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[californiannostalgia]

[californiannostalgia]

Okay yes we know that Andrew sprinted, dashed, HURTLED even, when he saw Neil on his knees even after blocking 150 + attempts on his goal because he loves that man. But also-

It had been Andrew’s idea to put Neil against Riko in the first place.

For Andrew it was reach Riko or die. (Die knowing that his contributing to exy ended Neil’s life.)

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Kevin’s exy obsession is honestly so endearing. It’s all he has left of his mother. The sport she created and poured so much of her heart and soul into. It was her life. This was her game. She shared it with the world, but most importantly with her son.

And Riko acted as if Kevin was just borrowing it, tried to steal it from him. When in reality it was always Kevin’s to keep. He inherited it from his mother. It’s in his blood. And it’s poetic in a way that he takes it back with the help of his father.

But also how adorable it is that Kevin loves USC so much because they win the sportsmanship award named after his mother. That they not only play the game the way she intended but they succeed. How in a world where things were just a shade different, maybe Kevin could do the same. But he was a Raven and now a Fox, and he has to play his way.

Exy is Kevin Day’s game. Let him have it.

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kandreil 2022 vibes

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some microscopic dekus

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“what the hell are you remembering” that boy KNOWS what PTSD looks like

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i’ve been wanting to draw a Bee-Andrew interaction for a while now [x]

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hm

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fixed an issue with this and it’s back up!

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I do want to object to the idea that it’s easy and safe to protest in France tho. And that our beloved anti-riot police isn’t also pretty militarised…

Look at that last picture, look at the hatred on the face of the police officer, and look how those protesters seem dangerous and armed to the teeth. A perfectly proportionate answer right?

They just ordered a bunch of these for “peacekeeping”.

This is going on all over the world. This isn’t a US-vs-France thing. If you’re not part of the richest 1% or a cop, we’re in it together 🤝

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Mages are speedrunners

Seers make the walkthroughs

absolute fucking banger u just summed these up perfectly

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I really like your classpect system, do you think you could explain it a bit more? Like, how does the abstraction system work, and what’re the opposites of the other aspects like kettle? (Also, I’m curious as to how a Kettle of the Devil works)

Thank you so much!! I Would LOVE to talk about the No Dignity Classpect basically anytime lmao.

So the thing about No Dignity is it is %500 percent about personal interpretation. It's essentially a big running joke about the nature of classpecting in general? My personal view on canon classpect is very much influenced by the sort of universal symbolic nature of the archetypes involved? Like what's a "knight" in the canon of western storytelling? What does the concept of "time" symbolize?

No Dignity takes that idea to extremes- what your No Dignity classpect does and how it works comes down almost entirely to how you expect it to work, what things you personally associate with those symbols. Meaning, two people could have exactly the same classpect and it might work completely differently for both of them.

This brings us to the concepts of Aphortheosis and Abstraction.

"Aphortheosis" (aphorism + apotheosis) is the measure of how closely a title adheres to a known aphorism, something which has a broad, well known interpretation. "Can of worms" for example is a well understood aphorism, so a lot of people are going to interpret it a similar way, and it's going to apply broadly to a lot of things. Therefore it conveys broad, versatile power.

"Abstraction" is a measure of how far a title moves away from a known aphorism. There are twelve "recognized" aphorisms (but more are being discovered all the time, I've already added a bunch to some of those graphics I made lmao) so abstraction is calculated based on the "official" recording of those recognized aphorisms. So a Cup of Tea is not abstracted, abstraction score of 0. Cup of Roses is one time abstracted, Cup of Laughs is three times abstracted, ect. The more abstracted a title becomes, the more opaque the interpretation of the aphorism becomes, the more influenced by the player's personalized interpretation. The result is a reduction in broad, versatile power, but a concentration of power in whatever the specific Domain of the title is- Domain being whatever the title has power over. Therefore, a Cup of Tea would have influence over a wide domain of anything related to comfort, gossip, preferences, interests ect. They wouldn't be wildly powerful at anything in particular, but they could do a wide variety of things. A Cup of Ass on the other hand, would be able to do like, one thing, but they would be hugely powerful at that one thing (as a, uh, conveyor of fertility I'll leave it up to the imagination what that one thing would be...)

