#assume people online are worse than they appear

[avocad1s]

The Gnosis Can Wait

Requested By: No one. Original work.

CW: 5.0 spoilers below this line!!! 5.0 spoilers below this line! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!

Summary: After his battle with Mavuika, Capitano was left injured. He retreats wanting to replan his strategy when he runs into you, the Creator, who had just descended to Teyvat.

Note: So how are you all liking Natlan? As of right now I think it’s okay only because I want to return to Fontaine 😞

Capitano wasn’t used to the taste of defeat.

As number one in the Fatui harbingers and the strongest amongst them no doubt, he is used to winning every match he partakes in. Or for his opponents to concede before the battle even begins.

Yet he doesn’t take it to heart, he knows the outcomes of every battle can differ in many different ways and he isn’t arrogant about his strength.

Mavuika was a God after all. Even though his power rivals hers, he knew he would have to best her with a foolproof strategy and it seemed barging in wasn’t the right one. She was a worthy opponent.

Capitano returns to his camp, the pain in his chest still burning from the small wound Mavuika left on him. He can wait, once his wound heals then he will strike her again, only this time he won’t miss. At least he has an ally in his pocket keeping him up to date on all the politics within Natlan.

“My lord,” Capitano’s right hand, Rezanov begins while bowing. “We found footprints nearby. We believe someone might stumble into camp soon…”

Capitano lets out a sigh underneath his mask, “how many people?”

“We believe only one, there’s only one track of footprints.”

Only one person? Nothing really to worry about. Unless this person is returning to tell the Archon his location.

“Find them and bring them here.” He orders and Rezanov nods and quickly takes off.

———

Okay… don’t freak out. Don’t freak out…

You just woke up in Genshin Impact.

You remember waiting impatiently by your PC for the newest update to the game, but you must’ve fallen asleep while waiting. Now you were dreaming about the it? Jeez, even in your own dreams you thought about the game. You really needed to touch grass. (lol jk jk luv you all)

You were dreaming about Natlan… a nation that you haven’t even played yet. You couldn’t have had a dream about your favorite nation? Or meeting all your favorite characters?

But everything felt so real. Even after watching the trailer and the leaks you’ve seen online, there’s no way you could know such detail about the nation. Maybe it was just your mind filling in the gaps…

“Stop right there!”

You turn around and your blood runs immediately cold. It was two fatui skirmishers and one fatui agent. You don’t even know the amount of times you’ve killed these enemies for their drops or just for the fun of it.

So this is how you die… at least this is better than falling into the claws of Childe, who you’d beat up anytime you built a new character.

“Our lord the Captain will deal with you, come with us with no fight.”

Scratch that. This was much, much worse…

“Wait… isn’t that…?” One of them whispered.

They put down their weapons, looks of remorse on their faces.

“Your Grace… please for give our imprudence we had no idea it was you…” Rezanov. “Please come with us, the Captain would be delighted to see you.”

Right… you’ve read fanfics like this before. Believing you’re their Creator… you wonder if your blood was gold. Perhaps you could check later. For now, you were going to follow them, it’s not like Capitano has appeared in the game you can get a first time look at him.

You follow the trio deeper into the forest, a small fireplace in the distance, you could only assume the Captain would be there.

“My lord, we found who was trailing around camp. Their Grace has decided to bless us with their presence on Teyvat once more.”

Capitano turns around and say nothing for what felt like forever. Even with the helmet, you knew he was staring intently at you.

“Your Grace.” He finally says, his voice much softer than you ever expected. “I am honored to be in your presence.”

He approached, towering over you.

“You three. Fetch Their Grace some food—“ he looks down at you once more. “And a change of clothes.”

You feel embarrassment creep up your neck. What’s wrong with your pajamas? Could he tell they weren’t from this word?

He holds out his hand, and you take it being able to feel the warmth underneath the glove. This dream was much realer than you thought…

Capitano leads you to his large tent holding the flaps open so you could enter. “We weren’t expecting your arrival so I apologize for the lack of preparations…”

You shake your head, “everything is fine.” Not like you’d be here forever…

“You can have my tent You Grace, I will camp outside.” He adds.

You furrow your eyebrows, “this tent is big enough for two people, can’t we just share it?”

Capitano doesn’t say nothing for a moment, you fear you’ve might’ve offended him with your offer but it was the complete opposite. Capitano felt as if he was on top of the world, to share a camp with the Creator? To be able to protect you? To see your sleeping face…

He feels his cheeks grow crimson and he is eternally grateful for his helmet. “Of course, if that’s what you wish Your Grace…”

The flaps to the tent open and Rezanov enters the tent. “My lord, we've received word that the Pyro Archon has lost much of her power.”

“Although your injury complicates things, this is most certainly the opportune time to seize the Gnosis...”

Capitano was slightly irritated with his subordinate’s unwarranted entry but he wouldn’t do anything yet, not while you were right in front of him.

“The Gnosis can wait, we have more important matters…” he replies, his focus never leaving you.

© avocad1s 2024

Note: Capitano was the highlight of Natlan for me. Sorry but i’m a Fatui Harbinger glazer 😞 why’d they make them so fine? It’s not fair… Now here’s to hoping my man is playable, saving all my primos for him so he better not disappoint.

Edit: I know Mavuika isn’t a God but I’m thinking Capitano wouldn’t know that since she’s the only one of the Seven that isn’t a one which is where I went with this fic

[sheepwavehdg]

[Nonfiction/serious, CW recount of online sexual harassment] So, holy fuck. Last night someone developed an introject/fictive of one of my characters, Sally Fable from Good Sensory. It went poorly.

This person was barely more than a total stranger to me and had been sending me some just plain nonsensical DMs on discord, so I just muted them for 24 hours because I didn't care or feel like dealing with it. I was about to be enjoying some Substances™, and I just told them I wasn't gonna be avaliable.

Fast forward a few hours later and my very pleasant high is interrupted by the notification that someone is calling me on discord. I tab over, and discover hundreds of messages calling me mistress, begging me to punish them, sending me partially nude photos, asking for reassurances that because they're Sally Fable, I wrote Good Sensory for them too (more on that in a moment)

I block them as soon as I understand what's happening, and then I think I started getting notifications of them pinging me on the HDG discord, bypassing the block via pluralkit(???) so I left the discord (I am unsure of this and can't find any supporting evidence of it now that Ive rejoined, I was high and confused, but it's what I thought was happening in the moment anyway which is why I left) and got to have the lovely experience of learning how much worse a panic attack hurts when you're high and every sensation has "reverb" on your body.

This felt so particularly violating because Sally is not some character I made up whole cloth, her personality and appearance is specifically modeled on two of my partners. This is not a secret, it's in the chapter notes. I know this person read those, because some of the hundreds of messages they sent me referenced it and asked if this meant I wrote it for them too.

I made the discord staff aware of what was going on and they did a great job of both handling the situation on the server and lots of them reaching out to me and making me feel like I wasn't alone and they had my back, which meant more in that moment than I can even put into words. 😭

Anyway, I just woke up a few hours ago from a nightmare where this person sent me a suicide note via the comments on Good Sensory, which unfortunately is well within the reasonable possibility space of a thing that happens when someone fixates on you and you block them and they are banned from their community. (I have had stalkers in the past! Yay!)

So yeah I was very much not calm to see this when I woke up

I got a friend to check over the comments before I looked, and fortunately it was just normal comments. I've been absolutely blown away by the reaction to Good Sensory in particular, and I love reading peoples comments. That I was made to feel scared of something that would normally make me flap my hands in joy (sixteen new comments overnight is not unheard of for me, but it's still not typical) feels so shitty.

I also feel horribly guilty even tho I know it's irrational for me to feel anything but violated by this having happened. Like there's a reason I identify with the affini, I can't see someone in distress and not want to help. I feel bad that what I assume was a vulnerable trans woman clearly in some kind of psychosis state is going to have to wake up from it and find out they blew up their own social life yesterday.

But yeah, god, fuck, what a thing that happened. I had to write this just to proscess this experience. It doesn't feel like it was real but like it was. I'm going to be shaken by this for a bit most likely ���

[myauditionfordrphil]

Saw this online and holy shit I cannot even comprehend how one cay say stuff like this. According to this person eating beef is worse than rape or as he says "surprise sex". It's horrifying how they think that a person who they assumed ate beef because of their appearance or religion deserved to be mob lynched but someone who brutally raped and killed a girl deserves less punishment. There is no comparison between the two situations... it's crazy how anonymity gives people the idea that they can get away with saying or doing anything.

And I'm not saying that you should go ahead and kill animals for no reason, everybody have their own eating preferences and you can't shame one for theirs. But if you really think that eating beef is a bigger sin that rape then you're a danger to society.

[the-derpy-duck]

I really like rescuebots.

Tried to keep spoilers to seasons one and two sorry. Long post ahead.

