[onyxbird]

Five hours, four minutes? The Convergence episode lengths just keep escalating. 😭

Guys, did you consider that you could have just had one or two (or three or four, depending how long the upcoming episodes get) additional Convergence episodes? (I was really enjoying them staying contained to about 3.5 h for a bit there.)

[overthinkingao3]

We write for ourselves, but we post for others.

(this came out of a conversation in the comments on a previous post about an author threatening to stop updating a fic because of lack of engagement)

So there’s this idea that fic writers should write for themselves and not care too much about stats or engagement,

and i totally get the sentiment behind that. if writing becomes entirely about stats and external validation, something important does get lost - creative freedom and joy, conviction in your own writing

but i also think:

“i write for myself, but i post for others.”

because posting fic is not only self-expression. it’s social. ao3 is called an archive, but emotionally it often functions as a community space.

people post for connection, for participation, for others to bear witness to their pain and trauma and grief,

and i don’t think most people are asking to be admired so much as acknowledged. there’s something deeply human about wanting another person to encounter something that mattered to you and go:

“ok, yeah, I see what you were trying to say. I see you.”

especially because fanfic is often people processing very real feelings through fictional characters at a safe distance, one step removed,

and then uploading that deeply personal thing into a shared archive and hoping somebody else might connect with it.

And i think that’s why it hurts so much when you summon up the courage and post a fic into the void and you get nothing back,

and then it’s like,

does anyone see me? does anyone even care?

[not-freyja]

Can everyone who makes video content do a Deaf bitch a favor? Watch your shit with the captions on and the sound off, and then do another round of editing to fix things including but not limited to:

Captions cover the spot on the screen you put the information I need

The dialogue is captioned but not the song you have playing that the dialogue is responding to

You only captioned the person on the screen, not the person off screen who is also talking

No captioning of critical sound effects (alarms, bells, dogs barking, etc)

Speakers are not labelled at moments where it is not clear on the screen who is talking.

Captions cover the spot on the screen that you put the information I need!

Other d/Deaf people welcome to add.

This post brought to you by the fifth video tutorial I could not follow because the bad, auto-generated captions covered what I was trying to watch today.

[trying-trying2lyk]

i love writing out numbers and then putting them in parentheses like "one (1)" even when i dont need to i think its funny

[thetangledsheet]

The other thing is, I think Julien truly divides the world in terms of worthy and unworthy as those who keep their promises and those who don't. Of all who partook and sympathized with the Falconer's Rebellion, his greatest ire is aimed at Thjazi and Thimble, both of whom Julien imagined to have been sworn to the Golden Orchard and to House Royce, and then took sides against them during the Falconer's Rebellion. His ire against the Tachonis is also about the betrayal of an alliance. He trusts Otto to hold to a promise having initially percieved him as honorable. He warms to Thaisha when he finds that she can secure firm alliances and that she is honest first and foremost. Julien's own conduct reflects this; even as he is manipulating Ingrid, he refrains from making outright promises that he can't keep. Even at the risk of breaking his mother's heart, he pulls away from her without promising her that he won't die because to him, to break that promise is far more dishonorable. It's such an interesting ethical axis for a guy who has an extremely skewed moral compass to begin with.

[naomilibicki]

#i think you can also see that in his respect for vaelus#she followed occtis and protected him and everyone at the palazzo when things went to shit#despite being a stranger who didn't have to do that @briarblackwellbooks

Yes! I was also thinking of Vaelus, but even more than her behavior at the Palazzo Davinos, her whole identity is tied up in faithfulness. Tachonis and Halovar might have fought for their god in the Shapers' War, but once the Shapers were defeated, they scrambled to find places for themselves in the new order pretty fast. Whereas Vaelus and her order stayed faithful to their goddess, even in death. Julien's got to respect that.

It's significant, then, that Ingrid came to Castle Torch to warn Julien about the meeting of the Sundered Houses specifically because she judges her father's conduct to be dishonorable. Even then, she's at pains to point out that she didn't actually disobey her parents--they never ordered her to remain at Riesingürtle.

It's easy to dismiss Ingrid's feelings for Julien as a young, sheltered woman's crush on an older, handsome, charming man with a sexy bad-boy vibe (not to mention that her mother is trying to marry her off to Ethrand Tachonis, and anyone would look good standing next to Ethrand Tachonis) and I do think that's a big part of it, but she may also have correctly identified Julien as one of the only other members of the Sundered Houses who actually cares about honor, rather than just paying lip service to it.