Additionally, the traditional "classes" can be used as "aspects" and vice versa, at the cost of an exponential abstraction multiplier. So an Ass of Dumb is 2x abstracted. An Ass of Kettle is 4x, Ass of Dog is 8x, ect ect. Meaning an Ass of Cup is 4,906x abstracted. Not sure where I got 112 in the original graphic... What this means in practice is that these highly abstracted titles would be almost powerless except in an incredibly specific circumstance, in which case their power would be practically unlimited. For an Ass of Cup that circumstance might be.... destroying someone else's victory? Going on a quest to seduce someone?

The opposite of Kettle might be Silence? Oh unless you meant the reversed associations, I do have a thing for that. Un-inverted associations included for clarity.

Keep in mind these associations are extremely malleable! These are basically just *my* associations with these words.

The biggest thing to remember is that you can't really define the class and aspect separately! You can't really say "well the aspect of Worms is associated with decay so they can all rot things, and Can class is associated with preserving things so they can all make, like, forcefields around stuff..." You have to treat the title as a whole thing. A Dog of War is not a Dog Class imposed on a War Aspect, it is a Dog of War, it's own whole thing. The way a class or aspect manifests and what domain and powers it conveys is strongly dependent on its relationship with the other half of the title. For example, a Dog of War has domain over soldiers, military action, state sanctioned violence, looting, the abandonment of polite society. They might have powers relating to removing the inhibitions of other towards violence, or steering the movement of armies and mobs. A Dog of God on the other hand, implies worship and intense loyalty. They might have powers related to self sacrifice or doing great violence in the name of whatever they're devoted to.

A Kettle of the Devil is a very interesting title! If I imagine the metaphorical meaning of the Devil's Kettle, I'm put in mind not of a tea kettle, or the large pots for cooking fish referred to by the original aphorism, but of the practice of "kettling," the police tactic of forming up around large crowds and then advance, forcing them into a smaller area where they can be contained and arrested, bottled up like steam in a kettle. The Devil's Kettle conjures an image of surrounding and trapping a large group of people in a particularly hellish situation, like preventing them from fleeing a burning building. So a Kettle of the Devil might have powers related to trapping and driving people into something horrible. You could interpret that literally (makes a slowly shrinking forcefield that pushes enemies into a fire) or metaphorically (knows exactly what buttons to press to make someone feel trapped and as though they have no choice but to do something they know will end horribly).

Alternatively! My girlfriend interpreted the Devil's Kettle as something a baptist grandma would say about some kind of drink she disapproves of (ala The Devil's Lettuce). Something nourishing but inherently sinister and addictive? So their powers might be related to healing, but have dangerous side effects.

But both of those are less meaningful than what Kettle of the Devil implies symbolically to you, personally. Maybe you have some personal associations with Kettles or Devils that most people don't! Maybe you drank a lot of tea growing up and associate Kettles with a kitchens, domesticity, your mom. Maybe you burned yourself really badly on a Kettle when you were young and you associate them with heat and danger! Maybe the first thing you think about when you imagine a kettle is the whistling, so your association is about piercing sound! It's all fluid, as fluid as language and symbolism and association always is. The lists of associations are merely a place to start if nothing jumps to mind.

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Reginald Dwayne Betts, from Felon; Poems; "Ballad of the Groundhog"

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“I’m going to be far from my pain one day. I’m going to / No longer feel that pain but something new and just as merciless.”

— — Paul Tran, from “I See Not Stars but Their Light Reaching Across the Distance Between Us,” All the Flowers Kneeling (via lifeinpoetry)

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The Performer 🎭🎶 A character class for The Hidden Isle.

You can preorder the TTRPG here

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finally completed my comic based on the song ivy by taylor swift!✿ please zoom in to read the text and see the details~

✿.✿.✿

you can get the digital zine pdf here! it includes extras like character profiles, costume design, more art of willow and ivy, zine-exclusive sketches and an illustrated guide to the symbolism of all the flowers in this comic.

you can also get prints of individual pages here!

✿.✿.✿

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some dykes for your feed :) going to be making pints of this later this year >:)