#the critical degree

[evangelinesbible]

ummm found something very interesting in my 1999 CE119 chart

If you don’t know that asteroid is all about huge attainment and status. In my natal chart is not very prominent but it is in retrograde Libra in the 2nd house Sextile Fama and square Saturn.

That’s a whole other thing to unpack but I was looking at the persona chart and 🫥

IVE GOT:

1998 BU48 0° conjunct MC 0° in Virgo

Leo Venus 24° conjunct MC

Fama Virgo 25° conjunct Mercury/Jupiter 10H

Sun Libra 5° 11H conjunct CE119 Libra 6° 11H

Mars Libra 1° 10H

Mercury Libra 0° 10H

Jupiter Libra 0° 10H

( mars, Jupiter, mercury and sun all conjunct each other)

bitch…

I got a lot of unpacking to do

#astrology #astro observations #astro placements #pisces #aries #astro notes #astrology notes #capricorn #taurus #cancer #zodiac #persona chart #1999 ce119 #1998 bu48 #fama asteroid #libra stellium #the 0 degree #the critical degree

[chocopinda]

A slightly festive Fearne for the upcoming holidays~

#chocopinda's art tag #drawing this was honestly therapeutic to some degree i swear #all the nature themes are just such a comfort zone #critical role #fearne calloway #critical role fanart

[soaring-trash]

The bed gets cold without you and cold hands trope, but reversed because Laudna doesn’t produce an ounce of warmth and Imogen is practically a human heater.

#she produces lightning #that stuff can heat up the air around it to 27760 degrees celcius #How do lightning powers even work without the caster being insanely resistant and heat proof??idk #girl failure is indeed a super hero #tried to emulate the intro animation #critical role #critters #critical role campaign 3 #bells hells #critical role fanart #fanart #laudna #imogen temult #imodna #imogen x laudna #southern gothic

[rawliverandgoronspice]

I think what particularly annoys me with the "zelda was always gameplay before story" is that... it's not true? At least I don't think it's true in the way people mean it.

Zelda games were always kind of integrating story based on the standards of the time. When game stories were in game pamphlets, Zelda's stories was in the pamphlets. ALTTP tried to tell a pretty complicated stories with the limitations of the time. OoT was actively trying to tell an epic, cinematic tale packed with ambiance and expand what 3D could offer that 2D games struggled with. Majora's Mask is deeply character-driven in many, many ways. Wind Waker and Twilight Princess are both pretty concerned about their stories, down to the point that some people were bored by TP's cutscenes in particular. Skyward Sword, from what little I have played it, is very very invested in its characters and their journey (and 2D Zeldas have Link's Awakening, Minish Cap... None of them are visual novels, but they are concerned with emotional journeys, character arcs, mysteries about their own world...)

What is true is that the narrative wraps around the mechanics, and not the other way around. The mechanics drive themes, aesthetics, emotional beats and character journeys; and that's great. The world is a puzzle, and the world is delightfully absurd when it needs to be, full of heart when it calls for it, dark and oppressive when it suits the player experience.

That does not mean the games aren't invested in their stories. Even BotW has a pretty complicated story to tell about an entire world rather than one specific tale or legend --all of it at the service of the gameplay, which is exploration and mastery of your environment.

So. Yes, none of the Zelda games are million-words long visual novels that care deeply about consistency and nuance; but stories don't need consistency or deep lore to be meaningful and serve an emotional journey. Again: gameplay is story. The two cannot be so easily parsed from each other.

And Zelda as a franchise obviously care deeply about story, characters and setting (and still does right now --otherwise there wouldn't be a movie), even if it doesn't try to imitate prestige narrative-driven games, which is great and part of why I love this series so much. Doesn't mean it couldn't have done better in the past, it obviously could have, but I feel like pretending that nobody ever cared about story or character is just... false? It's a huge disservice to the devs too. Some of them obviously cared immensely.

The "gameplay above story", at least in the extent to which it is paraded today to defend TotK, mostly, is a really recent development. And I think it's one that deserves to receive some pushback.