It was the first transformers thing I’ve ever seen and it’s so funny. Like not in a ‘I’m laughing at it’ way but in a ‘it did a funny on purpose’. Please watch just one episode it is so good and Peter Collin voices OP in it. They make fun of politicians and I was NOT expecting that. I spent five minutes laughing at the first joke involving the mayor because it was so unexpected. RBA is also great. There’s one episode where the children think that one of them is gonna get kicked out and near the start of the episode Hot Shot makes a comment and at the end of the episode it gets brought up again and it might have been because it was 3 am and I was delirious but I laughed way to hard at that joke. Anyway Rescuebots is so good the end of season 1 was so fucking intense and dark. Like wow they went there. But the show is never so dark that it becomes miserable.

Heatwave is so great I love him even though I think he would hate me. His character growth is so slow and subtle but it does exist. He cares so deeply for Cody and the rest of his team and even if he’s a jerk about it he will always prioritize their safety. And his relationship with Kade? I just— I don’t know how to describe how it makes me feel. They don’t like each other but they do care about each other. They aren’t friends and won’t ever be friends but they have a genuine connection with each other. They are so similar that it makes them incompatible in a way that works. They are different, Kade is more openly rude and is definitely not a leader. Kade is selfish and an attention whore, Heatwave is also selfish. Heatwave also wanted to go join Optimus Prime’s team at the beginning of the show. But when Prime later offers him a spot on the team Heatwave wasn’t willing to leave his team. Also, in the episode where Tidal Wave first appeared he was willing to overlook his own poor treatment (although he was visibly pissed) but when Tidal Wave kept insulting Blades (notably after Blades was late because he was helping save someone) Heatwave went to defend him. Heatwave didn’t care that doing so might make him look worse in the eyes of OP, because he doesn’t only care about that anymore. Also it is entirely possible that Heatwave is the one singing the intro and no I will not explain that. Heatwave is an asshole but he won’t tolerate poor treatment of himself, his teammates, or the people he cares about. He doesn’t want to be apart of Griffin Rock’s community because they have only ever seen him as a mindless robot but he does view himself as apart of the Burns family. His relationship with Blurr steadily improves and they both grow to not dislike each other. Also with Kade their is an episode where this old lady is insulting the robots and Kade is genuinely about to get into a fist fight with her over the issue. Kade also has series issues with peer pressure, which is funny to me. I like heatwave a lot, I love the way his anger is portrayed and how despite him being the way that he is he dose show love and care to others.

Also Boulder is just so nice and there’s this music thing that plays whenever he’s learning and I love himmmmmmm. I like that he didn’t have an antagonist relationship with Graham, he was genuinely interested in earth and learning more but Graham was anxious because he didn’t know as much as Boulder, and it wasn’t in a ‘I’m upset your smarter than me’ but a ‘I feel so inferior to you and am assuming that you are being condescending because why else would you be talking to me’. But when he gets over that they work well together, Graham is willing to give up going to a really really good school to stay with Boulder (although he gets to take courses online/remotely. Idk how he got to go to school you just need to know he stays on the island) which shows how far their relationship has come. Boulder also being the first of the rescue bots to get a Dino alt mode was great and I loved those episodes, especially when Optimus was just playing with the other rescuebots. They were just having fun together and it was nice. Boulder is so genuinely kind to others and his interest in nature and the world around him is so charming. He wants to hug Heatwave and I want them to hug so much. Heatwave you know you want to hug Boulder. Also the fact that he can use echo-location is amazing and I love it.

You will acknowledge that RB had some level of body horror and you will appreciate that fact. Because it is explicitly stated that Baldes is

A. Afraid of heights

B. Originally a ground vehicle

C. Had no choice in his alt mode and was a victim of circumstance

He went from being on the ground to not having wheels that is fucked. Worse things could happen but holy shit dude. And it’s not like he chose this! He does get over his fears (mostly) and although he has a lot of anxiety he is willing to put himself in danger to help others. Yeah it will take A LOT to get him to that point but he will do it. When Danny and him are surrounded by fire and are about TO DIE he apologizes to her. The rest of the team come in to save them but like- they were going to die. They thought that they were about to die. Third episode in a kids show. And it’s not like Blades and Danny had a great relationship, Danny was an asshole, especially to Kody, and she wasn’t patient with a helicopter that wouldn’t fly. Blades is stubborn and terrified, it doesn’t matter what Danny does because flying is something he never wants to do. But Danny asks him to trust her and he does and she flys them to safety. and they become besties. Blades is also gay. You can’t tell me that he isn’t gay and that him and Bumblebee aren’t robot boyfriends. It is all but cannon the creators of the show tweeted a picture of the two hugging when gay rights became a thing in the US. But his ~friendship~ with BB is great and I love it. Blades also seems to have some form of anxiety and it very much affects his daily life. His nervousness affects him during rescues and that gets him into trouble with Heatwave. I have anxiety and I do love Blades a lot so I don’t know how much of this is actually in the text or just projection. I also find it interesting that he used to be a medic, I love medics in Transformers and it makes sense for a rescue team to have a medic and it makes sense for that medic to be Blades. I also think it’s really funny that he is NOTHING like his G1 counterpart (apart from the name and alt mode of course). Because G1 Blades was a lover of violence and that’s funny to me.

Danny and Cody’s relationship is also really interesting to me. Danny takes out her anger on other people, mainly Cody, and she doesn’t realize that she’s doing it until Cody brings it up to her. She genuinely apologizes to him and says that she will do better. It isn’t really brought up again so I assume that she stuck by her word. Also she plays soccer and is better at it than everyone else in her family and I love her for that.

Chase has survivors guilt. Like that’s just a thing that exists. And he is so determined to try and find this group and help them even if there is literally no way that they could be alive and Cody backs him up and Heatwave lets him go but gives him a direct order to come back alive and Chase has been shown to be unable to go against direct orders and AGAHHASGAHAHBA. It’s just so- it was a good episode. For some reason I thought that Chase and Heatwave had a power struggle, which I’m really happy they don’t because it wouldn’t make sense. I think I thought that because of TMNT but there is nothing in the show that would indicate Chase would want to be a leader. And he really respects Heatwave, although he may disagree with his judgments and decisions he won’t go against Heatwave. Which is also a flaw as his refusal to disobey orders has lead to conflicts. His whole ‘follow the rules’ also has a lot of funny jokes. Like when he’s singing to the baby robot (don’t ask) he interrupts the song to say that the rescuebots don’t condone the reckless behavior that’s taking place in the song. Also the body swap episode is perfect. Literally nothing could be done to make it better it is the best body swap episode. But Chase is such a silly guy. Him and Whirl are the best cops (sorry Jimmy). Chase is also really great in RBA. I love him and I’m so attached to this guy. I love his relationship with Chief Burns and how nicely they work together. I like that half the cast is like ‘yeah my human is a jerk’ and the other is ‘I love my human they are so cool’. It’s just. Silly and nice.

Cody, buddy, my dude, HOW THE FUCK DO YOU HAVE ACCESS TO EVERYONE’S SECURITY SYSTEMS? Your unhinged and I love you for that but wow. It’s not even out of character. It’s 1000% something he would do and have access to. Cody is also just great. He forms such genuine friendships with others and you can really tell that he loves rescue work and his home. He’s able to befriend just about ever cybertronian that appears on the show. His connection with Blurr is more than half the reason why he chooses to not go back to velocitron (which totally isn’t destroyed), he befriends the recruits in RBA and is a major voice of reason, and the bond he has with Heatwave is a primary part of the show and if it didn’t exist then the show wouldn’t make sense. Cody is a mediator who helps the others work through their issues with their partners and he’s the main thing that connects everyone. Because everyone loves and cares about Cody and they aren’t willing to just abandon him. They are a family, all of them, and they aren’t going to abandon each other. Family is a strong theme in rescue bots, the bonds that the characters share are so strong and interpersonal. Heatwave cares deeply for the other members of his team, he orders chase to not die. The Burns family has extended to include the rescue bots and arguably Dr.Green and Frankie. The season three finale is fucking perfect with this theme, they are willing to kill themselves for these humans and the speech they give to the family oh my god- Moving on from this—

Salvage is southern. He is southern I love that I love when transformers have accents it’s one of my favorite things ever. Like TFA Blitzwing is one of my favorite characters in part because of the accent. The southern accent suits him I think. I like the connection he has with Blurr. He wanted to help the humans and he’s generally really chill. He finds great fascination with garbage and when he asks if he can keep some Cody and Boulder are like ‘uhhhh I guess’ in a way that’s like holy shit this guy is weird. He recyclessss. I don’t really have A LOT to say about him but I really like him he’s sweet and he is southern. I’d need to rewatch seasons three and four again if I wanted to talk more in depth about him.

