#I don't even remember the context for this or the campaign

[iknowwhatyousaidlastsession]

Stronk zambie dna? ... what??

[utilitycaster]

can you explain what you mesn by monkey ladder in reference to the CR fandom? as someone from C1 i would probably be able to give you the insight you asked for in your tags but im unsure of the angle you are coming from.

Oh yeah, it describes a phenomenon I've repeatedly seen in all aspects of my life but I wasn't aware there was an idiom for it. Basically, it describes how communities/institutions continue following patterns of behavior even when said behaviors are in response to a no-longer relevant problem and even when the people who originated said behaviors and remember the original reason are gone.

So: imagine an experiment with five monkeys, a ladder, and bananas on top of the ladder. Whenever a monkey goes for the ladder to reach the bananas, a researcher sprays all the monkeys with ice water. After enough attempts, the monkeys, understandably, begin attacking any one of them that reaches for the ladder in order to avoid this punishment.

The researchers then swap out one of the monkeys for a new monkey. When the new monkey reaches for the ladder, the other monkeys attack them and prevent them from reaching it.

They then swap out another monkey, and when the second new monkey reaches for the ladder, not only do the other monkeys attack them - the first "new" monkey joins in. And so on. Eventually, you can reach a point where all five monkeys in the room have never even been sprayed with ice water. They don't know why they are attacking people who reach for the ladder other than that they were attacked for reaching for the ladder. And here's the kicker: the researchers haven't sprayed anyone in ages, and actually, they've turned off the water, and if someone reached for the ladder, they'd be fine. But they won't.

So it's about groups enforcing behaviors that arose in response to something specific that is no longer present, even after the group no longer recalls, necessarily, why it was present.

Anyway: as someone with the specific experience of watching campaign 1 and early campaign 2 concurrently, having started with Campaign 2, ie, joined the fandom in Campaign 2 and have been here ever since, the following viewpoints are all imo "monkey-ladder" problems: people carrying forward stereotypes/fandom behaviors that I think originated in Campaign 1 but which many new fans never actually experienced:

specifically the one I mentioned in my previous post - the idea that Sam and Travis make stupid joke characters and aren't taking this seriously. (This sometimes splits into Sam Makes Dumb Joke Characters And Travis Is Himself A Stupid Person. The latter has fortunately abated but it was still alive and kicking as late as early C3)

The idea that Marisha and Laura; or Taliesin and Liam, make characters with exceptional romantic chemistry with each other. (They didn't have this in C1 either; while chemistry is obviously a subjective metric I find these specifically two of the weakest cases of cast romantic chemistry and definitely the two weakest of same gender cast romantic chemistry but they were held up as the only viable PC/PC queer romances given that Ashley was often absent, Grog wasn't interested, and people wrote off Scanlan as a dumb joke and Tary came around after Percy and Vex were already together)

Any criticism of Marisha is Forbidden Forever due to the harassment she received in C1 (we got monkeys who joined the fandom mid-C3 beating up people who were like I'm Not Vibing With Laudna who had been staunch Keyleth defenders during the actual run of C1, for example)

I'm sure there's others that aren't coming to mind but this is a good starting point: basically, it's people who weren't in the fandom in C1 and might not even have seen Campaign 1 carrying over opinions that really only made sense in Campaign 1 and honestly weren't even good then.

For a fun interrogation of this (carryover of an opinion/behavior with no other reason than This Is What I Was Told When I Joined) within the context of an actual play, see Iga Lisowski in The Unsleeping City 2.

[ic-napology]

Napoleon, Josephine and personal stuff - rant incoming brace yourself or scroll

I finally got a grasp on exactly why I was so struck by Napoleon at 13. And I kept being like that for many years later.

It was how desperately he opened his heart and threw himself in the arms of a nice and graceful woman, one he idealised maybe for just being kind to him.

I aknowledge how Josephine was mainly useful to him for very practical reasons, but I feel that, because of that, Napoleon felt genuine elation and gratefulness to her nonetheless. I think he valued her with an emotional response, even if the reasons of her being the best party were practical. In their marriage he would find social stability. In her house, domestic stability. In her presence, sentimental stability. He had not lived in a house of his own since he was 9, and now his home in Corsica was destroyed.

I feel he kinda put himself in a full psychological dependency to Josephine during the first four years of marriage, which seems uncanny from a character that usually valued logic, pragmatism and self-reliancy. But that was a personality based on what was needed to survive in very hostile environments, not on what he could openly wish on a serene path.

His love letters are said to be "romantic" and "passionate", and in some point they are indeed. (I also believe that Napoleon's letters to Josephine stand out mainly because people don't expect it, based on a certain image of Napoleon as stern and hyper-rational; but I remember some similar lovely passages from other people's letters too from the same age.)

But to me now in these letters he mostly sounds desperate to be loved, after so many years of being on his own on unstable situations. He feels relieved to have found someone he could be openly emotionally vulnerable to and relies in that joy; he shares so much things about his campaign, he was never so open about his feeling on things like in these written words. However, this all seems based on his expectations on how Josephine would be like, on an ideal rather than how Josephine actually was going.

He really idealised her and very much held on that image. In his letters, she is perfect, then she seemingly chooses to be evil to him on a whim. It's not like she was actually dealing with her own toll of traumas, insecurities, especially around husbands and their power, and was not on a condition of comforting another lonely person. Especially not with the dedication Napoleon seemed to pretend. It's still a big thing that she came to Italy while even being sick.

Besides, Napoleon had not lost his insecurities after their marriage nor after her arrival on Italy and she was not going to help him in that, because she couldn’t.

It was inevitable that she would defy him, and I'm not talking about the (not actually proved) affair with Charles. The smallest thing would have been hurtful to a starved and insecure person, who puts huge expectations on a single person and lets himself depend on her actions only to be happy. It doesn't help that Josephine was actively being defiant because of her reasons.

And I relate a lot to her too. I feel she was as hurt as Napoleon by her own experiences, maybe she has been socially and emotionally humiliated even more in her own contexts of living, despite her privilege.

So that's it, I was captured by the voluntary emotional dependency on specific people you hope to receive care from, because you have love starvation and you are desperate.

I personally did that a lot with specific people between long periods of distrust of everyone and of emotional avoidance of everything, because I was regularly deceived. Or wasn't corresponded. That's why I'm still fond of Napoleon and Josephine, and also sad for them. But I know that's a dangerous thing to do for both parties. Don't let others be the only ones to take the toll of your well being. Thanks therapy.

I don't pretend that this interpretation of Napoleon is correct; as you see there's a lot of self-projection in order to elaborate things from my personal life, which is also the reason why I felt passionate about those characters. Maybe it's also your reason too. So yeah, my words have no informative value. But I hope that still might resonate in someone else.

