#and to act like those ppl dont exist is just the same as acting like serial killers dont exist to begin with lol

[jvzebel-x]

🦋

[snekdood]

i feel like so much anti theism is a trauma response from being subjected to oppressive (mostly christian, since thats the pov i hear from the most) religious institutions. it reminds me of when radfems are like “men are bad so we need to kill them/wall them off from us/they serve no purpose and should be ignored/ostracized/exiled, etc.” and we all know they’re only saying that bc of trauma.

[sanjisboyfie]

one piece smau: dating eustass kid edition

-> male reader <333 + kid is so unhinged but this is how i truly believe he'd act on social media to be really real + also him being the definition of "i'm mean to everyone but u"

-> nsfw (mentioned and implied)

liked by dr.law, k1ller, and 7k others

iloveeustass: this is crazy he's actually doing the work instead of trying to kill a random passerby

tagged: [name]s.man

[name]s.man: if it's not you, i could honeslty care less on how i treat other people

-> k1ller: this is definitely not how u shd be living life

-> h34ttt_: and u wonder why no one outside of our friendgroup likes u

-> [name]s.man: i've never wondered this, i don't need other ppl to like me when i already have a wonderful boyfriend to call mine who very much likes me.

uso_pp: how a sweetheart like [name] is compatible with an ASSHOLE REPULSIVE AND RUDE man is beyond me. but as long as he's happy !!!

-> iloveeustass: he's not as bad as everyone says i swearrrrr

-> uso_pp: that's only cuz u don't have to suffer like the rest of us [name]. ur mans is fuckinhg terrifying to be around

[liked by dni_nami, bonneys.jewels, and 120 others]

liked by h34ttt_, k1ller, iloveeustass, and 10k others

[name]s.man: i lovveeeee my possessive boyfriend

tagged: iloveeustass

iloveeustass: you're the exact same way pls what is this post

-> [name]s.man: match made in heaven

dr.law: do u have to constantly post abt ur relationship eustass?

-> [name]s.man: someone here is just jealousssss

dni_nami: thankful everyday that we don't see each other at school i think id rather kms than see ur nasty ass (not [name] though, pls tell him we all miss him <3)

[liked by roro.zoro, uso_pp, and 40 others]

-> [name]s.man: WHAT TH FUCK IS THIS

-> iloveeustass: aww i miss u guys too nami hopefully we can hang soon

-> dni_nami: ofc! jus dont bring ur stinky boyfriend

-> [name]s.man: DONT IGNORE ME UNDER MY OWN POST

liked by iloveeustass, bonneys.jewels, and 11k others

k1ller: someone save me they're gonna start eating each other

tagged: iloveeustass and [name]s.man

bonneys.jewels: i ran away from them the moment i saw kid's lipstick on his face

-> [name]s.man: u guys are acting like we fucked on the couch and made everyone watch

-> bonneys.jewels: that's not what u guys were doing? i could've sworn ur pants were off or smth

-> [name]s.man: u fucking liar wtfff

h34ttt_: a business meeting and they couldn't be serious for a second of it.

-> iloveeustass: wym me and kid were very serious???

-> h34ttt_: serious in trying to suck each other off in front of everyone??? yeah. u two were very serious

dr.law: knew i made the right decision in staying home

[liked by k1ller, bonneys.jewels, and 90 others]

liked by dr.law, iloveeustass, dni_nami, and 11k others

bonneys.jewels: thank god [name] and kid started dating because kid's outfits have gotten monumentally better

tagged: [name]s.man and iloveeustass

iloveeustass: those leopard print pants he owned....

-> bonneys.jewels: tell me u burned them

-> iloveeustass: burned them and threw their ashes in the ocean

[name]s.man: i'll excuse u posting these photos of us without my permissions solely because he looks so good in these wowowwww

-> k1ller: [name] existing saving us from hearing kid rant for hours on end about smth unimportant <3 thank god

godfatherbege: eustass' fashion was always questionable to me, i assumed all kids your age dressed purposely terrible

[liked by hawk_ins, dr.law, and 100 others]

-> iloveeustass: LMDOOAOD BEGE IM DEAD

-> [name]s.man: don't show your face to me ever again bege or i'll kill you

liked by freeluffy, [name]s.man, and 12k others

iloveeustass: his new haircut is so sexy oh my god

tagged: [name]s.man

[name]s.man: i'm gonna have sex with you in front of everyone

-> k1ller: no fucking thank u

-> h34ttt_: OH MY GOOOOOODDDD a day of peace woujld be great thanks

freeluffy: OOOOO was the food yummy guys???

-> [name]s.man: fuck off my boyfriend's instagram bastard

-> iloveeustass: it was rlly good luffy <333 i know you would've love their steak, i highly reccommend!!!

xxxdrake: i bet kid didn't even pay for half off of the bill, his broke ass

-> [name]s.man: I PAID FOR THE ENTIRE MEAL??? WAT IS UR ISSUE DO U WNAT TO FIGHT OR SMETHING

-> uso_pp: FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT [liked by dni_nami, robinkills, and 90 others]

liked by freeluffy, iloveeustass, and 13k others

dr.law: all these two do is sit in a corner and bully ppl on their phone

tagged: [name]s.man and iloveeustass

iloveeustass: it's only kid that makes fun of ppl i'm the one telling him to stop

-> dr.law: fine i'll give u that one

[name]s.man: all i'm saying is - if you're not [name] why on earth should i b nice to u

-> dni_nami: a somewhat respectable trait to have

-> princesanji: NAMMIIII I WOULD DEFAME ANY PERSON YOU WNATED ME TO IF IT MEANS I COULD WIN YOUR FAVOORRR

freeluffy: not true traofoyyy ! me and [name] played supermario kart :)

-> iloveeustass: and i won all of the races >:)

-> freeluffy: NEXT TIME I'LL BEAT U [NAMEEEE]

-> [name]s.man: why is he flirting with my boyfriend right in front of me

iloveeustass' story:

stole his lipstick just for this pic

[name]s.man replied to your story: we should both wear my lipstick the next time we have sex it'll b like a painting

[thefruitbin]

something i like about the blue eye samurai is that they let mizu be a woman. And i know thats ironic since shes had to instead be a man, or let ppl assume shes a man so she could be safe or taken seriously. If anything they dont let her actually choose. idk if that makes any sense, but when i didnt know anything about this show i immediately expected the protagonist to be a man. Usually men play those roles, or whatever. So when i heard her voice in the trailer, i got excited! I hoped that she would be a woman, bcuz i rarely see women who dont look perfect, who arent wearing like skin tight suits or whatever portrayed this way. For me personally i always end up wanting a woman to be in the “mans shoes” or whagever the fuck. I wish i could articulate myself better. Like fuck they actually let a woman look badass as fuck, shes treated with respect in portraying her skills (by the story), and she isnt like the epitome of beauty (for social standards or whatever, to me she’s absolutely frickin gorgeous)

They actually let her exist outside of this lens of what woman should look like or act like. I know its been done before or whatever, but fuck it i barely see woman depicted in this same lens as a man and not make some joke about it. Shes not degraded to a sex object, her appearance isnt perfect or the beauty standard, she gets to be a killer and skilled swordsman in the same light as taigen. It felt rlly great.

