#but like i know those are the jobs 95% of people HAVE to work and dont like and ppl get worried theyll get stuck-

[variksel]

nah its weird being in your early 20s, being surrounded by friends going thru some sort of early adulthood crises and "holy fuck im never gonna amount to anything im already 21, im never gonna be making money im never gonna be famous" -thoughts when like. all of the media you consume is by people who are well into their 30s and often, 40s

like i feel like im so chill about this partly because i feel like if this random mid class guy who got famous for the first time off of a podcast he started at 35 after working restaurant and retail jobs ........ anythin can happen u can do new shit after 27 girl

[jmtorres]

i just saw a post about how we just have to "live with" covid and wanting more protections from our government is unreasonable because we'll never wipe it out, it jumps species and is in all sorts of animal populations (like, true ok) so why even try to

and apparently the argument was aimed at people (who I haven't seen in the wild) who are arguing we should still be in lockdown. and i have mixed feelings about the idea of extended lockdown or attenuating isolations; but my main feeling at this point is not that the government should keep us apart but that the government should be trying to make it safer for us to be together

things the government could/should be doing about covid:

we know that ventilation/air movement helps a shitton. we should be incentivizing upgrades to ventilation systems in all public buildings with shit like rebates or tax deductions, while phasing in eventual legal requirements. (and uh. it has occurred to me that the US might actually be doing this sideways by there's currently this decade enormous tax incentives in re energy efficient upgrades for slowing climate change and you know. energy efficient hvac does tend to improve ventilation. extra point to biden here.)

mandatory paid sick leave so workers aren't under social or economic pressure to work when sick

passing out RT-LAMP tests like metrix that actually work instead of the rapid antigen tests that have become less and less reliable as the virus mutates

i don't know how you'd write this law but like 95% or more of computer-based work can be done remotely and companies should not be allowed to force people to return to the office. I know there's people who want to be back in person and I'm not saying they should be forced to stay home but ffs I know of at least two people CLOSE to me who worked remotely before the pandemic and at some point their workplaces tried to tell them they weren't allowed to do that anymore despite the pre-existing contracts. stop canceling remote work for people that want, need, or prefer it.

for that matter, every college lecture that was an online class during covid should still be offered as an online class, there is no reason to force students into auditoriums in person. you got the communications infrastructure up and running, why are you tearing it down. give people the OPTION. it increases accessibility for everyone!

covid vaccine immunity lasts about four months. this should be well-publicized and everyone should be able to re-up for free every four months. "every year, like the flu vaccine" is demonstrably not often enough. actually "for free" isn't good enough start handing out $10 gift cards you will be shocked at how many people who are resistant to the idea of vaccines will fold for $10 a shot

are there already laws on the books about masks in medical settings that some medical professionals are blatantly ignoring because they forgot what best practices were before the plague and they're 'tired of masking'? if not, pass laws. if so, fucking enforce them

oh another incentives for upgrades phasing into legal requirements thing: brass doorknobs and railings over stainless steel or whatever. microbes do not survive on brass surfaces

i mean. i know this one sounds too extreme to a lot of people but. UBI.

most if not all of these measures will prevent or ameliorate other pandemics of different diseases that may arise in the future. and just. generally improve our health and quality of life for other reasons.

I haven't felt safe to go to a concert since 2020. Maybe if I knew a venue was legally required to have ventilation to a certain standard and that none of the ticket takers and ushers were on the job sick to avoid risking loss of paycheck or job, and knew a larger percentage of the crowd had up to date vaccinations--maybe if any or all that, I might ever feel comfortable going to a show again.

wouldn't it be nice if those of us who have been disabled, by covid or other conditions, had accessible remote options but also occasionally felt safe enough to interact with and participate in wider society?

one of the arguments on the post I saw was how isolation was massively psychologically damaging and various strata of society were affected in all sorts of ways, from undersocialized kids to increased depression in--well across the board, I think. and here's the thing: WE KNOW. PEOPLE WITH CHRONIC HEALTH CONDITIONS, LONG COVID OR OTHERWISE, KNOW ISOLATION SUCKS REAL BAD. because we, both for our own health and due to disability ostracism, are still isolating and isolated more than most.

what are you as individuals or societies, what are our governments, doing to help make it safe and accessible to rejoin you????

[murderandcoffee]

okay so. here are my thoughts on the characters we've been re-introduced to.

celia, gerry, gertrude, and georgie exist in this universe. those are facts. however, we do not know which versions of them they are. the possibilities, however, give us some insight into how the whole situation works.

celia: high chance that she's the original celia from the tmaverse (member of melanie and georgie's cult, trapped in the not!them's domain, previously told the institute about her experience with a flaming ghost) and was carried over when the fears left her world. if that's the case, then she's probably had some time to adapt and establish herself, as she has found a job at the OIAR and befriended georgie. nonetheless, still possible that this is a different version of celia, who has been in this universe from the start. if so, that calls into question how she met georgie and got interested in the institute.

gerry and gertrude: definitely not the original ones. we have proof that this gerry has been here for decades (his time at the institute). also, both he and gertrude were confirmed dead in the tmaverse. these versions of them must then be originally from this world. this confirms (with like... 95% confidence, on my part) that there ARE versions of at least SOME people in both worlds.

georgie: I am inclined to believe that she, like gerry and gertrude, is the protocolverse's version of herself, NOT the original tmaverse version. I say this because we heard her after the fears left her world. we don't know if the gap at hilltop road remained open, but as of mag200 she was still in her original world after the fears disappeared. if the georgie we heard about today IS the original georgie, then she would have had to find a way across worlds. if she did that, then I see no reason why celia would be researching time travel, multiple dimensions, and the like--surely georgie would have at least some answers for her. thus, I think that this is a different georgie--this world's version of her. likely a version who can feel fear (but I wouldn't be surprised if something else had happened to her along those lines).

so with this, we know that there are multiple versions of people (at least some people--we don't know if that's the case for everyone, and if I'm being honest, I really doubt it) across universes. however, we don't know how many similarities their lives in the protocolverse bear to their lives in the tmaverse. gerry had a much different experience with the institute and gertrude is not the archivist, but georgie still has her podcast.

the one really interesting part is celia--if this IS the tmaverse celia, then how did she get here? was she caught in the tide that swept the fears through the gap in reality at hilltop road? if so, were there others--people who helped bring down the tower? if not, how DID she get here?

I'm intrigued to see what we learn about each of these versions of people, and what comes to light as we learn more.

[xerith-42]

I was wrong

It takes a lot to admit that, even more for me to admit that about MCD, but I was wrong about something in regards to this series. In a previous post I said that the worst episode of MCD was Season 2 Episode 95, because it was the culmination of the absolute failure that was Laurance's character arc. And I wasn't wrong about that, S2E95 is an objectively bad episode and I stand by it being one of the worst. But it's only one of the worst episodes of this series. Probably second or third worst.

The actual worst episode of Minecraft Diaries happens far earlier in it's run time than I anticipated. The actual episode that begins the degrading of every single main character happens within it's first season. The worst episode of Minecraft Diaries is Season 1 Episode 65, Our Fears.

For those of you who haven't watched MCD in a minute, or aren't insane like I am and recognize what happens in an episode from just a number and a thumbnail, this is the episode where Aphmau and Dante get chased into Malachi's abandoned castle and fall victim to his uncontrollable magic. A magic that shows people their greatest fears.

Now the concept of a ghost that forces the audience and the characters to come face to face with the leading characters greatest fears is a fantastic idea. I'm serious this is one of the best concepts for character work in the entire Aphverse. This is great, this can go so many good ways.

Aphmau's fear is pretty weak mostly because it shows her house on fire, nobody hurt, and Malachi comments that she's "Scared of losing the ones you love." My honest reaction to this was "She lost her house in episode 36 and didn't seem to care because her loved ones are safe. You wanna communicate that she's scared of people dying just show Zoey lying on the ground or something smh." It gets the job done, but not very well.

Dante's fear is the only one that's well done because it's an image of Gene about to rip apart the realm barrier in the Nether. This works surprisingly well despite only being one shot because it gets across Dante's connection to Gene and the Nether pretty well, setting up for the reveal later on. Dante's existence is this episode's single redeeming quality. And as much as I like the guy, he's not enough to hold up the episode after what happens next.

Now, dear viewer who presumably knows the plot of MCD because you've read this far into a post about this single episode, you know that at this point in the series Garroth has been found out by his brother and has the looming threat of the entire O'Khasis military on his mind all the damn time. Zane has already hurt members of his village in direct ways, and only didn't do more damage because he was called away for an emergency. Garroth has already failed to protect one lord, and he's nearly failed to protect another.

