#I've been basically/almost/about to be/pre 30

[chiarrara]

the way that having one (1) singular feeling makes me feel so unsafe in my own skin that my 'be suicidal about this' instinct immediately goes off like a fire alarm

[danrifics]

you all pestered me for it and here it is. the closeness analysis/ theory.

now if you didn't see I basically had this theory that the closer to BIG and COTY we get in the DAPG timeline the closer dan and phil sit to each other. Dan made a comment about how them playing Heartthrob being like a gay soft launch and that got me thinking of some other ways they could have done it and one of those being the idea that as time goes on you get less and less strict and worrisome about what others think of you and so they end up gravitating closer and closer.

This post will be under a see more cos its probably gonna be long af.

I will be splitting it into stages.

2014 -15

2016 - 17

2018

revival

sorry the screenshots arent clickable to make bigger tumblr only allows for 30 on a post so i had to group them together!

(i will not be covering horror games apart from in the revival stage and i will also not be talking much about gamingmas 2023)

2014 - 15

now when i initially went to collect my evidence, i was suddenly worried maybe i kinda had things wrong because i feel like in Donkey Kong Country (the first dapg video, see screenshot below) they're sat pretty close but honestly when we get to how they sit a lot later on you'll see that this is actually pretty far apart

now here are some screenshots for the inital look at at the end of them we'll talk (this will be the layout for most of this post i think)

now of course this is only a selection of those year's videos if i screenshotted them all i fear this post would never end. now these first 2 years are a good mix of at desk videos on sofa videos. i noticed from some other videos not show here that in sofa videos they rend to sit a lot closer to each other than they do at the desk, this is kinda funny to me cos really they definitely have room for a wider frame on the couch if they wanted to sit like normal people.

2016 - 17

2016 and the start of 2017 feel like a mixed bag of how close together they are but i did notice that the more into 2017 we got the more they seemed to be shoulder to shoulder! these also started to wean out sofa sitting games (not 100% gone yet but almost). now if you're wondering why i've kept this screenshot apart its cos this is the last one in the first london apartment.

and honestly from here on out is where i believe the "soft launching" begins!

so lets finish 2017 and see if im right!

just had to single out this screenshot for a sec:

in case anyone wondered that is the face dan made during dream daddy when phil reads "we were roommates for a while too"

softlaunch?

anyway moving on

watching these videos definitely feels like something changed btw, while they still arent as close as we'll start seeing them sit, i definitely noticed more often they were shoulder to shoulder. but like a new room has definitely changed the vibe a little bit between them, and now we can move on to the next and final year of pre hiatus dapg, where things as you will see immediately start to change.

2018

like i said... immediately we are met with this, i would also like to let everyone know that 2018 is my favourite era of pre hiatus dapg

lets see what the rest of this year will bring

now i'm splitting 2018 up into parts because i need to do a whole talk about the tour situations so for now lets look at the above screenshots, now its very obvious that they are sitting so much closer to each other which i think is really funny considering how big that room is and often in this section of videos there is a lot of room either side of them so they literally do not need to be that close.

now lets talk about the tour bus. this is how close they're sitting

thats for sure a 1 person seat yet they've both forced themselves on even tho the sofa literally behind them would have been perfectly fine to sit on, and they cant give me "this is the only place to set up the camera" babe its really not theres a whole surface behind you.

okay thank you for listening to this, moving on to the final part of 2018!

(the last 2 screenshots are out of order oops)

idk about you but yeah i think they are definetly a lot closer than they were way back in 2014. i really dont have a lot to say other than that, and i have definetly proven my theory so now we've established that lets have a brief look at post hiatus dapg!

Revival

Now this is gonna be really brief its just a summary of where we are post BIG/COTY and post hiatus (things my brain still cant quite believe is real)

now here are the revival moments i wanna give a mention!

firstly sims season ep 3 when dan moves his chair away from phil and their wheels are literally locked together, pushing phil's chair too

heres dan looking into the monitor and then moving closer to phil <3

and finally

hand hold

thanks for reading all this and sorry if it didnt live up to the hype lmao

[yuri-is-online]

Hey, remember the soulmate au by tiyoin(?) I recently read your post abt idia and Leona reacting to yuu being their mates, but I wanna take it a step further since I saw idias line abt the family curse (this has yandere implications so if it's not your cup of tea please feel free to just ignore, nothing is outright mentioned tho)

What if yuu has a family curse similar to the aishi family in yandere simulator? (It's been years since I touched the game so if the lore changed I'm basing it off of 2018 ish lore, just with my own twist) basically yes, yuu CAN feel emotions, they're just muted and barely there. Given the right conditions (like falling in love or spending time with friends) and/or antidepressants they'll basically be like any other person, without them it's like a less severe version of the aishi women pre-falling in love

So, afab ppl born in yuus family, once falling in love, start losing their sanities and adopt yandere like behavior (stalking, increasing rage and jealousy, willingness to murder, etc) unfortunately this means they usually die young (20s or 30s) how quickly/young they die is based on their willpower (resisting the urges) and when/if they fall in love (so someone falling in love for the first time in their 40s and having insane willpower, caving in 20 years later in their 60s has more luck than a 16 year old falling in love and caving in almost immediately). Unfortunately everyone is a carrier, men carry the gene and can pass it to their daughters, but it only presents in the women/afab ppl, so transfems won't be affected but transmascs will.

What if yuu fell in love already (in their own world) and has just been doing a really REALLY good job at Resisting The Urges™️. Like, sometimes they slip up and cave in to anger or get ridiculously jealous, but they try their hardest to tamp down the feelings. Yuu has sworn off falling in love (again) and has given up their dream of having a big family bc of the curse, they're even distancing themselves from their object of affection in an attempt to "be normal again" at the cost of their own sanity.

So yuu gets transported to twst, and without their darling, they have the chance to be normal again, assuming they can get past the initial panic frenzy. Then the soul bond is revealed and they just go "nope. Not this shit again" and spouts cryptic messages about a family curse and swearing off love. I'm pretty sure most of the boys would feel a bit hurt by that lmao

This is mostly made for idia since his segment is what sparked the idea in the first place, but which characters from most to least likely do you think would try to pursue mc and figure out the truth to leave them alone and try to move on? I personally can't see someone like kalim giving up on both but I think the octatrio would try to look for the truth but be 50/50 on pursuing yuu or dropping them like a hot potato. Idia I think would try to relate to yuu and try to pursue them, but I think he'd probably be a bit put off once yuu starts dropping hints about the curse (he's a weeb so it won't take long for him and maybe Ortho to put 2+2 together and figure out the curse)

tiyon's soulmate au can be found here, their first post inspired some asks, which led to my own soulbound au the rules of which can be found here. Please support tiyon and interact with their soulmate au! They're a very creative blog and deserve the attention~ give them some reblogs!

so. uh. I got this ask when I first woke up and 1) very happy to hear from you Rose, always lovely to get a new ask and 2) yandere? sim? has lore? I did not think people actually played the game? help. i've fallen and misplaced my life alert. As a rule I don't really write for a Yuu who is just x character from y game/anime (it is in my rules) so while I was at work realizing I might be old I was trying to think of a way to do this that wasn't just yan sim (I wanted something properly gn) and I think I've got something? I am currently beating away the desire to info dump on you about the myth of Sigurd and Brunhilde (i could scream about that for hours oh god oh please i have written an actual au for that but efkjbekjrgbjrthnytrh) So here is the basic idea:

Yuu ran afoul of a witch in their world and was appropriately cursed. Given the myth I was inspired by I don't think Yuu did anything bad, but they still made the witch mad so they got cursed to lose all reason should they ever fall in love.

"You will be thine own destruction!" Cackles the witch and Yuu, who is actually normal unlike trey this person takes a deep breath and resigns themselves to researching a way to minimize the effects and maybe break it? They don't know they thought magic was fake until they thought they were just doing a favor for someone but turns out they pissed off Baba fucking Yaga.

They start to isolate themselves since they notice the curse starting to eat at them when they are around anyone the love; they consider going back to the witch and asking for further clarification but they can't seem to find them anywhere so they take some deep breaths and do their best to just be normal.

When they end up in Twisted Wonderland, and start feeling... weird. And it only gets worse when Crowley speculates that they might have been brought to Twisted Wonderland because they posses a soulbond.

And Yuu immediately freaks out because they don't want to kill anyone.

Now as for your question for who would try to pursue Yuu vs just leave them... well I don't really like writing un reciprocated feelings so I hesitate to say any of the cast would drop Yuu. In my au it isn't possible for soulbonds to not be reciprocated, and they are already sort of seen as a curse by mages so this... complication might not be normal but it isn't unexpected if that makes sense. Which would probably make Yuu swearing off love hurt even worse.

