#he's a bad person because he's a bad person. because he chooses to be.

[hanizmiyu]

(Drawing this instead of my wip because i like drawing girls lol)

<Rival>

❥ Kozakura Yuuka

❥ Second year (17)

❥ 168 cm

❥ Her sister in law is the daughter of a Taekwondo teacher.

❥ Her strength mainly come from catching Niz that keep jumping on her everytime she can't get down from a high place.

❥ Azul make a comment about her singing which make her feel a bit disappointed, so she keep trying to meet with Azul so he don't say something like that to anyone else. This resulting her to stalking him which make her have a tiny crush on him.

❥ Epel is her childhood friend and he gave her an apple brooch

❥ Niz is her neighbour and bestie

❥ People like talking to her because of how easy going she is

❥ Great at almost every subject except Science

<Inventory>

A phone - It have a flower charm on it

Wallet with a pic of her and Epel - Its loaded

A notebook and mechanical pencil - "For my ideas!"

Melon bread - Its tasty

<NPC>

❥ First year (16)

❥ 152 cm (petite can easily hide in small place)

❥ She don't like Azul because "He have better eyelashes than me i don't like it."

❥ She always get a high grade

❥ Like cleaning,thanks to her the air vent is super clean

❥ A very silent person, rarely talks barely make a noise

❥ She looks different when she smile

❥ Always seen with her cat shaped bag

❥ Rumour says that she used black magic to get a high grade but it soon get debunked after she almost failed her physical fitness exam with the worst grade.

❥ There are multiple rumours about her but all of them are proven to be false EXCEPT "Niz is bald, shes actually wearing a wig" rumour thanks to how long her hair is.

❥ Her actual strength is unknown even though she get a bad grade for her pf exam. Multiple people have seen her climbing on to trees and building and even walls..?

❥ Often found at :Gymnasium backdoor, the janitor room , at the corner of the art room , Inside the air vent , on top of the roof, with Yuuka or with Silver.

❥ She is hard to find and move quickly

❥ Another rumour about her is that shes burying dead body at the gymnasium...but of course its proven false after everyone finds out that shes just been taking care of the cats and kitties with Silver and was just hiding the fact from the staff. The headmaster give those kitties a proper place for them.

❥ Despite having most of the rumours debunked some people choose not to stay near her because they feel like 'shes always watching'

❥ She like taking pics for art references and share them with the art club.

❥ Her, Silver, Yuuka and Idia take cares of the kitties so they meet.

❥ Only cares about people she likes and people she deemed as 'sunshines'

❥ "As long as Yuuka is fine then im fine"

<Inventory>

A phone - Theres a cat charm

Polaraid camera - "For art references"

Wallet with a picture of cat - Its empty...

Hydrogen peroxide - cleaning purposes

Album with random things sticking out of it - contains [REDACTED] , [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] .

A cat bag - She have 4 of them in different colours

Container with poison (Lilia's cooking) - "Its still mooing..."

Voodoo doll - "Its cute"

A scissor with ivy carving - For self defense

Bag full of meds - "Im sickly..."

Headlight - For vents and dark places

@rizdoodls @cheerleaderman i hope you guys dont mind me adding another one to the Idia liker roster 🙏

No Yandere Simulator ? (TWST AU)

AU Information:

This AU takes place similar to Yandere Sim but with Twisted Wonderland but Taro is Azul and Ayano is Quartz. Her goal is to eliminate… AZUL ASHENGROTTO. Yeah, her goal is actually to kill Azul and NOT the rivals. The rivals being your OCs/sonass and they have to protect Azul from Quartz and her dumb elimination plans.

More info on Quartz + Tweels info

Q&A for OCs!!!

This is an AU just for fun!! lol I just had a silly idea. Here’s a template if you wanna make your own oc into the AU (rival or not)

ALSO THEY DONT KNOW IT'S QUARTZ bc she's just a nobody girl

Bro you can tell I was hella lazy with Azul idk he’s too much

Rival List:

Romeo by @skrimpyskimpy

Shuu by @oya-oya-okay

Chiyo by @inotonline

Sable by @twsted-void

Jovie by @jovieinramshackle

Finn by @thehollowwriter

NPC/Non-Rival List:

Elfie by @quartzelfgf

Higashikuramori Shin by @liyuviq

Jade Leech

Floyd Leech

Rizy by @rizdoodls

Yuuki by @theolivetree123

Joseph by @readsrandomstuff67

Yuubeni by @bunniehunn

Yuya by @cheerleaderman

Shuu and Silly by @sillybillymillyrilly

Superstar!! By @imafrealinrainbow478484

Viz (Vizzie) by @twistedwonderlandshenanigans

Yuhua by @distant-velleity

Nyx by @blackcat101

Gia by @ramshacklerumble

Yuuko by @silkkorchid

Moch by @thatsadguymochi

Faye by @faerieluvss

Yukana by @babyghoul138

Antoinette by @antoinettedoodles

AJ by @karamatsuboy-aj

Evelyuu by @h0neybane

Paloma and Hydris by @mhedusard

(Let me know if I made a mistake lol)

