#REALLY REALLY LONG

[warriorofthesky]

starting this with the disclaimer that im a newish player (started in march) and am mostly here for the story. and i'm not a destiny doomer and am in fact counting down the days for the showcase, pretty happy with the seasons ive played so far and deeply in love with the game's world and characters. i'm having a lot of fun, i'm usually pretty annoyed at how negative this community is and ignoring destiny players on reddit and twitter was probably the best decision i've made since i downloaded the game.

HOWEVER

(tldr: destiny is a great game but a frankly terrible product. also i will compare it to ffxiv bc it is my frame of reference, sorry in advance).

(also very, veeeeeeeery long. see this as less of a "this is what i think about the state of the game article" post and more of a "i've played this game for 4 months, here is what i think about it" one.)

i dont even know what to think about the state of the game article bc i feel like im here only by happenstance, i dont care about what 95% of the player base does (that being, you know, the looter shooter part of the game) so for me the only bad thing is gambit's funeral

the whole more rewards thing simply doesnt work with me, it does not tickle my brain, im usually excited about stuff i get only bc it was hard and/or fun to get them. you will never catch me dead farming anything. you will, however, catch me dying 123123 times trying to solo spire of the watcher bc im too socially awkward to find a fireteam and overall allergic to using a mic🫠so, you know, i just dont care about 70% of that post. i acknowledge that.

but it DOES feel bad to see them go "oops, we couldnt make a new set of armor this time. btw, we arent making any of them anymore" like bruh, read the room💀is now really the time to not deliver on promises. esp when you go out of your way to shove micro transactions on our faces

it is fortunate that im also mostly immune to microtransactions bc they are all too expensive for me but they are just EVERYWHERE. i come from ffxiv and i dont even remember the store exists while im playing there. sure, ffxiv is subscription based while destiny is free to play but i'm sorry. ffxiv's free trial has more content than destiny's free to try ever will (i'd even go ahead and say ffxiv's free trial has more content than destiny ever will since destiny is fond of cannibalizing itself). especially now that they extended it to stormblood/lvl 70. depending on how much you play daily, you can spend months in ffxiv without spending a single cent.

i began playing destiny in march and immediately had to pay for shadowkeep bc what the hell was i even going to play after the first week otherwise? i keep trying to get my brother into destiny, but it is hella expensive, not to say anything of ridiculously confusing story-wise. the other day we had a big oof moment bc im trying to use dungeons to lure him in and didnt realize we had to pay for shattered throne or grasp of avarice. he didnt have the forsaken pack or the anniversary pack. i was out of money, he was only vaguely interested, and we only learned later that prophecy is the one free dungeon in the game. destiny is not free to play as far as real content is involved.

so it feels shitty to have the store shoved in your face SO much ALL the time. you have season passes and then events with their own season passes (so to speak) and then most of the cool stuff is also paid and like, ok, this is already bad, but you gotta remind me of them all the time, game? really?

it creates this massive dissonance between that the game is showing me and what i see from the many devs i follow on twitter. they are passionate people, they love what they do, i 100% believe they are doing great work within the structure they are in. but the game feels like a cash grab. its absolutely bonkers to me that the game goes out of its way to tell you that you can now buy stuff in its store. aren't you proud that now you can spend who knows how many dollars in this product of ours?? arent you??

????? okay?

and it's not just the microtransactions, it's the timegating too. my first weeks of destiny were spent with me having the thought of "god, imagine if it was like this in ffxiv. people would be SO mad squeenix would be apologizing until 2030" every other day. out of cores? too bad, you have a daily limit at rahool. out of prisms? same thing. like sir. i'm a new player. i want to at least have one set of armor masterworked. you are not convincing me to play more, you are convincing me not to give a shit. im broke af in game and out of game now lol congrats to me!

and there is more! want to do this weapon quest thingy for witch queen? too bad, not today. want to not be fool with stasis in pvp or pve? too bad, come back next week for more aspects. this chafes, yall. especially as a new player who barely has any idea of how any of these 1231231 systems work. you are not convincing me to play stasis next week. you are convincing me not to touch stasis for the next 3 months.

