#(this isn't a moral judgment)

[lakemichigans]

it's really ironic seeing hayley kiyoko on everyone's list of "artists who did chappell roan first/better than chappell roan" because when hayley kiyoko was up-and-coming people said the exact same things about her: her music is generic and overdone, nothing she stands for is revolutionary, her fans inflate her importance, etc. but now that you want to shit on another lesbian artist, suddenly hayley kiyoko is a cultural touchstone.... okay!

[vspin]

I've been playing RPGs my entire life, and I find it very interesting that for BG3 specifically, I see a lot of people say that Tav/Durge is always a self-insert/representation of you.

Of course, we've all played a self-insert character before (and it is a valid way to play) but half of the fun for me personally is RPing a character. Coming up with a backstory and personality. These traits will be the driving factor behind the decisions they make in the game, not my IRL views.

That's not to say my personal experiences aren't influencing my characters, because they are. But I'm not playing me in the game.

I wonder if that is why in the BG3 fandom I've seen so much discourse around certain choices?

No wonder people are fighting about Ascending vs Spawn Astarion because they believe that if you Ascend him you are making that decision based on your real-life views. After all, your character is a representation of you! (Btw, I'm not saying all outcomes are good for the in-game characters, I believe there are bad vs good endings)

I find it very fascinating. It's like the concept of role-playing in an RPG doesn't even cross their mind.

I have also never seen so many self-insert/second POV fics before!! Even in Elder Scrolls fandom where I've read so many fics and the character is also a blank slate like Tav.

[dollsome-does-tumblr]

[Midge is] proud that she did exactly what she set out to do after doing exactly what she set out to do the first time and having the rug ripped out from under her. She's proud that she rebuilds, that she headed in a completely different direction that she didn't know was possible, that she found a partner and the love of her life in a lot of ways in both Susie and stand-up. She's proud and she's fulfilled. Is she happy? I don't know.

Rachel Brosnahan on the finale [x]

[prolibytherium]

I don't think genderbends are bad in of themselves (emerged from a full decade of seeing discourse about them and arrived at the conclusion of 'Eh') but I do personally dislike them when they make the character look like an entirely different human being with just like, the same hair and eye color.

God tier genderbends to me are drawing the person with basically the same underlying proportions and facial features with reasonable physical differences (or perhaps hints of HRT) plus thoughtful takes on how the same person might present differently (or not) under a different gender identity

[pagesofkenna]

i wanted to make a post about a thing but the more i think about it the more i want to say and it's just going to end up being a big ramble essay, so instead i'll just give the thesis statement, thusly:

as the #1 Ratgrinders Apologist (self-appointed), of course they're the final boss fight to the death. i expected nothing less and the people trying to make discourse about it are ignoring the entire context of this being a Dungeons and Dragons game

[lord-squiggletits]

Another funny thing about weird Decepticon stans trying to pretend that the Autobots were just as bad as them is that, in IDW1, the Autobots literally did not exist until Orion Pax stormed the Senate and delivered a speech claiming "Autobot" as a new label to mean "autonomous." Whereas all of the colonization during the Golden Age happened during Nova Prime's time a couple million years prior.

And during the war, the Decepticons were literally cyberforming planets they killed and had established something called the Interstellar Constellate at some point. And Megatron said in Chaos Theory that his plan for his Decepticon empire if/when he defeated the Autobots was to rebuild and cyberform planets to create a Decepticon empire where mechanical beings reign supreme.

Like, the BEST ARGUMENT you can make is that since Optimus is a Prime, he technically inherits the problematic nature of the Primacy's history of colonization, but I think that even that argument is pretty thin considering that Optimus was always pro-organic to the point of valuing their lives equally to Cybertronians, which is something that even a lot of Autobots fail to do. Compared to other members of his species, Optimus is literally a radical in terms of his stance that organic life = Cybertronian life, but go off I guess lmao.

You can even see that during the time of Sentinel's Senate, there was an engraving on the wall that said "freedom is the right of all civilized beings", showing that Optimus at some point took that phrase and changed it to underline the fact that freedom is a universal right for ALL beings.

Also, again for IDW1 specifically, a lot of anti-Optimus people clearly don't even know the timeline of events in that story. OP spent a good chunk of the story working against the Senate with things like

Storming the Senate on Megatron's behalf to deliver an angry speech against government corruption

Working with Senator Shockwave undercover to investigate Proteus being suspicious, uncovering a conspiracy to frame the Decepticons for a terrorist attack, and risking his team to prevent it

Going on the run and doing secret operations like saving hotspots from being attacked by Sentinel's forces

(For bonus points, he even saved Drift from dying either by drug overdose or being beaten to death by some thugs and called an emergency transport for him to Ratchet's clinic)

The regime change happens because Sentinel Prime is killed BY MEGATRON who at that point had already become a gladiator criminal underworld. By the time Orion is back in Iacon acting as Zeta's head of security/general/etc, Megatron is already well on the path of corruption and senseless violence doing things like arranging illegal weapon trafficking (shown in Optimus Prime) and forcing Rumble and Frenzy to get frame reformats to fit Megatron's tactical needs (Megatron Origin). Apparently Optimus doesn't deserve to have facts about his backstory and difficult contexts around his decisions be observed by this fandom though lmao.