Kalim wouldn't want to abandon Yuu. Not ever, no matter how much of a danger they could be to him. Hell, he's willing to forgive people who are trying to poison him on the off chance they might regret it. But he is the heir of House Al-Asim, and I could see his dad paying someone to take Yuu out to keep his son safe. Something Jamil sees coming from a mile away and has to just keep quiet about. Something I can see Jamil feeling bad about, he might not like Kalim but you didn't ask for anything that happened to you. And yet the Asim's took your life from you anyway.

Have to disagree about the octatrio just a bit. Floyd would be into this. And so would Jade. But especially Floyd, oh hee hee ha ha his soul mate wants to kill him? Say less he is on his way to get his ass eat beat with an engagement ring in hand. Both he and Jade would be a little disappointed when the curse is broken and you aren't actively trying to kill him anymore... maybe you could try and poison him huh? Like old times?

I wrote 20 paper pages of soulbond au stuff for Azul so I will try to be brief here but... I don't think this situation would be one that made him try to break the bond. He has... complicated feelings about soulbonds already. If anything I could see him thinking he deserves this.

Now Idia. He's complicated. Pre-overblot he has given up on the concept of breaking his own curse, and I could see him feeling the same way about yours. Ortho on the other hand... even before he gets his soul he wants to help. After the overblot I can see Idia pursuing Yuu determined to find the truth and save them. Not that he wouldn't interact with them before that, he's a bit nihilistic so I can see him just making a bunch of jokes about the situation or promising to let Yuu kill him "after this next round." Or just straight up asking them to when he has to hit pity in one of his gachas. It's just cringe enough that it snaps Yuu out of the curse fog for long enough for the two of them to be normal around each other. And by normal I mean incredibly awkward

Anyway that's all I've got. Thank you for the ask ♡

[galadrieljones]

What Happened to Beth's Sweater? (TD)

I decided to write this post in response to a recent post I saw in the Team Delusional tag by @rose-andthe-thorn. You can read it here. The post wonders whether any more research has been done on the subject of the flash, and so, even as this is quite an OG discussion for TD, I want to go over the basics of the flash, as I see it, plus some new trajectories on the topic, and a great deal of symbolism, which have been explored semi-recently.

Context: Though it's been quite a long time, a lot of ppl have essentially used the flash to try and understand what happened to Beth after Grady. It seems to show her running for her life amidst a flurry of walkers, wearing her yellow polo, with a great deal of blood on her right arm. It looks as if she might have something wrapped around her arm, as the blood seems to stop abruptly, in a straight line, just above the elbow, and below the sleeve. Whatever this is, it seems drenched with blood, but it's really hard to tell what's going on. Lots and lots of ppl have written about this way before I came along, and so I'll leave some links that the end of this post for some foundational perspectives on the issue. Ultimately, we think the flash is just a snippet of what might have happened to Beth, at some point, during the Missing 17 Days, or the time period between "Coda" and "What Happened and What's Going on," which we never see.

Where is Beth's sweater?: One really important aspect of the flash that has been discussed in detail recently is the fact that, in the flash, Beth is without her sweater. I've written recently about Beth's sweater, and its relationship to Wizard of Oz symbolism surrounding her characterization. You can find that here.

Re: the flash. There's been some semi-recent discussion of Beth's "sweaterless" disposition, ie: the fact that Beth also doesn't have her sweater on in Rick's hallucination in 9.4.

This is weird, as it suggests that Rick must somehow know that Beth was wearing a short-sleeved yellow polo under the sweater that he saw her get shot in. Beth's sweater is a contentious piece in "Coda." She is not wearing it in the hospital room when we see her tuck the scissors into her cast before the confrontation; however, she is wearing it during the confrontation.

This tension shows up again, via a popularly circulated picture of what is *apparently* some behind-the-scenes footage from "Coda." In some of these pictures, Beth is wearing her sweater, while in some, she's not. These pictures are odd, as many have noted that Beth doesn't have an entry wound prosthetic on her forehead, along with some other potent observations. But what I want to focus on here, is the fact that, without her sweater, in this very nicely posed hug with Lauren Cohan, we can see exactly what is hidden BENEATH Beth's sweater when she gets shot, something that we can't *really* see that well in the episode: a cross.

Why hide this? But then show it later? Well, probably because, at the time, they didn't want it to be too obvious that Beth was a Christ figure. That's something they would have wanted us to figure out over time, and out of order. What fun is a puzzle if you get the pieces all at once, and pre-organized for your convenience?

Re: the yellow polo. It's almost as if they would like us to remember *exactly* what Beth was wearing beneath her sweater, and to use it as a way of spotting or defining her character immediately. Remember, that while lots of us have watched and rewatched these episodes like a dozen times or more, and we've come to associate it as a defining feature of Beth, back in 2014, it would have been MONTHS since the GA would have seen Beth in her yellow polo, and before "Coda," in season 5, she is seen exclusively in hospital scrubs. "Coda" was aired on November 30, 2014. The last time the audience would have seen Beth in her yellow polo all by itself, without the sweater, would have been on March 2nd, 2014, in "Still."

Assuming that, while writing and filming "What Comes After," Scott Gimple didn't just "forget" what Beth was wearing the last time we saw her in "Coda" (highly unlikely lol), her missing sweater in Rick's hallucination suggests one of two possibilities:

1. The last time Rick saw Beth, it was without her sweater. This would be odd, considering the fact that she was wearing her sweater during the shooting in "Coda." This seems to suggest that Team Family took it off of her at some point, which is possible. Perhaps it was too bloodied up, so they took it off before they set off to bury her? This, of course, doesn't explain the appearance of blood all over Beth's arm in Rick's hallucination, just the absence of the sweater. So here's another possibility:

2. The other possibility is that Daryl told Rick what Beth was wearing under her sweater. Why would he do this? Most TDers believe that after Grady, the group was ambushed by a large horde of walkers while moving to bury Beth at a white church. They had to stash Beth's body, likely in the backseat or trunk of a car, in order to escape, with plans to go back later to get her. When they went back, she was gone. The group would have then assumed she'd turned and stumbled away and conducted a thorough search of the area. If they found her sweater, at any point during the search, then Daryl would tell the group what Beth was wearing under the sweater so they could more easily spot her: a yellow, short-sleeved polo. Hence, Rick's knowledge.

Beth's sweater being lost or *missing*, as a theory and in Rick's hallucination, is consistent with what we see in the flash: Beth, without her sweater, on the run. In fact, the very notion of Beth taking off her sweater to reveal the yellow polo underneath is foreshadowed directly in "Still," when Daryl covers her in blood spatter after beating a walker to death with a golf club. Beth, having just put on a new white cardigan, takes it off quickly when he does this, as if she is embarrassed. It's almost like they want us, very clearly, to remember her this way, ie: the way she's dressed at the moonshine shack during this very intense and emotional scene with Daryl.

It also seems as if they want us to understand that Beth, as she likes to dress in light colors, is sensitive to being covered in blood. One can imagine that her sweater was probably covered in quite a lot of blood after she was shot in the head. I'll come back to this, ie: what might have happened to Beth after Grady.

But for now, back to "What Comes After." Just like in the flash, Beth is shown in Rick's hallucination with blood all over her right arm.

Coincidence? Lol. Many ppl have pointed out that this is greatly bizarre. Even though Beth was shot in the head, there's no blood shown in her hair, or on her shirt in Rick's hallucination, just a bunch all over her right arm, which is also absent her cast. We obviously have no explanation for why there would be blood splattered on her upper arm like that, or why her cast is missing. Is it possible a walker bit her cast off? And that they found it, as well as the sweater? I don't know! It's headcanon from here.

There IS an explanation, however, for why there's no blood on her shirt in Rick's memory. She was wearing her sweater when she got shot, which would have absorbed most of it. But then why isn't she wearing the sweater in the memory? This is the magic question. I doubt it was to spare the audience the appearance of blood and guts. We've seen much, much worse over the years.

In any case, despite the fact that we have no idea why there would be blood all over Beth's arm, or what actually happened to Beth's sweater (or her cast), we now have two different visual examples which suggest that, at some point after being shot, Beth hurt her right arm and had to remove her sweater.

Theories for what happened: I have speculated that when TF found Beth's sweater, either one sleeve was missing or terribly bloodied, which would explain the picture Rick's subconscious conjured, with blood all over Beth's right arm, as well as the bloody appearance of Beth's right arm in the flash. Along with @twdmusicboxmystery and @wdway, we've come up with all sorts of scenarios which could result in this, ie: the sleeve was snagged on something in the car during her escape (or removal) and had to be cut off. Or it was cut off to staunch the bleeding on her arm. She may have been shot, cut, or bitten. We believe Beth may have some immunity to Wildfire, based on the cure theory, which holds that Edwards was conducting cure research at Grady, using radiation therapy to help patients survive the virus and to develop antibodies (similar to what happens to Alicia in Fear, who is bitten on the wrist and survives the fever).

