200 days into the genocide of Gaza. Here are some numbers:

Hot Take: Astarion does NOT hate flowers. You just missed a few subtle hints through Act 1 and early Act 3.

Astarion's negatively is directed toward just about everything at all pleasant as you move through early act three, starting the moment you leave Wyrm's Rock. First thing after Gortash's coronation he marvels near tears at the colors of the city in daylight. If you ask if he's alright, it pisses him off.

There's other instances I can't quite remember but he's a straight crank throughout early Act 3 and it took me several hours of gameplay to have a lightbulb moment about his newly crappier attitude.

He just spent the last two hundred years seeing everything in the overwhelmingly warm dim tones of indoor lighting via sconces, rushlights, and braziers, or the dingy blue gray of moonlight outside. Daylight colors are something he had more than a lifetime to forget and now that he has a chance to remember that vibrancy in his own home town, he knows he's going to have to forget it all over again either by death or by remaining a vampire spawn forever. The worm isn't going to live rent free in his head forever, and killing Cazador to ascend in his place likely feels like an insurmountable and impossible fight against a literal titan who could stomp him flat without a corm of effort.

He doesn't hate flowers, he hates EVERYTHING right now because it's all going away very soon and if he convinces himself he hates everything then he won't miss it when it's all gone again. He was denied this for two hundred years and he's PISSED at what was stolen from him and PISSED it's all going away again.

He behaved a similarly in Act 1 about anyone besides him enjoying physical intimacy. Some of this content was cut, to my best knowledge, but the overwhelming majority of his dialog addressing the PC romancing anyone but him are negative or backhanded. This is for two reasons, I think. A: his Simple Plan just dissolved right before his eyes when you chose someone else which in his mind means he has zero safety net, and EVERYONE gets to enjoy sex (key wording being ENJOY, not simply having) except him... And it pisses him off.

He also gleefully interrupts the bug bear and the ogress, I think for the same reason as the above paragraph, being: If he doesn't get to enjoy intimacy neither do they.

He reacts with anger and disgust at anything he's being unfairly denied. Which... That's fair. His feelings are valid, but his reaction to it is pretty shitty and meanspirited.

The other companions I tend to keep in my party, (that is Lae'zel, Halsin, Karlach, and Wyll) however, are actually appearing to behave pretty patiently with him in Act 3 which I find interesting.

In the instance with the flowers Karlach doesn't bother trying to convince him otherwise of his opinion, she just tells him how they make her feel instead and rather than getting snippy or doubling down he more or less agrees to disagree. I also don't recall anyone disagreeing with him during Gale's last quest tasks when he mentioned that he quit praying to gods who wouldn't hear him a long time ago but to be fair, I think the gods did everybody in this crew dirty and they all know it. It seems like they're consciously giving him the space to be mad about things, is what I'm saying.

Everyone I know including myself who gets out of a long-term hot garbage situation kinda went wild for a bit with freedom, spoke poorly, behaved strangely, had extreme emotional reactions to things, and made some particularly terrible choices. I think that's just a part of recalibrating yourself, healing and learning how to be okay again.

Point is, I wouldn't conflate too many of the turbo-negative things he says with how he actually feels about anything. We certainly know what he says and what he feels are two very different things.

Hundreds of Jewish anti-war demonstrators have been arrested during a Passover seder that doubled as a protest in New York, as they shut down a major thoroughfare to pray for a ceasefire and urge the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, to end US military aid to Israel.

The 300 or so arrests took place on Tuesday night at Grand Army Plaza, on the doorstep of Schumer’s Brooklyn residence, where thousands of mostly Jewish New Yorkers gathered for the seder, a ritual that marked the second night of the holiday celebrated as a festival of freedom by Jews worldwide.

The seder came just before the US Senate resoundingly passed a military package that includes $26bn for Israel.

[ID: Tweet by Jewish Voice for Peace NYC reading: "Bus drivers refused to tranport protestors from last night's Seder in the Streets to the precinct, forcing cops to drive the busses. Power and solidarity to the union bus drivers with @twu100 who refuse to collaborate with the NYPD, which commandeers MTA busses for mass arrests." A photo is included of a cop standing behind a handcuffed person whose back is to the camera; they wear a keffiya around their neck and a shirt reading "Jews say ceasefire." Saram Friedland (@motionxpictures) QRTed the tweet and added: "We spent 4+ hours waiting cuffed in the bus blocking grand army traffic because none of the dozens of cops knew how to drive it! Solidarity w/ the bus drivers! ✊🏻" End ID.]

