#Inverse hammer

[sstradingacademy]

Inverted Hammer Candlestick Pattern - Learn Trading Tips & Strategies Of It - By SS Trading Academy | What is Inverted hammer Candlestick Pattern? How to Identify and trade with it? and So on.

[ultimateinferno]

Here's a Zelda game concept:

Child Link. Adult Zelda.

[dipperscavern]

Broken Phone anon here 🤭 my new Phone has arrived, and it works great other than the fact that I cannot remove the Google search on my home screen, and I can't change my app icons without it looking funny 🥲 I fear there is no winning.

Anyway, have a great day (you have to. There's no having a bad day for you. Only good days. You don't deserve the bad days)

BROKEN OHONE ANON!!! INVERSE IT ANON!!

the way your phone saga continues 😭😭 i hope it’s not too annoying!! maybe you can eventually fix it? or it’ll fix itself? who knows tbh. phones are weird

& thank you! it’s about to thunderstorm and i’m going to go eat mexican food so i feel like my day is about to become great (you don’t deserve the bad days either. you are good and deserving of all things pure)

[facts-i-just-made-up]

Facts about Greek Myths?

There are a great many figures in Greek myth and they can be hard to keep track of, so here is a quick guide to which is which:

Ajax- Warrior who invented detergent.

Antigone- Funeral enthusiast who invented civil disobedience.

Atlas- First winner of the Olympic strong titan competition.

Bellerophon- Plot point in Mission Impossible 2.

Cerberus- 7 headed dog tragically born with only 3 heads.

Charon- Lead rower for Styx.

Cratus- God of strength, but not THAT god of strength.

Cyclops- Inventor of the monocle.

Daedalus- Inventor of the Labyrinth, and thus of David Bowie.

Dionysus- Drank 24/7 but very responsibly never drove.

Eris- Goddess of fighting with each other.

Eros- God of doing something else with each other.

Euronymous- God of Mayhem.

Fates- Least creatively named destiny gods ever.

Hera- Goddess of marriage yet only Zeus's third wife.

Hylia- Goddess of triangles and disjointed timelines.

Icarus- God of disappointing ones father.

Io- Space captain and epic 3D short film, still not on blu-ray.

Jocasta- Originator of Jo Mama jokes, mother of Oedipus.

Leda- Swan enthusiast and feathery-fandom originator.

Medea- Even worse mom than Jocasta.

Medusa- Inventor of reptile-safe shampoo.

Megaclite- LOL her name is "Megaclite." Pronounced like "Clitty."

Narcissus- Basically Trump.

Odysseus- Sailor who refused to ask for directions.

Orpheus- Inventor of impatiently checking the download bar.

Ouranos- Spelling that could've avoided a lot of planet butt jokes.

Pallas- Inventor of weird looking cats.

Persephone- Pomegranate fan, looked like Monica Bellucci.

Prometheus- Stupid fucking movie, especially for using some of H.R. Giger's original designs then putting them up next to a fucking plain white squid. Also let's make the space jockey a tall guy in a suit. How did Scott think that was a good idea? Fuck that shit and double fuck Covenant for somehow doing even fucking worse.

Rhode- Sea nymph yet not technically an island.

Siren- Inverse groupie.

Sisyphus- Limp Biscuit fan who never stopped rolling.

Tantalus- I'll tell you in a minute...

Thanatos- God of dying as easily as snapping your fingers.

Zeus- When the earth was still flat and the clouds made of fire, and mountains stretched up to the sky, sometimes higher- Folks roamed the earth like big rolling kegs. They had two sets of arms, they had two sets of legs. They had two faces peering out of one giant head so they could watch all around them as they talked and they read. And they never knew nothing of love. It was before the origin of love. There were three sexes then: One that looked like two men glued up back to back, called the children of the sun. Similar in shape and girth were the children of the earth. They looked like two girls rolled up in one. The children of the moon were like a fork shoved on a spoon, they were part sun, part earth- Part daughter, part son. Now the gods grew quite scared of our strength and defiance and Thor said, "I'm gonna kill them all with my hammer, like I killed the giants." And Zeus said, "No, you better let me use my lightening like scissors, like I cut the legs off the whales, and dinosaurs into lizards." Then he grabbed up some bolts and he let out a laugh, and said, "I'll split them right down the middle. Gonna cut them right up in half." And then storm clouds gathered above into great balls of fire, and fire shot down from the sky in bolts like shining blades of a knife and it ripped right through the flesh of the children of the sun and the moon and the earth. If you want the rest, see Hedwig and the Angry Inch cuz this is taking way longer to type than I expected.

[vi-is-badass]

Arcane Season 2 - The Base Violence Necessary for Change

I think this shot is the most interesting part of the trailer. We see a shot of Jinx as a painting on a wall. A symbol. A leader. Her actions stand for revolution in Zaun and I think this could be an interesting expansion of Arcane’s exploration of violence and the idea that there is a base violence necessary for change.

Silco is framed as an antagonist in season 1 because of his actions against the undercity people specifically.

In act 3 he’s not the revolutionary he positioned himself as and is instead hurting the people of Zaun through his leadership. He’s doing as much to hurt topside as Vander was in act 1 (meaning nothing at all). He’s even got the sheriff working with him just like Vander, but, unlike Vander, Silco is hurting his own people to facilitate power and he’s not even fighting for that freedom he claimed to want so much.

We see the damage his actions have wrought. We see the shimmer addicts, forgotten and exploited. We see that he's created a hierarchy rather than a community.

And it’s contrasted with the firelights. People considered terrorists to Piltover, who do use violence to fight back against Silco and topside, and yet offer the biggest glimmer of hope. They aren’t villainized. The act of fighting back isn’t villainized and it shouldn’t be.

Because it’s not the violence in and of itself that’s the issue. It’s what that violence is used for.

The series hammers this idea home through Vander. 

