#and that i was done socializing for the rest of the year

[laser-tripwires]

the way that sophie doesn't understand eliot because she is, by nature, a shapeshifter. any part of herself that she doesn't like, she can change, up to the point which her identity loses meaning completely. whereas eliot can't change the way she does so he instead has to/chooses to live with the things he has done. the way sophie can be separated from her past because she has changed and eliot can't because, in so many ways, he is still the same

so, full disclosure, this post has sat in my drafts for literal years because i was trying to think of a good response. i think one can go even deeper with this.

you're missing one key detail, and it's the one everyone misses when they analyse sophie. well, don't miss entirely, but it's the one everyone kinda seems to leave unsaid even if they contradict it. sophie can read people. she can read people extremely fucking well, and her default social interaction mode is manipulation. in the original series this is a skill overshadowed by nate's ability to do the same thing, but by redemption it's been suddenly retconned to be sophie's main skill and it's a testament to the og show's writing that that doesn't seem out of place. sophie can read people extremely fucking well.

so no, she doesn't understand eliot. but it's not quite just because of their differences in personal identity; there's also the fact that sophie gets an extremely accurate view of the person eliot is, but not quite the depths of the emotional intelligence eliot has.

it's why i love that scene in tap-out so much - you see soph making an assumption, buying into the read of eliot that they'll later use as a weapon in the con, and eliot steps back slightly to talk her through why she's wrong. but sophie's sophie - she reads people really well. she did pick up on eliot's pain in that scene, but her own view of the world slotted it into a different root than the one that was really there.

actually! you wanna hear something really fun that i realised last time i rewatched almost paradise? in that show, christian kane's character, alex, has a moment in a random fight scene in season two where he chucks a dude over a railing and makes an "oops that dude's dead" face. eliot never does that, the closest we get is the wedding job i guess, but... i lie. he does do that wince, and it's in the opener to season three. eliot chucks a guy into traffic and makes that same face.

and, of course, that sequence doesn't actually happen. it's just sophie's telling of a story to nate. it's the first time we unambigously see eliot kill someone, and it's in a story told by sophie.

see where i'm going with this?

she's dramatising. but she's dramatising in a way that i don't think eliot ever would, because in real life eliot isn't that sloppy and accidentally killing someone is a bigger deal than that. leverage exists in a magic universe where bonking people on the head is always nonfatal, shh it's fine.

just... not to sophie, apparently. not to little miss "spikes a diplomat's drink in order to induce a potentially deadly anaphylactic response as a distraction" sophie devereaux. do i think sophie's ever actually killed someone? probably not, and she clearly has stronger boundaries about this than the rest of the team (see last dam), but i also think in not having that darkness, she misses the softer lines that the others tread. especially eliot. that was true then - look at their conversations in the real fake car job - and it's still true now. sophie harbours a lot of guilt about a lot of things, but in contrast to eliot, all her regrets are to do with collateral damage. never direct harm.

bringing it back to sophie more broadly (i will start talking about eliot give me a minute) it's not really just that sophie has changed. a LOT of her has stayed the same.

oh, sure, she is a creature of change, she shreds names and identities like they're second skins. she has spent most of her adult life stuck in a toxic cycle of thinking that running away will fix things, and it's only recently (and by "recently" i really do mean "recently", like, after the muddy waters job recently) that she's prperly broken that loop. but there's a lot about her that's the same as it's always been.

she is a creature of change but that change is a constant, and it's only in ceasing to change - in finding a family, in falling in love, in putting down roots, in deciding to never fully start again but instead to just keep going - that sophie finally achieved her redemption.

so you're right about her, but you're wrong, too. she changes, and she doesn't, and it's in change that she stops changing, and that's what earns her redemption.

