#the power of decisive action

[borngeniusworld]

Think, Act: Foolish & Intelligent

I’MBG@iamborngenius “Fools think a lot, while the intelligent act a lot.” _Subhas Yadav Have you ever pondered over the difference between thinking and acting? There’s a famous saying that goes, “Fools think a lot, while the intelligent act a lot.” This adage encapsulates an essential truth about the contrasting behaviors and outcomes of those who dwell in thoughts and those who spring into…

[cookiedough77]

the more people say "marinette is becoming gabriel!!!"

all i can think of is the scene from the owl house season 3 episode 3 where luz thinks she's just as bad as belos and the titan is like "the fuck??? no??? belos is genuinely awful and hurt alot of people, you are literally a teenage girl"

anyway the same thing is happening here sort of-

JUST AUGHHH

[playerkingsley]

the throughline of “little lies are ok” and “lying is ok if it helps your friends and family, but you’ve got to tell the truth about lying” and the shared domain of trickery between the main instigator and adversary of the calamity, asmodeus, and the moonweaver, who takes the first steps to define (and weave, if you will) the new relationship between divinity and those left behind on the material plane, all culminating to sehanine then wielding this aspect of illusion and untruths they share and literally slapping her brother back to the pit of the hells? perfection, absolutely no notes

[robby-bobby-tommy]

The parallels that hurt so much

They both jinxed the most important event in their lives trying to help...

They both lost their closest friends to this....

And both were abandoned and hurt in the worst way possible by the sibling they've looked up to....

They had good intentions, they were so young......

And they're the monsters others have created.

[coalballbaby]

i find absolute delight in how much u bully prowl, keep it up

HAHAHAHAH thank you… if you ever come to the courtyard of the wreckers trilogy lover nation you’ll find me lobbing spoiled fruits and vegetables at him and I’ll offer you a fruit too. best way to enjoy this character. guards summon my 5 likes and I break his legs image yeah thats the one

[zykamiliah]

i love it when fandom infantilizes characters to the point of denying them their own agency.

"if people in cang qiong had treated shen jiu differently-" do you have any evidence that they mistreated him? or is it too hard a pill to swallow that shen jiu was the one who decided to close himself off and be an asshole. that cang qiong treated him just fine, that his martial siblings tolerated him to the point that even when he was suspected of murder nothing was done to him?

who forced shen jiu to abuse luo binghe? to abuse other disciples? those were his decisions, that was him acting in a position of power.

the moral of the story is not "shen jiu was misunderstood :(" the moral is: the person who was abused can also become an abuser. the one who suffers violence can be violent towards others. you, despite what you've gone through, have the capacity for kindness and cruelty. so be wise on how you decide to act, because your pain doesn't justify hurting others, and your actions will have consequences.

you have agency, you have whatever amount of power you have over your own life and the things you do have and impact in the lives of those around you and yourself. so maybe try being at the very least neutral to the world and yourself, if you can't be kind.

but no, shen jiu's mentality was "since I suffered, they deserve to suffer too". and by taking that path he perpetuated the cycle of abuse.

bingge is the same, because he could have stopped at taking revenge on shen jiu, but he decided to involve the whole sect and the rest of the world, no matter who was innocent. he was unnecessarily cruel, but so was his master.

both shen jiu and bingge had the capacity for some form of "niceness" (in the way they treated women), so it wasn't as if they'd never known some form of love. at some point in their lives, they stopped being abused children and became abusive adults.

and that's an expression of human behaviour that we have to accept as possible. the svsss narrative invites us to examine ourselves in this light, to witness our capacity for both love and hate, to realize that even in the most adverse of circumstances, there's always a small sliver of agency over how we feel and how we act. that, despite the things that defines us from birth through childhood, our decisions also define what we'll become in the future.

[feroluce]

So I spoke somewhat about my thoughts on Emanator Sampo here, but I never really thought of it from a design point of view or what kind of powers he would have until just recently. But I actually kind of love leaning into it from a "stage hand" perspective?

Because like. Aha's body in THEIR official art is completely black, giving attention to all the fun brightly colored things around THEM. And that's so fitting for Sampo! He usually prefers to be a side character. He likes to act from the shadows. His is a much more subtle hand.

So I wonder if as an Emanator, a lot of his clothes are actually very dark? Not necessarily plain, still extravagant and needlessly detailed in things like cut and quality with lots of different fabrics and textures and ornamentation, but dark. Or maybe even his skin itself becomes blackened further down his body; his hands in particular are dark, as a sort of sleight of hand reference.