Christ symbolism: I've also drawn a possible connection between Beth's sweater and the mythical Shroud of Turin, which is mythologized as the shroud that Christ was buried in, in his resurrection tomb. In the Gospel of John, we learn that it was Mary Magdalene who first discovered that the tomb was empty, and that Christ wasn't there, though there were linens left behind:

20 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2 So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!” 3 So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4 Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7 as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. 8 Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9 (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) 10 Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.

There are a couple versions of the language used, in different Biblical accounts, but each holds that the door to the tomb was essentially open, ie: the "stone was rolled away" or "the stone had been removed." Christ was gone, but linens remained.

After her discovery, Mary Magdalene "stood outside the tomb crying" (John 20:11). This imagery, as well as the chaos which seemed to have ensued after the discovery of Christ's empty tomb, feels consistent with what we *feel* happened, and what we see only in flashes in the opening sequence of "What Happened and What's Going On."

We can see Daryl running here, toward the car, but he's not holding Beth. What happened to her? Where did she go?

The following shot, in particularly, of Maggie crying outside the open car door, also greatly conjures popular imagery of Christ's empty tomb, and Mary Magdalene crying outside the open door, with the "stone rolled away."

You can see how, despite the fact that it's all circumstantial, we have managed to piece together a rough puzzle of what might have happened that day: Beth's body was preserved in a tomb (the trunk or backseat of a car). When Mary Magdalene (Daryl and/or Maggie) went to check on Jesus's (Beth's) body on the third day, Jesus (Beth) was gone, and only the shroud (Beth's sweater) remained.

It's also widely speculated that Beth might, at some point, have visited Terminus while tracking Daryl and found his poncho, a garment which has specific ties to Daryl and Maggie.

This is obviously pure speculation, but it would be a quaint parallel to Daryl finding her sweater during his search. Something else to consider from season 4 is that Mary from Terminus wore her own sweater which featured a prominent chevron pattern.

Beth's sweater also has a very prominent chevron pattern, as well as a herringbone stitch, which is chevron-shaped.

There is also a reminder of "Mary" in the opening sequence of "Coda," in which Father Gabriel finds a Bible near the spot where Bob's leg was amputated by the Termites. The Bible belongs to a "Mary B."

Also, if you look closely at the watercolor landscape of the house featured in the beginning of WHAWGO, you can see that the first name of the painter seems to be "Mary Frances." This is quite a few Marys for it to be "coincidence." Three to be exact. Remember that at the crucifixion of Christ in the Bible, there were three Marys.

Several years ago, @wdway drew a connection between the chevron pattern and the imagery of the Holy Grail, which is heavily featured in the Dan Brown novel The DaVinci Code. *Not* coincidentally, Scott Gimple used to write for the TV spin-off to the franchise called "DaVinci's Demons" and has claimed inspiration from the books in the past. We have paid close attention too to The DaVinci Code as it takes place largely in Paris, with many great revelations taking place in the Louvre, what we know to be an upcoming setting for Daryl Dixon season 2. @frangipanilove has also done an excellent series on Daryl as a Mary Magdalene figure, with symbolic ties to The DaVinci Code. Everyone should read it!!

Back to the sweater and the Missing 17 Days: A lot of ppl also believe that it may have been Morgan who found Beth, alive, and brought her back to Grady. Though we have no real evidence for this at all, the speculation comes from the fact that Morgan shows up in the coda to "Coda," that he seems to have been tracking Rick and his people, and he seemingly knows something we don't, re: his wise yet inexplicable laughter, while praying at the altar at the end, which seems to come as the result of an epiphany (Christ has risen again?)

Morgan (or, of course, whoever found Beth) may have removed her sweater if she was burning a fever, or again, if the sleeve was caught on something, and he was in a hurry to get her out of there. The sweater may have also been removed to staunch the bleeding from a head wound.

Tyreese being bitten on the arm and having his arm amputated in WHAWGO could also be commentary on what happened to Beth and/or her sweater. In Tyreese's hallucination, however, note that Beth IS wearing her sweater. My guess is that this is because Tyreese didn't search for Beth, and so he didn't have that information, about her short-sleeved polo. He most likely stayed behind to look after Judith and Carol, who was still badly injured from being hit by a car. It's also entirely possible that Gimple hadn't devised the exact details yet of the Missing 17 Days, though I find that hard to believe.

We might also return to the episode 5.15 "Try," in which Daryl and Aaron find a blond walker, tied to a tree, naked.

When Daryl approaches the walker to look at her face, he seems greatly distressed. The fact that the walker is naked, or missing all of her clothes, while it's most definitely commentary on Daryl's greatest fears, could also be commentary on Beth's missing sweater. If she was missing her sweater, what else could have happened? Daryl's subconscious in those weeks following Grady is a scary place to try and explore.

I also want to quickly comment on the imagery of Beth and Lizzy/Mica from Tyreese's hallucination in WHAWGO. Beth is at the helm of the hallucination, holding her guitar, or an instrument of joy. At her feet are Lizzy and Mica.

It's interesting to me that the three of them are grouped together in this vision. Though it's a bit of a stretch, it reminds me of further imagery from the Gospel of John, in which we get the story of Mary Magdalene's discovery of Christ's empty tomb. After Mary realized that Christ's body was gone, she started to cry, and she saw "two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot." The imagery of Beth and the girls, as well as Bob, "driving" Tyreese home to heaven, has always reminded me of angelic intervention.

All of this discussion, of course, hinges with the flash, which was one of TD's first and more important major bits of evidence that Beth survived the gunshot. With the revelation that Beth is missing her sweater in both the flash AND Rick's hallucination, we have new indication that Beth may have lost her sweater at some point after she was shot, a question that, despite all the speculation in the world, we still don't have an answer for. And yet, Gimple asks it. Why??

Obviously these are all just theories, or "highly informed speculation," as I like to call it lol. But it's a pretty fun bunch of theories to entertain!! To learn whether there is a shred of truth to ANY of this, of course, we'll just have to wait and see. 💫

***For more reading on the flash, check out this extremely helpful tag at @bethgreeneishopeunseen's blog and this video from @twdmusicboxmystery

[bambidixon]

I've been yapping a lot about my baby so I think it's time to introduce her !! (⁠｡⁠ŏ⁠﹏⁠ŏ⁠)

This is Amelia Fawn Hayes, her middle name was chosen by his older brother Luke when he was 8. She was 29 almost 30 when the apocalypse started.

Amelia grew up on the outskirts of Dahlonega, Georgia, in a broken home with an abusive, alcoholic father. Her mother died when she was five, leaving her to endure her father's cruelty alongside her older brother, Luke. Her brother was her everything he took all the worse part to keep her safe. When Luke left home at sixteen to escape their father, Amelia, only eight at the time, was left behind to fend for herself. She grew bitter, colder everything in order to survive. She didn't talk about her brother with anyone.

✮ Nicknames: Mia (Daryl since forever, Hershel, Beth and Maggie once they gain confidence). Spitfire (Merle, due to her fiery temper). Doe (Daryl but that was years ago ). Hayes (everyone else)

Height: 5'6".

✮ Appearance: Athletic yet delicate build, dark wavy hair that she wears often tied in a braid or ponytail, deep brown eyes, lightly tanned skin. (The face claim for her is Adria Arjona)

✮ Tattoos and Scars:

Tattoos: She has an arrow along her spine, a small doe on her right ankle, angel wings in the back of her neck.

Scars: Amelia has multiple scars including a large one on her left side from a childhood hunting accident and a thin scar on her right cheek from a pre-outbreak altercation.

✮ Personality: Amelia’s a fighter, unafraid to make tough decisions, yet she battles her inner demons, she's haunted by guilt, fear of abandonment, and a need for redemption, Amelia has been surviving her whole life so when she's forced to look past it she gets scared and acts stupid.

Traits: Fiercely independent, guarded, strategic, and stoic. Beneath her hardened exterior lies deep compassion.

Strengths: Highly resourceful, she's loyal to a cause, and a natural leader.

Flaws: Struggles with abandonment issues which can sometimes make her manipulative and impulsive. She has a tendency for self-sabotage.

✮ Skills and Interests:

Survival Skills: Learned to hunt, track, and fight from an early age all out of necessity. Merle later honed her combat skills, making her unpredictable in a fight he basically taught her to cheat.

Hobbies: Running, sketching, and rock collecting (yeah that happened when a kid has no toys)

✮ Likes and Dislikes:

Likes: Running, hunting, and the quiet of the forest, the sound of the rain and the smell of the trees. Strawberries and old country songs.

Dislikes: Physical touch, loud arrogant people, authority figures.