[ineadhyn]

New favorite Julien reaction image dropped.

[jadeandquartzes]

[id: a screenshot of matt, playing julien, holding something in his hand and looking upwards with a concerned and startled wide-eyed expression.]

[featherquillpen]

Programming and Reprogramming

I wanted to elaborate on a point I made in this post about how Bolaire's nature has changed over the years, and the extent to which his programming can be altered.

In his confession in episode 4, Bolaire described himself as essentially having no free will until he saw his first play in the year 53:

"And then one day, during the Falconer's Rebellion, I suddenly had the first thought that hadn't been put in my head when I was created. I had realized that the play I was written for was long over. I was a character whose play had ended and I had just been left there, waiting, just running through the motions, and I suddenly knew there must be more."

When I first watched the year 53 flashback in the episode 13 cold open, I assumed that Bolaire's behavior at the beginning of the flashback was the way he had been created to be: a weapon to be used by whoever wore him. Just as Bolaire said in the confession, he was carrying out his programming, his directives, his character, until he was inspired to try being something else. But now that we know more about what Bolaire was created to be, I don't think that's quite right.

Bolaire's behavior at the beginning of that flashback was completely subservient. He did whatever the soldiers around him asked him to do and replied honestly to all queries. He also seems to be used by the people who wear him as a sort of magical battery to provide offensive spells. But now that we know more about Bolaire's nature, it doesn't really make sense for him to be some kind of subservient killing machine. First off, it would be pretty weird to inscribe a rune that compels and enchants people into a mask that is meant to be subservient. Second, according to Taliesin's comments in his interview with The Character Sheet, Bolaire's programming consists of two directives: defeat tyrants and love his siblings. In the Tale Gate for the Schemers, Taliesin said that Bolaire's character was an intellectual, and a cross between Elle Woods and Regina George: a mean girl rules lawyer. In the episode 13 flashback, Bolaire says that he and his siblings convinced Rauwyn that she couldn't exist. None of this points to some kind of obedient Winter Soldier who kills on command. If anything, Bolaire's present-day persona is more similar to his character in the Panto than his persona in the flashback.

This opens up two possibilities, both equally interesting. Either Bolaire chose to become a servant to the will of the soldiers who used him, or he was coerced into doing so. Either way, it casts Bolaire as an unreliable narrator. He seems to believe that he didn't change at all in the 56 years since the Panto, but maybe he did, and he was in fact capable of change all along.

I can definitely see an argument for Bolaire having chosen to become a subservient weapon. His most important core directive in his programming, one that according to Taliesin is completely immutable, is to defeat tyrants. The soldiers who used him in the Falconer's Rebellion were certainly trying to do that, and the ones who used him before may well have been doing that too. Perhaps as he was awakened over and over again after the Panto, he offered himself up as a servile weapon against tyranny, following an idiosyncratic moral code.

I also think it's very possible that he was coerced into behaving this way. In the year 53 flashback, when the soldiers said they ought to put Bolaire "back in the box", he looked frightened. He seems to have a fear of being put in a box and put to sleep for an unknown period of time, perhaps years, until someone else wears him, which is pretty understandable. Over the years, different soldiers and causes may have used the threat of the box to get him to behave as their perfect killing machine, subservient to their will. Until one day, he saw a play, and decided to take his chance to be something else.

[your-turn-to-role]

seekers (the only group that didn't know) + reactions to hearing wick's family has a celestial in the basement

[soycrates]

Gentrification creates a stifling homogeneity in urban areas that makes it less suited for the everyday lives of the lower class and more suited towards the leisure and tourism of those with expendable income.

An old, decrepit laundromat gets replaced by an upscale bakery? And people are mad? It’s not that the poor hate organic vegan cupcakes, it’s that most of us don’t have a way to do laundry in our own home.

Run-down corner stores replaced by hand-made designer clothing boutiques? We don’t hate your eco-fabric shawl, but I can’t eat that for dinner after work like I could have a can of beans I grabbed from that corner store when I don’t have time to take the bus to the real grocery store after work.

What gentrification brings in and of itself is not typically bad, it’s that gentrification brings institutions of leisure and pleasure and makes it so that the poor have to go farther out of their way for basic necessities. It turns low-income living spaces into local tourist attractions. It can even create food deserts by putting restaurants, grocery stores, etc. in that the majority of the lower class cannot afford.

