#and he's gonna be a corrupt racist piece of shit

[walks-the-ages]

Just for the record, there's a big post going around claiming that 20 million votes weren't counted in the election, and that has been debunked multiple times, and had zero evidence or sources to begin with other than someone on twitter claiming it out of thin air.

Kamala Harris has already publicly conceded her run.

Joe Biden just gave his own speech today at the White House, announcing that Trump won the election.

"Denying the results of the election (blue version, so it's Good This TIme)" is not something that is going to help anyone, least of all the people who are getting their hopes up that things can change, only to sink to even deeper despair come January when the handover happens.

Trump won. This is not something that can be magically "fixed" by "finding 20 million votes".

Trump won, and we need to accept, and absorb that reality to move forward.

You should have been preparing for this possibility as soon as Trump announced he was running again.

He had a 50-50 chance of becoming President, and now we are indeed in this "worst timeline" of a second Trump Presidency.

You need to stop denying this fact, work on accepting it, and make your plans to build a support network before things hit the fan.

Do not wait for January 6th, 2025 to accept the fact that Trump won the election.

Do not spend the next two months in denial.

If you think the world is going to go up in literal hellfire or nuclear apocalypse if Trump becomes President, then start prepping for that scenario now if you genuinely believe it:

Learn to grow your own food.

Learn to forage wild food safely.

Learn to live off the grid.

Learn to collect your own water.

Learn first aid.

Get a firearm license and learn how to use it properly.

If you truly believe the world is going to end and the apocalypse is gonna happen to America, then act like it and prep for it.

Otherwise, stop spreading fearmongering, stop doom posting, remember that America did not dissolve into a fallout-style lawless wasteland the last time Trump was President, take a deep breath, and start telling yourself the world is not going to end.

Join local neighborhood Facebook groups and start engaging with your neighbors and local community.

Start making friends and connections at the local level.

Join local political initiatives.

Join or start a community garden.

Don't trap yourself in denial, hoping the some miracle will happen and magically make it so Harris actually won the election.

The world is not going to end.

Do something that gets you out there and actively building a better future, one small step at a time.

[allycat75]

What the fuck you doing, Boston Dumb Fuck? Ewww!

Put that away. You fake married and tacitly approve of that entitled, lazy, talentless, insipid, racist, fatshaming, Lotita-worshipping Nazi wifey for a reason. I assume to be taken more seriously as an actor and not be seen as the internet's favorite fuckboi? Not our fault it massively backfired, sucking the soul through your eyes and turning you into a cinematic joke, just as talentless, lazy and entitled as the antisemetic wifey.

You may think you are signaling something by almost flinging that evil, radioactive ring off your finger and side hugging your charming bride, stiffening, flinching and squirming almost in pain when you have to touch her, but you agreed to this manipulation and as much he as I love seeing Pissy Chrissy, hopefully the person you are most pissed with is yourself. All you are accomplishing is making yourself more miserable and gaslighting the very people who would have otherwise supported you and your piece of shit acting choices.

The only things I believe about you is you love Dodger and you absolutely hate yourself. But you could have gotten help for that instead of being so stubborn that you had to prove yourself right and take all of us with you.

So instead of showing off your tattooed tiddies, enjoy your white male privlege and lean into the new administration's need for lies, corruption and misogyny (don't forget your Valentine's Day videos from a few years ago when you permanently lost any hope of a feminist card).

Of course, you could act like a big mid-40s boy and actively throw that liar's ring into the Thames, extricate CAAs cold hand from your tushie, take back your balls and your life by firing your whole team (including your rapist-supporting Scientogist stylist, who has not done you any favors for years), tell every bit of your truth and what a little shit you have been to your family (except Scott- don't tell me he got a prime Ken role based on sheer talent), true friends (like Scarlet) and fans (the ones that are left and the ones that could be earned back with a bit of effort) and most importantly, get yourself some serious fucking help because this is not normal behavior and if you don't learn some coping mechanisms, you will be destined to make this kind of (and worse) mistakes again.

"If you don't love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?"

-RuPaul

[thrillhoues]

Since we're being honest

Sterek

OK, the gloves are gonna come off and it's gonna be a long one.

I hate this ship. For many reasons, textual, metatextual, fandom, just because it's been too long.

First, a bit about me, I didn't watch Teen Wolf until after the show ended, like two years afterwards. I thought it was a dumb show with a dumb premise and a weird fandom, but then I realized I'm part of other fandoms, and I should take the time to watch the show at least.

And I'd obviously heard about Sterek. Sterek is such a big ship, in any fandom space it was inescapable. So watching the show for the first time, I was let down by how minimal and uninteresting the interactions between Stiles and Derek felt. Derek had more raw sexual chemistry with Jackson over the first season, with Scott throughout the show, with Liam in that one scene in the gym lockerroom than with Stiles.

So that's my textual reason for not really loving the ship. I felt like other ships and characters would be more interesting paired with Derek - again, I didn't watch in real time so I didn't get invested in "who belongs with who" but rather, "This guy is hot with that guy"

Metatextual: I love a twunk with a muscle guy, I do, but Stiles and Derek are pitched so heteronormatively in stories, and that's a result of a lack of fandom imagination for the ship, that it doesn't really strike me as anything other than replicating straight dynamics with a gay twist sometimes.

Beyond that, I find that the Stiles stan / Sterek fandom is pretty fucking horrendous when it comes to Scott and Tyler Posey. Borderline - and sometimes running ramshod past the borderline into full on - racist. Stories where Scott is barely competent and can't dress himself. Stories where he's just a selfish piece of shit because he doesn't want to murder everyone in sight. Shit like that, the ways in which racism subtly bleed into fandom, that shit can take the wind right out of the sales on a ship someone likes. So yeah, but I hate the fandom racism directed at Scott and Tyler Posey. I was reading one story where all the non-white characters are either idiots, corrupt and needing to be kicked out of town, or dead. Good job, fandom, for having unexamined biases

Of course that's not all Sterek people, but it's enough of them that I can't get into their ship.

My final reason for disliking Sterek is one half of the ship has such a rabidly angry, bizarre fandom, one that's so focused on Stiles being the best character of Teen Wolf. I hate the attitude towards Stiles. I like the character, but I hate the tone, the approach, that's taken towards what's essentially a smart character with flaws. Instead of accepting that charaters have flaws - Derek, Scott, Liam have flaws - Stiles stans magnify his virtues and ignore every single time he's too quick to judge, mean, anything in favor of all his perfect virtues.

It reeks of self-insert when they write him. Gary Stu bullshit.

Anyway, long and short of it is that they're turned me off Stiles as a character altogether - heck, I wrote three fics about Stiles sleeping with different men to try and get over that thing, but I couldn't bring myself to go further because I hate Stiles. Love Derek, though.

[beardedmrbean]

“One funny fact about America is that right wingers are significantly less educated than left wingers.”

Yet when I talked to left wingers as a black person, it’s PAINFULLY obvious they only know black people from what their college courses tell them.

Also like these policies https://youtu.be/jhelfB2SQTo?si=L9zzoB009Cob7UJf

What could caused blacks aka black BOYS falling behind in math? Could it be

1. How it been exposed that public education systems have been altered to mainly cater to nuertypical girls since the 90’s?

2. The huge corruption in teacher unions?

3. Black Americans demonized the living shit out of intelligence where it better to be seen as a thug rather than a a scientist?

4. No child left behind policy?

And much more, but being more educated don’t mean your better

I was talking to a female mutual in India and she also pointed out that rednecks will treat minorities better than college educated leftists

Also how math is racist? Okay you’re a nasa fan, but remember that black astronaut who sadly didn’t make it to space but he had to deal with systemic racism as a child when trying to get a book from the library? There a kid’s book about it

But strange how black people who grew up during actual systematic oppression and discrimination. Was qualified enough to help during the space race. Yet 21st century black kids are too dumb to do it?

Kipling racist mindset never died, it just merge with Marxism. I also have a black scientist ancestor so…

Hadn't heard about point #1, wouldn't put it past anyone though.

Ronald McNair thing, ya. He did make it to space BTW. Other fun story about him.

You'll probably like this.

Fucking Uhura recruited him, so he did 2 missions both on Challenger, anniversary is coming up on the 28th for his 2nd one.

(Not gonna make a thing about 'diversity hires' for NASA if you're on the list you're absolutely cream of the crop qualified for astronaut duty)

Guy was a physicist, people aren't challenging student anymore was a piece about that I'd read recently with college prof's railing on raising test scores or dummbing down classes students weren't doing well at, which is the same with the places pulling graduation requirements.

and folk get mad that a high school diploma isn't good for much of anything anymore.

[vro0m]

Bernie Ecclestone said in March of this year that he knew of the scandal in 2008, but didn't say anything because "We wanted to protect the sport and save it from a huge scandal." So why say anything now? He went on to undermine Lewis in that same article, saying that Massa did everything right, while Lewis had "all the luck in the world." I don't understand why you don't believe that the FIA is corrupt after everything they've done so far....