✮ Relationships:

With Daryl: Daryl Dixon lived down the street, a boy with a similarly troubled home. They weren’t friends—more like occasional allies in survival. Sometimes, they’d share a cigarette in silence after a particularly bad beating, or Amelia would let him crash in her small, cluttered room the night his drunk father threatened to kill him. They share a complicated yet deeply significant bond, having been each other's constant in their lives. They’ve always been there for each other in their most difficult moments. They know each other's scars, because they had seen them when the wounds were still fresh, but they never really talked about them, they never really talked about anything; they just existed together. At first, they were in a space where the word "friends" felt too big, but "strangers" was nothing like what they were. Amelia was loyal to him, she would take a bullet for him without questioning, she wouldn't ask him if he's okay if she saw him crying though she would offer him a cigarette. Eventually, the word "lovers" doesn’t even come close to describing their relationship.

✮ Fun Facts:

Amelia's favorite color is green, like the forest she grew up in. Blue (the shade of blue that is in Daryl's eyes)

She has beef with Rick but it's only one sided.

Her favorite song is "Simple Man" by Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Her favorite animals are the wolves, she absolutely loves them.

She likes rocks but always refused to be so nerdy as to have a collection.

Even though I tried to keep it short I failed because I love her so so much, and I still feel there's a lot of her that I didn't include ! 😭

[shochmonster]

Hi! I've been following your art for quite a while and i'm really impressed by all the incredible tarot decks you've made! I'm soon to make a tarot of my own and i'm very curious about how kickstarter works, what would be your advice when launching a campaign? Hope you have a nice day!

Hi! Thanks for your support and your question! I'll try and explain as best I can! This answer is probably more long-winded than you expected, but there's no point in answering it if I don't go into minute detail. Hopefully it's helpful to you and others looking to use Kickstarter!

Basically, when you launch a campaign on Kickstarter, you set a deadline between 30 and 60 days and a fundraising goal. You have to meet your goal in the time limit in order to receive funds. People need to pledge as much or more than your goal or more in the timeframe in order for you to receive any money. If you don't meet the goal, Kickstarter doesn't take money from any of your backers and you get nothing. So one of the most important things to figure out beforehand is how much money you NEED to make the project viable. You don't want to ask for too little and then end up scrounging for the extra money you need on your own. Conversely, you don't want to set too high a goal, because you run the risk of getting nothing, which can also affect your wallet if you're relying on the project as any sort of income. In the final 24 hours, Kickstarter will lock in any pledges to keep people from screwing you at the last minute by backing out, but it's anyone's game before that. As another note, though the deadline scheme seems intimidating, I think it's a better setup than something like Indigogo, where you get any money pledged to your project; you'll still be left holding the bag when the few people that DID pledge are expecting an item and you don't have enough to make it happen.

Okay, so aside from hustling your project, which I suggest you start doing right away, how do you set up a Kickstarter project? They're pretty user-friendly as far as walking you through the setup process, but don't sleep on the importance of having good rewards and a good story. You're going to want imagery and a video to make your page sing, or it risks falling into the background. The best tips I can give you for creating the story is to be very open about what you're doing, what you need the money for and how you're going to use it. If you can think of a question someone might ask you, put the answer in the story and be vigilant of anyone who asks you questions during the campaign. The more transparent you are, the more people will trust you (with their money). Once you have everything set up, Kickstarter will allow you to share a pre-launch page, which you should link to anything you post in the run-up. You'll also want to make sure you diversify when you post so you're catching people in various time zones. Also, a fun but weird fact is that projects that go live on a Tuesday get the best traction. Apparently it's when people faff around at work the most.

Having said all that, no matter what your goal is, I have noticed that if you don't meet your funding goal within 48 hours, it is very hard to keep traction. (See below for the traction of my first 48 hours versus the rounding out and then the almost flat line for post-project funds on my most recent project.) Kickstarter will promote your project via their algorithm when you start out and in your final days, but the big chunk of time in the middle is on you. It's really important to make sure you've been hustling your project before launch as well as during the project. That can be as simple as posting your artwork or creating mockups or whatever it is you think will get eyes on your project.

Kickstarter is really popular for board games and card decks, so you at least have that going for you. At the same time, since many people make these kinds of things on Kickstarter, you have to find a way to stand out from the crowd.

Kickstarter also doesn't like to be labeled as a preorder system, even if that's more or less what you're doing. Kickstarter now offers late pledging so people who find your project after it ends can pledge, but again, I don't recommend keeping that option live once you have your product in hand. No need to take preorders once you have the product in hand and can sell it via Etsy or GoImagine or whatever sales channel you have.

Let's talk turkey now. How much money do you really need? The first thing to keep in mind is that most factories will charge less per deck the more you order. In other words, if you order (let's pretend) 300 decks, it might cost you $X per deck, but ordering 500 will be a couple dollars cheaper per deck. You'll need to work out how many decks you need to meet your pledges at a minimum and then how much product you realistically need after that. (Are you only selling online or are you also selling in person at conventions? Where in your house are you going to keep your inventory?) To earn any sort of profit, you're going to want to examine how much it costs to not only manufacture the deck, but also to ship them, get shipping supplies and all those other overhead things you might not initially think about when you're outlining your costs. Other things that affect cost are details like foil stamping, foil edges, fancy boxes and insert booklets. Those are all things I set as stretch goals in my Kickstarter projects as it's not cost-effective to include those perks if you're only taking in the bare minimum.

Going back to stretch goals: they are not officially part of the Kickstarter system but people seem to like having these mini goals outlined in projects. You can "unlock" them by updating your project when certain funding goals are met. It helps people feel like they're a part of your project and can help with your hype. After stretch goals related to your actual deck, people love things like stickers and pins, but remember to factor in the cost of production when you set your promises!

Speaking of production, you will get all manner of people courting you for printing when you launch your project, but I strongly suggest working with a factory in China. There are places that have a great price in high quality products and I have had nothing but good experiences working with two different manufacturers over there. If you're not from the US, there's a chance you have something more local to you that is more cost effective, but I found that most companies here are either just middle men for Chinese factories anyway or they are like WAY WAY WAY more expensive. In any case, any factory worth working with will offer you a sample box so you can see what their products are like and what options work best for you. (Photos of my last sample box below.)

The final piece to all this is your part of production. It goes beyond simply creating the artwork. If you don't know how to use Adobe Illustrator, now is the time to learn. A factory will require either a PDF or AI file with your cards, card backs, booklet and box all mapped out on templates. Some factories will provide templates, but that won't help you much if you don't know how to set up your files! For instance, the first factory I worked with required a master file, plus a file containing only the foil stamping in conjunction with a file that allocated blank space for the stamping. The factory I'm currently using requires that each card be set up on its own layer and artboard. If you need an Illustrator primer, that can be another TED talk lol. No matter what, it's important you understand Safe, Trim and Bleed lines. Another thing to keep in mind is that tarot cards have a much more tall and narrow formatting (4.75 x 2.75), so make sure you aren't drawing things that will fit awkwardly in that frame! Also make sure you're working in CMYK!

Anyway, I hope there is some helpful information in there. Feel free to ask any other questions! I'll leave you with my final piece of advice and it's not to freak out too much while your project is live and stick to some sort of marketing plan and frequent updates. That little green line will fluctuate dip and flatten throughout the life of your Kickstarter and it's easy to take it personally when someone rescinds their pledge. Often, it has nothing to do with you as is just a personal realization on the backer's part about their ability to support you. I've seen some posts that say it can help to interact with backers with thanks and/or queries about why they've canceled a pledge, but I didn't notice much when I tried that tact. I think being as transparent and communicative as possible is the best recipe for success. Good luck!

