does anyone else ever get the urge to use specific words. like sometimes i'll wake up and be like if i don't find an opportunity to say the words "abhorrent" and "catastrophic" today i'm going to lose my fucking mind.

Man, I love dragons. They're great. Thinking specifically of Chinese, Korean, and other East Asian mythologies, I love that they're benevolent and protective. I love that they're associated with water and rain, which is in turn associated with healing. I mean, in the origin story of the Eastern zodiac, IIRC the idea was that everyone assumed the dragon would win the race because it's the most mobile of the animals, right? But it actually came in fifth place because it paused along the way to bestow rain on a village that needed it. (And to help the rabbit, apparently, which ended up in fourth place as a result.)

Neuvillette is such a good representation of the powerful and good-natured dragon, for reasons that are pretty evident in the story of Genshin Impact.

As is Dan Heng, of course! The other day I got the parlor car conversation with Jing Yuan where he asks the crew to take good care of Dan Heng, and I chose the response "Honestly, he's usually the one taking care of us!" at which he laughs and comments that this has been part of the nature of Dan Heng (and his past incarnations) as long as he'd known them. I couldn't not think back to the zodiac story hearing that.

I haven't managed to make space in my life for Wuthering Waves yet, so basically all I know about it is from hearsay, but I have ample evidence to believe that this applies to Jiyan as well.

Ah, they're FLAWLESS. Just. aaah. DRAGONS. Did I mention I love them? I love dragons. I think they deserve a lot of love.

do you think it would be erotic if humans had a natural predator?

humanity's natural predator is itself and just saying that makes me so hard i can't walk straight

it's so fun to play with language and meaning but i am constantly haunted by the fact that it's not impossible to completely unintentionally construct a perfect replica of a shockingly offensive slur in a language you've never spoken or cultural context you've never encountered by doing this

for a tragedy to be truly exquisite i think that there should have been another choice you could have made that would have been "better", but still wouldn't have changed the outcome in any meaningful way. whether you took the well-trodden path or the road less travelled by would have made no difference at all. this was always going to happen. but you still chose wrong.

finally i have cool hair again

i can actually speak in overlapping voices from multiple throats but all the others are really shy

shrue: oh btw they're planning to legalise the trawlerman as a cover for committing war crimes

carpenter: lmao i bet the look on faulkner's face right now is priceless

meanwhile, faulkner:

i think there's something to be said about how paige has, for a moment, stopped trying to cling to or control the narrative she created, and is able to experience some brief, but much-needed, happiness and relief as a result, while VAL is trying harder than ever to maintain her stranglehold of control over it, and suffering for it

i've seen a few people saying that VAL is being consumed by the Last Word the more she tries to rely on it, but i think she's actually being rejected by it? if anything, it doesn't seem like it's feeding. it hasn't had anything to feed on since VAL was offered up to it - the sacrifices made in its name haven't inspired devotion, only devastation and terror. it's starving. it's dying. which begs the question, can a saint be unmade? can a god spit out what it's already swallowed and half-digested? is there any possibility that she could survive separation, or will she remain lodged in its throat, clinging to the predator inside her, and choke with it in its spasming death throes?

paige and VAL are such almost-perfect narrative foils despite having never interacted it's uncanny. both were raised by an abusive parent, but paige refuses to let this define her, while VAL externalises and perpetuates the same cycle she grew up in. paige recoils from admitting vulnerability; represses and tries to wield her hurt and rage with restraint, like a precisely-honed point, while VAL allows her wounds to bleed out openly into the world, and lashes out indiscriminately. paige benefitted from the violence of the system until she decided that she couldn't profit from something that meant harming others to maintain it and began working to oppose and dismantle it. VAL tried to use that same system to achieve her goals and was taken advantage of by it instead, and upholds it. paige created her god to protect other people, even at a cost to herself. VAL sacrificed herself to her god to protect herself, and clings to it regardless of the cost to others. paige's god is a destructive force that she's trying to use strategically, to achieve constructive outcomes. VAL's god is a god of infinite possibility, and she uses it as a mere weapon. the choices made along the way matter as much as the destination to paige, but for VAL, the ends justify the means. paige's god seethes beneath her skin, held at bay by her desire to keep her people safe, but sustained by their belief in her ability to do so. VAL's god is tearing her apart from the inside as it claws its way out of her, only to find that there is nothing to sustain itself with beyond; no warmth, no life - only cold, dead air. paige is surrounded by people who love her. VAL has nobody and nothing but fear. they're fellow travellers on diverging paths. what is and what could have been. the light and its shadow, the self and the reflection, united by a single, terrible truth: none of it can save them.

been thinking about fantasy/scifi rule systems and free will

it really is insane how waking up early will grant you access to some of the most beautiful sights and sensations in the world that will make you want to live forever, but only if you overcome the gauntlet of a thousand razors that is getting out of bed early. truly one of life's little saw traps.

it's such a bummer that losing control of your emotions only makes the entire situation worse in really embarrassing personal ways. losing control of my emotions should give me pyrokinesis.

we all talk about doing it scared doing it alone doing it weird etc. but the the hideously awful truth is that you also often have to do it stupid