mrdaid - Tumblr blog

[mrdaid]

why do gamers act like they know anything about programming or game development. eating bread does not make you a baker.

[mrdaid]

too tired to sleep. too sleepy to work. too overworked to take care of my self. can't take of myself enough to not feel tired.

[mrdaid]

I think you all need to consider that ACAB is more divisive rhetoric than actual policy where the latter is what actually helps people. In fact, I daresay adding ACAB like punctuation to your zero substance, dunking posts makes it even harder to get these helpful policy discussions going. But hey at least you get to make fun of cops who are only a monolithic Bad institution and not also like regular people with opinions that may just align with your own.

[mrdaid]

it’s posts like this that make me miss the “can I haz cheezburger” era of online slang…

[mrdaid]

i was just wondering, do you know of any ways we can support nex's family? im stuck on my phone atm but i would love to send some support

here’s is the family’s gofundme for the funeral, but they’ve already far surpassed their goal. like. three times what they were asking for, which is wonderful.

if you’re looking for other places to donate, there is the american indian college fund, which is exactly what it says, a nonprofit that works on sending indigenous kids to college and i think they even have some colleges of their own. nex was a part of the choctaw nation(i think there was confusion because they lived on a cherokee reservation?) and will never go to college, but it’s a good place to donate nonetheless.

there is also freedom oaklahoma, which is an advocacy group from nex’s state that focuses on queer/trans rights i believe from an indigenous and anti-colonization perspective. on that page they have a donate button as well.

if anyone else has more organizations they’d like to promote, i’d appreciate it.

[mrdaid]

What is the best way to financially help Ukraine? Is it better to go through organizations or gofundmes or something else I'm not aware of?

Thanks for asking, nonnie. That's very kind of you. If you or anyone else has some spare change and wants to give, here are a few ideas:

United24 is the official fundraising platform established by President Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian governmental members and directs money to all areas of the country.

The Olena Zelenska Foundation is primarily focused on medical, humanitarian, and educational aid across the country and was founded by the First Lady.

Stand for Ukraine gives you a range of charity options, depending on whether you want to donate directly to the military, or you would prefer to fund non-lethal or humanitarian aid, etc.

Come Back Alive is the main fundraising platform for the Ukrainian military. You can choose to donate to air defense, heavy weapons, demining, medical aid, overall combat equipment, etc.

Donate to Ukraine's Defenders also offers various (carefully vetted) links and options to donate to rebuilding projects, private medical assistance programs, initiatives for democracy, and others.

[mrdaid]

so glad the internet cared so much about a fictional ethnicity reflecting the real world to the point that two dark-skinned main characters are now pale af :)))) at a time where cartoons had very few dark-skinned characters for kids to look up to, we had two very cool ones who are now whitewashed to hell. :)))) great job everyone

[mrdaid]

some ppl are just really pathetic and fragile. like wdym a six-second tiktok about news triggers your anxiety? just scroll past it? delete the app? maybe realize the news is not a source for comfort but for awareness? Some people are like weirdly attached to their unmanaged mental illnesses that they ignore any minimal step to curb the worst of their symptoms.

[mrdaid]

people only caring about a videogame character's romantic and sexual content is like the whole bg3 fandom's treatment of the companions. hells, it's the game's advertised selling point. i don't think it's racist for people to only discuss wyll in a romantic and sexual light since all the companions are largely viewed through that lens as well.

"he is literally the son of the duke of the gate and yet his involvement in the main story is still utterly minimal" this is very untrue. his father getting kidnapped by gortash is as involved with the main quest as you can get.

i echo this idea though: fandom ignores wyll for their white fave, astarion. it's typical. we've seen this behaviour across all fandoms.

but i also see people saying wyll isn't given the same opportunity to stand up to his abuser and regain agency as the other companions. this is not true.

wyll does regain his agency and stand up to mizora through his quest. he gets the same two options all the companions get. you can continue in this relationship that has caused you suffering in exchange for something else or you can decide, no, this is an abusive and/or toxic relationship that is not worth anything and end it.

wyll probably would kill mizora if he got the chance. he hunts evil monsters that's his thing.

but just because he isn't able to kill mizora doesn't mean he never stood up to her. he breaks her contract, which she hates because she genuinely seems to like having wyll as much as a devil can, and he can even stop the consequences of terminating said contract and save his father from her. he's able to take the very infernal mechanism that has locked him in servitude for years and through sheer force of wyll save himself and his family even when everything pointed him to losing one or the other.

i think that's a pretty awesome end to a relationship with an abuser. you no longer have control over me. you can't threaten my family to get to me. you've lost all your power over me.

he falls into kantian and virtue ethics if we were to classify what fuels his desire to do good things. wyll's arguably the most Good companion you get.

[mrdaid]

Let’s be real, fandom ignores Wyll cause he’s not a hot white guy, so I was pleasantly surprised to see his character get more attention due to a perceived content gap between him and Astarion. Personally, though, I think gamers tend to act pretty entitled in how and what they demand from developers.

