#Surprising Encounters

[urbest2day]

Insight 3187

“If you do not expect it, you will not find the unexpected, for it is hard to find and difficult.” Heraclitus – 500 B.C. – Greek Philosopher

[heydragonfly]

okay I’m playing Hades 2 and every character has been absolutely wonderful BUT

ICARUS IS IN THE GAME!!!!! (this is the incomplete/temporary art they’ve used for the other allies of this section hence why it’s sketchy)

also??? I think he’s Melinoë’s ex???? “not about to let you fly out on me again” is LOADED

meli 😭😭😭😭

[aromanticduck]

I'd appreciate it if people tagged/replied with what they voted and where they're from.

[ryllen]

i came to conclusion, it's okay if he sounds a tiny bit different bcs he tones down a bit of the softness, but please keep his SOFT HUSKY ENGLISH VA INSTEAD OF REPLACING HIM WITH THE ABSOLUTE STOIC DEEP COLD ONE I AM BEGGING YOU

[andhumanslovedstories]

watched some Columbo last night because this little guy has bewitched me body and soul, and it's delightful to watch him psychologically torment murderers. Anyway I was like "damn this episode ("Murder by the Book") is really good, these scenes are so gripping while being so quiet, the way Columbo interacts with the murderer versus the widow is great characterization, the directing is so confident and compelling, this is something really special" and the end of the episode comes and "directed by Steven Spielberg" pops up like a jumpscare, and I had a fun moment where I got to go OH. Sometimes the people who are famous for doing stuff are actually really good at that thing they're famous for.

[kobadit]

Been playing a lot of Path of Titans lately

[a-carnie-and-a-cop]

Travis.exe has stopped working

[front-facing-pokemon]

[shouts-into-the-void]

The more I think about it, the more I really want to know how Tetsuji managed to keep the fact that the Ravens are a cult under wraps, considering that even Neil was having trouble functioning normally after only 2 weeks.

Like, it isn't even the physical abuse that causes the biggest problem. It's the 16 hour days, inability to do anything other than exy, social isolation, and the dictated nutrition and choices. They learn none of the skills that a typical young adult learns in college- cooking, cleaning, time management, money management, networking, etc. Not all of the Ravens can be rich enough that that sort of thing just doesn't matter. They basically get dropped into the world after college with no idea how to get a place to live, feed themselves, pay bills, or anything required of an adult and with no support network to help.

And including the physical abuse, all of these athletes suddenly have to have a miriade of health problems due to over-exercise, lack of sleep, violent playing styles, and I'm assuming physical abuse from Tetsuji and/or Riko.

All of these athletes are apparently signing with pro teams and there can't be that many that they only have one or two athletes a piece. We know from Lucas that the drastic change to their personalities is very noticiable to anyone who did know them and they're mentally unstable enough to off themselves after being forced to leave the campus, so how has no one noticed that all of the players that get signed from this one college team are barely functional, incredibly mentally unhealthy, and insanely violent?

[gael-garcia]

Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG) is an ad hoc coalition committed to solidarity and the horizon of liberation for the Palestinian people. Drawing together writers, editors, and other culture workers, WAWOG hopes to provide ongoing infrastructure for cultural organizing in response to the war. This project is modeled on American Writers Against the War in Vietnam, an organization founded in 1965.

Statement of Solidarity

October 26, 2023

Israel’s war against Gaza is an attempt to conduct genocide against the Palestinian people. This war did not begin on October 7th. However, in the last 19 days, the Israeli military has killed over 6,500 Palestinians, including more than 2,500 children, and wounded over 17,000. Gaza is the world’s largest open-air prison: its 2 million residents—a majority of whom are refugees, descendants of those whose land was stolen in 1948—have been deprived of basic human rights since the blockade in 2006. We share the assertions of human rights groups, scholars, and, above all, everyday Palestinians: Israel is an apartheid state, designed to privilege Jewish citizens at the expense of Palestinians, heedless of the many Jewish people, both in Israel and across the diaspora, who oppose their own conscription in an ethno-nationalist project. 

