#like its sort of genius

[cult-of-the-eye]

To add to the Alice is secretly untrustworthy theories: her giving the computers and the voices names could be her downplaying their significance, like oh don't pay attention to what they're actually saying, it's just Chester talking his nonsense again

[katabay]

original thief series basso & garrett :)

ngl, it's about quality over quantity for me. an npc can have a total of three minutes of screen time, but if they have a cool name, they can live rent free in my head and I'll spend several hours trying to decipher drawable features from a blurry screenshot of pixels

there is a vague hint of a story here, and that's because every time I try to play thi4f, I get incredibly frustrated with how Not Fun the game play is. like, is the story good? well. but it has a PLAGUE. that should've given it instant 'I'll replay this once a year' status in my heart, but the game play sucks so bad that I've never finished it. I can't believe Not Fun gameplay beat out my obsession with narrative plagues.

anyway, the idea is basically if the original era had a game with a plague centric narrative and some other stuff I liked out of thi4f thrown into a narrative blender, with a heavy dash of horror thrown in because some parts of the thief games were scarier to me than entire dedicated horror genre games.

⭐ places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app

[fredoesque]

ok so yesterday i saw this post about the wedding imagery in hickey's trial scene and left a tag about iphigenia at aulis. and in the time since that comparison has spiraled entirely out of control

i was initially just referring to the way the play draws parallels between the rituals of a wedding and those of sacrifice/death and the way the two start to overlap throughout

but then i started thinking about how iphigenia's sacrifice serves both as an illustration of the violence of war turned inwards and simultaneously as the catalyst for said violence turned outwards. killing iphigenia highlights the actual human cost of war by exacting it on a familiar insider, not just a nameless enemy. but her death is also the only reason the war can take place at all--the chorus even calls her the destroyer of troy near the end

and that reminded me of hickey and his unique relationship with the violence of the british navy; of the british characters he is undeniably the one that suffers most at its hands, yet he is also a driving force in perpetuating violence--in general, but also specifically towards the inuit

and i know i'm not the first person to point out that hickey is both a victim and a perpetrator of the violence of the empire, but i find it fascinating to approach that dichotomy through the lens of (ritual) sacrifice. it adds a new dimension to not just the trial, but basically all his scenes that are concerned with said violence. his own death (during a botched ritual no less) is actually a great example; it doubles as the final nail in tuunbaq's coffin. he dies not just for or because of the empire's interests; it's the very act of him dying that causes said interests to be furthered

anyway all that to say hickey thinks he's christ and he's wrong but that doesn't mean he's not a lamb on the altar

[guinevereslancelot]

being the youngest person at work is being the honorary IT specialist despite knowing basically nothing abt technology except how to use google

[venisonpng]

i do not think taylor swift would know poetry if it bludgeoned her over the head with a concrete block

[heartofstanding]

tagged by @nebylitsa - Nine of my favourite books (well, 13 really since I included two trilogies in omnibus form), in no particular order.

tagging: @skeleton-richard, @oldshrewsburyian, @shredsandpatches @themalhambird @ardenrosegarden @themidnightcircusshow No pressure if you don't want to though!

[lesbianjodie]

Anyway hallucinating an entire arc where Conan and Ran have to stay with Eri for a while and Eri just clocks Shinichi so fast. Either that or he needs help trying to convince her that he is not, in fact, Shinichi SOMEHOW but anyway Eri would be so aware of Conan's fucked up little errands and machinations I bet she would figure out he was the sleeping Kogoro all along if it lasted long enough. And then he would have to explain. I am going insane about it also.

[scorpiusmalfoylovesoscarwilde]

me, through gritted teeth and blurry tears, doing literally anything:

it doesn't have to be perfect it just has to exist, it doesn't have to be perfect it just has to exist, it doesn't have to be perfect it just has to exist, it doesn't have to be perfect it just-

[diltonsstrangescience]

“Formerly” OH MY GOD

PRISONERS???

WHAT THE HECK IS HAPPENING ON THAT SHOW???

[frankenruth]

Wait wait wait a minute did Wolf eat Mommy or am I tripping

[cquackity]

i love the different interpretations of what happens to physical bodies after revival. like with c!wilbur did he revive from the same bones? was the organic material recycled? did he have to dig his way out of rubble to be reuinited with the world? or did he appear right over where his bones still rest without a proper burial, forgotten by the people he thought would at least give him a funeral?

[superhell]

he IS crying and now so am i fuck this shit. proceeds to keep watching

[bumblingbabooshka]

Everyone needs to start getting way weirder (read: hornier) about this moment so I don't feel so alone.

Also - Tuvok....this is WILDLY funny. Tuvok is SO cringe I love him, he's the worst guy ever. Absolutely 0 hesitation to, IN FRONT OF EVERYONE, straight up go "Hey, first officer? Sorry for cutting you off in the middle of this life-or-death situation but I just couldn't help but notice that I, Tuvok, made a suggestion and you didn't follow it? That's literally never happened before. Did you not hear me or..?" There's literally not even a good reason for him to object it's straight up ONLY because it wasn't his idea.

