#they're kind of using each other yeah

[glittergoats]

the awful feeling of watching yourself become obsessed with a rarepair in a small fandom

[sysig]

Reverberations, configurations (Patreon)

[lucradiss]

Existing in more than one fandom space is like having more than one group of friends but both of them being so wildly different that any overlap at all would be like getting shot in the head

[cementcornfield]

https://x.com/vikingzfanpage/status/1867748114540433549?s=61

ummm excuse you justin, that is your best friend

lol really though!!

but nah, i touched on this in my tags of a rb of this tweet. like to me it isn't a huge deal or anything. they're obviously still close, they just don't talk in season (which they've both said before). but they spent time in france together this offseason and have also said that they love each other and are always gonna have that connection so i'm not too worried! friendships go through stages sometimes, and adult friendships are just kind of like that, even for football players i guess! (some of my absolute best friends in the world, my favorite people, i only talk to once a month if that. and like a real deep catch up session happens only a few times a year. it's just hard! and i can say for sure that me and my friends do not have nearly as much going on as these two guys lol)

but anyway i'm also gonna take this opportunity to ramble about some more ja'marr character analysis lol. so like, it's becoming pretty clear that ja'marr is deadset on keeping tee and joe with him as long as possible (not gonna get into contract details or likelihood at the moment because that's all still in the air of course. but like, ja'marr's intentions at least are clear at the moment). and it's also obvious how much ja'marr treasures his friendships! he loves his guys and thrives off of being around them! i wonder if like, the evolution of his relationship with justin has to do with how extreme he, tee, and joe are being about contract stuff right now???

like justin and ja'marr were SO close for awhile there. from the hyper competitive but clearly loving friendship they had going on in college. the way they were always together on the sideline and always doing their dances and making up ridiculous elaborate handshakes <3 the way all of their joint interviews involved so much laugher and loving glances. and even after joining the league still talking about each other in the media and how much they love and support each other even as they're still super competitive. hell, when i first became a fan in 2022, ja'marr would still be streaming with justin almost every week lol. (i think justin has stopped streaming and maybe doesn't even do much gaming-wise anymore, which may have been the main way they kept in touch tbh. like, many such cases for the men i know in my life lol)

and now they're at the point where they have so much else going on, that even though they love each other, the constant conversation and all that isn't as present. (and ja'marr has kind of made it clear that that started on justin's end. like, ohhh he doesn't text me back blah blah blah, however true that is 🤔). and i feel like, even though ja'marr probably understands, that had to have hurt. again he values his friends so much and is at his best mentally, emotionally, and athletically when he's around them!!! i wonder if that taught him something about like, "if i want to keep these people i love in my life as much as possible, i need them to stay on my team. justin went to a different team and something that was so beautiful and important to me changed. i can't have that for tee. i can't have that for joe. we need to figure something out" which like, could absolutely be me digging depth into something that isn't there but at the same time it makes sense motivationally for me!!! like did he sob on his agent's shoulder one night about how much he missed justin and how he couldn't stand the thought of that happening with tee (I WANT TO PLAY WITH HIM FOR ETERNITY!!!) and the agent was like, hey, we can do something about this actually! send me his info!

[the-acid-pear]

Y'know this little throwaway gag is so bizarre to me and I know this game is a bit very different to 2 and 3 but look at Matt's reaction when Jack raids the place in 3:

You'd argue he's simply stopping Jack bc he hates this guy and he also hates this job which Could Be True but i highly doubt bc overall despite his virginity and overall cursed vibe, Matt seems to be a good employee, by all means (I mean, Peter literally gave him a vacation instead of firing him in 2, so that says a lot).

Plus, Dave hates this guy as much as he hates him! He literally always calls him creepy and, AND!

This is the only footage you get of the prize corner in 2. Which is also the first game to show Matt and Dave's disdain for one another, Dave being likely more scared of Matt than Matt will ever be of him.

Which is all very curious. 2 does set a drastic change for Matt too with him going from being just strange to outright creepy, so was the old pizza place closing something that actually affected him or was he consistently that creepy all along? And if the later, did he just start hating Dave after that or did they always have beef and they simply had some sort of arrangement (or even higher word from Steven who tended to let Dave do whatever he wanted in general) that let him do so?

