#You can listen to the text

[luminouslollies]

A text where the only important thing is in the last paragraph (this fantastic title has saved you 2 minutes of your life, if you decide to listen to it).

I've seen a few WWatCF fanfics where the setting of the tour is October 1, 1971 (YvaJ's or Softkitty55, for example, and I'm sure there are a few more I haven't read). Truth be told, I think the intention of this film was to be timeless, failing in the attempt thanks to a certain character that is impossible to make timeless.

Well, I've just come to the conclusion that the factory tour in WWatCF could not have happened in 1971.

Ah, why did I write this in the first place? I see it's the norm to set the stories in the year the adaptations are released, or to make a time jump from that year.

It's very simple to explain: according to the Golden Ticket, the date of the tour is October 1st. However, it couldn't have been in ‘71, because October 1st of that year was a Friday, and thanks to the percentages scene we know that the tour was on a Wednesday (thanks, Turkentine). I mean, I don't think there was a considerable time jump from that class to the coin scene just because and without warning, and Charlie hasn't changed clothes between scenes. I know this may all be far-fetched – Charlie must not have too many clothes and it may well have been 1970 (the year of filming), when the first of October fell on a Thursday. Regarding the next year, there is not too much distance between Tuesday and Friday.

I guess it depends on the individual, but personally, I think the percentages class and the finding of the fifth ticket happen on the same day. The finding of the fifth fake Paraguayan ticket must have happened the night before the percentages class, and I say that because, when Charlie goes to buy candy, Bill is just pulling out the bars he had hidden. If it had been more than two days, he would have got them all out by now, wouldn't he? ('Now that all the tickets have been found, I don't have to hide them anymore.')

So, even though I've gone back to the beginning and written all this in vain, assuming this is accurate, I think any year between 1960 and 1975 whose first of October falls on a Wednesday is fine.

P.S. If I am honest, I have lost the thread of what I have been writing for a long time. I may have been wrong about something anyway. I haven't seen the movie in about 2 months, but I seem to remember there were some Wonka Fudge Mallows (I hope I remember it right) in the background after the coin scene. But how do you get a rectangular ticket into that packaging?

[aru-and-leopard-cat]

I feel like this has to be said, since it’s becoming increasingly popular to be extremely rude to ppl and trash on their interests (especially on tumblr)

You can enjoy any media you like despite what losers on tumblr tell you that you should and shouldn’t enjoy, be it music, books, or shows and movies. If you’re having fun and enjoying yourself that’s all that matters, lame ass ppl on this site will try and make u feel guilty about what you enjoy and I think that’s stupid as fuck

Listen to pop, watch that popular show, read that book that everyone claims is bad. Who cares, ppl are way too obsessed with being different and unique that they’ll try and squash your interests and enjoyment to make themselves seem interesting

Bottom line, just treat people with kindness and don’t diminish their interests, it’s such a shitty thing to do

[jimmy-v-capri-sun]

The many ways I've seen artists depict Kenny's muffled speech

*transcripts/translations may or may not be provided for these

**a combination of two or more methods is also possible

[furiosophie]

[volchiitza]

clearly trying to stop fixating on "productivity" has actually improved my focus

[starcurtain]

I wish everyone collectively understood aventurine’s character like you…things would be so much easier! I genuinely don’t understand how people keep getting his motivations wrong??? Could it be because some of the most popular Aven fanfics were written prior to his release? That could have contributed to some of the takes we tend to see about him…thoughts?

I struggled all day to come up with a concise way to answer this and couldn't think of one, so here, have a long-winded ramble:

I don't think early fic writers have much impact in the situation with Aventurine's character now, since most people can look at when a story was posted and go "Oh, this was before we had ____ information."

I think that Aventurine's problem is being a male character in a gacha game. Gacha game characters are designed to sell. Hoyo can sell female characters very, very easily. Give her huge tits and a visible underwear strap and you're good to go. I love all my guy friends, but I'm not gonna sugarcoat it: straight men are not the hardest audience to please. Hit a particular fetish (feet, spandex, dommy mommy), and you're gucci.

