#i may be overstating the point but whatever

[ahsoka-in-a-hood]

Something something in the wrong jedi arc Ahsoka’s whole training was geared to the front lines and that’s what makes her look guilty. When she’s arrested what keeps making her situation worse is that she escapes and keeps running but that’s literally what Anakin trained her to do. If she’d been caught behind enemy lines she’d have been trying to escape, so that’s what she does, but she’s not behind enemy lines, this is coruscant. When the keycard is slipped into her cell she immediately assumes it’s Anakin’s rescue plan. In crisis she relies on training and experience that’s completely unsuited to navigating a legal system of a republic planet, but everyone expects her to act like a citizen and not an active combatant but that’s all she really knows, so she looks guilty but she doesn’t even really understand why it makes her look guilty. She’s a padawan coming of age in war and it’s left her unprepared to be a jedi within the republic

#ahsoka tano #the wrong jedi #i may be overstating the point but whatever #the clone wars

[trashpandacraft]

having sat down and spent a bit of time spinning on all the wheels, i have thoughts on them!

our first contestant: a sheridan scandanavian. kinda.

sheridan was an australian manufacturer in the 70s and early 80s, and this particular model is often mistaken for an ashford traditional. one tell that it isn't is the spokes on the wheel—a traddy has eight, and a scandanavian has six.

another tell is its tension knob, which i actually love—this is a lot easier to get a grip on than the ones that are just balls.

...there's also a nameplate identifying the maker and the model. but that's kinda where things get weird, because this? this is not what a scandanavian is meant to look like.

eagle-eyed readers may have already noticed that it's a double drive wheel, which is weird, because the scandanavian was only ever made as scotch tension. sheridan made a similar wheel, the macarthur, that was a double drive. my understanding is that these wheels were sold as kits, so as best i can guess, someone must have had a scandanavian and a macarthur, and at some point, for some reason, they dropped the macarthur's workings onto the sheridan's stand.

whatever she is, though, she spins nicely—works exactly like you'd expect, even after what was clearly a number of years of neglect. i'd like to get some more oil into the leather bearings, but she's in good shape. this one's a surprisingly slow wheel, even on the highest ratio, but will be great for plying and—more importantly—for @binchickencrafts to learn to spin on.

next up is the tarra...something. maybe the evelyn, but maybe the agnes?

she's beautiful, right? another tilt tension, too, which i like. lovely matching orifice hook with a little storage hole, and integrated bobbin storage, which i absolutely love.

so why's she weird? well. the evelyn was the evolution of the agnes, basically. agnes had a block for a mother of all, evelyn was shaped. agnes had a four-part drive wheel, evelyn had six. agnes had eight spokes on the drive wheel, evelyn had six.

this wheel, though. she has a shaped mother of all, an eight-part drive wheel, and eight spokes.

she also has a really neat flyer.

the flyer is part of what attracted me, to be honest, and no regrets. it needs shined up some more—i was eager enough to try her out that i cleaned off the worst of the rust with some vinegar, but it needs some more attention. those hooks, though, are fantastic. i think that they're a curse for a lot of people, because if one's lost, replacements are almost impossible to come by, but if you have them, they're so good. the screw loosens the hook and lets you slide it as needed, and you can get very close to either end of the bobbin—you can use the stationary hook to wind on right at the front, and the movable hook covers the rest of the bobbin easily. all my treadle wheels have been fixed hooks, so this was a new adventure.

this is the wheel in the worst shape, i think. she needs oiled up, but also needs to have the rear maiden reseated—it's loosened and has a fair amount of horizontal play, which doesn't give the best experience. i feel like when that's fixed, which won't take more than a couple hours and some wood glue, she's going to be a sweet spot of a wheel. even with the movement in that back maiden, i can get from worsted down to cobweb on her, so i'm really looking forward to seeing what she's like when she's been patched up.

finally: the pipy saxony.

please clap.

i can't overstate how small this wheel is. she weighs less than five kilos. that's like. a cat. that's a cat of weight. that's how much this wheel weighs. i knew when i bought her that she was a small wheel, but i hadn't realised how small, so i was a little concerned that she wasn't going to be very effective.

turns out joke's on me, because this teeny tiny wheel is an absolute powerhouse—as long as you want to spin finely. which is perfect for me, because i almost never use or spin yarn that's thicker than a light worsted, and even that's kinda pushing it. i'm the kind of person who knits jumpers out of sock yarn and owns multiple pairs of 1.5mm (size 000) circular needles.

this wheel wants to spin fast and wants to spin thin, and I *love* her. the wheel is weighted so it always stops ready to turn clockwise, and it's a string footman, and something about the combination of the two makes this an absolutely amazing experience. i spun for several hours, and my breaking point wasn't knee or ankle pain, but hip pain from sitting in that position too long.

how the heck does a wheel that—again!—weighs like ten pounds manage to weight anything?

it's easy to miss, but in that first picture, there's integrated bobbin storage again, with room for one on each side of the wheel.

the tension system isn't like anything i've used, and can be adjusted both vertically and horizontally. the tension peg does what you'd expect and moves the slider block (and the mother of all on it) closer or further from the wheel, but you can also move the mother of all towards you or away from you to better align it with the wheel.

she's just really nicely designed. look at this incredibly tidy bobbin release!

for the specific things that i spin most frequently, i'm pretty sure that the pipy is going to be my go-to treadle wheel, though i expect the others will see plenty of use, as well. and my eel wheel certainly isn't getting retired—my somewhat broken body is never going to let me use a treadle as often as i'd like, and there's a lot to be said for the ability to spin while watching television in bed. but i'm really excited to have these, and to use them when i can, even if it's not as often as i'd like.

i know that a lot of people are really dubious about buying used (especially vintage used) wheels, but i feel like they're often underrated. there's a lot of cool wheels out there that are as good or better than what you can buy in a store, and it's worth investigating it, if you're able to. (it's also worth noting that buying all three of these cost us less than half of what buying a single new ashford traditional would cost.)

finally, you want to see my favourite thing about the pipy? i saw someone complaining about this the other day, that their wheel's prior owner had 'gouged' it. but look.

that little gouge means someone else loved this wheel so much that their yarn wore a channel into the wood. and as soon as i stop holding my yarn back, it slots straight into place.

right where it's meant to be.

this wheel is older than i am—they're dated, on the bottom, and she was made in july 1972. she's only had one owner, a woman who used to teach spinning, but is elderly now and can't spin anymore. her daughter delivered it to me, and told me that this was her mother's last wheel—she'd gotten rid of the others, slowly, but held on to this until she was physically unable to treadle. fifty years! that woman spun on this wheel for fifty years.

i'm old enough that i don't imagine i'm going to get fifty years with it, but maybe i'll get lucky. either way, hopefully in another fifty years, someone new will be taking their turn, weirdly touched by the idea that this wheel has been so loved.

#spinning #hand spinning #spinning wheels #vintage #crafts #fibercraft #fibrecraft #i dunno why this makes me so happy #but it does #anyhow these are stunningly beautiful wheels #and they deserve a better end than rotting away in someone's attic #smartest raccoon i know

[meanbossart]

Asks about VaM, art advice, and miscellaneous stuffs

HI! Real quick please refrain from referring to Sad Sack as S/S for the uh... Obviously reasons LOL We call it "sads" for short!

If what you're asking for are recommendations for a website to host that kind of thing, Neocities, Twitter, Itchio and as you mentioned AO3 are all perfectly good options! Patreon too (depending on how gnarly you're planning on getting) but I'd suggest keeping that as a secondary host option because I don't think it lends itself super well for getting your work circulating. I believe Bluesky allows that kind of thing too, but I'm not too sure since I don't use it.