[21280]

SECOND DATE UPDATE!

izuku midoriya got ghosted by you after the first date! so, he turns to mic's radio show segment in an act of desperation to know what happened... fem reader (pronoun only used once), y/n had mic as a homeroom teacher before. post war.

midoriya is incredibly nervous as he stands by on the other line as mic's cheery voice blasts through his ear and through the radios of thousands, mic's words sounding incoherent as his mind races on the possible outcomes. though, he's sure there's only one.

he's going to be absolutely humiliated.

"so midoriya here had a nice at home date with a person named y/n, and according to him, everything was super fun! when he asked for a second date, he's been hit with nothing but excuses! so he’s waiting here in the other line while we ring up his date…"

riiiing.

it's an unknown number. you shrug, choosing to answer the call.

"hello?"

"hey hey hey! is this y/n?"

you recognize the voice coming from your speaker, your lips curling into a smile. "is this mr. yamada? oh my, yes this is she! it's been a while."

you can hear him chuckle, "how're ya doing, kiddo? i've seen you pop up on my newsfeed the other day—but we're here on official biz. i'm calling from put your hands up radio because there's this listener of ours that you went on a date with..."

"oh shoot" you say, "um, who is it?"

"do you remember going out with midoriya?"

oh god no, you think. your mind suddenly becomes flooded with images and memories of the past week, where you spent a few hours over at midoriya’s apartment. what was the purpose of all this—did he spill the beans to your homeroom teacher?

you sigh as you shake your head, "yes, i do remember him."

"that sigh tells me it wasn't a good date, now, was it?" mic asks, his curiosity is evident. "wanna tell me what he did wrong?"

you awkwardly chuckle, "midoriya's a really good guy, i swear!"

"but you've been blowin him off ever since your date! i've seen you on the papers, but are you reaaally busy or is that just a load of cap?" mic pressures, and you can only imagine his eyebrow raised in confusion.

"i did? my bad, i've been real busy with the agency i haven't had the time to reply to anyone.."

there's a few seconds of silence, before mic speaks up. "producer here told me you posted on your socials a few hours ago, so unless you have a team who posts selfies of you buying tea, you've been on your phone, my dear y/n" he laughs, "now spill. what happened with midoriya?"

"well, we had a nice dinner at his house, and we played some board games and watched three all might documentaries."

mic scoffs and laughs, “that does sound like a midoriya, alright. but hey—that seems like a nice date—what happened?”

you were unsure of whether or not you wanted to speak up, but decided to do so. “he just wouldn’t stop talking about all might! and, i know he’s his father figure or something but come on! even during dinner he kept mentioning how all might liked cedar from yakushima so he got a cedar scented candle because of that. we played all might themed board games. geez—even when i went to the bathroom he had an all might towel and soap dispenser. i damn nearly fell asleep during the second documentary and he shook me awake because i was missing the best part of it.”

by now, mic is exploding in laughter, the faint sound of his fist banging the table being heard. there’s a couple giggles heard in the background too, from his producer and other guests present.

“oh my god i didn’t know.”

your eyes widen in shock as you realize who the voice belonged to. mic clears his throat, “so, midoriya’s on the other line because he wanted to speak to you and know what he did wrong, and also to ask for a second date! surprise!”

you nearly choke on your spit as you hear his voice through your phone’s speaker. “i really didn’t know you didn’t like all might, but i mean you should’ve said something! we watched the top three documentaries!”

“did you ask me if i wanted to watch three documentaries about all might, midoriya?”

“you’re right—i’m so sorry” midoriya apologizes, and it seems genuine. you know he’s the type of guy to be oblivious at times, so you give him the benefit of the doubt.

“is there any way i can make it up to you? a dinner at a restaurant, a trip, we can even watch documentaries of your favorite hero in return! i really like you, y/n, and i would like another chance.”

you can’t stop your heart from beating quicker when those words left his mouth. he’s a lover boy through and through, and he’s truly devoted to what he likes.

“edgeshot. i want an edgeshot interview compilation marathon.”

you can practically hear midoriya smile, “okay, great! i actually know a lot about him, did you know that during the war he—“

“oookay! looks like it’s all settled” mic chuckles, “i think it’s the first time we’ve had a second date update success!”

