specialdark

[thefandomcassandra]

I Know Now

I think it is my god given right to grab kotaro uchikoshi by the lapels and shake him like a dog until he apologizes.

[beefcake-penguin]

Pretty sure you’re the tallest penguin to ever live. What are they feeding you?

Beefhaps (beefcake perhaps) I'm an emperor penguin? 💪🏼🐧

Or some kind of strange, beefy-penguin/sasquatch hybrid? 💪🏼🤔

[largemandrill]

What’s the point of Elden Ring if not to make a hyper specific tarnished that you could only describe the lore of via full novel?

[autisticcole]

Heheheheheho I have gotten some of the Dragon Age books (🏴‍☠️) and this is gonna really let me dig into some stuff, especially my favorite guy Cole, cause now I can read his OG appearance, I want to see how much stuff Cole says, especially during his quest actually makes sense, and how much is in-universe "both sides are right"ing about not listening to what Cole wants to do.

I am mainly talking about Spirit!Cole thanking Inky for not making him change... Despite the fact that thoughout Cole's quest Solas ignores what Cole wants (Like being binded) & wants to do (Kill the guy who beat beyond beating a 12 (at most) year old (most likely, it isn't outright stated (to my memory) the Templar who fucked up the paperwork was also one of the ones who physically abused him, but I feel it's a pretty safe assumption) & got that child killed due to neglect & faced no consequences) but ultimately the choice that causes Cole to thank the player for not changing him is the one where you listen to Solas over Cole (Or well Varric, who also doesn't let Cole do what he wants but is closer to what Cole would have done if he had went alone for the confrontation) & in this route I would say Cole's character changes a lot more, especially as he forgets the original Cole, which... Rubs me wrong, but I'll save my more detailed thoughts for 1. After I fully read Asunder & 2. Either a full Cole analysis or a detailed post about my thoughts on his quest & routes (& maybe how I'd rewrite them, as a Autistic person & a ally to the aroace community)

Anyways my point is that I want to see how true it is characters rejected or wanted to change Cole, I want to see what leads him to feel that having two men argue & tell him who he is supposed to be & do only to have a third person decide out of those two's options for what he should do is remotely a situation where he's been accepted.

[yoggybloggy]

just found out a person i used to like has a crush and it immediately sent me into a spiral like never mind that i got over them like years ago and barely even talk to them anymore i now suddenly understand every single brokenhearted love song ever. i used to think oh how overdramatic and silly its not that serious but you know what yeah i get it now. like i havent even liked that mfer in years. if someone i actually liked ended up liking someone else while i still had a crush on them i think i would actually kill myself. sorry i get it now

[velvetineblue]

I just want to share an OOC update with you all because it is funny and that is that I have officially Fractured My Ass. i cannot believe this..........................

[liebgotts-lovergirl]

My toxic trait is that I can't focus until I've "solved" every cold case video I watch

[korkorali]

The Misogyny of It All

So a lot of Della Duck Discourse is rehashed all the time, points are made again and again, but one thing that I almost never see people defend -and conversely, see people attack all the time- is The Line.

You know what I'm talking about. The Line from Glomtales.

"Your plans, your schemes, they only lead to bad things for your family. If you want to be a part of this family, you've gotta stop."

That one.

Now, what exactly Della was trying to get across with that line is a whole other can of worms that deserves its own post (basically she -and also the writers- horribly failed her Speech check).

What we're going over here is how that mimics a certain line from the last season, said by a parental figure to a child, that gets so much less flack. That, in fact, often gets paraded around as 'an interesting twist on a character.'

"You are not family!"

I have never seen people attack this line with the same amount of vitriol as they attack Della's, which is funny when they're the exact same line.

Actually, not even that- Scrooge's is worse.

It's more direct, it's literally yelled at Webby, it doesn't even attempt to address the issue Scrooge had (Webby blaming him for what happened to Della) and instead just straight-up attacks her as a person.

