#does this make me popular yet

[flippedorbit]

I am in four people’s year in review so far

[oatmealcrisp-freak]

"shipping saiki is aphobic because he's aroace!"

stares at you with my demiromantic asexual in a committed relationship eyes then looks at the camera like im in the office

[mourn-and-watch]

i would really like to see people appreciate beau's growth and character arc more without trying to convince newcomers that "she'll get better eventually just you wait" implying she was such an unbearable character you have to make yourself sit through her scenes. i assure you, she wasn't

[likeabxrdinflight]

tired of early 20-somethings acting like harry potter was never good or had no value in its day like shut the fuck up half of you weren't even there when it peaked

[anghraine]

Today's unhinged "good God I hate how much extreme generosity I'm expected to extend to the Peter Jackson films by people who make wildly bad faith arguments about things I like" rant:

I am very deeply tired of people insisting with zero evidence that of course the LOTR films are imperfect, but the difficulties of adapting LOTR are such that it wasn't possible for them to be better than they were—in, apparently, any respect. They just couldn't be done better, at all, because it was so hard to make something watchable at all.

This is always just like ... really? Really?? Just what prevented them from making better decisions about anything? What exactly made casting every actor of color as barely differentiated villainous hordes in the twenty-first century so necessary and unavoidable? The glamorization and vast expansions of battle scenes and insertion of "heroic" war crimes was the highest film as a medium could aspire to in the early 2000s because of what insuperable force?

What made it impossible to give Arwen a coherent character arc? The films could not have been made without the underlying assumption that most of the cast are NPCs who will only do the right thing, when they will, if prodded or manipulated or influenced by main characters? In what way is this an inevitability of adaptation or film that simply couldn't have been conceptualized differently, much less better?

There is zero explanation or justification for why any of this stuff (or the myriad other flaws) had to be that way and couldn't have been done better in any way at any point. It's just stated that the films that exist must be the best films that could have existed because they're the ones that do exist and are popular. QED.

That doesn't make any sense, though, and it doesn't convince anyone who doesn't already agree. The idea that they could not have been better in any way (including their worst quality, which again, is the extremely racist casting), that some force was preventing not only the actual filmmakers but any filmmakers that could possibly exist from doing anything better just seems patently absurd.

You can like them and respect what they did achieve without demanding that everyone buy into a baseless and irrational argument that their pop culture success means nothing about them could possibly have been done any better. Look, I was in my mid to late teens at the time. I remember the early 2000s quite well. It wasn't now, but we are not talking about an age so divorced from our own that any of these things were somehow fundamental to the media landscape.

There are ways in which the LOTR films were very good that were essential to their popularity then and now. This does not require anyone to accept that it was literally impossible for them to be better than they are or that some defense is required against every criticism of them ever.

I am not, incidentally, talking about removing Bombadil, an entirely understandable and defensible decision that the film defenders in my notes somehow always feel the need to bring up. I know that changes had to be made, that adaptation is not a word for word transcription, that it would always be a difficult text to adapt, that structurally minor elements had to go, that they are cinematically beautiful films that a lot of work and love went into. I know this. EVERYONE knows this, because for the last 20 years it's been impossible to criticize anything about them without being reminded. Their accomplishments, and their existence, do not mean that any choice made by the filmmakers must definitionally have been the right call and could not possibly have been better in any way.

[trappedinafantasy37]

I really do need some people to understand that this isn't just "four years" for most people. The GOP is going to do everything that they can to remain in power for as long as they can, long after the convicted felon is gone. Because that is how fascism works. Fascism isn't a one term thing, it seeps itself into the foundation of everything. This isn't even the first surge of fascism in the United States (and it technically never ended). Fascism is like a roach in which not even a nuclear bomb is enough to kill it. Even if the GOP loses its power and is removed from office, the fascism will just go dormant and wait for its next time to shine.

The elected rapist is going to try to ensure that there really is no more elections and that he remains president forever. This is what he said himself. Do I think he will succeed? No, I do not. Then again, we have never had a president who has so blatantly admitted that he is going to ignore checks and balances and just do whatever he wants, or a Supreme Court who will let him. The bitch baby literally incited an insurrection against this country, was criminally charged and found guilty of multiple felonies for that very insurrection, and was still rewarded with the country in the end. The pathological liar also intends on installing loyalists to his regime. Not people who are qualified for the job, not people who would uphold their oath to protect and defend the constitution, but people who would bend the rules and the laws for him. We really are in uncharted territory here and who knows what he is actually going to get away with and how he is going to do it.