[sanjarka]

in retrospect i was probably only obsessed with jim and pam (so much so that i even published one chapter from my fic which is something I'm still find the guts to do for everlark) because they got the treatment that i wish nick and jess got. they got to be the heart of story and the main couple and everything while after their break up nick and jess were never treated right again.

[agapestricken]

margaret atwood, alias grace; slightly modified to say 'her' instead of 'his.'

[problemswithbooks]

Is Cat a Kind of Inntinnsic?

The answer, the one I'm sure the author would give, would be no. The story in no way treats Cat's Gift as an Inntinnsic ability. Violet and particularly Xaden don't act as if what she does is at all similar to what an Inntinnsic does.

But I'd argue it has to be in order for it to work.

Because everything is first person from Violet's PoV or a rare chapter from Xaden, I sort of doubt the author really sat down and thought of how certain characters powers would work. If she did, i think she'd have realized Cat's Gift would function similarly to Xaden's second signet.

Cat can manipulate emotions. We're told she can't force someone to feel something they don't, but instead amplify what they do feel. On the surface that doesn't seem anything like an Inntinnsic ability. Where things become more complicated is how she uses that power.

If Cat can't implant an emotion, then she has to know what emotions the person is feeling. Sure, she could just be throwing her ability at people and seeing what sticks, or it could work in broad strokes; emotions overlap, so maybe any negative emotion can be made increasingly worse, while a good one amplified into pure elation.

I'd argue though that her power doesn't seem that broad, instead being pretty focused. Violet was easy to read so it wouldn't even have been hard to read that she hated Cat, and Cat threw out insults during their fight to make sure Violet is more susceptible to her Gift.

But the Venin she goes after at the end of the book wasn't as easy a read. She doesn't know this Venin. She's bragging and boastful, but whose to say that's greed and not pride? Or even done as a way to taunt Violet and make her more afraid?

Yet Cat manipulates the Venin without much difficulty, seeming to know exactly what emotions she's feeling without any trouble.

There's also the issue where people are generally feeling more then one emotion at a time. Violet is always in love with Xaden, but she can also be annoyed with him. Emotions aren't something that are felt one at a time--so how does Cat pick which one to manipulate without knowing instinctively what they're feeling?

I think it's very likely that Cat can either sense what people are feeling, or even see it (I'm thinking sort of like auras) and from there use her power to exaggerate which ever one she wants. It just makes the most sense.

But if that is the case, similar to how Xaden can read people's impulses and intentions, Cat could read their emotions. Now, that's not exactly mind reading, but Xaden's power isn't strictly reading minds either, yet he count's as an inntinnsic. To me what seems to make someone Inntinnsic is that they have no outward tell or rule for using their powers--they can just do it.

Dain isn't an inntinnsic because he requires touch to activate his memory seeing. As long as he does not touch you, you are safe from his ability.

Meanwhile, what makes inntinnsics such a security risk, is that they can activate their signet at anytime without anyone's knowledge. Xaden seems to be using his second signet constantly to read everyone, and no one has ever picked up on it at all.

In a way Cat's Gift seems to be similar in that she can use it without a hard and fast rule. She can just do it. If it works by letting her sense people's emotions, she could be constantly reading people Xaden does, but instead for intent, it's for their emotional state.

Does that not make her power Inntinnsic? Or at least Inntinnsic adjacent?

[torgawl]

