Dancing Dragons, Dancing Titans

CALLING ALL NIKKIS! Sharing this important post from reddit (not mine, but promoting for awareness) that raises the ongoing issues with skin tones, especially darker ones, in Infinity Nikki, and gives you a template for what feedback you can send to Infold about it! Link here in case the one in the image doesn't work.

Metro Man was not loved growing up in a way that mattered. His adopted father was clearly very absent, and while we don't know much about his family, their relationship seems superficial. Because of this, his sense of duty to the world is also superficial, hence his boredom.

Hal wasn't raised with power. He gained it and was shown how to use it by a 'space dad' who only taught him power and not love. Hence, he sees it only as a grasping means to an end.

So at the very beginning of the play there was a scene where Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are at a funeral as the primary mourners. A stretcher is carried on with a covered body. The body was notably very small. They laid flowers on it and Macbeth immediately left for battle.

Now *I* studied Shakespeare in college so I immediately knew there is one single line that implies that the Macbeths lost a child at some point. Most of the time this isn't utilized in productions; it's just a throwaway line, intended to paint just how determined Lady M is for this regicide thing to work and how furious she is that her husband has cold feet. In this production she delivers "I have given suck, and know how tender tis to love the babe that milks me" nearly in tears. She takes a moment to steel herself before saying, "I would while it was smiling in my face, have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains pit, had I so sworn" and she very nearly SCREAMED this in Macbeth's face.

Also noted was how the Macbeths looked at Macduff's children. Lady M was clutching her heart, nearly breaking watching them embrace their parents. Macbeth could not even look at them.

At the end of Lady Macbeth's plot, when she is sleepwalking and sleeptalking, she is typically portrayed as speaking to no one or to her husband. However, at a certain point of her monologue she got on her knees, raised her voice to a comforting octave, and began miming tear wiping, hand holding, hair and face stroking, around a child-sized figure. "Wash your hands, put on your nightgown, look not so pale. I tell you yet again, Banquo’s buried; he cannot come out on’s grave." Then she stands and appears to take the child's hand. "Go to bed, go to bed. I can hear knocking at the gate-" then she looks down and realizes that no one is there, followed be the most heartbreaking shriek I've ever heard followed by a full minute of her just weeping while curled up on the floor before she stood up, finished her monologue and left the stage.

Most of the time when the loss of a child is utilized in a performance or adaptation, it is assumed that the child was an infant and lost some time ago. To imply that the child died IMMEDIATELY prior to the events of the play and had been cared for and loved by their parents for a few years adds such a fascinating layer to the desperation to ascend to the throne, Lady M's madness, and Macbeth's initial hesitation into "in for a penny, in for a pound" attitude, Macbeth's fury that Banquo's, not his, children will take the throne, and even Macbeth's eventual demise following a frenzied final battle.

How far will grief push you to fill a hole? How far will grief push you to desperation? And what happens when none of your new pursuits are filling the void left by the one you lost? And what happens when you realize you have nothing left to lose?

The Loose Ends Project matches crafters with a project that is unfinished because of death or disability. They offer help with a spectrum of textile mediums in over 80 countries. One project I find particularly lovely: “My mom was making this octopus for me. She was 67 years old when she passed away from COPD. She was hospitalized for pulmonary rehab several times and would always take it to work on while she was there and loved to talk about it with people."

But by the time the sixth daughter came of age, the king had a handle on it. The avenues for rebellion were all well-trod.

The sixth princess had watched her eldest sister break the bonds of arranged marriage, instead settling down with a stablehand she had grown to love. The next eldest had become a pirate, ranging the seas in a ship with a black flag, a loyal crew of women at her command, before eventually the king had relented and granted her a charter to operate as a privateer. The third daughter had become a scholar, breaking the kingdom's taboo against a woman learning, and founded a college that began attracting plenty of talent, both male and female. The fourth daughter became a swamp hag, and the fifth daughter became the captain of the royal guard.

