#but behavior is a totally different thing

[sageshouldknowbetter]

In Defense of Mark S

Post S2E4, Helly is going to be mad at Mark. I can’t see a way around it. He not only didn’t know someone else was “behind the wheel” of her body, he continued romantic pursuing of that person… thinking it was her.

But though Helly has valid reasons to be angry, a) victim blaming isn’t okay and b) I can totally see why Mark didn’t realize something was amiss!

First: impossibility and sheer absurdity. To Mark S, it would be unthinkable for an outie to ever enter the severed floor. That’s a violation of his universal laws, immutable as gravity.

Water is wet. Coffee cups fall down when you knock them off the table. And outies do NOT come down to the severed floor, because the chips are spatially triggered.

And sure, he knows about the OTC and that it’s theoretically possible — but why would any outie want to, and why would Lumon ever LET them? If he ever thought, “Oh, Helly’s acting strange,” Mark’s mind would go through a million different logical steps before landing on something outlandish as that.

Maybe she’s sad she was alone when she woke up during the OTC. Maybe she’s just having a bad week. Maybe she’s acting differently around him because of their first kiss. The idea that she’s being possessed by another being? Never would have occurred to him!

Remember how his outie plays into this as well. Irving B has the subconscious of some kind of anti-Lumon revolutionary with the paranoia that only comes from a military background. (“She’s a mole!”) Of course he clocked her.

But Mark? Mark Scout a) doesn’t know the entire family of his CEO, and b) has the subconscious of a history professor grieving his wife. While Irving’s outie’s knowledge bled through to him in the subconscious of his dream, I wouldn’t be surprised if Mark’s subconscious was actively TRYING to suppress any suspicious thoughts.

Of course it’s Helly. It NEEDS to be Helly. Because Mark’s brain is tired of grieving. His subconscious will shut down any accusations that she’s acting differently and cling to the idea because she CAN’T be gone, right? It’s not happening again… right?

And then we circle back to the first kiss. Mark S is in love — head over heels — with Helly R. He’s trying to find Gemma, sure, but that’s for his outie’s happiness, not his own.

If you’ve had one, do you remember your first crush? Remember the butterflies in your stomach and how much you were laser-focused on your own behavior? “What should I say?” “How do I look?” “Am I being weird? Why is she looking at me like that?” Mark S doesn’t notice Helly R is off because he’s too busy worrying about how he comes across to her. And because he has no idea she’s Helena, he has every reason to believe that’s how she’s thinking about him, too! He thinks they’re both dorks in love trying to figure things out. Irving doesn’t have this disadvantage — he’s on the outside and can see everything play out.

All I’m saying is I get it. I hope Helly at least kind of gets it too. What I’m wondering is, will Mark even tell Helly about his assault? Will he hide it out of some misguided belief that it would make her even more angry? Will she yell at him, not knowing that he’s a victim of someone wearing her own face? Much to think about.

[qqueenofhades]

With full acknowledgement of the general shitty stress of the times, and a very deep appreciation for your steadying words over the last couple of years: I've been somewhat conflicted about volunteering with my local Democratic Party infrastructure; since it feels like at the Federal level, some of those representatives are at best incompetent and/or out of touch; verging on malicious incompetence. Especially with the most recent cycle, for them to sit there and harp on the danger Trump presented and then be caught apparently flatfooted after his inauguration.... is it even worth considering, at this point in time, the responsibility(?) of all parties involved, whether its voters who sat out this cycle, sloppy behavior from the party at various points over the last couple of years, Republicans for being bad actors; or is setting aside that degree of analysis and focusing on just pulling through the next 2-4-6-8 ish years the way to go? Focusing on what can be changed vs. what has come before? If you do not want to answer or don't have the bandwidth, totally understandable. :) Thanks again for all your hard work in this regard.

There are two things I can say here, which is that one, the federal-level Democratic Party kind of makes a habit of being unprepared, behind the eight-ball, pre-emptively cowed, generally disorganized, constantly alarmist followed by crickets, or pretty much anything else you can think of. They have already started the "stop Trump!" fundraising emails, and plenty of us, me included, are like "brother you aren't getting money from me until you POINT OUT what the fuck you're doing and start doing it, this ain't the first rodeo, GET WITH THE PROGRAM."