i keep thinking about how “is this what justice means to you, answer me neuvillette”, despite having been used in a case all those hundred of years ago, was probably a question that haunted - and still haunts - neuvilette during the entire time he has been chief of justice. i keep thinking about how they highlighted his struggles through time with both carole and wriothesley's trials. how guilty and powerless neuvillette must have felt for not being able to support and save those he recognised as vulnerable and victims before a system that corrupted their fates but that he wasn't able to change despite his position. the theme of being a casualty of a system no matter if you're the victim or the perpetrator in its eyes. the way neuvillette took, in both cases, things into his own hands. even if it was too late to fix the hurting carole and those who cared for her went through, even if it was too late to save her life; even if it was impossible to change wriothesley's past, his verdict and subsequent imprisonment; neuvillette went above and beyond, making use of his influence, to allow both melusines and wriothesley the opportunity of a better future - to melusines by making sure they weren't discriminated, to wriothesley by supporting his attempt at a second chance in life. i think part of the reason he's so intriguing is our awareness that this internal conflict he's bound to have is so complex. you have a chief of justice, or a judge, that is supposed to be imparcial and follow the law stictly confronted with situations of social injustice, unable to protect those who rely on him. you have someone who understands better than anyone what it means to be an outcast, being able to relate to those who are ostracised and have their pain weaponise against them. you have, in vautrin's case, a friend who cannot even showcase his own pain and is still expected to fullfil his juridical duties despite being personally related with those involved in the case. someone who people constantly turn to but whom he feels like he has no right to turn to himself. it's about the conflict between his feelings and his duty, between what's expected of him and what he can actually do. i think that's why the end of his story quest is so emotional and why it's so heartwarming to have him realise he isn't an outcast anymore, that he has a community there for him too. because a system is a system and he will probably never be able to save everyone, because yes he isn't human, but it doesn't mean he doesn't deserve to belong or that an active demonstration of love towards individuals and people he can relate to rather than the theoretical concept of humanity isn't meaningful. in fact, i'd it's a lot about that, about finding ways to be kind and how community gives meaning to life; how personal relationships and targeted kindness can shape society, or at least i think so

[thelostgirl21]

Am I the only one that really struggles with the idea of Radskier's current relationship status being listed as "Ex-Lovers" in the shipping wiki, or...?

[pikachu-deluxe]

actually not done with the mario kart 64 thing i was making, got to 3k lines of code today woo

calculated each characters section and each one takes like 2k lines of code by themselves so that's cool and it also means the final thing will be like 16k lines long to get everything working nicely

the thing already works but i still need to get the actual output in there, just got done with like one third of mario's data, took a few hours so i should have it ready in a few days maybe

[aromanticasterisms]

i started this side quest off going girl i cannot POSSIBLY be this stupid. then saw my friends and went oh okay all of this was worth it actually :]

[hitroow]

I just had the sickest idea.

[jesperr-fahey]

[ID: a series of panels of Sonic the hedgehog, as he's portrayed in the movies. in each panel, he grasps one of his allies by the hand, pulling them up- in the first, he smiles and reaches down towards Tails, who sits on the ground and looks up at Sonic, worried and sad. in the second, Sonic tugs on Knuckles's hand, pulling him to standing, while Knuckles glares at him. in the last, Sonic holds Shadow's hand in both of his, grinning at him while Shadow frowns in confusion. END ID]

a helping hand

[smallhatlogan]

Fascinating to read reviews and reponses to Dawn that are like "That was soooo horrifying and disturbing and everything about that ship and the aliens was freaky" but what really made the more disturbing aspects work for me was that the ship, oankali society, their values, and the ways they do genuinely help people are naturally appealing to me. I think they could convince me into buying into (though not participating in, I'd be one of the guys who just spends the rest of their life hanging out on the ship) their plans for humanity. (Also by comparing them to sea slugs they sound sooo cute even when their ethics are fucked)

[willyhoos]

whenever i see stuff abt "we need more tails and sonic dynamic where they're SIBLINGS!" and it's just them being rude to each other i get so sad. they do NOT talk to each other like that!!

sometimes they tease, yeah, BUT:

sonic knows better than anyone that tails is still a child, that he's been through a lot (and thus has some particularly sensitive spots,) and the usually brusque/brash sonic very clearly adopts a softer tone with his lil bro! he's also willing to slow down and (gasp) take care of himself a little better for tails' sake. we also see he gets pretty protective of him...

he has absolutely no problem indulging tails' interests and needs!! sonic thinks tails is adorable!! sonic thinks tails is incredible!!

and TAILS thinks his brother is the coolest thing in the world!! he wants to emulate and be more like him! so while he's inherited some of sonic's attitude (and he's earned the right to use it) he would NOTTT just. straight up insult sonic to his face, much less mean it. don't forget that tails canonically thinks this blue energy rat is incredibly cool

why would u want to make this relationship into a stereotype? they're not typical brothers, they formed this special unbreakable bond themselves!! its unique! its built off of understanding and perfect synchrony!! fundamentally it is sonic gently taking tails in and showing him kindness for the first time, and tails striving every day to emulate his hero! there's no want, no need, and no room for needless cruelty!