Now, If you're asking about public reaction rather than guidelines, anywhere you go you might find people that don't jive with the work you do 🤷 just be upfront about the type of content you're making right off the bat to avoid having anyone stumble upon it by accident to the best of your abilities, otherwise, I wouldn't worry too much. I know we're constantly exposed to examples of overwhelming harassment and "dogpilling" happening to others but... Truth be told, most of us won't ever get to the size/internet level of fame where we experience that. I think the threat is a little bit... Overstated, nowadays. Not to mention that most of the time people are getting harassment for things that have nothing to do with their work, and rather relating to their behavior and attitudes. Play smart, be responsible, and be honest! Whatever comes next is in god's hands LOL

Thank you for the ask! Not sure I was of much help 😅 but frankly when you're just starting out it's best to focus on getting the work done first and just throwing it out there, wherever it may be. You can worry about technicalities like that later!

I GOT YOU MAN the full sketch is now up on my patreon!

YES AND YES WHETHER IT BE STORIES OR ART OF DU DROW AND YOUR CHARACTERS SLAMMING PINTS TOGETHER BE MY GUEST PLEASE

I love seeing everyone's take on my weirdo so much, anything is honestly welcomed!

AW DUDE thank you so much! Especially for suffering through the mammoth of a story that ANE turned into - writing has never been my strongest point so I'm always shocked to hear from people that enjoy it 🥲

About the booze question, honestly I'm not picky at all, I usually go by price and by that I mean whatever is cheapest LOL but I prefer a dry white as far as types go.

You only have to pay for it once! You get a code that unlocks the software and all of it's features and you're free to cancel your subscription after that. At some point the code might change or there might be an update that requires subscribing again - but that seems like a very rare occurrence so I wouldn't worry about it.

OH NO I HAVE DEFINITELY TRACED MY OWN REFERENCE BEFORE, but not entire poses! When something is challenging I'll make a point of drawing it out the usual way.

I can remember a couple of instances from Nick and mine's comic where I traced pictures I took of myself, just as a time saving measure. Again like I said in the post, there are several ways to employ tracing your own material that is perfectly acceptable. I have also traced bare-bones 3D backgrounds that I made for the same reasons.

I know you specifically asked about tracing when something's complicated, but I still wanted to be upfront to demystify the practice under different circumstances. The rule of thumb is to never use it when you know it would be inhibiting your skill development!

Happy to hear you wanted to pick up the skill! I definitely understand the urge too LOL since playing BG3 and becoming so invested in the stories and characters my art has improved a ton, simply from forcing me out of my usual style and making me want to capture different moods and scenarios - finding something you're passionate to draw is, frankly a great damn start.

I replied to a bunch of asks asking for pointers and advice a while back, one of the questions was very similar to yours and I still stand behind the advice I gave then. Hopefully you can find something helpful here! https://meanbossart.tumblr.com/post/740543514692173824/some-art-advice-asks-ive-been-meaning-to-reply

HMMM I don't usually think of myself as the best teacher/tutorial guy, but funnily enough I can think of a few things about this topic that I could elaborate on lol. If I do that in the near future, I'll put it up on my patreon (for free as with everything else.)

If there are any specific things about it that you (and anyone else who would be interested in it, for that matter) find challenging and would like for me to focus on, let me know!

---

That's all for now folks, and as usual thank you so much to everyone who's left a nice compliment, word of encouragement or funny tidbit in my inbox as well! I can't reply to you all individually, but I see and read all the messages I get c:

HAVE A LOVELY REST OF YOUR WEEK

#lore asks coming either later today or tomorrow! #I might reply to a few right now/space them out rather than do another compilation #we'll see how I feel about it! #ask compilation

[nwodwols]

I keep seeing Mads quoted saying that if they don’t get to film s4 of Hannibal within the next couple years, they’d have to just say goodbye to it forever. I haven’t seen the interview(s?) where he says this. Am I wrong in assuming this is an age thing? Obviously it’s not because the interest would suddenly dissipate. I cannot overstate my desire to see an older Hannibal and Will. Not just for the obvious reason (being my unfettered attraction for watching people age, this post alone sent me), but for the tenderness of it.

Mads is 58 so he’ll be pushing 60 in two years. I’m sure he has his reasons. Maybe he doesn’t think he could play the kitchen counter jumping, knife wielding, beast after a certain age, but there’s an intimacy to Hannibal’s killings. Hannibal has almost a decade on Will if I’m understanding things right. Will may be a fishermen, but the man craves the hunt. I imagine Will caring for Hannibal as the ache sets into his bones and he begins to slow down. Just thinking about Hannibal mentioning a bothersome but nevertheless innocent person who happened to cross his path on his weekly errands into the city. Thinking about Will’s little knowing smirk across the dinner table when he hears Hannibal’s rather minor annoyance. His little offhanded remark about rudeness. Thinking about how Will would happily retrieve them for him, alive of course, so Hannibal could continue his intimate dissection. How Will’s entire demeanor would shift by the time he got back home and how Hannibal would ease him back out of that headspace he always had trouble navigating. Will would help Hannibal in the kitchen. Help him with any lifting at the start and take care of his aching hands after a thorough dinner prep. Hannibal would help Will in his own damn mind palace. Ease him through each room he’s been granted admittance to. He’s pretty much in them all at this point. Hannibal would worry about Will’s appetite should anything happen to him; Will would absorb the longing as he studied the white in Hannibal’s hair and the tightness in his joints. They would both remain stubbornly neutral about their mortality, always keeping the conversation in metaphor and poetry. But my god it would be staring them in the face and it would be beautiful.

Not to disagree with Mads at all, for whatever his reasoning is - Maybe it’s just pure fuckery and he knows the s4 timeline (or truly knows it won’t happen and it’s trying to give it finality). Maybe somethings get lost in translation, so to speak. Or maybe it is just his own desire for letting things go and giving himself a proper boundary to do so. But if it’s an age thing, I just couldn’t think of a more beautiful (twisted, complicated, obscene, classic) character to give the dignity of aging gracefully onscreen to. And Mads is a helluva person suit to portray it.

#hannibal #hannibal s4 #hannigram #hannigram imagine #mads mikkelsen #mads #don’t shoot me I don’t even go here #i just love watching people get older #it’s beautiful

[muzzleroars]

How long would it have taken for V1 to get a clear grasp of Gabe's real personality? He is described as charismatic and heaven's specialist boy, which could be something of a act brought on by the expectations to be perfect placed on him, but when V1 first encounters him, Gabe has spent 100+ hours killing every machine aka probably really tired turning to pure rage at it and then immediatly he has a breakdown after losing before teleporting away, and then the next time it sees him he gets way too into the fight, has an awakening before abruptly leaving again. and the third time we dont know yet but it may be something closer to how Gabe really is.

V1 probably looked at the Terminal description and thought 'really? that guy?' V1 would still like him and how challenging he is to fight but it really is a sharp contrast! Seeing Gabe in the worst 24 hours of his entire existence compared to literally any other day, adding on the fallen au events that is more of Gabe having the worst possible time.

SUCH A GOOD QUESTION like honestly i think people tend to forget that as v1, we're seeing gabriel at what's essentially his lowest point, which can't be overstated in explanation of the way he behaves vs his terminal entry. fundamentally, he is a being completely adrift in existence - angels are not like humans, they are beings of pure service to their god and act often as an extension of him, to the point where the bible interchangeably refers to them as "angels of the lord" or simply "the lord" though he is acting through them. they are his will, they are the role they fulfill for him, and so gabriel has, at his root, lost his foundational identity. but it's severely compounded by the fact that he has been forced to fight possibly THOUSANDS of machines without any end in sight. he has almost been abandoned in hell, he's likely stationed at that checkpoint indefinitely to not only fight mindless, numb battles over and over in such apathetic repetition he barely thinks anymore, but he's stuck in the miserable halls of a nearly forgotten part of god's kingdom. it's a ridiculous outpost for an archangel of his stature, but he works tirelessly still because it's some kind of structure, hell must be maintained too even if it seems no one cares for it anymore (he's aware, somewhere, how much the council doesn't care and how insulting the position is, but whatever.) SO in short. v1 meets him at the worst possible juncture, and so sees the worst possible side of him.

regardless, it's intrigued by him if only for his strength alone with, at first, likely little interest in his personality - it reads about him on the terminal and takes what it presents as fact enough, but it doesn't truly care about how "radiant" he supposedly is. however...it is fascinated by him, and i think their second encounter is what fully engages its mind with him because he becomes something so much more. their initial encounter was at first mechanical, which morphed to frustration quickly turned into a temper tantrum. but their second fight shows a vile hatred, something deeply personal and grown out of an angel that has been teetering on the edge of his obsolescence for centuries at this point only to shoved over the edge in the most unceremonious way possible. honestly? it's kind of heartbreaking for him, after his exalted history and his adherence as one of god's brightest, that he falls after spending so long burning himself down to ash without esteem or even any thanks, worked to death in pointless, tedious tasks, until he fails once and is reduced to a faulty tool to be discarded. so now v1 sees him truly at his nadir before he is launched into a paradoxical zenith. he presents his extremes to it, v1 sees the wrath and cruelty he's capable of as well as the euphoric joy he can find side by side in battle. it's a captivating combination, it speaks to someone that can understand its own deep, fundamental attachment to the battlefield...so it loves, in some way, what it sees in gabriel at that moment. yet that's not. him. it's his most intense sides, but hardly typical or indicative of his personality.