Laurance is a shadow knight. And even though the lore of shadow knights is still flimsy at this point, we know that they are very prone to killing lords, it's why Laurance renounced his position as head guard of Meteli and refuses to return. But that doesn't mean his desire for blood is gone. It just means it has a new target. Like say, the lord he comes to the castle in search of? That he has explicit romantic feelings for?

Again, this idea of forcing the audience and the characters to face their greatest fears is such a good idea, especially with these three, because they can all be interlinked. Aphmau fears losing her loved ones, Garroth fears failing to protect his people, and Laurance fears that he'll give into bloodlust. Are you picking up what I'm putting down? I don't know if I can make it anymore obvious where the show should have gone from here.

But, no, unfortunately Jesson wrote this series. So what could have been one of the best moments of character work in the entire series, instead became the beginning of the end for our would be love interests. I'm of course referring to how it's revealed that their actual "worst fear" is Aphmau getting with... Another guy. Not even her picking one over the other, just her holding hands with and kissing some guy that Garroth and Laurance DON'T EVEN KNOW!

And despite Laurance saying he's happy as long as he has Aphmau in his life, he starts getting enraged that another guy would have the audacity to kiss her. Even though the scene he's shown seems to be entirely consensual. And in response to this, BOTH OF THEM DECIDE TO TRY AND KILL THIS ILLUSION OF DANTE JUST FOR KISSING THE GIRL THEY LIKE!

AND THIS IS SEEN AS A GOOD THING BY THE SHOW!! Attacking this illusion breaks the barrier around the real Aphmau and Dante, and Garroth and Laurance are never punished for their actions here. Aphmau is barely concerned that her guards, the men she's willing to trust with her life, were willing to kill someone for the crime of kissing her. Hot fucking take, Aphmau maybe shouldn't trust these people after seeing that they're willing to kill a man over the crime of loving her when they want to.

And even hotter take, GARROTH AND LAURANCE WOULDN'T DO THIS! Both men have been shown to be highly protective over Aphmau, which makes sense it's literally their job to keep her safe, but that protective nature shouldn't cross over into actively interfering with her romantic life. They're fucking lucky it was just an illusion, what would have happened if Malachi used mind control? What if he was using Aphmau and Dante's bodies as puppets? What if Garroth and Laurance just killed an amateur guard whose only crime was being forced to kiss the girl they liked?

This is one of those writing decisions that truly baffles me. It was RIGHT THERE, HOW DID YOU MISS, IT (the perfect piece of character work) WAS THREE FEET IN FRONT OF YOU! The answer is that Jesson don't really care about the interesting character work, they care about tropes. They care about the main character being in a love triangle with two guys who equally suck but in different ways. They care about fans getting excited and debating over which ship is better. They care about pushing this love triangle onto viewers regardless of what makes sense for the characters involved because the writers fail to see the nuance of the characters that they fucking wrote the nuance of.

I fucking hate Episode 65. Easily the worst episode of MCD. Any episode after this when Garroth and Laurance act horrendously out of character in service of this love triangle (I'm looking at you episode 77, and episode 90, and season 2 episode 95, and season 2 episode 98), know that it started here. It started with episode 65.

Fuck this episode.

[deliasbabe]

Take Me Back To Eden- Venable x Reader- Chapter 1

I feel bad that I haven't given you updates to my other stories, so here's the first chapter to a fic I've been working on for over a year (it's going to be like 35 chapters long, so bear with me plz).

(Also I know this is my second fic with this song title, let me have it)

Enjoy!

Words: 2.4k

Warnings: Mentions of sexual acts, language, blatant misogony, mentions of drugs and drug use. I think that's it????

You should’ve won.

It was a bet, a stupid bet to make your coworkers shut the fuck up about your boss. You were good at pool, you thought you had it in the bag, and you did, right up until your opponent bumped the table during your shot, and you sunk the 8-ball. You accused him of cheating, he accused you of being too much of a pussy to hold up your end of the bargain. A deal’s a deal.

It was some kind of twisted fate that the object of your disagreement would walk through the door only a few moments later, a scowl on her face as she spotted you all, brushing past the lot of you and sitting down at the bar.

“Look who it is.” Your coworker, Nate, laughed, “Time to pony up, princess”

You rolled your eyes, “This is cruel and unusual punishment.”

“For you or her?” Another, Scott, asked.

“You haven’t been on the receiving end of Venable’s wrath yet,” Nate said, “But you’re about to.”

“Not likely.” You sneered, “I’m not stupid enough to code the firmware update in java instead of python, unlike some people.”

“I was a rookie.” Nate scoffed, “You’ve made it two years without being on the receiving end, it’s time you get baptized.”

You could hear the murmurs of the other men, a quiet chant.

One of us, one of us…

“Maybe because I’m actually competent.” You fired back.

“Well, competent or not, nothing is going to save you from this.” Scott chuckled, “Might as well rip off the band aid and get’er done.”

Oh yeah, you were definitely about to be fired.

“Who knows, maybe she’s really into the bosses sleeping with their assistant’s thing. Might feed her fantasy.” Nate joked.

“Or yours.” You spit.

“Listen, as hot as lesbians are, if I ever start fantasizing about Venable getting her rocks off, please shoot me in the head.” Nate said seriously.

You downed your drink and turned on your heel, willing to do just about anything to get away from the current conversation. You knew what you had signed up for when you took this job, a staff of 95% men, all of whom hadn’t fucked a girl in at least 10 years and were proud members of the boy’s club, but you still didn’t want to subject yourself to their blatant misogyny any more than you had to.

Obviously, you weren’t going to do it. It was cruel and unnecessary, but you knew your colleagues well enough to understand that it had to at least be believable. You walked up next to her, making sure you were facing the group so they couldn’t see her face.

The bartender looked over at you, “Another round?”

“Yea, same thing.” You said, nodding in Venables direction, “And put whatever she’s having on my tab.”

Venable turned and glared at you, but you ignored it.

“Just this round?” The bartender asked.

“All of it.” You said, shaking your head, it was the least you could do after what you were about to put her through.

“Well, I guess it’s payment for forcing me to witness you traipsing around with those men like a whore.” Venable sneered.

“That’s a funny way of saying thank you.” You laughed, “There’s nothing wrong with grabbing a few drinks with colleagues. You should try it sometime.”

Venable scoffed, bringing her martini to her lips, “Workplace relationships are forbidden.”

You smirked, “Then I guess it’s a good thing I’m not into men.”

Venable sputtered around the rim of her glass; eyes wide as she choked on the burning liquid. You reached for your new drink, taking a sip as you winked at her and walked away.

“What happened?” Nate asked, “It sure didn’t take long.”

“Nothing, yet.” You said, “I walked away before she could give me an answer.”

“But the dare…” Scott interjected, but you were quick to cut him off.

“The dare was to ask her on a date, which I did.” You retorted, “No one said anything about her giving me an answer.”

“But she has to give you an answer, that’s how this works.” Nate said, and you shushed him.

“Cool your jets.” You groaned, “Getting someone to agree to a date is more like a game of chess than checkers. Good things take time.”

Nate and Scott laughed, “You are so getting fired on Monday.”

“Don’t I know it.” You mumbled over the rim of your glass.

In typical Venable fashion, you didn’t have to sit with it for long, a sticky note taped to your monitor on Monday morning for an eleven o’clock meeting. Working under Venable for as long as you had, you knew her habits. Meetings with clients were always first thing in the morning, before Jeff and Mutt had enough time to sniff themselves into a stupor. Staff meetings were after scheduled hours or during lunch, unpaid, of course. The eleven o’clock time slot lived in infamy, it was right before lunch, giving you just enough time to pack your things and do the walk of shame as everyone walked back through the doors. Clearly a genius move, or one of an absolute psychopath.

“What the fuck was that?” Venable sneered before you were even able to fully shut the door.

You pushed the door the rest of the way closed, “What was what?”

“At the bar.” Venable said, rolling her eyes, “Don’t tell me the alcohol killed what little brain cells you have left. I should fire you for speaking to me that way.”

You shrugged, “So fire me.”

Venable sighed, her words biting, “I don’t want to fire you. I want an explanation.”

That was a lie, she absolutely wanted to fire you, and she probably would have, if you hadn’t overheard that Jeff and Mutt were considering placing her on a firing freeze. She had hit an all-time record, canning 17 employees in the span of two weeks, and now she was doing damage control. But she didn’t know that you knew, and you weren’t going to let her figure that out. A loss of control was seen as weakness to Venable, and if she found out that you knew, nothing Jeff and Mutt could bring down would stop her from getting rid of you.

You shook your head, “It’s better if you don’t know.”

Venable grit her teeth, her nails digging into the soft wood of her desk, “I asked a question, I expect an answer.”

You threw your hands up, “I lost a game of pool.”

Venable cocked her head, very slightly, and chewed on her words, “You… lost a game of pool?”

