#vital interests

[aowski]

The civilized have created the wretched, quite coldly and deliberately, and do not intend to change the status quo; are responsible for their slaughter and enslavement; rain down bombs on defenseless children whenever and wherever they decide that their "vital interests" are menaced, and think nothing of torturing a man to death: these people are not to be taken seriously when they speak of the "sanctity" of human life, or the "conscience" of the civilized world.  There is a "sanctity" involved with bringing a child into this world: it is better than bombing one out of it. Dreadful indeed it is to see a starving child, but the answer to that is not to prevent the child's arrival but to restructure the world so that the child can live in it: so that the "vital interest" of the world becomes nothing less than the life of the child.

James Baldwin, The Devil Finds Work

#civilized #wretched of the earth #status quo #slaugher #enslavement #bombs #children #conscience #vital interests #james baldwin #baldwin #gaza #palestine #slaughter of the innocents

[mumblesplash]

he's not even that light impulse is just really strong

#[elsewhere skizz is hit with a sudden inexplicable compulsion to teach the whole server about maslow's heirarchy of needs] #my art #tangotek #impulsesv #hermitcraft #taken completely by surprise by how much fun i'm having with the ambiguously-on-fire hair #random thing but i've actually been putting effort into drawing *fewer* fabric folds recently #it's one of those things i get like. stuck in #and i want to Simplify the Shapes #but do u guys understand. tango just has digitigrade vibes #vital to his character that he be able to scamper and clamber at a moment's notice #honestly the idea of designing shoes for nonhuman feet is super interesting #i defaulted to pseudo-claws cuz like..that's what they'd be used to using for traction? at the very least seems rude to remove that option

[turtleblogatlast]

Leo being put into a situation where there is absolutely no fighting, just verbal manipulation and perception games, would be amazing to witness. We see a lot in the series how good he is at subterfuge and how he uses his perception to manipulate to great effect, so it’d be so cool to really see it put to the test even more.

Manipulation is one of the most effective tactical strategies of all time, so just imagine Leo putting this skillset of his to the full test. Imagine the boys slowly get up to busting bigger and more powerful criminals, including those with networks of crime under their belt, and a simple fight isn’t enough to take them down. For criminals like this, Leo’s skills in subterfuge would be deadly.

#rottmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt leo #rottmnt headcanons #me back to talking about Leo’s incredibly high affinity for subterfuge #genuinely think it’s one of if not his best and most honed skill #AND IT’S A VITAL NINJA SKILL #above fighting battle tactics and the like #it’s verbal blindspots #Sun Tzu’s The Art of War literally states that “the greatest victory is won without battle’’ #and idk I think Leo would be so good at this and we see him do it in the show quite a bit but not to the amount I yearn for #but yeah like just think Leo getting sent in and his bros standing guard #of course he wouldn’t be the ONLY one involved but 100% he’d be the main player #man idk I just really really love when their specific skill sets that ARENT the fighting ones are used it’s so interesting to me #like we already know Leo can easily take in a whole room’s worth of people and know exactly how to avoid them all #we know he can manipulate manipulators into his schemes #we know he’s good at improv which is essential to the games of speech high end criminals like to play #it would be SO INTERESTING #OKAY HEAR ME OUT- #he’s asked by Big Mama to join her at a criminal ball of sorts #she needs to regain power and he needs to take down big name criminals #thus a deal #no but really it’s so cool seeing Leo specifically do his best tactics through thinking like his enemy and predicting how they’d act

[bruciemilf]

"Bruce was so violent and irrational and dangerous after Jason died" Yeah that happens when someone murders your kid, Jessica

#some of yall are dr phil with longer hair #like look -- just a reminder that bruce's trauma is horribly mishandled by both canon AND fandom #i just think that if you're gonna get mad that bruce mourned jason like a soldier -- thats fair #but to ignore how his depression played a huge part in why 'he didn't do anything ' after jason's death is like. not ideal #bruce didn't lose a sidekick he lost a SON. and if you're not acknowledging that because its not interesting or vital to you thats fine #but dont come into my inbox bitching about it lol #bruce wayne

[autisticaradiamegido]

day 39

a redraw from a couple years back that was originally a redraw from 2014 so thats a FULL DECADE OF PROGRESS, BABEY!!

