#exploiting weaknesses

[bobbie-robron]

I’m just supersensitive to these things ever since I found out my brother had slept with my wife the night before our wedding day.

25-Jan-2019

[proxythe]

u cant fool ur best friend, kotone

[oatmealdoodles]

One-sided RadioStatic my beloved

[epickiya722]

You know what, Sukuna lowkey had it out for Choso since Shibuya. Probably did not like the fact that Yuji had someone, actual family... an actual blood brother that cared about him. He been had plans to kill him, I just know it.

[bookwyrminspiration]

i have strong feelings about this and think about it often so I'm curious if anyone else does

it's just for yourself. pretend getting rid of it works perfectly fine exactly how you want it to, suspension of disbelief you can just blast it logic. we're fantasizing here, cowboy.

feel free to explain why you made your choice, what/if you'd replace it with something, etc. personally? FUCK the digestive system. let me photosynthesize

[lightningstrikes-art]

[bigolbadblog]

i know that mafia romance is cringe or whatever but like. the feedism possibilities...

it's about the unrepentant enjoyment of the good life. and also. fat crime bosses who carry their size as a symbol of power. who are constantly inviting their inner circle to big, lavish family style dinners. and, of course, no one dares refuse the boss's generosity, so everyone's cleaning their plate... and then their next plate too

[istadris]

Luigi is the epitome of ticklish. He will shriek at the smallest touches, wriggle around if you start poking him; even pretending to tickle him is enough to make him giggle.

On the other hand, Mario is seemingly immune to tickling. Barely reacting when someone tries to make him laugh, it's almost infuriating how little he cares.

Except in a couple of specific spots, and Luigi is the only one to know them. Once he starts poking him in these spots, Mario is left wheezing and laughing his ass off, and from then on it's like all of his immunity wore off, he'll react to any touches as long as the tickling fight goes on.

Luigi would be lying if he said he never took advantage of it.

[nanakorobiyaokii]

HAITHAM HE’S JUST ASKING IF YOU’RE OKAY CHILL YOU MF😭😭😭

[lokiusly]

Loki in S1E1: a god doesn’t plead 🙄

Loki in S1E2-S2E6: Mobius please 🥹

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

Love how Vox and Velvette seem to alternate between portraying themselves as the ‘head’ of their little trio, with Velvette referring to herself as “the backbone of the Vees” and Vox plastering his logo over everything and vehemently denying Alastor's insinuation that he couldn't go on without the other two.

And meanwhile, like… Hells entire cinematic industry seems to mostly centre around porn.

Like, I'm sure there are other films out there (Blitzø has apparently seen Shrek) but the “cinephiles” are all off watching “award winning demon bukkake shows”. And I'd be very surprised if the internet porn industry wasn't also pretty big.

Outside the main three Vees, Angel Dust appears to be the figure most associated with their brand. Not any of Velvette's models or Vox's stars. And posters of Angel appear in the Lust Ring in Ozzies, implying that Val's influence extends outside Pride, something that doesn't seem to be the case for the other Vees.

And the whole reason Vox had to hire Sir Pentious to spy on the hotel is because Val hires so many people that all the randos on the street who might be looking for a quick buck were already working for him. Given how sex-obsessed the culture is generally (and considering that for every pornstar Val hires, he's also going to need several camera people, sound people, set designers, editors, etc.) Val could easily qualify as the biggest employer in Pride.

And if he owns even a fraction of those souls, he'd probably be one of the most powerful Overlords with or without the other two backing him up.

And that's not even getting into the age thing!

All the Media Demons seem to be loosely associated with the era when their chosen form of media got popular.

Vel is the social media demon, and one of the youngest Overlords, seeming to have died in the '10s. Vox is the TV demon and supposedly died in the 1950s. Alastor is the Radio Demon and died in the 1930s.

Photographic porn first became a big thing in the late 1800s. Val's style of dress to me loosely indicates 1910s or 1920s. If we're sticking with the established pattern then Valentino could well be older than Alastor.

What I'm saying is: the reason Valentino seems so much less concerned with the image and branding of the Vees compared to the other two might not just be him being dumb and impulsive.

From his perspective, the whole Vee thing might just be something his boyfriend and best friend are invested in, that he just kinda puts up with (and, heck, probably finances) because it makes them happy and gets him out of Overlord meetings.

Out of the three of them, Val may actually be the one who would be most able to go it alone, and the one who is the main source of their power. Possibly the only reason Vox and Vel even get to argue over who is the top dog in the group is because the actual top dog is too busy with his real business to give much of a shit about their fun side project.

[bombusbombus]

It is vitally, vitally important that Clark Kent is boring.

I don't mean 'boring' in an inherently bad way. A desk job is boring. Data analysis is boring. Due process is boring. All of these things are imperative for a functioning society but almost nobody will ever be praised for them.

When my car got stolen a year ago, the guy who took it stole a bunch of other stuff too. I was sitting with a cop in a backroom of the campus police station for almost an hour while he was doing paperwork (to make sure everyone would get their stuff back), and at one point he looked up at me and he said, "sorry about this. It's not all shootouts and car chases like on TV."

And I almost said, "well, due process is sexy" (I didn't, for obvious reasons). But he looked surprised when I told him I thought due process was pretty cool. Like nobody is supposed to think due process is cool. Things are only cool if they're glamorous or flashy.

The guy who stole my car was horribly addicted to meth. The sheriff told me, "you should press charges so we can put him away for as long as possible."

The sheriff was lost in a world of heroes and villains. He was the "hero." The addict was the "villain." But the person who helped people was the guy at a desk, who went back over the mile long paper trail and returned every stolen item to its owner. The important stuff is when some guy in an office writes an algorithm to save endangered whales, or when the third double blind test finally shows sufficient evidence for the efficacy of a new cancer treatment. The goose that actually lays the golden egg almost never cackles.