Nah, we all know why Jade's trailer is Like That.™

Male characters in gacha are harder to sell because women as consumers are a little harder to predict. Does every woman want a tall, ripped hunk? Shit, no, small cute boyish models like Aventurine are selling better now? Why?! Would a bad boy be more popular than a nice guy??? It's harder to account for women's tastes, especially because they are often (a little) less visually-oriented.

Hoyo is good at what they do though, and they've figured out that male characters sell very well when they possess at least one of two specific traits:

Endearing vulnerability/helplessness

Gay ship tease

Give a character both, like Aventurine? They might as well be printing money.

That sound you hear is Hoyo's stock prices rising.

So, from the very beginning, Hoyo is incentivized to create a character that appeals to people, a character people will want to crack their wallets open for. And they achieved this, first and foremost, by giving Aventurine traits that female players (in particular, but men too), find especially appealing: emotional and physical vulnerability.

We see Aventurine's pain. We sympathize with his grief. We identify with his struggle to make meaning of his difficult life. He's our woobie, blorbo, babygirl, whatever the hell they're calling it now.

He can't hide his suffering anymore. He's on the very edge. He's a dude in distress. He's surrounded by enemies! He misses his mama! He's been betrayed! No one understands him like you do, dear player!

The ultimate feeling evoked is: He needs to be saved.

When people talk about male power fantasies, I think they forget that women can experience them too, and "Emotionally vulnerable man that only I (or my favorite character) can fix" is actually a female power fantasy.

And from there it's really easy, right: the people who shell out cash to buy warps for their harmed-husbando feel like they've saved him; the people who are into mlm ships look for the nearest hot dude to be the savior Ratio was waiting for his time lol.

Morally and intellectually, this type of deep-down-golden-hearted, emotionally-wounded male character is very easy to digest. There is nothing to dislike about this type of character or role in the story: this character is a good guy who has just gone through so many terrible situations, whose victim status makes him endearing, and whose lack of agency means that any of the questionable or downright bad things he does are always the result of someone else forcing his hand, and never something he would have chosen himself.

His motivations are always clear and consistent: get free, heal, and live happily ever after.

Insert the Wreck-It Ralph meme: "Do people assume all your problems got solved when a big strong man showed up?" But to be fair, a big strong man did kind of solve Aventurine's problem, so--

Anyway, it's simple. It's straightforward. Morally, it's pretty cut and dry, black and white: Aventurine is our hero, which means everyone dictating the course of his miserable life is evil.

Hoyo is not remotely discouraging people from literally buying into this emotional appeal.

And trust me, I get it. I'll be the first to admit that hurt-comfort is its own entire genre in fandom because it is so appealing. People eat up Aventurine's tragic backstory like candy! The idea of watching a character go through hell at the hands of bad guys just to finally find a happy end is like the definition of everyone's favorite story.

In fact... people love Aventurine's suffering so much, they have invented whole new ways for him to suffer that aren't even in the game.

This is where we get all the headcanons that Aventurine was a sex slave, every single person he meets hates him because of his race, the Stonehearts are executioners holding knives to his throat, Jade enslaved him to the IPC with a lifelong contract, his material possessions belong to the company, the IPC is forcing him to take only the most dangerous missions where he is being required by his evil jailers to continually put his life on the line... You name it and I promise you, I can find a fanfic where Aventurine suffers from it. 😂

Bro can't even sleep in on his day off; life is so hard for this man.

Being serious: if the game is telling us that Aventurine is a victim... Why not make him the perfect victim?

Why not envision an Aventurine with no freedom, who bears no responsibility for any of the horrible situations he is in or any of the dubious things he does?