All of which left the sixth daughter with nothing to rebel against.

"I'm going to travel the world," she said.

"Oh, that will be nice," said the king. "To travel the world is a wonderful thing, will you want accompaniment or will you go it alone?"

The sixth princess huffed and didn't continue the conversation.

"I'm going to capture and ride a unicorn," she said the next morning.

"That seems difficult," said the king. "Will you want training or equipment, perhaps some expertise from your sisters?"

"I want to do it alone," she said.

"I suppose that's fine," said the king.

And the princess did make some tentative plans to hunt down a unicorn and tame it. She read through some books and consulted the court huntress. But it stopped grabbing her, and she let the topic drop.

Finally one day she came to breakfast with her father, looking glum.

"What's wrong, sweet pea?" he asked.

"There is nothing to rebel against," she said. "There's nothing that I could say that would shock you."

"Isn't that a good thing?" asked the king. "Your sisters blazed trails. The kingdom has reached heights I couldn't have dreamed of when I took the crown. You have no duties but those you choose for yourself, you are not barred from any path."

The sixth princess frowned. "Can I say something, and have you not laugh?"

"Yes," said the king.

"I am a thunderstorm," said the princess. "And everyone has umbrellas and raincoats. I am a burning match with no tinder to catch on. I was to explode, only there's no direction to explode toward, nothing that I can do, that I would want to do, that you wouldn't simply say 'that's nice dear, how can I help' to. My sisters have taken all the good rebellions."

"Hrm," said the king. "You do know that your eldest sister rejected arranged marriage for good, principled reasons?"

The sixth princess folded her arms. "Yes."

"And your other sister," said the king. "She did not join a lesbian pirate polycule out of a desire to be contrary. She genuinely was a lesbian with a strong desire not to be confined to a single lover."

"I know," said the sixth princess. "But ... she was a little contrary, wasn't she?"

"I find it difficult to tell," said the king. "But I suspect that when you think your father is being a pig's ear, any contrary impulses are greatly magnified. But tell me, do you think I'm being a pig's ear?"

The sixth princess considered that. "No."

"Well, good," said her father. "Perhaps I've learned something over the course of raising your five sisters."

The princess sat with that for a while, stirring her porridge without eating it. "I suppose," she said finally, "that I wanted to be special. To do something that would make people remember me, the way they remember my sisters."

"Ah," said the king, and there was real understanding in his voice. "That's rather different from rebellion, isn't it?"

"Is it?"

"Your sisters didn't do what they did to be remembered. They did what they did because they couldn't imagine doing anything else. Your eldest sister couldn't bear the thought of not marrying for love. Your second couldn't imagine a life lived on land, bound to convention. Your third couldn't stop asking questions, your fourth couldn't resist the call of wild magic, and your fifth… well, she just really liked hitting things with swords."

The princess couldn't help but laugh at that.

"The thing about rebellion," the king continued, "is that it's not about being contrary. It's about being true to yourself, even when the world tells you that you shouldn't be. So perhaps the question isn't what you can do that would shock me, but what you want to do that would make you happy, regardless of what anyone else thinks."

"I suppose that I wanted to be special," she said. "To have people remember me, to stand out."

"Ah," said the king. "That's rather different from rebellion, isn't it?"

"Is it?" The princess set her spoon down. "Bess didn't have to become a pirate. She could have just ... been gay. And she certainly didn't need to steal that first ship. Or paint it black. Or rename it 'The King's Folly'."

The king winced slightly. "I suppose there you have a point."

"And Danica," said the princess. "She told me she was incensed that you called bog magic 'unladylike'. There was definitely a lot of spite involved."

"Yes, well…" The king cleared his throat. "Perhaps I shouldn't have said that."

"My point is," said the princess, "that being contrary was part of it. Maybe even a big part. They wanted to do their own thing, yes, but they also wanted to… to…"

"Stick it to their old dad?" asked the king.