[pavlovianpanic]

so, i guess i should probably clarify a bit about what curses i'm referencing and how i handle the creature aspect of until dawn because the two coincide so heavily.

to start, i like until dawn, as in i am a fan of until dawn, so i can love it for what it is while quietly correcting a few things. that being said, i actually like to take out a lot of what they've established to leave a more confusing narrative. a purposefully confusing narrative for both us and the characters.

something i like about horror is leaving some things unclarified, leaving the audience guessing, even leaving the characters wondering what just happened. it follows the idea that we aren't quite sure what we were dealing with ... but we had a hell of time along the way.

so, the curses: i split it into two ways — the land itself was already cursed, which i leave sort of vague, but that's what we see affecting people pre-disposed (the miners, for example) to this curse before the main cast comes into the picture.

additionally, the washington family already came "pre-cursed" of something else entirely; their greed (thus, their hunger — it's never enough). i'm more focusing on the washington family here than the overall lore, which i don't really want to start getting into and rewriting as a whole.

i leave it to imply that this could have either started with robert washington or already existed in their bloodline long before robert was even born. the culmination of the washington family coming to the mountain sort of "marked" this family for life.

even if they could escape their own generational curse, they can't escape what's been activated for them. there's a really great quote from bsi by elizabeth where she says "what i have done cannot be undone. i cannot stop what i have put into motion." <- i think that's very applicable here. the events of what has been done before them will continue to unfold long after them. this quote can literally be used for any of these characters, from robert to josh to matt to mike to any of them.

this is why, while hannah is experiencing a creature transformation (thus what we see), she is also suffering "a hunger" that pangs from her own cursed line — that hunger of greed, of envy, of needing more, and of doing anything to survive. she is a survivalist. hannah isn't just falling to something outside of her control, but also something internally imprinted on her DNA.

which is what i have also happen to josh in his creature!verse. a transfer, if you will. it makes sense that the good older brother should take the pain of his sister. they share this same curse, this same "source", thus the same possession (being possessed by their hunger, their own innate and taught need for more).

aesthetically, i like the idea of a body essentially starting to shift into a super predator — the teeth, the jointed limbs to run on all fours, more animalistic. it's the distorted corpse aspect i'm featuring, the thinning of the hair, the loss of skin pigmentation (as the user has technically died, more they do not control their own body, thus it's almost vampiric), glassy eyes (thus shifting their vision into that predator vision we see in-game), the lengthening of the nails — which is where josh is sort "caught" between the two, once again ushering him into a new era of duality (as duality is a huge character arc of his, basically his whole arc arguably). again, i'd argue this is almost bordering into vampire territory. just not twilight vampires and more ... 30 days of night vampires? almost?

i've considered if they can even go out in sunlight, we only really see them at night ever, but that would be stretching more into comparing what lore was established over what i'd like to keep or edit. i'm not here to rewrite until dawn, just to be clear. i do have some inferences that josh is sunlight-avoidant in that verse, though.

as for why or where or even when this curse began? we don't know. that's the beauty of it. we're just as clueless as the cast, which also would make it much more difficult to fight them, which goes along with relying a lot on that diary for information. it's a transference of basically "here's what works, what doesn't, here's what we know" kind of vibes. trial and error. but as for the source? again, it's a cursed land. no one from "that time" is alive to give good faith one way or the other, so i imagine it's just a lot of rumor and speculation.

they're called creatures, monsters, and sometimes my characters might even call them vampires because ... they have no idea what is even going on. they're ignorant, and that's kind of the point imo. even josh's family is shown to disregard the land to build their dream vacation home. not even their real home, a vacation home. so ... in general? this cast? is not made up of respectful people. just look at how they treat and talk to each other if you need more evidence of that.

[utilitycaster]

It's just so funny that a few days ago you observed that there is very little meta or character focused fic about Laudna and now we get spoonfeed a lot of information about her. And I just don't know if people actually really want this novel when it's not about her romantic relationship, but maybe I'm wrong and the novel will increase the interest in her as a character? What do you think?

To be fair I've been saying that about Laudna for over a year now; I think her death was something of a wake up call; it was notable how little the party had to say about her and how heavily skewed the fandom response was towards her as half of a pair rather than as an individual in her own right.

It's hard to say but maybe the best way to put it is that I think it will genuinely be more indicative of the flaws in Marisha's work playing Laudna, and in the development of Imogen and Laudna's relationship pre-campaign, if the book is good.

If the book is mediocre or bad, and I am not familiar with Cassandra Khaw's fiction writing but I've heard good things (and plan to check out their original novel, The All-Consuming World, before the Laudna novel comes out), then that means that the backstory was probably underbaked; that more work could have been put into the concept or that it wasn't well communicated to a third party. That's merely disappointing, but it's not unusual to have an intriguing premise that is tough to execute well, and I can respect a bold swing and a miss even if I don't necessarily love the results.

If the book is excellent? That means that Laudna's backstory, and Laudna and Imogen's time together could have been done well in the show and just...wasn't. I will freely admit I don't know the timelines for writing a novelization, but presumably the core details were given at least a few months ago to Khaw for the novel to be scheduled for July, which means the backstory had to exist by then and was still not being communicated well in the show. An issue of "underbaked premise" can be attributed to being busy or distracted; an issue of "the backstory was there and you had no sense of it from the main campaign" is a pretty big misstep. Like...I keep saying "it's told but not shown" and so it might be useful to show that: I don't actually need to know a single thing about the logistics of Laudna ending up in Marquet. I just need to know what motivated her. Imogen shares that odd two year gap...but at least I know what drives her, so I can mostly overlook it.

If you strip away all the mechanics - if you outright forget the words "warlock" and "sorcerer" and "hollow one" and "D&D", as a novelization necessarily must - you are still left with a person who had some basic magical ability she cared about as a child but has not explored since. You are still left with a person who's had Delilah in her head with 30 years, and has had Imogen for 2+ years and Bells Hells for several months, and has done almost nothing about that. The novel isn't going to fix that. If the book is good, perhaps people will care about Laudna, but it's worth pointing out that would mean Cassandra Khaw has succeeded in making people care about her where Marisha Ray has failed.

[stampsthemeow]

Tell me abt your creepypasta au

Dawg gotta pull out the broad ASF question 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

I'll try not to rant about every minor detail but basically it's a Slendermanison au that I've been expanding on for 6 years ! (Like 7-8 years if you count pre- creepypasta) (it didn't used to be Crp it was og Pokemon then turned into creepypasta

How I like to explain it is that it's (almost, some differences, mostly with Masky and Hoody) exactly wtf the 2016 slendermanison aus were like but time has passed (6 years to be exact) + My OCS cause I'm silly

I have like 6 OCS who live in the slendermanison (a have a few that don't)

Twilight, The first oc to actually live there, is an actual creepypasta OC (everyone else is kinda just a technicality) Mostly hangs out with Jeff, Toby, Ben, And EJ, is dating JTK

Zach, Twilights Twin brother, basically the embodiment of depression /hj (he's getting better now !!!!), mostly just hangs out with his boyfriends and sometimes Tim and Brian

Halo & Dale, grouping them together cause they are less developed characters, Halo is disabled, Dale is autistic as fuck, I really should give them the spotlight again last time I developed them I ended up retconning everything after, mostly just hang out with Zach, Dale talks to the proxies sometimes tho, and Halo sometimes hangs out with Toby

Missing, The puppy boy from my last drawing, I ship him with Tim and Brian 💖💖💖💖 Out of the two he prefers Masky (not Tim, specifically Masky) he used to just be an embodiment of my hypersexuality/a character I could push my hypersexuality onto, but now he's silly, A pure soul, like his sister, they both not completely human

Corrupt, Missing's (younger) sister she doesn't necessarily live in the mansion just kinda visits (shes hates change and doesn't want to basically abandon her dimension) she fuckin hates Slenderman dawg, when at the mansion if Jane is there for once she's gonna be with her

Nimbler, I love nimbler, Twilights dog, silly guy

Casper and Charlotte also exist within the Au but their backstory is still being developed & they don't live in the mansion, but, basically were slenderman victims when teens, now in their 30s just tryna be normal

I wish I could do this post in proper ask blog format (aka I make an OC answer the question with a drawing) but I cant really with this question

[temporalhiccup]

Can you please give an update on the Twilight Throne? It's been 2 and a half years

Two and a half years, omg.

So context before the update:

When I first announced pre-orders for Twilight Throne I was in a dangerously confident state: I had been playtesting the game for about two years almost every week, and even under different GMs the game worked great! I thought, surely, I just need to lay this out and it'll be fine!

It's not an excuse (well, maybe it is) but becoming so terribly disabled by several things in my late 30s and being ravaged by its effects in my early 40s sucks. I have no medical/financial support. I have not managed to procure a single diagnosis. I am pretty desperate in what I've had to do to get minimal support. (It's better than nothing!)

I wasn't prepared for how quickly one can become more disabled—and recovery can never be counted on. I always thought "Things should get better soon, they have in the past" but they never did. Months, then years, passed as I struggled and my mental health was eh, not great.

On top of that, the laptop that had the Twilight Throne layout file died horribly, and I did not have the mental capacity to try to retrieve the files (I have been trying for, apparently, years now, augh)

The good news is that I somehow survived the intense requirements for top surgery (along with actually having the money for it, basically everything I earned from Apocalypse Keys and other work). Top surgery helped with the demons of gender dysphoria that were impacting my disabilities and mental health...

...but I got more disabled as a result. Yay!

Among other complications (I had to go in for a second emergency surgery for example), the worst was an intense PCOS flare up that lead to the nerves in both thighs getting severely damaged, resulting in constant mind-searing pain. It's hard to describe the domino effect that had. I haven't found a doctor who takes it seriously. After six months, it's uh, sometimes tolerable, which I hope is a sign that the nerves are healing! Fingers crossed!

Basically it got to the point, across these years, that I could no longer sustain several things: patreon, almost all my projects, etc. I couldn't keep up with Twilight Throne, among many things that are important to me. I'm also not doing well money wise, because of years of not being able to work as much, whoo!

