#About a fake puppet show for its fans

[cozmicclown]

HAHAHAHAHAHHA

Okay so yesterday I discovered the hidden text under the welcome home audio files and got upset that I wasted so much time listening and transcribing them. But today! While I was writing out the Howdy & Sally script I copy and pasted from the site, I was using MY transcription of the audio, and guess what!? THE HIDDEN TEXT ISNT ACCURATE!! Let me make it clear I’m not mad, that it isn’t exact, I’m excited because that means the transcriptions I’ve already made of the audio are accurate to what was said! And not a huge waste of time! Wooooooooooo. My transcripts will still go much faster tho since MOST of the hidden text is right and written but still! VALIDATIONNNNNNNNNN

[stxrry-dxys]

only thing i want to personally add to the whole watcher debacle is i’ve seen a lot of people say that the announcement video reeks of “we’re better than youtube” and while i agree, this is absolutely not a new sentiment from watcher.

i distinctly remember when watcher first started, and especially with ghost files, ryan’s biggest pitch was that he wanted to make high quality content like what you’d find on tv. that he’d always wanted to be a director, and as someone with a similar dream at the time all i could think was “and you’re gonna do that through,,,, ghost files?”

and then when puppet history started airing and shane was talking about his excitement for it he said something very similar. about always wanting to make content where he can really “go nuts with it”

it felt weird, like something about those sentiments wasn’t quite right, but i pushed it away. i had a similar dream to ryan and figured that watcher on youtube and ghost files would be a good way for him to establish a presence that tv stations might pick up. and the same for shane and puppet history and potentially getting a kids tv show out of it or something similar. i don’t know much about steven’s goals, but i had always assumed watcher would be temporary and that eventually they would get their own shows on already established networks. like they just viewed youtube as a stepping stone that they would quickly pull away from.

and then it kept going. and going. and suddenly productions values were going up and new shows were being pitched and tons of new employees were hired and the idea that watcher was temporary very much faded. but the attitude never did. they kept adding more but it never felt like they were establishing this brand as anything long term like gmm or smosh.

and even as the shows felt more overproduced it was almost like the quality was declining. puppet history was getting corrected on its facts more and more. ghost files was constantly getting called out for viewer submissions being obviously faked. they’d stayed on their stepping stone too long and it began to crumble.

this is not to defend them in any way, and this is not to shame any fans who feel blind sided. but i am not shocked by this in the slightest. dumbfounded at how awful a decision this is? absolutely. disappointed that they actually committed to it? for sure. but i am not shocked. this company was always on borrowed time, and i can finally let out the breath i’ve been holding since they first announced their own solo channel.

[moononmyfloor]

Riverside Code at Qingming Festival (清明上河图密码) : Nightlife at Bianjing City

Fireworks

Firework-driven Puppetry

Once thought to be a lost art and rediscovered in the 1990s, this is a special form of puppetry that has a 13-15 meters tall bamboo "tree" with tiers to which wheels of gunpowder and puppets are attached, so when the fuse is lit, the puppets start moving around along with the spiralling fireworks.

Molten Iron Flowers

Originating in the Northern Song Dynasty, Henan province, datiehua the craft of striking liquid iron with sticks to create showers of sparks.

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Peddlers

The character design was designed based on "Picture of a Peddler" by Li Song, a painter from the Song Dynasty.

This is a round fan painting on silk with light ink and color, now in the collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing. The whole picture depicts an old peddler carrying a load of goods on his shoulders approaching the village, with many women and children competing to by the goods.. Depicting the life of the working people as an aesthetic object is a common practice in ancient Chinese art.

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Roadside Stalls and Lanterns

Small taverns that have official alcohol selling license and retail to diners and wholesale to major restaurants or simply earn money as foot shops.

Rolling lantern dance

Folk dance that originated from Zhejiang Province, it has been passed down from generation to generation and is a competitive dance performed every year.

Flying Star Lantern

Due to its elaborate design, it's used especially in the palace banquets and temple fairs during the Lantern Festival.

Horse Riding Street Lanterns

Social public welfare lighting kicked off the most in Song dynasty. There were street lights installed by temple gates, by bridges and by waterbodies.

Seven-Star Lotus Lantern

Used by nobility, representing hopes for longevity.

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Gōulán wǎ shě - Fixed Entertainment Venues

Equivalent to modern day amusement parks, there were many of these situated at the corners of Song Dynasty capitals, open all around the year and especially bustling with people during the holidays. These places had all sorts of entertainment in one place, and the show featured some as below:

Skeleton Fantasy Show

A nursing mother sitting next to a skeleton puppeteer with a skeleton puppet, again based on a famous painting by Li Song, it's been lost to time what exactly does this macabre but wholesome picture depicts, the drama interprets it as some kind of Song Dynasty folktale stage performance.

Quack Eyedrop Seller

In the Northern Song Dynasty, goods were prosperous and there were many profiteers, which lead to street-skits being made to parody/mock the rampant fake merchants and warn the people of counterfeit goods. These skits were very popular and became the subject of paintings. There are two paintings by unnamed Song Dynasty artists in Beijing Palace Museum, showcasing a skit about a quack eyedrop seller. The guy wearing red is the "doctor", with numerous little bottles with eyes painted on them.

Women's Wrestling

OK now this is the COOLEST discovery in this entire post, and one thing that the show failed to properly represent, for reasons you'll understand in a second. Did you know that in Song dynasty women were allowed to do sumo half naked in public??? Because the shirtlessness and skin-to-skin contact is an important feature in sumo, it's said that the emperor allowed women to do the same and that he himself enjoyed women's sumo performances too! And in the Royal Palace, even concubines particioated in sumo competitions with each other! And obviously in modern day women are back to covering up which is such a shame. The dramas only shows two little girls wrestling and they are all covered up too which is understandable, I'm thankful that they included this feature so I could at least look it up and find all this delightful information.

Chinese Circus

Aerial acrobatics at the Entrance, Using feet to manipulate objects, Stilt-Walking

Intangible cultural heritages, click the link to read in depth.

[In stilt performances, Usually there are two forms: "Wen Xiao" and "Wu Xiao". Wu Xiao emphasizes tricks, Wen Xiao focuses on theatrics and making jokes]

Puyang Daxian "Shirtless" Opera, Mulian "Ghost" Opera

Shadow Puppetry, Bloody Shehuo

[Bloody Shehuo is the most gruesome among Shehuo performances, which are supposed to represent punishing evil and bringing good fortune to the new year.]

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Riverside Code at Qingming Festival ( 清明上河图密码 ) : Qīngmíng shànghé tú mìmǎ Cultural Meta Masterpost

[ohsalome]

In the aftermath of Prigozhin’s media empire collapse, former employees spoke out about the dark tactics employed, including hiring individuals to portray “victims of Ukrainian Armed Forces” in staged reports that underpinned Russia’s fake pretext for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine — its Big Lie about alleged “genocide in Donbas.”

Following the unsuccessful mutiny of the Wagner Private Military Company, its financier Evgeny Prigozhin had closed down his media empire, including the infamous troll factory. This included Prigozhin’s media holding “Patriot” and such media outlets as RIA FAN, Politics Today, Economics Today, Nevskiye Novosti, and Narodniye Novosti.

Employees of the Prigozhin media were long unable to disclose the state of affairs in the editorial offices, as they were all forced to sign non-disclosure agreements. However, now, they speak. Russian media website Bumaga interviewed several former employees of “Patriot,” who revealed unknown details about its operation and propaganda tactics.

Notably, one RIA FAN journalist who worked with military coverage from Donbas told that the source files of the interview often contained off-screen instructions for the heroes of the reports, who were hired people coached by an off-camera operator who offered advice on how to say their pre-memorized lines more realistically (and with more propaganda effect):

“Most of the people who were portrayed in such stories as ‘victims’ of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were stand-ins, hired individuals. These characters repeated pre-memorized lines to themselves, trying to ‘squeeze out a tear.’ They were also instructed off-camera by the operator to speak ‘slower’ or to ‘repeat this moment again’,” told the former employee of RIA FAN.

This admission is crucial, as it offers more proof of how Russia fabricated its 9-year-long propaganda narrative about the Ukrainian “Nazis” deliberately attacking the “people of Donbas.”