[arecaceae175]

How the LU Links would play Stardew Valley

Farm choice

Twilight: Meadowlands, but it’s a hard choice between that and Riverland

Sky: Forest

Wild: Riverland. Sidon made him

Time: Meadowlands. He designs his farm to look like Lon Lon Ranch. He names it Lon Lon Farm

Wind: Beach

Hyrule: Wilderness

Warriors: Wilderness or Hilltop

Four: Hilltop (also likes the Four Corners map for multiplayer with the colors)

Legend: has one file with every map. His favorite is standard because it’s the most customizable

Favorite activities:

Hyrule: Mines. Mines. Forgets to talk to the characters

Warriors: collecting artifacts and donations for the museum, learning every fact about the characters

Sky: making friends with the characters, Community Center

Four: Mines. When he and Hyrule play together, they compete to see who can speedrun the skull cavern the fastest

Time: petting his animals, farming

Twilight: fishing and romance

Wild: a little bit of everything

Wind: leveling up all his stats

Legend: unlocking all the secret plot things, mundane tasks in taking care of his farm

Romance

Sky: Cries because he can’t marry more than one person. Ends up dating everyone but never marrying anyone because he can’t choose

Time: wants so bad to marry Marnie, so he doesn’t date anyone else focuses on his farm. Hates Lewis

Wild: Penny reminds him a bit of Flora, so they date for a while. Maru very much reminds him of Flora so they date next. The idea of marriage makes Wild want to exit his skin so he dates Maru long-term but never marries

Four: sewer monster platonic roommate, or Sebastian. Reminds him of someone (Shadow)

Hyrule: sewer monster platonic roommate

Wind: causes dating chaos. First dates Sam so he can try to learn a kickflip but then he never learns to do a kickflip and so they break up. He likes to date around and cheat and break up and cause all kinds of drama in the town just for shits and giggles (thank you @wildsage00 for input on this one)

Legend: marries Leah. Reminds him of someone (Marin)

Warriors: dates Elliot, they break up because Wars wants to be the most dramatic one in the relationship. Settles down with Harvey

Twilight: dates Alex, they break up. Then dates Abigail until he finds out Clint likes her and feels bad so they break up. Then dates Emily, they break up. He’s currently choosing who to woo next (it will be Sam or Haley). He loves showering them with gifts

[2demondogs]

Some HC abt what kind of texters RDR2 characters (you choose who) would be?

Would they be dry, dynamic, overly sensitive about Grammer, no Grammer at all??? I know this is kinda of silly. I hope you don't mind, lol

Omg no this is fun love it. I have a modern AU (IDK if I'll ever write anything for it bc I tried and felt silly) so I already have some ideas cooked up.

I accidentally wrote too many and had to restrain myself because it's 1:30am and I need to sleep.

Charles has autocorrect on and will not elaborate on typos. He texts in a tone that sounds like he wants you dead. He won't open a single link, song, etc. he is sent unless it's from Arthur or John because he dgaf otherwise.

Hosea uses speech to text not because he's old but because he cannot be bothered. Refuses audio messages. He has do not disturb on 24/7 and the only person on the exceptions list is Arthur. He has Dutch's number blocked. He'll respond instantly if it looks like you sent him gossip.

Sean texts every thought he has to whoever is online at the moment, gets into phases where he sends a thousand audio messages. He answers in 4 seconds flat, day or night. Lowercase and usually brainrot infested.

Dutch uses no punctuation unless it's an exclamation mark, which indicates he's yelling at you. He sends people recipes and news articles with no context. Uses capitals one day, lowercase the next. Will text you questions like "How was your relationship with your father?" at ten in the morning. At least he actually wants to know, I guess?

John uses :3 and >:3 as his only emoticons and texts in lowercase. But like, in the way where you get the feeling that at any moment the next message might be your full address. Answers in minutes unless someone's seeking emotional support, which he will ignore until he feels bad enough to answer.

Sadie also texts in all lowercase with old-school emoticons like :-) and :P, in a way where you suspect the next message might be your social security number. One time it was, but she was deadass telling the truth about guessing it on the first try. Insane aura.

Arthur doesn't reply for so long you genuinely have to search the local obits for his name. He has everyone except the one person not annoying him that week muted (usually Hosea). He hates using his phone unless it's watching reels. He texts while he drives. He types with one pointer finger.

Javier types fast but sends an audio message if he's really angry or happy. He will text on one platform while spamming reels or whatever on another. Oh and then once that four hours of constant texting is over, he doesn't respond again for four business days. Sometimes he doesn't even answer calls. Like dude... where the fuck are you?

Micah only sends audio messages. Especially to Dutch, who loves it and only sends audio messages back. The only actual text messages he's sent are extremely pointed songs he tells people reminded him of them and then when you listen to it it's clearly not a compliment. Only texts via number because his texts got him banned off most social media.