The motif of a lot of straps wrapped around him like in his canon design is still present, but they're all loose and flowing off of him like paper streamers now instead of restraining him or holding him together. He is no longer contained! Or maybe they're still a bit more rigid/heavy, but just draped more like red stage curtains!

And this is like. Fully self-indulgent, but I love inhuman designs, and there's nothing in canon to say I can't do this, so screw it! Go for broke!! Maybe it's not visible to normal people, but Sampo having a second set of arms would be really cool, as further sleight of hand reference. One set is almost normal looking, but his hands are a bright, attention-drawing white, and the other is dark, set almost in the shadows of the first arms, to act less noticeably.

He also has something of a broken heart design to him in canon (the front of his black shirt with its jagged shape down the middle; his coat looks like a full heart shape in the back), and I actually like him keeping that element as an Emanator, because I think it suits him. Sampo says his taste in aesthetics and views on Elation involve human dignity,

and the story he helps create in Belobog involves the long and winding road of resistance and survival and eventual triumph in the face of some very adverse, oppressing odds. (I'm pretty sure I heard he once called Wildfire "artless" though, plus the man acts like he thinks Shame is some kind of dessert, so like ndkdjzjskkd) But the point being!!

I think Sampo is someone who can appreciate heartbreak and angst and tragedy in a story, because it makes the victory at the end all the sweeter. And this would be another thing he shares with Aha, because I think THEY did bless the Mourning Actors partly just to be a little shit, but also because Aha does recognize tragedy as part of THEIR Path, too, and you can see it in some of the game. So a broken heart motif can still suit him, and I like him having elements of both comedy and tragedy. Like his clothing having a happy sun/sad moon (like the moon in Aha's art) or him having both of the traditional comedy/tragedy masks in his design.

And as Emanator, Sampo can maybe play with the stage settings environment, too. Like lights sometimes behave strangely around him, appearing blindingly bright to someone or dramatically dark. Sampo wills it and suddenly there seems to be a metaphorical spotlight right where he wants everyone to look. And when he doesn't want to be noticed, his face seems to be cast in shadow, he seemingly just fades into the background, no one notices or recognizes him and he sneaks away easily. He can create smoke or fog literally out of thin air without his bombs now, too, the air will just suddenly thicken until his stage is obscured, and Sampo can set the scene as he pleases or disappear without a trace.

And in line with being a stage hand, Sampo can direct attention like no other. He was already extremely good at this as a normal mortal, and becoming an Emanator only took it up to 11, past human limits. Sampo points, and all present feel compelled to follow his fingertip. He looks away, and they all follow his gaze. He can even affect the mood of an audience; he can influence everyone to be calm and placid or he can whip them into a feverish frenzy. Sometimes a crowd will start to become unsettled, agitation stirring until it boils over, until it incites a full on violent mob.

And in the middle of all that chaos will stand one perfectly calm figure, face cast in shadow, until they quietly slip away out of sight.

[dawnleaf37]

hey yeah i had another bad idea . for eucerin

[agalychnisspranneusroseus]

Imagine you're Mr. Wu and your weird gay daughter runs away in tears after destroying some unespecified object while yelling about you ruining her life. Because you told her you'd be moving to another state. This is the last time you see your daughter in half a year, and when she comes back, she comes back... wrong. She's wearing a light leather armor, a fur-lined cape, and a green flower crown. She has two long scars, one alongside her spine and the other along her chest, the tissue around them covered in burn scars. Doctors say she shouldn't have survived. Doctors say she didn't. Yet she's right here, in front of you, hospital gown clinging to her small, fragile, trembling frame. She fidgets with her hands. Getting her to stay still has always been difficult, but now it seems impossible. She won't let go of her phone. She's always texting her two friends. When you take it away, she gets anxious. You always knew those damn phones cause kids to act weird, but your kid having a panic attack seems too extreme, even for her. Then again, she's always been odd. Nowadays, she wakes up crying and screaming almost every night, and you realize she's been stealing her phone from your bedside drawer every night to text her friends, returning it before you wake up. You catch her once and decide to give her that damn phone back. It's the only thing that calms her down, as if she were a baby with a pacifier. She spends her last weeks in LA clinging to her friends, having sleepovers and playing her weird board games with them. Everytime they drop her back at her house, there's an excessive amount of hugs and tears. But the moments when they call her, or when she leaves to meet with them, or when they show up at their door to pick her up... those are the only moments in which you see her happy. One of her friends, the rude and disobedient one, came back with a big scar on her face. She's been acting a lot nicer, though. The other one too. She acts a great deal more adult now. You doesn't know what happened or where your daughter went. She won't tell you. But you can tell this friendship is the only thing keeping her afloat right now. Maybe you know, deep down, that no one else would understand.