i will keep sighing and complaining about ffxiv's weekly capped tomestones but by god i've seen hell and it is not in ffxiv.

this state of the game that is basically telling pvpers and all four of us who enjoy gambit that they can't and won't do more feels like shit even to someone like me who actually likes gambit right now (i couldn't care less about maps lol) and who barely plays any pvp. where is all the money going? why are you shoving eververse on my face all the time then? why are you timegating me to hell in an attempt to get me to play more and spend more? why?

i do not agree with the idea that this money is going to marathon only and that is why there isn't much pvp development to speak of. that would be really stupid because destiny is bungie's main source of income and it will only be okay for them to not give a shit about it anymore when and if marathon becomes a hit and a not a moment before. however, i'm also a league player and even though i play much less now i've kept up with it and it's pretty obvious that after 10 years of being riot's only game league isn't the priority for the company nowadays. valorant is.

poor one out for legends of runeterra while we are here.

this does not mean league is abandoned. it just isn't the focus anymore. it has a consolidated player base. people are used to how it works and how content (champions) is released. there is very little financial incentive to do more than necessary. whatever is going on with bungie is... honestly normal, even if it isn't fine by our definitions. and again, i don't think it's even marathon. i think it's the executives' pockets honestly lol because what does "we don't have the resources" even mean? i know hiring more people and throwing them at the game is not the answer for quick solutions. i'm not a gamedev, but i'm a webdev working in a startup. last year we had a small influx of trainee devs and it was HELL for a few months. i'm a junior myself and i was about lose my mind if i got interrupted one more time to answer a question from the trainees again. new hires mean everyone's work will be slower for some time. but the thing is that it usually goes back to normal. i havent had a trainee interrupt my work in months now. it feels pretty incredible.

so why doesn't bungie hire more people? it will slow things down for months and months but it will pay off eventually, right? except i don't know if that's true. are more pvp maps going to bring in more money? is not shooting gambit dead going to bring in more money? probably not. again, the executives' pockets are the issue here. what i think is happening is that it isn't worth it to hire and train more people to make content for something that doesn't bring in money. and we could argue about how pvp and gambit being healthy is good for the game, how that would bring in more people or make people play and pay more, yadda yadda, but i don't believe the decision makers at bungie believe this and they might have good reasons, so what can be done? nothing, i guess. it's not like i know better than them.

so, on one side, i understand why people might be a bit miffed at the game. it feels like a cash grab. it feels like is trapping you into playing. however, i believe you are still responsible for your actions and perfectly capable of not playing if you are not enjoying it. i wish the destiny subreddit would take a chill pill and touch grass bc those people are not okay right now. but i think it's disingenuous to act as if the game isn't ridiculously greedy. because it is. this game is greedier than league and league is super greedy already (and league actually is free to play, unlike destiny).

raging at the devs will not change this. harassing the devs won't change this. they are not the ones making these decisions, especially the devs you find on social media going about their day and taking care of their lives, which are none of our business.

in the end, you kinda have to make peace with destiny-the-product or you will have a miserable time playing destiny-the-game.

i've made my peace with it. i engage with the content that brings me joy and ignore everything else. and look, the state of the game wasn't all bad. it was actually fine overall. i still find it weird that it doesn't address the real issues people had with the season (deep dives doing triple duty as simple deep dives, exotic quest and catalyst hunting was the big oof of the season for me, honestly. sometimes i just want to do a deep dive and not get roped into whatever else is going on - or the opposite, i guess. i still havent gotten the catalyst) but i gotta believe they will take the feedback when making the next seasons/expansions.

and they are finally getting rid of the ridiculous nonsense that is acquiring stasis. right after i managed to drag all my characters through all of that, sure, but at least now i can finally delete my awoken titan and make an exo one because i won't have to go through it all again. and they teased changes to the seasonal model or at least how seasons work. i'm pretty okay with what we have now, honestly. if anything i just wish the story stuff wasn't so... short. there was also something about making sure new players are caught up and that made me perk up because, please, bungie. i'm trying so hard to get my brother into this game. help me out. please.

