#pulling the threads

[dinosaur-ears]

I think all the RFK Jr. bullshit we're seeing is a really important reminder that solidarity is not about being a Good Person™, but rather because we are all connected and our fates are intertwined.

The denial of bodily autonomy to trans people is also very helpful to misogynists who want to police bodies with uteruses and deny agency to Disabled people. The dream of a white ethnostate is realized in a denial of bodily autonomy to women of color (denial of healthcare, forced sterilization) and white women (denial of abortion access, refusal of requested sterilization) alike. It polices Black bodies and incarcerates them for having the audacity to show humanity in the face of oppression. It tells you anyone Disabled "enough" to receive support cannot handle self-determination. It tells you that being divergent (trans, queer, ND, and more) is a mental illness that renders you incompetent. It tells you poor bodies are for war, not dignity.

Do not allow yourself to participate in oppression Olympics or jockey for your group over others. Pull the threads wherever you can and understand that people working in different corners are part of the same project.

[bigfatbreak]

Birds of a Feather previous / next

[carolinanadeau]

"this female character is underdeveloped" TO YOU. I can read subtext and I know all about her backstory and her rich inner life. also she told me personally

[loredrinker]

Trespasser Dream Slides - Fade Dreaming and Continued Connection

The Trespasser dream slides for a romanced Lavellan mark a subtle but interesting divergence in the story of Lavellan and Solas, in that not every player who romanced these two gets these slides - depending on choices.

If Lavellan ends their relationship with anger or finality, vowing to stop Solas no matter the cost, even if it means killing him - these dreams never appear. And I think that detail is brilliant. The story is using the absence of these dreams as a narrative device, one that, to me, actually reflects how the Fade responds to emotions. So when Lavellan emotionally disconnects from Solas, when she severs the bond and chooses to carry nothing of him forward, the Fade has nothing to echo and Solas never appears, honouring her choice. The absence of these dreams in this path becomes the story’s way of saying this relationship is indeed over.

But for the Lavellan who holds hope, who vows to save him from himself and his own destruction, who has expressed her love clearly to Solas - the dreams do come. This narrative path reflects the choices of a player who's decided that their bond endures.

And through these dreams, the game shows how these two people continue to affect each other, be drawn to each other even across distance and years.

The Dreams 

What keeps drawing my attention to these slides is they never confirm whose dreams they are.

“Lavellan sometimes came awake from dreams in which her lover watched her sadly from across an endless distance”

It doesn’t say her dreams, or that she dreamed of Solas, nor does it deny they may be his. And I appreciate how that ambiguity again mirrors the nature of the Fade, leaving open the possibility that these dreams belong to either of them, or to both.

The dreams could originate with Lavellan, stirred by hope and belief, with Solas drawn into them by her emotional presence in the Fade. They could originate with Solas subconsciously pulling her into his dreams, revealing his own hidden ache for her. Or it could be a mutual convergence - neither initiating, but both arriving, called into the same dreamscape by the strength of their bond. These slides allow for all of these possibilities in it's refusal to define the source.

What's interesting is that Solas is always withdrawing from them. When Lavellan reaches for him he doesn’t speak, doesn’t approach - he vanishes. It suggests that he’s not drawn to her to control or watch her possessively in dreams, but allows himself to be near her, pulling back before any contact is made.

Remember, Solas himself confessed to Lavellan she draws him away from the Fade. It's logical to assume then that she draws him in the Fade as well. Because Inquisitor Lavellan is still Fade Walking.

Lavellan - Fade Walker

What we know for certain is that the Inquisitor has demonstrated the ability to find Solas in the Fade before. In the Haven dream sequence, the Inquisitor locates him while sleeping. After they wake, Solas expresses surprise that they were able to find him and that he changed the setting to Haven once they did. At the time, it’s assumed that the Anchor is what allows the Inquisitor to remain conscious and lucid within the Fade. But that may not be entirely true, the Trespasser dream slides complicate that assumption because at that point in the story, the Anchor is gone and yet:

“Still she searched, and dreamed, and waited, for a way to change the Dread Wolf’s heart.”

The way “dreamed” is used here - alongside verbs like searched and waited - positions it as an act in itself. It implies that Lavellan isn't just sleeping, but actively entering the Fade to dream and seek. Here, dreamed carries intention, movement and purpose.

Whether she communes with spirits, follows the traces he’s left behind, or navigates the remnants of memories, we aren’t told. But the phrasing highly suggests that Lavellan is looking for answers, information, ways to change the Dread Wolf's heart while in the Fade. (Which continues to support my theory that the Inquisitor has been forever altered by the Anchor.)

Do the Dreams Continue?

We’re never told that the dreams end - and the use of the plural dreams reinforces the sense that the tension between Lavellan and Solas remains unresolved. It suggests an ongoing, quiet pull that continues to draw them to one another. Perhaps unconsciously, they return to that shared space again and again, a connection that spills forward into Veilguard.

