#he did not understand product

[cleo-fox]

Me: I’m mainly watching this for my ramen noodle haired boy.

My husband: Excuse me?

Me:

[mueritos]

i hope we continue to see more protests within the US military. i see a lot of leftists and folks who are anti-military who have such an open disdain for the people who are in the military, yet neglect to considering the conditions this country makes to produce ideology, poverty, and the illusion of choice to make all kinds of people choose to enlist in the military. You ever see those videos of ROTC kids recording each other asking why they joined the military and everyone's like, "healthcare", "it helped me go to college", "I was bored" or "free ptsd lol". I hate to remind everyone but folks who are in the military are people, too, and they are the same victims and perpetrators of violence as the rest of you, we have all been shallowly conditioned to view each other as enemies just because one person is wearing army greens and the other is not.

some of the biggest anti-war advocates are those who engaged in war. Veterans who genuinely believed they were protecting the US against "terrorism" come back with blood on their hands, and they choose to realize that it was US imperialism that forced them to carry out violence, instead of doubling down and shielding themselves from the fact that they too are capable of atrocities... This is a class of people who are intentionally conditioned to be as poor and as ideologically aligned to US imperialism so that the military has a never-ending pool to send their youth to destroy other country's youth. The only people I have ever heard say "do not join the military" are those who ARE military.

This is in no way to ever excuse or explain away any of the atrocious war crimes and violence this industry and its people have committed against others. What I am saying is that we absolutely cannot cast aside the individuals who have been victimized within US imperialism, even if they are wearing army greens. I was speaking with my Palestinian classmate last week and another classmate--a member of the US air force-- walked up to me and struck up a conversation. My military classmate showed me her new bird, bid both of us goodbye, and left. My Palestinian classmate asked me if I was close with her, and I said we talked quite often, and she said, "I never met a person who's in the military. I still hate the military, but I never knew that they did, too. I didn't realize that they were also victims."

If my Palestinian classmate--one who is actively watching her own community die--can understand that it is not individuals who are the problem but it is in fact systems, US imperialism, white supremacy, capitalism...why can't we all? And she has EVERY reason to hate any individual military member. A lot of online activism just creates more barriers. if your optics look bad, complicated, or contradictory, you are cast aside. Everyone has got the be the perfect activist, you can never make a mistake or share a half-baked thought, you should always believe every word from a marginalized persons mouth (because being marginalized doesn't mean you're not entrenched in white supremacy too!) and you should never question what you see...Do you know what you sound like? The very imperialists who are convincing poor whites to vote against themselves. Perfectionism is white supremacy. Black & white thinking is white supremacy.

I'd rather have a military member who genuinely believed in the US imperialism machine but was disillusioned after being deployed as my comrade than some leftist who cherishes the performance of "being a good person". I don't want "good people" in our movements. I want humans who care. I want humans who make mistakes and who learn from them. I want humans who accept the messiness of a person. I want humans who hold others accountable and allow themselves to take responsibility for their actions. I want people who change for themselves and others.

fight systems, not individual people. we can change each other, but if we're too preoccupied looking like the World's Perfect Activists, we will only consume each other alive. Connect to your fellow humans, forever and always.

[skeletal-butterflyy]

OH MY FUCK WILL IS A WIZARD!

Stay with me now, I made a post a month-ish ago analyzing D&D in stranger things (which I recommend you read *winkity wink*), specifically addressing the party’s characters. We all know that Mike said that Will is a cleric in s2 to Max. BUT, it can be confusing because will’s character is named “Will the Wise” and he is dressed like a wizard. One might be able to argue, “well his name and clothes don’t mean that much to his class” well yeah you’d be right. But one thing that DOES showcase the class of a character is the moves they are able to make.

Clerics are able to cast spells based on the domain they occupy/the god they serve. To my knowledge, wizards don’t really have this problem of needing to be in a certain domain to cast a certain spell.

In s1 ep 01 Will casts fireball, a spell that can be cast by a Wizard or a Cleric, if they occupy the light domain. Recently I saw a post that showed this screenshot from s2

And I noticed the spell that Mike was talking about in his story. Fog Cloud is a spell that can be cast by multiple classes but most notably by Wizards and Clerics in the Water Domain.

It’s not very practical for a Cleric to occupy multiple domains for storytelling aspects but also, it makes the Cleric’s gameplay just a little overpowered.

So basically, Will probably isn’t occupying two domains and is more likely a Wizard. Which begs the question, why did Mike say he was a cleric?

TLDR; Two spells specifically mentioned in the show to be casted by Will can only be casted by him if he is a Wizard or Cleric occupying multiple domains, which doesn’t really make sense.

