#and the meme is always ten years old and not funny at all

[nickbutnodick]

tumblr is such an odd site bc no where else will i see a very specific meme referenced repeatedly for months before actually seeing the meme

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 17/05/2024

Athletic Doctor

Season 1 Featured on: GilvaSunner's Highest Quality Video Game Rips: Volume 1 Also on: SiIvaGunner: Starter Kit & Essentials

Ripped by Psynwav

ONE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL!!

I haven't slept in so long...I forgot what dreams were like.

Honestly - what better way could there be for me to celebrate the 365th main post on the blog, than to be fashionably late by a whole weekend? It's unfortunate, but...oddly befitting, really. Back when I was first starting out with the blog, I actually forgot about posting daily for a solid two weeks - and so, some old-ass posts like Chillin’ Like A Villain and (YTPMV) Bob​-​Omb Battlesources were made in quite a hurry retroactively. Nevertheless, it was on May 17th 2023, over on my main blog @melblur, that I suddenly decided that I wanted to write about one SiIvaGunner rip a day just for fun. After File Select Fusion Collab, I realized that it made more sense just to put these on their own blog, and with Snowball Park - Super Mario 3D World I moved everything onto here. It's all been a bit of a bumpy ride, is my point. But today, I've reached the big milestone that I was originally aiming for all the way back with Running Through Cookie Country - a year's worth of almost-always-daily posts on the weird and wonderful world of SiIvaGunner. And what better rip to discuss alongside this milestone than the channel's biggest hit, the milestone rip to stand above all others: Season 1's Athletic Doctor.

Now, I've been following SiIvaGunner since some of the earliest moments of Season 1, following along with the initial GiIvaSunner termination, the entire Reboot saga discussed in I Saw a Brainwasher Today, the Mashup Crusaders arc of Mr. Rental [B Side] ~ Out of Options, the channel ending of Epic Flintstones... Basically, I was there for just about the entire initial 9-month run, and have with but one Season's worth of an exception (Season 5) been following the channel damn near obsessively since. The point is that, through this, I have been able to follow the channel's most popular videos chart up and down with each passing month: I recall, for instance, how Nintendo GameCube Startup - Console/BIOS Music soared past all other rips back in the day and stayed on top for five month's time. That was, of course, before finally being surpassed by we are number one but with outdated memes over it and subsequently helping kickstart the entire We Are Number One meme trend (funny enough - you can actually find a youtube comment left by me on the rip in late December 2016/early 2017 expressing mild annoyance over the rip's popularity...). Athletic Doctor in comparison was of course always popular, but it took a while to truly climb its way up there - it was in the top ten, then top five, always rising, bubbling in the background. Eventually, starting with Season 3's premiere, the team decided to just make the rip the trailer for the channel for new viewers - where it still sits today, now as the far-and-away most popular rip on the channel.

I feel like the reason the rip became used as the defacto channel trailer, the reason it keeps being referenced in videos demonstrating what SiIvaGunner is all about, is pretty obvious. I've talked a lot in posts like Live and Ooooooooooooooh about how outright *effective* many of Season 1's rips were, and Athletic Doctor is the most prime example of that imaginable - it is a damn near pitch perfect joke executed shockingly well for the time of its upload in the channel's history. EVERYONE knows the music to Super Mario World, either through its usage in the game itself in the 90s, its appearances in games like Super Smash Bros. Melee in the 2000s and Super Mario Galaxy 2 in the 2010s - or just through sheer overexposure to it in just about any era of gaming YouTube. The game's soundtrack is the perfect blend of being immediately recognizable and incredibly easy to hum along to given the entire game basically only has three or so melodies, relying on its central leitmotif to a degree bordering on parody. Likewise as well, EVERYBODY knows Witch Doctor, either through excessive radio play, being a big hit with Alvin & the Chipmunks...or the 2007 Live Action Alvin & the Chipmunks movie that I myself grew up with, it's the kind of vaguely obnoxious (also arguably quite racist) nonsense novelty music that's incredibly appealing to young kids, the same way something like Crazy Frog or its ilk was in the 2000s as well.

Put simply, Athletic Doctor was a match made in heaven - and the joke is pulled off so expertly that it feels redundant to put into words. The Athletic Theme intro is iconic enough to where you're led into a false sense of security right off the bat, the melody swap is subtle enough as to not immediately be noticeable, making the moment you notice it even more noteworthy - only for the track's second loop to become a full-on mashup with the Witch Doctor track. Absolutely perfect escalation, just the right amount of buildup - but most importantly, it ends up actually sounding really good! The joke's great to be sure, very much like Live and Ooooooooooooooh - but I feel like the core reason why Athletic Doctor has continued to endure for so long on the channel, why it keeps getting remixed and referenced and paid tribute to on so many instances, is because it's just a genuinely good listen once the joke sets in. In other words, it is the purest distillation of SiIvaGunner's appeal - a joke so simple, yet pulled off with a magical appeal that remains even all these years later.

Through running this blog, it's that very specific appeal that I've wanted to try and encapsulate with the rips I cover, with what I write about them, to uncover that elusive magic of this dumb shitpost channel. Joel's big Grand Dad reaction that kicked the channel off is a good bit, to be sure, but its not a bit that could've lasted eight years and counting: In its earliest days, its easy to see how the channel could've just become naught but a novelty and fallen off the face off the earth once interest in it died. Yet through each year of the channel's life, with every Season that passes, it's evolved and adapted. Be it the spontaneous chaos of Season 1, the building storyline of Season 2, the mystery and nostalgia of Season 3, the sheer talent on display in the King for Another Day Tournament in Season 4 Episode 1 and the sheer joy of celebration found in Season 4 Episode 2, the whimsical experimentation of Season 5, the sudden introspection and moodiness of Season 6, the pure adoration and love for everything the channel stands for in Season 7, and the ongoing pure silliness of Season 8 - each period of this channel feels as if it's growing in a new direction, never content sitting in one place for too long - and yet the appeal of a rip like Athletic Doctor remains oh so core to the entire SiIvaGunner experience. The experience of which I've made my best effort to cover across all 365 posts on this blog. To show everyone the layers in which this channel goes in.

That's what I've been wanting to show you... but now, before I end this post, I want to briefly talk about what you've shown *me*. I know its a cliché thing to say, but really - it warms my heart EVERY time I receive messages about the blog. This all began as just a way for me to practice my writing ability, but suddenly I was having the actual rippers - the names that I'd admire from my MP3 player but hardly ever considered able to actually interact with - messaging me in private to express how happy my posts made them...not to mention the people in SiIvaCord discussing rips with me, digging into my writing, sharing anecdotes I'd never heard of, and everyone who requested rips genuinely eager to see what I had to write about them...like, again, its the biggest cliché on the planet, and I know this blog really isn't all *that* big in the grand scheme of things - but I never expected to even get more than five people actually engaging with what I post? To everyone, and ESPECIALLY to the silent majority reading my posts without a Tumblr account, the ones engaging from a distance - thank you SO much for validating all that I've done on here.

Now, there's still plenty of posts I have left in me, plenty of ones already in the drafts and unfulfilled requests well in the dozens. But like...tons has happened since when this all started 12 months ago. I got a summer job! I'm wrapping up what's hopefully my final three school courses! I've started listening to so much new music, expanding my music tastes, in huge part thanks to all the digging this blog has made me do! And, of course, getting to be this open about what's likely my absolute weirdest special interest has honestly made me feel more confident in myself as a person, made me a more outgoing individual in general. And so, to get all of my ducks in a row, to help straighten things out for a bit...I'm going to take a break from regular posting on here. I'm aiming for it to be no longer than a month's time - again, I have much I still wish to write about!! - but you'll of course still see me reblogging fanart and other such things on here just from using Tumblr casually. And hey - if you haven't already, I recommend you take the time to go scavenging through The Archive for daily posts that you might have missed! Having a blog with so much writing on it, so many posts, so much to discover for readers old and new...In a way, I've basically made it so that navigating the blog feels just like navigating the vast seas of the SiIvaGunner channel itself. And isn't that just the most fitting way to leave it all on - an ocean of posts, waiting for you to uncover them?