[theoriginalbylergod]

I love you ×9

Ok so I am probably not the first person to notice this or point it out since I've only been a byler for like six months... BUT I did maybe go a little crazy about this. So I'm gonna talk about it.

So a few days ago I was thinking about the mlvn endgame argument "well Mike said 'I love you' nine times". And like, first of all, saying "I love you" doesn't undo a year's worth of deliberate lying and miscommunication. That's not how relationships work. Their issues are still very much real and very much not going anywhere because they're not even TRYING to do anything about them. But also... I was thinking: why nine times? Why that number specifically? Was it just random? Is there maybe anything to indicate that nine is significant? Is there maybe a scene in the first episode of s4 that tells us how we should react to the monologue?

So, the DND basketball montage. Great stuff. Amazing foreshadowing. Everyone loved it.

I got to thinking about it. Decided I needed to know what Mike's roll was. I kinda spiraled about it on twitter because I could not see it clearly and I couldn't tell if it was an eight or nine. Desperate times called for desperate measures so I recorded my tablet with my phone and found the perfect frame.

IT'S A NINE

CLEAR AS DAY! IT'S A NINE! GREATEST DAY OF MY LIFE!!

Anyway, I don't know how DND works. I don't know why this roll evoked the reaction it did from the party - most significantly, Mike's very disgruntled reaction (I don't mean The Party™ I just mean literally the party that is playing this campaign) I genuinely don't know what the fuck is going on in this game. But what I do know is they wanted us to associate this roll with failure. That's why it corresponds with a missed basket in the basketball game. That's why Eddie gets this ooo that sucks for you guys look on his face. That's why we hear a chorus of "nooo" from the party. That's why Mike says "no no no" and looks extremely upset. I don't know anything about DND, but I can read context clues.

So I'm not going to try to understand what's going on in the game, I'm just gonna go off what I think they wanted us to subconsciously pick up on.

So they show us all of this. They associate Mike with the number nine in the first episode and then that number shows up AGAIN in the last episode.

The monologue cannot be associated with anything but failure. Whether that be mlvns failing relationship, or their very real failure to save Max (at least before El revived her), and their failure to save Hawkins. The monologue does not stand apart from that. It is completely interwoven with these failures. If you have average media literacy, you know that. Even before I was aware of just how important byler is to this entire story, before I was aware that they've been setting up byler endgame since day one, you would never catch me thinking that the monologue was supposed to be received positively by the audience. You would never catch me saying mlvns love saved the world. (Although that's because I genuinely forgot about mlvn a few weeks after I watched s4). I think I received the monologue in the way it was intended to be received. I didn't fully understand it, or why they would execute it the way they did, but I still received it in the way I believe it was intended to be.

So I know the general agreement among bylers is that the monologue kinda sealed the deal for mlvn bones. Like I'm not saying anything new really. But I genuinely do think that Mike's roll in episode one, the reactions to it, and the missed shot it corresponds with were meant to foreshadow the monologue and how they wanted the audience to receive it.

This is fiction, everything means something. Everything is thought of. The timer (and maybe scores, I genuinely can't remember) in the basketball game had significance. Other rolls in the DND game had significance. Why would that be any different for Mike? Especially when his roll was a nine and that number shows up for him again when he says "I love you" nine times. And both of these things are associated with failure.

Not that we need any other reason to interpret the monologue as a less than good thing. It's just the way that it is, it's pretty easy to figure out how they wanted us to take it. But they still did give us a hint. I think it's really cool.

[arosescrow]

you should say more. about the gregorian chants

OKAY!

So. Gregorian chants are, historically speaking, incredibly significant, as they're one of the first kinds of music to be recorded on paper in notation in Church history. A lot of modern church people really liked them in the 90s because, along with a very successful marketing campaign by the particular monks responsible for the album in the original post, they saw it as an opportunity to bring sacred rhythms back into everyday life. An awful lot of Church tradition is about being connected with the past, and the rest of it is about looking to the future, so having this tradition from the past brought into the present was likely a big selling factor.

In addition, New Age spirituality got ahold of Gregorian Chant when this album came out. No matter if you were part of the Church or even any church at all, the unique qualities of Gregorian chant (in marked contrast to pop and rock music of the day) lent themselves to meditation, and the aforementioned rhythms of the day likely also appealed to at least some of the non-Christian listeners. I don't know a lot about modern spirituality or even New Age spirituality, so if someone wants to add to this post I'd love to see it.

Now we get to the really neat part, the part that I'm actually good at and can definitively say something about. This is the part that's full of jargon (or it should be), and I'll do my best to define it all for you.

Gregorian chant, as you can find on Wikipedia, is a part of an only slightly larger category called "Western plainchant". Western in this context refers to Europe, specifically Western Europe (the area around modern England, France, Germany, and to some extent Italy). Plainchant is a kind of monophonic (with only one melodic line and no harmony or accompaniment) music that was sacred, which means that this style was never used in the secular music of the day.

Gregorian chant comes in one of three "levels of complexity" so to speak, and in one of two "styles" (this is the wrong word but I can't think of the right one right now). The levels of complexity are: 1. Syllabic. The entire chant is made up of single syllables on individual notes, with rare or no instances of movement between notes on the same syllable. The melody could move, but it would not (as a general rule) have more than one note on any given syllable. 2. Neumatic. Most of the chant is made up of single syllables stretched out between 2-4 notes, with rare or no instances of movement between notes on the same syllable lasting for more or less notes than this. 3. Mellismatic. Most of the chant is made up of single syllables stretched out between more than 4 notes, up to a single syllable being used for an entire piece (later in the period, once people started to get freaky with it). I honestly don't remember very much about the styles but here you go @effemimaniac knowledge for you!

[oopsallfictives]

I'm gonna take a stab at creating an alternate definition of the word delusion, since I'm not a fan of the one commonly used in a medical context. This is gonna deal with some unreality and paranoia-inducing stuff, so read at your own risk.

The definition most commonly used for delusion is a false belief that a person can't be persuaded isn't real or true, even if they're shown evidence to the contrary. This is a flawed definition for a number of reasons, chief among them that sometimes people are just wrong and stubborn about it. We know that it can be incredibly difficult for people to change their minds once they're personally invested in an idea, but that's not the same as being delusional. A person who still believes vaccines cause autism probably isn't delusional, they're just personally invested in the idea because it validates their view that autism is bad and gives them a scapegoat to blame for the existence of autistic people. That's an ideology, not a delusion.

Another flaw is that some things can't necessarily be confirmed to be untrue. One of the most well-known (and commonly mocked) delusions is some variation of "the government is spying on me". This isn't something that's easily verified as either true on untrue, and it's also something that literally does happen to people. I live in the US, where we know the government spies on people. We know that in the wake of 9/11, US intelligence agencies undertook a massive campaign of surveillance of Muslim and Middle Eastern people living in the US. So "the government is spying on me" might not actually be a false belief, and you probably can't know that for sure.