and, the most important thing for me, final shape will conclude the saga, no seasons necessary!

just that made the whole state of the game post worth it for me. once again, my condolences to pvp players and i will mourn you, gambit, but i'm here for vibes and the lore and story, and 10 years of league of legends made me immune to shiny things on the store and 2 years of ffxiv made me too lazy to be tempted by timegated stuff. you can not kill my joy in any way that matters @ bungie's executives

the one thing i wish bungie would change (since i believe the game is too deep into microtransactions to ever be free of it) is how they communicate with players. it's not even the frequency (we have twids, as the name says, every week after all) it's just... the tone. i don't want them to give a piece of their mind to the insane people frothing at the mouth on reddit and twitter and youtube, but it's like they are speaking to an imaginary player and the (normal, well-adjusted) players are speaking to an imaginary bungie. we are not in the same wavelength at all. riot and rioters speak more to league players. of all companies out there, out of all communities out there, and riot does it better.

i understand keeping the devs safe, especially after the clusterfuck that happened recently. but it's still weird that bad actors are the deciding factor when engaging with the community. i don't know what the solution is but it does feel pretty bad overall. and its hard to take bungie seriously when most stuff they spit out is riddled with corporate speak. very little of it feels genuine.

again, i love the game. i love the characters. i love the universe and i love how queer friendly it is. ive spent the last weeks soloing dungeons and having an absolute blast, even if spire is kicking my ass really hard right now. getting the new exotic felt magical. and i've spent an ungodly amount of time theorizing about final shape and reading, watching and writing about this game. getting new veil containment stuff every week and theorizing with the community is really fun. i got the first book of the destiny anthology and i love it so much. hell, the game got me to write fanfic and only two pieces of media actually managed that (pretty easy to guess the other one at this point). i love my time here. i'm not leaving unless the story takes a nosedive of epic proportions and no, i don't think lightfall is as bad as people say. in fact, it's the second best expansion and i will fight you on that.

but destiny is not a good product, not by a long shot.

[aparticularbandit]

i have thought of something

Considering how a lot of things have become more accepted nowadays, as they always have been, how far would toon rights have gone by now?

Also, eventually there would be a human who marries a toon, when toons have the right, how would Jessica feel about that marriage?

OKAY TOON RIGHTS ACTIVISM LET'S GO.

This is gonna get long, so I'm gonna put it under a cut.

Also heads up, because we're talking about what would have been a civil rights movement, we're going to be talking a lot about politics. So general trigger warnings for that, particularly since we're going to be dealing with, ah, voter fraud as a discussion topic.

Oh, also trigger warning for mention/discussion of suicide.

Alright, here are some links re: Toon Rights Activism and what I already had posted re: timeline canon for Jess just as refresher course (I went and checked them because I honestly didn't know what I posted and what I didn't).

Toon Rights Activists - this talks about the origins (and also mentions TWO BITS (the Toon Welfare Organization and Bureau Investigating Toon Safety)) of general Toon Rights activism as well as precursory mention of the radical split off from them. (tw: police brutality)

The Genie - this is more about the lengths the radical Toon Rights activists went in their search for said rights (and has nothing to do with the Genie from Aladdin. This is a different Genie).

Also, honestly, read the TWO BITS link posted above, too, because it gives a sort of timeline in terms of TWO BITS started in 2000, so the radical Toon Rights activists had to come after it.

Beyond that, if I remember correctly, because Jessica and Regina met in what should have been roughly 2011 (because Henry was still ten but Emma hadn't shown up yet, so it had to be pre-OUAT but not by much and OUAT s1 took place in 2011), and that was after Jessica's year of Default post-Roger's death - this means that Roger died in 2010, my verse write-up for at the seams (which was the verse where he was a rabbit and Jess was a human) states that he lived for ten years as a rabbit, which means that Jess became a human and Roger became a rabbit in 2000.