Okay so. I debated even answering this but we're all bored anyway so let's indulge. Recap : you think the FIA orchestrated Massa going public about suing over the 2008 WDC to prevent Merc from doing it over AD 2021.

Let's break this down :

"The FIA"

Who? Who in the FIA? The whole association? The whole-ass association that oversees 200+ national motorsport organizations? All of them are corrupt for some reason? Now in this ask you mention Bernie. You are aware that Bernie doesn't work for the FIA, right? Do you think they had a meeting somehow and decided that Massa suing them would be the best course of action about something that Merc had decided not to sue them over in the first place???

"Orchestrated Massa going public about suing over the 2008 WDC"

What did they do exactly? Pay Massa to sue them? Pay Massa so he'd PUBLICLY sue them? First of all, how would it be good for them to get sued? Second of all, aren't court proceedings generally public anyway?

"It prevents Merc from doing it over AD2021."

HOW. Just HOW. If anything, if Massa wins his case, it sets a precedent for Merc to do the same thing, because he shouldn't win due to the statute of limitations. Also again : not everything is about AD21. Please. The only people still talking about it are a subset of Lewis fans and Toto. Move on. Don't forget, but move on.

"Why is Bernie talking now?"

Because he's a fucking idiot who thinks he's untouchable. Why? Because of the statute of limitations I've just mentioned. When he realised it did have consequences he pretended he never said it in the first place.

"He went on to undermine Lewis in the same article."

First of all if you're gonna cite an article CITE THE ARTICLE so I can read it. Second of all Bernie never needed a reason or an excuse to undermine Lewis, he's been doing it for years, because he's a racist piece of shit. Third of all what does that have to do with it? Because Bernie badmouthed Lewis it means the FIA orchestrated Massa suing them? PLEASE.

"I don't understand why you don't believe that the FIA is corrupt after everything they've done so far…"

Me not taking your unsourced unbased and overall absurd conspiracy theory seriously doesn't mean I think the FIA is good or whatever. It just means I don't think conspiracy theories are worth my time. But yeah, I also don't think such huge organizations are black or white good or bad. This is called nuance. Have they fucked up numerous times? Sure. Why don't we focus on these documented times they did fuck up rather than make up new ones that don't have any basis? Like. Idk. The time they knew about crashgate and didn't do anything about it?!

And now tell me Anon, why does it bother you so much that I don't agree with you that you needed to send me two asks about it? If you believe in your theory, what does it matter to you that I don't?

[lezbianxion]

oh shit i forgot to send you the things back 🧡💖💕

🧡- What is a popular (serious) theory you disagree with?

this is a hard one mostly bc i tend to not bother with theory stuff bc i just. don't care fjfs;kfsa or at least i don't care when it concerns brotherhood lmao. 💖 - What is an unpopular opinion that you have about the series? that it's not as progressive or revolutionary as everyone thinks it is LMAO. fma is, for whatever reason, a fandom that will act like you killed their dog if you dare to criticize the author's politics (or just criticize fmab in general). idk why fans are so resistant to hearing that arakawa's politics are shit, but they are. even today, i still see posts that unironically say shit like "oh well of COURSE you're not supposed to sympathize with the military, THAT'S THE POINT BC THEY'RE WAR CRIMINALS!!!!" (i won't say Which post it is but if you know...then you know) and yet.... the series makes you sympathize with the military characters lmfao, not to mention how arakawa villainizes scar but we been knew that. and more than half the fandom genuinely thinks the "mustang becoming furher so he can (somehow?) fix amestris and change a corrupted system fRom tHe InSiDe" plotpoint is good, when, real talk, it's fucking shit. it's very liberal-ish, if i'm being honest. you can't change a system that's corrupted. despite mustang becoming furher at the end, he doesn't change shit. none of them do. also, the way that mangahood is like "oh btw the REAL cause of racism and genocide in this universe is bc of the homunculi :)" and people eat that shit up and call it good storytelling.... like be fucking serious lmfao fuck outta here with that liberal-ass shit. if i had to give one piece of advice to any fma fan, it'd be to watch fma 2003. it's not perfect, bc nothing is, but it treats the ishvalan characters with respect, it actually tackles the reality of ed being a child soldier in the military and it doesn't really force you to LIKE mustang and co. if anything, 2003 is very explicit in the fact that amestris is a military dictatorship and (rightfully) places the blame of the ishvalan genocide on the amestrian military which is way more than i can say for the manga.

there's way more, but i'm gonna cut it short here lol otherwise we'll be here all day.

💕- What is an unpopular ship that you like?

ednoah!!!!! maybe some spoilers here bc idk if you've seen cos but the way that ed is so protective of her is fantastic, and i LOVE how he asks her what she wants to be called. you can tell he's come a long way and that he's grown as a person, and this is a definite sign of that. which is more than i can say for mangahood ed lol who's racist from the start to finish of the series but anyway--

[lizzscore]

This morning I woke up to learn that Trump won the 2024 election & all I could do was cry 😭😭 What is wrong with this country?!? There's been a huge increase in hate and racism since he was first elected & it's gonna only increase now that he will be back in office. Knowing that so many people are blinded by his lies, corruption, & bullshit, just completely blows me away. I'm not a political person, all politicians suck as far as I am concerned, but i also know when we have two options & one of them is a rapist, criminal, corrupted piece of shit....I'm smart enough to know that he's not a worthy candidate for this country. His vice president HATES women & HATES anyone of the lgbtq community. I fear that all my rights will be stripped one day as a lesbian. I work hard & don't bother anyone, what my sexuality is has NOTHING to do with anything or anyone! They are both racists. I have family & children in my family that are of color & that are Hispanic, what happens to them? My girlfriend, yes born in this country, but is Arabic by blood & Muslim. What happens to her? So much is going through my mind. I can't wait for my next therapy session so I can process all this.

[thoughtshobbiesdaydreams]

Kamala ran a bad campaign; blame HER

I don't know if trump is gonna win. It doesn't look good, but maybe it's gonna be better as ballots continue to be counted. I hate donald trump. Ever since I learned who he was, I've hated him. He's everything I despise in a human being, he's among the worst human beings in existence; he's evil, selfish, corrupt, arrogant, entitled, immature, racist, bigoted, a rapist, a pedophile, a fascist, a Nazi... in HIS words, he's admitted to all of those things in one place or another. I hate him, he's dangerous, he's unfit, the people who SUPPORT him are unfit... Which is why it was so important that whoever ran against him ran a good campaign. Spoke out in a way to energize people to vote for him or her, spoke out in a way to EARN our votes:

raise minimum wage

vow to go after abuses of power, not after the poor desperately trying to get by

speak out about what "Defund the Police" means, and talk about how you want to fund projects that will help US citizens; talk about how much police leaches tax dollars away from every other service; talk about how dangerous cops are because of how they abuse power, ie qualified immunity (breaking the law due to ignorance, or feigned ignorance) and civil forfeiture (stealing)

speak out against Israel's genocide of Palestinians

just actually show us you care about helping US citizens, not just yourself, that you want to use power to help US citizens, for instance, talk about how you will use your powers to pardon countless people in jail for crimes they obviously didn't commit, or for breaking laws that are unjust

talk about how the Supreme Court is deeply corrupt AND YOU PLAN TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT

We all wanted trump to lose, we wanted whoever was trump's opponent to FIGHT to beat him. We gave Kamala the blueprint in how to earn our votes, we BEGGED her to use it. And she didn't. She was lazy, power-hungry, selfish... she wanted power only for herself. She decided she would rather lose than win by promising improvements she had no intention of fighting for. She decided to try to win by trying to steal voters away from trump rather than appealing to the vast majority of the country -

(literally every poll that pits "liberal" policies against "conservative" has liberal policies being overwhelmingly more popular. Kamala decided to back Biden instead; Biden, the "civil trump" who continues to enable Israel's genocide while saying "hey... okay, here's more weapons, but THIS TIME don't murder journalists, children, civilians, THIS TIME don't use human shields, THIS TIME don't use dogs to rape Palestinian prisoners", who continues trump's border policies, who continues to hold up the deeply corrupt Supreme Court as an institute worthy of respect, who tells us that "violence isn't the answer" only when it's peaceful protesters speaking out against genocide, or police violence, or the Supreme Court, but doesn't say a fucking PEEP when the police murder people, or the Supreme Court enacts harmful policies; he, and Kamala, only think it's "violence" when it makes those in power uncomfortable, not when it's harmful and damaging to those not in politics, those who don't have politicians in their pockets.)

then she crowed about how many Republican politicians supported her over trump, pieces of shit like Dick Cheney, as if earning Dick Cheney's vote was something worth celebrating! It's not over yet, maybe there's a path to trump losing, but right now? I'm fucking angry at Kamala for trying to win on vibes, for being lazy and complacent, for not actively trying to win by appealing to the vast majority of Americans, by vowing to be a President for US citizens instead of corporations... but no, she thought continuing to do things as they'd always been done would be enough. And if not... she doesn't fucking care. SHE will be just fine. So I DO NOT want to fucking hear people complaining about how those of us who BEGGED Kamala to adopt popular policies, who BEGGED Kamala to fight for those who need help, who BEGGED Kamala to fight to beat trump, are the problem. We desperately wanted trump to lose, and we were very vocal about how we feared Kamala's approach wouldn't beat him, and we very vocally spoke about how she COULD beat him... she ignored us, and now we're fucking angry. Not happy, not self-satisfied, fucking ANGRY. Because we saw this coming and desperately tried to prevent it. Don't be mad at us for wanting Kamala to win, and being angry at her for ignoring our pleas; it's Kamala's fault. SHE chose not to earn enough votes, SHE decided peeling off a few Republican voters would be enough, SHE decided she didn't need to appeal to the majority of Americans with popular policies. I'm so fucking tired of these "vote Blue no matter who" people for telling us to fuck off while we told her she should try to earn votes, and who are now angry at us because they pretend that we are happy to be proven right. We didn't want her to lose; if we did, then why did we loudly and frequently give her advice about how she could easily earn votes and energize voters? It's not OUR fault that, when we begged her to try to win the election, she ignored us.

