#BUT i need some evidence all i have is the meme that was posted today

[dvanaestmrva]

Ok I keep seeing the weekly destiel with the james somerton fake-suicide headline but I looked it up and all I can find is some articles and tweets and reddit posts from way back in March, can someone link me to some sources on the "alt acc for posting hole" thing???

[notmeowse]

That AMA marks the end of Dragon Age.

In my opinion.

I'll start by saying that I have played all 3 of the previous games repeatedly, I've loved the series for 15 years, more than half my life. These games inspired me to become a writer and they've shaped a lot of my tastes and interests in shows and writing -- to say they were formative is kind of an understatement. Don't want to go on and on about how much I loved them, that's not the point here.

I didn't care for Veilguard for pretty much all of the reasons people have already discussed at length on Reddit and Tumblr. The writing is comprehensively bad, the romances are easily the worst Bioware has written by pure virtue of having the most cookie-cutter pacing and shallow characterization I've seen across their games, the lore has been shafted in every direction, and the nuanced storytelling and roleplay I came to expect from the series has been taken out back and shot in the head.

All, apparently, in the name of a "clean slate". It seems to me that, rather than familiarizing himself with the existing lore of the game he took the creative reins on, Epler clearly had a vision for Dragon Age (or perhaps a different IP entirely) in his head that he decided to transplant into the game (and possibly Trick? But they've said so little beyond defending their work that I can hardly theorize what direction they were coming from). That being a sanitized, wildly self-contradicting, morally absolute shitshow focused on distancing itself from the previous games as much as possible. Now, I know it's unrealistic to blame one person entirely, and I don't blame him entirely. Corinne was there. Trick was there.

But if it wasn't already evident from the numerous interviews Epler's given on the game as well as his participation in the Q&A's (while the actual lead writer of the game has been completely absent in not just the marketing, but in most fan-related interaction pre and post-launch outside of BSKY), this AMA seems to have confirmed, more than anything else, that Epler doesn't understand the game nor does he understand its audience. Neither does Corinne Busche, who despite being Game Director for only the last two years of development, has been answering lore questions a) like she has any fucking clue and b) like she thinks Dragon Age is a cozy-gamer IP, meant to appeal to people that want uplifting stories with uncontroversial characters, morally upright heroes, and unquestionably evil villains.

So as of today's AMA, I think I've finally had enough. We're just outright retconning the lore in Reddit AMA's now, I guess. Among other things. I'll provide a few examples, just so we're all on the same page.

This was part of Epler's response to why Solas didn't have his cult following in the game (insert "We Kind of Forgot" meme here):

Solas' experience leading the rebellion against the Evanuris turned him against the idea of being a leader. You see it in the memories - the entire experience of being in charge ate at him and, ultimately, convinced him he needed to do this on his own. And his own motivations were very different from the motivations of those who wanted to follow him - he had no real regard for their lives or their goals. So at some point between Trespasser and DATV, he severed that connection with his 'followers' and went back to being a lone wolf.

The fact that this (the not caring bit) directly contradicts the writing in the actual game is absolutely INSANE to me, moreso than the lack of Solas's spy network (which he apparently carried with him for 10 years only to conveniently drop right before the ritual? Because he clearly had them research Rook?). But in regards to the not caring -- here's a line from Solas's memory of killing Mythal in Veilguard, which. I'll get to Mythal in a minute:

Why should I not tear down the Veil, and bring back immortality to all the elven people? They deserve it!

Which is it? Does Solas care about the people he's saving (the venn diagram of people he's saving vs. the people following him is surely a circle, i.e. elves) or not? Does he even care about the spirits trapped behind the Veil anymore or is it just convenient to abandon them and have him only care about elves, now? What happened to saving The People? What happened to him not identifying as an elf in his conversations with a Dalish Inquisitor? And what the absolute fuck happened to him wanting to bring back the magical marvels (that the ancient elves did in fact achieve) that were greater than anything we see in Thedas today? Here's what Epler has to say about elven magic, now:

I do agree that the elves have had their place in the sun at this point. [...] The thing about the Evanuris is that, ultimately, they were able to take a very specific type of magic and shape it into doing what they wanted. But even their understanding of magic was only skin deep [...] Even the magic that Tevinter wields, the magic of the Southern mages, is different from what the Evanuris used. The magic of the Evanuris is powerful but it's sterile, and it's constrained. So while the Evanuris have made magic work in a way that's more predictable and understandable, it's not the only kind of magic out there, and even then, I'd say they understood it at a very surface level. People were confidently describing how the natural world worked back in the 16th century. Very few of them were right.

First of all, Tevinter has been stated in previous games to have clumsily adapted ancient elven magic for their own, but they did adapt it. To the point where even Solas is surprised that Corypheus achieved effective immortality -- by binding himself to a dragon the same way the Evanuris did. So, cool, more contradicting the lore here. "They understood it at a very surface level" you mean when all of the magic of the Fade wasn't locked behind the Veil? You mean when magic flowed freely through the world? What do you mean, Surface Fucking Level? The entire point of the Dalish elf culture is what they lost; this wasn't the ancient elves thinking the sun revolved around the earth, the Veil was their fucking Library of Alexandria burning. Oh my god. I still cannot believe he said this.

And how have the elves had their day in the sun? I'm sorry, was Arlathan not given to... the Veil Jumpers? Instead of the Dalish? What happened to all the Dalish clans in the south, who had no infrastructure when the world was apparently blighted to hell? I guess they're just gone now! They've had their day! The story of the Dalish and the Evanuris is over (also confirmed in this AMA), and it apparently ends with the final snuff of the candle that is their culture. Congratulations, Chantry, you've won! Only took two genocides and a double blight, but we're done with the Dalish now! We get your mind-numbingly superficial factions instead!

What happened to Mythal, by the way? What happened to "She was betrayed as I was betrayed, as the world was betrayed! Mythal clawed and crawled her way through the ages to me, and I will see her avenged!" What happened to the reckoning that will shake the very heavens? John's answer to this:

People grow and change over time. Mythal's essence - and in particular, the fragment of her spirit that Morrigan carries, that she got from Flemeth - is not the same Mythal who he knew millennia ago. Centuries of living in this world and being around the kinds of people Flemeth found herself around - the Hero of Ferelden, Hawke, the Inquisitor - changed her views, and made her realize her own culpability in turning Solas into the kind of person he is now.

Oh, right, okay. So she was pissed for like a thousand years, got her big speech about the impending "reckoning" out 10 years ago, and then she just chilled out because the last 3 heroes were neat people. What a fucking joke. And yes, here is the confirmation that the Evanuris story is over --

The story of the Evanuris is done - the gods are dead (or imprisoned) and Thedas is in a state of flux and uncertainty. I imagine that whatever happens next is going to be a surprise to everyone, including the people of Thedas."

So I guess Mythal's reckoning is never coming. One of the most fascinating characters in the series, shrouded in mystery for those first 3 games, PROMISING US a blaze of glory, only to fizzle out in this one. Again, and I can't emphasize this enough, for Epler's clean fucking slate. And we've not just tied up her story, but also the Veil and the Blight:

When Solas bound himself (or, depending on your ending, was forcibly bound) to the Veil, it severed the connection that the Blight had to the waking world. The reality is that the Veil has been leaking ever since the Magisters first entered the Black City, and the dreams of the Titans gave it its terrible and awesome power. Now that the Veil is fully repaired, the Blight lacks that motive force, and being so close to the epicenter of that change has stripped the Blight in Minrathous of its vitality. It's calcified now - dead - and Bellara/Neve no longer suffer its effects. If they'd been anywhere else, further from that epicenter, it would've likely been different and they still would be looking for a cure.

So the Veil is permanently fixed now because our half-dead Dread Wolf bound himself to it (a decision I still don't understand) and that somehow fixed every single hole ever poked in it. Fully repaired. No more holes, no more "Veil is thin here" because tons of people died in the same spot, nope, we're washing our hands and leaving it (and the spirits) behind us because we've wrapped up both the series-long Veil storyline and the blight storyline in a big red bow.

And Epler tells us Solas not only bound himself to the Veil but fixed it entirely in one fell swoop, no ritual required, just a little slice to the hand. Again, all in the name of a clean slate, so any future installments or media centered around Thedas can turn away from this story.

Then there's this. What we can expect from future installments, I freaking guess. The aforementioned roleplay getting taken out back and shot:

Q: "What lead you to the decision to step away from active conversations with the companions as in previous Bioware games, where you can initiate them at any moment and ask exhaustive questions?"

John: "For us, because of tech limitations, it became a choice between exhaustive investigate conversations, or letting the companions move more freely around the Lighthouse. With the kind of experience we were going for, one where seeing the team grow around you is paramount, we felt that seeing them interact in common spaces (and in each other's rooms) made more sense."

Literally confirmed that they chose companions moving freely about the cabin over ... interacting with them outside the handful of cutscenes we got. Who in their right mind would think this was a good call in a Dragon Age game? A series that quite literally prides itself on complex character interactions and storytelling? So they could... sit in different places? Are you kidding me?

They don't see an issue with the game's reception. They don't have any interest in addressing or responding to criticism. They're either happy with their choices or EA's got a gun pointed at their heads, I'm honestly not sure anymore. I used to believe the latter was true, but looking at both Epler's and Busche's responses today, I'm inclined to believe the former.

So I think that's it for the series. Not that I thought it was going to get another game after this, but on the absolute off chance it did, what would be the point? The best stories were ruined. Anything left they have to tell is going to read a lot like Veilguard -- superficial, morally absolute, flagrantly disrespectful to the lore, and delivered in a very poorly written package.

[sincerelywhistler]

New month, new continuation

✨PART 4✨ of things my husband does that are so violently Asher Coded, I had to compile a written list and turn them into headcanons:

part 1 • part 2 • part 3

• his phone consistently below 20%. Babe has to plug it in every night cause he sure ain’t gonna

• saw the meme image thing on how to break your thumb ligament by flicking your wrist. Sat in quiet contemplation for a few minutes, visibly weighing the pros and cons of conducting this experiment. Moved on with his day without a word (the smart choice)

• “oh, you know you love meeeeeee” when he senses that he’s getting on my nerves, which is all the time /j of course.. mostly

• yoinks our nintendo switch to romance Sebastian in Stardew Valley every single play-through because it’s against his moral code to leave Tsundere characters un-kissed (what does this say about me)

• sends posts of two animals interacting, no matter what they’re doing, and captions it “this is literally us”

• also sends posts of the most scrungliest and disheveled creatures, captioning it “this is you”

• alternating turns of getting one another ‘just because’ flowers. I originally initiated it, so if Babe did the same, Asher would die I think

• does have a thorough skin/hair/hygiene routine, but will wash his face with Dawn dish soap if he’s tired and it’s more convenient

• conks out the second his head hits the pillow like HOW?? Babe lays there awake, wondering what sorts of dark magic he’s really capable of

• makes a questionable decision, and when anyone begins to address it 0.5 seconds after it happens, he’ll jokingly say “it’s in the past now, that was the old me”

• uses the 😳 emoji in the most confusing and unfitting places, so much so it really makes you rethink the original meaning of his texts?? “Can I take your car today? 😳” “Work let us have some of the leftover chicken for dinner😳”

• can and will turn goof mode off at the drop of a hat when needed. It’s actually kinda scary if you get the chance to experience it bc the whole atmosphere of the room changes

• received a uh *noise complaint* and proceeded to bake AND decorate a whole cake to “celebrate the achievement” (photographic evidence exists)

• but that’s not before fully removing the still beeping smoke detector from the ceiling and handing it to me in a panic, asking me to turn it off because he didn’t know how to (photographic evidence also exists)

• can’t cuddle like a normal person, he has to either suffocate you with the weight of his body or you gotta coddle him like he is oh so fragile and the most delicate of waifs— no in between. Great Dane who thinks he’s a lap dog vibes

• gives the BEST advice and pep talks to people. He‘s studying forensic psychology to be a counselor and I think Ash would make a great counselor or advisor of sorts, just in a more lighthearted environment

• knows he has the pretty privilege card, but only uses it for the most unnecessary reasons? Like of course you can have a some of my pasta you freak I literally made you your own bowl, why are you batting your eyelashes and trying to persuade me via brainwave manipulation

[canmom]

Animation Night 164: Yaoi, Yuri

The fashion on Tumblr lately has been to divide everything in the world into yaoi and yuri, hasn't it? Well, tonight we don't need to make any abstract stretches of the imagination: it's time for anime where boys kiss boys and girls kiss girls.