I do have a bit more to say about Blurr. To me, he reads as someone who has AD(H)D. The way he struggles to understand why he should work with others, his impulsiveness that comes back to bite him in the ass, his want to move and race, and the way the others talk about him and compare him to Salvage remind me of my own experiences. Specifically how Chase and Blades talk about how they don’t want to teach Blurr reminded me of how I assumed teachers or coaches would think of me. The way Heatwave acts also reminded me of a few teachers. Blurr is an impulsive ass. He sucks so much but also theres a non zero chance that his home planet was destroyed (RB is apart of the alined continuity) and he’s being forced to adapt to a world that is unwilling or unable to accommodate him. I am both annoyed with him and empathetic towards his problems. He views himself in a very positive light but also he wasn’t going to just leave Salvage. When he’s awoken he questions where Salvage is but he also lies about saving the humans. He’s greatly flawed and I probably wouldn’t like to be around him but as a character I love him. I have a hard time watching the second episode that has him in it because it makes me feel bad about myself and that’s understandable. I see him as everything that’s wrong with myself and bit more but I like him? He has an almost antagonistic relationship with Heatwave that improves and he is apart of Heatwave’s greater arc throughout the alined continuity, he learns and improves his teaching methods. He doesn’t like Griffin rock and he has very few reason to like it, the people there don’t know he’s sentient and professor asshole is running the place. He only really has Cody and Salvage as friends and Salvage isn’t on Griffin rock. Blurr also doesn’t die. I like that he doesn’t die please stop killing Blurr it hasn’t happened a lot but come on!

Quickshadow is so cool. I love her she’s fanatic. That’s it. That’s all.

Also the humans are great in this show. I don’t think I’ve seen a transformers show where none of the human characters annoyed me, but rescue bots comes very very close. The villain is a silly silly dude but he’s also a dictator. It’s kind of weird in tone but I do like him as a villain. Dr.Green is amazing and I love him. He’s like if G1 wheeljack was a human. Frankie is amazing and I love her friendship with Cody. They give off the vibes of being besties and I love them for that. Kade is an asshole but their is an entire episode about how he has more than one dimension and cares about his family and friends and girlfriend. He hyped up his brother (Graham) and it’s so sweet. Also Graham is great and I love him. He works well with Boulder and they are genuinely friends. They enjoy spending time together and it’s just nice. Danny is wonderful even with her anger issues. She does seem to improve with Cody and I like that, I like that she is able to get better because it mirrors my own relationship with my sibling. The fact that she also becomes friends with Blades and they banter is great. The humans in Rescue Bots feel necessary to the story. Even the towns folk feel like they belong. I watched half an episode of RID 2001 and I don’t know how necessary he was but their are definitely some shows that don’t need human characters. Also their is a person from Ohio in the show who came to watch birds. Not to shit on human characters, I like a lot of them, but sometimes they can be annoying. Rescue Bots is a great show and the humans work. The environment is also really interesting for a transformers show. Like robots working to help save and protect people in a town is so fun. It’s just fun which is what I think a TF show should be. TFP is great but I watched it in congruence with Rescue Bots and that contrast probably made me like it more. Also Dinobot OP is cannon to Tfp and I love that.

I think the reason I love this show so much is because it’s so nice and sort of calm. Like the situations the characters are put in are really dangerous but the show is made for kids. They aren’t gonna be scared or die. When Blurr died in TFA I was so badly affected by it. The show does take place during a war, but the war isn’t relevant. The characters aren’t actively fighting and because of that they can just relax. The moments when they are playing games are some of my favorites because they let me get attached to them and see them be happy. It also gives small insights into the dynamics and characters. Like Chase is playing a Cybertronian version of chess with Heatwave and Heatwave is frustrated that Chase always wins this game. Chase is better at thinking ahead and strategizing than Heatwave, which makes sense. It also shows how close these characters are to each other, that Heatwave and Chase would play this game together enough to the point that Heatwave would make that comment and be frustrated about it. It’s like the parts of g1 that are just silly for silliness sake. The reason why I watched so much of G1 is because of these little moments. Rescuebots is also superior to TFA because, unlike TFA, RB doesn’t misuse international waters and try to claim that the lakes between America and Canada count as international water. They don’t. If you are in a lake between USA and Canada then are either in America or Canada. The boarder is a fucking line.

Oh and the theme song is the best theme song. I don’t fucking care how good you think tfa’s intro is, RB’s intro gives a perfect summary of the show, the characters’s backstory, and what will be happening. It destroys the tone of the episode and it is PERFECT. So fucking funny when a serious moment is happening only for A ROUTINE PATROL WITH FOUR BOTS IN SATUS- to interrupt it. So good. I am not a functioning human, all I can think about is this fucking show. It is so good, I love the characters and world so much please watch it people it’s great, it’s unhinged, it has a musical episodes and it’s unironically amazing.

So yeah, I am going to get that Chase legacy figure and I will fight a seven year old for it. Hasbro please make all of them I will give you an unreasonable amount of money for a really big High Tide I don’t know the actual name they use for it but please Hasbro please.

Unrelated but if anyone has any links or a copy of the 500 page critique of the Michael Bay TF films please send it to me I really want to read it.

[gregoriaofnyssa]

On the Higher-Critical Method of Hermeneutics

It is exceedingly trendy to devour religious information of all kinds through the lens of secular scholarship, for either the sake of general knowledge, or for the sake of an artistic adventure. For either of those purposes, and certainly for the purpose of actual religious learning, the higher-critical approach fails on every level. The biggest perpetrators of this online are Genetically Modified Skeptic and Religion for Breakfast; the biggest print perpetrators are Bart D. Ehrman and George Harris. This method fails to accurately describe and convey the concept of religious orthodoxy, and therefore fails to accurately convey controversies within religions; it also fails to anthropologically contend with religions in a way that is honest and charitable; it denies not only the very concept of truth, but also the very concept of literary analysis. 

Much of the basis for this argument is rooted in vintage anthropology-- I preface “vintage” because anthropology has changed a great deal in the last 100 (even 50) years, and has come more and more to reflect the higher-critical method of hermeneutics, of course applied to secular cultural artifacts. In the past, anthropologists did not seek to study other cultures as a way to change their own, or as a way to frame their own. They studied it for pure passion. They studied it for themselves. An anthropologist doing similar good work today is Daniel Everett who wrote the sympathetic, raw, and amazing book Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle. A main reason why Everett’s work is so effective is because it takes the word of the Pirahã people (the subject of the book) as true. This makes the book strikingly intimate, especially because it is told from Everett’s own perspective. We thus get a greater understanding of the culture-- a highly mysterious and un-understandable culture at that. He writes, “‘I mean, what are you going to do to him for shooting your dog?’ ‘I will do nothing. I won’t hurt my brother. He acted like a child. He did a bad thing. But he is drunk and his head is not working well. He should not have hurt my dog. It is like my child.’ Even when provoked, as Kaaboogí was now, the Pirahãs were able to respond with patience, love, and understanding, in ways rarely matched in any other culture I have encountered.”

A key problem with the higher-critical method is that it applies a hermeneutics of suspicion, rather than a hermeneutics of trust, as vintage anthropology did. The passage above would read much differently, and be much less revelatory, had Everett followed the encounter with an insistence that the Pirahã must not actually be so compassionate, and must, in fact, be putting on a show to fool outsiders for more canoe money. Just as that is unsatisfying, so too is a hermeneutics of suspicion that insists Jesus said to care for the poor in order to manipulate starving Jeudeans into joining his “movement”. Not only is it unsatisfying, but it makes no sense. The higher-critical scholar must invent new motivations seen nowhere else in the text, or in adjoining texts of the day, to justify what is essentially a headcanon. It assumes too much, and what it assumes is an insult: people do not say they believe what they do because they believe it-- they have ulterior motives. The higher-critical method demands you see all people as charlatans.

We should notice that this is an anti-historical method as well. Historians do not make a habit of assuming primary sources are lying unless there is extremely good reason. I’ve studied the writings of Ibn Fadlan on the rituals of the Vikings, and not once did a professor or a critic write that he must’ve been making up the horse-killing for the sake of making barbarians appear worse than Muhammadeans. 

The method is also unliterary. It is possible for an atheist to read the Bible (or any scripture, for that matter) and encounter it as a complete work of fiction, whilst still applying the usual rules of textual analysis and letters. It is possible, even in the context of “fiction” for interpretations to be baseless and wrong. We hear in school there is no such thing as a wrong answer in literature, but be assured, there is. There are analysis, conclusions, and summaries that are disconnected from the text so to have nothing backing it up for any kind of merit. For example, if someone were to say, “The theme of Hamlet is that love conquers all,” that would be a conclusion so wrong you’d probably assume the speaker was pretending to have read it. The same is true with the Bible, and with all other scripture. The theme of Maccabees is not that the oppressed should take their torture lying down and there is nothing in the epistles to suggest the Apostle Paul was gay. The latter is fanfiction and the former is active subversion-- look out for that. 

