#and more importantly PARROT?

[sympathytea]

So this is a sequel to this post mainly because there was some crucial details in the finale that I missed, but this is specifically going to be focusing on Parrot rather than Evbo, although Evbo is still going to be part of this whole theory. Lets start.

[Transcript Start] Evbo: -My iron sword, so their swords will never break. Thats why I have to get out of here, so that I can prove to people that there is a way out! Obviously, to do that, I need to make it to level 4. But its a bit tough to do that, since theres no way to rank up apparently. Parrot: ...Wait, what do you mean theres no way to rank up? Evbo: Oh yeah! I probably should've mentioned that every time I try to rank up to a golden sword- Woah, getting up close and personal. But..yeah, theres no water at the bottom, I've died-

[End of transcript.]

This exchange to me, at first, read as rather inconspicuous. Other players have killed Evbo before, or straight up hit him. So it didn't particularly click with me that this was something to pay attention to, but it was a bit weird considering how Parrot is first characterized. His whole introduction with Evbo and Tabi, and him talking about the iron sword layer being peaceful, and trying to protect Evbo's immortal identity, being depressed and isolating himself in a mansion.. It seems odd that this would suddenly shift when the situation becomes "Theres no way out" and him almost getting violent here, like every other character in the series. But he shows restraint in his anger rather than lashing out. Good right? Well... Next time we "meet" Parrot the implications are less than ideal. We learn he is a bow, and that he attempted to tell Evbo this, but the message about Tabi's betrayal got through to him too late. Then something else happens. Evbo, post betrayal and probably wanting to let off some of the stress that has most definitely been bubbling under the surface, Kills the entire iron sword layer. Or atleast very heavily implied that he did, along with Parrot's help. In Evbo's words, he "Killed all the people that were against me." which could either mean like, two people or the entire layer, and I don't think Evbo was particularly keeping track of the "bad" iron swords that came into his cell depending on how populated that layer actually is. The way someone would typically twist this, is that Parrot is willing to do terrible things for his friend's safety and comfort. Which is fine, but hear me out. Considering that Parrot got very close to snapping at Evbo back in episode 4, and was pretty absent throughout the arc where Evbo trains until he gets to the diamond sword layer, and then out of nowhere, helps with a murder spree despite him being one of the more peaceful residents? One that doesn't appear to get into fights, nor is seen going into Evbo's cell for kills? Evbo lets something slip near the end right after describing the massacre that he and Parrot did together. Parrot says:

"I will do my best to make a difference in this world."

Now, this sounds good in theory. Great, even! But consider the stuff we learned from him up until this point, the tiny details that you could easily miss or disregard entirely. Now, what does that phrase imply? Especially with the surrounding context being Evbo and Parrot killing a layer together?

What difference does he intend to make in this world? We don't get more than what Evbo tells us in the narration, but he does mention that he isn't willing to see Parrot just yet, and needs to piece his feelings towards him. What went down between these two that went unseen that left Evbo not wanting to talk to him let alone see him? Fishy, fishy, fishy.

[eggtrolls]

STOP putting me in the position of having to defend Elon ‘He Is An American Citizen’ Musk from your lazy, xenophobic rhetoric by referring to him as the South African or the foreigner or the whatever term you want to use to indicate he is not a Real American. Because a) you are wrong and much more importantly b) I sound unhinged by having to point out to your nuance-allergic ass (and any nearby listeners) that he is an American citizen. You cannot claim to be progressive about immigration but then use xenophobic rhetoric on the grounds that it’s fine because it’s against people who suck. The problem with Elon Musk and DOGE and its miscellaneous bullshit is not that he’s a ~foreign~ unelected billionaire running a shadow government — it’s that he’s an unelected billionaire running a shadow government, point blank period. The situation would not be improved if he had been born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, you nativist talk points-parroting twit

[rook-apologist]

On Veilguard Negativity (short rant)

If you enjoyed your time with Veilguard, don't let people ruin your positivity surrounding this game. While there is always room for civil discourse in any medium, a very outspoken group seems hellbent on pushing the narrative that this is an objectively "bad" product, and that something is personally/intellectually wrong with anyone who thinks otherwise. Please remember that their perspectives are entirely subjective to their own shitty point of view. You are absolutely allowed to like whatever the hell you want, and DO NOT need validation from people whose sole purpose seems to be parroting some sort of weird "anti-woke" talking point that they got off of Twitter. This game resonated with me on an emotional level that I didn't think was possible in the modern triple AAA gaming scene. I fell in love with it's cast of characters and found myself heavily invested in each of their own respective arcs. More importantly, I loved everything about being "Rook" and the connection you have with them as your avatar. The themes of found family and leadership that were included in your own personal journey helped me overcome some serious trauma in my own life as my character struggled against overwhelming odds at every corner. That alone justifies my enjoyment for it. And if you have a different take, that is perfectly okay! Not everyone likes the same things, and might have been expecting a different experience than what they got. Just please recognize that there is an incredibly passionate audience that wants to openly communicate their love and joy to others, and kindly respect that space.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The Adventures of Mary Darling

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in PITTSBURGH on May 15 at WHITE WHALE BOOKS, and in PDX on Jun 20 at BARNES AND NOBLE with BUNNIE HUANG. More tour dates (London, Manchester) here.

Science fiction great Pat Murphy has written some classics – including books that were viciously suppressed by the heirs of JRR Tolkien! – but with The Adventures of Mary Darling, she's outdone even her own impressive self:

https://tachyonpublications.com/product/the-adventures-of-mary-darling/

The titular Mary Darling here is the mother of Wendy, John and and Michael Darling, the three children who are taken by Peter Pan to Neverland in JM Barrie's 1902 book The Little White Bird, which later became Peter Pan. If you recall your Barrie, you'll remember that it ends with the revelation that Wendy, John and Michael weren't the first Darlings to go to Neverland: when Mary Darling was a girl, she, too, made the journey.

Murphy's novel opens with Mary Darling and her husband George coming home from a dinner party to discover their three children missing, the window open, and their nanny, a dog called Nana, barking frantically in the yard. John is frightened, but Mary is practically petrified, inconsolable and rigid with fear.

Soon, Mary's beloved uncle, John Watson, is summoned to the house, along with his famous roommate, the detective Sherlock Holmes. With Holmes on the case, surely the children will be found?

Of course not. Holmes is incapable of understanding where the Darling children have gone, because to do so would be to admit the existence of the irrational and fantastic, and, more importantly, to accept the testimony of women, lower-class people, and pirates. Holmes has all the confidence of the greatest detective alive, which means he is of no help at all.

Neither is George Darling, who, as a kind of act of penance for letting his children be stolen away, takes to Nana's doghouse, and insists that he will not emerge from it until the children are returned. He takes his meals in the doghouse, and is carried in it to and from the taxis that bring him to work and home again.

Only Mary can rescue her children. John Watson discovers her consorting with Sam, a one-legged Pacific Islander who is a known fence and the finest rat-leather glovemaker in London, these being much prized by London's worst criminal gangs. Horrified that Mary is keeping such ill company, Watson confronts her and Sam (and Sam's parrot, who screeches nonstop piratical nonsense), only to be told that Mary knows what she is doing, and that she is determined to see her children home safe.

