#this is why we're independent

[mara-and-its-the-same]

things are not going well mes amis

it is 5 am, I need to be up at 7, I have not slept once tonight.

My phone is at 24% and will not charge.

I was going to watch brooklyn 99 on my computer to have some sound while I fall asleep but it will not make any noise, like there is nothing coming out of these speakers

[usercelestial]

okay but literally what if buck and tommy end up together? like what if we get to see them moving in together or saying i love you for the first time or getting engaged or getting married? what if we get to see buck having a husband? literally what then...

[carlyraejepsans]

for real WHERE does the idea that [utdr humans] are nongendered so that "you can project on them" come from. their literal character arcs are about NOT being a blank slate to be filled in by the audience

i think i understand the assumption on some level for undertale, because there is a very intentional effort to make you identify with the "player character" in order to make your choices feel like your own (the beating heart of undertale's metanarrative lies in giving you an alternative path to violence against its enemies after all, and whether you're still willing to persue it for your own selfish reasons. YOUR agency is crucial).

of course, the cardinal plot twist of the main ending sweeps the rug from under your feet on that in every way, and frisk's individuality becomes, in turn, a tool to further UT's OTHER main theme: completionism as a form of diegetic violence within the story. replaying the game would steal frisk's life and happy ending from them for our own perverse sentimentality, emotionally forcing our hand away from the reset button.

i think their neutrality absolutely aids in that immersion. but also, there's this weird attitude by (mostly) cis fans where it being functional within the story makes it... somehow "editable" and "up to the player" as well? which is gross and shows their ass on how they approach gender neutrality in general lol.

but also like. there's plenty of neutral, non PCharacters in undertale and deltarune. even when undertale was just an earthbound fangame and the player immersion metanarrative was completely absent, toby still described frisk as a "young, androgynous person". sometimes characters are just neutral by design. it's not that hard to understand lol.

anyone who makes this argument for kris deltarune is braindead. nothing else to say about it.

[ultrabrite-dl]

The Monkey King Netflix movie (2023) in a few memes because I did enjoyed it

Bonus: My 1rst GIF featuring Stick after his 10 guitar lessons

[novella-november]

Is this fanfic friendly? I feel like an outlier.

I guess this is my sign it's time to throw together a FAQ post to link to lol.

Yes, every event for this blog is fanfic friendly :D

Though as I mentioned on my Ominous October post, for events that include multiple short stories, I encourage everyone to flex their creativity and take one of their planned short story fanfics, and at least *attempt* to turn one of them into something entirely original; rebuilding a character and story from the ground up to stand on its own two legs is no easy feat, and that is what makes it so fun!

It really gets your creative gears turning, to make an "au of an existing material" to be something entirely original, and you can be pleasantly surprised about the things you come up with!

As a few people say, its not just a matter of "filing the serial numbers off" -- you have to add in just as much *or more* as what you take out when you are turning a fanfiction into something that is original and completely divorced from its original source material / inspiration, and that is a hard, but very rewarding challenge!

Obviously, this is not a requirement (there's no hard requirements for any of the challenges, other than no cheating, including no using AI),

but if you would like an extra challenge for the short story events and you're planning on doing entirely fan-fiction, I highly recommend trying it out at least once, and seeing where it leads you--

you may find yourself pleasantly surprised by what you find down that rabbit hole!

[vonlipvig]

usamericans tell me if this election map looks as ridiculous as it feels cause hello?????

[rawliverandgoronspice]

re: my last post, but I kind of have a good serving of criticism in my heart about the whole "gerudos as men r*pists*" trope that I've seen bouncing around in fandom since like 2008 at least (and before that I assume), but it's. not a particularly fun topic. so.

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

Another reason why the whole "forced marriages" concept (that Rhea haters ate up like pie) is bullshit.

Speaking for Faerghus, since this seems to be an issue players point the finger at Faerghus for, it's just... not true? This NPC does understand there are political implications to his marriage, but he wasn't forced into it and neither was his wife. They married for love.

