#because its just sad at this point

[tyetyetyetyetyetye]

Like you guys know these are characters right? You know they aren't real, right?

[teratomatica]

you always land on all fours

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Get Their Ass.

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[fogbreo]

first-time baking :)

they swapped the measurements of baking soda with sugar :(

[redeliminator]

i believe that to some extent Andre knows he's fucked up and this headcanon is one of the hills I will die on in the farewell tape, Cal says that “you can’t cure somebody who has nothing wrong with them.” 

Andre, on the other hand, admits they might be seen as hypocrites. he's not gonna back out, he still thinks it's the right thing for him to do, but he seems to acknowledge that people will not perceive it the same way. he tries to explain that no matter what it’ll look like, it’s not murder for the sake of murder - not in his eyes at least. there's a (sick and twisted) lesson hidden in this tragedy.

to some extent, Andre is aware of what’s going on with him, what exactly shaped him into who he is now. he sees the cause and effect of being bullied, of feeling rejected and alienated, and not being able to do anything about it because that's just who he is. he can kick and scream and shout but he will never change who he is at his core and this realization is crushing for a 17/18-year-old. this and all the implications of a missing sense of belonging.

he knows he’s messed up. he knows what would fix him and he’s convinced it’s out of his reach. he looks at other students and he thinks: it’ll never be me. and he's angry that they have something he will never have.

his awareness doesn't help though. if anything, it fuels his frustration. what adults know to be a temporary problem (high school) seemed like an insurmountable obstacle, the end of everything.

[starrytoya]

seeing people be proud of being so overly dependent on chatgpt genuinely fucks me up because... the whole point of being human is to think for oneself, to enjoy creating and to have original thoughts. why would you be proud to outsource the one thing that ties us to our ancestors generations ago? why would you be proud to use something that causes so much ethical and environmental harm? are we collectively losing the things that make us human?

[lizzybeeee]

I will never emotionally recover from this

[vaxxman]

Oh I'm sad to see people didn't like comic 7, I thought it was very well done.

This isn't an invitation to an argument, I just want to say my opinion because I'm seeing a lot of people criticising the last chapter.

We got a lot of answers and everything that seemed conveniently placed for plot was completely in the scope of how the previous stories have worked before. I thought it was funny that soldier lived in a cave of Australium. It's just as convenient as Medic having a deal with the devil and the mercs being unable to die. Or Grey Mann having a daughter who no one wants to punch in a fist fight. Or Sniper's parents coincidentally being involved with the sinking of New Zealand.

I think it was a very good choice to not let the mercs do anything plot driving in this chapter, because this conflict was never a conflict that could have been ended by the mercs. They wouldn't even have cared, heh. We've known that everything was carefully orchestrated by the Admin, so it could only have been resolved by those who are part of the bigger conflict. Hence Miss Pauling, the Admin and Saxton do most of the plot. Everyone else already had a lot of screen time in the previous chapters, but none of their stories were truly contributing to the actual conflict at hand, so the story can't come to an end until we actually see the person who's been pulling the threads actually come to terms with what she was doing. I'm very happy that her ultimate plan turned out to just be a pointless act of revenge, since we've all known from the start that the gravel wars are pointless. This is just one more dimension deeper into how pointless it is.

Managing to resolve the story and making sure all characters receive a happy end the way they did was more than I had hoped for comic 7. But just to summarise how I think everyone received their peace of mind across all comics:

1. Sniper: Finds out he's adopted -> figures out his step parents were his true family after all

2. Spy: Really wants to tell Scout that he's his dad -> actually manages to say the words, even if he wasn't honest with his appearance

3. Soldier: Delusional hater of commies -> marries a Russian woman and stops claiming racist things, because Zhanna as a person was more important to him than whatever he believed about Russian people. Still weird, not with less delusion but genuinely a sweet father and husband. Exaggerated and maximally silly way of how to actually change people's racist opinions in real life.

4. Scout: Upset that he can't get laid and thinks he has to be More Man -> glows up by becoming a dad who steps up and is less preoccupied with getting the girl of his dreams. His kids are what matters to him now and he becomes like his mom

5. Heavy: Worried about his family in Siberia -> his sisters show him they don't need him to protect them all the time and everyone moves to America so he can be with them. His sisters get to live freely.

