#bc this is REAL argument

[nobleriver]

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live | What We (1.04)

I tried everything!

[unsung-idiot]

don't show him modern technology; it won't end well

bonus under the cut:

[lazylittledragon]

ok someone please correct me if i'm wrong but am i weird for thinking those 'audiobooks don't count as reading' posts are ableist as fuck????

[itsmetheabnormalone]

Saw someone say on twitter „luke experienced subdrop and needed aftercare“ and I haven’t stopped thinking about this video/interview/comment bc I REALLY hope the producers are aware how much their actors are doing for this show and are taking proper care of them (e.g. having competent intimacy coordinators).

[1doesnotsimplyhavejust1fandam]

This has most definitely been said before, but we were robbed of the core four quarantining on-screen together at Buck’s place. ROBBED I say

[mintedwitcher]

Tbh I can't help laughing about the "Lou doesn't like sex scenes!" criers because like.... girlypop what show have you been watching? None of the characters have Actual explicit sex scenes.

There are implied ones (madney, bathena, henren) and fade-to-black ones (Athena and her hookup in s1, Hen and her ex) and even post-sex scenes (Eddie/Shannon, Eddie/Marisol, Buck and his hookups in s1) but this is not the show for gratuitous sex scenes so like. What are yall gloating about? Ooh the new guy on the "we don't do explicit sex scenes" show doesn't want to do explicit sex scenes. Oh noooooo. This is totally unheard of and is totally a reason to hate him (heavy on the sarcasm if you can't tell).

Literally get up girlypop you're throwing a tantie about a scenario you made up in your head. "Bucktommy can't thrive since Lou refuses to do explicit sex scenes" no one on this show does explicit sex scenes. It's literally a non-starter.

[autisticandroids]

FAMINE: That's one deep, dark nothing you've got there, Dean.

[youtube with closed captions]

dean and his father. dean and his family. dean and how bad it is.

(via @closetoyou1970)

[sergle]

(re: sssniperwolf and jacksfilms) It's laughable that she escalated it that hard. Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty sure stalking him like that is illegal and it's terrifying regardless, but Jack said in a stream (can't remember which one) that he wasn't about bringing up past controversies of hers or cancelling. And now she shows up outside his house (wtf!!!). Like he was willing to only call her out for stealing and freebooting but she's gone and stalked him and Jack doesn't seem like the type of guy to take that shit. Actual WTF moment from her part. wild

omg long post below bc apparently I have opinions: YES!! THAT'S WHAT'S SO INCREDIBLE ABOUT THIS... Jack has been genuinely diligent about keeping things on-topic in his streams, and hasn't brought up any of her other Stuff, or anything Personal. Despite the fact that she kickstarted the whole thing by making it INCREDIBLY personal and attacking his physical appearance... His goal has been to call out and bring attention to content theft, and he's stuck with it. Dude's also cared about this for years, and she's not the first content thief he's criticized. He just hates the way that freebooting has become so accepted-- to the point where youtube praised her for "coming up with such creative video ideas"? Hey! Ew! Dude wasn't trying to get her cancelled though, there was no smear campaign of her character. He's been rallying to get her to CREDIT the creators that she relies on for all of her content. It would set a precedent for all other "react" channels on the platform for one of the biggest channels on youtube to actually give credit where credit is due. Or, god forbid, get permission first? It's not hard. It's already done the job of making some other people who do "react content" self-analyze whether or not their content is transformative, and to maybe care about crediting the creators they rely on for their genre to work. There is a way to make this kind of video that isn't so slimy. And making fun of her lackluster-at-best reactions is so far from even being a big deal. Bc she literally does just sit there and say nothing. Plus, his goal has a clear End built into it: if she started shouting out the creators she takes content from, and put links directly to their pages in her video descriptions, the job would be done! That's what he's asking her to do. Real bare minimum stuff. It legit would have been easy to steer away from the content theft and to also talk about her history of lying to her audience! her ghosting a dying kid with cancer who was a big fan of hers! the fact that she's been arrested for armed robbery! her history of transphobia! He would also get more clicks that way, which is what she claims is his sole goal- to get more clicks. I'll bring it up though! She's been a terrible person the whole time, and has kept a steady course of manipulating her audience of young children and/or, let's be completely honest, simps- into thinking that she's a Wholesome creator. (And now, into thinking she's an innocent victim.) All of the actual effort put in by her has gone toward optics, not the content she puts out. A carefully constructed online persona, for one, but also literal appearances. Jack totally can't say this, bc she already went off the handle and said the only reason he doesn't like her is bc he Hates To See A Woman Be Successful. But I can! That was a cheap shot for her to use that argument when, for once, it's not applicable! Much the opposite, even! Dudes online wouldn't go to bat for her if she didn't look the way she does. And it weakens any case she'd have against him by making baseless claims like that. She banks hugely on being an attractive woman to get her clicks/following. A massive amount of effort is put into her appearance. The makeup, the lip fillers, putting her hair in little pigtails, the chokers and tube tops, the big non-prescription Nerd Glasses, the thumbnails where she has her mouth open in That Expression?