Vander’s staunch stance against violence is flawed as well. It comes from a good place. A desire to protect what he loves rather than destroy what he hates and it did create a time free of the death revolution brings, but it’s made it so no ground could be made to free Zaun and create a better world for the people in it. It created stagnation. 

The people of the undercity are still stuck in a cycle of crushing poverty, growing up without parents, dying young due to pollution or violence wrought by desperate people or oppressive enforcers.

It didn’t move the needle because Piltover and the system in place wasn’t going to change just because the people of the undercity were playing nice.

The unrest and anger felt towards Vander for his ideal was understandable. His views on the cyclical nature of violence and the fact that if you fight you will lose people (“What are you willing to lose”) is correct, but that doesn’t make this option the ideal one.

Which brings me back to that shot in the trailer of that painting of Jinx.

Season 2 looks like it’s going to be a season of opposites and rediscovery where it flips what we expect of Jinx and Vi on its head and further explores these ideas of violence, oppression, and revolution.

And I think this season might possibly do that by reversing how Vi and Jinx reflect Vander and Silco.

In the first season the siblings were direct reflections of their respective father figures, but now they’re inversions. Jinx can become the good to be found in Silco’s ideals and Vi the pitfalls of Vander’s.

Jinx’s actions in season 1 weren’t those of a revolutionary. Her actions weren’t meant to free the people of the undercity or improve their lives. She didn’t steal the hexcrystal to bring hextech to the undercity and improve their lives and she didn’t kill the enforcers on the bridge to get rid of dirty cops. She didn’t kidnap Caitlyn for a greater cause.

But we know that Jinx isn’t only the violence she enacted. That she is “the monster they (the system and people around her) created”. Her actions weren’t heroic in the first season, but they were driven by the life that was forced upon her. Her hurt and anger are justified.

Now that she’s away from Silco, no longer a part of his machine and actively participating in his actions that were hurting the undercity, her actions and anger can take on a new light. She can rediscover herself away from his manipulations (this isn’t to say he didn’t love her but what he did and said isolated her and allowed her issues to fester) and become that symbol we see on the wall.

Jinx could be in a way what Silco could have been if he didn’t let his own self interest get in the way of his ideals. Not quite as forward thinking as Ekko or as idealistic, but still a symbol for resistance that fights for Zaun.

Whereas Vi is sort of on a path to becoming a darker reflection of Vander’s ideals.

Vi becomes a part of the system she used to rage against.

 Based on the season 2 teaser that was released in 2021– 

“Nobody else needs to get hurt.”

–I think it’s likely that Vi believes she can prevent more death or can stop Piltover’s violence against the undercity if she takes Jinx in.

Vi sees herself as a protector who has failed at every turn to protect those she cares about. She lost her parents, Powder, Vander, Mylo, Claggor, etc. and she is constantly desperate to try and save what she loves and that will likely drive her decision to become an enforcer.

Vi, like Vander, wants to save what she loves and as a result isn’t going to fight back against topside. This is a much more extreme version of Vander’s ideals. Where she “compromises” in an attempt to prevent bloodshed but as a result enables (or in her case helps) the system in place.

This decision will have negative consequences (and deservedly so!) because no matter what thoughts or feelings are the driving factor in it she is still siding with her oppressors and ultimately helping the system that is the root cause of that loss and pain in the first place. 

Based on the clip released at Annecy and what people have said the writers explained about Vi’s arc in season 2 it seems like Vi will be ostracized for this decision and deservedly so. She won’t belong anywhere. To the undercity she’s a traitor and to Piltover she’s nothing more than an undercity rat.

She will have lost everything. She will have no one to protect. And who is Vi if she’s not a protector?

Vi will be forced to re-evaluate who she is and what she wants. Just like Jinx, Vi will have to redefine herself when she loses everything.

I can’t wait for season 2 and what the team at Fortiche has in store for us. The way the show tackles complex themes and ideas is incredible and Vi and Jinx are some of the most compelling and complicated characters I’ve seen on tv. I’m looking forward to November.

[ponett]

i played through alan wake for the first time. here are some things i loved along the way:

the literal first words spoken in the game being "stephen king once wrote..." as alan tries to gas himself up as a writer

alan only being able to jog for a little while before getting tuckered out because you're playing as a novelist

alan feeling the need to point out an extremely obvious The Shining reference in his narration

you put the lime in the coconut

all of the random shit the taken say, but in particular stucky going on about his hot dog rankings

looking at the novels on alan's shelf and realizing how fucking huge he made his name compared to the actual book titles

all the episodes of night springs, but in particular "the quantum suicide" and "absence of creativity" ("Is that too moronic, indeed? Who can tell? It's a fine line between the stupid and the sublime... in Night Springs.")

barry's puffy red jacket being the brightest, most saturated color present in any scene he's in

agent nightingale being a direct inversion of cooper from twin peaks, who HATES small pacific northwest towns, AND having to work with their sheriff's departments, AND their coffee, AND their trees!!

the never-ending list of author names nightingale will call alan

the evil bulldozer that tries to kill you, foreshadowed earlier by the manuscript page "Wake Attacked by a Bulldozer"

one of the patients at the lodge being a game dev and hartman going "he works on... video games. it's trash, of course. but it does involve some small creative effort"

when you're talking to the old gods of asgard at the lodge and tor is routinely smacking the table with his squeaky hammer the entire time

alan and barry driving with the cardboard cutout of alan in the back seat

the rock concert segment

alan jumping like this

the dopefish poster upstairs in the bookstore

the camera panning over during the live action talk show bit to reveal that the other guest sitting next to alan is sam lake himself, who does the max payne face when prompted by the host

the fact that this game has driving segments and you can do donuts and drift into enemies

and, of course... the energizer and verizon product placement

great game

[thesinglesock]

Psychoanalyzing Lloyd’s most iconic hair styles.