I personally struggle with my gender identity, i feel somehow someway im not woman enough. So seeing mizu sort of go through not fitting this sort of standard, having this idea of being a man forced upon her, its all so complicated and interesting and relatable. Maybe that says something about me, maybe it doesnt. But im so excited to see where they take mizu and her gender. Akemi feels like such a foil against mizu. She fits the beauty standard, shes observed as a woman and has her own power. She’s unfortunately the luckiest a woman could be in the story, her being married and such was better than being sold. But still powerless at the same time. It makes sense why mizu was dismissive of akemi at the beginning, to her it looked like akemi was just a brat, but even akemi struggles with not being taken seriously. Mizu on the other hand doesnt fit the standard, being mixed, seen less than human for not fitting the standard, not being “woman” enough (the whole husband thing where her actually being better than him immediately made her husband like dismissing of her and possibly ratting on her as well) the whole constant thing of her “mom” telling her she doesnt have good looks, it often felt like mizu was fighting against not only being mixed and “not pure”, but also fighting against what a woman could exist as..”not pure”. She could not just plainly exist.

Gender stuff is so damn complicated and its something ive struggled with. Ive tried exploring the idea that maybe im trans, maybe im a man or nonbinary. But it felt so relieving to see mizu as a character. Something that stuck out to me was when she was talking to her ex husband. He asked “u wanted to be a man?” And she said something along the lines of “i had to be one” and it felt sort of vindicating in the sense that damn idk.. like me and my siblings have struggled with our genders and whats expected of us, especially within our culture. Ive had conversations with my sister like about how sometimes we do wish we were men. To be taken seriously, to easily do things without feeling so judged. Maybe cis people dont do that, maybe they do, its okay.

I just love mizu, and im so excited to explore this story.

[priceforrottenjudgement]

Ive seen a lot of bitching about hotd in the tag, which surprised me bc there was none of this two weeks ago and now all these ppl are acting like season 2 sucks and its badly written and its rewriting the books and bla bla. This surprised me, so i did a little snooping

Like. First off, isnt grrm consulting them this time? I know he was doing it for s1 and im sure i read he was doing s2 too. I cant say anything about bad writing, tbh i havent examined it that closely bc nothing about pacing or dialogue has bothered me enough to spend time thinking about it.

The "its not like the book!!!" Thing really bothers me though bc have you read the book? Lmao im not so sure bc some of the stuff you complain about is so weird, also how did you miss that fire & blood has deeply unreliable narrators? It literally says gyldayn is an unreliable narrator on the Wikipedia, hes taking a bunch of biased sources and kind of patches the history of house targaryen together. If you had read the book, youd KNOW that it isnt a definitive chronicle and stuff was likely altered, embellished and left out. Some of the alterations make sense, because why would some maester know about these ppls private lives. Fire and blood is full of propaganda, rumours and bias. Also the stuff that WAS changed isnt really that deep? I really like the change to the rhaenicent dynamic (ill come back to this, theres a reason ppl seem to hate this change lmao), i dont care about maelor and the nettes changes dont bother me that much? (Some ppl are convinced rhaena will get the ENTIRE nettles storyline. Which would indeed suck cough cough, but i dont think thats where theyre going at all lmao)

So i took a look at some of the other opinions of ppl who really really HATE s2 and, WOOOOOOWWWWW,there sure is a lot of homophobia on the yuri Website huh? All of a sudden it makes sense why these ppl popped up 2 weeks ago huh? (And why theyre so bitchy about the changes to alicents character not being a wicked stepmother but more of an... almost lover) Wow, what a fucking pathetic reason to be a hater. Awww nooooooooo this female character is kissing women noooo, theyre ruined!! Even though the relationship was kind of maybe sort of a little implied in the book. (Granted the book talks about a close relationship between rhaenyra, mysaria and DAMON, but see above for rumours and inaccuracies) Also there are a lot of ppl who were genuinely Team green (i did not realise those ppl existed unironically, gonna be honest) who are mad that Team green is portrayed more negatively than Team black and apparently thats unfair. Yeah, idk what to say about that, do you always expect to opposing sides of a fictional conflict to be treated the same and to be equally good and justified? Granted, the "pick a side" Marketing was dumb and encouraged this sort of thinking, but those two teams are not equal lol you can still like the characters even though theyre cheaters, usurpers and Bad ppl.

If you had genuinely read and UNDERSTOOD the books and that theyre full of propaganda you would understand why SOME PPL are either portrayed more positively or more negatively in the show than they were in the book. Just consider WHO was writing the history for one sec.

Yeah, rant over, this was just too ridiculous not to get off my chest.

Like yeah, you can criticise some of the changes and the simple fact that 8 ep seasons are SHIT for building a plot, but considering some ppl call an ep "filler" just because nobody got roasted by a dragon, maybe we dont deserve 20 ep seasons with a slow building of plot and tension anymore....

[leafybfdia]

ii2 ep 16 act 1 spoilers

um so this act has utterly decimated me. i had work to do yesterday and i found myself completely unable to do any of it. i woke up this morning and my first thought was about this episode. i went out today and all i could think about was this episode. i came home and ate and had to take a nap because my head hurt from thinking about this episode. i slept for 3 hours and dreamt of ii. ive done nothing today except think about ii2 ep 16 act 1. i didnt even act like this when firey revived leafy and i literally go insane over any leafy crumbs. point is i think i need to talk about it to release me. this is just gonna be my speculation for some things. ok? ok

the contestants

ive seen people debating about whether cobs is lying about mephone making the contestants but i think hes genuinely telling the truth considering the fact that 1. they glitch at the end and 2. the foreshadowing and 3. brian and co have been laughing it up over at animationepic hq or wherever LOL. but one thing i do think is worth discussing is whether or not mephone was even like consciously aware of what he was doing. i thought it was heavily heavily implied that he didnt realize (considering that when cobs asks “why did you do it?” hes like huh whuh) but then brian tweeted this

but then again he could be fucking with us. like you never know. and also i mean the question WAS pretty vague.

PERSONALLY im team subconscious. i think the writers are trying to hurt us and subconscious would hurt more.

another thing to mention is that the settings of inanimate insanity are very likely made up considering that the s2 location has literally prime shimmer planet eggs or whatever as hills in the background, and the island in iii is called “inanimate island” iirc. the same alliteration cobs mentions. and of course it could just be some pre-existing island that he renamed himself for the show but at this point i feel like anything is possible

whos real and who isnt

so that leads to this. who the hell is made up then??

i genuinely wanted to argue that bow could be real considering the fact that she came into the show on her own against mephones own wishes and also cant be revived but if team subconscious is right then it would have been possible for mephone to just have made her up too so like… i dont know. I dont know… it’s scary….

oh and that leads to another thing i kept seeing

the “bow is a prime shimmer” theory or whatever that i keep seeing

… guys im going to be honest i think we’ve reached the point of delirium. on one hand i vaguely understand where these ppl are coming from since bow made a prime shimmer sound and the egg that 3gs gave to cobs was pink (and i saw someone say it had a bow symbol on it but i just couldnt see it????) but i otherwise… dont see it? she doesnt look like a prime shimmer guys. sorry. anyways

mephone x

good goddamn lord. so get a load of this guy.