Now, to be fully honest- I like this line! I do genuinely think it's an interesting route for Scrooge to take, and is quite realistic to the grumpy old bastard. It's just funny that nobody ever comes to Webby's defense the same way they do for Louie.

Because the thing is- between Webby and Louie, one of these two has genuine, canonical issues with feeling like they're not a part of the family, like they're an outsider amongst those they love the most, like they don't belong.

And it's not Louie.

It is a consistent part of Webby's characterization that she feels like she doesn't belong. This gets touched on in all three seasons (and honestly, it could be argued that it gets worse after this moment).

Conversely, that just is not a part of Louie's canonical characterization. Even in the first episode of season 2, the one where Louie gets the closest to an 'I don't belong in this family' moment, it's less 'I don't belong here' and more 'fuck me I am terrible at adventuring'. And! It gets resolved in that episode!

(Of course, there is absolutely something to be said for how it's resolved- specifically by Scrooge encouraging him to be a scheming little bastard, which then thusly becomes the thing that threatens his family the most. Which would, logically, be a pretty big blow to his self-esteem. This isn't what I'm here to discuss right now but it is genuinely interesting.)

Louie never really shows an issue with feeling like he doesn't belong in his family. He shows a disconnect with his family at times, but in canon that never really evolves into a full-blown feeling of displacement. It does get close in Glomtales, but never quite reaches it.

So it's 'interesting' (read: not interesting) that Scrooge's fuckup here gets brushed away pretty easily. A lot of the time the line just straight-up isn't addressed, and when it is, often times it's about how "Oh he apologized to Webby offscreen, obviously."

Which.

Not he did not.

I mean, let me be clear: I don't mind it when that's the answer. It works for me to just brush it away if it's not meant to be the focus...

But Scrooge almost certainly didn't apologize for it.

As 'New Gods on the Block!' Showed us, Scrooge is downright awful at realizing when his actions have hurt people.

More likely than not, Scrooge would just assume that everything is fine and would avoid bringing it up at all costs because he'd feel awkward about it. Because he is, very importantly, not good at talking about things he doesn't want to talk about.

So why is it that Louie is always the one feeling like he doesn't belong? Why is it Della who is always a terrible parent for what she's said? Why are Webby's feelings of disconnect never really given the same gravity as Louie's? Why is Scrooge's blunder let off the hook super easily?

It just feels silly to me.

And, well.

Kinda like the fact that, since Scrooge is a guy and Webby's a girl, and Della is a woman and Louie's a boy, has something to do with it.

I'll happily give the benefit of the doubt and assume it's not deliberate, but quite frankly it is a double standard.

I think that people would be less upset with the Della Duck Discourse if Scrooge was held in a similarly critical position over what he's said and done. If it was acknowledged that Della isn't uniquely awful in what she says and does, and that a lot of the others have fucked up in extremely similar ways.

(I mean for fuck's sake, everybody goes on and on about how Della left her kids for ten years -which, for the record, wasn't what she wanted to do- but nobody ever criticizes Donald for taking the kids away from their family and never talking to them about Della- which is something he actively and deliberately chose to do)

TL;DR: The fact that Della gets intensely criticized for what she's said and done, but Donald and Scrooge are conversely celebrated as 'interesting' and 'complex' for what they've said and done, even when it brings harm to the kids, is a blatant double-standard. And if you don't think that this double-standard is bad or wrong for existing (or even that it Doesn't Actually Exist), instead of immediately claiming that it's a non-issue, maybe try to look inward and figure out why you really think that is.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Derin you had a post a while ago (at least several months ago if not more than a year) where you detailed a calendar system that was extremely well thought out and sounded really practical. Something about the months being segmented so that the days of the week would be predictable (ie the 1st of the month is always a monday or something like that). all the months were the same length i think there was 13 or 14 of them and there were provisions for free days around new years and leap days and all. it was just a fantastic system i saw it and was like i would switch to this calendar system in a heartbeat.

but i cannot for the life of me find the post. i would like to find it. i am trying to work out a schedule for my newly-self employed life and our current common western calendar system is just really stupid in a lot of ways. do you have your derin calendar system to hand or do you know how to find the post. it was so good!! i would like to see it again at least for some inspiration for how to organise my life!! i would really appreciate some help with this <333333 thanks in advance!!!