[twopoppies]

Sometimes I feel like parts of this fandom just won’t allow Harry and Louis to grow up. Or they can’t grapple with what that would mean for how they see them and feel about them. It’s like the Harry and Louis of 2011 are preserved in amber in their minds, forever young and moony-eyed over each other, hungry for anything their wild new life was putting in their paths.

I think about this a lot with Harry, in particular, especially lately. The Harry who was 21 in 2015 when the Azoffs were laying the world at his feet for the taking was a very different man, I would imagine, from the one about to turn 31 next week. I don’t think it’s entirely outside the realm of possibility that the past few years have drastically changed his perspective on who he is and what he wants, and that he has perhaps come to a place where he is trying on a new version of himself he’s only recently met. (If you believe in astrological stuff he just came out of his first Return of Saturn, which shakes everything up.)

Frankly, I really hope things have gone a bit psychically akimbo for him in the past few years - he’s damn lucky he walked away from Holivia without being permanently labeled a home-wrecking himbo by the GP, (especially with all the drama rama that was coming out towards the end with the salad dressing and the lying down in front of cars. 🫣) Saturn’s meddling aside, I have to imagine someone as thoughtful and introspective as Harry has spent quite a bit of time reflecting on that chapter in his story and finding the lessons in it.

No matter who we are, life is about change. People change. What people want from life changes, either because of experiences we have, (or maybe because of experiences we’re denied.) But any way you look at it, none of us are the same people at 30 (or 40 or 50) that we were when we were 20. And if we are, that should be cause for tremendous concern.

Harry and Louis are no different from any of us. They put their pants on one leg at a time in the morning just like the rest of us, they just have the space and opportunities their wealth provides for them to pursue their personal growth with perhaps much lower stakes than those of us who have to pay rent every month and pray we have enough stashed away to someday retire. I am curious to see how this growth manifests for both of them over the coming years, in their art and in how they choose to show up in the world publicly. I want all of us to give them the space and grace to be who they want to be.

Sorry for the novel here. You just really make me think sometimes, Gina!

In some ways I understand wanting them to stay the same, but honestly, I don’t think I could love an artist who didn’t learn and grow and examine their life and how it relates to their art over time. And I wouldn’t doubt that the last few years has really changed both of them—they’ve been through a lot (both good and bad).

[sunarots]

taste ━━━ suna rintarou & miya osamu

12. lunch date ♡

"Oh, you're nearly done." Kuroo beelines towards you and Kiyoko, organising the court for their first game. He dons his uniform with dark circles beneath his eyes, clutching a clipboard by his side in one hand and a coffee in the other. He nudges Iwaizumi with the clipboard. "We could've eaten properly."

Iwaizumi frowns as he looks to the man by his side. "You didn't eat? There's a vending machine just outside, grab a snack."

"He slept in because he was calling Kenma," you announce, picking up one of the volleyballs and tossing it to Kiyoko.

"Hey, no need to tell on me like that."

With a shrug, you dismiss him and take the clipboard from him. "There's nothing on here, where's your stuff?"

He sighs, muttering that he'll be back and turning to leave the gym. A smile creeps out onto your face. "Oh my god. He better wake up fast otherwise I'll kill him."

"At least you have Kiyoko to help." Iwaizumi continues walking to the bench you set up on the court away from the door to set down his stuff. "Osamu and Tanaka-kun were looking for you both."

Kiyoko looks over to you with a suppressed smile, attempting to hide her amusement. "Tanaka will take him here sooner or later. Probably later."

"Osamu will make it sooner." You take a seat beside Iwaizumi, picking up your clipboard and scanning over the itinerary. "Everyone is officially late. Is it bad I'm happy? I want to sit, that was hard work."

He lightly taps your leg to get your attention, directing it to the door. Everyone start to flood in, gathering in front of the door as they look around the gym. "Jinxed it."

You plaster on a smile to pretend you're not kicking yourself for saying it, instead approaching the two teams.

Kiyoko flashes a smile to Tanaka before greeting everyone. "Good morning, everyone! I hope you're all well rested, we have a busy day of practice planned before the big match tomorrow. Y/N has planned everything out thoroughly for us, so please make sure you thank her for her hard work. Take it away, y/n."

As everyone's eyes turn onto you, you can feel the pressure. You clear your throat and announce, "We're starting with one minute matches. It's teams of three which you can find on the whiteboard to your left alongside the coloured bibs you need. After that, we're doing two teams chosen by our esteemed personal trainers, Iwaizumi and Tanaka. They must choose in order of home team, away team, home, away, and so on until there is no one left to pick from. In this match, you are not to play to your strengths. Setters will not set, liberos are not a position, etcetera. Afterwards, we will take an hour lunch break. After lunch, the losing team will have to run the perimeter of campus three times whilst the winning team gets split in half and does another practice game. This time, the players will be chosen by who scored the most and the least points in the team. Any questions?"