Remember how she said she'd put a "Republican" in her cabinet??? Remember how she prioritized having the "Most lethal fighting force in the world"??? Maybe her priorities are absolutely FUCKED and her loss is HER fault???

[purplepink-blueberry]

Okay so i am at home, in an okay setting with a proper keyboard.

I can’t say I’m surprised with Pellegrini winning. To be honest, I would’ve been pleasantly surprised with Korčok winning.

Now people might say that since the role of the president is mostly representational, it doesn’t matter as much as parliament. And while in the formal/official way, that might be the case, these elections are incredibly important for the representational or symbolic reasons. The president has the right of veto (though a bit limited) and can use it according to their conscience.

What is important (to me anyway) is that the way Pelle won was through dishonesty and spread of misinformation. Slovakia has been divided into two camps for a while now but it has been crystalised during covid. Now we have the “good guys” and the “evil guys” (and everyone thinks they’re the good guy). One camp is pro-European (especially European union) and pro-west (especially NATO) (they can also exhibit traits of supporting minorities or something like that but it isn’t required). For the other camp, they believe that vaccines contain microchips spreading 5G and that people will die if they get vaccinated. They also tend to believe that Russia either didn’t launch an invasion of Ukraine or that they were asking for it and they demand peace (with Ukraine surrendering and pleading for forgiveness from Mother Russia). As you can imagine, these two camps are pretty hostile.

Korčok was in the camp of pro west, Pelle was in the camp of trying to play to both sides. But for Pelle, a much more in-depth analysis is required and I fucking swear to pringles if any american leftist tries to tell me that Pelle winning is a good thing I will send them a bottle of hruškovica with a threat to drink it in one drinking session or else.

Pelle is officially the leader of Hlas - Social Democracy. This is an offshoot of SMER-social democracy, Fico’s party. Fico is a liar, thief, connected to Italian mafia, racist, xenophobic, homophobic, anti-Ukrainian piece of shit. And essentially SMER is his thing. People in SMER agree with Fico. Hlas is an offshoot, it’s from a couple of people who weren’t okay with the way SMER was working during covid, so they created a new party. However, they cooperate and in general work together.

Pelle did say that Slovakia needs a president that would be more supportive of the government because “in the past 10 years, the president was essentially the mouthpiece of the opposition”, refering to Kiska and Čaputová being more critical of the horrible corrupt governments we had in the past 10 years.

In general, we can say that Pelle does what Fico says. However, at times, he disobeys. While Fico is very homophobic and transphobic, Pelle’s opinion was (last year) “let these people exist”. Pelle isn’t always dancing like Fico plays, if he were, they’d be in the same party . We can hope that Pelle won’t be horrible

However, that is being optimistic. We can hope that he’s gonna be a Kováč to Fico’s Mečiar, but idk, Pelle doesn’t exactly has a son to be abducted, y’know?

Pellegrini will likely mean something not good for Slovakia. A president shouldn’t be a mouthpiece for the opposition NOR for the coalition. A president should be a voice of reason or something like that. While a lot of parties put party politics above people’s well-being, the president should do the opposite. But now Pelle told us he’d be aligned with the coalition and that is a huge red flag, not just because that’s the colour they use.

But this doesn’t mean we should be mass emigrating elsewhere. I mean, that’s up to us. If we feel like it, we should. But I’m not gonna. I am gonna finish my bachelors degree in political science and then continue abroad for a masters, I am gonna return back to Slovakia and spread the “gender ideology propaganda” as much as I can (I am also an ace educator/activist on the side lmao)

Also highlights from the livestream we were watching:

- Pellegrini being asked about using influencers in his adverts and essentially he said that he doesn’t know them, he’s never met them, he doesn’t have a specific slovak celebrity’s number

- Šutaj Eštok talking about how, in the first round, his wife was there with him because his in-laws were taking care of the kid, and they ended in the second place, how now, that she isn’t here since the in-laws are gone, maybe her not being there will be lucky (he said this on camera, I’m not shitting you)

- Fico clapping incredibly slowly and stopping way before everyone else after Pelle was talking, which struck me as interesting. Fico didn’t look as happy as he shhould if it was truly his puppet that won

- Fico, Pelle and Gašparovič lying and us having funky suggestions on what they should do, given the fact that they were on a boat…

so we voted or something

will elaborate on a proper keyboard, not on my phone while waiting for my bus home from school where we had an election night event

[jokingmaiden]

it’s my turn on the hyperfixation rant post maker and oh am i going to use it

okay so like. ive been seeing a lot of people talking abt the collector and either how sad it is for them to have been alone for so long, OR how much of a horrifying monster they are in the disguise of a sweet little kid. both of these are partially right, but not the whole story

since the collector speaks deeply to my inner child (twauma babey), adding in my tendency to psychoanalyze everyone and my incessant need to understand my kins as well as possible, i think i’m in a uniquely suited position to put these pieces together

okay. so we don’t get very much content of the collector as of the end of season two, save for some interactions in the mirror realm, the shadow speak technique, the one brief memory with the owl beast, and the last episode. from the minimal interaction we get, we can gather a few key things about them:

-thinks everything is a game

-“collects” things by sealing them in scrolls (or did this at least once, doing so in the form of the owl beast “curse.” this hobby is probably why he’s named the collector)

-is not a witch, human, nor demon. possibly the only one of his kind, rivaled the power of a fully grown titan

-has wanted to “be friends” with King since he was born (laid? put in incubation??)

-trapped in the mirror realm by the titan, assumedly for being dangerous

-is horrifically lonely, hates being contained

-can “zoom in and out” with their eyes, move celestial bodies with the wave of a finger, turn a large, half-palismen-half-corrupted-racist-dude into sludge with a single pointer twirl, break down and rearrange the entirety of a titan’s skull with nothing more than a thought, etc.

-doesn’t react to fear, anguish, disgust, horror, etc. when seen. doesn’t seem to register these emotions at all in fact, other than surface level disappointment and an unprocessed loneliness

-similarly, doesn’t seem to understand death, harm, pain, etc

with these in mind, the collector’s full character begins to approach clarity. they’re, as some have called them, a “toddler with god powers.” this meme is significantly more accurate than i think most people realize when saying it, though.

for starters, empathy takes each child a different amount of time to develop, and does so through exposure to experiences of sharing pain (see: babies crying due to external expression of emotions from others), among other similar occurrences (learning abt how each person has their own memory, experiencing disagreements, etc.)

the collector, seeming to only have long-term emotional exposure to 1. a regal, godly titan, and then 2. a horrible, egomaniacal, manipulative, colonizing, barely-human man, would have absolutely no opportunity to be able to develop empathy towards any creatures capable of experiencing emotions stemming from survival instincts (which, it turns out, is most of all perceivable emotions).

fear means nothing to them. death isn’t a concept they can understand, past knowing a person who dies isn’t coming back (hence why it’s used as a tool to remove the manipulating “LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE!!” phillip, yet not understanding why it scares the kids).

they full on obliterate belos for convenience. not malice, not violence, just a desire to remove someone who doesn’t play fair. they then have absolutely no idea why the gang looks terrified when he turns around and suggests they play the same game he was just referencing when he turned a man into soup.

without the ability to empathize, the collector would have no way to understand why those two things are connected for the main gang, because in his own mind, his desire to play a game with them is completely separate from his need to get rid of belos. why are they scared? of course the collector isn’t gonna squish his new friends!! he has no way to know how and why his presence scares the absolute shit out of these traumatized children.

extending this idea, the collector has no problem with erasing the boiling isles entirely if it means he’s finally free. most humans don’t have a problem with crushing ants for personal benefit, right? why would such fragile creatures, so much like ants to the titan he once knew, be any different?