It's so natural to like that version of Aventurine, so appealing to see a totally powerless underdog use his own wits and charms to claw his way up to freedom. Or, if you're the kind who really relishes angst: It's even appealing to see Aventurine lose more. To delight in fics where he loses his wealth, where the IPC punishes him for past crimes while he's powerless to stop them... (I assure you, this is many people's cup of tea and the fanfics prove it!)

Ultimately, there's nothing wrong with liking characters who are exactly this straightforward! It's completely fine to embrace characters that are intentionally written to be morally above-board, whose primary role in the story is to generate angst by being a good person who suffers, or those characters who never show unlikable traits, bad decisions, or contradictory actions.

The problem is that that's just not who the game is telling us Aventurine is.

Hoyo may be capitalizing off people who love to envision poor Aventurine still living his life as a slave... But the game also needs to tell a complicated enough story overall to appeal to people who don't care about this specific husbando--Aventurine's role in the actual game's plot has to be interesting enough for almost everyone to appreciate it, not just Aventurine's simp squad. (Don't get mad, I'm in the simp squad with you.)

So his character doesn't stop at just being a pure-hearted victim who is still waiting to be saved.

Aventurine is not that easy to label, and I think the biggest struggle in this character's fandom right now is between people who prefer the even-more-angsty, still-a-slave Aventurine versus people who want a morally grey, self-destructive character instead.

To me personally, while I greatly understand the appeal of fanon!Aventurine and the joy of a really juicy angst fic where characters lose it all, I think that missing out on the depth that canon is suggesting would be a real loss on the fandom's part.

The character motivations that Aventurine shows in the game are complicated. They cancel each other out. They're basically self-harm! He makes almost every situation he's in worse for himself--on purpose.

He is a good person, but also a person who has done unspeakable things. He does have morals, but he's not above allowing those who don't have them to use him to their advantage.

He's both the victim and the victor. He's his own worst enemy. He's a lost little boy who's been making terrible decisions for himself since he was like eight years old, and a grown ass man who is barely managing to fake his way through an existence that destiny is not letting him quit.

This kind of character is a lot harder to embrace. He's done things that most people would find appalling--like willingly joining up with the organization that let his entire race be massacred. He's invented a whole new peacock persona to frivolously flaunt riches he doesn't even care about (Poison Dart Frog Self-Defense 101). He actively plays into racist stereotypes about his people to manipulate others through their preconceived expectations. He's made a mockery of his mother's and sister's hopes and dreams by endlessly trying to throw his own life away.

He has flaws! He bet everything he had on a ploy without doing his homework to find out if the people he was risking his life for were even still around. (Maybe he already knew, and couldn't bear to admit it, even to himself.) He's intentionally off-putting and obnoxious to everyone he meets (Poison Dart Frog Self-Defense 102). He terrifies everyone who gets close to him by (seemingly) carelessly throwing himself into the jaws of death without the slightest provocation.

He knowingly allows the IPC to exploit his power and talents for profit. Did everyone forget that his role in the Strategic Investment Department is asset liquidation?! Like, his actual day-to-day job is ruining people's lives. Canonically, Aventurine kills people when his deals go bad.

His motivations change off-screen in two lines of story text. We're told in one line that his biggest reason for joining the IPC was to make money to save the Avgin, then in the next line we find out that's impossible. And... then what? What motivations does he even have now? The whole point of his character arc from 2.0-2.1 is that he was on the edge of giving in to utter despair and nihilism because he couldn't even perceive a single reason to stay alive. He has no purpose in life before Penacony, and that didn't start with the Stonehearts at all??

People keep saying Aventurine was held in the IPC by golden handcuffs, but how do you tie down someone for whom profit is meaningless? What can you offer to a man whose only desire is to bring back something already lost forever? How do you imprison someone whose only definition of freedom is, canonically, death?

Working for the Stonehearts is obviously not healthy. But that's why Aventurine was doing it--because taking dangerous missions allowed him to put himself at risk. The job that he originally pursued hoping to save his people became a direct means to self-harm, and the IPC's only real role in that was just happily profiting off the results.