THAT SIIVAGUNNER TUMBLR BLOG WILL RETURN IN SEASON 2

[walkawaytall]

bring back the turkey, you cowards

Weird thing none of you know about me: from about 2015(?) until about 2019 or so, I had a very specific and weird obsession: Lisa Frank's social media presence (and, to a lesser degree, Lisa Frank's collaboration deals clearly made in an attempt at making a comeback).

Now, I will go ahead and correct a commonly held misconception amongst the people who followed me on Facebook at the time: I was not obsessed with Lisa Frank the person (as mysterious as she attempts to be, I think I have her mostly figured out), Lisa Frank the manufacturer of my favorite childhood school supplies, or even Lisa Frank the company as it stands today (though this Jezebel article, Inside the Rainbow Gulag: The Technicolor Rise and Fall of Lisa Frank, is wild and I think everyone should read it; it may not hold true today since they've had so much change and turnover, but it's still fascinating). My obsession was primarily focused on Lisa Frank's social media presence. And that's because Lisa Frank's social media presence was batshit insane.

Keep in mind, when I first started following them on social media, they were not banking on Millennial nostalgia. They were still primarily selling school supplies. The adult coloring book (not adult like smutty; adult like...those therapy coloring books that were so popular ten years ago?) sold by way of an exclusivity agreement with Dollar General hadn't been announced yet, nor had workout gear or the SpongeBob collab (sold only at HotTopic). As far as anyone knew, Lisa Frank was still that rainbow school supply company whose target audience is nine-year-old girls.

Which is why all of the housemade "memes" were absolutely bonkers.

This is peak Middle-Aged Mom Humor, so why is it being presented to me by the company making pencils and folders for elementary schoolers?

Glad to know we are encouraging fourth graders to day drink.

This one isn't actually aimed at any particular age group; I just find it funny that captains of pirate ships are inherently pirates, so I don't know what this is supposed to mean.

He won't. He will not fly. He is a flightless bird. This is a terrible lesson and you are a homicidal mother penguin. (Also using slightly altered lines from poems without attribution is theft, but whatever.)

And the image that started my obsession:

This...isn't a joke??? What is this???

I don't know who was behind these posts, but considering how small the company was at that point, I always suspected that Lisa herself was recycling old artwork with the help of an intern or something and creating the social media posts...because it just sort of seemed like that's what was happening? I have no proof of this; it was just a vibe I got.

But, during that period of time, even though the posts were inscrutable and sometime just straight-up Minion Humor, they were at least interesting.

Well, I mean, sometimes they were interesting because they were like acid to the eyes.

Okay, and sometimes they were interesting but also sported questionable messaging about one's relationship with food and exercise.

Anyway, I digress. In 2019, Lisa's son Forrest Green (yes, her sons are named Hunter and Forrest Green) took over the social media presence and it became...very palatable for the masses, I suppose. It was a lot of photo edits of old boy band pictures with Lisa Frank designs superimposed on tshirts -- it was very nostalgia-driven and very much directed at Millennials and thus I lost interest, because if there's anything I hate, it's being the target demographic for a sales pitch.

Anyway, my point is that for several years in a row, Lisa Frank would post the same holiday-themed images, so I got used to seeing a certain Thanksgiving design that is, and I cannot prepare you enough, one of the most chaotic and hideous things you'll ever lay your eyes on. But it was tradition. They posted it like three years in a row, and then as soon as Forrest took over, this design was never posted again. And all I have to say on this Thanksgiving week of 2023 is: bring back the turkey, you cowards.

[currymanganese]

"About the Blogger" Meme

Thanks to @all-inmoderation @bioloyg & @imliterallyjustablackgirl for tagging me! ❤️

Star Sign(s):

Sagittarius Sun, Virgo Moon, Pisces Rising <- What does it all mean? No idea! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Favorite Holidays:

Eid, Divali & Christmas <- Not for religious considerations, I associate them with having lots of delicious food, which is precious to me. 🤰🏽

Last Meal:

A slice of pawpaw (papaya), stew chicken, black eyed peas, white rice and sorrel juice. <- #grateful thanks mom 😔

Current Favorite Musician:

Khruangbin because Mark, Laura and DJ are all super talented and disciplined musicians, but also because I want the band's lead guitarist, Mark Speer and the bassist, Laura Lee, but especially Mark Speer, in ways that would shock and alarm you, like IDK anything about his personal life, but I think I'd combust if I met him. Mark if you're reading this that smut chapter in my songfic WIP was only possible because I just know you're good with your-[GUNSHOTS] <- He's not reading this, finish the meme! 😤

Last Music Listened To:

Total Control by The Motels for a The Bear meta post that I did and Hope Tala's "All My Girl's Like To Fight' from my small playlist of songs that I headcanon that Syd and Carmy from The Bear (2022) listen to. The playlist serves as a writing aid for me because regardless of the actual musical tastes of Syd and Carmy in the show's canon, this is a small sample of what the two of them like to listen to as I've characterized them in my fic.

Last Movie Watched:

Precious (2009) I was traumatizing myself and [SPOILERS]

Carmen Berzatto in my WIP fic, because Syd insults him using a gif from the movie and Carmy ends up watching this film so he'd understand the reference because he is a loser and is obsessed with his totally platonic coworker and he wants to know everything about her. 😔

Last TV Show Watched:

Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, @devisrina convinced me, but I haven't finished watching it yet and I'm not to sure when I'll resume because The Bear and Sydcarmy still have me in thrall. 😔

Last Book/Fic Finished:

Last book finished, Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson. Last fic finished.....I shan't say - I'll describe it though - it was a seedy, sketchy, funny, smutty, crack ship one shot gag fic on AO3. I'm ashamed of myself, some of those words in that fic were in The Bible, but chile........anyways. Moving on!

Last Book/Fic Abandoned:

Last book I stopped reading - Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson - Dalinar Kholin, you stupid cunt, why do you always-[GUNSHOTS] <-Girl walk away from the book if it's stressing you that bad, c'mon now - the fictional character's dumb decisions can't hurt you. I'm actually planning on finishing it someday, but I watched The Bear when I was a quarter of the way through the book and now I am totally useless for almost everything else.

Currently Reading:

Ten Myths About Israel by Ilan Pappe, get a free ebook copy of it here while you can. Also the Gaza Diary by Ziad, a 35 year old Palestinian man.

Last Thing Researched for Art/Writing/Hyperfixation:

High blood pressure and pregnancy, and maternity leave in the US of A, and before that CBT case studies and CPTSD and ADHD, and before that meningitis and sepsis. <- All for my current Sydcarmy WIP.

Favorite Online Fandom Memory:

The day Richonne went canon, or rather that era. <- Love it when racists suffer, schadenfreude can be something so personal. 🥴

Favorite Old Fandom You Wish Would Drag You Back In/Have A Resurgence:

I want Star Wars and BNHA to be good, but alas....Next question. <- Anyways these franchise/series are making money hand over fist still, nobody cares if I never care about them again, but I do love the ship Inko Midoriya/All Might from BNHA and I ship UkaTake from Haikyuu!! <- I had a lot of fun in that niche marketplace for a time.

Favorite Thing You Enjoy That Never Had an Active or Big "Fandom" but You Wish It Did:

The Blue Castle by LM Montgomery FUCKS severely - I'm glad that it got a boost on here with The Blue Castle Book Club. Ms. Montgomery put her whole pussy into that book, every single cell and I relate to the book's protagonist, Valancy, quite a lot.

Also, The Queen's Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner has a smallish, but fairly active following on Tumblr, but it deserves the energy that is devoted to some more popular YA fantasy/historical novel series. <- All of these books are re-readable af, 10/10 no notes.

Tempting Project You're Trying to Reign In/Don't Have Time For:

No such thing because I am unemployed. <- have mercy on me O God! It's been the first year of my adult life that I haven't been in university or running myself through the gristmill of capital and I feel trapped and anxious and fed the fuck up. I hate it here, goddamn!