That's a bit compressed of a timeline, given that it's mentioned in The Genie above that it took many years for the radical Toon Rights activists to be able to create the Genie in the first place, which means they must have been crafting him since probably the late eighties/early nineties for him to reach completion around that same time. But given that Toon Rights activism began roughly around the end of the Vietnam War and it took almost thirty years before even TWO BITS was instituted, it would make sense for the radicals to have gotten fed up earlier. TWO BITS is great and all, but it didn't give Toons actual rights, etc.

At least Toons in America. Toons in Japan are treated differently. That's an entire other set of meta, and I'm not going there right now.

Anyway - the general idea that apparently never got posted is that eventually, due to the let's turn politicians into Toons and see how they like it aspect of the radical Toon Rights activists' plans (when, you know, turning Toons into humans didn't play out the way they wanted), that did eventually lead to Toons getting some rights. This is all stuff that would have gone on in the background of at the seams and as they fall (which was the verse post-Roger's death and post-Jess's default because I didn't have a verse for her Default year) and I think I'd planned on...roughly the rights happened during the Jess/Regina stuff? Potentially right before Jess committed suicide (not the attempt, the actual suicide).

I don't have a specific date on that.

To be honest, I don't think Jessica would have been around more than a few years at that point. The suicide attempt would likely have been within two years of meeting Regina (I hesitate on this - I feel like one year is too short but am not sure) and her actual suicide would likely have been within a year of that. So - 2013/2014, roughly, the Toons Rights activists would have succeeded in terms of Toons being recognized as a sentient species of their own with free will and deserving of bodily autonomy.

Ish.

There would have been caveats, of course. You couldn't just make a Toon and suddenly they get all the rights to all the things, just like a newborn baby doesn't get all the rights to all the things automatically (voting, drinking, driving, etc.), and you run into the complications of who is allowed to make Toons and so on and so forth. Even with licenses to make Toons being even more constricted by the legal stuff in 2000 surrounding the establishment of TWO BITS, a licensed artist would basically be creating a new being. Laws around that would probably get even stricter - and ownership would become even more complicated because of course a newly created Toon would need someone to teach them how to act and etc. in the world, make sure they wake up from their Default (because Toons in Default have no rights - they're acting on their Default, they aren't exercising free will, they technically under Default do not have free will or sentience - and if they shove themselves back into Default, they're choosing to give all of that up, which is why Defaulting is an equivalent to Toon suicide).

...we don't need to talk about the last administration to understand why future rights might have stalled.

However.

We run into the peculiar issue of if Toons are sentient beings and are acknowledged as such, then they should be allowed to vote.

Except.

Toons aren't humans.

I mean, duh, obviously.

But Toons can be created by anyone with enough money to get an artist with a license to create a Toon for them with a specific Purpose - and they can make that Purpose whatever they want: good, bad, nefarious, insidious, so on and so forth. And because Toons are being created by imperfect people--

Say someone wanted to run for Senator and knew they wouldn't get enough human votes. Say someone had enough money and enough networking to have hosts of Toons created just to vote for them. Immediately. Then you would have hosts of Toons and hosts of Toon voters who exist only to pad the vote for one politician or another and said host of Toons and Toon voters would overwhelm and overrun actual human voters--

It would be a mess. It would be a huge mess.

So, of course, despite the fact that Toons technically now have rights (and did vote for the mayor of ToonTown, where the movie is concerned, but even then, Judge Doom won because he paid off the voters (pretty sure this is actual movie canon that they discuss - and my concern is whether or not the Toons themselves voted for Doom or if there were humans making decisions for the Toons, but regardless it's still a human as mayor of ToonTown, which makes me wonder if a Toon could even run for mayor in the first place - and that would be another legal issue with Toon rights because a Toon's Purpose is to entertain humans and if they were running for political etc. and won, even outside of Default--))--

So there are still laws in place in terms of what Toons can and can't do, even if they have more rights than they did in the first place.

And it's possible that, at least initially, there was talk about how to address the Toon voting problem so that Toons could vote. Tighter rules on licensing, more than there already are. Maybe a set period on how long Toons have been around before they can vote (like how people don't get to vote in the US until they're 18).