WHICH I KNOW IS ALL BESIDE OF THE POINT OF THE QUESTION, but it illustrates how much v1 really DOESN'T know him by the time they meet again. canonically it's of course all speculation, but i agree with you - v1 will likely see something of a closer approximation of who gabriel is before he finally burns out, but in that case it would likely never truly know him. for my au, it takes actually,,,,quite a bit of time, at least to get a full picture of who he is, but it follows a similar line at first. there is extremely little time left before he falls when he goes to meet v1 after his slaughter of the council, and for me there is something of a peace offering in the only way they know how - battling one more time, with gabriel no longer robotic nor overcome with emotion. he is simply himself, he is the weapon he was fashioned to be against the weapon forged by humanity, where they meet in the middle and there is a calm in him, there is genuine words and genuine laughter, yet v1 has no standard to put them at. it is just gabriel, a new gabriel, once again like all the other times they had met. and v1 feels its first semblance of sadness, aware that gabriel is fighting to his death now despite a lack of hostility - one of them will die, but there is no vitriol. for gabriel, despite his regrets and all of his vast mistakes, he can do no more but entwine himself with v1, as he truly is. he wants it to see him, not as the council's guard dog or as a broken apostate, but who he believes himself to be...and he hope that clicks for it. i'm pretty partial to v1 actually killing him at this point, since i don't think gabe's death could be any other way (plus he honestly is heading (lol) toward decapitation so), and he would be grateful to it. i also really like v1 pausing there with him, just standing where he falls as though waiting to hear his typical post-battle speech, but instead it almost holds a moment of silence for him before it must move on.

but then for the au, it must contend with a resurrected gabriel who, even after their battle, is stuck lamenting for quite some time. he's morose, grieved, angry, everything a fallen angel should be, especially as his transformation is ongoing. and its completion brings v1 no closer to seeing the gabriel it caught glimpses of in the last fight he had as an angel - doing away with who he once was, gabriel fully embraces his demonic status by v1's side to meet its cruelty where it stands. they spend some time terrorizing the halls of hell without a set place to stay, going wherever calls them and taking little rest in the meantime. thrilling for v1, but again....now seeing him at crisis point instead. it all mellows eventually, with gabriel actually taking time to self-reflect and determine who he wants to be, rather than superficial rebellion or falling into old habits. who is he? he discovers that while he does love to live in a good fight, he also is kind at heart, he is someone that wishes to help and to protect, and so v1 finally begins to see the gabriel the terminals told it about a long time ago. it's odd at first, an adjustment to be sure, but v1 begins to settle in to being treated...with kindness. he is gentle with it, he offers sweet words (he's very good with his words, it finds out), and he's quite interested in its personal life. so i actually think it would be pretty well into him being a fallen angel before his true personality comes through day by day...and it loves this gabriel too. he's so different from it, so generous, so loving, so bright and compassionate, so radiant as the terminals had said. it admires him they way he admires it, learning from each other and trading little personality traits, until they grow into one another and their true selves incorporate the other

#I LOVE THME #throughout all of this i do think v1 sees him here and there #increasingly more as time goes on #but it takes until he settles into being a fallen angel to get that each day #man's been stressed!!! it's been a weird time!! #cake answers #v1 #gabriel #gabv1el

[manettheeternalelir]

A Practical Guide to Evil

So I've sat with it for most of the day, and while I think I'll be ruminating on it for much longer than that, here are my thoughts.

Obviously, spoilers.

First, Akua Sahelian. Even going in knowing that she was going to get a redemption arc, I was thinking that maybe I misremembered the name, that it was another character that was going to be redeemed. Especially after the demon at Marchford and of course the Doom of Liesse. I will admit to literally squealing when Catherine broke her fucking bones after 1st Liesse. As the story went on, I began to forgive and forget, and to be honest by the middle of Vol. 7 I was like get over it and kiss her, Cat. I guess I just never felt that bad about the Doom after the Everdark, despite the narrative's insistence on reminding me of it. Maybe that's good writing, that I liked Akua so much, maybe not, idk I'm just a little guy.

Hakram was a great character, with a perfect pivot from in Cat's shadow to becoming a man of his own. He was the button that EE could press to ignore all of the logistical issues when the army got big, so that was kind of annoying, but whatever.

Indrani. Around the time that she and Cat finally fucked I was screaming in my head for them to fuck, so that feels right. Really liked her characterization towards the end with the other Refuge refugees, especially the line where Concocter tells her it didn't have to always be a fight. Good shit.

Vivienne was hit or miss for me, she was her own character, but never really felt that important to me, despite obvious narrative importance. Never the same level of emotional connection to me.

Masego, my darling beloved. My sweet perfect boy. My autistic wizard son. I love him. There may be flaws in his character, maybe, but I will never see them. He is the platonic ideal of a wizard to me.

And then Catherine. She went though so many forms of anime magic. Guide truly cemented itself as a shonen to me, just by virtue of never quite knowing what she could actually do. Her characterizations were relatively constant, enough to ground her as a character anyway, but the way that she always had a hidden plan did get a little annoying. It wasn't quite Sherlock Holmes level unrevealed scheming, but there were definitely moments where I groaned out of annoyance, namely when she was take prisoner in Wolof. I'm probably overstating how much wasn't foreshadowed, and I'd guess that for a lot of people the excitement of guessing "how would Cat get out of this one" was fun, but by the end I was rolling my eyes half the time.

Overall I loved it, and I'm definitely going to reread it at some point. It will provide inspiration for my dnd campaign for years to come, and I will be shamelessly stealing characters forever. Kairos Theodosian was incredible, and probably my second favorite character.

My single biggest critique was that there were stretches of like 5 or 6 interludes in a row, which inevitably lead to me saying "Cordelia FUCKING Hasenbach" under my breath

#a practical guide to evil #pgte #i did love how in the epilogue Catherine got to fuck a lot

[isthedogawolfdog]

youtu(dot)be(slash)g-7cLXyMp8E?si=OQ_6WDtl_dnMj9DP

Thoughts on this video on the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone and also the article that it cures which claims the Yellowstone narrative is factually inaccurate?

BAHAHAHA I am fucking CACKLING.

Okay so this video:

was posted in late 2020 and BOY HOWDY is it a wild ride. Because I need a distraction and am feeling particularly petty right now I'll see if I can break down the video and it's... um... "facts".

Before I start though the dudes YouTube is chock full of extreme vegan takes so I wouldn't say he's the top tier candidate for good sources lol.

"Introduction"

The beginning is meh. Y'know the usual thing some Youtubers do with the whole "is this really true???" thing with unreasonable amount of suspicion? yeah. He pretty much makes comments on how maybe the reintroduction of wolves into YNP wasn't the "incredible success story that it was made out to be." Which I feel like the, y'know, the many hundreds of research papers on the wolf reintroduction into YNP and the massive benefits it's created kinda contradicts? but I mean what do I know.