So. Five minutes ago, before Tumblr deleted it, this post was off to a pretty good start! I was happily explaining about the differences of nuance between 少年愛 shōnen-ai, 耽美 tanbi, ジュネ june, やおい yaoi and ボーイズラブ bōizu rabu on the one hand, and on the other, why 薔薇 bara (rose) isn't a genre title but nevertheless the editor of 薔薇族 Barazoku ('rose tribe') magazine coined 百合 yuri as a distaff counterpart, the 'lily tribe', and that really caught on.

I was starting in on a brief sketch of some history, how Tokugawa Japan was super gay and had a defined set of social rules for gay relationships in the form of 男色 nanshoku, but this was squashed by the Meiji restoration, and thus gay manga became a subgenre cultivating its own specific otaku audience.

So then I was gonna tell you about how the early shōjo manga focusing on gay relationships, taking the old term shōnen-ai [which originally referred to pederasty], were quite nerdy and literary, but the subgenre rapidly grew in the 70s and 80s, cultivating an otaku audience of its own - primarily women termed, somewhat disparagingly, 婦女子 fujoshi but this demographic breakdown is certainly not absolute and there is a term for male fans, which is 普段し fudanshi. We coulda gone into the whole world of doujinshi, of the massive convention comiket; I coulda cracked open Kimi Rito's History of Hentai Manga for some interesting tidbits about how certain images become encoded as symbols and then reused routinely in manga.

And you know, I might have talked about how this is distinct from manga aimed at gay readers in gay magazines (like the above mentioned 薔薇族 Barazoku) which might be termed ゲイ漫画 gei manga. Perhaps we might mention here the upcoming adaptation of gay manga meme sensation kuso miso technique:

I was maybe gonna talk a little about some of the older genre conventions of BL; the masc top or 攻め seme and the effeminate bottom or 浮け uke; maybe a little about how yaoi fandom got exported into anime fan culture in the West and the strange phenomenon of the 'yaoi paddle'.

...well, it looks like I managed to skim over all that anyway. Spite works wonders for typing speed, it turns out. But believe me, that's really just surface level stuff. We're working on a followup to the legend of Animation Night 69, so we'll be able to get in a lot deeper in a few weeks~

Anyway, even today, BL and yuri works rarely get adapted into anime in a particularly high profile way. But 'rarely' is not never! In Animation Nights past, well: on Animation Night 69 we watched the delightful 風と木の詩 Kaze to Ki no Uta (The Song of Wind and Trees), an OVA adapting the seminal (ha ha) shōjo manga about a French twink at boarding school. That was the direction of Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, known also for Venus Wars and definitely the subject of a future Animation Night, it was as moving and melodramatic as you could hope from 70s shōjo. Sayo Yamamoto (AN36) brought us the incredibly charming figure gay skating series Yuri on Ice; and then of course Kunihiko Ikuhara (AN155), bless his heart, made his always bold statements on yuri with Yurikuma Arashi ('Lesbian Bear Storm') and BL with Sarazanmai, which I will surely cover if we ever reach the point where we're like 'let's marathon a TV anime' again ;p

Tonight though? We'll be looking at a couple of relatively recent films on both sides of the fence.

For the BL wing, we have the film 海辺のエトランゼ Umibe no Étranger, aka L'étranger de la Plage or Stranger by the Shore. Kanna Kii, the mangaka, had previously worked as an animator at Studio Hibari, a small anime studio that dates back to the late 70s and broadly seems to specialise in shōjo. Kii returned there to design characters and supervise the film, and evidently Hibari were very excited to adapt the work of their alumnus, because they absolutely spared no effort.

The story centres on orphaned highschooler Mio and his neighbour Shun, an aspiring gay novelist on a remote island in Okinawa. The pair grew close three years before the start of the story, but Mio had to leave Okinawa; we join him now as he returns to that same shore, still holding feelings for Shun.

I'll admit, I don't know a ton about this movie - but it comes highly recommended by kvin who described it as one of an 'oasis' of strong BL works released around 2020. And the clips I've seen - well, they're the gifs used in this post, really nicely drawn scenes of affection. So I'm pretty excited!

Our yuri wing... well, there's a few good choices for yuri TV shows I could show you, but tonight it's late and we need something short and sweet, and that really narrows the field! What I have is あさがおと加瀬さん。Asagao to Kase-san [Kase-san and the Morning Glories], a one hour OVA adapting the manga 加瀬さん Kase-san by Hiromi Takashima. The OVA starts partway into the manga, when plant nerd Yui Yamada has already started dating her crush, the athletic Tomoka Kase. It follows the trials of the girls' relationship as they are coming towards the end of their time at school - relatively low-key, slice of life first relationship typea thing.

The animae was adapted by studio Zexcs under the direction of Takuya Satō, who you might remember as director of the first part of Armitage III [AN153]. Zexcs spun out of JC Staff at the end of the 90s, and they've been pretty busy since then - for me their most notable creation is Aku no Hana (The Flowers of Evil), a truly unique rotoscope anime with an incredibly engaging, tense story about teenagers and the imp of the perverse... which sadly never got the love it deserved! yes I'm still beating this drum!

Anyway, while I have not been able to find a ton of production information, I am told at least that Kase-san was a passion project for Satō - evidently a yuri fan given he also took on the adaptation of Otherside Picnic. It began first with five-minute web adaptation Kase-san and the Morning Glories in 2018 that's more of a musical montage of moments from the series, which was then able to be expanded the next year into an hour-long OVA...

A lot of romance stories focus on the characters getting together, so it's interesting that this one skips right over those chapters of the manga and gets going once the characters are already together, focusing more on the trials of an ongoing relationship between two goofy hormonal kids trying to figure out if this is just a class S thing or something that they want to last. A great deal of effort is put towards character animation, intimacy, the little flinches and reactions. You can read a little discussion about it here on ANN.

So! With apologies for the late start once more (T_T), it's time to begin! Animation Night will shortly be live at twitch.tv/canmom, and I hope you'll join me for a gay old time~

[dandelion-wings]

oho are you asking for rarest rarepairs? because i like my rare pairs raw (and apparently full of brats)

from vague canon evidence if you break your neck in the right way to whomst'd've the fuck and why, I got:

Venti/Hu Tao

Furina(post archon quest)/Hu Tao

Rana/Jeht (though i think you've already talked about this one?)

Focalors/Venti

Focalors/Guizhong

Sorry to respond to this over a month later--all my spoons fell in the insinkerator about the time this ask came in, and I put it aside for when I had more energy and, uh, forgot about it. >>;; But I was delighted to find it again today!

Venti/Hu Tao

We all agree that Hu Tao 100% clocked Venti in last year's Lantern Rite event, right? And she's pulling the same "I'm going to pretend I don't know but I totally know" she does with Zhongli, right? Except Venti thinks it's fucking hilarious, and the "I know you know I know you know I know" we don't see during Waterborne Poetry was a fantastic game for them both.

And since we have Waterborne Poetry as an event, it would be fun to build it off that! It might take some massaging of specific timeline details because they just? sort of dropped several characters and the actual event? at the end, but I'm gonna be honest I didn't love the last few beats of that event anyway. It felt like it kind of puttered out disappointingly after a lot of initial promise, so I wouldn't mind the opportunity to rewrite some of that. Anyway, this would be a "behind the scenes" where Hu Tao and Venti continue to coordinate the actual event in the background while everyone else is doing the quests, being playful and teasing and occasionally deep and profound with each other (because they both do that exact vibe well), with a slow-burn growing interest that sort of kicks into higher gear when the rest of the group comes back and recounts the Finch/Callirhoe moment. Because, like, Hu Tao's not normal but she sure is mortal, and Venti knows how to enjoy fleeting pleasures and she is definitely not missing her shot, so- yeah. They go for it. XD

Furina/Hu Tao

Once again leveraging an event, I'd hang that off of their appearances in Chenyu Village in the latest Lantern Rite. Hu Tao (who thought Furina was both cute and fun to fluster in their first meeting there) ends up going to Fontaine to help with the spooky movie props mentioned in that conversation. She is essentially vacationing under the pretense of a "business trip," though she is indeed interested in Furina's play/movie and has a lot of suggestions to make, both helpful and otherwise; since she is stealing the chance at a vacation, though, she also makes Furina take her around to see the sights "as a token of our business partnership!" So they have some cute moments at all the good tourist spots, some cute interludes having tea together, and at least one deep and thoughtful conversation about mortality and the joys and sorrows thereof... and that eventually blooms into kissing in the back room of the theater.

Rana/Jeht

We have talked about this one, yes! Though I don't recall exactly what I said at the time, so I'll just answer as the meme prescribes: I would write this one using that bit about Jeht and her mercenary band accompanying a lost group of Akademiya scholars back to the jungle. Then they take a job there that puts them in proximity with Rana, either as a member of the group they're helping/escorting or hired separately as a local guide, and they go on a very classic jungle-adventure-with-budding-romance where traveling and fighting side-by-side forges bonds that turn into more. I like the idea of a bunch of side characters in the expedition who help with their development--I think Jeht could use a wise older woman who is as unlike Babel as possible, for one--and it's up in the air whether it ends with Rana joining Jeht's band, or Jeht (who does have so, so much trauma to process) deciding she needs to continue on alone for a while and them sharing a last kiss and promising to meet again some day. And then I say I'll write that reunion and don't actually touch it for six+ years.

Focalors/Venti

I absolutely could write any of these outside the constraints of canon, so much of my fic is AU, but I think this would be most interesting to me as in some kind of space between Focalors being designated Egeria's successor, and the separation into Furina-as-humansona and Focalors-in-the-Oratrice. Venti goes to visit the new Hydro Archon ostensibly to get to know one of the new ones; they have secret, quiet conversations about Celestia and the Thrones and what might make it possible to break one, and at what cost; and then it's not so much a romance here as, Focalors always did want to experience more than her divine self ever will get to, and, well- a bard is an expert at stirring passions, after all, and making a night's entertainment seem a grand and sweeping experience.

Focalors/Guizhong

TBH I don't know whether I missed a lot of Guizhong characterization in my years-ago rush through Liyue or if I'm just not good at putting together the threads we get from events, but she remains kind of a cipher to me? I have just enough of a mental picture of her to suffice for my Ping/Xianyun sadfic and that's about it. But given when Guizhong died vs. when Focalors ascended, while there could be material in itty baby Focalors meeting her (and in fact it could fit into the backstory of this), what I think I'd do is have it be separated by time: some mechanism Guizhong created is what Focalors comes across (or acquires in that itty baby-era meeting) that gives her the basis of the Oratrice, and the fic is her taking it apart, analyzing it, and rebuilding it to her purposes, learning what she can about Guizhong and her other works to help her with that analysis, and reflecting on this god she never, or barely, knew, who died in an effort to save her people. The romance is (obviously) one-sided and over centuries and is in many ways Focalors fantasizing about this idealized lover in order to drive her forward on her own, difficult, ultimately self-destructive mission. Though she is also, y'know, feasting on her own mental fanfic about the drama of it all. XD

[crowscacophony]

its freak-frackin 2017 boi ^-^

I need to write something but mouthwashing has me in a state of shock still I feel like curly’s barely conscious body bruh he’s literally me. (Not a spoiler this is literally revealed in the first five minutes I promise) I need some kohls brainrot but unlike Jimmy I CAN TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR MY ACTIONS fuck Jimmy all my homies hate Jimmy mouthwashing 

I was going to do some historical fangstitch but despite my favorite fanfic I’ve ever read being about wwii and fleeing nazism I cannot bring myself to actually write anything even though I have some really cool (I have to keep telling myself that it’s okay for things to be historically accurate even though the vocabulary used *specifically for Crow and his Romani heritage* would be entirely different and it’s better to be tasteful) ideas

So instead. We’re embracing the cringe.

WELCOME TO THE YEAR 2017 BITCHES

Mid to late 2010s fandom was an insane mess. No one knew how to act. No one was anywhere near normal. I was there. I remember it all too well. The era of flower crowns and cell shaded big eyes and Hamilton animatics. Good God it was like being on crack with a bunch of closeted queers 

And I keep seeing the “mouthwashing if it was released in 2016 posts” where people are drawing the characters in flower crowns and big sweaters and “smol beans” and “cinnamon rolls :3” and it’s like a bullet to the brain. And I LOVE it. Give me more.