[Post description: a series of screenshots from the animated series LEGO Ninjago. Image shows Kai and Lloyd sitting at a table, they are both holding tea cups. Lloyd is a child with a blonde bowl cut. End description.]

Rise of the Snakes Bowl Cut: this is a child. just a little guy. does not care about self expression through his hair at all, just trying to live his complicated little life.

[Image description: Sensei Garmadon and Lloyd are standing in front of a stone wall. Lloyd is young adult with neatly trimmed, short, blonde hair swept to the side. Garmadon has a similar hairstyle, but grey. End description]

the Sudden Growth Spurt Cowlick: still not a deliberate hair choice, he’s still a kid, trying to mimic his dad because he loves him and looks up to him.

[Image description: Kai has his arm around Lloyd, restraining him. Lloyd has black hair and light green skin. End description.]

the Possession Inversion: Emo phase. that was supposed to be a funny joke but I’m actually crying.

[Image description: Lloyd is holding his sword against Cole’s hammer. Cole’s back is turned to the viewer. Lloyd’s hair is white and nearly reaches his neck. End description.]

Baby’s First Deliberate Hair Choice! Now that he’s no longer feeling like a lost child and is entering his proper Teen Angst Years, the boy bought a pack of cheap bleach and dyed his hair in the monastery bathroom. He also stopped using his dad’s hair gel, sporting a looser, more stylish look.

[Image description: Zane is talking to Lloyd, who appears to be upset. Zane is in his titanium form. Lloyd’s hair is the same style as before, but now in a warm yellow colour with light streaks. End description.]

Post Harumi Golden Locks: you hair matching your girlfriend’s is only cute as long as she isn’t a homicidal maniac. After the Oni Trilogy Lloyd let his hair return to its natural colour, which makes it look much healthier. Too bad his newly developed severe trust issues can’t be fixed by swapping out his conditioner :(

[Lloyd is standing alone in front of a blurry, pink landscape. His hair has more visible dark streaks by the roots. The pink lighting makes it hard to see exactly what kind of blonde it is. End description.]

Dragons Rising: Lloyd has graduated the Angsty Teenager phase. He is now an Exhausted Adult. All his friends are gone, presumed to be dead (again), he is overworked, has adopted two protéges, and has not touched a shampoo bottle in Months. Just look at those greasy roots. Please let him take a break and also a bath.

[aimzicr]

I always associated the Three Ladies of Castle Dracula in my mind as ‘Brides of Dracula’ because pop-culture osmosis and/or adults around me specifically referencing Hammer Films, even if that isn’t accurate to the text. 

Still, with Dracula being a representation of inversions of the ‘natural order’, we have here a ‘til death do us part’ in which he’s Still Single but he hasn’t let go of his other possessions. He’s a warlord, boyar, master of all, and they’re part of what he owns. He doesn’t just treat employees and guests as property to do with as he wishes, but also the women he apparently once loved. Love and possession are apparently the same thing to him. Messed up.

Given the descriptions of the women, two of them seem to be at least locals, or of the same cultural background as Dracula himself (he did go into great excited detail about his history and his empire before, and the strength of his people, so it wouldn’t be that odd for him to be wife-shopping in the European region he conquered). 

On the other hand, we have a woman described in a more Victorian style of beauty, and Jonathan has a ‘dreamy fear’ that he kind of recognises this third woman, the blonde woman. What if he does recognise her, from posters from music halls or theatres that he would have seen as a child? What if this third bride is a famous Englishwoman? An actress or performer who went missing on some tour decades ago? Hence the odd recognition he can’t place - she was a celebrity, and her pictures were around, but a young Jonathan would have no association with her because she was just before his time.

But Dracula had to get the idea to take over London (and then England) from somewhere. What if his new foreign bride wouldn’t stop talking about The Empire Where The Sun Never Sets, and possessive, obsessive Dracula went ‘I want that, too’?

Also, when the women come across Jonathan sleeping, the agreement of who to kiss him first is very quick. ‘Yours is the right’. What if she gets first dibs not because she’s Dracula’s current favourite or best or strongest wife/consort, but because Jonathan is her fellow Englishman? That she misses home so much, and her homesickness has been tainted by her vampirism that she just needs a little taste of home, no matter what that means? And her ‘sisters’ recognise that, and give her the right to kiss first, before they drain him dry?

[thetriggeredhappy]

where i’m like, at, creatively

like what's my dealllllll

so i’ve noticed a pretty big uptick in new people around here lately and i wanted to cover a few bases since i’m realizing it’s been a pretty long time since i had a fireside chat with the room. this is for a few reasons - first of all, i don’tttttt like talking about myself! i feel like sometimes notes on what’s up with me and how i’m doing can come across as invitations to talk a lot about my personal life, and i’m not really here to get into it. i really do prefer the anonymity of the stuff i do here. not a ton of people i know in real life have any idea at all what i do creatively, and inversely not many people who know me for my writing or whatever know anything about my real life. love that separation! big fan of it! that’s why i go by the alias Trigger, don’t have very many mentions of any facet of my identity, my location, don’t even really have my general age listed (i’m an adult, that’s all i’m comfortable sharing). i’m not, uh. a very confident person i guess? but with that said, i’m fine with talking about broad strokes stuff, and with talking about the stuff i make. so let’s go over it!

i’m not really known on here for anything beyond my writing, but i actually do various different creative stuff. i make music, i draw, i paint, i know a few instruments, i sew and make props, i’m a chef (like. professionally. that’s my job in real life. like, i’m my boss and i just answer to the owner of the restaurant. i made my menu. we’re actually expanding it at the moment). my fanwork is definitely a passion of mine, i love doing character analysis and riffing with other people and collaborative work, that kind of thing, but i also do like. a lot of original work.