The second thing to say is that at least the Democrats will respond when you push them and can generally be bullied into doing the right thing eventually, and that there is no way they will learn that, get their heads on straight, or figure out a cohesive stop-Trump action plan unless we help them do that. Some of them are more successful than others; witness Democratic state AGs being blitzingly fast off the blocks and filing a barrage of lawsuits to stop the worst executive orders, while Democratic senators and House reps (at least initially) seemed passive, confused, fearful, or just content, per Chuck Schumer, to just "sit back and wait for Trump to screw up." Like, if that's your big plan to stop fascism after you spent the entire election season telling us (rightly) what a threat to democracy Trump posed, then you deserve to get your complacent ass primaried, Chuckie m'boy. Which someone can in fact do if they want to! If nothing else, it might give them a scare!

The good news is that after the grassroots Democrats started making an enormous stink, the national party woke up somewhat more and started acting more proactively. We understand that they are out of power in all three branches and cannot do anything to substantially stop Trump if all the Republicans continue to march in MAGA lockstep, but they can at least look like they give a shit. Which Senate Democrats did with their all-night opposition to Vought (the Project 2025 guy who got confirmed to OMB). They could not stop him from being confirmed, but they could make a high-profile stink about it and show that they were responsive to people going HEY GUYS SO ARE YOU GOING TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT THIS OR. Which they will need to do, because it will maintain grassroots energy to get the House and hopefully the Senate back in 2026 and put the brakes on any substantial or legislative-related Trump BS.

The point is: the Democrats, especially on the federal level, are often chronically behind the curve and need to be kicked hard to get moving, but once that kicking happens repeatedly, they do generally tend to get the message. And if you want to make the most difference and have an active hand in shaping and discussing that effort and pressuring them to keep going, then yes, you should go ahead and volunteer. As ever, doing something is far, far better than not doing it. So yes.

[siryouarebeingmocked]

Filtered post because IE doesn't want to talk about the subject anymore.

But this is the guy who spent all of Christmas break defending Indian H1Bs from the magahats, is the rank-and-file normie lib really so braindead they think he's a nazi?

IMO, anyone who looks at fractions of a second and thinks it was some sort of coded gesture is probably so deep in the bubble they

a) don't even know about that, or

b) throw it down the memory hole because it doesn't fit the Current Narrative.

We have always been at war with Eastasia.

Cpy: i don't know if he's personally a nazi, but that's not really important--what's most concerning is that he's legitimizing nazism.

"No, it doesn't matter if he's actually X, as we vocally accused him of. What matters is that we think he's benefiting X, somehow. Even though we're the ones who are making the biggest fuss about his supposed Nazi-like behavior in the first place."

It reminds me of how Trump's detractors made dwindling white supremacists relevant to a Presidential election for the first time in decades, and supported antifa on the grounds that Nazis were a major, immediate threat…then they blamed Trump for the alleged surge of nazis.

if a public figure does a nazi salute (ironic or not)

i was assuming you were engaging in good faith, but that's apparently not the case-

On top of the classic goalpost move, we have the classic "anyone who disagrees with me must be acting in """""bad faith"""" (lying)".

If you can't imagine anyone honestly having a different opinion than you, then I think the problem's actually on YOUR end.

Especially in a thread where people were clearly discussing a different opinion, and you just…ignored them.

*Also reminds me of feminists who tried to silence discussions of men's issues as inherently misogynist. Up to and including falsely blaming a mass murderer on MRAs because a single mistaken blogger said so with no evidence.

And then men's issues got popular as a subject, and feminists turned around tried to take credit for helping men, and say MRAs were the ones damaging the perception of men's issues. Which was just another silencing tactic.

Especially since feminists also yelled at non-MRAs and even other feminists who tried to help men.

The funny thing is that the attempted silencing totally Streisanded on feminists.

Basically every subreddit is banning links to twitter over Elon's... either very unfortunate wave, or very bad taste joke. But this is the guy who spent all of Christmas break defending Indian H1Bs from the magahats, is the rank-and-file normie lib really so braindead they think he's a nazi?

[sophfandoms53]

I agree I wish people could view things with more neutrality because it would greatly improve the type of gameplay that we see but It feels sometimes like the fandom has these unrealistic borderline double standard expectations for how houseguests should act. There is so much negativity and hate around things like players getting frustrated if someone is making a move that will negatively impact them, or crying when someone they like gets voted out, or venting and shit talking other houseguests who are getting on their nerves. There is anger if players make up lies about their faves but also anger if people in the house get mad about people lying because lying is part of the game. I could go on but I won’t bore you any further lol. but the fandom who isn’t even competing couldn’t stop doing any of those things if their life depended on it so it’s like why then do those same people insist that the ones actually playing the high stress game for a life changing amount of money should are bad and wrong and silly for being emotional when things aren’t going their way.