#day 39 #year 5 #terezi pyrope #homestuck #the thing about the image description project. and going through the backlog. #is that it really incentivizes me to do a lot of redraws because then i can reuse large portions of the descriptions for Old Art #making minor tweaks to account for the differences #as opposed to writing. just so much alt text #heres the thing about writing image descriptions for my OWN art: it makes me think way more about like. #what parts of the piece are vital and which parts aren't #because obviously you wanna give as complete a description as possible #but you also dont want to take up a whole bunch of a persons time rattling on about shit they dont care about. like. #idk! it's an interesting exercise and im still getting a handle on that balance i think #once again let me know if im not hitting the mark

[minne-cerbinna]

Sometimes I am reminded of the fact that Iorveth just like canonically has very pretty eyes (or very pretty eye 😔).

In TW2, none of the men have eyelashes while the women do. As examples for the men, we have Geralt himself, Letho, Dandelion, and Roche:

And as examples for the women, Triss, Saskia, Sheala/Síle, Philippa, and Mottle.

However, Iorveth does have eyelashes on his in-game model:

This is unique to him, not an elven trait, because as we can see on Cedric, Ciaran, and Ele'yas, they don't have eyelashes like Iorveth does:

And it's not a fluke or graphical glitch on Iorveth, either, he consistently has them throughout the game:

He's just really pretty like that.

#rambles #the witcher #the witcher games #iorveth #catch me looking at insignificant details because i spend too long staring at elves #yaevinn pencils his brows and iorveth has really nice lashes #and like on a character analysis level that is very interesting #not only was his eye something vital to him #he's an archer #he needs his vision #he would have had to relearn how to shoot with this impairment to his depth perception #but not only for it to be a practical thing #it's also like #something about him that is markedly beautiful #only to be bespoiled by the dh'oine #everything elven and beautiful must be tarnished by human hands #and so they took his eye #not that i think iorveth is particularly vain #but he is still proud in his own way #and it must sting to lose a point of pride #his marksmanship and his beauty both marred by the dh'oine #he's still very striking and he can still shoot a bow so it cannot be said that these things were 'ruined' #but it's just kind of adding insult to injury #as it were

[trash-can-sam]

Anyone ever think of Arospec Artemy Burakh? Man who says he thinks he’s incapable of love but actually loves so incredibly deeply in his own way?? His whole thing with Aglaya always has a vaguely aromantic energy to me that I can’t even fully explain (both of them. I’d have to read the dialogue again but something about Aglaya thinking she’s in love with him but is really in love with the idea of him and really just their energy in general always reads so aromantic to me)

#pathologic #pathologic 2 #artemy burakh #he’s just aromantic to me #not even talking about the aro Burakovsky implications… because they’re there to me. #and and and don’t even begin to mention aroallo andrey to me #and really really don’t mention aromantic andretemy…. #I’m sorry I make every character aromantic but they just are it isn’t my fault #innane ramblings #this one isn’t innane tho it’s vitally true #Artemy being aromantic just makes his narrative relating to love so much more like… interesting to me #especially in 2 since it’s just so much ABOUT love and how love has so many meanings and ways it presents #think about him please.

[idkaguyorsomething]

me searching through bbc merlin fanart and fics for the heart of the show.