one thing i havent really seen people talk about is how only the specific targets can see mephone x and no one else. of course this is like WTF! before it’s revealed that everyones “not real” but like. i mean it’s assumed that cobs is the one controlling this thing. idk if this thing has agency and is just following cobs orders or if its just a vessel for cobs to control or what but it really begs the question as to like. how can he make mephone x be invisible to everyone else? are the contestants “made up” in the sense that theyre just code, and hes entering the mainframe or whatever? like. im assuming thats what it is but like Oh My God? and what the fuck is going on with his targets?

everyone keeps saying that like ohhh hes targetting those who were in the middle of talking with others but i dont think thats necessarily the case. i think thats just for the drama. even though it’s been said that it’s up for interpretation if guava and soap were killed too i at the very least think guava is dead dead since his disappearance was mentioned before even pickle died. starfruit says that guava just “ditched” so he wasnt talking to anyone. i genuinely think anyones fucked. speaking of which:

is the death thing permanent

honestly? im scared to answer this. on one hand im like well no these characters have important arcs they need to fulfill but on the other hand i feel like we genuinely may be hit with the madoka magica treatment here where death is sudden, unexpected, permanent, and terrifying.

my biggest fear is the ending being like everyone coming to terms with the fact that theyre not real and just fading away like they got thanos snapped or something. but i think soap and mics interaction is foreshadowing. soap deletes a picture of them together and opens the recently deleted pictures album and goes “oops, missed a spot!”. i think toilet, oj, pickle, nickel, and potentially soap and guava are in some kind of digital trash can right now and can still be saved. chat i have to believe

box

so. rememebr box you guys.

… i dont think hes “the first victim” or whatever. although it is an interesting theory

people seem to be able to communicate with box? which makes sense since theyre all made up and if box is made up too then well theyre like all the same guys. but like… his whole not reacting thing is mentioned too so. i mean. huh?

i dont remember if bot ever interacted with box before he got injured too. and im too tired to rewatch the first parts of season 3. but them interacting with box would have implications since they were like the only confirmed contestant so far that mephone hasnt made himself

toilet

oh yeah hes fucked. he has been fucked for YEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!! we just finally got confirmation that like yep no that man is DIED. although it confirms that toilet too isnt real which makes my whole “is bow real” thing kind of a stretch since he didnt like bow or toilet and yet they were still there

of course his carcass wasnt shown so it’s like ohh maybe he just got kidnapped or whatever.

and also adam was being controlled by cobs, and adam DID hire toilet… IS toilet real? if he isnt then did another mephone make toilet for cobs so he could send him out?? im in so much pain

honorable mentions and misc

- test tube and fan making bot is made slightly better because they didnt realize both bow and marshmallow were still. “alive”. bows not really alive though but you know what i mean. STILL DOESNT EXCUSE IT THOUGH

- do you think mephone made santa because of his childish whimsy and joy. like he wanted santa to be real so bad. Guys im sorry im not rewatching that episode i dont remember what even happens

- the season 3 contestants being at the hotel is… it’s not IMPOSSIBLE i guess since oj knows them. still frightening. they like literally spawned in it was the scariest shit ever. i remember when i was at the meetup i noticed that candles asset used in the theater etiquette video was season 2ified and i was like LOL thats a little unnecessary. like the face and limbs sure but the asset itself? Anyways yeah no that was completely necessary.

- according to brian the plot twist was planned since 2015 at the latest, so around the episode “theft and battery” when cobs is first shown. do with that what you will.

- ballpoint pens resemblance to cobs was not a funny coincidence.

- i genuinely got scared that mephone was confirmed to be a babys or something but as im rewatching it like 20 times yeah no i think cobs is just infantilizing him. Can i be honest mephone has always had old man voice to me

- do you think mephone made springy so he could feel like he had a normal childhood. sniffle

- bot, the one contestant he didnt make, was his favorite. Do with that what you will.

- no i dont think suitcases psychosis was her just “seeing reality as how it is”. i feel so bad for suitcase especially btw. im team suitcase i always have been they could never make me hate her.

- walkie talkie. FUCK

my predictions

- lightbulbs a goner im so sorry. lightbulb was literally trending on twitter earlier idk if it still is but shes FUCKED. she has the X on her face in the thumbnail and shes a fan favorite. someones gonna argue with her like ohh you cant make this positive lightbulb and then shes gonna be like Chat whats that sound… (she would say 100% say chat. to me)

- the rest of the season 3 contestants HAVE to be shown. theyre involved in this too man. clover fluttering away on her butterflies to whereever she went after she got eliminated and im like THIS INVOLVES YOU TOO. GET BACK HERE

- mephone will deny that he made everyone up but as he begins to doubt himself everyone will start glitching out

- i think bot will be called in here. cobs cant do shit to them mephone x wise

- no one wins here. even if they do get physical with cobs and suitcase idk beats him to death with hammers. idk if theyd show deatj and dying on screen but it’s like. ok but then what. youre still made up by mephone. take those million dollars if mephone even has the fucking money. what then. literally what then

- i wanted to say maybe mephones realization of his creation skills lets him create something or someone powerful enough to defeat cobs but like. you know. mephone x. then again though like you never know. thats the one thing here. if you know something no you dont

- 40 min fantube makeout scene thats unskippable because the entire time cheesy is in the background with a blank expression stating important plot related facts with no hint of emotion whatsoever

tldr

[polyamorousmood]

hi! i'd love to get some sympathy/advice/etc from other ppl about this. so long story short my girlfriend (wonderful amazing great i am so happy with her) has a boyfriend, and i at first their rs was meant to be ephemeral, but then things changed and they realized they could make a longform commitment work out, so they tried! problem is, during the trial run, the guy realized poly wasnt working for him and he failed to communicate this well, so it caused a situation where he was very much just fishing for my partner to get in a closed rs with him. when she expressed how hurtful and wrong that was, he apologized and changed his behavior and after some more various ups and downs we've now settled into a pretty good situation where he's giving polyamory a serious try and seems sincerely committed to making it good! i trust my gf wholeheartedly and i want nothing but the best for them both, and for that brief period of time where it was ok we even had 3person dates and really special interactions, so i came to sincerely like guy a decent bit and i am cautiously but sincerely optimistic. however, by having to admit shit to himself, he's now of the mind that he'd like a much more segmented-off rs with my partner, which is fine, but also the resentment he felt towards not being able to have my gf all to himself made him lose his positive feelings towards me and now he expresses a (his words) 'goodwilled indifference' and we havent even Talked since he tried to effectively ultimatum my gf out of being poly. and that is just SO hurtful when i know i did absolutely nothing wrong to warrant the loss of what i felt was a genuinely precious and positive connection, and like, the first time ive had the chance to have a metamour! like as someone who really cares about learning how to admit fault i really cannot stress enough how much i didnt do jack shit here i was just vibing and trying to be nice and now it's just this sad thing i have to deal with. i know it has everything to do with his own preferences and insecurities and nothing to do with me, but i still feel a big child-like sense of betrayal and injustice and it makes me want to be mean and bitter and defensive ("well if you dont give a shit about me and wanna pretend i don't exist, then im gonna do the same! how do you like that, huh?" type beat). i know those feelings are to be worked with and worked through instead of acted upon, but it's still hard :-( i dont really miss *him*, really, i just miss not being in a polycule that has a member who struggles so much with polyamory. and though i trust her deeply, i am still sad and worried that this is a precarious situation that can end up hurting my partner and hampering her ability to feel free and happy in polyamory, which only adds to my mistrusting of the guy. anyone else in a similar situation, havin' to work with a poly-newbie metamour or something similar? im not crazy for getting bad vibes, despite my best hopes for them? thank you either way, i dont know enough poly people irl and ive been bursting with this shit for a bit so it helps even to just ramble it out

Yeah, I've been in similar places. Just putting the read more immediately because I don't have a good pithy introduction. But uh, TL;DRI guess? 🤷‍♀️: its totally fair for you to struggle with some negative feelings. But you are still in it together (even if he's pretending you don't exist) and the only way to the other side is through.