[very-gay-poet]

Every time I re-watch Home Alone (1) I always forget how brutal that fucking kid is. If you disagree please either 1: re-watch that film remembering that this is a film. Everything happening might not be actually happening but if you keep in mind that this is what’s happening to the characters you tend to start kinda feeling bad for them (especially poor Marv’s feet goddamn) or well, until they start talking again or 2: watch Everything Great About Home Alone by Cinemawins trust me it’s worth it. It’s very concerning how happy Kevin is (AN EIGHT YEAR OLD) torturing two fully grown adults. Also love how 80’s American he is (for reference I’m British) like all the things that are presumed about America is ALL in the movie. Like if this was set in a different place (OR EVEN TIME FOR THAT MATTER) all conflict would have ceased to exist. Anyway love the movie 10/10 absolute favourite/ best Christmas movie (the grinch is runner-up). Remember be safe everyone and Happy holidays!!!

[iliveinprocrasti-nationn]

i get a lot of family friends or neighbours saying “you’re so impressive” and i get similar things from other people when i tell them what i’m doing and idk how to be like “nah it’s nothing” bc they always think i’m being humble or something but i just genuinely cannot conceive of the compliments they’re giving me. my essay was just nominated for an award and i appreciate that people like my work but that’s it

[fideidefenswhore]

How do we know that COA was offered her daughter made bona fides and kept princess? When was this?

It was an offer made by Henry alongside Campeggio when he was there before the trial, that her acceptance of the offer meant the trial could be foregone ....

We (Wolsey and Campeggio) are agreed in opinion to test the mind of the Queen, and to persuade her to consent to the separation, and to enter the profession of some religion. For this purpose his Lordship promised me the assistance of himself and all the prelates of the kingdom, and the favor of the King, and that the Queen shall have any honorable conditions which she demands, retain her station as Queen*, and not lose anything except "l'uso della persona del Re," which he (Wolsey) says she has lost for many years; allowing her her dowry, rents, ornaments, and assignments for her support, and many other things; especially that the succession of the kingdom for the present shall be established in her daughter, by the ordinance and consent of all the estates, in case there should never be any legitimate male heir. 

....(although, actually I don't exactly remember, that might have just been one stage of the offer...another might have been that her absence from the trial would ensure a result in Henry's favor; as we know she refused to attend after her speech and it did not, so whether or not that was true...Campeggio had a decretal comission to declare the marriage valid or invalid at Blackfriars and didn't, so in some sense they both got played, although Catherine only in hindsight...ironically, she would later vehemently complain about the severe injustice of the delay in any resolution, but she was the one that had interceded for that delay**, demanding the case only be tried in Rome). Even her counsel at the time, before becoming as contumacious as he did (Bishop Fisher), advised her to take this 'deal', as it were. Off the cuff, I don't remember every reference made to it, Chapuys some months later does also mention (very conditional) 'offers' made to her, but the dispatch is frustratingly vague:

Meanwhile the Queen is daily assailed by people making her all manner of offers, if she will only consent to the divorce; but she remains as firm as ever [...]

In 1533 Chapuys reports Catherine as having said she was willing to take the 'offer' made to her by the King's council three years ago, that then she had thought it was a feint to induce her to accept demotion, but she would accept it now. He does not specify what this offer was, I remember I went back to the sources of when Henry's council visited and argued with her and it was not clear then, either, but I always wondered if that was what she was alluding to. If so it was too late at that point; Henry had decided that the issue of any union that contravened divine law was irrevocably illegitimate (although technically, he would not manage to garner Parliamentary assent for this notion until three years later, he only managed it by implication in 1534), and he believed that was what it was.

Often apologia of Catherine's stance in the late 1520s has been, why should she have even considered that inducement, how was it even presented as an 'offer', even if the papacy had annulled the marriage, Mary would be bona fides regardless, etc. It was presented as an offer, inducement, compromise of sorts because in England that was not the legal precedent (ie, an offer made on behalf of her daughter that was not guaranteed otherwise):

"[Henry VIII] now argued she would would be barred by illegitimacy. This contention puzzled continental contemporaries because elsewhere in western Europe those children born to couples who in good faith believed themselves validly married were treated as legitimate. Nevertheless, Henry was right. After a period of some uncertainty, by the late fourteenth century England had opted out of the bona fides principle. As Sir John Baker notes, 'succession problems were usually debated in legal terms and in accordance with the common law canons of inheritance.' A successful challenge to his marriage would thus automatically bastardise Mary and leave Henry no direct heir... [although] Mary could have been legitimated by statute." - JF Hadwin, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History

*One assumes this meant only a ceremonial title of some sort, ie Dowager Queen of England, as her sister-in-law was still referred to as Queen of France.

**Probably not anticipating resolution would not take place for another four years, but...still.