#damn that was long

[mythical-lotus]

This is a thought I had about God of War Ragnarok that I feel like I've not seen anyone else discuss but has plagued my mind since it ended. Everyone - characters and players alike - seem to forget that Brok accepted his death at Odin's hand.

Let me elaborate.

Brok (and Sindri) built Mjolnir for Thor. He had worked with the Aesir in the past. And, upon seeing the horrible destruction wrought from the hammer, created the Leviathan Axe for Faye. He was also a dwarf, and while we may not know the exact timeline of Asgard's occupation, he is obviously well aware of what Odin did in his home realm - specifically to what happened to dwarves who attempted revolution or other uprising.

The point is, Brok was very aware of what Odin and Asgard were like when he decided to help Kratos and Atreus.

Now, on to Post-Brok's death.

Obviously Sindri is heartbroken, and I cannot blame him for his anger against Atreus and Kratos in any way at this point in time. They were the people who effectively recruited Brok and Sindri into the protagonists' group, and even if the two dwarves were happy to do it, Kratos and Atreus were still the ones who asked them to. Brok's death resulted from that request.

But it was still Brok's informed and willing choice.

To quote Freya from God of War 2018, "I put my needs, my fears before [Baldur's] own." And that feels very much like what Sindri has done with Brok in my opinion.

When Brok originally died in the forge, Sindri saved him but refused to tell Brok what happened and in turn caused their split. When he died a second time by Odin's hand, Sindri came to blame Atreus (and to some extent the others), regardless of Brok's agency and knowledge of what he was getting into. Brok knew that they were heading towards Ragnarok and feasibly their deaths. He obviously didn't want to die, but he openly accepted the risks that came with aiding Atreus.

Sindri placed his own fear of being alone above the desires of Brok to know how he died and to help with Ragnarok.

I should add here that it's one thing for Sindri to blame Atreus initially, because he was grieving the death of his beloved brother and literally about to go to war. I won't blame him for that.

But, given what's been set up in the games, Sindri will probably continue to be antagonistic. And, if he continues to blame Atreus for what happened to Brok - it will draw an interesting parallel to Kratos and Freya in my opinion.

One party blaming the other for the death of a loved one that was partially the blamed person's fault, while the true culprit (Odin in both cases) is left unacknowledged. In the first case, Odin is ignored because Freya could not get to him, but she could get to Kratos and blame him for Baldur's death. In the second case, Odin is already dead by Sindri's own hand, Brok's soul cannot be revived, and Sindri mostly lacks the power to do more that tell Atreus he hates him. There is no satisfying vengeance to Sindri's grief that hasn't already been achieved, which is why I think he'll be an antagonist in the future, since he's obviously still angry.

There's also a side-tangent I could write on - the fact that Sindri was sent to rally the dwarves against Asgard, but chose not to involve them during Ragnarok. Obviously it did successfully keep the dwarves safe, which was Sindri's intention - but it robbed them of their ability to fight for their freedom during Ragnarok (something they probably wanted to do very badly considering the rebellions talked about in the game), which is once again a parallel to Kratos, Freya, and Baldur's death.

We see it in almost every other aspect of the games' story. Atreus and Kratos lying or withholding details from each other - not maliciously, but with the intent to protect in a way that backfires (in both 2018 and Ragnarok). The same with Freya and Baldur (her protection spell driving him insane), and even with Thrud, Thor, and Sif (her mother claiming that Thrud can't be a Valkyrie because Sif is afraid of what Odin will make her do in that role, while Thor encourages it so that she might be strong enough to keep herself safe).

And finally, Sindri claiming that Brok's death was the fault of Atreus despite Brok's informed and willing choice to fight Odin, denying Brok agency over his choice to help, even in death.

A quote Kratos from God of War Ragnarok to sum this whole thing up, "I do not regret saving your life and never will. But the choice between life and death should have been yours to make. I should not have robbed you of that choice."

[lightkrets312]

directed at Ry AND Red- 👁️⚠️💙🧁🧠☕❗🔅🐺🚷

I brought this upon myself.

welp, you're getting this one OC at a time-

Edit: I answered the WRONG QUESTION TWICE ☠️

Ry

⚠️ If this oc came with a warning sign, what would it be?

👁️ How do other people perceive this oc? How close do their first assumptions come to the truth? A very tired (and possibly lazy) person who doesn't give half a shit. Only one of these things is true.

