beccastareyes

[beccastareyes]

Let’s stop asking if a villain or an antagonist “deserves a redemption arc”, and start asking instead: what would be an interesting way for their arc to end? What would be satisfying, both for the character and for the audience? What would be a thematically appropriate end for this character, given the particular piece of media in which it exists? Which arc would be most rewarding for them, when taking into account the protagonist’s own journey, and how they parallel or contrast each other? 

And let’s also accept that, for many of these questions, the answers may greatly vary from person to person, and that’s okay!

[beccastareyes]

abandonware should be public domain. force companies to actively support and provide products if they don't wanna lose the rights to them

[beccastareyes]

[Unsolicited nudis: ongoing spread of two non-native nudibranchs along Australia’s east coast]

Forbes et al. (2025)

[beccastareyes]

As a society we have benefited so much from successful public health measures that we now have the privilege of declaring that we must not need them anymore

Bitch before enriched flour, neural tube defects like spina bifida were far more common. Even now, spina bifida clinicians and researchers are begging to have salt and maize fortified to reach groups that don’t use as much flour. Before iodized salt, the United States had a fucking GOITER BELT. Eleven years after the introduction of fluoridated water, a city in Michigan found the rate of dental caries among school children dropped a staggering 60%— in an era where tooth decay regularly fucking killed people

I’m literally not even going to start on vaccines, which are among the most successful and robustly studied public health measures in world history

You might say “oh well today we all have access to vitamins and toothpastes and dentists so we don’t need those things in our food supplies” and boy do white people on social media loooove to fucking say that. But here’s the thing: no, people don’t all have easy access to those things. That’s privilege talking yet again

[beccastareyes]

Given seagulls are one of the Bastard's sacred animals, I choose to believe this is a divine omen about putting up hostile architecture from the Lord of the Unseason.

[beccastareyes]

Maia and Csethiro Goblinemperor are kinda the funniest pairing in the world... pious non-confrontational man who accidentally became emperor and would LOVE to just go and be a monk or something, put in an arranged marriage with an academic-jock swordswoman whose life dream is to get to say really loudly WHAT SIR, DO YOU QUARRELL?? I DEMAND SATISFACTION and then fight a duel about it. Initially she was pissed about the arranged marriage but now she keeps offering to kill people for him. Like when cats bring you things they hunted. It's like. Maia, thinking tentatively it would be nice to have a wife who doesn't hate him, while Csethiro is in the background overflowing a teacup because she got distracted by the third narrative arc of her maladaptive daydream where she's Lancelot and Maia's Guinevere. Maia probably gets jumpscared awake in the middle of the night w her face like an inch from his and before he can panic she's like 'on a scale of one to ten how impressed wouldst thou be if I crossed a bridge made out of swords to rescue thee and there were also lions at the end' and Maia is like '????? ten?? is that a thing that happens????'

[beccastareyes]

Above image is a pride flag with every color band represented by a NASA image. White is Earth clouds, pink is aurora, blue is the Sun in a specific wavelength, brown is Jupiter clouds, black is the Hubble deep field, red is the top of sprites, orange is a Mars crater, yellow is the surface of Io, green is a lake with algae, blue is Neptune, and purple is the Crab Nebula in a specific wavelength.

[beccastareyes]

I appreciate the Murderbot Diaries’ positive and casual depiction of polyamory. There are so many instantly relatable polyamorous moments, like the kids referring to First Mom and Second Mom, or the challenges of integrating the killer cyborg you’ve trauma-bonded with into an established polycule.

[beccastareyes]

I’ve seen a post talking about Deep Space Nine being pre-9/11 show and I’ve never felt that more than Kira talking to Tom Riker and literally going “dude you’re so bad at being a terrorist, you don’t have that dog in you, if I was in your shoes right now I would’ve been murdering everyone I could because I was a an effective terrorist and that’s what an effective terrorist would do”, and it’s not presented as Kira being evil or unhinged, she’s just making a (correct!) observation about the situation.

[beccastareyes]

"Do you ever dream of land?" The whale asks the tuna.

"No." Says the tuna, "Do you?"

"I have never seen it." Says the whale, "but deep in my body, I remember it."

"Why do you care," says the tuna, "if you will never see it."

"There are bones in my body built to walk through the forests and the mountains." Says the whale.

"They will disappear." Says the tuna, "one day, your body will forget the forests and the mountains."

"Maybe I don't want to forget," Says the whale, "The forests were once my home."

"I have seen the forests." Whispers the salmon, almost to itself.

