Thanagor's assylum

So rule for my page. Do not ask me about a certain drama. I will not answer. I'm. No longer involved. This is now a reblog/shit post page

[khadgarbignaturals]

sometimes tiktok is okay

[khadgarbignaturals]

of course garrosh is ableist

[earlploddington-deactivated2024]

Look I'm just pointing out the new 'defensive' architecture of org from cata just so happens to festure stairs to Enter all inns, banks and auction houses - making them inaccessible to wheelchair bound orcs, who we know exist in-game! Still, better than stormwind.

pick any metric

less misanthropically evil (stormwind has sniper towers facing its own citizens)

no homeless people in orgrimmar

lifts and ramps allow access to all levels of the city

capital building isn't behind 2 flights of stairs and a fucking moat

no castle-prison used as a recruiting ground for the state assassin's guild

Voting ended onMay 17, 2024

[khadgarbignaturals]

this is so based. also the fact that the horde is better at supporting their citizens than the alliance is hilarious to me

[thanagor-the-king]

Why are we still arguing about this. Factions are practically irrelevant. It's at the point I don't even pay attention to faction when I make a character

[thanagors-assylum]

I got this in a comment on my other blog but the character limit in comments isn't enough for me to elaborate.

Idk if I'm being trolled or not but I'll reply as if I'm not. Again, new to Tumblr, something like this on other socials is done in good faith but that doesn't seem very Tumblr.

I sincerely apologize if this comes off as a ramble as I'm not a writer and I'm just sort of spewing all my thoughts onto the page.

Anyway lets start with the obvious, the one in charge of paying the stone masons guild for rebuilding stormwind was lady Katrina prestor...aka onyxia. You can't say the humans are responsible for that in any way shape or form.

Why is the alliance, held responsible for the actions of onyxia? Why is this representative of the alliance? More to the point, why are actions that if I'm being completely uncharitable are the fault of humans (they're not as previously established) imposed on the dwarves or the gnomes or the night elves?

Now let's go back to the horde for a moment. Are the actions of the orcish horde that invaded azeroth inherent qualities of the horde? I mean it is the actions of orc clans that are still standing in orgrimar. Of course not that's ludicrous because they were tricked into drinking the blood of mannoroth and weren't their usual selves.

So why do these standards apply to the alliance but not the horde?

Or another example, the lich king, the lich king is seen as something that could only have come out of the alliance because arthas was still that petty vain human prince. Any good he did doesn't matter (arthas was always a piece of shit and anyone who says arthas did nothing wrong, block me). Now no one who has played alliance and is into the lore would say arthas is indicitive of the alliance. But I've met plenty of horde players who do.

But what about Garrosh? Garrosh has done a tone of war crimes. We all know this. We don't need to re litigate garrosh. Suffice it to say, plenty of people don't claim garrosh... Until they do. Put a pin in that.

Meanwhile let's look at Anduin. In my opinion anduin represents everything good about the Alliance. He is compationate. He always aims to do right by everyone involved even if it's hard. He's been advocating for peace since wotlk and even in the middle of the 4th war he at least attempted to do that. But anduin isn't seen as representative of the alliance as a whole, or if he is, he's seen as whiny and self righteous and overall someone to pity.

Meanwhile we have Garrosh. Let's revisit Garrosh because horde players love love LOVE to point out that garrosh is what the horde should be when it suits them. Namely, stonetalon mountains. Overlord Krom'gar acted dishonorably and garrosh throws him off a bridge for it. This is seen as what the horde should be. Garrosh is an icon for the horde... Until he isn't.

I could go on. Scarlet crusade VS kor'kron, jaina and sylvanas. The fucking tree.

But all of this has been litigated to death and I'm not trying to re-litigate it. Only point out that both factions are complicated. Neither is black or white and that's what makes them compelling. That's what's kept me around.

