#than avoiding entirely

[reasonsforhope]

100% have been perusing your climate change masterpost, and understand you're probably swamped so feel free to delete of course. But if you can find the time, is there any kind of hope to give in fighting climate change now? Can we save ourselves against the oncoming steamroll?

You hang in there too. Thanks for finding the hope among everything else. It feels so bad rn but I have to believe it can change. I hope it can.

Yeah actually I do think there is hope.

Things are going to get rough. Things are going to get worse before they get better, both for the climate and for people living in the US (and for people living in lots and lots of other countries that will be affected by the US election results/the ways the climate will worsen as aa result).

I haven't posted about this yet because I didn't want it to come to this, but now that it has, here's something that people have been quietly saying/research has been showing for months:

-via Reuters, November 6, 2024

Renewables, especially solar, are just too powerful to be stopped. They just too much cheaper and too much better, and that's only going to become more true, not less.

Also, I think (and hope) it's actually inevitable that at some point, we'll get to net negative carbon emissions. I think it's like solar: the technology, cost, and planet all make it feel like an inevitable technological trajectory, the same way solar tech is on an exponential trajectory. (IF WE WORK FOR IT, OBVIOUSLY, but also so, so many people ARE working for it, have dedicated their lives to working for it)

I sure fucking hope that's the case, anyway.

(You can find my masterpost on going net negative on what that actually means here)

It is gonna happen more slowly and shittily than I hoped, but I do think it's going to happen.

And if we can get to net negative emissions in time to save ourselves (which I think we will, the rates of advancement in many of these areas are very impressive), then we'll be able to slowly start to undo and heal lot of the damage.

[nenoname]

"The volume I hold in my hands. Describes my embarrassing defeat at the hands of Bill and the loss of my very sanity. Also contains a pretty good drawing of a plaidypus. Will soon be bestowed upon S and hidden at the ends of the Earth (I hope).”

always thinking about how ford was going to give stan j3 before changing his mind and giving him j1 instead.....

with stan completely avoiding the mystery of what the hell got ford into his paranoid state + why he built the portal in the first place, i wonder if getting j3 would've actually made him investigate what happened

+ the forementioned plaidypus drawing

[fatedroses]

Some body type references and notes I wanted to make, especially before I redraw some of my old pieces (plus, a bit of him as an adventurer having a crisis of a realization), and also just personally how I HC the change between stormblood to now based on some in game refs I've been looking at.

[moghedien]

love that I can front a post with a long ass disclaimer that I'm not justifying anything or telling anyone they're wrong or trying to change anyone's mind and also not engage in any of the discourse going on around it otherwise and I still get blocked and accused of weird shit because I did an analysis of the scene

[lunewolf13]

Bruce: Do you need help on your science project?

Little fourteen year old Jason Todd stands in across from Bruce and crosses his arms in offense: No, I don't need help.

Bruce: Are you sure?

Jason, whose voice hasn't gone through puberty yet: Yes! Because I'm a man now!

(he's got a singular hair on his chin that he's was very proud of discovering)

Bruce in his head: Don't laugh, don't laugh, don't laugh.

Bruce: I can still help you though. As an adult, it's considered more mature to ask for help when you need it.

Little Jason uncrosses his arms with only a little skepticism: Oh. Okay. Then man to man, can you help me test which of these moisturizers is the least shitty?

Bruce: Always.

[front-facing-pokemon]

[qoldenskies]

what is it with leo that villian donnie sees him as his bully compared to raph and mikey? like is it just leo being #leo + donnie not understanding the teasing that was an effect of the hero/villain dynamic, or was it some Specific Thing leo did/does?

