Thing is. Recently I have been having some IRL issues and in all honesty it will be much better for all involved if I take a hiatus for a while. Or indefinitely. Until I sort myself out anyway. I have not been here for very long, but already you have all grown quite dear to me and I am sorry to have to go because I so love seeing what you are all doing and hearing what you are all saying and I will miss you very much, but hey, that’s IRL for you.

I will most likely be answering and checking emails more sporadically as well, but if you would like to get in touch in spite of my absence, feel free: scuffin.macguffin@gmail.com. 

Thank you very much, and I hope that I can come back soon.

—Scuffin

fuckyeahpoetry:

When the call comes, be calm.
Say to your wife, “My brother is dying. I have to fly
to California.”
try not to be shocked that he already looks like
a cadaver.
Say to the young man sitting by your brother’s side,
“I’m his brother.”
Try not to be shocked when the young man says,
“I’m…

spicyshimmy:

“When they made their way to the clinic in Darktown, they weren’t expecting the dangerously sexy apostate—”

“Now, hang on, Varric; he wasn’t that sexy.”

“Fine, fine, fine. They weren’t expecting the not-so-dangerously sexy apostate in Darktown, sporting a luscious beard he didn’t have time to trim because he was too busy healing everyone—”

“Now you’re just being needlessly cruel, Varric.”

“All right, Hawke. How about this: The incredibly annoying apostate in Darktown who wouldn’t let a guy finish his story in peace strode through the streets of Lowtown looking like a damn fool—”

“You know, I don’t think I like this story very much.”

“Everybody’s a critic.” 

ayries:

Not spurred on by anything specific, just something I think always bears repeating every now and again, even to ourselves. You know?

• Some aces have and enjoy sex.
• Some aces are apathetic about sex, but don’t hate it. They may still have it themselves.
• Some aces hate having sex….

(via thesunfloweramazon)

(via thesunfloweramazon)

fuckyeahstartrektos:

lehxluthor:

Attn. Tumblr…

I present you with the best Star Trek screencap EVER.

You’re welcome.

What is this even? I don’t even… What?

This is how I feel about things floating around my dash recently.

this-is-a-kindness:

iapetusneume:

this-is-a-kindness:

somethingbloomingsometime:

allthehomo:

Without one, the other would no longer exist.: goddessofcheese: icicleman: kryptoswag: BioWare racial diversity…

take the sword:

icicleman:

kryptoswag:

BioWare racial diversity fail.

Stanley Woo, Bioware employee, forum mod and general idiot.

I seriously cannot put into words how frothing at the mouth angry this makes me.  This is basically what I’m hearing this guy say.

“The default generic human skin color is white.”  No need to explain why this is garbage.

“Including minorities would stifle creativity.”  This one seriously pisses me off.  Moving a slider on NPC skin tones would not be difficult, would not stifle creativity and would take all of, oh I don’t know, 10 seconds.  This excuse is just disgusting.

“Instead of creating great stories, we would have to focus on racial quotas.”  Seriously, go to hell.

“This is a European setting…”  Yea, because minorities only exist outside of Europe.  They never, ever settled in Europe.

—-

Okay, this next one is a real quote from him.

“Perhaps you’ve noticed other concepts that weren’t in our game:  vegetarians, polygamists, horses, fox hunts, soccer moms, conservational biologists, astronomers, pansexuals, furries, LARPers, numismatists, lepers, schizophrenics, the deaf, paraplegics, Protestants, or Yu-Gi-Oh players”

AWESOME!  Way to really downplay race and ethnicity there guy.  That Yu-gi-oh one was a really nice (ie classless) touch.  This kind of dismissive diarrea really burns me up.  Horses was another nice touch…thanks for equating us to animals that shouldn’t be considered.  Oh and good job on offending lots of other groups too.

Another thing, everything you listed there (with the exception of horses and fox hunts) COME IN ALL SORTS OF DIFFERENT SKIN COLORS AND ETHNICITIES!  You can’t just conveniently separate race into a little “niche” group like that to make a point that it’s too difficult to include everything.  That kind of response is barely better than the ones that say that they can’t consider every skin color and then go on to list “pink, blue, purple” and a bunch of other non-existant skin colors as examples of how hard it would be to consider them all.

You know, that’s it, I’ll just let the article speak for itself.

So, this was like January 5 with the original question posed 2009/10, but this goes without saying: WHAT THE FUCK. Is he still there?

“The default generic human skin color is white.” 

What the fuck.

SCREAMING

What the literal fuck.

Well isn’t this a lovely thing to wake up to. I love the smell of bullshit in the morning.

Reading the actual article just makes it worse in my opinion.  Here’s some more quotes by Bioware’s employees:

We should include all real world ethnicities into a fictional fantasy world why, exactly? How does it fit into our fantasy setting, or are you trying to tell us what our fantasy setting should look like in order to be “fair”?

