#I have reached C

[lumberjack-halt]

bird man goes cat mode and bonks pig man affectionately in the chin

[tag as ship and receive my never-ending malice]

[serendipitous-posts]

Dream Smp Citizen Memes From One of Eret’s Servants

Because these? These are fun

WITH A HEALTHY DOSE OF ERET APPRECIATION!

[luffysbasement]

thinking about the image of c!dream letting himself lose two lives, his body breaking apart with scars and wounds from torture, skin and bones from almost a year of starvation, with hardened and burnt skin from literally living inside an obsidian box surrounded by lava-- all for a plan we have absolutely no information about, and one that he was so eager to continue right after he got out.

i'm... in awe, genuinely.

[peterpandiedtoday]

man did i have a stressful day yesterday with washing machines and the dryer acting up, having soo much to do, it raining like heck alllll day, having to go and print plane tickets, it being an early cats show and wanting boba before leaving and somehow. through sheer luck and despite technically leaving way too late i arrived at the boba shop half an hour before the show and could comfortably have a drink. miracles do happen

[prismatic-starstuff]

Imagine if the company P03 'almost' enjoyed wasn't Luke Carder's.

I mean, think about it; P03 knows Luke's name - he makes a very smug point of using it at the end of Act 3 - and yet... it wasn't 'I almost enjoyed your company, Luke.' It wasn't even just 'I almost enjoyed your company,' no name or designation given. No, instead, it was specifically 'I almost enjoyed your company, challenger.'

It's a stretch, sure, but... what if this distinction between 'Luke' and 'challenger' was done deliberately?

Imagine if the company P03 enjoyed wasn't Luke Carder's, but rather that of the actual challenger that he's been facing all this time; not Luke Carder who's narratively playing the game, but the player who's quite literally downloaded the game off Steam and is playing as him.

Imagine if, with all his knowledge of the world outside of Inscryption the playable game - because he had to know there was somewhere to upload and transcend to - the company P03 truly enjoyed was that of the real challenger: the player, the one who'd gotten him out of Leshy's cabin, who'd helped him take over, who'd prepared the Great Transcendence for him, and who was still there to see the result of his plan even after Luke Carder wasn't.

[mangaka-neko-chan]

Bury your past, cover up the pain. Ignore that the rain will wash away and you must face yourself again.

[queenlua]

fucking drives me nuts how you can look at some official government website for stats/recommendations on some science thing

and you’re like “hmm looks legit but why don’t i take a cursory glance at the literature first” because scihub exists

and as soon as you start squinting it’s like.  wait.  are we seriously basing whole-ass policy recommendations on like 1 study done in 1995 that had some seriously sketchy methodology and has since been viciously discredited in like 3 subsequent literature reviews.  we’re seriously doing this.  christ in heaven

[khyann]

The Oh Hellos have a song called “Theseus” and one “Zephyrus” in one album. If they release another with a song called “Protesilaus” and another called “Icarus” we would basically have the character songs for the all the sleepy bois.

[agallimaufryofoddments]

I regret overtly "putting aside Elmer’s tendency to be sidetracked with aforementioned ‘smile projects'" when writing that speculative post a while back on what theoretical impact Huey's request for Elmer to "remain the same" actually had on Elmer's quest for a universal "Happy Ending." I ended up imbuing Huey's request with much more import than I thought it actually possessed, which undermined that of Elmer's "tendency" in the process.

In practice, Elmer's sidetracking is the obvious direct / immediate impediment to Elmer's envisioned (universal) "Happy Ending." Elmer is the Gamer™ who takes forever to finish a game's main storyline because he keeps accepting side quests and pursuing them to completion. 

On that note, @toushindai​ once wondered if there’s something to the fact that Bride and Elmer both like video games. I suspect the stimulation of dopamine may be of relevance to both, considering Bride’s drug use and Elmer’s extreme childhood maltreatment. Both impact the brain’s dopamine system; drug use decreases dopamine function, causing drug users to seek out ‘hits’, while childhood trauma & stress damages the brain (pp. 58–59) and its dopamine system during development. Bride and Elmer may be chasing after ‘dopamine hits’ via video games...

...just as Elmer gets his fix through other people’s smiles. Addiction, thy name is sabotage.

The most damning (ha) case in point for Elmer is, of course, his deal with the (so-called) devil c.f. 1711/12, as depicted in Volume 5.

It’s within that volume that Elmer famously declares "for the sake of a happy ending, I’d sell everyone in the world to the devil without a second thought.” This is the man who not only met the devil c. 290 years prior, but was offered the chance to be granted “some sort of power.”

Elmer could have wished for the power to give everyone a Happy Ending—but, when presented with the "demon’s” face, what does he do? He asks the demon to show him a smile. He wants his fix, he has his fix, and so it goes, and so goes his chance to sell everyone in the world to the devil. 

Or, at least, his chance to give the devil a really good marketing pitch as to why he should purchase the souls of all humanity for the price of a Happy Ending. Elmer is the sort of person who would do that, in theory, and perhaps he would have—had Ronny kept his face concealed. Lucky for us that the devil has a vain streak, eh?