Imagine if someone totally renovated your house and turned it into a mini theme park - they took away your sleeping space, where you prepare food, where you clean yourself and get ready for your day, and replaced it with things that will please people who are visiting, who have their own homes they can go back to, who are here not for their entire life but just as a distraction from their otherwise mundane existence. It’s not that you hate theme parks, it’s not like you’ve never been to a theme park and vow to never visit one again. It’s just that you need to live! To survive! And the leisure of those who have more than you should not invalidate your existence.

[soycrates]

I am glad this has made the rounds. Some people feel a dense misunderstanding or misinterpretation concerning gentrification, and I think it helps to hear a description/explanation of what gentrification is from those who are both affected by it and educated by the culture from which it hails. I and many others enjoy some of the delights of gentrification while simultaneously having their livelihoods threatened by it. 

[doizy]

IMO the best way for Wick to reappear without arousing too much suspicion is to pretend to have spent the whole time on a drunken bender.

"Yeah you told me there was no need to keep myself pure so I went to fetch the hot lion man I wanted to have sex with. Where he went afterward? I don't know, I was pretty blacked out. Kattigan? Oh you mean the wild man with the wolf? Yeah he was there too".

[onyxbird]

"Oh, no, no, no. The wolf didn't participate. But if Wrath and Judgement want to shoot their shot, I would be happy to make an introduction."

[weirdlandtv]

Droodles by Roger Price (from his 1953 book). Droodles (a blend of “doodle”, “drawing”, “riddle”) are simple drawings with a witty, often absurd, caption. The first one, as some of you may know, was used by Frank Zappa for his 1982 album, Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch. (Zappa, a fan of Price's work, lived just a few miles from the artist and personally sought permission to use the image.)

These come from the 1972 edition of the book.

[probablyasocialecologist]

“Musk talks about Mars as a lifeboat for humanity, which is among the very stupidest things that someone could say,” says Adam Becker, an astrophysicist and author of the book More Everything Forever, which outlines the messianic, sci-fi fantasies of the tech oligarchs. “There are so many reasons why it’s such a bad idea, and this is not about, ‘Oh, we’ll never have the technology to live on Mars.’ That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is that Earth is always going to be a better option no matter what happens to Earth. Like, we could get hit with an asteroid the size of the one that killed off the dinosaurs, and Earth would still be more habitable. We could explode every single nuclear weapon, and Earth would still be more habitable. We could have the worst-case scenario for climate change, and Earth would still be more habitable. Any cursory examination of any of the facts about Mars makes it very clear.”

What You’ve Suspected Is True: Billionaires Are Not Like Us

[wire-smith]

I really like sci-fi stories where people have to go off and terraform a planet, or figure out how to rebuild civilization after some disaster, or ideally both. "The last ark-ship leaving Earth right before it becomes uninhabitable" sort of deal. But lately I've been coming around to this same idea, that it will always be more practical to try to save Earth than to try to start over elsewhere.

I was reading one story where the apocalypse was impossibly-rising oceans. Like, water is appearing from *waves hand* the Earth's crust or something, and literally all dry surface land on Earth is going to become underwater in X years. Part of the story was about a giant research project to invent FTL to send a few hundred humans to a nearby star which might have a habitable planet. You know what they were hoping to find? A planet with liquid water. Their plan was to descend from their starship and restart civilization using just the tools they brought with them, on a world with no life and no breathable air and the wrong gravity and the wrong temperate and the wrong sunlight and the wrong day-night cycle, just because it had liquid water. You know where else has liquid water? The flooded Earth you just abandoned. Instead of researching starship technology, you could have spent that time loading up all the same civilization-restarter tools into boats.

And this is really true of any futuristic apocalypse scenario. If you can terraform Mars to have a thick oxygen atmosphere, why not just do that to Earth? Even if you smash an ice comet into Earth and destroy basically everything, Earth will still be more habitable than Mars! It'll still have roughly the right atmospheric pressure, and magnetic field, and heat balance, and it'll still have whatever life the comet didn't kill... Same with a starshade to cool Venus. Same with excavating asteroids into city-stations. Same with abandoning Sol System entirely and heading to another star. If an ark-ship arrived in a new star system and found Earth-but-choked-by-climate-change, the crew would be ecstatic. They would never have thought to get that lucky. So why bother with the trip? Just stay and fix the damn Earth.

[alexanderwales]

Here's a legal PSA:

If you've committed a crime and a detective gathers everyone involved in the room, especially if he's not actually a detective and is instead a novelist, puzzle-setter, psychic, fake psychic, dog, chess grandmaster, etc. ...

YOU SHOULD NOT CONFESS.