Sorry to end on such a bummer of a note, but thank you for reading if you've read this far and please, regardless of if you were tagged, play along if you can! I've seen a lot of my mutuals tagged in these things before, so apologies if you've already done this, but*

@vacationship @anxietycroissant @bulabujalam @tvfantic87 @devisrina @dreadfuldevotee @mod-doodles <- please come back to me, Mod, darling, I miss you! 🥲 @jub-jub @pureseasalt <- bestie I miss you too! @ashluvsu4ever @cchickki @parrradiseeee @margaery-bonaparte-said-so @seleneofthejungle @prowitchazel @gardenianoire @artemis0404 @polymorphposting @hauntedstrawberrygiver @justabovewater20 @monetbonet @sab-teraa @agoodworkerdoes @melfinawins @melaninerd @iwantadecentblogname @persephonelovesbooks @november-rising @yannaryartside @bitchqueenofthebitchsquad @waywarddeee @myelegieseulogizeme @paddington22017 @ruethrills @techliche @erins-quinn @sydcarmyfan @lunasink @perkedelktg @couldbemaybe @msmoiraine @darkostudios-blog @angelica4equity @theonlyamazingtazmin @mswyrr @chansoooo1-blog

*pretends all of your blog names rhyme with pikachu*, I choose you!

[ang3lv0mit333]

I can go in depth as to why I hate this fucking meme so much and I will.

One: Fugo was nearly SA’d at a young age. He had ever right to beat that professor and don’t get my started on Fugo bad cus he left. This is really gross and why I’m putting it first because ew wtf is wrong with you? He was literally almost sexually assaulted as a CHILD and disowned for defending himself.

Two: Mista has been implied to be a poor kid. He was also 16-17 when he was running out in the streets. He was a child. He shot those men because they shot at him for defending a defenseless woman who THEY WERE BEATING.

Three: The homophobic hate crime joke is funny and will always be funny so I got nothing to say lmao

Four: Do I have to remind you all Giorno is 15 living at his school because he was severely abused? No? Ok good. Also none of La Squadra or diavolo or the body guards had the same goal as him. Giorno wanted to make life better for the kids and people living in his country. Diavolo allowed drug sales to kids, La squadra wanted to fucking kidnap Trish to get revenge, and the bodyguards literally were just following orders.

Five: Now I’m a I dislike cops girlie but I will run defense for Abbauccio. Abbauccio was severely disillusioned with being a cop while he was a cop because nearly everyone he arrested got out very quickly. That’s why he took the bribe. He was severely disillusioned. Was it right? No this is actually a semi good point. As for getting his partner shot did we watch the same scene?

Six: Now there is a lot to say about Bruno and him taking kids who are homeless, poor, or otherwise not doing great into a criminal organization. Bruno was also a child when he joined the mafia. So to me this is how he thinks he can help. Also he never wanted Narancia to join even told him he’d beat him if he joined. Narancia joined on his will. Also Bruno never helped out Narancia, Fugo, or Mista with the expectation they’d join. He simply just helped them because he say kids going through a hard time. He of course offered Mista and Fugo (literally the only two kids he did offer to join) but may I remind you, Mista was almost an adult when he joined (and an adult when golden wind starts), and Fugo was highly intelligent with no recourse. He only literally had Bruno. That’s why he told Narancia not to join. Narancia had a chance to go back to a normal life. Fugo literally didn’t.

Seven: Polpo is literally the one that doesn’t give a shit about using or manipulating children into a criminal organization. He literally recruited Narancia against Bruno’s wishes.

Eight: La squadra did have a right to avenge their friends but one Bruno’s gang was not aware of their motives. All they knew was that these insane people are trying to kidnap a 15 year old girl. Also in the dub formaggio calls Naranchia jail bait so I believe he deserved that 100%.

Nine: Yeah and what did he do in those nursing homes? Oh yeah pushed old people to commit suicide.

Ten: Doppio is sin free. Diavolo literally almost killed his own daughter to keep his identity hidden. Also he killed several people. A point used against most the gang.

Anyway tell me I’m taking a meme too seriously I don’t rlly care because this meme is god awful. Mostly because of how it uses a SA scene to make Fugo look like a bad person??? I just got heated from there lol.

[shittyelfwriter]

ALRIGHTY here we are at weeks three and four for the santa clauses series! I did not rewatch a second time because genuinely, these melted my brain. anyway, lets get into it below the cut!

So apparently according to the tsc tag, episode 3 that I missed last week is a sort of filler episode? OH BROTHER REALLY

Normally I would not complain bc I miss old format, 20-23 episode series but because I know this Isn't That? DREAD. how are you going to plot well and good in 7-8eps if some are filler? that is just SO condensed, my guy

Counterpoint to people who were sad about it but: I thought the teen romance was annoying and I'm GLAD they ended it even JUST for a bit (it will come back to haunt again, trust. It’s a disney series ffs.) Whoever is writing this needs to ask a teen about how they talk nowadays. This is not it.

I also think we're driving the whole "Buddy is terrible at everything" punchline WAY past its breaking point. Which I would argue was last season entirely, but. At the very latest, last episode with how heavy on cringe it was. Yes, EVEN for kids/teens.

Again, they are not antagonizing Magnus Antas enough for me to hate him. waaaaay too funny to be a villain. I can't take him seriously and DON'T want to

The way that Noel keeps sideyeing the Betty cutout as if to say "do you see this shit?" during his brunch with the Clauses SENT me tbh. That's bernelle coded and I love it

I do not know why Disney gets OFF on the Clauses being absolutely inept parents but I wish they would stop

SHOUTOUT JUDY OMG JUDY'S ACTRESS THAT’S JUDY JUDY IS HERE YOU GUYS (SCREAMINGGGG)

LOVING the exterior shots of the workshop and Elfsburg. As someone who has POURED over all available screenshots from the movies of those I am LIVING for new angles (even though I do NOT think bernelle would live that close to the Workshop, but it doesn't seem like Betty and Noel can POOF like Bman and Elle can (and do))

I don't know why there are TWO instances of a "misspoken turn of phrase" in this episode but neither were funny and TWO OF THEM was REALLY bad

CHUBBY BUNNY DID NOT EXIST THAT LONG AGO. NOT IN MAGNUS ANTAS' TIME. THAT WAS AN INTERNET FAD LESS THAN TEN YEARS AGO. WHAT ARE WE DOING DUDE. WHAT ARE THESE WRITERS ON (it's not good, I don't want some)

Crossing guard callback? For what? (okay, shrug I GUESS dot meme)

Why does this specific franchise always have to make EB SO WEIRD. WHY. Nothing about this is funny it's just off-putting. Just like the previous EB flirting with Carol's MARRIED MOM in tsc3

This Carol and La Befana scene was actually very good. LOVE it when they actually just let the characters be HONEST with each other. Women supporting women core. Even if Carol's reason for being mad at her was really shallow and obviously stems form Carol's lack of identity as Mrs. Claus because they just cannot wrap that plot point from last season up.

THE LETTERS DEPARTMENT. It looks dope but HATE the explanation for it. Half assed as hell. WARNING! Rant incoming: like from what I know a LOT of postal services have little lore stories about how they get the letters to Santa. WHY COULDNT WE JUST SAY THERE ARE AGREEMENTS BETWEEN SANTA AND OTHER ADULT PEOPLE WHO KEEP THE SPIRIT ALIVE FOR OTHERS AS WELL? Why is this series so obsessed with making everything only powered by magic and never by others (yes, humans) who want to keep the spirit alive as well? It feels like magic is being used as an "explain it all away" crutch narratively. Even in season 1, the "solution" to mass consumerism wasn't for people to be kind to each other and do little things to keep the magical parts of Christmas alive, it was to show the world that magic was real. Season 2 so far, the answer to everything is also just magic. I'm hoping that maybe the B plot with Kris will touch on this. Because as it stands right now, it feels like the writers are talking out of both sides of their mouth. Commercial Christmas is bad, but Kris is a loser for having a Santa theme park. Like?? Homogenization of Christmas is the Big Bad at large, but also up at the Pole they are trying to find ways to do the same thing to be "current". CHRISTMAS IS MULTIFACTED. It is both secular and religious! That is OKAY, I don't even think "woke" people are arguing about that. Sheesh.