leo gets the most personal, generally, so it is just leo being #Leo. raph's more focused on what donnie's doing than anything else-- which is usually crime. and mikey's a lot nicer just because he finds donnie interesting, and is eventually interested in connecting to him as a family member. he can be mean to villains, but with donnie in particular he finds his tech interesting so he's more open to him!! he doesnt hold back in combat though lol

leo aims for where it hurts. he makes fun of the way he dresses, the way he talks, anything he can to fluster and rile him up because it makes him sloppy. he rubs salt in the wound when they defeat him. he'll push donnie to the point of flying into a rage and then laugh at him for acting so embarrassing and being thin-skinned. he'll joke around with the others too about him sometimes, even to the point where it feels like they're not listening to donnie's rehearsed villain speeches he was SO EXCITED TO UNVEIL and it really flusters and upsets him. its mean, but donnie's blowing shit up, i think they've moved past that lmao.

and donnie... kind of sees leo as, like,,, cool? he seems to know what he's doing, at least when it comes to how he socializes. maybe he doesnt look up to him just yet, but he does quietly want his approval and sees him as kind of the model example of what a cool person would be. so when leo criticizes him, he takes it very personally. it means he's doing something wrong.

like if he wants to be anything, it's to be cool. to be likeable and popular. especially once he starts branching out and meeting other people willing to give him a chance, he's stumbling over himself trying to play himself up and seem worth putting up with. but leo's words are a cutting reminder that he doesn't even know what acceptance looks like, and he'll never fit in anywhere, even with the only people exactly like him, and he cries himself to sleep every other night about it.

[pseudophan]

screen recordings are where all joy and hope go to die and anyone who exclusively gifs from screen recordings is out of their fucking mind

[speedy-beans]

im not primo farming so i have time to draw again

[imaginaryanon]

daily affirmations i am not afraid of some fuckass scene in a fic. that i'm writing, myself, with my own two hands. that's not even written yet because i'm scared of it UH i mean no i'm not.

[eveningrainstorm]

God I'm obsessed with how Curly gives Anya and Jimmy the exact same reassurances, down to the phrasing. Dude is trying so hard to play both sides, despite this being a situation where 1) he has to take a side, there's no actual way to fix things for both of them, and 2) there is absolutely a morally correct side to take here.

He's just. Saying the same shit. He's going to Fix This. (More specifically, "We" are going to Fix This.) What does "fixing it" even mean? Does "fixing it" for Anya mean making an unplanned stop so she can get an abortion and get away from Jimmy? Does it mean just trying to emotionally support her through the rest of the trip and helping her find work and deal with her unwanted child afterwards? What about Jimmy? Is "fixing it" for him covering up the whole thing to protect both their reputations? Is it just helping him get through whatever legal ramifications follow and get back on his feet afterward? How many of these options will actually benefit both Anya and Jimmy? Do any of these options actually "fix this" rather than just attempt to deal with the consequences? Maybe "fixing it" means magically changing the past so Jimmy never raped Anya in the first place. Who knows?

There's no way to know what Curly means here because he never actually says what he's going to do. I don't think Curly knows what he means here. His desperate insistence that he's going to fix everything, much like Jimmy's own later on, is just a lot of empty promises. Curly wants a perfect solution, one where he can keep the peace and help both Anya and Jimmy and fix everything, but there isn't one — there's just the difficult, imperfect solutions, the ones that will force him to actually take risks and lose something he values no matter what, the ones that acknowledge that the damage that has been done can never be undone.

If he actually wanted to help Anya, he'd have to actually do something about Jimmy, even if it meant losing his friendship with him or worse; by letting Jimmy get away with it, he's betraying Anya as well as basic morals. Purely by not doing anything, he's already taken Jimmy's side, whether he actually intends to try to help Jimmy avoid consequences in the end or not, but he won't even admit that's what he's doing — instead he keeps just trying to appease them both with the idea of that perfect, miraculous solution. It's going to be okay. They'll get through it. They'll figure this out. They can fix this.

And it doesn't work! Neither Anya nor Jimmy actually believes him! They both can tell perfectly well that Curly can't back up any of the reassurances he's giving them. Anya knows Curly isn't actually going to protect her from Jimmy; that's why she hides the gun and refuses to tell him where it is. Jimmy knows Curly can't or won't actually help him avoid all consequences here; that's why he instead decides to crash the ship and kill everyone.