Now, to Elmer’s credit, he does think over Ronny’s offer for a little while before he makes his request; it would be uncharitable to consider this a case of “Elmer’s ‘addiction’ winning out’ and not a potential case of Elmer’s cleverness at work. In meeting the devil and thus becoming assured of his existence, Elmer has one more entity to pencil in on his Happy Ending ark’s passenger list. How can he be sure that the devil won’t miss out on his own happy ending if they make a deal? If the devil can’t smile on demand, then Elmer has quite a bit of work to do before everyone’s happiness can be assured.

To Elmer’s additional credit, his amended wish—that Ronny accompany Maiza until Maiza and hopefully Ronny also can smile—is definitely not a wish with an immediate reward. It’s not even a wish with a ballpark ETA. Granted, Elmer is already experienced in patient addiction via Huey; if he can wait on Huey, he can certainly wait on a demon. One might even go so far as to call his amended wish a two-smiles-with-one-stone strategy; he throws a stone at Goliath and Goliath’s summoner a few centuries in advance with the intention of eventually collecting on the devil’s debt. 

You know, when the devil has been softened in his old friendship. Great time to unleash the marketing pitch, right? Let’s renegotiate that deal with the devil business. Elmer is the special sort of person who would take the devil smiling as a sign that the person has gotten the better end of the deal. Anyone else might think, Uh oh, I’ve made a mistake, but no, Elmer would thank the devil and say “since you’re in a good mood now all according to keikaku”Pst, you wanna buy humankind? All it’ll cost is one Happy Ending” and at that point the devil is the one thinking uh oh, I’ve made a mistake!—

—Ahem.

"Or perhaps” Elmer really just can’t resist a smile and squandered his deal with the not-a-demon-or-devil because look, the guy’s face was right there, can you blame a Junkie? Something something dopamine. Repeat eternally ad nauseum every time Elmer comes across a mini-Elmer or, heaven forbid, the heretics who are so unfortunate as to be smileless in his line of vision. Never mind that the majority of the smileless population are only temporarily smileless, never mind that!

(Someone ultra-charitable might entertain that Elmer’s “sell the world” declaration was one said by an older and wiser Elmer, an Elmer who in retrospect regrets not having sold humanity to the devil when he had the devil’s ear. Elmer, older? Absolutely. Elmer, wiser? ... Elmer, regrets? The fellow just reaped Maiza’s smile, thereby confirming the devil kept up that part of the bargain. How can he regret a high when he’s still riding it? He’s probably recalculating the probability of seeing Ronny’s smile with this new information. Oh, you’d like to ask him once he’s come down; well, he’ll be busy chasing his next high, but let’s see what we can do—pencil in regrets from September 2002 to September 2002, squeeze in your meeting for 200X assuming he is still alive...)

[simplepotatofarmer]

i really wish there was a good way to say 'as an abuse victim, being told that you're an abuse apologist for liking a fictional character, having people imply you're a terrible person and that you weren't 'abused enough' as well as being told to die or sent pictures of dead animals has made me extremely wary of most of the fandom even if i truly believe almost everyone in the fandom is a good and kind person but the actions of those few have bordered on being traumatic.'

[bellasdragons]

I won a copy of Mandarins and Nectarines from @tomswifty-fr‘s giveaway (please go check out their shop there are many wonderful accents!) and am so excited to give it to my Nature Rep Banescale!

Which tert looks best? And does anyone have any name suggestions? (she came prenamed ‘Huia’ which works really well actually but I’m open to other suggestions)

[akkivee]

some points of interest on kuukou’s nb sukajan!!! the tl;dr of it is that it’s all about reaching nirvana lol:

the skeleton is seated in the lotus position on top of a lotus throne!! buddhas are usually depicted in this way as they are enlightened beings and lotuses are symbolic of enlightenment

the skeleton is encircled by these four flames and these flames i think are symbolic of The Four Noble Truths in buddhism, which are: 1) kutai (dhukka) 2) jittai (samudaya) 3) mettai (nirodha) 4) doutai (magga)

without getting into the specifics lmao these come together to explain the cycle of suffering through continuous rebirth and the way to break this cycle through attaining enlightenment and reaching nirvana

the usage of fire also symbolises reaching nirvana!! through the, y’know, breaking the cycle thing!! the way they depict the noble four truths as flames makes me think is also symbolising the mind, or consciousness, in the sense that in order to fully understand the four noble truths, one must experience it for themselves

[ackerpotato]

reminder you can and should reach out to your favourite content creators just to compliment them, check on them, or say hi 

[campbenji]

Mentally bracing myself for the fact that jwcc is most likely ending this year

[raichoose-gone]

“Friendship circle!”

“Society!”

“Friendship circle!”

“Society!”

“Society!”

“Friendship circle!”

“You know what? You win. Guzma, write ‘Friendship Circle’ on the white board!”

“You got it, Ponyta! ... Yer one of them Galarian Ponytas, right -”

“Thank you for seeing things my - Wait a minute.” 

“ ... Why are you all in our village’s morgue -”

“I will take advantage of the pastel creatures’ fight to conduct my experiments.” 

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

why do i keep looking at crypto analyst jobs. am i trying to punish myself in some way??? do i think all the misery i endured in this job bc of crypto will suddenly count for nothing if i don't keep using this crypto knowledge i do not want??? do i think my Misery Tokens will expire soon and i won't be able to cash them in for a plastic spider ring or a novelty shot glass??? the crypto scene is even worse than the games scene as far as percentage of shitty guys goes and it's all a fucking goddamn scam and i Know This yet i still keep bookmarking these jobs!!!