...and now we really do need to bring up the previous administration and all of the discussions of voting fraud and you'll understand exactly why all of those in-roads and thought processes got extremely stalled.

So things are better for Toons, roughly. But not as good as they could be. It's...it's so complicated the idea of Toon rights. They're people and should be treated like people. But they're also not.

Which brings us to the discussion of Toon/human marriage.

This is different from other analogies we could draw with interracial or queer marriage because Toons are drawn, not born. A human - with enough money or connections, again - could have a Toon tailor-made to be their spouse. Or...think they would be tailor-made and then find in the process that they really aren't and something went wrong, and then that's a whole living Toon who was made to be in love with them that now gets to Fade away because no one knows who they are and the one person they're supposed to be with for the rest of their life...doesn't...love them.

And the argument - politically would be that if humans could just make a Toon to be whatever they wanted, then that would interfere with human/human relationships. Humans would just end up choosing Toons over each other, and then we'd have even fewer babies (-coughcough-), and that's not even getting into the issues of Toon/human children (it's possible, Nonnie Montgomery proves that it's possible) and what their rights are - would they be counted as Toons under the law? Would they be counted as humans?

So I'm not sure that Toons would get that right.

Even with the very long legal battle that would probably eventually get brought up before the Supreme Court because the Constitution doesn't cover Toons - it's all men are created equal and Toons aren't human beings - and I don't think they would succeed at that point.

But if they did while Jess was still around, to address the rest of that question--

It really depends on--

Well, this is timeline canon we're talking about, right?

Or, at least, a version of it where Jess doesn't commit suicide, anyway.

Because here's the thing - if Roger was dead and Jess survived that last suicide attempt and Regina offered, if Jess was better and thought that her being there wasn't making Henry hallucinate, if she allowed herself to move on, yeah, if asked, she would have married her. (That one's half up to @notoriousjae, though, because idk if it ever would have gotten to that point. Just, from Jess's standpoint, she would have, if she got to a mentally stable enough point where she would have. If that makes sense.)

Like - Jess, even now in human form, has now fallen in love with two humans (at least), and that's not a result of her suddenly being a human instead of a Toon, if she'd been a Toon in the same circumstances, she would have fallen in love with both of them, and being in a position where she knows 1) that neither of them created her and 2) she fell in love with them quite independent of her Purpose, she would want....

No, that's not how I want to say that.

Jess knows what it is to be a Toon - even wrapped in a human body - and be in love with a human...and to have that human love her back.

She would be grateful that the courts would allow for people - and Toons - to marry the people that they love, regardless of etc.

I just don't think the courts would allow it.

Not without some of the very strict legal etc. to keep people from tailor-making Toons for their own purposes, among other things.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Expertise can't help you here.

[wormy-business]

I saw this question posed on tiktok, but I think Tumblr would really enjoy it too.

If a fae creature offered to give one million dollars for a bone FROM YOUR BODY chosen at random, how many bones would you allow them to take?

Light clarifications; The fae is not the one choosing the bones. The bone is taken at random. Each bone, no matter the size or importance, is worth a full million dollars. You must also declare the exact number first, you can't go bone-by-bone. You either say 2 or you say 10, you can't work your way up to a higher number. The bones are removed instantaneously, and the money is given immediately as well. You will not get in government trouble for acquiring the money.

Tell me in the tags/replies how many bones you'd let the fae take. And as always, reblog for bigger sample size.

[ibtisams]

My father was martyred by Israel on 10 October 2023 after sacrificing his care in hospital so the injured children could take priority. Today would have been his 60th birthday. He was always selfless, kind, and giving for others. My father gave up everything for me to be able to have a better life, because that is what he always dreamed for me and my sister. The world suffered a great loss when he died, and my heart is always with him and every Palestinian who has lost someone.

In his honour and memory, I would love for anyone who is able to do so to consider donating to The Palestine Children’s Relief Fund.