So! The Update!

Twilight Throne is still complete in its current version, missing the GM sections/support.

Despite the nerve damage and other things, I am doing much better. My mental health is improving. I'm still uh really disabled but (and this may be hubris again) on some days I can manage more work than the bare minimum.

Because Twilight Throne still works well if you're at least somewhat familiar with Forged in the Dark, my current plan is to forego the unfinished fancy layout I had worked so hard on and create a simpler PDF based on the Google doc.

People will get the game, and that's what matters!

The plan is to upload the simple PDF in early 2025, hopefully around January-March! Please be gentle with me if I can't do this, I really want to and I think about Twilight Throne all the time.

I am still actively working on the next version of Twilight Throne when I can, and I do have a publisher for the game, so it will reach a finished state at some point! I just can't say when that is.

I know this is long, but can you believe I left out so much? I tried to stick to the pertinent details.

I really am grateful for everyone who supported and believed in Twilight Throne. I know there are people who are understandably upset. I don't expect "I'm trans and disabled" to be a good enough reason for folks, but it's the only one I have.

If you are upset with me about it, I get it. Just trust that I am, on a daily basis, upset with myself for my limitations and weakness. The chronic pain is a constant reminder of what I am not capable of. It is what it is, and I understand that my best will often not be good enough.

It would be nice to live in a world where I had easier access (or in a lot of cases any access) to the support I need, but, well. And I unfortunately enjoy making ttrpgs and art, and still want to try doing it.

So I will continue to fail, to let myself down, to keep hoping that I can keep making things. I keep trying.

But because of what happened to Twilight Throne, and many other projects, I don't share much of my work online anymore.

[evilelitest2]

Was Sander's Robbed in 2020?

Ok so lets walk to the past for a bit. Its 2020, the Democratic primary is getting heated. Biden keeps leading in all the polls, but after three primary elections, he has been coming off short. Moderates are panicking and it looks like Bernie Sanders might be able to get the nomination after all. He was counted out after the heart attack, and yet he kept on going.

So Sanders going in 2020 had two options for how to run his campaign. About 30% of the party loved him, about 20% of the party absolutely hated him, and 55% were mixed more ambivalent about him. He could either

Try to win over the parts of the party that aren't already supporting him, in particular the black community (Sanders does this a bit with the Latino democrats, his latino outreach very impressive and very underreported in the Democratic party

Try to hold unto your 25-30% of the party and hope rest of the vote is split between all the different moderates, so he can win with a plurality of the vote. due to the weirdness of the Democratic primary rules he can still win the nomination even without the majority, the winner only needs a plurality. if the moderate votes are split between Biden, Mayor Pete, Bloomberg, and Klobuchar, then Sanders could squeak in a victory with less than a third of the party.

Biden is the frontrunner, is polling ahead of everybody else, particular among the all important African-American segment of the democratic electorate. However he isn't beloved and there are a ton of Moderates running against him, and all of them are focused on attacking Biden in the hopes that they could take his place.

Sanders too option 2, which was risky. Winning with a plurality rather than a majority always leaves a lot of sore feelings, and had Sanders won the 2020 primary he would have to have dealt with the 70% of the electorate who didn't vote for him feeling sore, but maybe he could have handled it, we will never know. The advantage of his plan is that he just needed to hold unto his base, who already loved him. The danger is that if the moderates ever managed to rally around a single candidate, suddenly he is very outnumbered. Risky play but he did it. This is the same plan that trump use to win the Republican primary in 2016 (to be clear, that isn't a moral judgement on sanders, Trump isn't bad because he won with a plurality, he is bad because he is a fascist). There is one key difference though the Republican primary uses a winner takes all approach, so who ever wins the state gets all of the points, which allowed Trump to expand his lead. This is because Republicans don't believe in democracy.

Those are some great mittens

So far this plan has been working well for Sanders. The moderates have split the vote, Sanders won Nevada, New Hampshire and either won Iowa or it was so close that he basically won Iowa. Biden has yet to do well in any of the first three states.

But Then, South Carolina, the first state with a large black electorate. Biden secures a key endorsement from US Representative and Civil Rights activist Jim Clyburn. The results were a pretty stunning turnaround for Biden, who won 49% of the votes and got 39 of the delegates. Sanders came in second, with 20% of the vote and 15 of the delegates. Buttigieg, Warren, Steyer, and Klobuchar didn't get a high enough percentage of the vote to get any delegates.

Biden almost won more than the rest combined.

So lets take a moment to talk about the US primary system, because it is both illogical and needlessly complicated. Rather than have all the states vote at once like a normal fucking country, each individual state plus the territories plus DC hold there own primary, most of which are not in order. So for example, the great state of NY, fourth largest state in the country and the center of the global economy, has its primary at the literal end of the process. So yeah, I've never in my lifetime gotten to have any effect on a presidential primary, because the race is already over by the time it gets to NY. So who wins a primary is not necessarily the most popular person with the party, its who ever can stay in the race longest, its a marathon. A super popular candidate could still drop out if they aren't popular in the first few state. Maybe Elizabeth warren was super popular in New York and if she had been able to hold unto those state she would have won, but we will never know. this system sucks, and I hate it.

So the way the primary goes down is that you have 4 elections from individual states. Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina. Then you have something called Super Tuesday, where Virginia, North Carolina, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, California, Oklahoma, Texas, Minnesota, Colorado, Alabama, Arkansas, and Utah all go at once. So basically you go from 4 individual states to a fuck tone of state (including the two largest) all at once).

So another critical thing about the democratic party is demographics. While the republican party is a white Christianity identity party, the democratic party is a diverse coalition. The most important part of that is the African American vote, who have steadily become the deciding vote in the Democratic party since the 60s. About 90% of African American voters are democratic, and African Americans make up just over a quarter of the Democratic party. They are also by far the most organized and proactive voters, due to years of having to fight against voter suppression (especially in the South). The black electorate in the democratic party is one of the parties greatest advantages, and it also why the party has become steadily less racist every year (Obama really accelerated this process). To be clear this is a good thing, the Democratic party is better for it.

For a series of very complicated reasons I could get into another time, Sanders had never done particularly well with African American voters and Biden has. This isn't universal, the African American community is not a monolith and has a diversity of views but that is how the demographics played out generally in the primary. Most importantly, apart from Biden was the only candidate, moderate or progressive, who seemed to excite the African American voting bloc.

The reason why this matters is that Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada don't have very large black populations, Iowa and new Hampshire are lily white, and Nevada is less than 10% African American. Despite being more than a fourth of the party, the first three states are not representative of the African American vote (maybe we should have one nation wide election eh?)

So once biden won South Carolina, it became obvious that A) Biden's defeats in the first three states were not affecting his popularity in the larger states B) none of the other moderates had any real African American support. This is what leads to the supposed "betrayal"

The Day before Super Tuesday, Obama called up the remaining moderates, and convinced most of them to drop out and endorse Biden. They did so, and it basically shattered Sander's chance of winning. With most of the moderates unified, Biden won 10 states to Sander's 4, wracking up 726 delegates to sanders 505. Biden got 286065 votes to sanders 74,755. Not only was this a great victory for Biden, after super Tuesday all of the other moderates withdrew, allowing him to crush Sanders going forward. Biden had 2709 Delegates to Sanders 1,113, but more importantly Biden won 51% of the votes, with sanders getting 26%. Some Sanders fans have blamed Elizabeth Warren for not dropping out, but even if Warren had and every one of her votes had gone to standers (and there is a lot of evidence to suggest a third of her votes would have gone to Biden), that would only make Sanders at 33% to 51%.

To put this in raw numbers, Biden won 19 million votes. Sanders had just under 9.7 million. Biden won 10 million more votes than Sanders (Elizabeth warren got 2.8 million)

So I see a lot of leftist types claim that this was an example of democratic treachery, that the DNC party robbed sanders of his chance of winning, this was Nixon style Ratfuckery that destroyed Sander's populist campaign to put Biden, who nobody likes anyway, in charge. And as a progressive who didn't want Biden to win, I have to say it sucked...but that wasn't a cheat.

Biden won the popular vote, love him or hate him, he did win more than half of the democratic votes, that makes him the candidate, that is how democracy works, sometimes you lose. Some have claimed that Obama calling up the other moderates and getting them to drop out was a cheat but....how? The moderates knew they couldn't win after South Carolina, and they were ideologically closer to Biden, so they dropped out and endorsed the person they agreed with more. Most Sanders fans wanted Warren to drop out, so I knew you guys understand that importance of consolidating behind a winning candidate. Thats just good politics, the fact that Sanders didn't bother to try to court other candidates to drop out is actually a major weakness of him as a candidate. If the situation had been reversed, and the moderates were trying to win with only 30%, wouldn't you guys want the other progressives to drop out behind sanders

Because Sanders is a populist, and his rhetoric is so tied to the idea of "The people rising up against the elites" that idea that he lost demographically is sort of a trauma his more radical followers can't really deal with, so they retreat to conspiracy theories. Remember, a conspiracy theory is something people turn to to avoid facing a difficult truth. If you identify yourself as populist, and you lose demographically, you have to face some difficult questions. Maybe sanders was the wrong candidate? Maybe he made mistakes? Maybe his fanbase sabotaged his chance of winning, maybe his hardcore fans make a mistake in there understanding of the political situation. Maybe he didn't do anything wrong, it just wasn't the year for a progressive? Or maybe Sleepy Joe Biden actually was a more cunning political operator than they gave him credit for and they were duped.