Even in four years, he can do some irreparable damage. I know so many people are trying to be encouraging and say that we survived 2016, we can survive this one. Yeah, tell that to the millions of Americans who died from COVID, a virus he purposefully downplayed so that more people would die. Where he purposefully withheld aid to blue states because they wouldn't back down and do what he wanted. Tell that to the women who have died from pregnancy related complications because they were denied an abortion after his Supreme Court judges overturned Roe v. Wade. Tell that to all the people who were attacked and killed during the surge of hate crimes from his first term. We were lucky to survive, but not all of us did. Project 2025 has some serious, and even deadly, plans for a lot of people. We would be lucky if we survived this one too.

Even if he never comes back and the next president is a Democrat, things do not get fixed within four years. But worst of all, even if that white supremacist is gone for good, the MAGAt's will not go away. At least, not right away. We will still have to contend with them and their extreme ideology. I can tell you this as a racial minority, the racists did not come from nowhere. They have always been here. They've just become emboldened since 2016. Same thing with misogyny, and homophobia, and transphobia. It has always been here, and has been purposefully fueled for a long time. There is currently a massive gender divide happening in the states that extends well beyond politics and that is not going to go away after four years or with a new president. There are some seriously deep cultural and social problems going on in the US and they cannot be fixed so quickly. Problems like these take time and even generations to resolve. But they never really go away.

Please, stop saying that this is just "four years". We still feel the after effects of previous administrations to this very day. I would like to say we can hope for the pendulum to swing back to the left as it usually does. But there's not much we can do if the Republicans snap the cord.

[triglycercule]

mtt playing poker but why would they bet with money thats soooo boring boo boo boo no they bet with increasingly worse and concerning things and its fun for some reason

oh theyd LOVE that shit istg. luck and bluff and tells and lies??? god who knows your own lies and deceit better than another version of yourself??? and yet picking up the other two's tells is oh so very hard because theyre not the same anymore than when they were all sans and sometimes they dont even know themselves so how could they pick up on a mirrored version's? it works out a lot more than they think

killer would have no disregard for what he bets. he plays unpredictably and sneakily. probably faking some emotion here and there to get the hasty (horror) confused and concerned about what he could do and then it turns out killer had a fucking ass hand yet he won??? BULLSHIT horror cries out!!!! but dust just picks up the cards on the ground and deals them again and they play another round. sometimes killer purposely loses. why? he dont know its just to throw a wild card into dust and horror's predictions and mayhaps for the reactions

dust is a dirty player he is a fucking CHEATER‼️‼️‼️ phantom paps are his eyes that he uses to spy on killer and horror's hands. would he need to even try anymore at that point when he could easily win every round? well yes because that wouldn't be a fun game and dust wants to have as much fun as he can in this game of lies. he pretends he doesn't know what horror and killer's hands are. they both know. theyre both more than aware of dust's cheating. and that's why their betting starts going against him specifically and then dust has to figure out how to bet them higher while also trying not to fuck himself over

horror's main thing is just to not get fucked over. goddamnit why did he agree to this he's not as open to getting hurt than dust or killer are!!! (but you still agreed anyways?) so he thinks he's the only one to have a real reason to win (because horror no wanna get hurty hurty owww owww painpainpain ouch!!!) maybe he gets too cocky and ends up betting too high because dust or killer had been losing and he wanted to take a chance. maybe that high bet was actually what got him to win?? it's all a game of chance of course and horror'll only show what he thinks after the round's done. when the cards are dealt and the stakes are up he'll just analyze the hell out of the two (don't YOU hate being analyzed??) and tap his fingers on the table over and over

their way of betting would be like: the winner gets to do whatever the other two said as their bets to the betters. like if dust loses and horror wins and he said he could get sucker punched horror is sucker punching the FUCK out of him. but these three argue they fight and bicker and throw gibes and taunts!!! how would they ever agree on what bets are higher and which are lower ⁉️⁉️⁉️ to horror a bet of saying that he'd have to eat something could be like straight hell to him but killer and dust could just put the argument that it doesn't REALLY mean that much (they know it does to horror) and then force him to bet higher because cmon coward you can do better than that!!! dont you want to get some sort of revenge on us if you lose a previous round and win this one??? and other forms of logic like that 4 dust and killer