We come together as writers, journalists, academics, artists, and other culture workers to express our solidarity with the people of Palestine. We stand with their anticolonial struggle for freedom and for self-determination, and with their right to resist occupation. We stand firmly by Gaza’s people, victims of a genocidal war the United States government continues to fund and arm with military aid—a crisis compounded by the illegal settlement and dispossession of the West Bank and the subjugation of Palestinians within the state of Israel.

We stand in opposition to the silencing of dissent and to racist and revisionist media cycles, further perpetuated by Israel’s attempts to bar reporting in Gaza, where journalists have been both denied entry and targeted by Israeli forces. At least 24 journalists in Gaza have now been killed. Internationally, writers and cultural workers have faced severe harassment, workplace retribution, and job loss for expressing solidarity with Palestine, whether by stating facts about their continued occupation, or for amplifying the voices of others. These are instances that mark severe incursions against supposed speech protections. Specious charges of antisemitism are leveled against Zionism’s critics; political repression has been particularly aggressive against the free speech of Muslim, Arab, and Black people living in the US and across the globe. As was the case following the September 11th attacks, Islamophobic political fervor and the widespread circulation of unsubstantiated claims has galvanized a US-led coalition of military support for a brutal campaign of violence.

What can we do to intervene against Israel’s eliminationist assault on the Palestinian people? Words alone cannot stop the onslaught of devastation of Palestinian homes and lives, backed shamelessly and without hesitation by the entire axis of Western power. At the same time, we must reckon with the role words and images play in the war on Gaza and the ferocious support they have engendered: Israel’s defense minister announced the siege as a fight against “human animals”; even as we learned that Israel had rained bombs down on densely populated urban neighborhoods and deployed white phosphorus in Gaza City, the New York Times editorial board wrote that “what Israel is fighting to defend is a society that values human life and the rule of law”; establishment media outlets continue to describe Hamas’s attack on Israel as “unprovoked.” Writers Against the War on Gaza rejects this perversion of meaning, wherein a nuclear state can declare itself a victim in perpetuity while openly enacting genocide. We condemn those in our industries who continue to enable apartheid and genocide. We cannot write a free Palestine into existence, buttogether we must do all we possibly can to reject narratives that soothe Western complicity in ethnic cleansing. 

We act alongside other writers, scholars, and artists who have expressed solidarity with the Palestinian cause, drawing inspiration from the Palestinian spirit of sumud, steadfastness, and resistance. Since 2004, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) has advocated for organizations to join a boycott of institutions representing the Israeli state or cultural institutions complicit with its apartheid regime. We call on all our colleagues working in cultural institutions to endorse that boycott. And we invite writers, editors, journalists, scholars, artists, musicians, actors, and anyone in creative and academic work to sign this statement. Join us in building a new cultural front for a free Palestine.  

Signed,

WAWOG Interim Organizing Committee

Hannah Black

Ari Brostoff (Senior Editor, Jewish Currents)

Elena Comay del Junco

Kyle Dacuyan (Executive Director, Poetry Project)

Kay Gabriel (Editorial Director, Poetry Project)

Kaleem Hawa

E. Tammy Kim

Shiv Kotecha

Wendy Lotterman (Associate Editor, Parapraxis)

Muna Mire

Perwana Nazif

Brendan O'Connor

Alex Press (Staff Writer, Jacobin)

Sarah Nicole Prickett

Dylan Saba

Zoé Samudzi (Associate Editor, Parapraxis)

Jasmine Sanders

Claire Schwartz (Culture Editor, Jewish Currents)

Janique Vigier

Harron Walker

Chloe Watlington

Gabriel Winant (Department of History, University of Chicago)

Audrey Wollen

Hannah Zeavin (Founding Editor, Parapraxis)

Signed, In Solidarity

Fatimah Warner (Noname)

Saul Williams

Susan Sarandon

Janeane Garofalo

Gael García Bernal

Danez Smith

Ocean Vuong

Aria Aber

Saidiya Hartman

China Miéville

+ full list here

[sukimas]

generally speaking a lot of touhous come off as outwardly a normal, easily encountered type of weirdo. and they are, to a degree, that type of weirdo. but pull back the outer layer and look beneath and you will discover completely new, never before seen, types of guy. it’s kind of like how olms look sort of like axolotls.