then there’s king, a creature potentially on the same power level and understanding as the collector. one who could be their equal. one who, despite being on the same level of potential, grew up in the place of a low-level demon, and had the opportunity to learn empathy and love and fear and connection. perhaps the only one who can explain it to them while actually being regarded.

but how would someone help them understand? well, the only way to help someone so late in development connect with empathy is to provide a method of logical understanding.

how would one do this? well, it would be best to start with explaining death as loneliness.

what does the collector hate? what does he understand is an awful, terrible experience he would do anything to avoid again? being trapped in darkness and isolated for what feels like an eternity, occasionally able to access a passive, minimal form of contact like a shadow on a wall.

y’know, like death.

if king can get these dots to connect in the collector’s mind, or at least get them to listen to a mature adult long enough for someone else to do it, they could potentially be brought up to the mental maturity level of king, or maybe even the main gang!!

if everyone plays their cards right, the collector could be properly raised. they could, slowly but surely, unlearn these unhealthy mentalities, escape their constant, traumatic loneliness (even before the mirror world), and get to live life as a real kid, even if they’re still absolutely OP. maybe they could even go to hexside to learn how to be a kid!! they could connect with hunter who, in a way, shares quite a lot of conceptual problems in terms of trauma, loneliness, being manipulated by belos, separation from kids their age, etc.

they could finally have a family. maybe, in a world where people love them unconditionally, they could learn to let go of exchanging world-altering favors for childlike forms of affection. maybe, with king, they could learn not to need external worth and connection to feel loved.

it’s up to the community to help them understand this, though, especially the parental figures. after all, no child is beyond redemption.

right?

[himboarcher]

reasons i've seen folks say that grad critics hate grad:

they hate travis (in fairness, i’ve def seen some comments of people shitting on trav for the sake of shitting on trav, but it’s not super common and typically gets downvoted into oblivion on reddit.)

it's not balance / travis isn't griffin (???????)

they hate neurodivergent people (again, in fairness, i have seen a handful of comments that could come across this way! but most of the time when travis being ADHD or his NPD is brought up, it's by defenders saying that criticizing travis is ableist because he's neurodivergent or, in one particular comment, infantilizing him bc of it and literally comparing grad to putting a kid's artwork on the fridge. there were some comments early on that pointed to him being a narcissist as the reason for things people disliked about grad, but everyone seems to have realized that that's a shitty train of thought and left it behind.)

they're just toxic haters (again, there are a small handful of people like this because this is the internet, but the genuine criticism greatly outweighs their bullshit. i 100% think that the people, which is mostly just one dude who is also insufferable on reddit, who have been responding rudely to positive tweets under the episode announcements lately are out of line and need to stop. there's been an influx of that lately, presumably because people are frustrated that after over a year of grad going on, there's been no improvement to most of the major issues. that's still no excuse to be a dick to folks, though.)

vs some of the actual reasons i don't like grad:

the racism / racist tropes, and the way that they’ve straight up ignored this criticism and will likely never acknowledge it. pretty wild considering a core tenet of their brand is their willingness to acknowledge when they’ve messed up and do their best to course correct.

clumsy attempts at inclusion that are shallow and often end up being fairly offensive ("...ask me about my wheelchair," anyone?)

on a related note: i don't think that travis had bad intentions, but as an nonbinary person, it feels othering to me that travis only has enby characters give others their pronouns unprompted. i'm thinking specifically of kai here. having listened to their introduction, i don't think it's as bad or awkward as some people have said, but i can't remember travis ever having another NPC tell the PCs their pronouns, especially not a cis character. it's not a huge deal, but it's something that rubbed me the wrong way. admittedly, i don't think it would bother me so much if travis hadn't dropped the ball so much with performative inclusion in the past.

okay i'm putting the rest under a read more because even without getting into all of the problems i have with it, this got Long.

little to no player agency. player choices are ultimately meaningless and have little to no effect on the world. even when he seems to go along with a plan they come up with, it always ends with them having to go back to travis' pre-written script (see: subpoenaing the xorn, but not really because they had to go with travis' original plan of "send the xorn home through the rift".) the players repeatedly get told things about what they think or feel or what they've been doing to an unnecessary degree. fitzroy is the only one who really gets space to play and decide things for himself, and that's only because travis has decided he's the main character.

the NPCs are all too nice and willing to give the PCs anything they ask for and more, unless the PCs are trying to follow their own plan and then the NPCs are completely useless. but honestly, aside from gray, all of the NPCs are just.... nice. travis refuses to even let his antagonists be mean or cruel or even more than just slightly rude, because that'd be a bummer and we don't want that! the "twist" of gordy the lich king actually being polite and chill is not a twist at all because everyone is like that in this world. the NPCs are also wildly overpowered, but then suddenly absolutely useless when the PCs actually want their help.

too many cliffhangers that are dropped immediately at the beginning of the next episode. i feel bad for travis because so many of these cliffhangers actually set up good momentum and seemed like things were gonna get interesting, but almost every single time he just dropped them at the beginning of the next episode. like when althea showed up to interview the boys and the next episode started with travis being like "actually you went to sleep, she said she'll be back tomorrow!"

that time travis specifically said in his exposition dump that the thundermen left their horses behind because they thought the centaurs might be offended by them riding horses, only to later on rag on them for being surprised that the centaurs had horses they could ride.....

also the centaur arc in general, but i already listed racism above, so.

the way that the toxic positivity and parasocial tendencies in the mcelroy fandoms have made a large portion of the fandom take ANY criticism as a personal attack on travis and/or on themselves for enjoying something others consider bad, either morally or just quality-wise. it’s okay to admit that something you like has problematic elements or just isn’t as good as it once was. you can and should engage critically with the media you consume.

related to above: the way travis has handled genuine criticism, which is to throw public tantrums on his twitter or make weird passive aggressive tweets & ultimately ignore all the genuine criticism and advice he's been offered by claiming it's all subjective, even after he specifically asked for it and set up an email for folks to send in genuine, objective advice for him (after he threw a tantrum on twitter and replied to someone's criticism publicly, which resulted in his followers dogpiling on that person bc how dare they insult their internet best friend). while i was writing this last night, he actually announced that he’s taking a break from Twitter and acknowledged that he’s been using it as an echo chamber where he can easily get validation from folks, and honestly i’m happy for him that he’s recognized this problem and is stepping away for a while! i hope he’ll genuinely use this time to reflect on how he’s been behaving and find a more healthy way to use social media. i’m leaving this point in because i think his Twitter being such a positive echo chamber was encouraging him to do stuff like this, and him somewhat acknowledging his behavior doesn’t mean it can no longer be discussed.

rainer. extremely cool concept in theory and i was very into it until that awkward "does anyone want to ask about my wheelchair?" moment. also when travis had her use her mobility aid to RAM INTO A DOOR instead of just fucking knocking???? also all the times travis has tried to force a romantic relationship between her and fitzroy, despite fitzroy displaying no interest in her in that way. also, just to clarify: as an ace person, i don’t think this is aphobic! (and it’s kind of a stretch to call it that imo, especially since griffin never explicitly said that fitzroy's aromantic!) i just think it’s weird and awkward and a little uncomfortable for me personally, mostly because it reminds me of the times i’ve been in similar situations.

less of a problem than a lot of the other stuff and more just bad writing, but the forced emotional moments. in general, nothing in grad feels earned (why are the boys heading a war? when they have multiple actual heroes with combat experience on their side and a supposedly powerful secret organization? and the thundermen are like 21 years old max and have only had like ~10 fights in the entire campaign?) but there've been a couple times where travis has tried to force unearned emotional moments, presumably because he knows people enjoyed those with the last campaigns. but the difference is that in balance, the big emotional moments happened because they were earned. in grad, it's just travis throwing a baby pegasus at us for a few minutes and then the next time she shows up, it's supposed to be a tearful goodbye.

there are absolutely no stakes. remember when the thundermen got told that if they left, gray would kill 10 students? and then they left and came back and it turns out that what gray actually meant was, "i'll tie ten students who are mostly nameless NPCs to a tree and throw some dogs at them that you can easily stop in time, then throw a tantrum because how dare you but i'll leave before you can really do anything to hurt me lol" travis did have fitzroy's magic get taken away, but like. it didn't really do anything? also all he had to get it back was be coerced into using drugs by an authority figure and trip in the woods?

we're told that the school is weird and the hero system is corrupt, but the world of nua is still presented as more of a liberal utopia than anything? althea getting fired because of a corrupt villain is the only time we've somewhat seen corruption, but even then, she was still allowed to get (what seems to me, anyway, but admittedly i don't know for sure bc nothing about the HOG makes much sense) a fairly important job from the very people who stripped her of her hero license or whatever the fuck heroes need?

travis doesn't actually seem to understand how capitalism or bureaucracy works and just chalks up everything to "red tape." also more on the rest of the boys than him specifically, but the "let's destroy capitalism!" thing turning into just pushing some filing cabinets over................... okay.

and one last piece of extremely subjective criticism: it's just kind of.... boring. i think a lot of people, myself included, would be willing to overlook 90% of the problems with graduation if it didn't feel like such a slog to get through.

also people saying that we can't or shouldn't criticize graduation because it's "free" is absolutely absurd for several reasons. first, something being free does not make it above criticism. second, there ARE people who directly financially support the show with monthly donations. three, there's a difference between something being free and something being not for profit. podcasting is their full time job. they make their living off of money made from TAZ and MBMBAM (and probably their other shows to a lesser extent). this not a fun home game that they are graciously recording and sharing with us. it is a product they are producing that they make money off of, both from ads in the episodes and merch & books based off of these podcasts. they have marketed themselves as professionals, and both griffin and travis have been on panels where they are marketed as professional DMs and appear alongside other professional DMs (which makes it incredibly frustrating when people say that travis is just a newbie DM and we can't criticize him because of that. if he's a newbie, then he should not be taking part of panels as a professional DM where he speaks as an expert). TAZ is free in the same way that an episode of NCIS is free. i may not pay for it directly, but the creators are paid to create it and profit off of me consuming this product. so saying we should be grateful for any mcelnoise that the benevolent good boys share with us and that we're not allowed to criticize it "because it's free" is absolutely wild.