"Yes," nodded the princess. "But there's nothing to rebel against anymore."

"What do you want?" asked the king. "Do you know?"

"I want to not feel like this," sighed the princess. "I want to not feel like all the good stories are taken, like I'm not special, like I have no purpose."

She looked at him like he was crazy.

"You could agree to an arranged marriage to whoever would be most politically convenient," the vizier added. "Learn embroidery and dance and comportment and all the intricacies of court intrigue - all the things a princess is supposed to know. I'll teach you those skills, if you like. Use them to gather allies and information. Use that to improve the land for its people."

"That doesn't sound very rebellious," the princess said uncertainly. "Actually I'm pretty sure all that's the opposite of rebellious."

"Oh?" the vizier asked with a raised eyebrow. "So you're telling me it's the opposite of what you feel like you're supposed to want?"

The princess snorted in a slightly unprincesslike manner. "Nice wordplay, but you're not getting me with that. I don't think anything you say will convince me embroidery is rebellious, or that it helps... make the realm better for my subjects."

"Okay, so don't do embroidery. What about logistics? Learning the kingdom's shipping routes, how many tonnes of grain it takes to feed the city, how high the taxes on cheese or rubies need to be to fund the city watch. Teenage rebellion will be remembered for a few years, princess. A great queen who feeds her people and makes her kingdom great would be remembered for lifetimes. It would be difficult to feed all the hungry in your kingdom; it would take all your fire and thunderstorm, and then some."

"I'm not going to inherit," the princess hesitated. "I'm the sixth daughter."

"Do you really think your elder siblings want the throne?" the vizier said with a sudden, startled chuckle. "No. All the good stories might be taken, but very few of the great ones are. Great stories are very hard to tell, and very few people want to try."

The princess considered the challenge of trying to feed every hungry peasant in the kingdom. Then trying to keep peace on all her borders, offer justice to everyone wronged, educate the children of her realm, keep all their wells and rivers clean, treat every sick person... it was an impossible task. And if she failed in her rebellion against its impossibility, she wouldn't just be grounded or shouted at; it would be a price paid in lives.

A price, she realised, she was already paying every day.

The princess opened her mouth to speak, but the wizard carried right on talking as he often did. "And strength of arms by land and sea, of course," he mused, stroking his voluminous beard, "for knowledge of the means is dust if they cannot be carried out."

The princess frowned as silence emanated from the ancient mage, opening her mouth only when she was sure he was done.

Hypnotic suggestions from being mind controlled persist after the controller’s death, causing the victim to occasionally take actions to support the cause of a mind flayer cult that no longer exists.

Repeated demonic possession has left the patient with permanent gaps in their soul’s defenses, causing them to immediately get re-possessed if they go outside a consecrated area.

Post-resurrection trauma as the revived soul remembers an unpleasant afterlife.

Curse of bad luck - makes any small illness or injury potentially fatal if not treated with anti-curse in addition to anti-infection procedures

Magical reliance on a magical or nonmagical substance - can have any number of side effects

Repeatedly being drunk by vampires can cause an increase in blood production and therefore high blood pressure and related ailments. Can be treated by blood letting.

There’s a lot of hybridization happening in a lot of fantasy settings, and that’s just asking for a lot of people with weird half-dragon genetic disorders. Works out fine for some people, not so much for others.

Parasitized by (insert creature here). If you don’t take the correct precautions to keep it dormant it will continue to spread and eventually hatch out/transform you.

Repeated contact with the undead has left you open to their influence - leading to hearing or seeing things that other mortals can’t, which can distort or distract from more mundane concerns.

Alternately to being more vulnerable to intrusion, one’s soul can form a scar that makes helpful magic more difficult to take in.

Sleep disorders that make one fall into an impenetrable sleep at a specific trigger, or to do so for years at a time.

