#like it's around 40 for this generation

[captainofthetidesbreath]

not to be like this but all of the posts (and there are many across multiple platforms) right now going "I mean obviously I'm not mad or whining or anything but it sucks that there's all these three week breaks, how am I going to survive, this is awful, I cannot believe this is happening to me" like, it does in fact come off as entitled no matter how many qualifiers are put onto it

and the a smaller subset of THAT going "CLEARLY C3 isn't a priority for the studio" or "they're obviously trying to kill C3" or even posting stuff that comes off as "um, don't they know that if they keep doing this I won't shop here watch anymore", like, come on

as a tangent, genuinely, I feel like a lot of people have trouble admitting that they don't actually like C3 so they get existentially worried about them losing interest over a slightly longer break because it'll force them to acknowledge that they aren't actually interested, but it's fine not to be interested!

[thegraininessofitall]

“Eve works for the council, Sergeant. Quite the lady in the know.”

“Oh, I am not.”

“Nonsense. I’m sure if we bashed your head in, all sorts of secrets would come tumbling out.”

Timothy Dalton as Simon Skinner

in Hot Fuzz (2007), dir. Edgar Wright

[wolframpant]

Domina and the children of the next Julio-Claudian generation

[esleep]

i just had the most crystal-clear, narratively coherent dream i've had in a while and i NEED to write it down before i forget it. i dreamed that while on a camping trip i discovered a doorway to a world of intelligent, talking, semi-anthropomorphic animals. they walked upright but otherwise looked the same as their mundane counterparts, besides the fact that they wore clothes, and the fact that some of them were considerably larger than a regular member of their species (they all towered over me, however i am quite short irl so i'm used to that).

i made friends there and returned repeatedly over the next few weeks so i could visit with my good friends Elk and Tiger and Wolf and Rabbit (there were a couple others as well but i can't recall them all clearly enough to describe them). we would often sit in Elk's sunny dining room with the windows open while we chatted and had tea, or sometimes we'd take my van (in the dream i had a large van i sometimes camped out of) out of Elk's neighborhood and to a scenic spot in the woods for a picnic. it was lovely - all my new animal friends were good company with distinct and unique personalities.

there were also regular animals inhabiting this world. they were referred to as "cousins" of my intelligent friends, and while i was in the company of my friends, i knew i had nothing to fear even from the wild wolves and bears that roamed the woods. they would simply observe us curiously as they passed by.

after i had been visiting a while, i learned that there was another human who knew about this place. his name was something like Galarian or Galadon or something similar, it's a bit fuzzy. he lived full-time in the animal world, and he was something of a boogeyman to all my friends. he was a scientist who performed horrible experiments on "cousin" animals in the secluded laboratory he'd set up in this world, trying to figure out how to turn them into their "intelligent" versions like Dr. Moreau - so far without success, according to my friends. still, the mention of him sent a visible shiver down Elk's back.

one day, while we were picnicking in the woods, we noticed a "cousin" wolf in the distance running straight at us. my friends observed its movements with concern for a moment, then urged me to pile into the van with them as quickly as possible, leaving behind all our adorable picnic supplies. just as we closed the door behind us, the wolf reached us and slammed into the van so hard it rocked. the wolf was making horrible snarling sounds, muzzle dripping with lathered drool that it smeared across the windows as it circled us, testing every possible entrance and snapping its jaws horribly. my friends and i bunched together inside the crowded van and quivered in fear until the wolf finally gave up. we watched it ragefully destroy our picnic, and then at last it ran off into the wilderness. Tiger advised me to leave the picnic stuff behind - it was contaminated now - and head back into town.

the next part i remember is all of us gathering at Elk's house, talking quietly about the situation. all the lights were kept off, and gray clouds obscured the sunlight that normally streamed in through the front windows, so it was quite dark inside for our somber conversation. my friends told me there was a virus that would make animals go mad, and they were starting to see it appear more and more frequently. they weren't sure if it was the evil scientist's doing, or some kind of natural phenomenon, but either way they told me to be cautious and avoid traveling alone. they weren't sure what the virus would do to a human, but they didn't want to take any chances.