killer starts off with an absurdly high bet (because he would) like getting to mess with his soul or something. is he sure that dust and horror have losing hands? he doesn't know. and because killer has no form of limit for himself and that's already a high bar to set for dust and horror to reach (if they don't have good hands i think they'd probably want killer to bet lower. but would they tell him??) so damn it horror has to pull out some bullshit fucking bet like he'll allow himself to get hunted down by the two with every trap he's ever set on a human in horrortale (sooo much more psychological thinking and trickery going on without betting money and instead scenarios its SO FUN). and then could dust fold? does phantom paps say he should? it depends on the cards dust has (and what if he doesn't believe paps based on his own assumptions? (paranoid bitch)) and if he can't fold he has to match the bet or go higher and then he comes up with some bogus situation like ok i'll let you guys dress me up in my human's clothes and throw me in an au and have to do what they did (and OH GOD what about if they make a bet that the other 2 wouldn't actually want to do if they win??? if killer won that round with that as dust's bet would he want someone to reenact something similar to what his own human did and have to watch??????)

oops they just got another new set of scars from last week's poker night and another layer of trauma but why the hell are they sitting down at the table again??? idk man i'm just the dealer here trying not to get killed

[sieglinde-freud]

i need more non three houses side characters winning cyl tbh bc the lord outfits are so predictable and boring and for three houses all they do is the normal timeskip shit. like, felix and bernadetta’s art looks great, but the designs… come on. weve all seen mortal savant felix. thats literally just bernadetta’s timeskip outfit with added shoulder stuff. bring back queen camilla of nohr. they did something fun with marianne that one time until everyone was like “boo wah i hate creativity and serving cunt” but they need to not listen to the haters. when tharja wins in three years (if we dont hit eos) i want her cosplaying as grima or something like the lizard version

[seventh-district]

again and again i find myself lamenting that audio roleplay isn't taken more seriously by some people. like yeah, they often have a romantic element, and by nature they usually directly involve/address the listener- and i totally get that those things aren't to everyone's taste. no art or entertainment is universally appealing, and that's okay! but.. it still makes me a lil sad that the "cringe" reputation of asmr/audio rp precedes it. there's a whole lot of talent and creativity being poured into these audios by so many people that i feel goes unrecognized and/or disrespected simply due to the medium that the stories are being told through.

[thatonecrookedsmile]

"Effective today, you are dismissed from any employment at Joey Drew Studios. This is due to complaints received about the grim and disturbing subjects of your work. May your dreams come true somewhere else."

[Opportunity is always just a step away from you]

"Gent Corporation looking for research subjects. Pays three fifty a week."

[When one story ends,so does another unfold]

-Umbrella-

-----

My participation in an Ink Demonth would not be complete without at least 1 drawing that takes a few days to complete.

I've had this idea in my head for a while, so this prompt was a good opportunity to put it into action. Featuring Riley Wells and Alan Gray.

I don't remember if I've ever drawn a rainy scene before. This was a first attempt. I liked it, actually. I think it worked for what I wanted in the end. (Thanks old tutorial from 2004) (The raindrops running down the umbrellas I had to learn by myself. Probably not the best thing possible, but better than nothing).

I'm happy with the overall atmosphere of the drawing and how it turned out. I think I managed to encapsulate the original vision I had in my head. I kind of messed it up during the process but I managed to turn it around and get it how I really wanted it.

When it comes to Riley and her joining Gent: all things considered, it would make more sense that she ended up at Gent in a similar way to what Archie Carter talked about in his audio log. She probably found a newspaper about Gent looking for test subjects and decided to go with it. She may have met Alan for the first time when she started working there, no doubt. Rather than meeting him before she joined the company in a "he was the one who offered her the job" situation, as I showed above.

I only went with this second scenario just because I found it more interesting to draw. And I wanted to touch on the possibility of Alan offering the chance to work as a test subject directly for certain people (without saying too much about the darker details of the job, of course). It's kind of evil, but at the same time, so is Gent (shockingly/j), so it's all good. (Realizing now that I may be making shit up for a character that has yet to be characterized. If this isn't the Bendy experience I don't know what is) Also, poor girl, she was fired from a shitty company and went to get a job at another shitty company. How sad.

Also, as an addendum, I don't know if their heights are 100% accurate. My vision for my Alan design is that he's a tall guy. Taller than Joey and, for that matter, Riley. When I was drawing him I realized he wasn't that tall and I had to resize him in the end. And Riley I never thought about how tall she is. Maybe her height here is a little off-model. So, don't take this drawing as my definitive vision of how tall they are. Because I don't even know for sure lol.

Next drawing is simpler so it probably won't take too long. I hope.