Out of phase with 4D space, one’s body not connected to itself or anchored in place/time in the usual way. There could be a consistent two hour gap between the things you hear and what has happened, you might clip into the floor as if it was in a different place for you, or you might slide through the material plane in cross section.

Intermittent intangibility.

Split into two people, each with only half your traits.

the forgotten dread: memory modification magic has caused the subject’s conscious mind to forget some past trauma, but their subconscious still remembers, causing them emotions that they cannot explain or justify ranging from mild discomfort to blind panic when presented with triggers related to the aforementioned trauma. often encountered in cases where the subject has paid an unscrupulous mage to make them forget their past as an ill-advised alternative to therapy.

Psychically Transmitted Memories: the subject’s mind has been linked to another person’s and, although the bond has since been severed, they have retained memories or thought patterns from the other person that are difficult to distinguish from their own.

Negative Life Syndrome (previously “False Life Syndrome”): seen most often in cases when the subject is exposed to dark magic while in the womb, Negative Life Syndrome leaves the subject’s life energies tainted by undeath without making them truly undead. common symptoms include intolerance of radiant magic, aversion to sunlight, and the inability to set foot on hallowed ground; rare symptoms include healing from negative energies, sudden necrosis, and the desire to eat flesh or drink blood of living beings.

lycanthropy

Awareness of too many dimensions makes it difficult to interact with just this one - either to keep track of conversations, or walk to specific locations without ending up on another planet instead

Telekinetic psychosis - delusions tend to physically affect those around you (but HIGH chance for ableism in this one!)

you have flare-ups where your skin tends to slough off and be replaced by some other substance

After sharing life energy with a dying loved one, you’re now both trying to survive off one person’s supply. Like chronic fatigue, but if your loved one gets too big of a bruise you won’t have the energy to get up until it heals

living in reverse

stuck at a certain age

supersenses lead to constant overstimulation

The chosen hero of a powerful magical/divine entity, whose body was poisoned with a cursed alchemical concoction that destroys organic material. The blessing of the entity prevents the hero from dying, but their body now oozes corrosive toxin that will quickly decay anything not made of metal or stone. Can't wear natural materials or touch anything living!

Reason #13668893+316i why we are in this mess.

Democrats passed the affordable care act, passed the infrastructure bill, got rid of junk fees, lowered prescription costs, gave civil rights, protections, forgave student loans, etc.

Everything the republicans are doing is undoing the work of democrats. Yall would rather sit there on your flat asses and make these weakass centrist takes than actually have the courage to face what is happening with clarity.

The Supreme Court has had a conservative majority since Nixon was in office. In the last 60 years, Republicans have filled 15 SCOTUS seats; Democrats have filled 5.

The only time in recent history that Democrats controlled TWO of the branches of government — both chambers of Congress and the presidency — they passed the ACA.

Millions of people are alive because of it. No one seems to want to remember or acknowledge that people used to be denied insurance because they needed medical care.

I'm old enough to have been denied access to healthcare insurance, due to my asthma.

Are they making a valid point that can be backed up with evidence? Are they able to acknowledge the things that were done right?

Examples: drinking is a personal risk. Drinking and driving is a public risk. Going scuba diving is a personal risk. Running a scuba shop with faulty equipment is a public risk. Riding a bicycle without a helmet is a personal risk. Not maintaining public transport safety standards is a public risk. Foraging for mushrooms is a personal risk. Advertising a mushroom identification app that uses shoddy AI is a public risk. Elective surgery is a personal risk. Not wearing a mask in a doctor's waiting room when you are sick with a contagious illness is a public risk.

When this news broke my dad told me and my siblings, all of us who are US Citizens, born and raised in the US, that we have to carry some form of official documentation on us, especially because we live in a city that has been heavily targeted by the Trump administration for being a sanctuary city. My grandmother was staying with us and even though she is my non-latine grandmother, and she's a US citizen, my dad and aunt made the decision to have my dad drive her back home to New Jersey because she has an accent and her documents are back home.

