#but this is a bridge too far

[chaoticintellectual]

ugh my parents bought a fucking pick up truck. they don't need a pick up truck, this is so fucking humiliating. I'm really upset, they should know better than this

[humanoidhistory]

Star Wars plays Abilene, Texas, 1977.

[wheat-angel]

For any selfshipper out there who finds themselves low on energy a lot, physically or mentally, to where it's hard to take care of yourself everyday:

You're F/Os still love you.

It's hard to find the time or energy to shower? They help you set a routine, but they won't scold you if you miss a day for whatever reason, there's always tommorow.

Cleaning up after yourself not coming easily? C'mon, let's do one thing at a time together. Maybe picking up one specific item and putting those away. Or maybe choosing a small section of the room that's "messy" to focus on.

Chores need to be done, and you're overwhelmed? Let's turn it into a game. Maybe a point for each thing you get done. Or maybe with each part of it complete, you get to get a little reward for them, and if you collect all of the little rewards, you get the big prize, hm?

Finding it impossible to cook for yourself? It's alright, even if you microwave something or order out, all that matters is that you're eating.

Missing medications? You'll be rewarded with hugs if you go do that for them, because that's important. And if it's got to be at a specific time, then your F/O will help you through the day as best they can.

All they ask of you is that you do what you can. They know it's hard and tough, but for you, they'll try to be as patient as they can. You need to take care of yourself because they want to see you being alright and getting through day by day.

They love you. Platonically, familialy, or romantically, it doesn't matter. They love you and care about you.

You're doing your best. Be patient with yourself like how'd they'd be patient with you. If you need to push yourself to do it, then let your F/Os be the ones trying to motivate you to do it if that helps you.

~~♡~~

If anyone reblogs with tags or comments about how gross or disgusting these kinds of people are, you will be blocked on sight. Don't shame people for their struggles when you don't know them.

Also Pr0///shippers, their supporters and neutrals DNI. Everyone deserves human support like this and don't deserve to die, but this specific post is not for you.

[starcurtain]

Hey! I apologize if this question has been asked before since it seems like a pretty obvious one, but where do you think the idea of Aventurine being a sex slave came from? Other than the obvious factor of it being something fun for the fandom to mess around with, I mean.

It's something I kind of took for granted as being true before playing his quest, but after finishing it I realized there wasn't really any indication. The only thing I can really think of is his master's comments about him having a good body. Is there anything in his behavior you can think of that would lead to this conclusion if it wasn't a popular fan interpretation already/kind of just an easy conclusion to reach with a slave character?

(also kind of related but what do you think of the idea that he sleeps around/with his clients to make deals? he's obviously willing to sexualize himself with the boob window, but that doesn't necessarily mean he goes further.)

As far as I can tell, the idea that Aventurine was involved in sexual slavery comes from three (maybe four) places:

First, the comment from the master about Aventurine's appearance. People were holding this comment up as refutable proof that Aventurine was used in sexual slavery on top of being tossed into the Hunger Games; however, the response from other players on this interpretation, especially the Chinese side of the fandom, was very mixed, with a lot of people pointing out that the context in the game probably meant the slave master was talking about Aventurine's ability to attract attention from fans watching the literal Sigonian Hunger Games, rather than having a direct sexual-slavery connotation.

Second, the comment from Sparkle about stripping naked and getting on his knees for Sunday. This one has way more implication in English than I think it might for an Eastern audience, actually. In English, this pretty much sounds like Sparkle saying Aventurine trades sexual favors for success in his gambles. However, I suspect the original intention in Chinese was more about humiliation. Western audiences don't have as much history with honor-based prostration, i.e. accepting corporal humiliation as a form of reconciliation that Eastern audiences might be more familiar with. And in any case, Sparkle is Sparkle. She probably just went for the lowest blow she could think of here.

Third, the general assumption that if Sigonian slaves were being chained, branded, beaten, sent to death matches, etc., it seems logical that they would also be taken advantage of in other ways. I honestly think this is probably the fairest take--many, many real slaves around the world faced (and still face!) sexual abuse, so if slaves from Sigonia were treated so poorly you could make them fight to the death for entertainment, it stands to reason they were probably also not safe from other forms of assault. We also have no idea what happened to Kakavasha in any of the years between his being a tiny child fleeing the massacre and then being purchased as a slave as a late-teens-early-twenties person. That's a very long time for a child to have to survive on their own on an extremely hostile planet and not face risks of all kinds or end up needing to do unspeakable things to survive. So I think this is at least not that far-fetched, although it's important to say there's nothing in the game that directly confirms this.

