#I cannot disagree

[pocket-notebook]

He can't be tied down ... just yet

[littlematchagirlll]

one of my friends (also a leftist) said that because we live in utah, it doesn't matter who he votes for, and there's no way he will vote for a "fucking cop who was complicit in genocide."

he is telling his friends in utah that they have zero say in who is president, so they shouldn't vote for harris.

and, i love him, but i think that line of thinking is really damaging.

if the stakes were lower for this election, then sure! i'm all in favor of third parties, and i do think that should be more normalized. it would be great to get to a point where we have more viable options than just democrats and republicans.

but this election is against trump. if trump wins, we get project 2025.

this isn't your father's republican party that just wanted to lower taxes and have more free trade. we are looking at rights being taken away for several marginalized communities. major changes that will set us back decades. there is too much on the line, and harris needs every single vote she can get.

saying you won't vote for harris because you live in a red state and don't think your vote will count... like a vote for a third party will??

you're really just saying that you don't mind trump winning, or if you do, you aren't willing to actually do what it takes to stop it.

as for being complicit with the genocide, aren't we all? our tax money is going to the genocide. we are complicit, whether we like it or not.

and harris has openly advocated for a ceasefire! also, do you think trump won't be complicit in the genocide? do you not think he would actively support israel? i'd rather have a president that calls for a ceasefire than one who doesn't. i'd rather have a president who is willing to push back on israel than one who be pushed around by israel.

there's more hope for a ceasefire with harris than there is with trump, and that's worth something.

my friend said "when people look back at your history, don't let them see your name next to a war criminal's."

honestly? in this election, i would rather have my name seen next to harris because that shows i understood that the future of our country and the safety of its citizens was more important than my personal moral superiority.

i don't just vote to make a fucking point. i vote because it impacts people's lives.

it seriously feels like some people are okay with watching the country burn, as long as they feel morally superior.

[patrickztump]

Color: The German Shepherd Dog varies in color, and most colors are permissible. Strong rich colors are preferred. Pale, washed-out colors and blues or livers are serious faults. A white dog must be disqualified. ✘

these coat colors and more on redbubble

[hotvintagepoll]

I love these polls. But this feels like a weird and uncomfortable time to continue them. While we are in the process of deciding whether or not to give fascism unlimited power in the greatest military power currently on the planet, these posts feel uncomfortably out of touch with the existential threat facing all of humanity. I cannot enjoy voting in silly polls when I know that all of humankind faces the threat of extermination.

When we can return to a less horrifying reality, I would enjoy revisiting these polls. At the moment, to continue them feels like a cruel celebration of privilege from those who are insulated from the most extreme consequences of current proposed policies. It is hard to think of what level of inhumanity is necessary to continue laughing in the face of so much world-wide horror.

Of course you don't have to stay, and I won't begrudge you at all for going. But there's one point of yours here I feel is worth discussing, and it's your last one: laughing in the face of world-wide horror.

There is a difference between laughing at horrifying things and taking a break to laugh. In a world that is horrifying—and, to be honest, has been horrifying since this blog began, and long before then, and will be after it's done—you need to laugh to keep your endurance. I mean that every step of the way. You will not be able to keep fighting for the people who need your help, including yourself, if you don't give yourself a break and let yourself have joy and silliness in little dollops on the regular.

In my real life, when I'm not posting hot silly people on the hot silly people blog, I try to find ways to help change the world for the better. I've been trying for a while. And one of the key things I've learned in that while is that having a little fun and silliness does not dilute the work of making the world better—it gives you the fuel to keep doing it. Your human brain and body need a muchness. They need joy and sorrow and work and rest and laughter to keep going—and before you say, that's a privilege! yes, in today's broken world it often is. It should not be one. It is a right. You have the right to find spots of joy, silliness, time off from the world.

Stuff sucks right now, but taking ten minutes off to let yourself rest is not going to contribute to the end of the world. We need to rest and laugh if we want to keep going. I've always said this is a silly blog, and I maintain that yes! it is silly, it is pointless, this is nothing big at all. Nothing here has any consequence. And that can be a small good thing at the end of the day. It doesn't mean the big stuff doesn't matter if we have the small stuff too. We can have both. We need both.

I hope you find peace, wherever you are.

[appeypie]

Demise and ghirahim remind me of rose quartz and pearl from Steven universe

DO IT FOR HIM…..