Gaza's municipality is trying to raise money to fix and restore Gaza's water system. Please support them by boosting and/or donating

[Additional ID: hadeel's tweet is a QRT of a post by بلدية غزة - Municipality of Gaza (@munigaza) that reads:

نداء الحياة لغزة، ساهموا معنا بالتبرع لصالح مشاريع بلدية #غزة. نحن نعمل على إعادة ضخ المياه في مدينة غزة.

End ID]

i’m going to kdxjdhdjhddjjdhs

TWO??? Having a private jet at all is bad enough on its own but why the fuck does she need two of them???

Lmao how is this real, "the ambient sounds of the world were wrong, sir"

Day 200. This post is for the burnt out activists. There is hope. Don’t let them convince you otherwise. “It starts with Gaza.” from Lets Talk Palestine, 23/Apr/2024:

Drama in the seal enclosure

I recently had surgery, and at the time I came home, I had both my cat and one of my grandma's cats staying with me.

- Within hours of surgery, I wake up from a nap to my cat gently sniffing at my incisions with great alarm.

- I was not allowed to shower the first day after surgery, and the cats, seeing that The Large Cat is not observing its cleaning ritual, decided I must be gravely disabled and compensated by licking all the exposed skin on my arms, face, and legs.

- I currently have to sleep with a pillow over my abdomen because my cat insists on climbing on top of me and covering my incisions with her body while I sleep (which is very sweet but not exactly comfortable without the pillow). She also lays across me facing my bedroom door, presumably on guard for attackers who may try to harm me while I'm sleeping and injured.

That's love. 🐈‍⬛🐈❤️

cats are so very unclear on what is wrong with us but they want to help

Last time I had a really bad migraine my cat curled herself round my head and purred sympathetically, and actually stayed there through two of her normal mealtimes. It wasn't until I was able to stagger to the kitchen and grab a protein bar for myself that she gave a very small, polite miaow to the effect of "while you're up... could you get something for me too?"

the simplicity of lactase supplements is so funny to me. it costs like $4 to circumvent evolutionary biology. want to eat dairy but your body doesn’t produce the enzyme necessary to digest lactose? the devs haven’t patched that yet but you can download a mod

with access to the 2022 tumblr vernacular, he'd be unstoppable

#pushing for a house md remake for one purpose only: so we can hear gregory house say 'god forbid women do anything'

really? another album? didn't she just make one??

taylor swift is the MCU of music

do you realize what you're wishing on me

when my local friendgroup hit our late 20's/early 30's we all metamorphosed into ancient romans and/or redwall characters bc now whenever we have 'get togethers' ppl are always bringing over cheeses and crusty breads and cured meats and olives and grapes and ales etc

the ancients were wrong about many things but they were absolutely right about snacking plates

because people are saying "germany has banned irish" or even "germany says the irish arent white" (literally please learn how to read): this is about the occupy against occupation camp for palestine in front of the bundestag and only affects the camp and surrounding areas. doesnt make it any better but the state or city have not just banned a language period and yes you can travel to berlin and speak your mother tongue

but why are they doing this? there are now so many protests and gathering for palestine around the city that the cops simply do not have enough translators to check if anything illegal or anticonstitutional is being said in arabic (and now in any other language because the protests are getting bigger and berlin is a very multinational country), but its not like they did only accurate translations before, they kept accusing people of saying things they did not say to denounce the protestors of course so its not like they are so interested in accurately following and representing the speeches and music on the camp site but its a requirement they got from the interior ministry for constitution protection nonetheless. they allowed arabic after 6pm that day because thats probably when they got to book a translator/get an arabic speaking cop on site.

for people asking for sources (youre not going to find this in a newspaper): go visit matt's page

US-backed Israhell has been and continues to starve and deprive Palestinian people. Having access to basic necessities like food and water is a HUMAN RIGHT. This is beyond horrific.

love when cats hear that you've woken up even just a little bit and they're like hiiiiiii oh my god oh my god!!!!! i wrote some poems in the night let me recite them for you. this one is called: screaming and knocking your water bottle off your nightstand