And then you decide to move anyway because fuck her amirite

[gloomy-eye]

Angsty fic idea:

when Armand is first turned, Marius sticks his own arm into the sunlight to show that the sun will hurt vampires. B/c Marius is so old there is only a bit of smoke coming off his arm, but Armand understands it will hurt him far worse. Years later, he first sees what happens when a young vampire like him goes into the sun- the short lived screams and a body collapsing into ash.

Centuries go by, and then comes a day when he loses track of time. the first rays of sunrise hit his arm through an open window and... nothing. Not even a bit of smoke. It doesn't make any sense. he's only 200 odd years old. Why doesnt he burst into burn like the others? He thinks back realising he has never once checked himself to see if the sun would hurt him.

He could have left. He could have up and left Marius or the Parisian coven at any point. Could leave all his duty and responsibilities behind.

But he didnt. And he still wont. He's a coward stuck in a prison made of twigs, afraid of a life outside of this space he's been put in- outside the picture he's been painted into. So he keeps quiet about being a daywalker. Tries not to think too much about it and adds it to his ever growing collection of secrets and carries on with existence.

[shrews-art]

I could write a whole essay about how Victor Vale and Kell Maresh are two sides of the same coin, opposites yet somehow similar when it comes to their relationship with pain

[disastergenius]

I keep seeing arguments that Bell's Hells at the end of the campaign are still largely powerless in the world, have no privileges (at least not on the scale of the other parties), and are not trusted to handle the problems of their own campaign and are instead pushed aside in favor of letting previous PCs fix things. And that is odd, since that argument is simply not supported by the text of the campaign (nor on a meta level).

For all that Bell's Hells starts as nobodies, the side characters in someone else's stories, the could-have-easily-been-NPCs, this isn't a distinction that BHs hold as a party. This is quite literally the premise of most TTRPG parties, we can see that with the previous CR parties. It's cool to see at the beginning of the campaign while they find their footing as a group, but at some point that becomes untrue as they gain power. And Bell's Hells never quite seems to grasp that they are no longer the underdogs, or at least that the power gain has given them true influence in the world.

For what it's worth, Dorian while estranged from his parents/the Silken Squall still comes from a position of privilege, Orym was a guard to the Voice of the Tempest, Ashton has a beacon in their head, Imogen is tied to Ruidus with a mother in high command in the opposing force, Fearne has a good relationship with the Fate Stitcher, Laudna has a previously known evil necromancer granting her power, FCG is an aeormaton. Again, this is pretty common for a DnD party to have mysterious backstories and strange ties to be explored within the campaign, those are plot hooks! But it does not make them unique among the other CR parties nor dnd parties in general, and saying that they were uniquely disadvantaged or started from worse places really doesn't hold up. They are on par with the previous parties, and the only difference that they hold is a Doylist one that ties them to previous campaigns and thus alters the audience perception, but this doesn't undercut them on a Watsonian level.

The idea that they have essentially "pulled themselves up by their bootstraps" is also not supported. They acquire a rich and highly skilled patron by Episode 2 (Estheross) who supports them through most of the early campaign. While he later dies (rip to mentors, statistically unlikely to survive stories) he still gifts them an entire airship while they are Level 7, granting them the ability to travel far and easily while still relatively low-level. They have Ira on their side, and despite how tenuous that relationship is, this is still a relatively high-powered entity that they encounter early. They invoke the idea of Nana Morri early on as a potential avenue for help, and Planerider Ryn takes interest in them early as well through Hondir as part of the Grim Verity.

There are a few arguments floating about regarding the gathering of information during this campaign, specifically that it was gatekept and difficult. In contrast to M9 that had access to Cobalt Soul libraries, information was more difficult to attain during this campaign comparatively, but not in the understanding of a DnD campaign. Investigation checks exist, and gathering of information from shadowy hidden sources and secret societies is the stuff that DnD (and fantasy as a whole) have been built on, so this doesn't stand out as something that should have been a problem from that perspective. Instead it is Bell's Hells as characters that show little interest in pursuing that information via those means (high int parties are a boon in this regard).