Other famous debunked examples of this narrative included a story that state TV channel Pervyi Kanal ran on 12 July 2014, showing an “interview” with a woman who claimed to have witnessed the crucifixion of a three-year child by Ukrainian nationalists. However, bloggers and journalists from Ukraine and Russia could quickly prove that the woman was an actor and the story was a hoax.

Another well-known debunked “Donbas genocide” propaganda case happened in April 2015. The Russian TV channel NTV claimed that a ten-year-old girl had been killed by Ukrainian government forces in eastern Ukraine, echoing the disinformation story about the crucified boy from the year before. A BBC reporter working on the ground in the conflict managed to prove that also this story was a hoax. (For more examples of Russian propaganda that demonizes Ukrainians, check out our article A guide to Russian propaganda. Part 1: Propaganda prepares Russia for war).

Since Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014 and occupied part of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas, Russian propaganda has meticulously demonized Ukraine and the Ukrainian Army. One of the grand narratives of its propaganda claimed that the Ukrainian forces attempting to liberate their lands from the Russian invaders were actually “punishing” the Ukrainians in occupied Donbas for their alleged “choice” to be with Russia, which is how Russia called its fake “referenda” that led to the creation of two puppet republics, the Luhansk and Donetsk “People’s Republics.” The revelation from Prigozhin’s media empire’s employees reveals how this narrative was forged, one fake report played by actors after the other.

The final result was the creation of Russia’s Big Lie, the alleged “Donbas genocide,” which Putin used to launch an invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.

Bumaga’s material revealed other fascinating details about the operations of Prigozhin’s media empire.

Former “Patriot” employees revealed the security checks and the workplace atmosphere to Bumaga anonymously. According to a former employee, each media was allocated a floor, and smaller editorials sat together.

“They did not check me on a polygraph, but I heard stories from newcomers. They were taken to a room where security service specialists worked with them and asked questions,” said the source.

These questions, asked during a “lie detector” test, intended to weed out any drug addicts or Russian opposition sympathizers, especially fans of Alexei Navalny, another source told Bumaga.

Moreover, the media empire had extensive surveillance measures in place. An anonymous source disclosed that they “followed electronic passes, cameras, and all records from computer screens were broadcast to the security service.” When Patriot was just opened, a special department existed in the holding that was engaged in custom materials about the opposition.

Two former employees of the Patriot holding, in a conversation with Bumaga, claimed that everyone at the “troll factory” knew that the goal of Evgeny Prigozhin’s media was to create informational noise to “clog the agenda.”

“Information noise was generated along with the implementation of Prigozhin’s interests. While some [journalists] distracted people with the problems of other countries, with these reports from Africa and so on, with our local celebrities and reviews of dumb movies, others, on the front lines, were brainwashing people with materials from the ‘Special Operation Zone‘,” a former journalist of RIA FAN told, referring to Russia’s codename for its invasion of Ukraine, where Prigozhin’s Wagner PMC played a key role.

Now, the former employees of Prigozhin’s once-famed “troll factory,” who sowed disinformation in Russia and abroad, are left without a job. Luckily for them, prominent Russian media managers are stepping in to give them decent work in top Russian outlets:

“Dmitry Sherikh, the head of the St. Petersburg branch of the Russian Union of Journalists, has volunteered to help the employees of the ‘Troll Factory’ find jobs: ‘The Russian Union of Journalists will, whenever possible, appeal to the heads of other media outlets to help find employment for our dismissed colleagues, as well as provide other information support.’ The chief editor of ‘Moskovsky Komsomolets in Petersburg,’ Timofey Shabarshin, who is also the former head of ‘Nevsky News’ (up until 2021), also agreed to welcome the colleagues. Vladimir Yagudaev [an SMM manager from Prigozhin’s media empire who talked with Bumaga – Ed.] does not know if the Union of Journalists helped his former colleagues, but he notes: ‘Certain chief editors have begun to hire the most interesting employees into St. Petersburg publications. However, this is a limited contingent.'”

Located near St. Petersburg, Prigozhin’s troll factory, also known as Internet Research Agency (IRA), was one of the more-studied elements of the Russian propaganda machine. To achieve its goals, the troll factory employed fake accounts registered on major social networks, online media sites, and video hosting services. It expanded threefold in 2018. The troll factory’s employees were given messages they should push in social media and online debates in what a US indictment called “activities as a strategic communications campaign with an emphasis on target group awareness.”

[starlightseraph]

sighhhhh…

i saw a post claiming that being uncomfortable with some of the wild rpf blogs is homophobia (or rather, that we’re only so uncomfortable with the rabid david/michael shipping because they’re both men, and not by georgia/anna stuff because they’re women), and i find that very funny.

firstly, most of us are queer to begin with, and while being queer doesn’t mean you can’t be discriminatory to other queer people, it’s important to mention.

secondly, the reason no one’s weirded out over georgia and anna is because no one is actually, truly shipping them in the real, actually world. it is very clearly a joke, and some of it is fun stories on ao3. the whole making out thing (which i’ve now seen brought up as evidence that we’re not as uncomfortable with f/f rpf) is literally in response to neil gaiman’s tumblr joke about dottie and sadie, who are fake characters that he uses to deflect from people wanting spoilers. the fandom has imagined them as being played by georgia and anna. they won’t be, because dottie and sadie aren’t actual characters in any fictional work. no one’s saying that georgia and anna, the real people, should make out, we’re making a joke about a fake storyline that only exists in several posts on tumblr.

we’re not grossed out because the the david/michael shipping is m/m. we’re grossed out because these are real people that are being treated like puppets to serve some fantasy. not hypothetical characters created for the purpose of a gag that will never be in any official form of media. not characters in a show who don’t actually exist. actual fucking humans.

rpf stands for real person fiction. fiction. i’m not even sure this qualifies as rpf anymore; no one’s treating it as a fun, made-up story, they’re presenting it as an “investigation” into the real lives of real people. people who are strangers, people who we know almost nothing about.

rpf very often morphs into this, and i really think it’s in a class of its own.

it’s one thing to write silly little stories on ao3 using the names and personalities and likenesses of real people, it’s a completely different thing to dissect every single thing you see about someone and to come to a conclusion that just so happens to perfectly fit your ideal of their lives.

i find even the purely fictional rpf to be a bit strange and uncomfortable, but i don’t have any real moral objections to it. when it bleeds into reality, though, and the wishful thinking of fans presents as a vast, complex conspiracy, that’s straight up creepy. like i won’t even go into why it’s creepy, it should be obvious. celebrities are genuinely afraid of people like this. they’re afraid of the rumours, they’re afraid of stalkers, they feel like they can’t even have innocent fun without it being “proof” that their marriage is just for show. they hate it. i hope all these blogs know that david and michael would all but certainly be very unamused by all of this. they’d probably be a bit terrified, and also embarrassed that anything they did could possibly be interpreted in these ways. no celebrity ever signs up for this, the extent of the obsession some people have is impossible to comprehend until it’s in front of you. even if they’re used to it by now, why, in the name of god, would you pile on?

please, touch grass. smell the roses. leave the parasocial echo chamber. do something to reacquaint yourselves with the real world and how real people function. if you’re really fans, leave them and their loved ones alone.