You might be talking about the Time to Orbit: Unknown calendar, which works thusly:

Six days per week

Five weeks per month, giving 12 30-day months for a total of 360 days

A "thirteenth month" rest period at the end of the year of five days (six for leap years)

The advantages of this calendar should be obvious:

6 day weeks are better than 7 because they can be easily divided by 2 or by 3. There's a lot of things that people do every second or every third day, or that they want to spend half a week doing; 6 days makes for MUCH easier scheduling. Whoever decided the number of days in the week should be a prime number was a fucking idiot.

Even months also, obviously, make for much easier scheduling.

Every month within a year starts on the same weekday. If Jan 1 was a Tuesday, Feb 1 and March 1 will also be Tuesdays. Again, this makes for easier scheduling -- there's a lot of events that take place on "the second Wednesday of each month" and stuff like that, and it's also much easier to remember if the 14th is going to be on a weekend or not if it's the same throughout the whole year.

A 5 or 6 day transitional period at the end of the year makes for a very convenient rest and reset period, a "new year's week" that can be an extended public holiday that fits naturally into the calendar and gives everyone a chance to prepare for a new year. I think the cultural and psychological benefits of having an extended New Year holiday baked into the calendar would be large.

[toa-arania]

I found Touhou on IMDB and then it got worse.

So there's a bit of a story behind this, as there should be with any post. I have spent the past *checks clock* fifteen minutes and counting losing my goddamn mind over this.

Touhou 1-11, including 7.5 but not 9.5 or 10.5 for some reason, are all on IMDB. This is not that strange, as many video games are listed there for their writing or voice credits. What's weird is how I discovered this. I heard a voice in, of all things, a four and a half hour video about the Lego Ninjago show and how badly it fumbles its women. One of the characters sounded a bit like Azula ATLA so I checked. It was not the same VA. Then I saw this.

And then I saw this.

Now the sharp-witted amongst you may have noticed the tiny little inconsistency that

TOUHOU DOES NOT HAVE VOICE ACTING

Touhou has never had voice acting, especially not back in 2003 when PCB came out. There's also the detail that Layla Prismriver does not appear in PCB, nor does she appear in any Touhou game outside of her mention in the character profile of the Prismrivers, which firmly establishes her as very dead and thusly incapable of speech. You'll be pleased to know that it continues to get worse.

This is not the plot of PCB. What the fuck do you mean only one of these heroines intends to stop it. The cast list is also fucking bizarre.

Merlin and Lunasa are here but fuck Lyrica I guess. Alice and Youmu are not credited and REIMU ISN'T HERE EITHER. Youki Konpaku is credited. Youki Konpaku is not in this game. The goddamn Saigyou Ayakashi (which is spelt disastrously wrong here of course) is given a voice credit. THAT IS A TREE. THAT IS A TREE THAT DOES NOT TALK IN A GAME THAT DOES NOT HAVE VOICE ACTING. I AM GOING INSANE. WHERE IS REIMU.

Now obviously what I did at this point is start checking the other ones, and th8, 9, and 10 don't really have much interesting going on other than a continued and bizarre lack of Reimu in all of them. 6, 7.5, and 11 however are all bizarre for fun new reasons. Let's start with Subterranean Animism and work backwards.

I was suspicious of the lack of images so I went to check all of their pages and they're mostly men as far as I can tell. Most of them are credited in a film called Sule, Ay Need You, which a brief google has only barely convinced me is a real film that exists in the first place. It has a wikipedia article in indonesian. One of them, however (the only one with a picture) has been in eleven million different things with reasonably big parts. I have no idea what's going on here. With the player character situation there are eight characters uncredited not including Koishi, who is also nowhere to be seen (which feels strangely appropriate) and Sanae who I remembered literally as I was typing this is in th11.