Its shitty, its exhausting, its infuriating. And it's all the more frustrating that you like... don't even WANT to be mad at him cause he DID apologize and now he IS trying to change the shitty parts, so you WANT to encourage that. Feels very

And it puts your mutual partner in the tough spot of having to balance⚖️ things between you two if he's unwilling to talk to you. And like, you're stuck waiting for him to come around, you can't even really DO anything, its all on HIM to prove he's not going to be an asshole forever.

And you kinda resent him for causing this much trouble basically all on his own! And then thinking he can still get all the good shit after stirring the pot! Like he tried to break you up and now you have to be the bigger person?? What kinda bullshit--

Fucking. Sucks.

I do have some advice, though as with most things, its not magic 🪄

🤬Be mad for a little bit! Allow yourself to feel it. You're not gonna wallow 🐖there, but let it hit you full force how much you dislike being in this bullshit situation. Maybe have a cry about it or throw some darts at his picture 🎯. Then, and only then,

Set it aside. Set the anger aside in your mind, set the situation aside in your discussions. Say "yup, sucks. Moving on..." and enjoy the good parts of your life.

As part of that, remember polyamory is a big ask for people who've never done it before. Him even just politely ignoring you is likely, in his mind, him compromising on everything he's believed in for years and the fundamentals of what his life will look like. That's a big deal. It's hard to do after there was previously a higher standard set, but try to give him some credit for that anyway. (Again. You are probably going to have to Be Mad first to be able to do this. That's okay. Don't skip ahead.)

I don't think having approximately the same attitude back is necessarily a bad strategy. Maybe don't do it with the petulance you presented in the ask 😝 but if you're able to just gently, non-judgmentally accept neutrality as a mode of operating with him... might save you a lot of trouble honestly🤷. Warmth is great and all, but I think it runs the risk of you burning out and feeling greater resentment down the line if it stays one sided (but you know yourself better than I do, so if you can handle it, power to you).

Know your feelings about this really well. Know what you're good with 👍, know what bothers you but you're willing to do for the good of the polycule😖, and know what really upsets you👎. Is this something you can make work long term? What changes would you need to have it work long term (including progress from him, accommodations from your partner, etc)?

Consider confronting him directly. You'll know better if that's actually a good idea in this situation than I will, but consider it. It may help you move past things to air your feelings, it may help him understand you better and vice versa, and it may lay the groundwork for a more functional relationship down the line. I must admit bias here. It is VERY important to me that things can be relaxed with my metas. The idea of refusing to engage with me feels like they're refusing to engage with the very concept of polyamory, and I that cannot work in my life - like, I run a poly blog you can guess how I value polyamory 😂 If you can be comfortable with something closer to parallel polyamory, this may be unnecessary.

And of course, through all of this, you have to talk to your partner. All of it. If you have a tendency to martyr yourself so as not to stress your partner out, overpower that tendency for this one. You are NOT doing your partner any favors by doing bottling it up. 🍾

For example, earlier I said your partner is going to have to balance things between you and your meta. It may be tempting to think you can spare her some of that by shrinking your feelings and needs, so maybe you'll just bite your tongue. However, she has to do the work anyway, and forcing her to work with incomplete information actually makes the balancing that much harder. While you shouldn't harp on them about it, she should know where you're at in all this. You owe your partner the ability to make informed decisions, and your happiness and ability to sustain a certain set-up is going to be an important factor to them! Tell them your misgivings, tell them if its going to take you some time to forgive him his bullshit, tell them if you are okay with something in the short term but don't know if you can spring it long term, tell them if you need a break from thinking about the whole damn situation. (And of course, as always, tell your partner when something feels good or is going well 😊)

It can be recovered. It will require patience. Hang in there. 🤗 I admire your commitment to figuring it out, and it sounds like you have a splendid partner who is just as committed to making it workable. I'm rooting for you all 💙💖🖤

[danmeiconfession]

The amount of hate YQY receives from the general SV fandom is hugely disproportionate to the things he did in canon and one doesn't need to look further than this blog itself. Because ever since this blog appeared, the Yue Qingyuan character tag has been overrun by hate posts.

And this hate is not a new phenomenon either, ever since the early days of SV fandom, he has been a very despised character. Worst of all: Most of the claims he gets hate for don't align with canon either! YQY's worst crime is to enable LBH's abuse but somehow a good chunk of the gen SV fandom will claim he's an oathbreaker, a cheater, an incel and a controling creep.

Which breaks my heart because in the novel he's loyal to a fault, he respects SQQ's boundaries, and the only times he initiates physical contact is when he checks the others health, which never go beyond checking his spiritual veins. Hell, he even lets go SQQ to leave with LBH, after the latter almost destroyed the world they knew! Just so SQQ can become happy.

Yet he receives such an inappropiate amount of hate, that extends so far, the SV fandom as a whole feels very hostile to YQY.

This isn't something I'm making up either, having talked to many other YQY enjoyers, everyone had the same sentiment of being alienated by the fandom and just tired of the constant hate he receives. And if it'd just stop at hate, then it might be manageable, but there seems to be a constant need to humiliate and make fun of him. The times I've seen either SQQ parade with his new boyfriend and how much superior he is to YQY is too many to count. And more often than not he is relegated to a past/current abuser or whatever antagonist the story needs at the moment, despite characters like QJL and HHPM existing. There also have been several times where I engaged with a SV fan to talk about the novel, just to receive unprompted YQY hate out of nowhere.

Of course I don't mean to say he hasn't dont anything wrong; his biggest crime (we know of) is enabling LBH's abuse (and in extension many other disciples) and you're free to dislike any character.

But to act like other characters acted better than him, especially in treatment towards SJ, is ridiculous. (eg. LBH tortured him, LQG went with a group of ppl to harass him at the brothels, QJL)

And for all the proud claims the SV fandom likes to spout of being """#drama free""", it's blatantly untrue and I wish they'd acknowledge this.

_

So, to the blog runner(s): I suggest tagging character hate with "anti [character acronym]", as most people search using the characters written out name's tag to look for fanworks. To specify who you can also add the novels name (written out or not), since some acronyms might repeat. [eg. "anti SV YQY" or "anti Scum Villain YQY"] This might be the best compromise you can do while allowing anti [smth] confessions.

On that note I also suggest tagging "anti [shi.pname]" for anti ship confessions, because I've seen quite a number of those post just having the hated ship tagged directly. The "." is to avoid the posts appearing on the ships native tags on tumblr.