The journal entries for Aventurine's quests are there deliberately to tell the player what is on his mind, and none of it has to do with escaping from his job:

Like... Work is the least of this man's problems.

At really the risk of rambling on too long now, he's also just a massive walking contradiction:

Aventurine is among the most explicitly religious characters in the game, yet he's one of the only people in the entire game that we have ever seen actively question his people's aeon.

You might be tempted to think Aventurine's risky gambles with his life as an adult are a result of giving up after finding out about the Avgin massacre... Butttt no, Hoyo makes sure to tell us that even at knee-high in the Sigonian desert, Kakavasha was already willing to risk himself in a fight to the death against monsters because even back then he found his own life to have less value than a single memento.

He's the "chosen one" who will lead his people to prosperity... except they're all dead.

He's explicitly suicidal... andddd also a pathstrider of Preservation.

He wants to die... He doesn't want to die. He wants to make it end, yet goes to staggering lengths to continually survive. (Every plan risks his life on purpose--but every plan's win condition is also to live.) He life is the chip tossed down, but his hand is trembling beneath the table. When faced with an otherwise unsurvivable situation, Aventurine literally became a winner of the Hunger Games. He beat other innocent people to death with his own chain-bound hands just to come out alive.

He knows the IPC failed the Avgin and left them to die... and he still willingly sought out a position of power in their organization. Maybe he really is after revenge... but maybe not.

He starts his journey in the IPC with a truly noble goal in mind: to help his people using his newfound wealth and power. He's a good guy who did genuinely want to save the Avgin and repay all those who helped him. But once it became clear he was too late, once it was obvious he would have no use at all for that monetary wealth and power he risked his life to get... What did he do with it? Unlike Jade, we don't see him over here donating to orphanages. (I'm not that heartless; I'm sure he does actually do a lot of good things with his money on the side, but the point is that the game does not show us that--it shows us, over and over again, Aventurine putting on a wasteful, over-indulgent persona toward wealth. We've supposed to feel how meaningless money is to him, how meaningless everything is becoming to him.)

He outright refuses to use underhanded tactics or to cheat at gambles, which is meant to show us that's he's more morally upright than his coworkers. There's an entire exchange where he says that he'll never stoop to using manipulation the way Opal does. But... he doesn't have any issue fulfilling Opal's exact agenda. He was never remotely morally conflicted about denying the Penaconians their freedom by dragging Penacony back under IPC control.

He's willing to risk his own life, which is one thing--but he's also willing to risk other people's well-being. Topaz accuses him of constantly egging their clients on into dangerous situations; we've actively seen him shove a gun into Ratio's hands and pull the trigger with no care for how Ratio would feel about that on their very first meeting... Dragging the Astral Express crew into the entire Penacony plan in the first place was exceedingly dangerous...

To me, I just think it's vital to understand his character through the lens of these contradictions because they demonstrate the extreme polarity of Aventurine's life: from rags to riches, from powerless to empowered by multiple aeons, from willing to kill to survive to killing himself... He has quite literally lived a life of "all or nothing," and while he is the victim of many terrible situations out of his control, his arc as a character involves facing the truth of himself and the future his own actions are hurtling him toward.

Frankly, the Aventurine that canon is suggesting is a little annoying. You want to grab him by the shoulders, shake him, and say "Why are you like this?!" And he won't even have an answer for you, because he doesn't even know why he's still alive.

In the end, to me, this is so, so much more interesting. I can read an endless supply of hurt-comfort fics where Aventurine escapes the evil IPC and Ratio is there to fill the void in his life with the power of love and catcakes and be a perfectly happy clam online, but I want canon to continue to serve us this incredible mess of a man who constantly takes one step forward and two steps back.

Who is fully aware of his role as a cog in the grotesque profit-wheel of cosmic capitalism and still manages to say he never changed from the rags-wearing desert rat of the Sigonian wastes.