“Yes.” You said, hoping if you danced around the topic enough, she would eventually get bored and leave it alone, or just assume you were too stupid to get any viable information out of.

Venable’s eyes raked over you, before zeroing in on some invisible crack in your armor, “And?”

“And?” You asked, trying to play dumb.

“I assume there’s more to the story, given the way your feet are dancing like you’re stepping on red hot coals.” Venable said, eyes following yours towards your feet, “Spit it out. I don’t have all day.”

You chewed on the inside of your cheek, “We bet on the game. I lost the game, so I had to hold up my end of the deal.”

“Which was?” Venable asked, growing tired of your antics.

You sighed, “To ask you on a date.”

Venable cocked her head to the side, studying you for a moment, “You didn’t ask me on a date.” You nodded, “So then you didn’t hold up your end of the deal.”

You nodded again. “I’m not going to ask someone out for a dare, its cruel and juvenile. I just needed them,” You said, motioning to the row of desks opposite the frosted glass walls, “To think I did.”

“You risked your job,” Venable sneered, “For a childish dare?”

“Actually,” You began, cocking your head and smirking, “I risked my job so I wouldn’t have to do the dare. Men are stupid, and extremely gullible.”

Venable’s eyes narrowed, “Why would they dare you to ask me out?”

You rolled your eyes, “Because they’re intimidated by strong women, and they wanted to humiliate you.”

She pursed her lips, “Flattery will get you nowhere.”

“It isn’t flattery,” you chuckled, “You scare the shit out of them.” Venable tried her best to fight the smirk on her lips, but you still caught it, and you thought you should get out while you were ahead, “Now, am I fired, or can I get back to work?”

Venable looked confused, “I haven’t assigned you anything.”

“Jeff and Mutt want me to work on their “super-secret project”. ” You said, rolling your eyes and making air quotes with your fingers, “I have to go through security clearances.”

“Why would they need you?” Venable asked, her voice dripping in condescension. While it wasn’t unusual for Jeff and Mutt to borrow her employees, it wasn’t typical to borrow assistants, and certainly not on a project so secret that even she was being kept out of the loop.

You shrugged, “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Very well. You are excused.” Venable said, her face setting. “And Y/n?” You turned, looking back at your boss, “Don’t let it happen again. Next time, you’ll be lucky to be a dishwasher at McDonalds.”

You smirked, “McDonalds doesn’t have a dishwasher, but I get the sentiment.”

Venable rolled her eyes as you shut the door, cursing Jeff and Mutt for putting her in this position. Had she been able to do what she wanted, you never would have felt comfortable enough to make such a statement, let alone challenge her. She didn’t have too much time to dwell on it, the most recent delivery of a certain white substance being delivered straight to her office, and she knew the boys were already itching to reup on their dose.

“The woman of the hour!” Jeff yelled, fist pumping the air as he spotted the giant jar firmly planted in her arm, “Have I told you I loved you lately?”

“Save it.” Venable sneered, dodging his grabby hands and keeping the cocaine just out of reach, “What’s going on with this secret project?”

“Nothing you need to worry your fiery little head with.” Mutt said, “Just know it’s going, full steam ahead.”

“How can I manage it if I don’t know what it is?” Venable asked.

“You aren’t managing it.” Jeff said, “We are.”

“You two,” Venable said carefully, “Are managing it, all on your own?”

Mutt laughed, “Yeah, it’s going to be fucking sick.”

“So why are you stealing my employee?” Venable asked, the two engineers sharing glances.

“We need her skillset.” Mutt finally answered, obviously dragging his feet.

“She’s an assistant.” Venable stated.

“Yeah,” Jeff said, “She’s also an engineer, and she’s not bad to look at.”

Venable scoffed, “You’re stealing my employee because she’s attractive?”

“No, were stealing her because we need her brain.” Mutt said, “The fact that she’s a babe is just a bonus.”

“So, you aren’t going to tell me anything?” Venable asked, Jeff and Mutt staring back at her.

“It’s not that we want to not tell you anything, we just can’t.” Jeff offered apologetically, conveniently reaching for the cocaine at the same time with pleading eyes.

Venable huffed, swinging the cocaine out of his reach at the last second, and placing it on the farthest table as she stomped out of the room, ignoring the string of apologies from her bosses. This just wouldn’t do. She had always been in the loop, from day one. Those idiots couldn’t be trusted to run an entire project by themselves, they could barely remember their own addresses. Quite literally, Venable was the one who had to give the addresses to their cab drivers because they were too blitzed to form a coherent thought.  She sat and she stewed for the remainder of the day, before she settled on a plan. She was tired of being on the outs, she needed to regain her power.

When you got the message on teams, you worried she had changed her mind, and you felt your palms begin to sweat.

My office. Now.

You trudged past your coworkers and towards her office, Nate and Scott snickering behind you.

“Someone’s in trouble.”

You rolled your eyes, but you couldn’t help but feel like they were right. She was playing with you, the same way she did to every other employee, making you feel safe and then yanking the carpet out from beneath you. Still, you opened the door and stepped into her den, her eyes flicking over you for only a second, “Close the door.”

You shut the door behind you, asking hesitantly, “What can I do for you, Miss Venable?”

Venable didn’t even look up, “It’s more so what I can do for you.”

“Pardon?” You asked, unsure of the direction this conversation was heading, and there was no way you could prepare for the words about to leave her mouth.

“I’ll speak in plain terms so that you understand.” Venable sneered, “I’ll let you fulfill your little dare, and in turn, you give me information on whatever it is that Jeff and Mutt are stealing you for.”

“The project?” You asked, your head spinning.

Venable sighed, glaring at you, “Is there anything else they are stealing you for?”

“No?” You said, shaking your head, “But why would you need me to gather information?”

Venable rolled her eyes, “Jeff and Mutt have decided they will be handling it themselves; they don’t want a grownup’s help. I need to make sure they don’t royally fuck it up. I’ve spent far too long building a reputation for this company, I don’t need them snorting it away. Now do we have a deal, or will you be looking for a new position?”

You shook your head, still unable to process what she was asking of you, “You do realize they’re only doing this so they can make fun of you, right?”

Venable arched a brow, “I’ve never cared about men’s opinions before. Why start now?”

“Yea, but, those coconut heads design sex robots.” You tried again, “For all I know, they could want me to code for a doll that gives head.”

Venable stared at you, clearly annoyed with the conversation, “You have a week to gather as much information as you can. That will be all.”

You stared at her as she refocused on her work, completely ignoring your lingering presence, before you shook your head incredulously, “Ok.”

You couldn’t keep the smile off your face as you left her office, beelining straight for Nate’s desk and whispering in his ear, “Just to be clear, you’re my bitch now.”

[nausikaaa]

Six Sentence Sunday

happy solstice, last day of saturnalia, and not-quite-almost christmas! i hope you're all having a nice holiday season. i'm at work pretty much every day until January, because pubs do well at christmas, which is why i've fallen so behind on reading other people's wip shares.

plus i've been keeping a close eye on my goats, since the girls, Juno, Lucy and Mina, are in with the billy, Hadrian. so far he has gotten lucky plenty, but the girls have come back round in season all the same. i know he can do the job because he did it last year, so it's just bad luck and i've got to keep my fingers crossed it will hold the second or third time.

anyhoo. thanks for the tags today and on wednesday @forabeatofadrum @that-disabled-princess @bookish-bogwitch and @artsyunderstudy!

today i have some more of my post-trojan war wip, with a preamble:

so basically, part of my story follows Briseis, Achilles' war bride, after the events of the Iliad, but there are no sources as far as i can find that say what happens to her. so, i had to plot out what reasonably could have happened, and i eventually figured that if she was legally considered his wife (which is complicated in and of itself- Achilles was already married, but bigamy was sometimes practised by Greek kings, and Patroclus promises Briseis in the Iliad to make Achilles marry her. my Briseis is pregnant, which makes these things simultaneously more and less complicated) she would travel with Neoptolemus, Achilles' son by that aforementioned other wife, and Phoenix, Achilles' old mentor, either of whom would likely have become her male guardian upon his death, to Phthia, Achilles' homeland, where she would become a ward of Peleus, Achilles' father and the patriarch of the child(ren) she is carrying.

so with that sorted: it's mentioned in some sources that after the war, Neoptolemus walked his army from Troy back to Greece, which was honestly a good call because the moment the Greeks set sail, they hit a storm, which sank Ajax's ship and killed him as punishment for him raping Cassandra in a temple, blew Helen and Menelaus off course to Egypt, and blew Odysseus off course too, and we all know that didn't go well for him. we know Phoenix took this journey too because it's noted he died and was buried along the way.

so, walking an entire army from Turkey to Greece. it's doable, it won't even take you that long, but you'll need to stop for supplies such as food. and that got me wondering, what the hell would an army have to buy food with? sure, they would probably be willing to part with some stolen booty, but it was a status symbol, they would want to hold onto the best stuff.

the answer is obvious, but unfortunate.