One of the things I noticed in this discourse is that wow players tend to take everything pre tbc and sort of graft those as essential qualities of all the characters. No matter what the characters or the factions do the factions are essentially always stuck in 2004 but we aren't in 2004 anymore. Anduin has brought peace to all dwarves to the boint black iron dwarves, a previously enemy faction, are now fully integrated into the alliance. 3 of the hero's of the alliance long thought dead to the point there are statues of them at the gates of stormwind commemorating their sacrifice are back and one plays a major role in the next expansion. The zandalari, once a fully enemy faction, are now allies with the horde, the forsaken no longer have sylvanas which is.... A huge deal.

These characters and the world have developed long past the point where onyxia manipulated bolvar and the rest of stormwind into screwing over the masons guild and the factions may as well not even exist anymore in lore and functionally do not exist in gameplay outside of capital cities and old world content.

And yet players can't get over this stupid petty faction war to the point blizzard always brings it back at some point and people eat it up even though it makes zero sense. If blizzard does another faction war expansion now that we have cross faction guilds it's going to be really jarring.

So I ask again, can we please just end the petty faction war nonsense? I'm willing to criticize the alliance for their problems as someone who played alliance exclusively until shadowlands and now plays both factions. I wish horde players would be willing to criticize their own faction and not chalk every problem the horde has encountered as just 'bad writing'

Sylvanas burning the tree down can be justified as retaliation for lordaeran. The assault on lordaeran makes sense as a retaliation,(and somewhat rescue mission) for what sylvanas pulled during the meeting between forsaken and their living family members. Sylvanas trying desparately to stop that makes sense because if the meeting goes wrong and those forsaken succumb to their negative emotions they will functionally die. Anduin setting up the meeting between the forsaken and the living makes sense because he thinks it's the right thing to do to reunite family members and in his mind at that point faction tensions were at an all time low after the defeat of the legion

The fourth war had a ton of potential to show how these characters fell into this war by trying to do the right thing for their people and it ends up as a vicious cycle, and blizzard fumbled the bag so hard.

Garrosh wouldn't have been able to whip up as much support as he did if the culture of dying honorable in battle wasn't so ingrained in orcs. Obviously not every orc agreed with garrosh but the way garrosh was able to garner support shows how a culture with such ingrained... Let's be real.. Nationalism... Can be whipped up into a frenzy with the right rhetoric and charismatic leader.

Overall this game has a lot going on and a ton of shades of grey and I wish players would set aside the faction pride for a minute in order to appreciate it instead of just doing apologea for their chosen faction.

[ayanbel]

I love drawing draenei commissions <3

[thanagors-assylum]

As bad as twitter is.

As bad as tiktok is.

As bad as Facebook is.

Tumblr is the only social media platform where I've been told to off myself.

[howliteart]

Yes Admiral! 🐼

Lines/flats commission for Zhaoshenhuan2 on Twitter! :3

[oops-all-goodberries]

another Pike doodle I forgot to share!

bleb

[thanagors-assylum]

Goblins are bestlins

[oops-all-goodberries]

another Pike doodle I forgot to share!

bleb

[cryptotheism]

Great. Just great. My son didn't inherit my bloodline curse. God I hate him so much.

[swampgallows]

[janpesart]

More old art! This one is two years old at this point. She's is my druid from World of Warcraft. I know night elves (or druids) don't have antlers but I wish it would be an option!

[skymagpie]

I am sad to read that Christie Golden got laid off by Blizzard and went through a lot at the time, I hope she will find better opportunities. Regardless of how people feel about it, her writing was essential in shaping the world in WoW and she has been present ever since I started playing this game as a child.

[ishnualah]

Does anyone know why they fired her?!?

[thanagors-assylum]

That's just how the game industry is.

It's a shame too, they just fired their best writer. She's talented and will land on her feet.

Blizzard really is falling apart as a company.