When no one answers, you direct them over to the whiteboard to get ready.

Iwaizumi sighs, looking around the gym. "Okay, who's at what part of the gym?"

"I'm with Tanaka on court three, you and y/n on court one, Kuroo is on court two," Kiyoko directs, pointing him in the direction of his court.

You lightly smack his ass with your clipboard and lead the way. "Come on, sexy."

"In front of lover boy?" Iwaizumi smiles at you, walking to the far side of the net. "Shocking."

You fake a laugh, resting a hand on the pole of the net. You wait patiently for the teams to arrive, taking your stopwatch from your pocket and lifting the whistle to your mouth. "Get ready to serve!" After glancing around to make sure everyone's in place, you blow the whistle and start the timer. "Move it, people!"

You catch Kuroo running inside, stopping at the bottom of the court behind you and zoning straight into the game. He starts taking notes on the clipboard, not even bothering to greet you. Shrugging it off, you turn back to the match in front of you.

The quick matches fly by a lot quicker than expected, some teams scoring multiple times in the minute and some rallying the entire time. After six rotations, you blow the whistle again to call for a rest. "Good work, everyone! Get some water, take a breather. Return your vests to Tanaka so he can get them in the laundry. Kuroo and Kiyoko will rearrange the court for the match whilst I organise notes. If you have any questions about how you played, come see me."

Kiyoko passes you her clipboard when you pass her, carrying it over to the whiteboard. You wipe all the names off it and replace it with a table, their names now down the sides and different skills at the top.

"Didn't see you this morning." Osamu rests a shoulder against the wall, wiping at his face with his cloth. "Did you eat?"

"Me and Kiyoko had an early breakfast," you answer, biting back a smile at his concern. "You performed really well with Sendai. Good games."

"Thanks." He kisses the side of your head before turning to lean his back against the wall. "What are you doing?"

"I'm putting all the stats into a table. Receives, sets, points, service aces, blocks, serves that ended in a loss-"

"Jesus," he laughs, peering over at the clipboard. "You made note of all of that?" He watches as you start tallying everything up, using your notes first before factoring in Kiyoko and Kuroo's. "You're really thorough..."

"It's so you can see your strengths and weaknesses, then try to strengthen both," you explain, trying not to lose your place. "Oh, Kiyoko and Tanaka want to have lunch with us. I said yes."

"Double date? Sounds fun. Holy shit, Atsumu scored six points? How is that possible? Where is he?" He spins around to look around the court, spotting Atsumu talking to Kiyoko and helping her set up. "Oi! How'd ya score six points? And stop hitting on Kiyoko-chan!"

"She's older than you, Osamu, have some respect," you scold, rolling your eyes at his immaturity. "You also scored six points. Your stats are pretty similar."

"Fuck off, only six? It felt like more."

You roll your eyes and put the cap back on the pen. "Maybe you can try beat him in this game and make him run the perimeter."

Osamu looks back at you with a smile. "Genius." He taps the small of your back as he moves to join the gathering group of boys.

You pass Kiyoko her clipboard once more before directing everyone's attention to the board. "Okay, teams! Here are your stats, you can look at them after you have been chosen. For now, Iwaizumi and Tanaka will assess the board and use this to choose their teams accordingly. As we are visitors, Tanaka will choose first. Take it away, boys."

# fun fact !

y/n puts a lot of effort into her role as manager and wants to help everyone improve their skills

masterlist. previous | next

summary. when your ex starts dating your least favourite person on campus, your ex-best friend from high school, you can’t help but feel a little betrayed. you quickly realise a way to get back at him: his best friend.

taglist (open!). @v3nusplanetofluv @mdmraz @thoughtswithbbg @fireinyoureye @wakashudou @jisookdays @tespho @frootloopscos @gigiiiiislife @walllflowerrrsss @tangerinelovr @datonegaybestfriend @sturnprincess @jpegarchives @justanotherweeb666 @1yeah1 @rrosiitas @yuu-via @zazathezaer @softpia @animenaces-world @loveelylani @punkhazardlaw @to-dino @nanamis-right-tiddie @aboutkiyoomi @arusio @aloore @dailyakira @alexithemiyatic

[just-your-average-shiz-student]

Agreed to everything, but I think another aspect of the narrative that creates this double standard when it comes to Glinda and Fiyero – despite the fact that they’re extremely similar in some of their flaws – comes from the audience’s perspective regarding actions seen and unseen.

I see it as an accidental effect (I don’t think the musical meant for Glinda to come off half as unsympathetic as she does to the people criticising her actions, nor Fiyero to come out as unscathed as he does in their perception), but real regardless. The core of it is:

We see Glinda reject the offer from Elphaba.