To some it was a relief to reach a town, but those of us who knew how the world worked were not so sure.

If the people were amenable, there would be trade for food and wine. And what did the Achaeans have in surplus to offer in exchange for such things?

If they were not so welcoming, the soldiers would simply attack, taking what they wanted, and the numbers of their one export would grow.

Women, always women, trading hands, pulled this way and that. Even the war that started it all was over a woman; who could own her, who could bed her.

tags/hellos/holiday well wishes: @cutestkilla @run-for-chamo-miles @roomwithanopenfire @prettygoododds @ic3-que3n @blackberrysummerblog @j-nipper-95 @youarenevertooold @larkral @orange-peony @aristocratic-otter @thewholelemon @alexalexinii @confused-bi-queer @shrekgogurt @comesitintheclover @raenestee @hushed-chorus @you-remind-me-of-the-babe @noblecorgi @shemakesmeforget @ileadacharmedlife @supercutedinosaurs @otherpeoplesheartachept-2 @ninemagicks @otherworldsivelivedin @jasonfunderberkerthefrogexists @carryonmylovelies and @meanjeansjeans!

and for reading all this, here's Olive in her christmas outfit and the dogs in theirs!

[crumblinggothicarchitecture]

Swift definitely had a chance to buy her masters just not for the price she wanted. At first she said she didn't know about selling and was caught off guard with this information, but former owner of the label said she did get message about it prior to selling happening, plus her father is/was share holder in that company, so he had to be informed about it. So we already know she's not saying the truth. Most likely she wanted to buy just her masters, but Borchetta did tied deal of label+masters, for which he cannot be really blamed, it makes sense for him to sell it like that, because it gives him better options and price.

Also artists not owning their masters, not being able to buy their masters, someone else buying their masters for profit - those are literally industry standards. For example in the 80s Michael Jackson bought ATV label with entire The Beatles' catalogue actually thanks to McCartney's advice. He bought it for $47.5 million, sold half in the 90s for $95 million and after his death the other half was sold for $750 million. Since buying this deal was basically funding his very expensive lifestyle. Right now just the catalogue of The Beatles is estimated to be worth about $1 billion. It's just business. By buying Big Machine with Swift's masters Scott Brown didn't do anything special or nefarious as Swift tried to portay this. He was just making a deal and soon after sold it again for profit, just that.

Swift felt slighted for not getting what she wanted the way she wanted and figured out that from capitalistic point of view it is a good situation to once again pull out victim card and weaponize her cult fanbase against her "opponents" and against itself's wallets as well, since she knows they're gonna buy anything and everything from her even without playing victim. Lies and greed, pure capitalism.

Yep. 100% agree- especially with that last part. She wants so bad to have the world view her as an innocent victim of circumstances.

It makes no fucking sense. Frankly, she's not stupid, even though I don't believe her to be a creative genius, I admit she is a smart businesswoman. (not an ethical one- though).

I just don't understand how she fools the whole world into thinking she didn't know the deal was going down, and that she was never approached with an offer to buy her own catalouge.

First of all, of course they would approach her- the business world is about money, and anyone doing business with Swift knows she has a lot of money. So, how is it logical to assume they didn't even offer her a chance to purchase the music?

She clearly ran with the narrative that they somehow cheated her out of her own rightful property, because it's the point of view that enables her to rally the fan based against the mean corporate overlords. She carefully crafted it all to look like a personal attack on her, and her music, by playing the "Im just a girl who didn't know any better and got overlooked by the sleazy businessman" card. She knows this will land on people's heartstrings because- lots of people do get screwed over by businessmen. However, those people are not Taylor Swift who has decades of experience- a world-renowned reputation, and God knows how many people working for her. She has all the power she could ever want- and yet wants to make herself look powerless.

It begs the question, why? She requires the image of powerlessness in order to ratify her fanbase into trying to protect her.

Truly- you said it- She wants to make it look like Scott was doing something nefarious, when, in fact, he was just doing his job. Music Industry professionals engaging in multi-million-dollar business deals over some of the most popular music in the world? Color me shocked and appalled.

It's so disingenuous of her to paint the situation like this especially when considering her own economic and social power against that of the other players in this drama.

Now we have to deal with her re-records, which, honestly, some of those "from the vault" tracks should have stayed in the vault.

[duchessofostergotlands]

What do you think of the argument that royals do a lot of behind the scenes work that's not counted. Danish press is talking about how Fred has only worked 19 days since his coronation about 100 days ago. Personally I don't know what to say about that. A royals job is to be a representative in public, I highly doubt Fred is the one doing ceo type work for his patronages like the royal run. So whats do you think is going on with him?

I don't really support that argument for a few reasons:

Firstly, all royals do work behind the scenes. To use the UK as an example, people often say William and Kate's low numbers are ok because they do work behind the scenes. But Anne can do 400 engagements while still doing behind the scenes work. What would make people believe she's not doing anything other than rocking up at events? lol.

Secondly, as you say, the "behind the scenes" work isn't quite what people think. They don't do the leg work to plan events, they don't usually have any formal leadership role in the charities they run, they aren't personally writing the captions on their Instagram pages. There is other work that goes into these events but a large proportion won't be carried out by them personally, they just give the rubber stamp. However...

...the third and most important point is that even if we say that all of those things above are incredibly important, the royals choose not to share them. They choose not to put them in the royal calendar. They choose not to release pictures of them. And there might be very good reasons for that. But the reality is that if we are trying to come up with some data which we can use for comparison, we have to have some kind of inclusion criteria. We don't know how much work they do or don't do from day to day behind the scenes so we cannot establish any kind of figure. We have to use the data they give us.

So basically I don't think that the work they do behind the scenes is worthless or unimportant by any means. But I also don't think that we can make it a factor when we look at engagement numbers because we just can't put a number on it in any fair way.

As for Fred, you can't really compare engagement numbers across different families - we covered that in Episode 95 of the podcast - so it's difficult to establish his levels. But the articles I saw weren't particularly critical of Frederik, they were just commenting. He's only been monarch for 100 days and time will tell what kind of monarch he'll be. Ultimately the Danish people will decide. What I think of his work rate - what anyone who isn't from the Kingdom of Denmark thinks about his work rate - is secondary to what Danish people think about it so something might seem low to me but until the Danes get upset it's not really my place to tell them how to feel.

[hannigramislife]

I feel like Dazai's relationship with Akutagawa is misunderstood. Dazai cares about Akutagawa, he just doesn't know how how to be kind like Odasaku. In the dark age light novel (THEY DIDNT SHOWNIT IN THE ANIME AND IT MADE ME WANNA CRY) but Dazai constantly brags about him to Oda AND DOES SHOW HOW HES PROUD OF HIM AFTER A JOB.

"I executed him." Akutagawa (page 77)

"You defeated an unyielding, formidable enemy and protected your allies, Akutagawa. Good work." Dazai (page 77)

I feel it important to note that Dazai's tone was sarcastic during most of this, while he was annoyed with akutagawa because he had messed up Dazai's elaborate plan to get information, he was genuinely impressed with Akutagawa. He only hit Akutagawa after he had started to talk back claiming that torture methods were more effective than interrogation.

(talking to Oda) "Akutagawa-he's like a sword without a sheath." Dazai grinned from ear to ear. "He'll surely become Mafia's strongest skill user in the not-so-distant-future, but for now he needs someone who can teach him how to put that sword away." (page 95)

BUT THIS IS THE AHXHHAHXBA PART WHEN ODA THINKS JUST AFTER DAZAI SAYS THIS "I was surprised. I've never heard Dazai openly speak so highly of one of his men like that before"

THERES SO MUCH MORE OF THIS BOOK THAT SHOWS THEIR COMPLEX RELATIONSHIP BUT IT JUST MAKES ME ANNOYED WHEN PEOPLE ARE LIKE "Dazai doesn't care about Akutagawa!"

ANYWAYS PLS GO READ OR REREAD DARK ERA ITS SO GOOD AND IF YOUVE SEEN THE ANIME AND THINK YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS IK DARK ERA, NO. NO YOU DONT. READ THE BOOK

Hii! Thank you for reaching out to me! I love discussing topics with people ^^

Alright, so I haven't read the book, but those two moments you mentioned *were* in the anime, though maybe the tonality was changed and off, which is so sad! Correct interpretation is important!!

I do tend to go off in my tumblr according to my feelings, and I am a very petty person, hence my personal hatred of Dazai, but here is my opinion:

Dazai is not a person who doesn't have feelings and emotions and stuff: it is very plausible that he could have cared about Akutagawa, or a version of caring, during his PM days. However, that does not excuse the way he actually treated him. And evidently Dazai had been shown kindness before - by Odasaku- and he saw first-hand how important it was to his friend to be kind, Dazai just was not in a place to care about such things.