Mary, meanwhile, is boning up on her swordplay and self-defense (taught by a Suffragist swordmaster in a room above an Aerated Bread Company tearoom, these being the only public place in Victorian London where a respectable woman can enjoy herself without a male escort). She's acquiring nautical maps. She's going to Neverland.

What follows is a very rough guide to fairyland. It's a story that recovers the dark asides from Barrie's original Pan stories, which were soaked with blood, cruelty and death. The mermaids want to laugh as you drown. The fairies hate you and want you to die. And Peter Pan doesn't care how many starveling, poorly trained Lost Boys die in his sorties against pirates, because he knows where there are plenty more Lost Boys to be found in the alienated nurseries of Victorian London, an ocean away.

More importantly, it's a story that revolves around the women in Barrie's world, who are otherwise confined to the edges and shadows of the action. In Barrie's Pan, Wendy is a "mother," Tiger Lily is a "princess," and Mary is a barely-there adult whose main role is to smile wistfully at the memory of when she was a girl and got to serve as Peter's "mother."

And Holmes? Apart from one love interest and a stalwart housekeeper, Holmes has very little time or regard for women. This is so central to the Holmes cannon that the Arthur Conan Doyle estate actually sued over Netflix's Enola Holmes movie, arguing that Enola displayed basic respect for women, a feature that doesn't appear until the very end of the Holmes canon, and – the estate argued – those final stories were still in copyright:

https://www.cbr.com/why-enola-holmes-has-nice-version-sherlock/

Murphy's woman's-eye-view of Peter Pan, Neverland and the Lost Boys dilates the narrow aperture through which Peter Pan plays out, revealing a great deal of exciting, fun, frightening stuff that was always off in the wings. She gives flesh and substance to characters like Tiger Lily, by giving her the semi-fictionalized identity of one of the many American First Nations people who toured Europe and Africa, putting on Wild West shows that won eternal fame and cultural currency for the "American Indian," even as the USA was seeking to exterminate them and their memory.

Likewise, Murphy's pirates are grounded in the reality of pirate ships: democratic, anarchic, and far more fun than Robert Louis Stevenson would have you believe. While Murphy's pirates are about a century too late (as are Barrie's), they are in other regards pretty rigorous, which makes them extraordinarily great literary figures.

If you read David Graeber's posthumous Pirate Enlightenment, you'll know about the Zana-Malata of Madagascar, the descendants of anarchist pirates and matriarchal Malagasy women, who pranked and hoaxed British merchant sailors for generations, deliberately creating a mythology of south seas pirate kings:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/24/zana-malata/#libertalia

This hybrid culture of bold, fierce matriarchal Malagasy women and their anarchist pirate husbands play a central role in the book's resolution, and Murphy's pirate utopia is so well drawn and homely that I found myself wanting to move there.

This is a profoundly political book, but it's such a romp, too! Murphy has a real flair for this kind of thing. Back in 1999, she published the brilliant There and Back Again, an all-female retelling of The Hobbit (in spaaaaace!) that was widely celebrated…right up to the moment that Christopher Tolkien used baseless copyright threats to get the book withdrawn from sale:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_and_Back_Again_(novel)

Billionaire failsons of long-dead writers notwithstanding, you can still read There and Back Again by borrowing a copy of the book from the Internet Archive's Open Library:

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15436385W/There_and_back_again

Murphy's mashup of Holmes, Pan, South Seas pirate anarchists, and other salutary and exciting personages, milieux, furniture and tropes of the Victorian adventure story is an unmissable triumph, a romp, a delight.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/06/nevereverland/#lesser-ormond-street

[hermajestyimher]

I'm about to ruffle some feathers with this, but it's been bothering my spirit for a while and I need to let it out.

I know I was one of the people with a platform who ran to comment on the Wizard Liz situation and jumped on the social media bandwagon where everyone had to say something about it. But now that several days have passed, I can’t help but notice that the world of online "female empowerment" has become oversaturated, not just with recycled advice, but with increasingly toxic talking points. Things like "high-value people", glamorizing sex work under the guise of hypergamy, and encouraging women to act like bimbos as if that’s somehow radical. All of it has started to feel like a massive, communal online brain rot. It’s encouraging surface-level aesthetics while discouraging critical thinking, and it's leaving young women unequipped to navigate finances, relationships, career growth, or real-world emotional development.

This isn’t empowerment anymore. Somewhere along the way, this "community" morphed into a repackaged conservative space dressed up in soft girl branding with a bow tie on it. So many of your favorite gurus are parroting the same talking points you’ll find in the manosphere, just twisted into language that’s palatable to women. Meanwhile, a lot of these same women are in dysfunctional relationships with undesirable men who openly disrespect them, or they themselves are openly involved in sex work while encouraging others to take advice from them on emotional regulation and personal values.

The situation with Wizard Liz really drove this home for me—not just because of her scandal, but because of the way the internet responded. The mob mentality. The idolization. The obsessive praise. It’s wild to watch how quickly the internet will crown a woman as a queen, a mother, a messiah, and treat her as untouchable. "You’re the best". "You’re my mother". "You’re the only one I listen to". It’s become this strange form of digital worship. And I’m not saying that to be cynical because I get why people do it. We’re all just trying to find someone to believe in. But when we put imperfect humans on pedestals like that, we set them up to become avatars for our own unmet needs.

We need to talk more about the cost of this internet idol culture. When people become brands, they stop being seen as people. They become symbols and mirrors for our fantasies. And in that process, our own discernment fades. We stop asking, "Is this true for me?" and start asking, "Who else agrees with this so I can feel safe thinking it too?" Suddenly, everyone is saying the same thing in different aesthetics, and no one wants to be the one to say, "Hey, this might be shallow".

And the scariest part? This groupthink often looks like empowerment, but it’s just another form of control, only this time it comes with soft music and good lighting.

We don’t need to cancel these women, and we don’t need to worship them either. We can just see them for what they are: people, not prophets. We can honor what they’ve contributed while also questioning what they’re selling. We can notice where we’re projecting our own longings onto someone else’s curated image. And most importantly, we can come back to ourselves.

If you feel yourself comparing, ask: Do I want her life, or do I want the feeling I think her life would give me? Because once you name that feeling, you can start building it: here, now, in your own lane, with your own voice.

That’s what I’m choosing to do. And if you’ve been feeling the same way, I hope you’ll join me.

[fatuismooches]

first of all, tysm for responding to my omega comfort ask, you delivered as always 🫶

I’ve been thinking abt a fragile reader who likes stealing parts of the segment’s outfits when they’re bored 🤩

Omega might struggle to find his mask one day, only to find you standing in front of a mirror, his mask on your face, proudly puffing out your chest and mocking his arrogant tone. He doesn’t interrupt, but watches, amused by your antics.

Maybe Beta will be scrounging around for his bow tie, muttering angrily, until he notices you sitting nearby, adjusting the fabric around your neck. You don’t see it, but he flashes an adoring smile your way 🥰

Also, could I be night anon? 🙏

All of your lovers had a great variety of clothes and stylistic choices spread across them. It would frequently send you into laughter when you saw someone like Beta standing next to Omega, but you truly did love them all the more for their eccentric choices. More importantly, there was no way you could pass up the opportunity to "borrow" such fashionable clothes! Seeing as Dottore and the segments were frequently busy, their clothes were a perfect source of comfort whenever you were bored or missing them, their warmth and lingering scent still remaining.