[iberiancadre]

first the holocaust was turned into the project of a sole madman who had an entire country under a spell, which suddenly vanished at the stroke of a pen when peace was signed, rather than being a continuation of centuries of scapegoating and antisemitism, enabled by western capital, direct funding to the Nazi party in some cases like the British aristocracy's, with the purpose of creating a massive slave workforce and to boost the German economy via looting, expropiation and a reduction in the worker population, an economy that had been reeling since WWI and propped up by directing all jobless people to work in the arms industry.

then, the (incomplete) victory over european fascism (don't look at Spain and Portugal and Greece) was methodically distanced from the true victors, the soviet people. They suffered an invasion and destruction of the majority of their industrial base, save for the industry relocated to the east, more than 20 million dead soviet workers who pushed the fascists from Moscow to Berlin, ending in an artillery barrage the magnitudes of which had never been seen, the symbolic raising of the red banner over the Reichstag and an enveloping of the city that forced many nazi officials to commit suicide. It was also forgotten how the Yugoslavs liberated themselves, managing to keep fascist forces constantly tied up during the war, how the Italian partisans captured Mussolini and hung him in public, the many uprisings throughout Europe and the concentration camps before the frontline reached them, the exiled brigadiers and republicans who first fought fascism in Spain and was later forced to fight fascism again, unable to return to their homes and under threat of being imprisoned. The indigenous resistance against colonialism in east and north Africa and southwest Asia, and the tens of millions Chinese, Vietnamese, Lao, Cambodian, Malaysians, Indonesians, Papuans, Thais, Bengalese, Indians, Filipinos, etc, who suffered both Japanese and western occupation. All of these struggles forgotten and erased, reduced to the USamerican, British, and sometimes French armies. Armies who advanced to witness a fraction of the suffering enabled and financed by their own states barely a decade prior. Even minor members of the western allies, such as Brazil, are often forgotten.

After the Holocaust was reduced to an unexpected and unprecedented event with no connection to reality, and after the struggle against fascism was reduced to the involvement of two or three countries, barely any fascists were punished. Anyone who wasn't a top official could claim to be simply following orders, even someone as important like Speer used this defence, he was allowed to live free and publish an autobiography in which he paints himself as the good Nazi, the mere architect caught up in a madman's rise. As if he ignored the plans for a future Berlin would be built by slave labor from the concentration camps, as if the minister of armaments from 1942 to the end did not know about the reliance companies like Krupp or Volkswagen had on slave labor. As if he didn't listen to Goebbels' speeches about total war and extermination and did not understand his armaments would be used. Some fascists were even integrated into the scientific and military spheres of the western allies, others given citizenship and a cushy home in places like Canada. Japanese fascists who had experimented on and tortured countless Chinese and Korean civilians and POWs to research chemical warfare were offered amnesty in exchange for the knowledge they gained doing these experiments. After German reunification, more eastern queer people were imprisoned than fascists were incarcerated or executed at the Nürnberg trials.

After fascists were exonerated and shamelessly integrated into the western states, and after some time passed, the war was turned into a cultural product. Countless war movies were produced, almost always showing usamerican soldiers in the European or Pacific front fighting a mindless horde with hakenkrauzs on their armbands all lead by a single man, or group of men, ontologically evil. It was too complex to examine the actual reasons for the war. Hitler was simply a charismatic devil who had duped Germany into following him (crucially, he was only charismatic for germans. No true American patriot fell for his tricks). Gradually, the figure of Hitler was transformed into a devil in human form who had appeared in München in 1932 to cause evil and fight freedom.

As a result, German fascism and the Holocaust are nothing more but a historical fact you look at with morbid curiosity, to feel disgust, maybe anger, and sigh in relief that it would never happen again. There is no reflection on how it was allowed to happen, how antisemitism was used, like it had commonly been used throughout history, to blame for economic downturn and how the expropriation of jewish property, the enslavement of other minorities alongside them (Slavs, non-jewish poles, homosexuals, roma, communists...) and the rapid stimulation of a military industry was used to save an recessing economy. No examination of how the Nazi party appealed to the German petit-bourgeoisie and monopolies like the aforementioned Krupp, Volkswagen, or IG Farben, by attacking communists and trade unionists, who were beginning to organize at a bigger scale and actually threaten german capitalists. Instead, some even try to paint the nazis as communists or as similar to them, through terms like totalitarianism, which was popularized by Hannah Arendt, a fascist sympathiser who also saw fit to label decolonial struggles as totalitarian.

