#people always notice good work

[maxsix]

[childrenofthesun77]

...okay, so I'm probably not the first person to notice this.

But gear's earing that he points towards when he says that he did the same ritual he wanted to help kuro with already on himself before:

actually looks pretty similar to the pieces of the necklace the count used to create the servamps:

The different pieces of the necklace seem to contain one demon each and the count used them to create the servamps.

So...did the count either learn this technique from the werewolves or is he possible even originally a werewolf himself? It would explain why he's immortal, that's why I'm wondering about this.

Gear says that the ritual is used to remove spirits, could it be that the count removed his own sins using the werewolf ritual and created the demons this way? But he went too far and removed too much unlike gear who only removed one part of himself? Him removing the sins from himself would also explain why he's so weird and doesn't understand other beings. As the sin demons say, they are a natural part of being a human and we have seen multiple times that denying their existence is harmful, removing them all from you would probably lead to you not being able to relate to other people anymore.

Maybe removing all these parts of himself is also why he has no appearance. Without his demons he's not a person anymore.

The count originally being a werewolf would also explain why he has magical abilities (gear can also use magic) before other magicians existed and why he's so anxious about certain people dying. Gear talks about how his immortality makes him sad because human friends do die, but unlike the count gear seems to accept death, grieves in a heathier way than the count and is able to move on and make new friends. Could also explain why his magic and creations are all strongly tied to the (full) moon.

Another similarity is that while werewolves apparently can't reproduce gear was able to have descendants by sharing his life force (it's mentioned in chapter 135 which isn't translated yet) with a woman and through her human children tsurugi is related to gear. Sigurd explained to nicco that the magicians came to be because the count let humans drink his blood, three survived, got magical ablities and became the ancestors of all human magicians:

Maybe the count is more of a werecat though. He and the sloth demon do seem to have a closer connection, even though the count's appearance changes depending on the person looking at him he does usually keep his tail and the tip looks exactly like the one of kuro's cat/lion form and similar to the the one of inner sloth's non-human form.

It was also stated multiple times that the sloth demon is the strongest. I wonder why that is. Servamp comments on the fact that being lazy is often actually a sign of depression/anxiety through kuro's arc, so maybe the count was depressed and that's why the sloth demon is the strongest? Basically the demons strength depends on how much the count suffered from the different sins? It would also explain why melancholy is so strong, I assume kuro refusing to see him no matter how many siblings he sent his way to tell him to come looking for the count made him extremely sad and probably even made him come up with the plan to have himself be killed and then put in the same body as kuro through the ritual.

I assume he was behind C3 ordering the servamps to kill him because he's the one who created the magicians and thus C3 and lily who is kind of working for him was probably the one who put the idea that the count needed to be killed into the head of his eve (aka a member of the alicein family who hold a lot of power in C3 basically since the beginning. I explained this in more detail in another post). The people from C3 even said that the count can only be killed if he wants to and yeah, kuro didn't truly kill him, but he did destroy his body and kuro seems to have met little resistance when he attacked the count. Which probably means the count wanted this to happen.

[idolomantises]

there's something so comforting about artists you admire talking about their own struggles and insecurities

[uncanny-tranny]

This might be a very specific experience, but I think a huge reason I didn't even realize or even want to be bisexual was specifically because of this intersection of my manhood and the way it's viewed

There's this toxic merry-go-round I find myself riding where I am so desperate to not be one of those guys to a woman that it winds up being an inability to connect to women* because of this hyperpolicing I end up doing. For the longest time, I repressed myself because of this impulse, and I find it interesting. It's interesting seeing how this aspect of patriarchy impact me in such a way that I was too afraid of myself and the people around me.

As a trans man, I felt the pressure to prove both that I'm not one of those men, but also, that I wasn't this predatory trans man, that anything I did was in service to proving why I should (or should not) continue to exist. Simultaneously, I am both not a man, but also a predatory man because of my transness, a threat to be contained. I felt this before as somebody who is multisexual, but it somehow affects me more in the aspect of how I interact with women* and womanhood* from the outside.

