#they simply ARE

[lai-mar]

i love laimar because it first it seems like a basic ship but then at the end you realise your expectations got subverted and then subverted again and there is no romantic confirmation at the end but they do live together and she's his advisor and they go on trips together and you realise they will always be in each other's lives no matter what their relationship is

[aroacepotatoo]

New head cannon I recently came up with that I’m now obsessed with; Etho and Martyn being siblings!!!

I don’t know why but the idea that Etho is a chill slightly murderous artist older brother and Martyn is an overprotective very murderous silly annoying younger brother is EVERYTHING to me (it’s such an unlikely pairing but that’s why I love it <3)

[vaalthus]

The Mana Core (Spoilers)

Oh boy have things escalated quickly.

I have to say I like the brief gander through the Project Casca laboratory. It reminds me all too well of sequences in other video games, in which, characters finds themselves in dreary or primitive settings only to find highly advanced sterile white rooms indicating they are in the presence of something that completely contrasts the settings they've been in prior that tells them immediately that something is either very off or that the world around them is much bigger than they realize.

Unfortunately, in the case of the Magesterium's little white room, we learn that we should very much be in a state of unease when learning the consequences of their use of this facility. To learn that the Mana Core is not self-replenishing is very concerning, as it makes manaphages more terrifying, and it's alarming that the Magesters are more than fine with continuing to take pieces of the Core if it means they can have a stranglehold on their empire and how far it reaches if no alternatives can be substituted for the Core. I'm curious as to whether or not they would have brought Lore to the very brink before giving up on this resource and I feel like we already know the answer to that.

and speaking of alternatives...

Rather interesting to learn that the Exalted did, as suspected, come across MQ based technology and incorporated into their own works. What I find interesting is that one of these remnants was used in the creation of the Exalted Artillery. It certainly explains why the Exalted were able to forge a weapon capable of harming the Aequilibria to begin with as there has been a bit of consistent theme of mechquest related structures, or entities, being able to kind of just break the rules of reality. I wonder, in looking upon this revelation, if Notha would be proud she followed in similar footsteps of the Exalted when it came to incorporating and manipulating technology.

Which of course explains why Akanthus can't be bounded by the rules of magic in this world and is incredibly strong. Not only is he accessing the vast well of mana that the Magesters so desperately wanted to tap into for themselves one day, which grants him a strong body, but he is also slipping past the laws of the magic that governs Lore. Or perhaps more accurately, those laws are overlooking him so to speak. Either way, the world just doesn't know what to do with something like him or rather what he's been connected to.

I genuinely do love the amount of self-pitying Akanthus does in this moment. Yes, it does suck that Sobieslav was effectively raised up alongside other children to be experimented upon until they achieved a state that they were rendered effectively magicless in a world defined by magic and that they might just fade into the Ether once they die but it doesn't justify all they did after they were exiled by the Magesterium. It doesn't justify all those he killed or allowed to be killed in the Land of Dragons nor all the suffering he caused under the guise that he was achieving the peace the Rose claimed it offered.

He implies his lack of mana is what made him a monster, inhuman, but it's not. It was his selfishness, brutality, and apathy towards the lives of others. You were human Akanthus. You just chose to be the worst of what we had to offer.

For a moment, I thought this was going to be the most terrifying moment in this quest...

I even thought perhaps this was going to be that moment, but no there was something much worse waiting to happen. Also screw this guy for putting his hands on the dragon child!

*Ahem* No what was actually terrifying was this moment.

The Aequilibria, the gods of this universe, reawakened. Imagine my utter horror at the fact that it wasn't Jaania trying to weave herself into the Core or the doom bomb being the cause of this moment but us bringing Draco, one of its creation, being the reason why the gods woke up to see what was going on in their world.

Curiously enough, they bare the face of Sk'aar prior to turning back to the eight elemental stars we can see at the top of the Exaltia tower when fighting the Engineer in the Inn. This seems somewhat odd given that Sk'aar seemed to be implying they wanted to awaken a separate entity alongside us which seemed to be the Aequilibria itself.

I just love how this moment proved my suspicion that the eight eyes of Sk'aar we saw in AdventureFriends were supposed to be representative of the Elements which makes sense given the only reason we had that dream in the first place is because the love potion we drank had Quintessence in it, something that clearly contains all eight prime elements within it.

Curiosities on the visage of Aequilibria aside, what follows next is a pitiful sight.

This seems a narrtively fitting end for Akanthus if he can't be harmed. For the longest time, Akanthus viewed himself as an abomination cheated out of his rightful place in the world alongside everyone else and committed countless atrocities in his quest to regain that place. Going as far as waking up the gods of this universe to grant him his way. Upon awakening, they confirm that he is indeed an impurity to the natural order of the world but they do not grant him the connection he seeks. No instead, they remove him even further from the world itself and they contain him in a way only a god can when killing isn't an option. I don't know if this farewell for good to Akanthus since his soul still exists but if so I say goodbye and good riddance to bad rubbish.

With Akanthus finally neutralized, we turn our attention to the elephant in the room:

Our gods are analyzing the state of their creation.

And they are not pleased with the current status of Lore one bit.

All of Lore has just been marked for death because a frozen arch magus and one big metal butthead couldn't leave stuff alone.