And look here’s David Gaider:

Yet I think it’s fair to say that we could have included a broader spectrum of visible ethnicities in our world, if we wished to. I have to agree with Stan that this isn’t necessarily a worthy goal for its own sake. It might be interesting, sure, but it could also be pretty banal– if I were to include that in a setting, I certainly hope it’d be more than just tokenism. I don’t think anyone wants that.

I think I can understand the point they are trying to make.  Sometimes it can be trying to see the “token minority” in a TV show, but reading some of this, it’s hard not to go from it feeling like someone is telling me they’re doing minorities a favour by not including them just as tokenism.  That somehow it’s better to just pretend these other races don’t exist at all, then acknowledge even a limited degree the diversity of human races.

And I don’t like the idea of “why should we include racial diversity” because it’s equally fair to ask “why not include racial diversity.”   It’s like currently this is how the fantasy setting has been done and this is how it keeps being done, and I get in part that this is european-based fantasy, but it’s still fantasy and it’s hard for me to just nod and accept that therefore this means it should always be predominantly white.  And the thing is I don’t think presenting a more racially diverse Thedas would have taken away from the prejudice against mages and elves that apparently are issues that DA wants to address.  In some ways, it makes sense with these other minorities present that skin colour and differing features within humans thus becomes less of an issue and they see each other as far more uniform than maybe we do.

It IS frustrating to be a minority, and at least in North America (I’m not going to speak for other places when I don’t live there), it seems like almost every movie, every TV show, every book, with the exception of a small amount showcase predominantly white casts or white protagonists.  And then we have lovely movies like The Last Airbender or the upcoming Akira movie, that go even so far as to white-wash the original stories.  So it’s no wonder why sometimes we ask these questions, or hunger to see more than racial diversity in the things we do love. 

No, Bioware wasn’t obligated to add more racial diversity in Thedas, but it would have been nice, it would have been refreshing.  It is a worthy goal for it’s own sake, because goodness, visibility of minorities just doesn’t happen enough. 

I remember when you and I talked about this on our way back from visiting Seri, Blushie.

And you’re right, the key here is fantasy.  Sure Thedas may be based off of Europe, but it’s only a guide, not the rule.

I know that Cracked.com recently had an article about horrible things that Hollywood still does, and one of the big ones was whitewashing the stories that were originally all or predominately by a racial minority.  They said that the reason this is still done is internalized racism of the majority and wanting to see “people like them.”  I wonder how much of that plays into video games.

It really is horrible that this sort of thing still exists today.  We may have come a long way from where we were before but it doesn’t mean we don’t have a long way to go.  :/

I think that is what I find most frustrating is that I think it really does stem from this internalized racism.  This attitude of “we could have made it more diverse, but why should we?” because it seems like making a story with an actual diverse atmosphere has to be this BIG THING.  When really, that’s the opposite of what people want.

Why does racial diversity have to be included because “it could be interesting” as David Gaider wants to put it and fears it because it could be banal. It’s not a fucking plot point.  Someone, make diversity in your fictional fantasy fucking banal. PLEASE.  Make a world where different skin colours aren’t a big deal and no one notices, and no one cares, because all of them are just PEOPLE.  Honestly that would be the most beautiful thing in the world.

YES PLEASE. I just. Okay.

Here is the definition of banality: “So lacking in originality as to be obvious and boring.”

Lacking in originality? Obvious and boring?

How about having the typical three-class structure of every goddamn RPG ever in the history of creation? How about finding the same goddamn pair of torn trousers in a chest about three thousand times? How about making the the main motif be frigging dragons? How about having a mysterious and cryptic old woman wandering around giving impossible-to-decipher advice? HOW ABOUT MAKING ME EXPLORE THE SAME GODDAMN CAVE OVER AND OVER AND OVER—

Ahem.

Not to say that these fantasy tropes are all terrible and should never be used again, but they are certainly not all completely unprecedented!

But having a fantasy world? Where there are? More than one race? And a bunch of people? Of all different colors? And none of them are overly concerned by it? And it is not a super big deal?

Apparently that is too fantastical even for a fantasy world. 

But then Gaider says that they are not doing it — because it might be banal? Are we talking about the same word? Banal as in unoriginal and obvious? 

Um, I’m sorry, but the complete lack of diverse fantasy settings pretty basically refutes the idea that including one would be fucking unoriginal. 

Mr. Gaider. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

(And P.S. — whatever meaning it had that you thought justified your bullshit is still stupid, so there.)

serindrana:

[At last! The final raffle prize, for JanieJanine. The Hawke in this fic belongs to her. It’s my first attempt at Fenbela, and it’s also my first time really writing Isabela, let alone from her POV, so hopefully it satisfies!]

.

.

Mountains, Isabela had decided, were stupid, pointless things. Well, not pointless; there were enough spires and crags and sharp pebbles that somehow made it into her boots despite the fact that they were thigh-high. But being in them never led to anything good.
 
Ignoring, of course, Fenris’s almost-promise of later.
 
The walk out wasn’t nearly as long as the walk in, the Vimmarks falling away behind them with every mile until they were back on the relatively flat plains that would take them to Kirkwall. There was grass, some trees, things that spoke of water. Of course, Anders still seemed to limp, if not physically than psychically, leaning on Hawke more often than not and sitting alone until she dragged him to the fire. Isabela joined in with the teasing until it became clear that what the healer needed wasn’t laughter but time.
 