Moving on to Immaterial and Missing Power:

TGHAT'S REIMU

Also I'm pretty sure Meiling wasn't in IaMP? (According to a quick google she was added in a patch but not given a story mode). Anyway the sudden appearance of Reimu is the only real interesting thing here because random cast absences are just so commonplace now. Now lastly for the weird fucking pages we have the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil and oh wow this one is something else.

Where do I even begin. Reimu is gone again. Three separate people are credited as Remilia. Actually most characters are credited twice except for Marisa and Sakuya for some reason. Sometimes they specify (voice) and sometimes they just don't. Most characters have [Character Name] and [Character Name (Voice)] which implies that one person is doing mocap or operating a puppet or something while another voices them but then there's just Rumia and Rumia. Who voices Rumia. Remilia has three fucking credits. Marisa and Sakuya get to be normal people. Reimu and Patchouli are just fucking gone. What the hell is happening.

And now it gets stranger once again because I said th1-11 earlier, not th6-11. The PC-98 games are all here too. However. Those pages are all just. Normal. ZUN is credited as the writer. There are correct plot summaries. No voices are credited. The name format is even different (Touhou [Number] [Japanese name]: [English name] instead of just Touhou [Japanese name]: [English name]). They're far too good quality. It honestly feels like whoever uploaded the PC-98 games is a different person to whoever's been doing their bizarre uploads of the windows games.

Now at this point I was looking for other interesting stuff to add - IMDB has Did You Know segments that had fun little details about the games, which seemed to be accurate. It also has a More Like This section linking to the other pages and-

...

...

Luna Nights is here too.

...

LUNA NIGHTS ALSO DOESN'T HAVE VOICE ACTING!!!!!!!!

[rubberduckyrye]

All right let's talk about what it means to Trick Someone because I'm full of Salt.

Here is the definition of "trick":

trick /trĭk/

noun

An act or procedure intended to achieve an end by deceptive or fraudulent means. synonym: wile. Similar: wile

A mischievous action; a prank. "likes to play tricks on the other students in the dorm."

A stupid, disgraceful, or childish act. "Don't let the kids pull any tricks while we're gone."

A peculiar trait or characteristic; a mannerism.

A peculiar event with unexpected, often deceptive results.

A deceptive or illusive appearance; an illusion. "This painting plays tricks on the eyes."

And for good measure, let's see what "fraudulent" means since I'm going to assume everyone here knows what "deception" means:

fraudulent /frô′jə-lənt/

adjective

Engaging in fraud; deceitful.

Characterized by, constituting, or gained by fraud. "fraudulent business practices."

Using fraud; tricky; deceitful; dishonest. Similar: tricky deceitful dishonest

So when people insist that Gonta was "tricked", they are trying to say he was fooled or deceived into Killing Miu. This, in turn, means that Gonta Must Not have Known what he was Doing, as being "tricked" into doing something means to be deceived. AKA, if he knew that Killing Miu was going to kill her, then he was not deceived, and thusly, not tricked.

Oh, but wait--

Alter Ego Gonta doesn't exclaim that he didn't know Miu had died, or that he didn't realize his actions would lead to Miu's death--He knew that his actions would kill her. He was surprised that his real self knew that he had murdered, and that surprised him, because Kokichi was supposed to take the fall for Gonta. They weren't SUPPOSED to know that Gonta killed Miu. That's why he's devastated/disappointed that they (He and Kokichi) failed.

To continue:

Gonta literally admits to killing Miu because he knew no one else wanted to. He knew that no one else would want to kill to Mass Mercy Kill the rest of the class, so he took that burden upon himself as a sort of twisted self-sacrifice.

I love how Kokichi spells it out that he told Gonta they should mercy kill everyone and yet this detail gets swept under the damn rug all the damn time--

But that is not the point so I am moving on

HUZZAH. The man himself, everyone.

Hmmmmmmm! Sure sounds like a motive rather than a deception if you ask me--

Gee this is sure awkward dialogue for a deception. Because it sounds like Gonta had the motive to kill everyone. Because he thought Hell was all around them, and living in hell sounded like a fate worse than death.

