To all my Dimension 20 followers who are thinking about seeing Across the Spiderverse, no spoilers but I got out of this movie what I was missing from Neverafter. I really cannot recommend this movie to y’all enough. It’s visually stunning but I knew it was going to be. What really impressed me was the way it handled the commentary about how we tell stories without getting too meta with it. It’s a part one of two so it still has to properly stick the landing but I am already extremely extremely impressed.
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ALT
Thank you so so very much to @garbria and @wombywoo for this amazing art of my OC Amani and Pelna. Garbria commissioned wombywoo on my behalf and I am so stoked you can't even imagine. They are amazing. I love their expressions and their pose and their clothes and their everything. It's so beautiful.
I really want to give them a nice vacation now to the beach, where they can walk together and get a break....
Thank you so very much.
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god but everyone needs to read the daevabad trilogy
it's got everything! it's high fantasy set against a rich, islamic-golden-age backdrop. it's both political and action-oriented without getting too into the weeds with politics or so into action that it becomes shallow. the relationships are deep and mature and complicated, and don't fall into cookie-cutter cliches. the characters are deep and mature and complicated, and even the very worst of them has vestiges of goodness: the Evil King was once a good man who tried to foster cooperation among the warring tribes of his city, who genuinely did -- and does! -- care about the well-being of the people he rules.
but he always puts the city first, and that means that some people get crushed underfoot, and he becomes more and more willing to crush in order to protect order, and...
even his worst enemies admit that he was not a bad man, at first. he had good intentions. at first. and arguably, even still. he just got twisted, too caught up in the brutal politics. it's not for nothing that his eldest son -- a genuinely good man -- shows strong signs of becoming like him. because, as he was taught, "daevabad comes first." before yourself, before family, before love, before compassion. you don't have to be an evil man to do evil things. and at the end -- without spoiling anything, did muntadhir descend to "evil" depths? it's a hard question to answer. he did what he believed was best for daevabad. it was horrific, but it was undeniably effective. it worked. right or wrong, good or evil, it worked.
and the ultimate villain of the series was brutally abused and imprisoned and controlled, and turned to ever-darker paths in her desperation to be free and in control of her own destiny. she is what she was made to be, and even at the very bottom of things, she still loves. she still has the capacity for love and heartbreak and the desire to make things right, by her own twisted definition of right. she is a shining example of "the ends do not justify the means." she was willing to descend to any depth to fulfill her vision for daevabad, but those depths destroyed that vision. but she still had sympathy. she suffered, horribly, and she deserved better than the lot she was given at the start -- she's sort of a greek tragedy: if she could have walked away, disappeared into nothingness with her son, she would have been free. but she couldn't. not just because ghassan was holding her brother prisoner, but because she couldn't let it go. she had to make him pay.
and it's hard to blame her for her hate! he tortured her little brother to keep her under his thumb, he was obsessed with her, he trapped her in a gilded cage! her hatred is completely justified! in another world, she's the hero of the story, bringing her legacy back to its proper glory. but she descends ever-deeper into darkness in pursuing her revenge, until it consumes and controls her, and she becomes the villain.
it's not a simple tale of good-versus-evil. there is good and evil in both sides, in every character. the closest you get to an unambiguously good character is ali, but even he can be judgmental and short-sighted, too obsessed with what is Moral to notice the harm he's causing. and that's not a criticism! it makes him a well-rounded and full character. he's flawed. he's real.
and even so, it's a positive story. things get unspeakably terrible, but they come through it all the clearer. the happy ending is earned, and so, so deserved. it's a satisfying ending, where there's a lot of awful shit, but there's also a lot of goodness and kindness and love. nothing and no one is either wholly good nor wholly bad. but things are getting better, at the end, and there's a bright future ahead of them. it's a perfect ending for the story.
it's such an intricate and mature story of politics and magic and faith and fear and rage and hope and courage and love. it's phenomenal, everyone needs to read the trilogy.
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A good Lumity fanfic to read
My dear friend @milasia-27 just posted the last chapter of her latest long Lumity fanfic
If you haven't read it, I can't do nothing but recommend it
It's a 49 chapters long slow-burn secret identity Lumity with fluff, angst and heavy backgrounds
It does have a happy ending (now)
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one of my favorite underrated games ever will always be A Short Hike. it's available on the switch, steam, itch.io, ps4, Xbox one, and gog. it's so lovely and the art style is very nice to look at. it's a very chill game, you can spend your time exploring or doing side quests or just taking pictures. there's no rush, there's no clock, no time limit, no pressure to do anything. definitely a game I wish I could play for the first time again
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