And To the people who'll claim to "simply block the blog / filter the tag": I'm aware such systems exist, but it's not reasonable to need to block a tag or several blogs to just not be overrun by hateposts immediately. Also it's deeply unpleasant to see the wall of hate the first time already, before you had any chances to block or filter. Especially when in this case the hate is overwhelming the tag to a ridiculous degree.

Even then, the chances of meeting any random (unwarned/untagged) YQY hate is staggering high, to the point most of us just distance ourselves from the fandom or straight up leave. So I ask you to behave yourself and make the fandom a slightly better space for us to stay.

.

[timothylawrence]

it saddens me so much to see shity posts abt will being supposedly out of pocket when talking abt his new appearance in front of tieflings when. first of all knowing his story this is never about tieflings and not meant in a mean spirited way to anyone but himself. and secondly this is a person whos sense of self worth is literally little to none because of everything that happened with ulder and mizora when he was a kid. wyll feels so much guilt over existing just as "wyll" that he doesnt really see anything worthwhile about just being "wyll ravengard" and thus is always trying to overcompensate for (in his head) not being the "perfect son" or the "perfect hero" and puts himself in danger disregarding his own well being and safety by playing the part of the Blade of the Frontiers, this larger than life hero of legend persona that he's created, both to do something about the guilt he feels ovr being only human. like theres a reason why hes always so charming and proper apart from being a genuinely nice person but i guess some ppl dont gaf abt nuance. like girl how would you react if the person whose job is to love, accept and nurture you, and who has been your personal referent your entire life REJECTED YOU AND KICKED YOU OUT AT SEVENTEEN. like girlies did we even play the same game. ulders opinion meant the world to wyll. so much so that he took on this perfect blades of the frontier persona and hid the real, human, wyll persona because he thinks that to be accepted by uldred he can be nothing short of perfect. and then mizora changes his appearance so that the proof of his pact is visible to anyone knowing how much having to look and be perfect weighs on wyll. its so unfair and sad like. wyll will be genuinely kind and accepting towards people who have more faults than him bc he recognizes the person behind the faults, but he will never give that same treatment to himself. he beats on himself so much over natural human responses bc of what ulder said to him.. girl i cant do this. his first response to not looking """proper""" as the blade of avernus is to hide from the other people at the party, even if those other people share most of the same physical traits he now posesses. he can accept and understand "weakness" and "imperfection" from other, just as long as it doesnt come from himself.. AND STILL HE IS SO SO KIND AND LOVING AND SMART AND TALENTED AND TENDER AND PRETTY AND DREAMY JUST THE WAY HE IS ok im normal now. sorry for writing this so shittily im in a rush but anyways wyll supremacy

LOL anon you got it down to a T. People chalking up Wyll being ‘angry’ about being a tiefling now like, missed the point entirely. He’s not a tiefling. He is a devil- he’s been touched by the hells and people NOTICE. Especially when you get to act three, multiple guards call Wyll out on not being a ravengard- one even calls him a devil boy!! Not to mention, his own father literally calls him a monster. He was manipulated and preyed on by a devil- his life was RUINED by a devil. Why would he be okay with being one? With being the very creature that preyed on him?

A lot of people seem to skip over Wylls relationship with his dad- he loves his father more than anything. There is no anger over Ulder kicking him out, there’s no anger over not being listened to. One of my favorite quotes in the whole franchise is from their scenes together— “everything I did, I did for Baldur’s Gate. I did for you.”

Wyll gave away his life to a devil to save Baldur’s Gate. He did this for his people but most importantly, in his own eyes, to make his father proud. And Ulder cast him out. If making a pact with a devil earned this response, why would Wyll not be scared about LOOKING like one??

Not to mention, if you play his origin, mizora states to his face that the blade of frontiers is just a persona- she taunts him abt his need to be good - to have this perfect image, to manipulate him to do her bidding (killing Karlach). She knows just as much as he does that without the blade of frontiers, he’s nothing but that scared, exiled boy.

Wylls biggest fear is not being needed, because if he’s not needed, if he’s truly alone, then there’s no use for the Blade of Frontiers.

There’s just Wyll.

[xuune]

dropping this here because I kinda wish I'll snap out anytime soon from listening to the playlist you made for your last art, but here I am, booming 8:00, get me some, wyd, wounds will h.eal, and enclosed in my earphones at midnight. i think your music taste is fire, i'll give you that. mygods (ง •_•)ง

anw, I wanted to ask on how you decide and plan expressions/interactions for the characters when you draw your works? I always find your works to be so expressive. thanks in advance if you ever see this :OOO

p.s. I LOVE YOUR OCs, i think i'm in love with rael i genuinely wish they'll give me a headlock or smthn and i'll be happy p.p.s. i would marry your art if I could (i'm this fkn close 🤏 pls dont sue me)

(sorry for taking so long to reply, you'll know why once you read the rest of this lol)

im so glad that you had those as your faves bc those are some of mine too :D i've been seeing a few ppl rly enjoy 8:00, and if it wasn't for my friend recommending me that song, we wouldnt be here, and those drawings wouldnt have existed either, let alone the animatic i did

thank you for thirsting over my ocs, you don't know how much of a compliment that is whenever i see ppl react that way to them LOL. thats how i know i peaked with their design 😎 stay tuned for some other oc art, cuz im currently working on a piece for my friend's ocs. his ocs exist in the same universe as mine :)

i'll answer your question about planning expressions and interactions below, bc i have a lot to say about that:

when planning for expressions and interactions, i'm usually trying to answer a couple of these things:

what moment do i want to highlight

why is this moment significant

how do these characters feel in the moment, how to they react to each other, what's their motivations

what body language best answers the question above ^

basically, i'm asking myself "what's the scene?" -> "what do the characters feel in that moment?" -> "how do they act this out to convey that?" (that's how i was taught to read scripts for plays. you must understand character motivations before you figure out how to act their feelings out)

it's very important to have a good balance of body language and dialogue to convey the mood if/when appropriate, since sometimes strictly relying on dialogue to sell the moment w/o body lang or vice versa can tank the execution

i assume that you're more interested in how i planned the interactions for them sharing music? lmk if there's like specific ones, bc i can explain more for whatever else it may be

anyways, i start off with scripts of some kind. my scripts can be very barebones that just note a specific scene (i.e. "working at desk, listen to music together before class starts"), or that i build a moment based on a piece of dialogue (i.e. "better not queue anything lame"). here's the notes i made when i made the 8:00 animatic, since thats big on body language

i wanted to get down my main ideas first, which was figuring out the the lyrics i wanted to use paired with dialogue to match. i dont show my thinking much on some of my notes, but what i was getting at this:

story moment: dk connecting the context of the song to his intimate moment with bkg

key moments: waking up, playing with hands, eye contact w/ bkg

i didn't expand on the ideas for how those moments would look until i actually started thumbnailing for the animatic, which i showed briefly here. here's what i kept in mind for their expressions/interactions:

dk shies away from directly confronting bkg outwardly expressing his feelings for him via the song. he avoids it and changes the topic verbally to make the conversation lighthearted -> "what expresses avoidance?"

bkg is direct about his feelings, his actions and expressions must convey a direct confrontation, an attempt to make dk acknowledge how he feels about him thru the song and potentially get a response from him -> "what expresses straightforwardness?"