[art-is-kayos]

Wailing Coffin Hong Lu and Gregor

[trans-androgyne]

Transandrophobia theory is not incompatible with transmisogyny theory. Look into my eyes and understand this, I’m begging you.

Quote from Julia Serano’s 2021 article “What is Transmisogyny”: “For others (e.g., certain nonbinary people, trans male/masculine-spectrum people), misogyny may intersect with transphobia in different ways that aren’t adequately articulated by transmisogyny. This doesn’t necessarily make transmisogyny ‘wrong’; it may simply mean that we need additional language.”

From her 2016 article “Articulating Transmisogyny”: “I have observed people using ‘trans-misogyny’ as shorthand to suggest that ‘trans men are privileged, and trans women oppressed, end of story.’ I reject such oversimplifications.”

We are not on opposite sides. There are large misunderstandings at work here. Transmascs are as capable of (trans)misogyny just as much as anyone else, AND they have experiences with the intersection of transphobia and misogyny. These things can both be true.

[uncanny-tranny]

Death to the trope of rewarding disabled characters with an abled body. Death to the trope that a disabled body is a punishment, a sight, something to shame and be ashamed of.

[turtleblogatlast]

Feeling a lot of trans Leo feelings rn and I would like to reiterate how possible it is for him to not only be trans but also have no idea at all about it.

Okay so, he’s bigger than Donnie, particularly carapace wise, which tends to be the case when the slider is female and the softshell is male.

Second, his coloring. He retains the same coloring his whole life, even as a much older adult, so there’s another tick in the trans checklist, especially being that said coloring is noticeably bright.

His demeanor is also pretty at odds from most male red eared sliders - one example of this being when Bullhop was staying with them and Leo is noticeably less angered by him being both in their territory and in general than the others are - male red eared sliders would be way more combative here.

Like alone none of these are 100% definitive indicators but all together it makes perfect sense to me personally.

Now, how would it work for Leo to not know?

Okay, bear with me, but I like to think it’s because of Splinter’s (or rather, Lou Jitsu’s) genetics! As in, of course Leo wouldn’t assume otherwise, after all, his human self is very masc, including his lower voice and overall body type, so he and his family would have no reason to assume that he’s actually trans! But I personally like to think that it is because of Lou Jitsu’s DNA that Leo’s humanoid half turned out so masc in comparison to his more female aligning turtle half.

So yeah. Female red eared slider mutated with the DNA of a human man equals a turtle teen with no idea he’s trans (or potentially intersex.)

[slimecpu]

Is it bad that I unironically like Chaz's design.... like sure it's somewhat a stereotype of what conservatives think of when they hear nonbinary but. If I saw someone like this irl they would have to be my friend I dig their fit and the contacts and the hair like. It's a vibe

[utilitycaster]

@thmtrnfrvns replied to your post “ok so I was wrong about The Emissary and the...”:

didn't matt say that if you popped the bubbles those people turned to dust? Like the bubbles are the only thing preserving them? I might be totally wrong but I keep seeing this question being asked so I'm confused

​He hasn't, and I actually want to cover this. The lore has thus far been noncommittal, both from an out of world perspective (ie, the EGTW, for which this serves as a potential plot hook should people wish to explore it) and in-world (ie, in the canon of Exandria from the main campaigns and other canonical works such as The Nine Eyes of Lucien). We don't know if it's possible; we also very much don't know that it's impossible.

Which is what I want to talk about, because it's weird to me that this idea spread so much within the fandom - that the bubbles are an outright lost cause. I mentioned it before, but the argument the gods should be destroyed (even from behind the Divine Gate) in some sort of retribution for Aeor barely holds up as is; it certainly won't bring back Aeor, and the Divine Gate serves to hold back the gods already so destroying it only in order to kill them is purely an act of vengeance. But it really falls apart if there could be survivors of Aeor.

It's very easy to hold yourself up as the champion for people who cannot speak. They can't contradict you; you can say their motivations and desires are whatever you want. This is something explored in modern political thought, both in the many critiques of the anti-abortion movement (fetuses are fundamentally agency-less things) and in, for example, Dara Horn's People Love Dead Jews. Obviously this is true for any fictional character - none of them can respond to their advocates directly - but especially one who can't even in canon speak on their own behalf. If you say that Ashton would be on Ludinus's side, Ashton might, within the narrative, prove you wrong; but if you say the Aeorians would be, well, who knows. They're dead. Unless they're not. Bringing back anyone from the stasis bubbles fucks over that argument twice: now there are survivors, and those survivors can speak. (Worth noting that the two Aeormatons we've seen in C3 directly have not been in Ludinus's favor, and that his generals at least had no vested interest in sparing the Aeormaton they knew about; this isn't about the people of Aeor or what was lost, it's about pointing at corpses and saying they'd have your back if only they weren't dead.)

