I Can't Decide What To Read. Opinions?

In other news, I have been reading through the 3 hour (!!!) gaylor powerpoint, and it is beautifully unhinged and ridiculous. It's perfect. No notes. Delusional masterpiece

Projeto Identidade (Project Identity) is an exhibition in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil that is recreating pop culture images using people of color.

So, I, uh, found these in the road in front of my house.

Just a bunch of unfired bullets just in the road.

I'm so confused right now

CLUELESS (1995), dir. Amy Heckerling + Letterboxd Reviews

Come join me on twitch for some more Left Behind!

It's a terrible book and watching me suffer is fun!

I finally got Alita to agree with me and start working.

So tonight at 11:15 EST I will be streaming Cyberpunk 2077 on twitch. I know almost nothing about this game, but I love cyberpunk and William Gibson, so I'm ready to head into the Sprawl and see what's up.

Ides of January Reading Update

The Cloisters got DNF'ed. I don't like to do that, but I had to. It was so fucking boring. The stuff about tarot was interesting, but it would only be focused on for like two paragraphs and then utterly forgotten so the protag could whine some more about not being cool enough. It was also all tell, no show. At one point, it's said that the MC has been having trouble distinguishing between fantasy and reality and might be having full-blown hallucinations. And....that's it. We never get to see it at all. If it weren't for that line, there'd be no way to know that was happening. And it's like that with everything. Awful book.

Babel is good, but it's taking me forever to get through it. I like it, it's just slow going.

So This Is Ever After is the only romance I've ever enjoyed reading. It's funny, sweet as hell, and Queer af. I don't even know why I decided to read it because I don't really like the romance genre, but I'm so glad I did.

Maus made me cry and that's all I'm ready to say about that.

Iron Widow is one of the best books I've ever read. Wu Zetian is an absolute gold medal badass and I love everything about her. I don't know if I want to be her friend, her girlfriend, or just be her; I'll even accept being her enemy if I have to. I'm just obsessed and want her in my life somehow. It's fucking brilliant and I cannot wait for Heavenly Tyrant.

The Weight of Blood is very good so far. It's a Carrie retelling set in a 2014 Georgia high school about to host its first integrated prom. I'm only about a third of the way through it right now, but I'm really enjoying it so far.

Okay I need to talk about Dragon Age.

Specifically, I need to talk about Cailan and Loghain.

So Cailan is presented to us as, well, a glory-seeking dumbass who refuses to listen to the advice of those around him. And that's how he's seen and treated by fans. I'm going to say that's wrong, but I do think it's incomplete.

There's some crucial information that we're given at Ostagar that tends to be overlooked. Ostagar is the fourth battle against the darkspawn. So Cailan has already fought three battles against them by the time we meet him. And nothing in those battles suggested any actual intent or tactics from the darkspawn. No signs of organization. Nothing to suggest an archdemon.

So to me, it does make sense that Cailan isn't taking the idea of a Blight too seriously at this point. All he has to suggest a Blight is Duncan's word. And Grey Wardens have been shown repeatedly to be secretive almost to the point of self sabotage. No one outside of the Wardens knows how they are connected to the darkspawn and can literally hear the archdemon.

We also see that Cailan's other advisors are telling him that it isn't a Blight. There's also the fact that the Wardens were banished from Fereldan for years for revolting against the king. It's only relatively recently that they've been allowed back.

So, while yeah, Cailan's kind of a dumbass, it makes perfect sense that he isn't buying into the idea of a Blight. If you remember that he is operating without the information the audience likely has at this point, he doesn't really have a reason to think it's anything more than an unusually large hoard. And he is taking the perceived threat seriously. He has only seen evidence of a large hoard, and he is responding appropriately to the threat of a large hoard.

It was not his fault that the Wardens won't tell anyone anything.

Now, onto Loghain. First off, fuck this guy. I hate this character so much. He's so fucking boring and I couldn't stand it.

With that out of the way, he fully and intentionally betrayed Cailan at Ostagar.

I will agree that retreating was the most tactical choice and that sending in his troops would not have swung the battle. It would have just been even more slaughter.

But I don't think that's why he retreated. He retreated to ensure that Cailan would die, and that he would be the one who got to control the narrative of what happened. It also made sure that he would still have all of his troops, giving him the advantage in the civil war since the other nobles lost so many troops at Ostagar.

He was also pretty fucking stupid. I mean, the guy went and found the one noble that absolutely everyone else hated and fully allied himself with him. Dumb. Just fucking dumb. Literally everyone other than Cousland hates Howe, and Loghain chooses him to be his right hand man. Honestly, dude probably would have won over a lot more nobles if he hadn't done that.

I don't really know how to end this. But, yeah, Cailan isn't as stupid as he's treated, and Loghain sucked so hard.

i often wonder how many ppl from 2012 tumblr are still active on here

are u also still here, lurking in the shadows????

I know when we talk about ~men writing women~ we usually focus on the “she breasted boobily” variety but can we just acknowledge that in The Sound of Music, a mother abbess sends one of her young, naive charges to go and work for a rich, single older man and when said young naif flees back to the abbey and refuses to speak to anyone about what happened to her except to say “I can’t face him again”, the abbess’ first reaction is “are you in ~love~ with him?” when any woman’s knee-jerk reaction would be “GIRL WHAT TF DID HE DO AND SHOULD I CALL THE POLICE”