#bouldering problem

[zarsiart]

Bouldering Problem

Think with your body

Banning State Park, MN

[theaceofarrows]

I think that aspec people should get a power up like a video game character every time someone says that their orientation isn't real, so they can just absolutely wreck them

"Oh, you don't think my orientation is real? I guess this superhuman punch I'm about to throw at you isn't real either, or the kick that's going to follow it"

[sleepysloth99]

Not me about to make a self-indulgent Graham Burns x ADHD!Reader comfort headcanons because I'm physically incapable of doing my homework. Wooooo stay tuned Rescue Bots!

[presiding]

What is your favourite thing about Billie Lurk?

(Answers are obvious possibly but i love when people talk about her👍)

thanks for the ask!! YEAH ME TOO I love when people talk about Billie! I can't say I have a favourite thing specifically, but I can explain why she's my fav. apologies for not taking this qn literally, but -

short answer: she’s really cool

& you can stop reading there, or, for the maybe 2 mutuals who might have time to read this my thoughts on her as a character, her meta, and her character as raw potential...

long answer:

i considered making this entire thing a gush so you could read a gush about Billie. but, part of what draws me to her is that she’s not always well written, and in fandom she’s underrated for a literal protagonist.

since you ask...

billie is a cool character

when I played Dh2 (hadn't played Dh1), I was excited to see a black woman with disabilities who was captaining a massive ship by herself. wow.

then I discovered Billie’s backstory with Deirdre, the way she responded to that, then having to survive while living on the run, and her bisexuality. as well as her history with daud & delilah. fascinating!

she’s an outsider who has so much to lose, and knows what it's like to lose everything - having lost everything not once but three times - but nevertheless speaks truth to power. she's so brave! she went and helped Emily & Corvo and she must have known they might kill her! plus, she’s smart, she’s funny, she gets shit done, she’s gorgeous.

but... the meta

mild critique of fandom & arkane incoming.

skip this bit if you want - you've been warned twice now - jump to tired Hayao Miyazaki and read from there if you'd like my thoughts on writing her.

i thought Death of the Outsider was going to be amazing and then... well. *sad trombone* i've written about that before so i won't keep banging on. i figured others must be disappointed too, so I joined a few fandom spaces in hopes of finding camaraderie.

most people with complaints about DotO didn’t like how the Outsider and Daud were handled. which is valid & I agree. but it seemed like most paid no attention to Billie; when people talk about her it’s with respect to Daud, as opposed to in her own right. you could argue for fandom misogyny because people don’t talk about adult Emily Kaldwin that much either, but in Billie's case, it’s misogynoir (compare & contrast with the popularity of thomas, particularly the popularity of thomas portrayed as a white man for no particular reason that i've been able to discern - i keep asking around, is it in the books???).

i think this is a LOT better now than it used to be, which is fantastic. or perhaps i have found the correct echo-chamber? ha.

ultimately, The Fandom is a fraction of the entire picture, and not even the important bit since The Fandom is not who these games are made for. you can't make money relying on only your hardcore fans even if all of them spent a fortune on merch, this is true for any AAA game.

while it's true that Billie is underrated from a fandom perspective - but Billie as an underwritten protagonist is squarely Arkane’s fault.

it was reasonable when she was a side character - the lack of info in Dh2 makes perfect sense (if anything there was more lore in Dh2 which is kind of wild)-

- but as a protagonist in Death of the Outsider?

