Strategizing

thinking about how when you punch a mirror so that it cracks and fractures into multiple shards reflecting your own visage back at you, you're really just ironically surrounding yourself with more of the self you loathe in your quest to attain self-destruction. the grotesque reproductive quality of gouging pieces from yourself in order to lessen the burden of existence, and in the process only proliferating more individual aspects of You, shedding them as you go. much to consider.

wip wednesday

Thank you @nirikeehan and @theluckywizard for the tags last week!! I am tagging you back and also @junkbabelna and @rowanisawriter if you have anything you want to share :))

I'm playing Fields of Mistria and have suddenly been seized with Celine and Balor ideas, so:

He extends his palm; in it lies an ornate key that’s carved of wood.

“It reminded me of you,” he says.

“How much?” she asks, and he laughs.

“Can’t fool the shopkeeper’s daughter,” he murmurs. “How much would you pay for a key that doesn’t lead anywhere?”

Functionally useless, she thinks. She wishes she could stop thinking for once. It’s a beautiful night out. Balor looks beautiful, too, in the soft light coming from her parlor. His palm dips a little, and she moves to take the key. His smile grows.

“Good night, Celine,” he says, before he turns and takes the steps down. The wood barely creaks under his light tread. Her dad offered to fix it, but she likes knowing if something's coming. She doesn't want to think what. Except Balor, who barely makes a sound, free to come and go as much as he’d like. She watches his cloaked back disappear up the trail, all of her slack and leaned up against the heavy wood of her door. She closes her eyes and lets the breeze ruffle her hair, her clothes. 

She slips into her bed and tries not to think about his little caravan, parked across the road, nor about Balor himself in his own room, maybe sitting on the bed, peeling off his stockings and his cloak. She likes this image, him in his bare feet, all alone. Familiar, and therefore safe. 

"kamala harris doesn't even have any kids, she can't lead the country" i'm sorry is this fucking warrior cats

the original got flagged with no way to appeal it when every contributor is deactivated but I will never let this post die. it's monday and we are getting on it cunts

Things I've seen tumblr memeing about James Somerton doing à la "How did no one see how bigoted he was!" as if those things haven't been a significant part of tumblr culture for over a decade :

Presenting untrue and bordering on conspiratorial versions of (queer or otherwise marginalised) history without any sources

Completely disregarding and disrespecting any expertise on socio-cultural topics/humanities and distrusting academics and historians (incl. acting as if no academics or historians could be queer or marginalised)

Downplaying the role misogyny played in the historical oppression of queer women and concluding that queer men must have been more oppressed than queer women

Bi women are, at best, not as queer as "real" queer ppl, and at worst, simply equivalent to straight women

Despite nominal trans inclusivity, transmasculine ppl are functionally women when convenient (combined with the above, bi transmascs are functionally straight women)

Despite nominal trans inclusivity (bis), shamelessly attacking, threatening and actively endangering any trans woman who questions them or smth they find important (often by unfairly presenting her as violent or as a threat)

Having absolutely fucking wild and reductive takes about ace ppl, the oppression they face and their place in the queer community

Stating that marriage equality is an assimilationist fight while completely ignoring its direct roots in the horrifying consequences of the AIDS crisis for partners of ppl who died of AIDS

Praising western media creators from the past for queer coding even under censure and in the same breath condemning current non western media creators for being homophobic bc their representation isn't explicit enough

Blaming China for all existing homophobic censoring in western media

Assuming all queer media would be better told by western creators and by western standards

Only out queer ppl get to tell queer stories

Heavily criticising almost all queer media created by women or ppl they see as such (see above points about trans ppl) or involving/starring a significant amount of women for any perceived or real amount of "problematicness", but fawning over and praising and negating criticism of queer media created by and starring mostly or even functionally exclusively men (even when it could be argued that, you know, not involving/seriously sidelining women is a pretty clear example of misogyny which should probably be considered "problematic")

And I'm probably forgetting stuff or there's stuff I have internalised myself and don't recognise as an issue

Like idk but I feel like the takeaway from Hbomberguy and Toddintheshadow's videos should maybe be "be aware of such patterns in your communities bc they definitely exist" and not "this guy is uniquely awful" and I feel like a lot of the discussion I've seen surrounding this has been severely failing at that. Most ppl who've spent any significant amount of time on tumblr prob either have internalised at least one of those thought patterns, have had to de-internalise them, or have had to be extremely vigilant to not internalise them (which is done by, you know, seeking out other sources, which also seemed like an important takeaway from the videos)

6 months…?

Steven Reads PokeSpe

I started using Head and Shoulders ten years ago for itchy scalp and dandruff, and then for ten years I have not had itchy scalp and dandruff, so I thought "why do I still buy shampoo to combat itchy scalp and dandruff when I do not have itchy scalp and dandruff," so I stopped buying the shampoo for itchy scalp and dandruff and can you guess I have now? Can you predict what currently afflicts me? It's alright if you can't because apparently I fuckin couldn't either

something they don’t tell you about being autistic is that every character you write WILL end up autistic/autistic-coded whether you like it or not

this is the biggest pokemon leak weve ever seen. holy fuck.

ive been here for multiple beta leaks since the spaceworld gold demo in 2018 and the diamond and pearl beta leak somewhere after that. this is by far the most intensive leak of beta pokemon stuff ive seen.

source code and beta builds for gens 3, 4, 5, and later 6 and 7. it is MASSIVE.

there is so fucking much and you can see coverage here

this document from junichi masuda made in 2005 is the highlight for me, the symbol used in the hgss arceus event. it seems the legendaries are like a greek pantheon of deities

but we got more

internal development and discussion. universe creation lore, character profiles (e.g. skyla is a sexy latina pilot inspired by jennifer lopez and isabella fontana), never before seen designs, seen-before designs (latiken had a fucking sprite!), concept art, gen 3 had some darker looking discarded designs. WHAT IS THIS IT RULES

here are compiled beta sprites from gens 3, 4, 5