I don't even have to say anything. But making a weird facial expression and putting your hair in pigtails aren't moral failings. Showing up at someone's real life home (whose address you shouldn't even have access to), filming the front of their house at night, doxxing them to your audience of millions of people? Because you were mad at them online? That is fully scary! Yeah girl I'm pretty sure that Jack can press charges! There is absolutely no way to take the moral highground now that she's literally stalked him, and doxxed his home. She tried to goad him and Erin (Jack's wife) out of the house, also, which creeps me out even more-- because what was she planning to do? The fact that she's been arrested for violent crime before does pop into my mind! lmao! Jack was streaming a game at the time that she was outside his home, and these clips of him, his friends, and Erin reacting in real time to what is genuinely a scary situation have been taken down in case he needs to use them in legal action. Shit is legitimately serious!

[mongeese]

Interesting that Kim is like almost always portrayed as being dominant and enjoying control in fanworks, which absolutely does have evidence in canon and is an interpretation I personally agree with to an extent. However, in the actual game, he's always letting Harry take the lead, letting you decide where to go, who to talk to, whether or not to take on additional cases, etc etc. Obviously, the doylist explanation for this is that Disco Elysium is a video game where the whole point is that the player can decide what happens and in what order, and Harry du Bois is the player character. Kim has to let you do whatever you want because otherwise it would be a boring and restrictive game. But if you look at it from a watsonian perspective, it can have so many different fascinating implications for Kim's character. Like, does he just implicitly trust Harry that much? Or does he trust the RCM that much, that he thinks any officer of the RCM must be worth following? Does he feel a lack of confidence in his own abilities to run the show? Is he simply more comfortable in a passive role? Is he just entertained by this deranged amnesiac man and wants to watch the show play out? Is he worried there would be consequences for stopping Harry from doing what he wants? Would it break some kind of unspoken rule (either for Kim personally or for the RCM) for Kim to outright refuse to let his temporary partner honor his strange whims? Kim is someone who clearly exercises an extraordinary amount of self-control, and is proud of it. But he doesn't appear to have any interest in controlling other people (at least in a professional context). I need to study him under a microscope

[hotmess-exe]

"MY life has gotten marginally better or been unaffected under the current administration, so give the Democrats YOUR vote"

that's what y'all sound like. fuckin entitled. or do none of y'all actually believe in one person, one vote lol

just say that other people's problems, well-being, stability, and dignity is secondary to your fucking comfort under the status quo.

if things are "better under Biden" for you to such an extent that you feel entitled to other people's fucking votes, I got news for ya — you were probably fine under Trump too 🙃

[yourelosingains]

core four this, core four that, but what about the core seven?

[inkskinned]

there are a lot of posts out there that are positive and healthy coping mechanisms for handling the holidays. this is not one of them :)

i think there's like. going to be times in your life you will be stuck in a social situation that you cannot escape from gracefully. i do not know why the internet doesn't believe these times exist. it's not always just that your physical safety is at risk - sometimes it's legit like "i just don't currently have the energy or time to put in the effort of responding to this." sometimes it's a coworker you hate so much. sometimes it's just like, fine, you know? like you know you can handle your aunt when she's cheerily horrible, but if you actually set a boundary around her, it's going to be weeks of fallout with your father.

i don't know why people think the answer is always just "cut them out!" or "don't let them get away with that!" because ... the real world is tricky and complicated. i think kind of a lot of us have an internal "radiation poisoning" meter for certain people. like - i'm talking about the ones who are absolutely giving you gradual ick damage. like, you can handle them, but you'll be exhausted.

and yes. you absolutely should listen to your therapist and the good posts about handling others and set good boundaries and take care of yourself. prioritize peace.