We actually get to see their falling out, the cruel words exchanged in the beginning of the song, the tears, the brief hope, the heartbreak and the separation.

Similarly, contrary to Fiyero, who we don’t get to see doing all the horrible things being captain of the guard would demand he do --

(I need people who call him a double agent to shut up; he’s been doing it for years! He’d have to do questionable and outright bad things regardless of his real moral posturing or actual acts of defiance here and there, otherwise people would’ve gotten suspicious and potentially imprisoned or executed him)

-- Glinda does get to show the audience what she’s been doing this whole time! That’s what Thank Goodness is! We see her doing her work as a mouthpiece for everything that the Wizard believes (or at least what he needs the Ozians to believe), all while Madame Morrible is silently watching, a constant shadow keeping an eye on her every step.

Spewing propaganda against a woman she not only knows has done nothing wrong but who also has a deep emotional significance to her is, indeed, objectionably terrible, but it’s also a job that requires way less direct violent action than what Fiyero is doing, and yet people choose to focus on all the wrongs GLINDA has been doing and all the ways GLINDA has betrayed Elphaba, while Fiyero’s wrongs seem to go unnoticed or even dismissed.

Because contrary to Glinda’s, we don’t see them.

And in storytelling, having something not be shown is almost the same as it never happening in the first place, at least for the person experiencing the story.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m painfully aware that some people are just more willing to point fingers at Glinda and justify every single thing Fiyero’s ever done because of the usual “Woman does bad thing: Evil; Man does bad thing: He had his reasons” mentality. Nothing new.

However, I also think that the way the musical is structured contributes, albeit unintentionally, to this perception of their characters. The second act in particular has some pacing issues, and I feel like it’s not given nearly enough time to resolve or even explore all the subplots and loose ends left by the first act.

I’m not bashing it, Oz, no! It’s my favourite musical. But I am more than glad that the film format allows for much more time focusing on character motivations and each step they take before acting. It worked wonders for Part One and I have high hopes that it will continue to do so in Wicked: For Good.

[Wicked Act II spoilers]

[edited for tone and clarity of purpose, apologies for initial crudeness and frustration]

Okay, obviously I'm biased, but I'm gonna need the Fiyeraba shippers to please set a lot of your people straight about some things. I've seen way too many people trying to say that Glinda is just a selfish bimbo and that Fiyero is a virtuous and selfless figure more worthy of Elphaba's love. I'll set aside for now the idea of "worthiness" in this context. But let's start off with Fiyero joining the Wizard. Hoo boy...

Yes, he was initially somewhat less tolerant of the propaganda against Elphaba than Glinda was; yes, he was secretly trying to find her so he could run away with her or whatever. But honey: those facts DO NOT fully absolve his actions as the Wizard's top officer, or selfish recklessness throughout Act II. I see so many popular threads and posts romanticizing and whitewashing with "oh but he didn't REALLY join the Wizard, he just pretended so he could try to get to Elphie! It's all for love, and he sacrificed everything for her!" As if the literal captain of the literally fascist forces responsible for the oppression of Animals wasn't equally responsible for said oppression?? Hello? Fiyero really didn't think of seeking out Elphaba in ANY other way that DIDN'T involve becoming *checks notes*... the trusted leader of the troops committing all the abuses she's fighting against in the first place???? Like it's cool and all that he helped with Brrr, and it's all well and good that he planned on betraying the Wizard as soon as he found Elphaba (which took literal years, so I guess we're left to assume he was prepared to just keep doing fascism indefinitely if she didn't show up????), but uh... it's kind of concerning to how eager some of you are to make excuses for this dude volunteering as the head of the Ozian Gestapo??? smdh

He didn't accomplish anything from it either, by the way — like yeah, we get it, he did everything he did whilst silently fantasizing about running away with the Witch he was being paid to hunt. Fine. But I can't be the only one who doesn't buy that as an actual excuse???? Like, guys: nobody forced him to join the fascist army — even with crazy ulterior motives. He wasn't coerced into it; it wasn't his only choice or anything. Searching for Elphaba did not somehow compel him to go and volunteer to follow (or to give!) orders in the name of the dictator who was trying to have her assassinated the entire time. He could have just not done all that. (Genuinely so curious how the second film plans on covering that material tbh)

Glinda made several questionable decisions that can be (and have been) debated, but she is still very unambiguously a victim. Her position in the Wizard's regime was foisted upon her. There are things we can discuss, but I find that many folks need reminding that Glinda would undoubtedly have been disposed of (or worse) if she failed to make herself useful. I mean hell: she wasn't even supposed to meet the Wizard in the first place — she was only there because of Elphie. If she'd tried to resist, it would have immediately gotten her labeled the Witch's accomplice. As soon as she'd chosen not to get on the broom, her fate was out of her hands, and all available options were varying degrees of horrible.

