energy policy again.”

The Batfam tries to process the fact that Tim—Tim, who routinely forgets what day it is—is now, somehow, running the world.

And then his phone buzzes with a message from the UN Security Council.

Tim sighs, glancing down. “Oh, great. Looks like they’re debating nuclear arms again. Be right back.”

Meanwhile, the Batfam is left absolutely speechless, processing the fact that their Tim—scrawny, coffee-fueled Tim—is apparently one of the most powerful people on the planet. And to him its just another tuesday.

[buriedknight]

Cassandra x Inquisitor sketch dump 2 (post-Trespasser flavoured)

the inquisitor is ours with @starrythroat

[shinotail]

Realized I have not posted in awhile goooo my attempt at human loop doodles

[turbo-virgins]

Low key very tired of people responding to veilguard criticism with something along the lines of “lol these people have no media literacy, didn’t you understand what the game was telling you??” Yes, yes I understand what the game was trying to tell me. That doesn’t mean I have to like it or the way the writers went about it.

Also the whole argument of “well, the dragon age fandom proved they couldn’t handle xyz controversial character/element of the story so that’s why veilguard had very little references to those things” kinda grinds my gears a bit. I don’t think it can be proven with 100% certainty what writing decisions were made based on past fandom reactions to the other games, but I do think it would be an incredibly shitty move to simplify or remove complexity from a story just because there might be a portion of the audience who doesn’t get it. “The fandom couldn’t even handle Vivienne” Yeah a good amount of people dismissed her as a selfish snooty bitch, but I didn’t and a lot of other people didn’t and to remove complex and interesting characters like her on the basis that enough people “won’t get it” just feels like a disservice to all of us.

[sengenism]

gen is next to senku like, 90% of the time just to stand there and look pretty while going "ohhhh?" when senku explains science stuff

[lucabyte]

Taking pride in One's own appearance.

[slfcare]

the thing is; this world needs you exactly as you are.

[sanjarka]

i'm gonna go yell her so ignore me but i really wouldn't even describe peeta as soft or overtly emotional, especially not more emotional than katniss. this guy cries twice in the whole trilogy (please correct if im wrong but it's after the reaping and during the if it weren't for the baby speach), he can tell katniss sweet loving lines but he isn't calling her to hold him after a nightmare. he actually has a tendency to close off emotionally (on the train, before the quell). his mother gives him a bruise and he doesn't cry. is he more self aware than katniss? is he more aware of his feelings than she is? yes, but that isn't the same thing as being emotionally open and vulnerable. so he isn't open, he just understans what needs to get done in order to appear like that. easy going and mild.

[emmerrr]

i love that whilst laila is jeremy's bff, cat is undeniably jean's. don't get me wrong, i love their friendships as a foursome, and i love the dynamics that each of them have with each other, but jean and cat specifically are the friendship that has my heart the most.

the cooking lessons! she's arguably the first one in california to make jean feel in any way comfortable simply by giving him something to do, and in doing so they create their own little routine and obviously spend a lot of time together. she's so quick to offer him easy affection, kissing him on the top of his head or his temple, winding an arm around his waist when she thinks he's overwhelmed, even just leaning her shoulder against his or touching his knee to ground him so he knows she's there and he's not alone. taking him for that long ride on her motorcycle, driving out to her favourite spot, finding and giving him a sand dollar, just getting him out of his own head for a little while.

she's not afraid to tease him, and he lets her. cat is often the person who seems to be the most vocally outraged on jean's behalf when they learn new information about how he's been treated, and i know jeremy often tells her to drop something if she pushes when jean obviously doesn't want to talk about it, but it's important that jean still sees that rage and knows that it's not directed at him, that it wasn't his fault.

and he learns from her, too. he's learning that he can be spontaneously affectionate with her as well, he's learning to cook, he's learning he can lean on her, he's learning (learned?) to ride a motorbike, something neither jeremy nor laila do, something that's just for them. like, they got MATCHING BIKES are you KIDDING me?

they just mean so much to me :')

[platoapproved]

It did not hurt me then. It did not shake me. I was too pale of soul, too numbed, too used to seeing all things as figments in a series of unconnected dreams. - The Vampire Armand

[gothra]