The only known case of an arranged marriage prospect within Faerghus' known cast is Ingrid, and that's something Ingrid has taken on for herself as well. She knows her lands struggle with crops and that her people go hungry. She's choosing to deal with a non-romantic marriage for her people.

But what about Glenn, you ask? There are two aspects to that:

The marriage was arranged when Ingrid was born, but it's worth noting the marriage was arranged between Gunnar and a childhood friend's son. She wasn't just being married off to just anyone. It was both a childhood friend (who Gunnar clearly had deep trust in)'s son, but also a family member of the royal family's right hand family. But what about the Houses paralogue, you ask? Gunnar wasn't aware of the man's crimes, but as soon as he found out he rejected the proposal. Gunnar cares about his daughter's happiness and wellbeing. The only reason they're searching for a marriage candidate is because Galatea lands desperately need the financial support.

Ingrid is the only case we know of where she's being "married off" (her endings rebuke this entirely anyway because she does end up marrying for love if paired with someone). Nobody else in Faerghus had a marriage forced or politically forced on them (and frankly I still fail to understand how the Church is supposedly at fault for concept of this being the case period anyway). Dimitri, the literal prince and at the time of birth immediate heir to the throne, was never forced to marry. Felix has never been pushed to marry. Sylvain has never been pushed to marry (despite how important it is that they continue that bloodline). Annette, a female, has never been pushed to marry.

In other words, the major political players have never put their kids into arranged marriage with a single exception of necessity for one family (Galatea), and in Rodrigue's case with Glenn, it was done with a childhood friend's lands' welfare in mind. Gunnar could have married Ingrid to anyone at any point, but the most important aspect of it is that when it was arranged without her say so (i.e. at her birth), it was done with the son of a man who Gunnar trusted implicitly.

After Glenn died, Ingrid was plenty old enough to have a say so in who she might be married to. Presumably the issue wasn't pushed on her for a while after Glenn died for emotional reasons, but once they tried again, Ingrid had a say in things. Her father sent her letters specifically for her input. No, she doesn't want to marry for political reasons, but she understands how much her lands need it. Still though, her father won't force her to marry some scumbag. If she tells him she won't marry someone, he accepts that.

In other words, the only argument that can be used for "forced marriages" falls flat on its face. It's not a regular practice in Faerghus. None of the heirs to specific territories are being married against their will. The only instance we know about isn't so extreme that Gunnar is just going for it and picking the best dowry without considering his daughter's happiness and health.

The one time it was decided before she was old enough to give her input, Gunnar didn't need to "consider" marriage prospects and be unsure who to pick, because it was planned between two old friends who trusted each other and presumably felt that their child would be safe with the other family in question.

My biggest problem with people saying this claim is supported is that for the most part, people just take Claude's words in GW at pure face value and assume it's absolute, definite truth when he gives nor has any evidence to back it up (mainly because he blames it on the Church, which still doesn't make sense because such things are out the Church's jurisdiction. No amount of "seeing what the world is like without Rhea" is going to change Faerghus' politics, so even if his claims were true, Claude would have to go talk to every single individual territory within Faerghus to realize the truth if he's that dead set on his view of this, as each territory does its own thing politically).

He brings it up like it's a fact in Faerghus, which as I've said before, he has literally no knowledge whatsoever about Faerghus, and it shows. He doesn't even know extremely basic things, such as the previous king literally dying in the middle of making friends with a foreign land. He knows that Lambert died in Duscur during the Tragedy, and that's... basically the extent of his knowledge and understanding about it. For some reason though in Hopes, he thinks he understands Faerghus as well as he understands Almyra.

It's also annoying because in Fodlan games, a character can just say something - literally anything at all - and it's eaten up immediately and taken at pure face value with no thoughts actually put into questioning its validity. And before anyone says "but Dimitri didn't argue this in Zaharas!" yeah, I'm aware, and I feel that was a huge reason why that chapter, trying to be the "we fight as allies this once" chapter, was a total flop, aside from other things (particularly in the SB/GW department with Dimitri and magically wanting to "talk things over" with someone who had just murdered one of his dearest friends mere hours ago tops in SB, or in GW where politics would demand more from him).