"Yellowstone narrative is misleading"

So this part opens up with this video (which I don't feel like watching rn if I were being honest so I'll save that for later) that blew up a bit ago regarding how wolves change rivers, and the claim that it was misleading, untrue, etc. The youtuber (who we shall call Hancock because "Youtuber" will get boring) uses this source to stake the claim that the positive impact wolves have had on rivers in YNP isn't true.

As we would know if we actually did research and didn't talk out of our ass, wolves didn't directly affect the rivers just by hunting elk, but beavers as well. Aspen and willow are, surprise surprise! a favorite food of beavers. Prior to wolf reintroduction riverbeds and waterways in YNP were in terrible shape, mainly due to erosion and lack of support from water loving plants, which are... tada! willow and aspen! Beavers and elk chowed down on these plants in huge amounts due to their numbers being so vastly out of control due to lack of predators. So when wolves came around and started hunting the plentiful beavers and elk, the willow and aspen were basically like "oh shit! we aren't being eaten to the point where we're all dying!! lets grow more!!" and in turn the more willow and aspen = more footing for the soil along waterbeds which means the rivers were saved. Some of this was mentioned in the article that was linked but wasn't mentioned by Hancock so idk what's up with that.

To sum it up, wolves made an impact! And it's silly to just write that off completely!! I think my issue with this part is that Hancock completely writes wolves impact on the environment off, which is frankly ridiculous. The original video may have overstated it a bit, but it's not like it doesn't exist.

"The balance of ecosystems"

Hancock then talks about the complexity of the YNP food chain (kinda), and how some people feel the need to restore the balance in nature if we humans fuck it up which?? like yeah?? we should?? He goes into a schpeel about values or whatever and if we value certain ecosystems over others??? Idk I was NOT tracking.

He mentions his thoughts on "which balance is best for the animals that live there". Goes on slight anthropomorphizing tangent then dives into the next part...:

"Ecology of fear"

Ah, lads, we are back in biology class aren't we. Except this time we are anthropomorphizing the hell out of everything! "The deer are afraid of being eaten alive, so afraid that they sometimes choose to eat less..."

Okay, did anyone tell this guy that the amount of food the herbivores (ungulates namely) before wolves were reintroduced was literally killing everything? Without wolves to balance the prey populations out they overgrazed, populations skyrocketed and so did disease.

The rest of this is a tangent, so I'll skip over it.

"Wolves suffered too"

Hancock cites the outbreaks of canine distemper disease that have occurred in YNP since reintroduction. This is a bit of a mute point, since canine distemper can fuck any canine population up whether it's a brand new reintroduced group of wolves or they've been there for decades.

Also, can we note how he talks about canine distemper then shows a wolf with mange?? hmmmm.

"Numbers of animals vs welfare"

Dude talks about random bullshit regarding animal rights. Loooooots of emotional heartstrings attempting to be pulled. He is 10000% coming from one of those anti-predator perspectives. Biiiig yikes.

"It's too complex (human health analogy)"

This section was basically mansplaining but with vegans lol.

"The choice we have"

He brings in wild animal contraception?????? I???? Girl what. I mean it's a thing yeah but I did not expect that to be where he was going.

Hancock talks about "one of the cruelest, and unfortunately most romanticized and thus most prevalent methods of population control" AKA reintroducing predators. Hmmmm it's almost like he didn't read about the mass amount of ungulates and other prey animals dying off in YNP when winter came (prior to reintroduction) and there wasn't enough food to sustain them all, subjecting them to excruciating deaths and long drawn out starvation and disease.

Hancock then goes onto how animals eat each other alive, which like, yeah, they do. AND THEN he talks about "wild animal suffrage" which, frankly I refuse to google. Blah blah blah he's anti-hunting who would've thought.

"we didn't do it for the animals"

Okay this actually has some value to it. Hancock talks about how wolves weren't reintroduced for their benefit, or anyone else, but only for people and tourism. This is both right and wrong.

I'm sure that all the biologists and hard working members on the reintroduction team would disagree that it wasn't done for the animals, but who knows. Anyway, the point that tourism would rake in a lot of cash for the state was also something that helped wolves get reintroduced, since we know many government officials weren't in it for the animals. So yeah, sort of true, but not really.

Hancock goes on about what animals are concerned about, even adding a little wolf with a thought bubble (which tbh, I'm sure if wolves knew about the technicalities of biodiversity they would love it, since it usually means a better quality of life). More anthropomorphizing and entitled vegan guilt tripping.

At this point I stopped watching, since it's already been roughly an hour, and although I could do this all day, I have to work later.

To answer your question anon, this video is very poorly put together and I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. There is little to no research done prior to creating it, and the creator talks from a animal rights activist point of view, which is never helpful.

#this is so fucking funny #wolves #wolf #yellowstone national park #yellowstone wolves #animal rights

[blackswaneuroparedux]

The ideal husband understands every word his wife doesn’t say.

- Alfred Hitchcock

When Alma Reville, wife of Alfred Hitchcock, died in 1982, Charles Champlin wrote in the LA Times that “the Hitchcock touch had four hands and two of them were Alma’s.” While Hitchcock received most of the credit for the 54 films he directed, Alma’s significant contribution should not be underestimated.

When Hitchcock met Reville in 1920, she had already been in the film business for five years and was well established as a cutter, scenario writer and floor secretary. He was a lowly titles artist and had to wait three years before he had reached a position in which he felt he could approach her.

They worked together at Gainsborough Studios and some there felt that she could have been a film director, although she herself was modest on this point: “I’m too small,” she said, “I could never project the image of authority a director has to project.” Other views of her tell a different story, and Alma has been described as “brisk, sometimes even brusque” and “much shrewder about people than Hitchcock, and a lot tougher.”

Alma and Alfred became Mr and Mrs Hitchcock on 2 December 1926. While she still worked on films by other directors until the mid-30s, she suppressed whatever personal ambition she may have had and devoted herself to supporting and encouraging her husband and bringing up their daughter, Pat. His eventual success allowed her to live a lifestyle she could never have dreamed of when she first began as teagirl at Twickenham Studios aged 16.

She learnt many different skills during her time in the British film industry, which stood her in good stead to offer advice wherever needed during production of Hitchcock’s films. From finding properties for him to produce, to casting, scouting locations, plotting camera angles and checking rushes, there were few areas that Alma didn’t contribute to. Once in Hollywood, she was less frequently seen on the set of his films, but was a key collaborator behind the scenes on every project.

Perhaps her greatest contribution was via the screen adaptations she worked on, for Hitchcock and others. Of the films on which she has a writing credit, it’s striking how many contain strong, well-drawn female roles. Take, for example, The Constant Nymph (Adrian Brunel, 1928), The Water Gipsies (Maurice Elvey, 1932), and The Passing of the Third Floor Back (Berthold Viertel, 1935), or Hitchcock’s Suspicion (1941), The Paradine Case (1947) and Stage Fright (1949), to name a few.

Stage Fright is the last film Alma was credited on; apparently the failure of Under Capricorn (1949), a property she had recommended to Hitchcock, led her to lose confidence in her judgement. Her absence shows; while Hitchcock’s later films are among his best regarded, the female roles tend to be less deeply examined, the action usually driven by the male protagonists. One wonders whether Marnie (1964) would have been more successful if Alma had had a hand in writing the script; despite the contribution of Jay Presson Allen, its study of an emotionally damaged woman is psychologically undermotivated.

Hitchcock was honest about his lack of understanding of the opposite sex: “I never understood what women wanted. I only knew it wasn’t me,” he once said wistfully. The onscreen portrayal of him as a man desperately attempting to seduce his blonde starlets seems a little overstated; as biopics often do, it feels as if drama has been created where none really exists. Certainly, Alma’s affair with writer Whitfield Cook, if it did take place, would have been long over by the time Psycho (1960) was being made.