Omega's blue shirt, white coat, and gloves were the easiest articles to put on - if you spent time trying to put on all those other accessories, you'd tire yourself out before you even began. You had to hold the mask up to your face too, since it was too big to lock in behind your ears properly, and you couldn't even see, but it didn't matter since you had literally become the Doctor in that instance.

"I am first and foremost a scholar. As a scholar, I respect all possibilities." You quoted those lines that Omega loved to parrot and tried to match the level of his sassy scholarness, but unfortunately, you couldn't compare. Your evil laugh didn't even have that oomph to it either...

Little did you know that the segment himself was taking in the sight with amusement. Putting aside your questionable dialogue (which he would get you back for later), he admired how alluring you looked in his clothes. Ah, how wonderful it would be if he could return to you in only his clothes more often. Therefore, he was content to let you embarrass yourself for a while longer before he succumbed to his urge to touch you. You didn't even realize Omega was approaching until you felt a hand quickly turn your chin and guide your lips to his.

"While I find your problem-solving to be most entertaining, if you wanted to be closer to me, I have much better solutions in mind."

-

Beta's clothes, on the other hand, were much simpler to put on. The button-down white shirt was easy to toss on, and his coat was long and surprisingly soft. It would make a good blanket, you thought. Trying to make your eyes line up with the holes of Beta's mask was a chore, so you had discarded it to the side. But what really brought the whole thing together was the iconic pink bow tie, of course.

"He he ho ho." No, that just sounded wrong coming from you. "This bores me," you drawled, imagining the scurrying of some of his menials after the Harbinger lost interest in his latest project, all while perfecting your tug of the bow tie.

Beta's previous grumpiness is forgotten and replaced by his usual blank stare, where he takes in what he's watching while collecting his thoughts. It doesn't take long for him to break into laughter, which makes you practically jump in your seat. If anything, the segment would appreciate it if you could take control of his agents for a day. Perhaps you'd be more suited to the job than he is...

"If you really have nothing better to do, then come with me to my lab. ... No, I didn't say for you to take those off."

[ko-existing]

"Ego"

(initial Draft: 08.04., context: multiple Asks about Ego with misunderstandings)

There’s something deeply fascinating about the mental split people create when they talk about “the ego” like it’s this separate being they have to manage, tame, or silence. It’s a habit — one that becomes so normalized, people don’t even notice they’re doing it.

I unironically love this topic.

But if you actually stop and examine it, really look, it collapses. The idea of “having” an ego starts falling apart the moment you question who is supposedly having it. Who is the one speaking about it? Who is trying to fix it? Suddenly there’s no second entity — just a bunch of thoughts floating in what is labeled as "awareness", being labeled as “ego.”

You don’t need to believe me — please don’t, beliefs have no place here really. I always say: look for yourself. Don’t parrot words. Don’t adopt terms just because they’re popular in spiritual circles. See clearly, and it’ll be obvious — nothing needs fixing, and there’s nothing there to fix. The whole concept dissolves when you see through it on your own.

I’ve seen this so many times — people talking about “the ego” like it’s their desk neighbor in school. Like it’s some separate entity sitting next to them, actively making decisions, causing problems, sabotaging things.

If I — Bhasu — say something like “My ego is too loud today” or “I need to fix my ego because she’s too attached”, doesn’t that already sound odd if you actually stop and think about it? Who is this “ego” I’m referring to? And more importantly… who am I that’s talking about it?

There’s something really interesting that happens here. People speak of “ego” in the third person — not because it’s actually separate, but because it helps them feel like it is. It creates this illusion of distance. And in doing that, they place the blame “over there” — on the ego — as if that’s what’s causing suffering, and they are just the victim of it.

But this is exactly the trap: just because you speak about something like it’s “not you” doesn’t mean it’s real, or separate. If I said “My thoughts are attacking me,” would that make sense? Who is having the thoughts? Who’s observing them? And how are there two of me now?

What I’m pointing to is this: when people say “my ego,” they rarely stop to ask what that even means. They use the phrase because they’ve read it online, they’ve picked it up from someone else, and now they repeat it — without examining it.

But if you sat with the question — who am I actually talking about when I say “my ego” — you’d start to see: there’s nothing there. No separate entity. Just a string of thoughts appearing. And then another thought claiming it needs to fix the first one.

So what are you trying to fix? A mirage?

You end up running in circles trying to cure something that was never there to begin with.

[derww]

the thing that bugged me the most after watching the wormhole video is actually that we never got the proper ending for the main plot line that was in it: parrot and spoke's personal relationship.

even though spoke showed that conversation from the end of wormhole, where parrot stood in front of spoke, clutching the handle of the hyperion, and said that he refuses to let people down even if it means he has to sacrifice something very important to him, this does not answer the question hanging in the air. from the point of view of the narrator, after losing op, parrot seems to lose his autonomy, both as an antagonist and, more importantly, as spoke's best friend, after spoke himself talked almost exclusively about their friendship for an hour, both as characters and, first of all, as real people.

"i didnt just exploit a game, i exploited a friendship i had built over the years.". speaking about both parrot and mapicc, spoke mentions several separate times how much it went beyond just playing on the server, that he abused their real, actual relationship in order to achieve his goal. at the same time, spoke does not tell what happened between them – both characters and people – after him receiving an op. in the jungle part, parrot literally has almost no lines – he just stares and stares and stares and stares. until the very end of the story, he follows the path that spoke paved for him, living in the conditions created by spoke.

we see only glimpses that everything is actually – at least relatively – fine. not only because parrot continues to play within the game, but also how he complains to spoke about the unfairness of using teleportation and that after the season ending he even suggests for spoke to become the new lifesteal owner. grains that do not reflect full image. was parrot horrified and shocked, was he angry, at least for a moment, when he realized how far spoke's manipulation extended, did they have to somehow solve and discuss it, or was he immediately like, "wow, you made a lot of awesome moves, there will be cool content!" and everything was fine? sure, parrot loves risk moves and adrenalin, but wasnt it too far?

can it even be "okay" if your best friend has been manipulating you for months for a personal goal? does this cross the line of what is truly acceptable, even in a lifesteal setting? even if it's all for the sake of shared content, even if the community has the right mentality, even if no real harm has been done, even if you're willing to trust a friend that he won't cross the line, does all this change the fact that it's, in general morality, just plain cruel?

although this is undoubtedly too personal to just insert into the video, it should be noted when the whole story is about abusing irl friendship. although i absolutely understand this decision, this is by no means a critical review, from the point of view of storytelling it is strikingly incorrect, as if in the middle of writing a book the writer threw out all rules.

of course, this is an important conversation to be had on the whole – with the rules never mentioned out loud, with an unspoken agreement that everyone understands what's going on here and how, and what everyone is signing up for, when the price is friendship and connection, how far is it too far? lsers are friends, to a greater or lesser extent, but it's almost inappropriate to answer "everyone has their limits" when a relationship is at stake. everyone, including spoke himself, agrees that what he did in s4 was too much, but there were many, many other moments where everything was not so clear, and, moreover, there was no discussion, even in private, which never solves the essence of the problem.