Can't believe I'm micro rambling IN my ramble post. New achievement unlocked omg

The way Magnus Antas picks up on modern slang so quickly practically puts Scott to shame. Good for him

AGAIN, the misturn of phrase jokes. DEAD. Not funny. STOP

If they are going to make Sandra so op that she can just Wanda Maximoff chaos magic "I just say something when I'm mad and it happens, anything I want with no negative impact on me" I will not find that swag. That is in fact Mary Sue territory, lads

Sandra's little outburst @ La Befana was giving magical nepo baby for a moment there. Oof. "Too bad I'm just naturally more skilled than you even though I'm new and you've been a witch forever" girl SHUT. UP. You are like a little baby. Also that is so mad disrespectful like no WONDER La Befana is wanting you to slow tf down. You fly off the handle WAY to easily and we ALL know you lose control when you do! Okay loose cannon! Werk!

Riley. Girl. "we never see each other" you were just up at the Pole?? Like. OFTEN?? This is so stupid of a breakup but they are teenagers so go off kids, be dysfunctional or what have you. Rah rah, as Jack would say

Episode four now, lord help us. God has cursed me for my (loving this one Christmas movie series) hubris and my work (watching it's hellish series spin off) is never finished

"Reversing a transformation is never a guarantee" what is this La Befana? the Sims? Sounds like transformation ray odds. Magic is not THAT unpredictable, even by in-universe logic

CURTIS-ITIS!??? CURTIS FUCKING EXPLODED??

ARE YOU SO FUCKING FR RN. SO BERNARD IS MARRIED TO A SENIOR CITIZEN AND CURTIS. FUCKIN VAPORIZED?? FROM STRESS? WHAT'S NEXT? Lemme guess, Judy joined the circus. Quintin is a crypto investor or works for Tesla. WHAT ARE WE D O I N G

Not Scott moving the scissors like he's afraid Buddy will shank him or others?? SIR

SANDMAN AHHHHHHHHHH HELLO SIR /POS :D

So they just con him? As though that's a long term solutio-- OH MY GOD NOT SCOTT USING SANDMAN'S SAND ON SANDMAN HIMSELF?? that's ILLEGALE?? According to tsc3 lore: "We legendaries can't use magic on each other?" I am so bewildered by the level of retcon occurring before my very eyes at BREAKNECK speed

Sandra doesn't need magic she needs THERAPY for her ANGER ISSUES bruh. Damn. She doesn't need a rage room (in someone's house too I might add? okayyyy) she needs to learn to process like a normal human being wtf

Scott being able to look like his normal self whenever he wants and they just didn't tell him? For like. 25 years? Like its clear that by the series standards, the elves think he's a total moron. But it pendulums hard and fast between "haha funny joke" and "damn they really think he ain't shit, huh"

Edie being a fashion diva is such a serve she's grown on me this season ngl

"I had to teach him how to do all the Legendaries jobs" Scott I know you're waffling, absolutely FUMBLING but what the FUCKKKKK is that excuse??? What's Cal going to do? Be EVERY Legendary? TERRIBLE AWFUL HATE IT UNINSPIRED. Not to mention, SOME OF THE OTHER LEGENDARIES MIGHT NOT TAKE THAT NEWS WELL. Some might even feel THREATENED

"The man I die for in my sleep every night" UM? Noel? You okay there bud? Holy heck

THE PURPLE JACKET IS SWAG AND SCOTT IS A HATER. HE CANNOT SEE THE VISION

Do you guys think according to this new lore Edie made Jack's suit? because me thinks PERHAPS

Magnus Antas is kind of popping off, damn. Like I think if the gnomes hadn’t given him MAJOR delusions of grandeur and an ego trip, he could have stayed totally a vibe. But stop giving the Santas snow powers and reconning Jack holy SHIT dude. First Scott now him? HATE IT

The way they made Scott and Cal look when "invisible" is Not a Good Look heck. Its like a bad picsart filter

These Scott visions. I get why, its through the Santa magic, right? But dang its corny

So Scott knows Magnus Antas is back now. Okay. They got away from him. Lost visual on Olga, have a bad feeling she somehow sneaked into the sleigh. Weird cliffhanger but EVERY episode has been like that so far

Final thoughts: I feel like they're definitely trying to make this season take itself less seriously, but I feel like the trade off is that the writers are taking too many liberties for diversions from source material and are therefore, losing the plot entirely and retconning movie lore at will and convenience. Tl;dr, it's messy. Concepts are fun until things just become so irreverent they fall apart or lean into entirely unfunny territory. Which is just a hallmark of T*m All*n brand humor, tee em, but you know.

It feels like this series is doing everything and nothing. It wants woke points, but immediately doubles back and makes fun of those same things. It wants us to feel empathy for these characters, and immediately makes them insufferable. I am so confused as to what the takeaway is supposed to be. It all feels so poorly executed--the series retcons itself constantly, not to mention the movies. I want it to be fun, and to take it at surface value, but if you know literally anything about the movies, that becomes a challenge to do. I'm just so confused dude.

I will be shocked if this gets a third season. Truly.

Also, I miss Betty too, Noel. Wish this whole season was about HER shenanigans, instead.

So. See you all next week then?

[cf56]

1/ What sucks for me is that I literally JUST got into Animaniacs right after Season 3 aired. It was a complete coincidence that I got into it when I did -- I didn't even know Season 3 had just dropped. (I knew Animaniacs had been rebooted of course! I'd seen memes, and I knew several people who loved the Reboot.) I hadn't been a HUGE fan of Animaniacs when I was a kid, but I'd known it, liked a lot from it, so I came into it really interested and having a great time! I thought it was ongoing!

I feel for you. What you're feeling is very natural, and, even though I've been here a couple of years longer, I feel it too. Not all of us were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. I started actively participating in the fandom around two years ago now, and that was several months after its peak of activity. Of course, even the level of activity in April 2021 was orders of magnitude higher than now.

It feels like a golden heyday you can't reach. You can look at it, but you can never go back in time and be a part of it. It's easy to dwell on. "If only I had discovered Animaniacs sooner, I could've been one of the OGs. I could've been here since 2014." I'm sure you feel similarly. But, things work out how they work out. I wouldn't have discovered Animaniacs at all if I hadn't happened to have the reboot's trailer recommended to me on YouTube, or if I hadn't happened to be a softie for revivals of old shows I didn't even watch. Who knows where I'd be then? Who knows where you'd be if you hadn't decided to watch season 3 at all? It just as easily could've been worse.

There will always be new people trickling into the fandom, discovering it for the first time. You've given me perspective, because while I feel like I joined the fandom much too late, here you are doing it two years later. Two years from now, someone new will join the fandom, and they'll look at you the same way. "If only I could've joined the fandom back in 2023, seen how it was right after a new season released..."

It does feel like mourning. It feels very similar to grief. I have had moments where I've thought of the characters, and it felt like I've actually lost someone close to me. Of course, it doesn't actually come close to matching the feeling of grief I'd have to lose someone close in real life, but the emotion is just as real. If Animaniacs has touched you inside, no matter exactly how, that love is real. It becomes a part of you. Sometimes, what you really need is time. You may feel like you'll never recover. "It's been two months, and I'm still just as sad as I was before. Will I ever get over it?" I have often had that exact same thought. But, maybe two months isn't enough. Maybe you need six. Maybe you need a year. Eventually, our brains will adjust to the new normal, and we can go back to just being fans. The show may have ended (hopefully not forever), but Animaniacs is just starting for you.