Interesting development here though:

"When I saw the flashback light my first thought was 'It would be easier to die'." That is what Gonta said before--and then he suggests that he had all of those other thoughts after that first thought--like that it's hell inside, it's hell outside, it would just be easier for them all to die, and this was BEFORE Kokichi even said a word to convince Gonta.

Gonta was already on the same damn page before Kokichi even spoke.

And when everyone was demanding Gonta to tell them the truth?

He did that all on his own. No influence from Kokichi. He said that he couldn't tell anyone the truth, because if he did, they they would all feel the horrible despair he was feeling.

Like if you hate Kokichi? Fine. If you can't stand him? Whatever.

But. Stop. Saying. He. Tricked. Gonta.

You are being ableist as FUCK and removing one of Gonta's best character development moments--of his kindness twisting and warping into a motive for murder.

Gonta is not a damn child. He knows what killing means. He knows that him killing Miu means she would fucking die. That was his aim! That was his GOAL! He wanted to kill Miu to mass mercy kill the class! He wanted to kill them all before they felt the same despair he and Kokichi felt!

Even if you don't believe me on Kokichi's motivation lining up with Gonta can you at LEAST acknowledge that Gonta is very blatantly talking about his own motivations and was convinced of this himself? That this was his motive to kill? That he is a tragic character who was so twisted by grief and despair that he thought death was the only salvation?

Can you like.

Consider this for one second? Please???

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for outing my sisters (SECOND) pregnancy and causing drama

I (20f) am aware that accidents happen, but she doesn't even know the man to her (22f) first (thusly no child support is involved in this equation). Discovery of this information is due to me being the one that does the bathroom trash. It was... not well hidden, to say the least.

Pure flavor and context, our relationship would be less rocky if she had any sense of responsibility at all. From 15 onwards constantly out of money yet up the ass of every hangout/party in town, constantly trying to make it anyone else's job to keep her entertained. Has very much dropped out of college for #1.

But, actual event wise... I get to the trash can, and I'm thinking... oh god, not again. And so soon? Because baby #1 is about 10 months (male if it matters) at sending. Mom has already bent over backwards to handle this without destroying *my* attempts at college, and there's not a doubt in my mind my sister would have gladly gone "Surprise! Not my problem now🎊! " if I'd given her the space to do so.

Phrasing it like that feels mean, but it's been 98% mom doing it all. Diapers, feedings, you name it. If it's not cute enough for social media my sister has not put her hands on it. In my moms fantasy world this was to give my sister the chance to go back to the local college.

Now at first I didn't actually plan to say much of anything. It just... seemed risky in a way I didn't want the backlash for. But a friend of mine and her girlfriend were moving, and their planned roommate bailed, and I do very much have a job an can pay rent. The nitty gritty is way more complicated than that but I'm trying to not bog this down.

I waffle for a couple of days as I process the whole thing but I commit to thinking later and acting now about moving and by what's month 1.75 I'm planning what posters of mine to take/leave. There's been a second confirming test popping up in the trash.

I have to tell my mom, finally, that in three weeks to a month I'm gone. Slightly unsurprisingly, I get asked "Well, why? Why now?"

I did kind of think through it in advance, but honestly every other small reason just... left me? I choked HARD and y'all know the blank "ohshit" moment where you've got Nothing.

It was a messy conversation and I'm skipping a lot, but thankfully dad and sis were out to not hear it. She didn't fully believe me until I walked out the door to the new appartment, and it didn't end there technically, but I just sorta grey rocked it with the sole give that I think mom is going to collapse over this because she's not twenty some anymore chasing *us*, and I think mom wasn't processing it either until I was out the door.

Final stage, I've packed and am seconds from leaving. Mom asks one final question of "What exactly would you suggest here, if it's real, then" in that tone where it's not about getting real answers, it's about shaming me. She is scathingly told to make my sister homeless about it if she doesn't abort, so that it'll maybe motivate her to at least get child support if not put a stop to the slope of shitting them out like litters.