Who over and over again flirts with nihility but, ultimately, even if he has to wrest it from the grip of the gods themselves with bloody, chain-bound hands, chooses life.

[posi-pan]

for anyone who has ever seen someone claim pansexual was coined on social media by teenagers in the early 2000s, the 2010s, and even in the past few years, and believed it or wondered if it’s true, or known it’s not true and been annoyed by the misinformation, this article is for you!

after listing out all of the claims i’ve seen, i succinctly debunk them by laying out a brief overview of pansexual’s history dating back to the 1960s, both as a term generally indicating universal appeal/inclusion and a term indicating sexual freedom/attraction to all genders. i include a look at pansexual’s use specifically within queer spaces, with a focus on bisexual spaces, as well.

i also touch briefly on omnisexual and polysexual existing in similar contexts to pansexual dating back to the 1960s. and finally, i discuss a little bit about how when, where, and by whom a label is created doesn’t determine the validity or usefulness of it, because these claims come with the implication that new labels, labels created by kids, and labels originating on social media aren’t legit forms of queer expression and identification.

happy pan week! 🥰💗💛💙

[itsdefinitely]

i've. i've been rewatching the sanders sides

[dishesoap]

Day 18, Judgement, for Wyllstravaganza2024! Please open image for better quality, etc etc.

[knifefightandchill]

RESIDENT EVIL 4 (2023)

"His ability soon attracted the master's interest. And when he took him to the dungeon— No, I can't write anymore. I don't want to recall what happened down there. "

[vlasdygoth]

I'm raiden with thisbe

[windandwater]

I would just like to point out, again, that saying "we knew it" re: any public figure that was abusive is not to rub it in the faces of anyone who didn't, it's because we couldn't say it without being shouted down. I first liked Gaiman then became critical of him and was for years and felt silenced. I'm in his industry and have contact with and personally know people who never spoke about their bad experiences, but I'm hearing them now. And for the victims themselves; they were silenced, because he was so adored. Because people don't believe women who are preyed on by powerful, popular men.

I'm angry because we have to get better at this. We have to do better at being critical of popular people without taking it personally. We have to understand that liking the work of someone who is a bad person doesn't make us bad, and that when someone is critical, it doesn't mean they hate us; it means we have to examine our biases carefully.

We have. to. listen.

[5a-alf]

I fear Kevin Day is the type of person whose struggle always came second. He funcioned enough that while everyone knew he wasn't alright, it was also nobody's problem, as someone else was actively having a harder time and they took precedence. He internalises all his problems and keeps going and going but he is fueled by alchool and sheer desperation a 100% of the time. If he were to stop for even a second he wouldn't know how to start again.

Did he ever, at somepoint in his life -away from the ex foxes, a pro player, married to Thea- wish he had it worse, just so that maybe it would have been his turn being saved? Being first? How badly would he feel, just one second after thinking it, because he knows damn well he has enough trauma to fill a stadium and he isn't actually jealous of his friends that had it worse, he isn't . That's a fucked up thing to think, stop it, stop it.

Would he still drink himself into a stupor to shoote the ache, to banish the thought? That's the help he got, when he was at his worst, a drink, and then two, and then a thousand. And it worked, it made him go, it picked him up when he was down, and now he can't get down without crashing.

Did he wish to be saved? Did he hope somebody, anybody, took the time and put in the effort to help him, just because they saw him down, not because he begged, but because they noticed he could use a hand. Or two, actually. Was it torment, to always be under the spotlight, yet never been seen? Did he run toward fame hoping the more eyes on him meant it would be easier to be noticed?

[lonelyzarquon]

A thousand bodies piled up I never thought would be enough To show you just what I've been thinking

[itsmeezra]

actually can we talk about how truly doomed by the narrative Jayce and Viktor are?