There isn't an overarching theme to this post, a message about what you can do. It's mostly reflecting on my experiences and thinking about where my impulse to think myself as guilty until proven innocent plays into how I've started viewing myself. I don't want to overgeneralize, but I've seen this expressed by many a trans man*.

[moeblob]

Deacon willing to help people but doesn't recognize people so he doesn't remember what he did for who. So he just agrees and is like cool don't mention it then they mention it and he's like uhhhhhh.

However, that's other humans. He can identify the deities much easier because they have a unique glow. Like can actively tell Ymber "oh Lady Fulj just entered the city" and Ymber is like how the heck did you sense her that far away when I can't sense her that far away. It actually takes a while for Ymber to realize Deacon really doesn't know any of his coworkers and who he's talking to.

[dmclemblems]

“Claude in Hopes is exactly the same way he is in Houses! He’s always been like that and has the same feelings/morals!”

Claude in GW/Hopes:

Claude, literally, in Houses:

Let that speak for the fact that Claude was written with a 180 characterization in Hopes.

Claude wants peace and to bring everyone together; not to tear them further apart. That is his character.

[viviraptor]

one art thing that keeps making me want to pull my hair out is when ppl post a drawing and immediately call it bad/mention its flaws in the caption. whatever you think you're doing with that i can assure you it's not working

[sciderman]

we need to see more non dp spidey pairings

just read the comics man! they're everywhere!

(also, please, be the change you want to see in the world, anon.)

[itstimeforstarwars]

All the time I complain about how I would do a particular job better and now the job is open for applications and I think I would be very good at it but the prospect of applying only to fuck it up is terrifying lmao.

[ankhisms]

ok its fine now im fine (< this is untrue but im simply deciding that its better for everyone to bottle it up)

[thefirstknife]

can we please. go one (1) week without the PVP obsessed people going off about how PVP is the only thing that matters in the game. im so very tired. "PVE people are probably about to find out that PVE can't carry the game because PVP is ruined and we're all gonna quit and play better games" please just can they shut up and go already instead of threatening us with a good time they never follow through on??

I saw that stuff as well, I know exactly what you're talking about. It's incredibly disingenuous and deliberately incendiary to cause more people to bitch about the game being doomed or whatever.

They are constantly using "steam numbers" to show that this is the lowest population count that Destiny 2 ever had and how that's proof that the game is being ruined and dying, that pvp bros and content creators are more important than we think they are, that Bungie needs to make Destiny 3 (yes, that is unironically stuff that people are saying) and other really incredibly tiring things.

Not to mention the vitriol towards the devs. Every time they bitch, more and more people show up in the comments saying awful shit about devs and how they are lazy, they don't work, they don't care, they are bad at development and so on. This is what eventually fuels harassment.

These "steam numbers" are disingenuous because they are taken out of context and they strip all other external reasons from the "low player count."

Is there a low player count? Yes! That is correct. Even when we account for console players, it's still low.

This is nothing new. This is a constant trend. Last month of the season ALWAYS has low numbers. People finished their story and their pinnacle grind and their seals and are doing other things.

More under for length:

Is this the lowest it's been so far? It seems to be, though the final month on steam charts isn't over so we can't fully tell yet, but it seems to be one of the lowest. However, there's been similar numbers before during seasonal end. It's quite literally nothing new. We go through this every season, except this season it's slightly lower than usual.

Why is that? Well, the chart Aztecross put to prove there's not many people playing happened on a Monday before the final Tuesday reset of the final week of the season. Yeah bro, very few people have things left to do in the season. They're not bothering. Unlike you, other people have other hobbies and games to play. I haven't played in days, I only got on on Saturday to finish my King's Fall seal and that took 10 minutes. This is what I mean by "disingenuous." It's a cheap bait tactic. Find the lowest number and ship it for cheap outrage engagement.