So. The Dalseum Duet if it was released in 2017. Let’s fuckin pretend. 

The people of 2017 fandom would be cancelled left and right today and I’m going to revel in that for a minute.

An entire cast of characters of color is not really ideal. Because we saw what happened to Hamilton. Here are my predictions for the most cancellable race offenses:

People just cannot draw Sara. They can’t fathom that her skin is dark. They keep coloring her this weird ashy mid-toned color and squishing her face to make her look “cuter.” 

Marie gets whitewashed to high hell. She’s supposed to be cutesy and feminine and the people of 2017 could not fathom that she has darker skin than Crow

Same with Adam. He would 100% get “smol bean” woobified. Someone literally just does not realize that he’s black. Art of him but white (out of pure ignorance, not malice) is posted on a prominent artist’s tumblr and never mentioned until someone digs it back up in 2020

I would say something abt Noeul but people act even worse abt “”morally gray”” East Asian men in 2024 so  just go looking yourself if you’re desperate for people saying weird shit. Dw we get to him later

Multiple people come forward saying they didn’t know Cambodia was even a country before reading Heartstrings

still an issue but people just don’t know how to draw Asian features. they all look white for some reason. 

crow always has straight hair. for some reason.

Other related offenses 

Gale is always drawn either too skinny or something is evidently proportionally incorrect 

Where. Where are Crow’s mobility aids guys

The Charlie hate posts. “she’s so annoying omg she thinks everything revolves around her! terrible main character” when she’s just a woman trying to escape an unsafe situation 

People are just not normal about crow being trans (to be expected no matter what year tbh)

“my smol trans bb 🥺 my little bean protecc him *GUYS DID YOU CATCH THAT I SAID HIM!! HIM NOT SHE I’M AN ALLY* at all costs”

your smol bb just watched someone get decapitated and didn’t flinch but. okay

people exaggerate sonnet’s proportions so ridiculously. is this transphobic or are you just numb to the furry proportions of animation memes bc their hips cannot possibly be that large 

A LOOK AT THE FANDOM

So many theatre kids who can’t communicate to anyone effectively. So many. Think Percy Jackson of eras bygone meets the Heathers animatic era. 

The most viewed video is an animatic of Sara telling off Noeul after the trial set to “Congratulations” from Hamilton. 

And now. Just know that this hurts me to say bc this album is my guilty pleasure but not a pleasure bc it hurts me to listen to some of these songs. Sigh. 

Panic! at the Disco’s album “Death of a Bachelor” released in 2016, shifting the edgy fandom space forever. 

The Council fanart. The animatics. Were edits a thing at this time? Fuckin PMVs? Idk. BUT GOOD GOD. EVERY SINGLE SONG ON THAT ALBUM. THERE WILL BE 100 COUNCIL ANIMATICS AT THE LEAST FOR EACH ONE. ALL IN THE SAME EXACT ARTSTYLE YOU KNOW THE ONE

THE FANART EDITS. GOD. NOEUL WITH HIS EYES BLACKED OUT WITH A BAR WITH LIKE “Fifty words for murder and I’m every single one of them” WRITTEN ACROSS IT HAHAHAHAAAAA his touch is black and poisonous guys. eyes like broken Christmas lights fr

PEOPLE GET SO CORNY OVER THIS MAN. SO CORNY. LIKE. HE MIGHT AS WELL BE TORD. THAT IS THE EXACT TREATMENT HE GETS

oh yeah and Jason Dean too. the comparisons of costco to JD and Veronica. dead girl walking animatics galore 

people made JD’s entire personality slushies even though he committed so many crimes. Noeul’s personality is reduced to bulgogi but no one can pronounce it so it just keeps getting worse

people woobify the fuck out of Sonnet. drawing them in big sweaters and flower crowns and sh scars on comically “thicccc” thighs bc they were “suicidal 🥺” (because they were “depwessed” not bc their marriage was fucking loveless and they no longer recognize who they are) and they have pretty pink hair. they tried to murder an innocent woman folks

unironic sams club shippers. “they should have gotten back together after the end! they did!! here is my fanart of Adam (ace mlm who has been severely traumatized by sonnet’s actions) and Sonnet (body has been borderline botched by “gender affirming surgery” and just watched their husband get slaughtered by their daughter in front of their own eyes. cannot form a cohesive sentence due to addiction to a variety of substances) 

I’m. I’m going to bed but I will add on to this. Because I find it really funny. 

Anyway. Just throwing the image of smol bean-ified Kai in your brain. @svwhssftr Big eyelashes and big blue sweater. Shark plushie. His eyes are blue and suspiciously round. Why does he have visible tits guys this isn’t… He doesn’t even have a face anymore. Bitch is built like captain curly. He is a fucking menace with an undiagnosed personality disorder. But yeah. Yeah smol trans bean (white..?) Kai. Perfect. Exactly. Sorry for that attack of psychological warfare. Thank you 2017 for your service in fandom history

[bigenderanne]

Today was the first time I've checked my inbox since I wrote my side of the situation. I'm working on another post in my drafts now that's bringing out more emotions in me so it might take awhile as it goes more into detail my history with transphobia and abuse, but I wanted to write some more quick and to the point (and less triggery) for those of you who are checking in on me, and to answer a few questions that have repeatedly come up in my hundreds of asks.

Most of the asks have been supportive and checking in on my mental health and physical safety. Thank you for that! Obviously my mental health is still a little shaken, and I'm uncomfortable with the fact she knows we've bought a new house, but I believe we are physically safe. That being said, it is part of the restraining order that's she's not allowed to interact with us on the internet in any way, shape, or form, nor is she allowed to use any electronic means of communication to interact with us, either. This is why I have refrained from responding to any of her posts. It would be completely unacceptable for me interact with her with the expectation she cannot reply.

This leads me into restraining orders. No, you cannot get a restraining order on anybody for any reason. You certainly cannot get one "just because you don't like someone's hair color" as one asker put it. We had to provide evidence that it was necessary for our peace of mind and safety. Stalking is incredibly hard to prove, and "professional" stalkers know the laws and how to skirt them. I am lucky that she didn't. I've worked with people who have been stalked, due to the nature of my job, and will say I had it pretty easy in comparison, just due to the fact she was being so blatant.

I'm obviously not going to name names because she may be reading my blog, but if anything I say upsets her she only has herself to blame. Someone involved in the group chat had been lurking, just due to the fact they joined for the fandom and when it devolved into her talking about how much she hated me, they lost interest. However when she started talking about the intervention, they'd gone back and taken well over a hundred screenshots and compiled them into a folder. In these screenshots were also pictures she had taken of us from afar. Mostly pictures of me at clubs, or at arcades, or drinking/vaping, sometimes talking to men (strangers, people I never spoke to before or since, so I don't even recall these men, but I am a very chatty person and strike up conversations with people I don't know often) insisting that I must be having sex with them based on body language. If anybody even tried to say that I was just probably being friendly, she would immediately tell them she was going to kick them from the group. (She started the channel.) She would often post memes she found on the internet with the theme of how extroverts are terrible and simply leave my name as the comment. It seemed to have become a meme itself within the group chat: they'd find a meme about extroverts that was cruel, or even just a meme about how introverts are so much better, and simply respond with my name. This led to them using my face as a meme and simply reposting the extrovert meme texts around my face. The picture used was one she had taken of me sneezing, which looked absolutely ugly because I was sneezing. (To the handful of asks who made comments about me being an extrovert automatically made it ESH and all extroverts are obnoxious: try hard not to stress too much about starting high school in a few weeks. Freshman year is hard on everyone.)

Outside of the groupchat, although the photos she had taken of me without my consent was probably the only evidence really needed, "Mike" did recount the many, many times she would show up to events "coincidentally" or how she was shopping at all the places he shopped at the same time he shopped despite the fact she lived on the other side of the city where there are more stores closer to where she lives. Furthermore, many of our friends corroborated that she would often ask them what we were doing, if we had plans, and would often show up to events they were at but if we were not in attendance she would leave as soon as it was apparent we wouldn't be showing. Since we had all noticed this behavior, and die to my job I am well aware of the warning signs, we had all began writing down and taking pictures of these incidents, such as how her car was parked outside Mike's street (where it was public property) until two am a few times. The people that were in my house, I have come to find out, were minors, so im trying to be forgiving. I have not spoken to any of them since, and frankly I have no desire to ever speak to, or see, them again, but they are young and she absolutely had them convinced I was cheating. I ought to have called about her entering my home without permission, but I didn't. I didn't want to get cops involved.

Also, there has been a few "lesbians uhauling lol" comments that I can only assume are from terfs, so I don't particularly care, but for those who may be worried about the living situation for non terfy reasons: we have known each other for four years and been best friends for at least three of those four years. We got even closer this past year. Also, I was renting and the screaming did piss off my landlord and even though I explained the situation and I wasn't given an eviction notice, I didn't feel safe staying there because I started getting text reminders about noise complaints for, like, doing laundry in the afternoon. I brought up moving in together to his apartment, but we realized both of us were first time home buyers. He has good credit and doesn't have any school payments, so his debt to income ratio was practically nonexistent. I have great credit, although my DTI is higher than his. The mortgage was more than half what either of us were paying for rent. So really it actually made financial sense as well. We had been casually discussing it before we started dating, moving in as friends/roommates.

I feel like I'm doing as okay as I can, considering the circumstances. I'm a private person so I won't be putting my actual blog title nor hers anywhere. I have no desire to attract more attention to my blog, which is honestly just destiel, Good Omens, OFMD, and other ships. It's not a personal blog at all and I'd like to keep it that way.

[jimintomystery]

MOASS

The Mother Of All Short Squeezes, or MOASS, refers to a fringe theory about the stock market. The general idea is that the GameStop short squeeze in Janaury 2021 can be reproduced with even more dramatic profits for memestock investors. Under this theory, it is possible to sustain a short squeeze indefinitely, with the share price of the affected companies rising to, um, infinity dollars.

[Above: A typical MOASS influencer explaining why it would happen soon. This was two years ago.]

True believers in MOASS have awaited this windfall for over three years--Dan Olson called it "Reddit's version of the Rapture." There was a false alarm last week, when the dormant Twitter account of Keith Gill (one of the big names from the 2021 squeeze) suddenly came to life, posting a bunch of hype videos. The price briefly shot up to $64 on May 15, but drifted back down to the low 20s within a few days. Nevertheless, as with failed Rapture predictions, the faithful are undeterred, and continue looking for new signs and evidence that MOASS is coming soon.

[Above: In the 2015 movie The Big Short, Margot Robbie explains how short selling works while sitting in a bubble bath. I figured this picture was close enough.]

In a normal short squeeze, investors who go "short" on a company get caught by an unanticipated rise in the share price. Short investors bet against the company, selling borrowed shares at today's prices, with the assumption that it'll be cheaper to buy back those shares later to reimburse the lender. If the price instead goes up, the short investor is left scrambling to close their position as soon as possible, to minimize their losses. But that scramble creates more demand to buy, driving the price up even higher, applying more pressure to more short sellers.

MOASS is based on the assumption that this cascade effect can go on forever, under the right circumstances. For this to work, you need to believe the financial world is run by evil hedge funds that have built up absurdly risky short positions on companies like GameStop or AMC Theaters. These evildoers, or "hedgies," expect this short attack to drive the targeted companies into bankruptcy, so they can afford to do illegal things like shorting shares that don't actually exist. What the hedgies could not have foreseen, however, is the rise of r/WallStreetBets (and related subreddits), which made a meme out of building absurdly risky long positions on failing companies.

As the 2021 short squeeze played out, memestock investors latched onto catchphrase "apes together strong." That is, much like the simians in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, they had the power to band together and drive their enemies to their knees. As long as the "Apes" keep buying and holding (against all conventional wisdom and common sense), then the hedgies can't control the share price. Eventually the hedgies have to start closing short positions that they can't afford to cover. Since the Apes refuse to sell, and since the hedgies allegedly owe more shares than there are to buy, the price would skyrocket and never come back down. The hedgies go bankrupt, and yadda yadda yadda, the Apes become rich beyond their wildest dreams.

[Above: In principle, achieving MOASS with GameStop's share price would potentially cause the collapse of the stock market, if not the entire global economy. As far as Apes are concerned, this would be a good thing.]