There are positives to being in a fandom like this. No corporate influence, no promotional tactics, just us fans trying to keep the memory alive. You're right. There's still so much more to do. When I joined the fandom, I had a vision of the things I wanted to do just to get started, just in my first few months. I haven't even finished those yet. What's important is that we support each other and allow that creativity to flourish. Remember that anything you contribute, anything at all, is an incredible gift to everyone else who cares just as much as you. Even if it's just a random funny thought you have, or if it's a ten page thesis you doubt anyone else will care to read. Putting yourself out there is brave, it's selfless, and it's incredibly rewarding in the end.

In short? It may be hard, but it's important to cherish the memories you have, not the memories you could have had. Those aren't real. These are, and you just as easily could've been without them. Don't be sad that you could've been here earlier. Be happy that you're here now. I'm happy to have you!

[jeanjauthor]

This post is for people to actually think about the world around them.

Disabled folks were, are, and will always be everywhere, writers. They may need specific accommodations, but they have always been among us.

The earliest sign of civilization that anthropologists and paleontologists have speculated about is a skeleton with a broken femur that had been inexpertly set, so it was clear the person could not walk, barely could crawl, and could not do a lot of the absolutely necessary daily survival tasks...yet the growth of the misaligned bones showed that the owner survived for at least ten years afterward. (This was pre-agriculture, too, so this was being done in a hunter-gather society, where mobility was essential for survival.)

That meant others were helping them with daily hygiene tasks, with helping them get around, with feeding and clothing and caring for them. For all we know, they were able to do many hands-on crafting in exchange for this care...but that assumes that the pain of their condition allowed them to work. In an era where "drink some willow bark tea" would be the main extent of pain management techniques, pain could be overwhelmingly difficult to deal with.

All of these things took place roughly 15,000 years ago...and there were probably many more over the ages. Unfortunately, we will only ever see less than 1% of 1% of the evidentiary remains from sites that we know about.

Caring for others and helping them with their disabilities IS the Human Experience. Crafting accomodations & caring for others is as old as humanity...as are neglect and cruelty...and thoughtlessness. (Seriously, cathedrals were built to be places of worship for everyone, but did they ever once put in ramps so that the infirm, who could not climb stairs, could attend? Not that I know of!)

Make sure you take the time to include folks with disabilities, visible and non-visible, into your stories. And yes, there are ones we don't think of as disabilities...but they are. I wear glasses because I have to wear glasses, but aside from bratty kids & bullies, we don't make fun of people who wear glasses. Yet they're very clearly a disability accomodation.

[heygutlcssa]

I LOST THE MEME

@ofwealthandtaste ASKED: “I can’t abide a poor liar.” (ANDRE)

This wasn't just another night at the Moulin Rouge. Maria had arrived only to hear the news of a leak in the ceiling behind the stage. She had heard that it might cave in. Zidler was having stage hands and whoever else he could spare to try and fix it, despite his own dancers still performing on stage as if nothing was wrong.

That didn't stop the chaos that Zidler was trying to hard to hide. Even she could hear his exclamations that the Duke was here.

Zidler must have been desperate. Everyone in the Moulin Rouge knew (by now) that the Duke was only here and only investing because of Satine.

The Sparking Diamond could captivate anyone if she tried hard enough. Not that she really needed to try to begin with. Just the mere mention of her name brought lips upwards into a smile. Maria couldn't say if such expressions were gentle or fond, but at least there was the sensation of having been in the presence of something divine.

Satine was nowhere to be found. The scramble backstage to find her was fruitless. Wherever she had gone, it certainly wasn't anywhere that she might be found in an immediate nature. Maria hadn't expected such a secretive headcount either in the scramble to find her. The only other person missing at that current point in time was Christian. The writer. Writers were as strange as painters were. They came and went whenever they pleased or whenever the muse struck them.

There were other acts to go on stage still, other singers and entertainers, but the desperation to find Satine only seemed to grow. Patience was a virtue, as they said. It was something Maria was beginning to suspect that the Duke might have lacked.

Poor thing.

She thought about him sitting by himself out there in his booth, being made to wait. She would be irritated too, if her (would be) companion broke such an engagement.

She loved to see when patrons found their friends and loved ones. The smiles, laughter, and even the way they rose from their place in fond greeting of one another just made the Moulin Rouge a better place to be. It was the closest to home that she could comprehend.

Other patrons who sat down in the tables, and the even cheaper benches, almost never came by themselves. There was always someone to drink with, to laugh with, to watch the show with and forget about every sad little thing that happened in the world outside.

Even the artists with the sketchpads had others to talk to. People sat and talked with them or were drawn by them. There were friends here. There was happiness and hope here beneath the crumbling facade of the ten year old building.

That sense of community and maybe the joy of the Moulin Rouge's escapism kept the populous coming back each night.

But the Duke simply sat there all alone.

He was always alone.

What a terrible thing it must have been to be surrounded by so many happy people and have no one to talk to.

Satine was funny. She was pretty, too, and kind. She was the star of the show not just because of her talent, but because she spoke to whatever loneliness emanated from the drunken air of the patrons who came for that soft escapism.

The Duke always seemed to have the best of the best. The best suits, the best drinks. She thought maybe he reached for the best because there was nothing else after that. Maybe there was nothing else before it, either.

It made sense he would reach for Satine, too. She was the best in the show. She was a bright smile and endless charm. On the stage, she simply filled up her audience.

That was her role.

Maria could easily see how he would want that all for himself. She could easily see how he could want that sense of fulfillment in a companion. People needed each other.

Maria had Bernardo. She was never alone.

Who did the Duke have?

Zidler's hands on her shoulders made her jump just as it almost made him lose his teeth. Bernardo had been there and ready to rip him off of her as if he was afraid she would have been violated. Maria had tried her best to calm him down, but she was quickly being ushered away, leaving the remaining staff to deal with him.

If he went after their employer then they would be unemployed. Zidler was convinced in that moment that the Duke liked her. If he liked her, then he could be placated. If he was placated, then it wouldn't matter if Satine was missing. They could have more time to find her.

Poor thing.

With a sudden jerk, Zidler had decided that this would do. Maria was scuttled from backstage, down through the dance hall and over to the Duke. She hadn't even opened her mouth to say anything before Zidler went on and on about how Satine was merely getting ready and wouldn't be much longer now.

Stay, drink. Talk. Here is company. Here is someone who wanted to see you desperately. She is so happy you are here. Stay. it won't be much longer. Enjoy.

And then they were left by themselves. Maria could only imagine the chaos behind closed doors and pitied whoever had to deal with her brother now.

She didn't have words for this. She didn't know where Satine was.

Poor fool.

She only felt relief when he spoke. "He is afraid of you." That much was true. What else could she tell him? What was fair to him? " Are you going to stay?" Her brown eyes looked to his.

She wasn't the person to be sitting her next to him. But at least, she thought, maybe for one night, he could sit with a friend. If he could ever consider her that, given the circumstances.

"Verdad, he is afraid of many things." Even if Zidler hadn't forced her down here to sit and distract, she probably would have wandered down on her own. She liked to talk to him, if he had the time. He was honest about her performances, and familiarity and truthfulness made for good friends.

Maybe for one night he wouldn't be the only one here that was alone.