And fourth: I read a tweet semi-recently that stated that one of the Chinese (or maybe it was Japanese) names for a quest Aventurine was involved in was actually a reference to a book about a teenage sexual assault survivor. However, when I tried to verify this myself, I couldn't find any quest Aventurine was in that was based on a book about sexual assault in either English, Chinese, or Japanese. It's possible I just missed something, but I'm taking this one with a bit of a grain of salt currently, since I can't confirm it personally.

Regarding your other question, about whether I think Aventurine sleeps around to make deals...

I definitely think he does not, for one major reason.

First, I will admit that Aventurine is definitely willing to use his appearance to his advantage. This is pretty obvious. He wears incredibly flashy clothes, baths himself in cologne, overloads on glittering golden jewels, and absolutely calls attention to his appearance when working with clients.

We see him actively doing this in his Moment Among the Stars video, where he is clearly using his looks as an equal tool (to his wealth), to daze his target.

It's not an accident that he says things like "Use me as you wish," with all the explicit connotations preserved. The implication is there. However, unless he was absolutely backed into a corner, I think that implication is all it will ever be.

The reason I think this is that the devs go out of their way to give Aventurine three fairly noticeable physical behaviors in his in-game scenes:

For one, he has some of the most closed off body language of any character in the game.

Aventurine's default conversation pose is arms crossed directly and tightly in front of himself. This is like "Defensive Body Language 101." By crossing your arms, you put a symbolic barrier between yourself and the person you're speaking to, and also ensure that your hands are up and available in case you actually need to physically defend yourself.

Virtually all of Aventurine's conversations take place from this stance, no matter who he is speaking to (from the Trailblazer all the way to Topaz). He deliberately closes his pose off and tightens up his silhouette, which just sends a glaring "Don't touch me" message.

This closing off is also blatantly apparent when you compare it to the deliberately open poses he strikes while trying to make himself seem accessible to others (like tempting clients) or seem powerful (to intimidate):

Complementing this habit of closing himself off is a second noticeable aspect of his body language: He frequently avoids eye contact to the point that he even holds conversations while entirely facing away from the person he's speaking to.

I might be a bit lenient and say maybe he's doing this to on purpose to be mysterious, whoo~~ But... in all honestly, he just does this with everyone, even with Ratio while trying to talk about an actual important issue (wanting to look into Acheron's real identity). Hell, even the fake Aventurine does it to himself!

We can even say that wearing the rose-tinted glasses in the first place is another intentional barrier, one Aventurine deliberately removes in specific moments to give people the (false) impression that he's "letting them in" to his circle:

Now, this might be a bit more complicated in Aventurine's case, because eye contact has a whole extra meaning when eyes are the defining trait of your species and come with particularly challenging racial stereotypes. So it may be that Aventurine is simply used to conducting conversation while looking away to minimize racial prejudice against his eyes' unique appearance.

However, I'd also argue that the devs deliberately turned his entire model away in cutscene after cutscene to create a clear sense of being inaccessible, unapproachable, and unwilling to engage in the physical intimacy of standing closely, directly facing, and staring at his conversation partners.

While he faces away, he controls both the figurative and the literal direction of conversation, forcing people to keep their eyes on him while he is free to move as he pleases. Over and over again, it just says "I want to be the one in control. I'm not afraid to show my back to you, but you are not welcome to come near me."

And, in fact, that's a third aspect of his character's body language that I am sure the devs did not include accidentally: More so than other characters, many of Aventurine's conversations are conducted from weirdly far distances. Like, half the time he's talking, he's standing all the way on the opposite side of the room!

This habit of speaking from a-larger-than-normal distance is apparent in the first scene with Himeko...

And then in just about every other conversation too:

The bubble is twenty feet in every direction.

Like yes, he does approach and have conversations like a normal person... sometimes... But it is significantly more noticeable with Aventurine than with other characters that he often conducts whole conversations--even with his allies--from a distance. Just genuinely weirdly far apart.

Leaving space for Gaiathra, I guess.

And it's because these significant decisions were made with Aventurine's in-game body language that, when he deliberately alters his own behavior, it is instantaneously noticeable.

In 2.0, he closes the distance, the glasses come off, and he gets directly up in the Trailblazer's face.

It's uncomfortable not just because the player is suddenly being loomed over, but because this behavior has already been subconsciously established for the player as out of character for Aventurine.

The barriers the character himself was putting up are deliberately stripped away so that he can use physicality and demanding eye contact to intimidate his target. He has to reverse his own normal body language in order to come across as domineering (and, I guess if you're into that, appealing in a domineering manner).