Or most difficult of them all. Maybe most Americans just don't agree with Sander's position?

Those are hard questions, but you kinda of have to answer them if you want to be a progressive who accomplishes things. I might do later posts that address them if people are interested.

There is a segment of the left who are moving into purple

However, for those who can't face difficult choices, they retreat to conspiracy, and they claim that Sanders was robbed

Hey you know who hasn't been saying that Sanders was robbed by the DNC? Bernie Sanders, because he is an adult who understands how democracy works. He lost, he took it gracefully and then he endorsed and campaigned for the winner, cause sanders actually cares about the cause and not faux revolutionary nonsense.

(Fun fact, Biden and Sanders are friends Irl. Like no joke, those two get along personally)

I didn't vote for Biden in the primary and I was not happy when he won the Primary. However I never thought Biden was senile, or a fool, or a hack, I think that he is a very cunning politician who has a public persona that encourages people to underestimate him And become people can't stand the idea that they could lose to Biden, they retreat into fantasy. This is why MAGA denies the election, they can't face the reality that most of the country doesn't like them, and they can't admit that they lost to a man who doesn't fit there mental image of an impression leader

Yeah...that ends well.

[luckydoeslanguage]

Weekly Review | 30日四月２０２４年

今週はいいですね！

Had a really good week! As of today, I've been studying consistently again for 1 month. 🎉🎉that means this blog is a month old now too! yippee!

I'm so close to 100 hours of total immersion logged (in total, not this month.) and reflecting on my learning journey so far is interesting!! I'm starting to notice a real increase in improvement. so without further ado, lets go over my week!

Logged 10 hours of immersion this week. most of that is finishing Super Cub and starting Yuru Camp. the rest is playing Animal Crossing almost daily, and bits of youtube.

In total, i logged 22 hours of immersion this month. (most of that was done this week, lol.) my total at the end of the month is 94 hours!

I'm starting to notice a real improvement in my comprehension. I'm getting about 40%-50% of the words i encounter in easier media, and anything i don't understand i mouse over with yomichan, or can pick up with context.

Of course, I finished Super Cub, and started watching Yuru Camp. I'm about half way through it right now, so I'm expecting to finish it this week and write a review of it next week. look forward to that!

I'm still kind of struggling with finding shows to watch for immersion. I think i need to start making a watch list and pre-downloading subs for ASB player so i can make watching a show easier. (really wish ASB worked on firefox, lol)

Also still haven't found a manga to read. どうぶつの森 is basically all the reading practice I'm getting rn and that's all well and good, but i need to branch out more.

Overall a really good week. I was nervous when i came back to learning consistently again, but having a blog to talk about it i think is keeping me more accountable. I'm proud of myself for such a great return to language learning!

Goals for next month:

25 total hours of immersion. with such a successful return to immersion learning, i really want to keep the ball rolling and commit to my studies. after all, I'm really enjoying myself!

Watch at least 3 new shows. when i started immersing i mostly watched the Pokemon anime and Cardcaptor. they're great shows, but i think too long. i want to watch a couple shorter anime i can watch inbetween CCS and pokemon. (maybe watch something a little harder? we'll see.)

seriously, read some manga! I will look into some shoujo series with furigana, maybe try some of the beginner recommended manga?

have 500 cards seen in anki. Im currently at 400ish, but im only doing 3 new cards a day rn. but i want to bump that number up, so hopefully i will learn new vocab faster.

Whew. if youve read all this, thanks! I am looking forward to my continued studies. ^^ until next time! またね！

[jambeast]

As a child, growing up in my Diaspora Household, full of Brown Bodies, I would often lift a handful of smelly spices to my nose to smell how good they smelled. Damn, these were some stinky fuckers! “Yummy,” I would think in my beautiful and lilting native language, “there’s no way that Wh*te People would ever make fun of me in an elementary school lunchroom for this.” How wrong I was. 20 years later, I have hunted down each one of the children who once were sort of mean to me about the food I ate and summarily executed them. If this sounds familiar, it means you’ve been reading a very specific genre of online writing: the South Asian smelly lunchbox essay. A prime example of these popped up recently: this Eater piece from last week. These pieces almost always begin with some sort of personal anecdote about the author’s childhood. The author is shamelessly mocked by their cruel, racist white classmates. Crying, they dump their lunch into the school rubbish bin (garbage can for all you Americans) and implore their parents to pack them Dunkaroos or Lunchables or some other disgusting branded pre-packaged thing. As these young Brown Bodies get older, they notice that the same white people who may have made fun of them at one point learn to enjoy Indian food. This unleashes a tidal wave of fury within their Brown Body — This is my culture, how Dare You — and, seeing red, they put pen to computer to type out some incoherent mess about how they’ve been personally wronged. This gets run in some food magazine and is effusively praised on Twitter for being a great encapsulation of everyone else’s rage

I've seen this sort of discourse a few times, and it's striking to me how similar it is to an attitude I encountered on 4chan's Videogames board, /v/ in like 2014-16

White nerdy male comic book/videogames fans on 4chan would claim to have been horribly bullied specifically for liking comic books and videogames when they were kids. That they were socially ostracised and, basically, oppressed, for being weird nerds in a way not dissimilar to any other oppressed minority (which (if true) I don't entirely disagree with.)

And then some time around 2012, The Avengers makes a lot of money and The Big Bang Theory gets popular and Mainstream Society (who they map on to a sort of... nonspecific Archetypical Spirit of the-type-of-people-who-would-have-bullied-them-personally-in-school; the Chads and Staceys of the world) starts getting into comic book movies and videogames. Everyone and their mum is watching the new Starwars Sequel and pretending like they were a big star wars fan the whole time (ignoring that the original star wars films were some of the most widely popular mainstream movies ever made ever, but anyway...)

And there's a sudden sense of rage that these people - the Sort Of People Who Would Have bullied them in school for liking Star Wars (or whatever) suddenly like Star Wars (or whatever), and suddenly act as though they weren't bullying them as a kid 30 years ago for liking star wars (which they probably weren't, since they aren't the same specific individuals, but importantly they are, to the /v/ user, the Sort Of Person That Would Have). It's as if they waived their right to like star wars (or whatever) as soon as they made fun of it 30 years ago (assuming they did, which they individually might have, but might not have, which doesn't matter). There's a sense that they, as an identity group, *own* [X Nerd Property], it's theirs, and you're taking it from them if you try and interact with it yourself if they don't permit you to, a permission you must earn through their respect or your group membership.

They had their chance but squandered it. It's as if Star Wars (or whatever) is unwilling to forgive them for their disrespect. That these people (not really any individuals in particular, rather an abstract Class of people) are hypocrites for not having the same preferences they did when they were children. And the punishment for this hypocrisy is the poetic justice of not being able to enjoy the newest okay-ish movie.

It's a very strange kind of resentment that seems to be calling out to a call to action to make everything worse out of spite; the Platonic Chads and Staceys of the world not liking Star Wars doesn't, like... that doesn't fix any of this. The impulse is not an impulse to Fix. It's purely a destructive impulse to Spite.

[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

Finally, the long awaited Jimin Vinyl is here. Or it will be for me sometimes in the first few months of 2024, depending when it arrives. But I've lived without it until now, I can do it for longer. Anyway, it will look pretty in my growing vinyl collection and it comes with extra goodies. Which I love. It also feels so good when it's a surprise. I got Prince's Purple Rain and it came with a poster which I had no idea of!

I also pre-ordered one version of the GQ magazine because I'm slowly adding more to my magazine collection. I don't think I'll ever forget the day I threw out my entire collection of Elle that I gathered throughout high school in a moment of late teenage rebellion. Anyway, I'm eyeing some Vogue numbers now, but that's for November or December.

When I know I have the option to pay when I receive the package, it's so much easier to add stuff to the cart. I make it a problem for future me and at least I have options. So I got Taemin's album as well which I'm so excited for. It will be my first. I'm really not a K-Pop album collector, but it's nice to have some of the releases on my shelf. I didn't get the bug of getting everything from everyone.