Interestingly enough it seems like Aequilibria was referring to the twin cycles when they asked if it was time to start anew. This makes me wonder if Draco themselves aren't necessarily the true destroyer that is meant to wipe clean Lore but merely responsible in alerting Aequilibria when it times to refresh the system and Fluffy in turn is meant to alert them when its time to create life again. It seems somewhat unlikely, especially if they meant they were only waking up because the cycle has gone so wrong, but the Aequilibria makes it sound as if they were supposed to be woken up at set intervals.

What concerns me most though is the way they speak. Others have already pointed out that they talk very robotic in nature, very similarly to how Sk'aar spoke in one of the AdventureFriend routes, and their decisions are very straight to the point and seemingly without any trace of nuance.

Connections to MQ aside, this is very much a being that expects order and nothing but order in the system they have created and if it deems its creation has deviated too far from the system it will conclude to destroy it. I do not have high hopes for being able to reason with such an entity. It took the resources of all the Exalted to force this thing out of commission for a period of time so we are in some serious trouble.

[cistematicchaos]

ID: a post by @ / myceliumgirl from Sep 16th, 2022 reading:

"Call it solidarity, call it the evolutionary drive towards mutual aid, call it friendship, call it camraderie, call it community. Call it whatever you want, but understand that it is love."

I love this post. It's poetry, it's beautiful and it's true to me. But I also think a lot about how (I think it was) @jacuzziwaters who pointed out that the last part of it doesn't apply to plenty of us. Like, obviously, all of these things are connected and it's glorious, but your foundation for these things doesn't have to be love, love doesn't even have to be part of the picture.

I know the idea of loveless connections, relationships, ect is just completely unfathomable to some people but they're here. They exist and they're beautiful and important too.

Obviously, solidarity/community/ect can be shitty as well, falling into abusive structures and patterns and/or existing solely for bigoted reasons but if we're gonna acknowledge their beauty, I think it's definitely worth pointing out love isn't what makes these remarkable. Or rather, it doesn't have to be love; there is beauty in these connections alone, in community dedicated toward taking care of its own. Loveless relationships/connections prove that all the time and deserve the acknowledge for it, honestly.

[werewolf-transgenderism]

just watched a video of a wildlife rehabber tube-feeding the teeny tiniest orphaned baby opossum and the comments are fucking KILLING me

baby opossum (too teeny, hasn’t finished cooking in the marsupial pouch like it ought to have done, doesn’t even look like it should exist):

the comments:

[daily-crabbys]

This Friday's meme is: the perfect being

[helen--richardson]

"The best part of being fat is being soft and comfy to cuddle with" "The best part of being fat is knowing people like you for your personality and not your looks" Wrong. The best part of being fat is getting to swim in ice-cold water for FAR longer than my peers. My skinny friends can barely last 10 minutes in the pacific ocean without losing feeling in their fingers meanwhile i can be in there for HOURS. I was born to swim in glacial lakes and icemelt streams. Also I float.

[bookwyrminspiration]

god I would be UNSTOPPABLE if I was capable of consistently initiating tasks. just you wait. you'll be waiting a while but just you wait

[killingsboys]

"if i was orpheus i would simply not turn around" yes you would. if you were orpheus and you loved eurydice, you would. to love someone is to turn around. to love someone is to look at them. whichever version of the myth — he hears her stumble, he can't hear her at all, he thinks he's been tricked — he turns around because he loves her. that's why it's a tragedy. because he loves her enough to save her. because he loves her so much he can't save her. because he will always, always turn around. "if i was orpheus i would simply —" you wouldn't be orpheus. you wouldn't be brave enough to walk into the underworld and save the person you love. be serious

[miiilowo]

non-practicing slut. is this anythign

[ofswordsandpens]

idk why people get super pedantic about the movie logic in Home Alone and start and try to pick it apart, because like, its a Christmas movie about a child accidentally being left home alone, the premise isn't exactly asking us to suspend our disbelief that much, and yet nearly every single "gotcha" question I see people bring up about this film is literally answered within the first 15 minutes :/

[captainjonnitkessler]

Sometimes I wish we would start calling out the performative radicalism on this site for the poser bullshit it is. "Remember, it's always morally correct to kill a cop!" "Don't forget to firebomb your local government office!" "Wow, it sure would be a shame if these instructions on how to make a molotov cocktail got spread around!"

Okay. But you're not killing cops or firebombing government offices. You are posting on a dying microblogging website to a carefully-curated echo chamber that has radicalized itself into thinking that taking the absolute most extreme position on any subject is praxis but that anyone discussing the most practical way to effect actual change is your sworn enemy. You do not have the street cred OR the activist cred to be talking about killing cops, babe.

[valtsv]

"objectively physically attractive but in possession of negative rizz" is one of my favorite character concepts. i think it's so great when there's an absurdly hot person who's just a complete fucking loser. the mood is unsalvageable the moment they open their mouth kind of deal. you get no bitches because you're so sucks.

[bloodraven55]

i’ve seen too many people arguing that marcille was already a full grown adult when she went to school at 35 despite literally all of the canon evidence indicating otherwise

[oceangenasi]

I'm absolutely obsessed with Laios' logic that the other shapeshifters made mistakes the real party members were too knowledgeable/careful/wise to make

but for Marcille he's like "only the real Marcille would do something that fucking stupid"

[tariah23]

White people are miserable, racist losers period. They’ve even been getting mad at Japanese people for correcting them about Yasuke as well.