You may have some questions at this point! I know I certainly do. For one thing, after taking a beating in 2021, why would hedge funds go short on GameStop for three more years, instead of switching to some other, less volatile target? If the hedgies can't cover their naked shorts without paying millions per share, wouldn't it become easier to declare bankruptcy than pay a dime to the Apes? And since MOASS relies on ever-increasing demand for a fixed supply of floating shares, what happens if GameStop decides to issue, say, 45 million new shares, whenever they feel like it?

I'm not sure Apes have ever addressed these questions, or that they ever will. At this point, they're so committed to their crusade against Wall Street that they're suspicious of anyone who interrogates it. If you don't understand their cause, or their strategy, then you're either blind to what's really going on, or you're a fifth columnist sowing disinformation.

In this regard, the Apes aren't too different from Gamergate and QAnon. All three movements revolve around a Big Lie, and use Reddit/4chan culture to create a decentralized campaign to promote that lie. That campaign rests upon a populist mythology about how the establishment and the elites underestimated the resourcefulness of "anons," "gamers," "deplorables," "bakers," and/or "weaponized autism." When these groups think they're winning, it's undeniable proof that the Big Lie is true. When it looks like they're losing, it's because a vast conspiracy is desperate enough to stoop to any level to keep you from learning the Big Lie is true. So one way or another, they're constantly reassuring themselves that they're winning, and seeking that reassurance becomes their primary activity. This in turn enables grifters to shape these movements by finding creative ways to tell them what they want to hear.

Unfortunately we're probably going to be seeing more of this stuff going forward, not less. Since going public in March, Trump Media & Technology Group has behaved like a meme stock, pumped up by retail investors who are less interested in financial planning than in signaling their allegiance to Donald Trump. When the stock fell off, CEO Devin Nunes seemed to take a page from the apes' playbook, blaming the decline on naked short selling.

[Above: Brainworms recognize brainworms]

And yet, this does not make Donald Trump the most delusional idiot running for president of the United States and getting in on grifting Apes. Just this afternoon, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. declared his allegiance to the Apes, and claimed to have invest $24,000 in GameStop. One way or another, the Apes' message of standing up to Wall Street corruption is going to gain traction, even if their investment strategy can't.

[tgmsunmontue]

From the Ask Meme for @phisworld14

🥤 ⇢ recommend an author or fanfic you love

You didn’t specify a fandom. 😂 I’ve been reading fanfic for 15+ years now. Some authors I do not read any more, however Sara’s Girl is an author I will always read, even though I do not consider myself part of the fandom anymore. Her weekly fanfics got me through some rough times and her weekly updates were what I would hang onto sometimes (and she knows all this – she’s someone from my FFnet/ LJ days and I made and sent a wedding present). And just typing that is clear evidence of why I feel like fandom has shifted, because I don’t feel that same sense of community anymore. It’s more about content creation and consumption than the community.

For TG the author whose fics I am slowly working my way through reading are @film-in-my-soul and it's always a treat to curl up and read their fics. (There are also 100+ fics and I'm about 80% of the way through).

I am a chronic re-reader. Also a commenter who tries to leave long comments, which means I prefer to not read on my phone as typing comments becomes more difficult. So I will often re-read fics on my phone.

🧃 ⇢ share some personal lore you never posted about before

I don’t post personal stuff this blog because I chuck all the stuff over on main, where I am pretty much an open book. 😂 People with ten minutes and the motivation can find where I work.

I guess that fact that I came out as bisexual when I was 16 (mid 1990s) and my parents were both very laid-back about the whole thing. Despite being with my husband for 24 years I have had more female sexual partners than male. I told my best friend I loved her, and she had to reject me (we’re still best friends and were each other’s head bridesmaids at our respective weddings).

🍄 ⇢ share a head canon for one of your favourite ships or pairings

Apart from the fact that they all need therapy?

For Hangster, the headcanon is that they allow themselves to be soft with each other. It takes them years to get there, and these softer sides are never exposed to others, but they slowly get there. (And yes, this is exactly where OAA is going).

🪐 ⇢ name three good things going on in your life right now

Everyone in my family is currently well and healthy.

I’m in a job where I am valued and I enjoy coming to every day.

I am very content and settled and am in a good place most days.

🦷 ⇢ share some personal wisdom or a life hack you swear on

My mum, who has been dead nearly 17 years, was a LifeLine counsellor. She gave me a mug when I was 13-14 and it said:

"Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday"

I basically take from that to mean "don't be borrowing worry/trouble", and she also taught me to direct my worry towards action and things I COULD change.

I have many life hacks that work for me personally, however that's just me. My lists and dice rolling and getting people to tell me what fics I should write - it's all about making myself accountable to other people. That would backfire horribly for many others.

❄️ ⇢ what's your dream theme/plot for a fic, and who would write it best?

If I dream up a fic plot, it usually eats away at me until I write it myself. As in, I cannot settle mentally until it is out there on a screen or piece of paper. I've been writing fic for over 30+ years and as creative outlets go it's one of my favourites. Involves less swearing than patchwork quilting at least.

🦋 ⇢ share something that has been on your heart and mind lately 

My dad's is getting on in age and I am facing the very real reality that he will likely be gone in the next five years. I haven't needed my parents in decades, but neither am I ready to be parentless either. It always makes me sad knowing that my own children will never know my mother.

🦗 ⇢ add 50 words to your current wip and share the paragraph here

                “I...” Bradley starts, because he really does want the company right now, Natasha is off with Coyote, and she’d come if he called, but he doesn’t want to rain on her happiness. Not when there is no guarantee of any future right now, the bird strike and g-Loc incidents both really driving home how dangerous their jobs are.

(Jokes on you because I have 15+ WIPs and it’s anyone’s guess which one that’s from…😂)

Feel free to send in more - I'm using up my lunch break covering reception...

[thephantomcasebook]

These fans are mad that the writers are lame af because ain't no way they've never imagined they wouldn't do characters dirty for no reason before lol

In all honesty ...

I've never seen anyone or anything get so goddamn feral, so quickly, in my life, than the HOTD fandom did.

We all sort of eased back into the franchise at first after being incredibly let down and betrayed. Then from 1x03-1x05 it was like being a part of the GOT fandom again with funny memes and joking around. People slowly falling in love with Alicent and kinda liking young Rhaenyra. All of us agreeing that Matt Smith is a great actor.

Then, around 1x06 to current day, everyone just lost their goddamn mind.

Suddenly there's this weird cult like hate or adoration of Alicent. Fucking Rhaenyra stans out here screaming the condoning for the murder of children and the need for it. You can't even praise Jaehaera - a sweet and innocent little girl - and wish that she get better treatment without some creepy losers shitting themselves in anger over it.

I was on discord earlier and I was showing them the kind of deranged asks that people send into my inbox and it was a large topic of conversation between people - some who may or may not work on HOTD in some capacity or another - about the level of vitriol and rage that cropped up out of absolutely nowhere.

Reddit is a hive of buzzing angry hornets at the best of times, but the level of hatred and anger in the ASoIaF fandom is just unreal and everyone who is a fan and even people who work on the show are noticing it.

I've got this major fucking loser we were making fun of today who is so fucking pissed off because I have a pet theory of A+C=D and they're so angry and offended by it that they hate read my blog and act like one of those sad pathetic "Reply guys" on twitter at every post.

There's also this person who we tracked down and whose blog we all had a good laugh at reading, who sends absolute vitriolic asks because they refuse to believe that Jessica Brown Findlay was originally cast to play Alys Rivers. There is all sorts of evidence from both Olivia Cooke and Phia Saban following her on Instagram, to the head costume designer and several directors from season 2 following her on instagram, to her even liking several instagram posts from the Costume Designer about cast fittings before someone on twitter noticed and she unliked everything.

But still, this person truly believes that if she "Stans" the replacement actress for Alys, that she's somehow a good and righteous person that can claim internet points for being the first stan.

And I think that's the weird part about this whole thing with fandom that we were talking about.

There's people in this fandom, on Twitter and Reddit, that somehow equate their favs to be linked to some sort of real life virtue. That there some sort of moral equivalency test to liking an aspect or character of this goddamn show. And if you fail it or don't line up you're not just against the tribe, you're all and all evil.

And it's so fucking wild how a fandom went from fun crank theories about Varys being a Mermaid to being evil and awful, because, you talked to someone who was around the volume for Pre-viz who heard something at lunch and you relay what they heard to someone who asked what the word is in the gossip mills these days.

Even when you preface and epilogue the post with it being a rumor and probably not true, they still gnash their teeth and post on Twitter and Reddit trying to get a hate mob together to come after your blog.

Mutha'fucker, I'm a 33 year old man who has been shot at and been in life or death fist fights with dudes twice my size.

All I have to do to kick your ass is ignore an app for a few days while I finish a chapter and watch retro anime and Downton Abbey.

Either way, it's crazy out here, Nonny.

Get strapped and stay vigilante, the hoard of rage zombies are out in force.

[too-many-rooks]

Writing procrastination game!

Thanks @lastlymatt for tagging me, I got rambly so I’ll put this under a ‘read more’

Tagging @pigandpepper @known-concepts @countessrivers

1.) what’s the name of one of your wips?

My doc names are usually very boring 95% of the time I finish a fic and think it’s ready to post and realise I need a title. How about ‘Yassen Bedroom Visit’?

2.) Describe a Wip in the format of __+__=__

SCORPIA heir Alex + totally normal kidnapping and drugging in the middle of the night get to safety orienteering exercises = childhood trauma

3.) What tags/warnings will one of your Wips need if you share it?

Forced child seperation?

4.) alternative title to a wip?

I don’t really have alternate titles! Titles tend to come pretty late in the process!

5.) which wip are you most likely to update/finish next?

Probably one of my s3 aus I’ve got brewing, there’s a longer thing I posted the first chapter of today but I also have some one shots, one where Yassen gets wounded fighting off Alex’s enemies and Alex basically has to hold him down to say he cares about him, and another where Yassen comes to chat to him in the middle of the night (while Alex is sleeping) and they catch up.

6.) what is one of your wip’s document title, not what it’s name is but what you have it saved as?

Again, extremely boring. Some examples - ‘Tom/House introduction’, ‘stables’, ‘the ball’, ‘heir apparent 1-9’, ‘hunting’ ‘hostage’ ‘orienteering.’

On reflection, these are very badly organised. But, hey Ho.

7.) post any sentence from your WIP?

Okay this took me forever to decide bc I want to share like, all of my sentences, but here’s a sentence from my SCORPIA heir Alex thing where Yassen just tries to take a day off, but is interrupted by Alex sneaking out of school/the country and mountain his school is on

‘Rubbing his eyes with his forefinger and thumb, he blocked out the little blonde headache sat before him, and sighed, already imagining the state of his email inbox when he got back to his laptop, which he’d sworn would stay folded in its case for the rest of the day.

“And how long ago was this? When should I start expecting panicked calls from your father?”‘

8.) a scrapped idea from your WIP?

Not necessarily a scrapped idea but evidently one I forgot about and rediscovered as I was flicking through google docs - originally a pre-season 3 idea (but could work post s3) where Yassen retires, and decides it’s time for Alex to retire too, even if he doesn’t want to. Very “congratulations you are being adopted! Do not resist.” Meme with Yassen that I’ve seen on here, the bit I’d written was him contemplating the least traumatising way to kidnap him, to make sure they’re a happy family unit post-kidnapping

9.) what’s a story you would love to write but have yet to start?

Alex sees dead people AU - Ian knows, when he dies his ghost becomes bound to Alex, and helps take care of him/watch over him in the field, Alex bumps into Yassen at Point Blanc and immediately recognises the ghost bound to him as his father, especially as he begs the assassin to stop pretending like he can’t hear him for once and let him see his son, to protect him.

10.) how many WIPs are you actively working on?

Four - regency fic, darker Alex s3 au, two other s3 aus I mentioned earlier. Suprised myself by how much of this longer ‘SCORPIA heir’ Alex thing that I’d put off for a while I’ve actually written. That’s one that I really want to finish before I start posting bc I’m bad at doing work without an immediate emotional reward/it’s a longer than anything I’ve written before and I don’t want to give up on it when it’s half published. I had been delaying it till after s3 but maybe time to get to work (will try and finish regency fic first)

11.) is there a scene your struggling to write now?