here's what i decided would visually answer those questions

the implications of character's expressions also factors in the circumstances of their situation. without the context, the execution tends to fall flat. if you didn't know that they were listening to a song that's all about romantic pining, then you probably would've been questioning why the fuck are they just staring at each other, or assumed that one is shy of the physical interaction when that's not the point; its the dawned realization and the acknowledgement of the other's feelings.

my other drawings for that thread followed the same kind of planning tbh, lol. all those drawings had the lyrics set the stage for how the characters are feeling, and i'd have to figure out what about their facial expressions and body language best matches the context of the situation. here's this brief example:

but yeah, that's generally how i plan for expressions/interactions. sometimes i just get a rush of interaction ideas that is centered on one specific question i want to explore, like:

what do their mundane parts of life look like?

how do they physically react to realizing their feelings for the other?

how is someone anxious about the other person's perception of them in the comic i'm drawing?

and then build off from there. hope that helped :D

[penny-hartzs]

this is going to be long. i saw ur post about j0sh/rachel and the whole wild “grooming” allegations and i have to say it comes 100% from people shipping rachel with tom and wanting to feel validated by finding a reason to “dislike” her current partner. and we need to have a conversation with twitter’s obsession w white boy x biracial or woc real life shipping.

tom is their white boy of the month. also, if josh was white and a blue eyed conventionally attractive man you’ll see the allegations wouldn’t even exist cuz they would have not problem w the couple. might u, tom is also the same age as josh. i find a bit of racist too but i won’t go there. them just not considering josh attractive enough to be w her so she should be w her white attractive co-star instead.

i’ve been following rachel since 2019 when she was announced as maria in wss because i am a musical girlie and she’s been friends w josh ever since then. 3 years of friendship and 2 years of relationship. rachel is a very friendly. you can tell she befriends people very quickly and isn’t shy about showing that love to friends. the same thing she does w tom now she’s been very vocal to her other friends she holds dear as well. her legit best friend for ages is a man.

those people suddenly being so concerned for rachel want josh to be a ped0 so badly to the point of exaggerating the whole situation. and doing that just shows they want ppl to deliberately hate on josh and ship her w tom. it doesn’t come from a genuine concern. out of all the post i’ve seen wanting to claim she was “gr0omed” they want to make it seem like they started dating during wss when they started dating two years later (late 2021). and i was there to see their friendship to relationship turning point. rachel was 20. both were consenting adults. and josh was also 24/25 not “almost 30” like some say to exaggerate the situation. they have exactly a 5 year age difference. (both born in may).

i feel like so many people see age differences and scream so bad because 21 being the drinking age in the us has twisted their minds. they want to paint rachel as a little girl that had not agency about the relationship she gets in. as if she and her family haven’t been close to him for 3 years prior. i even saw someone say “hope rachel has a good influence in her life that can advice her” girl u dont know those people. why are u making some wild allegations like this. allegations that can ruin someone’s career and entire image. they have been in what it seems to be a really good relationship for 2 years now. rachel’s family is very close with him. and they are very private despite being “public”. they seem to share when it’s needed but keep the relationship mostly to themselves. josh isn’t very active on social media and frankly, i feel like since he is starting his movie career he doesn’t want to be known as “rachel’s bf” cuz people are already calling him nepo bf and that he gets roles only cuz of rachel and he is really talented. and the whole “he doesn’t even support her publicly like tom”. first, tom replied to a post made on his own account about his current co-star. and josh not only isn’t that active on social media but he doesn’t have enough star power yet. they also seem to have two different love languages. rachel is very vocal/physical. he seems more chill. the most important thing is that he was the person with rachel when she was getting mass hated and the fact she even has to clarify (in her 2023 appreciation post) that her bf was there for her is wild cuz people are too chronically online these days and measure love with public postings. and most people didn’t know she was in a relationship until the tgh press tour lmao.

another wild thing i saw from people is saying “they’re in different life stages and that’s weird” well, not really. they’re both in their 20s and embarking in acting together. they both got their first acting job in wss. they’re on the same train and live a life very different from ours.

i get people feeling weird over the fact she was 17 turning 18 when she met him and he was 23. but that doesn’t necessarily meant she was gro0med. not every age different comes from an abusive environment and it’s really weird. and i literally have met people that have been friends for a while and naturally felt in love and have been together for ages. like let’s find ourselves an honest concern to yell about truly.

Thank you for taking the time to write this, you gave me some new perspective on Rachel and Josh's relationship I didn't have and also thanks for sharing your opinion with me!

People on twitter and tiktok shipping women with their male costars is certainly not a new phenomenon but I've been seeing it grow insanely popular these last few years: from Halle Bailey and Jonah Hauer-King, India Amarteifio and Corey Mylchreest, Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya, Rachel Zegler and Tom Blyth and so on and so on. It doesn't matter that most of these people were/are in relationships with others (and are pretty vocal about it), we're still going to see fancams of the co-stars posing on the red carpet together (with a romantic song as the musical background) and tweets about their 'natural chemistry' are going to go viral again and again.

I think it's absolutely fair to talk about racism when stans are rooting for a woman of color to break up with her boyfriend (also a man of color) and get with her white co-star, but the thing is, most of them know it's wrong, so they come up with other reasons to justify the hate towards their fave's partner: Halle Bailey's boyfriend makes it easy for them, but Josh and Rachel seem to keep fairly to themselves so they had to dig deeper. So on the one hand, I think the weird allegations Josh is receiving right now are based on the simple (and idiotic) fact that people want Rachel to be with Tom. On the other hand it opens up a huge topic of conversation about age gaps in couples, and especially in Hollywood. I personally believe that five years apart is a perfectly appropriate age gap between a couple and I have no idea how Rachel and Josh are supposed to be in 'different stages of their life', since they are both upcoming actors, starred in the same successful movie and are in their early and mid twenties. I dont understand why it's even an issue for anyone and tbh I find it disheartening that Rachel has such lovely things to say about him and seems to genuinely love him very much only for her fans to call him a groomer and wish for them to break up. Grooming someone is a serious, dangerous thing and if online users keep using those words for situations like Rachel and Josh, they'll end up losing all meaning. Lastly, I know social media is a huge part of our lives, but I still find it completely stupid to judge anyone's relationship on their instagram and twitter activity. Have we learned nothing from those men who post their wives on their main page while simultaneously sending dick pics to models?

Let's end it with a pic of them, because they're cute and it's almost christmas

[golbrocklovely]

im someone who’s slightly on the fence about malia, i don’t have any super strong opinions on her, to be honest.

im not a fan like a lot of ppl are bc.. what is there to be s fan of? she doesnt make content of her own rlly & we know next to nothing ab who she is in terms on interests and personality.

i dislike the lying she did in terms of that whole onlyfans thing, but i understand why she did lie.

idk i feel like ppl who are obsessed with her are moreso a fan because they wanna appease colby & get on his good side. they dont actually like HER they want his approval.

i definitely think there are fans that are purposefully pretending to love malia just to get in colby's good graces/get noticed by him. that's for sure happening. but i don't think that's all the fans that act like they love her.