[likeahauntingmelody]

parallels in us (2019) / wendell & wild (2022)

[dollsome-does-tumblr]

the fact that roman cared about gerri so much that having to hurt her was what finally motivated him to do the impossible thing and stand up to his dad and voice his anger at logan’s lifetime abuse of him (like, he was willing to fully cut ties there in a way he wasn’t even able to do teaming up with his sibs post-s3!), and then logan died right away -- died from that voicemail, in roman’s head -- and now roman definitely blames gerri for making him love her so much that he disrespected his dad for her and then his dad immediately died!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and she didn’t hold him when he wanted to be held and so now his only option is to tear her to shreds for being the clearest path away from logan that life ever gave him and now that logan’s dead he can’t bear the idea that he ever put a toe out of line!!!!!! we’re in a fine mess here, folks!!!!!!!

[theotherrichardpapen]

...because any moment may be our last. everything is more beautiful because we're doomed.

[jackfrostimposter]

genuinely why is there so much misinformation about the guardians of childhood book series?

[mycological-mariner]

“Of course you like it, it has snow and cannibals”

— my little brother 2023

[captainofthetidesbreath]

ngl, it's kinda embarrassing that so many people are angry about the teaser that Matt will be GMing the next season of D20 because [checks Twitter] "its really shitty to drop the teaser now while the current season is airing and pull attention away like this, don't punish the current season by stealing from it like this" (actual complaints seen)

this teaser is largely for people who don't WATCH D20 at all, hence the longer lead time for marketing, to make sure people who don't normally keep tabs on D20's schedule know when the next season they may be interested in (because these people don't watch the current season to begin with) starts. and, honestly, there is sometimes a problem where people who aren't watching the current season are caught off guard that there is ALREADY a new season, sometimes the lead time between initial teaser and premiere feels so short.

like, I promise people aren't going to STOP watching Neverafter because of this teaser, and D20 isn't going to stop promoting the current season. "we have an upcoming project" isn't a slight against the current project, and it's baffling this is such a common thought—even outside of this specific instance, it's always confusing. I do not understand why people think this is a punishment (again, actual word someone used). why do people think giving proper attention and work to projects means you aren't allowed to speak of each of them near each other.

[kneworder]

angry at the oscars barbie nominations but in an annoyinger way (i think nominating ryan reynolds makes sense but the best picture and best supporting actress noms are ridiculous)

[dolokhoded]

i'm supposed to be studying but i have a hot take which is that could we start again please should have been an ensemble number mostly led by mary and peter's verse should've been divided to him, john and james if not more of them

[buff-electra-truther]

the Starlight Express Alumni Podcast is fascinating because you have

-multiple stories of people accidentally falling into roles that suit them perfectly, in very different ways

-Reva Rice basically never got hurt and one of the only times she did was OFF SKATES when she fell down the stairs

-Dolan Jose REALLY wanting to cover the “girl components” and being SO excited to at least be Wrench

-the mental image of a 6’6 Vegas Showgirl looking guy as a couples therapist

-the perpetual challenge of casting Poppas lol this constantly comes up in different Stex interviews

[databent]

why the fuck is it that some people cant seem to acknowledge that people can just... be disabled. not through any fault of their own, not because something "happened" to them, just because, you know, sometimes people have disabilities. like, come on

[ilkkawhat]

just when i was celebrating not having to go to work tonight..........now i might have to go in. at 10pm. i just wanted to fucking drink tonight 😭😭😭

[blueskittlesart]

Hi! As someone who now kinda wants to check out Trigun because of the hype, do you recommend that I can start with Stampede? Or do I really need to watch the OG anime first to better understand/enjoy it? Thank you! 🙋🏻‍♀️

you can start with stampede! i'd say knowing the context of the original enhances the experience but isn't necessary to enjoy the show. I would consider stampede more viewer-friendly, especially for those of us who are used to modern storytelling conventions (the original suffers the consequences of general writing trends in anime at the time it was produced and of the fact that it was produced long before the manga was finished, so the story is somewhat disjointed and has a lot of filler which makes it REALLY hard to get into.) if you do end up liking stampede, however, I'd suggest trying out watching at least SOME of the original because it adds a lot of cool nuance and context to the story that stampede tells!

[poorlittleyaoyao]

If you have other thoughts about other mdzs's charac (or again jgy!) in other role, I would love to read them!

Thank you for your patience, anon! I meant to answer this yesterday along with the one about JGY and Edmund. Each of these involves characters from the Henriad--Richard II, the two Henry IV plays, and Henry V.