(IMAGE ID: Doomguy in a red area fighting off hordes of monsters, captioned “WHERE IS GUINEVERE”)

#no hate on anyone who mostly focuses on all the other characters #tons of them are really fun and interesting and have a lot of potential that the show didn’t fully explore #but also it makes me sad when gwen gets overlooked so often despite being such a vital part of the story #i mean she fulfilled the whole prophecy of arthur bringing about the golden age of camelot better than arthur could #and even when her storyline was mishandled she was essential to the emotional core #“arthur finds out au” “morgana finds out au” okay how about gwen knows about the magic au huh #she would’ve been the best secret keeper and anti-assassination partner ever #i fully believe that she could have talked merlin out of self-fulfilling that prophecy if she’d been in the loop #or at least making slightly less terrible decisions. idk. #bbc merlin #merlin #merlin bbc #guinevere #guinevere pendragon #gwen pendragon

[divinekangaroo]

I can’t remember the name of the Xena musical episode but do remember watching it the first time on TV and thinking: this is the best possible way they could have resolved all those horrific complex emotional issues that the season built up to that point and I am unexpectedly moved and invigorated by this episode. Vaguely, I think I remember that Xena and Gabrielle had murdered each others children by that point or something similar and full of hate and betrayal. And the writers went, ok somehow we have to get them back journeying together again but we need something to resolve the impossible and we only have one episode of space. And they decided that something was a musical.

The reason why it was so perfect? I mean, a traditional episode would have been all clunky dialogue and exposition and matters would be glossed over and it would just feel fake, you know? So they leaned right into ‘fake and clunky’ and went let’s just stylise the fuck out of this into a symbolic dream and set it to music, this is perfect.

#xena and gabrielle #vague memories only so don’t quote me on it #just felt moved by a related tangent irk #when the style and format of a thing is vital to the message it conveys #the vessel is as important as the contents #etc etc #also the way I remember the #format and structure and how it made me feel #but can’t remember the plot is also an interesting thing of in itself

[mantisgodsdomain]

Chilaios server ramblings the first. Being in this server has blasted our brain and awakened our capacity to ramble for screens upon screens at a time and although we have more coherent offerings many of them are waiting on one of the people who features heavily in conversation okay-ing us posting 21 screenshots heavily featuring them. Transcript below cut.

A set of screenshots of a Discord conversation, featuring us, Mantis God, nicknamed Speculative Vore Cookbook, and no one else because we cropped them out.

So! Whiskers, and greetings involving them.

We will preface this with the note that we are, of course, trying to keep with half-foot mannerisms and such reading as ever so slightly more expressive and thus "childish". Which is to say, fun things like lots of movement that would be thoroughly impractical for a larger species, that they can get away with because being smaller means that moving around simply burns less energy with less half-foot to move around.

With whiskers allowing for them to detect motion and vibration Very Well, especially, you get an excellent avenue for movement and, especially, tactile interactions being key in social situations.

With what we've already done: we've set up the brief bump of whiskers as a greeting - probably not necessarily a very strong bump, but one that lets you feel the other member of the conversation… being there, for lack of a better word. This also, by design, will put both participants fairly close to each other, physically.

We think it is perhaps Fun if "polite" for half-foots looks very physically close to other races, both due to Being Smaller making a small distance be bigger for them in terms of relative space, and due to the fact that a good chunk of their senses are hooked up in absurdly sensitive senses that stretch a very long way and are very hard to obscure compared to senses like sight.

"Polite", with humans, generally looks like… focusing a good chunk of your attention on your conversational partner. Showing that you're Paying Attention, that your primary Thing you're looking at is them. Obviously this is simplifying a lot, human communication is an eldritch horror of Niceties, but a lot of it more or less boils down to "showing you're paying attention to the other guy and their cues".

So: how to do that with this particular set of senses?

Half-foot hearing, at the very least, most likely means that it's going to be next to impossible to go through a conversation without listening to Other Things, whether you like it or not. Likewise, your conversation will not be private. Every other half-foot in the area will hear you (which might also mean that things like keeping track of multiple strands of conversation at the same time might be a more common skill). This also means that Lower Volumes are probably going to be crucial for casual conversation, because absurdly sensitive hearing means that "normal volume" talking is going to be Fucking Loud.