...and the thing with eliot, right, is that you're correct - he has been a similar person to who he is now for a very long time. including when he was killing people, which is something i think people gloss over. the eliot we have now is basically just that eliot minus the depression and plus some found family.

actually, by the by, this is what makes the "the white hat doesn't suit you" line from the big bang job so damn good. and "he prefers beer" is the scariest goddamn line in the show because we've been hearing all season about moreau's atrocities and now we find out that eliot is the kind of person to casually hang out with that sort of employer. that's chilling. our eliot has worked so hard for restitution, arguably too hard once we reach redemption. but this is spoken by someone who knows the stuff eliot is seeking restitution FROM, certainly better than we the audience do. and that's why this is so damn terrifying. think about who eliot is, a personality that's still the same and that moreau knows. how can the white hat suit a man like eliot, how can doing the good thing fit a guy with those oceans of blood on his hands?

so, we have literal concrete proof that at his worst eliot still preferred the same drinks, still made friends, still probably laughed and smiled. it'd be all too easy to just imagine him as a completely cold-hearted monster, and while that might've been what was at his core back then, on the surface? he was still the same person. news flash, kids, depression isn't always obvious. "he prefers beer" is the most spine-chilling line in the entire show, because it means eliot was happy to laugh with these people, to drink with them, to let his quirks slip through and be who he is.

eliot opens up in different ways with different people - look at his conversation with shelly, for example, and how that banter wouldn't have come up with the team. it makes you wonder exactly what jokes got told, exactly what blood got washed off of his hands before life as normal continued.

the person eliot was and the person eliot is might be very different people in terms of actions, but in terms of personality? i think eliot said it best in french connection; "Different guy. [...] Same bad attitude, though."

watch him, in the early episodes of the show, in season three when he's going through the wringer in secret. eliot does a lot of bantering and joking around without really actually opening up - he's not guarded, not in the same way someone like sophie is, but he is a human being with a lot of layers.

and people underestimate him! as nate says, that's kind of the point, but it's damn relevant here if we're gonna talk about how sophie percieves eliot, which i believe is at least partly what i intended for this post to be about.

so sophie changes, all of the time. she achieves redemption by learning when to stop changing, by finding a life and a name she is comfortable in. i will forever love that scene in crowning achivement where astrid asks sophie what her real name is and sophie tells her it's sophie devereaux, because... it is, now.

but eliot? it's not that he can't change, that he hasn't changed. his personality has stayed largely the same, but his actions and choices are extremely different now to what they used to be. but "bad choices are bad choices", see, and "they eat you up inside. and you don't even notice."

eliot's not stuck with being the person he was. he makes different choices now, but he'll always be the guy who did those things. he'll always know why he did them, and he'll always have to sit with the uncomfortable truths that lie beneath that.

can eliot be redeemed? i don't know. but his journey is not sophie's, and you're right - they're two people trapped in extremely different prisons of causality.

[capcollector]

☀️🎰OTP Vibes Game: Swank x Arisbeth🎰🌙

tagged by @uptownlowdown! and with a special request for swankbeth specifically😌

i tag @tinytorchlight @wtftaylr @somethingaboutmint and whoever else sees this and wants to do it! pls feel free to say i tagged you i’d love to see what yall do :) and no pressure ofc this is just for fun

Rules: Post some pictures of your OTP and their vibes, some info, and songs that fits their vibe.

INFO:

Arisbeth grew up the only child in a family trading caravan, a childhood she often considered rather lonely, but she learned to entertain herself by singing the songs she heard on the radio and mimicking the dances she found on old holotapes. This fascination with old world music and dance soon became a passion, and by the time she was a young adult, she had her heart set on living under the bright lights of the newly-formed New Vegas Strip. 

Swank is a member of The Chairmen—a tribe formerly known as the Mojave Boot-Riders—and his days now consist of managing the casino. It’s a change he’s still getting used to, but Swank is nothing if not loyal to his family, so he’ll do his best to adjust and not rock the boat too much, even if he has some less-than-pleasant thoughts on the whole situation. 

Arisbeth looks at New Vegas through rose-tinted glasses, but when she spots Swank through the lobby window of The Tops on her way to work at Gomorrah, it’s like she’s seeing clearly for the first time. She is smitten immediately—he’s got the face and smile of the heartthrobs she used to see in the old magazines and records she used to collect. Even if she is a performer, Arisbeth is unbelievably shy in social interactions, and it isn’t until she strikes up a friendship with other Chairmen member (and fellow performer) Tommy Torini that she’s able to say hello to Swank. With their mutual friend suggesting they go out for drinks and see where the night takes them, the rest is history.