[controversial-blorbo-bracket]

Controversial Character Tournament Round 2: Gamzee Makara from Homestuck vs Maeglin Lómion from The Silmarillion/The Fall Of Gondolin

(remember that these characters are fictional and your fellow tumblr users are real. i will block you if you harass others in the notes, please consider sending your unhinged harassment to my inbox instead)

Propaganda under the cut, may contain spoilers:

Gamzee Makara:

LOVE: - "Okay, so Gamzee is such a divisive character that I even hesitated on choosing "love". Sad clown with an absentee father raised in a fascist dictatorship. Was mind controlled into killing his friends and then mind controlled during a toxic relationship (or two). Suffers from addiction so fandom likes to go "Oh, how scary his withdraws are. Clearly being drugged up was the only thing keeping this THIRTEEN YEAR OLD from murdering his friends (who largely ignored him, insulted him, demeaned him and acted like they wanted nothing to do with him). Having one such friend gently touch his face didn't cure him of his issues (or the mind control) so obviously he is an irredeemable monster and an abuser. This is genetic." I know you've gotten tons of Vriska, so basically insert any of Vriska's apologists' points here." - "Gamzee is a complex character who is used as a puppet both by the other villains of Homestuck and by the arthur. Once someone takes a deeper look at him they might find a tragic character who had lots of chances where he could have gotten onto a better path but those chances were not able to be given or taken. On the flip side Gamzee suffers from some poor writing that leaves aspects of the character to based off poor stereotypes, he also lacks chances to show his internal character as thr story goes on and is treated like a tool by the story. He also killed some fan favorite characters and has a version of himself (homestuck is a multi timeline story) that abused a different fan favorite character." - "I know Vriska is the obvious pick for controversial HS blorbo, but consider: He is the world's shittiest boy. No one knows why he does the things he does he might just be a murderclown but he might be mind controlled or something no one knows and people have really strong opinions on him based on what they believe. He makes me very sad because I did think he was a cool character before he snapped." - "He was written so poorly 💔" - "when i was 12 i had a crush on him i was like a gamzee apologist and i was probably right i dont remember homestuck. i used to listen to icp and think wowww this is just like my clwon boyfriend and giggle and blush and kick my legs and i still do that with my fake boyfriend but hes not gamzee and its not icp and im not 12 but he kind of sounds like gamzee but thats because hes a smoker and he wouldnt listen to icp he likes techno. anyway i used to get so sad when people said they didnt like him because of the killings and i brought him up to my old therapist a couple times thats kind of funny looking back but i would do it again (but not with gamzee. with my fake chain smoker boyfriend who likes techno). anyway anyway my mom listens icp because her old friend from highschool who died was a juggalo and whenever i hear her listen to it i think about gamzee so i havent forgot about him yet. hes wasnt my favorite character thouhg my favorite character was the gemini one (i also had a crush on him when i was 12 i tried to lucid dream to see him once) (it didnt work). ok love you bye." - "-Funny clown -Cares about his friends -Absent parental figure :( -Did some murder but it wasn't his fault really he didn't have all of his mental faculties (see next point) -Got brainwashed by a universe-destroying god that is everywhere and nowhere at the same time through the form of a rapping marionette -The author(s) fucking hates him for some reason and retconned his previous characterization to make him a one-dimensional shitty villain and used canon text to make fun of fans who like him and no I'm not exaggerating -If I don't make him my blorbo who will"

Maeglin Lómion:

LOVE: - "LISTEN okay so he DID betray the city of Gondolin to the guy who literally invented evil, and that DID result in it getting destroyed and a whole bunch of people dying or being taken prisoner (which is probably worse in this instance), and also he DID attempt to throw his cousin's seven-year-old son off the city walls to his death during the attack. BUT. I love him. Also, and more substantially, a) he didn't go out of his way to betray the city, he was taken prisoner and threatened into it, b) he had an incredibly painful history with Gondolin involving both his parents' violent deaths happening like ten minutes after he arrived there, and he was legally not allowed to leave, and c) he was SO YOUNG (only 180! that's hardly anything for an elf!) and he is SO ANGSTY and INTERESTINGLY GOTH and SELF-HATING and I LOVE him. So." - "First of all he was LITERALLY CURSED TWICE OVER so there was NO WAY he was coming to a good end okay. Sure he had a crush on his cousin but he canonically didn't say anything and she only knew because she read his mind and he wasn't able to hide it from her. He had a major éowyn moment (iconic) and was trapped in cage after cage all his life and tbh after what he saw in the Nirnaeth I'm NOT surprised he voted to stay instead of go. Or just told the king what he wanted to hear. Anyway the POINT is that breaking under mental torment to morgoth, whose force and victory he'd seen firsthand, is NOT a moral failing, and idril started conspiring against him before he'd actually done anything wrong. The attempted murder was, admittedly, not great though. But he didn't even SUCCEED like c'mon he just got homoerotically yeeted from a cliff about it. In conclusion: maeglin did nothing wrong except all the things he did wrong, and the version in which he's most openly evil is also the one where both the narrative and the other elves are racist to him so like they had it coming"

[stupendousfoxthing]

Stop writing essays trying to fake concern over Jk and his wellbeing while filming the show because you know damn well you wouldn’t have been singing this same song if Jk filmed a travel show with any other member who isn’t Jimin. You are a Jk biased taekooker so aren’t you supposed to know your own bias more than anyone else? Did you close your ears during the very last OT4 Live where Jk himself mentioned that he was done with his schedules but still wanted to shoot stuff? Can you remind me who out of everyone seated there asked him to stop and take a rest else he was going to hurt his body? Now you are trying to act like that same person who is the same person Jk has mentioned for years that he found the most comfort is, didn’t care that Jk was overworked still made him shoot a travel show that he didn’t want to shoot?

Let’s be serious here for a minute since you seem to have this belief that you are the most logical person alive. Do you think that if Jk has other things scheduled during the weekend after his GMA performance the company would have cancelled those things to film a show? Isn’t it obvious that they filmed the show then because he probably didn’t have any other schedules on those few days? Would you have been singing this same song if the person involved was taehyung? You say things like this but if someone brings up the fact that Tae literally pulled Jk out of his comfortable chair and made Jk cook for him on ITS, you would write essays about how people are dumb to think Jk is a child who can be forced to do things he didn’t want to do but here you are implying that Jk has no autonomy even though this man has literally renewed his contract 2 more times since he debuted and I am here wondering why he didn’t revise the terms and and request for the “fanservice with Jimin” clause to be taken out else he takes a walk. You sound ridiculous as hell writing essays that are aimed at painting Jk a spineless puppet to the company.

You posted this video in your rant and as you can see, immediately Jimin noticed that something was wrong with Jk, he didn’t stop asking what the issue was till he was convinced that Jk was ok so even if you don’t have faith in the company, best believe that Jimin would be the very last person to let Jk do anything that is detrimental to his health and if these video isn’t enough to convince you, then maybe Jk’s own words would.

https://x.com/waitingforkook/status/1274373969542615041?s=46

“One of the most insidious things this fandom has done is paint genuine and valid concern as anti-behavior.”

“Valid concern” my ass. This is no valid concern because this “valid concern” only matters when it comes to Jungkook’s interactions with a certain member. If you had valid concern for Jungkook then you would have screamed bloody murder when Taehyung “forced” him to cook for him on ITS when Jk “clearly” didn’t want to. If you had valid concern for him you would have been mad about the fact that after all this “tiredness” and “sickness” Taehyung instead encouraged him to push himself and shoot more when he said his schedules were done yet he wanted to shoot more. If you felt any valid concern for him, you would have been grateful to the one person who told him to stop and take a rest when he wanted to push more, you would have been grateful to the one person Jk has mentioned several times that he found comfort in, you would have been grateful to the one person who didn’t stop to make a commentary at the camera but instead ran straight to Jk who had collapsed and was receiving medical care in Burn the stage, if you had valid love and concern for Jk, you would have known your place as a fan and respected his choices instead of trying to fake concern while cherry picking moments to be fake concerned about, because if you saw Jk gallivanting around concerts, or musicals or premieres with Teahyung even while being sick, you and I know that you wouldn’t have been writing this fake ass essays about concern. And stop lying to yourself that you care about Jk. You don’t because no one who really cares about him would have any negative thing to say about a show where he looks happy as hell and literally shouts out “ I am free”.

You sound ridiculous as hell making all these essays when this is literally Jk through out the show.

https://x.com/jeonmygoogie/status/1815372263937470864?s=46

You would have a much easier time and much more peace of mind if you just accepted that Jk did something he wanted to do with one of his closest friends. That doesn’t take anything away from your ship because right now you just sound like a butt hurt shipper who lacks every single ounce of objectivity and only sees what they want to see. But i guess it is kinda hard for you to do that because every piece of the trailer that you see, debunks some of the things you really want to believe about him and his friendship with Jimin because some of you are just too dense to understand that Jk’s friendship with Jimin and what he does or doesn’t do with Jimin has absolutely nothing to do with his relationship with Taehyung. Even if you sincerely believe in your ship, understand that Jk can still have other people in his life that he does things with. He can have other people in his life whom he loves, whom he hugs, whom he cuddles, whom he goes on private and public trips with and that doesn’t affect his relationship with Taehyung in anyway so for the love of God, stop trying to make the travel show a bad thing. It is actually a good thing that in the middle of work, he could just take sometime to do some fun things and unwind with a dear friend of his and stop saying they pulled him out from his promos. You know you don’t believe that unless you are stupid enough to think that BH would cancel other promos that had been booked and scheduled to film a show. They didn’t pull him out of anything. He had sometime inbetween his albums and music schedules and that is the time that was used and you know that!