This a pattern for the people making arguments in Ludinus's favor. They invoke the titans (dead long before the narrative, and the person who killed the last two of them was Laerryn Coramar-Seelie, whom they don't seem to condemn for it, and they never really talk about what life for the titans must have been. It's not about the titans). They invoke FCG (dead, and they didn't really like them much when they were alive because of, you know, the whole faith in a deity thing, but now that he's dead they can pretend he's a mouthpiece for them. It's not about FCG, or Aeormatons, or Aeor.) They tried invoking the characters who were vaguely critical of the gods in the past but didn't have the lore to back it up and those characters (Keyleth, Essek, Percy) have all sided very clearly with the Accord, so now they stick only to people who can't weigh in and disprove the point. They make up hypotheticals about Bor'Dor and Petrov, the former of which is, again, dead, and the latter of which is a minor NPC with but a slim chance of appearing again whether he lives or dies and both of whom are equally representative of how the Vanguard preys on disaffected young people and chews them up and destroys them while telling them it's for the best, and ignore the many, many living who have been irrevocably harmed by the Vanguard.

It might end up being true that the stasis bubbles are a dead end, and I think it's pretty likely they won't get explored in-game, but if someone says they're absolutely a dead end - especially when Ludinus is going to invoke the fall of Aeor - it's worth exploring why they're saying that. Are they just misinformed (in which case you should still examine their argument, for, you know, not knowing the source material sufficiently well to craft accurate premises from which to argue)? Or would even acknowledging the possibility that they're not a lost cause destroy their argument?

[onesidedradiostatic]

I feel like I can just never go right with radiostatic takes in this fandom like one half sees alastor caring 0% and the other half sees alastor caring 100%

I disagree with both, I think alastor cares like 50% while vox cares 100%. like I do not agree with alastor never cared about vox takes and I do think alastor is more bothered by vox than he lets on but I just cannot see the mutual obsession takes at all. it is imbalanced to me, alastor is nowhere NEAR as obsessed as vox is with him but he definitely enjoys messing with him, enjoys their rivalry and pays more attention to him than some of the fandom may give him credit for.

[saphira-approves]

Something something professional artist jargon something something insert art knowledge here—whatever I want to talk about the book covers

So you’ve got Eragon, with a 3/4 portrait of Saphira; she’s giving a benevolent side eye with almost a Mona Lisa smile, she’s got that gleam in her eye, she’s looking at you but not head on—listen, this was the whole reason I picked up the book in the first place when I was eleven, she was so clearly full of life and personality and I just really wanted to meet her. It’s a really good glimpse of her character before even opening the book. She’s engaging you, but also maybe judging you a little bit, and she has a lot of thoughts but she’s going to keep them to herself for right now, thank you.

We’re skipping Eldest for right now because I have a point to make. Shush.

For Brisingr, we get a perfect side portrait of Glaedr, the grumpy old man. He’s not even side-eyeing the viewer like Saphira does; he is eyes forward, goal-oriented, noble and regal and, unless you’re worth his time, not really going to bother with you because he has Important Business to attend to. He is The Last of the pre-Fall dragons, his Rider is The Last of the pre-Fall Riders, he represents a bygone era that will never fully be resurrected, but can still inspire the present to fight for the future; he is no longer fully his own dragon, but a Relic, a Memory, a Symbol. He’s not anxious about it the way Eragon or Saphira might be; he has grieved for a century, he couldn’t be anxious about it if he tried. But he knows that keeping his integrity intact is important, and so this is how he presents himself: Noble. Regal. The Survivor. The Last.