#thoughts #tloz #zelda #the legend of zelda #totk critical #(sort of) #(I mean this is the subtext) #guys in 1998 nintendo was trying its darnest to make an epic story (with uhhh the writing that it got) #(love that game to bits but won't defend the actual writing) #the fully gameplay-driven game was mario 64!!! #I think this perception is also partially the fault of that “narrative game” category that is just.... kind of like Prestige TV but for gam #as if most games don't have some form of storytelling within them #and that coherence and vision and consistency are part of game design too #and will hurt a game's enjoyment if not handled correctly #a really really paired back narrative game is really difficult to pull off actually! #because you still need stakes and some degree of intrigue #so you need to figure out how to introduce this without walls of text and is it narrative design? is it game design? it's both!! #anyway anyway

[captaingeorge13]

y’all i work in construction and i was on a ledge 35 feet up being lazy lifting something in a, lets say non-OSHA compliant manner, and i swear right before i started pulling i heard brennan lee mulligan’s voice on the wind saying “are you weakest, do you feel, at the elbow or the shoulder?”

i stopped and went through correct safety procedure so damn quickly. thats what i call divine intervention.

#brennan lee mulligan #critical role #exu calamity #construction #voices on the wind #i was being so fucking dumb tbh #it was like 98 degrees #no clouds in the sky #and i risked falling 35 feet to my death instead of walking down and up 3 flights of stairs #thank you for body horror brennan

[washedupuriel]

Are we really going to let the Rishi Sunaks of the world pretend that humanities degrees are "low value"?

Are we really going to let them blame the results of their hyper capitalist politics – cost of living crisis, housing crisis, climate emergency, the list goes on – on the very courses of study that teach people to think critically and call them out on their bullshit?

#capitalism #late stage capitalism #humanities #low value degrees #university #not to be a socialist on main but holy fuck #politics #criticism

[cumulativechaos]

having seen jordan peele's three movies at this point im pretty sure the way on-screen gore and violence is used pretty sparingly is part of his style. and i like his style a lot, but the way so much of the gore is kept off-screen works SO well in Nope (2022) specifically

like for one thihg, having some of the most gruesome/terrifying parts of the movie happen just outside of the camera or blocked by something in the shot definitely elevates the horror. gordy attacking jupe's co-stars is all blocked by the set, we only see the shadows of everyone getting sucked into jean jacket, and even tho we see them inside jean jacket a little bit, it's more to show us how they were being kept alive. we don't actually see them die/get digested. and because none of these things happen on-screen, our brains connect the dots and come up with the most horrifying shit we can imagine

but even outside of just how Not Seeing The Scary Thing Makes The Scary Thing Scarier, it fits fucking thematically with the whole movie. we don't need to see the gory gruesome details of someone's death to know what happened to these characters, showing these things on-screen wouldn't add to our understanding of the plot. it would just be a spectacle of gore and pain and the whole point of Nope is condemning the act of pointing the camera at suffering to exploit people's pain

#nope jordan peele #nope spoilers #nope 2022 #nope 2022 spoilers #jordan peele #mp #literally he fucking does it again. how is jordan peele so fucking smart #and also this is SUCH a Black subject. so often Black suffering is exploited and shown to a gratuitous degree #like im not surprised that such an incredible movie that criticizes making spectacle out of suffering was made by a Black man

[mactiir]

I know the average reading comprehension on this site is zero but I'm different. I'm applying wildly inappropriate analysis lenses to popcorn media. I'm doing a queer theory reading of Horus Heresy novels. Now I'm doing feminist analysis of Warhammer 40k canon. Now I'm applying Marxist analysis to The Outsiders. Time for a historical analysis of The Locked Tomb. A post-colonial reading of the entirety of Doctor Who. A psychological anlaysis of Twilight. On the horseshoe scale of reading comprehension I'm at "so much reading comprehension that it loops back around to not understanding books at all actually". You can't stop me. I'm literary analysis Georg

#I paid many thousands of dollars for this degree #and by god i will use it #literature #Literary analysis #Literature analysis #Media analysis #literary criticism #reading #reading comprehension #meta analysis #literature major #literature memes #lit crit #media literacy