“I KNOW WHERE THIS IS GOING DONT CANCEL TAKING SHOTS—“ i’m not. i’m fully not. taking shots is just gonna be well over 150k words by the end of it and i’m running the marathon, not the sprint. that’s gonna continue to publish slowly over time. that’s not where i’m going with this. i have an outline, i know the plot, i just have to write the scenes and paint the spaces between the bigger arc of it and figure out the points between A and Z, and that’s going to take a while. if that means that fic is done in fuckin 2030, so be it.

my problem here is twofold. first of all, i have what the doctors call “a chronic depressive disorder” and “the good old neurodivergence that means you’re a perfectionist and also incapable of starting things”. there’s a part of me that really wants to ‘just’ hammer out Taking Shots and wrap it all up and do the damn thing and wipe off my hands and take a bow or ten before i move on, but i’m aware that my internal motivation issues are going to make that task take an incredibly long time. the second part of the problem is that i’m going to feel intense guilt pretty much all of the time if i split my attention between an original work and the fanwork i’ve already started, because in my mind, i’d be doing a half-measure of both of them rather than a sufficiently good job of either.

i know that doesn’t make sense, probably because it doesn’t. but honestly, for a longass time, me wanting so bad to start making my original work A Thing I Do, yet feeling bad for not instead doing more of my fanwork (which i know people really enjoy), has just been putting the pole through the spokes of the wheels on both of those projects.

so i’m biting the bullet. fuckin’ whatever.

Taking Shots is going to continue to keep its irregular infrequent schedule - i generally write more Taking Shots whenever i get really really annoyed with myself that i haven’t written more Taking Shots. in the meantime, i’m also going to start making and posting more about my original work.

i’m making a comic.

it has a title, i’ve scripted a ton of it, i have the plot and characters and worldbuilding and development, i know how it begins and what happens and how it ends. i started working on the story and the world around 2016, and i’m pretty happy with it. it’s going to take years to make the entire thing, as it’s going to be hundreds of pages per arc and a number of arcs in totality, and i plan to post pages as i go, maybe individually, maybe in small batches. it’s a fantasy setting, what with the elfs ‘n legally distinct hobbitses ‘n shit, adventure comedy, character driven narrative. i’ve made a separate blog to house it, and here soon the plan is to start showing off what i’ve already got, whatever isn’t spoilers, break out the title and some of the pages. my plan, eventually (and i mean EVENTUALLY) is to open a patreon or whatever the thing is by the time i get there. i’d fuckin’ love to just, like, make art and stuff full time, but realistically, i do need to hold down a real job for a while, even assuming i can make a living on art. i don’t have anyone to support me financially, so that does need to come first.

my artfight victims and opponents (my beloved) have already met a bunch of the characters, and some of you who have been around for a while probably also know about them. it’s not a secret or anything. i just don’t want to lean on the crutch of like, building a brand and hype for characters before i make the media. i don’t like stuff like that. you’ll see it as you see it. i love talking about my process and thoughts while making things and about character writing, and i’m open to questions or conversations about the comic and the characters, but like, i’m probably not gonna open with “and here’s the plot outline”. that’s a lot.

i want to be transparent now rather than later that no matter what i do, including making a patreon (or whatever), fanwork of any kind won’t be housed there. this doesn’t mean i’m giving up my fan stuff or that it’s dropping down the list as a priority. that hat is being hung up someday, maybe, but Taking Shots ends either when i’ve written all of it or when i’m dead in the fucking ground. this is partially because of, y’know, legality, because you really aren’t allowed to profit off of fan writing in the same way you might on fanart or whatever, but even if i was legally allowed to i wouldn’t necessarily want to. i don’t like the idea of making any significant amount of money on fan content, i don’t ever want enjoying media to have monetary incentive for me. that sucks. fan stuff is an outlet for me and i don’t like the thought of profiting off of enthusiasm. that seems like it would get a little parasocial.

this is my main blog, i’m probably going to keep using it for fan stuff a lot, and most of my comic stuff is gonna go on the same blog as the actual pages, and i’ll probably make some kind of dedicated webpage for the comic as well, and at some point i’m gonna make an executive decision on where i want to host any q&a for the comic - probably here. i’m hoping that getting vocal about my original work stuff will help me, like… commit a little harder? i work on it way more frequently than my fan stuff, like it’s not even close, but there’s kind of this sense of “and it’ll happen someday”. maybe that someday could be, like, before the heat death of the universe. because it doesn’t need to take that long. i have so much done.

that’s the synopsis. if you’re interested in my music, that’s over here. i’m probably going to reblog some of the comic-related art onto here every once in a while, but i don’t plan on reblogging individual pages onto here or anything like that. thanks for the read! let me know what you guys think!

[rodanseys]

ok i finished my yearly reread of trc and i must say something!!! it is likely someone already said on the internet far before me, but i must say it!!!!

and that thing is how trb and trk mirror one another because of the inversion of adam and gansey's function within the narrative.

obviously, in trb, we see adam sacrifice himself to cabeswater. it is a huge risk, yes, but it's true to adam's character because he's willing to do what gansey isn't because he thinks choosing anything other than listening to gansey is freedom. as a result, he's the leader of the group for most of the series. the first thing gansey does when interacting with adam is ask adam a qeustion. adam is consantly called on over the course of the series to find an alternative solution when gansey can't- he even mentions that in his own monologing (i think in bllb). the gray man refers to the gangsey, as we all know, as "adam parrish and his band of merry men." in other words, he is the king, driven by duty, both that he cannot choose bc of his upbringing and that he chooses bc he can't understand what true freedom yet.

meanwhile, we see development of gansey as the poet. he's the heart of the quest, the person who believes in it to make others believe. this is especially true in trk, where its repeatedly pointed out that gansey can say things in his Gansey voice and making them true. this not only reinforces his place as the poet, but his own (and other characters') awareness of it.