That's not the case with Fiyero. He went to the Wizard all on his own; no one ever cornered or forced him into it. Thinking Animals are people, and having a crush on Elphaba, simply did not stop him from carrying out the regime's orders — for years. It's not clear exactly how long he's been captain at the start of Act II, but the clear implication is that he's been a soldier for most of the time skip. I've seen Fiyeraba accounts with headcanons about him acting as a double agent, secretly doing stuff to help Animals — and that's a great idea, it would indeed serve to make a lot of his actions way more palatable — but until we actually get to SEE some of that (maybe they'll add it for the movie version of Act II; we'll have to see), there is nothing in the story to suggest that. He certainly didn't do a damn thing for all those Animals who were enslaved and caged in the Wizard's palace — and we don't see a single other Animal outside of there in Act II, so as far as we know Fiyero has participated over those years in the near-total removal of Animals from Ozian society. In the name of "finding Elphaba". Not fighting for her cause. Just finding HER. For HIMSELF.

It's fine to have a ship you like, obviously — and there is genuinely a lot to like about Fiyeraba, I don't dislike the idea of them as a couple or as friends — but come on guys: please stop those out there idealizing Fiyero as somehow a clear "morally-superior" alternative to Glinda, lol. The dude had power, access, and opportunities, for years, that he could have wielded in any number of really selfless, revolutionary ways. He didn't. And I propose (apparently controversially): he simply didn't want to. And that — at the end of the day — is (much as some would like to deny it) true to his character. He always WANTED to be self-absorbed and shallow, and all his actions are consistent with that. Elphaba saw depth and discontentment in him, yes: but (and I cannot stress this enough) when given the chance, he channeled that in the wrong direction. He didn't confront that and become a better person — for the most part he just displaced and projected it onto Elphaba as an object of obsession, and put on an even thicker pretense than before.

All his actions — regardless of the complexity he has deep down — are those of a man who never gives one fuck about anything or anyone, except (kinda sorta) Elphaba. But even then: at no time does the care he has for her seem to extend to caring about any of her wants or needs outside of sexual validation from him, or how she might feel about his actions, or indeed the impacts of those actions upon her, her cause, or anyone or anything else. I don't think it should be all that controversial to say: he doesn't think through the wider repercussions of anything he does — thoughtlessness is just one of his core character traits. He doesn't think ahead or see meaning in anything outside of what can temporarily excite him, in the moment. I think people place a little too much weight on Elphaba clocking him with regard to his internal pain, and seem to expect (understandably of course) that she is not only right, but moreover that he will grow from that in a positive direction, based on her influence.

But he doesn't. If anything, we get a surprising inverse: he pretty much proves her wrong. Not to say he didn't have hidden depth and all that, like she said: but his hypothetical heart of gold proves not to really amount to much in practice. He doesn't grow out of his shallowness and his self-centeredness: he grows into it in a way that he hadn't quite yet in school. Where once he was only masking an internal listlessness, after he's been cracked open by Elphaba he decides to be genuinely self-absorbed and deeply shallow, not just coasting by. He performs in new ways — as a soldier, eventually as a "fiancé", etc. — but by Act II we meet a Fiyero who has staked the last remaining shred of humanity in him on the vain pursuit of the only object of his desire that has ever been unavailable to him, and firmly chosen to say to hell with everyone and everything else.

When put to the test, Fiyero sacrifices Glinda, the Animals, and all else that Elphaba actually cared about, to pursue his own unresolved crush from college. Mostly to get in her pants, really — as harsh as I'm sure that sounds. But let me be frank: that is literally all he ever accomplishes in the show. He gives her dick one time, and one of his castles, and that's it. That's the culmination of his years trying to find her — years in which he actively worked as one of the stormtroopers (or even the one commanding them) committing untold crimes against Animalkind (who, again, it seems have been all but erased from Oz by Act II): y'know, the very crimes Elphaba sacrificed her life to try and stop????? He spent the most important time of his life — of his own free will — being a fascist soldier, but he "did it for her" somehow, so according to some, it's perfectly fine. Heroic, even. Yikes??

But let's make something very clear (since my original version of this post caught a lot of flak, including slurs and other rudeness):

I like Fiyero. I find his role extremely interesting (I could do a whole dissertation on him, but I'm especially a fan of the way his proving Elphaba's assessment of him wrong presents a fascinating parallel and contrast with Glinda, which I think is lost on a lot of people). But PLEASE stop with all the misguided Glinda slander and idealization of Fiyero. By all means, thirst! But don't give me all this bullshit about him deserving Elphaba more, or being super deep, or being really principled or noble or whatever else. He does have layers, and quite intriguing ones, but his insides are straw — he isn't meant to have some deep, overwrought emotional core or motivations; he has passions that he acts upon when given the chance. That's it. And that's fine. Actually kind of refreshing in a story rooted in simple children's fantasy but rife with intensely complicated personalities. Fiyero makes it his mission to represent denial of depth and embrace of raw, spontaneous desire — and I for one love that, and wish others appreciated it.