as we were gathered in the dining room, i noticed a Deer wearing a ripped, mussed-looking suit wandering dazedly in front of Elk's house. i pointed him out just as he noticed us through the windows, and then the same mad fire lit in his eyes as he launched himself toward the house. my friends and i immediately jumped to lock the front door and close all the windows we had half-opened to admit the breeze. just like the cousin wolf had, this Deer battered at the windows roaring and snarling, leaving streaks of foamy drool behind, before finally running off in frustration.

there's a big chunk here at the end that's fuzzy, but i do recall going on a mission to find out if the evil scientist knows about the virus or if he even may be the cause. as we observed his laboratory we learned that he actually had a couple of intelligent animals working for him, a Bear and another Tiger (not my friend Tiger, a different one). as we watched, they brought him a vial of what looked like spit and told him it was a "sample", which my friends and i took as evidence that the scientist was only just now learning about the virus and planning to study it. we all deemed this a bad thing and started making plans to raid his laboratory when i woke up.

upon awake reflection, this is clearly just rabies. i should've introduced them to the miracle of vaccination and been the hero who stopped a rabies outbreak in furryland.

[my-thoughts-and-junk]

i think originally they planned to make jerry a college student who impregnanted a seventeen-year-old beth until they realized that would make him basically unredeemable in the eyes of the audience

[alarming-prism]

i cannot stop thinking about this. one of my classmates in my gwss intro class led a discussion and at some point i was emphasizing the importance of queer teens having older queers to tell them it gets better. and this person goes "i mean, i know by older you mean older teens. because most adult queers died from aids."

like??? no????? yes the aids epidemic was fucking brutal but are you, a queer person, saying that queer people 25+ just do not exist. that all of them are dead. that nobody survived the 80s and 90s. that nobody realized they were queer in the 2000s and grew up. that nobody realized they were queer in middle or old age. that there are no queer community figures leading healthy fulfilling lives who can extend a hand to struggling teens. they are there!! there are many of them!! they are the foundation!! why are you, a queer person, erasing their existence. jesus christ

[roobylavender]

considering what you have spoken about regarding selina do you also get frustrated with like…i cant quite explain it but sometimes especially in more recent years shes been posed or positioned like some sort of damsel that needs a big strong man to save her and like im not saying she should be portrayed with the “hollywood level feminism” for lack of a better term im just think about how old versions of selina would have hated that. like im just thinking of anytime in the reeves movie where bruce grabs her or forces her mouth shut or even when he didnt allow her to kill falcone and im just thinking she should claw the fuck out of him for that. i just miss a version of selina who wouldnt allow anyone to walk all over her personal autonomy like that

oh absolutely! in fact this is specifically why i can't stand loeb's take on her character lol (and as we both know that was a significant point of reference for the reeves film). it's really jarring to transition from her volume one and two canon to the long halloween / dark victory / when in rome. i think a lot of people tend to latch onto these books because tim sale's art is to die for and it's obv hard not to enjoy a good murder mystery. in that aspect they're still books i can enjoy in isolation. but i find it very difficult to enjoy them as a selina fan specifically because in every single one it's like she's looking for solace and security in a man and i'm not sure why. like what was so bad about her original backstory of having a deadbeat dad (whether you ascribe to the volume one or volume two version of him) and why did she need to go looking for her "real" father in carmine falcone. why did she need to seek out temporary boytoy relief in italy. why did she dream about being saved by bruce. none of it really has a reason other than to create a "lack" in her for the sake of it being there, because she'd never needed a man like that before in her post-crisis narrative. as you mentioned it was quite to the contrary and she was fiercely independent and protective of her own peace, esp from men. when she felt empty or without a connection or lifeline to someone real, it was mostly about people like maggie or holly or arizona. her people