While the real Alma Reville is still a little obscure, it’s only right that she is at last receiving recognition for her contribution to Hitchcock’s films. As the director said, in his speech at the presentation of his American Film Institute (AFI) lifetime award in 1979, if it wasn’t for her, he may well still have been at that gala dinner, but as “one of the slower waiters.”

#hitchcock #alfred hitchcock #quote #alma reville #alma #husband #wife #relationships #film #cinema #hollywood #britain #culture #arts #femme #icon

[deadprompts]

𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝚆𝙰𝙻𝙺𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝙳𝙴𝙰𝙳 𝚂𝙴𝙰𝚂𝙾𝙽 𝟷 𝙿𝚁𝙾𝙼𝙿𝚃𝚂.

content warning applies. change any pronouns / wording if necessary.

there's us and the dead.

this is what takes us down.

the tragedy of their loss cannot be overstated.

i'm gonna get shit-faced drunk again

you should've seen the look on his face when i punched out his front teeth.

you're still a dumbass.

nice moves there, clint eastwood.

i think tomorrow i'm gonna blow my brains out.

y'all be more polite to a man with a gun!

zero tolerance for walkers.

that's the biggest lie there is.

we're safe here.

it's not a toy.

i know how the safety works.

keep drinking, little man.

do not enter the city.

bright side, it'll be the fall that kills us.

you may think you do but you don't.

living underground doesn't help; not knowing if it's day or night.

wish i could have done it a month ago.

friend, you need glasses.

there's good news?

it was worth every minute of it just to see that prick spit his teeth out on the ground.

i finally got the scrubbers in the east sector shut down to save power.

there were dozens of 'em.

eww. that's nasty.

maybe we got a second chance.

help me now, show me the way.

i didn't behave, i know.

screw you, man.

sometimes they fall short.

you take that stupid hat and go back to "on golden pond."

you the new sheriff come riding in to clean up the town?

cozy in there?

the only reason i got away was 'cause the dead were too busy eating my family.

i don't even know why i'm talking to you.

that's my boy.

this is our extinction event.

how far do you think i can chuck this, huh?

things are different now.

if you see anything, holler. i'll come running.

go on, tell me what to do.

hey kid, what'd you do before all this?

what are the odds, huh?

i know what i want to say.

i see a chance to make a new start.

i remember my dream now.

i ain't begged you before, i ain't gonna start begging now.

i know i'm being punished.

it wasn't my intention.

i can't let a man die of thirst.

i wanna see how red your face can get.

the world ended, didn't you get the memo?

we survive this by pulling together, not apart.

anybody that gets in the way of that is gonna lose.

it scares the fish.

thought i'd get to drive at least for a few more days.

i'll give you a moment to think about that.

i'm sorry this happened to you.

i'm old enough.

it belongs to the dead now.

maybe we'll get to steal another one someday.

nobody is gonna hurt you, okay?

they came out of nowhere.

saves me the embarrassment.

that's the bad news.

can i learn to shoot?

you pull the trigger, you have to mean it.

not many people get that.

bites kill you.

just...feeling very...off.

words can be meager things.

what he would or wouldn't do doesn't interest me.

what do you say to that?

guess the world changed.

the fever burns you out, but then after a while... you come back.

hell yes you're gonna learn.

you heard me, bitch.

the weak get taken.

there's no clinical progress to report.

still not sleeping well, can't seem to keep regular hours.

we gotta do it carefully, teach you to respect the weapon.

we are surviving here.

too bad i never studied engineering.

yeah, whatever, yee haw.

they might not seem like much one at a time, but in a group all riled up and hungry, man you watch your ass.

one thing i do know, don't you get bit.

we don't kill the living.

no crying in the boat.

i bet there isn't a single son of a bitch still listening out there, is there?

that's no way for anything to die, let alone a human being.

you don't know what it's like out there.

you're surrounded by walkers.

we don't have to be afraid anymore.

who voted you king boss?

we left him like an animal caught in a trap.

the line is pretty clear.

admit it, you only came back to atlanta for the hat.

i can see you make a habit of missing the point.

it's only a matter of time.

is this real?

there's us and the dead.

you got a problem?

there's too many of those things.

i never told them what i really thought.

i ain't so worried about some dumb dead bastard.

i'm a glass half full kinda guy.

it's the same as it ever was.

who the hell are you, man?!

#prompts #twd #rp prompts #rp sentence meme #rp sentence starters #rp meme #sentence starters #inbox meme #the walking dead rp meme #twd rp meme #apocalypse rp meme #apocalypse sentence starters #apocalypse rp #tlou rp meme #inbox prompts #deadprompts prompt

[not-terezi-pyrope]

Philosophical survey/poll of the day: Disregarding the morality of usage, what is the morality of *buying* black market drugs?

I've been thinking about this again in light of recent consumer boycotts. First let me state upfront that I am not soliciting advice for me personally, this is a hypothetical. Neither am I advocating that people buy or use drugs, nor am I condemning people who do. I am generally very pro-autonomy for questions of drug use, and think that a person using drugs has, in and of itself, no moral weight.

I am interested in what people think about the moral weight of buying drugs off the black market, however. Elaboration below, followed by a poll:

My question is about the morality of accessing the drugs trade as an end consumer, given that, according to popular conception at least, a lot of substances are supplied by "criminal gangs" who might also participate in more violent crime? Like, obviously this isn't so much a deal for weed because that's probably just some dudes growing it in their attic, but consider for example when people buy harder drugs, like cocaine, for example.

You can't trace the supply chain, but even the end point of purchase is some small-time dealer who sells drugs and isn't involved in anything else, at some point it will have been smuggled into your country, which might involve larger gangs, or like, organized crime operations who also are involved with violent crime. You likely don't know that for sure, but the point is you can't know, so my question is, does the spectre of potential violent crime in the process of producing and transporting an illegal drug make the purchase of the drug immoral, in the same way that some people say it is immoral not to boycott legal companies that are complicit in atrocities?

Alternatively, there are also these factors that may or may not excuse this:

One might argue that if you aren't aware of any specific harms in the production of a product, then you as the consumer shouldn't be obligated to suspect them, even if the context is the sale of black market goods.

One might argue that the harms perpetrated by the black market drugs trade, insofar one would contribute to them as an end-buyer, have their moral weight placed upon the legal system for outlawing the drug in question and therefore not allowing a verifiably ethical vendor to exist.

One might argue that the demand for illegal drugs is so ubiquitous and constant that whether you personally "boycott" the industry or not makes no difference, so you shouldn't feel bad for skimming off the top of what's already there, you're only contributing a very small percentage and the core audience for drugs isn't going to go anywhere no matter what you do, as the last centuries of prohibitions has proven

One might argue that the scope of criminal violence involved in drugs supply is overstated/sensationalized, and that any specific source of drugs probably isn't going to involve cartels assassinating people like in breaking bad or whatever, if the drug is produced by countries with low economic development then you might actually be doing good by providing income for people who have no alternatives

One might argue that the harms caused by the production and smuggling of black market goods are in no way worse than the harms perpetrated by the legal economy, which also has its fingers in many violent or exploitative acts and provably so, so it's not meaningfully any different to ordering from McDonald's or whatever.

I had a conversation with friends about this several years ago and I think that most people who were already okay with drug use in a personal capacity thought that the purchase of drugs is probably fine, but I'm interested to see what people think these days, and now tumblr has polls, so share your thoughts:

#not-terezi-speaks #poll #drugs #drug use #drugs cw #substances cw #ethics

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 20/01/2024

Be Cool, Be Wild, and Be My Girl

Season 1 Featured on: GilvaSunner's Highest Quality Video Game Rips: Volume 6​.​66

Ripped by THiNGYBOBinc

Whew!! MAGFest days are finally over, and what a time it was - the SiIvaGunner Chipspace show was absolutely fantastic, and I hope it gets uploaded on its own soon so y'all can watch it as well! With that out of the way: the sappy times are over, Season 8 is ready to rev up and go at any moment, and the blog must go on. So, given that I spent all of yesterday talking about the Nostalgia Critic takeover with Fragile Snowman (Remastered), I figured it'd be fitting to return to the Season that said nostalgia was directed to - and an all-time favorite memory I have of watching the channel at that time.