And even so, I could have forgiven his PM days- if he wasn't so incredibly indifferent to Akutagawa during the present. The phone call on Moby Dick was so incredibly cruel and unnecessary, considering all Dazai had to say was "Don't fight Atsushi, the mafia and ADA are working to stop Fitzgerald" and Akutagawa would have complied. It is only an example, but my issue stems from the fact that Dazai manipulates Akutagawa to his own plans instead of letting him move on. His interaction with Akutagawa in season 5 before he asks a favor is also an indicator of that.

The case is that Dazai has learned to put in the effort to care for those he loves - Atsushi, Chuuya, the ADA.

To me, the list simply does not include Akutagawa.

[fanghaunt]

Hey! I’m an artist who’s recently started drawing some furry art + is interested in starting furry commissions as I don’t have much reason to draw furry characters but they r so much fun….

The trouble is, I’m really new to this space and don’t know where to start. I adore your art, so I thought I’d ask, what would you recommend for someone just starting out?

i’m not super good at advice so i’ll give my quick and dirty for both

Furry Art 🦊

practice drawing people (gesture drawings/portraits)

practice drawing animals

practice on paper occasionally too if you’re a digital artist. i actually do most of my practice on paper nowadays it gives my wrist a little break 

if you see art online you like note what you like about it and incorporate some (not all) of those features/details into your own work and do this ad naseum with different influences. this is how your style naturally develops over time

have fun! furry art works best if you’re having fun yourself

Commissions 💸

make a carrd or link tree with all your links and info

keep a public queue to give your commissioners transparency and give yourself some accountability

when you’re just starting out honestly don’t take more than 1-2 comms at a time

do not give into temptation to price your art super super low to attract customers — you will burn out and it will not be fun for yourself or your customers

HOWEVER burnout/artblock can happen no matter what, it happens to everyone! if that does affect the time it takes to complete a comm, communicate directly with your commissioners about the delay. They will appreciate it!

and just being real in general, 95% furry artists cannot live off just being a freelance furry art without another job or serious money investment in a merch shop. the reason is personal art is much less profitable than commercial art. I myself have a full time job. So just keep that in the back of your mind

that’s basically all i have rn, but if you have any specific questions feel free to ask me in dms.

[cherry-bomb-ships]

sorry i know this a selfship blog lol but if it’s alright to ask, would you have any advice for getting over anxiety about flying for the first time? the travel tips you posted the other week were genuinely very nice to learn and was wondering if you had any other advice on the actual flying part .. !

*rubs my lil hands together* Oh I've been waiting for an ask like this!!! Yes I selfship here but it's still just kind of my personal blog for me to talk about whatever, and I do enjoy talking about my job and aviation! :3 Now as for getting over anxiety of the actual flying part, let me give you some pointers that I tend to give my actual passengers when they're nervous about passengers!

First off I'm sure you've heard about how flying is one of the safest ways to travel, and even if you haven't heard that, I'm here to tell you it's absolutely true! There have only been a handful of fatal accidents in the past few years, mostly on personal jets. That may seem like a lot, but you gotta remember that hundreds if not THOUSANDS of flights operate every single day in the United States alone!

Second, turbulence? Turbulence is nothing. You gotta remember that turbulence is just wind! That's literally it! And sure, on some days wind is stronger than others, but if the winds were so strong or weather was so rough that it was unsafe to fly, then they wouldn't be sending planes out! That's actually why it's a good idea to check a weather radar on the day you're flying out.

Fun fact, turbulence actually feels stronger the farther back in the plane you are, and the smaller your plane is! Take a pencil and hold it by the front where the point is, and then wiggle it around; you'll notice how the back part moves around a lot more than the front. That's exactly what's happening to a plane during turbulence!

One thing you gotta remember when it comes to planes is they're loud. You ARE going to hear the engines even inside the plane, and sometimes they sound louder than usual. Rest assured that is in fact normal! It's just like revving a car engine when you're going faster, they're just gonna make noise sometimes. Also, something not a lot of people really mention is that you're probably going to hear the landing gear go up after takeoff, and hear it go down during landing!

Lastly, you gotta remember that every single flight attendant and pilot go through weeks upon weeks of training, running through every possible scenario from medical emergencies to decompressions, and even a dreaded crash scenario. We are prepared for basically every possible situation, and for a lot of people who have been working a long time, they've probably dealt with a few of those situations! No matter what, you're always in good hands.

Last thing I'll say, stemming off my last point, is you should remember that if the flight crew are freaking out, then you should freak out too. Keep that in mind and notice how 95% of the time flight crew do not freak out (except for some new hires cuz they might not be used to certain things yet!). Even scary turbulence is something we deal with commonly, so if we can face it every day, you can handle it for one flight! I believe in you!!

[costumersupportdept]

Hey Tumblr, I know you're a long shot on this one, but I also know that bits of Techblr are still floating around out there, and heck, someone might have a rich dead uncle.

After 10 years of paying my dues as a costumer in the industry, after surviving being a Live Entertainment Professional during COVID, I finally got a chance at my Dream Job: I'm now a costumer working for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

If you're a theater person, you also already know this, but COVID decimated theaters. A lot of small theaters went under entirely, and even the big guys are holding on by their toenails. Despite everything, we're now one of those: we've been told that without a significant amount of help, our season will end this year in the beginning of July, not in October like it's supposed to, and folks are saying "well, there *might* be a 2024 season, we have to see how it goes."

Tumblites, I love this job. I like 95% of the people I work with, I'm the closest I've ever been to my 70+ year old parents, I'm in a union and I'm being paid an actual honest to god living wage. We do really interesting (and important) shows, and set a lot of standards/things to strive for for other theaters as well.

If you have anything you'd be able to give, rich uncle or not, I'd love it if you could.

[hezekiahwakely]

As anticipated, here are my extensive red string notes from the pilot:

God knows how relevant any of this will turn out to be, but I'm nothing if not a collector of trivial information

Very long text beneath the cut:

Page 1

The Magnus Protocol Pilot 10/25/23

Characters (in order of appearance)

Alice Dyer -O.I.A.R. employee -Dated Sam in uni -Jokester -Training Sam -Gets along with Colin

Teddy Vaughn -Retiring from the O.I.A.R. after 4 (?) years -Going into insurance field

Colin Becher -O.I.A.R. IT Manager -Vegetarian 🥬 -On the hook of "his nibs" (boss, male) -Sensitive about FR3-d1 app development, communicates w/politicians, trying for 2 years -Only gets along w/Alice -Knows computers are listening -Jokes about being killed

Lena Kelley -O.I.A.R. Team/Department Manager -Authoritative, follows protocol -Doesn't think Gwen is qualified for management

Gwendolyn Bouchard -O.I.A.R. employee -Backlog of casework -Dislikes Lena, wants her job -Dedicated to detail -Accused of nepotism by Alice -Thinks current job is beneath her -"Not like most people." *static*

Samama Khalid (Sam) -New O.I.A.R. employee -Dated Alice in uni -Wanting to 'get back on his feet' -Familiar with TMI -Didn't know what the Incidents were before hire!!

Page 2

Pilot notes con. 10/25/23

Listening Tech - Turns on by itself 💡

Dated computers (O.I.A.R.)

"Manager's speakerphone" (Lena's)

CCTV (O.I.A.R. breakroom?)

Cell phone (Alice's)

*O.I.A.R. formed in 70s? Accor. to Alice*

*Response Department no longer exists*

Still in onboarding paperwork, "Response 121"

Sam ticked this box

Tech Specs

O.S. = Windows NT 4.0 (modified) -Extended support for this O.S. was ended Dec. 31, 2004 IRL -Runs on workstations connected by LAN -Similar GUI to 95; comes w/Internet Explorer

FR3-d1 -Custom research software circa mid-90s -Flags Incidents and creates a database -Can search private/protected sources (email) -Alice claims no one has understood its workings for 15 years -Written in German source code

*1 Year = Average Employee Stay*

Page 3

Pilot notes con. 10/25/23

Classification System

Used in FR3-d1's database

Structure: CATXRXXXXX-XXXXXXXX-XXXXXXXX

CATXRX -> From reference table (CAT = Category?) First four digits -> Main subject of Incident DPHW (?) Next eight digits -> Date of Incident Last eight digits -> Current date

Example: CAT2RC1157-12052022-13012024* -First one we hear they file. "1157" is the "DPHW" for "dolls, watching."

*Jan. 13, 2024 is the date of Sam's onboarding/training (after Teddy's going-away party)

*as listed in transcript; in-show, it's quoted as 22102023, or Oct. 22, 2023

Page 4

Pilot notes (con.) 10/25/23

FR3-d1's Voice to Text/Text to Speech

Voices (named by Alice, which Gwen dislikes):

Neil = Alex

Chester = Jonny

(those two most common)

Augustus = ?