[robo-dino-puppy]

raccoon!

[yuesya]

Land! Sweet, sweet land!

Lumine almost feels as if she could cry in this moment. She shouldn’t have chosen that merchant vessel over Beidou’s Alcor and experienced crew. At the time, the merchant’s ship was leaving sooner –two entire weeks before Beidou was planning to set sail– and Lumine had only wanted to reach Inazuma as soon as possible in order to continue her search for her brother.

They’d been hit by a storm, and the ship had capsized. Fortunately, there were enough emergency rowboats for all members on board, even if the merchant’s goods had been a complete loss to the ruthless waves. Less fortunately… it had been several long days of drifting at sea, and their dwindling supplies weren’t about to last much longer.

“We’ve made it, Lumine!” Paimon cheers. Lumine nods firmly. “We’re alive!”

Alive, and in desperate need of aid. Lumine and a few of the other stronger sailors set out to explore a bit and get a better idea of their surroundings. Hopefully they’d come across some friendly locals who’d be able to extend a helping hand, or at least be willing to just tell them where they’d washed up on–

Someone’s there.

Another person! Lumine quickens her footsteps, even as waterlogged as she is.

“Excuse me–!”

Paimon flies ahead of her, chasing the figure that she’d glimpsed. “Wait! Wait, please, we’re just hapless travelers who –ack!”

“Paimon?” Urgency quickens her footsteps, and Lumine hurries to reach her companion. “You…”

Her voice dies in her throat.

There’s a young girl standing amidst the trees, with blue-white hair that appears almost silver beneath the sunlight. Her clothing is in the distinct fashion of Inazuman dress, a mix of soft blue and lilac colors flowing down her body. It’s almost enough to make Lumine acutely self-conscious of her own waterlogged state and haphazard appearance from days of floating out at sea–

But there’s a dark purple cloth tied over the girl’s face, covering her eyes. A blindfold. The girl is blind.

Blind, and yet she’d moved so smoothly and confidently over the rough terrain. Lumine had barely managed to glimpse her earlier, and if it hadn’t been for her coloring standing out so starkly against the verdant backdrop of the trees, she would’ve thought that she’d imagined it all in her head.

The girl raises her hand –the hand that’s holding onto the back of Paimon’s dress, “Is it yours?”

Paimon squirms. “I’m not an ‘it!’”

“Yes, Paimon is my friend,” Lumine nods firmly –and belatedly realizes that the girl probably can’t even see it. Wait. Is she really blind? The way she moved, the way she seemed aware of everything around her… didn’t really seem like the motions of a blind person…

The girl wordlessly releases her grip on Paimon; Paimon immediately returns to Lumine’s side, casting the girl an unsettled, suspicious look.

“Um…” Best to just get to the point, probably. “Could you possibly point us towards where the nearest settlement is, please?”

“Head south,” the girl raises a pale hand, the one that’s not holding the basket of strange purple grass as she points towards the direction to their left. “Watatsumi’s Bourou Village isn’t far from here. You’ll find it easily once you reach and follow the road.”

“Thank you!” That’s probably the best news that Lumine has heard ever since the shipwreck. “We really appreciate it, miss…?”

The girl remains silent. Lumine trails off awkwardly.

“… Erm, what should I call you?” Lumine ends up asking sheepishly. The girl is certainly strange, but she doesn’t sense any ill will from her. And she’d helped give directions easily enough; Lumine would like to have a name for the person who’d given them assistance.

“… Gojo," the girl says. "Call me Gojo.”

[protagonist-art]

"Uh- I'm Arnold. Bennett. It's profoundly difficult to get your lifes works and studies accepted if your name isn't... yes, oh! Are you a fan of moths, sir?"