HOWEVER :) ...... since im often in a situation with a Gradual Sense of Ick person i cannot just "cut out" of my life (without losing someone else precious to me) - i have sort of developed the most. maladaptive form of mischief possible. because like, if i'm going to have to listen to this shit again, i like to have a little bit of private fun with it.

now! again, i am physically safe, just mentally drained by this man. you should only do this with people you are not in danger with. which leads me to my suggestions for when your Unfortunate Acquaintance shows up and says oh everyone pay attention to me.

my favorite word is "maybe!" said as brightly and happily as possible. whenever the Horrible Person starts in on a topic you do not want to go further with, particularly if they make a claim that you know to be inaccurate, do not respond to it. you and i have both tried to actually argue with this person, and it hasn't gone well, because this person just wants the drama of an argument. however, "maybe!" gives them literally nothing to go on. it is incredibly disarming. they are used to people having some response. they know they can't prove what they're saying, and maybe! treats them like the child they are. it dismisses them in the politest way possible.

i like to say maybe! and then, in their stunned silence, immediately change the subject. this is because i have adhd and i will have something unrelated to talk about, but if you can't think of topics fast enough, i recommend just pointing to something and saying, "isn't that lovely?" because fuck you let's bring in some positivity.

by the way. that second trick - of pointing to something and stating an opinion about it? - that just works on its own, like, 70% of the time. i picked it up from teaching preschoolers. it's an intentional "redirect". it stops children crying and it also stops grown adults from finishing their explanation on why women belong in kitchens. dual wielding!

keep it silly for yourself. i absolutely do not care if people think i'm fucking stupid (it's more fun if they do) and as a result i will purposefully misunderstand things just to see how long it takes them to realize i've completely removed them from the subject at hand. when they say "women aren't funny" i get to be like. "which women." "all women." "all women in america?" "no in the world." "like the mole people? the people in the world?" "what? no. like, alive." "oh are we not counting the mole people?" "what the fuck are you talking about." "you don't believe in the mole people?"

similarly, i play a personal game called "one up me." my Evil Acquaintance literally knows this game exists (my family & friends caught onto it and now also play it) and it always fucking gets him. i don't know why. you have to be willing to be a little free-spirited on this one, though. the trick is that when they make one of those horrible little bigoted or annoying comments they are always making, you need to go one unit weirder. not more intense, mind you - just more weird. "you don't look good in that dress." "yeah, actually, my other dress was covered in squid ink due to a mishap at the soup store." "you shouldn't wear such revealing clothes." "wait, what? oh shit. sorry, your son tears off strips when no one is looking and eats them. i swear it was longer before we left the building."

the point of "one up me" is to completely upend this person's narrative. we both know this person likes setting up situations where you cannot "win" and then they really like telling other people how badly you handled it. in a usual situation, if you respond "please don't say something that rude", you're a bitch. but if you let it happen, you're letting yourself be debased. they are not usually expecting door number three: unflappably odd. because what are they going to say when they're telling everyone how badly you behaved? "she said my son eats her dresses" ".... okay?"

if you can, form an allyship with someone whomst you can tagteam with. where they can pick up on your weird "soup store" story and run with it.

the following phrase is amazing and can be deployed for any situation: "oh, be nice :) it's the holidays!" i do not know why this works as often as it does. i'll say it for the most random shit. i think this is bc most of the time these people know they're being impolite, they just like to fight.

godbless. when in doubt, remember that you could always start stealing their pens.

the whole point of this is - if you can't escape. maybe see how long you can just be. like. a horrible little menace.

[francixoxoxo]

have been on one imagining how an argument with Billy would go (what it would be about, how he'd react, etc)

Omg im gonna be honest I think abt angry Billy all the time

It would probably be abt something involving the regulators, maybe you want him to get out of the whole situation alltogether and he just can’t do that. You’re yelling that you two need to get out before it gets any uglier than it already is, find someplace where nobody knows his name, but he insists that “there ain’t a place in the damn country that don’t, and I can’t leave anyway.” He feels just such a strong moral obligation to Tunstall and the whole cause :(

It started with him just speaking firmly but he forgets himself, raising his voice with nostrils flaring and even letting a few curses slip to you. And it takes him a bit to simmer down but once he finally does he’s the first to apologize, either tugging you into his chest that night or coming home from work the next day with a bouquet of flowers and mumbling, “I ain’t mean it, baby. M’sorry. Shoulda known better than t’yell atcha.” :((