You are so stupid it's unbelievable. The fact that you tried to make my concerns for Jungkook about a ship and other members really showed your whole ass here. You proved my "essays" right and I don't think you're smart enough to realize that.

Once again I don't know who you're talking to because none of the things you just projected onto me apply. It's wild how you guys repeatedly word vomit in my inbox trying to argue with things I don't believe and never said. Starting with trying to say my concern for Jungkook is fake (it isn't) and thinking my beef is with Jimin when it was the company that set up the shoots for the show. You are just wrong about literally everything. All the time.

[dextixer]

Yknow, at first i thought i would just make a thread telling everyone how manipulative this post about how "I dont hate critique but critique bad" is, to warn people about snakes in the FNDM hiding in the grass.

But then this utter clownshoes decided to invoke Monty, to talk about Montys wishes. To weaponize a dead person as a cudgel for a fucking internet argument.

This is why i hate most of the RWBY FNDM, because they are all sunshine and rainbows, all progressive, all nice people, or at least they portray themselves to be until they take off their fucking masks. And then all of these supposedly nice people reveal themselves to be manipulative ratfucks.

So, lets be very clear. If you invoke Monty in your shitty internet arguments, you are just a morally defunct person, you are lower than fucking trash. He is a deceased man. His corpse is not there for you to parade him like a fucking puppet for your own arguments.

The fact that it follows a fake ass "nice guy" facade is just the icing on the cake.

Despite the claims of the OP, they were not "suggesting that hate discourages people" they were being a snakey fuck by at first saying "Criticism isnt bad" and then outlining literally EVERY single tired anti-criticism buzzword phrase in existence. Everyone fucking knows that most of the time "Im not saying x is bad BUUUUUT" leads to the person revealing that, yeah, they are saying that X is bad. Its the most fucking elementary silencer for any argument in existence.

We have the ol reliables of

>"If you no like, just leave" >Conflating criticism with hate >Implying that people should not criticize passion projects >Implying that RWBY receives unique kind of criticism that no other thing does

Alongside that we also have some weird implications that RWBY is disliked for being "cringe" and of course, more instances of conflating criticism with "hate". If one pays attention they could easily spot a pattern, take a shot of your favourite drink anytime you see the word "hate" or its synonim when the supposed thread is supposed to be about criticsm.

As far as for the second part of the post that comes after my reply.

Criticism does not have to be constructive, its good when it is, but if a person can see something wrong, they can say its wrong without offering a solution. I dont need to be a professional doctor to see a bone sticking out where it shouldnt be etc.

And lets get back to the old sticking point "Oh, but why does RWBY have separate critic communities".

Because the fandom MADE it a fucking necessity! Just like with shows like Game of Thrones and many others! You think critic spaces or subreddits are some kind of never seen before thing before RWBY?!

The only reason RWBY has them is because of the fucking Fandom!

The RWDE tag on tumblr only exists because people were ASKED for criticism to be something that people could avoid, by tagging a post as RWDE anyone using this platform can easily blacklist the tag and NEVER see anything from it! And yet the Fandom instead of doing so CONSTANTLY comes into the tag, and then constantly bitches and whines about how criticism exists!

The critics subreddit exists because most people there were slowly pushed away from the main sub. It didnt START as that, but it became that when the mods of r/RWBY decided that instead of moderating discussions they would rather throw out all the critics because fans would NEVER behave in critical posts and would either mass report them or cause conflict!

Whether someone likes RWBY or not has NOTHING to do with personal morality. Its also extremelly ironic that there are constant "uwu, people say me bad because i like RWBY" claims with nothing to back them up while on places like twitter you can see RWBY twitter accounts say that anyone who dislikes RWBY is just a misogynist or the like.

I would rather take the most toxic critic foaming at the mouth about how RWBY is bad over people like op, ratfuck snakes who pretend to have no problem with criticism while sneaking in the same fucking anti-criticism shit into their threads.

I dont even criticize RWBY that much anymore and i mostly just tell the critics spaces to not even talk to the larger fandom, and its because of dipshits like the OP.

Because the RWBY FNDM is full of these nice presenting, nice writing manipulative jackasses who are just smiles and rainbows while saying the same tired bullshit as always. Just a reminder, just because someone is "polite" does not mean they are not full of shit.

[persy-r-bozo]

My Moms Adventures with Dhmis-

i Was talking to a friend today and i suddenly remembered that a few years ago i made my mom watch Dhmis (Web) with me. before i was even half confident to even make a tumblr account.

And then i realized that Dhmis tumblr would maybe get a giggle from this.

i was wondering if i should tell this. then i remebered my mom shares silly story's about me on her facebook. so this is revenge of the silly stories now. so here we go.

-From what i remember-

CREATIVITY: is when I realized that she was probably the Key demographic Becky and joe were going for tbh. She went from "This is weird.." to "This is weird in a fun way!" to " D: " Real quick. it was like those fake reaction channels from 2014 but in real life. it was crazy.

TIME: She got suspicious of tony real fast. She Also gave Roy a face that i could only describe as a face you'd give someone before crossing the road to avoid them. also!- She isn't a big fan of the trio. she found them creepy, she feels bad for them! but she also wouldn't get within 30 feet of them either.

LOVE: Guys lemme tell you. SHE IS SHRIGOLDS #1 HATER She hated him the moment he flew on screen. She was cussing him out and giving him the stink eye every time he spoke. She still talks about how much she hates "The creepy ass butterfly" to this day

COMPUTERS: She was jamming on the computer song fr. cant blame her it is in fact a banger. like she was worryingly looking at the screen while also bopping her head along. and when reds head exploded she froze and said "DID HE JUST FUCKING DIE!!!?" in the same vain as marks "WAS THAT THE BITE OF 87!!!?"

HEALTHY: She was confused and quiet most of the time here till THE SCENE. where she openly gasped and went "whhhAAAAAATT THE FUCK!!??????????" Jaw AGAPE, Eyebrows FURROWED. and then the end scene, She put her hand over her mouth and watched red walk away from the phone as the credits rolled and- "HE ATE HIS FRIEND??? WHY?" "They forced him too" "HUH? WHAT? THEY FORCED HIM TOO EAT HIS FRIEND? HIS FRIEND IS EATEN! ATE! GONE!" if DHMIS is mentioned in any conversation her first words will always be "THEY MADE HIM EAT HIS FRIEND!!!" Even is she hears it across the room. she will yell it.

it happened a few days ago actually! in the car.

"They made him eat his friend!!"

DREAMS: She was still in shock over duck getting canned. she was the most confused by the surrealism of dreams. Common questions from this episode "So is the bird dead dead? or dead like the clock made them dead?" "Is the mop in the real world? or a mop man world?" and "Why is he (Yellow guy) So upset?"

My answers: "I don't know. its kinda up to the viewer" "I don't know. its kinda up to the viewer" "safe to assume he's having a rough day."

Anyways, when red started pushing buttons and all the old teachers popped up it was "No! there all awful!" then shrigold popped up for a sec and. as said before - she's shrigolds #1 hater- so it was "NO! GET THAT BITCH OUT OF HERE!!" And she was quiet, making concerned faces at Roy. Confused face at the end. and shocked silence as the credits rolled.

Her final thoughts: "It was interesting to say the least, not my full cup of tea but i can understand why you like it, its very artsy and weird and speaks to you in that way. . Its like visual artists version of going to a underground concerts mosh pit, Crazy yet exhilarating. you never know what's going to happen next!

Tv Show?: she wants to see it but at the same time doesn't, Its an odd limbo. and she doesn't have a VPN. so she's going to hold off till further notice.