👁️‍🗨️ Eye contact: good or bad for the OC? They hate it, but they'll do it. Not stellar.

💙 Describe their bedroom! Is it personalized, unchanged? Messy, neat? It's a very personalized depression nest, if one can call such a thing personalized. (This is, of course, assuming it's a Ry with a place to live...)

🧁 When is their birthday? How do they celebrate it, if at all? They don't celebrate, but it's... (*looks up when I made them*) September 19th. If they do celebrate, they take charge of the planning and do it all themself, but the last time they did something intensive, they were like... 12. Every year after it's chill, if anything.

🧠 What is their stress response: fight, flight, freeze, or fawn? Freeze as a first response. Fight as a second.

☕️ What is their preferred beverage(s)? Monster nitro.

❗️ What are the highest priorities to this oc (at a point in their life of your choosing)? Keeping Red in check and maintaining what shreds of a normal life they can keep... for however long they can. These are not compatible goals. They need a break and aren't allowed to take one :(

🔆 How does this oc deal with physical pain? Ry deals with physical pain? (On a serious note, typically they don't stay conscious for that. If they're a civilian, badly; if they're a fighter of any kind, better.)

🐺 How does this oc deal with solitude? How does this self-isolating, socially awkward, estranged, mentally ill person deal with solitude? ("Pretty well", if they don't think about the horrors. So kinda shit.)

🚷 Tell one difference between yourself and this oc! At least half of them are dead, most of them are possessed if they're not the possessor, and all of them are stuck in a job that doesn't help them.

=============================

Red

⚠️ If this oc came with a warning sign, what would it be?

👁️ How do other people perceive this oc? How close do their first assumptions come to the truth? Most of the time, as a very VIOLENT sort of creature, and an asshole. This is the surface level truth. Deep down, they're first and foremost a child. A very violent jackass of a child, but still a child.

👁️‍🗨️ Eye contact: good or bad for the OC? Oh they love eye contact- they have so many eyes to see you with! (they make too much of it, if anything.)

💙 Describe their bedroom! Is it personalized, unchanged? Messy, neat? If they have a room, they call it "organized chaos". It's just a mess that they know how to navigate, and they don't see a point in cleaning.

🧁 When is their birthday? How do they celebrate it, if at all? Technically it's November 2nd. They don't actually have one most of the time*.

(*unless they're a human variant that's not a twin.)

🧠 What is their stress response: fight, flight, freeze, or fawn? They ARE the fight response :)

☕️ What is their preferred beverage(s)? They don't drink! Ry does that. But they think alcohol is very funny for the effects on the human body, and they agree with Ry on "sweet" being fuckin TASTY.

❗️ What are the highest priorities to this oc (at a point in their life of your choosing)? Protect Ry and make chaos. In neither order.

🔆 How does this oc deal with physical pain? What pain? They just turn off the nervous system.

🐺 How does this oc deal with solitude? HATE it. Hate hate HATE it, they are a despicably outdoor creature and need enrichment NOW. Ry, punch out right now, they need to blow something up. Ry please. Ry-

🚷 Tell one difference between yourself and this oc! Most of the time, they're inhuman, if they ever were in the first place. They also typically don't care about property damage, ever. As for the one outlier, they have actual consistent pressure to get better and can't squirm out of the responsibility.

[lady-stardust-incarnate]

hello all here's my inconclusive rant on my thoughts on aliens

right so first of all, to me it's hard not to believe they exist in some sort of intelligent form. I mean we already know there's dozens of planets that are suitable for life, many even having better conditions for humans than earth

Basically there's probably plenty of life that we don't know about yet, I mean scientists believe that life could exist in an age where most low mass stars have become white dwarfs and our star isn't that unique to us, even more so when you consider that we've only looked into a tiny portion of our universe, only discovered around 10000 exoplanets knowing there could be millions, billions, etc.

But my main question is if we somehow found a way to meet with life on other planets, what would happen from there?

The first problem starts with communication, being that they could communicate with each other in ways that our brains could never think of because the concept of what they do just doesn't exist on earth. To me its like the colour spectrum where we can't imagine new colours that we can't see because our brains just aren't capable of visualising them with the way that we are (I still want to be that one little shrimp that can see loads of colours).

Then there's the further possibility of them for example communicating in sounds that are far too high in frequency for humans to even register. Communicating in sounds that many humans can't differentiate because of our limited pitch recognition ability.