Omg im so sorry for responding late to this 😭

I am answering this now bc i still think its kinda relevant especially when it comes to how people talk about Cirie or Cory’s game recently.

You can’t appreciate or criticize how either of them play without someone trying to bash them or misinterpreting how they’re playing for the sake of wanting to feel valid for disliking them.

I really like Cirie and Cory as players and people but I’m not gonna act like they’re flawless in every way or that their strategies don’t have issues. They for sure do, Cory’s been cracking a lot recently especially with Jared treating him the way he has. And Cirie and Izzy spiral every hour and change plans constantly, its a disaster in there LMAO

But they’re also just trying to play the game and their moves don’t need to be over analyzed with some deeper motivation behind it bc they’re going after someone or they aren’t working with someone you personally favor.

Full disclosure though, you’re allowed to dislike any houseguest for any reason. It doesn’t have to be this essay of reasons or you searching for evidence so you feel valid about it. That’s kinda the problem with ppl here and on twitter, they wanna feel validated for not vibing with a houseguest so they constantly misinterpret things that arent that big a deal and want ppl to agree with them. And its kinda not necessary imo.

I think we’re just so used to disliking a majority of the hgs that people don’t know what to do with a cast that’s messy all around as people and players but are overall decent (cameron, red, and jared suck tho lemme be clear they are not part of what im talking about), so some people wanna just hate so they reach to the most extremes because that’s what we’ve come to expect. But humans don’t work in such a good or bad way, and i think this season is a reminder that people are messy and complex but aren’t bad.

It’s hard for players to truly play BB and it’s hard as a viewer to talk about gameplay bc of this “this or that” lense ppl watch the game through.

[shimmerandfists]

Modern Au ViJinx thoughts:

Jinx exists in this universe as opposed to Powder but she's really a truer mix of the two than a direct 1:1 with Arcane's Jinx. She's closer to how Jinx was with Isha I think, still mentally ill but for the most part present and healthy, she has the tools to manage her symptoms for the most part.

She's been on the path of independence for a couple years now and at 19 she's antsy to move out of Vanders place. She's been relying less and less on Vi, Vander and Silco (everyone is alive at this point) as she gets older to the point she's making enough of her own money to save and buy things.

She doesn't have any real job of any kind but she's found under-the-table fix-it jobs for whoever needs it and pays the most. Unfortunately that usually ends up being shadier individuals, and has gotten her in trouble a couple times. She still hangs out with Ekko when they can. She helps him out with his college projects, even if it's his not-so-subtle way of trying to get her interested in going to college with him.

Vi is 23-24 (both the ages they are in the show) and has long since moved out. She's worked her way through an apprenticeship at a mechanics shop and has pretty steady work and income because of it. She tries her hardest to keep up her relationship with Jinx and drops just about everything to make time and space for her. Jinx hasn't asked for any of that in at least a year or two now. She keeps offering up her spare room to Jinx when she moves out but she hasn't gotten a solid answer from her yet.

Nobody has any clue what she does except for Vi, who bailed her out of jail the first and only time she got arrested. It may have been from a DUI she got for a party one of her clients invited her to when she first started working. She's the only one she would ever call if she needed anything at this point in her life even if she doesn't know how to talk with Vi like she used to.

She has her recently realized feelings for her older sister as well, she never really noticed them at all until Vi had moved out. Powder at the time was 15 and Vi was 20. Jinx didn't fully notice WHAT they were until she turned 17 and by then the space and time had changed their relationship. No matter how hard they both tried to keep it up, the fact was they both matured into different people they didn't fully recognize anymore. Neither think it's a bad thing, only that it's different and they don't know each other as well as they feel they used to.

With Vi living on her own and working a full time job, and with Jinx growing up and out into the world, it seemed inevitable. With more steady job leads popping up in the area where Vi had moved to, Jinx is starting to consider her sisters offer a little more seriously about the apartment room. Ultimately, she'd decide to get her own place but not too far away. Luck would have it that there was an apartment opening up in the same complex Vi was living at, a couple units down.