You may believe I want only the Bible to be interpreted in such a way. But this would be wrong. I am frequently disgusted by the mistreatment of other sacred texts; in the HCM, this is particularly suffered upon the Quran. My insistence against the HCM is not only religious, but born of an anthropological conviction. I love people; the whole world is my people. I love to study them, to learn about their experiences, and to read what they have written. It breaks something in my heart when even documents I disagree with are encountered as if they are intentionally lying. The Quran was written by a man, and I believe that man believed what he wrote to be true, and I believe that those who believed him really did. I do not like to be taken for a liar, and I assume the feeling is the same through all people. 

It weakens the position of the opponents of any text, because in order to argue against something, you must actually know it. You must understand it, and you will never understand something you don’t trust to be the words someone once believed.

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

what happens to nhw after muse? like, publicity wise. especially regarding ashe. idk if you talked about it before or not, i remember seeing things about like. nhw tv appearances and such, but i don't remember if there was anything specifically regarding the pr nightmare of a boy getting mused and going on a murder spree like a localized natural disaster

do they make him go on tv and talk about it? do they rebrand? both? what happens here. i mean it would suck for ashe no matter what probably but yeha

OH NY GOD. I FORGOT I NEVER ANSWERED THIS IM SO SORRY. in my defense i got sick and my brain has been goop since like. sunday. not even going to put this one under a cut everyone gets to see my muse ramblings (muse musings. ha)

ANYWAY. SO. FIRST OFF. nobody knows who he is !!!! to the general public, muse and auxiliary are two different people, and like... there's not really anything there to tie them together. aux's costume was so like bulky full coverage that his identity was Very much hidden, and muse like.... doesn't hide his face at all, but at the same time he's not Ashe because ashe doesn't dress like that or do his hair or makeup like that so. even though his face is on full display I don't think anyone other than his family/friends would make that immediate connection either

obviously like... the prt knows what happened, because of course the wards needed to tell them. publicity-wise, as far as the public is concerned, auxiliary was killed. aux is dead. you remember that one interlude from Vista's pov where she had to look at the greyed out memorial images of the wards who were killed in the leviathan battle? yeah imagine one of those for aux. as far as anyone else knows he died in the fight with overlord (lmao. not like anyone could distinguish identifiable corpses from that mess anyway)

we have played with the idea a few times about a few different topics that there's a subsection of conspiracy theorists on parahumans online that actually connect the dots and get everything right (aux and muse being the same person, Tide and magma being made from the endbringers, etc etc stuff like that that isn't supposed to be public knowledge) but it's extremely funny if they're just a weird fringe group of freaks so nobody ever takes them seriously

the idea that after ashe gets back from being mused and has to go on TV about it makes me so fucking SICK btw that's such a horrid scenario oh my god. I made such a face at that. torture for him!

anyway what actually happens after he gets back from being mused is like.... nothing? really? Trickster takes Mal in exchange for ashe and then they just kind of disappear. and they're left in this horrible paranoid calm period. adn because theyre also gone i think people just assume that either muse went with them or also got killed in that final battle. unsure which option is worse, ashe hearing people talk about muse like hes still out there somewhere (ouch!) or talking about muse like he was killed by his friends (actually now that i type this out i think ashe would prefer this option so much more. man. he has so many issues) it takes ashe a loooong long long time to even consider using his powers again much less entertain the idea of going back to hero work, so it's not really like... an issue? for a bit? we haven't rlly nailed down that period of time yet but I would assume the prt has him under some sort of loose supervision until it's decided that he's not an active threat anymore and he gets to fucking REST for a little bit ! we're intentionally leaving late game nhw a little loose rn because I know I personally just really wanna see how s3 of pd turns out before we nail down anything too solid bc if there's one thing i love about nhw it's referencing back to things happening in canon and making them so much worse ^_^ but I think we've talked about ashe potentially going back to hero stuff eventually under a new name. and nobody can say shit because if a cape has a new name that means they're a different person and nobody can say anything (cough cough looks at armsmaster/defiant) !!!

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Brian Tyler Cohen (12.30.2024):

As this volatile year nears its end, most of the talk being hurled around the incoming administration is minimally focused on plans for the country’s future, for better or for authoritarianism. Instead, it remains trained on MAGA’s adolescent civil war between Trump’s most vocal supporters and his co-president, Elon Musk. Musk’s honeymoon in the MAGA-sphere—though destined to combust—appears to be ending weeks before the administration has officially launched. While most of us were celebrating our holidays, Elon was holed up in some supervillain cyber vehicle, waging a fight with the very people whose voices and ideologies he spent months amplifying.

Trump created the problem, as is his way, by proposing the appointment of Srinam Krishnan, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist with whom Musk has consulted closely, as his senior policy advisor on AI. Putting forth Krishnan is apparently more outrageous than choosing an alleged sex offender and financial mismanager for defense secretary; a woman who’s been enthusiastically green-lit by the Kremlin for director of national security; or an anti-vaxxer (who dumped a bear he intended to eat in Central Park) to lead health and human services. But Krishnan caused the crater within MAGA this holiday season…because he’s a naturalized American citizen who was born in India and recruited here because of his tech expertise.

He’s remained here thanks to our H1B program, which offers visas to highly skilled foreign workers. Such a laudable program, which celebrates American values and could have been deftly supported, was instead publicly advocated for by Musk via increasingly hysterical posts capped with awkward attempts at wedging in sports references.

Like his co-president, Elon doesn’t handle criticism with a notable amount of grace.

Naturally, he was backed up by his fellow unelected co-chair of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Vivek Ramaswamy, who tweeted a tirade that delved into misplaced parenting advice while referencing shows like Saved by the Bell and Family Matters, to really drive home his point that…well, that remains unclear. 

[...] Safe to assume that this fight is not going to end well. Or end at all. This is a hill that Elon will die on, for obvious reasons: He’s a former H1B visa immigrant who owns businesses that, no doubt, rely on H1B visa recipients to function. But it’s also a hill that the original MAGA faithful (you know, those who attempted a coup on our Capitol before the oligarchs became part of Trump’s traveling circus) will die on. Trump’s agenda is “America First.” His campaign handed out “Deport Them All” signs at rallies. So they were both fooled. The MAGA loyalists will take it worse, once they recognize (if they haven’t already) that they unwittingly installed into power an unelected foreign oligarch who’s going to use Trump to expand immigration programs that they hate. And there’s nothing they can do about it; Elon is the de facto president. Which is not to suggest that he is in a position of triumph. Remember, Musk is a sad little man who so desperately craves the rousing approval of the MAGA base that he spent the better part of a year nurturing them and doing performative jumping jacks for their applause. He needs their adulation; his ego depends on it. And now he’s facing off with those he presumed would be his footsoldiers. Perhaps he is only now becoming fully aware that they are immovable racists who were happy to accept financial help but don’t actually agree with his worldview. They want to elevate white Americans and no one else. So…nobody wins.

I sincerely hope this goes without saying, but the H1B program is an invaluable channel. We should absolutely bring the best and brightest talent to the United States. If we don’t welcome them here, that talent goes to other countries. In other words, there’s an “America First” incentive to continue investing in such programs. Of course, MAGA doesn’t care. For them, that brand is about promoting white Americans. It’s not concerned with helping the nation as a whole.

Brian Tyler Cohen gives an excellent breakdown on the MAGA-on-MAGA feud over H1-B Visas.

[mariacallous]

We've already discussed how the Israel-Hamas war is the latest conflict where people are poring over social media and news channels looking for updates on what, exactly, is happening. After all, whether it’s news about our neighborhoods or communities on the other side of the world, the web is where we go to find updates.

And it’s another reminder that misinformation is often big business, and it’s everywhere: fake news and fabrications, half-truths and obfuscations, and flat-out lies and propaganda. The rise in AI-powered deep fakes has only made the problem worse and increased the amount of untrustworthy content out there.

So is it actually still possible to filter truth from lies online? We don’t yet have a foolproof way of checking—perhaps that’s a task AI could be trained on next—but there are ways to limit the likelihood of being fooled.

Know Your Sources

Some online sources are clearly more reputable than others: It’s right to be more skeptical about a post by an unknown X user than it is about something from The New York Times or The Washington Post (or WIRED). That’s not to say citizen journalism can’t be useful, because it absolutely can, but be wary of taking it at face value.

It’s not just the source that’s important, it’s the number of sources. Like Bernstein and Woodward, you need to get information backed up and verified by more than one source whenever possible. If you’re looking at a video of an event, for example, look for more recordings from other people, taken from different angles.

If you’re not sure about a particular source, check its history—which is fairly easy to do on social media. Does their most recent post match up with what they’ve posted before? Are they posting a lot of generic content that can’t really be authenticated? How many followers do they have, and how are they interacting with them? These can all be useful factors to consider.

Check the Context

As well as checking the sources of particular stories, photos, and videos, examine the context around them. You can look at whether a video clip is one of a series, for example, or something that seems to have appeared out of nowhere.