lifesteal is not unique, but it is a very rare system in how far people can be willing to go in a war against others, despite the fact that everyone is friends: most of the pre–lifesteal stories of this approach took place on public servers and against strangers, and friends' servers either remained frivolous to one degree or another, or were scripted. post-lifesteal, many servers of a similar kind have appeared, but only a small part of them are comparable in terms of the proximity of the players and the rigidity of the approach, because it is incredibly difficult to simultaneously allow yourself to get involved as deeply as possible and, at the same time, having received a knife in the back, not want to bury the traitor underground. It's about trust, and it's about content, and it's so strikingly different for different people, and there's obviously no right answer here.

when playing league of legends, one of the important skills that every player needs to develop is not to tilt. at the same time, take the game seriously, but be ready to let go of defeat, no matter how much effort you put into the game. don't go crazy when you lose a line and die ten times, and jungler yells at you as the worst possible being. it took me a few years to stop tilting, and it carried over to minecraft too – where my friends got upset, angry, and gave up, i learned to just shrug my shoulders and try again. but that didn't teach me how to deal with betrayal, even in-game, because the worst thing about betrayal is that it always comes from someone close to you. not from an accidental co-player in a match, and not as a simple accident, but as an intention to harm, even if only in the game. it is a lot to take, and the cost is too high. and, while parrot and spoke are still good friends, parrot left owner role because of the distress it gave him, so doesn't it show the presence of a real impact.

i like that we got only half-truth tho. because it is who spoke is. when he needs you to believe him, he says something actually truthful, and then – his lie and manipulation, and you eat it because believe everything to be true. even now, spoke continues to metagame. he's fine with showing that he was a dick, and he's using that to cover a part he never wants to explain. and he wouldn't.

spoke tells the truth saying he liked to do the impossible, but it is not a full answer. while s4 ending was supposed to be a relief for him, an opportunity to stop lying and being a villain, there remains something else – not only the showdown, but the guilt, the realization that you were so wrong that you hide huge chunks and you refuse to get them for another year and a half. when everything ends, when there is nowhere else to run, reflection and awareness remain. a year and a half later, from the season 6, spoke can end the video on a positive note, but for that long-time spoke, who had just released the god from his body, covered with lightning scars everywhere, absolutely not feeling like a winner, it was a bad end, and perhaps for his character, it couldn't be good.

how old was spokeishere when he did all this, 16? there is an irony that he is the worldender, the trickster, the manipulator, and he's the youngest of them all. sometimes i want to call him dumb for not being careful enough or anything else but then i do remember how he played everyone in s4. not in a big picture, but in smalltalks, toying people while they thought him to be completely harmless. spokeishere being smart is like lifesteal having its unspoken rules – you need to be too attentive to see it. often it is like a... circles on the water. you can't see a fallen pebble, but you can see the waves radiating from it. and, in the end, he is the one who did it, who succeeded, and who am i to judge him?

minecraft roleplay can do something very wrong with you, how any acting sometimes can break you apart and turn inside out. because while you are letting yourself feel like it's real, it is, at some capacity, can be real. and while it is a known factor of being an actor, it's not something you do think about when you go to play a game with your friends. sometimes it changes something very, very important in you, and sometimes you look back on that experience and realize that it hurt you. or not. everyone has their unique experiences, as always.

also, we finally found out the reason the fishing spot was so important. not only a place of friendship but also a place of the exploiting! yay!

[utilitycaster]

But wouldn't you say that at least the fandom experience during c3 was a lot nicer than during c2? I mean, the characters all got along immediately so no room for unnecessary drama and no ship wars, I heard it was really toxic during c2 so I'm glad that c3 had none of it.

Anon, the polite answer to this that assumes you are very new to this fandom and blog and also, if I'm being honest, reality, is "No." Drama in a fandom is largely decoupled from whether the characters actually get along on screen (much like "I wish these characters would talk" is often decoupled from them actually talking and much more about whether they're talking about the thing OP wants them to talk about). More importantly, Campaign 3 had something far stupider and more unkind and insidious than ship wars, which is people harassing you for saying a ship simply wasn't very interesting. I would also say that one of the loudest voices in the area of fans who defend Campaign 3 claiming it's more toxic is specifically speaking about their very individual Twitter experience which I do not think is indicative of the larger fandom. I do think that C2 had more fans harassing the cast on Twitter, which on the one hand is far worse behavior; but it also kind of meant that the fandom on Tumblr, while not without ship warring, was somewhat quieter. I will also acknowledge that my own personal experience is heavily colored by the fact that I was new to the fandom in C2 and so did not have a significant following until late in the game, but Campaign 3 was rife with people who, as best as I can tell, serially show up to fandoms and attack whoever they perceive as popular, sometimes genuinely popular people and sometimes it's just someone who can eloquently string together meta they disagree with, and then when you hit back go "I'm just a little guy just a little birthday boy you're so MEAN." On Tumblr, at least, toxic C2 fans were easy to stop and frankly only turned post-hiatus and many of them prided themselves on not posting hate in the main tag (and quit the fandom altogether); toxic C3 fans have the tenacity and intellect of the average cockroach.

The real answer is: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA what PRIMORDIAL ROCK have you been under. Even if you believe everything the serial liar I suspect you are listening to said about C2 drama how did you miss ALL of C3 drama, especially on like, my blog specifically, as an initially unwilling participant who eventually, as discussed below, decided that if these wretched stochastic parrot morons wouldn't leave me alone I may as well pull out the metaphorical shotgun and make starting shit with me as unpleasant an experience as possible.

Look, I'm not going to pull up my posts in which I've called people by name since I don't think you will care and/or will consider those unnecessary drama, despite the genuine erosion I believe they have committed towards the quality of discourse through their bigotry, and lack of intellectual rigor, empathy, or ability to criticize things through any lens other than false accusations of the Leftist Epithet Du Jour (eg: calling Delilah Briarwood a colonizer, which is simply untrue). But also, starting from barely 6 months into Campaign 3 and continuing through the end, ie, this is three years now.

I personally got hate for saying "It is valid for Imogen to be mad at Laudna for breaking the gnarlrock, and moreover, I feel like Laudna is given more leeway for her behavior than almost any other past character" to the point that someone joined Tumblr only to block me and then stalk me and post about me in the discourse tag.

That eventually came to a head when they called me out by name for replying to a response on a post I had originally made in which I said "Imogen's powers aren't a good metaphor for queerness in that her lack of control actually causes real problems for other people," a statement that a lot of Imogen and Laudna shippers and fans are still to this day throwing fits about despite it being over two years ago.

Multiple people, including people who had lost friends or relatives young and at least one cancer survivor, were sent outright death threats for saying nothing harsher "I think the story is interesting if Laudna remains dead." Now, I was only a lurker when Molly died, and I know people quit or were mad and harassed the cast on Twitter, but the worst I saw on Tumblr were people either quitting, or being weird and annoying about prioritizing Molly over the captured party members and later being kind of dismissive of Caduceus as "temporary".