Jayce would’ve died in that snowstorm as a child had the mage (who we later learn IS Viktor through some time and space foolery) not intervened. He later would’ve killed himself had main timeline Viktor not intervened. Viktor ALSO would’ve later killed himself had Jayce not intervened.

Viktor was in fact supposed to die in the explosion, he said it himself. We see a split second frame where his spine is snapped in half, he was DEAD dead and Jayce resurrected him, only to later kill him, which is THEE big trigger event for Viktor fully becoming Herald.

in every universe where Herald Viktor exists, he turns the entire world into those robot things, Jayce included. Even when Herald Viktor survives indefinitely/reaches immortality after this, he’s alone. We’re TOLD this is not a nice solitude thing, he eventually ends up miserable about it.

hell, even in the alternate reality Ekko goes to we don’t see Jayce because the events of the main timeline don’t play out the same; he very likely did go through with killing himself. Vi died in the explosion, so Jayce would’ve stood even LESS of a chance in his trial, and honestly? Viktor prob wouldn’t have intervened here, it’s makes the arcane look even riskier and that’s a dead child from Zaun. We don’t even SEE Viktor here because hextech doesn’t exist, he never would’ve created the hexcore/a method of healing himself to the same degree and likely died to his illness by this point

the main timeline/ending we got? They die together. That’s it. All of that back and forth of the two of them dodging death, often at the hands of one saving the other, and the only ending they could’ve gotten that doesn’t doom everyone else is one where they’re both gone. No matter how the events of Arcane played out, Jayce and Viktor were always going to die, one way or another.

this makes the ending we got the ‘happiest’ ending for them btw. they chose to be together for it, while in any other option they would’ve been alone.

[beskarfrog]

Okay, so we all agree that Luke having to marry Mand’alor Din for political reasons is a quality au. What if Luke accidentally gets politically engaged to some other planetary leader instead?

Let’s say that perhaps his connection to Leia automatically made him a candidate for diplomatic marriage, especially after Leia and Han get married. Maybe it was a major clause in the funding for his Jedi school, but Luke didn’t really think they’d ever actually marry him off. For the sake of the au, let’s also disregard bits of TBOBF and Mando S3. 

Luke’s been building his school on Ossus, Grogu is enjoying Jedi training, and there are a couple other students. And perhaps, Din actually becomes Mand’alor and retakes Mandalorian space. Maybe he visits the Jedi school pretty often to see his son and get away from politics.

Luke can really sympathize with having the weight of the universe and a glowing sword tossed at you with no warning. So maybe he and Din become friends after a while and maybe that friendship becomes something different. There start being blushes when someone gets pinned in a spar, falling asleep together on the couch after dinner, running around after the younglings constantly. Din visits as often as he can and has about made up his mind to just ask Luke if he would consider moving the Jedi school to Concordia so they’d at least be in the same star system most days, if not on the same planet.

That's when Luke gets an urgent holocall from Leia, informing him that he’s just been engaged to some bigwig princess as part of a treaty with a rich planet the New Republic has been courting. Luke is absolutely panicking to Din, going on about how the terms of the treaty basically forbid him from keeping his school. He’s looked at his funding agreement with the New Republic and he can’t get out of it without losing money unless he’s already married to someone.

And then Din thinks of the most beautiful solution to both of their problems. Everyone else thinks that they’re already a couple, as much as Din has denied it. Bo-Katan has been harassing him for months about spending so much time off-world to go see his little family. Mandalore could really use a trade agreement with the New Republic.

The next logical step is, of course, for Din to propose in the middle of Luke’s kitchen while his Jedi friend is struggling not to go into a dark spiral about losing his school funding. It's simple, really. They just have to get married right that moment, which would fix the school funding issue. Luke moves the school to the Mandalore system so Din can see him and the kids all the time without giving Bo-Katan a new gray streak. And Mandalore probably gets a trade agreement out of it. What’s not to like?

Luke is so stunned he accidentally pours the calming tea he was making directly onto the kitchen floor.