"If you masturbate you're a filthy gooner" you sound like a fucking nazi and I'm not kidding, why are people so eager to turn into pearl-clutching reactionaries about normal sexual activity
Addendum to this is that if you call normal goddamn women "goonbait" for the crime of Being Women In Public then I think you should get beaten with hammers
"Masturbating and sexual activity in general are not things you should be shaming people for" and "acting like women existing is basically porn is fucked up and dehumanizing" can and should be simultaneously-held viewpoints
Remember when joining fandom as a younger person meant lurking for a bit and figuring out the vibe and etiquette instead of coming in on day one and calling people weirdos for liking weirdo shit in the weirdo factory.
oh the raven queen has been ominous vax. likely thing for her to be. you made a deal with a death deity not a rainbow puppy sunshine deity. woman forbid gods do anything.
So I've been thinking about Taryon and his mom in the Vox Machina campaign and why their conversation was so impactful for me, and I keep coming back to this exchange.
Up until now, the party has been discussing Howaardt's arranged marriage plot on basis of how it's going to be terrible for Tary and Lydia, that the family doesn't deserve to be helped, and as Percy puts it, "You'll be miserable, and that will make her miserable." And his conversation with his sister, despite them showcasing some care for each other deep down, is still rather antagonistic.
Then comes his mom, who unambiguously loves him and has been working to understand him better by reading his books, who asks for a private conversation to talk about something serious. At this point of the arc, Taryon has spent a year living in a space space, working with friends, and generally growing from the critical inflection point of episode 94. That's when the second layer of his mask, beneath the one labeled "daddy issues", is pulled off, and get finally gets the message that he needs to be himself. So, while we do see his personality change after the timeskip, we don't really have a scene where we sit down as think about it. Mariya walks in and it's a time for Sam the player to really think about what Taryon should do - help the Darringtons? Leave and let the legacy of his family name be one of evil?
It's in this conversation where I believe he decides to take a third route: change things, but as he brings up with Pike and her relatives, see if he can save the family.
Mariya is described as a woman worn down by life with her husband, and the descriptions of the Darrington home as a dreary place with uncomfortable furniture (and it's no wonder Tary spent most of his time in his room), and even it's is a Sam joke, the "playroom" comment adds to the "tyrant of a father" not really caring much about his children's needs over his own image.
There's no need to get into how Howaardt doesn't know his son and how he sees him as a asset instead of his own person. Mariya opens the conversation by complimenting how Taryon has grown, which in turn implies how much...happier and confident he's become after leaving. She's glad one of her children "escaped" this life, as she states:
I have always seen you fight these same circumstances bravely, and I find vicarious joy in your escape from this place this past year. These books are a reminder of that same bravery.
Taryon leaving is the first bit of hope she has for herself and Maryanne, but if these doubts get to him, everything he's learned will be for nothing. The question of marriage is on his mind, and he wonders if his own mother, who was just as much a victim of Howaardt as Tary was, would have been happier never having met him, never became the faithful wife of a rich man. Which out mean he and his sister never would have been born. And if everything would have been better that way.
But it can be salvaged. He can turn this around and make something good out of this terrible situation - and I think back to Kerrek's letter to Keyleth, about hardship transforming into something new. Mariya wants her son to be happy and to not revert to the man he used to me, and having someone externalize the idea of thinking of his own happiness feels just right happening in this point of the story. After this, Tary decides to talk to the Myriad and find a way to do something different with the Darrington resources.
And , of course, they geek out over books. It's adorable until -
"It reminded me of you" can obviously reference Lawrence, but Taryon's favorite novels are adventure, some chivalric and poetic romance nonsense here and there. A tragic love story almost feels out of place until you remember 1) people who love books will reach any genre as long as it's good and 2) Tary didn't have a happy childhood. He would be drawn to something about an unfair but beautiful tale, and I wonder if Mariya was also thinking about her son's wish to be respected while being trapped by the Darrington legacy. It's something I'll have to think about if I want to write some fics about this family.
Friends, tumblerinas, feigalach of all kinds, lend me your ears. I come to mourn the reblog chain, not to praise her
The good that features do, is mentioned after them. Their frustrating parts are oft intered with their bones, so let it be, with the reblog chain
The noble tumblr hath told you the reblog chain denied engagement. If it were so, it was a grievous fault, and grievously hath the reblog chain paid for it
Here, under leave of tumblr and its @staff, for tumblr is an honorable site, so are its @staff, honorable in their help, come I to speak, at the reblog chain's final moments
She was a good feature. Simple, and engaging to me, but tumblr says she denied engagement and tumblr is an honorable site
She had brought many memes to the world, who's sharing did the userbase grow, did this, in the reblog chain, deny engagement?
When that the meme did flop, the reblog chain had not notes! Engagement denial should be made of lesser stuff, yet tumblr says she denied engagement and tumblr is an honorable site
You all did see that in the last 3 years thrice users of other sites flocked to it, and thrice they had not stayed because opening Tumblr for the first time sucks, and absolutely never for the reblog chain, but tumblr says she did deny engagement, and Tumblr, is an honorable site
I speak not to disprove what tumblr spoke, but here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love her once, not without cause: What cause withholds you then, to mourn for her? O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts, And @changes have lost their reason. Bear with me; my heart is in the coffin there with the reblog chain, and I must pause till it come back to me.
i think i don't really vibe with most other fans of my favorite male characters is because they usually depict them too much of a man, and i am not interested in men, i am interested in The Character. and i am not saying that they should depict them as women, or nonbinary, or should depict them as feminine, no, not at all. but there's like, you know, you can depict a male character as The Character, and you can depict them as The Man. do you get me? like, i go to the fandom looking for art and fics, and it's just, regardless of his actual characterization, it's all just fantasizing about some kind of an abstract dominant patriarch, wearing my favorite character's face. it may be the most totally-wouldnt-have-normal-relationships (and sometimes even would-literally-abuse-you) kind of guy, and you join a dedicated space for his fans, and all they talk about is how they want to marry and start a tradcore 50s style nuclear family with him. it can be a guy who's arrogance and attempts of domination are explicitly shown to be a facade that hide the fact that he's actually kind of a massive pathetic wet loser, and you go to his fics, and they're all depicting him as a caricaturish daddy dom. at this point it's like, do you even like the character at all, or do you just like The Man, and project this man onto whatever character you find visually attractive? and these people kind of, really really poison actual discussion of the character, who is kind of a fucked up evil person (i only like *those* types, so im talking about them) because they see analysis of the actual character as an attack on their fantasized daddy dom husband, who is actually isn't The Character at all, and is simply a face of the day for The Man
we have GOT to put more words on the high shelf bc how are both critical role AND fire emblem fans still insisting that divine creation myths are actually about colonizers
I do tend to be suspicious of art that really lauds and worships the idea of being an artist. Like yes, art is cool, I think it's valuable, there's a reason I make it. But let's not get overly self congratulatory here
I think it's okay to love what you do, and even celebrate that. But there's a line that gets crossed sometimes where the art goes... "unlike all of those stupid people, who just dont get it." And it's like... hey... who are you making this for, exactly?
"Kattigan has soo high charisma he wouldn't be like this!!!"
Have you also considered that he likes fucking with people on purpose
Like the Weird Man From The Woods agenda gets him exactly where he wants to be, and that is third wheeling and interrupting poignant moments, and honestly, good for him
you have to forgive the printer because it's one of the most machine-ass machines we interact with on a day to day basis. that thing says kerchunk. hardly anything says kerchunk these days. you can't get mad at her when she kerchunks up a little.
areudirty
titsay
romaincrisis
tangentwithtanner