And even if they just so happened to speak in a way that's just like a regular language on earth, they will have evolved in a completely different way so that the structure of their languages are completely different. There may not even be a part present and future tense in their languages and we almost certainly wouldn't be able to work out how to speak it using any comparison of human languages.

Basically it would be almost impossible to learn how to communicate with them. Also considering that the only way languages spread on Earth is through people who know multiple languages and are able to teach both, and people working out communication through typical language structures and conjugations and managing to work put each others languages. Given that these other life forms' languages may not have any patterns at all and seem completely random to us.

Closing thoughts are that even if we somehow came into contact with other worldly life forms, it could be impossible or take years to be able to even slightly communicate with them. This to me doesn't make the idea of aliens any less interesting, but it really goes to show how much is truly unfathomable to the human brain which will likely be knowledge we can't ever gain because it's simply too far out of reach.

[wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee28374728]

Wendigo!Josh Headcanons

I always got the idea that the spirit can't leave the mountain, so when the rescue team took him down from the mountain, the spirit wouldn't be in control of him anymore

The first person who comes to see him in the hospital is the real Dr. Hill. I've always thought that real Dr. Hill was actually a really nice guy. The others are still mad at him at this point, and Dr. Hill was concerned about his prank to begin with

They finally get him on the right meds to calm down a bit and stop the hallucinations

Chris and Sam are the first of the group to warm back up to him, convinced by Dr. Hill

He has partial wendigo vision loss and now wears glasses, which he hates and wants contacts instead, but with how the shape of his eyes has kind of changed, he can't get contacts to fit or stay in(I've never worn contacts so if this ain't how it works I'm sorry 😭)

When he's finally released from the hospital, he mostly just hides in one of his parents' houses, trying to keep his distance from them because he thinks they blame him for what happened to Hannah and Beth, and that they'd hate him for looking different

On the rare occasions he goes outside during those first few months, he wears a face mask to hide his teeth

He likes to sleep under things, in dark, warm, cozy spots, so sometimes he'll wake up under the bed and not remember going down there in the night

He will sometimes still make wendigo screeching noises when startled

He likes his meat a little more rare now, and thinks its gross, repeatedly apologizing if he eats in front of other people, even though it's not that bad

Winter reminds him of everything that's happened and he prefers to spend winter either indoors or someplace warm

It takes his parents a while to get through to him that it's not his fault and they're just glad that he's still alive

He has trouble gaining weight now and is usually a little skinny

Eventually, the rest of the group slowly comes around once he's been on the proper meds for a while

Once he's more comfortable with himself again, he starts taking advantage of and having fun with his wendigo powers

He can climb up on the ceiling to easily kill bugs, or just for fun to get around the house

When the group comes over he'll take off his glasses and they can play Marco Polo

When he's genuinely happy or sleeping, he purrs. Not exactly like a cat, but like a rumbling noise in his chest and throat that happens whether he likes it or not

He walks really quietly now and can sneak up on people easily

Chris encourages him to be more comfortable with wearing glasses

I want to believe that the rescue team found other wendigos and knows what happened, so he never gets in trouble or anything

They do keep and use the flamethrower guy's notebooks as a kind of handbook for understanding the changes in behavior or preferences

He's even more protective of everyone in the group now

I don't think he'd ever stop wearing the face mask in public just to avoid attention from strangers or scaring people, especially kids

I think he'd eventually(like maybe after 2 or 3 years) he'd go back to college again

Eventually, he doesn't have to see Dr. Hill anymore as a therapist and just needs to keep taking his meds, but Dr. Hill still checks in on him and makes sure he's ok

(I am using the word eventually too fucking much)

He never goes back up on the mountain again for any reason, because there's no way of knowing if the spirit would just come right back and possess him again

I think the family just fences off the whole mountain as is and leaves it alone so no one else gets hurt

He wishes that they could have gotten Hannah off the mountain now that he knows the spirit would have let her go

[fire-but-ashes-too]

storytime (??)