what i think it ultimately comes down to are two things: the first thing is the diminishment of her post-crisis origins. after all, it's convenient to ignore how distrustful selina is of people, and of men with power at their leisure to abuse specifically, when her post-crisis origins are no longer relevant to her personal characterization. although selina's status as a sex worker is more prominent now, it was more or less completely swept under the rug for the bulk of volume two. loeb also refused to engage with it in any capacity. it only really resurfaced with the conclusion to volume two because it drew direct parallels to how we initially found her in volume one, and then brubaker expanded on it once again in his take on the character, which was notably juxtaposed against a pre-existing romance with bruce and brings me to the second thing. i've already waxed about this at length so this may very well be recap but i really don't think selina's lack of control over her personal autonomy can be divorced of the modern portrayal of the romance. when selina looking for security and understanding and comfort in bruce is what drives the romance forward there's not much room to maintain her original values and guarded demeanor, if not her outright defensiveness and hostility. a lot of people look at the extensive trauma selina has experienced and argue that she deserves to be in a relationship with someone who allows her to let those walls down. this isn't incorrect in theory. but it does repeatedly ignore who she is. it's kind of like the point i was making about bruce yesterday. exploring the inherently abusive nature of robin or of bruce's right to his children in light of that fact is interesting to do, but the actual execution has rarely managed to take into account who bruce actually is

for however nice it might be for selina to let her walls down romantically and look for solace in bruce—and i say this mostly for the sake of argument, personally i would argue against its necessity—it's realistically not something she's actually going to do. at least not as willfully as she's been portrayed to. realistically she's going to make it extremely hard, which if anything is precisely the appeal. i love it when selina gives bruce a hard time. i love that it's not supposed to be easy or maybe even a possibility for him to win her over bc there's so much about his own ideological stances that's flawed and in opposition to her own. she doesn't have to be any less unrelenting in her principles and worldview for that romance between them to be compelling bc at the end of the day the entire crux of it is that against all odds bruce cares. for however wrong he thinks she might be in a given moment or in her stance against the government, he knows who she is and how hard she's fought and what she's survived and it makes him sympathetic to her because she's real. she's a wonderful character through which to explore the logical limits of bruce's self-righteousness and categorization of crime, as well as a wonderful mirror to hold up to his face as he starts to ask himself whether what he's doing is really the only means of keeping the city safe. and the novelty of it all is that you don't have to sacrifice her character for any of that to be true. writers have simply deluded themselves into believing that they have to and that's why we are where we are today

[wellnoe]

lady take 2

(id in alt)

[rohirric-hunter]

Update on the Deadly Defender's Bow situation: according to the LotRO companion, there are a total of eleven bows that share this appearance. Two of them, however, I believe are not actually accessible in game, the Ashwood Recurve Bow and Tanglind, leaving me with nine options. I've put detailed information about each bow under the cut, but the short summary is this:

In Eriador, I might be able to find the Deadly Defender's Bow. It seems to be intended as a sort of Ultimate Weapon for level 40 characters, and has been in the game since very early in its development. My suspicion is that it was intended for "endgamer" players before Angmar was even open, and that I will actually find it on level 37-40 enemies, rather than 40 and above (as it isn't terribly uncommon in early game areas to find gear a few levels above whatever you're actually fighting, so you can "grow into it"), so I've been hunting around the endgame areas of Evendim and the Trollshaws, but without much luck on either count. Some challenges include the fact that the game doesn't appear to consider Gauredain to be "humanoid" based on the loot they drop (or rather the loot they don't drop), so I've pretty much been restricted to Angmarim and a handful of tomb-robbers in Evendim and the wights and hillmen in that one tiny corner of the Trollshaws.

In Moria and Lothlorien, there are 5 possible bows that might have the appearance I want: the Bow of Bluffing (58), the Masterful Bow of Extermination (52), two variations on the Supple Bow (59), and the Swift Bow (54). From my brief excursions into Moria I also think these might be found on enemies a few levels below the actual bow's level. Also, none of these names are unique. There are lots of bows with these names in Moria. There's more information about that below the readmore.