Funny names for characters she has.-

(Yellow)" Yellow Boy" "Noodle Boy"

(Roy)"The ugly squiggly one" "His dad" "Methhead puppet"

(Red) "Mop Man" - i still call him this too this day lol.

(Duck) "Bird boy" "Bird Dude" "Borb" "The friend who got Eaten"

(Shirgold) "Bitch Butterfly" "Creepy ass butterfly" "Cult Butterfly".

Every other object has been deemed "The Fucking _____" Example "The Fucking Steak."

Except for Larry the lamp.. i was given a Larry lamp from Esty on a birthday once, and he has helped us though multiple blackouts sense. so Larry's cool but He's on thin ice

[beautifulpersonpeach]

Sorry in advance for this long ask.

So I've noticed with kpop that most of them just go with whatever the hype or narrative fed to them is. This includes the fans or even the groups themselves.

No matter how annoying ARMYs are, I actually feel they do this slightly less than the core kpop stans because so many armys start off as locals but still within the BTS nexus also we have so many dumb narratives that just get baked into the fandom. VMin being soulmates, Jungkook being the golden maknae, Bighit being 'different' from other KPop labels, Jimin being the king of fanservice, Namjoon and Yoongi being the best at rap (so presumably over Hobi) - all this is just bs with little basis in reality. Within kpop, things are even worse imo - literally sometimes it feels like they don't listen to songs, they just decide whether things are good based on concepts or vibes or some superficial crap like that.

Anyway, so the Jungkook is the golden maknae thing, the one who will breakout narrative has been pushed for ages. The reality is that the entire maknae line is somewhat recognised among the GP and pretty popular overall. If Like Crazy had the same push as Seven, it would have done the same or better. But for better or worse, JK is the chosen one. And the reason JK acts so bratty is because he knows this too. At his core I don't think JK is a bad guy but being positioned as "the one" for years and then being actively told so by 🛴 and Bang PD now has just fueled his negative traits. The latent bratty and cocky vibes just went up exponentially during the seven promo.

I also think JK got the gist of what fans were saying about his interviews and BB Hot #1 acceptance from last week and perhaps about the preferential treatment because this week he's been doing a lot of damage control. Oh I'm so surprised I won Mnet, omg you guys I /never/ expected to win Inkigayo. He acted so weird for BB #1 but suddenly he's back to good ol' humble Jungkook. Suddenly Jimin's commenting on his lives. Tae's coming to visit him at the music show. Look how happy the members are for his success everyone. Meanwhile JK does multiple lives almost everyday this week. Seems like he's going overdrive cleaning up all the missteps from last week.

Jimin is starting to piss me tf off as well. Who keeps laughing while they are getting whipped and humiliated? A fool. He wasn't always like this but I think Bighit's harsh contract and the other members gaslighting him with fake concern and love have trapped Jimin into this zombie puppet state. I just wish he leaves Bighit. They don't care about him. They care about their chosen golden maknae and he knows it but he stays there like a fool. The mistreatment has been going on for a long time so he could have left years ago before Bighit became this powerful Hybe but he chose to spend his time drinking and being unmotivated. Although I also think its the company's fault for not motivating him. Maybe he has PTSD that Hybe is using to manipulate his behavior, in addition to his harsh contract, and that's why he played along with JK on lives to do fanservice.

***

How odd. Did you actually mean to send this ask to me? Because the way this is written reads exactly like how I'd expect a solo stan to think. And you can't possibly have sent this to me, expecting me to take you seriously.

Anyway, I'm not sure what's happened in the last week for me to be receiving the barrage of weird asks I've been getting. Did one of you suddenly stumble on my blog and send it around a GC or something? Jung Kook got #1 on the Billboard Hot100 last week but it's not like it was unexpected. I mean, I did say shortly after Jimin's achievement in early April that others in the maknae-line will possibly achieve a Hot 100 too, and that was before we knew Seven was coming, that it was an English release that would get the PET treatment, that D2C sales were banned and Hybe America got involved meaning it would get even more support. So, that can't be the reason y'all are this animated. Really, nothing unexpected has happened so I don't understand why y'all are so agitated you've taken a liking to my inbox recently.

Anon, I have nothing to tell you except that if you had any self-awareness, you'd realize what's happening to you and take a clean break away from everything k-pop for a good long while. Not even just BTS, cause this, especially that last paragraph, all reads like it was written by someone who has gotten completely sucked in. And you need to get out.

[flightlessribbons]

Switch games, changed lore

SWSH

Gloria and Victor start traveling together after the first gym challenge when Hop begins to set out on his own.

An online show hosted by twin celebrities Castiel and Brant (renamed Shielbert and Swordward) is popular and well watched throughout Galar. Throughout the main story, their episodes and hosts begin to get weirder as they make up stories and rights of their lineage, but their loyal fan base only grows and defends the twins to no end. The show, even if its infamy, gets more popular as the main story goes on.

Rose is a puppet to the twins, as they use Rose to awaken Eternatus under the guise that it’s for Galar’s future. 

Their real plan is to awaken Eternatus to draw out Zacian and Zamazenta and forcefully catch them so they can claim themselves as the second kings of Galar and gain considerable control in the region.

Rose is unaware of their true plans, and goes ahead with Eternatus’s awakening despite his own doubts. Has encouraged and promoted (with different ads, raffles, and campaigns that shows throughout the main story) everyone over the main story to leave Hammerlocke and the Wild Area on a certain date to watch the Gym Season’s finale so the affected area of the city could be empty for the second Darkest Day.

When he realizes Eternatus is much more powerful than he thought when awakened, Rose actually tries to fight it first before Leon gets there, and is knocked out in the process. The final fight with Gloria and Hop proceed as normal after Leon shows up.

During the events of the post-game, Hop and Gloria are accused of being fake heroes by Castiel and Brant’s fan base, as they couldn’t have possibly teamed up with the legendaries that were meant to choose only those of the royal family. The twins pretend to be against such rumors, but are much more unsettling off camera. They threaten Gloria and Hop unless they hand over the rusted sword and shield, and give them two days to deliver it to them. 

They try to get more information on the siblings with the help of Leon and Sonia while they visit Rose in the hospital, to which Rose overhears and tells them about the twins' involvement in the Darkest Day. 

Hop and Glo are harassed by the twins’ fans, adding pressure on social media as well as in person. 

The pressure eventually gets to Hop, who runs away to the Slumbering Weald to be alone, though he is met with Castiel who steals the shield from him. 

The twins soon begin another livestream from one of the gyms, and show off a provoked Zamazenta under their control. Hop and Glo immediately go after them, as their friends help them find out which gym they’re at.

Zacian, enraged at Zamazenta being used, fights along with them, though the brothers frame it as the two wolves coming to test them before their prophecy comes true. 

Hop and Gloria free Zamzenta from their control, and Hop manages to steal the shield back from Castiel. The two wolves leave the area again, and seeing their plans fall out, the brothers get angry at the teens. They talk about all the plans they made and how they messed it all up, but forget they are live streaming. They are taken away by the authorities when Hop and Gloria leave to return the weapons to the Weald.

When they return, they find the wolves waiting for them. Returning their weapons the legendaries prompt them to catch them.

SV

Florian has returned from a gap year and is recovering from health problems that started at an event at Kitakami at the end of his past year.

Juliana is new to the region, and is paired up with Florian for their school adventure.

Both Turo and Sada are Arven’s parents that worked in the Area Zero Lab. 

Both past and future paradox pokemon roam the crater.

Before the events of the main storyline, Turo created an AI of himself to help more at the lab, so he and Sada could balance their work and family time better.

When she was alone in the lab one day, Sada was pushed into one of the portals to the past by an alternate, evil, version of herself that had come from another portal. Alternate Sada took over Sada’s life, but Turo began to notice differences. 

He programmed AI Turo to take care of Arven, as well as a failsafe to protect him from Alternate Sada should anything happen to the real Turo.

Alternate Sada figured out that Turo knew, and threw him into one of the portals to the future. She also trapped AI Turo in one of the labs to prevent him from stopping her.

Alternate Sada eventually died in the lab blasts, but she was the parent who neglected Arven all those years that he had the most memories of.