[ask-artsy-oncie]

I was reminded of the time that tumblr tried to make "monster high but with tumblr sexymen", and one of the characters was (obviously) the daughter of the once-ler.

And the funny thing to me about that is that in the canon of the illumination lorax movie, the once-ler is heavily implied to have an estranged daughter. I don't know all the sexymen off the top of my head but I think he might've been one of the only ones referenced in that trend who actually had a daughter in his own canon.

[moonyistired]

.

[xcziel]

There's already a ton of election software or websites with names corresponding to "voting buddy" or similar

but I'd like a term for a person or group you've made an agreement with to each support and enable the other to vote. A source of mutual encouraging reminders (and maybe mild guilt about not meeting an expectation)

Any and all suggestions welcome. It would be great if there was a catchy name so this could become an accepted Thing

[v-iv-rusty]

making this post for like the 3rd time now but it's a fucking tragedy that there isn't more hurdy gurdy music in the world

[longagoitwastuesday]

I keep thinking of that reply in my Odysseus/Agamemnon post about how I regard differently Odysseus' and Agamemnon's actions, while acknowledging that at times Agamemnon is written as a sweet man and Odysseus is always straight up shitty, and how it was taken as some sort of defense for Agamemnon and as a form of pointing out the double standard; and that wasn't at all what the post was about for me, even though I can see where they were coming from. To be honest, given I didn't imagine it would spread anywhere other than my own blog, I didn't explain myself very well (or at all).

The fact is that when I talked about Odysseus not caring about hurting someone else's child to start and end a war I was indeed comparing his actions to Agamemnon's, but my words about supporting Odysseus' wrongs and cheering him in his terrible actions, while in a joking tone, weren't entirely a joke. I do think that Odysseus does some very shitty acts, and some quite terrible ones depending on the sources. That's a fact, that he does is at the core of his characterisation and it's what makes him so much fun; but not even when he is at his most cruel does he harm his family, his own son. Agamemnon, while sweet and loving at times in some texts, at his worst is willing to sacrifice Iphigenia. When readers regard with more sympathy Odysseus over Agamemnon despite both being responsible for children dying, I don't think there's a double standard in this aspect at all considering it's never his own kid Odysseus harms. And that's the key, I think.

Odysseus and Agamemnon have very different priorities, a very different view on loyalty and duty. It could be said that Agamemnon acts out of selfishness, but it could also be read in a kinder light, saying that Agamemnon is ruled by the gods first, and by his role as head of the achaeans; Agamemnon is not entirely himself. In opposition we see Odysseus acting perhaps mainly for himself and his own family and men; yes, he is a king, but he has not the role Agamemnon has. As a consequence, Agamemnon submits his family's wellbeing to the war, to the gods, while Odysseus stops the plow before hurting Telemachus but is (depending on the source) the cause of Iphigenia's sacrifice and Astyanax's death.

Both Odysseus and Agamemnon have reasons to support their actions, and both can be sympathised with; it's fiction after all. When it comes to fiction, at the end of the day which character a reader is drawn to or sympathises with is mainly an issue of personal taste, but I suppose it also implies a certain level of one's own views or preferences on morals, what makes us find certain actions more justifiable, or tasteful (perhaps that's a more accurate word), than others. Agamemnon sacrificing his daughter, no matter how sympathetic or understandable the reason, generally sits worse on people than Odysseus doing the same with someone else's kids, because they're someone else's. This different emotional reaction they provoke has place not just metanarratively, but also inside the very story; it is narratively significant, given it determines how their arrival home plays out, how their wives react to them, and thus their futures. Ultimately it determines whether they live or die.

I think both terrible acts go in line wonderfully with each characterisation, showcasing the role they hold in their world, what they value, what they care for, what they're willing to sacrifice for themselves and the others, how much of their own they're willing to give and bend. While looking at the wider picture it could perhaps be drawn that Agamemnon is the better person out of the two, but Odysseus' selfish actions are perhaps easier to empathise with, especially from a modern viewpoint. Odysseus is treacherous and prone to betrayal, but not against his own; Agamemnon follows the rules of the gods. How fitting in that context that Odysseus doesn't die at the end of his story, that he cheats the death heroes so often are fated to, almost as if cheating the narrative itself, bending the rules of the world he is ascribed to; how fitting in the context of those texts that point towards Sisyphus being his father. But that's another topic, and I've already talked a lot.

[seilon]

considering how tumblr is generally pretty responsive to fixing or at least improving technical issues when they’re complained about en mass, it’s bizarre to me they haven’t gotten rid of tumblr live yet