It honestly might be polite to, like… briefly disengage mid-conversation, if only because there's A Lot of input going in here, and you probably want to disengage every now and then to check on Everything Else. It's a very big world and you are a small prey animal that lives in probably fairly close-knit social groups, which has been gifted with the ability to check on people halfway across the house. Might as well pause to check for Other Things.

With Addition Of Whiskers, you've also got a fun, useful tool to "tether" the conversation a bit more. You're already close; might as well use those convenient things with the flexible range of motion for social cues. Probably ramping up the closer you are with someone. Touch whiskers to let them know you're Present And Listening. Have concern easily conveyed through using your useful Check For Things That Are Wrong On This Surface appendages. You just have to be close enough to pull off some light touch with whiskers that sprout very far off of your skin for it - with the unfortunate caveat that that looks like a lot closer for taller races and you are now getting up close to your fellow half-foots and conspiratically whispering while occasionally swivelling an ear over to check on the rest of the room or glance at someone else around.

We'll be damned if we know if we're presenting this Functionally, but: if made a bit more tactile, there's also the bonus of the fact that it might feed back a bit. Humans already need a certain amount of touch to be healthy. and the half-foot threshold might be a bit higher. This can lead to Fun Paths.

We're hunting for a good way to work this, and it's not working very well. More or less,, when you're a species that requires More Touch than the average other species, and you're surrounded by species that don't really Get That, where you're very capable of creating social faux passes or making yourself come off worse by seeking it, you can easily get into Fun Situations. The closer that a given half-foot is to someone, the more tactile that they'll probably want to be, which can cause some Very Fun culture clash.

Our concepts for this are somewhat vague but we think it's fun if all the races have similar points of Clash btw. We have been grouping dwarves, gnomes, and half-foots together in the same general "evolutionary group" which share enough cues to be Compatible while still being Not Quite Close Enough To 100% Get It.

(we have also grouped tallmen, orcs, and ogres into the same group. elves are just kinda off doing their own thing. kobolds are an unrelated convergent evolution in the same way that mermaids are humanoid and probably at least partially sapient but still not Human)

Might be fun if Senshi specifically has hung around the orcs for long enough to get socialized more towards their mannerisms. Weird dwarf who doesn't quite Get social cues that most dwarves pick up on who also just so happens to have more knowledge of the slightly more tallman-leaning group of body language.

We were going somewhere with this but we forgot.

Anyways half-foot affectionate head bonk as a Close Friends And Family Greeting that specifically isn't brought out around other races due to The Issues

Thank you for tuning in to our brief general takeover if we have the brain for it later we will maybe cohere this into a post of some description

BTW we have been basing our elves partially on ungulates this is partially because we think it's very fun to pull on the "mystic" qualities of animals like deer and horses for elves, partially to add our favorite wretched group of herbivores, and partially because we think it's fun if elves are Fucking Weirdos with traits like "weirdly elongated bones in the limbs that actively make fine control more difficult but Look more graceful and delicate to the human eye"

fucked up in there

#we speak #dungeon meshi #headcanons #fantasy biology #being in a chat with people who also have Interests instantly turns on our rambling brain #this is the One Ramble where other people are not Vital To The Flow #as we rambled it when everyone was. asleep. #as you can see we are normal

[astronomical-bagel]

genuinely can’t understand character hate in a well-written show. I mean, I can understand here when the character is horribly written because that means they mess up the story, but. In a good show? What are you on about? You’re mad that they were an obstical to the hero’s journey? You’re mad that two character’s flaws interact in a way you don’t like? You’re mad about conflict? Dude. Dude that’s the whole point of a story. A journey without obstacles isn’t a journey anymore it’s just a walk down the road. A plot without conflict isn’t a story anymore it’s just some guy who doesn’t do anything.