A starry-eyed romantic and a dependable cynic. Arisbeth and Swank fit into the other’s idiosyncrasies and attributes well, and over the next several years help each other adjust to life on the Strip. Swank’s attitude helps ground Arisbeth more, allows her to view the Strip in a more realistic and critical way without losing her spark. Similarly, Arisbeth’s whimsy helps Swank adjust to these changes in his life, and she gives him a reason to make sure things work smoothly. One look in those big brown eyes of hers and suddenly there’s no place he’d rather be. But most importantly to him, Arisbeth doesn’t want him to forget where he came from. For the first time in what feels like forever, there’s someone that actually wants to know what life was like before all this, what life was like for the Boot-Riders. 

This paradise can’t last forever though. It’s been over six years since they’ve been dating, and Benny has disappeared from New Vegas completely, leaving Swank in charge now. And after an evening of many drinks and laughs and kisses, Swank asks Arisbeth to marry him. She says yes, but she’d like him to ask again in 24 hours since she’s not sure he’ll even remember this conversation. She kisses him goodnight, not knowing this will be the last time they see each other for years.

When Arisbeth gets back to Gomorrah, she accidentally overhears a conversation between her bosses and her father as she was heading back to her room. In this moment Arisbeth learns of the Omertas’ plans and affiliation with the Legion, with her father in on it and there to lure her out of the Strip and into the hands of Legion soldiers. Knowing she’s out of time, Arisbeth makes the decision to drop everything and run—out of the casino, out of the strip, and out of the Mojave altogether. She heads east with no plan, just a rattled mind and broken heart. 

Neither she nor Swank forgot the question he asked that night. And when she does walk through those doors again ten years later, scarred and quiet and haunted by all she’s seen and done, she fears she’s changed too much. But that’s still his girl. That’s still her guy. And suddenly they feel like the luckiest people in all of New Vegas again.

SONGS:

Oh My Angel by Bertha Tillman

This Girl's In Love With You by Dionne Warwick

Close to You by Sarah Vaughan

[owlygem]

Hi Gem! I thought I’d jump in here with some words of love and encouragement

I’ve been following you for some odd years and recently introduced my little sibling to Sun and they INSTANTLY fell in love with him along with the other planets. I always love sharing my hyperfixations and special interests but she’s the total opposite. She isn’t big on sharing her interests but whenever it comes to that series and Sun, she can’t wait to tell her friends everything about him. They even listen to her and her face lights up she even thinks about Sun. She’s always so happy to tell me about it all and it warms my heart to see

This is a huge step for him in terms of socializing and opening up to people so I just wanted to thank you for making her happier than she’s been in a good long while. They’re Suns biggest (very ironic since she’s microscopic) fan in the whole world. Thank you for everything you’ve done

(And thanks for creating Ben. He’s my favorite 💜)

This is one of the most heartwarming things that I've been told and it really makes everything feel worth it 🥹☀️🧡 I'm so happy your sibling l9ves Sun so much, I am trying to get into gear of making more stuff of him and the rest if the solar family.

Thank you so much for this sweet message 🧡🫂

[diasflac]

Sorry, it turns out I’m not done talking about this.

The underlying problem is a reflection of one we see all over the place, which is that it’s no longer really feasible to make money by making products that people like, because people don’t have enough money to pay you for them. Corporations and billionaires already have all the money, so the only way you’re getting any of it is by making a product that corporations and billionaires want to buy. Big companies pay Vyond for yearly contracts in the six or seven figures, and they use it to provide animations to go along with the training modules they use for their social media policies and their sexual harassment seminars. No one pays attention or cares, and the kids get nothing, because kids don’t have money.

AI is the most obvious application of this phenomenon—corporations want it because they know most of their employees are doing meaningless busywork anyway and it might let them cut staff. Billionaires want it because they read too many Culture novels and they want to invent the god-computer. People don’t care and don’t want it. So what happens? Microsoft shuts down practically its entire games division—which made them $25 BILLION in profit last year—because they’re investing $80 billion into AI data centers. Selling products to people isn’t where the money is, it’s in selling them to corporations and billionaires.