6. Engineer: Is involved with the conflict since his grandpa, and is contractually unable to stop it -> tells Miss Pauling to sink all Australium in a trench so this never happens again

7. Saxton Hale: Wants to go back to the time when he was still actively doing things, gets his company stolen -> gets his company back but realises it doesn't make him happy. Leaves his company and joins Maggie again because fighting alongside her was what he's always wanted since we got glimpses of his past

8. Miss Pauling: Thinks the Administrator has a great plan that desperately needs her -> learns the plan was nothing at all and decides on the spot to end it by not giving Admin any more Australium because she realises she has been feeding into the conflict

Medic, Demoman, and Pyro never had a personal conflict to resolve. Medic had his moments to shine by sabotaging TFC and being in hell then coming back. Demoman had his arc with his liver leaving him and defeating the robots due to the alcohol in his blood. Medic scooped out parts of his brain to keep him unquestioning about his eye. Pyro is just a very simple character, and I say that with no judgement at all. Pyro is happy with arson, but also with a Dalmatian as their pet.

Everyone is still friends with each other and have their own little families. They come together to celebrate Smissmass at Scout's place. I think Saxton's last line "or do you want to live forever" was so well placed, being a nod to the meme from Expiration Date, as well as pointing out that, obviously, things have to come to an end we should embrace that ending when we see it's time.

And as always. If anyone doesn't like that any of these things, we are still free to make our own stories and reinterpret characters.

[captainuranium543]

I feel so conflicted about fairy tail continuing after 100 year because on the one hand I know it's probably a bad idea. A lot of fairy tail current issues are symptomatic of it just going on too long, and that's fine, sometimes the things you love need to end. But at the same time it feels like such a waste because I KNOW fairy tail can be better, I KNOW it has potential and there's so much that could be explored even now. If fairy tail ends after 100 year I will be sad because as much as I think the time has come it has so much to it that has gone unexplored and if it ends then that possibility will end with it.

[justablah56]

y'all do know that when people talk about the dangers of creating parasocial relationships with the creators of a thing they *arent* saying stop interacting with fan artists/writers like people. y'all know that right. you guys get that when people say the writer of your favorite tv show isn't your friend they *don't* mean you can't be friends with fan creators. right.

[lokh]

when a manga has animal ears and features but they never move or reflect the characters emotions. what was even the point then

[goldensunset]

i feel insane bc i have a lot of fun with taking things and making them darker and edgier but like there are rules to it. there are specific things i like and don’t like. it’s compelling when you take parts of the original that are only implied or lightly touched upon, yet are very much present and important, and expand on those. that’s transformative and delicious and very much called for. it’s boring and tacky when you dump a bunch of blood and death and evil onto something that was perfectly innocent and straightforward and didn’t need to be anything else especially if the original thing didn’t even have much of a narrative so to speak

[daily-hanamura]

[niftukkun]

Thoughts on Rain World: Watcher

i think if i had more free time i wouldve loved this.

it seems to prioritise exploration and discovery rather than a straightforward 'heres the goal now go get it'. its a meandering story, with long silences and contemplation between major story beats and new ideas. its more an experience than a story.

which i. cant appreciate. because im a college student with little free time.

if i had a proper summer vacation i think i wouldve liked to just wander around these new regions, wouldve loved this dlc to bits because i always liked rain world for its movement and experience when just existing. in many ways this was what i wanted out of the downpour dlc that i just didnt get - new places to wander and explore and exist in without purpose.

but i dont have free time. i have other things i want to do - including a comic i wanted to make for a while that i havent, because i was too busy trying to adjust to the Bullshit College Schedule experience. i want to have fun with this dlc, but right now i cant. which sucks.

for now ill just think really hard about the themes of loss of innocence, letting go of the past, and rediscovering delight of childish things and how it contributes to the overall story of rainworld. hopefully ill have time to experience the watcher in full at some point, but i dont think its gonna be anytime soon.

[beiyuanism]

au where fadel has a cooking blog under a fake name where he posts his recipes. every entry has that typical long, oddly personal introduction, except he assumes no one ever reads them anyway so he uses it as a diary of sorts. like, "growing up, mother would often be gone for weeks at a time, unless it was time for my younger brother and i to train to become assassins, so i was the one to cook in our household most of the time. this is the dish i would make on the days when i had no energy to cook after spending them at the shooting range" or "i developed this recipe for my late boyfriend a few years ago. he was the love of my life, so it really hurt me when i had to kill him on mother's orders, and i haven't made this dish again since then, but it's honestly a really good recipe and it would be a shame not to share it".

at some point, someone posts about it on twitter and it goes viral. people think it's just a very good bit and the author is extremely committed to it, because through the pieces of information you can actually piece together a full story of his life since childhood to most recent events, and it's so bizarre that no one considers it could be anything but a creative writing exercise for a bored housewife whose name he publishes under. that is, until someone accidentally remembers that a recent recipe on that one cooking blog had a story scarily similar to the assassination they're just hearing about on the news now, and people start connecting the blog posts to other unsolved assassinations. in the end, the consensus is that this is either a very dedicated expert in politics who is coincidentally crazy enough to cosplay as a killer in a niche cooking blog, or someone who knows enough about the mechanics of political killings to accidentally predict things. anyone who thinks the infamous assassin who's managed to escape dozens of times is writing about this on a public blog in his free time is treated as a conspiracy theorist, because, really, you have to be stupid to think that.