As someone who is latine and south asian, I need you to know that this will not just affect latine people! My non-latine cousin was pulled over by ice about two weeks ago just for being brown! However this will disproportionately affect latine people. Just today ICE was seen on the street by my home and my work! One of my duties at work is to make sure that ICE does not come into our elementary school because we're a predominantly latine school. I HAVE TO MAKE SURE ICE DOES NOT KIDNAP 5 YEAR OLDS. That is the reality of the situation.

I want it to be known that I have been scared before because I'm living as a person of color in the United States. I have been scared before because of being a south asian born post 9/11. I have been scared before being a latina growing up during the Dreamer movement, despite being a citizen. However, before this week I have never been scared enough to feel the need to carry documentation proving I am a citizen of the damn country I was born in! Now I feel that scared though. Especially because a few months ago, for the first time in my life, someone assumed I didn't speak English. Another person of color assumed I didn't speak English and shit talked me in the CVS aisle because they assumed I didn't speak English. And then a week ago I also got mistaken for not speaking English when I went to the doctor's office and chatted with the receptionist in Spanish and then was handed Spanish paperwork to fill out.

Anyways, the point is the fact that I have seen maybe two? three? posts about this on here is upsetting and immensely telling. Speak up. Talk about the fact that this is happening because it will not stop with targeting latines. It will become worse. It already is because the government is going to punish immigrants for "making light of" charlie kirk's death. Not for celebrating, or joking, for making light of.

Conservative propagandist and talk show host, Steven Crowder, changed his twitter bio to ‘#1 Conservative Daily Show’ the day after Charlie Kirk was shot.

Doctor Who (Steven Moffat specifically)

Sherlock (Steven Moffat specifically)

Actually Steven Moffat is basically just this sentiment given human form.

A version of this happened with The Magicians, tbh. Though instead of expectation: men, reality: women it was expectation: smug nihilists, reality: mentally ill queer folks.

Arguably Game of Thrones.

If we broaden it outside of television…I think Star Wars falls into this, at least the sequel trilogy. Maybe the MCU as well. And I can’t help but think of every band that’s ever complained that their fanbase is mostly women. 5 Seconds of Summer comes immediately to mind.

In general, most white male creators seem to have this massively entitled mindset where they want–and think they deserve–the time, attention, and enthusiasm that creative fandom (i.e. the side of fandom more dominated by women) is known for.

They want our eyes for ratings, our word-of-mouth for free publicity, our metas for social media buzz, and our spending power for merch and cons. But they don’t want us. And they don’t really want the responsibility of telling a story to a thoughtful, engaged audience, regardless of that audience’s demographic makeup. They just want to be praised for whatever schlock they cough up.

Mind you it is perfectly possible to make the switch in marketing, but execs would rather throw it all out than have something that doesn’t perform well with male viewers. For example the Rey merch was not expected to be popular, for some reason, there had to be public outcry to get merch of one of the main 3 protagonists. A PROTAGONIST. The fact that she wasn’t a huge part of the 1st launch says a lot already.

And what happened when female fans got too invested in the Sequel Trilogy? The entire writers room didn’t necessarily lash out, but they sure forgot how to behave.

Young Justice

Paul Dini: Superhero cartoon execs don’t want largely female audiences

#WhereIsRey (initial)

#WhereIsRey (ongoing)

Simply, they’re trying to assert a particular worldview via fiction, and upon getting confronted with something else, begin foot stamping. It’s not just men wanting male attention and gatekeeping. It’s that the fiction in the first place was an attempt to curate dominance and whoopsie! they miscalculated.

“The real truth is, I would perform my show and I would meet kids after and young girls would come up to me and they understood what I was expressing in that bit onstage way more than guys my own age. Way more. So if there was a bridge between us that I had to cross to write the movie [Eighth Grade], it was built to me by them. I felt understood by them before I presumed to understand them.”