I worked for a little while at Zynga, on a really successful game. After the game had been running for a while, the product managers let slip in a meeting with me that once the initial excitement died down, the number of people coughing up for microtransactions was no longer enough to support the team’s salary—except for one individual middle eastern billionaire, who was spending more on microtransactions than the entire rest of the games audience (of millions!) combined. That one billionaire was the game’s target audience. Everyone else was incidental. We had one customer, and the only reason to support anyone else was because the billionaire needed people to play against—so everything else was a shell game, designed to prop up the appearance that the game’s paying community was healthy, but all the F2P players only existed to give that one man fodder to churn through.

It doesn’t matter any more. If you’re not a billionaire or a corporation, there are no products being made for you. You’re just the fodder.

i miss goanimate . i miss the goanimate era. the memetic culture was so deep but so narrow. its one of a few internet subcultures im really deeply fascinated with, because it is borne directly out of the deep animosity 8 to 13 year olds feel for anything directed at slightly younger children (the same contempt that created the Lets Kill Barney song) , combined with the hyper niche fandom energy of fanon wikis and imaginary googology. goanimate memes generally went (relatively) mainstream on youtube but if i remember correctly you could also browse them on the website itself, which was its own sort of nominally educational pseudo-socialmedia ie scratch where you could count on most of the audience to be similarly-aged kids, as opposed to the open ocean of tumblr or twitter. or facebook i guess facebook was still relevant in 2012. Anyway its just interesting to me how the internet facilitates this like, gravitational accumulation of memetic energy, and how the culture formed by a bunch of tweenagers is simultaneously different and the same as culture formed by a bunch of adults who all just like the same anime or whatever. these primordial fandoms, naturally for the websites they emerge from, are usually extremely productive and involvement is based around making your own stuff (often in oneupmanship to somebody else's stuff) and branding yourself as some kind of Creator. but when there's a core piece of popular media everyone is orbiting around it's totally possible to be a genuine Fan who just consumes other people's content (from the source and from other fans) as totally non-productive entertainment. <- Insane post to make about a fifteen second long video of the family guy meme du jour being edited to reference goanimate bill gates. Anyway did you know that goanimate is called "Vyond" now and exists only to churn out ai videos for cheap marketing that arent even really meant to be watched theyre just things that exist so you can say you did them for some kind of Business Reason. i just thought that wa s interesting

[stonesandswords]

i did it again,

i said i wasn’t gonna do it again

but then i did it again 😅😂

[nenoname]

People tend to draw parallels between Ford and Dipper, and Stan and Mabel. So, what are some similarities you can find between Ford and Mabel, and Stan and Dipper?

i made a few posts about how the show kinda parallels dipper and stan, especially in the finales

but imo scaryoke is basically entirely about their similarities, and dipper's series goal was the same as stan's

and off the top of my head their other similarities is them being protective younger twins with trust and anger issues and that the line "who would sacrifice everything for their dumb sibling" is targeted at both of them

meanwhile ford seems to be the more (ironically) trusting like mabel, and they're both prone to tunnel vision

also the puppet funeral scene has ford musing on his similarities with her (but i demand more bonding moments between them dangit!!!)

ford unfortunately downplays his artistic/creative side (damn you stem being perceived as more respectable!!!!) but like mabel he has skills and interests in a bunch of fields (and for examples of mabel's many interests just take a peek at the intros of her shorts lol she's fascinated in so many things)

altho them both liking puppets really stuck out to me

of course they're the authors of the most important books in the show, the journals and scrapbook

and i always thought their grappling and magnet guns kinda felt similar

personally i feel like ford's obsession with his grand unified theory is like mabel's obsession with the fantasy of a summer love, aka something they both ultimately realise they never needed with mabel gaining self-love and her love of waddles, and ford still pursuing his love of weirdness but without needing the validation of others

"Dipper, Mabel, Stan and Ford, they’re all characters who need each other. Without Dipper, Mabel’s just in a fantasy land. Without Mabel, Dipper is just sort of just spiraling into misery, spiraling into his own neurosis and not being pulled into those social situations, not growing as a person."

overall, like mabel, ford needs someone to keep him grounded, while stan (like dipper) needs someone to help lift him up

+ sweater vs sweaty twins

[zakiyah]

.