#Sorry this IS about dungeon meshi but is a complaint I have about many fandoms #genuinely can’t wrap my head around it? I do not understand the appeal of hating a character. #I could feasibly understand if they get in the way of a ship. I don’t agree but I could understand. #If they’re poorly written and r just generally annoying I also get it!!! That’s a bad character and I want them off my screen!!! #But hating a character/their actions who is necessary for the progression of plot and character arcs? #Don’t you know they’re the most vital ingredient for a story?? #Sorry for ranting once again I try not to get involved in any sort of discourse #but I feel that people have forgotten some important things about being normal #astronomically random #If two guys were best buds with no other issues it’s not interesting!!!!!! #Laios & shuro are great because their differences and argument mean that if/when they DO become actual friends it has that much more MEANIN #THE HEART OF EVERY STORY IS CONFLICT DO YOU HEAR ME IM SHAKING YOU BACK AND FORTH #BITINF STICK WIRH BLOOD IMAGE RAAHH #I’m normal. I’m normal.

[asleepinawell]

one of the biggest things I've gotten out of this replay of dark souls 1 is that not being able to warp between bonfires in early game and only being able to warp between a few specific ones later is one of the game mechanics that really helped define the mood and atmosphere of the game for me. yes i absolutely complain about this when I'm stuck somewhere, but the feeling of being this tiny person lost and a million miles from home and cut off from the safety of firelink shrine is so vital to the game

being near the start of tomb of giants and wanting to go back for something but knowing I'd have to go through a chunk of the catacombs again made me feel like just a little guy stuck in the dark with monstrous enemies and that is exactly the feeling that makes me love the game

i want to be a nobody stranded and alone in the land of ancient gods who don't want me there. the fact I'm a pawn being set up to relink the fire and perpetuate this dying age, fated to never have my name remembered, is the point to me. I'm walking through someone else's story and have so little control over my path and that's perfect

#with the extra bonfires they added for warping later i think they hit the correct formula for that #later games i felt less helpless in #and they were fine but they were missing something that was so vital to my enjoyment of ds1 #which is not to say later games were bad! #just a different vibe #and one that wasn't as cool to me personally #i could write a longer post about how the influence of bloodborne combat affected subsequent entries in the series #which i genuinely dislike #bloodborne was great but i liked the ds1 combat in the ds series #combat pacing i mean #not really as interested in bosses that bounce off walls at a million miles an hour and shit status effects all over you #i hear the devs say 'the dlc bosses are SO SO hard' and I'm just tired #make them interesting #make them fun #give them good atmosphere #let me feel like I'm learning steadily and feel satisfied rather than relieved after a fight #stop copy pasting bosses and putting them in tiny arenas to make them hard #did we learn nothing from capra demon #which was the worst boss in ds1 #mp #gaming stuff

[fictionadventurer]

The Heir of Redclyffe is teaching me that what Little Women really needed was for the March sisters to have a clever, witty, sharp-tongued, disabled brother who was BFFs with Laurie.

#charles edmonstone my beloved #he's so much fun #and his friendship with guy is one of the best parts of the book #i'm shocked to see a victorian book where the disabled person is neither a monster nor a saint #the disability affects his life and the household but it's far from the only thing about him #he's a great character in his own right #he even has a plot-relevant illness #but the plot relevance isn't 'oh no he's near death let's have drama' #but 'he's having a flareup and can't write letters so someone loses a vital correspondant at an unfortunate moment' #(charles does later lampshade the lost opportunity for a dramatic deathbed reconciliation scene) #but anyway despite my continued comparisons of this book and little women #they are different books #aside from the laurie thing and the general family atmosphere and the moralizing mother figure there's quite a lot different #for one thing the male characters are much more interesting than most of the female ones #the girls are fine but certainly not the main draw of the story #i do like the religious aspect of this one more though #at first it was giving me anxiety cuz they agonize over teeny little sins #but once we moved from childish concerns to more adult ones the faith aspect became much deeper #still clunky and eye-rolling at times but also surprisingly natural in some places #and i'm still holding my breath for whatever made jo cry over this book #66% through the book; it's gotta be coming relatively soon #books #the heir of redclyffe #little women #charlotte mary yonge #louisa may alcott

[sparky-is-spiders]

TMA Somewhere Else but set in Dredge. Imagine Jon waking up alone in a strange town, a place he Knows has no counterpart in his world, accepting a job in a village he’s never heard of and getting sucked into even more eldritch nonsense. Exploring this strange ocean and slowly trying to unravel the secrets it keeps.