[amessageonthewind]

So, I’ve discovered that I have a dickhead scale for DBH. It goes as follows. Leaving Amanda off this list because I have a lot of thoughts on her and quite frankly, she doesn’t belong on this list. She deserves her own post when I have the brain for it.

#5. Leo.

Definitely an asshole, but to be completely honest, I can’t blame him too hard. For as much as Carl has done for Markus, he’s definitely not perfect and he could definitely be a better father to his human son. Not to say that Leo is completely blameless, because he absolutely isn’t! But hey, at least Leo can get a chance to clean up his act and become a better person. But Carl definitely needs to take some responsibility, too. Overall, a dickhead, but he’s got issues and he’s the easiest to redeem.

#4. Gavin.

He’s...average. I don’t know how else to explain it. Like, I dislike him greatly. He’s annoying. He’s just...a racist douchebag white cop. Big whoop. Welcome to the real world. But in-game, he’s literally just there to be a bully to Connor for us to sympathize more with Connor. But like...for all intents and purposes, Gavin’s just a guy. An average dickhead. There’s nothing special about him. Nothing particularly good about him, but he could definitely be a lot worse. He’s just...painfully average. Capable of redemption, but it’s a very steep road to walk. Dude’s got emotional constipation like nobody’s business and needs a reality check on the source of his existential misery and the way he expresses it towards others and where he assigns the blame for it.

Putting the rest under a readmore because some of this is heavy. We’re talking child abuse and genocide. Be warned.

#3. Todd.

Okay, now we get to the ones I actually hate. I’m gonna be honest, I hate Todd more than I hate the #2 spot, but objectively speaking, the #2 spot is more evil, so Todd goes here in #3. He’s just...a child abuser. That’s literally his whole schtick. Sure, he’s got his whole thing with living in poverty and not making money and losing everything to drugs, but like...I don’t care. He’s an abusive piece of shit and I hate him. I don’t have a lot of thoughts on him because I don’t care to. Like, sure...he’s capable of redemption and there’s material to work with there, but frankly I’m not personally interested in that arc and I have no desire to emotionally invest in that project. Just because he’s capable of cleaning up and becoming a better person doesn’t mean I like or care enough about him to want to see it personally. I’d rather just leave him to wallow in his misery.

#2. Zlatko.

This dude is evil. No questions asked. He deliberately takes advantage of deviant androids that are looking for help and escape and just uses them for his own fucked up experiments. Or his personal servants/slaves. What’s even more fucked up is that he uses androids to lure and abuse other androids. But to be honest, I don’t personally hate him as much as I hate Todd. For me, it’s not as personal of a terror/horror as it is with Todd or the next entry down. And I also just...find him interesting. His family history is kinda neat and he’s a neat concept for an antagonist. No redemption for him, though. I am more than happy to leave him to get torn apart by his own creations.

#1. Perkins.

This motherfucker! This motherfucker is evil! This bastard is the epitome of corruption and cruelty. He was given the order to round up androids, and he takes joy in it. He takes pride in it. He refers to androids as rats that need to be exterminated. He doesn’t even believe that they’re not people or that they’re incapable of feeling. He even pretends to make a bargain with Markus for his people’s lives in exchange for his own that Perkins has no intention of keeping! He even tries to use Markus’s bond with North against him! Honestly, I didn’t even think too much of him until I watched someone defend him because he was ‘just following orders.’

Even if that was true (which it isn’t), that’s still a real bad take.

In conclusion, fuck this bastard. I will personally punt him myself.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 258: Have You Thanked Your Twice Today

Previously on BnHA: All Might gave Deku a book with all of the previous OFA successors’ names, quirks, and career stats. Kacchan barely glanced at the book and was all “nah, boring” and JUST LIKE THAT he decided we’re not gonna get any new info, which I don’t think is very fair or considerate Kacchan but whatever!! Anyway though, All Might did reveal that Nana could fly and so Deku is going to learn to fly, so that’s fucking awesome, and then Kacchan and Deku had a moment of being bratty siblings together which I framed and put on my wall, so that was also very enjoyable. Back at the 1-A dorms we learned that Todoroki can’t cook, and the kids had a New Year’s party and talked about how they’re gonna be second years soon and how everything is just SO GREAT AND GOOD AND LIFE IS GOOD, and elsewhere All Might sat outside the teacher’s dorms and had a gorgeous fucking conversation with Aizawa that gave me all the feels. The chapter then ended with a THREE MONTH TIMESKIP to late March when apparently everything is about to go to shit. So yeah. Quite a lot to process there.

Today on BnHA: Hawks spends basically the entire chapter very slowly explaining to us that he became best friends with Twice, and it paid off dividends on account of Twice deciding that Hawks is definitely trustworthy and he should definitely tell him exactly where Tomura is off hiding in the mountains of Kyoto, because that’s the kind of extremely sensitive strategic intel that real best friends don’t keep from one another! Can you guys believe Hawks spent all that time trying to cozy up to fucking Dabi of all people when this whole time Twice was right fucking there. I bet you Twice would never have asked him to kill Best Jeanist and tote around his remains in a knapsack. Anyway so the chapter ends with the heroes launching what I assume is a surprise attack in where I assume is Kyoto, which probably explains that whole “on that day the heroes vanished” bit from the previous chapter. So let’s all wish them good luck, especially because THEY BROUGHT THE FUCKING KIDS WITH THEM GODDAMMIT. Oh my babies. Please be safe.

so I think I’m gonna go back to the Friday schedule since it just works better for me. just gotta remember to take the translations with a grain of salt, but all in all the quality last week wasn’t too bad, and overall the pros outweigh the cons

(ETA: the quality actually went down a lot this time honestly, but Friday still > Sunday in terms of me having the time to read this, so it is what it is.)

well this is interesting!

“in the absence of Endeavor” ? ??? the what now??? “oh yeah did we forget to mention, he’s gone now. we did some focus groups and made a few tweaks based on what the fans said they wanted.” well shit. let this be a warning to you all. it can happen JUST LIKE THAT

um. but I mean, that’s all well and good but uhhhh. [nervous glance toward Ujiko, Tomura, the 100k army, and the 11 noumus] ...

but maybe he’s just absent for the cover though. (ETA: yeah this makes a lot more sense after reading the last page of this chapter lol.) anyway so here we have everyone flying, as all good heroes do, including Deku who doesn’t really need that floating quirk after all I suppose, since he can jump real good. BUT IT’S STILL NICE FOR HIM TO HAVE IT SO SHHH

also the flower!Kacchan eyes are becoming more and more frequent lately. Horikoshi is really having a lot of fun with that

and now we’re going back roughly two months ago! which is still the future as far as I’m concerned! so this is really weird to have a “flashback” that basically still takes place after where we last left off. but whatever

“a week after the ‘hospital’ tip” well thank you, that certainly does help. so Twice is jogging in and beckoning to his best bud Hawks so Hawks is like “?” and walking over

(ETA: this has absolutely nothing to do with anything, but I just wanted to say that it’s very possible this flashback is actually taking place on Shouto’s birthday -- January 11th -- given the timing, so happy birthday Shouto! you are getting so big!)

lol see this is one of those times where the whole ‘translation of a translation’ thing doesn’t really work sob. even with context I’m not quite sure wtf Twice is actually asking, but at any rate this at least does give us an idea of how the rest of the League is spending their time now that they’ve completed their whole villain corporate merger

so Spinner and Compress, who actually have a few brain cells to rub together between the two of them, are already deeply involved in running things, and meanwhile Giran, Dabi, and Toga don’t really give a shit and so are content to sit back and wait until their services are actually needed. incidentally I like to think Giran spends a good chunk of his free time just tormenting ReDestro in a bunch of really small and petty ways. like making him get his coffee, and having him call and cancel his cable subscription and stuff. it’s just nice

guys I have no idea wtf is going on in these four panels honestly

well you heard him. that’s the situation. nobody trusts Twice (or was he talking about Hawks?), and meanwhile he has to go poo. not exactly where I thought this chapter would be picking up after that fun little cliffhanger last week, but just goes to show this series truly is a magical Kinder Egg and you never know what you’re gonna get!