Roommates are fine thus far, but I'm introverted and don't really leave my room unless I need something so the space for conflicts are minimal. So I'm a week into the new apartment (thusly she's 3 to 3.25 months pregnant) when I get a heated, ranting phone call. I sure hope you can figure out who's calling that's *mad*.

First of all apparently I'm a cunt for taking the joy of announcement away from my, as she tried and got "We know." Because that is so fucking important for a college drop out on kid #2 to have, apparently.

More interestingly I'm apparently a double cunt because mom had been toying with asking me for rent, as my sister doesn't work either and babies are expensive. This was not aired to me by mom herself, but even if I hadn't asked her myself afterwards I wouldn't have doubted that part.

And I'm apparently a mega triple cunt, because (as I turned around to interrogate mom about because. What?) mom had a crystalizing moment where it did very much click to her that my sister had no intentions of stepping up in anyway shape or form. Why she's jumped straight to "you abort or gtfo" like I suggested to be an asshole didn't get cleared up to me beyond "No, no. You're right. Responsibility must be taken."

A different friend has asked where the fucks my dad in this; spinless with no opinion because if he dares to dissent he'll implode. Moving on.

I think that while I might have jumped sharks everyone else is now on a plane of drama that I don't need to follow, and should in fact be kept the fuck out of. I also think I've also hit an anger stage of this whole situation so trust in my own narrative should be cautious.

I'm gonna, like, pause the emotional train here? And mention that I'm not asking about moving out. I'll be guilty about moving out specifically when my sister sucks my dick for forgiveness (note my 20f label). But this has dropped an emotional bomb in the family and my friend groups interconnected enough that they'd've heard about it even if I said nothing, and this is now hotly debated (and most of my friends are on mute on my phone lol), and by now it's no secret the ''make her homeless'' idea first came out of MY mouth, no matter how mortifying it is that it was taken seriously on impulse arguing about it is about seven steps behind where the debate needs to be.

Again, I'm at the point of anger feeling good. She gets irresponsibly knocked up once already, drops out of college and refuses to get a job, and then runs off and does it again after dumping all real work onto other people. I think she's lost the right to have happy fun time pregnancy, and I'm here to get a (late) opinion from people decidedly more objective than anyone I can speak to rn. It's not like the pregnancy won't be here in the time this takes to move through queue.

What are these acronyms?

[mixelation]

reborn au plot.... stuff. has plasticity spoilers. also canon characters die!

i said this recently, but i don't have much in the way of an overarching story after tori's, like, 17. part of this is just that i haven't made some major decisions about the premise (like what orochimaru is up to) and part of it is that...... what problems would even challenge these characters. like we have a bunch of weird interpersonal shenanigans but like obviously one appeal of this au is giving tori opportunities for Feats.

so i decided on a Feat.

i think as an ongoing looming threat, i might have some petty proxy war stuff going on. no one wants to reignite a multi-nation shinobi war, but everyone is scrambling to grab things for themselves, especially since konoha just like.... stole from iwa??? ame burned down half of kusa? oto-nin are just? in the wind???? someone probably hires orochimaru. people are out trying to snatch jinchuriki left and right.

so i was thinking thusly: one of the bigger nations captures fuu for the seven tails. ame sends an akatsuki pair which includes tori. somehow, the situation goes completely to shit. multiple nations are involved. the seven tails is released, killing fuu. everyone wants this weapon and they don't care if they had to kill a young girl to get it.

akatsuki's solution is that they should simply control all weapons. tori knows this will fall apart. she also knows that, even if she wrestles the raging seven-tails into a container and gets around the multiple nation's people ALSO vying to capture it for themselves, and she takes it back to konoha, this also solves nothing. and so she thinks: if no one can resist the temptation of a weapon, then i will remove the weapon.