[djst]

In my shoegaze mood for the tumblr, and my clothes are drying, and my milkshake is on the way. Clean before she gets here, the next season of yellowjackets is going to be awesome. But my team lost yesterday. I'm still in debt. Cancel it with the war. Forge letters, signatures, and numbers. He went to jail for armed robbery and is on his way home next year. So old I can't count it on my fingers. He was looking at his fingers because he's learning to count and say out loud the numbers, just like she yelled out I love you to the rapper whose name rhymes with the sound of a jet breaking the sound barrier. Don't worry, no one died, these gangsters always miss. Chris chased both of them for half a mile, but it wasn't like the movie the borne ultimatum because blood was coming out of his stomach. We laughed about it over beers and weed, he was wearing layers so he was intact. Disturb the peace read the action this idiot did with his car and no one got hurt and no one got shocked except for us because we didn't hear a sound. Travis Barker is the best drummer of the 21st century. AOL was still around when I had my first phone but gigabytes cost the same as not what you were thinking. But this gps is giving me the run around and i'm afraid of the palpable dark I can shiver for the first time in my life here. Sacrifice vibes with a side of eyes, you know the ones that are ten percent more shiny because you're truly terrified. Vulnerable on the toilet because I'm letting go after holding on for so long, but he was holding on longer and now he's broke and going to therapy and posting memes about keeping a cold heart but just yesterday he was too cold to go outside. Michigan isn't far. Snowstorm warning in the midwest. Just a little more, just a little more, costco has this sale convenient for my budget. do you accept apple pay because walmart doesn't and it's annoying. sorry you have to put all this back, i swear it was only for a friend who lost her ruby ring with emerald in the driver seat and ruby in the trunk. Her favorite movie is citizen kane, who would of thought? and who would of thought? Nothing is original and unique just like santa isn't real or that coconut fuck with the craving for us. Jesse is funny when he interprets sayings literally joking with you and forgetting he has to set up the shelf. Placed a blanket on my dog, heater on high.

[that-is-just-so-typically-me]

Lmao I was trying to find an old audio post of an ancient meme on this app and the app’s search engine apparently can’t let you search by post type but it DOES populate a list of your most frequently used tags and it turns out one of those for my blog is my ex’s name because I’d forgotten I used to put her name in the tags when I’d share posts that reminded me of her and us, so I know you’re wondering and the answer is yes of course my self-harming dumb ass clicked it and scrolled through! And I am now just like absolutely leveled down to the foundations! 🙃 I just got to have a fully global mind-body physical flashback as I began to read the posts and literally feel sensations in my body that I hadn’t felt since some indeterminate point in recent years when the pain of the more recent memories finally and fully occluded my ability to recall how it felt to be with her when we were happy. Like, I’ve always remembered but for years now it must be that I’d only ever remembered like data points about how I felt and how it was, but like how still photographs communicate what a place is like, compared to how physically being there we actually know what a place is like. It was like stepping into my own body in 2017 and re-living that exact moment in time where I saw and reblogged that post. That’s something I only ever do with the night she left me, or some of the other top ten most scarring/painful/regret-choked moment between us.

I feel like I practically had the wind knocked out of me. For a brief moment being in my body felt in a way, such a happy, light, joyful, innocent way, in this way that I realized I had literally forgotten I could ever feel or had ever felt, it seemed as formless and insubstantial as a dream recalled from childhood, just a few frames and the sweeping narrative arc. These days I cannot IMAGINE how the girl writing those posts was feeling that she could write such silly loving happy things for someone and that it was not only possible but safe and okay and wanted that you do and say and feel those things! I think for years now if you’d have erased my memory entirely and asked me if such pure, innocent happiness could exist in this world for me (or what that even means), I would’ve absolutely said “no” and probably laugh in your face. It feels like the person who made those posts couldn’t have *possibly* been me, because I am not the kind of person who would ever even be so bold as to claim that I DESERVE to want such things, it would be wasted on me.

As I write this I realize the self-concept in me that is dominant almost to the exclusion of all other “me”s basically talks to me as Cinderella’s stepsisters talked to her and made her feel, that she is so ugly and pathetic and unwanted that to want to get dressed up go to the ball is hysterically funny and embarrassing because she’ll never be beautiful or wanted by the prince and the whole ballroom will laugh at her. The idea that I could put my mother’s ancient moth-eaten dress and go to the ball hoping for love again when every girl at the ball is a real princess, and lovely, and charming, is like so zero degrees K unattainable in the perspective of the strongest voice in my head, that it’s truly unFATHOMABLE to me now that someone like that ever chose me and made me feel chosen and loved me and made me feel loved!! Like it feels like crazy talk to my heart. Who could ever have possibly loved your garbage ass when there are Robins in the world? So my brain, who in years has only visited these emotional rooms whose boards I’ve trod thin with my agonized and infinite pacing, has sort of stripped the knowledge of those past feelings from my body as immaterial, cut the cognitive load to only what I need to know to survive. My brain has felt so unsafe for so long that it’s marshaled every neural node to the cause of studying that pain because we have to figure out how to make it stop somehow.

I know that I’m rambling and making a truly scant amount of sense. But to try and finish expressing this if I even can, this is somehow the weirdest flashback I have ever had though definitely about as desolating as the rest. It dawns on me now as I write this (again, this rambling is absolutely brought to you by me, journaling in real-time the instant I got like 12 posts deep into that tag) that the actual reason my “inner bully” is so ruthlessly cruel to me is because she thinks she’s protecting “us” and this is the best way she knows how to keep us safe because she must stop me from doing that thing we learned was so painful that it almost destroyed us. And therefore, the fact that I can’t remember the physical reality of how good it felt before I lost it is because it’s actually more painful to have to briefly live again in a body that knew every corner of that wonderful feeling only to be jerked back on the immediate pendulum swing to a body that knew nothing but an acid-eaten hole where that feeling used to live, staring down the endless landscape stretched ahead of me where the sun has not risen in four years and I’m practically despaired of all hope it’s anything but gone forever. Like that feeling was so beautiful, a weightlessness I can’t possibly explain, and then the terrible crashing of the familiar and asphyxiating lead blankets around my shoulders again. That was very fucking uncool lmao and I think I literally would rather my flashbacks of the bad memories, at least I have calluses so thick there at this juncture that when cut feel a pain no more remarkable than my hip pain, a constant companion like a radio playing in the background while I go about my day, omnipresent and only occasionally warranting any focus. There the skin is practically just an open wound.

I feel like I am stained by all of this and I just want to scrub my skin raw to get every memory off of me so I don’t have to know how good things were and aren’t and will never be again, how bad things got and what I learned to hate about myself, I just want to be free. I want to be free of this. I am so afraid that despite all my trying I am going to feel like this for the rest of my life.

[rederiswrites]

So what led to this search was the spouse and me talking to our younger kid (about to be thirteen) about--no how did it start? Enshittification? Anyway, it ended up being like a ten minute, two-person rant about the ways in which Reagan, who was president when we were babies, is responsible for so many of the dire challenges facing us today. We got so invested (including the boy, who is always down for history), that we decided we needed a "Why Reagan Sucked" video night. We figured the kids could use the context, and we'd probably be reminded and/or learn about a lot of things that kinda went over our heads when we were, you know, four.

Boy did we succeed. The whole family watched all the videos above plus a couple more, and We Learned Some Shit. I wouldn't recommend just watching YouTube videos as a legitimate research method, but as a starting point, a few good memes and sight gags make the material more memorable. (Every time we see a map of India, we have to pause and say, "Nobody conquers the Tamil kings".)

The spouse and I both called for pauses several times, to relate things to personal experience (the neighbors who lost a baby to AIDS due to a blood transfusion at a time when the government was ignoring the disease, for example), or explain things the kids had little exposure to (like "Welfare Queens" or some of Reagan's other antiquated racist dogwhistles). The kids themselves had enough understanding to make connections to things like industry deregulation contributing directly to climate change. After the second video, we starting counting up on our fingers each sufficiently distinct Horrible Thing Reagan did. We got to eight, but agreed that the limit was on our memories, not his perfidies.

It was indeed good context for the kids to understand in more depth the mess they live in, and it was a bizarre and complex trip into the past for the spouse and I, and our perpetual re-realization that the world was already badly fucked in so many of the ways we now deal with literally at the time we were being born. I remember, just barely, when shops were mostly locally owned. I remember being aware as Walmart moved in, undercut local prices, and destroyed those businesses. I was like, ten, but I was kind of a scary ten year old, and I understood what I was seeing. On the other hand, I did NOT remember that "Make America Great Again" was originally Reagan's motto.

Anyway. It was a wild way to spend an evening. The kids absorbed it readily and willingly. There were lots of laughs (the third video in particular is...significantly less scholarly but very darkly funny), of the gallows-humor sort. The kids know what they face. There's a reason Gen Z humor is so dark. To repeat, I definitely wouldn't let videos like these be your *only* source of knowledge, but it's a damn good idea to spend an evening now and then learning some scary shit.