Context can extend to whatever the content is showing. If it’s a demonstration, for example, check to see if there’s any other record of it elsewhere on the web and ask a few questions—do the photos and videos match up with where they’re supposed to have been recorded? Are there any pieces of evidence (like police uniforms) that tell you where this is happening?

Sometimes there are context tools built into the platforms themselves: You might see false information warnings on Facebook, for example, if a post has been flagged by other users. You might also see what are called community notes attached to posts on X (formerly Twitter), adding extra context about what has been posted. These can be useful signals to consider, though they're not fallible.

Spot the Patterns

Fake news is often designed to spread as quickly as possible: If something is shocking, inflammatory, or surprising, we’re more likely to pass it on to other people. On social media especially, that can quickly mean inaccurate content starts trending, which of course means it’s then shared by even more people.

With that in mind, look for posts that seem engineered to go viral—to provoke a reaction—rather than to provide information. Misinformation and fake news will often come without any real context attached, such as a source, a location, or an accompanying link that directs you to something similar (like a longer version of the same video or a related story).

Be particularly cautious with posts and media that are furthering a particular cause or course of action. Sometimes a little bit of cynicism is all you need—and sometimes you just need to take a beat and evaluate what you’re looking at again, rather than instantly assuming it’s correct and sharing it elsewhere.

Do Your Research

There are now several services dedicated to flagging misinformation and fake news reports. You may have heard of Snopes, which doesn’t just dispel urban myths, but also tackles contemporary news stories, complete with background and fact checks. Take, for example, this video that was incorrectly labeled as featuring a Palestinian flag, when it was in fact a Puerto Rican flag.

Courtesy of the Annenberg Public Policy Center comes FactCheck.org, which does exactly what its name suggests. It examines claims and counterclaims put forward by governments and other organizations and explains what’s true and not true about them. Here’s a story about an online video that misrepresented how Ukraine conscripted women into serving in the military, for instance.

There are other resources, including another fact-checking service from Reuters, that can be useful, especially when it comes to photos and video. There’s no guarantee that the content you’re unsure about is going to be covered by one of these sites, but it’s certainly worth checking.

[davekat-sucks]

>Pride month includes trans pride, and who’s deemed canonically trans by the Huss? THAT’S RIGHT! HOPE YOU LIKE SEEING JUNE EGBERT ON YOUR DASH A WHOOOOOOOOLE LOT AAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL MONTH!

(hopefully this formats the text right i dont use tumblr a lot and i usually only lurk)

Listen anon, this shit aint gonna work. June Egbert is not canon and she wont be, it doesnt matter if she appears on HSBC because let me tell you, its already on its name: BEYOND CANON.

You are not owning transphobes or helping trans people by screaming that June is canon everywhere you go, all you do is annoy people who arent trans and help make those trans stereotype become even worse and that just makes everything more awful than it already is. What you are doing is not helping ANYONE and it just makes you look like an asshole.

In fact Homestuck trans rep sucks as a whole. Vriska sucks in general and people like Kate will use her being "canonically" trans as an excuse when like I said all that does it make things WORSE. June is forced and people like you usually try to force people that its canon when its not and the Roxy one from HSBC is the same thing but nobody gives a shit about one so people usually dont talk about it.

And no just because Hussie said it doesnt mean its true (ie. Andrew Hussie Formstring) and sure the circumstances are different but the webcomic is done, its like if George Lucas claimed Luke Skywalker was actually a trans girl in secret all this time or some shit, it would be nonsensical to suddenly say that when theres never evidence for it + the main material having ended years ago. It has already ended and HSBC is just a non-canonical continuation.

And I don't know how much it "being planned from the beggining" means but I'm pretty sure its about being planned since the epilogues or something and not since the Homestuck Beta from april 10th, look at me in my invisible eyes and tell me that the Hussie from that era was thinking about transgender rights and not about his next webcomic and i dont fucking know that creepy puppet he had as a kid or horses.

AND before you assume Im transphobic, Im not and support trans people because i know how gender dysphoria feels [even though i do feel like some people online are faking it for attention or are there not for support but because they have some fetish which is pretty fucking bad (and Im unsure if fit the label or if I want to fit it considering I dont tell anyone about it at all and everyone online nowdays seems to suck overall and I also dont want to go around telling online strangers on a public profile about it)], so please understand this. June Egbert is not canon and is not a good rep, if you like it then keep it on the parts of the community that like it and stop trying to force "dubiously canon" on everyone. You are causing more harm than good, in fact I think that you are doing might not be doing any good at all.

And because I feel like I didnt let enough steam off Im gonna say this

Fuck June. Fuck her stupid fucking name. Fuck her rep. Fuck Post-Canon. And she and other shit reps deserve to be forced to take a permanent vacation straight to Hell.

Oh and davekat-sucks please keep existing and dont let these people put you down, you are one of the few people in this community nowdays that seems to not be overly aggressive and you allow people to show their opinions without having to fear getting harassed on or getting dragged on a full blown warzone just for not thinking like most people on the community do. Your blog means a lot for fans like us and remember, just because a lot of people seem to disagree with you it doesnt mean you are wrong! ^U^

Thank you for the kind words, Anon. And thank you for this amazing post here too. ✧ദ്ദി( ˶^ᗜ^˶ )

[the-fae-folk]

hi there! i don’t know a lot about faerie folklore, but i stumbled across your blog and i was hoping you could shed some light. i had a super vivid dream that i was walking thru a cave because a spirit told me that if i got thru to the end, i’d find the loml. i got there, but then i fell through a hole that took me to what i assume now i faerie land (?). it was very warm & happy & i felt weirdly electric and energetic. i met a man ( faerie ?) and we had a baby, but then he and the baby disappeared. it felt like i was looking for my baby for years but then i got yanked back into the cave and i wasn’t allowed to come. no time at all had passed in the “real” world.

any thoughts on what the baby means? i can’t find anything online about people who have had similar dreams, but i couldn’t stop thinking about my baby. he looked nothing like me and his eyes were so bright green like diamonds (mine are brown). i know it’s such a long Ask but it has been driving me INSANE what folklore could say about this. THANK YOU !!

There are several different aspects that go into this dream that we might need to pick apart before we can really try to answer your question. Firstly, the fact that your dream baby did not look anything like you is a common theme in stories that surround humans that have children with faeries, or humans whose children have been replaced by faeries.

And there are many stories where humans have fallen in love with and/or copulated with a faerie to produce a child. Generally they don't end terribly well with the child having all sorts of odd behaviors and abilities. Changeling stories are even worse and usually contain rather gruesome depictions of how the child, perceived as a fairy trick, was brutally murdered. Now the dream aspect is a little more difficult to pin down. There are several possibilities about what could be happening. One, it could just be a dream. Dreams themselves take a variety of forms and are theorized to be your mind's way of not only processing all of the things you've seen and done during the day, but trying to contextualize all of the knowledge into the stuff you already possessed, and a variety of other functions that only take place during the deepest part of your sleep. While true scientists don't have a clear consensus on what exactly the point of dreams are, they do suggest that dreaming appears to be a vital part of normal human functioning, and that the mind does seem to take a lot of things you're processing and spin them into a narrative because narratives are what it's good at. We do this while awake as well, but with more restrictions about the narrative we allow ourselves to spin. Most of the time. However while i'm personally more inclined to believe the above, there are other possibilities. One might be that you actually went through the events that took place in your dream. Either in the past and you are now remembering the events through sleep, or possibly you are metaphysically journeying to other realms while your body slumbers. This definitely has a precedent. Take the story of Peter Pan, for instance. The Neverlands (yes, plural, it wasn't a single island) were an archipelago of islands that existed in the minds of children. Everything was all compact and close together so that adventures had almost no time between one and another, and that a map of a child's mind would resemble a map of the Neverlands, without any boundaries at all. And each Neverland would be different from another. For instance, John Darling's Neverland had "a lagoon with flamingos flying over it," while his little brother Michael's had "a flamingo with lagoons flying over it." In the story of Peter and Wendy, we learn that it is difficult to mark the passage of time as there are a great many more suns and moons in the Neverlands than at home.

While Disney's depiction places Neverland out past the stars of the sky, Barrie's description of its location is somewhat different. He only says that it is "second to the right, and straight on till morning." The children are only said to reach it because it was "out looking for them." This blurring of the imagination, of the fantasy, with the reality is what's vitally important here. Barrie didn't come up with this association of Faeries and dreams in a vacuum, no there were numerous novels, stories, and even plays that made the connection between the Fairyland of folklore, which had always been described as having a dream-like quality, and the actual realm of dreams and imagination.