[nightfall-1409]

like its ok to wish that hunter did more to get crosshair out but i will say PLEASE stop saying that rescuing the literal helpless child from the child murdering fascists was somehow wrong of Hunter.

also like. can we stop undermining the very clear and obvious way that crosshair liked the power that he was given in the empire, especially over others, he was radicalized. he convinced himself that the war crimes were justified in the name of power. that is a far bigger problem and something that is going to haunt him far longer and requires a lot more to undo and forgive (and some people will never and should never do that, and others can't bc they are Dead)

to say it was all the effects of the chips, at this point in the series, its just not true. the events of aftermath specifically are 100% the chip. Everything after that is up for debate. We don't know when it was taken out, but at some point it was, and crosshair's pov is that it doesn't matter when, bc he likes where he's at. Had he not been abandoned by the empire on Kamino for so long, I doubt he would have ever changed, had Cody not deserted after confronting him about what it was the clones were doing, I doubt he would have ever changed. Had he not been forced to see Mayday's struggle and fight to bring him home and still after everything they both gave after everything suffered mayday died not in battle but because someone couldn't be bothered to even try to help him, I don't think he would have changed. I don't think Hunter could talk him out of it, and maybe he didn't try hard enough, or really, at all. Crosshair's version of loyalty, though, is blind, unquestioning, a soldiers loyalty. Obeying what they were doing, things that Hunter couldn't obey, and would have made him a monster to do.

But I can't imagine the disgust I would be forced to contend with if like, my family member came forward like "oh yes we're built to be soldiers, that doesn't mean preserving or protecting innocents, It means power and killing those who get in my way. its my purpose in life and i think you're stupid for not getting over the moral objections" like what do you even say to that. Hunter at that point had SEEN what the empire was doing. They both had, their home planet, (and head canons aside, all clones did in fact, in canon, see it as their home.) orbitally bombarded to secure power. How do you talk someone out of that, if fundamentally what your disagreement is on the value of life. You don't. Hence Hunter's demands in S3E5 to know what changed. What finally made Crosshair realize what he believed, about power and his purpose, was wrong.

Crosshair didn't want out. Crosshair was upset they didn't stay. He saw their purpose as being with the Empire. They escaped and ran and deserted. If they weren't with him, in the Empire, then they should die, like the Jedi, and Crosshair did absolutely believe that.

So this is all to say that. they are not equally responsible for what happened to their squad. Crosshair didn't have a choice at first— but once he did keep running right over that line. And a lot of us hoped that he was lying about the chip, that he wasn't entirely responsible for all that he did. But he was. That's clear at this point.

Even the whole chip matter— it's prolly really hard for Hunter to separate it. logically, he knows it was partially the chip at this point. But at that point in the story he watched someone he was incredibly close to nearly kill them all and at the time he had no idea why. If Hunter'd not grabbed Omega by the leg and tripped her she would be shot dead. If omega hadn't surprised Crosshair by shooting his gun out of his hand he would have killed Hunter. He shot wrecker, to use him as bait against the rest of them? Like, again, we all knew about the chip, but I can understand the emotional toll of such a thing bc he DIDNT at the time. The betrayal in that moment? How do you let it go?

But thats all fine! its interesting its character development and its the story they were determined to tell. But like. we can be honest.

Now if someone thinks that im wrong i'd love to know what exactly hunter needs to be sorry about, and why he's equally responsible that doesn't like either downplay the war crimes and murder and doesn't throw Omega like directly into harms way and under the bus.

[weirdbabs]

the comparison between rileys ultimatum and spikes ultimatum is so fascinating to me.

riley told buffy i need you to show me that you love me or else ill leave. he wanted some big display of affection, since clearly how she normally showed her love wasnt enough, the issues he had in their relationship being that he felt that she didnt love him (before he lost his powers, before she learned her sister wasnt really her sister) and that she didnt need him (to protect her, to help her, to care for her). his ultimatum was selfish, focused on him, and when push came to shove he followed thru. if he loved buffy the way he claimed he wouldve stayed, sat somewhere off to the side watching the helicopter take off, knowing that losing buffy was worse to him that losing his job opportunity

spike gave her a similar ultimatum, i need you to tell me that there might be something there. that if we were to work at this you might, maybe feel the same way about me, or else ill let my love of the past 100+ years kill you. hes desperate for a sliver of hope to keep him going, and when she squashes it completely, tells him that the only chance theyd have to be together is if he took advantage of her while she was unconscious (to his horror), he still doesnt follow through. he protects her from drusilla, even if he fails to stake her like he said hed do to prove his love to buffy. when push came to shove he cared for buffy too much to let her die even if she would never love him back the same way