I was repeatedly harassed to the point of at least two individuals making multiple alternate accounts to reblog my posts or send hate to me and just random people who had interacted with said posts for saying "I don't think Imogen and Laudna is a very good ship"; while we're at it, ship wars are something I dislike but expect in fandom, but I cannot stress how fucking wretched a subset of Im/odna shippers were to the point that to this day they look at people who created genuine content and meta for a competing ship that was always tiny in comparison and have decided it was done purely out of bitterness.

In general, there was just an utter incapacity among many C3 fans to accept "I don't care for your blorbo/ship/campaign" as a post on one's own blog. I was talking with some like-minded friends yesterday and to this day, over a month and a half after the campaign ended, actually a decent amount of people who liked Campaign 3 have almost identical criticisms (pacing, not following on a number of character centric-threads, lack of inter-character interactions, a resolution that is intriguing but was poorly set up, cutaways to other parties at inopportune times, and generally the campaign feeling like they put out all the ingredients on the table and said "here's a finished cake.") but it's fine if they say it, because they preface it with "I loved Campaign 3 and Bells Hells, but." In the end a lot of C3 fans will just attack if you don't think Bells Hells are great and the best. Again I am not naming names but there are even multiple people who openly prefer Campaign 2 by a margin but avoid this criticism simply by being like "Campaign 3 is also really really good, although [same list of criticisms I have]"; see lack of intellectual rigor and analysis. I think it's actually a very simple split: C2 is my favorite because the campaign allowed the characters so much leeway to interact and change and grow that they became my blorbos, whereas I would have liked to have liked BH more but the campaign was ill-suited for them and they didn't really talk.

At least Campaign 2 people wanted their stuff to be canon, and threw fits because it wasn't. Campaign 3 people are like BUT THE 20 HOUR SUPERCUT?????? and cannot accept that they have a canon ship that some people find dull or a blorbo some people think isn't a great person. If someone is mad about not getting something in the story, that's fandom as usual, it's irritating but it's life. Many campaign 3 fans cannot tolerate a whisper of dissent with their opinions without shitting themselves and making it everyone's problem. I know multiple people whom I followed during Campaign 2 for their meta who straight up stopped writing it because if you said anything even mildly critical of Campaign 3 you'd get hate. Campaign 2 harassment on Tumblr was something that largely ended shortly after story beats that proved one person right; Campaign 3 harassment was unending unless you either bow to the people sending it and say "I'm sorry for saying anything other than that your blorbo and ship is perfect," stop posting, or, and I'm really the only person who took this route, make it clear that you can and will hit back ten times harder.

So no: I found the Campaign 3 fandom on Tumblr specifically uniquely toxic because it fell outside of normal fandom toxicity. I think Campaign 2 toxic fans were deeply shitty, but they largely left and I think their unpleasantness is mostly confined to a fandom space and did not degrade the conversation; I think at least some Campaign 3 toxic fans are both genuinely stupid and genuinely bad people who are a negative influence on the fandom at large and I hope we recover during a hypothetical C4; I am cautiously optimistic if only because I think on the basis of mutual blocking they have largely self-selected out and will exist in their own weird echo chamber.

I will also note at this point my criticism of Campaign 3 is almost entirely untagged both as discourse and main and almost entirely either reblogs, or in response to asks such as this one. To be transparent, while I'm sure some critiques will arise as I work through my C2 rewatch I plan on keeping them again, untagged such that only followers, people who follow people who reblog such critiques (not many, I usually get mostly likes on those), and people looking at my blog specifically. I think it will taper off, particularly since a lot of C3 fans had little interest in anything else CR has done.

And finally: again speaking only for myself I'd rather have a brilliant campaign with a toxic fandom, where I can minimally participate in the fandom by reblogging posts I like and enjoy myself with a great show and a handful of likeminded fans in a discord (indeed this is kind of what I do for Veilguard), than a mediocre campaign with a delightful fandom. As demonstrated "it's eh but the people are nice" is not, for me, a defense of Campaign 3 but further condemnation of its quality, and then the people weren't even nice and were in fact in my estimation far worse than those from Campaign 2.

Anyway: I just want to put this out there but I am vanishingly unlikely to be swayed on anything by an anonymous ask. If you want to actually have a chance you better be saying what you say with your whole chest. But also, this is just. Extremely wrong, and you have a very incorrect read on what I personally value in addition to having a poor understanding of the CR fandom history on Tumblr but another problem about the C3 fandom? I got a lot of asks like this one where I cannot tell if the person is just naive to the point of not even realizing how little they know, or if they're trying to be manipulative but are exceedingly bad at it.

[davekat-sucks]

i really hate how people fake claim vriska being groomed “oh well she’s is an abuser so i don’t care if she got groomed! she deserves it!” you can hate someone without fake claiming or saying they deserve their trauma

The thing is, there's a glaring double standard in how the fandom treats certain characters.

People will bend over backwards to excuse Vriska’s abusive behavior by labeling her a "victim of the system" or an "innocent minor who didn’t know better" or "a WOMAN suffering from PATRIARCHY (lives in an alien matriarchy)" stripping her of agency and responsibility in the process. And while I do believe she didn’t deserve the grooming and manipulation she endured (whether from Scratch or, more disturbingly and literally sexual, Meenah) this kind of empathy is rarely extended to characters like Eridan or Gamzee who are demonized instead (despite the two of them also being minors and killing less people than she did). Or, even more importantly and worse, even less so to actual clear-cut victims of highblood power abuse like Tavros OR Meulin, who get ignored because they are not fan favorites like Vriska or Karkat.

Because you also see this also happening with karkat in hs2, why does HE get to be victimized and pitied, despite being a piece of abusive shit based on fucking che guevara, while jade and rose are vilified and outright textually dismissed as "whiny bitches that didn't have it as bad as he did" from their trauma because they are "annoying desperate whores/cheaters" and both get shot through the head and maybe even worse later. same goes for jane, the rethoric hs2 presents is that she deserves to be retconned into what she became because she was apparently "conservative" or some shit in the original, and now there goes karkat saying she deserves to have her severed head be mutilated further because she's female trump I guess.

And the bullshit excuse that “Karkat had it worse because he’s a mutant” falls really flat when karkat or vriska's worst stans show zero sympathy for Kankri, who likely was culled since he didn't have a lusus like karkat was gifted, but is dismissed for being preachy, annoying, or literally just for being a male character and thus somehow beneffiting from the patriarchy.

Which is it? is karkat the ultimate victim for being mutant? or does he hold power because he's a man, and thus nonsensically benefits from some nonexistant patriarchy, like kankri?

It’s not about justice or consistency, it’s about character bias. People only defend a character when it fits their preferred narrative, and so they can woobify their abusive faves.

otherwise where is vriska apologizing for the worst shit she did? creating bec noir and giving jade's narcolepsy? nowhere, because people either forgot that was actually the worst thing she did, and the writers fucking hate jade. so this "vriska went through TRAUMA" shit is disingenuous and just as yet another excuse to make vriska relevant and retcon her as a good person again, despite being one of the most awful trolls in the comic.

(meenah is also there grooming karkat too and getting scot free with everything she did to vriska, damara and everyone in her session btw).