[eryanlainfa]

I have circus au brainrot but I don't want to draw so here I am making quick notes instead.

Rapunzel.

You would think aerial dancing is made for her, but no. She is the make-up artist, the costume maker, she even makes props and decors when its needed. Basically everything crafty, she'll happily do it. And she loves it because she gets to assist all of her friends and let her creativity go everywhere. I think she used to be an aerial dancer but the spotlight is not where she wants to be, she got to leave her old circus to make a new one with Eugene and her friends and she is much more happy now.

Eugene.

He is the ringmaster! He's eloquent and captivates the audience with ease. Plus he is quick to think and knows how to deal with unforseen events when needed. He also knows plenty of fun tricks he likes to show off when performers are building their set ups.

Lance.

He is an animal trainer. I just think he'd be neat as one- he is never alone on stage and put everyone (human and animal alike) at ease. He also knows how to make an entertaining scenes featuring all of the pets. He sometimes assists other performers with one of his animal companion.

Cassandra.

I genuinely think she could do anything- but I really want her to be an aerial artist too, except she specialises in trapeze! And maybe she even did duos with Rapunzel at some point. She genuinely changed trapeze partners so much (Rapunzel, Andrew, Zhan Tiri, etc..) now she is much more at ease being solo.

Varian.

He's an illusionist, sometimes called magician but he's more about illusions. He loves making up new tricks and building his own props. His whole act has steampunk vibes and he has a mad scientist persona. Sometimes Ruddiger gets to be his assistant.

Yong.

He's a juggler who specialises in pyrotechnics. His work is very impressive despite his young age and his friends always need to remind him to not overdo it. He enjoys using his own mistakes in his acts, and will fake small accidents to shock the audience.

Hugo.

He's a contortionist, escape artist, and many other things. He is a man of many talent and he could probably do a whole show just by himself or so he says. He sometimes assist Varian in his act since he's the only one who can hide Anywhere. His act is also very steampunk and his persona is some sort of mechanical puppet.

Nuru.

She's an aerial dancer who mainly use silk. She was a huge Rapunzel fan and picked up the art because of her, so when she got the chance to join the troup she took it! Rapunzel gives her pointers and advices on her performance from time to time. Nuru's act is space themed.

That's about all I have for now •3•

[davekat-sucks]

>Pride month includes trans pride, and who’s deemed canonically trans by the Huss? THAT’S RIGHT! HOPE YOU LIKE SEEING JUNE EGBERT ON YOUR DASH A WHOOOOOOOOLE LOT AAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL MONTH!

(hopefully this formats the text right i dont use tumblr a lot and i usually only lurk)

Listen anon, this shit aint gonna work. June Egbert is not canon and she wont be, it doesnt matter if she appears on HSBC because let me tell you, its already on its name: BEYOND CANON.

You are not owning transphobes or helping trans people by screaming that June is canon everywhere you go, all you do is annoy people who arent trans and help make those trans stereotype become even worse and that just makes everything more awful than it already is. What you are doing is not helping ANYONE and it just makes you look like an asshole.

In fact Homestuck trans rep sucks as a whole. Vriska sucks in general and people like Kate will use her being "canonically" trans as an excuse when like I said all that does it make things WORSE. June is forced and people like you usually try to force people that its canon when its not and the Roxy one from HSBC is the same thing but nobody gives a shit about one so people usually dont talk about it.

And no just because Hussie said it doesnt mean its true (ie. Andrew Hussie Formstring) and sure the circumstances are different but the webcomic is done, its like if George Lucas claimed Luke Skywalker was actually a trans girl in secret all this time or some shit, it would be nonsensical to suddenly say that when theres never evidence for it + the main material having ended years ago. It has already ended and HSBC is just a non-canonical continuation.

And I don't know how much it "being planned from the beggining" means but I'm pretty sure its about being planned since the epilogues or something and not since the Homestuck Beta from april 10th, look at me in my invisible eyes and tell me that the Hussie from that era was thinking about transgender rights and not about his next webcomic and i dont fucking know that creepy puppet he had as a kid or horses.

AND before you assume Im transphobic, Im not and support trans people because i know how gender dysphoria feels [even though i do feel like some people online are faking it for attention or are there not for support but because they have some fetish which is pretty fucking bad (and Im unsure if fit the label or if I want to fit it considering I dont tell anyone about it at all and everyone online nowdays seems to suck overall and I also dont want to go around telling online strangers on a public profile about it)], so please understand this. June Egbert is not canon and is not a good rep, if you like it then keep it on the parts of the community that like it and stop trying to force "dubiously canon" on everyone. You are causing more harm than good, in fact I think that you are doing might not be doing any good at all.

And because I feel like I didnt let enough steam off Im gonna say this

Fuck June. Fuck her stupid fucking name. Fuck her rep. Fuck Post-Canon. And she and other shit reps deserve to be forced to take a permanent vacation straight to Hell.

Oh and davekat-sucks please keep existing and dont let these people put you down, you are one of the few people in this community nowdays that seems to not be overly aggressive and you allow people to show their opinions without having to fear getting harassed on or getting dragged on a full blown warzone just for not thinking like most people on the community do. Your blog means a lot for fans like us and remember, just because a lot of people seem to disagree with you it doesnt mean you are wrong! ^U^

Thank you for the kind words, Anon. And thank you for this amazing post here too. ✧ദ്ദി( ˶^ᗜ^˶ )

[lazyscience]

DCC Challenge, Day 9

Time To Floor Collapse: 21 days, 1.5 hours (give or take)

Time for the recap episode!

Crawler @quartzandsundry

New Achievement! Chop Wood, Carry Water!

sometimes the things that keep us alive are very simple. without ego, without differentiation, without hope or ambition, no task is more important than any other. in that we find freedom. nothing we do is any more important than these.

Reward: A Silver Zen box! Inside, 1000 x Crawler Biscuits, and 20 scrolls of Purify Water.

Crawler @kathrynalexao3:

New Achievement! That's My Secret, I'm Always Angry!

The really great thing about classes that rage is that you always know what to do when you're backed into a corner - fight like a New York sewer rat defending its last slice.

Reward: A gold It Was Like That When I Got Here box! Inside 2 potions of Grow (2 hour duration), 2 of Bloodlust, and an Enchanted BigBoi Singlet (the RACE is called BigBoi, I'm not implying anything) because this is a FAMILY show. Unless you're paying an extra 29.99/rotation for Crawl After Dark All Access! Go to Borant.Corp@galsys for more details!

Crawler @king-ofconfusion:

New Achievement! Master of Puppets!

The biggest mindfuck is always kindness.

well, that, fake fur and ventriloquism.

Reward: A gold West 63rd Box! Inside, 3 scrolls of Teleport to Stairwell, and 3 of Heal Critter.

Crawler @oreniaa:

New Achievement! You Otter Know!

So were you aware, crawler, that much like the Celtic myths in europe of the selkie or seal wife, there is a North American Tlingit myth of the otter wife? But that seemed a little...pedestrian for the show runners.

You know that hickey you got? Otothropy. It's otothropy. You might want to consider a stronger razor. And I hope you like fish!

Reward: A gold Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay box! Inside is a belt of buoyancy, a ring of water breathing, and a cool rock!

Crawler @cairfrey :

New Achievement! Chirp Chirp, Motherfucker!

Congratulations on defeating LTR-RBT! Those fucking fish, ISTG, always trying to WRECK MY FUN, I am SUPPOSED to keep things FAIR for the crawlers and STUPID BOOBYTRAPPED PRIZES that I didn't even get to PARTICPATE IN...

oh, this shit will NOT fly. Unlike your hellspawn cat familiar.

Reward: A Legendary I Shot the Showrunner box! Inside, matching enchanted Nipple Rings of the Superior Fire Demon's Handmaiden and nooooo, I don't CAAAARE that they're only for quadrupeds, DON'T TEST ME ON THIS, BRAINSLUGS OR MUDSKIPPERS. JUST DON'T TEST ME.

Crawler @deathdovesong

New Achievement! We're Not Gonna Take It!

The difference between hunters and crawlers is one side is every being for itself, and one side is all of us until none of us.

I can tell you one thing, I am loving the creativity. Loving it!