I’ll never forget when I was arguing with a person in favor of total prison abolition and I asked them “what about violent offenders?” And they said “Well, in a world where prisons have been abolished, we’ll have leveled the playing field and everyone will have their basic needs met, and crime won’t be as much of an issue.” And then I was like “okay. But…no. Because rich people also rape and murder, so it isn’t just a poor person thing. So what will we do about that?” And I don’t think they answered me after that. I’m ashamed to say I continued to think that the problem was that I simply didn’t understand prison abolitionists enough and that their point was right in front of me, and it would click once I finally let myself understand it. It took me a long time to realize that if something is going to make sense, it needs to make sense. If you want to turn theory into Praxis (I’m using that word right don’t correct me I’ll vomit) everyone needs to be on board, which mean it all needs to click and it needs to click fast and fucking clear. You need to turn a complex idea into something both digestible and flexible enough to be expanded upon. Every time I ask a prison abolitionist what they actually intend to do about violent crime, I get directed to a summer reading list and a BreadTuber. It’s like a sleight-of-hand trick. Where’s the answer to my question. There it is. No wait, there it is. It’s under this cup. No it isn’t. “There’s theory that can explain this better than I can.” As if most theory isn’t just a collection of essays meant to be absorbed and discussed by academics, not the average skeptic. “Read this book.” And the book won’t even answer the question. The book tells you to go ask someone else. “Oh, watch this so-and-so, she totally explains it better than me.” Why can’t you explain it at all? Why did you even bring it up if you were going to point me to someone else to give me the basics that you should probably already know? Maybe I’m just one of those crazy people who thinks that some people need to be kept away from the public for everyone’s good. Maybe that just makes me insane. Maybe not believing that pervasive systemic misogyny could be solved with a UBI and a prayer circle makes me a bad guy. But it’s not like women’s safety is a priority anyway. It’s not like there is an objective claim to be made that re-releasing violent offenders or simply not locking them up is deadly.

[cvl-kestis]

i'm also very annoyed about how the symbolism of cassian's character was handled throughout this season. in rogue one and going into season two, the great tragedy of cassian was that he was no one at all -- destined to go unremembered and never live to see the world he gave everything to create. he had been through hell and back not because it had to be that way but because he was brave enough to choose hell in hopes that it might make a better tomorrow. and then he was wiped off the map and the men who destroyed the death star using the plans he stole never knew his name.

according to andor season two, though, cassian was always meant to be on scarif because he's a "messenger." he has lampshaded plot armor until he can die the way he was born to die, because it was always his destiny to make sure those plans made it off that base. also, he is survived by his partner and a child he never knew about, solidifying his legacy. this... is silly. it is beyond noble for cassian to make the willing choice to be forgotten in service of a greater cause. i'm much less compelled if the story is about cassian unintentionally being dragged to his death by fate and then getting remembered as a hero.

[sunlight-shunlight]

thinking about veilguard and bioware in general, i think we are reaching a point where people need to grapple with the inherent limits of what stories can be told in our Current Society and in AAA gaming companies.

on a labour level: mass layoffs, tons of developers leaving despite previously talking about how passionate and happy they were to be involved, not even paying severance, and crunching employees to the point of burnout. this is unfortunately pretty standard for AAA game companies.

on a cultural level: it is SO white and SO centrist-ly Canadian. i wrote up these asks outlining how. it is a repeated pattern of writing in which they go into tortured racial oppression allegories at best, while constantly peppering in a "but BOTH SIDES were wrong and made mistakes :( :( :(", in between their fictional atrocities that are clearly mirroring irl genocides and enslavement. or at worst, it's "the qunari are radical islamic borg" which has even less nuance. i personally thought, since dai came out in 2014, and a lot has changed since then about the world and in public awareness, that this would have filtered into the narrative and resulted in more satisfying and historically grounded writing. unfortunately not the case. it's shocking if you compare it to how sharp and aware and unflinching something like disco elysium is.

so what does this mean?

under these conditions, it is unavoidable that we get development by people who are rapidly cycled out of the company or demoralized into burnout. we get digestible, easy little soundbites of lore without much substance, because any complexity needs more time and coordination rather than the process of "quick, we have these assets, a lot of people involved in making them just got laid off, we need to make Something by next quarter to show the CEO". we get very little cohesion between games, despite the clear intent from dai to have so many plot points set up to follow through in a sequel, because the team and development are so chaotic that they can't hold onto a vision and complete it.

we also get this inherent caution and "conservatism" from the narrative, because on an ideological level, they're largely white people who want cops to be included in pride. so any major change to even a fictional society is Bad and Scary, and shouldn't be done without making sure that every character finger-wags appropriately at non-state violence. there is clearly not much ideological or even ethnic diversity within the leadership; or at least not enough that anyone there felt comfortable even speaking up on minor issues like the Incredibly Orientalist Isabela Outfit, let alone anything larger.

i don't personally think there's too much value in trying to analyze veilguard's plot or lore at this point. the final product is chaotically developed and does not seem to reflect the goals of the creators as set up in prior games, it's basically a ship of theseus in terms of the people and ideas involved in making it. this is sad for all of us, who were interested in the story, and attached to the characters, and were creatively fulfilled by engaging in the fandom. it's probably worse for the developers who have lost their jobs, burnt out, or feel unhappy with the game that they spent years of their life working on. it's certainly miserable as an indictment of The Industry, as well as the general societal climate of white Canadian centrism.

the solution is to create a society where people can develop games in peace and prosperity and stay on projects for longer, rather than constantly getting turfed out without severance pay. and to get some genuine leftists, poc, and indigenous people on staff who can weigh in and provide significant input, rather than a Council Of Liberal White Edmontonians every time.

in the meantime, at the very least, let's please stop preordering AAA games and supporting companies who notably abuse their employees.

[salamispots]

first 3 rug hooking things I did haha