And ummmm, just a tiny aside here because I can't resist:

This does mean that when the game goes out of its way to demonstrate Aventurine altering his own normal habit of distant and defensive body language, it is absolutely intentional.

Yes, this is a Ratiorine post in disguise. There literally isn't any other character in the game that Aventurine is shown being comfortable standing so close to and interacting with in this manner. This doesn't occur in every one of their scenes, but Ratio is the only character that this happens with repeatedly. It's not an accident that the devs literally added "They were walking side-by-side" as flavor text.

But look, I'll be fair: There's a great example of this in Aventurine's scene with Acheron too, where he closes the distance and attempts to make eye contact with her--seeking her guidance and closeness--and she is actually the one stepping away, speaking with her back turned, demonstrating her power and control (and issues with connection!) in that scene.

Anyway, this was a whole longggg tangent into analyzing Aventurine's body language, but my point is that, overall, the devs deliberately adjusted his model's actions in-game to give the impression of a person who clearly wants to be in control of every interaction he has with other people, who insists on distance over intimacy, and whose stances and habits suggest that he is significantly less accessible and open than his "Use me as you wish" motto might suggest.

Long story longer, I think that there is almost zero chance Aventurine is willingly ceding control over himself or the actions expected of him to anyone he isn't 100% comfortable with, and I think that using physical intimacy of any kind would be an absolute last resort for him. Frankly, he comes across as more likely to shoot himself in the foot than let someone he doesn't trust lay hands on him.

To me, he reads very much as "You may look, but you may not touch."

[wilwheaton]

I found out your were on Tumblr because Neil Gaiman reblogged something of yours. I enjoy the fact that you both get the "are you really ____" asks. People's incredulity at you both being on this site makes me smile.

I can't speak for Neil, but speaking for myself, a weird elder who lives in the deepest part of the oldest woods, I love it when someone wanders by and notices this little cottage that's pretty much been here since before the woods were planted.

[marimbles]

being bad at video games is fun because it makes your character a uniquely stupid yet resilient and plucky sort of hero. an underdog no one would ever expect to win. so if you finally do it feels like slightly different and potentially funner version of the story. It’s like look, this idiot FINALLY beat the big bad guy! it took them 900 tries but by Jove they did it! WOOOOOO! GO IDIOT!!! YOU DID IT, BUD 👏 ⁽ᵉᵛᵉⁿᵗᵘᵃˡˡʸ⁾

[theminecraftbee]

actually what is it about impulse’s hermit fam SPECIFICALLY that sets off my second-hand embarrassment. I’m fine with the parody classics like fallen kingdom. or things like the creeper rap. like any red-blooded hermitcraft fan I cheer for hermitgang. several elybeatmaker remixes are bangers—resource gathering is my personal favorite but like, I listen to several of those for fun. empires the musical is so earnest and I genuinely love the whole thing and will plug it at any opportunity. I listen to all of the redacted hills sings joe hills albums and know those lyrics better than the “real” ones in many cases. wels’s two hermitcraft raps are fine and his flow is like, legitimately decent in them. I will listen to any of THESE fine. what is the blocker with hermit fam. is it genuinely just that impulse sets off my latent “oh god dad stop” instincts. I am twenty-six why do I even have those,

[theworldatwar]

German soldiers captured at Nijmegen as part of Operation Market Garden - Sept 1944

[aroaceleovaldez]

i honestly wish rr would just write for something that has nothing to do with pjo not the same characters not the universe just go and write something new bc i really liked daughter of the deep and i think he's wrung everything out of the pjoverse yk? he's a good writer but he needs to go do something different

I agree - the problem with Rick's writing is he's heavily reliant on his writing being derivative. He struggles to write original stuff. PJO, HoO, ToA, etc are all derivative from Greco-Roman mythology/history. MCGA is Norse mythology/history, TKC is Egyptian mythology/history. Daughter of the Deep is Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea. And he's not terrible at it! The problem is that can't go on forever. He runs out of material to work from over time and suddenly the quality of the franchise tanks dramatically. Especially as he loses overarching connecting threads to tie the plots together, so it just becomes this soup of throwing references at the wall with no cohesion to see what sticks. And it's bad!