Similarly, the artifacts they acquire at low level are destroyed via character choices (with some meddling from the DM). The gnarlrock is never followed up with after Delilah absorbs it, so we never found out what it did. Ashton shatters the green lens thing so we never figure out what it's use is either (and from the way it went, it might have been important?)

They have Keyleth on speed-dial to try and resurrect Laudna, and when she can't, she calls in the rest of Vox Machina, so Bell's Hells have now gained recognition of very powerful people who are willing to help them then and offer help later. Powerful aid in Whitestone is not something that previous parties ever would have been able to call in (easy example: part of why Molly couldn't be resurrected).

While it is still very much under the radar, they are tasked with destroying one of the Malleus keys by Planerider Ryn. They are later tasked with helping at the Tishtan site by Beau and Caleb, who we also know wield influence in the world (via the Cobalt Soul, though I think this is still considered relatively under the radar as well given the way we see them working in M9 Reunited and EotRS). Trusting BHs with such a mission while not knowing them is instilling quite a bit of trust in them as a group (Watsonian explanation), so to say that they hold no recognized power at this point is laughable.

Fearne and Ashton acquire the Titan Shards. They gain the funnel harness to siphon extra magical items into in exchange for feats. Imogen and Laudna continue to feed into strange forces to gain power. Power gained never seems to register for BHs, instead they stagnate and believe they have limited ability to affect change.

Bell's Hells are tasked with doing Ruidus reconnaissance by a war counsel that includes many of Exandria's most powerful. This really undercuts the argument that they are not trusted to handle important tasks. This is Exandria's first real contact with the red moon, and they are trusting BH to go in and report back while not actively causing more issues.

I know a lot of the BHs defenders really hate him, but Essek being the M9 emissary and taking them to Aeor where we know there are many interesting things to explore is another indicator that they are trusted by M9. This connection also becomes important later.

Once back from the moon, BH are once again privy to several war counsels with an even larger number of Exandrian leaders in Vasselheim (the Exandrian UN if you will). They are granted time to speak on their experiences and weigh in on what they believe should be done. Largely, their suggested plans are accepted and adapted. At this point, Bell's Hells have comparable notoriety to Vox Machina in C1. Notably, M9 are not even present for these counsels and are vouched for by Allura and the Kryn, and most of the leaders don't seem to know who they are (truly the heroes no one knows). Bell's Hells are then given the task of taking down Ludinus, who has been the face of the villainy in Exandria (as the orchestrator of this plan) and the campaign. This is a huge task for Bell's Hells to be entrusted with; VM is basically running interference and M9 is taking down a side villain organization, BH is being given the ultimate task. This does lean a bit Doylist in the sense that this is their campaign, what else were they going to do, but on a Watsonian level, for the Exandrian leaders, this is the ultimate end result: to take down Ludinus and stop whatever other plans he and the Ruby Vanguard have.

Bell's Hells naturally draw the attention of the gods, given that it is their fates that they are deciding. They are offered many perspectives and notably not immediately smote down in the way that some party members thought might happen. This is comparable again to C1's many interactions with the gods.

Here is where it really gets fun: the finale to C3 and the trilogy of long-form campaigns. Bell's Hells are the ultimate deciders of the fate of Exandria when they decide to take in Predathos and hold counsel with the gods. At this point, the idea that they have no power is absurd. Bell's Hells isn't shy about showing that off either as they march back into Vasselheim and demand an audience with the gods while telling everyone else to fuck off because they now hold the power to call the shots. And they get their way because of it! The second they are challenged they are shown to be the ones holding all the cards (ie the threat of Predathos).

In invoking powerful people, Bell's Hells are the ones who actively call out help from both Pike, Caleb, and finally Essek when trying to revive Ashton, which has reverberating consequences for Essek (and Caleb and the rest of M9 with the Kryn), but are never addressed by BHs. This has a more Doylist answer where the cast simply needed someone to intervene and Essek was the closest after Pike and Caleb couldn't; the alternative is letting Ashton die, and they rightfully aren't willing to let him go that easily. But it requires that they ask for help, and it is not a DM deus ex machina that saves them, but characters they also control, so this push of responsibility is their decision that they could have simply not taken.