And in Mirkwood there are 3 possible bows: a different Bow of Bluffing (62) and two more variations on the Supple Bow (63). Again, these aren't unique names, more information below.

I'm not asking anyone to go on a hunt for this bow (I've been hunting for this bow for almost two years with no luck) but if you do see it, please let me know, and any information on where you got it from is much appreciated! This is the appearance I'm looking for:

(Low quality screenshot but it's the bow new Hunter characters hold during the first stage of character creation. And beautiful. Look at how beautiful.)

More information about each bow under the cut, as well as links to their LotRO Build cards for even more information.

Deadly Defender's Bow Rare item Item level: 42 Min. level: 40 Bind on Acquire

Ashwood Recurve Bow Rare item Item level: 75 Min. level: 75 Bind on Acquire Note: The LotRO Companion includes a table of scaling information for this item which I believe it didn't include a few months ago (though I could be misremembering), showing scaling information from level 45 to 140. It's possible it's in incorporated into scaling loot tables, possibly to facilitate item drops in missions, though unlikely, as it still has the -10% Fire-arrow Miss Chance attribute, which still, as far as I can tell, doesn't refer to an actual skill in game. LotroBuild seems to indicate that this is a Hunter skill of some sort, but I have no idea which one, and still categorize this item as "probably obsolete" and "most likely just the item that the character creator screen references." (Besides, why would there be a level 75 bow with specific references to Hunter skills when level 75 Hunters ought to have a LI? That would be silly. Although to be fair I got all the way to 120-something before I sat down and really put work into getting myself a proper LI.)

Bow of Bluffing I* Rare item Item level: 58 Min. level: 58 Bind on Equip Note: According to the LotRO Companion, this item can sometimes be found in level-appropriate wooden chests.

Bow of Bluffing II* Rare item Item level: 62 Min. level: 62 Bind on Equip Note: According to the LotRO Companion, this item can sometimes be found in level-appropriate backpacks, corpses, and wooden chests.

Masterful Bow of Extermination* Rare item Item level: 52 Min. level: 52 Bind on Equip Note: According to the LotRO Companion, this item can sometimes be found in level-appropriate wooden chests.

Supple Bow I** Rare item Item level: 59 Min. level: 59 Bind on Equip Note: According to the LotRO Companion, this item can sometimes be found in level-appropriate wooden chests.

Supple Bow II** Rare item Item level: 59 Min. level: 59 Bind on Equip Note: According to the LotRO Companion, this item can sometimes be found in level-appropriate wooden chests.

Supple Bow III** Rare item Item level: 63 Min. level: 63 Bind on Equip Note: According to the LotRO Companion, this item can sometimes be found in level-appropriate backpacks, corpses, and wooden chests.

Supple Bow IV** Rare item Item level: 63 Min. level: 63 Bind on Equip Note: According to the LotRO Companion, this item can sometimes be found in level-appropriate backpacks, corpses, and wooden chests.

Swift Bow** Rare item Item level: 54 Min. level: 54 Bind on Equip Note: According to the LotRO Companion, this item can sometimes be found in level-appropriate wooden chests.

Tanglind Legendary item Item level: 35 Min. level: 35 Bind on Acquire Note: This is a Hunter class item. It's also the only non-rare item on the list. A level 35 legendary item is already a bit odd, but it gets odder; it appears to be part of a set of level 35 legendary weapons that all share similar brief descriptions along the same lines: Tanglind's is, "Bow Song, legendary Elf-bow of Forest of Brethil." There is also a crossbow, Ferediron, which is class-restricted, but aside from that none of the other weapons are class items, although a few of them are unique. My suspicion is that this series of weapons were meant to be rewards for some kind of quest or deed in game that was never implemented, especially since the inconsistencies in construction make me feel like the series isn't even properly finished yet. And nobody I've talked to has ever found any of these weapons in game. (I wonder if they might implement them as rewards for class deeds, now that you don't get trait points from that anymore? Or something similar, anyway.) In any event, I'm not spending any time looking for this one.