Grey Wardens, Isabela thought as she settled close by the fire, boots off and toes wiggling in the sandy soil that wasn’t sandy enough. Always cranky.

“Enjoying yourself?” murmured the other cranky member of their party, and Isabela rolled onto her back with her arms behind her head to look up at him.

“Always and forever,” she said with the flash of a grin and a laugh. “Freedom always feels good.”

“It does.” Fenris’s lips quirked, just a little, barely enough for the light to catch, and he lowered himself to the ground next to her, close enough to touch. He didn’t, instead looking beyond her and into the fire. “… Hawke is not revelling in it as much as she should, though.”

Isabela huffed and shrugged, as if it were nothing, but she had noticed it too. Darkspawn could be killed. Demons could be killed. Even age-old Tevinter magisters, ugly beyond reckoning and spouting nonsense, could be killed (albeit with a few singed heels and zapped fingers). But there were some enemies that could not be fought off.

Anders sat by Hawke, his elbows on his knees, staring at his hands, and though his lips moved even Isabela couldn’t hear him for the distance and the crackling fire between them. Hawke was walking her fingers along Anders’ sleeve, but then she stopped, her smile turning into the brittle thing Isabela could recognize from a mile away. The smile that said I’ll never stop smiling, not for you, but Maker help me it hurts.

Isabela turned away from the tableau, shifting onto her side to face Fenris.

“Glad to be out of that pit?” she asked, reaching out to dance her fingertips lightly over his knee.

He huffed. “You have asked me that every time we’ve spoken. The answer has not changed.”

She let her smile broaden, easing away at least the surface tension of the scene at her back. It wasn’t her place to be, no matter how much she cared about Hawke, no matter how much she owed her. This was her place, by the same fire, and Fenris sitting by her and not flinching as she stroked at the inner seam of his leggings was an added bonus.

Isabela supposed she was lucky, even with the stones in her boots.

“And what about your answer to when we get back to the city?” she asked, innocent as a kitten even if her hand was halfway up his thigh. He finally moved to bat it away.

“It still stands - not in front of everyone.”

This time, he didn’t blush, and she pulled her hand away with a mock-sigh. “Well, I suppose we’ll just have to get smashed in the Hanged Man like last time-“

He touched her shoulder, and she paused.

“We could also,” he said, slowly, considering, “get a room at the Blooming Rose. Less vomit and death all around.”

“That’s what you think,” Isabela replied, but she was already laughing - and she thought she heard Hawke’s answering giggle from across the fire, and wasn’t that what it was all about?

Read More

You are making me ship Seb/Bethany, you are making me like het, you are making me like Fenris, goddammit Seri you are ruining my entire life. 

Next thing you know I’ll be boarding the Cullen/Bethany bandwagon and then you’ll all know that I’m lost for good. Someone will just have to put me out of my misery.

mallamun:

I. love. smut.

However, I have noticed a few… puzzling… recurrences in my preferred genre. Now, it has been scientifically proven that slash fic releases the same chemicals in the brain as eating chocolate does, and it has also been scientifically proven that chocolate releases the same chemicals in the brain as love/sex, ergo, reading fan fiction is neurologically akin to falling in love. Theoretically, you can live on slash fic without ever needing to leave the house (except to buy chocolate).

Unfortunately, there is also this little part of my brain that I have to turn off while I’m wanking to a good Sherlock/John kinkmeme entry: it’s the part of me that knows, deep down, that I’m masturbating to material written by an 8th grader.

Index

1. The Medically Worrisome Erection
2. The Magically Appearing Lube
3. The Utterly Pointless Condom
4. The Shiny, Scary Anal Sex (aka “Full Sex” or “Real Sex”)
5. The Not-So-Elusive P-Spot
6. The Esoteric Orgasm
7. That Thing He Does With His Tongue 
8. Conclusion 

Click to read!

Read More

Okay, last hilarious thing, and then work.

serindrana:

dreaming-of-bliss:

Hades // Persephone

One of my favorite myths (and if prompted, I can give you several interpretations that are valid and point to the rape in the story being experienced by Demeter/Ceres, and not Persephone/Prosperina herself - the actual myth is more about a mother’s control over her daughter being taken from her, and the mother’s response, than it is about the daughter, and there’s some ambiguity as to how Persephone/Prosperina felt about the whole situation.)

I prefer my tellings where there’s communication between the daughter and her captor, or a prior history or time dilation that gives them a chance to discuss things, but I’ll also admit to having a kink fondness for captor-love stories (though obviously not in the real world). But really, it’s more something about the combination of underworld-vibrant above world (not really death/life), judgment/innocence, the progression of Persephone’s character through the few myths she shows up in, and Hades’ position as the ignored brother who gets saddled with a great duty and then never gets invited to any parties.

(Also, this art is gorgeous, even if it’s not how I usually imagine them.)

Give me interpretations!