Maybe that ongoing pull is why Lavellan receives the wolf statuette, why she can tell Rook she still loves Solas, and why Solas, close to his goal of reshaping the world, stops to write her a letter. It even colours the way he speaks of her to Rook - “She is a good woman.” Not was, not someone I once knew: she exists for him in the present because their dreams keep finding their way to each other.

For the story, eight years separate Trespasser and Veilguard. For us as players, that’s a long time - but for them, if their dreams still connect them, still reach across the Fade? That distance may not be felt at all. Time moves differently in memory, and even more so in the Fade. Their last shared dream with each other could have come the night before the ritual, close enough to stir old feelings and sharpen Solas’ need to send those final words to his vhenan.

[tj-crochets]

Giant bat update: it may or may not have a shard of needle in it somewhere (in case this breaks containment: this is about a giant bat plushie I am sewing not a real bat lol)

[thegaissilent]

for @halfofozsfavouriteteam

Prompt: I just need a little air.

"Oh, I love air!" Galinda giggles and makes her way to the window, opening it up with a small smile. It's so much easier to be around Elphaba now that they're friends. As a matter of fact, it's easier than being around anyone else. She doesn't really care about keeping the perfect pose and image all the time and rarely feels as if she needs to hold back on the natural grandiose way she usually expresses herself and she skips and bounces her way back to Elphie, sitting beside her friend on the window.

She is, of course, reading. As she usually does. And Galinda, with zero respect for her friend's personal space, leans over her, trying to take a peak of what she's reading.

"What is this?" She asks, curiously, looking up from the book to Elphaba. If once, she couldn't stand to be close to the girl, now even this distance still doesn't feel like it's enough. It's an odd feeling. She doesn't think she's ever felt this attached to someone. Not even Fiyero.

[antaripirate]

this is important to me

[loumandivorce]

bones and all / interview with the vampire

[puddii-ng]

some tica4 deicy & hansel.. as a treat

[devastatinglygreen]

it really was very heavy handedly eros and psyche the whole time

eros falls in love with psyche after being sent to find her a husband

eros leaves psyche alone after she betrays his trust even tho he still loves her

and, in some of the stories, psyche's trials are made worse by eros in his effort to help her

psyche intends to sacrifice herself at the last trial

psyche is depicted with butterfly wings after being made immortal and granted forgiveness.

so then she and eros can live on in a happy marriage of equals

[dinosaur-ears]

Civic engagement tip for US Americans:

I added my senators, my House rep, and my governor into my phone's contacts, so I can call by voice command while I'm driving. I try to only call on a single topic and only call each person once per day anyway, so it's not terribly hard to remember what I want to say. And I don't have to find time to call because I'm using my commute.

[kedreeva]

Okay if you haven't yet, and you have Netflix/Paramount+, consider giving "School Spirits" a chance.

It looks like a silly little cheesy teenage ghosts show, I put it on for background noise, and then got totally engrossed in the mystery. It's VERY well written, very well filmed, the mystery was GREAT and the payoff at the end is also great.

One of the things majorly lacking in shows I've recently tried to watch is that they try to do a twist/reveal at the end that comes out of nowhere. They don't want you to guess what they're doing. This show doesn't do that. This show wants you to guess. They give you seven different mysteries and enough clues to guess (most of) what is going on, so that when you get the final puzzle piece to any given mystery, it feels GREAT.

The story premise is this: a teenager in hs wakes up as a ghost in the hs, and doesn't remember how she died, and with the help of the other ghosts, tries to solve the mystery of her own death.

Simple premise. BEAUTIFULLY executed. Not all of the questions that arise get answered, but the main one (what she doesn't remember) gets solved by the end of the season, leaving the "why/how and what comes next" to be carried to the next season. It does a cliffhanger RIGHT. But now I desperately want to see the second season (which I believe has been approved, so it's a matter of waiting).

So pretty please, if you're looking for something to do and a great, engaging lil mystery to watch, consider! School Spirits!!

[babacontainsmultitudes]

AH. So that's why they put that content warning. I see!

[the-barefoot-hatter]

if Ford thinks Icarus' problem was that he didn't flap hard enough... I wonder if Bill thinks about the Minotaur

[pastafossa]

can i just say one of the reasons i loveee trt so much is because you do have little filler arcs, and they're incredible. matt and jane getting their asses kicked by geese remains a personal highlight of the sidequests 🪿

Me knowing my beloved little filler chapters and arcs are appreciated like

THANK YOU SO MUCH, I love my little filler bits, I have a running list of them that I pull from, I feel like they're such a good way to both give readers a breather from the heavier, angstier arcs and to show our babies bonding even when the stakes are a bit lower. These lighter moments are what keep them going!

Well, the goose ass kicking less specifically kept them going. They wound up a little roughed up over that one, but WE got to enjoy it, and that's what mattered. 😂

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

TTPD being about the lies we’re told by others vs. the lies we tell ourselves…