this is the part that's a pretty big plasticity spoiler, but also a few people guessed it so i don't mind sharing. basically, the shinigami doesn't like tori because he can't have her. she's a weird, foreign thing that shouldn't be there. functionally, she can't die. she can be irreparably maimed, so she still has a healthy fear of most life-and-death situations, but she technically can't die. (she's unsure if this still applies in this universe in the earlier parts, but we'll let her figure it out eventually.)

the side-effect of this is that she has more bullshitty leeway with summoning the shinigami than other people. it can't take her soul so it will take things around her more indiscriminately, so she's not going to use it if her allies are around. but if she's fed up and doesn't care if everyone dies? fuck it, we're going to kill the tailed beast itself.

i want how this to be accomplished to be kind of metal and/or gross. you know that scene in plasticity where tori is simultaneously herself AND the shinigami and she's confused? like that but they're eating the seven-tails.

tori comes to later and the whole battlefield is dead, from the shinobi to the plants and wildlife. whatever other akatsuki was with her is either some probationary schmuck, a canon character who got separated, or hidan-but-he's-not-revived-yet (i'm leaning towards this last one). at first i was like "how does she explain she killed a tailed beast" to other people but THEN i decided

tori realizes she's done something she should not have been able to do. she's just created another weapon people will want to use. so she gets up and goes home, and she lies.

the seven tails killed everyone and ran off. yes, even the forest. even the little bugs in the trees. the soil is irradiated. i guess it was pissed off. how did i live? aren't i a barrier specialist..........?

and then of course everyone goes out looking for the tailed beast. like, you can't just have a wild bijuu running around!! but they can't find it. it's nowhere. it will never be found because it no longer exists.

probably at some point she'll tell someone, most likely itachi and/or deidara. hidan might confront her about it. but i just love the idea of her getting a major feat and then immediately denying it.

also she may or may not decide to repeat the experiment

[cleolinda]

Friends, we have more neighborhood weirdness, and it doesn't even involve wet chaos or the Unnamed Internet Provider.

So I'm at home with my dog, minding my own business, and there's a loud knock at the front door. The first thing you need to know is, it's 2023 and I don't open doors. Since the advent of texting, there is zero need to open a door without advance notice of a visitation, and I stand by this. At most, someone might be unheralded, but it's a delivery I was at least expecting. Don't Open Doors 2k23.

So I wait a few minutes, and then I go to the slatted door that opens from the den out into a little front hall, so I can kind of look through a window by the front door without being seen. There is no one on our doorstep, and there is no one parked out front on the street. Sure, I gave them time to leave. Not weird.

However, as you know, an Internet Provider flooded my basement with sewage, and we have had vans and trucks for repairs at our house for a month now. I go check kitchen window over the driveway to see if there’s anyone parked there.

There is.

I did take a picture of it, but I'm not sure if I should post it. I don't know shit about cars, so I can only describe this gleaming black vehicle as CIA surplus, or maybe sport utility hearse. The windows are tinted so dark that I can't even see who's in the front seat--there's got to be someone, because I went to other windows around the house and couldn't see anyone walking around, either. Short version, it looks like an expensive car that takes you to Bad Places.

I call my mom and ask if she was expecting anyone to stop by. Delivery, home damage repair, driveway digging chaos, anything. No, no one.

I sit very quietly in the den with my dog.

A while later, I check the kitchen window again. Ten minutes, and they're still parked there. Half an hour, they're still parked there. My mom calls an hour into this, and I check again, and they're not there. So this car stayed parked in my driveway, no one knocking again or ringing the doorbell, anywhere from 30-60 minutes. When I peer out at the front door, there's a printed note stuck on the window. It reads thusly:

DELIVERY NOTICE!

Important Time Sensitive Material

Name: Mr. and Mrs. [Parents' correct surname]

Date: [Accurate date]

Time: [Not accurate time, nearly an hour early]

Please call within 24 hours to reschedule your delivery

Contact Person: [A slightly different version of a common first name, a common surname]

Phone: [A number my mom later tried to google but reverse lookup wanted money]

There is no logo or company name on the note. It looks extremely generic and "hello fellow kids, I do a business." Between this and the corporate kidnap vehicle, I am creeped the fuck out, and extremely grateful that I have the Gift of Fear™ and do not fucking open doors.