Neil's Incident

Occurs in "Cyberspace" via the transcript

"I'm so sorry. I should have listened. I just couldn't face the thought of the rest of my life never hearing him again, I had to try." First lines 😢

Email from Harriet Winstead to Darla Winstead, May 12, 2022

Recitations *can* be paused by pressing "space"!

Chester's Incident

Also occurs in "Cyberspace"

Topic: Magnus Institute Ruins.

On forum, user RedCanary, begins April 10, 2022. Explored 4/19-20/22.

Third floor gone. No old papers.

Suspicious, occult (?) graffiti, stains (!)

Took box with strange symbols (same as ones on walls/floors)

4/30/22 Posted image of gore/eyes, possibly of themself. Banned + did not return.

Page 5

Pilot notes con. 10/25/23

Early release video Case #: CAT1RA1353-03102023-22102024(listed as 202"3" on Patreon)

Video was posted 10/22/23.

Listed as "Incident" on Patreon.

According to transcript, the O.I.A.R. offices are located in Royal Mint Court.

Johson (sic) Smirke Building

Main building.

5 storeys, Grade 2 listed.

Designed by James Johnson, but constructed between 1807-1812 by Robert Smirke after Johnson died. To be used for mint.

Entrance lodge also built by Smirke, in front of building.

Page 6

Pilot - Public Release -TMAGP#001

Changes:

Sam's first incident number - today's date

CAT2RC1157-12052022-13012024 -> CAT2RC1157-12052022-09012024

Voice (first incident)

Neil -> *Norris*

Minor word/date changes in incidents.

Minor line read differences.

Descriptions of Incidents in new transcript:

Norris': CAT1RBC5257-12052022-09012024 Reanimation (Partial) -/- Regret [Email]

Chester's: CAT23RAB2155-10042022-09012024 Transformation (Eyes) -/- Trespass [chat log]

[alaskan-wallflower]

south park high school headcanons

TW for drinking and smoking (i have t watched the post pandemic special, so i don’t quite consider if canon..? I dunno though please don’t come for me-)

Eric Cartman:

Doesn’t give a shit about school tbh

I mean he’s probably a solid C/D student

Probably sits next to the teacher, lmao

He’s a pretentious little bitch, we know this, and he probably just harasses kids all the time

Like if there’s a presentation or something he’s probably pretending to be asleep or something

(especially if it’s Kyle)

Probably makes fun of everyone for their class choices

”Oh of course Kahl is taking economics. Those damn Jews” or “Kenny, why are you taking home economics if we all know you’re poor as hell and don’t have any food in your trailer to make this shit anyway?”

Was probably that one annoying kid who laughed during sex ed

Flips the teachers off when they aren’t looking

Is probably an angel to all the teachers but to the students, he’s a massive dick

Probably tried making Kyle fail his classes by hacking into the website

They only knew it was him because for comments/observations tab he put some ‘stupid Jew’ spiel

He’s dumb as shit sometimes

Bullies freshmen

Probably started Freshie Friday

Hes the kind of person to spray Axe Body Speay everywhere and has probably made multiple people sick because of it

Failing Gym

Mainly because he never makes up classes and refused to swim in ‘contaminated water’ (probably aimed at the girls or Kenny)

Doesnt date through high school

because nobody wanted to date a neonazi manipulative asshole

Probably didn’t do any clubs

He probably joined the Gay Straight Alliance (run probably by Big Gay Al) and ripped on everyone there

Got bored and never went back after he ran out of jokes

Honestly he’s probably to lazy to do any clubs after school

He doesn’t like staying in school after he’s already

Probably has gotten suspended a few times

(likely for putting a cherry bomb in Kyle’s locker)

Im kinda lost on Cartman lmao

Stan Marsh

Honestly? He probably drank a lot in high school

Kyle often had to take care of him and scold him for drinking

Stan’s probably a B/C student

Probably studies better in a group than alone

Thanks the stars that Shelley is a senior and will leave him alone

(though I do think she somewhat mellowed down, though she still threatens to beat the fuck out of him sometimes)

And Sharon probably helps him when she isn’t busy

But he feels awkward going to her for help

Randy is awful to study with

”So if I have x amounts of condoms and y amounts of-“ “Fuck this Im calling Kyle”

Kyle is his study buddy when he can’t turn to anyone else

which is pretty often

He pays pretty good attention in class

Probably still dating Wendy tbh

Stan definitely wears like zip up hoodies and ripped jeans and such

Probably bleached the lower half of his hair

it didn’t look good

His hair’s greasy af i’m calling it

Its fluffy when he washes it but that’s a rarity

Uses 3 in 1

wears gloves everywhere

lowkey germaphobe

Probably joined some sort of after school activity

Probably some sort of helping the community club

Tbh he failed chemistry multiple times

Hes trying though

Graduates with probably a solid 3.2 GPA

(idk how colorado does it i’m just going based off of where i live)

Probably goes to college and then drops out after two years

Works a few jobs because he wants to get out of the house

Overall good student, 7/10

Kyle Broflovski

That rare breed between nerd and jock

Hes probably one of those athletic kids getting awards and stuff all the time

Def on the swim team during the fall/spring and the basketball team during the winter

Also does a bunch of those community clubs (things that you would join to get into NHS)

His parents are probably super strict about grades

Theyre all about ‘keeping a good example for Ike’

So he usually beats himself up if he gets a grade below a 95

Speaking of, he’s probably top of his class ngl

Very smart

Studies better alone and probably isn’t the greatest at helping others study, but he’s trying

Honestly probably gets a little less insecure(?) about his hair and doesn’t wear his hat as much

Still barely takes it off but he’ll leave it off during sporting events

I know that thing smells like ass/hj

Probably wears a lot of flannels and t-shirts

Has reading glasses (they’re thick rimmed and brown)

Either that or he wears contact lenses but glasses are more convenient for him

Doesnt like wearing them because they remind him of his cousin Kyle Schwartz

Probably in all honors/AP/college courses

Gets academic awards a lot

He probably did band for one year to fulfill one of his miscellaneous credits (he played clarinet)

He’s probably one of the sweeter kids though, sports help him work through his anger issues

Still snaps at Cartman a lot though

Sometimes doesn’t take good care of himself between sports and studying

So Stan whips him into line

Probably had one partner through high school, doesn’t really play around much

Either that or he doesn’t date at all, he’s just too busy

If he were to date it’s be in junior/senior year, maybe sophomore year if it was the right person and they weren’t needy or too demanding of his time

Probably graduated with an advanced diploma

Goes to some ivy league school

Solid 4.0/4.1 GPA

Majors in math and minors in science

Kenny McCormick

Ngl he doesn’t give a shit

Probably failing some of his classes, has a few B’s, some D’s, he’s really scattered when it comes to grades

Probably skips class sometimes when he doesn’t feel like going

Still wears that same parka

He’s still taking home economics/hj

Probably sneaks into the girls changing room as Princess Kenny 🤭

That one kid who has a crush on all his female teachers

”Guys my average is a 69”

Hes the glue to keep all the boys together but tbh I feel like they drift apart and go their own directions during high school

They probably have like-game days on Saturdays though

He wants to keep the group together though because they’re probably more family than his own family (minus Karen)

Still dies a lot

Probably tries to die so he can get out of doing tests and such

Is the reason they don’t allow costumes at Halloween (he was def a playboy bunny)

Probably takes a lot of non honors/no college courses

The latter even less so because his family can’t afford it

Graduates with a barely passing GPA and goes to community college

Probably ended up dropping out tho

But he still makes sure to keep in touch with all the boys (minus cartman but he keeps in touch with Butters)

Butters Stotch

(speaking of-)

Honestly? Solid B student

Is probably still the most naive of the group, though he does stick up for himself now

Doesn’t like being called Butters much but Leopald is worse

So he either goes by Butters or Leo

Probably has a knack for history??

Honestly doesn’t do all honors courses, proabbly does honors history and maybeeee honors English

Sucks at math

His parents ground him a lot because of this

So he ends up with a tutor

He goes to the girls’ sleepovers as Margerine sometimes

Grew out of his Hello Kitty obsession :(

(…tbh he was probably into Pusheen at some point-)

Anyway

Probably has a solid 3.5 GPA or something

Doesn’t graduate at the top of his class but he isn’t the dumbest person in the room

Probably is involved in the theater department

Honestly very artsy??

Probably takes a lot of art classes because he loves it so much

Majors in it!!

Probably minors in history too :)

Hes pretty nice to everyone in his classes and maybe even dates in high school..?

His parents don’t like it though

And he can’t go out much because he gets grounded a lot still

Overall pretty good!!