(On the other hand, yesterday the spouse and I spent a very peaceful half hour watching a completely silent seed to tea towel flax processing video. Also recommended.)

Me: well this is shitty search term engineering but let's see what I get.

YouTube:

[animentality]

There's too much shit happening on Twitter concurrently, a million micro discourses derived from reddit, every news site, TikTok trends, and racist YouTubers/ twitch streamers.

Call outs for popular Twitters and internet celebrities and actual celebrities.

Snapbacks about every conceivable news subject from all over the globe.

Meanwhile on Tumblr I know the only thing you guys ever collectively discuss is funny stuff like the queen dying and liz truss and the lettuce that outlived her.

It's nice and calm here...if I don't seek it out, I literally don't see you guys talking about discourse at all.

I see that fucking none pizza with left beef or loss dot jpeg or a post that's been around for 90 years.

Maybe some slightly current shitposts and memes about whatever. But it's always like ten years old by the time I see it.

Perhaps I am simply curating my experience here better...or perhaps Twitter's bullshit algorithms just thrust the most random shit at me, whereas here, the Tumblrs I follow don't give a rat's ass about dua lipa's sly shade at Olivia Rodrigo or whatever.

[dikanamai]

Since I've seen many comments about the "After you save the miracle, come visit" moment, and recently crossed with one of those again, now I can't stop thinking about it too, because… am I the only one who felt really "what the actual fuck, Bruno" when he says that? Like, the hell are you saying, man.

This thing intrigues me, because he makes this face when Mira says she's gonna bring him home:

And that's not the face of someone willing to keep away from his love ones. That's the face of someone who's almost begging to come back.

Ten years are a very long time. Thinking about it, I wonder about the different phases he came through during those years and how his feelings developed. He hid in a hurry, out of desperation. He thought it was the better option, to keep Mira safe but also to protect the whole family. He sacrificed himself. But he was still there, so he saw what his absence triggered. He saw how Alma's stress, fear and paranoia rocketed, which translated into more pressure for the whole family. He saw Pepa cracking and losing even more stability. He saw Julieta focusing so much on Mirabel, trying to ease her baby's suffering, that she neglected totally Isabela and Luisa, who had to endure their suffering on their own. The family went to hell after he left, though he thought he was helping them by leaving. And I wonder if at some point, over all those days of isolation… did he start thinking "omg I made a mistake"?

Perhaps, in the first weeks or even the first months, he thought "if I come out now, I still could fix this". Maybe he thought about it every day, getting frightened by the simple idea of showing up again after such a disaster. So time passed and months turned into years, and then the question would be: if I come out now… could I still fix this? I'm sure he was perfectly aware of the pain he had caused, that's why he tried so hard to apologize at the end of the movie. But while he was alone inside the walls, that pain probably looked irreparable. Maybe he thought if they discovered he was there (he had been there all the time) and had left them in the dark for years, seeing them suffering without raising a finger, no one would ever forgive him. Maybe he thought he didn't even deserve to be forgiven. His hypothetical confrontation with the family wasn't just a confrontation with the family; it was also a "Dorian Gray facing his painting" situation.

I always see Bruno being portrayed as a poor, helpless victim of other's perception about him, feeling miserable for it, or as a resentful man towards Alma and the rest of the family for not supporting him enough in the past. But I never see anyone exploring this feeling of guilt about the mistakes he actually made, the resentment towards himself for the help he didn't offer or the regret towards his wrong decisions. Not the made up shit other people put over him, but the shit he really did. And I find all of that far more powerful.

For me, the "come visit" moment is not cute or endearing at all. It's the lowest moment of a man so overwhelmed by his own guilt and shame that feels unable to face the consequences of his decisions (consequences he's been avoiding for ten years, btw). He's there waiting for someone to tell him "I'll bring you home", because he's so trapped in his own super plan to protect the family that he has no idea of how to break free of it. He needs to be told "you're still welcome and this is your place", and it has to be his 15 years old niece the one who saves him, instead of the opposite. What a shame, Bruno (I'm joking, don't worry, I honestly pity him).

And yeah, he finally manages to gather enough courage to face Alma at the river to defend Mirabel, and don't take me wrong, I'm not saying that moment isn't dramatic and moving and important for his own character arch. But it's also funny for me how he represents then perfectly (just like everyone of us who suffer anxiety) the meme of "yeah, you'll be glad to know it took me five minutes to accomplish the task I'd been avoiding for ten years", lol.

[aiweirdness]

Pranks you can do at home

I’ve tried to generate April Fools pranks using neural nets before, to mixed success.

Char-rnn’s pranks made no sense (“Glue all the eggs in the hubcaps of someone’s computer”) while GPT-2 generated surrealist performance art (“Paint the fridge with the red spiders”). One thing I’ve noticed, though, is that many of the AI-generated pranks are ones that you play on yourself.

So for 2021 I turned to GPT-3, whose internet training has included lots of “Top Ten April Fools Pranks!” listsicles, and gave it the following list to complete:

Quarantining by yourself on April 1? Has your cat put an absolute moratorium on pranks? Not to worry! Here's a list of April Fools pranks you can play on yourself! 1.

Remember that as a text-generating neural net, GPT-3’s goal is to predict what humans would write next.

Let’s see what DaVinci, the largest of the GPT-3 variants, predicts:

DaVinci

Create a secret language that only you and your cat can understand.

Repaint your nails in an unusual color like ORANGE, and just leave them like that.

Move your bed away from the wall and sleep in the middle of the room in a pile of comfy pillows.

Stand in line for a movie for 30 minutes and then leave.

Ordering junk treats from TV ads at 3 in the morning, like those "falling in the ocean" doughnuts.

Sawing your mattress in half in order to see if it's still good.

Putting your car keys in the freezer and forgetting where you put them.

You didn't remember to make an appointment with your electrician, plumber, or cable tv provider. When you run out of excuses you can always tell people it was a prank.

Take it to the next level. Make an appointment with yourself. Say you are going to clean up your mess and go for a run. Block out a day for it. (And for goodness' sake, don't clean anything and absolutely do not go for a run).

With example pranks in the prompt, DaVinci might have stayed more with pranks and less with what is frankly an impressive picture of covid quarantine life, considering its internet training data stopped in October 2019. Next, we have the second-biggest GPT-3 variant:

Curie

Install a fake microwave on the wall that you never use.

Take a picture of your bathroom and plaster it on your fridge.

Set up a freezer in your freezer. Then put a sign on it that says "Freezer burn."

You can set up an old TV in the middle of your room and use it as a table. You can christen this "April Fools' Day TV Table".

You can take a bunch of jellybeans, put them in a Ziplock bag, and tie the bag around your neck.

Take out your credit cards and plunk them down randomly in different parts of your house. If a funny looking cat appears on the bill, you will be laughing out loud before you've even opened a door!

At least these are pranks. Pranks nobody will see coming.

The next smallest neural net is:

Babbage

Eat a banana inside your own mouth.

Go to the bathroom, then switch off the light. You will see a holographic image of your cat inside the toilet!

Have a tortoise deliver your package for you, don't be surprised if it sings "Happy Birthday" back at you.

Opt for the treadmill. You'll be running in the nude.

Showering! Flowing through the water in a reindeer-like manner while wearing a Santa hat.

Be ready for a bird.

Write a bowling ball on your wall in the shape of a letter "P."

Put your name on a balloon. Surprise!

Pour a cup of coffee on your lap. It's an oldie, but it's still a favorite.

Talk to yourself. OK, this one might not seem like a prank, but I assure you, it is. Just wait until the third day of April when your friends hear that you are still talking to yourself!

And there’s Ada, the smallest GPT-3 variant! Ada has some pranks!

Ada

Running on Leg

My cat slept through a December blizzard in Florida this year.

Placing a crown on your head

Sleep in the rafters of a converted school bus in Pewaukee, Wisconsin.

There's a square of chicken on your front lawn.