Every year, hundreds of people are put away by non-traditional "detectives" who have either inserted themselves into the case or are working with the police in a dubiously legal capacity as advisor. In 99% of these cases, the murderer gives a full confession even though the evidence against them is circumstantial at best and often requires a long just-so story which can only guess at motive.

If this happens to you, stay quiet, do not attempt to defend yourself or talk your way out of it, only say "I want a lawyer".

Now if you find yourself being investigated by a boy genius, magician's assistant, anthropologist, classics scholar, or philosopher, it's likely that refusing to talk to the police (or investigator with no legal authority) is merely the end of the second act, and by the end of the third act they will have you dead to rights.

YOU SHOULD STILL NOT CONFESS.

Make them take it to court. Force the eccentric detective and his straight-laced police partner to take the stand and explain their methods to a jury of your peers. Have your lawyer look at the chain of custody on the evidence, especially if you believe it to have been handled by someone who has only bumbled into detective work through their natural charm and/or unique set of skills and outsider perspective that come in handy more often than they should.

Know your rights. Don't let eccentric detectives put you away.

[fangorn-forest]

summer sufferers poll: would you rather have…

the ability to repel all bugs so they can’t touch/bite/sting you

the ability to always be at a comfortable temperature while outside

no chafing ever again

Remaining time: 3 days 20 hours

[featherquillpen]

Bolaire Is Not Remorseless

I have seen many posts describing Bolaire as a "remorseless serial killer." For a start, I don't think Bolaire is a serial killer any more than a Cordyceps fungus is a serial killer. Taking over people's bodies is simply a matter of survival, not of sadism or thrill. Of course, unlike a Cordyceps fungus, Bolaire is capable of moral reasoning, which brings me to my main point: just because Bolaire never says out loud "I feel guilt about my means of survival" doesn't mean he doesn't feel any guilt about it.

I point this out not to excuse Bolaire's actions or let him off the hook. Rather, I want to talk about Bolaire's guilt because it provides an opportunity for character development down the line. If he didn't feel any guilt or shame about his current lifestyle, it'd be pretty hard for him to have an arc about it.

Because Bolaire doesn't clearly articulate his feelings of guilt, we're going to need to do some analysis of the text. Let's dive in.

Castep

Castep is the name of Bolaire's host in the episode 13 cold open. He was a soldier in the Falconer's Rebellion, and he chose to wear Bolaire in order to contribute to the war effort.

At the beginning of this flashback, Bolaire is subservient to Castep and to the other soldiers, obeying whatever they ask of him and responding honestly to all queries. It is important to point out here that it is not in Bolaire's nature to be subservient. First off, it would be pretty weird to inscribe a rune that compels and enchants people into a mask that is meant to be subservient. Second, according to Taliesin's comments in his interview with The Character Sheet, Bolaire's programming consists of two directives: defeat tyrants and love his siblings. In the Tale Gate for the Schemers, Taliesin said that Bolaire's character was an intellectual, and a cross between Elle Woods and Regina George: a mean girl rules lawyer. None of this points toward Bolaire having any subservience in him to begin with. All of this means that Bolaire either decided on his own to bend his will to the rebel soldiers who wore him, or he had subservience beaten into him, perhaps with the threat of putting him in a box, a possibility that clearly frightened him in the flashback.

When Bolaire did decide in the flashback that he was going to take over Castep's body permanently, he didn't just say "I'm sorry"; he also promised to Castep that in exchange for his bodily autonomy, he would fight out the rest of the war that Castep put his life on the line, and willingly wore Bolaire, to win. I really don't see why Bolaire would bother fighting for two more years of a war that he clearly didn't want to fight anymore (he was tired, so tired, and wanted to be something new) unless it was to assuage his own guilt for what he'd done to Castep. I think this view is reinforced by the fact that Bolaire's preferred human disguise in the present day is Castep. He feels haunted by this soldier who shared his belief in defeating tyrants, whose life he stole away.

Morality Trials

In the play from the flashback, Rauwyn puts Sir Clynheld through a series of trials to prove his worth. Bolaire clearly took this to heart, because in the present day, he has only taken hosts that have failed his moral standards. (Again, I am not justifying this behavior, and I am not saying his victims deserve what they get; I'm just describing what I observe Bolaire doing.)

Let's consider Bolaire body-snatching Aubrus Drime in episode 4. Bolaire set up a rather elaborate scenario. He told Drime in advance to bring payment, because he had a cool magical artifact for him. He then showed up an exchanged an empty box for the money. Drime responded by attacking Bolaire, stealing him ("his mask") off his previous host, and clearly would have killed the previous host were they not already mostly dead ("Well, won't even have to kill ya. Looks like you're on death's door.") Drime then saw the rune and was compelled to put Bolaire on.