Attempting to rely on a belief being false can be dangerous, too. I remember reading the story of a person who was labelled as delusional for saying Obama followed them on Twitter, and was incarcerated in a psych ward until they lied and said they'd realized they were delusional and Obama didn't follow them. The thing is, he did. It was true and verifiable, but the medical professional evaluating them refused to check if it was true so they didn't "encourage the delusion". Sane people tend to believe they have an absolute and correct understand of reality, and a lot of them would rather call you delusional than adjust their worldview. And if that person is a medical professional, they can completely turn your life upside down and stick you in conditions that the UN has called torture.

So here's my proposed alternative: a delusion is an involuntary belief that isn't rooted in logic or evidence, and that a person can't stop believing even if they know it isn't true.

Let's break that down. The involuntary part is important. Delusional people don't have control over our delusions. We don't believe them because we want to or because we think they're true, we just believe them. It's true that delusions can draw on voluntary beliefs, including bigotry, but believing the delusion isn't a choice. We can't just stop. In the case of delusions rooted in bigotry, the person is still responsible for holding those bigoted beliefs in the first place, even though they don't have control of the delusion that came from them. This is an important caveat, because people love to call bigots delusional for things they chose to believe.

The second part is that it's not rooted in any kind of logic or evidence. If a person believes something untrue due to faulty logic and/or misinformation, that's not a delusion. That's called being wrong.

Lastly, I chose the wording "even if they know it's not true" very deliberately. Some delusional people know, either always or sometimes, that our delusions aren't real or true. I personally always know, but that never stops me believing them. If you've never experienced this, it can be hard to imagine what it feels like to know something isn't true and still be unable to stop believing in it. It's contradictory and confusing and really hard to put into words. Of course, there are also delusional people who don't know their delusions aren't true, or who're confused and can't figure it out. It's not the same for everyone. This part of the definition also covers being presented evidence and being unable to accept it as true.

For some people, being told their delusions aren't true can also be extremely distressing and even push them further into it. Never reality check a delusional person unless they ask you to, or it's part of a crisis plan you made with them. The same goes for playing into or confirming a delusion. Do your best to remain neutral on whether or not their belief is true, and try to focus more on their emotions and how it's affecting them. If you know a psychotic person, it's a good idea to ask them (preferably while they're not having a psychotic episode) how they'd like you to handle it.

I'm open to critique from other psychotic people, but if you're aggressive or mean I'll probably just ignore you. This is just an idea, a rough draft, and I'd like to know what the community thinks. Nonpsychotics can reblog, but keep your thoughts to yourself

-Oliver (it/its)

[i-gwarth]

My thoughts on the aftermath of the [SPOILER] Quest

So earlier today, having gotten to a "Liked" level with all members of the Hex, I played through the Finale quest. It was very nice, and kind of what I expected. Spoilers follow

They now trust you enough to let you in via Transference, and you can help them to survive. Aoi's "you have the power" scene was the weakest of the bunch but I like her too much for that to be a real issue for me. I also genuinely loved the ending diorama, with the Drifter smiling, pizza party and fucking Amir being in two places at once.

The Hex are by far the most loveable set of NPCs this game has gotten since the Solaris people. They are all *delightful* and genuine and I cannot praise the performances enough. I also loved that Albrecht came across as a complete piece of shit in the main campaign, but ended on a more positive note in the Finale. The guy is at his best when he is 80% a scumbag and 20% a genuinely traumatized old man burning himself up trying to atone for his sins in a way that will cause a lot of casualties. The Deimos wall fragments were a good setup, but IMO he really shines through in the Albrecht's Journal codex entries. He reckons with the impossibility of doing good when his whole skillset and all of his experience (being immortal, an Orokin scientist, and dealing with the Indifference) stems from evil. It's good

But I have 2 negative pieces of feedback regarding post-finale content:

1. Rusalka. Where the FUCK is the Major? Guys you simply cannot make a character who looks and acts LIKE THAT and then put her in a demo and two cutscenes and nothing else. It is morally and ethically wrong, it is homophobic, it is the downfall of Western civilization as we know it, the sack of Rome and it makes me, specifically, sad. DE please consider bringing her back. Maybe she's the new face of the Indifference going forward

2. Arthur's message. "We made things right but now we have to keep them right"? "I guess you have to keep the loop going"? This is so bad it nearly undermines the otherwise excellent writing of the whole update. The Hex are a group trying to make a difference in a specific time and place. I get that Warframe relies on cyclical open-ended gameplay and there HAS to be a way for them to stay in the 1999 setting. But how is it "keeping things right" to re-do the same year, over and over again, ad infinidum? How is it helping the city if it's still infested on January 1sth, 2000, but the Hex are in a time loop? It is a meaningless cycle and the Hex "accepting" it is a horrible decision. Lettie is *distraught* at the idea of being stuck in the loop. She doesn't even think she's alive anymore.

I can't imagine there are no better ways to handle this. Maybe the Drifter offers them the OPTION to leave the loop (like the drifter themself has the option to leave Duviri and return whenever), but they choose to stay in it for a few more cycles to "understand" themselves? Maybe the Drifter loops back but the Hex themselves don't, and only partially remember previous cycles enough to retain standing/chemistry levels with them?

The hex are not like the people of Duviri, built out of whole cloth, aware of and at peace with an inherently cyclical (yet decaying) existence. They're people in a very gritty, realistic context, international aid workers trying to help in a crisis. It's isn't HELPING if the crisis continues in perpetuity like a carnival fair ride. They deserve better than to be made willing playthings

[fearnesbells]

so about that laudna-has-no-future 4sd chat...

marisha ray has throwaway lines and that is her god given right like anyone else and truly this may mean nothing

BUT

me personally i bluescreened when marisha said "what does laudna have to look forward to, she's dead" in response to a question of would laudna rather make contact with her future or past self.

i think laudna and her evolving worldview over the course of this campaign is sooooooo interesting so thoughts under the cut

"the worst thing that’s ever happened to me has already happened."

we all remember this! this is the response that laudna gave to orym when he softly pointed out that laudna seemed like she had the most positive outlook of the group. it was a central tenet of laudna's character up until that point, that despite the darkness that coated her soul, she was probably the one with the most zest for life.

she tended to believe the best in npcs that the party encountered. she had a rat marionette that got boners and made her laugh. she was wholeheartedly devoted to imogen and never, never believed that the end was the end.

and then, when orym asked her how she accomplished that, she responds in a framing of perspective.

she was murdered by the briarwoods at twenty years old. how can anything seem awful in comparison to that?

she died, and then she got to join an adventuring party. she died, and then she got to use her strange, eerie powers for good. she died, and then she met imogen.

she has hope because she's seen the lowest possible point her life can come to, and can only climb upwards from there.

she had a hope for a future, because of this. a good future. at least one that was better than the worst thing that had ever happened to her. and that future included imogen—