so there's been established and really, really hammered-over delegation of adam as the king and gansey as the poet. then, in trk, we have the scene where adam is being taken over by the demon that's also taking over cabeswater. at the end of that chapter, he is able to regain control over the demon and separate it from cabeswater simply by saying his eyes and hands belong to him again- like gansey would. liek a poet would! his necesity to do this within the plot, the obviousness of him doing this as a chracter (he never wanted to be controlled, just gansey's equal, but he couldn't realize the difference yet) also means that he has moved into the role of the poet (and what could be more of gansey's equal than him becoming who gansey was within the plot?). this leaves the king role, as a narrative function, finally open for gansey to fill.

and it works because we've already seen gansey becoming increasingly anxious throughout trk. he's feeling this sense of power start to shatter, the fear of a life after glendower. but he knows he must finish what he started. how is this shown in the text? when he leaves in the middle of the night to find glendower- a literal repetition of adam leaving alone to sacrifice himself on the line. but, this time, gansey is the one to initiate. he's finally on his way to becoming a king, figuratively and literally. but then, we realize geldower is dead. and this is where this mirroring becomes so rich and fascinating to me.

but why? because gansey, after discovering glendower is dead, also discovers something contradictory to the way this story must go: "glendower was dead. gansey kind of wanted to live." the moment after he realizes it, he becomes so afraid of receiving pity because of his selfishness to live outside the bounds of responsibility thrust upon him. he never had that before. no one stopped him from searching for glendower, from being obsessed. he had the time, money, resources, and charm (unlike adam) to pull off this really kind of ridiculous activity. but, now, he finally uderstands what it meant to sacrifice and it brings up a vulnerability he doesn't know what to do with.

and guess who else dealt with reponsibilites thrust upon them that they didn't know what to do with? who was afraid of being pitied instead of respected as a response? adam! gansey's becoming more like adam. like the king! and the narrative literally acknowledges this: "for the first time, gansey understood adam parrish perfectly."

so, of course, like adam, he must sacrifice something to achieve the actual power of the king in the narrative. so he does. he kisses blue and sacrifices his life. and how is it written? "he fell from her arms. he was a king." he was a king!!!! he was actually a king!!! because, like glendower, he was dead. he couldn't be glendower (which is all he wanted to be- brave, respected, loved, remembered) without dying. because glendower died! and gansey wanted to live! but he couldn't. because he couldn't be who he wanted to be without also taking on the responsibility of what it meant to be that person. he never reallt understood this; adam always did.

i really appreciate this inversion because it gives precedence to their friendship on the plot level: both of them had to meet, to get to know each other, to fight for the plot to start. but then, they had to understand each other, to work hard to love each other, and actually end up on the inverted of the narrative in order to become who they needed to be for the plot to conclude. and it also reinforces another large theme of the series: time as something cyclical. gansey living adam's younger years while adam lives gansey's. that this was required for them to know and love each other fully and for gansey to come back to life and not "throw it away."

[not-goldy]

Do you think streaming to prove that BTS is better than the rest as a go to solution is maybe counterproductive sometimes? I was thinking about it but none of the members own the rights to their music. Not even yoongi who wrote and produced under Agust D instead of Suga. Big Hit owns all the rights. Idk I get revenge streaming to make our members do well, especially against another group or artist or company but the issue at hand right now is that there was a paid smear campaign put against yoongi.

This is definitely just a conspiracy theory but someone had to fund out that money. I just remember when Jungkook had that pregnancy rumour happen, Bighit did nothing and army chose to stream to show support, keeping him at number 1. Now I don’t know anything about legal matters so maybe thats how it seemed on the outside but behind closed doors, shit was getting done. But again a hate campaign was put against a BTS member and Hybe is moving silently and army are choosing to chart all of Agust Ds discography and idk. I want his music to chart and get the appreciation it deserves but then I also think about how this company who was silent gets to gain more revenue from his songs charting. So yeah feel free to correct me if this is all bullshit. You just seem smart and observant.

Absolutely 💯

Hence my love hate Relationship with Hybe and Bang PD and corporations in general. They make resources available to these boys but the boys are also a resource to them. The more money and connections they invest into the boys the more money they make and the bigger their network of connections get.

The inverse is also true. However I feel at this stage in their careers they've automated so much and the boys have amassed enough social currency that it doesn't take much investment for them to turn a profit. So sometimes hybe just can't be bothered. Profits are made when you invest little and sell at a higher price.

It's a cash grab economy my dear. Companies are compromising quality and legacy to make a buck. Hybe unfortunately is no different.

When it comes to protecting their artists I feel it comes with the boys giving up greater autonomy in exchange for it. The relationship between hybe and the boys are determined by the content of their contract which is something I keep hammering on.

Hybe is not a charity nor are they parents to the boys. What they do for the boys is not free and the boys have to accept it or even consent to it to begin with. The relationship between them and the boys is pure business and the contract between them sets the LIMITS abd extent of the company's reach into their lives.

Think of it like this,

If hybe is to become BTS's attack dog, what will the boys be willing to do for hybe in exchange for that?? Will they pay hybe more?? And sometimes it's not even what they are willing to do, it's about what they are willing to allow or give up in exchange for such a protection.

A person who has signed off much of their autonomy would of course enjoy more privileges and protection from the company- I'm talking flying first class, staying in 1st class hotels, top notch body guards, assistants, a legal team and hit man on speed dial.

But that means hybe gets to control what they eat who they talk to who they sleep with where there go who they go with where they stay how much sleep they get and all that will cost you more % of their earnings.

Would you go for such a deal if you were in their shoes?

Or would you choose and pick what hybe has to offer in exchange for less control over your life while retaining a bigger percentage of your revenue?? In which case, you book your own flights, pay for your own accommodation when you travel and Sue when you are being attacked personally etc???

Their business relationship with hybe is evolving. The more successful they become the less control they would want hybe to have over them and the less hybe can meddle or intervene in their affairs.