Even more insidious than this is how Hitler has been mutated into a shorthand for evil, an entity beyond a single man who personifies the collective hatred of minorities by Europeans, a condensation of centuries of hatred and exploitation into an angry man between 1932 and 1945. By doing this we can rest easy knowing there will never be another Hitler because we are so civil now. It was Hitler's speeches that guided every SS member's hand to execute tens of thousands. It was Goebbels' propaganda that clouded the judgment of the millions of Wehrmacht soldiers who looted and massacred their way through Europe. It was Himmler's threat that coerced countless germans to spy and tattle on their neighbors. It was Göring who convinced the Luftwaffe pilots to bomb and terrorize civilians. It was Dönitz who made the Kriegsmarine target civilian ships and ruthlessly pursue trade convoys. And it was ultimately Hitler who controlled these men, and no German had free will or political conviction between 1932 and 1945.

The peak of this attitude I see most in the internet: Do you want to learn about Hitler's Bunker? Hitler's enormous artillery pieces? Hitler's train? Hitler's plans? Hitler's wife? Hitler's army? Hitler's rise through the party? Hitler's veganism? Hitler's dog? Hitler's car? Hitler's Germania? Hitler's camps? Hitler's possible escape? Hitler's military career? Hitler's architecture? Hitler's political maneuvering in the interwar? Hitler, Hitler, Hitler. Nobody wants to deal with the fact that Hitler was not omnipotent or omnipresent. He and his party was supported by German and western capital to oppose worker organization and to give an outlet to social tension around the inflating currency and failing economy. Just like in Italy and just like in Spain. Hitler is a cultural product sold to liberals so they can be reassured that they would never become evil. No liberal democracy has ever put an entire minority into concentration camps, no liberal democracy has ever used Zyklon B on dispossessed people, no liberal democracy has ever looted a conquered nation, no liberal democracy has ever killed workers for unionizing, no liberal democracy has ever used nationalism and supremacism to rally popular support, and a long etcetera.

[mysterycat-isme]

I hate waiting for things to stop being popular so i can enjoy them

[tranzzitts-deactivated20251231]

Can I interest you in not one or two... But THREE things that are no longer popular as they used to for you to enjoy?

[mysterycat-isme]

Yes tell me the things !!

[tranzzitts-deactivated20251231]

1. Supernatural

2. Doctor Who

3. Sherlock (BBC)

[mysterycat-isme]

I despise you and you won't survive when I am in charge in 14 and a half years

[dreamilypurpleoutcast]

[sew-birb]

This is a problem the writers of the Simpsons have had to deal with - the Simpsons are late 80s, early 90s poor. They have two clunker cars, they live in a house that's old-fashioned and has crappy furniture because they can't afford to redecorate. Their TV is ancient. Their neighbors have visibly better stuff than they do, and when they shop they have to buy the bargain brands.

But their lifestyle now seems wildly out of reach to most modern kids! They have two cars! A big three bedroom house! Only one of the parents has to work! They have 3 whole children who they can afford to feed and clothe on a single income! It's an impossible dream life for most people today.

[fuzzynecromancer]

[ekko-idk]

Combining my two biggest fixations atm <3

[vadlings]

Represention of Autistic Frustration in Laios Dungeon Meshi

Like many other autistic people, I related strongly to Laios Touden while reading Dungeon Meshi. This post isn't going to spend time disputing whether he displays autistic traits or not—while I could do that, I want to focus on why specifically his portrayal struck a chord with me in a way the writing of most other autistic-coded characters has not.

Disclaimer: as the above suggests, this post is strongly informed by my own experiences as an autistic person, as well as the experiences of my neurodivergent friends with whom I have spoken about this subject. I want to clarify that in no way am I asserting my personal experience to be some Universal Autistic Experience. This post is about why Laios' character feels distinct and significant to me in regard to autistic representation, and while I'm at it, I do feel that I have interesting things to say about autistic representation in media generally. This also got a bit long, so I'm sticking it under a read more. Spoilers for up to the end of chapter 88 below.