I've pointed it out a good number of times by now, including once again in yesterday's post, but one of the things that really did make Season 1 so unique was how spontaneous and unpredictable it felt. The main reason was of course that we lacked much of any expectations in general, but the channel back in Season 1 also didn't exactly have much in the way of large-scale projects planned ahead like the Christmas Comeback Crisis, or the various Festival events that debuted in Season 4 Episode 2 onward. If you caught the SiIvaGunner panel at MAGFest this year, or have followed anything regarding rips like the Shop Fusion Collab or projects like CCC Episode 11, you'll know just how large and coordinated these projects have become. As Chaze explained back in MAGFest 2019: SiIvaGunner Presents - High Quality Ripping, meanwhile, back in Season 1 they would occasionally just completely abandon whatever event they seemed to be teasing just to fuck with the audience and subvert their expectations.

Subverting our expectations was the initial pitch for the SiIvaGunner channel as a whole, but by the time Be Cool, Be Wild, and Be My Girl was uploaded halfway through Season 1, it really did feel like we'd gotten better at seeing through the smoke and mirrors - we knew that all rips would show their cards eventually and then cue for laughter from us as viewers. Keep in mind: this was also just a week shy from the start of The Reboot, at at time when the idea of the channel having lore or that it would progress much further, was really just conspiracy talk. And indeed, Be Cool, Be Wild, and Be My Girl shows its hand quite early - just 10 seconds into the rip, as the song properly "begins", it becomes a pretty pretty standard, though befitting mashup, one you'd probably expect from just seeing the title. Joke revealed, cue laughter, add to playlist...

Then suddenly, the rip stops - and the facade is lifted. And I suppose it's time for me to start lifting the facade here too, perhaps?

Indeed, if you saw the title of today's post, opened the YouTube link in a new tab, and kept reading the post, you may have felt like you knew exactly what you'd be getting - a solid Season 1-era mashup of Be Cool, Be Wild and Be Groovy and the 2000s rock hit Are You Gonna Be My Girl by Jet. Yet before the mashup is able to go anywhere, the joke is interrupted, mockingly so, by Dr. Eggman, sentence-mixed to poke fun at you over thinking you'd gotten the joke of the rip down. This is no longer a bait-and-switch, but a DOUBLE bait-and-switch - presenting you with the switch for long enough to make you comfortable, then pulling the rug under THAT immediately. And, like - I don't think I can overstate how absolutely baffling that was to experience back in 2016?? Though SiIvaGunner was indeed about subverting expectation, six months in it had still built itself an identity of what to expect from the channel - yet without any warning, here it felt as if the team was practically doing a prank on its own fans. Better yet, the prank only escalated from there, as Eggman voice clips are interspersed in the beats inbetween the song's vocals, before he's suddenly joined by voice clips from Big the Cat of all characters - this prank is on three levels of rug-pulling.

And indeed, I've kind of pulled a prank on you here as well - because the post you're reading is actually about TWO rips from Season 1. Earlier in the third paragraph, I was describing the first of these rips, the one linked in the Bandcamp embed here - uploaded two weeks before the events of The Reboot kicked into motion. Because of that, it plays on the mixed feelings the fanbase once had on using Snow Halation in rips, only to switch it with Are You Gonna Be My Girl: hence the name, Be Cool, Be Wild, and Be My Girl. As The Reboot came and went, however, and told its story specifically about how Snow Halation truly deserves its place on the channel, we'd see the upload of a second rip a few weeks later - pulling the inverse joke. It's possible, back then, that enough time had passed between the two rips to where people had forgotten about the original bait-and-switch, but what was once used as a way to make fun of Snow Halation's percieved mediocrity was now spun into an actual appreciation and celebration of the song!

I hope all of this information on the history of these two moderately-known 2016 rips in particular is at all comprehensible, but the point I wanted to convey is - this shit was REALLY cool to see happen live with both videos. With Be Cool, Be Wild and Be My Girl, it felt like one of the first big shake-ups to the channel's status quo we'd yet seen at that point, and sort of prepared us to never take anything in a rip at face value - then, with the second rip, it felt like a perfect testament to how much The Reboot truly had changed the perception on Snow Halation as a song. The switch to the song didn't feel like an annoyance, but like a rip we'd all now suddenly actually wanted to see - one that we welcomed with open arms. Be it due to rippers being inspired or just paying tribute to one another, these kinds of call-and-response rips are a lot more common on the channel than you may initially think, and are sometimes even made years apart. Be it Windows Wonga Wappa, Ripping Video Game Music​.​.​.​.​.​.​At Night (2020 Edition), or even just with remasters like Violet Snow Memories, it never stops being heartwarming to see rippers pay tribute to one another - or just continuing on from a joke they themselves started.

ALL SYSTEMS, FULL HALATION!!!

#todays siivagunner #season 1 #siivagunner #siiva #THiNGYBOBinc #Youtube #Bandcamp #sonic adventure #sonic adventure 2 #sonic #sonic the hedgehog #sega #sega dreamcast #snow halation #love live #are you gonna be my girl

[here-comes-the-bard]

hey wow more nithvinn stuff! everyone is shocked that here comes the bard dot tumblr dot com is talking about THE BARD and HIS LIFE PARTNER.

anyway i started thinking about the fact that yaevinn being worried for nithral actually goes beyond being worried for him. it is not at all uncommon for it to casually waltz into being like. actively scared for him.

there's a part of yaevinn that wholeheartedly believes that nithral is going to work himself to death, both in a figurative and. semi-literal sense? like mostly he's just scared of what will happen to nithral if (when?) the mental strain becomes too much. like he will be there for nithral the whole way through, no doubt about it. that's his partner! but he doesn't want it to. get? to that point?? because that's his partner???

but then there's also the part of yaevinn that is. like. partly rationally partly irrationally scared of nithral's body ALSO giving out under the stress of it. there's more grounded fears of nithral passing out at work or somehow getting hurt which aren't UNlikely because of how nithral puts like. maybe a little too much into his work. but then there's the irrational (??) fear that he's gonna get a call that nithral dropped dead at work or something from the amount of stress making his fucking heart give out idk.

and i do think that when yaevinn does inevitably have a proper conversation with nithral about it he gets. real emotional about it. i'm not sure in what direction because it kind of depends on how it goes and what nithral says but i honestly think no matter what yaevinn gets teary about it because. again. i cannot emphasize this enough. that's his partner. and honestly i think he apologized because he's scared it'll come off as guilt-tripping even though he's just. a naturally emotional person. like he just cries a lot and he feels okay with crying around nithral. he doesn't speak that fear out loud until later because it's a different discussion but. idk i think he's comfortable saying that he's worried for nithral's well-being because he's pretty sure nithral won't get mad at him, and even if he does, it's BEYOND likely that he's not necessarily mad at yaevinn himself. healthy relationships my beloved.

idk i think about yaevinn being worried about nithral like. a lot. like a LOT because GOD i cannot overstate how much he worries for him and just. wants him to be okay and know that whatever his "purpose" may or may not be, really the most important thing, at least to yaevinn, is that he takes care of himself and finds his happiness, y'know?