Oh I mean so many but the most immediate stumbling block is with the regency fic, chapter after this one they go to a ball and that’s almost basically written and so is a lot of the next two chapters but there’s things I need to thread into this chapter that just don’t want to be threaded - I need Alex to start being a bit more suspicious of Yassen, and remember that whole thing about his uncle being murdered now he’s a bit passed the initial princess diaries revelation moment.

I was thinking like Alex waiting up for him on Christmas Eve or something and falls asleep then is woken by Yassen sneaking back in and Alex noticed he’s got blood on his clothes or something and Yassen just shrugs him off and reacts more strictly/authoritatively than he has before. But the scene is a bit sludgy I my mind atm.

12.) Not a question but a second kudos!

[misfitwashere]

Friends,

Today I want to tell you the dangers posed by an out-of-control Elon Musk (in part I), and six ways to rein him in (in part II). I also provide some personal evidence of how bonkers he is (in my P.S. at the end of today’s letter).

I. Elon Musk is Out of Control

Elon Musk is rapidly transforming his enormous wealth — he’s the richest person in the world — into a huge source of unaccountable political power that’s now backing Trump and other global authoritarians.

Musk owns X, formerly known as Twitter. He has publicly endorsed Donald Trump. He is spending as much as $180 million on transforming the Republican Party’s field organizing program to help Trump — to which he has brought in new leadership, including a new personal aide to help him make political decisions. 

Trump and Musk have both floated the idea of governing together if Trump wins a second term. “I think it would be great to just have a government efficiency commission,” Musk said in an August 11 conversation with Trump, streamed on X. “And I’d be happy to help out on such a commission.”

In that same conversation, Trump congratulated Musk for his willingness to fire workers seeking higher wages and better working conditions. “You’re the greatest cutter,” Trump said. “I mean, I look at what you do. You walk in, you just say: ‘You want to quit?’ They go on strike — I won’t mention the name of the company — but they go on strike. And you say: ‘That’s okay, you're all gone.’”

As the interview concluded, Musk told Trump, “I think we’re at a fork in the road of destiny, of civilization, and I think we need to take the right path, and I think you’re the right path.”

Weeks later, Musk reposted a faked version of Kamala Harris’s first campaign video with an altered voice track sounding like Harris and saying she doesn’t “know the first thing about running the country” and is the “ultimate diversity hire.” Musk tagged the video “amazing.” It’s gotten hundreds of millions of views, so far.

The Michigan secretary of state has accused the Musk-supported America PAC of tricking people into sharing personal data. Although the PAC’s website promises to help users register to vote, it allegedly asks users in battleground states to give their names and phone numbers without directing them to a voter registration site — and then uses that information to send them anti-Harris and pro-Trump ads.

According to a new report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, Musk himself has so far this year posted 50 false election claims on X to his nearly 200 million followers. They’ve got a total of 1.2 billion views. None of them had a “community note” from X’s supposed fact-checking system.

Evidence is mounting that Russia and other foreign agents are using X to disrupt this year’s presidential race, presumably in favor of Trump. Musk has done little to stop them.

Meanwhile, Musk is supporting right-wing causes around the world.

In the UK, far-right thugs burned, looted, and terrorized minority communities after Musk’s X spread misinformation about a deadly attack on schoolgirls. Musk not only allowed instigators of this hate to spread these lies, but he retweeted and supported them.

At least eight times in the past 10 months, Musk has predicted a future civil war related to immigration. When anti-immigration street riots occurred across Britain, he wrote: “civil war is inevitable.”

The European Union commissioner Thierry Breton sent Musk an open letter reminding him of EU laws against amplifying harmful content “that promotes hatred, disorder, incitement to violence, or certain instances of disinformation” and warning that the EU “will be extremely vigilant” about protecting “EU citizens from serious harm.”

Musk’s response was a meme that said: “TAKE A BIG STEP BACK AND LITERALLY, F*CK YOUR OWN FACE!”

Elon Musk calls himself a “free speech absolutist,” but he has accepted over 80 percent of censorship requests from authoritarian governments. Two days before the Turkish elections, he blocked accounts critical of the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. 

Musk says he’ll follow the law wherever it operates, but he’s fighting a Brazilian Supreme Court justice who ordered Brazil’s telecom agency to block access to X because X has “allowed the massive spread of disinformation, hate speech and attacks on the democratic rule of law, violating the free choice of the electorate, by keeping voters away from real and accurate information.”

Musk’s friendly relations with authoritarians often coincide with beneficial treatment of his businesses. Shortly after Musk suggested handing Taiwan over to the Chinese government, Tesla got a tax break from the Chinese government. Musk has backed Argentina’s Javier Milei, who then provided Musk access to his country’s lithium — crucial to Tesla’s batteries. Musk has backed India’s Narendra Modi and secured lower import tariffs for Tesla’s vehicles in India. 

**

II. How to Rein Musk In 

He may be the richest man in the world. He may own one of the world’s most influential social media platforms. He may lash out at anyone who dares criticize him. (After The Guardian published an earlier version of this post, Musk went on a Trump-like rant to his nearly 200 million followers, launching ad hominem attacks on me without disputing what I said. More details in the P.S. at the end of this letter.)

But that doesn’t mean we’re powerless to stop him.

Here are six ways to rein in Musk:

1. Boycott Tesla.

Consumers shouldn’t be making him even richer and able to do even more harm. A Tesla boycott may have already begun; a recent poll found that one-third of Britons are less likely to buy a Tesla because of Musk’s recent behavior.

2. Advertisers should boycott X.

A coalition of major advertisers has organized such a boycott. Musk is suing them under antitrust law. “We tried peace for 2 years, now it is war,” he wrote on X, referring to advertisers who criticize him and X.

3. Regulators around the world should stop Musk from disseminating lies and hate on X.

On August 24, French authorities arrested Pavel Durov, founder of the online communications tool Telegram, which French authorities have found complicit in hate crimes and disinformation. Like Musk, Durov has styled himself as a free speech absolutist. I’m not arguing that Musk or any other disseminator of lies and hate must necessarily be charged with crimes, but they should be held legally responsible for what they publish.

4. In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission should demand that Musk take down lies that are likely to endanger individuals — and if he does not, sue him under Section 5 of the FTC Act.

Musk’s free-speech rights under the First Amendment don’t take precedence over the public interest. Two months ago, the Supreme Court said federal agencies may pressure social media platforms to take down misinformation — a technical win for the public good (technical because the court based its ruling on the plaintiff’s lack of standing to sue).

5. The U.S. government — and we taxpayers — have additional power over Musk, if we’re willing to use it. The U.S. should terminate its contracts with him, starting with Musk’s SpaceX. 

In 2021, the United States entered into a $1.8 billion classified contract with SpaceX that includes blasting off classified and military satellites, according to The Wall Street Journal. The funds are now an important part of SpaceX’s revenue.

The Pentagon has also contracted with SpaceX’s Starlink broadband service to pay for internet links, despite Musk’s refusal in September 2022 to allow Ukraine to use Starlink to launch an attack on Russian forces in Crimea.

Last August, the Pentagon gave SpaceX’s Starshield unit $70 million to provide communications services to dozens of Pentagon partners.

Meanwhile, SpaceX is cornering the rocket launch market. Its rockets were responsible for two-thirds of flights from U.S. launch sites in 2022 and handled 88 percent in the first six months of this year.

In deciding upon which private-sector entities to contract with, the U.S. government is supposed to consider the contractor’s reliability. Musk’s mercurial, impulsive, childish temperament makes him and the companies he heads unreliable. The government is also supposed to consider whether it is contributing to a monopoly. Musk’s SpaceX is fast becoming one.

Why is the U.S. government allowing Musk’s satellites and rocket launchers to become crucial to the nation’s security when he’s shown utter disregard for the public interest? Why give Musk more economic power when he repeatedly abuses it and demonstrates contempt for the public good?

There is no good reason. American taxpayers should stop subsidizing Musk.

6. Make sure Musk’s favorite candidate for president is not elected.

***

PS: After The Guardian published an earlier version of this post, Musk went on a tirade — agreeing with a tweet calling me “a traitor to the American people;” then calling me “Robert Reichtard;” then saying “To be totally honest, I don’t want Reich arrested, as I wouldn’t want to inflict having listen to him upon his jailers. A fate worse than death!;” then identifying me as “a miniature wanker” (see below); then giving a thumbs-up emoji to a post saying I’m “so dumb as to think socialism is a good thing.”

[thirdsonseth]

Ethics of Social Media

·  The current state of social media ethics: what trends are happening in the industry? What are two current cases related to social media ethics? Outline the current code of ethics for social media by a professional organization you would be interesting in joining as part of their social media staff.

Today, I want to be part of the social media team for the Restoration Industry Association, a non-profit trade organization for the cleaning and restoration industry. They follow a strict code of ethics on their webpage where they treat their customers with the upmost respect, following sound business practices, and giving the customers clear and accurate information. Right now, they’re getting ready to run a campaign to see which candidate will be voted for the Board of Directors for the RIA on their Facebook page.

·  Brands/professionals with strong social media ethical codes: what brands are utilizing proper social media ethical practices? Are there any professionals that you feel practice strong ethical behavior on social media? Support your choice with evidence. What are some takeaways you can bring forth in your own practices?

One of the brands that are utilizing social media ethical practices is Adidas. In one of their policies, Adidas allows employees to associate themselves with the company when posting online, but their posts have to be personal and their own. This gives employees a chance to be influencers in the online space so that customers can have a personal connection with them and would more than likely buy a product from Adidas. They also don’t allow sensitive public information to be posted online as that is confidential stuff (Prafull, 2014). If I was adidas, I would be a little more strict when it comes to what you can or can’t post on social media as an Adidas employee, but I feel like they got it covered since Adidas cut ties with Kanye when he made those antisemitic tweets.

Key concepts and issues: what main concepts do you are necessary to adhere to for your own personal conduct online?

For me, I would have a saying where if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it at all. I also would have people post stuff online that follows good ethical business practices in order to keep things professional and to not go out of line. Even if you post it on your personal account.

What to do and what not to do: what main concepts do you feel strongly against and want to make sure you avoid on social media?

One of the main concepts I’m strongly against is to manipulate your audience into giving them more money or to gain more followers. For example, there was a guy who posted on twitter saying that he was homeless and needed money; only to realize later on that he’s a scammer scamming his audience to make more money.

Bullet point 5-10 core concepts that you will follow as a practicing social media professional. Include citations that you used for sources/supports for this.

The five core concepts that I would follow as a practicing social media professional is to remember that

All Media messages are constructed. “When we use an online meme or post a selfie, we often are following unstated instructions for what these images should look like and say. From the very act of our not-so-natural smiles to how - especially in the case of female media images, we pose and display ourselves for the camera, we often are contributing to the perpetuation of media images that do not reflect our lives and true selves. When creating your own media, one should be aware of how imitation of popular or approved media images might come into play, and what influences outside of one's own life and values might be shaping how you create and share original content online. (Goodman, 2014).

Media messages shape our perception of reality.

Different audiences, different understanding of the same message

Media messages have commercial implications

Media messages embed points of view

Goodman, Stacey. “Social Media Literacy: The 5 Key Concepts.” Edutopia, George Lucas Educational Foundation, 11 June 2014, www.edutopia.org/blog/social-media-five-key-concepts-stacey-goodman.

Prafull. “5 Terrific Examples of Company Social Media Policies.” Hirerabbit.com, 24 Oct. 2014, blog.hirerabbit.com/5-terrific-examples-of-company-social-media-policies/.

‌

‌Seth Bailey

[alleyskywalker]

First Sentence Meme

Continuing this from previous years… Put down the first sentence of every fic you wrote/posted this last year (2023).

Theon isn’t exactly overjoyed at this mission Asha has inflicted on him – leading the delegation that is to oversee the final prisoner and hostage exchange of the war between the Islands and the North.

Daphne is fourteen when her parents begin negotiations with the Notts.

“Oh!” Juliet gasps in surprise, burying her nose in the yellow primroses.

“Mercutio, nothing about this is a good idea.”

“I must thank you, ser,” Princess Elia says, barely lifting her eyes to look at him, even though Ned can still discern a spark of defiance beneath her reticence. “If not for my sake, then for my children.”

The rain is pouring down in droves when Evan finally gets back to the safehouse.

She came to the parlay herself, hood up and face in shadow, her golden curls hidden under the folds of dark, thick cloth.

When Sansa had first come to King’s Landing she had been dying to see the Harvest Festival done in the glory and spirit it deserved.