Consider Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream". The story's primary tension is caused by a fairy dispute (over a changeling of all things), and this disturbance of nature, for the fairies are depicted as being closely related to nature, blurs the boundaries between fantasy and reality. The whole play takes upon itself a dreamy quality because at a certain point it becomes difficult to separate the dreaming from the waking. This effect is compounded upon by the use of the magic flower by Robin Goodfellow to cause mischief and confusion among the human lovers and the fairy royals. The mechanicals, who are preparing to put on a play for the wedding of the Duke and the Queen, are performing a play within a play. And when Robin turns Nick Bottom's head into that of a donkey, the other players run screaming at the sight of him when he comes to speak his next lines.

When Oberon orders Robin to fix his misdeeds and restore the lovers to their proper love, he says that their memories of the events will be as if it were a dream. When Nick Bottom wakes and finds his head returned to normal and no enchanted fairy queen making love to him, he assumes that it must have been some kind of dream. The play they are putting on is the tragic tale of "Pyramus and Thisbe", yet the mechanicals are so truly terrible at acting their parts that the lords and ladies laugh as if it were a comedy. It is important to note that the characters are actors who are brilliantly playing characters who happen to be bad at acting, and that the audience for the play has another audience, you, watching them even as they watch the play. As the play comes to an end, Robin speaks directly to the main audience, saying that if any of the shadows (referencing the allegory of the cave) have somehow offended them, they can simply imagine that everything, the whole of the play, was just a dream and they've been slumbering in their seats since the curtains opened. But if they did enjoy the story he's brought to them, and are therefore his friends, he invites them to applaud. There is so much literature that ties faeries and fairyland to dreams. But what exactly those ties are is purposefully unclear and impossible to pin down. One final possibility is that the dream is prophetic in some way. But I've always found myself to be somewhat skeptical of Oneiromancy as a practice. Not because I believe that such a thing can't be real, I have no particular belief about it either way, but rather because I tend to take a rather skeptical view of most people today who claim to interpret them. But who can say? Perhaps I am wrong. I hope that, if nothing else, this has given you a possible direction to follow in understanding your particular situation. Good luck, you'll need it.

[sirenevenin]

❛ 𝐓𝐎𝐎 𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐋𝐘 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐆𝐈𝐅𝐓𝐒 .ᐟ ❜

&. ☆ ; written with FieldConqueror

𝐓𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲 , 𝐃𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟒 :

📞 Missed Call ( 8 ) from Mi Madre

💬 Mi Madre Seraphine Elise Stolzenberg answer the damn phone We have to talk

📞 Missed Call ( 5 ) from Papa

📞 Missed Call ( 13 ) from Emilia Köhler

💬 Emilia Köhler It’s the holidays, Sera. It’s too early for gifts! Gifts give me joy, not headaches! ANSWER YOUR PHONE

💬 Emilia Köhler ( 12 + ) messages

Sera woke to the relentless buzz of her phone, its vibrations rattling against the nightstand like an alarm she hadn’t set. Bleary—eyed, she reached for it, only to find the screen alight with a barrage of missed calls and messages. Her family group chat was at the top, the notifications piling up faster than she could process. Hundreds of alerts, all shouting for her attention.

A heavy weight settled in her chest as her mind began to race. What could have happened? Her thoughts spiraled, each scenario worse than the last. An accidental post? Screenshots of text messages leaked online? Something she’d done five years ago?

She forced herself to focus, scrolling past the chaos until a name stopped her cold——Emilia, her manager. At the end of the series of texts, the message was short, just a link to an ESPN article.

Her pulse quickened as she hesitated, her thumb hovering over the blue text. Whatever this was, it couldn’t be good. Finally, she clicked.

The article loaded in seconds, but the headline hit her like a freight train. The color drained from her face as the words burned into her brain.

“You have got to be kidding me . . .” she muttered, her voice shaking as she stared at the screen.

Her stomach twisted into knots. She didn’t need to read further to know her day, maybe her week—or her life—had just taken a sharp turn into chaos.

𝐇͟𝐚͟𝐫͟𝐝͟ ͟𝐊͟𝐧͟𝐨͟𝐜͟𝐤͟𝐬͟ is back on air once again with this season revolving around the AFC North, and of course Joe is a part of it. He didn’t mind being trailed by cameras during workouts or team training sessions——he was used to it. The Bengals’ marketing team had made sure of that. But the idea of letting those cameras now peek into his private life left him uneasy.

Joe had always been known for his private nature, keeping his social media focused on sponsorships, games, and the occasional post featuring his fiancée. While Sera was more comfortable sharing the smallest of glimpses of their life online, Joe preferred to keep their relationship and family life out of the public eye. He understood how people could fixate on every detail, and this was his way of protecting what mattered most to him.

The first days of filming had focused solely on the team’s training sessions, but today’s segment would shift the spotlight. A part of the episode would delve into a day in the life of a quarterback, offering viewers a closer look at the man behind the position ; which in this case, was him. 

All day, the camera crews had followed Joe around the house, capturing every detail of his routine. Sera had done her best to avoid the lenses, keeping herself busy while staying out of their way. As the hours passed, she retreated to her office, focused on wrapping up the final touches on her latest projects. By nightfall, the once constant chatter and shuffling of equipment faded to silence, and she assumed the crews had packed up for the day.

“Hey, guapo.” Her voice broke the quiet as she appeared in the doorway of the living room, wearing one of his old LSU hoodies. A small smile tugged at her lips. “All done being a movie star?”

“Hey, baby.” Joe replied, his voice distracted as he sat on the couch, leaning slightly forward. His eyes were fixed on the screen, where a football game played in slow motion. He had paused and rewound the same play countless times over the past few minutes.

“Yeah…” he added after a pause, his tone laced with dry humor. “I swear they would’ve followed me into the bathroom if they had the chance.” 

She made her way over, falling into their familiar routine. Climbing onto the couch, she curled up beside him, resting her head on his lap. Her gaze shifted to the flat screen. “The Elves?” she asked, squinting at the team’s logo. It was her shorthand for identifying teams———mascots and bright colors being easier to remember than actual names.

Joe didn’t respond right away, his eyes fixed on the screen as he replayed the same sequence again. Sera had grown used to this. At first, she didn’t understand why he would watch the same play over and over, dissecting it like a scientist in a lab. Then, he explained it to her———how he wasn’t just watching himself but studying every player on the field, analyzing their moves, their tells, their tendencies. She’d been impressed ever since.

“The Elves.” he nodded, a faint smile playing at the corners of his lips. His free hand rested on Sera’s stomach, his fingers tracing soft, gentle circles, all while his eyes stayed glued to the screen.

“I don’t even know how you keep track of all that. . .” she said, her voice soft as she stretched out a little. “Half the time I can’t even find you out there.”

Joe chuckled in response, his fingers instinctively hitting rewind once more, bringing the game back to the moments leading up to the snap.

“So. . .” she prompted, pointing lazily at the paused screen. “Explain what they just did to me. What’s so important you had to rewind it five times?”

“See this right here?” he said, pointing to the linebacker creeping up. “He’s showing blitz——just a split second too early. That’s all it takes for the quarterback to know the middle’s wide open. And that tight end…” Joe now pointed at the Browns’ player. “He’s acting like he’s staying in to block, but it’s a fake. He releases at the perfect moment, and no one’s there to cover him.”

He rewound it again, this time gesturing toward the Bengals’ defensive alignment. “We’re in Cover 2, which should’ve worked, but we weren’t disciplined. The linebacker bit too hard on the blitz, and the safety was too slow to close the gap. That’s how they got us.”

He paused, eyes staring at the screen briefly before turning his attention toward her. As he faced at her, she stared back at his eyes wondering if he had any idea that she had no clue what a blitz was. For now, at least. She’ll figure it out eventually, just like the first down.

“It’s important cause this is where the game was lost.” Joe replied, his voice calm but focused. “If I’m in that position, reading that defense, I can’t let the blitz give me away. I need to know how to exploit it without telling my move. It’s all about seeing the little things——the body language, the timing, the alignment. This is where games are won or lost.”

Joe leaned in, stealing a quick peck from her lips, his hand resting gently on her stomach. His touch was soft, careful not to apply too much pressure, as if trying to protect something.

“Ball knower.” She teased, her lips curving into a grin. She was endlessly amused by the depth of his football knowledge, how effortlessly he could analyze what seemed like chaos to her. Their little routine of watching games together had slowly become her crash course in the sport. Each time, she picked up more, enough that she secretly hoped one day she could explain it all herself.

“Do you think our future baby will like football?” She asked, her voice softening as her hand covered his, resting over her stomach. There was a moment of silence, the kind that lingered just long enough to feel significant. He didn’t look away, gaze steady on hers, but she noticed the flicker of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. It wasn’t just the question——it was everything else that comes with it; the excitement, the uncertainty, the quiet hope they both shared.

“I’d hope so.” Joe replied, his gaze shifting to the barely noticeable bump. Parenthood was never something he thought would come this soon, but he didn’t regret it——not for a second. He couldn’t imagine anyone better to start a family with.