[apassingbird]

24 hours to deadline and i'm changing the subject on half of my 'previous studies' chapter blesssssss

[the-trans-dragon]

I love Adderall. "Ohhh I'm having a hard time doing Hard Tasks...theyre really stressful and complicated and I don't have the motivation to push through the anxiety and do things... Oh wait. I have a drug for that!"

I don't know the complexities of whatever neurological mechanism makes it hard for my brain to make decisions and initiate tasks, but it's frankly fucking cool as shit that there's a drug that helps.

[somedaytakethetime]

*posts like a bloke* That Sunday feeling 😌💪🏻

[tearlessrain]

the tab I have open that's just titled "how do I become blood kin of the orcs" implies I had a way more exciting weekend than I did

[revanchistsuperstar]

Jesus Christ, jump scare on the dash

OP was my abuser and I thought for a second she was back on tumblr. We were in a relationship for 6 years and engaged for 1, and let’s just sum up with she’s the reason why when I saw Renfield in theaters I had a week long meltdown because of the kitchen scene. I forgot about this post and how viral it went.

Um.

I mean, I agree with the sentiment of the original post and I’m not necessarily upset that this is going around again.

But god damn did that catch me off guard.

Reblog if you think it’s okay to platonically say “I Love You” to your friends

[sir-arlieosaurus-lung-struggler]

My brain's weird it screams just by reflex of me seeing a bug but will take like a day to register a death lol

My mood today be like:

Then after I finish crying:

[thisdudedoesntexist]

I had a fic idea but don't know where to go with it, so if you want to expand on anything feel free.

So, Danny's finally an adult who's off to college at Gotham (the STEM there is crazy for how many supervillains have doctorates). Since Vlad actually took the time to heal and grow past his issues and turned into the crazy Bi uncle he was supposed to be, Danny's got his college paid for.

In the form of $50,000 and an kinda ok motel near the upper west side.

He tried asking his former nemesis why he's done this but Vlad just told him it's so he has some "pocket change and experience".

Danny's been spending the past few weeks aceing his his STEM middling at literature and upgrading the motel into something actually decent.

His business seem to be attracting the strangest living too. That's saying something since he's got ghostly and living guests. Danny knew this place was cursed but still feels surprised every time they show up.

1st: A nice lesbian couple came on the first night cause one with green-ish skin named Pam according to the pale lady named Harley felt the vegetation get really excited when he came. He had about an hour of questioning on Ectology and who Undergrowth was.

2nd: A 10ft tall crocodile man named Waylon came in cause of Harley's recommendation, he looked like he'd run any moment. That night he made sure his staff wouldn't mistreat people like him and by the time croc left there was a glowing sign by the door about how different guests are to be treated with respect no matter how they look.

3rd: THE Red hood showed up asking about a kid who worked there. Her name's Zoe and when her parents reaction to their kid being trans was to kick her out of the house at 17. She biked to the motel to get some rest before catching the bus out of Gotham, got a job checking people in instead and has since found an actual family with the help of Amorpho a social worker Danny met a few years ago.

4th: the most recent event was when Gotham's play boy prince and his cousin Kate Kane stumbled in during his shift at the front desk. Mr. Wayne was pretending extremely well to be drunk while his cousin was wrangling him awkwardly. If Danny didn't have super senses he wouldn't have noticed he was acting, or the tracker added to his cuff when he was semi-forced to shake "Bruce, just Bruce. Everyone's always so stiff." Hand. The tracker had little legs and crawled under his shirt, creepy and fascinating.