The PCRF is an amazing organisation that does so much for those in Gaza right now, including helping provide food, water and medicine. You can donate any amount you are able to- there is no minimum! My father would have given his very last cent if he saw the way Palestine was continuing to suffer after over 100 days with this limited aid, so I know celebrating him by helping others is the least he would have wanted.

I saw @parrot-parent do a very successful donation match and I thought it was such a good idea so I will also match all donations up to $500! If you feel comfortable sending me proof of the amount of your donation, I will match it as a donation at the end of February. (My messages are set to mutuals only, but if you donate and we aren’t mutuals if you send an ask with the proof I will make sure to answer it privately.)

[endusviolence]

Rowling isn't denying holocaust. She just pointed out that burning of transgender health books is a lie as that form of cosmetic surgery didn't exist. But of course you knew that already, didn't you?

I was thinking I'd probably see one of you! You're wrong :) Let's review the history a bit, shall we?

In this case, what we're talking about is the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, or in English, The Institute of Sexology. This Institute was founded and headed by a gay Jewish sexologist named Magnus Hirschfeld. It was founded in July of 1919 as the first sexology research clinic in the world, and was run as a private, non-profit clinic. Hirschfeld and the researchers who worked there would give out consultations, medical advice, and even treatments for free to their poorer clientele, as well as give thousands of lectures and build a unique library full of books on gender, sexuality, and eroticism. Of course, being a gay man, Hirschfeld focused a lot on the gay community and proving that homosexuality was natural and could not be "cured".

Hirschfeld was unique in his time because he believed that nobody's gender was either one or the other. Rather, he contended that everyone is a mixture of both male and female, with every individual having their own unique mix of traits.

This leads into the Institute's work with transgender patients. Hirschfeld was actually the one to coin the term "transsexual" in 1923, though this word didn't become popular phrasing until 30 years later when Harry Benjamin began expanding his research (I'll just be shortening it to trans for this brief overview.) For the Institute, their revolutionary work with gay men eventually began to attract other members of the LGBTA+, including of course trans people.

Contrary to what Anon says, sex reassignment surgery was first tested in 1912. It'd already being used on humans throughout Europe during the 1920's by the time a doctor at the Institute named Ludwig Levy-Lenz began performing it on patients in 1931. Hirschfeld was at first opposed, but he came around quickly because it lowered the rate of suicide among their trans patients. Not only was reassignment performed at the Institute, but both facial feminization and facial masculization surgery were also done.

The Institute employed some of these patients, gave them therapy to help with other issues, even gave some of the mentioned surgeries for free to this who could not afford it! They spoke out on their behalf to the public, even getting Berlin police to help them create "transvestite passes" to allow people to dress however they wanted without the threat of being arrested. They worked together to fight the law, including trying to strike down Paragraph 175, which made it illegal to be homosexual. The picture below is from their holiday party, Magnus Hirschfeld being the gentleman on the right with the fabulous mustache. Many of the other people in this photo are transgender.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of a group of people. Some are smiling at the camera, others have serious expressions. Either way, they all seem to be happy. On the right side, an older gentleman in glasses- Magnus Hirschfeld- is sitting. He has short hair and a bushy mustache. He is resting one hand on the shoulder of the person in front of him. His other hand is being held by a person to his left. Another person to his right is holding his shoulder.]

There was always push back against the Institute, especially from conservatives who saw all of this as a bad thing. But conservatism can't stop progress without destroying it. They weren't willing to go that far for a good while. It all ended in March of 1933, when a new Chancellor was elected. The Nazis did not like homosexuals for several reasons. Chief among them, we break the boundaries of "normal" society. Shortly after the election, on May 6th, the book burnings began. The Jewish, gay, and obviously liberal Magnus Hirschfeld and his library of boundary-breaking literature was one of the very first targets. Thankfully, Hirschfeld was spared by virtue of being in Paris at the time (he would die in 1935, before the Nazis were able to invade France). His library wasn't so lucky.