*Items marked with a single star do not have unique names. There are lots of bows in the game with this name. However, if they only have a single star they can be differentiated by their level and rarity: the only rare quality bow of that level with that name has the desired appearance. **Items marked with two stars cannot be distinguished by their level and rarity: there are several rare quality bows of that level with that name and not all of them have the desired appearance.

[beemovieerotica]

something I've noticed in the course of my transition (ftm) is that people of color are generally much more able to see butch/masculine traits as female than do their white counterparts. like I still get "ma'am"d by black folks before they hear my voice and course-correct (I don't mind or care) while white women will and have confronted me multiple times in women's restrooms just based on sight alone. there is something to be said here, it's a very telling phenomenon.

[bisexualrapline]

sometimes i’m convinced y’all seek out the most deranged/unhinged army accounts ever just to find something to be mad at all armys about

[warlordfelwinter]

trying to piece together how old rain is by the fact that i've made him look slightly middle aged but he's a half-elf but he's bhaalspawn and there was the whole bhaalspawn situation and bhaal being dead until like after the second sundering so he probably wasn't creating new little cretins but he's certainly not older than bhaal being dead bc that would be way too old and all of bhaal's children had to be killed for him to be brought back anyway so the durge must be a second/third gen bhaalspawn like orin because otherwise he'd be like 14 at most if he was created after bhaal was ressurected like

[napsaps-archive]

banter episode today can't wait to stare at my beautiful wives for 40 to 60 minutes 😊🙏

[majorbaby]

11th hour halloween episode 

[sanstropfremir]

✨🎥! Forgot to say, I have a wedding in April but no dress/suit/clothes. I’m desperately looking but every single day I’m more disappointed in the quality of the fashion industry. Even the most basic thing is shit quality and cost 5 times what it should. So yeah, if anyone has recommendations on clothes (not necessarily for weddings or events, but in general) that are good quality, let me know

i know how you feel, affordable decent clothing is fucking impossible right now. honestly my best advice is thrifting/secondhand. idk what the situation for that is like in spain so maybe it's not possible, but it's always worth a shot, especially if you've already been looking for a while. it does obvs take more time than shopping new bc you have to sift through racks, but you're more likely to get a good find of better quality for a more reasonable price. my general thrifting advice (honestly this applies to any clothes shopping also) is first look for the colour and shape that you like, and then look at the material content. this is very important. do not look at brand that means nothing. always always always check the material content on the tags. ideally you want to be looking for garments that have 100% natural fibres; wool, cotton, silk, linen, rayon/viscose (yes it is natural despite the name). if you can't find 100% than something with an 80/20 ratio or more (to the natural side) can also be a safer bet, but my rule of thumb is the more polyester is in a garment, the worse it is in every way.

my general advice for wedding attire is unless you need black tie, don't worry about trying to find a full suit or a really fancy dress you're only gonna wear once. get a good pair of dark formal trousers (black/grey/navy), wear a dress shirt or a formal blouse, and throw on a nice tailored jacket that's in the same colour family. is it technically only semi-formal? yes, but who does true formal weddings and actually cares about sartorial rules. in this economy? psh. some visual aids:

it's a great combo for any 'events you have to look nice at' because you only have to buy individual pieces, you don't have to buy them all at the same time, and they can be reused for other events. just find out what the colour theme of the event is and get yourself a shirt or tie/pocket square/scarf/other accessory in that colour and you're good to go. also do not forget a good pair of shoes. this is also very important; always have a good pair of shoes.

hopefully this helps! i'm sorry i don't have better recommendations on where to actually go to buy stuff/what to buy, but i haven't shopped new in......quite a long time. but at least having some tips to go by should help. and tbh sometimes you do gotta cough up the money.....BUT only ever cough up the money for something that is 100% natural fibre and is a piece that will get use outside of a single event. otherwise you just gotta be patient and keep looking; if you are patient things have a way of coming to you.

[raksh-writes]

Really didn’t expect this would be the year I get into Sabaton but welp, here I am, headbanging to recordings of live concerts, who would've thought