That’s why you also get ridiculous insane takes like "Latula is taking advantage of Mituna" or "Kankri is an abusive asshole stalker" or "Rufioh deserved to have his lusus killed and beaten down until he becomes quadriplegic, and then his head cut off and put into a horsebody" while Kurloz, who canonically hurt Mituna and Meulin and is manipulating both of them, is ignored. Porrim’s canon pale harassment and assault of Kankri (because hs2 karkat literally said shooshing someone in public like he did to gamzee is scandalous) is downplayed, outright erased, or even celebrated. And Karkat's blatant sexism in calling women "unmarried wombs" and all sorts of insults towards jade and rose until he makes them cry is forgiven or not picked on.

but hey, all fandom repeats like a parrot is that cronus is a piece of shit and mituna's abuser, and porrim said kankri asked for it for being annoying, so she MUST be right because she's an epic feminist, despite not being able to do something as basic as respecting boundaries or take no for an answer. also let's ship meulin with HER abuser kurloz, despite it being the same fucking shit as gamrezi. feminism i fucking guess.

TLDR: vriska didn’t deserve the shit she went through just because she was obnoxious or harmful.

but by the same logic, Kankri didn’t deserve to be harassed by Porrim just because he’s socially awkward and preachy. Rufioh didn’t deserve the harassment and abuse from either Horuss or Damara just because he’s immature or a pushover. those two also didn't deserve to be cheated on for being annoying. rose didn't deserve to be abused until she cries, jade didn't deserve to be verbally abused by karkat because he's an incel. we need to be consistent in how we talk about abuse and trauma, not just excuse or condemn it based on who we like more.

Selective empathy isn’t activism, it’s favoritism dressed up as moral high ground.

Everything here is perfect, Anon. Thank you.

[big-mean-trans-dyke]

I want to see TERFrape on TV, every channel, every genre.

I want it played for Comedy: Some poor TERF screaming as she's bounced on a thick, veiny girldick, maybe reading off a prompter and parroting all her old rhetoric, maybe proclaiming how she'd never submit to a trans woman just in time to squirt all over the girl's lap, and warning a laugh track either way.

A Mystery movie hinging on a TERF who was violently raped in an alley, beaten and left bleeding and leaking cum from every hole in a dumpster, found the next day by some sympathetic cuntgirl on her way to work. She goes to the police, and the second act of the movie follows the detectives taking DNA samples, investigating the crime scene, and tracking down the cruel rapist. At the end of the second act, she's brought into the police station so she can spend the entirety of the third retraumatizing her victim, with the help of the kind officers.

A Historical piece, laid out almost as a reality show. We follow a transfem who lives out a month in the life most transfems did years earlier, toiling away at a 9-5 working for cissies for a barely liveable wage. The cis actors are told it's a legitimate workplace, of course, a new initiative to start bringing transfems down again. Our transfem is, of course, paid a huge sum of money for her month of sacrifice, and there's an hour and a half at the end of the documentary in which they portray the revolution with our transfem character marching up to her bosses office, forcing her to her knees, and then spending the rest of the movie raping, humiliating, and dominating her coworkers. She gets to keep them after the movie too, of course. Can't have them forgetting their place ever again.

Maybe there's a War drama, much more traditional and focused on a transfem duo making their way through the horrors of war, with the extra little bonus of gratuitous scenes of their claiming the prizes of conquest, raping enemy soldiers, pissing on POWs, hiring cuntgirl prostitutes only to beat them afterwards and take their money back.

And of course, most importantly of all, Romance. A TERF, clad in a gorgeous, pristine white veil, a beautiful white collar around her neck. Makeup running down her face, clearly once as beautiful as the scraps of clothing she's allowed to wear, now totally ruined. She kneels, naked aside from her veil and collar, at the altar, across from her transfem wife-to-be. She'd been reluctant at first, they always are at the beginning of these movies. But after a beautiful, brutal, ruthless, three day long dating period, she's grown fond of her new partner. "You may now kiss the bride", comes the priest's voice, and the broken TERF leans in, breathless, to make out with her new Goddess's asshole.

Truly, it's subject matter that belongs in any and every genre, and it's just the kind of thing that would help cissies remember their place.

[xandertheundead]

José umbrella isn’t actually magicand doesn’t have the ability to be several instruments in one object.

José is a parrot.

Parrots use their tongues for all sorts of fun things, but most importantly for mimicking.

He can mimic all of those instruments perfectly with ease. It was only when he started playing around with the umbrella that someone thought he was magically playing the ukulele on it and boy, did he get a kick out of that!

He kept the ruse going, loving how confused Panchito and Donald would get when they tried to strum on his umbrella and got nothing in return. He even offered lessons to Panchito one time, entertained for being the only one to understand his dirty innuendo.

Year later, he broke the news to his friends, smiling when Donald took it in stride and Panchito looked crestfallen.

“Ah, Paco. Don’t be too sad.” He would coo, moving to nuzzle under the Rooster’s jaw. “I can still teach you, if you’d like, but maybe somewhere more private, não?”

He always knew the best ways to cheer his friends up.

[lolli-popples]

hihello i saw ur raven martyn thing and. yes. but also WHAT ARE THE THEMATIC REASONS. PLEASE. TO DYING TO KNOW. i havent watched his pov (...yet) so i have no fucking clue what they are but i desperately need to know🙏🙏 /silly

There's a lot of different reasons why ravens work for Martyn thematically!

1- Ravens are known for their intelligence and problem-solving skills in real life, which I think applies well to Martyn, he's quite keen.

1.5- Adding to that, in folklore specifically, ravens are often trickster-type heroes, solving problems with intelligence and ingenuity over innate strength, luck, or kindness. But they're also often greedy and hasty in their decision making, which caused them to make foolish mistakes. (Again- relates back to Martyn, he's very quick in his thinking, but he's also very quick in his thinking XD)

2- This is a short one, ravens like shiny things, similar to crows. Martyn tends to heavily abide by the concept of the "5-finger discount" in any series where that's allowed.

3- Ravens are seen as ominous and magical. Martyn generally plays quite mysterious characters, whose motives are unclear to eternal parties. (And he has lore that specifically gives him a goal that cannot be explained to others. Stuff relating to portals, the "multiverse" in a way, powerful artifacts. Technically that's all technology and has to do with being in a game, but to the characters who don't have a meta view of their world, it'd be magical.)

4- Ravens are seen as omens of death and chaos. Feels self-explanatory. That man causes problems for a living.

5- Ravens have an incredible mimicry. They aren't as good as parrots, but they are able to mimic other animals and a lot of sounds in human speech. Martyn is very vocal, with his songs, puns, and general charisma, so a bird with a good memory and the ability to mimic other things is an obvious choice for representing him.

6- Now, a lot of these factors ALSO apply to crows. So why isn't Martyn a crow? Or just any type of corvid? Well, crows (and a good amount of other corvids) are very social birds that live in large groups. (If you live around crows then you know there usually a LOT of them at once. I live in an area with lots of crows AND owls, and you frequently hear DOZENS of crows all screaming and flying after at a singular owl.) Anyways, ravens are considered generally solitary, but are also still quite social with each other. Which I think represents Martyn very well. He gets on great with everyone- but is often just wandering around by himself. Even when he's in an alliance in something life the life series or a group like with the Kestrals in Pirates SMP.