They've literally gone from hybe questioning them over the slightest relationship rumor to saying such matters are their private lives, to now allowing them to sue in their personal capacity🙃

The boys are becoming autonomous over time and I think that's a good thing even if there's a down side to it.

I think hybe will fight for their interests as long as they remain their artists but that would depend on the resources they have and whether or not there is a contractual obligation or interest that needs to be protected.

As long as hybe is interested in them it will protect its interests including them.

I like reading contractual agreements for fun and I would do anything to get my hands on hybe's contract with BTS as a group and as solos.

It's okay to feel some type of way about the company but for now understand they have a mutually beneficial relationship and arrangement with the boys. They profit when the boys are successful but only the boys will suffer if they do not succeed so keep supporting the boys. Focus on their career and trust that they are constantly fighting for their own interests in that dynamic too.

I'm dozing off🥲

[sepublic]

So the jokes comparing Skar King to King Louie over their appearances, with a remix of I Wan’na Be like You playing in the background, are funny and all. But they’re also more true than most might realize???

In the Godzilla vs Kong novelization, it explains that the Great Apes were like any other titans in Hollow Earth… But then they became very intelligent. They got into groups, formed languages. They established hierarchies, made tools, created architecture… And also began enslaving other titans. They conquered and pillaged, expanded past their original roles in the ecosystem.

In essence, the Great Apes became too human. Which is a great way to build off of Kong showing how human he can be in that very film, which introduced his sign language, as well as emphasized that in Mothra’s absence only Kong can defend humanity. He’s always had a symbiotic relationship with the Iwi, and with the stereotype of apes and humans being alike, you could say Kong is the most human of our giant monsters.

So the inverse of that is fascinating to take into account as to why Godzilla fought with Kong’s ancestors, and blasted their empire back into the Stone Age as retaliation for the above-mentioned advancements, which in his eyes were transgressions; I dunno if humanity had already begun the same as the Great Apes, which came first, but one must’ve reminded Godzilla of the other. In fact maybe they evolved into civilizations alongside one another.

And that brings us to Godzilla x Kong and the introduction of Skar King, who is revealed as the original leader of the Great Apes that started that entire backstory. Adam Wingard described him as the most human of the Monsterverse Kaiju, in the worst way possible; He’s the dark reflection to Kong and us in that way. He wanted the Great Apes to become human; Maybe not in the sense that he was emulating us specifically, but in that he wanted to make his species act in all the ways associated with humanity. Dude even has a harem which hammers in how depraved he is.

And like any human leader, he’s not much on his own; But the armies he leads, the tools he has, the beasts he tames, that makes him dangerous. He is just a man in the end; Nothing without his followers and society. Skar King’s ambition in the past led to Godzilla knocking down the Great Apes a massive notch, which led to some fleeing to Skull Island; This sets Kong’s destiny in stone when the Skull Crawlers emerge there and kill his parents. The Godzilla-killing axe must’ve been created under Skar King’s rule, in fact he may have personally made and/or wielded it to begin with; Skar King could’ve recognized that weapon, and been reclaiming it when he first met Kong.

Skar King is responsible for Kong in a sense; To him, Kong is a feral child who just now has reconnected with society and begun to realize how intelligent he can really be; Hence the traps at the beginning of Godzilla x Kong. He’s a reverse Tarzan, funnily enough; Lost his parents and spent more time in the jungle with humans, who are his ‘apes’. Skar King created Kong, in other words his own downfall, just as he sired Suko who rebelled, enslaved Shimo who retaliated, crafted the axe that spelled his downfall, and angered Godzilla who fought back. Skar King made his own demise, he brought his kind to ruin in his attempts to control nature.

So when we go back to the comparisons with another red-haired ape who also wants to act human, in a very destructive way via mastering fire. Yeah I guess Skar King Louie really does wanna be like us.

[notaplaceofhonour]

An Open Letter Regarding the Holocaust Inversion & Blood Libel of the “Average Pace” Meme:

The person who shared the screenshotted post deleted it after I sent the following message. I truly believe they shared it out of ignorance & not malice; I cannot say the same of OP who created the graphic. I am sharing my deconstruction of its rhetoric & imagery here as a learning opportunity:

Nothing justifies the injustices Palestinians have faced, and what Netanyahu is doing is vile. No country should be above criticism, nor its leaders above condemnation, but this is not that.

What people like OP are doing is weaponizing legitimate atrocities to spread the antisemitic narratives of Holocaust Inversion (an offshoot of Holocaust Revision & Denial that claims “The new Nazis are Jews”) and Blood Libel.

And no, the fact that these libels are made in criticism of Israel does not absolve them of being antisemitic narratives that predate the existence of the State of Israel. As if to hammer in that point, that is not the flag of Israel that the creator of this agitprop decided to equate to the Swastika—that is the Magen David. That’s just the symbol for Judaism.

Worse, to impose the Magen David over images of blood (especially what is implicitly the blood of children) is a direct invocation of Blood Libel, the antisemitic accusation that Jewish leaders thirst for the blood of children. This libel has incited the mass slaughter of Jews since long before the Shoah, and is still being used to this day to incite violence against Jews through Qanon & accusations that Israelis drink & bathe in Palestinian blood.

And if it truly weren’t about the Jewishness of Israel, why would OP pick the Shoah specifically? There have been countless other mass killings in the world, many with much greater resemblance to Israel/Palestine than Jews in Nazi Germany (see: ethnic cleansings in Liberia & India/Pakistan for instance). Meanwhile, the only things The Shoah/WWII and Israel-Palestine have in common is people dying and Jews being present. So why specifically invoke the slaughter of Jews to criticize Israel if it is not about invoking the Jewishness of Israel?

That doesn’t even get into how cherrypicked those numbers are to the point the exact same “average pace” metric could easily be used (and in fact is, by the German far-right) to present the Bombing of Dresden by the Allies—a campaign that killed more than 25,000 German civilians in 72 hours in an area much bigger & less densely populated than Gaza with a fraction of the bombs that Israel has used—as comparable to the death camps.