"can keep you from that. can keep us from that."

she had hope.

we all know this quote. this quote is the cottagecore lesbian life that marisha spoke to in four-sided dive. but i think to look at where laudna's at now, and to understand "what does laudna have to look forward to, she's dead", we have to look at the quote in greater context.

laudna is speaking to a possible future here. but in her words she's also saying that she understands that that future might mean abandoning what they feel called to do by the gods. in this moment, she's not guaranteeing a future, she's explaining to imogen that they have a choice.

and as of now, episode 82, arrived on the moon, they've made that choice. they're orpheus. they've descended into hell, and they can't look back if they want to make it out.

it's important to note that laudna wasn't lying way back in heartmoor when she was talking to orym. the worst thing that could ever happen to her had already happened. but she was operating then on her very human understanding of the world.

since then, she's died (again), been resurrected, seen magic beyond comprehension, and surrendered herself over to the spirit of her murderer that lives in her head.

there are no rules anymore. and laudna has learned that there is always something worse.

the quiet life she talked about with imogen might have been taken from her forever. the narrative has grown teeth and it has sunk them into both her and the woman she loves.

"what does laudna have to look forward to, she's dead"

she's orpheus, yeah? we know how this story ends. her love's been called to the hell planet by fate. she won't get out without losing something.

maybe—maybe—there's still hope for that cottage together somewhere. i don't mean to rule it out entirely. but i think that laudna herself, the character, has lost all belief in that possibility at this point. and that presents such a foil to the laudna that we met in episode 1.

sometimes the tragedy comes built-in.

even if. even when.

(all quotes pulled from critical role wiki's transcripts page)

[i-prefer-the-fictional-world]

Hi I'm the Anon that mentioned Blake's link to Allen and Weinstein

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/blake-lively-woody-allen-cafe-society-working-907665/

https://betches.com/blake-lively-controversies-plantation-wedding-harvey-weinstein/

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/12/27/how-blake-lively-once-complicated-her-advocacy-against-hollywood-predators/

The issue is people are not willing to see that she did not simply have empathy for the victims excusing her behavior saying "there is no perfect victim" not realizing how dangerous that isAnd saying her career could ruin don't you think the multiple actors and actresses supported the victims were also risking their career by speaking up?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-41580010.amp

And now even though there are rumors it is interesting to note that even "reportedly" Taylor is also distancing herself from Blake.

Hi Anon. It is so not pleasant to see you again.

First of all the hollywood report link you sent me is the wrong link. This is the right link.

Second the quote is about Harvey Weinstein not Woody Allen.

Third I knew. I knew, I knew I KNEW that, that quote you sent me, that Blake said 'that was not my experience with him" was taken out of context and guess what? It was.

Blake did technically say those words but she also said that

"I think that if people hear these stories... I do believe in humanity enough to think that this wouldn't have just continued"

And

"I never heard any stories like this - I never heard anything specific - but it's devastating to hear"

And

"As important as it is to remain furious about this, it's important to also say that this exists everywhere so remember to look everywhere. This isn't a single incident. This cannot happen, this should not happen, and it happens in every single industry."

She also talks about how sexual assault is normalised and she has had plenty of things happen to her, like say if a director grabbed her butt she wouldn't think it was sexual assault even though it was. She talks about how important it is that we are furious about sexual assault and that we stay furious and that we don't just focus on these few stories but on humanity as a whole.

Honestly reading this article makes me sympathize with Blake even more.

I am not surprised that the ant* Blake camp is taking that one singular line out of context and are just running with it. Because that line implies that Blake doesn't actually believe Harvey Weinstein's victims when it's absolutely not true.

The reason I believed from the start that, that specific quote was taken out of context is because it's normal for reporter to ask 'this person has done these awful things, have they done something like this to you?' and it's normal for person responding to say 'no that wasn't my experience but I believe the allegations against that person.'

I haven't actually looked that much into Blake so when people said that she likes Weinstein I didn't go fact checking if it was true or not, because even if she does I was still very much going to Believe her. But from what I've read it doesn't seem like she's all that fond of him.

Anon I'm going to take a guess as to what happened here. You got sucked into tiktok/youtube wormhole of drama bait anti Blake content where no one does their due diligence and everyone is just looking for anything and everything they can find to use against Blake. So when I asked for source about the Woody Allen quote you went looking for a credible source and found the betches article which was published in January 2025 after this "drama" started which tries to take the quote out of context from a 2017 article when the allegations against Weinstein were first made. The betches article also regurgitates all of the smear campaign talking points because they even come to the actual point. I think you don't like Blake Lively and you went looking for "valid" reasons to justify how you feel.

The 2017 article is titled - Balke Lively on Harvey Weinstein claims : "it's devastating to hear". Gee I wonder why. Also the terrible Flaa interview where they talk about liking Weinstein's work was from 2016, the allegation against him became well known in 2017. And even though she does not say in these exact words it's very clear to me that Blake Lively wishes that allegations against him would have come out/became well known sooner.

And finally about Taylor Swift. I've been a Swiftie long enough to know better than to believe 'Taylor hates her friends!!!' headlines. I'm going to talk about that in detail later but Baldoni's team does not want Swifties on Blake's side hence these rumors. But let's pretend for a second that it's actually true and Taylor is keeping her distance from Blake. What does that prove? Amber Heard has talked about how the smear campaign against her affected her friendships and how her close friends who stood by her started keeping their distance from her because of how the media portrayed her. And then you see something similar happening to Blake Lively and think hmm Blake is clearly the problem here? Are you serious?

I'm not going to respond to asks like these anymore because they are just a massive waste of time. Anon I hope you have a terrible day for wasting my time.

[ax3-e0ns]

So there was a post I made ages back- I think back when Roleslaying with Roman was wrapping up Roman and Youngblood's escape from the City? I'm not entirely sure since I can't find it anymore even though I don't remember deleting the post. But the core of the post's mentality expressed was something along the lines of:

"Roleslaying is a great series from the perspective of a Sanders Sides fan because it allows us to explore the sides from a perspective outside of being reflections of Ch!Thomas's personality/mind. It serves a a nice reference for AU's."

& I wanna re-explore this, both from the context of what the series did end up giving us plus the reality that we're very unlikely to get a new installment. Because looking back, I was not looking at the series as it's own property & that's a glaring problem.

Looking back, it's obvious that the reason I and a lot of Sanders Sides fans initially looked at Roleslaying as 'additional Sanders Sides fuel' is because of how much the initial series was so heavily referencing Sanders Sides. The series was named after one of the characters & Thomas plays as said character. But doing so ignored the fact that Thomas's friends and staff were clearly aiming to create their own thing out of Roleslaying. Which effectively set an expectation for the series that it was never gonna fill.