[tiredyke]

i cant stand feminist discourse on this site because its like 90% "feminism means equality which means you can't say anything bad about men and you have to criticize women just as much as men because misandry is just as bad as misogyny" and these posts always get thousands of notes from other people who call themselves feminists likeee

#the problem isn’t that women are immune to criticism it’s that they get overly criticized and judged to a much harsher degree than men #and to hear people say that we need to criticize women more or ���stop pretending they’re all innocent angels’ is fucking infuriating #considering women actually get burned at the stake for expressing negativity toward men while men get to make misogynistic remarks and jokes #and get crowned for being so brave and having such a strong moral compass that they aren’t afraid to stomp down on women #like the shit with amber heard. everyone is so quickly to turn on women and demonize them when they’re literal victims and uplift men who #abuse them #but sure men are demonized in society and don’t feel cherished enough and that’s a problem! /s #neon talks #misogyny

[halcyon-autumn]

I read the wheel of time books in middle school and was deeply, deeply obsessed with them, so now I’m incapable of thinking critically about the show at all. Every time one of my faves (read: any character) is on the screen I’m just like “THATS MY BEST FRIEND FROM WHEN I WAS THIRTEEN”

#I know there are like critiques to make #but when Egwene is on screen???? #the English degree goes out the window #I just get wildly emotional seeing the characters I grew up with in front of me #this is not a criticism of people who are criticizing the show!! #just saying that #for me personally #I turn into a kid pointing out the window yelling HORSE when I see any of the wonder girls #wheel of time #wot

[andi-o-geyser]

I truly do love where Bells Hells' relationship with the gods is going, because in what has so far been a very atheistic party we're now experiencing some wildly different journeys with divinity. FCG is over here living his best life, like "I am all in on the Changebringer!" right as Laudna, Orym, and Ash return with all their trauma and complicated experience with how harmful the gods can be, so now Deanna is speedwalking in the opposite direction like "what do you mean :) you have issues with the Dawnfather :)) wait :) what do you mean militaristic churches :)) can i :))) have a fucking minute :)))" and then she hopped onto a quick zoom call with the sun itself, heard all she needed to hear, called him a bitch, and left. queen shit. anyways this is a Deanna stan post, my girl do what you've gotta do I'll support you the entire way

#cannot stress how much a love her #aabria is just *chef's kiss* unmatched #I cannot boil down how much i love her into simple words but she literally has everything #powers of the gods #an angsty backstory #majority of the only braincells in any group she's in #an ex husband #a werewolf fuckbuddy #a gay best friend #a medical degree #and an etsy shop #unmatched <333 #bells hells #critical role #cr3 #cr spoilers #deanna #deanna leimert #aabria iyengar #andis thought geyser

[towards-toramunda]

*lacing up my big shoes before tonight’s episode*

*painting my face in Mehron brand cake tin makeup in the color clown white*

*putting on the traditional costume of a harlequin in comedia del arte*

*wearing a bowler hat in the style of a tramp or hobo clown*

*being laughed off the stage for combing different types of clown from various points in history instead of sticking to one cohesive style*

I’m keeping my eyes peeled for ashrym crumbs

#critical role #orym of the air ashari #ashton greymoore #ashrym #I really exposed my theatre arts degree with this post

[essektheylyss]

Spenser's opening narration like "Tell me you have a film degree without telling me"

#I do not actually know if this man has a film degree but #that narration sure was some film major shit #(this is great enjoying it lmao) #candela obscura #co spoilers #(also I did check and he does have a film degree lol) #critical role

[ladyddanger]

I would take criticisms of c!Tommy a lot more seriously if a lot of it wasn’t just… victim blaming and ableism. This isn’t to say there’s no valid criticism of c!Tommy there 100% is. But a lot of “popular” criticisms of c!Tommy and the way these criticisms are stated is nasty. Like c!Tommy has so many flaws! But then you get people listing his flaws are like being mean to his abuser and it all falls apart.