"Tell me what you have seen," says the whale.

"The forests spawned me." Says the salmon. "They sent me to the ocean to grow. When I am fat with the bounty of the ocean, I will bring it home."

"Why would the forests seek the bounty of the oceans?" Asks the whale. "They have bounty of their own."

"You forget," says the salmon, "That the oceans were once their home."

[beccastareyes]

Aubrey Gordon crushing it as always when she pointed out the parallel between transphobia and anti-fatness where people will go "if we're accepting of this kind of person we might end up with MORE OF THEM!" And not stop to ask themselves why they see that as a negative

[beccastareyes]

you know what lets actually bring back lolcats, they were so simple and so benevolent. like check this out

[beccastareyes]

have a very very fancy edrehasivar

[beccastareyes]

our serenity!

[beccastareyes]

A silly, utterly inconsequential thing that caught me in Tomb Of Dragons.

Maia wearing amethysts. Twice.

Does that matter? Means anything? Likely not. And yet, that trifling detail won’t leave me alone.

Doylist explanation: KA didn’t feel like coming up with a different outfit for someone who isn’t the main character in the novel. Completely understandable. However, since when has she balked at meticulous descriptions of different clothes?

So.

In-universe possible explanations.

1) The edocharei have settled on Edrehasivar VII’s Signature Look. Grey and purple go together so maybe amethysts look nice with Maia’s skin.  And a year in they have decided they can safely branch out from Traditional Pearls/Moonstones/Opals/Diamonds/General Whiteness  to embrace other colors than Drazhada Amber.

2.a) Csethiro made a favorable remark once and Maia has seized on a chance to make her happy even in a small way.

2.b) They are a gift (maybe a betrothal one? I can see formal exchanges of gifts preceding a marriage in elven culture) from Csethiro herself and Maia wants to both make her happy and make A Statement that his future wife has his imperial favor.

3) Maia simply likes them.

In my head, in the last case, the edocharei burst in the kitchen/servant hall of the Alcethmeret in tears because: “His Serenity likes amethysts!” “He ACTUALLY SAID so! ‘These look very nice’!”

General bewilderment.

“We swear we’re not joking. His Serenity, entirely unprompted, has expressed a personal preference.”

General chaos, more tears, wild cheering.

“Break out the good wine and send a page to light some candles to Cstheio in thanks, it took a year but we have a second preference beside chamomile tea!”

[beccastareyes]

A Brief Look at the Major (and Minor) Post-Crisis States of 2069

New Englanders: “We have successfully put aside our petty regional differences to unite against our common enemy: Mainers.”

Tidewater: “the continued existence of anyone who isn’t exactly like us is a never-ending indignity that we all must endure. Also, we’re not responsible for Philadelphia.”

Piedmont: “Yes, there was a race war. Yes, the white side lost. Yes, we live with the constant simmering fear that we’re going to glance over our shoulder and see tanks rolling over the hills for round two. But other than that things are pretty okay.”

Free New York: “Grunst the Rat-King is polling remarkably well among the 18 to 34 sewer-dwelling demographic. Also, we’re not responsible for Philadelphia.”

Great Lakes Republic: “The fact that we’re a large nation with porous borders and a dozen mid-sized cities rather than one really big city means that we’re kind of like America’s Germany, which is an awesome historical comparison with no unfortunate implications. Chicago? No, Chicago is its own thing.”

Chicago: “You must bow before the Lightfoot Daimyo before we will speak with you.”

Philadelphia: “You might be thinking ‘wow, look at this burning, toxic, post-industrial hellscape, the Polycrisis must have really hit this place hard’ but that’s just what Philly’s always looked like baybee! FUCK YOU!”

Front Range: “our desire to recolonize more land is hindered by how that land is, unfortunately, Wyoming.”

Greater Texas: “The oil wells may have dried up, global warming may have ruined our farms and ranches, but at times like this we need to remember what’s really important: Muslims have taken over the goldam moon.”

Philadelphia: *pelts you with batteries*

Cascadia: “maybe we could finally throw off the yoke of Californian oppression if we could go five minutes without puppygirls hacking our government servers.”

California: “Honestly we didn’t even need to join the Usonian Union, we’d be totally fine on our own, we just joined because we felt sorry for Sunny Roosevelt, we figured she ought to have someone who could class the place up and show her - don’t look under that sheet. It’s nothing, don’t worry about it, just - I SAID DON’T”

[beccastareyes]

It makes me happy when they listen