This problem was most noticeable back when the series was first announced & people were speculating that Youngblood was actually Virgil in the story, which was before it was clarified that Youngblood was Terrence's D&D character for their campaign. But then the first episode came out & it made everything clear that the focus is not meant to be on Thomas's works, even if there will be easter eggs/ references.

This hype got picked back up when Doc Janus was revealed. Within the thumbnail itself it was hinting to this character, even though if you rewatch the episode Doc Janus doesn't really have a significant role outside of selling a potion to the duo. & realistically I really think that the involvement of the Sides should've remained there, as NPC's that don't have a major role in the main conflict, but can be interacted with for an item or for random bits of world building. Not out of any dislike to the Sides, but more-so because Roleslaying isn't the Sides' story, they have their own series to explore what the sides would be like as people outside of himself, if Thomas wanted to do that.

& the problem of the Sides' getting too much spotlight in a narrative that was clearly not meant to focus on them was further exasperated when Lilypadton became way more integral to the Frog Mafia arc. Because while there was the obvious attempt to make the narrative focus on this world & characters set up at the start, It kept getting swooped up or glossed over in favor of more Frog Patton with the Kermit the Frog doppelganger. (In the sense of what the audience ended up focusing on, which frankly I'm also guilty of)

I think the best part of roleslaying was when they went to the city. It was when the series was the most of it's own story. Which is frustrating because of that false expectation that was set up crossed with how much better the series would be if it was given that room to be it's own series.

[utilitycaster]

How likely is it that Bells Hells will actually show up to the Stone Lavorre wedding you think? I have tickets to that, but I never want to experience Bells Hells in any AP setting or context again. I don't want to be upset after spending all that money. Its to the point that if Jester invited The Martinet I would be more ok watching that. I never thought this was going to be a problem when I bought my tickets.

Hi anon,

In terms of actual likelihood? Hard to say but my guess is small but nonzero. However, as someone who also has tickets, might I provide two thoughts that may be helpful?

The first, and more positive one, is that I've been going through the transcript of the finale and while I want to be clear, I still have a multitude of problems with it, I actually like where most, though not all, of Bells Hells end up even if I think the path to get there was poorly done. And as it's very much billed as the Stone-Lavorre wedding, I think we would at most be getting a brief cameo that would not be something I needed or wanted or cared about, but would not be unwelcome.

The second is the spiteful version of that, which is less positive but far more funny. Think about all the Bells Hells fans who are clamoring for this. I don't remember feeling that way about the Mighty Nein - like, if there'd been a Vox Machina one-shot 8 months later, I wouldn't have been been like THE MIGHTY NEIN BETTER SHOW UP. I wasn't asking for the Mighty Nein to show up in Campaign 3 (indeed, I was less than thrilled at the VM connections from the beginning and unlike how many c3 fans are with c2, I do love c1 despite preferring c2). Think about how wretchedly unhappy someone has to be with Campaign 3 and how desperately jealous of Campaign 2 someone has to be to be saying "well I'll maybe see some of Bells Hells in a one-shot in April, and I'll almost certainly see some of them in a one-shot in June [neither VM nor the Nein showed up in anything other than a Battle Royale-style one-shot until about 15 months about their finales] but that won't fill the void in my soul so maybe they'll have a bit part in a one-shot mostly about the Mighty Nein, in a theater where probably over half the people present will either be some form of irritated, some form of bored, or some form of confused to see them." And then they'll either have paid a huge amount of money to see their blorbos for like 10 minutes, or have to fast forward through like, a 4.5 hour one-shot for the barest scraps of Blorbo Content. Like, you can tell how rough this campaign was by how even its advocates seem completely starved for Bells Hells not two weeks after the end of a 121 episode campaign. There's nothing to sustain them.

So anyway either Bells Hells don't show up and it's fine; or they show up and it's honestly probably brief and unmemorable and we get back to the good stuff; and either way we know that Mighty Nein fans have what Bells Hells fans never did: a campaign that centered and prioritized PC relationships, development, and story.

[menfenced]

I've seen a lot of posts in the last 24 hours about why Kamala lost and I feel like most of them are failing to actually look at reasons voters are giving. Instead, they're putting forward what they personally didn't like about Kamala's campaign. But here's the thing to remember... You didn't like that thing about Kamala's campaign. You still voted for her. There's something else going on.

Because people didn't just vote against Kamala. They voted FOR Trump, and early polling results are showing they did it across the board in almost every demographic.

I've seen the calls for investigations into voter fraud and voter suppression because "this doesn't just happen!" and I agree with one thing. This doesn't "just" happen. There's a reason and democrats aren't listening. Because it's not just a handful of counties that got hacked or had crazy people trying to stop votes or didn't get all of their ballots counted. That's not to say that none of that stuff happened, of course. There may have been serious issues in some counties. But across the board, in nearly every state and every county, even if he didn't outright win, Trump made gains. The only two states where he didn't make gains: Washington State and Utah.

If that's due to voter fraud or hacked elections, it would have to be on a scale unlike anything we have ever seen before and honestly, we don't have any evidence of that right now.

So what happened? What do we know?

We know that since the pandemic and since the record inflation that caused, incumbent leaders all over the world have been losing elections at higher rates than usual. That crosses all political persuasions and again, has been seen across the globe.

Based on polling prior to the election, which remained fairly consistent throughout the election run, 3/4 US voters think the country is on the wrong track and 2/3 are unhappy with the economy.

Biden's approval rating when this election started was 40-41%

This is all a recipe for an incumbent losing, which to be frank, most people still saw Kamala as, even though she was running instead of Biden.

In addition to all of that, let's look at what the exit polls showed.

Kamala's approval rating in the exit polls was 48.5%

Donald Trump's approval ratings in the exit polls was 44.54%

And I know he wasn't running, but just for context Biden's approval ratings were 40%

When asked if Harris's views were too extreme, 46% said yes, 51% said no.

When asked if Trump's views were too extreme, 55% said yes, 43% said no.

So how did he win?

People like him less and think he's more extreme. Why did they vote for him?

Well, let's look at some other polling data.

45% of voters said that their family's personal financial situation was worse off than it was four years ago.

Only 25% said their financial situation was better than it was 4 years ago.

75% of people polled said that in the last year, inflation has caused them either severe or moderate hardship.

When asked who can bring needed change, 73% of voters said Trump and only 25% said Harris.

What that means is that a majority of American's don't like Trump. They don't think he's a good person. They think he's too extreme. And yet they still voted for him because the issue that was most important in this election was the economy.

Will Trump be better for the economy?

No.

But there's a perception that the current administration did not do everything they could have to fix it and people were willing to roll the dice on someone different.

Maybe we could have done more. Kamala only had 110 days to make her case and no matter what she said, the fact remained that she is the sitting VP. Maybe there was no way for her to escape the incumbent/status quo perception.