Now let's think for a second. This is a very inefficient way to get a new host. If Bolaire truly did not give a flying fuck about morality or anything, he has the spell Suggestion; he could just enchant someone into putting him on. Even if he were out of spell slots, there are much simpler ways to get someone to put him on, with a higher probability of success. Off the top of my head, he could go to a doctor and say, "Hey doc, I wear this mask to cover up an old injury of mine, can you check on my old injury?" and BAM, doctor gets nabbed. Hell, Bolaire has money. He could just find someone poor and desperate and pay them to put him on. So why did Bolaire go through all this rigmarole?

It's because this was a test for Drime. It was a morality trial, like the trials in the play about Rauwyn. Drime could have handled the situation in any number of ways. He could have asked Bolaire why the box was empty and tried to negotiate or reason with him. He could have taken the money back and told everyone in Potter's Field that Bolaire was a cheat and they shouldn't make deals with him. He could have threatened Bolaire and demanded that he take Drime to his stash of magic goods. Drime didn't do any of those things. Instead, he chose to attack and steal, and would have killed, if Bolaire's previous host hadn't already been mostly dead. By Bolaire's standards, Drime earned his fate: he made the immoral choice, and now the monster got him.

Now let's fast-forward to episode 22, and the Crow Keeper who Bolaire body-snatched with Hal's assistance. Bolaire didn't need to morality test that Crow Keeper, because he already knew what he'd done: he and his fellows had kidnapped and beaten Demodus Blix to within an inch of his life, and were about to sell him to a mold monster.

I think it's pretty clear that Bolaire in the present day is only willing to take over the bodies of people who he feels have earned that fate. In the case of Aubrus Drime, he went to pretty convoluted lengths to make sure that Aubrus would only succumb to him if he chose violent theft. Why would Bolaire go to all that trouble if he didn't feel any guilt at all about what he does to his hosts?

Body Dysmorphia

Bolaire clearly feels dysmorphic about his host bodies:

"This is me, unfortunately stuck to this. I need this, but I'm not in here." (episode 4)

Why does Bolaire feel that it's so unfortunate that he's stuck to his host body? He is a humanoid face, after all, not too different from the face underneath him. He was made to wear a being with a humanoid body plan; it seems doubtful that he could wear a Hound of the King or something like that. It's by no means a given that he would feel that this was unfortunate. I put it to you that at least part of the reason he doesn't like wearing host bodies is the guilt.

Guilt's the Best Part

In episode 20, after Murray and Bolaire were done planting a terrifying illusion in Groto's head, they had this exchange:

Murray: "I feel a little guilty. Let's get back to Hal."

Bolaire: "Guilt is the best part."

I don't think Bolaire was being flippant here. He meant it. He does feel guilt, and the reason why he thinks that guilt is the best part is that only someone with free will can meaningfully feel guilt. If you are completely subservient to others and take no actions of your own accord, the way Bolaire used to live, then there's no reason to feel guilt, because you have no responsibility for any of your actions.

The leadup to the Stab

Y'all, Bolaire's offer to Hal to come see how his body snatching works is not given in the spirit of a mask who feels no guilt or shame about it. It's really, really not.

"It doesn't have to be you, but it is an imperative that I ask you first because I owe it to you. I don't think it's healthy and I don't think you'll like it, but it is not a secret I am-- It's not a secret I can keep from you. If you want to see the worst of me, you can wait." (episode 22)

And take a look at Bolaire's face while he's explaining to Hal what's about to happen:

How Bolaire treats his hosts

The most common argument that I see for why Bolaire is "remorseless" is the way he treats his hosts. Clearly, he does not treat them well. He could try his best to keep them comfortable and well-maintained and so forth, but he doesn't. But here's the thing: I've lived enough in this fucked-up world to know that just because someone feels guilt about how they are treating you does not necessarily mean that they are going to treat you better than someone who doesn't feel any guilt about mistreating you.

[noordzee]

Dancing to the Golden Record at 78 rpm, with apologies to Bill Watterson.

Attempting to figure out how to draw Rocky by just kinda scribbling with a brush pen. I had to switch pens midway through the dance sequence, though, so the line quality varies wildly, haha.

Also: the original sketch, which I liked the energy of too much to ink over:

[crackshipsandregret]

Curious pebble (1/?)

Part 2