Fírnen graces the cover of Inheritance, bookending the original series by almost perfectly mirroring Saphira—and seriously, it is so satisfying to line the books up with these two at the ends. Though he’s got a 3/4 profile like Saphira, Fírnen is much more reserved. No Mona Lisa smile, no mischievous gleam in his eye; he simply looks at you, and you look back, and you wonder what he’s thinking. He is, in fact, a lot like Arya—anyone who’s read the previous three books up to that point and hasn’t been spoiled for the ending might be able to guess, just from this portrait, who the final egg would hatch for. It’s also a perfect expression for the Final Book, with the fate of Alagaësia and the dragons hanging in the balance: what world does this mysterious dragon emerge into? A war-torn apocalypse? A hard-won victory? What does his future entail, and thus, what do the futures of our favorite characters entail? You ask him so many questions, but all he will ever do is stare deep into your soul with his somber, too-knowing gaze.

And now for the main event:

My beautiful precious son, the red-scaled Thorn, staring you down from the covers of both Eldest and Murtagh. I have loved the cover of the second book ever since I first picked it up, and my appreciation has only grown with time; needless to say I was very excited when the Murtagh cover dropped, and I got to see both of my favorite characters in one place. For both of these, Thorn takes the same stance: a full-frontal combative position, looking You, The Viewer directly in the eye, daring you to judge him, daring you to get in his way. I’ve always had my own opinions about what lay behind this show of force, and the context we get in Murtagh does not disappoint. He may be terrifying, he may be the scourge of the war, but underneath all that, Thorn is terrified. He’s traumatized, he’s claustrophobic, his body is too big for his age; he is painfully young still, and yet treated like a dragon ten times his age because that’s how he looks. He’s also sweet, and playful, and cares so much about his Rider, and wants desperately to keep Murtagh safe and happy. Just like Murtagh, he hides all of that—the fear and the softness both—behind a visage of ferocity, playing into the fears and preconceived notions people have of him, warning enemies away so they can’t get too close to what will actually hurt him. He dares you to try. He’s terrified you will try. He will fight tooth and nail if you do try.

[filmnoirsbian]

Straight men really will treat every kindness towards a woman they find attractive as transactional. My local vape guy asked me out after weeks of us having fun chats whenever I showed up and after I (GENTLY) turned him down I found out that he'd apparently been giving me a discount (which he stopped after my rejection). Bro I didn't even know you were taking off $5 in hopes of getting laid 😭 I just thought that store was cheaper...

[just-some-sorta-person]

Just Reo.

[randomnameless]

Rewatching Shez's supports with Edelgard, it kind of irritates me that Edelgard looks upset after Shez points out that the average farmer probably hates her for the war. Like, ma'am you knew this would lead to mass death and a lot of people not being fans of yours, and considering Hubert also points out the Edel's policies are meant to benefit nobles who give her money and troops and keep down the commonfolk, she shouldn't be surprised by this answer. Shez even softens the comment by saying "you must have a good reason" but it's like Edelgard can't handle hearing any kind of real criticism from people she respects (or claims to). I think it's another player-pandering thing, can't have the Lord be mad at you, but it just makes Edelgard look like a thin-skinned whiner who can't handle the harsh criticisms that her actions are going to bring her. At least when she went on about "her path of blood and death" in 3 Houses she seemed to have some sense of "yeah people will hate my guts." Idk it probably comes down to the developers being scared to have someone truly criticize Edelgard without pushback.

That supports irks me for other reasons lol, basically the fact that Barney points out how water is wet (something Supreme Sailor Fuku apparently missed, as you noticed) but within 1 convo they completely drop that plot line and get along with her plans because, eggtivation means that someone as bland as Barney - who could represent common sense - must also be drowned under liters of Hresvelg Grey.

Imo, it's not "your lord cannot be mad at you", but again and again with the Fodlan games, "no one can be mad at Supreme Leader, not even you(r self insert character)".

FWIW, FEH got her writing right - faced with contradictions and criticism, Supreme Leader ragingly storms out of a conversation when the characters aren't from Fodlan and thus cannot be eggtivated (or when the Fodlan team isn't writing them?).

Given how her Nopes' Big B's support basically has her say "you're either with me or against me", no wonder why criticism, at least in Nopes, is something unknown for her, hell, Ferdie must behead his father to demonstrate times after times that he and House Aegir aren't her enemies - in a way, even with the twist they added (let's ally with those icky disgusting beasts to get rid of uncle, and THEN we will free Fodlan from their scaly grasp!) Nopes wrote Supreme Leader to be even more uncompromising and more bull-headed than ever, if in Houses she had a modicum of self-awareness (she's still the Adrestian Emperor though!), in Nopes it's written away.