(@steh-lar-uh-nuhs i hope this explains lol)

this feels very weird but ive been asked a question and i shall respond :)

little intro so we know what were talking about, i had 13 of my teeth removed since they didnt fall, usually teeth start to fall out at 6~ but when i was six, they stayed there.

thing is, the others were starting to grow and i was looking like a shark, so my mom took me to her dentist (who also "operated" on children) but the stubborn af 6 yo me absolutely refused to even open my mouth, so we spent an hour with these poor nurses bribing me with toothbrushes and totthpaste if i opened my mouth. obviously, it didnt work.

so we went to another dentist, who happened to be the dad of one of my friends and immediately i was super nice and happy.

so, first time and we took out two, then i had to come back and take out another one and so on, sometimes single and sometimes two at a time.

i never had any counter-effects apart from one time where i kept bleeding for 3 hours from the hole where the tooth was. but i got to eat ice cream for dinner so it wasnt that bad.

i think the last ones were when i was 13/14 but by then it was normal to me, the trick is to never EVER open your eyes or ask what theyre going to put in your mouth and stuff. i know its scary and you might want to know, but trust me, dont do it, it will only creep you out more.

i also had a couple types of braces, so i was at the dentist pretty often.

if youve never had an extraction but have to do it, my advice is (other than dont look) dont go in alone, take something you can squeeze, even a hand, and keep your eyes shut. it doesnt hurt that much and its not that terrifying, at leat it wasnt for me, and i get panic attacks everytime i have to get an injection or something with a needle.

end of storytime! i hope i answered our question and didnt freak anyone out 😅

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Expertise can't help you here.

[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.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"

just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible

[robinhuntr]

Me seeing the new Superman content we’ve been getting and realizing that we’re finally healing from the “Evil Superman” era:

[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

[herbarimoon]

Here with you

+ bonus danganronpa blood version

[frownyalfred]

“You wanna fight someone, you fight me” seemed like a silly rule at first. but after there was more than one batkid living in the Manor at the same time, suddenly the prospect of having to spar with Bruce on the mats because you couldn’t stop yourself from throwing a punch at Tim earlier is terrifying.

[inkskinned]

you're in the habit of denying yourself things.

if someone asked you directly, you would say that you love a little treat. you like iced coffee and getting the cookie. you drink juice out of a fancy cup sometimes, and often do use your candles until they gutter out helplessly.

but you hesitate about buying the 20 dollar hand mixer because, like. you could just use your arms. you weren't raised rich. you don't get to just spend the 20 dollars (remember when that could cover lunch?), at least - you don't spend that without agonizing over it first, trying to figure out the cost-benefits like you are defending yourself in front of a jury. yes, this rice cooker could seriously help you. but you do know how to make stovetop rice and it really isn't that hard. how many pies or brownies would you actually make, in order to make that hand mixer worthwhile?

what's wild is that if the money was for a friend, it would already be spent. you'd fork over 40 without blinking an eye, just to make them happy. the difference is that it's for you, so you need to justify it.

and it sneaks in. you ration yourself without meaning to - you don't finish the pint of ice cream, even though you want to. the next time you go to the store, you say ah, i really shouldn't, and then you walk away. you save little bits of your precious things - just in case. sometimes you even go so far as putting that one thing in your shopping cart. and then just leaving it there, because maybe-one-day, but not right now, there's other stuff going on.

you do self-care, of course. but you don't do it more than like, 3 days in a row. after that it just feels a little bit over-the-edge. like. you can't live in decadence, the economy is so bad right now, kid.

so you don't buy the rice cooker. you can-and-will spend the time over the stove. you can withstand the little sorrows. denial and discipline are practically synonyms. and you're not spoiled.

it's just - it's not always a rice cooker. sometimes it is a person or a job or a hug. sometimes it is asking for help. sometimes it is the summer and your college degree. sometimes it is looking down at scabbed knees and feeling a strange kind of falling, like you can't even recognize the girl you used to be. sometimes it is your handprint looking unsteady.

sometimes it is tuesday, and you didn't get fired, and you want to celebrate. but what is it you like, even? you search around your little heart and come up empty. you're so used to denying that all your desires draw a blank.

oh fuck. see, this is the perfect opportunity. if you had a mixer, you'd make a cake.

[0fps]

JIYAN ❖ THROUGH THE DARKEST OF NIGHTS

Jiyan, leader of the Midnight Rangers, acts with swift and resolute righteousness. He possesses the formidable ability to conjure a powerful Qingloong from the winds, making him invincible on the battlefield.

[hermit-frog]

[an-established-butt-dent]

Soooooo after the new details that have been revealed about Veilguard, how do we all imagine a Solavellan reunion is going down? Trapped in the fade together? Lighthouse makeout sessions? A very sad mural dedicated to his Vhenan? My brain is infested with new headcanons.