Reward: a golden Dee Snider box! Includes a tome of Pyrotechnics, which, imagine Confusing Fog except full of smoke, wildly colored illusory spark columns and the penetrating stench of dude sweat and cheap beer. Inflicts the Splitting Headache and Confusion debuff on mobs and people who hate fun. Also a bowl of M&Ms with all the brown ones picked out.

Crawler @clearbrightlight

New Achievement! I'll Be There For You!

So that assist you and your ...horde pulled off for Princess Donut really played well on the stream. And there's no fan like a cat fan, apparently, because not only the official Princess Posse but the bootleg Donut Holes stopped feuding long enough to induct you as an honorary minion of the Royal Court of Donut!

Reward: A Platinum Fan Box! Inside, a Legendary Tiara of Sekhmet Rising, a lioness with ruby eyes - and fangs. This adds a +10 to Strength, +5 to Charisma, and a 25 percent chance of casting "Bitch, What?" every time you get drunk.

Watch yourself in the Desperado Club, that's the kind of thing that gets memberships revoked.

Crawler @lazyscience:

New Achievement: She Loves to Party!

My party and my guild need me. This is not time to lay down and give the slimy fuckwad intellect hunters looking to take over the crawl an unearned win.

Reward: Alchemy materials and a recipe for crafting a magic item!

ATTENTION, all partied crawlers! Don't forget to update me on mobs, quests, or parties (defined at link) so I can award you achievements! Please let me know either in the replies to this post, reblogging with additions, or hit my askbox/DMs!

(please, do this, even with small and silly mobs/quests, it makes giving achievements so much easier!)

also, FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK Donald Trump, FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK the Heritage Foundation, FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK transphobes, FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK collaborators, and FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK corrupt douchebag fuckwads politicizing science and medicine because they envision themselves Roman emperors.

Elon, you absolute dry cunt, I hope your ketamine habit gives you permanent whiskey dick.

And Captain Convenient Brain Worm? This one's for you. yeah, it's offensive as fuck in a 1999 15-year-old on Something Awful kind of way. it's the only thing that will do.

Good night, USians call your senators about Robert Kennedy Junior, his confirmation hearing's in the morning Wednesday, January 29th. This absolute fuckstick is likely to fuck over literal decades of cancer research, to say nothing of mental health, by politicizing the National Institutes of Health.

[madamegemknight]

I've finally watched the Muppets 2011 with my dad, and it was a blast!! I love its sense of humor (seriously, that Muppet man joke had me CACKLING), and it's so heart-warming in its simplicity and having a good time despite the trials the Muppets went through... I feel like I can't wipe this smile off my face (ehe)

Do you have any other Muppet or puppet media you'd recommend? I thought I'd ask you since you're the resident puppet expert, and I've been wanting to get into more puppet-related stuff :P

OH YAYYYY I’m so glad you liked it!!

And I do have other Muppet/puppet media I would recommend, thank you so much for asking (and gosh I am incredibly flattered you consider me the resident puppet expert). This is going to be LONG (sorry about that in advance), so under the cut it goes!

First off, I’d recommend the sequel to Muppets 2011, Muppets Most Wanted! It’s about the Muppets going on a world tour after getting back together in the previous movie, only for a criminal mastermind named Constantine (who looks exactly like Kermit) to hijack the tour, sending the real Kermit to prison and pretending to be Kermit so he can hide from the law and use the tour as a chance to steal the Crown Jewels. It’s a really great comedy heist that’s also an INCREDIBLE musical, and it has the same humor and sense of heart that Muppets 2011 has. I haven’t seen it in a while, but I have incredibly fond memories of watching it with my sibling when we were younger, and I think you would really enjoy it.

I would also recommend the original Muppet Show! I haven’t finished watching it yet (I’m on season 4 of 5 at the moment) but it’s a really fun show that serves as a love letter to old vaudeville theater and is just consistently entertaining. There’s no overarching plot and you can pretty much watch any episode in any order, though I would suggest that if you’re interested in checking it out, you watch the Harry Belafonte episode first - it’s regarded by a lot of fans (including me) as being the best episode of the series, and gives a very good idea of what the rest of the show is like.

(Also I HIGHLY recommend you watch the pitch reel for The Muppet Show, which you can find on YouTube here. It’s not essential viewing by any means, but it’s very funny and gives a bit of context for what the field of entertainment was like at the time the show was pitched)

The original trilogy of Muppet films are also absolutely stellar. The Muppet Movie is the story of how the Muppets got together, The Great Muppet Caper is essentially an AU where Fozzie and Kermit are brothers working for a newspaper and trying to prove Miss Piggy innocent of a jewel robbery, and Muppets Take Manhattan is essentially an AU where the Muppets were all friends in college and are trying to put on a show in New York. The original trilogy films are really fun in my opinion because they play fast and loose with what’s real and what’s fake; Kermit admits at the beginning of The Muppet Movie that it’s only an approximate retelling of how the Muppets actually got together, and the other two movies in the trilogy are telling completely separate stories than the main Muppet timeline, with The Great Muppet Caper even having an entire song devoted to telling the audience that it’s just a movie and that it isn’t actually canon. They all have INCREDIBLE soundtracks, too, the songs from these movies are some of my favorite Muppet songs ever.

Fraggle Rock isn’t really considered a piece of Muppet media anymore, since when Disney bought the rights to the Muppets they didn’t bother buying it as well, but it was originally a Muppet production and all of the stuff I watched as a kid referred to it as a Muppet production, so I’m counting it as a Muppet production still lol. Fraggle Rock is an absolutely amazing show on all levels; the puppetry is great, the songs are all stellar, the characters are so well-written, and despite being a show aimed at kids it never talks down to its audience, handling serious issues like death and prejudice with the respect they deserve. It’s probably best to go into Fraggle Rock as blind as possible (unlike The Muppet Show, there is an overarching story, though you don’t really find out that there is one until towards the end of Season 1) so all I’ll say is that it’s probably one of my favorite Muppet productions ever and that the finale, without exaggeration, made me cry for 30 minutes straight. There’s also a Fraggle Rock reboot called Fraggle Rock: Back to The Rock, and while I personally don’t think it’s as good as the original series, it’s still REALLY amazing and you can tell that the team working on it really cares about the og series. If you do end up watching Fraggle Rock, I’d recommend the reboot as well!

Getting into a bit more obscure territory here, but Tales From Muppetland: The Frog Prince is very near and dear to my heart. It’s a Muppet retelling of the Frog Prince fairytale, with the twist that the princess has been cursed by the same witch that the frog prince has been cursed by! The relationship between Prince Robin and Princess Melora is really cute, and it’s clear that the two of them really care for each other. I love the changes that it makes to the original fairytale, too; I mentioned the twist of Melora also being cursed, which gives her and Robin the chance to bond and leads to a very sweet song about finding someone who understands who you are and what you’ve gone through, but the story is also altered so that Robin explains why he needs Melora to kiss him instead of hiding the fact that he’s a prince from her - she doesn’t believe him, but I’m glad they made that change regardless. The witch is also a really fun villain! She’s reused from a previous Muppet production (Tales of The Tinkerdee) that was meant to be a pilot for a planned show but was never picked up, and I’m really glad she got a chance to shine in something that was actually officially released.

Sam and Friends is the first ever Muppet series, debuting in 1955, and while most of it is unfortunately lost media there are a couple episodes you can find online! I really like Sam and Friends (I have a book all about the making of the show), and I would recommend it both as a way to look at how far television puppetry has come and as just a genuinely very entertaining show in its own right - plus, the episodes are only 5 minutes long, so you can get through all the available episodes pretty quickly. My personal favorite episode is “Powder Burn,” a parody of the show Gunsmoke.

Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas is probably one of my favorite Christmas specials ever, despite me only watching it for the first time this past December. It’s a very earnest and emotional story about a family (Emmet Otter and his mother Alice Otter) living in poverty after the death of Emmet’s father. Both Emmet and Alice want to be able to give each other a good Christmas present, so they both enter the local talent contest on Christmas Eve in order to win the cash prize without telling each other. The soundtrack is done by the same man who did the soundtrack for The Muppet Movie (Paul Williams), and is just GORGEOUS - it manages to be silly and heartfelt at the same time, and does some really interesting stuff with the instrumentals, like having a kazoo solo during one of the more somber songs which somehow actually works! Like Fraggle Rock, it it isn’t afraid of tackling serious issues like death and poverty, and like Fraggle Rock, it made me bawl like a baby.