so Hawks is explaining for my benefit that Twice was apparently doing an impression of some guy named “Sanctum” who is the oldest member of the MLA

holy shit it took Hawks a whole month to figure out all of the Pliff members? I’m just gonna pass then. thankfully I’m not a spy and I don’t have the fate of the free world depending on me memorizing the organizational chart of a bunch of really boring people whom I really do not give the slightest fuck about. anyway godspeed Hawks

oh no

son of a bitch. we’re in for another long fucking arc aren’t we lmao. well all right then let’s go ahead and do the rundown

Black 1: Fuhrer King Bradley

Black 2: Flying Ace

Black 3: Mother Ginger

Violet 1: Super Mario and Just A Bald Man

Violet 2: Predator and Best Sweaterist

Violet 3: Vizard and Gang Badger

in conclusion, Horikoshi will never stop making Alien/Predator references, and I’m also seeing some strong FMA and Bleach influence here as well. hell, the Mario guy even reminds me of some of the fishman characters from One Piece. so basically we’re all over the place here

other observations: “the new world movement”, huh? are they moving on from PLF at long last? I’ll take Newm over Pliff any day tbh

and so they have a tactical force and a raid force. now that’s interesting as fuck, because who exactly are they planning to raid? now that’s a nice disturbing question to ponder

lastly, the black and violet color schemes are very interesting and I wonder if there’s any significance there that’s going over my head lol. for now I just think it sounds cool regardless

-- MOTHERFUCKER THERE’S A WHOLE NOTHER PAGE OF THIS SHIT FUCK ME I FUCKING QUIT

goddammit. fine

Carmine 1: Lefty Hair and Gerudo Princess

Carmine 2: Slidin’ Go Away and R2-D2

and I can’t see Carmine 3, oh well. meanwhile on the other side we’ve got:

Cleveland 1: Praying Mantis and Righty Hair

Cleveland 2: Jawa and Just Happy To Be Here

and last but not least, Cleveland 3: Badger’s Revenge

what I have learned from this is that I don’t really know what a badger looks like and so any remotely rodent-looking animal person with stripes on their face is going to be slapped with that label because I don’t have time to research what would be a more appropriate animal nickname unless we want to be here until next week. anyway

haha Hawks what the fuck

well that sure is encouraging. so how exactly are the heroes supposed to get the drop on them then? basically we’re fucked, is what you’re saying. well we all been knew so whatever

so Hawks is monologuing to himself about how he was able to nice his way into learning all of the army’s members without getting caught, and in the process he observed how all of the members are all “FUCK THE SYSTEM”, which they definitely have a point about but are also definitely going about the wrong way holy shit

so now he’s feeding some good rabble-rousing lines to Twice who is eating them up

yeah, because Twice famously loves ReDestro lol, oh wait

so Twice is all “I don’t wanna say something that’s not from the heart” because he is PURE and not a Sneaky Sam like SOME PEOPLE! but he understands Hawks’s point that he basically just has to butter them up and tell them what they want to hear, and now he’s running off with a hearty thanks

fffffson of a --

like, you all can see the breakdown in logic that occurred here, right? “some heroes are corrupt” -- absolutely! “kill all heroes” -- wait, what

like obviously there are some real world parallels here. but I very much get the feeling that the PLF/NWM’s movement is fueled less by sentiments of “our law enforcement system is trigger-happy, racist, void of empathy, and think they’re above the law” and more by the notion of “our self-proclaimed superiority gives us the right to do whatever we want and trumps other people’s right to be safe and free, particularly if those people are unfortunate enough to not have quirks.” like, there are a lot of other nuances we could get into here, but that’s basically the gist of it, so yeah. these guys are not to be sympathized with here

and now there’s a big double page spread basically confirming that what these guys really want is blood and anarchy

and the really interesting thing here to me is that we can see Tomura standing at the front of the pack in that bottom right panel. but on the very next panel, with the close-up of Hawks looking as serious as we’ve ever seen him, he basically says that the endgame of all this, the ultimate outcome that this is all meant to bring into place, is one thing and one thing only

yep. well fuck

anyway I have no idea why he’s thanking Twice, but I’m gonna go ahead and guess he unknowingly did something which might give the heroes the potential glimmer of hope which they desperately need. so I will go ahead and thank you too, Twice. you’re a good guy buddy

oh wow there’s a whole page of more meta about Twice! -- and OH SHITTTTTTT

LKDsjflkjsdlfklskgjlskjlfkjsdlfk oh my fkfdjflk how did this never occur to me, just. FSDKLFLSIFKjk

hahaha. :’) holy fucking shit. they have to take him out. they can’t win otherwise. the heroes are already screwed enough as it is with just one Tomura and eleven high ends to contend with; if Twice is able to use his quirk to multiply that exponentially, we can basically kiss the world goodbye. fuck

but Hawks came to realize that Twice is actually a good guy though as echoed above! which, yeah, and can you imagine if he wasn’t, though? shiiit

oh my god they are so cute

listen, I won’t lie, I’m reading this for my 1-A children first and foremost, so there’s a part of me that’s like “HOW MANY MORE PAGES ARE WE GOING TO GET OF THIS JESUS CHRIST.” but there’s no denying that Jin is a good turnip and his unexpected friendship with Hawks -- which I am happy to report is now confirmed to be genuine! because Hawks really does like him! -- is a delight to witness

OH MY GOD TWICE LMAO

“HERE, LET ME JUST DRAW YOU A MAP! (⌒∇⌒。)ANYTHING FOR YOU, BEST FRIEND”

holy fucking shit Twice. did you just save all our asses you beautiful bastard

so between this, and the “hospital” clue, that could be enough to track him down, couldn’t it? no wonder Hawks was so pumped after getting that call. what are the odds this chapter ends with the start of a hero-led raid on a hospital in Kyoto. oh shit oh shit oh shit

lolol oh fuck me

I swear to god Horikoshi if you end this bromance by having Hawks kill Twice for the sake of the greater good, I’ll. ... well I sure as hell won’t like that. please do not

AND JUST LIKE THAT WE’RE BACK TO SPRINGTIME OH MY GOD

what a time to enter the first fucking grade Dai-kun. godspeed little man. I love the little detail that he’s holding an Endeavor plush while looking at the All Might statue. drawing strength from both heroes. aww

and then of course we have this fucking march of heroes which I can only hope is them heading to that hospital! no wonder they all vanished. they all ran off to Kyoto to try and put a stop to the villains’ plans before it’s too late

but I don’t see any of the kiddos there, though? don’t tell me the villains are gonna try something while the adults are away and leave the kids to deal with it all on their own

oh shit no!!! hold up!!

DON’T TELL ME THEY REALLY DID BRING THE KIDS WITH THEM ON THE EXTREMELY DANGEROUS “TIME TO GET OUR ASSES HANDED TO US BY NOUMURAKI TOMURA” MISSION NOOO MY BABIESSS

oh thank god

at least they don’t have the child soldiers on the front fucking lines, fucking christ

AHHHHHHHHH

SAY A PRAYER FOR KATSUKI’S WINTER COSTUME, EVERYONE. BE AT PEACE, SLEEVES OF GONDOR. FAREWELL BEST JEANIST TRIBUTE COLLAR

is this T chest thing on Shouto’s costume new? I can’t imagine that serves any sort of practical function whatsoever; he was probably just tired of looking boring

BUT!!!! those gloves, though!!?! now those are definitely new and I fucking love them. again I can’t really see them having much of a practical application given his quirk, but there is nothing wrong with upgrading oneself just to look sharp! boy wanted a facelift so he went out and got one

that’s some nice Anime Protagonist Wind they’ve got going on there in the mountains of Kyoto. real epic shit

1-B is there too!! and also Hadou, I think, unless that’s Pony? so that’s fucking awesome. we will certainly need all hands on deck

so that’s it for the chapter! not much happened, but we got a lot of Twice appreciation and learned that the heroes still have a few tricks up their sleeves! can’t wait to see how this will all go disastrously wrong. if you ask me, it’s probably when they decided that the best way to launch a surprise attack was to have fifty Endeavor-led guys gather all together and march up Main Street. but far be it from me to tell the heroes how to do their job I guess. best of luck not dying everyone

[geek-gem]

Edit shit I seriously can't put a title. But basically please be warned this is my extremely stupid take on why SU Criticals want Steven to kill the Diamonds. It's very stupid but I try to make sense of it. Please correct me on stuff please.

This is something I've been thinking about. Especially I wanted to write it at first. But I decided just in case even though I was inspired to make this but wanted to look at @ankle-beez his tagged stuff of anti su critical. Seriously man you are awesome and hope you don't mind the mention because this is something I think I've pieced together.