At the end of the war, it had still felt much like the end of the world.

Of course Edmure wants to make the announcement during the festival.

They do the best they can in the circumstances with her dress and maiden’s cloak – some lace and silk ribbon sewn onto one of her white muslin dresses to spruce it up, their house sigil cut from a ruined cloak and stitched onto one of hers.

When they part on the night of the battle, Sansa can feel her heart hammering like a caught rabbit in her chest, getting stuck in her throat.

Theon gets his first bow when he is six.

Robb woke to the rumble of the surf against the rocks below, a soft breeze of salty, spring air seeping through the shutters.

Theon — My son is six today.

The rain was making everything more difficult.

Much of what had always been frustrating about Potter’s gang and their constant mission to make Severus’ life infuriatingly more difficult than it needed to be, to put it lightly, was how they always had an uncanny ability to figure out when to accost him.

The battle in the Whispering Wood was a resounding victory.

Theon drinks his coffee black, dark and bitter, swirls of steam rising up in the watery morning sunlight spilling across their kitchen.

The Starks arrive the day before the Water Festival feast and main festivities, bringing their three eldest trueborn children as well as Theon.

“Here, Ben, in here.”

The rain pours down in sheets, a true summer storm swallowing up the city in the middle of an especially hot July.

“Here, in here!” Evan tugs on Regulus’ sleeve with one hand, holding his wand aloft to keep the shielding charm active over them.

Snow in May has everyone talking that Voldemort left a curse on England even in death.

There’s a hailstorm on their wedding day.

Sansa wears a corset for her wedding.

When they tell him his sister is back, Theon doesn’t believe it at first, even though Tris Botley’s lovelorn eyes are evidence good as any.

When they tell him his sister is back, Theon doesn’t believe it at first, even though Tris Botley’s lovelorn eyes are evidence good as any.

In Robb’s dreams, telling his mother will go like this:

“Are you ready to go?” Benvolio asked.

The tapestry that overhangs Draco’s bed depicts two mermaids intertwined in something that could be a fight or a sex-act, depending on how you look at it.

Dearest Asha— They say that dark wings bring dark words, but I cannot help but wait for a raven.

The first days of summer find Sansa walking through the wolfswood, hand in hand with her goodsister.

The serenity of the forest pulls Benvolio away from the hunting party.

The new embroidery pattern Sansa was trying had begun to finally work out.

Mercutio doesn’t remember how they met; all he knows is that he and Romeo have been joined at the hip since they could walk.

May in Petersburg this year is unusually cold, and in the early morning mist, a thin layer of frost covers the ground, tendrils of ice spreading on the cobblestone and corners of windows like frozen spiderwebs.

The Black’s country estate is sunny and peaceful in the summers.

When Wex was told he would be squiring for Theon Greyjoy, the late King Balon’s last living son and rightful heir, Wex wasn’t certain what to expect.

Alicent’s first experience with boys was when she was three-and-ten.

The heir to Riverrun was born in the early hours of the morning, before the sun came up and the moon had not yet set.

They say goodbye on the beach – King Robert is too impatient to go down to the docks of Lordsport so the invaders take their leave from the nearest convenient place where rowboats can be loaded up and pushed out into the waves to struggle back to the warships and galleys.

“Do you have everything?”

Helaena is splendid on her wedding day.

Alys Karstark is a bony, wiry girl.

Wozarding Berlin was more integrated with its muggle counterpart than Wizarding London, Pansy found.

“Tell me how my nephew fairs.”

No one comes to Sonya’s wedding.

He’s dying, is all Alicent can think.

It’s almost funny in a way – darkly, ironically, not the kind that makes him happy – that the first time Criston sees Alicent truly vulnerable is when she questions him about Rhaenyra’s activities, just weeks after their ill-fated encounter in the Princess’ bedchamber and the same day that Rhaenyra had stomped on his heart and shattered his dignity.

Scooter found him on the roof of the dorms, staring into the darkness of the park surrounding Eden Hall.

Anatole bites his lip, fidgets with the quilted blanket in his lap. “Fedya… I’m not sure I want to do this.”

The first time Mercutio kisses Romeo, they’re children running through the Montague gardens and playing tag among the hedges.

One day when he is seven and ten, Edmure’s father calls him into his solar.

[really-awkward-pics-of-janus]

so more about this patreon chat mod issue because i didn’t think people not on patreon would care so i didn’t include a lot of details. here are some more if you care/are concerned. god knows i am.

at the beginning of july there was a long text post published to the patreon addressing various things about the new asides, how long it was taking & why, talking about the new awkward adventures stuff, & other things, but most importantly at the end of the post thomas says they’ve hired some new people to the team. here’s a snippet of that part.

all well & fine, i was happy thomas was getting more help. we honestly didn’t really see much of a shift about things other than occasionally there would be references to a new woman on some streams; her name is lauren & thomas calls her their manager. she’s pretty cool. we like lauren.

today however, as usual i opened the stream an hour early & the chat was filled with the usual pre-stream discussions, jokes, & memes. most of you aren’t patreons so let me tell you what the chat is like; EXTREMELY buggy. even thomas has complained multiple times that he can’t scroll back up in the chat to see a message he was reading once it disappeared into the ether. so unfortunately, i don’t have any screenshots of the chat right now, you’ll have to take my word on all this. i apologize. if something happens & i can cap it before it disappears, know that i will try my best

so about five minutes before the stream officially started we got a long post from someone named “Moderator” in the chat. i was AFK at the time but was on call with @nonchimerical​ who was watching the chat right then. she said the message seemed fairly reasonable other than the no swearing rule, but since the chat actively moves, it was long gone before i got back. i imagine many, many people missed that message since the pre-stream chat is very small & most people only join 5-10 minutes after it’s started.

this is my first issue with this stream having a mod. we weren’t notified in a fair way, have no clue what the rules are, what the etiquette is, etc. i use the community manager announcement as an example that the team is very capable of bringing attention to a decision like this. we were told when brie was hired, when we got a new producer & the manager. why weren’t we notified in detail about a chat moderator? these streams are small, only 300-500 people attend each, we all basically know each other or recognize each other’s names. in my opinion, the only reason we needed a mod in the first place was to keep people from moderating each other about not spamming & stuff. but anyway. onto the next point.

to say that the chat is buggy is an understatement. the entire stream is buggy. thomas’ camera disconnects sometimes, the audio cuts out, becomes gargled - sometimes the stream just stops altogether & thomas always takes a good 5-15 minutes to catch on to the fact that anything is wrong in the first place. i thought, well having a mod will solve that! certainly thomas will be in direct communication with a mod like that or at least notice mod messages easier than normal mod messages! but no. that was too much to hope for evidently. when thomas started the game, it was very small in the left corner. we couldn’t see anything but him for a solid 10 minutes. the entire prologue of the game was lost to us. the moderate said to thomas, a couple times in the chat, that this was an issue. when thomas finally noticed & switched the camera & screen capture, it wasn’t due to the moderator messages but because people in the chat were spamming about it. as usual.

this is the way it’s always been in the streams; it’s a joke at this point we all laugh about. we send repeat messages shouting “HEY THOMAS, GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER /AFFECIONATE,” THOMAS, CAMERA,” “oh no did anyone else’s audio go out?,” “thomas we can’t hear you ):” yes it’s a problem that this happens in the first place but it’s a problem of the website he uses, not his equippment. under the new mod rules, this is considered spamming. thomas is equally not paying attention to what the mod says, which is a very big issue, in & of itself.

so i won’t spoil what the stream actually is right now but i’ll say we’re playing a game that has the concept of “HP” in it. thomas joked that “HP” stood for “honesty potential.” this game is very queer, which will make the fact that someone in the chat joked that “HP” stood for “homo points” very funny, even if the sanders sides community wasn’t overwhelmingly queer. even if thomas himself wasn’t a literal homosexual.

the moderator saw someone say “homo points,” @’d them, & told them to “watch their language” & to “not use slurs in chat.”

i’m sorry. what?

quite a few people in the chat at that point called that out, saying that in the situation, this clearly wasn’t being used as a slur, & my main issue is, if we can’t use homo/homosexual in any way, shape, or form, we are admitting its primary use is a slur rather than an identity. it’s fucking problematic as well. it’s giving our identity to the bigots, we’re handing them that word with that way of thinking.

reclamation of slurs aside, the immediate context clearly wasn’t taken into account with this reprimanding. in a chat this small, in a fandom like this, i think that’s a major issue. context matters, & that is my second issue, now with this mod personally. if you’re going to mod a chat, know the fandom. know the environment you’re in & the kinds of jokes we have here or else you seem like a stranger in our house rather than someone helpful.

moving on, the other big issue i have with this mod is the no swearing rule. it’s so fucking hypocritical. thomas & the people thomas has on his streams swear regularly. thomas has encouraged/permitted the people he streams with to swear. & yet not ten minutes ago did someone in the chat get @’d & reprimanded for using the word “damn” in a fairly innocuous sentence.

a smaller, but annoying problem that has also happened in this stream so far is that the chat started spamming “F” for the “F in the chat meme.” after maybe fifteen of them rapidly in a row, the mod told everyone to stop the spamming. i know for a fact 99% of the people in this fandom understand the F in the chat meme. i know for a fact that most of the people in this fandom are familiar with streamming etiquette, which calls for some tasteful spamming occasionally. this mod had no clue what that meme was & when thomas saw every spamming F, he laughed. thomas got it. why didn’t the mod?

look. i don’t mind the chat having a mod. i think it could be very useful for stopping the more annoying/unnecessary spam & especially, if implemented correctly, to mitigate some technical issues. but this specific moderator isn’t clued in on the fandom & has unrealistic/hypocritical standards for a chat like this. i think either the mod needs to spend some time learning what a chat actually looks like & what this fandom is about or thomas needs to get someone different.

[olivereactsaboutgarbage]

Higurashi When They Cry - Arc 1 Chapter 12

Did you see? Did you see the punchline?

Well, punchlines aside, there’s an obvious first order of business I need to get to here: Whichever part of the Kaiji Joke was the weird fetishy one.

Rena HAS been touched before and not reacted negatively. Keiichi’s head has touched her legs and nothing bad happened at all. If you will permit me to use a meme format to reveal the truth that this has allowed me to reach...

Darkened Mind: This means Rena doesn’t have trauma related to being touched. Glowing Mind: This means Rena isn’t a robot programmed to automatically freak out upon contact with human skin, which doesn’t mean she doesn’t have trauma related to being touched. She still could, especially for when people touch her using their hands. Ascendant Human: Regardless of whether or not Rena has trauma related to being touched, she obviously can’t be boiled down to a formula of If x Then y. No human being is that predictable. Anyone can deviate from their own behavioral patterns based on any number of factors. As for what Keiichi’s head touching Rena’s legs means: Ryukishi sometimes includes creepy anime bullshit in his stories.

As for other concerns on the agenda... I’ll get to those as I go through the events of Chapter 12.

I guess I kept jerking off and nodding awake in a panic all night...

I’m not gonna add every line of narration that confirms my biases to this post because that would be every line of narration.

So... I already know that the 1st arc of Higurashi is coming to a close, but... Keiichi’s attempts to “adopt the ideal, most cautious new behaviors” and also “be so normal no one will be able to accuse him of being cautious” are so... unsustainable in the long term. You can’t just say “I happened to switch up my routine a bit today”, “It just coincidentally happened again” and so on for a month straight. ...I mean, I guess that’s where at some point Keiichi would say “I formed a new habit. No it’s not sad that I formed a habit of being more distant from you. I’m normal.” If he’s even thinking that far ahead.

This narration correlates to a specific bias I’ll mention later.

Now is that because she doesn’t want to talk about it or because she doesn’t remember.

If Keiichi hallucinating were to become an extremely common trope throughout all 8 Higurashis, lines like this would probably be essential. Or I’m overthinking things due to the nature of visual novels. In fiction, the medium is just as essential to the audience experience as the content within the medium. Even things like a “lack of content” can become content. The gutters in a comic, the negative space in an image-that-hasn’t-been-split-up-into-multiple-panels, page turns when reading a book, the week-long wait between episodes of something that gets released weekly... all of these can be narrative tools, not for conveying what happens, but for controlling the way the audience perceives the fact that it happened in the first place.