So yeah. Symbolically I think ravens work pretty well with Martyn's character.

But more importantly Philza has crow associations and that's funny.

[nitpick7]

okay so i just caught up on uu finally and i have become somehow even less normal about parrot. specifically about how he is incapable of working in a team anymore. and i. i'm sure someone has pointed this out before but i can't stop talking about it so

okay his first video was mostly him on his own but he was not at all opposed to teaming. he actually actively tried to get people to work with him. he would do shit alone if he had to and still always believed he was right, but he was reasonably quick to trust people and more than willing to team if he could. not at all... whatever he is now.

second video is wifies we all know how that went

they are dating

how is parfies actually not canon i'm. they're so.

anyway, importantly, parrot can always trust wifies 100% of the time from now on. except when they break up but like we'll get there ok

okay hold on this is a long post sorry i am hiding the rest under the cut

then wifies chunkban uhoh!!! parrot tries to break wifies out alone because he's gay and stupid but when that doesn't work he immediately tries to assemble a team. it's specifically people he knows he can trust on this mission, but still. he recruits people, breaks them out of prisons, trusts them to help in the process. and it works. this is important. the team works. (a couple people don't want to join and fantst chunkbans himself, but the team works.)

then we have the brief (two 3 hour long videos) interlude where he's getting hunted down by clownpierce and i haven't actually rewatched that bit so i don't really have thoughts about it? but. there's the reverse prison bit. where his team is supposed to protect him but they just leave him there to die the moment it gets difficult. wifies is the only one who sticks by him because again, they're gay. but parrot lets himself get used as bait for this trap and the team essentially betrays him. he puts his trust in them and they break it. this is important actually.

i remember more of this bit than i thought

parrot almost kills branzy. that's probably relevant but i haven't quite figured out why yet. probably something about wifies. it's always something about wifies.

then we get proton. i love proton i think i've actually rewatched it twice?? proton is one of the last instances of parrot successfully executing a plan as part of a team. even then, it's rocky. ken almost betrays, egg is missing, they don't have enough elytra, they have to leave ken behind. proton barely works.

parrot's abnormal amounts of trust issues and paranoia lead him to Thousands (Millions? I Forgor) Of Blocks Out In The End. end civ! does not fucking work. it all falls apart and people are trying to tear it apart the whole time anyway. they put in so much effort for nothing. also they know about invis mafia now soooooo that does not help anything

mining civ or whatever?? uh???? look i was Not paying attention during that one i think i was literally dying my hair and told my irl (who was watching with me) to tell me if anything important happened while i wasn't looking.

important part is that luigi fucking died. parrot keeps caring about people and terrible things keep happening to them. aha

BUT THEN THE SEARCH FOR FARLANDS CIV AND THAT'S WHERE EVERYTHING STARTS REALLY FALLING APART

wifies not wanting to trust dean really fucks with parrot i think. because these are the two people he cares the most about and they do not seem to want to cooperate ever. wifies is actually weirdly sus for the entire video, i remember that. wifies and dean both. but parrot wants to trust dean. he really wants to. so he ignores wifies warnings until it is far too late.

dean betrays them and i think that shattered parrot's ability to fully trust anyone ever again. he leaves wifies behind and everything. he is having a certified Horrible Time.

actual farlands civ is. bad. bad for parrot. very. it gives him a reason to not trust teams anymore. like yeah he has to be the main character of divergent or something and Unite The Farmers And Warriors! but every single one of the warriors is stupid and they keep sending him out on suicide missions. parrot thinks he's better than them, that his plans are better than theirs, and he's right. this does not help any issues. he's completely right, in this situation, to be paranoid and untrusting and to go against their plans. and then they try to kill him about it so that does NOT help.

and i didn't even MENTION horace. how horace didn't even want to let parrot join because parrot keeps getting horace's builds blown up. how horace said that to his face. how that just contributed to parrot thinking that everything he touches will fall apart.

first war and doomsday uh um. yeah. district 13... doesn't go well. farlands civ also didn't go well but we've been over that. district 13 is what matters here.

the moment things start going wrong, everyone leaves him. parrot places his trust in spoke for one second and spoke doesn't deliver on his promise to find the stasis chambers and every single person leaves him for the mafia. (except wifies. wifies is always the exception.)

ok chat i have to go to bed i'll finish this in the morning (let's see if i leave this in. probably will.)

i'm back. wow i left off at such a moment.

wifies fucking dies.

the one person parrot could always trust. the one person who always had his back. the one person parrot could work with. did they have a perfect relationship? not by any means. but they trusted each other. and wifies died for him. and it's really like the second time this has happened because the chunkban was essentially the same thing, but this time parrot can't do anything about it. he can't save wifies this time.

and yeah he... sort of manages to work with wemmbu, spoke, and co. to take down the mafia. but he mostly just leaves that to them.

parrot's first season 2 episode fucking destroyed me as a person 😁

it's the culmination of everything that has ever gone wrong. all this shit has been happening to him; friends dying, teammates betraying, having to leave people behind, teams falling apart. and now every person that has supported him thus far is gone. not just gone, dead. any semblance of a support system he once had is shattered.

and parrot's never been good at... listening to people, valuing other opinions, admitting when he's wrong, caring about people (especially in a non destructive way), trusting anyone. wifies was the only thing keeping him in check. (we all know how dysfunctional their relationship is and this is the one moment i will admit that part of canon is real. i prefer to pretend parfies is good and happy fjgshbshs)

so now wifies is gone and parrot just goes. fully solo. he's on his batman arc or something he works alone he does not need anyone he can do everything on his own. he's just full paranoia and distrusting everything. that chest that detects when people enter his base was fucking insane he's so far gone at this point

and then leo. leo and co. show up and save parrot and make him join their team, they give him a room, they make him feel valued... and in standard main character fashion, parrot doesn't know how to deal with that. he doesn't know how to let people care about him, he doesn't want to because only bad things ever happen to the people he's close to.

he self destructs so bad. like yeah going behind their backs to modify the trap is pretty bad but to be fair he thinks he's doing the right thing there. he just is currently incapable of trust so he doesn't tell anyone and it makes everything go to shit, which gives him more reasons to think he can't trust anyone else to be competent... but that's not the worst of it

bat gets mad at him, justifiably, but parrot is so fucking deep in his paranoia and untrusting behavior that he just fucking. shuts them out. he doesn't even remotely realize why his actions were wrong and instead thinks that bat are in the wrong here. they try to contact him and instead he breaks his inbox and shuts the blinds on his room.

side note, the shot of just his room covered in lava is really sad but also kind of hilarious i keep thinking about it

at this point the only thing that can make parrot come back to his senses (well. that implies he ever had them.) is a miracle. and this miracle comes in the form of itz trying to kill him. because parrot CANNOT HAVE NICE THINGS??????

but unfortunately this is like the only thing that could fix him at this point. he needs to see that he cannot work alone. he keeps trying to work alone and then people (rightfully) don't let him but then he gets all "ugh it would've gone better if you weren't here" because he's stupid, but no one can disprove that idea because they never let him be alone in stuff. so itz attacking him while he's completely alone in the base is exactly what he needed.

i'm never gonna be normal about parrot trapped alone in a box he put himself in, less than 10 blocks from escaping the airlock, even fewer from dying to itz, whispering a plea for help.

he realizes he can't do this shit alone. and he doesn't have to. because jumper's spies saw his situation and called for backup, and derapchu gets him out and then all of bat shows up and now parrot knows that he needs them, but more importantly that they are always there for him.

ignore his third episode it is not real and cannot hurt me

okay his second s2 episode though?? with mr cube hunting him down??? parrot and derap's friendship means so much to me. where's that fucking quote... "if you want people to see you differently, you have to see yourself differently." it means so much to me. parrot is making connections and forming relationships again, he's trusting and helping people and it's just. so incredible.

parrot's third episode is not real and cannot hurt me.