We started seeing it in HoO, also in part due to Rick trying to combine too many disparate inspirations to the main plot to begin with and didn't know how to make them mesh well (Seven Against Thebes, Gigantomachy, Argonauts, Odyssey). TKC and MCGA were okay because they're only three book series, so that's plenty of mythology to draw from with stuff left over, and the majority of their companion novel stuff is ghostwritten anyways. The shorter series span means less filler required so less mythology is used up and there ya go. In the longer series, Rick has to spend those five books filling in the gaps of that overarching plot and he runs out of material fast - that's why by the end of HoO it was just turning into blatant Marvel references. Now that we're getting into a fourth installment in the main series collection, even though it's only a three-book series, Rick has basically written himself into a corner because he doesn't write anything else. He ran out of places to go with the franchise like two series ago! So now he's just throwing literally anything he can think of at things (literally just plucking random mythological figures and pop culture references or tropes), or if he can't think of anything, apparently just blatantly lifting stuff from the community.

At this point the only possible Greco-Roman series I think he'd be able to do without it being total garbage would be a 3-book Roman series set during SoM-TLO/The Second Titan War. I don't think he should do that and I don't want him to, but based on everything that's probably just what would have the best likelihood of success. It just seems like the only place he can go. Anything else he'd have to do something actually original, and he's shown time and time again that he's not interested in doing that and isn't very good at it anymore.

[myrmica]

its so funny that all minute—the guy who once upon a time hoped to redeem zam—'s team has accomplished is getting him to consider giving up his remaining honor in order to match the level they're playing on ?

[charcubed]

oh everyone and their DISCLAIMERS about how “lokius will never be canon because disney and marvel are awful, but”........ well I have nothing to lose so. fuck disclaimers! this is my idea of fun! what if it CAN and WILL be canon, huh? what if the story is gonna go where it seems to be headed. what if I say they’re going to kiss on international streaming television. who’s gonna stop me

[littlelewdmable]

A Bridge To The Past

Jaune: Hey, Oscar.

Oscar: Yeah?

Jaune: Can I talk to Ozpin really quick?

Oscar: Eh, sure.

Ozcar: How can I help you, Mr. Arc?

Jaune: Did you know my great grandfather? I've heard a lot of stories about him, but you're the only person left who would remember what he was really like.

Ozcar: ...The iteration before the one you knew did.

Jaune: What was he like?

Ozcar: ...

------

Context: *Vale's army is currently surrounded*

Atlesian Soldier: *Holding a white flag* My General says that there is no point in continuing this fighting. He is willing to discuss a surrender.

King Oz: ...Tell him to go to Hell.

Louis Arc: ...We haven't the proper facilities to take you all prisoner. Sorry.

Atlesian Soldier: What?

Louis: We'd like to, but we can't accept your surrender.

Atlesian Soldier: ...

Louis: Was there anything else?

------

Ozcar: He was... memorable.

[jukeboxjunk]

watched Goncharov for the first time last night, didn’t expect to be sobbing by the end

[centrally-unplanned]

Hot take but the sweep of super-rich donors coming into Trump's court recently isn't actually all of them going "yeah I hate Trump but I want those tax cuts". At least not primarily, like sure lower taxes is part of why they have Republican leanings to begin with. But billionaires are pretty price insensitive, it doesn't really matter to them all that much if they are paying 20% or 25% on their capital gains, they aren't spending it either way.

Instead its that they think he is gonna win. The Republican primary is over, he is the nom, Biden is set as the opponent, and the polling numbers are pretty clear on that contest. Might change of course, no one is sure, but you gotta back some horse if you are in this game. They don't need to donate to Trump to make him lower taxes on the rich, Republicans will do literally anything to lower taxes on the rich, its their most sacred principle. Like I'm not mocking them there, its objectively true, its nearly the only active agenda item they have consistently pursued in every single administration over the past several decades. You do not need to donate to them to make them do that, and you also don't think your donation is gonna make that much of a different on the win odds. Those donations probably won't pay for themselves vis a vis tax cuts.

What it does do is buy you influence for other agenda items the Republicans don't care about, but might sell to you. And Trump is infamously willing to sell an awful lot of the policy space to the highest bidder, even if he is quite mercurial when it comes to the execution on that. Its not about "lowering taxes", its about getting an exemption for The One Product Your Business Needs on the the tariff policy, or a specific deregulation of biotech rules at the FDA, or w/e. Many of which wont even be directly about making money! Some will be but again price insensitive, its about ideology and vision for projects and other stuff. And the majority (not all ofc) would in fact be quite happy to buy that from Biden, if he was A: selling so openly, and B: likely to win. Since neither is true, they are taking the deal on hand.

[interlagosed]

Checo pushed carlos’ helmet????? Not to be dramatic but we should bring back the inquisiti–

[kopykunoichi]

No thoughts in my head, just them.

Left column: chapters 47, 62, 98

Center column: chapters 137, 175, 175

Right column: chapters 201, 225, 225