After they resolve Predathos, the idea that they are pushed aside to let previous PCs who are privileged (in ways other than the ways that BHs are not) fix everything is simply untrue. Bell's Hells go to advocate for the Ruidus citizens coming to Exandria, which is the current most pressing issue that they can speak to, given that they do not care about the followers of the gods handling the resulting fallout and BHs are not leaders in Exandria and thus will not be directly involved in the task of having to rebuild on this scale. This fits within their contexts as characters and place in the world, it does not show them as being unimportant in ways that diminish them at the end of their campaign. They will not be seeking out the gods in their mortal forms, they will at best be acting as emissaries as relations form between Ruidus and Exandria, and even then, we see them do this in a very limited capacity (if at all). Laudna and Imogen help the immigrating Ruidians for an indeterminate amount of time and then settle down in their cottage. Bell's Hells as a whole are more interested in taking a break, which is fair and well-deserved, but does live in stark contrast to the way that previous parties realized there was an endless amount of work to still be done at the end of their respective campaigns.

Bell's Hells end the campaign with their power sets largely intact and go back into the world holding that same level of power, like the parties before them.

In comparison to the other campaigns, they end on a relatively similar level to the Mighty Nein, as people who may have some level of power that can be used (and open-ended enough to leave room for their return and for fans to fill in the gaps to their hearts' content).

They go back to their lives and settle down in many respects, or at least what passes as settling down for former adventurers. The characters actively choose not to pursue anything related to the rebuilding of Exandria with the gods no longer behind the Divine Gate. Laudna and Imogen helping with the Ruidian immigrants for an unspecified amount of time before settling down away from that, and after that, the closest we get is Orym remaining as a Tempest Blade before deciding to leave that, and Fearne starting to take lessons with Nana Morri which positions her to have a powerful role in the future (again, knocking the argument that they end with no power either).

The members of Bell's Hells did not pursue power and influence at the end of the campaign, and if they wanted to, I'm sure there would have been space for them to do so. But the lack of political/worldly influence at the end of the campaign is purely the decisions of the players, not because they were pushed aside by other PCs. Bell's Hells gains through the campaign grant them the same level of privilege and power that the other campaigns essentially ended on, and trying to position them as diminished or lessened during or at the end of the campaign is not supported by the show.

[teh-nos]

I watched Avengers: Age of Ultron (apart from I skipped some overly long action sequences) and I am not sure so can someone tell me whether or not Tony Stark was the baddy in that film? Because about halfway through I was sure he was but then it was maybe just an evil robot after all and I am confused because either this film was surprisingly subversive or it was about robots hitting each other.

[blue-eyed-giant]

actually, as i start approaching 20 i realize nana is not a cool coming of age story but it is, in fact, a horror

[shorthaltsjester]

being a huge fan of tlou but also like. thinking that certain stories are built for certain mediums. like the entire theme of tlou2 is grounded and fresh because it’s a railroad/story video game that still affords you mechanical choices in how you navigate the world. i just don’t have a lot of confidence that presenting that story in a tv show with the minimal adjustments that they did in s1 will be fulfilling or compelling in any comparable way. because with tlou1 some of the like. beauty of that story was simply that it was such an emotive story contained in the medium of video games. and some of that was retained just by hitting similar or expanded emotional beats in the show, like the episodes that expanded on the life of the characters and the realities of that world. but truly so much of tlou2 emotional depth and ‘why does this story matter’ rests in the fact that’s it’s your hands on the controller, continually choosing to go forward in the story and have hope that it will work out in your-as-ellie-or-abby-or-somehow-booth’s favour. and you simply cannot get that in a non-interactive medium like television. like i do think tlou2 is a good story but it’s a good story because of the investment required by the player to keep pressing buttons and keep returning and to feel the adrenaline like responses of high intensity moments and be jarringly shifted into backstories that only increase the frustration. in general i’ve been thinking a lot about cross-medium adaptation and on the one hand i am glad that season 1 makes the story of the last of us more accessible to people who wouldn’t pick up a video game but it’s also like. maybe instead we can destigmatize video games as this inaccessible and dangerous medium a bit more instead of just . implicitly agreeing . like no maybe your mom won’t pick up a video game controller and play the last of us . but maybe you can play the game in the living room. sometimes the mediums that stories are told in aren’t just important but are actually foundational parts of how the information of a story is conveyed and that’s not only okay but is fucking fantastic. we should be happy actually that there are so many ways to collect a bunch of themes and ideas and put them together and hold them out to someone else and say “won’t you consider this with me. won’t you feel these emotions and care about these characters with me.”

[bumblingbabooshka]

Something about this interaction between Harry & Janeway - specifically Janeway but it's notable that Harry's the one listening because I think, say, Chakotay or B'Elanna might push back against the idolization of this 'it was different back in those days' way of thinking.