Have a small black bar, maybe six inches across, made of a giant mason jar, nailed to the side of the truck.

Decompiling your nose

Walk into a toy store and buy a pack of bathmats, an inflatable pill bottle, and a video game, but only if you're a cat.

Prank: In my house, there are porcelain ponies. I swear that they exist.

Walk to the pool with a giant ball of shapely hair and a coconut on a leash. On a poolside balcony. Really, this is the most fun you'll do in your entire life.

Make Your Own Coffee

Interestingly, some of the neural nets would get pretty elaborate with their prank explanations. Curie invented this game! Rules presented here verbatim. It takes a while to learn.

The "Untruthful Food" Game

This game takes a while to learn, but trust me, after you've played a couple of rounds, everyone will be intrigued.

Description

One person says something that sounds true, and you all shake your heads. The next person says something that sounds false, and you all shake your heads.

Example

"I'm going to eat a lemon" leads to a head shake by everyone.

"I'm going to eat sour cream from the fridge" leads to a head shake from you and all of your friends.

"I'm going to eat a balloon" leads to a head shake from you and your friends.

The next person says, "I'm going to eat a bicycle tire," and laughs, and everyone laughs. Go ahead, shake your heads for me.

I also discovered I could get DaVinci to write pranks for the post-human future, including:

Intentionally mislabeling the trash receptacles in a superintelligent machine-run city. The trash containers were labeled with signs that looked exactly like the signs used to indicate the presence of humans.

Sending spam to the moon in the meme language of old Earth. The alien life living in the oceans of Europa received many trillion petabytes of junk mail, and to this day, the native life forms are still revolting against the spam.

I collected a few more, which you can read by becoming a supporter of AI Weirdness. Or become a free subscriber to get new AI Weirdness posts in your inbox!

[bleakbluejay]

the urge to say words about each one is incredibly high and i gotta tell myself "elliot. nobody cares". but in the honor of my cripplepunk and spergpunk disposition, i'll say those words below the break.

The Cat Lady: I first played and witnessed this game when I was 14. The game opens with the protagonist's suicide letter. It starts rough and heavy. This game is about fighting through depression and trauma and overcoming it. It has a dark aesthetic, haunting soundtrack (Warmer ranks among one of my favorite bands now, and influenced the creation of Aeryn!), and it has affecting me more than almost any other game.

Vampire the Masquerade -- Bloodlines: Discovered around the same time as the previous game, a few months later I think. I usually cite this as my Favorite Game. The aesthetic of Y2K goth in LA is on point. The soundtrack fucks. It's funny and charming and cheeky and there will never be another game like this. I've played through it many times. I can navigate around the map through sound alone. This game made me interested in TTRPGs.

Bully: I bought this game when I was about 9 or 10 years old, when my dad gave me a gift card for my birthday after bailing on me. My mom let me buy one T-rated game in rebellion against him, and I picked this one because I'd seen my cousin play it before. I've beaten this game many, many times, and it was a highlight of my childhood. When my PS2 Bully disc finally gave out, I through a funeral for it. I loved how the game was about standing up for people that were often taken advantage of. I'm also a sucker for the trope of characters that are mean and hard on the outside but have tender hearts, and this game probably started that love.

Valheim: This is perhaps a newer development. I've always loved survival games, but I get bored having no clear direction. Valheim does have direction-- kill the bosses. It's easy to set up multiplayer with my friends, the aesthetics of the game are breathtaking to me, and it scratches all the itches I have. Sometimes the difficulty of the game wears on me. But, otherwise? Amazing game. I just wish people would play it with me </3

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat: This was my first FPS game, played when I was about 15 years old. And god, it was hard. I find Stalker to be incredibly compelling and immersive. I used to spend hours upon hours just exploring the Zone and listening to the ambiance. The jankiness and bugginess and bad voice acting only added to the charm. I recently replayed Call of Pripyat and found that I still love it as much now near ten years later. It set my standards for games, I think.

Elder Scrolls 4 -- Oblivion: I played this around the same time as Call of Pripyat, and it was my first entry into the Elder Scrolls series. As it is, I'm already bonkers for fantasy (if you couldn't tell...), so being able to step into a fantasy world myself was... special. It started my tradition of my first Elder Scrolls characters in everything being a Bosmer named Paw that's a stealth archer. I loved the special effects, the silly voice acting, the bugs, the colorfulness, the charm, the humor. Oblivion is always at the forefront of my brain when I write the stories that I do. A sure way that always makes me laugh or feel better is watching Oblivion bugs/memes, or playing the game myself. It's a slice of joy.

Red Dead Redemption 2: It's really no wonder that this game ranks among one of the best ever made. It's immersive. It's thought provoking. The characters are incredibly charismatic. My only complaint is that there wasn't more. When I first tried to play, I found the game to drag too much, and the open world was intimidating. But... I got over it. I got spoiled for the ending, but that actually encouraged me to go back and play again with a different eye, and I was magnetized. This game for me is about enjoying life, and what little of it you're granted.

Harvest Moon A Wonderful Life (Special Edition): I'm not even sure when I first played this game. I first witnessed it watching my cousin play it on his GameCube, and eventually begged my mom to let me have it, too. It's a good thing that PS2 doesn't log how many hours you play a game like Steam does. It has to be in the hundreds if not the thousands. I burnt out my consoles playing this game and never turning the damn thing off. The aesthetics of Forget-Me-Not Valley are burned into my brain. Tattooed there. It set my standard for farming games, and the closest that ever got there is Stardew Valley. Nami was one of my earliest gay crushes. I loved the vague eeriness and mystery of the town and the forest, and the quirkiness of the townsfolk. This is another story I keep at the forefront when I write.

The Last of Us Part 2: It's maybe controversial that I like this game so much more than the first. I was exposed to TLOU when it came out. I was around the same age as Ellie, and she was some of the first ever gay representation that I ever saw. I loved this story. And I loved part 2 more. I loved the follow-up of consequences. I loved the gameplay. I loved the darkness. I love the sapphicness. I love the transness and the gender noncomformity. I love the settings and I love the characters. It's really a perfect game for me. This is another case where I just wish there was more. I've probably beaten this 40 hour game four times, not counting the playthroughs of it I watched from streamers I like.

AND BECAUSE I'M BUILT THE WAY I AM... here's a couple honorable mentions

Disco Elysium: Should've made this fucking list but I'm dumb as hell. It would probably take Oblivion's place, I think. Disco's a game about mental illness, about heartbreak, about healing, about trauma, about communism. What else do you need? I'm always a sucker for games about mental illness, man, and nobody is as unwell as Harrier Du Bois. Harry is definitely a character you shouldn't relate to... but it's impossible not to. This game holds such a vivid mirror up to the player, or at least it did to me. I felt an instinct to take care of Harry, to clean him up, to make his life worth something again, and in doing that, I realized I should feel the same way about myself.

Shadows of Doubt: The main reason this game doesn't make the list is because it's still ... not finished enough. But its promise is undeniable. It's a sandbox detective game, going smoothly with my brain that likes to tear shit apart and solve puzzles. The aesthetics are incredible and the first thing that caught my attention. I love the pseudo-80s look, and I love how detailed it is on leads you can investigate. Hell, you can even open up callboxes to view call history for a whole building. You can go into a government database to look people up. This shit rocks. I just want it to be less buggy and run more smoothly, and I'm sold. I only have 22 hours in this game, but I trust this will change after a couple big updates.

Sly 3 Honor Among Thieves: I'm a sucker for stealth games, and this game is probably why. It ranks among my most played ever games. I can't remember when I even played it for the first time. Maybe 7? I loved this game. The soundtrack rocks. The sound design is fun. I love the main characters. It's the first disabled rep I've ever seen in a video game, and he was strong and cool and self-sufficient! I was in love with Carmelita Fox, too... I wish that this game got the same remaster/remake treatment Spyro and Crash got. Maybe one day.

I made a 3x3 collage of my favorite video games because I am deeply and unnervingly neurodivergent and video games are probably my favorite thing ever.