Including this is kind of related to the joke of Michael Bay if he was in charge of Steven Universe. I've pieced together something remembering the idea of if Steven were to literally kill the Diamonds then home world would basically be in a way dead. Especially chaos would ensure if he decided to do such extreme things.

The take here is this.

Basically SU Criticals the ones I keep hearing about basically want in a way a Michael Bay version of Steven Universe.

How does that make sense you ask? I'll explain including this will help if you have seen mainly the first four Bayformers films I haven't seen the fifth and I'm not gonna. Yet it's basically the sequels that have the most of this thing I'm talking about.

In a weird way these criticals literally want Steven to turn into Optimus Prime as he was becoming in the later sequels.

With the character of Optimus Prime being this peace keeper who would go into combat unless it was absolutely necessary. I'm being honest I'm a ex Transformers fan but let me explain. Optimus Prime I almost all of his versions is someone who would fight but he would try to find a peaceful rather then straight up to combat. Especially being a soft and understanding guy and all that shit.

Optimus Prime especially later in Revenge Of The Fallen, Dark Of The Moon, and the most infamous one Age Of Extinction. He is literally the opposite of that. It's Age Of Extinction where it's most prominent. While yes he's being hunted down by humans, his Autobot friends are being killed.

His actions and words and do much else seriously.

It's scenes like where he says shit like threatening Grimlock by saying, "Help defend my family or die" before that he smacked the shit out of Grimlock to get his point across. Including during that Dinobot charge he is literally saying shit like, "I'LL KILL YOU!".

Including even in scenes in Revenge Of The Fallen, he literally rips the face off of the Fallen or something saying, "Give me your face", and literally ripping his heart out.

Then we have Dark Of The Moon he's becoming more done with this shit, where even when Megatron saved his life from Sentinel Prime, even if Megatron might of attacked him, he fucking kills him by ripping off his head and spine. Especially after that he literally kills Sentinel who is so weak after being attacked by Megatron, especially shooting him with Megatron's own gun.

I'm sorry I'm getting off topic. This is me talking too much about Bayformers. Now let's get back to Steven Universe and why criticals keep thinking of Steven killing the diamonds.

They basically want Steven to become like the Bayformers version of Optimus Prime.

I've been wanting to write these seriously. They literally and I thought of this shit and this is perfect in line up with new episodes coming up. Basically and I imagined this scenario is what they want.

Steven after, "Together Alone" is done with this shit. He's fucking done or whatever remember this is all imaginary but it could be anytime. Some how Steven brings back the corrupted Gems. Especially brings back Jasper who is still corrupted. He asks for their help also he got a new sword from some where. Jasper won't listen, he beats the shit out of her, threatens to shatter her. Then he and the corrupted Gems with any other gems joining them do a literal charge against home world.

They and Steven are literally shattering, murdering any Gem on home world that goes against them, Steven is straight up saying, "I'LL KILL YOU!" a loud for everyone to hear. Doing these God damn battle cries and yelling, "CHARGE!"

Especially adding to this Aquamarine is around that little bitch, despite she's so powerful, Steven literally over powers her because he's all raged up, he says to her, "Give me your gem" and stabs Aquamarine's gem and takes right through her head.

Next he's some how fighting the Diamonds, even White, really Gems are made of light just thinking of those moments from those Bayformers films. Basically he fucking murders them. Especially add the Diamonds how about both Blue and Yellow asking her mercy, and Steven literally tells them they did this to themselves. Maybe White I don't know wait no she is the one that's killed first by having her gem ripped off of head by an axe some how.

There you have it, Steven snapped basically, he just killed the Diamonds. What do criticals expect? A celebration but no it ends up worse and this is what people talked about. Remember Jasper and how she was emotional about Pink's shattering. You see how she turned up, now while it's maybe under different circumstances but imagine many Gems who have been taught their way of life was normal....imagine their reactions, how scarring would that be. How much imbalance and chaos their would be. Everything is out of control you might of started another war you have maybe some Gems invading my Earth now.

You know why because their were actually people thinking and what I think and I'm being extreme but certain criticals want this kid.

To probably become this.

Listen this is a very stupid take. Especially the Bayformers version of Optimus is a different take. But still considering the consistency of Optimus as a character. It's just bothersome. I feel other Transformers fans can explain this better since again I'm an ex fan.

Including if this was a Michael Bay Steven Universe thing you have explosions everywhere, sexualized Gems everywhere, lots of stupid jokes and some racist jokes to have a added bonus, the action is just insane, shit is getting fucked up like buildings and so much more.

But just seriously I understand the Diamonds and people's thoughts on how the fucking hell is this gonna end up, because again the Diamonds have done some fucking awful shit, and even possibly White like seriously. Yet do you seriously think Steven is gonna just drop all of morals because you keep thinking he's a Nazi now which is absolute bullshit. Seriously he and the Gems can't take the Diamonds head on they can kick their asses easily. Especially Steven is a kid who doesn't even wanna do violence and he wants this to be good for everyone. He's trying to get to heal all of the corrupted Gems.

Listen I may be a psychopath and I like violent shit I like slashers and other shit like Doom, Mortal Kombat, and so much other shit. But Steven Universe isn't the place where we have that. Unless it's necessary or whatever. Is that seriously the message even if have problems myself, murder the enemy until theirs nothing left. Even if their are some Gems that are having a secret relationship or something like the new fusion we saw in, "Together Alone"

Especially long ago I thought SU Criticals want Steven to become Doomguy and I have this image in my head of his face he made in, "Together Breakfast" on Doomguy's head in the Doom 2016 cover. The idea he should go all Doomguy on home world I even thought they want that but this makes sense.

Including the Bayformers is a whole different I'm talking about characters. Including both franchises are different I'm sorry.

Decided to put the tags now and I'll put the title after this again this is my very stupid take on this idea of what they want.

[v-e-l-v-e-t-g-o-l-d-m-i-n-e]

Given the fact that you're an actual brazilian lol I gotta ask: Did anyone believe two years ago that someone like Bolsonaro could win? Because I'm not an expert in brazilian politics but I'm really shocked, like we have a right wing president but he is like... a normal right wing asshole? As in he doesn't defend torture and so on. I guess I'm scared bc I see our countries as quite similar, I think Brasil is a little more conservative and you guys have more issues with crime but still similar.

This is really, really big, but I wanted to give you the full picture of what happened in my country. I hope it doesn’t happen on yours or any other country from Latin America (or anywhere, no one deserves it).

Honestly… it depends who you ask. His fans/electors have been yelling that Bolsonaro would be president for the good part of two, three years, but big part of the population didn’t take him seriously because he honestly sounds like a caricature. It’s hard to believe a person can be like this, and therefore people did not take him serious.

Big mistake, that was.

To give you a little context: during most of our democratic history (that isn’t very long), Brazil was ruled by right wing parties. We have several political parties in here, but the biggest one from the right wing side was PSDB (Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira). The biggest political party on the left wing side is PT (Partido dos Trabalhadores).

Brazil was a military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985. This was a horrible, bloody piece of our history, and we only started to have a democratic state after 1985. During the years that followed, in most of the elections the main dispute was between PT and PSDB, PT always losing until 2002, when Lula aka Luís Inácio Lula da Silva won for elections.

Lula ruled from 2002 to 2010; a presidential term on Brazil lasts for four years, but we have reelections and Lula won a second term in 2006.

His time as a president was marked for several things. There was several social projects for poor people, projects to fight famine, to give finantial help to people who received too low income, projects to help poor people get into universities. They were not perfect projects by any means but I can assure you that it made a HUGE difference for millions of people in this country.

Another thing that marked Lula’s time as a president was the corruption scandals.

You see, it’s not that Brazil didn’t have corruption before, because corruption is in this country’s bones. But it was during Lula’s time as a president that we came to know how big the proportions of this corruption was. This was called the ‘mensalão’; Lula claimed that he did not know about it (which I doubt very much), but people from all political parties were implicated, including from PT.

Lula was still very popular and loved by many people, but this was the first seeds of the so called anti-petismo, that would take much bigger proportions later.

After Lula, we had Dilma Rousseff, also from PT, supported by Lula; her first term was from 2010 and 2014.

Dilma had little experience for this charge, and her time as president showed it. Her term was very mediocre, and popular insatisfaction began to rise, especially because of the World Cup that happened here on 2014 - a LOT of money was spent on it, and often the planning was really bad.

More popular insatisfaction rising; the elites were never happy to have a left wing party on power, but now middle class people started to being deluded that they were elite and anti-petismo started to get bigger. Dilma still won reelections in 2014, but it was a close call with her oponent.

Now we have a very divided country. And during the World Cup there was plenty of jobs everywhere, but after it there was a huge wave of unemployment all over the nation, the economy was a shambles. Even MORE popular insatisfaction. Things getting ugly and uglier by minute.