A soft smile tugged at his lips. “But it’s okay if the baby doesn’t.” he added. “I just hope the baby likes sports. That’s really all I’m asking for.”

She shifted slightly on his lap, her fingers idly tracing a circle over the back of his hand. Her expression softened even more as a new thought crept in.

“Do you think people will notice I’m pregnant?” She asked, her voice tinged with something between curiosity and vulnerability.

“Maybe not at first . . .” Joe replied, his voice gentle as he turned his hand to entwine his fingers with hers. He brought her much smaller hand to his lips, pressing a tender kiss on the back of it.

He knew people would find out eventually——it was inevitable. But until then, he was determined to protect her privacy. He wanted Sera to set the terms, to decide when and how they’d announce the pregnancy. The last thing he wanted was for this special moment to spiral into a media frenzy, dissected and debated in the eyes of football fans.

“Don’t you worry.” he said, his gaze locking with hers, steady and sincere. “I’ll keep you both safe.”

It was a moment so pure and personal it could have been a scene in a romance movie. Only, this wasn’t a movie. It was real life, and it was captured by a camera Joe didn’t know was still rolling.

He’d known the mic was still clipped to his shirt as the camera crew wrapped up for the day, but he hadn’t thought much of it. The crew had packed their gear, the lights dimmed, and the buzz of production had settled into silence. When Sera entered the room, wearing his LSU hoodie that looked way too big on her and smiling in that way, Joe’s world shrank to just the two of them.

Unbeknownst to them, one of the crew members had instinctively hit “record” as a final touch for the day. They weren’t trying to pry. They thought they were capturing a wholesome behind-the-scenes moment—something heartfelt to close the episode on a human note. What they caught instead was an unguarded exchange that should have stayed between Joe and Sera.

When the clip aired at the end of Episode 4, it was an unexpected finale. Fans were excited. Social media exploded. “Joe Burrow: QB, fiancé, soon-to-be dad.” one tweet read, paired with a clip of him placing a protective hand over Sera’s bump. It was the side of Joe no one had ever seen before—and the side he never really planned to share.

The morning after the episode aired, Sera awoke to chaos. Her phone was a minefield of notifications, buzzing and pinging incessantly. “Congratulations!”, “When’s the baby due?”, “Why didn’t you tell me?”.

Her stomach churned as confusion gave way to realization. Her eyes darted to the messages, then to her social feeds, where their private moment had been dissected and shared a thousand times over. By the time she reached the clip, her dread had twisted into anger.

Their private moment—their announcement—had been aired to millions without their consent.

[sillimancer]

okay so I'm another year older. what have I learned?

It is not illegal to ask for help and sometimes people will even actually give it to you.

HRT has in fact made me happier if only because it's showing me that I have at least some control over my body and appearance.

I cannot sustainably manage a household and work full-time by myself in my current condition.

there is no ceiling for how much worse weight discrimination can get at the doctor's office; if you get fatter, it gets worse.

having a compatible therapist does actually make a difference but it doesn't make all the struggles of talk therapy magically vanish either.

you can work with nice people and still be really unhappy at your job.

I am really not that different from a stray cat you would find on the streets somewhere.

the fear holding me back from like, living a life and being happy is way worse than I ever could have imagined.

having friends is not at all the same as having good friends.

isolation makes you weird and if you're not careful it'll make you unlikable.

I had my first suicidal thought when I was 14 and assumed I'd go through with it before I turned 18. Today I turned 33.

"it gets better" has always felt like a bit of a stretch to me. It hasn't really gotten better, not at the high level. I'm battling a lot of the same bullshit I was back then. Some of that bullshit will probably stick around forever. So I can't promise that it gets better. A lot of it actually got worse.

but I would have missed out on a lot if I hadn't stuck around. A lot of the things that made me feel (at least in those moments) that staying alive was a good choice. I had to learn to look for those moments (like no really they had to teach me in the psych ward) and it's a skill I'm still working on. the secret for me was realizing that those things can be mundane, stupid, childish, or anything else, as long as it keeps you going. I had a whole period in my late teens and early 20s where the thing keeping me alive was "if I killed myself my online friends would never know what happened to me and I can't do that to them". Another time in my late 20s I bought a fern cuz I knew if I killed myself no one else would water it so I had to stay alive. for the fern. I stayed alive (Lucifern tragically did not survive, rip Lucifern). Crab rangoons kept me from killing myself. 6 uninterrupted hours of scrolling on Tiktok has kept me from killing myself.

sometimes you watch all of Steven Universe in like 2 weeks so you can live long enough to take your sister to Ireland to finally meet her grandparents for the first and last time and other times you begrudgingly stick around to see what the Breath of the Wild sequel is going to be like and that's okay cuz you wouldn't have gotten to enjoy a really good cartoon or take your favorite person on a once-in-a-lifetime overseas adventure or play what would end up being one of your most favorite video games ever if you'd killed yourself while hiding in your bedroom closet that night 19 years ago.

plus I wouldn't have lived to see my dad die, so. thank god for small favors. here's to 19 more years of stuff I'd regret missing out on if I was dead.

(seriously though I hope it gets objectively better in the next 19 years)

[kingmystrieart]

2, 7, 18, 29 for jasmine my love

8, 11, 15, and 27 for arnieee

d, g, and h for both

For this ask game!

Jazmine

(i decided to change her name's spelling recently)

2. How easy is it for your character to laugh?

Very easy. She has a very broad sense of humor but in particular she quite enjoys puns. She has a fake laugh she uses to try and suppress her normal laughter because she tries to be a 'proper lady' most of the time, but once her guard is down she'll snort and holler very loudly.

7. What triggers nostalgia for them, most often? Do they enjoy that feeling?

Looking at the online videos she used to enjoy when she was younger that she used to watch with her closest friends. She used to find the nostalgia warm and happy to think about now it just reminds her of her grief. Jazmine misses her friends.

18. What embarrasses them?

Core. She's the only person who's cooler than her. She wants to upstage her so bad it makes her look silly.

Then woopsie daisy now she has a crush on her.

29. Do they usually live up to their own ideals? 

Yes! Jazmine is part of the student council of her school, captain of the volleyball team and a member of both the chess club and robotics clubs at her school. She's a straight A student with a lot of peers looking up to her, but...

She is a girl who likes to have fun, and by fun I mean wrecking stuff with her friend Candace. There was a time where her student and delinquent side weren't so separate. This caused a lot of problems for her, so she made a wish that made that pesky authenticity go away on command!

Definitely not something that could cause problems regarding her self image later on!

Arniela

8. What were they told to stop/start doing most often as a child?

Eating and playing. Their mother was strict about how much Arnie was allowed to eat, she wanted Arnie to be skinnier not just for "health" reasons but to try and make them look more like their late father who was the Cobra part of them.

Furthermore their mother would often stop Arniela from visiting friends, playing with toys, reading books they'd like, using the internet and more.

There was a lot of maltreatment in the household after their father passed and there were aspects of enmeshment happening. Such signs of enmeshment were brought up in the community meeting in which at first made people assume much much worse things happened other than emotional and physical abuse which were disproved quickly. This lead to a lot of nasty rumors though. It was the first scandal the small town ever had.

11. How do they cope with confusion (seek clarification, pretend they understand, etc)?

They don't they get angsty and upset about it and let that simmer. They were confused when their mother didn't try to defend herself in the meeting, they were confused when she relinquished custody, they were confused when she left after Arnie was put under the care of the Vantal home.

Arnie desperately, desperately wanted the mother they knew before their fathers death back. So these actions had made them bitter and resentful. When they don't understand someone it just reminds them of that frustration.

15. How do they speak? Is what they say usually thought of on the spot, or do they rehearse it in their mind first?

Arnie says the most horrible shit they can in the moment with like 2 seconds of thought and then waxes poetic about nothing later then cries themself to sleep abt how cringe everything they say is.

In other words they either overthink it or dont think at alll.....

After them dying they're forced to think about how they speak because they can barely remember any words at all. They work through this with speech therapy and magic, but after that they're a lot more thoughtful about how their words might effect others.

(THEY STILL SUCK AT TALKING AND SAY STUPID MEAN SHIT ANYWAYS THOUGGGHGHH)

27.  What causes them to feel dread? 

The mirror. There's a corpse in it.

QUESTIONS FOR ME ABOUT THEM

D) Have they always had the same physical appearance, or have you had to edit how they look?

Arnie has had a TON of looks:

Jazmine's appearance isn't complete but she's mostly consistent:

(i cant find other art of her rn)

G) What trait of theirs bothers you the most?

Arnie: Very little self awareness or awareness for others for most of the story. It makes it difficult to make them likeable.

Jazmine: She's smart and good at socializing, I am only one of those things. (smart) Jealous of her.

H) What trait do you admire most?

Arnie: Fosters a strong solid sense of justice as they grow up and has a little more humility than their sister Core about it in that they don't think anyone should choose who lives and dies LMAO.