-Hotspur, my beloved and cherished son who appears briefly in Richard II and is the antagonist (in the "opposes the protagonist" sense, not the "is a villain" sense) of 1 Henry IV, is the midpoint between Jiang Cheng and Nie Mingjue. Hotspur is essentially a child soldier; his descriptors suggest that he's a young teen when he joins his father in deposing Richard II in favor of Richard's cousin Henry IV. When we see him as a young adult in 1 Henry IV, he's fully immersed in warfare as a way of life, and while he's won great renown, he's... not really doing so great. Some of his lines are alarmingly visceral (ex: "they come like sacrifices in their trim/ and to the fire-eyed maid of smoky war/ all hot and bleeding we will offer them."), and his wife's concerned speech describing his behavior in II.3 reads like a checklist of PTSD symptoms. Hotspur also wholeheartedly believes in his personal code of honor and is clinically incapable of guile in a way that comes off to me as almost childlike. If a cause is just, then it will prevail no matter the odds (spoiler: it does not)! He loves his family and trusts that they have his and the kingdom's best interests in mind (spoiler: they do not)! Basically every line Hotspur speaks in Acts IV and V of the play could be given to Mingjue and you'd only need to replace all the proper nouns.

(Hotspur is also canonically SUCH a horse girl and so is Mingjue in my heart.)

Meanwhile, on the Jiang Cheng side of things, Hotspur also wants SO badly to do a good job. He is so so SO determined to fulfill his roles as a knight and as a son to their fullest extent, and has nothing but contempt for Hal because Hal, despite being heir to the throne, does jack shit and spends all his time drinking and pickpocketing for funsies. For all his impetuousness and general lack of an inside voice (which is NOT a Jiang Cheng problem), he shows flashes of being a strong leader--particularly in his speech outlining his grievances against Henry IV in IV.3. Personality-wise, Hotspur is filled with BIG FEELINGS and most of them manifest as cantankerousness. He is prickly and argumentative by default, which makes him lowkey one of the funniest characters in the play (see: his soliloquy arguing with a letter at the top of II.3, his entire exchange with Owen Glendower in III.1), and also make his moments of genuine vulnerability hit hard (ex: "come, wilt thou see me ride?" in II.3 and his death speech in V.4).

-On the flip side, Huaisang reminds me of Prince Hal. Remember how I said Hal doesn't do jack shit? Hal's flop era is deliberate. He knows he can't run from his responsibilities forever, so he's slacking off to lower people's expectations for him. The first soliloquy we get from him in I.2 is an EXTREME Huaisang mood and I'll try to trim it to the most relevant bits:

I know you all, and will awhile uphold The unyoked humour of your idleness: Yet herein will I imitate the sun, Who doth permit the base contagious clouds To smother up his beauty from the world, That, when he please again to be himself, Being wanted, he may be more wonder'd at... I'll so offend, to make offence a skill; Redeeming time when men think least I will.

His flop era does NOT endear him to his father, who wishes he were an accomplished warrior like Hotspur, and their relationship is rocky. When Hal becomes king upon Henry IV's death, Hal decides to jettison his past friendships, quash the joyful aspects of his identity, and go do war crimes in France. I describe Hal's actions in the play Henry V as "Hal doing his best Hotspur impression," except that whereas Hotspur honest-to-god believed he was fighting for justice, Hal is more calculating. Sure, he gives us the "once more unto the breach, dear friends" and "we few, we happy few, we band of brothers" speeches, but he also cheerfully threatens mass slaughter in response to an insult in I.2 (and ratchets up the threats in gruesome detail III.3).

-Huaisang is also Hamlet, of course, but I don't personally subscribe to the "Huaisang was always sooooo scared of JGY" interpretation of the timeskip. Fear makes you act with urgency, as Hamlet very much does post-Mousetrap and post-return to Denmark. Readers give Hamlet a lot of shit for dithering on killing Claudius, but he does get the job done in just a couple months (much of which he spends offstage with pirates) because all he wants is Claudius to be dead. Huaisang takes his sweet time because he wants JGY utterly destroyed, which is more a Hal vibe.

-Lan Xichen is NOT Richard II at all. I'm not even going to explain why he's not because he's not. However, Richard's big soliloquy when he's imprisoned alone in the penultimate scene of the play is VERY MUCH Lan Xichen in conclusion. It's long--66 lines!--but I will excerpt the relevant portion.

Music do I hear? Ha, ha! keep time: how sour sweet music is, When time is broke and no proportion kept! So is it in the music of men's lives. And here have I the daintiness of ear To cheque time broke in a disorder'd string; But for the concord of my state and time Had not an ear to hear my true time broke. I wasted time, and now doth time waste me; For now hath time made me his numbering clock: My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch, Whereto my finger, like a dial's point, Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.... This music mads me; let it sound no more! For though it have holp madmen to their wits, In me it seems it will make wise men mad. Yet blessing on his heart that gives it me! For 'tis a sign of love; and love to Richard Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world.

I JUST!!!!