(went on a bit of rant, so my bad lol)

i think the reason why malia has certain fans acting like they love her is the same reason why someone like charlie d'amelio blew up when all she did was do popular dances: she's pretty. pretty privilege gets you super far online. i also think malia has a nice aesthetic and that too is why ppl like her. and then on top of that, she's an extension of colby bc she's his gf - so now she's even """"better"""" than she was before. plus i think in some ppl's heads if colby is dating her, she must be a good person bc they doubt he would date someone terrible.

my thing with her is that if you don't have any feelings towards her/are indifferent, that's totally fine and understandable. we don't know her that well. but to hate her is dumb. she just posts her little tiktoks and makes an insta post once a while. what is there to hate about her? you know literally nothing, so why hate?? if she's truly that boring, what is there to hate on?

interestingly, the onlyfans situation pisses me off in a weird way. bc i have to ask, what does the fandom gain from her answering it truthfully?? or really, why was the question asked in the first place?? bc clearly it wasn't being asked in good faith or bc fans were genuinely curious. no, it was being used as a gotcha question. bc a good chunk of us all saw she had a onlyfans link in her bio before colby started dating her. i remember seeing it. but reality is… what does her admitting to having one at one point prove?

it was a double edge sword for her either way. if she tells the truth and admits to having one, a - the fans that hate her will call her a slut, a whore, a sex worker and say she's weird for selling her body online and that's why colby shouldn't date her. or b, "omg she's promoting her onlyfans to colby's underage fans, she's a freak". i foresaw both of those outcomes happening instantly. her saying "no i don't have one" is the best case bc it ends the conversation. so what if she "lied"? who cares? it was a dumb question being asked at her frequently just so her haters could use it as a point against her.

also clearly colby doesn't give a flying fuck and a half that she had one, whether she posted on it or not, bc he was following onlyfans models for YEARS. so… highly doubt he was upset that she had one at one point lol

sorry if i sounded a bit angry at you - i'm not. i just think the onlyfans situation is an annoying thing her haters bring up as if it's proof she's a terrible person or something. like "omg see she's a liar" as if we haven't all lied before. dear god lol

also - and i might as well get this off my chest bc it's about this situation too - is that a group of fans that were hell bent on her bc of that question tried to see if her onlyfans existed still so that they could sub to her bc they 1, wanted to make fun of her for her body and 2, wanted to shame her. and on top of that they were all MINORS. so not only would that have been illegal, it's also double fucked bc body shaming her does literally NOTHING except make her feel like shit. and all of this bc she's dating colby. it has nothing to do with her personality, and has everything to do with shaming her and making her "understand" she doesn't deserve him. when in true reality, this fandom doesn't deserve snc at this point bc of this type of behavior.

[feixiiao]

why yall be out here on tumblr and twt n say dumb shit 🤦‍♀️ im pissed. some of yall arent meant for the real world if u still think heterophobia exists. these bitches crawling all over twitter especially. most of yall so grown but act like children and its always on twitter too. ?????? less crying more job finding. and dont get me started on those neet stay at home weebs who dehumanize women bc the only kind of women they see are in animes. ☠ and no straight people will ever truly understand how hard it is being gay why the fuck do u guys water down our struggles so much. at least ur considered fucking normal why cant u be fucking grateful for that and leave those "i hate straight ppl /srs" queers as stepping on shit. wipe it off on dry concrete and move the fuck on. but dont tell us to do the same because you know we arent treated normally no matter how open minded people have become by the years. theres still millions, or. billions of people opposing to us. is it the same to yall? probably like, only 10 people genuinely hate straight people in this world. "i hate gay people /srs" is like an anvil dropped on you. everyday a queer or trans person gets harassed verbally and physically just for being the way they are. be fucking grateful you're straight and you dont experience this thing. fuck you. homophobia and "heterophobia" struggles will never be equal. because the latter isnt real. so idk what to tell yall. again fuck u if u seriously think heterophobia is real. im taking that shit as fucking mockery to real homophobia that actually happens everyday. be fucking grateful ur naturally inlove with the opposite gender

[matoitech]

it’s obviously important for ppl to criticize misogyny particularly transmisogyny in trans male communities since thats a trans community issue but if ur also tme and the only thing u ever exclusively talk about trans men for is talking abt us as bigoted misogynists (usually there’s a ‘binary’ slapped in front of it) i genuinely think you need to put the phone down go outside and remember that whatever insane misogynist guys online are saying is not a necessarily a reflection of like things adult men outside of a weird fringe group of freak transmisogynist dudes on tumblr who think the boys should get our own word JUST like the GIRLS or its NOT FAIR!! or whatever (and one coined by a fucking terf at that..) are saying, or justification for behaving weirdly about an entire diverse community of trans people.

again i do not say this to like dissuade ppl from discussing legitimate problems but like a couple points- 'binary' trans men r capable of talking about it ourselves, and we do, and we’re not the ones whose posts get shared about it. and second: if you’re only bringing us up to talk abt how shitty particularly TRANS men are you might have a problem you need to deal with? this is not a shocking statement. like at some point someone has to point it out to you and sit there and take the shit and patiently explain to you it’s that the problem comes when its literally the ONLY thing you bring us up for and act like we're not capable of talking abt this ourselves, and that its a problem how comfortable ppl r for letting ppl speak over/for us if the only similarity they share w trans men is.. an agab and not being cis (yikes!). or if theyre transmasc and male aligned in some capacity but dont have any interest in engaging with or considering themselves a part of like trans men, THEYRE the ones who need to talk abt it, bcuz the (usually 'binary') Trans Men wont (not saying those ppl cant or shouldnt but they may be treated differently for doing so)

first ppl liked using transmeds existing to throw up justification for treating us like a bigoted monolith you (uniquely) Just Dont Feel Safe Around and its normal to make assumptions abt us being transphobic especially if we don't identify by labels deemed 'safe' and Inherently More Radical, and now its pretending we all collectively cant recognize our privilege thru our intense blinding hatred of women and its up to you to save us from ourselves and beat some common sense into the inherently bigoted stupid about gender patriarchy dicksucker boys. like i dont know im tired of it when trans men being accused of only existing bcuz we want to be patriarchy bootlickers i guess is always what radfems have thrown at us, so its not like this negative perception of trans men filtered thru a supposedly progressive lense is new. a lot of adult trans men dont talk abt like particular hot shit thats discussed a lot on here rn (the 'trans misandry' shit for example) bcuz its was not a problem in the spaces we're in and we knew it was stupid as fuck right away and barely worth talking about to say 'yeah you know that thing we all know is stupid and bullshit? its stupid and bullshit'. bcuz we're not fifteen years old or weird misogynists. we have brains, don't hate women, and we dont all know and hang around the same people.

anyway dont take this post as a stand in for serious discussion and calling out misogyny (again especially transmisogyny) w other men, those posts do need to exist, i am not trying to say this stuff shouldnt be talked about. what i'm specifically pointing out is a frustrating pattern in the perception of and discussion of trans men that ppl probably dont realize theyre participating in. i do think it is very important to talk abt community issues and criticisms but if its literally the one thing you bring up trans men for i think being aware of that behavior has no NEGATIVES here. also do have to bring up i specified other tme ppl early on bcuz this isnt smth ive experienced or seen from transfems and their position as like the affected party of transmisogyny is automatically like .. if they have issues w trans men it is pretty inherently coming from a different place than like, a cis womans, or a tme nonbinary person, or a transmasc person with issues with trans men, or a cis mans, etc. tme ppl who are on a very different ground here, whose behavior is straight up different anyway