Tolkien Black

Probably still dating Nicole

Salutatorian

Probably competes with Kyle a lot because of academics

Hes in the band

Plays trumpet

Of course Cartman says shit about this all the time, I’m calling it

Him and Kyle do butt heads a lot but honestly I feel like they’d end up being pretty good friends

Still cringed at his old TikToks

Hes probably in most AP/honors classes

Probably majors in music in college?

Or maybe he minors in it

Most likely the latter

He’a your go to study person

He’s pretty nice about it too, he doesn’t shame you for getting the answers wrong

He’s that one kid who has house parties a lot when his parents aren’t home

Mainly because Cartman kept calling him a pussy and saying he had no balls

Doesn’t have alcohol though

Him and Nicole were probably voted cutest couple

Them or Tweek and Craig

He hangs out with Clyde a lot and helps him with his courses

Hes probably class president tbh

Or maybe vice president

His parents donate tons of money to the school

Hes pretty level headed and calm during tests and quizzes

He’s really focused and motivated in school

Overall solid 3.9 GPA

Probably only behind Kyle by very little

And he’s okay with it

He probably goes to some hardcore Ivy League school like Harvard or Yale or some shit

Probably uses music as a side hustle in college to help pay for his classes

He was hellbent on paying for colllege alone, or mostly alone. He didn’t want people thinking he was only at said college because he was rich.

Pretty good overall, 10/10

Clyde Donovan

Clyde…is Clyde

Hes a dumbass

A lovable dumbass big a dumbass nonetheless

Scored so low on his SAT the first time he took it

Cries to Tolkien all the time because of his grades but when Tolkien tries to help him he gets distracted and leaves

He’s that one hella sporty kid though

Definitely captain of the soccer team

Probably in the Gay Straight Alliance for ‘shits and giggles’ but then finds out he’s pan, lmao

I feel like him and Bebe are really tight

They go shoe shopping together

Cries when he loses Kahoot

Uses Chat GDP to talk to girls 🫢

Honestly is probably like-weirdly good at math but nothing else

Calls Kyle and Tolkien his algebros whenever they’re grouped together

(i kinda hdc that he’s in honors math too with kyle and tolkien)

That honors math course saved his GPA

honestly it’s probably a 3.0 or a 3.1

Hes not completely dumb though

He gets a lot of sports awards and stuff

Kinda headcanon Clyde to have dyslexia?

So maybe that makes things a little more difficult for him

Studies better in groups

Gets easily distracted tho

He’s a horrible test taker

Cries whenever he can’t figure out the answer

Overall, he’s kinda mid

He probably goes to college tho

He stays in college for two years before he graduates

He was probably their star football player, so they were probably sad to see him go

But academically, he’s not great

Craig Tucker

Science geek

Mainly Earth Science but any science is basically a second language to him

He’s honestly probably good at English too?? like he’s a really good writer

Hes probably in honors English and Science

He combusts when it comes to geometry and map work

He’s bad with dates

Like he can hardly remember his anniversary with Tweek or his own birthday half the time

He’s pretty good at helping people study if it’s one on one

He’ll bully some people harder than others when it comes to helping them though

Goes after Clyde a lot of the time whenever he comes over for extra help

”Of you would leave I would be sooooo happy.”

He’s nice with Tweek though

Helps him not to panic during tests and such, probably gives him a lot of fidget toys too

(most of which are space themed)

Speaking of, I do kinda headcanon Craig with some kind of neurodivergent condition like autism or something

I kinda feel like space would be his special interest

He mellowed out a lot after middle school, but he still flips everyone off

Thats usually the extent though

His locker is an absolute mess, I already know it

The teachers for the most part like him

He pays attention and such

Probably wears reading glasses, they’re thin though and he doesn’t wear them a lot

Eric third wheels him and Tweek’s study dates a lot too

He studies online using things like Quizlet and stuff

Loves reading

He’s probably snuck out of class a few times, but doesn’t do it often

Solid 3.7/3.8 GPA

Probably in the top 20% in his class

Goes to a pretty good college, probably on the west coast like in California or something

He’s pretty good in school

Tweek Tweak

Horrible test taker

Probably has to go to a different room, which just stresses him out more

Tbh Eric probably got him to get high once or twice

It did calm him down but it also freaked Craig the fuck out

Especially because this was during lunch

Tweek was fine, he was just extraordinarily sick and Craig was not happy

The teachers don’t really like Tweek

They think he’s a distraction and a ‘bad influence’ for other kids because of his freak outs

He hogs the coffee machine at school istg

I kinda headcanon Tweek to have acid reflux too?? So his stomach ends up gurgling in class and making weird sounds and the teachers get mad-

And this freaks him out even more because he thinks he’s dying

”Why is it doing that?! Why?! Did someone poison the coffee?! Did the underpants gnomes come back?! GAH!”

He’s hella good in gym class

Tweek on the track team??? anyone???

It helps him burn through some of his anxiety

He probably has a 504 too after his parents kept getting calls about his anxiety

Goes to the school counselor a lot

He probably brings fidget toys to class a lot and often has to give Craig his phone so he doesn’t end up getting hooked in on something some celebrity said and then start freaking out

He’s probably really good at English

Reading helps him forget about his anxiety for a bit

He always has to double/triple check to make sure he hasn’t missed anything

He uses his agenda religiously

Its probably stained with coffee and smells like a mixture of coffee and honey and sweat

His hands sweat and shake a lot during tests

He’s probably barely passing math, Craig helps him through science

He’s alright in social studies

His lowest grade is probably a 75

Craig and Tolkien help him out a lot too

I feel like he studies better one on one though

Too many people in one group makes him feel easily overwhelmed

He probably graduates with a 3.4 GPA or so

Goes to college in New England, he thinks city life will calm him down

Spoiler, it doesn’t

He probably drops out after a year or two before applying somewhere on the West coast to be closer to Craig and some of his other friends

English major and art minor??

I feel like he’s really good at art too

Art helps him vent in a healthy manner

Good student, not great, but good

Wendy Testaburger

Honestly? She’s actually low key smart

She was probably third in her class

She’s very good in math and english

She probably takes all the super hard classes too to ‘challenge herself’

She probably invites all the girls (maybe Princess Kenny and Margerine/hj) over for study date sleepovers

They never end up studying

But it does make for a pretty good time

Shes a really good test taker, but she probably ends up being too hard on herself too

Stan probably (reluctantly) asks her for help a lot of the time too

Social studies is the thing she excels in the most

Especially women’s history

She’s probably in a lot of clubs too, like the community service clubs

Shes secretary of her class, methinks

(I think Tolkien would be president, Kyle would be VP, she would be secretary and Bebe would be treasurer)

Cartman ran but they found out he rigged the votes

She’s all for being just and fair, so this pissed her off to no end

She needs glasses, her eyesight worsened after middle school

So freshman year she got glasses

I can see her doing girls wrestling

Shes probably a somewhat sporty kid, not like Kyle sporty but sporty nonetheless

She’s kind of a geek too lol

I feel like her and Kyle and Bebe are actually pretty good friends

They play chess together lol

Shes actually really sweet to like, new kids and such-probably shows them around

She gets some muscle after wrestling for so long

She also probably does track and field

I can see her being really good in long jumping

She kinda sucks at science though

She takes French

She graduates with a 3.85/3.95 GPA

Probably leaning towards the latter number

She probably goes to the west coast as well, probably somewhere in Nevada or California as well

She does pretty well, she goes to a really good school and probably majors in History and minors in English

I can see her being an English:History teacher

Probably for younger kids though

She stays on Twitch with Bebe and Heidi for hours istg

Shes so sweet, i love wendy tbh

Bebe Stevens

I know her mom is like the dumb blonde stereotype, but I feel like Bebe would be somewhat smart

She’s probably not top of her class but that’s not to say she’s not smart

She honestly is probably in the top 10% of her class

Her and Wendy and Kyle probably do study sessions together

She’s really competitive, so she kinda gets mad if Wendy gets a better score than her lol

Shes really artsy

Took AP art

Shes probably in AP Social Studies and honors English as well

Shes fine with reading, she doesn’t like it, but she’ll do it

Shes really good at math tho

Shes not so good at science, similarly to Wendy

So usually Kyle takes the lead on science during study sessions

She’s that one kid to be like ‘tall the substitute teacher is so hot!’ unironically

Shes hella hood at sewing

She’s probably gonna end up going into fashion tbh

She’s oddly good with money

Treasurer of her class

She probably helps organize prom and homecoming and stuff

Doesn’t date, she crushes around though, but she never actually asked anyone out

She’s really intense ngl, she probably taught Wendy how to fight

She’s on the cheer team

She isn’t a prick though, she’s probably one of the most bubbly cheerleaders out there tbh

Shes also in art club

Maybe does theater too?