The thing that stands out most to me in regard to Laios' characterisation is the open anger he displays when someone points out his inability to read other people. This comes up prominently in his interactions with "Shuro" (Toshiro Nakamoto):

The frustration pictured above (Laios continuing to physically tussle with Toshiro, using crude language toward him) becomes even more notable when you remember that this is Laios, who, outside of these interactions, is not easily fazed and often exists as a lighthearted contrast to the rest of the cast. Then we get to Laios' nightmare.

In Falin's words: "Nightmares love emotional wounds. Wounds you hold in your heart. Things that give you stress, or things that were traumatic for you. They aggravate memories like that and cause the dreamer to have terrible dreams." (chapter 42, page 10.) (damn. i'm properly citing for this post and everything.)

Thus, Laios' nightmare establishes an important fact: even if he is unable to recognise social blunders while he's making them, he's at least subconsciously aware that other people operate on a different wavelength to him, and that he's an outsider in many of his social circles (both past and present). His dream-father's disparaging words stress the impact this has had upon his ability to live up to the expectations set out for him, and we also get a panel of kids who smirk at him (presumably former bullies to some degree). Toshiro's appearance only hammers home how much Laios is still both humiliated and angered by his misunderstanding of their relationship.

I've thought a lot about anger as concomitant to the autistic experience. When autistic representation portrays ostracization, it's generally from an angle of the autistic character being upset at how conforming to neurotypical norms doesn't come easily to them; as a result, they express a desire to 'get better' at meeting neurotypical standards, a desire to become more 'normal' (whether the writing implies this is a good thing or not). In contrast, not once does Laios go, "I need to perform better in my social interactions, and try to care less about monsters, because that's what other people find weird." His frustration is directed outward rather than inward, and as a result, it's the people around him who are framed as nonsensical.

The Winged Lion starts delineating Laios' anger, and Laios' reaction is to think to himself, "It can sense all my thoughts, huh?" (chapter 88, page 16.) This is the scene that really resonated with me. I'm not saying I have never felt the desire to conform to neurotypical norms that is borne from insecurity, but primarily, I know that I don't want to work toward becoming 'normal'—I don't want to change myself for people who follow rules I find nonsensical. It's the difference between, "Oh god, why can't I get it," and, "WHY CAN'T YOU GET IT?" (phrasing here courtesy of my friend Miles @dogwoodbite). And for me personally, Dungeon Meshi is the first time I've seen this frustration and the resultant voluntary isolation from other people portrayed in media so candidly. Laios' anger is not downplayed or written to be easily palatable, either.

The culmination of Laios' frustrations in this scene wherein we learn that Laios has fantasised about "a pack of monsters attacking a village" drives home just how alienated he really feels. I need not go into his wish to become a monster himself, redolent of how many autistic people identify/have identified with non-humans to some degree as a result of a percieved disconnect from society (when I was younger, I wanted to be a robot. I still kind of do.)

Obviously, wishing death upon other people is a weighty thing, but the unfiltered nature of this page is what deeply resonated with me. The Winged Lion is laying Laios' deepest and most transgressive desires bare, and they are desires that are a product of lifelong ostracization by others (whether intentional or unintentional). This is the brand of anger I'm familiar with, and that my neurodivergent friends express being familiar with, but that I haven't seen portrayed in writing so explicitly before—in fact, it surprised me because most well-meaning autistic representation I've experienced veers toward infantilisation in trying make the autistic character's struggles easy for neurotypicals to sympathise with.

Let's also not neglect the symbolism inherent to Laios' daydream. "A pack of monsters attacking a village". Functionally, monsters are Laios' special interest—he percieves everything first and foremost through his passion for monsters. His daydream of monsters attacking—killing—humans, is fundamentally a daydream of the world he understands (monsters) overthrowing the world that is so illogical to him, that has repeatedly shunned him (other people). I joked to my friends that it's an autistic power fantasy, and it actually sort of is. And in it, his identity is aligned with that of the monsters, while his anger manifests in a palpable dissociation from the rest of humanity. This is one manga page. It's brief. It's also very, very raw to me. I think about it often.