The games have a problem with trying to introduce false concepts through characters who don't know better (i.e. introducing incorrect perspectives that we're meant to understand are just perspectives and not the truth nor fact) but then not refuting those claims, despite the game itself as the story progresses outright denying those things, whether outright or passively (in the latter's case, again, other important political figures having no talks of marriage on the table at all).

In the screenshots, the NPC is aware that politics have to get involved with his marriage, but he wasn't forced to marry and neither was she. Not only does he mention it, but he wants people to know they married for love. He's basically saying he doesn't want people to misinterpret their reasons for marriage (wanting land, wealth, etc).

In Ingrid's case, it was started with that goal in mind, but it started out in safe hands. After that she always had a say in who she might marry, and ultimately didn't marry for political reasons. The one person who was possibly going to marry for political reasons in Faerghus and not out of love ends up not even doing that.

Honestly, in Claude's case, I feel like he was just written with no purpose in mind except to rock the boat unnecessarily, because everything he claims in regard to Faerghus is purely speculation on his part. He knows absolutely nothing about Faerghus (in both games, but his ignorance in Houses isn't malicious, whereas you could argue in Hopes he's attempting to overthrow what he believes are their systems when even if they were, it would still be none of his business) but talks like he's lived there or spoken to its people who make the decisions he claims are happening.

Also, the concept of Dimitri being forced to do this that and the other thing are just... not true? Dimitri is happy to be able to help others and make reforms for his lands. He likes that he's able to have the power to make good change and help people. He knows that you need a certain degree of power to be able to push things in a better direction and to have a voice. By having the most important voice, he can make other voices known that otherwise would not be. When people have no choice but to listen to the king, he can demand that other voices are heard.

Even in his A support with Shez, he believes his happiest moment will be when he dies after dedicating his life to "a peaceful kingdom full of joyous citizens". I get the whole "but he isn't living for himself!" side of things, but this part of this post is specifically about how Dimitri is supposedly "forced" into doing things because he's king; but plain and simple, he wants to be king because by having the highest power in his land, he can make positive change happen

"This bad thing is happening in the Kingdom!" Well now he can change that. He wants to change things in his land for the better, and he understands that his position is a necessity for that. That's why he's so upset when he's "rendered powerless by age" in Houses, i.e. can't ascend the throne yet. He wanted to make change and couldn't. He wanted to do right for the Kingdom, but he couldn't yet.

Basically what I'm saying is that people keep using Claude's Hopes rhetoric as "fact", but literally none of it is. It's all based on the most severe amount of ignorance in both games and him for some reason believing that he knows jack shit about Faerghus. That includes the marriage "issue", which while I'd say it may exist in Adrestia (ex. Bernadetta being planned to marry Ferdinand), does not exist in Faerghus as any sort of "issue".

I don't recall if it's really even present in Leicester? So either... Claude just pulled that argument out of his absolute ass, or he's seeing an issue in Leicester and for some reason assuming his country's politics are every country's politics, which is, again, total ignorance (and he makes no effort to ever found out if any of that is true).

[classicintp]

There is this whole idea that flipping a two sided coin doesn't have a 50-50 probability. It's not a new idea by any means, but the explanation is if you measured the mass of the coin, the force of the flip, the temperature of the coin & of the room, the force of any breeze, wind, or vibration in the air as it traveled, and so on, you could accurately determine within a small margin of error what side the coin will land on every time, and if you kept those constant it would flip on the same side every time. And that idea is also KIND OF the explanation for the conclusion in quantum physics that there is no free will.

A lot of people hear that and either clutch their pearls, roll their eyes, or aren't interested either way. (I mean, when you say some shit like that you're just going to immediately turn off any interest most people would have otherwise had but I'm digressing now). We all like to think we make decisions and choices, and then amateurs who want to talk about quantum mechanics alienate everyone by saying it's not true: you were always going to make these choices with no chance to make the other one.