Curly won't act, so they do, and while Anya is only trying to keep herself safe in what few ways she can, Jimmy is an incredibly dangerous man who is second-in-command of the ship and has no compunctions about abusing his power. Curly thinks he's playing both sides, but the sides were never even close to equal. Curly's inaction manifests as keeping the code for the gun from Anya because it's dangerous but allowing Jimmy continued access to the ship's controls because it doesn't even occur to him not to. By sitting back and hoping for a perfect solution that doesn't exist, Curly gives Jimmy the opportunity to find his own solution, the worst possible one. Curly was right: they fixed it, together, and he let Jimmy choose the method.

[kirkwallguy]

i saw your reblog of that bull post and i'd like to know your other issues with his writing if you wouldn't mind elaborating 😊 i really enjoy your meta posts

hiiiii! my complaints are far pettier than the points in that post ngl, but one major issue i have with bull that i think i may have complained about before is just that his dialogue irritates me and i don't like hearing him speak

imo, what makes weekes' writing so hit or miss (aside from previously mentioned racism etc) is that they really REALLY seem to have taken to heart the advice that characters should have a distinctive way of speaking while often not really having the subtlety to pull it off. it doesn't help that dai really struggles with giving its companions time to develop so we really do have to rely on good dialogue (as opposed to like... quests or storylines) to round them out.

solas speaking in iambic is actually really fun and mostly unobtrusive, but bull and cole are just far too overdone for my personal tastes. bull's whole quippy "yeah 😉 i REALLY like hitting things" schtick gets super old after a few minutes; i know there's the argument that he's presenting himself in a certain way for the inquisition etc etc but it's grating and unfunny while feeling like you're supposed to be finding it funny. similarly, cole's fake-deep mysterious dialogue is good maybe 30% of the time and kind of painful 70% of the time because you can FEEL the writing working very very hard rather than being something that comes from cole's mouth naturally. and ofc characters with super distinctive ways of speaking aren't always bad, especially in a fantasy video game, i just think bull and cole kind of get in the way of themselves a lot of the time and just happen to do it in ways that are designed to annoy me specifically

[wickmitz]

what do you think mitzi’s type in men is?

hmm, this is a fun little ask! especially since her love interests, on a surface level, couldn’t be more different. we have :

zib : former long term boyfriend but not quite … they were very loose with labels, as we know from outside information and the way zib lives life in general. but despite this, whatever feelings fostered between them were intense ; enough so for him to stick around years later, resigned to a chained down lifestyle simply because he doesn’t want to leave mitzi. he’s very loyal in that sense! even if it’s not a conventional type of loyalty. we know that before bitterness seeped inbetween their bond that zib took good care of her, while also being a complete mess of a person ; someone perpetually scared whenever physical conflict is concerned and being a musically inclined man who very much treats himself as a free spirit, with a morbid philosophy and feel towards life. he’s got a major tortured artist aesthetic!! is a little gripped by melancholy and nostalgia … zib is a lot of things, and ambitious is surprisingly one of the many puzzle pieces that make up dorian zibowski.

atlas : ruthless gangster, has an eerie presence that frightens even the people closest to him. he is prone to a more quiet disposition ; never speaking and always a blot of unremarkable grey. but he is an opportunist! someone who can manage a business and take advantage of shortcuts and loopholes to become even more successful … basically he is wealthy and uses his assets well. but all of this is done with a manner of distance, leaving even those closest to him never having the full picture of who he was. it’s also worth noting that mitzi and him had eventual problems, which caused her to seperate. also perhaps has a heart of some kind, but whatever love he possesses is hidden under layers of blood and mystery.