Besides character sprites, backgrounds, and audio, the thing that distinguishes a visual novel from a book is how much more frequently you need to click to advance a visual novel’s textbox compared to how frequently you need to turn a book’s pages. It renders every sentence worthy of thoughtful consideration, which could combine with the fact that writing this blog already makes me try to ponder the things I’m consuming more thoughtfully. The result would be me overthinking things.

Luckily I don’t see any evidence around here of me having overthought anything!!! (<--Keiichi moment) (Even if you assume my conclusion that Keiichi isn’t perceiving reality correctly is wrong, that means the needle he found definitely existed, which means he lost track of a needle which was literally evidence, so the sentence I just said, then pointed at while saying “Keiichi moment”, WAS a Keiichi moment in BOTH potential readings of the narrative! Keiichi IS a fool who DOES fail to see obviously visible evidence! “Of what” is left to be determined for now. I’m a writing genius, and like I said earlier today, I should be the one writing One Piece instead of Oda.)

Those were three cool paragraphs to write instead of ever at any point clicking past the sentence pictured above them. With regards to the fact that I wrote those three paragraphs,

Ah, she’s lying, like an abuse victim. I was going to say “well that answers the question of whether or not she remembers” but no it doesn’t!!! Ascended Human: No It Doesn’t

Oh, this is the first instance of Mion screentime I’m witnessing post-Third Eye Opening. I’m gonna be honest that before my Third Eye Opening, Mion was the only character I particularly liked, because I didn’t feel like I “got” the rest of them. Turns out just because I now care about everyone and am rooting for a world in which they all turn out okay doesn’t mean Mion’s not still my favorite. People who’ve been reading my One Piece posts would have read me mentioning the Effect of Reverse Santa!Carmen P. Sandiego being present in a panel of One Piece: A brief moment in my brain where all other processes took a backseat to basking in the glory of a character I really liked.

Same thing’s happening with Mion. Maybe the point of commonality between Reverse Santa!Carmen P. Sandiego and Mion is that they’re both old, and they’re both girls.

You know, because Mion is an old man.

You know, because Mion is a teenage girl.

Mion... :(

Mion wants Keiichi to quit screwing around with baseball bats. She’s taking this desire of hers seriously enough to actually be feeling insecure about her intelligence, rather than her usual confident bluster that was present even in the scene where Keiichi was admonishing her for her bad grades. Or, alternatively, she’s evil. (<--I guess you can just mentally append this sentence to the end of any paragraph I write that involves a girl. Do my “unless I’m wrong”s manually in your mind from here on out.)

Hm... she does seem genuinely bad at coherently expressing her feelings. Also this:

For once I don’t think there’s any reading possible of this where Keiichi is actually wrong.

Unless you wanna be a fucker and say that Mion is actually an alien masquerading as human and all her actions are arbitrary.

Hmm... thinking again about the Side Story where Mion is like “Hey Rena, Ooishi is a harbinger of death” and they both laugh.

Hmm... ALSO thinking about the links drawn between Rena and DID.

Keiichi is yelling. He’s yelling loud words. He asks Mion whether it was her or Rena who “did it” with the mochi. Mion says it was her.

Hmm... trying to remember... was there some detail about the mochi Keiichi threw at the wall leaving a bright red trail? It doesn’t really matter if the answer is no, and it doesn’t really matter if this line of narration is arbitrary, but it would be deeply funny if this narration was super non-arbitrary.

Keiichi finally gets bored of acting normal as a ploy to not get murdered. He decides to make his thoughts and feelings explicit to Mion.

(Took a break here because something “more important” (equally unimportant) came up--which is also why this post is past-midnight. But it still totally counts as me not having broken my streak of on-time posting, because I haven’t slept yet! Ignore the problems with that logic.)

Mion cries. Keiichi almost feels bad, but then remembers to feel good.

I don’t know what that sounds like but I would have described the voice acting moreso as “neutral, almost coldly so--just slightly, not overwhelmingly, menacing”. The voice acting also clued me in to the fact that what the localization translates as “so that’s how it is” is merely, y’know, the word “souka”. In other words, because I have voice acting and don’t speak Japanese, I’m not getting the untainted Higurashi experience!!! (<--takes when they cry entirely too seriously)

(”Please infer: Mion definitely doesn’t have DID” yeah okay whatever fine I’ll do that)

WAIT LMAO??? WHAT DID SHE DO

...Did Rena and Mion look you in the eye? Did the Toddlers speak to you?

So, first of all, very funny for Keiichi to be like “THERE’S NO GOOD REASON FOR RENA TO HAVE AN AXE” when the Rena-holding-an-axe CG is literally reused. Like. I’ve seen it before. Back in the part of Higurashi before things were Messed Up. I almost feel like it’s boring for me to go “yep, another instance of me being correct that no one’s evil” whenever literally anything happens, but honestly I forget how Rena behaved in the Chapter 12 Rena-has-an-axe scene so maybe I’ll just read further for now.

...what an insane thing to say. as a murderer it serves no tactical advantage. as a non-murderer it. um. serves no tactical advantage. ... it serves no tactical advantage.

Okay, well, Rena’s answer to “Why do you have a weapon?” is “Why do you have a weapon?” and her response to “Because I’m Normal, I’m Normal, Look At Me I’m Keiichi The Normal Guy” is “Because I’m Normal, I’m Normal, Look At Me I’m Rena The Normal Girl”

So Keiichi is definitely wrong about Rena being a cunning murderer, because look at how idiotic the things she’s saying are. She’s saying things only a complete fool would say. I’m really embarrassed for her!

Just because Keiichi is wrong about her being smart doesn’t mean I should, or necessarily even can, assume her intentions are pure. I realize that in my last post I kinda ended up latching onto one thing as if it was the only thing and gradually shifted my own goalposts from “none of the five kids are evil” to “Keiichi is the only character who behaves maliciously” which I think was a mistake. He’s obviously not. Even if he is the only character within the core fivesome who behaves maliciously, which is honestly a heck of a reach, he’s not the only character who behaves maliciously, I think I was inadvertently too trusting, of all things.

Hmm... Ryukishi obviously had the concepts down for all the main characters of the series before he started writing, right? Should I assume that if Keiichi’s paranoia being the first small crack that leads to an already-fragile situation crumbling is the central concept of the series, the reason Rena is its poster-girl is that she’s the one who comes closest to warranting his paranoia? I don’t know if I like that as a writing decision if Mion and the Toddlers are relatively mentally sound. Seems crass to add to the heap of media where “crazy people are bad”. Emphasis on the word relatively because I guarantee if the word relatively weren’t there I would have absolutely nothing to be concerned about.

THAT BEING SAID... well, I’ll get into it once I reach that part of the plot.

Heh, it’s kinda cute that he’s still bothering to give her the time of day in a situation like this, instead of just like, taking off in a nonstop sprint.

...Never thought I’d ever call Keiichi cute, and I have read this before.

With the one singular exception of the way I just looked at it.

So... hmm... how viable is it to split Rena up into having “one personality who repeats the last words of her sentences, and one personality who doesn’t do that, but has a weird laugh”? (Wait I think the term these days is “alter” not “personality”. Unless it changed again. Terms always change!!) Keiichi said something about her weird laugh being a third thing from those other times Rena was different from Rena, but he’s way beyond being an unreliable narrator (if I’m right). That being said, for this concept to hold true at all, it must be assumed that “Ren-alter Ellipsis Alter” swapped to “Ren-alter LOL” mid-walk, between being all like “Keiichi, you seem to be hiding. Was it just a prank bro?” and being all like “Keiichi, you don’t seem to be hiding.”

...Wait is the same girl who said “You wouldn’t do something awful like touching me non-aggressively in a normal context, correct?” now saying “By the way, were you just joking around when you mutilated my fingers?“? When I ask that, I’m not assuming the answer is no. I’m merely... asking it.

Hmm... can the selfish side of me who wants Mion to be someone I can adore unabashedly... and the selfless side of me who wants Higurashi to have as few ableist implications as possible... reach a compromise?

Oh, Rena just did her word-repeating thing. Nothing really seems to have changed as far as I can tell... I’ll have to be on the lookout for if she’s still laughing.

Nah, she only did her word-repeating thing once, transitioned immediately into really not liking dishonesty, then laughed. Dunno if this is the right angle to approach the character from. Although assuming alters have a minimum amount of time they have to spend “being the face” (IS THAT THE RIGHT TERMINOLOGY???) might be a little silly on my part?

Maybe you just have no skills, man. You ARE the Everyman Anime Protagonist Guy.

Alternatively if this were merely a hallucination of Rena I guess no movement speed would cause Keiichi to not perceive her. I guess just like I shouldn’t be making assumptions about minimum amounts of time any given Ren-alter needs to spend as The Face if she has DID, I also shouldn’t be making assumptions about the maximum extent to which Keiichi could be far-gone if he has paranoid schizophrenia. Although only one assumption needs to be wrong. (Ascendant Human: Both Can Be Wrong)

Okay I guess uh,

Okay I guess those three lines of narration are a bit too much to ignore. They have to exist for a reason. There’s like, no way this isn’t a hallucination. Which maybe means all that Rena character analysis I just did was pointless.

...Then a-freaking-gain, suddenly all she’s saying in this scene is “I don’t want things to be like last time, please talk to me so it can be better this time” which, if Ryukishi is trying to obscure the reality of the fact that the girls aren’t evil, is SUCH TAME DIALOG TO GIVE TO A HALLUCINATION, maybe it really IS just that Keiichi is a little wimp with no athletic skills???

Crap it’s like the 80s and Keiichi uses his corded phone all the time, I know he doesn’t have a cell phone. For a second there I was asking myself if he was unknowingly talking to Rena over the phone while hallucinating her physical presence. Nah, that’d be a bit much even if cell phones were around...

*narrows eyes because i’m facing towards the sun and forgot to wear my golf visor*

So Rena keeps saying Satoshi transferred and Keiichi keeps freaking out about the ambiguity of that phrase. Is Satoshi just in a mental institution and talking about it transparently is just REALLY TABOO? ...It is the 80s. Also Japan. Were there countries where that’d be way less taboo in the 80s than in Japan in the 80s? I dunno I don’t live in Japan and I wasn’t alive in the 80s.

So... Rena’s not her given name. There was that whole Side Story where, like, Mion or Toddler 02 or whoever it was, was like, “Listen Keiichi. It’s not a big deal or anything, but like, she’s not [whatever her given name was], she’s just Rena, it’s that simple.” And she never hates dishonesty or laughs (assuming there’s three alters?) and she always repeats herself, in scenes containing anyone at all other than Keiichi. So is repeating herself called “Rena”, and... not doing that is called...?

...Maybe Mion and the Toddlers really are super normalbrained. I can picture that being what’s up here. If this is Super Duper A Period Piece. If a major plot point here is “Didn’t society suck EVEN MORE THAN IT DOES NOW when it came to mental health, back in the accursed 80s?”

Keiichi “I’m So Scared Of Rena” Maebara is right next to Rena and just watched her raise an axe above her head, and he’s engaging her in conversation rather than mustering the additional 10% hidden in the 110 percentage points of strength he has... yeah, he’s definitely cute... this is definitely... Keiichi MOEbara...

Oh, nostalgic. Although if Oyashiro-sama is the perpetrator, I do hope Oyashiro-sama isn’t like that genocide person from Danganronpa. That’d be so hard in the opposite direction from non-ableism. In fact, given the disposition of a certain YouTuber, and the fact that they have a video about how they don’t dislike Higurashi, I doubt I need to give that possibility even a moment’s consideration.

Gelid is a nice vocabulary word. I feel like there must be other words also about ice that have the same root word, because something about the word gelid meaning icy feels so unsurprising to me, but... I can’t think of a single word that explains why gelid meaning icy doesn’t surprise me. Regardless, there’s no way I remember that the word gelid even exists 24 hours from now. Unless the fact that I just wrote this entire paragraph causes the word gelid to stick around in my brain like an unwanted guest.

Wait, pardon? Why are barrages of apologies coming up here in this Oyashiro-sama Discussion? If barrages of apologies are an Oyashiro-sama Thing and Oyashiro-sama isn’t a Rena Thing, was the opening scene’s apologizing woman whose unheard conversational partner annoyed Keiichi very Very relevant? WAIT, SHE HAD A CELL PHONE!!! Hmm... if Keiichi stole her cell phone, that would explain this entire sequence!

Keiichi, why would you steal a cell phone? ...Ugh that feels like the lead-up to my beloved Usopp Punchline from my One Piece posts, but Keiichi isn’t Usopp, so now I’m left feeling blue-balled.