To conclude, I love Laios Dungeon Meshi. This portrayal of open frustration in an autistic character meant a lot to me, and I hope I've sufficiently outlined why. Also, feel free to recommend media with autistic representation in the notes if you've read this far—I would really like to see if there is more of this nature. Thank you for reading. I'm very tired and should probably sleep now.

[erikailustra]

Petals and Snow - (WIP) lineart done!

[octal-codes]

The modder argument is a fallacy.

We've all heard the argument, "a modder did it in a day, why does Mojang take a year?"

Hi, in case you don't know me, I'm a Minecraft modder. I'm the lead developer for the Sweet Berry Collective, a small modding team focused on quality mods.

I've been working on a mod, Wandering Wizardry, for about a year now, and I only have the amount of new content equivalent to 1/3 of an update.

Quality content takes time.

Anyone who does anything creative will agree with me. You need to make the code, the art, the models, all of which takes time.

One of the biggest bottlenecks in anything creative is the flow of ideas. If you have a lot of conflicting ideas you throw together super quickly, they'll all clash with each other, and nothing will feel coherent.

If you instead try to come up with ideas that fit with other parts of the content, you'll quickly run out and get stuck on what to add.

Modders don't need to follow Mojang's standards.

Mojang has a lot of standards on the type of content that's allowed to be in the game. Modders don't need to follow these.

A modder can implement a small feature in 5 minutes disregarding the rest of the game and how it fits in with that.

Mojang has to make sure it works on both Java and Bedrock, make sure it fits with other similar features, make sure it doesn't break progression, and listen to the whole community on that feature.

Mojang can't just buy out mods.

Almost every mod depends on external code that Mojang doesn't have the right to use. Forge, Fabric API, and Quilt Standard Libraries, all are unusable in base Minecraft, as well as the dozens of community maintained libraries for mods.

If Mojang were to buy a mod to implement it in the game, they'd need to partially or fully reimplement it to be compatible with the rest of the codebase.

Mojang does have tendencies of *hiring* modders, but that's different than outright buying mods.

Conclusion

Stop weaponizing us against Mojang. I can speak for almost the whole modding community when I say we don't like it.

Please reblog so more people can see this, and to put an end to the modder argument.

[mackdaddyofthecravate]

Please return us to a world where Notp and squick are used for a ship you don’t like instead of just making up a load of bullshit about how immoral it is or w/e lol 

[sazandorable]

a short selection of concepts and phrases that used to be commonplace in fandom and we’d really benefit from making that a thing again:

NOTP: the opposite of an OTP (One True Pairing). It is a ship a fan strongly dislikes. The word is a portmanteau of ‘no’ and ‘OTP’ and thus is not a contraction of any particular phrase.

Squick: anything that is a deep-seated, visceral turn-off. Squicks may be shared by many fans or be specific to one; one person’s kink may be another person’s squick.

YKINMKATO, or kink-tomato: Your Kink Is Not My Kink, And That’s Okay: used to indicate support for fannish diversity and to distinguish between disapproval or kink shaming and simply having different taste.

DLDR: Don’t Like, Don’t Read: a phrase used to warn against complaints about an aspect of fic or meta. A “live and let live” philosophy of fandom, which places the responsability for avoiding content one doesn’t want to see on the side of the fanwork consumer, rather that on the creator’s.

SALS: Ship And Let Ship: similar to the above specifically about shipping tastes.

YMMV: Your Mileage May Vary: a phrase used to acknowledge that any given individual’s personal opinion on the topic at hand may differ due to their own tastes, standards, values, experiences, etc.

As the OP points out, all of these crucially imply no moral judgment of what they’re designing.

(definitions lifted more or less wholesale from fanlore’s relevant pages)

[shatterpath]

bring the healthy fun back to fandom!

[greenteaandtattoos]

If ever a time comes when I don’t reblog this when it appears on my dash, assume I’m dead