wick : well-to-do bore, and i say this with all the love in the world for wick! but compared to previous paramours he’s rather clean and talkative … there is a constant earnestness to him that bleeds out, an honesty and a more conventional sort of kindness. he doesn’t hide behind smoke and mirrors and there’s never really a front he puts up around mitzi -- or his investors for that matter, hence why he’s treated as an ‘outsider’ so to speak. he is an alcoholic who loathes the details of his job but is more than passionate about the job itself and makes this everyone’s problem … he is a little helpless, in the sense he’d die without someone there to make sure he functions … and is, like zib, perpetually afraid of conflict. can be a little wishywashy and can come across as uncaring due to his cheeky tone … but he’s loyal and caring, with a hobby for the unusual ( bugs and rocks lol ) as well as being able to look past the gossip mill and see the actual mitzi may as he knows her, someone who’s going through a rough time and is either too kind or classy to be a brutal killer. he is hypocritical, a little snobby, and rather forward with mitzi too. kind of a flirt when he wants to be!

something that immediately stands out to me when looking at this lineup is that mitzi doesn’t enjoy a violent man. i don’t think she loathes someone who can so brutally or clinically remove others from this earth, but if she were to go for someone they’d usually be sweeter in a sense. it meshes well with her old personality and kinder heart, perhaps brings it out in her, and that sort of levity and breeziness is more enjoyable than, say, being fully aware of the dangers that lurk around every corner because the man you’re beside is prone to bringing it. she also enjoys more talkative types, someone who’s less quiet and demure and serious, and is keen on her men having a hobby they care deeply for ; some sort of long term goal to work towards doesn’t hurt either. and because of some scenes in the comic, i’m a firm believer that mitzi wants someone who can make her smile or laugh with ease, whether because they’re ridiculous by nature or genuinely funny! she has a sort of funny bone herself, enamored with gallow’s humor and darker jokes, so having someone who either a.) reacts hilariously in the face of her jokes or b.) who can return that energy with teasing or their own brand of silly is desirable. everyone could use a good laugh or two, a sense of joy injected into the bustling life they all live, and this all ties back to mitzi being more drawn towards the less stuffy types of men.

so atlas seems to be an outlier when it comes to her type in many ways, hence the later problems they apparently had in their relationship even if she did love him dearly. but, of course, atlas did have something very appealing to her that zib had failed to give, which she rather fondly recalls in the comic page vestige. whether zib likes acknowledging it or not, mitzi wasn’t as gungho about their normad life as he was … or, at the very least, when she lived another life besides that one, she realized she had a preference! and atlas gave her that path, that knowledge that she wanted something else, and seemingly for the very first time in her life … she felt like a proper lady, a feeling that clearly meant a lot to her. it wasn’t just the dresses or the wealth, it was the constant eye of atlas who could have any dame he wanted, but fancied her his wife regardless. it was having someone so respectable looking, dressed well and groomed well, being able to see her as something other than a sweating, exposed girl in a bawdy dress. atlas’s seemingly polite treatment towards mitzi was enough to garner her affections in spite of everything else, so i think she enjoys that now in others, ; folks who treat her as though she’s a woman in high society, men who don’t gawk at her or make lewd remarks immediately … she probably prefers the courting process now and the quaint dates ( that she doesn’t pay for, mind you ) that come along with it. she just -- likes mutual respect, i think. and who doesn’t? she’s been through a lot to get to where she is now, even if it’s a bad predicament, and she’d like for that to amount to something. some sort of acknowledgment, some kind of recognition.