#the citrus speaks #lemon thesis moment #healing hands #i don't have anything to add i thought of this during treatment today XD

[rotisseries]

ASKING U ABT CIRI WITCHERS BOOKS? TELL ME MORE

OK SO. the fun thing about the witcher books is that they were written by a Man In The 80s. so you have moments where it's like. oh how unexpectedly progressive of you!!! (very cool pro choice scene) and other moments where it was very much Written By A Man In The 80s. so. miss cirilla fiona elen riannon is actually a PERFECT example of this duality because she is fundamentally a joint main protag like this series is just as much about her journey as it is about geralt's and she's a teenage girl written with a lot of depth and care and compassion. and also sometimes it's just fucking weird. like this series encompasses a large span of time so while she starts the series at like. 12. a large portion of her story happens at like. the 15 to 16 range. so there's like. the occasional weird shit and then there's generally too many. threats of sexual violence against her like I cannot overstate that. a main plot point is that elves want to impregnate her because she has special elven heritage or something idfk I need to reread. BUT. MOST MEMORABLE OFFENSE IN MY MIND. IS THE FACT SHE'S CANONICALLY SAPPHIC (yay) AND IT'S WRITTEN FUCKING WEIRD (nooo) SO. there's an arc where she gets separated from geralt for awhile and he's trying to find her (with a fun little found family btw. while she's like. having the greatest suffering of her fucking life and she's ALREADY lost her grandmother to war and fire atp) and it's the first time she's truly been on her own. she's 15 she's been hanging with him since she was 12 he's been her gruff dad for several years now. so this ends up as kind of a very dark point in her life she first has to survive through this desert and then she gets attacked by bandits??? I think??? older men though which is the main threat. and she's captured and scared and then!! she gets rescued by this teenaged bandit group and this is where it's a dark point in her life bc they are a very toxic friend group for her it's not good these aren't really like. moral bandits like overall her time with them isn't great for her BUT. the first night she stays with them one of the boys in the group tries to assualt her. gently of course. 🙄 but the other girl in the group, (I REMEMBER THIS BITCH'S NAME. FUCKING MISTLE) runs him off but then she ALSO makes sexual advances on ciri SHE LITERALLY DOES THE SAME THING THE BOY DID and CIRI GOES WITH IT BUT IT'S LIKE. THERE'S NO ENTHUSIASTIC CONSENT HERE OR ANYTHING SHE'S UNCOMFORTABLE SHE'S NOT READY I THINK SHE CRIES HANG ON IT'S REALLY BAD LEMME SEE IF I CAN FIND IT LIKE I CAN'T OVERSTATE THIS ENOUGH IT'S TEXTUALLY SEXUAL ASSAULT

look at this shit.

"but rori," you may say, "this is awful, but why point to this as canon sapphicness? rape is not representation" and you are RIGHT. SO TRUEEE. unfortunately. ciri continues to date this bitch. they have an extended romantic relationship for months. or longer. while ciri rides around with them harassing random villages. SO. CIRI'S ONLY CANONICAL SAPPHIC RELATIONSHIP. WHICH IS MEANT TO BE HER BEING SAPPHIC BTW BC THE AUTHOR SAID SOME SHIT IN AN INTERVIEW OR SMTH ABOUT WANTING TO GO AGAINST STEREOTYPES OR WHATEVER WHERE THE PRINCESS ALWAYS ENDS UP WITH SOME MAN. KEEP THAT IN MIND BTW IT'LL BE RELEVANT AGAIN. BUT ANYWAY. ONLY CANONICAL SAPPHIC RELATIONSHIP AND CANONICAL EVIDENCE OF CIRI BEING SAPPHIC AND IT'S. IT'S FUCKING. IT FUCKING STARTS WITH A RAPE. ANDRZEJ SAPOWSKI I WILL KILL YOU

and then. AND THEN. even better. actually objectively a better situation than this one but it sours it further to me. so she's like? technically bisexual I think? in the sense that she has a female "love interest" and later a male one. but it's just. it's not anything specific but the way it's written is just like. it feels more like he wrote her as a lesbian and then just changed his mind at the last book. because the final book is her telling this man she meets about the shit she went through (this is well after mistle btw like I think it's been a few years) and then they like. leave somewhere together at the end of the book? and it's not really romantic but it simultaneously reads like maybe it's supposed to be (AND OH HEY REMEMBER THAT BIT ABOUT NOT WANTING THE TROPEY ENDING FOR THE PRINCESS WHERE SHE ENDS UP WITH A MAN??) and if yes then it's weird as bisexuality rep because it actually just reads like he wrote her as a lesbian during the worst time in her life and then after she got better and got through it her happy ending is with a man. so. bit weird bit odd. and then the game witcher 3 gives you the option to say she's not in to guys. but also the option to romance a guy. so who even knows. ciri's possible lesbianism/bisexuality is the sexuality schroedingers cat. lmao

#she's bi in the same way piper pjo is where like. ok you're telling me she's been romantically involved with both a man and a woman #which is generally the sign a character is meant as bi if the author doesn't give them a label. AND YET #you have written this bi woman like she's actually a lesbian somehow #genuinely and unironically liking these books sucks so bad. I'm killing myself #yes I was on here months ago defending yennefer as a character. yes I think the netflix adaptation is awful yes I like these books #but no I don't #anyway. erm. ciri bi lesbian rights I fucking guess??????? wth #ask #gloomybirdie #hi gloomy!

[scramble-crossing]

your writing has like totally reframed minamimoto as a character for me, its so cool. like of COURSE this central idea of social interconnectedness and the worth of it to someone with other priorities would be explored in echoes throughout the cast, like the story is asking Has asked sho the same question its asking neku. which i guess is also just. what a foil is lol.

its just wild tho, like down to the interest in art, theyre so similar that its like hes a version of this story of isolation that went differently !! i could totally see his backstory as showing him go thru life+the reapers game as Almost realizing people are worth it, swerving away from that conclusion into self-reverence, and there NEO shows him approaching it again, as if to illustrate the idea that there is no point at which it is 'too late' for someone to re-evaluate the world and how they look at it.

(and the idea that he does this, while still not having an entry fee of i think, his ability to relate w others?? could be such a cool examination of the idea of empathy, and how its different from compassion/kindness/caring for people)

anyway thank you!!!! bc of u i have a richer understanding of my favorite game now :)))

;-; Oh jeeze...that's so kind of you to say!! I'm so happy you enjoy my silly little shoposting :] Spreading Sho Narrative Propaganda is my ultimate goal and so I'm absolutely thrilled to hear that whatever the heck I've been doing on this blog for the last year and a half has actually impacted someone's view on Sho as a character.

"like of COURSE this central idea of social interconnectedness and the worth of it to someone with other priorities would be explored in echoes throughout the cast, like the story is asking Has asked sho the same question its asking neku"

^^^Yes!!! Exactly!! Part of why Sho is so fascinating to me is because he is the only main character in the series who has not yet answered this question for himself (Because Joshua has. He, at some point, chose to forsake closeness and actual relation to humanity in favour of his position as Composer, and however much he may regret it or wish that things were different, he still, for reasons we don't quite understand, holds onto it (Perhaps out of obligation? Perhaps there is no easy exist strategy for a being of his status and composition). In any case I think NEO makes it clear that his story has concluded, however miserable a conclusion that may be).

I mentioned this before, but it's the fact that we have already seen the worst-case scenario in Joshua, the lowest that Neku could have possible gone had he made different choices, that makes me hope for a redemption arc for Sho.

"...as if to illustrate the idea that there is no point at which it is 'too late' for someone to re-evaluate the world and how they look at it."

I cannot overstate how much I love this. It does fit so well with the themes of the series to show a character grapple with the fact that a worldview he's held for so long is extremely toxic and damaging to both himself and others in a messier and more complex way, and farther into adulthood, too, than the majority of our cast. While this is more into the realm of headcanon, I do think that there is a part of Sho that only clings to his ambitions to become the Composer because at this point he has invested too much in the pursuit, and to abandon it would be to admit that everything he's lost or discarded, his friendship with the Wicked Twisters, the prime years of his youth, his life, not just once, but twice, because had he joined the Twisters there's a chance he could have shared in their second chance...it would all be for nothing.

"Is this what you're searching for?"

"Are you scared to know the truth?"

I would kill for a threequel that explores Sho's journey as his resolve begins to waver and he realizes that overcoming the Composer was never possible, and maybe wasn't ever what would make him feel...happy? Complete? Nothing about the cold and lonely darkness of the Room of Reckoning could ever fill whatever emptiness was inside of him that made him dedicate himself so fiercely to this goal in the first place. And despite the years that have slipped by him with failure after failure after failure, he can still start again, and make something new of himself.