[utilitycaster]

I just want to say, that I agree with almost all of your Critical Role takes and you have 1000% better and more nuanced takes than all of Twitter and I greatly appreciate it! The takes over there regarding Liliana and the gods are just wild and you bring some much needed sanity to the content I see

Thanks! I hope you don't mind because I've been thinking about this re: the Twitter takes but the thing about Twitter and Liliana specifically that I've seen is that there's this really bizarre fetishization of like, the fact that she is a (white) southerner (this also weirdly happened for Birdie though to a much lesser extent, and the person who spearheaded that wasn't even American so I have to assume this is a specific corner of Twitter Culture At Large). And like, here's the thing. It's true that fantasy tends to be very British in its accents, and it's also true that accents in a fantasy world are used to convey the same things we'd assume in our world - RP British for educated, southern American for rural, Cockney for rougher types, etc.

It's also true that laying the exact socioeconomic parallels from our world onto, say, Liliana and Orym (who reads to me as non-regional but I, like Liam, am from the Northeast originally) is a recipe for disaster. Or rather, it's not, but it is going to reaffirm your own biases, some of which are dangerous to reaffirm.

There was a popular post on Tumblr a while back, probably not long after Trump was elected, of someone talking about how they were convincing a relative with the confederate flag towards socialism by appealing to the idea of "isn't in unfair how uneven wealth distribution is and how a small group has so much control" and a number of people were rightfully like "uh, maybe you should focus on the racism" or "hey OP ask your relative who they think that small group in control is because I'm getting a really bad feeling they're going to say it's The Jews." And I feel that a lot of the empathy for Liliana from those spaces feels like that OP. Or in other words: I get that you see your relatives in Liliana. Unfortunately, I cannot help but see me and mine in Orym.

You see someone trapped by circumstance and desperation in a dangerous ideology. I see the fact that I haven't gone to a synagogue in easily 6-7 years without there being a security guard present and usually, the doors locked with someone looking through the window to let you in, and then in the sanctuary there's been an installation so that you can quickly bar all the doors in case an alarm goes off or you hear shots in the lobby.

I think there's a great case for seeing yourself in Imogen, who is in a painful struggle with the fact that her mother does love her very much but is in dangerously deep and has done a number of incredibly terrible and harmful things. That latter point is important, incidentally; I get that cult members sometimes rise through the ranks but all but the leader are being manipulated. But the fact remains that a brainwashed person can still commit atrocities, and in this story, they have, many times over. It's especially true because like...sure, plenty of people are like "I lost my relative to a cult and I just want them back and I couldn't harm them," but also, as we've seen, this cult can and will harm Imogen! Plenty of people are also like "yeah I gotta cut them off, it hurts but unfortunately my horribly bigoted and violent relative, while a victim of brainwashing, is a threat to me too." It's not even the full picture of the Temult side of things, let alone the picture that includes the Vanguard's victims.

I also think the Southern gatekeeping is unhinged because it's like. guys there's QAnon members and other cults across the country; the Confederate flag example above was actually notable in that OP wasn't even Southern so you couldn't even write the flag off as deeply misguided heritage but rather was explicitly being used as a hate symbol. It's awfully presumptive to assume all southerners have the same experience (especially since the Temults are portrayed, physically and in accents, as white southerners, not that the experiences of white southerners aren't also incredibly varied). It's awfully presumptive to assume that people find Liliana threatening because they have no personal experience with people like her; often, it's because they have all too real experience with people like her, and it says something even worse about you if you can say "but you guys, I see me and my family in Liliana" when people are telling you that they see them and their families in Orym. I would not, personally, publicly admit that one's empathy extends to the people who remind you of your family but runs out before it reaches their victims. Nor would I publicly admit that I assume everyone who disagrees with me clearly has never had personal experience with this topic.

I should also note that, as I've noted a number of times before, that these are fictional characters and not real people. Twitter seems to be really fucking bad at grasping that. Like, yes, this is the other thing; I do not think that OP should kill their Confederate flag-toting relative, whereas if Imogen did so to Liliana I'd be like "hell yeah." The former is a real person who I do hope gets deprogrammed, just, you know, maybe adjust those priorities; the latter is a fictional character in a story.