But what I said in the first paragraph is something-like (but not exactly) what it means when you hear or read that according to quantum physics we have no free will. That if we had an unfathomable device that has been measuring all the variables of every single particle that was expelled during the Big Bang, with an also-sufficient/also-currently-unfathomable algorithm to plug those variables into, all within a computer that could do all of the calulations for BILLIONS of years, we could compute exactly where every particle was going and where it would end up, including those that make up the stars and planets, that make up the ground and oceans, that make up the animals and plants, that make up your brain and all of the proteins and neurotransmitters. That if it could all be measured and an algorithm sufficiently built then the decisions you make are already determined by the ongoing relationships and interactions the particles that make up your brain had in the past and are having right now.

However, humans cannot measure that, they likely never ever will.

Anyone that tells me they don't like quantum mechanics because something something affront to nature blah blah "they" don't believe in free will, etc. literally doesn't know it's just a rescale of the coin toss description. You still believe coin tosses are 50-50 because you aren't going to measure the variables used to receive an answer, you can still believe in free will because you can't measure the variables used to determine the ultimate path of all particles; I mean, I wouldn't become a theoretical physicist if that meant so much to you but I'm not your dad, do what you want.

Edit: I know I described the science mostly wrong, please check out the replies and reblogs for others' corrections and feel free to add corrections of your own for mine and others' learning, thank you.

[forever-scotland]

Also pride of the nation

[primordialhazbin]

Im personally against the vast interpretation of Adam being seen as sexist in his marriage with Lilith simply because it doesn't make sense in my mind. It's easy to think that when you only go off the Alphabet of Ben Sira as he was the one trying to subdue her during sex, but if you substitute the act of copulation with sessions of debates, then you'd be getting a new view of the matter.

The Zohar has always made it known that it was Lilith who was the odd one out in their marriage. She's known as a quarrelsome woman, and a partner that was unfit for him because she wasn't a good help. There's also the text that hints at evil spirits that haunt him during his marriage to her. Personally, I view this as Adam's failure to integrate Lilith's arguments in his view of the world with the evil spirits being the seeds of doubt being planted in his head from her inquisitive nature - a very dangerous thing in the Garden of Eden. Her attempts to shake him to the truth of their equal standing in the Alphabet could have been her plea to get him to look her way and consider her words. The failure of doing so definitely seems like he was trying to make her submit to his dogma which has made her leave him and Eden all together. You could interpret this as the man choosing his faith over his partner's concerns as the reason that killed their marriage. But as sad as this may be, it's not enough to warrant thinking about the first man as sexist. If anything, you could even interpret this incompatibility as forced upon them due to the Zohar having stated once or twice that Lilith had to be REMOVED from Adam. I often think of this as a ploy to get Eve to replace her.

[memorydragon]

Yup, still on my gay coproganda bs.

One of the more interesting things about Jiang Ting's character is how much he doesn't actually want to be a character. His defense mechanism is to turn the question around. We first see this when Yan Xie confronts him the first time about being 'Captain Jiang'. He asks Jiang Ting what he has to say about all of the things he'd uncovered about Jiang Ting's past, and Jiang Ting's response is "What do you want 'Captain Jiang' to say? Tell me and I'll say it."

And he does this so often. He could lie, he could tell a half-truth, instead he asks what the other person wants to hear. What they want him to be.

And guess what? I'm totally normal about that. XD

The earliest memory we have of him is as a child, cleaning his father's body and being grateful that he wasn't beaten today. He's too young to understand that his father overdosed (we get no information about his mother) and is already dead. He's too young to realize that the majority of the people in his small village are either addicts or dealers, that it's a miracle he was born without HIV. When he's sent to the orphanage, he's isolated and bullied, internalized that he's unclean and unlovable when he looks in the mirror. When Yan Xie gets angry at the corruption in the orphanage Bu Wei grew up in, he just replies that 'It's like that, in places like these.'

When Ma Xiang confronts him, asking him who he is really. Is he the mole that got Yan Xie shot and nearly killed, lying on an operating room table while they waited for news? Jiang Ting says it himself, he's the most suspicious out of all of them, because even swept under the rug, the rest of the division Knows something is off about their 'Consultant Lu'. Jiang Ting doesn't define himself. He says "I'm who your Yan-ge thinks I am."