Others are constantly also posting the cummulative steam chart for every month of Destiny since the game came to steam and they're pointing out that we have lowest numbers now. Which is, again, posted for cheap outrage. They look at the number and see it's low and their conclusion is "game is dying." They don't care about the trend (every season end is "dying"), they don't care about external reasons (other game releases), they don't care about overall how some seasons are just weaker and have less interest (not the first time), they don't care about anything.

They just want people to be mad enough to harass the devs. Because like, what do they think is going to happen when they spend 2 months blogging to hundreds of thousands of people about the game being ruined by evil devs who don't do their job? When they constantly talk about how everything in the game is bad, pvp is bad, pve is boring and easy, story is bad, seasons are bad, events made for fun are bad, small community event is bad. What's going to happen is thousands of people are going to harass the devs. That's what going to happen.

I took the "steam numbers" chart that people are throwing around and I went into it in-depth to explain what the numbers mean and add context to them. You can see it here. It's a big image but you can zoom in and explore. It makes more sense when you see it separated by seasons; you can CLEARLY see the main trend of "low population at season end."

Another thing to consider with these numbers is the scheduling pattern. Shadowkeep released in October, Beyond Light released in November after a delay. October-November are usually months with a lot of other game releases and holidays. In 2019 and 2020, Bungie had an expansion themselves to cover that time. In 2021, there was no expansion in Oct-Nov; and that was the last time the game had the lowest population record ever. WHAT A SURPRISE. In this period, if Destiny doesn't have an expansion, people move on to play other games!!!! WOW! We have the technology to decipher the low numbers!

It's important to also note that back in 2021, that was the first time a game was delayed properly and significantly, so the year was without an expansion and there was a lull in Oct-Nov period. However, at that time, it was the first time this schedule happened and people generally didn't know how will it go. We were also kept in the dark about the seasonal story end (the infamous When Is Exorcism incident) so people had to keep coming back. Now, we're in the same situation; no new expansion in Oct-Nov, seasonal lull, nothing is happening. However, now, we know how this goes. People know how this schedule works AND we're not dealing with an extended season. We know when this season ends and there's nothing to wait for. People are more comfortable taking a break. So there's less people in Oct-Nov 2022 than there were in the previous lowest point, Oct-Nov 2021. It's almost as if there are reasons for this that go beyond "game is obviously dying."

These people also seem to be incapable of understanding that some players just... stop playing. For no specific reason. The game isn't dying, some people just lose interest. Content creators are especially guilty of this, because THEY can't stop playing, because they tied their income to a single live service game. To them, quitting the game is losing a job. Curious, maybe that influences their views about the game and about burnout and taking breaks and the quality of the content?

They simultaneously want Bungie to drop FOMO and reduce burnout, but they ALSO want for there to never be "content droughts." Which one is it? Because these two things cannot both be gone. If you want less FOMO and less burnout, then there will be less content. If you want more content, then you have to get on that burnout grindset.

It's the end of the god damn season. Yeah, nothing is happening. Yeah, fewer people are playing. Players finished their grind in the Destiny mines and are doing other things before the new season drops. Stop catastrophising it for cheap outrage bait. You not being able to take a break and having to keep making new content even when the season is ending and there no new content is your problem. Not Bungie's, not the other players'.

Bungie is not going to force their devs to crunch 80 hours per week so you can have brand new content every Tuesday that no regular player can catch up with. As it currently is, I want MORE downtime. I want seasons to be 4 months and to have less time and more downtime to catch up with stuff. Imagine the outrage though. Genuinely, society if these people would actually deliver on their promise and leave. Someone else will take your place, bro.

Also, as a final note before a dissertation in the tags: these pvp mains are weak. They whine about only having 2 new maps in 2 years. Gambit got -2 new maps. Like, literally we had 6 maps and now we have 4. LMAO. Crucible has a total of 24 maps and 8+ modes, constant updates, Iron Banner rework, multiple Trials reworks, incoming competitive rework, Crucible labs, three different sets of armour, prestige weapon loot, three different seals, entire twabs dedicated just to it. And they whine about not enough attention for the Crucible?