She’s in band and choir, she actually has a really lovely voice

She can play flute really well too

Shes pretty smart, solid 3.7/3.8 GPA

Graduates and goes to a New England school, like in New York or Connecticut

She majors in Fashion Design and minors in Art

Heidi Turner

She’s not the brightest

Not to say she isn’t smart, she just isn’t very academically inclined

She probably takes a lot of the mythology classes and such

Shes really into star signs and crystals

Her and Craig started a ‘Space Club’ and actually got a few members to join

She kicked Eric out tho

She’s hella hood at Math and English

The rest is history

Sges probably grown a lot since the whole ‘Cartwoman’ incident

And she’s a lot kinder to people now

She’s weird, but a good kind of weird

She gives away crystals as a gift a lot to new freshman

Shes in the choir!!

She actually has a really amazing voice, she’s been doing choir for years

Shes that one senior that all the freshman flock to because she’s the kindest

She stands up for them where they’re being bullied too, tells them to be wary of Cartman

Shes hella short (4’11’’)

So she often gets picked on like ‘aw, someone went into the wrong building!’ or something stupid like that

She’s so sweet though, she’s that one friend who offers to help you with your homework and then just gives you all the answers

She graduates with maybe a 3.6 GPA or so

She probably stays local tbh, for college

Either that or she would go down to New York or smth

Probably gets into a decent school and majors in music

Wait no, she majors in psychology and minors in music

She becomes an art and music therapist, she loves helping people out

i love heidi 🤭

reblog >>>>> liking

[scathecraw]

Discord and the Online Ecosystem

Discord is an awesome service to use. Overall, it's user friendly to do "basic" stuff, like instantly updating, global text, image, and video posts with a near-infinite level of storage for those things. For 95% of people that use Discord, it's an incredibly convenient, functional service almost all the time. But Discord in fundamentally making the Internet - not the people interacting with each other, but the actual infrastructure and ethos of the Internet - worse.

I'm saying this not only as an "Internet person" - after all, I'm here with the rest of you, but as someone who is only now realizing that I am an expert on the function, technical details, and history of the Internet compared to most users of this place. I get paid to do it. I get paid to learn about how everything on it works, not as a researcher, but as someone that makes important parts of it work, at least to a certain scale.

Discord is a parasite on the internet, just like Reddit being a self-hosting image and text repository. The centralization of the Internet, I believe, is essentially toxic to how the Internet was built and used for it's most formative times, and losing that essence makes the Internet a worse place.

Here's the technical reasons it's starving out the Internet. Essentially, the Internet was built as a network of first a few, then dozens, then hundreds, etc. of small servers, each hosting data and sharing almost exclusively text communications and records. Usually, these were hosted on Universities and other technical institutions. As those developed, thanks to the nerds that were core to actually making the systems talk and work, those nerds started hosting little servers of their own, sometimes on the same machines as those big systems, sometimes just using the same infrastructure like power and networking. Then personal computers and home servers started to develop.

This entire time, if those big organizational servers were the Bones of the Internet, the flesh were those little sites that held the little services. Niche forums, mostly, where people could communicate their own small passions and hobbies. It was the beginning of the Internet being a global cultural hub, and caused the development of those niches into communities with their own histories and knowledge troves.

Then the Internet started making money. And technical changes made economies of scale more feasible. There was a transitional period where a lot of people didn't see what was coming. I was too young and wouldn't have predicted it even if I was the me of today. After that transition, consolidation of the Internet started intensifying. The Internet was no longer a facilitator to commerce, it could be commerce all on its own.

So sites like Reddit, Facebook Groups, Discord, even to an extent Github, and Tumblr and fanfiction.net, though lesser because Tumblr is more of a social media site related to random fandoms and FF.net is so public and archived, show up and gather the niche communities, which is great because they are providing a really good service to use. Until they decide to delete a niche because it hasn't had activity in a few years, or because they decided that it's a banned topic, and that trove of information about those people and their passion is gone forever.

This is part of "digital archaeology". Of keeping that knowledge around so we can look back at the world of today and know the cultural context of who we were. This is anthropology of the digital age.

Now on to the technical reasons Discord, in specific, is such a parasite on the internet. That's not a term of disgust, I literally mean that it's kinda latched onto the Internet as a whole and stealing it's nutrients from within. Discord especially is a problem because it's so good to use. It offers up instantaneous creation and use of a moderated chat space that can be shared easily, doesn't require any technical knowledge, and immediately does it's job unlike any previous niche gathering tool.

Those technical people developed how the internet worked using those niche communities. They shared technical ideas and designs and talked about how to do more with the technical resources they had. They built the internet protocol by protocol, bugfix by bugfix, and their knowledge, even after they stopped talking on those forums, was picked over by new people who had new ideas but also has problems that that niche could now solve.

And now those niches are put into walled gardens on Discord, privately managed, unsearchable from the wider internet, and where a year or two after nobody touching the chat, the history is deleted for the sake of ruthless business resource efficiency.

It takes the knowledge, extracts the value from the people who may or may not produce something with that community with that niche area, and then leaves no record of it for people outside that community to learn from.

Think video game developer communities. There's technical knowledge of how to get a game to run that is answered on those discords. FAQs and mods are hosted there. Lore is dropped. Depending on the scale of the game, patches might even be released. No one can try to start up a copy of that game in the future and have access to that knowledge once Discord, the business, decides to close it down.

This isn't a new problem. Servers, neglect, or even upset owners of the gathering places took their toll and got rid of a lot of knowledge over time. Historical Anthropology, History, Cultural Anthropology - all of those expect a certain level of information decay and loss. But this is a lot more.

And the worst part is I don't know what can be done about it. Discord is in a fundamental technical way, better at doing what it does than any other system we have. No other system could semi-publicly, instantly, in a structured manner and across the entire Internet landscape, share voice chat, text, photos, and even some videos natively to the service. Traditional web pages fail at the instantly part. Most services fail at the picture and video part. Practically none succeed at the voice part. It's just better.

[fallonash]

Sophie Deveraux - timeline

Is anyone else confused by the timeline suggested by Sophie and Astrid claiming they haven’t seen each other in 20 years? That’s only 5 years before the pilot of the original series. Wouldn’t 30 years have made much more sense? Or at least 25. I’ve gone back and collected a handful of canon dates for the timeline from previous eps and come up with the following:

1989 – Jean Mettier dies (so the painting of Sophie from ”The Frame-Up Job” must have been made mid-80s, suggesting Sophie is born late 60s at the latest)

1997 – Beaten to stealing the Vermeer at the Louvre by the Jackal (The Jackal)

1997 – The Copenhagen job with Stark (Two Live Crew Job)

1998 – The Berlin Politic Job with Stark (Two Live Crew job)

1999 – Steals the David from the Vatican (”10 years ago” according to the First David Job in 2009)

2001 – Sophie and Nate meet for the first time (”Paris 7 years ago” according to the pilot in 2008)

2002 – The Duke DIES (”dear William gone these 8 years” in ”King George Job” 2010)

2003 – Sophie sees Astrid for the last time (”20 years ago” according to Redemption 2x12+13) and escapes Ramsey

2004 – Matevan fraud (mentioned in Harry Wilson Job)

So not only does that technically mean the Duke died BEFORE Sophie left him, that can be fudged with rounding a bit up or down, but:

Are we to believe that while she was married to the Duke, she was simultaneously running around Europe, stealing paintings and doing long cons, and flirting with Nate Ford? Would Ramsey really let her work with other crews like Stark so much? And when would she have time to amass all those caches of treasure? I mean, if she stole the David on Ramsey's order, would he really let her keep it??

I feel like it would make much more sense for the Ramsey time to have been late 80s/early 90s, give it a few extra years for the marriage to the Duke, and then she makes her break for it in say ~95 or so, and spends the next 10 years establishing herself as a grifter extraordinaire on her own terms, while the Duke slowly dies of a broken heart and drinking over a period of several years, rather than it being a quick process of a few months at most.

(Auntie from the King George Job says ”he never blamed you” and ”the drink helped” - I recruited someone unfamiliar with the show to watch that scene and give me a rough interpreted timeline, and they said 'it sounds like the blame thing was something they talked about many times over a longer period of time, so that he had ample opportunity to change his mind if he wanted, and that he was drinking but also had periods when he was doing better, so I would guess 4-8 years from the time Sophie left him until he died'. That was pretty much my initial interpretation of that scene as well, as far as I remember it.)

I am very interested to hear people’s takes on this, but unless someone has a very compelling argument I think I’ll headcanon that they meant 25-30 years instead. (Couldn’t they just have said ‘we haven’t see each other since Astrid was 10′ and left it vague instead???)

(Also, if anyone can add canon dates to this, please let me know and I’ll add them in! This was just off the top of my head times when I remembered them mentioning specific years for things.)