Uh... okay, um, I’m gonna... um... I’m gonna file that away to mention later... since the rest of what I’m saving for later factors into what I wanna say here...

...could Keiichi really have been that bamboozled...?

WHEN RENA SAYS THINGS LIKE THIS SHE’S SAYING “WE’RE THE ONLY TWO PEOPLE [PRESENTLY] IN HINAMIZAWA WHO [PRESENTLY] HAVE MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES” RIGHT?! WHY THE HELL IS THAT! WHAT THE HELL IS THE PLOT OF THIS VN!

So if Mion doesn’t have mental health issues, and Ooishi is a cop, and Ooishi doesn’t realize Keiichi has mental health issues, and Rena has mental health issues, and Mion told Rena Ooishi is a bad guy who’ll cause bad things to happen to Keiichi, and they laughed like it was just a joke, but there is someone Mion hates, and it seems like it’s Ooishi,

I feel like that gif of the math swirling around the woman but all the math is replaced with rubber ducks and the woman is replaced with me.

Alright fine, if it’s going to come up again, I guess I’ll ask now. Is there some sort of “Normal Society” --oops you’re insane time to get exiled to--> Hinamizawa --oops you’re insane time to get exiled to--> Uh Oh, This Place Sucks pipeline? And Keiichi’s stated reason for why he moved to Hinamizawa is wrong because he’s been lied to? Why would there be such a pipeline? Especially since Hinamizawa is full of mentally sound people?

WAIT, IS THAT WHY THE TEACHER HAS CHARACTER SPRITES? SHE’S SECRETLY A PSYCHIATRISTEACHER? No one who’s not a psychiatrist would EVER have character sprites!! I’ve cracked the code!!

Afraid FOR her, right? They didn’t want anything bad to happen to her? Ugggh give me DETAILS

Yeah okay Ooishi has confirmed the boys were her friends. I already inferred THAT detail, give me a DIFFERENT additional detail!!

No witnesses, huh. Huh. Huh.

Ooishi and Keiichi are talking more and more about the incident. It’s boring so I don’t care about it. When I said I wanted more details I actually lied, details fucking suck. I’m moreso wondering why Toddler 02 told Keiichi it was good that he had a baseball bat. Rena told him it was bad. Mion told him it was bad. Toddler 01... hasn’t been plot-relevant since that moment. Why’d Toddler 02 tell him it was good.

Hmm, it’d be funny if there were some hilarious reason, like Satoshi McAlsoparanoid telling Toddler 02 specifically a way-too-sentimental lie that caused her to get emotionally attached to his baseball bat. Or... something...???

Ugh, alright, this was the other thing I WAS saving for later: Does Hinamizawa attract mental illness or cause it? Why the hell would it do either of those things? It seems to, though.

Oh... oh, the fact that the government didn’t care if their new dam was going to flood Hinamizawa... is that because they were like “Meh, who cares about havens for crazy people?” I can see why people would passionately fight against that rather than pulling a Ben Shapiro and selling their houses and moving.

*squints yet again and loudly curses my lack of a golf visor*

Ableism?

Also “Oyashiro-sama” is “Jailor for Hinamizawans”

If Hinamizawa is a glorified mental asylum and that’s secretly the real reason Keiichi’s there why would Keiichi’s parents be like “Well, now that we’re here, Problem Solved, and if he acts weird, well, um, not top priority right now, because Artist”... maybe Keiichi’s dad really is the worst most villainous character in Higurashi.

Keiichi thinks the connection between “metal bats” and “Oyashiro-sama” is No Mere Coincidence. Can I ignore this? I’m all overthinkinged out, and quite frankly I just think Keiichi is wrong sometimes.

Aww, man... Keiichi shoved Rena. Now I’ll never know why she was holding her axe above her head rather than having her arms lowered below her head like any normal person does with their arms. Well, maybe there’s no correlation there, actually.

Keiichi engages in an epic anime battle against a couple of guys and loses.

Keiichi is in a normal scenario.

Cough

Yeah that’s the type of doctor she called

100% Guaranteed

Rena says Keiichi didn’t have opponents and isn’t a loser. Hmm... half-right, Rena!

“felt like I was”

Anyway Keiichi goes and lets Mion in. For the first time, he actually has to say “I’m Normal” about the way he destroyed his house... Rena is like “Umm... yeah... I’ll make it Actually Normal a little later”

Hmm... yeah maybe if Keiichi has paranoid schizophrenia taking him to a Sinister Conspiracy Facility and then promptly Exiting the Sinister Conspiracy Facility was the worst possible move his parents could have made. To continue the running joke of blaming his dad, I’ll pretend his mom is blameless.

IS THIS AN OPEN SECRET??? ARE KEIICHI’S PARENTS THE WEIRDEST LIARS IN THE WORLD??? KEIICHI’S DAD TRUE VILLAIN THEORY 100% ACCURATE CALLED SHOT BY ME MOMENTS???

Rena says “foreman” and ruins everything

why can’t I go two seconds without a line being baffling? What do you MEAN “happy”

...

Oh. Oh. Mion and Rena’s mutual laughter isn’t the word-repeating one, it’s the laughing one. Duh. What kinda weird games is Mion playing? Don’t be weird, Mion, I’m trying to like you...

Hmm... yeah, I can see where this would be an instance of the slightest mistake-no-ordinary-person-would-make making all the difference in the world as to whether or not something could be perceived as sinister.

Rena... and by Rena, I mean the girl who repeats words, Rena... doesn’t normally refer to herself in third person, does she? I mean. Referring to yourself in the third person is, from what I understand, so much less abnormal in Japanese. And also, as I understand, something Gonta doesn’t do in Japanese, because he’s not a Tarzan-expy/caveman in Japanese. Or maybe he does? But if so, only because it’s less abnormal. I don’t feel like saying very much on the subject of Danganronpa though. The point I was TRYING to make before Gonta made the UNGENTLEMANLY choice to interrupt me was “Oh, is the laughing one saying ‘Rena’ instead of ‘I’ another hint?”

*watches Gonta cry while smirking, then hands him a business card that instead of my name credentials or contact information simply has the word “Golf” printed on it*

So I totally believe that Rena this orange-haired girl is restraining Keiichi, and Mion has a long and thin object in the hand that’s moving about near his face, and that they’re taunting him and ignoring his cries of anguish. I just don’t believe that the long thing object is a syringe rather than a permanent marker. I’ve actually been wondering why people always call Higurashi “slice of life mixed with horror” as though it isn’t obviously “Kaiji Joke Part X mixed with horror”, but I guess the Kaiji Joke Parts are actually a clever plot device so Ryukishi can do stuff like this. Also... kind of unoriginal, Mion. I hate to be so critical of you, my beloved daughter, but Get Creative LMAO.

Oh. Fucking, oh, that’s why she was being so unoriginal. Her unoriginality was also a plot device. I guess Camera’s death ISN’T common enough knowledge for saying this to be in poor taste, huh? That’s what the scene where people said his girlfriend must have eloped was there to establish.

Yeah I can just breeze past this whole recap of how Camera died

Wait was Mion not even a little weirded out by Keiichi saying “but the police didn’t find any drugs in his body”... he’s a freak but he’s not that much of a freak

Are there actually people who read Keiichi going “oh I was hallucinating” here 5 million times and don’t consider the possibility that he actually is prone to hallucination? Wait, that’s me 13 months ago. Unless I just forgot? It feels kinda obvious for me to miss. ...I mean, like I said before, hiding this kind of thing in plain sight can be effective, but.

Anyway, Keiichi finally notices that he’s killed Mion and Rena.

...Was the director actually going to be “happy” Keiichi was “interested in baseball”? For the same reasons Toddler 02 was? Different ones? Hello???

Wait, the two humans and the car that Keiichi engaged in anime combat with are outside his house? For realsies? Real? That just raises Actual questions!!

Also, if Mion and the Toddlers are the Three Token Sane People in this five-person cast, then the fact that there are four girls, four question arcs, and four answer arcs takes on a whole different meaning. What’s going on in this town that gives the ones without mental illnesses that much ability to be the central figures in horror-genre narratives...?

Hmm, okay, Keiichi is using a pen to write. Sorry, just planning ahead for a joke I’ll make later. ...Wait, I should actually say what he’s writing. A bunch of clues to the conspiracy he thinks exists. Which is the wrong conspiracy, because the conspiracy which actually exists is clearly more important...

He... stuck the “syringe”... to the clock...? Uh, well, I’ll, keep that in mind, for later,

Dang these “I know they were evil so why am I so sad that they’re dead” vibes’re kinda tragic from this Dramatic Irony-soaked viewpoint eh boss

Oh... and the vibes straight up do transition to “Wait, I didn’t know they were evil, what the hell is wrong with me?”

Keiichi leaves

One last apology barrage for the road

Is... Ooishi really... a normal guy who’s dangerously ignorant about this weird “let’s put crazy people where us normals don’t have to deal with them” town? What’s the deal with the town then, that the way it’s set up allows a character like Ooishi to be relevant in this story?

Ooishi really knows nothing, huh? This narration from his perspective is asking “Is Keiichi being attacked by guys?!” What fools allowed a scenario where Hinamizawa is the bunk way that it is and Ooishi knows nothing? No one thought that was bad? Mion seems to be capable of acknowledging that it’s bad, unless that’s multiple narrative misdirects.

Keiichi is telling Ooishi he’s only just now realized that the culprit is Oyashiro-sama and not any human. Has Keiichi achieved 100% conviction in the belief that he was mentally ill and not only were Rena and Mion not evil, but neither were any of the guys outside his house? If so, why is he saying something weird? If not, why is he saying something weird?

Ooishi asking Keiichi “PLEASE tell me which human it is who’s doing an evil conspiracy” is going to make me... uh, already used bang my head against the wall... already used die... already used drown... uh...

Oh, I was wrong about that previous apology barrage being the last one. ...I mean I guess it’s esoteric if you don’t know what the plot is. Except. No it’s not, even then? Yeah that’s pretty non-esoteric haha.

Why’s Keiichi’s age 1x. He’s 14 right?

So... it took this long, but the elephant in the me-remembering-parts-of-my-previous-readthrough room was in fact Keiichi dying in the same way as Camera. I guess I really didn’t comprehend the plot last time, because I don’t remember making the following theory: Maybe Keiichi, in his unfortunate state, had simply thought to himself “I know how Camera died, and I want to die, so I’ll just do the same thing.” Very inefficient, but it’s not like he was thinking clearly. I dunno man.

The real question is.

The REAL question is.

The REAL QUESTION is.

Why would Camera die like that? Isn’t he just some guy fr,

om,

elsewhere,

What was that scene where he was like “Yeah... I wish so badly I could live with you...” and Mion or whoever it was being like “He won’t succeed as an artist.” Those two lines weren’t right after each other but they kinda say a little bit.

Never mind then! I guess Camera dying how he did is a little bit consistent with my theories.

As for that bit of narration I said was “correlated with one of my biases”... yeah I have no idea what I was on about at the time.

Wait Keiichi got the bat “several days” before the incident and talked to his parents “two days” before? Is that right? I could read through my previous posts and check but that sounds like a chore. Pass!

Is this police report really from an entire police force full of people who don’t know that this place is some kind of mental care commune? Why is there an entire police force full of people who don’t know?!

Part of Keiichi’s note was redacte--

The “Crazy People Ought To Know What’s Good For Them” enforcer guys?! What’s this place’s deal!!!

Oh the permanent marker conveniently fell off the clock so Ryukishi doesn’t have to write “there was a permanent marker taped to the clock” in his police report and make his whole twist way too obvious.

Aww man I’m blanking on what the enforcer guys redacted. It wasn’t the presence of themselves and their van. Did Keiichi really write something that incriminating??? I only had the vaguest memory of something being wrong with his note, so I figured whatever was wrong with it must have been really obvious, and didn’t bother taking notes.

I like how the last line in the arc is “Hey, person reading: Figure out the mystery.” It’s not technically a fourth wall break, and it’s very Umineko. Or I guess I should say it’s very Ryukishi. Or, it’s very When They Cry? I dunno man.

Meanwhile, in Side Story Land...

Nothing!

Come back tomorrow for when I do something else instead of starting the second arc. I assume you already know what I’m referring to because why are you reading these posts if you’re a person with no familiarity with Higurashi???