Here's the thing, though. In writing this up just now, I decided to do some due diligence for y'all and google the contact's name. The first name is just unusual enough that it pulls someone relevant up immediately, first result:

A local account executive for a rival internet provider

what the fuck, y'all

Like, I'm not saying an internet executive sat in my driveway for the better part of an hour (to deliver WHAT??), but given our travails with A DIFFERENT internet provider, does this not seem significant? MAN WE JUST USE AT&T, LEAVE US THE FUCK ALONE

[adayladoorwalt]

This is a bit of a rant. Something that feels so wrong to me on twitter is the fact that people genuinely think that the end of the dsmp meant the end of anything related to the series, when the dsmp ended people left because of their own personal issues and feelings. The fans moved on and then the stories that could have happened were lost. Think about the stories that because of the fandom’s response to even seeing dsmp, were lost. I think back to how when Ponk expressed interest in doing projects on the dsmp, her fans fucking freaked, thusly they stopped any mention of a new dsmp project.

The DSMP isn’t lost media because of lost streams or lack of content, it’s lost media because the streamers never came back to something that they enjoyed doing.

I think of the creators who actually credit their time in the dsmp as a way to grow their audience and now don’t mention it because it’s not a project that is still happening. I think of Eret just occasionally talking about the fun they had on the server, what their plans for their story and them actually acknowledge the existence of their time on the dsmp. Fundy had an interview a few months back and he fully acknowledged that he used clickbait to make it in the mcyt bubble. There are former dsmp creators who acknowledge, express admiration for being on the project and then leave it be. They are few and far between.

More and more I see creators who were in the space are stupidly trying to get the high of 2020-2022. Trying to get to those extreme heights and now they figure that dissing the dsmp as it’s no longer ‘cool’ and ‘popular’ to have any positive thoughts on it. Philza in particular is the one that comes to mind with the ‘i’d rather gauge my eyes out then ever go back the dsmp’ comment which he later went back on like ‘oh I actually had a good time’. I never have appreciated any of the comments considering my favorite person from the dsmp often talked about how much he enjoyed playing on it. How he died not thinking he wouldn’t be able to finish his storyline but he did. The storyline he started became buried in the sands of the dsmp.

Techno’s legacy as a member of the dsmp is one that had a great impact on so many people who now don’t even have that. The creators who decided clout was worth more than being able to be able to communicate with each other.

Complain all you want about Dream’s ‘lack of communication’ but it seems now knowing about the fuck show that has been about any fucking drama that has happened in the past year, everyone of these fuckers can’t fucking communicate.

Now creator want come back pretending to have enjoyed the project and now their fans are being annoying about how much they thought it ‘could have been so much better if x,y,z’ and really it’s their creator’s fault. It’s their own fault for not just realizing that they may have not actually enjoyed the dsmp. The fans are the reason the dsmp was dead. Because to dteam+munchymc fans we desperately miss the dsmp. Techno fans do too. The fans of the dsmp are not the ones that are coming back, it’s the ones that stayed.

I just am having so many issues with the current ‘dsmp discourse’ and it stems from idiots being idiots.

[stained-glass-cicada]

Oh my god Prelude to foundation is so weird

I'm uh, going in an entirely odd order because asking me to go even one day without foundation book is out of the question

Thusly I am reading them in the long favored order: whatever the library has on hand until my requests go through

So I've read foundation and Foundation and Empire.

And now, after seeing the empire wither, after spending long enough to grow comfortable in the long shadow of Hari Seldon as inconceivably knowledgeable even centuries after his death, after seeing power perpetually ceded to those who even have the ability to not LOSE knowledge from generation to generation

Now it's baby Seldon repeatedly being like "i!!! Was just fucking around!! I was just playing!! What! I could not do the necessary math in a lifetime!" While everyone around him tries to convince him of the merit of psycho history and the empire makes its last coughing attempts at invention