#this kind of stuff also makes it harder to criticize c!Tommy genuinely #I see this with another characters like c!Quackity but to a lesser degree #dsmp fandom neg #c!tommy #dsmp

[densitywell]

Marisha's comment about how Relvin is one of those parents who ended up with a child they didn't know what to do with really gets to the heart of it, i think, and is such a good way to tie the fantasy element of Imogen's powers into things more tangible. because there are really a lot of parents like Relvin in real life, who have a child with the person they're happily married to and never expect to be left alone with the kid. or who expect a ""normal"" (read: cisgender and heterosexual, able-bodied, relatively neurotypical and obedient, etc.) child and end up with one who's ""difficult"", who demands more or different of them than what they believe they signed up for. and that's not entirely entitlement on a parent's part- many cultures' common frameworks of parenthood and child-rearing do not include space for these children. it makes sense that Relvin was unprepared. raising any child is difficult, and raising a child whose needs you were never taught how to accommodate, who the world is so cruel to, is even more challenging.

and yet. and yet, the person who bears the brunt of the harm in these situations will always be the child. they're the ones who have to live every moment of how the world treats them, without the support that their parent is supposed to provide them. and when asked to care for his child even when she turned out to be ""difficult"", Relvin couldn't. for entirely sympathetic reasons, of course. he tried, in his own way. i don't think he's a bad guy. but he's let his own broken heart bleed onto his daughter. he hasn't been able to give her much else.

#imogen temult #critical role #cr #cr3 #like it's really sad what happened to relvin we all know this. but seeing how dani scrambled over herself last night #to clarify that she DOESN'T think relvin is an awful person just bc she thinks he's a shitty dad made me feel for her so much bc like. #sometimes the Posts. about him. feel a little “why do bash dead beat dads but never question if the kid has bad vibes.” so. #especially in comparison to liliana who is 1. worse than relvin 2. still sympathetic 3. more interesting to a nearly comical degree #and while he gets so much sympathy On Here ppl mostly post abt her to wish for her death or call her a bitch. so! #parenting talk is a minefield bc some ppl resent the idea that a child deserves anything more from a parent than basic needs being met #and refuse to include emotional needs among them. so like idk if that's your thing i don't rlly give a shit man #crposting

[captainofthetidesbreath]

a thing about Nathaniel is that he has some of the same issues and problems as Sean, except Nathaniel successfully compartmentalized (a revolver locked tidily into a mahogany box) and is more controlled about his own descent. sharing in a different degree in it, but sharing in it nonetheless.

and there's many reasons why Nathaniel is coping significantly better—among the most important of which is he hasn't shot children, as far as we know—but I think, just as much as Sean is, Nathaniel is afraid of the person he can be. he hates himself, for many reasons going back to his childhood. I think he hates and is afraid of Lt. Trapp too, at least a little. he hides the revolver in that box and is hesitant to take it, and it is a dark place, and one he has to slowly get himself used to even thinking about over multiple days.

to use Beatrix's hole metaphor, Nathaniel has just as much a hole as Sean does. Nathaniel's may not be as deep and dark, and Nathaniel has managed to claw his way back up out of it, but it is there, and he is trying to climb a little ways down it on purpose without falling back to the bottom. and it's voluntary, and he has more control over it than Sean does in his rapidly deteriorating state, but there is always a risk against what it may to do Nathaniel to walk back into a place and state that has and can ruin and harm him as a person.

I think it's why Sean and Nathaniel seem to intuitively understand one another sometimes, when it comes to these things. even if they don't materially grasp their circumstances all the time. it's why their relationship is so easy and automatic. they have share this thing where they hate and are afraid of themselves, of that man who came back from the war.

unfortunately, that man of them both is useful for the task at hand.

#I'm too lazy rn to really UNPACK this. And honestly a lot of people are talking about Sean so I trust you all Know The Self-Loathing Deal. #But my point is that I think Nathaniel and Sean are the same to very different degrees but DO have an overlap. #Nathaniel Trapp #Sean Finnerty #Candela Obscura #Candela spoilers #Critical Role #Candela things #Circle of Needle and Thread