Joshua, Neku, and Sho are three sides of a very strange coin. One failed to connect with others and rationalized this lapse to himself by digging in his heels with his severely individualistic mentality, shrugging off his personal responsibility to make efforts to empathize with or understand the perspective of other people by insisting that it just isn't possible. Neku is the same. Or at least, he was. But then he made the choice to try anyways, and discovered that even if we cannot always see eye-to-eye, we challenge ourselves and make ourselves into wiser, kinder, better people by reaching out to others and, if only for a little while, making their world a part of our own.

Sho exists somewhere in the middle, sharing and maintaining many of the same beliefs ("All the world needs is me" / "All that matters is MY beauty!"), while also growing in a way that seems to have him challenging some of his own preconceived notions on the worth of other people, even if it's with baby steps. There is so much potential to parallel his arc with both Neku's and Joshua's in a very interesting way while still letting him carry his own unique message, and I do genuinely believe that if Square wanted, they could make something incredible out of a game with a narrative focused predominantly on him, and his answer to the series' greatest question.

...And maybe how he came to have to ask it in the first place?

I'm gonna shamelessly plug my fic Loner Phase here because it's all about exploring Sho's potential backstory and how it led to him becoming the person we see him as at the start of the first game. I started writing it faaaaairly recently and quickly distracted myself with writing a fic for the twewy bang (no regrets though. Crazy stressed about the time limit because I'm obviously a bit of a slow writer and tend to bite off waaaay more than I can chew, but I'm working on it. It'll be fine.) so there's only one chapter so far, but chapter two...it's coming. It's getting there. <- said with my head in my hands

I'm rambling but genuinely your comment made my day :] This is my first time being active in a fanbase and I feel so grateful for all the kind and creative people I've encountered here. You guys are the best 💖

#making joshua's little uehehehe all day after reading this #I am forever insane about sho and it makes me happy to know that people actually like reading my thoughts on him #it gives me a burst of motivation!! I am gonna kill that bang fic time limit be damned I am gonna COMMIT #shoposting #ask #minamimoto

[sixstepsaway]

maybe this is a controversial point but as an autistic, disabled, mentally ill person myself, i also support people who get an abortion because they don't want a mentally ill, disabled or autistic child

you do not need a vetted, approved reason for an abortion. it can be any reason. i do not care about your reason. one person making a choice for their own body and life does not eugenics make. eugenics is a system. it's the government declaring selective breeding. it's the system telling parents to abort disabled children even if they want that child and could and would love and care for it well. it's forced sterilization and declaring people unfit to reproduce

if a pregnant person finds out their child is likely to be autistic, or disabled, or mentally ill, or any other number of things (and yes, if it was possible to know your child could be queer, I include this) and does not want a child that is that way they should not be forced or expected to carry that child to term just because eugenics are bad

systematic eugenicist policies and movements do not take away an individual's right to choose what they do with their body

would i want to be friends with someone who simply did not want an autistic child? ehh, probably not, but I'd also campaign and argue for their right to choose. would i want to be friends with someone who said, "I don't think I could properly care for this child, so I am not going to have it"? yeah.

it's not always a black and white, either. sometimes there's a gray area in the middle of "idk if this is a good idea and since i'm not sure--"

sometimes it's someone who looks at a potentially disabled child and thinks, "I cannot do this," and honest to god that is okay

and i get the idea that "you chose to risk having this kind of child by getting pregnant" and i do agree that if you birth a child and keep that child you should be ready for that child to be mentally ill or queer or whatever else, and shouldn't abuse or mistreat that child for it

but if the partner who got you pregnant says, "I'm autistic and adhd and mentally ill and so there's a really high chance this child will be too," and you cannot imagine being able to handle that or you just don't want to? abortion is a choice.

when people say you shouldnt abort a child for traits you dont want, it reminds me of 'conditional' abortion: you can have an abortion only in cases of rape or incest, only for babies you didnt sign up for by choosing to conceive

and that is in itself not pro-choice

my belief that every single person who is pregnant can choose whether to carry that baby to term applies to every fetus, not just one that's only unwanted because it's a fetus to begin with

i do not believe that anyone should be forced to bring any child into this world, especially if that child will not be wanted

and every time people say that you shouldn't abort a baby just because it might be disabled, i see it from the opposite side, which is that you're saying that person must have a baby they don't want, or do not believe they can cope with, and raise an entire human being in an environment they may not be welcome in and may not be properly cared for in

there is also, also, a class part to this, where a rich white couple will automatically have more access to resources to raise a disabled child than a poor couple of color who will not only have to raise a child (expensive) but also find the money for necessary health care and accommodations for that child

i have literally seen people say that if you would abort a disabled child you shouldnt ever have children at all and i cannot overstate how much i disagree with that notion. i do think that anyone who chooses to carry a baby to term and keep that child should be aware that disability can strike at any time and they may end up with a disabled child, even if that child isn't born disabled, but i dont see some horrifying underlying eugenicist reasoning behind every single choice that is made this way

i also feel it about the sex of the baby. if someone aborts a baby because they dont want x sex of baby, fine. abortion is a choice for a reason. obviously, again, they need to know that the child they do have might turn out trans, but i dont want the child they didnt want raised by those people

my spicy hot take is that if it's okay to abort a fetus because 'it's just a clump of cells invading someone else's body' (which is objectively correct) then the reason for that abortion, as long as it's a decision made by the person having the abortion, does not matter.

and before i post this, i just want to say that this doesn't mean i believe in forced sterilization or actual eugenics. i dont believe in forcing pregnant people to undergo tests for whatever they might test for, such as disabilities or whatever else. and i dont believe anyone should force or coax an abortion from any pregnant person who might be having an 'undesirable' child.

i just believe that every single pregnant person has the right to choose, no matter their reasons, and acting like some reasons are lesser or not allowed is wrong

if my mother had seen i was going to be autistic, adhd and disabled, and gone, "you know, i dont think i want to care for a disabled child", i would support her abortion too

...well, no, i wouldnt exist. but the point is that i retroactively support it.

(my mother, actually, did not have any tests, because she knew no matter how i came out, she would want me.)

in the exact same way if someone says, "I need a kidney," and the potential donor goes, "i really dont want a scar, so no"

that's also okay because bodily autonomy matters. i am allowed to think them selfish and not want to be friends with them. but they have the right to say no, for any reason and no one should deny or try to deny them that

ETA: i think something people often forget is how many people would want to have that 'undesirable' child, how many people would want an autistic child like them, how many people would want to love a mentally ill child and give them a better life than they had.

i think the assumption made when people talk about this is that all disabled and (if you could tell while pregnant) queer fetuses would be aborted and that's what makes it 'eugenics', but i dont agree. lots of people would happily have a queer or disabled child. again, i reference my mother, who did not need to know if i would be disabled because even if i was she wanted me (hi! i am 29 and still live with her because i'm disabled)

and i think that shows the internal bias of the people who say these things, actually

#abortion #i am pro-choice #and when i say i am pro-choice I MEAN I AM PRO-CHOICE #not republical pro-choice-if-you-didnt-consent #or liberal pro choice as long as it's for the right reasons #i am PRO CHOICE. #bodily autonomy

[whiskeyote]

This won't feel real til we go ahead and do it but we are booking tickets to IRELAND on Friday. Travels in May.

I cannot overstate enough how incredibly Not Possible it would be for this to happen without an extremely generous leg up from Col's parents and their air miles. Humbled doesn't even touch what I feel.

Because of them and because of Col's very beautiful and meaningful gesture of yielding the when/where/what aspect of the trip to me, I'm able to go back to my ancestral homelands for the first time in 600 years. Don't ask how I know that. Some things you just Know.

For this to happen when it's happening is auspicious for a variety of reasons, but foremost on my mind is how it lines up with my Saturn return. The fact that I might be in freaking Ireland for Mercuralia is doing things to my woo-meter too. Add in the final fact that I'll be in the last months of my 20s... It all points to perfect conditions for some kind of awakening. I feel whatever it is stirring in me already.

#t