NEW RDR2 OC!! a reclusive, clumsy entomologist and bug collector; cooped up in his study of uniformed clutter

[sannyo-appreciation-posts]

so what actually makes sannyo your favorite character? what do you see in her that you don’t see in other characters

this image:

Im just kidding. Though she is really cute in it.

Truth be told, when UM came out I thought Sannyo was Super cool. Her "You darn fool" expression was probably the best expression in the whole game. but somehow, when the full game was out, she wasn't my favorite. I liked Tsukasa and Megumu and thought Chimata's outfit was crazy fun.

Though even then i preferred Sannyo's outfit design to everyone else's.

But Sannyo slipped from my mind due to what I'll call "Stage 3 syndrome" meaning, after the demo, Everyone likes the 3 stage demo characters for a while and pick a favorite among them, but when the main game comes out they get pushed aside really quick and people, more or less just move on to the new characters

But when I read her power and stuff in her Omake.txt she quickly became the coolest character in there. Of course she's a newer stage 3 boss so I obviously never expected to ever see her again.

(Though tbh my dislike of the smell of smoke probably wasn't scoring her any points, she was honestly at a disadvantage the whole time. I just like her enough to think it's cool when she's using her power instead. Besides, given what she says it's made of, it probably just smells like strange flowers anyway)

But then despite my assumption I'd never see her again, She appeared in Lotus Eaters chapter 29 and continued to appear occasionally after, Not only that......

She had the COOLEST, most cinematic intro in the entire touhou series. It was like 5 pages of slow walking through her Den politely greeting people, using her power, and even making aside comments with cynical gambling advice. Then meeting Mamizou at the door with a confident bow.

she's also got a crazy gap moe range of interests from obscure flowers to Dragons, proudly wearing the name Madame Komakusa, the after what is called the queen of Japan's alpine flowers.

And a crazy range of emotions. (Plus Lotus Eaters loves having her do something fun or cute in the background during her shift hours, even if the script dialog isn't calling for her)

she's mysterious, yet she's as expressive as an actual main character, she's got a range of principles, interests, and an incredibly cool gap moe thing going on. It's so rare for characters that were more or less side characters in their respective games to be this well rounded, I mean she's from freaking stage 3. But, She's awesome, adorable, and mysterious.

And it's not even a headcanon, or a fandom take on her, she is just genuinely like this in canon.

[wikitpowers]

Ash had me crying lowkey because I know he thought he ate with the "once again you appear in my life" only for Dru to straight up not know who he was and then get interrupted by. Basically his DAD (assuming that was Janus) 😭 he canNOT catch a break I know he went back to his room and was Yearning with a capital Y like WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DONT REMEMBER OUR BEAUTIFUL AND FATEFUL ENCOUNTER 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

[WARNING! TLKOF CHAPTER SPOILERS ABOVE AND AHEAD] 🚨

STOP BC THAT WAS SO FUNNY AND LIKE WHAT'S FUNNIEST IS HE WAS IMMEDIATELY LIKE OH IT'S YOU (MY CRUSH <3), LIKE HE DIDN'T EVEN PLAY IT COOL AND PRETEND IT WAS THEIR FIRST MEETING, HE WAS STRAIGHT UP LIKE "OH HELLO DRUSILLA I'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT YOU FOR 3 YEARS, HAVE U THOUGHT ABOUT ME U MUST'VE??????" ONLY FOR HER TO BE LIKE UM WHO ARE U????? I JUST KNOW ASH WAS LIKE 🧍🏼WITH TEARS SLOWLY STREAMING DOWN HIS FACE. DUDE WAS HUMBLED REAL FAST :’) AND THE FACT THAT THE ENCOUNTER WAS MOST LIKELY INTERRUPTED BY HIS FATHER FIGURE, JANUS IS HONESTLY JUST THE CHERRY ON TOP :') ASH IS JUST A LOSER IN A HOT GUY'S BODY AND I LOVE HIM FOR IT :')