If you take IDW1 out of context and go "OP worked for the regime!" then yeah of course it looks bad, and yes he did do that. But a lot of people also neglect to mention 1. the anti-government actions he DID take 2. the fact that by the time OP started fighting against Megatron, he had already become super evil and 3. because Megatron was super evil, Orion couldn't just desert Zeta's government and be like, "oh yeah I'll totally be able to talk Megatron out of doing terrorism and violence just on my own" especially since in this continuity they barely fuckin' knew each other before OP became a Prime. There's so much shit around OP being a cop and the ways he did or didn't succeed in trying to change the planet for the better, but none of that is addressed when people just go "oh he's a cop and the Autobots are colonizers" like ????? Stop it.

Stop taking this shit out of context and stop cherrypicking evidence to make one side look good and the other side look bad lmao.

[maddie-grove]

My Top Twenty Books I Read in 2022

I haven't had a ton of time or concentration available to write book reviews this past year, or even to read nearly as much as I usually do, but I thought I would post my top 20 from last year.

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (2020)

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood (2019)

Unmask Alice by Rick Emerson (2022)

Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss (2018)

Wahala by Nikki May (2022)

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson (2014)

Secrets of a Summer Night by Lisa Kleypas (2004)

Dune by Frank Herbert (1965)

Isabel: Jewel of Castilla by Carolyn Meyer (2001)

Maddaddam by Margaret Atwood (2013)

We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix (2018)

Summerwater by Sarah Moss (2020)

Through the Woods by Emily Carroll (2014)

The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel (2020)

Scandal in Spring by Lisa Kleypas (2006)

Devil in Winter by Lisa Kleypas (2006)

Devil House by John Darnielle (2022)

The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman (2022)

Normal People by Sally Rooney (2018)

Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix (2014)

[consolecadet]

Since it's January, I just want to remind you that you have no obligation, moral or otherwise, to become more attractive/skilled/healthy/well-read/acceptable/perfect/whatever. You can give it a go if you want, and it might be fulfilling, but if this time of year just makes you obsess about all the ways you think you suck or other people are judging you, consider just...not trying to improve yourself. The only things you really truly should do this year are survive and be kind to yourself and others. Everything else is extra.

[kpg-1126]

When I re-watch kcfh scenes with Tammy, I'm pretty convinced she was dropped in from another show. She changes the least between single cam and multi-cam, she has no accent despite growing up in Worcester, and she has convincing police procedural energy (the other cops don't, except maybe Bram). Also, her sister and their friends all seem like they are from another show, too. So my theory is that whenever she's on screen she's in "WPD: Detective Bureau" even if no one else is.

[insomnia-productions]

going a little bit insane rn bc everyone is critiquing Velma but no one is critiquing it for the right reasons

and im not talking about the "go woke go broke" people bc it's just a given that they can't do media criticism

im talking about the progressives that seem to hate the show (which they should, it is Not Good) for the most banal, frankly ridiculous reasons. why are you making me defend the Velma show

[uncanny-tranny]

so this is more of a personal ask than a public one and I want to make it 100% clear that you have No obligation to agree. anyways I saw your post about triggers and how you can react to them and I was wondering if I could ask you some questions about it, since I am working on a novel where a character has ptsd and I want to be as accurate/respectful as possible. tbc I would Not ask anything about like…trauma or anything. just stuff like ‘are certain triggers associated with certain symptoms or do they seem to be random’ and how long it may last/tactics to deal with them.

again, not at all obligated to say yes

I'm not certainly not opposed to the idea, seeing as how conversations like these ones can benefit more than just writers or creatives

[lungfuls]

any time a teen mom (including ones who are now adults but had their kids as teens) posts parenting content on social media, the comments are flooded w/ people saying they need to "stop normalizing teen parenthood" which is so dumb to me. it literally is normal. it's her life

[becca-alexa]

i really do appreciate my friends trying to set me up on dates but where in the world had they gotten the idea that i, at 25, would be interested in dating a 41 year-old ??

[bredforloyalty]

it's nice to remember sometimes that both cued ("genetic" or instinctive) sexual interests and uncued ones (which are rooted in early life experiences) come to be involuntarily.. literally ain't my choice or fault that i have a [REDACTED] kink <3

[gu6chan]

i normally don't like getting involved with proship/antiship discourse but i gotta admit one of the funniest things ive seen is a drakengard RP blog with "proship DNI" in their bio like what series do you think this is

[tuesdayscanons]

Oh, and Abe's persistent crush on Joan is a coping mechanism.

Literally the last thing on Abe's mind before he got frozen (as well as the first thing on his mind after getting un-frozen) was confessing his love to Joan. It's something familiar that he can cling onto.

Sure, Joan hurt his feelings and left him to find "better" friends (which is her prerogative, don't get me wrong), but Abe is willing to ignore that cognitive dissonance because part of him longs for something familiar. Part of him is still stuck in 2003.