.... there’s lousy writing, and there’s whatever is going on with Billie Lurk, a black woman who mostly exists as a foil or saviour for light-skinned characters. In her own game there’s barely any of her own lore except where it's relevant to saving two dudes.

lore hints at, but barely touches on what race means in the Dh universe (xenophobia is stronger in Dh1; separate essay i guess), but Arkane has patted themselves on the back for portraying non-white characters, which feels like the same thing as the aesthetic of diversity we're seeing in advertising currently because it’s in marketing trend guides. it's self-congratulatory and it's a missed opportunity for deeper storytelling.

you can see an example of diversity at its most shallow in the way that Billie’s written: there’s little engagement with her as an entire person with history & wants & preferences, and the world she walks through in that game feels like it has nothing to do with her. you could make a case for alienation as a theme, but then, how do you handle the titular premise of 'Dishonored' without ever letting Billie make changes in an environment without a chaos system? it's disappointing from that angle too.

in my opinion, whatever it's worth, it was an accident Arkane created such an awesome character - they needed someone to betray daud. congrats billie.

all this said, it makes her an underdog as far as characters to enjoy & create art & stories for. it's nice to find so many like-minded, switched on people! <3

billie's character potential

she’s got a wealth of unexplored lore, being deeply intertwined with both Karnaca & Dunwall’s fates & criminal underbellies, as well as her connections to the witches & whalers, and three Empresses.

she’s lived a few distinct lifetimes and in the games we get to meet her at two peaks (KoD & DotO) & a low (Dh2 as Meagan).

her voice is very distinct, her dry & often dark humour is entertaining & fun to write. her perspective is really interesting - she’s had the widest variety of void-powers of anyone canonically, and she’s also lived through the highest highs and lowest lows.

she's got everything going for her :) i couldn't really pick a fav thing!

[normally-blue]

Character lineup for my post-apocalyptic climbing zine !!

[britcision]

So we got the party into the Trapped Abandoned Mansion today

We told them many times, there are many traps, they are dangerous, be very careful

“Step where I step”, says their creepy friend

What do they do?

“I wanna snoop around”

“I’m gonna examine the bookshelf”

They got lucky a couple times cuz the bard knows where some of the traps are and warned them

And then they got cocky

And I asked them where they were searching super specifically

And they kept going

And the first trap they fully got hit by was one of the lethal ones

55 points of damage to half the party

Super traumatized, never touching anything again, barbarian swears not to rush into another room in the entire building, big scared

Fifteen minutes later

“What if I lick the wall can I find anything”

[jiminy-crickets]

jessy pilz arms save me..... save me jessy's beautiful arms..... save me <3

[unamused-kookaburra]

I relate to Sisyphus whenever I'm rostered for doing online orders, because no matter how fast or efficient I am, the orders keep coming in and corporate is never satisfied.

[boygirlctommy]

i madeeee sillay new characters and i love them

[quietmarie]

Sent the fuckign project

[bunnyb34r]

Pooped!

[noxhiemiscaliginisque]

me: i am very mature also me: *has beef with funky plastic blocks screwed to a wall*

[the-martyrfication-of-the-matron]

When they actually have time to themselves, do they plan out date nights in advance? Since Aaron has 3 partners + sharing Aphmau with Zoey, it’s gotta be a mess trying to go on dates with each other with a bunch of toddlers running around and work

One plus side to having three partners + Zoey is free babysitting.

But date nights are heavily planned events, usually only between two or three of them at a time because the others have plans or work the next morning or need to look after the kids, etc, and they’re often cancelled too if things come up. and when they can’t find the time to go out for dates, they just have a nice little dinner at home whilst the kids are left at someone else’s house to terrorise them.

[cahootings]

I did however rewatch free solo last night which made me worse five years ago when I first saw it and it continues to make me worser

[devils-lawboy]

look i hate top roping as much as the next boulderer but there is something SO compelling about lead climbing

[artemisbarnowl]

TodayI went bouldering for the first time since 2021 and i very much sucked at it! But i did derive satisfaction and get some rewards and positive experiences and all that to help me want to go back.

I also spent some nice time with a coworker and we are much the same in some ways and so different in others. we are friendly coworkers but in other circumstances in another universe i wonder if we would be good friends or despise each other. Or despise each other for the bit until to the suprise of no one we started dating and then got bored of each other and we're never the same

Also i got deep fried camembert for late lunch which was yummy