(... although the fact that parrot is at all willing to trust jumper after everyone tried to kill him, and after she sort of betrayed him once, is crazy. the old parrot would've immediately given up on bat after that, but this time he's actually trying to prove himself to them and get back on the team.)

(also parchu friendship is so good, derapchu was so obviously not on board with killing parrot for the entire video, they mean so much to me)

so like. parrot's never been good at trust. or teams. but he's clearly making an active effort to be better now. he's still very much not perfect, but he's better.

okay yeah that is um. about all. ahahahahahhahaha yeah parrot's season 2 so far has destroyed me i'm kind of insane about it. if you made it to the end of my incomprehensible ramble i love you thank you and you are awesome

[crazyintheeast]

Chappell Roan is the epitome of why liberals keep failing in USA . She is the most stereotypical internet liberal . Someone who doesn’t understand politics and more importantly someone who absolutely refuses to learn and correct themselves ever . We see people like her all the time online . Liberals who live for the drama , who shout and rage but don’t actually do anything in real life . Sure they might go to a protest because again drama but actually becoming part of their local political landscape ? Run for office ? Volunteer ? Nope . They almost never do. In fact you can barley get them to vote

They see politics through the lenses of movies , where you if you shout long and hard enough and do some frantic gestures the opticians bow down and the good guys win . And as soon as their scenario doesn’t happen they immediately quit and refuse to do anything because in their kinds this will “teach the politicians a lesson . It will hold them accountable “ . We saw it with Obama as they handed control to the senate when he magically didn’t solve their problems , we saw in 2016 when they handed the country and the Supreme Court to Trump because their idol Bernie didn’t get elected . And no we see it again with people like Roan and her kind who think it’s more important to criticise dmeocrsts then then sheer horrifying evil and threat of Trump and Vance

And when you point this fact they always parrot the exact same type of strawmen “OMG YOU WANT US TO WORSHIP THE DEMOCRATS AND BLINDLY FOLLOW THEM ? “ or “I AM HOLDING THE POLITICIANS ACCOUNTABLE. THEY NEED TO EARN MY VOTE “ and then they tend to have a meltdown and get very self righteous .

This is bullshit of course . If they lived in a normal country you could do it. You could vote for a third or fourth partu and then on the second tour of elections the President would be force to make alliance with this party and incorporate them into the government. But USA is not a normal country . Here you have ONLY TWO CHOICES when it comes to President . Horrifying evil or a typical politicians .

And I can practically feel some of your exploding to parrot the accountability line again. . You can hold them accountable . You can do it by writing to your representative, by voting in primaries , by supporting candidates who represent your views . Chappell Roan could have easily done that . She could have supported pro Palestinian candidates who got ahnilated by the Zionist lobbies , she could have constantly told people to write their representatives, she could have hosted benefits for pro Palestinian candidates . Hell she is rich enough she could have hired her own lobby firm to lobby for Palestine . But that would mean actually getting involved into the cruel and deeply boring and dirty world of politics . So instead jsut like all those internet armchair liberals she just complained online , gave some symbolic donations that might help individual Palestinians but do nothing about the political situation and called it a day

And most of you who support her are like this . You want solution to the problems but instead demanding specific actions and doing the hard , very slow and ungrateful job of doing the step by step work you about into the void some vague demands about change , stol genocide etc and act like you are above politics . Yeah that’s not how it works . If you want to be vague and bullshit your way through politics you vote blindly for the lesser evil ( yes evil in the only option in politics . There is not good ) like the sheep you claim to hate or if you want real change you get detailed and world hard

Yes I know the vast majority of tik tok / Twitter liberals and Roan fans won’t actually bother even finishing what I wrote and would just write some dismissive nonsense or parrot some random line they think it’s wittty . And the rest would ignore the entire point and go on about how Roan is a good person who cares missing the entire point . It doesn’t matter if you are a good person or how much you care about the issue . The only thing that matters is whether you help or not . Right now the ONLY way you can help and is to vote like your life depends on it and insist that everyone you know votes as well and about how dangerous Vance and Trump are . The biggest piece of shit who votes and takes a stand against Trump and Vance is doing more to help the world then the most saintly caring liberal who goes on about both sides and does random tik tok world salsa where they threat voting like some annoying chore

And lastly remember. EVRY VOTES MATTERS even if you are in a red state . Bush won by 500 votes

[non-stick-pansexual]

ugh. one of my friends today told me that they were upset that Neal Shusterman, a Jewish and Ukrainian YA dystopian author (who I happen to quite like due to the themes explored in his work), supports Israel, and that they stopped reading a book halfway through and would donate all their books by him. Which just makes me so upset and angry for multiple reasons.

First and most importantly, Neal has NOT expressly stated his support for Israel!! From everything I can find, all he’s guilty of is saying that people are too quick to have a simple mindset for a complex issue (which I agree with) and that everyone, Israeli, Palestinian, Jewish and Muslim, deserves empathy (which I also agree with). And he said this IN A PRIVATE NEWSLETTER!! They’re acting like he’s some Kahanist, genocidal colonizer, or whatever. At MOST, he doesn’t think that Israel should be destroyed. Apparently a controversial opinion for a public figure to have, I guess.

Second— if I were to guess, they probably got their ‘Neal Shusterman is a Zionist’ idea from one of those idiotic “Zionist authors/artists list”, which tend to be lists of almost just Jewish artists, most of whom have done little to nothing to outwardly display their zionist beliefs, if they even have them! This makes me even more upset, because if they don’t consume media from Neal Shusterman, I can only imagine that they’re also blocking out a bunch of other Jewish authors and artists, which just makes me sad and angry.

It’s SO easy to find out Neal’s stated beliefs on Israel and Palestine because it’s the FIRST THING that comes up when you google it, and he’s only ever said 1 thing about it. I’m so mad at my friend for their gullibility, their blind parroting of antisemitic notions. I expected better, but I guess I probably shouldn’t have. They’re one of my closest friends, and I haven’t talked to them about this but I hardly think I can change their opinion.

I don’t know how to describe how I feel. Idk if I’m allowed to be as upset as I am. I don’t want to be this upset at someone this close to me over a passing comment, but it’s so FRUSTRATING.

Sorry, all— I know this isn’t a big deal for most of you~ this happens all the time, but I just weirdly thought I was immune, or something. Just hit a little too close to home is all.