This famous picture of the book burnings was taken after the Institute of Sexology had been raided. That's their books. Literature on so much about sexuality, eroticism, and gender, yes including their new work on trans people. This is the trans community's Alexandria. We're incredibly lucky that enough of it survived for Harry Benjamin and everyone who came after him was able to build on the Institute's work.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of the May Nazi book burning of the Institute of Sexology's library. A soldier, back facing the camera, is throwing a stack of books into the fire. In the background of the right side, a crowd is watching.]

As the Holocaust went on, the homosexuals of Germany became a targeted group. This did include transgender people, no matter what you say. To deny this reality is Holocaust denial. JK Rowling and everyone else who tries to pretend like this isn't reality is participating in that evil. You're agreeing with the Nazis.

But of course, you knew that already, didn't you?

Edit: Added image IDs. I apologize to those using screen readers for forgetting them. Please reblog this version instead.

[captainjonnitkessler]

You know I used to think "tumblr's absolute refusal to actually engage with the Trolley Problem in favor of insisting that there must be a third, morally pure option that doesn't require them to make a hard decision and anyone who asks them to make a binary choice is just a short-sighted idiot is really fucking annoying, but I guess it's not actually doing any harm".

Anyway that was before we asked tumblr at large to decide between "guy aiding a genocide but making progress elsewhere" and "guy who would actively and enthusiastically participate in a genocide and would also make everything else much, much worse for everyone elsewhere" and the response was that there must be a third, morally pure option that doesn't require them to make a hard decision and that anyone who asks them to make a binary choice is a short-sighted idiot.

[mangozic]

my dead goth son and his friendly neighborhood personified concept of insanity

[emberglowfox]

Keeper -- a short comic about an angel meeting a robotic lighthouse keeper that doesn't know the world has already ended. Made in about 18 hours for a 24-hour 24-page* black and white comic challenge (that I arrived late to, ha.)

*the actual submission does not include the cover, which was created after the fact for this post.

This was a really great learning experience as someone who's... never really made a completed comic. I ended up really attached to the story by the end of the project (possibly due to all-nighter deliriousness lol) and ultimately am very proud of what I made.There are some things I'd still like to change, particularly text placement, but in keeping with the spirit of the challenge I've elected to leave it as is.

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

when your roommate is a really handsome woman by 于钦然

[catmask]

does anyone have like an anti aesthetic. like something you look at and can recognize as a complete fashion/interior design/artistic movement and understand it but it makes you shudder seeing it. i am not talking like “its morally bad” “its poorly structured” like just sheerly devoid of joy for you actually invites a repulse response.

[bastardlybonkers]

i feel like not enough ppl are factoring in the cultural clash between laios and shuro and the many micro agressions shuro faced while being in their group. literally the name 'shuro' in itself is one

his name is toshiro 😭 lets also not forget that he has his own communication issues, in the opposite way that laios does- thats literally a factor in their argument, that his envy for laios's ability to express himself sincerely manifested as part of his distaste for him.

ig all this to say like, was their fight heart wrenching, especially when reading laios as autistic? absolutely. anybody whos ever been in laios's position knows how much it hurts to realize someone you thought was your friend doesnt actually like having you around, especially when they didnt tell you and you had no way of knowing due to not understanding their cues. but im begging yall to step back and see the nuance of this situation cause im gonna be real a lot of you are kinda just brushing over it acting like everything is toshiros fault and that hes a terrible person when in reality hes an average guy who really, really clashed with laios and it led to a very long misunderstanding due to their supremely opposite methods of communication. even laios and toshiro, after letting everything out in their fight, were able to come to an understanding and start a foundation for an actual friendship built on better communication