[statementlou]

https://www.tumblr.com/louisupdates/754934426217152513/goodbye-faith-in-the-future-world-tour-272024?source=share

did he or did he not lose fans then?

I will answer this because this anon actually brings a concrete question to the table rather than just "hurhur but you're a larrie??" (tell me you can't actually refute any of our points…). Anyway this post shows the decrease in Louis instagram followers between the screenshots taken directly after the release of Faith in the Future in Nov '22, when he changed his bio to promote that album and the tour tickets, and now, when he changed it again to mention the current release. But I'm putting that response under a cut because I'm tired of the actual POINT of all this nonsense getting lost in a sea of made up things people insist are important:

There is no rational argument you can make to say that Louis has less fans now than he did 2, 4, or 6 years ago. You don't need a spreadsheet of details you need to USE YOUR EYES! He has gone from filling theaters to filling arenas and stadiums. His second album made a higher chart position than his first album. His festival has doubled in size EVERY year of its existence. And for that matter: his insta post engagement numbers remain about the same (despite the fact that older posts should have way MORE likes due to having been there longer, even aside from follower counts.) SO WHO FUCKING CARES ABOUT HIS INSTA FOLLOWER NUMBER???? Serious question: what does the word "fans" mean if these things aren't what matters? ALL of this quibbling about what he should do to make things better and people can't even see that THINGS AREN'T BAD.

Anyway to address the specific question- (con't......)

NO- HE DID NOT LOSE FANS. HE LOST SOME INSTA FOLLOWERS. THESE ARE NOT THE SAME THING. As I said above, literally what does it mean to lose fans if that number change coincides with him having higher sales, more audience members, and higher engagement than ever before? Whatever he lost ISN'T FANS. I wouldn't be surprised if a significant factor was something like a bot purge, but also yes: I'm sure a lot of casuals followed him around the time of his big album release and later unfollowed him. That's extremely normal because that's how casual engagement works, and why the definition of fan really matters. Louis and his team understand this and have referenced it repeatedly, talking about how lucky he is to have *us* specifically, to have the kind of dedicated fanbase he has, to have the KIND of fans he does who will allow him to do what HE wants. @dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram named the issue of depth vs breadth with regard to fans a long time ago, and pointed out why having DEPTH is so much more important. It's like this- artists who are on top 40 radio have more numbers on things like insta follows, and for a time on sales and tickets. But those aren't FANS- they're people with a casual interest. And as soon as that person isn't being forced in their ears 10x a day, those people lose interest and stop supporting them, stop buying stuff and unfollow, and those artists end up doing the 'opener on the jingle ball' circuit rather than their own tours. One Direction as a whole, and Louis maybe most of all or near to at this point, have something MUCH MORE VALUABLE than that- DEPTH FANS. Louis has fans who will support him even if he takes years to release music, or stops parading around with a pretend girlfriend to stay in the headlines at least once a month, or completely changes his image and genre, and that is UNHEARD OF. It's ASTONISHING and worth SO MUCH MORE. And they get that! THAT is why he always bragging about us, why industry people he works with are always so agog about us, why he will do anything for US- not for randos. He is also growing his breadth- and it's OBVIOUSLY WORKING whatever his follower counts are, but that is always going to be secondary to doing things for THE FANDOM because that is his sustainable business model. That is what keeps him onstage and reaching number one. And not coincidentally, the things they do are also working to grow that- much more valuable- commodity. So the fact that that's exactly what these chuckleheads complain about- that he does things that are just fandom facing or serving rather than everything being aimed at recruiting casual fans- does nothing but betray how completely they, unlike Louis and his team, misunderstand the actual drivers of his (actual, existing, happening) success. Luckily for Louis, he and his team rely on their own data harvesting (they do a LOT of it) and growth metrics (they're off the charts) rather than the smug assumptions of random (mostly quite new to this) fans and the few bitter people leading the complaining about everything Louis does.