[loving-n0t-heyting]

currently reading james shaws book on wittgenstein, or more specifically the rule following segment of the investigations. argues fairly convincingly

(tho idk, its easy to be convinced of anything the ~1st time you read a serious entry on a topic, the only other literature i can recall reading in this particular niche is kripkenstein and some stuff of mcdowells i really was not in a position to understand at the time; 0th entry ive read in the literature ofc would be the investigations ipsum; none of this is my specialty) that much of whats going on, especially early on in the rule following block, is W trying to convince the reader and his fictitious interlocutor not to look for reasons we have to carry out a rule in "the ordinary way" in all possible cases when challenged by a perverse interpreter of the rule. he encourages us to conclude, after examining our ordinary ways of thinking/acting with care, that while we sometimes act for reasons, and sometimes we have reasons for those reasons, sometimes we also simply act for no reason at all. our spades eventually turn up empty. (smth like the argument in play here from W is clearly on eg anscombes mind in intention sec. 20)

it is interesting to compare Ws remarks here about spades turning up empty to a) the long and storied topic among philosophers in roughly the tradition of aristotle to take the idea of a "summum bonum" very srsly and ii) the distinction btwn "terminal" and "instrumental" desires. (the former is very very clearly also on anscombes mind but i dont think the latter.) its a key feature of philosophers in the tradition of aristotle to (like W) take chains of reasons or desires or intentions or whatever very srsly, and to take consideration of them to point the existence of reasons/desires/intentions not had for any further r/d/i. the way these arguments tend to go is very different from in W: in W the existence of "arational" reasons of ours seems to be smth he expects us to notice as part of the usual background of everyday life, not a conclusion to a speculative argument. but the summum bonum and the arational reasons share some important features: they terminate chains of nested such rsns, standing in roughly the same relation to rsns lower down in the chain as intermediate ones stand to all those beneath them in turn. thus they are in an important sense of the same (familiar) kind of thing as the "lower" rsns. and while W would ofc disavow that their existence and role in our activity is any kind of philosophical posit or potentially surprising philosophical thesis, he thinks they require a little bit of work to point out, at least to those of us encased in the fly bottle. he cant just allude to them or rattle off some buzzwords and be done with it

this is very much not how the terminal/instrumental distinction gets discussed, is it? when introduced at all (in eg the introductory chapters of textbooks on one kind or another of ratl choice theory), its usually somewhat cursory; the distinction is supposed to be obvious, virtually self explanatory. if either is treated as more opaque or sophisticated and not-immediate, it is the "instrumental" desires rather than the "terminal" ones. (obviously in this corner of the internet mostly its prolly downstream of big yud, who treats everything he discusses this way, but there are other ppl to discuss these topics actually capable of and willing to put forth arguments for their beliefs instead of screaming abt how yr stupid if you disagree with them who nevertheless are pretty cursory with their introduction of the concepts.) now there is ofc an important and very interesting history of arguments (of a sort) for terminal desires (here: utility functions) in the relevant sense that begin rather than end with the "instrumental" desires (here: preference orders), in the tradition starting with von neumann & morgenstern on thru jeffrey and later joyce. this is the tradition of "representation theorems" in decision theory. but even here, one gets the sense that the terminal tail is wagging the instrumental dog; there is a simply astounding quote from jeffrey he makes in the course of "justifying" one of the less intuitive assumptions abt the structure of preference orders required for the theorem to go thru:

The axiom is there because we need it, and it is justified by our antecedent belief in the plausibility of the result we mean to deduce from it.

similar (motivated) reasoning, if not always so explicit, seems in play with savage and von neumann/morgenstern as well

and what is more, terminal desires are NOT treated as fundamentally akin to instrumental desires the way "ultimate" rsns in W/aristotle are treated as akin to "lower" rsns. not mathematically ofc, but also not intuitively. a difference in terminal desires founds a definitive break btwn two agents. to the extent they can reason practically with one another it is of a fundamentally different kind than reasoning among similarly-terminal agents, and change in ones terminal desires is to be explained in similarly fundamentally different terms; often but not inevitably this takes the form of treating any change in "terminal" values as at least arational and at most a shift in ones literal identity as a person. it tends to go along with a hostility to treating terminal desire as any kind of belief (tho this is not strictly a necessity)

i think all of this contributes to why i feel more suspicious of talk about terminal desires than of the summum bonum or reasonless reasons. it simultaneously requires this fundamentally, categorically different kind of attitude we have than other more quotidian ones, and it requires moreover that we accept this distinction basically without argument. not a good combo! it speaks to ones being already in the grip of a picture or grand theory that goes well beyond the humdrum facts of daily reasoning, without any clear idea or memory of what it would be or was like to be motivated to enter the grip from without. ppl managed to talk about reasons for doing stuff long long before ramsey or von neumann or whoever were but a twinkle in their parents eyes

there are more exact arguments to be made against more exact formulations of the distinction ofc but this helps get at the spirit of the thing. and to discourage false assimilations of the distinction to older more traditional ones

[stucky-headcanon-bot]

A lot of times it feels like stuckies look @ how all of marvel has re-relegated Bucky into obscurity, internalize it, and enthusiastically support it no matter how OOC and irrelevant it goes against their characters and/or the core story

Like..... stuckies saw how Bucky got backgrounded despite starring as title character of the one(1) solo Cap feature that got mainstream success and started spewing "omg Bucky is so tirwed he dont wanna fwight hes so wetired owld man. he should fwite bad guys or pick up shield or be on the frontlines or nothin. wucky should just stay in his hut during everythin and only be there to convince steeb to stwop fwighting too. he & Steve are gonna stay out of evewythin and not fight to save the worwld theyre just tiwed swleepy babiez not hewoes at awll uwu" takes that completely ignore that Bucky is meant to be a superhero to retroactively justify Bucky's story arc+development & his telegraphed deuteragonist->protagonist story installments getting completely dropped like a rock after 2014 once he started getting treated like the comic relief's sidekick, despite these same ppl spewing these takes also nominally acting like they're dissatisfied w canon...

it feels like most stuckies were perfectly fine with the most basic of characterization being ignored and gladly built this communal headcanon of "bucky's a loser unheroic coward who's too chickenshit to go outside, only exists for making jokes about him being just off-screen of all of steve's scenes, and whose only purpose is to eventually turn steve into an unheroic coward too who doesnt care to save the world and just stays home to live a bland domestic life" and were only mad that those headcanons got interrupted by steve de fact dying. that's why i've stopped believing dyed-in-the-wool stuckies when they complain abt marvel's treatment of the characters. if anything, stuckies by and large signalled to marvel that they dont particularly care abt steve & bucky continuously getting more and more OOC, nor care abt catws' storyline never getting it's sequel, nor care abt s & b's potential development continuously getting squandered. if anything, endgame's final nail in the coffin of de-heroizing and/or sidekick-ifying the characters is the logical conclusion of accepting any and everything to keep pushing 'just sitting at home/the hut doing nothing while the events of every movie happens' headcanons that encompasses the wilting imagination of 99% of the shippers.

Anon I'm glad you sent this the same day I found this image