I won’t give you all details because this is already getting ridiculous long and it is a very long story, but Dilma suffered an impeachment. She was not very competent, but that was bullshit and clearly a coup, because we have recorded audios of the right wing opposition plotting to get her out so they could put in power her vice, Michel Temer, a right wing politic.

So now that’s still our president, Michel Temer. Just two years on power, but boy, the man did so much of damage all around, and no one, not people sympathetic to the left nor people sympathetic to the right like the man.

More popular insatisfaction, all around now. No one is happy in this country; everyone wants a change.

Now, take Bolsonaro, this dumb piece of shit we just elected. The man have been a congressist for 27 years. In this time he aproved like, two projects. In several opportunities he voted against the rights of poor people. You may remember the video of him talking with Ellen Page or Stephen Fry and how horrible that was. No one would want a horrible AND incompetent man like that as a president, right?

Right?

Well. Brazil have a wide variation of people in our nation and most people have black relatives, but we’re still a very racist, misogynistic, homophobic country. This people started to enjoy Bolsonaro’s speeches because they identify with him. Their mentality was something like… we need to stop the corruption in this country, and Bolsonaro will do it! Never mind he says that gay people should be beaten. That his white son would never marry a black woman because he received good education. That police should straight up invade favelas and kill poor people. That he said to a woman that the only reason he wouldn’t rape her was because she was not worth raping. They don’t care if women and queer people, and black and poor people get hurt or killed in this process; our lives are a small price to pay for them.

Now I do believe that even if this planet is loaded with horrible awful people, there’s still more good than bad. There’s still more good people than not, and how could good people vote for this man?

The means they used to get these votes was mass manipulation. Very similar tactics that Trump used in this campaign; dozen, hundreds of fake news all around. While in US they used mainly Facebook for this means, in Brazil they used an app called WhatsApp, because not everyone has facebook on Brazil but everyone has a cellphone and uses this app for easy communication.

In these groups they exalted that Bolsonaro would end corruption, would be a ‘correct christian man’, would stop the ‘LGBT doutrination of children on schools’. He would save this country. Mito (mith) is how his fans call him, or Messias (his middle name), and they absoluted demonized the opposition.

Now Bolsonaro is extreme right wing; the centrists and the normal right wing assholes are another story. PSDB tried to launch a candidate with no sucess, and PT was planning to launch Lula again as a candidate… but Lula was arrested in april (another bullshit). If he was not, he might have won; at least all the surveys showed Lula was more popular than even Bolsonaro. Because of that, PT tried to launch Lula as candidate even from inside prison, and of course, it didn’t work out, so there was a huge delay in PT choosing a candidate.

Eventually, Fernando Haddad was chosen. He’s a professor, a good man; was mayor of São Paulo. Was a ministry in Lula’s term, helped to create several education projects. But he was also not very known - I didn’t even know him until like four months ago.

The fact that he was not very well known helped a lot the pro-Bolsonaro groups to demonize the man and his vice. Many fake news were made up about him, stuff like him trying to legalize paedophilia, that he he was going to give a ‘gay kit’ for kids in school and therefore incentive the erotization of children, that he was a rapist. That he was against traditional family, but Bolsonaro would save the Brazilian Family. All of this being spread in those WhatsApp groups with little to no fiscalization, being spread out by hateful people and by people who don’t have a good grasp in politics and believe everything they read.

There was also a great demonization of PT as a party - oh no, you can’t let PT back on power again, right? PT is corrupt! They stole us! Don’t you remember mensalão? They DESTROYED the country, they’re gonna do it AGAIN, they BROKE this country and tore it apart (anyone would thing we lived in some sort of paradise before), PT is gonna transform this country in a COMMUNIST DICTATORSHIP we’re gonna be the next Venezuela.

(I kid you not. I heard this last part from my father’s mouth last time I saw him. People really believed this)

Nevermind that PT was on power for 14 years and we didn’t become communists and if anything they appllied a more centrist line of ruling the leftist; we can’t let PT win. Bolsonaro will save this country.

Now another thing you need to understand is that Bolsonaro is DUMB. He’s dumb as fuck. In the first part of the elections he showed up to a few presidential debates and said horrible things like “Portugueses (our collonizers) never even set foot on Africa, Black people slavered themselves” that caused some popular outtrage. For that reason, in the second part of the elections he didn’t showed up in any debate, least he opened his mouth and people realize the kind of person they were trying to elect to represent them. Bolsonaro also suffered an attack in September (was stabbed in the belly), which helped to incentivate his popularity (after all, the man is a martyr now).

These were the main ingredients that elected Bolsonaro. Anti-petismo, misguided and ignorant people being led on in a flood of fake news, fascists that knew exactly who they were electing, a refusal to hear good arguments, since his supporters think that every piece of evidence we have of Bolsonaro being a piece of garbage was edited or taken out of context (it was not).

They also had a little help from their American friends; in this picture you can see Eduardo Bolsonaro (the son of the piece of shit, also a piece of shit himself) cozying up with Steve Bannon, the white supremacist from Trump’s presidential campaign, and give yesterday’s results, his tips sure seem to have worked here too.

Edit: this article can also help you to understand a little the reasons of why he won:

Bolsonaro business backers accused of illegal Whatsapp fake news campaign

[hell0howlow]

Bright (2017) Review

[Spoilers ahead]

Grade: F+

What I hate about it:

I hate all the overarching metaphors for racism, full stop. It was hard for me to make it through the first half of the movie because I truly hated them that much. I don’t care that it was about species. I hate any film or other piece of media that tries to reconstruct actual issues that people of color face, especially black people so that it’s more digestible for white and non-black audiences. I hate that people feel like they can describe our experiences for us and they somehow “got it”. I hate that people feel they can somehow connect on these issues because now they see the same shit presented just slightly different on screen. I have a strong resentment towards filmmakers and storytellers who do this. It’s a shitty self-righteous and self-serving way for them to cater to an audience that clearly cannot accept our actual real-life experiences. It’s a way for them to pat themselves on the back and make it easier for them (and their audience) to sleep at night knowing that they made something that will truly get people to understand black experiences in some “new” or “unique” way. It keeps non-black people a step removed from reality on shit like this. It’s part of the white savior/white ally complex. Fuck a l l of that to be honest.

Here are a couple other instances in media/pop culture where white people have done shit like this (i.e. - creating media involving racism metaphors so white people can continue to live in the comfort of their worldviews and privilege/altering or using unchangeable features people have to make racism more digestible/removing or ignoring the element of intersectionality/creating their own version of real-life issues so that the narrative is easier to understand than the actual issue itself):

Detroit

JK Rowling’s using blood lineage as a way to depict racism/discrimination, as if I’m supposed to believe actual fucking black people didn’t experience racism in the magical world as regularly as they would among muggles

The political tone of the film with these damn metaphors extends throughout and I’m kinda mad at Will Smith especially for agreeing to do some shit like this. I understand you gotta get money, but why do you feel like you have to help these white people reimagine our experiences this way? Especially in 2017, when issues of police brutality, corruption, and police killings are at the top of the list of political issues black people face?

The metaphor I hated the absolute most: near the beginning when Ward confronts Jakoby about if some shit goes down with some orcs, is he gonna choose his job or his species. Honestly, what the fuck was this? Are we supposed to sympathize with people in real life being forced to choose between their job and fighting racism? At the end of the day, whether the person is a cop or unemployed, they will still be fucking black and stand a chance of facing the same racist shit as the rest of us. When black cops go home at night and take off their badge & uniform, guess what? They’re still black af. Not sure what the fuck the movie-makers were trying to do there, but that’s the real life bottom line. I hated everything about that: that filmmakers would have Jakoby state what he thinks the “right” decision might be, that they think they can even understand what real life ass people experience in those situations enough to portray that shit on screen, and that this is must be the only instance of sacrifice cops of color apparently face when they have a non-black partner. I hate that any of that shit was perpetuated. Period.

I also hated Ward’s entire dynamic tbh: the role of the guy that’s clearly fucking racist and just sticks with the situation because he has no choice- and because of that he’s about to be extremely resentful to the minority and make his life fucking miserable. Because his character made some decisions in regards to Jakoby that were clearly causing some internal struggle, the story perpetuated that it’s ok for racist ass resentful white guys to demonstrate this behavior as long as “at the end of the day, they’ll make the right choice” and “this person of color should be grateful you helped/befriended them” even though they’re still clearly a piece of shit that believes this person to be lesser/subhuman. That’s what his entire behavior and dialogue perpetuated, point-blank.

I also hated that the cop corruption issue was never really addressed. I hated the cover-up Ward did at the end for the sake of the story-telling. Who knows how far that kind of corruption extends. And we get a piece of it at the beginning I think, when they have that whole bit with internal affairs and framing Jakoby to get him fired.

What I liked about it:

Jakoby. Honestly just his authenticity and perseverance alone to a real-life, good-natured person was A+.

Noomi Rapace. Even though her lines were wack and I hated her weave, she still fine af.

The one Mexican sheriff guy that [kinda] believed/helped them.