I hope we can learn something from the behavior of the American electorate this year, and I really hope Trump doesn't fuck things up too bad before we get another chance to step in, because the Republican Party is learning things too. They're learning that they can be as extreme as they want, but if they can make people believe the economy will work better under their leadership, even if it's not true, they'll still get votes.

[evidence-based-activism]

regarding your vote post, I’m pro trump and not homophobic at all. It’s insane that you all believe this. Trump was the ONLY president to be PRO gay marriage even before taking the office. If you remember back when Obama was in office he was against it for years. Then he came around to it. Biden was against it then came around to it. Trump was the only one who was pro gay rights/ gay marriage before taking office. You have no idea what you’re talking about. Also people bring him up being “misogynistic” for that audio of him saying “grab them by the p” which was taken completely out of context. Let’s talk about the point he was actually making which is that when you’re rich there are women out there ( we all know the kind to which he was referring) who will allow you to do anything or act anyway. He said you could “grab them by the p” and they wouldn’t care.

I'm bumping this up the queue given the current election timeline. So, here you go Anon (and audience):

"regarding your vote post"

They mean this post, where I implore everyone who cares about women (and other similar groups/causes) to vote for Harris (and down your ticket) in the upcoming US election. Check it out!

"I’m pro trump and not homophobic at all. It’s insane that you all believe this."

It's insane to me that anyone can actually believe that "supporting Trump" and "not being homophobic" are not mutually exclusive. You are supporting a man – and a party – that wants to dismantle the rights and protections of the LGB community.

I'll detail all the ways he's hostile in another section. First,

"Trump was the ONLY president to be PRO gay marriage even before taking the office"

This is just factually inaccurate.

In 2011, on Fox News [1]:

"I just don't feel good about it," Trump said. "I don't feel right about it. I'm against it, and I take a lot of heat because I come from New York. You know, for New York it's like, how can you be against gay marriage? But I'm opposed to gay marriage."

In 2015, on CNN [2]:

"I’m just for traditional marriage.”

In 2016 (election year), on Fox News [3]:

WALLACE: But -- but just to button this up very quickly, sir, are you saying that if you become president, you might try to appoint justices to overrule the decision on same-sex marriage? TRUMP: I would strongly consider that, yes.

"If you remember back when Obama was in office he was against it for years. Then he came around to it."

In the meantime, Obama directed the Justice Department to stop defending DOMA, explicitly stated his support for same-sex marriage, and signed an executive order protecting LGBT employees working for government contractors [4].

Did Obama start out opposing same-sex marriage? Yeah, and that was terrible. But he also opposed (and pledged to repeal) the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) – which was, I must stress, a bipartisan policy at the time, supported ‘strong civil unions’ that ensured the same rights as marriage, and pledged to repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ – all during his campaign.

And the thing is, most people at that time opposed same-sex marriage [5]. In 2004, 60% of Americans opposed same-sex marriage and only 31% supported it. By 2019, this flipped with 61% supporting same-sex marriage and 31% opposing it.

All this is to say, that at the time, Obama's policies concerning same-sex relationships and discrimination protection for same-sex attracted people, were overtly liberal. More so than even the wider Democratic party or the American public as a whole.

The fact that he was responsive to the public, and became more supportive over time, Anon, is actually a sign of a good politician.

In contrast to all of this, Trump's explicit anti-gay campaign rhetoric took place during a time of unprecedented tolerance and acceptance of gay people, even among Republican moderates/leaners.

"Biden was against it then came around to it."

Biden "came around to it" around 2012, where he said [6]:

"I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men and women marrying women and heterosexual men and women marrying men and women are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties and, quite frankly, I don’t see much of a distinction beyond that."

You'll note that 2012 is before 2020, meaning that Biden was the actual first President to be pro-gay marriage prior being President. (You'll also note that this was around the same time as Trump explicitly stating he opposed gay marriage.)

"Trump was the only one who was pro gay rights/ gay marriage before taking office."

I have explained in detail how you are wrong about this above. In addition to that, let's take a look at Trump's actual track record for gay rights:

Attempted to deny citizenship children born abroad to married same-sex parents [7]

Supported allowing adoption agencies to refuse same-sex parents on the basis of them being homosexual [8]

Appointed dozens of homophobic judges with a track record of anti-gay rulings/statements [9]

Removed or restricted protections based on sexual orientation in health care, and, just as importantly, failed to enact any protections [10]

Asked the Supreme Court to allow employers to fire workers on the basis of their sexual orientation, and, just as importantly, failed to enact any sexuality-based employment protections [11]

Selected a Vice President (Pence) with a long history of anti-gay remarks and legislation [12]

Prevented essential data collection about the LGBT community [13]

And a lot more general (e.g., immigration, economic) policies that, while not directed specifically at gay/bisexual people, still negatively affected the communities

"You have no idea what you’re talking about."

I have listened to Trump's words and watched Trump's actions and seen substantial proof that he – at the very least – would sacrifice homosexual/bisexual people to achieve his goals (e.g., winning the election, persuading Republicans on other issues, etc.). His actions have threatened our rights and encouraged hatred of and violence against our community [14].

Tell me Anon, what exactly are you talking about?

---

"Also people bring him up being “misogynistic” for that audio of him saying “grab them by the p” which was taken completely out of context. Let’s talk about the point he was actually making which is that when you’re rich there are women out there ( we all know the kind to which he was referring) who will allow you to do anything or act anyway. He said you could “grab them by the p” and they wouldn’t care."

Yes, Anon, let's talk about that audio. Let's talk about his exact words [15]:

"I've got to use some Tic Tacs, just in case I start kissing her. You know I'm automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything ... Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything."

And let's count all the ways this is misogynistic:

Admittance of sexual harassment/sexual assault ("I don't even wait.")

Justification of sexual harassment/sexual assault ("they let you do it. You can anything")

Support of the "rape is irresistible/uncontrollable" rape myth ("just in case I start kissing her", "it's like a magnet")

Support of the "women secretly want it" rape myth ("they let you do it")

Support of the "some women deserve to be assaulted" rape myth (in this case the "some women" are presumably women in proximity to rich men)

Objectification and sexualization of women ("grab them by the pussy")

Let's talk about your implied support for many of these ("we all know the kind to which he was referring"), as if any behavior could ever justify sexual harassment/assault.

Let's talk about all the other objectifying, sexualizing, harassing, misogynistic comments he's made [15, 16]:

"She's probably deeply troubled, and therefore great in bed. How come the deeply troubled women — deeply, deeply troubled — they're always the best in bed?" About his daughter, Tiffany Trump: ' "Well, I think that she's got a lot of Marla. She's a really beautiful baby, and she's got Marla's legs." Motioning to his chest, Trump added: "We don't know whether she's got this part yet, but time will tell." ' About his other daughter, Ivanka Trump "She does have a very nice figure ... if [she] weren't my daughter, perhaps I'd be dating her." "If Hillary Clinton can't satisfy her husband, what makes her think she can satisfy America?" "I think the only difference between me and the other candidates is that I'm more honest and my women are more beautiful." “They said, ‘How are you going to change the pageant?’ I said ‘I’m going to get the bathing suits to be smaller and the heels to be higher’.” “It must be a pretty picture, you dropping to your knees”

This is just a small sample of what he's said publicly, Anon.