however, it’s worth mentioning that her views on romance and all that it entails have been warped since the death of her husband. such a loss would change how anyone approaches their dating life, if they were to even have one afterwards … after all, mitzi’s whole problem is that she doesn’t want to move on from atlas and has thus completely romanticized him in her head, to the point that she earnestly believes she’ll be miserable forever without his presence. any problems she had with atlas have long since been erased by her tortured mind, leaving her with a profound misery she’s wallowing in. i think she believes herself as incapble of romantic or sexual inclinations nowdays, leading her to view the advances made towards wick as a necessary ‘evil’ for the sake of atlas may and little else -- when she genuinely does like sedgewick to a degree, and wouldn’t go on dates or kiss a man unless some part of her honestly wanted to do so. ( i also think she was attracted to wick somewhat even while married to atlas, but that’s besides the point ) so this is all a rather complicated affair! she is vulnerable and weak, is too aware of herself and the criminal underbelly squeezing in closer … add this on top of her still heavily grieving and having no one she feels she can talk to, you have someone who is rather changed. mitzi is so far removed from herself and who she truly is, or was, that there’s no doubt it’s affected her type ; now she’ll settle for anyone if they’ll just help her, and even then she’d be dispassionate if romantic entanglement of any kind was involved in that relationship. it’s not something she wants right now, and honestly, it all seems scary and daunting … besides atlas, zib was the only other man she’s ever loved enough to stay around for, so she’s never faced a loss like this before. has kept zib throughout all the turmoil and changes -- so this is, as far as we know, her first major loss where it concerns matters of the heart. it’s not shocking she’s so messed up after it, especially given how fresh it all still is. all of this rambling is to say that mitzi’s a little more stingy and cagey then she used to be about love or sex, and she has a lot of inner battles to face before she can fall for someone and be sure about it. needs to thaw, i think, and she would require patience and understanding from anyone who actually wanted to be with her. mitzi could move on with time ( i do not think she’s the type of widow who’d never date again! ) but it would take quite some time to do so. well, in a world where she’s allowed / is able to heal anyway!

while her type would probably remain the same, i could see her wanting a serious relationship more than she did prior to the death of her husband. has no energy for the loopholes, or the rationalizations, or the fickle nature that can grip someone’s heart. she has matured in a lot of ways since her band days and would take comfort in frivolous things like labels and promises of a future, together, as lovers. while what she had with zib was nice and is cherished alongside the freedom to do as she pleased while on the road with the band, i don’t think she misses it. having the stability and assurance of an actual relationship, with all the hardships that come with it, would be better suited for her. as long as she’s treated like an equal of course! i don’t think she’d be keen on her partner hiding anything from her, even if it’s meant to protect her, due to where that put mitzi when atlas was killed. she’d rather know and be disgusted, or worried, or scared than to not know about something at all until it’s too late … again. naturally patience and compassion would also be of importance, as would the usual things she loves like loyalty and a passion for something in life. and while never required, she’d be happy if the person possessed even a singular musical bone in their body! she still thinks artists, particularly musicans, are sexy after all … likes the angst and brooding that comes with it, the slight flare towards the dramatics … as long as they can handle mitzi in her pitiful entirety and do, to some degree, care deeply for her and will compromise … i think she could find some happiness wherever. bonus points if she can live comfortably for the rest of her days too, lord knows she’s tired of the constant battle of hucking and bargaining.

but yeah! mitzi’s love life is vast and complex and i definitely see her as someone who is more flexible in type than other people are. though there are similarities between her suitors if you really look! anyway, i hope i was able to briefly touch upon this subject because my shipping brain loved your question and kinda went into overdrive, alas. tldr ; her ideal type is wick sable. sorry. once wick learns an instrument the wedding is back on!! … i’m kidding lol. well, mostly <3

[mantisgodsdomain]

Fun note of the specific pronoun situation with the translation errors between Wasp and Bugnish: under normal circumstances, Jayde would get automatically assigned he/him in Bugnish, since she uses the standard "non-queen social bug" pronouns that roughly 95% of the Wasp Hive do, which get translated to drone pronouns in Bugnish due to a roughly century-old miscommunication. She gets assigned worker pronouns in Bugnish specifically because those are what Kabbu defaults to with social bugs, and other people picked it up from him during introductions. This Will Be A Point Of Confusion For Her Whenever She Asks About It.

[redo-rewind-if]

Oh, just avoid or confront August? Not seduce?

You can certainly do that too! I just didn't want to make it too wordy. The "confrontation" can be actually confrontational or MC can try to go for the flirty/friendly angle.

But, given the context of the scene (August attempting to kill you. Again. But this time MC knows that and comes prepared.) calling it a confrontation/confronting him felt appropriate lol.

[mostly-tame]

Went for a rainy hike, took one photo and one brick along the way. Torch got 9 miles in!