#look I just want to put my favoritest blorbo into my fun fishing game okay?? #I think he’d make a good fisherman personally #enough curiosity that he wouldn’t be able to resist digging into all the horror and mysteries #and enough experience that he could probably develop some really interesting theories and maybe even figure out some tricks for dealing #with the monsters #I think he’d try to eat an abberation #and/or insist on helping the fishmonger with their experiments #(note: martin is not here. partially because I don’t like him but also because I think a really vital part of dredge #is the isolation of it all and I want this au to keep that) #tma #tma au #the magnus archives #dredge #dredge game #jon sims #jonathan sims

[phoenixcatch7]

Love how every zelda has a special interest and that special interest saves the world.

#Like whether it's piracy or history of light magic or ninjas or technology or art zelda ALWAYS gets super interested in the one thing #That'll save her and the kingdom down the line. Like oot zelda 100% idolised impa and demanded to be taught shiekah techniques #And disguise only for those skills to become vital during the 7 years link was gone. #Tp zelda had the most knowledge of light magic it's history and applications and spirits by FAR and all of those enabled her to save midna #And summon light arrows #If ww zelda was sitting pretty on an island instead of roaming the seas with a loyal crew and several cannons link would have been screwed. #If botw zelda had been allowed to pursue her fascination with shiekah tech or even science as a whole who knows what they might have manage #Ganon might not have been able to take them over at all. She might have learned to channel her power through artifacts or learned to mimic #The energy flow of the shiekah magic which is directly derived from hylia/the tf of wisdom! She wouldn't have been stranded at the mountain #When ganon attacked if she hadn't been forced up there on her birthday. She could have outfitted the champions with better weapons that #Would have been more effective against the blights. She might have unlocked the slate or the shrines. She would have been more confident #And thus less abrasive with link. They would have been able to bond sooner and faster. Link would have been more relaxed and ready. #The shiekah might have been able to rework teleportation instead of 106 years late. #I am salty about rhoam banning her. It never would have worked out well. #Never keep a zelda from her special interest okay!!!! #Like as soon as she and link got to do whatever they wanted the problem got solved within a few months. #Never tell a link to behave or a zelda she can't research #loz #legend of zelda #tears of the kingdom #Totk #loz totk #loz tears of the kingdom #Botw #loz botw #breath of the wild #Zelda #princess zelda #loz zelda #loz link

[chaosinterlude]

a detail i really love in obey me is that barbatos (in the japanese versions / his japanese voice lines in the english version) uses formal language. it stands out considering everyone else speaks to mc and each other in casual language. i never noticed it until i started learning japanese a few months back, but now i think it's a neat little nudge to more of his character.

because not only is using formal language a sign of respect and, well, formality, i think it also creates some distance between barbatos and the rest of the cast and mc. ignoring the mess that was the end of s4.... in my interpretation barbatos has always kept a polite distance to everyone and especially mc, and never really revealed much of himself. not necessarily in the way that he deliberately hides it, but he doesn't bring it up either.

and i don't know, i find the use of simple formal speech for him really fitting because of that - since it's generally used in situations where you don't know someone that well (or in formal situations such as towards a teacher or at work to your colleagues), and thus can indicate a kind of distance between speaker and listener.

#these kind of things are the exact reason why i love language so much #because while yeah barbatos talks politely in the english version this detail is kinda lost in translation methinks #not that it's this extremely vital thing to understand barbatos but as i said i just think it's a neat little detail that adds to his depth #and admittedly this was also an excuse to combine two of my interests lmao #but what is this blog if not a place to just ramble on about my favorite things #obey me #obey me barbatos #obey me shall we date #obey me swd #barbatos obey me #obey me analysis