[woovalin]

i’m in such disbelief right now and beyond disgusted.

i really hope y’all are choosing your morals over kpop; because we do not know these men at all. i will never side with or defend a predator and a criminal, even with little to no proof. even if there is the smallest chance he may be innocent, i will always believe the victim first.

some of you, as fans of the boys for years and him in general, i know you must be feeling disappointed and betrayed. you’re not dumb for previously supporting him, as we couldn’t have possibly known. but now is the time for a reality check and it’s time to wake up and take a step back. this just goes to show that we know absolutely nothing about them.

for sm to just outright put out a statement on their own before any rumors even surfaced and immediately kick him out? this has to be insanely serious and i’m terrified of what he could’ve done. the crazy thing is with everything currently happening in korea with the telegram situation, and korean women constantly being in danger in general because of the men there, i’m not at all surprised that celebrities are being exposed. sm has protected criminals before, and held onto lucas when his scandal came out as well as other artists who have been exposed for similar crimes. i can’t even imagine the severity of the current situation. we’ve seen what happened with the burning sun, and these men are not immune to being misogynistic, vile human beings.

members have already unfollowed him and deleted posts with him in them; his best friend of 17yrs has unfollowed him. the company taking the initiative and him getting kicked out of the group in less than a second before anything even came out, no denying the claims or even trying to defend him. that should be enough to tell you and understand how serious this actually is. i am beyond disgusted with him and this whole situation.

i sincerely hope the victim is doing okay and praying for them to heal and get the justice they deserve. and remember that your love for these celebrities should always be conditional, because we do not know them. it’s their job to put on a show and show you their public persona, but behind closed doors? we don’t know what they’re actually like. we put them on a pedestal and yet we don’t know what they’re really capable of. they are still men after all. i hope the police are taking this seriously. there needs to be consequences and these women need to be protected.

let this be a lesson to all of us. they don’t know us, and we don’t know them, not really, not at all.

ALWAYS choose morals over these strangers you idolize. and as women, we should be standing with the victims.

maybe not all men, but enough of them. and maybe not all men, but somehow always a man. and going forward, i will continue to support nct as a whole with the remaining members. however, keeping the situation in mind, i will be supporting from afar for a little while. if the situation escalates and other members are investigated and new information comes to light about the rest of them either knowing or possibly being involved, it would be best to step away for good. i will do my best to stay updated. but i do hope the rest of the members are doing okay, and hopefully no other members were involved; but this, just shows that they can always surprise us. you never think it’ll be your fave, until it is.

let’s hope this causes a domino effect and more of these people are exposed and charged for the crimes they’re committing.

sending love to anyone who has ever experienced sexual violence or has been targeted and been in a similar situation. it is not your fault and it never was!

love you all and my dms are always open if you need to vent. <3

❗️EDIT: also i wanna add that we need to not praise the rest of the members or any other celebrity for simply unfollowing him on social media. that is the least of anyone’s worries.

we don’t know if they were aware, we don’t know if they knew and were protecting him or turning a blind eye. it could be them trying to save themselves and clear their guilty conscience. maybe they didn’t know and are just as shocked as we are, we don’t know that either.

we blindly trust these people and believe they have good intentions but look at where that can lead to. fans being upset is valid, yes; but remember people with money and power will do whatever it takes to sweep things under the rug and make it go away in order to save face and keep their image and reputation.

follow-up post here.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

twst overblot boys survey

Over the years, I’ve noticed trends in behaviors and attitudes between fans of particular Twst characters and I’ve wanted to know if there was any evidence to back up these observations. In other words… Are individuals with certain traits more likely to gravitate to one Twst character (in this case, one of the overblot boys) over the others? And maybe if this survey is successful, I’ll ask the same of the rest of the cast—

And so I thought to collect this data, analyze the results, and share the final report with the public. This will be done with the help of a friend (Mod Jeido from twstgameplay) that was also curious about the topic. The analysis itself will be conducted using JMP, a statistical software.

If you’re interested too, then please fill out the following form and/or share it on socials. (I don’t have a Reddit or Tiktok and I’m not active on Twitter so I’s appreciate it a lot!!) The more responses collected, the stronger the conclusions we can make!

The form will close on July 15th, so please get your responses in before then!