Yan Xie listens to the half-truths he's spun about himself after he dragged Jiang Ting out of the river, and Jiang Ting tells him: The safest thing for you is to hand me over to the police. I can't make myself believe you, because I have nothing now. I can't respond to this feeling, because I don't want to lie to you. Whether you hand me in or not is up to you.

He even does this to Wen Shao, when his loyality is probed. "What do you want me to say?" Except Wen Shao thinks he understands Jiang Ting the best, that only Jiang Ting understands him. Jiang Ting tells the truth then, that the one who understood his reasons wasn't him. Yan Xie was the one who correctly guessed the motives.

Because Jiang Ting has never been wanted as himself. He was the child of drug addicts, tossed into a orphanage where the corruption was rampant and money went into the adult's hands more often than not. When he finally found a friend, someone who liked him and didn't chase him away, his first thought is of saving his friend. Wen Shao has money and a family who loves him, so it's okay if he dies as long as Wen Shao lives. When his friend betrays him, saves himself first, Jiang Ting is happy.

Except his first friend, the person who says now everything I have is yours and you will be my only brother, the one person who likes someone like Jiang Ting, is the son of a drug lord. He forces the kidnappers who hurt them to take heroin, then turns to Jiang Ting and asks if he's happy now.

The child who watched his father overdose and has finally learned to understand what drugs are, is forced to watch more people die the same way by the one person who was supposed to love him.

He's happy. He's very happy. (The lie is so weak - he's ten years old and he's never had to hide himself like this before, despite everything. He's only just realizing that his first lie was already made, because he can't be loyal to Wen Shao, not like this. But he lies, because what else can he do? )

Wu Tun adopted him to keep his son, Wen Shao, in check. He's a pawn, put into a good school and groomed to be a policeman with padded pockets who will let the drug cartel off. He hates - hates - that he has no choice in this, he just has to become the pawn Wu Tun wants.

Wen Shao returns and he's brought new, even worse drugs with him. He wants his Red Queen on his side, gives Jiang Ting an apartment to rest in, to take care of things that would be 'inconvienent' otherwise, and Jiang Ting hates and hates even more.

So he plans to kill the King of Spades, then take out the Ace of Clubs. It can't erase what he is, but maybe he can move forward. All the over time, the stress, the loneliness will be worth it. (I'm so very very Normal about how he can't just agree to hanging out with his coworkers, how he over thinks and decides half way to take the agreement back and say 'let's talk about it tomorrow'. Because he wants to go, for the first time in his life he wants to do something as simple as going out with coworkers - possibly friends.)

Except he's been sold out. His plan falls through. His team dies and he'll never be able to talk about it tomorrow, and when he runs into the fire, all that's left for him is three years of being comatose and the King of Spades going free.

When he meets Yan Xie, he hides. He wants to be what Yan Xie wants him to be, but he can't. He's still tied as the Queen of Hearts, haunted by the sins he's committed and the people who died. He comments that Yan Xie is blind falling for someone like him, calling him beautiful all the time. That this crush that he'd never allowed himself to pursue has come back into his life and wants to be picked by him.

The Red Queen's heart that was so full of hate now has something else. But even if Yan Xie was blind now, would he still love Jiang Ting when he saw the truth?

He hides and he hides and lies, and when the cards are drawn, he finally tells the truth, finds something to define himself by. "I love you, Yan Xie."

Yan Xie's faith in him is already broken. It has to be broken further. The best lie is the one that is the truth that no one believes.

[likeclarabow]

.

[miserye]

i had ym meeting w my boss todya and i guess i followe d the firections weridly

[chromochaotic]

tags from a fun artist's blog that just made me feel like a shriveled husk

[will-pilled]

Won't say that they should be illegal or legal but I will say that you can tell a lot about someone based on how they respond to bringing up the fact that fireworks scare people and animals and should be done from a reasonable distance away from them.