Not enough? Then let's talk about the dozens of women who have accused him of sexual assault and harassment [17]. (I guess they didn't really "let you do it", more like "couldn't stop it".) Let's talk about how many more there must be, who have not been able to come forward.

Let's talk about how a jury has found Trump did in fact rape at least one women [18]. (And about all the ways our legal system is broken, that this had to taken to a civil court.)

(And what act, Anon, could be more misogynistic than rape?)

More than that Anon, let's talk about all the ways Trump and his administration has hurt women (and other, connected, vulnerable groups):

Limiting access to abortion and contraception [19, 10]

Appointing three anti-choice justices to Supreme Court and claiming credit for overturning Roe v. Wade [19, 10]

Targeting anti-discrimination and equal-pay programs which will harm working women [20]

Advancing economic policies that will affect all poor and middle class individuals, but particularly women [10, 20-22], including, but not limited to: threatening Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Medicaid, housing and rental assistance, and cash assistance; threatening child care assistance/family leave; cutting the National Domestic Violence Hotline budget; threatening global health cooperation; threatening unions; etc.

And remember how he took credit for overturning Roe v. Wade [19, 10]? That was via his nomination of anti-choice Supreme Court justices. And let's all remember that, in his concurrent opinion , Justice Clarence Thomas stated:

"In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court's substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell"

Which, if you're not familiar, refers to the court cases that protects women's right to contraception without government restriction, made it legal for homosexual people to have sex, and legalized gay marriage. (And, while we're at it, let's all remember that, as recently as 2003, states could make consensual, homosexual, sex illegal. Let's all remember the states that still have sodomy laws on the books, just in case Lawrence is overturned.)

So, let's mark that down as another way Trump has threatened the rights of women and gays. And let's all remember that the next President will – most likely – be appointing Supreme Court justices that will determine whether the court upholds or rescinds these very basic rights.

---

And, also, just for fun, let's also remember all the ways Trump and his administration has threatened and harmed the environment [24, 25].

---

In summary, Trump is a homophobic, misogynistic, rapist who will trample the rights of the poor and the vulnerable.

This is the man you support, Anon. These are the actions you endorse.

And for everyone else, please, go vote.

References below the cut:

Clark, D. (2016, August 15). Donald Trump is against same-sex marriage. @politifact. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/aug/15/sean-patrick-maloney/donald-trump-against-same-sex-marriage/

Donald Trump on CNN’s State of the Union: “I’m in it to win it… I will make our country great again.” (2015, June). https://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2015/06/28/donald-trump-on-cnns-state-of-the-union-im-in-it-to-win-it-i-will-make-our-country-great-again/

Fox News. (2016, January 31). Ted Cruz attacks Donald Trump’s financial record; Trump responds. Archived at http://archive.today/2016.05.05-023428/http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2016/01/31/ted-cruz-attacks-donald-trump-financial-record-trump-responds/

Steinmetz, K. (2015, April 10). See obama’s 20-year evolution on lgbt rights. TIME. https://time.com/3816952/obama-gay-lesbian-transgender-lgbt-rights/

Attitudes on same-sex marriage. (2019, May 14). Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-on-gay-marriage/

Crowley, M. (2023, March 17). Tracking the shift before Biden’s same-sex marriage epiphany. @politifact. https://www.politifact.com/article/2023/mar/17/tracking-the-shift-after-joe-bidens-same-sex-marri/

Trump administration loses fight to stop child born abroad to gay couple from becoming US citizen. (2020, October 16). The Independent. https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/trump-same-sex-marriage-parents-children-citizenship-b938265.html

Adoption agency should be able to reject gay couples, Trump administration argues. (2020, June 4). NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/adoption-agency-should-be-able-reject-gay-couples-trump-administration-n1224911

Lambda Legal. (2021). Courts, Confirmations, & Consequences: How Trump Restructured the Federal Judiciary and Ushered in a Climate of Unprecedented Hostility toward LGBTQ+ People and Civil Rights. Retrieved from https://legacy.lambdalegal.org/sites/default/files/judicial_report_2020.pdf

Compare trump and harris health care records and positions. (n.d.). KFF. https://www.kff.org/compare-2024-candidates-health-care-policy/

Garza, A. de la. (2019, August 25). Trump administration asks supreme court to legalize workplace discrimination against gay employees. TIME. https://time.com/5660956/trump-administration-anti-gay-brief-title-vii/

Drabold, W. (2016, July 15). Here’s what mike pence said on lgbt issues over the years. TIME. https://time.com/4406337/mike-pence-gay-rights-lgbt-religious-freedom/

Wang, H. L. (2018, September 20). Trump officials “did not want” census survey to ask about sexual orientation. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2018/09/20/649752485/trump-officials-did-not-want-census-survey-to-ask-about-sexual-orientation

Lohr, D. (2018, January 22). Report shows massive increase in anti-lgbtq violence since trump took office. HuffPost. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/lgbtq-violence-trump_n_5a625035e4b002283002897b

Schwartz, R., & Lange, T. W. U. last updated C. from J. (2024, September 20). 87 things Donald Trump has said about women. Theweek. https://theweek.com/donald-trump/655770/61-things-donald-trump-has-said-about-women

All the sexist things Donald Trump has said. (2016, October 9). The Independent. https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-sexist-quotes-comments-tweets-grab-them-by-the-pussy-when-star-you-can-do-anything-women-fat-pigs-dogs-slobs-blood-her-wherever-miss-piggy-miss-housekeeping-insults-hispanic-hillary-a7353006.html

González-Ramírez, Andrea. (2024, October 24). Trump Accused of Sexual Misconduct for the 27th Time.Archived at http://archive.today/2024.10.25-185528/https://www.thecut.com/article/new-trump-allegation-stacey-williams.html

Blake, Aaron. (2023, July 19). Judge clarifies: Yes, Trump was found to have raped E. Jean Carroll. Archived at http://archive.today/2024.05.03-172431/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/19/trump-carroll-judge-rape/

Ranji, U., Salganicoff, A., Sanchez, B. C., & Published, L. S. (2024, October 1). Harris v. Trump: Records and positions on reproductive health. KFF. https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/issue-brief/harris-v-trump-records-and-positions-on-reproductive-health/

McGahey, R. (2024, October 9). Trump’s economic policies will hurt working women. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardmcgahey/2024/10/09/trumps-economic-policies-will-hurt-working-women/