I've also thought if I should get Jungkook's album now. I was looking at the Substance version, but I think I'll wait until after the release. It's no rush for me. I actually did the same with Face. I got one version in late April and the other one some time in the summer (for other reasons).

Now, onto some more practical stuff for which I hope any of the people following me/reading this might have an answer. It's about the documentary on Weverse. I'll admit, I never bought anything from that platform. I watched ITS 1&2 thanks to people adding links on twitter. I looked up Suga and J-Hope's documentaries just to get an idea on a price and it said 100 Jelly, which I'm supposed to buy. (Do people get jellies when they order stuff from weverse shop and all that?). So, there's either 80 or 120 Jelly options, but the point is, to be able to unlock the documentary, I basically need to pay 30 euros. Which in my opinion, sounds a bit absurd. It's the equivalent of 5 movie tickets at the cinema. Or some expensive screening session at a festival. But this is a 60 minute documentary. I don't need to own a digital copy or to have access permanently to it. It's also unfair given that with the other two, people had the option of watching it on Disney+ for which the subscription is the equivalent of small change compared to this.

I'm also not able to watch in on the 23rd when it's released because I'll be on a train with bad wifi and getting home after a long journey. I'll have to stay away from social media, but I don't know for how long. If anyone is kind enough to give me a heads up if there are people streaming it on twitter or it gets uploaded on some platform/website, I would appreciate it very much.

Anyway, after a few days in which I've been complaining about lots of stuff and in particular weverse, Jimin day is almost here! It feels like a holiday 😄

[lastoneout]

long angry ad rant below feel free to ignore I haven't eaten today

My favorite thing about the advertising industry is that you can't even fucking protest it if you're a creator. Like I'm a twitch streamer, right? It's literally my job. I don't make anywhere near enough to live off of it but I'm disabled so I can't work and every couple of months Twitch throws $100 at me so yeah, it's my job.

And Twitch kinda sells itself on the concept that you can decide how you run your channel. You can choose when to run ads and what types, be they pre-roll or mid-roll or banner ads, and you can use the allure of ad-free viewing as a way to get people to subscribe. You can stream basically whatever for however long and control when your vods are saved and clips and your channel layout and all that. Freedom of choice, right?

Well here's the thing, you actually don't have a choice. At least when it comes to ads.

I hate ads with a burning passion. I get offers for sponsorships through streamelements pretty often and tbh I don't care for any of the products so I don't take them(bcs I have always had a personal policy that I will only take ads for products I actually like and I sure don't fucking like any of these). I have watched my viewers complain about mid-roll ads interrupting my stream right when I'm answering a question or when something interesting happens(and this has also happened to me on other channels and yeah it sucks). I have had my long time viewers complain about pre-roll ads, and several other streamers I look up to have confirmed that pre-roll ads tend to scare new viewers off and make them bail on raids. I've had people I know irl say they bail on raids bcs of pre-roll ads. Banner ads are the least intrusive but they still are annoying at get in the way, and ofc with all ads I have literally no say in what gets shown, which means I could unknowingly subject my viewers to triggering content and I REALLY hate that idea.

And, to top it all off, in the like almost two years I've been an affiliate I've made like...probably less than $15 on ads. They are such a miniscule portion of my revenue that it's laughable.

So, as running my twitch channel is basically like running a buisness for me, I decided the downsides to running ads FAR outweigh any upsides, and that I was far more likely to gain new viewers(and new subscribers) if I got rid of them.

You can't turn ads off. I can turn off mid-roll and banner ads, and if I run a mid-roll ad I get like...a ten minute grace period where no pre-rolls will be shown, but there is NO way to completely turn them off. (Plus Twitch has gone out of it's way to make ad blocker basically completely fucking useless on it's site like I have two and I'm on Firefox and I still get ads.)

And I've seen the argument that Twitch HAS to run ads on everyone's channels bcs that's how they make money, but if so it's kinda FUCKED that streamers get barely anything for them(and also that they run a solid 30 seconds to a minute of ads by default and you can't control that either). Apparently there's a 50/50 split but you have to run a bazillion ads to actually get anything for them. Plus Twitch also takes like 50% of our sub money ANYWAY so from where I'm standing it makes more sense to give channels the option to focus on subs over ads especially when we have PROOF that too many ads are scaring off potential subscribers.

(Plus Twitch is run by Amazon so it's not like they're broke and they were perfectly profitable back when they had WAY less ads so I don't buy the "we have to make money" argument on this one like I do on tumblr. And I'm not the only one complaining, lots of big name Twitch streamers have been talking about how it's bullshit that Twitch is pushing us all to run more and more ads instead of just letting us focus on subs. It hasn't always been this way.)

But nah, fuck us I guess.

And you might say "okay move to YouTube then" but YouTube requirements for monetization(not just ads, they lock superchats behind it too) are way harder to reach than Twitch's, and besides one thing that has ALWAYS pissed me off about YouTube is that when you go to channels that for sure don't qualify for monetization without ad blocker on, guess what! YouTube is running ads on the videos anyway!! I don't like that at all!!

The only way to completely get away from ads would be to ditch my affiliate status, which would mean I can't have custom emotes or subscribers or channel points, all of which are basically crucial for making your stream profitable, or to build my own fucking website from the ground up and pay for it myself which like, obviously I can't do that. (Or idk use tumblr live or tiktok but like...no.)

I mean tbh I hate ads so much at this point I'd fucking pay Twitch if it meant I could completely turn them off. Like here take the lost revenue it's clearly only like $2 a month anyway.

And I mean, I don't want to shame channels who do run ads, I get it, we all need to make money, but it's just SO fucking infuriating that there's basically no way to completely opt out of them. I don't want to make my viewers watch ads, I don't want anything on my channel that I wouldn't want to watch myself!! It's gotten to the point where I straight up encourage people to use ad blockers on my channel bcs I just don't want them to see ads, and tell them of they feel bad about it a single $2 donation is more than I'd make in ads all year so that's a better way to support me.

Anyway sorry for the long vent I've just been so pissed about this. And again not trying to shame any streamers who do run ads, I mean clearly we don't have a choice but also I get that people need the money more than I do, I just really fucking wish I could have a choice on this one.

[skell3]

RP Muse: Jonathan Sims

I figured I may as well start with Jon.

I enjoy playing him pre Season 5. Kind-of aware and understanding to a degree, but not yet seen the full horrors the world has to offer him, yet. I could write him at just about any timeline, and I do actually have an idea for an 'Epilogue' Jon... but I haven't written him any at all.

It's a bit long, so most of the details are under the line. This is mostly just how I imagine him in my head as I write him.

Jonathan Sims stands at about 5'4" with long, curly hair. It is dark brown with salt-and-peppered in whites and grays, especially at his temples. He wears glasses that he doesn't always need, and he has warm brown eyes. Around his pupils is a halo of glowing green, as if a light were beaming out from within. Thin, but with wide bony shoulders, he seems rather frail and could be easily mistaken as a man in his later 30's, though he is more likely to be in his late 20's, if not very early 30's.

Scars from all his encounters litter his body, including: cuts from various persons, pockmark like circles from the worms, a burnt hand from Jude Perry and fainter marks from the rubble of having been within a building as it was being blown up. None of them seem particularly out of the ordinary, other than the fact that he has so many and where he got them from. Work attire tends to be button-up shirts, sweater-vests and fitted pants. His casual wear actually tends to be looser things, like skirts and wider-leg pants. Most clothes look oversize on him, so he sort-of goes with the theme, wearing rather large sweaters in the winter and only keeping his more fitted wear for outings and job stuff. He keeps his hair pulled back into either a ponytail or a bun most of the time, so it's pretty rare for him to let it down, even at home. Jon lives in a small flat on his own, after having to move out of his prior one and all that. It's a 1 bedroom with a tiny kitchen and his living room doubles as an office. If he could keep plants alive, he would have a couple, but as it is the place is sparse in the way of furniture and personal items, most of which are still in boxes and tucked off to the side. He spends more time at the institute than at home, so there really hasn't been a lot of time to get settled in. Plus, he half expects to not be there long, just in case more stuff happens.

As an avatar of the Eye, Jon has more than glowy eyes of his own marking his connection to his Fear. His shadow sometimes also possesses eyes, usually when he is Looking at someone or something. This includes some of the shadows of his hair, especially if he's got it in a pony tail or down, which almost gives him a sort-of halo'd effect. The glow of his eyes also grow more intense, and when he's using what 'full power' he has, they go completely green and intense. Aside from all the basic information about him (I'm sure he fits a general line of how people think of Jon), I've primarily written Jon in an RP with a friend that has a sort-of open Multiverse setup. We've got the 'now' (Pre-S5) team, we've got some years ago with Gertrude and Gerry around, and an older group with Eric Delano and Michael Shelley and stuff, so. Pretty open with interacting with just about any character- The Institute is pretty weird and just about anyone could show up one day.