nt-poindexter

[nt-poindexter]

Not dead, checking in, back to the video game!!!

[nt-poindexter]

don't give up

[nt-poindexter]

“After learning my flight was detained 4 hours, I heard the announcement: if anyone in the vicinity of gate 4-A understands any Arabic, please come to the gate immediately. Well—one pauses these days. Gate 4-A was my own gate. I went there. An older woman in full traditional Palestinian dress, just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly. Help, said the flight service person. Talk to her. What is her problem? We told her the flight was going to be four hours late and she did this. I put my arm around her and spoke to her haltingly. Shu dow-a, shu-biduck habibti, stani stani schway, min fadlick, sho bit se-wee? The minute she heard any words she knew—however poorly used—she stopped crying. She thought our flight had been canceled entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for some major medical treatment the following day. I said no, no, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just late. Who is picking you up? Let’s call him and tell him. We called her son and I spoke with him in English. I told him I would stay with his mother until we got on the plane and would ride next to her—Southwest. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and found out, of course, they had ten shared friends. Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know and let them chat with her. This all took up about 2 hours. She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life. Answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies—little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts—out of her bag—and was offering them to all the women at the gate. To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the traveler from California, the lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same powdered sugar. And smiling. There are no better cookies. And then the airline broke out the free beverages from huge coolers—non-alcoholic—and the two little girls from our flight, one African American, one Mexican American—ran around serving us all apple juice and lemonade, and they were covered with powdered sugar, too. And I noticed my new best friend—by now we were holding hands—had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing with green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere. And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought, this is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in this gate—once the crying of confusion stopped—has seemed apprehensive about any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women, too. This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.”

— Naomi Shihab Nye (b. 1952), “Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal.”

[nt-poindexter]

[nt-poindexter]

i feel like i'm the only one who draws astarion like a silly gremlin. i see everyone in the bg3 drawing him all mysterious and sexy (/pos) but i just draw him as silly cringefail losergirl as i possibly can

[nt-poindexter]

Every single fic update there is an author trying frantically to find the right balance between a nonchalant aside of "leave a comment if you enjoyed =)" and clinging desperately to the coat tails of a random stranger, dragging along behind them on the street wailing "Please, please! I have to know what you thought! I'm desperate to talk to people about this! Ask me about the alliterative repetition! Ask me about the symbolism!"

[nt-poindexter]

psst. hey

people who are legal adults who want their tubes tied or top surgery etc etc should be able to do so full stop.

"oh but what if they regret it for the rest of their lives"

okay. so what.

Adults make decisions about our lives, that's what being an adult is. We may decide to get a face tattoo, or quit a promising job, or join the army, or move to another country.

That's practically all we do as adults. We make decisions that effect the rest of our life, and then we live, or sometimes die, accordingly. Maybe i'll spend the rest of my life regretting telling my influential boss he doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground, but, as an adult, that's the kind of life decision i am allowed to make for myself. And after all, it might be the best thing i ever did. It's my life, and i get to do all the fucking around and all the finding out i want to.

surgical transition, or sterilization, or whatever... is exactly the same. If you aren't going to let a legally adult person decide for themself about that stuff, then you can't let them get a tattoo or move to Florida either

[nt-poindexter]

stop saying "gen z brought back bush-era purity politics" i grew up in the bush era and even then people weren't saying that you're a sex addict for having boring marital sexual congress in the same house as your children. this is just plain unhinged

[nt-poindexter]

i feel like counter-trolling is an essential skill that kids online aren’t learning and it’s kinda worrying

like back in my day, the day of online forums, learning how to trick someone in to getting themselves banned was an essential skill. if you could tell someone was a chud, you would ask them short, leading questions and watch them get frustrated and post longer and longer rants until they said something that would catch a mod’s attention and get them banned and/or at least publicly humiliated. 

and guess what? that’s the exact same tactics the alt-right use now. these people are exclusively acting in bad faith. every interaction these people post online is done with the intention of getting someone to respond to them so they can screenshot the massive paragraphs of text and laugh

so, what’s the solution?

dare ‘em to post dick pics.

don’t acknowledge the content of the stuff they post. if you see someone trying to engage you in bad faith just dare them to post pictures of their penis until they either get frustrated and leave or get frustrated and do it. either way they lose. 

this is the tactic used by the fans of a podcast (that i haven’t listened to) called the Chapo Trap House, and 4chan’s /pol/ users fucking HATE them. they hate Chapo Trap House and think they’re crazy because Chapo Trap House fans refuse to engage in meaningful debate and repeatedly demand dick pics. they get frustrated and leave. it works. 

[nt-poindexter]

Sometimes, when he's in a particularly impatient mood, Astarion will suddenly appear behind the people you're trying to reason with.