This rhetoric does not aid Palestinians in any way. In fact it drags the movement down by providing ammunition that can be used to paint all criticism of Israel as antisemitic & give people who just hate Palestinians the casus belli they need to shut it down. The only thing it accomplishes is hurting Jews; it twists the knife in the wounds left in our community, it trivializes the Shoah by universalizing it or presenting it as “the lesser of two evils”, and it incites violence by equating Jews to Nazis.

[chaos-of-the-abyss]

I had this idea that when Lúthien is held captive in Nargothrond, she actually makes one friend during her captivity: Celebrimbor himself.

Celebrimbor is disgusted with his uncle and father for thinking that they could force Lúthien into marriage, so he basically appoints himself as her “bodyguard” to keep Celegorm away from her. And during those days, he and Lúthien become tentative friends— Lúthien appreciates Celebrimbor’s protection, and Celebrimbor genuinely admires Lúthien’s bravery in her quest.

The turning point for his loyalty is when Celebrimbor is kept away from Lúthien by his own father so Celegorm can try to (unsuccessfully) seduce her. Needless to say, Celebrimbor gets pissed, and he actually sends Huan to Lúthien to free her, then keeps C&C busy so they don’t notice Lúthien’s escape.

Sorry if this is too long! I hope it’s alright to share this headcanon with you!

no i absolutely love this! i for one find celebrimbor's stark departure from the rest of his house very appealing -- as i've said before, he is the precise inverse of his grandfather and uncles' behavior in many ways -- and i think this headcanon just hammers that in harder. it's another headcanon i've seen, and one i do adopt, that out of all his uncles, celegorm was the closest to celebrimbor since it's very plausible that they spent lots of time together in himlad (though it's not 100% certain if celebrimbor was with c&c there, i find it likely) and later in nargothrond (which we do know he dwelt for certain). and given that headcanon, i can imagine how seeing a person who was so close with and kind to him doing such vile things must have distressed and angered celebrimbor. possibly he felt even angrier because this is his favorite uncle whom he once loved so much. and i especially dig the thought that he was the one who sent huan to luthien, and perhaps that luthien realized it was him and was touched at the knowledge of how much he was looking out for her. and now i'm also thinking of the sad possibilities of how celebrimbor might cherish their brief but meaningful friendship, since he can never see luthien again after she goes beyond arda.

oh oh oh and remember we discussed the concept of thingol and celebrimbor becoming close in valinor???? imagine -- during her stay in nargothrond, luthien could have told celebrimbor about her father, and later celebrimbor tells thingol about the time he spent with luthien. plus thingol also telling celebrimbor stories about his daughter during her childhood and younger years and celebrimbor being delighted to listen to them! this is such a sweet and wholesome idea in so many ways, thank you for sharing it <3

[mirror-ralsei]

THEORY: The Ink Blot Test & Symmetry in UTDR

This isn't as much of a typical theory as it is pointing out a design element that I think really needs more discussion: the distinctive style used in certain visuals in the game.

It's actually kind of difficult for me to describe. But there seems to be a recurring style used across many enemies and their weapons. This style is typically white in color, and typically very ornate and detailed-looking. It's easy to pick out because most of the shapes in Undertale/Deltarune's sprites are more simple...and because of one fact: all of these designs look symmetrical.

Here are the places I noticed this style appearing. Hopefully as you look at these, you can understand what I mean by a particular “ornate, symmetrical look”:

Reaper Bird's overworld appearance

Reaper Bird's body

Asriel's CHAOS BUSTER

Final Froggit

POSSIBLE: Knight Knight's Good Morningstar (listed here as “hammer”)

POSSIBLE: Memoryheads (they're in 3/4 view and melting-looking so it's harder to tell, but notice the curly parts and comb-teeth-like parts)

Gaster Blasters (using the unused version since it's easier to notice the style without the eyes)

(While most of these designs are technically not symmetrical if you look closely, they all definitely give the impression of being so.)

There's some other possible references to this style, but I'm just going to focus on the more distinct ones for now. And even some of the ones I've listed are debatable. If I had to pick just a few, I'd use Reaper Bird, their overworld sprite, and CHAOS BUSTER as the definitive examples.

So it's taken me a couple years of not quite being able to place why this style felt so familiar. At first I thought they might look like fractals...

...but that wasn't quite it. Finally, all of a sudden, I put my finger on it.

This design style reminds me of Rorschach blots.

For anyone who doesn't know, the Rorschach test is a psychological test involving the subject looking at inkblots and determining what these patterns look like to them. As you can see, the inkblots are very intricate and symmetrical - just like the examples above.

How does this connect to Undertale? Not too much. But Deltarune? Possibly a lot! Maybe that's the reason most of the instances where this style appears seem connected to Deltarune in some way.

For starters, inkblots are black and white. Specifically, they're black patterns on a white background. So far, every instance of these inkblot-like designs in UT/DR have been the inverse of this: they're all white patterns on dark or black backgrounds. We know light and dark have meaning in Deltarune, so this makes sense.

The ink blots' meaning are what you make of it. Your brain determines what real world things this abstract ink on paper looks like to you. This seems like it could tie into the concept behind the Dark Worlds, and how they seem like “interpretations” of items in real life: For example, the Halloween Pencil becomes a SpookySword. (It's possible the ShadowCrystals may play on this “perception” idea a bit too, but we don't know yet.)

Doctor Gaster seems to be conducting tests on us (Sound Test, SURVEY_PROGRAM, etc.) to observe our feedback. This thematically fits with this whole Rorschach blot test reference. I'm not sure if “WHAT DO YOU TWO THINK?” from Entry 17 and the egg man's flavor text 'What do you think?” are necessarily connected to this at all, but it does happen to fit the theme, lol.