Jazmine: She's vury purty. I love how she's one of the most feminine characters in the story so far and that she holds herself with confidence and dignity.

[bungostraydogsrpserver]

BUNGO STRAY DOGS: UNCANNY ARC discord roleplay server dedicated to a plot post-season 5: reserve your muse!

The world feels the same, yet there's nothing that indicates why it should be different. Are the trees slightly greener? Did the flower shop woman always look older than she did? Did it always require you to turn sooner than you feel used to? Those minute differences make the atmosphere dampen your mind and almost seem like you're dreamy, but it's the same place, yes, you're sure of it. There are still gifted that roam about, the Port Mafia's businesses are conducted as previously, the Agency is once more redeemed, the Hunting Dogs are licking their wounds, and the vampires are all but snuffed out by Bram's curse's removal. It feels like the world once again turns the same... That is until the day where the hiccups seem to happen... At first, it seemed innocuous enough: simple graffiti lined the walls of alleyways with the name YUEI plastered upon it. No one questioned it. A new gang in Yokohama? Hardly anything to bat an eye at! Gangs were as common as birds in the sky! Then the televisions would flicker for just a frame. Anyone would have assumed it was simply just the television acting up, but those with more keen senses were able to pick out that there was a frame within the flashes: I AM YUEI. The forums online began to talk about it through both meme formats and wondering if this is another situation like before -- another potential plague upon them all (would more organizations stain themselves? would there be another outbreak? would more people die?). When posters appeared around town, the whispers online turned into the talk of the internet. Then it became the talk of the city. I AM YUEI -- who is Yuei? Then it became a rumor that gifted around the world were suddenly vanishing in the middle of the night; sometimes they were reappear cut up and with foggy memories and other times, they were just gone for good. Investigations in differing nations began to take place; however, it was only in Japan that the inclusion of the name YUEI and the vanishing gifted began to take place...What's worse? Whoever this YUEI is has also managed to cause those gifted with their supernatural abilities to struggle to use it. Like a baby bird in their nests, they can only seem to flap their wings sometimes, the risks terrifying when the first known instance of a death happening from their usage of their ability cropping up from across the seas... YUEI now resides in Yokohama, somewhere...but the traces are nearly reduced to nothing. Their presence only seems to bring with it more trouble than its worth. All gifted within Yokohama now find themselves unable to use their abilities, stuck within a chatroom with this mysterious person not allowing them to leave or block the number, and have to deal with those they thought were dead seemingly coming back to life without a hint of reason -- how strong is this YUEI? Are they the evil or are they a product of something greater? Even the greatest detective Ranpo is unable to track him down, the detectives are struggling to find any leads, and gifted are starting to vanish once more...returned only by a promise from those involved with this YUEI... Therein lies the difficult decision: will you work with your enemies to discover the truth of this newfound threat or will you keep your cards close to your chest?

AVAILABLE CHARACTERS || MASTERLIST || FAQ || JOIN THE DISCORD NOW!

[blackandredblog]

Anarchapulco 2024

I don't know what craziness I've just stepped into. But it's a rabbit hole that is fucking terrifying.

I was watching a video from More Perfect Union about how the US and Puerto Rico itself have created a wealth inequality that is as profoundly unique as it is disturbing.

In a clip from this video, I noticed something called Anarchapulco in the background. So, I paused it and looked it up.

Original More Perfect Union video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4ulSk0EqX

Upon looking up this AnarchApulco nonsense, I first click to see what it costs, completely missing the fact that they have a menu at the top for NFTs.

The tickets are $600 per person.

So I click on the speaker page. It's as diverse as a Connecticut country club squash team, filled with white grifters pushing conspiracy theories, crypto, and tips to living like them (which never includes being handed their wealth or social connections to acquire wealth).

The speaker page: https://anarchapulco.com/speaker-page-2024/

The leader of this shitshow is a self-proclaimed AnCap Libertarian named Jeff Berwick. Dude pushes Crypto, NFTs, and his own newsletter called the Dollar Vigilante.

Next is Max Igan. Max Igan has links to MeWe and Rumble (far-right friendly platforms). He also uses the term "globalist" in his biography on "The Other Side of Midnight" which appears to be some sort of right-wing, online radio station.

For those unfamiliar, "Globalist" is a euphemism for Jew. It's a frequent term used by far-rights, like Alex Jones.

The biography here: https://www.theothersideofmidnight.com/bio-max-igan/

Next is Larken Rose. He's another AnCap Libertarian. He's done time for tax evasion. And is well-known enough that Wesley Snipes tried to use Rose's arguments at his own tax evasion trial.

Rose is pushing his new movie, about a plantation that likens actual slavery to wage slavery and capitalism. While there are parallels, Rose (who is white) wrote a script in which he drops the N-word in an opening scene. Beyond that, the movie is full of exposition and lacks any real talent or vision for storytelling.

I'm not going to go through every grifter on this list, because I do have actual work to do, but there are two more standouts beyond the pasty homeopaths, internet-only radio disk jockeys, and COVID deniers.

Next up is David Weiss. He's a flat earther. And I'm not just being an asshole calling him names, he RUNS the Flat Earth Podcast. He truly believes we live on a flat earth.

Worse than even being a science-denier, this dumb motherfucker has a "Flat Earth Crash Course" whose opening YouTube video features Owen Benjamin.

For those unfamiliar with Owen Benjamin. He's a failed actor and comedian that is an Olympic-level racist and antisemite. He's recently popped back up on Alex Jones' InfoWars because he needs a new audience to grift after his last scam fell through. Who'd have guessed your neighbors wouldn't let you crowd fund a members-only, "free speech" Ruby Ridge-style compound... in Idaho.

Benjamin's Wikipedia Page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Benjamin

I was going to do one last sketch on Ian Smith, but, to be honest, he's just a gymbro science-denier that sells "water treatments" and supplements.

What's the point of all this?

These grifters are insidious and the far-right is trying to appropriate leftist terminologies and twist them.

They take small grains of truth, the base rhetoric of AnComs and grow genetically modified shitmuffins from them. If you ever doubt this is happening, remember that Nazi is short for National Socialist German Workers' Party.

Watch yourselves out there, keep your heads on a swivel, and don't assume that people are who they say they are.

[parcequecestnotreprojeeeet]

Hello! It’s Winter (again!). Without mentioning names, I’m sure everyone will know who the man in this story is.

You’re In Such Good Shape

“Are you alright?” He asked his wife the moment they were alone in their private hotel room. “Did his comment bother you?”

Brigitte chuckled, “No, I expected something like that, especially after everything I’ve read about that man. I just can’t believe he made the remark in front of his wife. I felt sorry for her”

Emmanuel had been standing beside the man when he complimented Brigitte’s physical appearance, remarking on how good of shape she was in. If he didn’t care so much about his position and the backlash, he would have confronted the American. Instead, he stood there awkwardly, shocked that a man would compliment another man’s wife right in front of him.

He scrolled through his iPhone. “Social media is having a field day over it. A lot of people feel sorry for you”

Brigitte appreciated the online support, but it wasn’t something she would have made a big deal over. “To be honest, I got off easy. It could have been worse”

Emmanuel stepped closer, rubbing his wife’s arms. The short white dress she had been wearing all day was driving him wild. Earlier, he had a hard time keeping his hands off her body, well aware there was photographic evidence to prove it.

Brigitte covered a yawn with her hand. The day had been long and filled with public appearances, not to mention jet lag was catching up to her. Emmanuel, who was accustomed to not getting a lot of sleep, seemed fine.

She removed the white, complimentary bathrobe from the metal hook.

“I’m going to take a quick shower before bed,” she announced, trying to get her husband’s attention. “I’ll be back in a few minutes”

He nodded, his face still deep in his phone. It was the sound of running water that snapped him back to reality. What was he doing sitting on the bed while his wife was naked in the shower?

Emmanuel quietly tiptoed into the bathroom, making sure not to startle Brigitte. While her back was turned to the door, he stripped down, tossing his pants and shirt on the floor next to her discarded white dress.

“Ahh!” She screamed when she felt his hand caress her bottom.

“It’s me!” He laughed, trying to calm her down. “Who else did you think it was?”

Resting her head on his wet chest, she giggled. “I wasn’t expecting you to join me! I assumed you were more interested in Twitter”

Emmanuel scoffed. “Nothing is more interesting than you… or your body”

She blushed slightly at the compliment, knowing where he was going with it.

“Hmmm… that man has great taste,” Emmanuel said as he buried his face in her neck. “Too bad he’ll never see the whole package. It’s for my eyes only”

Hellooo Winter! ❤️

Hahahah the famous Trump comment!

Yes, Emmanuel, get off Twitter and go do something way more interesting 😏

The “Who else did you think it was?” Made me laugh hahahaha

Thank you so much, Winter! ❤️❤️❤️