He skulks from the closest dark corner, silent as the grave, with his blade ready to strike at even the slightest hint that the conversation is taking a turn for the worse.

It's usually equal parts amusing and startling bc you never expect it. And suddenly, a very low risk conversation has you fighting for your life. You have to do everything in your power to keep a straight face, and that's not always easy. Especially when Astarion starts mocking whoever it is behind their back. Rolls his eyes. Uses his hand to do the "blah blah blah" gesture in time with the words they're saying. Mimes a quick stab.

You have to turn your deception skills up to 100 just to act like this dude isn't about to get disemboweled if they say something stupid, or perhaps, breathe in a way your friend finds unpleasant (seeing as he's now checking the sun's placement in the sky to judge just how long this useless drivel is taking.)

There was one time where you couldn't keep it together at all. You couldnt help it, really. Your eyes had a mind of their own- flitting back to the space above your enemy's shoulder to zero in on Astarion's pretty, annoyed face often enough for it to catch their attention. Naturally, they turned around to see what you were looking at. And, then?

Let's just say after this casualty, you learned to take a couple of casual steps back, just in case you need to avoid the so-called "splash zone."

Imagine yourself in the shoes of this poor sap. You're having what you think is a perfectly normal conversation with an admittedly nosey adventurer, and suddenly they start acting strange. You think, "damn, they seem distracted by something behind me. Is there a spider or something?"

Only to turn around and have the last thing you see be the adventurer's pale friend (that disappeared ten minutes ago, mind you) with a the bitchiest expression on his face, and the sharpest dagger to ever exist poised a milimeter away from your eyeball.

Well. At least it wasn't a spider?

[nt-poindexter]

i’ve been considering how to possibly pull off doing a romanced ascended astarion without wanting to kill myself, and what kind of tav would even be able to stand him. and i think i just had an epiphany

she would love ascended astarion

[nt-poindexter]

Astarion: “No one ever cared about me >:\”

Karlach, standing 10ft away: “ME I CARE I CARE SO MUCH”

[nt-poindexter]

Neil Newbon is doing an incredible job at reminding people to not get swept up in the hype. He always makes a point of crediting everyone who was involved in the development of not only the character that he worked on but the entire game. He talks about how there were 248 people involved in acting and various other things and he said that so many times I have it memorized.

He is humble, kind, and most of all

Just some guy

I'm going to say that really loudly and really clearly because this is a human being not an idol. This is an intelligent, kind, witty, friendly person who is doing everything in his power to be exactly the very best representation of an actor who has been thrust into the spotlight.

It's very obvious that he wasn't expecting this he's even said that he wasn't expecting this level of response to him in particular. Please be aware that he is not your personal therapist, even though he understands therapy and he is very intelligent and has taken a lot of time to sort of coach a lot of his fans.

Please remember that although you find him attractive, him brushing off these comments towards him or emphasizing that people are attracted to the character and not him, are not him being shy or being unaware of how attractive he is. He is aware of how people feel about him. I can say this with full confidence because this man can read. And a lot of people have been writing to him.

He is a person. He is just some guy. And I'm not trying to undermine him he is incredibly talented, intelligent, kind I could repeat myself a million times but the point is he does not belong to. He is not yours. He's not a character. He is a literal human being who is trying to do his job and is doing an amazing job at it. But he has also specifically stated that he is expecting to become extremely burned out by this experience.

Listening to an interview with him on Spotify today, I got to hear about how he is quite sure that when all of this sort of calms down as one might say, he's going to need a break. No I don't know if that was the interviewer mentioning it or him himself but he has had to navigate an extreme amount of popularity being dumped in his lap very quickly and while he is doing it with a lot of Grace and dignity I think that maybe as a fandom the bg3 community could give him a bit of a break by sticking to questions that are easy-

If you're going to hire him on cameo then please don't be insane or weird about it or ask him complex questions relating to sexual trauma or trauma dump on him.

Please if you are going to compliment him don't be weird about it.

And honestly if you really want to support him because you really like him and you think that he in particular is amazing, the best thing that you can do is start to hype up the rest of the actors and writers and developers and people who have worked on this game because he has been trying throughout every interview every acceptance speech and every moment that he has been on camera or on the microphone from what I can see trying his very best to make sure that other people get to share the spotlight with him.

Help him do that, and try to be chill.

[nt-poindexter]

Cazador as Astarion and crew roll up in his stank ass dungeon:

[nt-poindexter]

SOUND ON. WATCH WITH THE SOUND ON.

[nt-poindexter]

[nt-poindexter]

all fanfiction is funnier and sexier and vastly better-written when you read it at three in the morning, in the dark, lying on your side, tucked into bed, with screen rotate turned off. that’s just how it works. that’s just facts.