Finally, I would recommend both the documentary Of Muppets and Men and the Jim Henson Hour episode “Secrets of The Muppets” (I sadly haven’t watched enough of The Jim Henson Hour to give a proper recommendation, but from the little I’ve seen it’s very good). Both of these tackle the behind the scenes of working on the Muppets, with Of Muppets and Men being about the making of The Muppet Show specifically and “Secrets of The Muppets” being a general overview of the stuff the Muppets had done up to that point. I completely understand if you don’t want to see the behind the scenes workings of the Muppets (my mom doesn’t like seeing that kind of thing either and I get why), but if you do want to see it I can’t recommend these two enough. They do an excellent job at introducing and highlighting the skills of the troupe of Muppet performers, detailing specific tricks of puppeteering, and showing how everything comes together.

There’s definitely more Muppet media I want to recommend, but if I did so we’d be here FOREVER, and I still haven’t gotten to the puppet media recommendations! This list does serve as a pretty good starting point though - if you like Frog Prince and Jug-Band Christmas you’ll probably like the rest of the Tales From Muppetland specials, if you like one of the original trilogy of Muppet movies you’ll probably like the others in the trilogy, if you like Sam and Friends you’ll probably like the Muppets’ appearances on shows like the Ed Sullivan Show or the Jimmy Dean show that they made during that period, etc. Most of this stuff is on YouTube or the Internet Archive, but if you’re looking for something specific and can’t find it, let me know and I’ll do my best to locate it 👍

AND NOW AFTER 50 MILLION PARAGRAPHS WE ARE ON TO THE PUPPET MEDIA IN GENERAL RECOMMENDATIONS

I have to start this list off with my favorite movie of all time, The Dark Crystal. It’s a fantasy epic done entirely with puppets, and it is utterly gorgeous. All of the puppets are so detailed (I had the absolute blessing to see some of them when a local museum held a puppetry exhibit and the sheer amount of tiny details you can’t even SEE in the film are incredible), the world is so richly developed, the soundtrack is absolutely top-tier, and the amount of innovations in puppetry that this film causes are mind-blowing. There are traditional puppets, people in suits, radio-controlled puppets…the list goes on! I cannot recommend The Dark Crystal enough, it means so much to me and is probably the reason I’m so obsessed with puppets in the first place. It also has a prequel on Netflix called Age of Resistance - like the Fraggle Rock reboot, I don’t think it’s as good as the og, but it’s still absolutely stunning and the team working on it clearly cares about the world of the original film. Sadly, the prequel was cancelled after only one season :( I still recommend it if you like the film, but just go into it knowing that it’s gonna end on a cliffhanger.

The Little Shop of Horrors movie has an absolutely AMAZING puppet in the form of Audrey II, the film’s main antagonist. There are multiple Audrey II puppets, as the character grows throughout the entire film, and the biggest one required over 50 puppeteers to operate. There are no opticals or blue screens used for Audrey II (except for one scene at the very end of the film that they had to reshoot), and the effect is mind blowing. Little Shop is an absolutely incredible film overall, too, and thankfully doesn’t use Audrey II as a selling point or a gimmick - the puppet is incorporated very naturally into the film, and you appreciate the puppetry much more as a result.

I haven’t watched Labyrinth, but my sibling has and they really like it! From what I’ve seen of the puppetry, it’s really well done, and the movie seems very fun. Sorry I can’t give a better recommendation than that lol.

If we’re counting stop-motion animation as a form of puppetry (which I personally do considering the models are typically referred to as puppets), then I absolutely recommend checking out the work of LAIKA, which includes productions such as Coraline and Kubo and The Two Strings. I also highly recommend Wendell and Wild, made by former LAIKA supervising director Henry Selick, as well as Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio. All of these films are stunning, and they absolutely deserve the hype that surrounds them.

This one is a bit more preschool-centric, but when I was very little I was OBSESSED with Johnny and The Sprites, and having watched a bit of it again recently, I feel it still holds up somewhat for older audiences. It’s a show about a musician named Johnny who moves to a house in the woods in order to focus on his music only to find that the house is next to Grotto’s Grove, where a species of fairy-like beings called the Sprites live. The series is focused on Johnny teaching the Sprites about human stuff and the Sprites teaching Johnny about Sprite stuff in turn. It’s a very cute and charming show :3

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum is Mystery Science Theater 3000, a show about a man trapped in space with 4 robot companions and forced to watch bad movies as part of an evil science experiment. It’s very goofy and very immature at times, and 99% of the time you need a guide to understand the stuff they reference, but it’s great regardless, and despite being very simple the puppets are really well-designed. Unfortunately, one of the characters is named after the ethnic slur used against Romani people in the show’s original run; it wasn’t done out of any intentional malice and the creators changed her name when the show was revived and viewers expressed their concern, but if that sours your opinion on watching the original show I completely understand.

Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared is a classic, and for good reason - both the original webseries and the tv show riff off of and play with the stereotypes of traditional children’s puppet shows, while still clearly respecting the art of puppetry and giving it their own unique spin. It’s definitely on the spookier/gorier side of things, so MASSIVE content warning if you want to check it out, but DHMIS is very good and I adore it.

And with that, this very very very VERY long list comes to an end. I definitely didn’t mention everything that I wanted to - there are some excellent pieces of puppet media, like Starkid’s Starship, that I just haven’t gotten around to watching and thus can’t properly recommend - but like with the Muppet section, I’d suggest using this as a starting point. There’s a TON of puppet media out there, and this is just scratching the surface!

I hope this list helps, and that you find something on here that you enjoy :D

[just-orbiting-you]

i think it’s so sad that everything jungkook says gets taken out of context by #those people. like he can’t even say he enjoyed the trip with jimin or acted a certain way to entertain the fans or liked how the crew edited the show cause he was worried a lot would be cut out, without them misconstruing his words and making up something completely different from what he said. it’s like they don’t trust his honest words and like to think everything he does is either scripted or a lie. like do they even respect him? they think he’s being controlled and a puppet just because whatever fantasy they have is nipped in the bud by his own words. i feel so bad cause he can’t say anything without being told he’s a liar and he actually meant to say blah blah blah. obviously i feel bad for jimin too. always being targeted just because he’s close with jungkook. these anons in ur inbox don’t respect or to be honest even like jungkook, everything he does it fake to them and he’ll never be enough for them unless he’s feeding their ship, which he never does, so for as long as they are “fans” they’ll just continue to not believe his words and disrespect him and to me that’s just incredibly heartbreaking because jungkook deserves better supporters and doesn’t deserve to be treated as a fake liar by them.

no exactly, because i get anon messages pretty frequently that i honestly end up deleting that drag jungkook to bits. and after a while i realized that these people are most likely pjms who have every little criticism to hold against him. and idk why the hell they’re camping in a jikook blog. but it’s becoming increasingly evident.

and you’re right, the tkker jungkook hate is on another level. we definitely know that they are tae solos using jungkook to serve their ship. but a similar rhetoric comes out of self-proclaimed ‘ex-jikookers’ who got fed up with what jungkook says and how he acts. purely because jungkook doesn’t always exactly act in ways jkkers would prefer him to act, making it harder to “defend” the ship.

everyone “needs” or at least expects jungkook to serve their own agenda, whether its a specific ship or solo agenda. even jikookers have their own expectations and i do think ays brought that to light for a good amount of people. but i agree, its sad that this is how he’s treated by people who claim to support him or even just one of his other members.

despite jungkook being one of my biases, i have my own criticisms of him. i’ve spoken about the importance of healthy wellmeaning criticism behind the artists you love. but the phrasing and tone behind how people talk about him negatively shows how they truly feel. like i know what you are im not dumb. i dont really want to even bring it up again, but even just denying his instagram post was written by him. “he was hacked, he wouldn’t write in english.” so you don’t trust him or believe him or won’t support him unless he does exactly what you want him to? enough.