All the companions’ personal quests feel pretty equal overall. Everyone has a chance to shine at various points through the main story. Obviously, the person you romance will have more content unlocked as well. For instance, I romanced Wyll and kept Astarion in the party with him, so there was a large chunk of time where Astarion did nothing cool while Wyll was directly dealing with a main villain, Gortash, who had taken his father.

I also briefly did some saves to romance Halsin which I later overwrote with Wyll’s and I never thought there was an imbalance between those two.

Astarion is most popular because of the fandom engagement and user metrics. Obviously, the devs are gonna focus on him for extra content because why focus resources on a character who is largely ignored lol. Sure, the devs should treat their characters “equally,” but they’re not real and the devs time is.

We can complain to the studio about it, but as long as the majority of fandom continues to ignore him, it’s less about meeting a real demand for new content for his character, and more about fandom (all fandoms really) needing to recognize their disproportionate treatment between white male characters vs. female and non-white characters.

In short: If y’all aren’t gonna play any new Wyll content if it comes out, why would they bother making it?

[mrdaid]

When it was factory workers and coal miners getting automated out of their jobs, it was “get with the times, futureproof your careers” and now with machine learning screwing artists and writers, suddenly it’s a moral outrage.

[mrdaid]

all fandom is the same. just consistently picking the whitest milquetoast man who does horrible things for “justified” reasons and making them the most popular character while ignoring all the other women and characters of color in the cast. I’m not saying you cant enjoy characters who do bad things, by all means, but fandom consistently chooses the most conventionally attractive (read: caucasian) package that it comes in. Furthermore, y’all will worship poor bby astarion for being “forced” to prey on children and in the same breath complain wyll only does good things to stroke his ego. like ok I wonder what else you don’t like about wyll lol.

[mrdaid]

Action for Palestine: CLICK HERE

Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress, is asking for signatures on her petition requesting Biden to suspend weapons transfers and military funding to Israel in accordance with the recent ICJ ruling.

PLEASE SIGN, especially if you live in the US, but you can select other countries on the form. It takes one minute to sign, and another minute to share with your friends.

This is not some bullshit change.org petition, Rashida cares deeply about this cause.

AS OF THIS POST SHE DOES NOT EVEN HAVE 50,000 SIGNATURES.

You can help change that. Click here to sign.

The form asks only for your name, ZIP code, and email. The site is mobile friendly. You don't need to verify the email.

Don't scroll, it will take one minute, just go do it now!

THANK YOU!

[mrdaid]

some of y’all treat your trauma like it’s a fucking hogwarts house like it’s your star sign

[mrdaid]

hi. go buy esims for gaza. go preorder a kufiya from hirbawi. buy insulin for palestinian diabetics who need that help. if you live in the states use this to email your reps (this takes maybe 5 seconds to do). check out this massive list of resources where you can educate yourself in a meaningful and actionable way even if you don't have the financial means right now. from the river to the sea palestine will be free. 🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸

[mrdaid]

remembering that time my book club and I did a fancast for our reading and I went first and said I was worried my cast wasn’t diverse enough (it was) and after I went I had all the girlies scrambling to add some color to their mashed potatoes and chris evans because they realized they did not ever think of actors of color lmao

[mrdaid]

When I was 13, my American school’s symphony went on a trip to Germany. One of the places my band director was adamant to visit was Dachau, the first concentration camp. At the time, I was young, but was aware of the Holocaust. Well, as aware as several weeks of history classes, loose Wikipedia articles, and The Diary of Anne Frank would allow. Yet, the second I walked through that imposing architecture onto the actual grounds that kept prisoners, the reality of it was overpowering.

People always say that the first thing you’ll notice is the silence. There are quite a lot of people there. Yet, no one speaks or if they do it’s in whispers. Now, I don’t subscribe to concepts like astrology and the like, but that is one of the few times I felt an energy, which I’ve never felt since. It’s indescribable. Six million Jewish people died in these places and that thought echoes in your head as you go through. The enormity of that unbearable truth is what forces even a group of loud American teens into silence as if they are somehow remembering acts they never personally witnessed.

It’s depressing frankly. This was one of the bigger concentration camps and yet everything spatially felt so small. You could walk through it in under an hour. You could stand at one side and easily see the opposite wall. How the hell did they fit so many people in this space? I remember seeing those infamous furnaces and gas chambers and realized the camera really adds size that isn’t there. The place where bodies were burned felt as big as my older sister’s bedroom. The place where innocent Jews and other minorities were gassed was like walking through a one-bedroom apartment.

I remember seeing a field trip of elementary school students. My high school group was shocked to learn this is a regular occurrence. Germany was dedicated to not shying away from their atrocities even for its youngest.

I could talk more about it all. The piles of dirty clothes worn by all ages. The barrack’s shockingly small amount of bunk beds. The black sculpture that stuck in my head for years of an anguished people connected by sharp, angular bones creating a singular mass of writhing agony. This was death engineering. This was the product of centuries of global antisemitism.

I don’t want to go back, but I will never forget it.