This is why the 'Glasses' comic is so important, to me. We live in a world which glorifies exciting acts of heroism but not "boring" ones. We live in a world that thinks people like Clark Kent aren't important, when they're often doing the most important work, solving the systemic issues, saving people who aren't lost yet. Sometimes we need firefighters, but in a perfect world, we'd only need safety inspectors.

And sure, Superman is necessary within the story. There are disasters and villainy he can prevent. There are lives he can save. But being Superman is ultimately a terrible sacrifice, and if the heroism wasn't necessary he'd be Clark Kent all day. That's what makes him not a cop: he's not enjoying the car chases and shootouts. He avoids letting things get 'interesting' at all costs. He avoids glory.

The comic Strong Female Protagonist (by Brennan Lee Mulligan and Molly Ostertag, BRING IT BACK) has several fascinating pieces of philosophy on superheroes and society, but my favourite is this:

Kal-el, living solar battery, isn't just someone who contributes to society from the outside or the top. He plugs away at boring, everyday kindnesses just like other humans. (This can make for great contrasts with Lex Luthor, who is the epitome of a light bulb person and could never understand why Superman would want to be a battery.)

Clark Kent is boring. Clark Kent plays things by the book. Clark Kent is sexy in the same way that due process is sexy, and any character who thinks the Clark Kent side is 'less than' the Superman side, is textually a goddamn idiot. "No glory save honour" and he will always have both.

[lucreziagiovane]

the irony of cesare slutshaming juan for sleeping in brothels had me with tears in my eyes considering his very first scene in the show is him rawdogging a prostitute like his life depended on it...like babygirl we see you!!!

[aspiringnexu]

Okay, so, Alastor theory. As far as I know nobody's discussed why Alastor ever made such an apparently disadvantageous deal.

I mean, his power is apparently leashed. He cannot access his true strength. He essentially handicapped himself in Hell. Alastor detests not being in control, he craves power because it nets him control and therefore nets him safety and security, a very rare commodity for a demon. Even an Overlord.

So why the hell would Alastor make such a shitty deal? He's a dealmaker, he knows how this works, it can't just be the result of tricky wording, there must have been something else at play.

Additionally, I'm in the camp that its Eve that has something to do with it. Lilith makes sense of a sort but why would she leash Alastor and then have him help Charlie with a project that would piss off Heaven? She's Lilith, she knows that trying to bypass the initial judgement and redeeming yourself would upset the bigwigs in Heaven. She knows they don't like having their rules bent and twisted. She gains nothing from pissing off the Heavenly Host by indirectly helping her daughter. She made a mysterious deal with Adam to get into Heaven, why would she knowingly jeopardise that?

But why would Eve care? Simple. She feels like Lucifer and Lilith betrayed her by gifting her the apple from the Tree of Knowledge. They betrayed her and she was forced into a life of pain and suffering with a husband who she realised didn't truly love her and children who started to turn on each other the moment they could. And then that same husband (or ex-husband by that point) turns around millennia later and gets Lilith into Heaven.

What the fuck?

So Eve decides that the best way to sort this out is to do what Lilith supposedly did. Betrayal disguised as assistance. Charlie is a well-known bleeding heart by now, all Eve need do is find a way to stoke that altruism until it becomes a Problem that Heaven needs to solve. Poke the altruistic bear enough and that Problem will blossom into a Shitstorm that'll drag Lilith off of her cosy perch in Heaven to sort out her wayward daughter and try to avoid Heaven deciding to exterminate every demon in Hell. Plus it'll give Adam a headache which is only a plus in Eve's eyes. And what better way to help the Princess than gift-wrapping Hell's most powerful Overlord and depositing him on her doorstep?

Her ultimate goal might be provoking an all-out war or simply petty-revenge that'll eventually get out of hand but I digress.

How does she persuade Alastor to accept such a shitty, hampering, restricting joke of a deal?

Again, simple. She's in Heaven and as such has access to angelic steel and a plethora of souls. Including Alastor's mother. The only person he ever truly loved in his life.

I'm willing to bet Alastor would do anything to safeguard his mother. Even selling his own soul.

Of course there's still the seven-year gap to tackle but who says Alastor didn't spend those seven years in Heaven? Maybe Eve managed to smuggle him up there and disguise him, let him enjoy seven years of bliss by his mother's side before blindsiding him with her ultimatum. Makes the clipped wings comment more literal.

Just my thoughts, of course, but I really can't see why else Alastor would sign his own soul away if not to protect the one person he lets himself love. He hardly made the deal for power if the deal restricted his powers and he was certainly in no danger from the other Overlords. So he made the deal, he saved his mother, but that doesn't mean he's not gonna try to find a way out of it.

[yuridovewing]

gotta say though, the way mapleshade kinda (???) tried to hurt crookedstar with oakheart’s affair was pretty lame. yeah your mom had her head bashed against the rocks. your dad died slowly of cancer. your wife and children will die too. and your brother got kinda horny one night and made himself a single father

[powdermelonkeg]

Beat the first half (I assume it's half) of Inscryption. It took me about 7 hours, even knowing what things did and where powerups were (watched a few Markiplier videos before deciding I wanted to play myself).

Talked my roommate (@too-many-blorbos) into trying the game. She beat the first half in 2ish hours.

She did not die once on the final boss.

Also a fun fact, where it took me ~12 tries to beat Ganondorf in TotK, WITH my best gear, she ALSO beat him in one go. Without flurry rushing because she hated the timing of it.

My roommate's gaming skills are cracked.