It's getting more attention than any other core playlist. Their problem is that they're not the ones being catered to. An update doesn't count if it doesn't satisfy mister Crucible Main #37. Fuck everyone else I guess! They are the most entitled selfish childish little pricks I've ever seen. They do not deserve Bungie talking the players at all.

[uncanny-tranny]

Maybe it's just me, but part of why I never really felt completely secure in being public about my own artistic endeavors was how... being proud of yourself in any capacity for any reason is almost a faux pas, if that makes sense.

I've noticed how it's almost expected to perform the air of humility, but is that humility? Is it humility to say, "Oh, I'm sorry for clogging your feed with my awful art" or anything to the effect of self-deprecation?

I think that's why I so often gravitate toward those who make "bad art." There's a sense of freedom that is only achieved with the level of hubris that being unashamed in the number of people who hate your art. I wonder, though, how many people don't hate the art as much as they hate that they can't chastise the artist into humility, into recognizing how "terrible" an artist they "actually" are?

[daz4i]

how and why is there discourse about whether or not certain queer identities exist/if people should be allowed(???) to use them. why is "people know their own identity better than you ever could, and they're the only one who get a say on what they are" such a tough concept to grasp

i think if you find yourself offended by the label someone uses (especially if they're a stranger) or think it invalidates your own, it's a good idea to look inside yourself and question why that may be. more often than not, it's a result of insecurity or uncertainty of your own identity (or many other things, but i won't make a whole list here). whatever reason it is, until you resolve it, you shouldn't take it out on people for having an identity you don't understand

many have said it before but it's worth saying over and over. infighting only helps our oppressors. conservatives don't care if you're a cis gay or a xenogender aegosexual aplatonic lesbian, they hate all of us either way. trying to fit in by going for people who are easier targets for them isn't gonna help you, it'll just alienate you from your own community, and you're never gonna please them. the momentary rush you get from hearing you're not like "one of /those/ gay people" is not worth it and is gonna do more harm in the long run, i assure you

also, it is important to me to say this, but having some less than nice kneejerk reaction caused by confusion about an identity you don't understand doesn't mean you're a bad person or anything. as long as you aren't mean to that person, and you take a second to think smth along the lines of "wait a minute, this isn't any of my business" after having said reaction, you're good 👍 a lot of reflexive reactions we have to things are ingrained into us simply by. well. living in a society 🤡 and you're not terrible for having those thoughts. it's your actions that matter, and your second thought (the "wait, why did i just think that?") is more defining of your actual character and morals than your reflex. i know that having thoughts like this, even tho they're unwanted, can very easily make one spiral, so it's important to me that whoever needs to hear this knows this doesn't make you a bad person 🙏 you're good, keep taking actions to be good, accept other people even if you don't understand them, and you're on the right track :)

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

The Final Curse of Ophelia Cray

fun YA adventure

follows a girl who’s seen as cursed because of her recently hanged notorious pirate queen mother, and runs away to the navy where nobody will recognise her

and her half-sister who’s desperate to find her before she’s arrested for using a fake name, to bring her home to their dying father & save the family business

both get on the bad side of some pirates and have to brave storms to find each other

aroace MC, sister relationships

arc from netgalley, out april 9

[july-19th-club]

me age seven being sat down in front of the school’s district child psych lady and being given strange, simple spatial puzzles to solve and then long, complicated worksheets and hammering my way through them at the speed of light while having zero comprehension what their purpose was or why i was here: this is urgent! i have to get a good grade in Weird Puzzles, Or Else, something that is both normal to want and possible to achieve,

[girlscience]

speaking of being slow. i wish i was a faster writer. i can write and i can write well, but it takes me significantly longer than nearly everyone i know. i just cannot get words out as easily as other people seem to and it is so frustrating all the time. i am working on editing my resume right now for applications. this is the third day i have worked on it. all i have needed to do this entire time is change the format to fit grad school rather than a job and add my recent work history. this isn't even two pages long. i have been working on it for 3 and 1/2 hours tonight and it's still not done. ITS NOT EVEN 500 WORDS APPARENTLY. i want to cry