100 Days, 100 Ways the Trump Administration Is Harming Women and Families (2017, April 25). Center for American Progress. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/100-days-100-ways-trump-administration-harming-women-families/

Trump administration budgets and social programs. (n.d.). Brookings. Retrieved October 27, 2024, from https://www.brookings.edu/articles/trump-administration-budgets-and-programs-for-people-of-limited-means/

Sullivan, B. (2022, June 24). These 3 Supreme Court decisions could be at risk after Roe v. Wade was overturned. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2022/05/05/1096732347/roe-v-wade-implications-beyond-abortion

Gross, S. (2020, August 4). What is the Trump administration’s track record on the environment? Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-is-the-trump-administrations-track-record-on-the-environment/

Popovich, N., Albeck-Ripka, L., & Pierre-Louis, K. (2020, October 16). The trump administration rolled back more than 100 environmental rules. Here’s the full list. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks-list.html, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks-list.html

[fleshengine]

What does this mean? (Not a dm so get fucked)

okay so it's been quite a while but that's how I am with asks. If I don't answer them immediately they get forgotten and buried.

Anyway. Twodee is a character in the Shadowrun Storytime greentext. It started as a tha/tg/uy story on 4chan's /tg/ board but people liked it so the op wrote out the whole thing which was I believe a multi-year shadowrun campaign where only one character made it through the whole thing.

Twodee was the hacker for the group for most of the story, only being replaced by Wildcard after going corporate at the end of the "Twotimes arc." The Twotimes Arc consisted of the group being contracted by Ares Macrotechnology to hunt down the enigmatic hacker known as Twotimes, not to be confused with the less than subtle hacker known at Twodee. Anyway name jokes squared away (haha) in order to hunt down Twotimes, the team had to track down members of his old shadowrunning gang and get them to each give up a communication satelite's access code which would allow them to triangulate the position of Twotimes' bunker. In order to check the validity of the codes, Twodee in his brilliant wisdom would immediately attempt to dive the satelites and be bombarded with the communication traffic of a good chunk of the planet. Now I don't think there's rules-as-written for processing that much data at once. There's a couple different ways I could see someone roleplaying it. The information could be overwhelming and Twodee barfs everywhere and then goes into a coma. It could just instantly fry his little nerd brain. There's lots of options really. Being the gigantic weirdos they are tho, they just had Twodee cum in his pants really hard. For each successive satelite he dove, he came harder than the last, and I think the third one actually knocked him out.

I don't even remember the context for that screencap tbh. But I figured I'd finally get this out of my inbox. I really like the SR storytime story and have relistened to it (there's a shitty TTS on youtube) multiple times over the years. It makes me want to play the game so much.

[hawkins-batman]

Hi! How are you?

Look, I'm writing this because I really want to educate myself. I read your posts, the one you pinned, the ones you write to, and most things because I honestly believe that Noah doesn't deserve any of the bad that is wished upon him. Idk, as a pseudo adult that I am and was here when the whole cancel culture was born (and I've seen it grow over the years) I feel like this obviously transcended. I actually think you're doing the right thing by defending Noah. I agree that if you see something bad or unfair happening and you do nothing you're responsible too. And even if we're wrong and Noah is what they say he is (which I really don't believe) no one deserves death threats and all the other nonsense he's had to read. People who say that forgot that they're not God to judge anyone and if they think they have the moral high ground to attack him like that someone needs to tell them how wrong they are to their face. I guess behind a screen we are all "brave enough to speak up" (however hypocritical I may seem saying this anonymously).

The thing is, I have friends that I don't discuss this with because I feel like I don't have all the information even though I fervently believe that Noah is the sweetest person and would never wish/support what Israel is doing to Palestine, and that's why I'm writing to you. And after this long introduction...

I read the image where he explains how the stickers thing was taken out of context (as I understand it) and I just went to watch the whole video again. I'm having a hard time finding an explanation because even though he notices very quickly what's happening and puts down the phone and stops recording/smiling, at first he does it. At first he laughs like everyone else and if it's his friends who put those kinds of stickers on their foreheads to make fun of it, it's even harder for me to feel like I can defend him. I feel very conflicted about it.

I hope you can answer me, thanks<3

I think focusing on the stickers or even his reaction to them is the wrong approach.

Getting caught up in the argument about what the stickers say was the first thing people did. When that failed, because he obviously didn’t have them himself, people go to his reaction and try to imply all kinds of crazy shit from that (that he was laughing at dead Palestinians, which is patently fucking ridiculous).

I focus on how people reacted to the video itself. Even if you think he reacted in poor taste (I don’t), the question is: does this video justify a smear campaign that has included death threats, rape threats, doxxing, homophobia (slurs, accusations he was spreading MPox on set), antisemitism (“Well, if only he wasn’t raised by Jews, he wouldn’t be like this”) and the harassment of his family to the point of forcing his mom to actively combat people in her own comments sections on her personal socials?

The answer is? Of course not.

Do not give people the concession of even talking about the stickers. That shifts the blame off of them and onto their victim. Put the behavior you’re seeing directed at Noah in the spot light and don’t let them run away from it.

If they cannot wholeheartedly denounce that behavior or, worse, think it’s justified, then there’s no need to talk about the stickers at all. They’ve got faaaar worse issues than stickers if this is the behavior they’ll justify.

And, on a related side note, Noah is famous in this fandom for being unbelievably sweet to his fans when they see him in public. Both word of mouth and videos/pictures of him meeting people out in the wild bear this out. It doesn’t surprise me that he was smiling at a waitress who recognized him and interacted with him, or even that he chuckles awkwardly along with his friends.

There was a guy a year or so back that recalled meeting Noah for the second time, and when he asked Noah if he remembered him, the guy could tell Noah didn’t, but in an effort to make him feel at ease and not awkward, Noah smiled, nodded along, and gave him a hug anyways.

That’s just how the guy is.

People are really brave for trying to make him out as some sort of villain for smiling in a video that’s being taken OF him, when I know it they had a camera trained on them 24/7, even the leftiest of lefties would be caught reacting in a manner that could be misconstrued as problematic.

And judging from the way they react when little old me calls them out on homophobia and antisemitism, I rather doubt they’d think receiving the treatment Noah has would be a fair reaction.

[emerald-worldsfinest]

Edit idea

Lionel giving Jonathan Kent a diamond watch. The watch is even engraved. Of course it is.

" Perhaps in another life. In another time. L.L"

Don't worry I already have a fic chapter to match this with. Jor and Sine know this.

I really liked this, it challenged my creativity in trying to understand how the hell I could edit something that literally never happened in the slightest (neither in Smallville or others movies/series they’ve been in as far as I know) but then I remembered the scene in 5x07 when Lionel offers Jonathan to support his campaign and by changing the context and adding the engraved watch, I thought it could fit your idea. Thank you for the inspiration and pls let me know where and when I will be able to read that fic chapter based on this