All right, so we've established that there seems to be a symmetrical-looking style. We theorized that maybe they were supposed to evoke a similar look to Rorschach blot tests.

Now we're going to speculate even further.

So why exactly was this Rorschach blot looking style chosen? I think this symmetrical look might be based around reflections. After all, Deltarune involves a Light World and Dark World that reflect each other. And there are actually a few important references to reflections across Undertale and Deltarune.

Kris first appeared in Undertale as the PC's reflection in a puddle if Undertale is being run in Debug mode (Video by marxvee)

Reaper Bird is encountered in a mirror

Asriel and Kris' sides of their room are almost perfectly symmetrical in terms of layout and furniture

Kris' room in Ralsei's Castle has mirrored sprites of Asriel's trophies

The File Select text before Chapter 1's completion states “CHOOSE THE TARGET FOR THE REFLECTION” when copying a file, “IT IS IMMUNE TO ITS OWN IMAGE” when trying to copy a fiile onto itself, and “IT CONFORMED TO THE REFLECTION” when overwriting a file with a copied one

Mettaton NEO's attack is incredibly high but defenses are low, Spamton NEO's defense is incredibly high but attack is low

Gaster's motif of “666” is “mirrored” by 999: 999 appears in multiple places, eg. Chara's attack, stats of Grandpa Semi were “atk: 99999, df: 99999, hp: 999” (pointed out by LeedleLel's comment on this video by Lil' Alien).

The background of Jevil's fight is a mirrored image of a carousel.

The mirrored sinks in the right hospital room read “(It's a regular sink.)” and “(It's a clone of the other sink.)” Also: “(Perhaps there was originally one tall sink that was cut in half to create both of them.)”

All leg options in the GONER_MAKER are identical except the final one, which is mirrored. (pointed out by Shayy via Semi Frequent Undertale Facts)

The background of the GONER_MAKER itself is mirrored.

The background of the Asriel Dreemurr fight is mirrored.

The strange fog graphic before Papyrus' battle appears mirrored.

"I can't get any closer to the camera, I can't even see...my...little reflection." from the Spamton Sweepstakes

POSSIBLE: Gaster's belly face (upside down, details are white on black background, where Gaster's main face are black on white background)

POSSIBLE: Hot Fridge (inverse of the function of a normal fridge. look this one's loose lol, only including it because Alphys invented it and fridges are tied to Asgore's egg fridge, Snowdrake's mother, the Sans fridge call, and maybe the unused “rustfridge” in the Trash Zone (a place rife with possible Deltarune references))

POSSIBLE: Unused rooms 123 and 321 (123 is a relatively accessible unused room with interesting dialogue and 321 is...dark, and "empty").

So notably, the places we find this reflection motif in Undertale seem mostly connected to Deltarune: Kris is the PC of Deltarune, Reaper Bird is tied to Deltarune through Everyman, Mettaton NEO is similar to Deltarune's Spamton NEO, and Gaster is...well, probably the one who gave us our SURVEY_PROGRAM in the first place. Even the more tenuous examples of reflections seem plausibly Deltarune-related, such as the fridge Fun call and the Gaster belly face in Spamton's dumpster and a reflected dark room.

I'd like to expound a little bit on the File Select and sink dialogues. Both of these seem to be playing with a concept that could explain this reflection motif.

Copying a file in the File Select seems to mean we are “reflecting” it onto another slot: “CHOOSE THE TARGET FOR THE REFLECTION.” We cannot copy a file onto itself because “IT IS IMMUNE TO ITS OWN IMAGE.” If we overwrite an existing file with a copied one, “IT CONFORMED TO THE REFLECTION.” Interestingly, though, if you copy a file into an empty slot... “THE DIVISION IS COMPLETE.”

Not multiplying the file - dividing it in two. The original file is also implied to be changed in some way by this, because if you cancel the action of copying a file into an empty slot, “IT RETAINED ITS ORIGINAL SHAPE.” Meaning it would not have retained its original shape if it were copied.

The flavor text for the “cloned” sinks reflects this (hah) exactly. “(It's a regular sink.)” and “(It's a clone of the other sink.)” are followed by “(Perhaps there was originally one tall sink that was cut in half to create both of them.)” Aside from being relevant to the only tall sink we know of, Papyrus' in Undertale, this seems to be setting up a concept of “reflections” representing “an original being divided in two.”

That's about as far as I can take this with the context we have now. We don't know what exactly this reflection/division concept will mean in the plot of Deltarune, as it hasn't showed its hand yet. We don't know if the resemblance of that one recurring style to inkblots is intentional or just coincidence. But at least we have some possible explanation for why these motifs of symmetry and reflections keep showing up.

[monster-musings]

Would you mind elaborating on your issues with Hammer? Admittedly I only played it heavily in Tri and sporadically since then, but I really enjoyed what I played of Hammer during the beta, so was curious what issues you have with the changes. (Genuinely curious, not here for some gotcha or arguments or anything)

It's a pretty steep downgrade to either iteration from 5th Gen, the charge has had most of its nuance removed in favor of expanding the button combos. It's effectively the inverse of any Hammer build one could make in Risebreak.

Spinning Bludgeon is now locked behind a myriad of combo starters (either button combo or charge attack) instead of being the moving Level 3 Charge, this makes it a more reactive move hypothetically, but it's much clunkier to start up than ever before -it took some labing over the beta to even realize that it was still in the game because charging is purely for upswings and super pounds now, with all of the new stuff being face button moves.

The Mighty Charge is flashy but turns Hammer into a worse Greatsword, and continues the curse of multi-hit wakeup moves that require exceptional spacing to feel impactful and not wasteful.

Charge Step is utterly fine, it's Keeping Sway from Sunbreak, but it comes at the cost of a stance change and any of the possibility that could've brought with it. It also feels like much of Hammer's reach has been asphyxiated to compensate for the movement it provides, so if you're not leading your attacks with it, it just feels gross.