ok yknow what Edit: i shouldve made it even more explicit at the end of this post, i hadnt thought i would need to since i started the post with this, but i think a few too many people are missing my point so i just wanna clarify. i shouldnt have said 'really clashed' and left it at that because yeah they did, but it wasnt just their opposite methods of communication, it is also very much that toshiro was experiencing microaggressions via laios. it may have been unintentional on laios's part, but it still happened and wore him down, made it harder for him to communicate on top of both the more subtle social cues that he was raised with and his own communication difficulties. i also want to say that the fandom reaction to toshiro and the complete ignorance of this point is also racist tbh or at the very least ignorant. i understand that the anime did not cover this panel, and neither did the manga, as this was an omake, but im gonna be real with you guys. there are enough context clues within the story to clue you into this. if you didnt pick up on it thats ok, but i think this is a good lesson in picking up subtext in the stories that youre watching and/or reading. kui shouldnt have to explicitly say 'by the way laios was racist to toshiro' for this point to be understood, and at the very least, when the author portrays a character in a sympathetic light (as kui clearly does) it should make you question Why they are doing so and what makes them sympathetic, rather than youre immediate and only reaction to be 'well i hated what this guy did/said so i hate them and they suck'. idk exactly how to finish this, just. idk. question your biases and gut reactions to things you see in media and stories, and think about whether or not theres subtext that youre missing.

[lennonhead]

something that exists in the city I'm moving to:

I am obsessed with this park that combines all midcentury dangerous playground elements into one awful whole. witness this steep metal slide descending from the top of a jungle gym into a concrete pit

if you fall off the jungle gym, you too will be doomed to the pit

there's very little opportunity to get out, too. the only handholds are the ones on the left. Sendai gets a lot of rain, almost as much as Vancouver, so imagine being mangled from sliding into concrete and having to climb a sheer, slippery slope to freedom. I think I would just make a home down there and give up on life

I'm sure it does.

[lylahammar]

Randomly thinkin about Chilchuck today, and how he tries sooooo hard to self sabotage

like for example, other half foots on the island think that he's a greedy asshole who only cares about money, and he does nothing to try to disprove that

but then there's this omake at the end of book 9 that shows that people treat half foots fucking TERRIBLY and chilchuck started a union to protect them

and then in the bicorn chapter, he doesn't want Marcille to keep digging into his personal business so he tells her he CHEATED ON HIS WIFE

but he just COMPLETELY fuckin lied about that and made himself sound so much worse than he is bc he's afraid of being vulnerable with people and would rather everyone believes he's a shitty person so he can keep them at a distance

and the thing that's memed so often is that he refuses to help with fighting most of the time because it's not part of his contract

but if you take this lore into account (not gonna add those particular images to this post simply bc I've used them in so many posts already LMAO) along with this tidbit from the world guide:

then it's like. yeah he has to keep his weight low so if he gets killed or severely injured and has to be healed, that could be really dangerous for him. and even if he was healed at that point he'd end up being a burden to the party after that point, he would be too dangerously thin/sickly to be able to help.

Like, Chilchuck has so many things about him that APPEAR to be character flaws, but every single one of them has a very reasonable explanation. He just leans into the mischaracterization bc he's emotionally withholding and can handle people thinking he's an asshole more than he can handle opening up to anyone. he's such a well thought out and interesting character

[nouverx]

Obligatory Alastor and Niffty art because their little moment in the finale was everything to me I can't wait to see them interact more in the next seasons

Also bonus sketch bc I just know he kept the crown on the whole evening

[counting-stars-gayly]

I’m actually LOVING how Rick Riordan, and the other writers of the show, took his initial concept of a Percabeth rivalry fueled by that of their parents and kind of turned it on its head?

Now, instead of Annabeth being wary of Percy because he’s a son of Poseidon, he’s wary of her because she made a callous impression on him. They get off to a rocky start even before finding out who Percy’s father is, and when they finally do, Annabeth doesn’t care. Instead of them fighting because of who their parents are, they’re fighting over their own opposed worldviews.

Then, instead of them arguing over which of the gods is cooler and who was right in the story of Medusa, they realize that, just like Medusa, Annabeth is a victim of her mother and that, unlike Medusa, she is a far kinder and stronger person, unwilling to repeat the cycle of hurt. They realize that, like his father, Percy often acts without considering potential consequences and that, unlike his father, he is a far kinder and stronger person, willing to step up for someone he wronged and whom he cares about.

Instead of Percy and Annabeth’s rivalry being focused on that of their parents, it’s focused on who they are, themselves. But the path to friendship is still the same: a realization that they have each other’s backs, no matter what, because they’re not their parents after all.