Vi is ecstatic about this and Jinx can't contain her enthusiasm either. The thought of spending time with each other was what both of them needed, they had really missed the other and there isn't anything like spending time in person to regrow lost connections. Vi was a little hurt at first Jinx declined her offer again but with how things worked out she doesn't hold on to that, and Jinx gets her own space while still being within bothering distance of Vi. They spend a stupid amount of their free time with each other, slotting back into each other's lives as if no time had passed at all.

That's about as far as I'm getting tonight but I'd love to explore this a little bit more later. With the flavor and depth and less of the foundation building. Like a detailed scene of Jinx' jail fiasco or some moments between the two when Jinx still lives at Vanders and Vi is in her own apartment. Future moments of them living in the apartment complex together, figuring out that in the process of getting to know each other again after that much time apart, they don't just love each other anymore. To both of their frustration, they're falling IN love with each other, and definitely in lust with each other.

Inspired by this edit: Flashing, Volume Warning

[gloombeaches]

ngl all the "cankle" complaints about the tv show's style or things that are being done differently for g3's continuity is giving off serious "trukk not munky" vibes

[hollow-vok]

Ohh im obssesed

[theres-whump-in-that-nebula]

I feel like if one wants — and is trying to give themself — a mental disorder by using the label of “transid,” then they are probably already disordered in some other way that they are in denial of; because it‘s more stigmatized, or “less interesting” than the neurotype they’ve chosen to mimic… which is sad because they’re masking in two different directions at that point: one to hide their illness, the other to create an illness… which will lead to more illness. Bleak, to be honest.

[infizero]

every time i so much as think about that scene where light looks at porn magazines while scowling i go into hysterics its genuinely the funniest thing i've ever seen

[computerpeople]

i think with the discussion of autism people forget that a lack of social skills also makes you look like a fucking loser sometimes and its still ableist and embarrassing to be made fun of for it. and that its still intrinsically tied to your symptoms. and also it presents as annoying as shit. and also is still a symptom. you know what i mean?

[forgivenfolly]

people can have whatever personal taste they want obviously and this is NOT about whether people like certain themes or motifs personally but

i think it's funny that people latch onto "tropes" that barely exist outside of online gay spaces as being overdone and write up condescending posts like OHH WOOOW DEVOTIONAL CANNIBALISM? WHY DONT YOU THROW IN SOME DOG IMAGERY TOO when it's like name one mainstream piece of media that does this if it's so overdone in actual literature/film/etc. oh you can't name any immediately besides nbc hannibal? almost as if you're just making fun of amateur writers trying to do purple prose on their tumblr blogs? very interesting

[anissapierce]

Im being sooooo brave

(*not sending an unhinged email to the professor i was talking to w surety (1x1) abt the hasan m video but now ive changed my mind so i was wrong n he disagreed w my surety if im gauging his reaction right but i didn't get to correct myself in an intelligent way in the moment n now im feeling like like shit)

[aeide-thea]

feeling just. extremely weary and sad abt people who imo are both wrong and mean in their analysis of oppressive dynamics. also at some level laughing at myself that this is legitimately what's gotten me down. well. also global warming and microplastics.

anyway. not gonna get into specifics bc some of you agree with them, lol, but. i guess i just wish we all focused a little more on staying in our own lanes and articulating our pain in its own context instead of jumping so fucking fast to framing suffering as a zero-sum game and using our own to justify dismissing other people's by comparison.

[adlibitur]

sometimes i have to stop myself from retelling other peoples funny stories because they live so fondly in my own memory

[timeisacephalopod]

The way conservatives frame being trans as some kind of "social contagion" while literally calling for the erasure of all trans people from public spaces is wild because who the fuck decides to Be Gender because it's so cool politicians are telling you you shouldn't exist on the news?? Like the idea that trans people are deciding to be trans because it's a social media trend akin to the cinnamon challenge or the fuckin ice bucket challenge is an absolutely bonkers argument to make in the middle of "these people shouldn't exist" speeches. Surely at least one of these brainless lumps have taken a half a moment to consider how something could even become a "social contagion" when they're personally railing against the existence of these Very Cool People??

Plus, you know, implying whole swaths of people are too stupid to figure out their own damn genders is uh, deeply insulting to suggest just because they're confused about how being trans works.

[the-cooler-dracula]

Hmm. Maybe my sister isn’t the only one who ended up with bpd…