And in all seriousness, shipping wars aside: by the end of the story, it's Glinda who is ultimately vindicated, and has — for all her faults — made the necessary choices to fulfill Elphaba's wishes, bring down the regime, etc. And all that despite herself. She's miserable: not just because of the mistakes she made, but because of her correct moves as well. Fiyero is simply not — and could never be — that person. And that's okay! Like I said: I am not anti-Fiyero. Fiyero's willingness to throw it all away for the sake of sheer, overriding passion is a huge part of what people like about him, of course — and it's an obvious factor in the attraction between him and Elphaba, because she has her own flavor of that impulse as well — but I'd actually argue that it's not romantic, it's his fatal flaw. And thematically that's fantastic! But I just don't believe that it somehow means he "deserves Elphaba more" because he "gave up his life for her" or whatever. In part because NOBODY truly "deserves" Elphie tbh, not 100% (and I question anybody who claims otherwise), but ultimately because I don't accept the idea that his fleeting acts of passion make up for all the shit leading up to them (or even proceeding after them tbh). At least Glinda managed to do what Elphaba always wanted in the end — but I would die on this hill even if Gelphie didn't exist.

You don't have to agree with my analysis of Fiyero and his choices, relationships, etc. — that's fine. What isn't fine is trying to portray Glinda as some kind of spineless traitor whore for the Wizard and Fiyero as a conscientious hero who earned Elphie through self-sacrifice. That's just not the story that was written. It's WAY messier and more interesting than that.

[starberry-cupcake]

hello!! I'm back!!! *sitcom studio cheer sound*

previously, in nona del 9:

this happened

this is the general tag for all the recaps

last recap I said Something was happening and it has!! we have a puppy now!!! her name is Dana (after Scully)!! this is her!!!

DAY TWO (one of the things mentioned is that honesty's job goes terribly wrong and I feel so bad because I forgot to point it out in my recap, even if it was something that looked sus af to begin with and I was concerned when I read about it)

CHAPTER 7 (second house skull, after pyrrha probably)

nona wakes up abruptly

someone told me in the last recaps that the bible chapters are when nona is sleeping, which I hadn't put together at all and I don't know if I should have or if I missed something important

in any case, nona starts telling camilla what she dreamt, which is not what was in the bible chapter, so idk what's going on with that

maybe the bible thing is what harrow is seeing and the dreams are what an amnesiac gideon is seeing????

we don't know yet

she's describing being with the "other person" who is touching her hands but they're not hers

"I'm touching my own hands but they aren't mine"

which is another one on the tally for the "this is gideon in harrow's body" theory

they're surrounded by red eyes in the darkness and she's very hungry

and they're holding hands

that's the dream

she was startled awake because camilla threw a sponge at her

nona freaked the hell out about that

remember when harrow was woken up by og!gideon trying to murder her in cold blood every morning? those were simpler times

also, nona is about to put on the tshirt from the cover which took me 25 years and @lady-harrowhark pointing it out to notice it was a burger

camilla asks her about the hands and nona says she didn't like them

and that she doesn't like having hands????

she's a bit infuriating sometimes ngl

I don't know what to do with this information

pyrrha talks about people becoming violent because shit is getting real

and she prepares some mush for them to eat at breakfast

she's also worried about camilla's soul (and life) due to whatever it is they're doing on the sites

palmolive, I swear to whatever god of your choosing

(that isn't dr reverend emperor john asshat)

if something happens to camilla on your watch

I'm gonna chase your nerdy ass all the way to your river loft and back

when they start talking about nona wanting a "six months alive" gift, pyrrha tells camilla how depressing and non-gift-giving the ninth house is

which she visited when anastasia got settled

nice to know things in the ninth never ever changed

they did have a gift, though

the gift of ortus's poetry

nona wants differently colored hair ties, to not push too far into pyrrha's limited budget

we'll see if we make it to the birthday, there's a countdown going on

when nona gets to school, honesty has a punch in the eye and she has to help him with it until teacher angel comes in

teacher angel is still looking very sus, with clothes in disarray and also the same ones from the previous day

hot sauce also comes in afterwards, which makes me think she might have been following teacher angel

she's on the case

hot sauce gets very upset asking honesty who punched him in the face

everyone's very upset and tense, except for kevin who's eating peacefully

we love kevin

so, honesty tells the story and starts from the worst place imaginable to explain something that happened with accuracy

which is the end

but that's fine, because the tension of the story is in the middle, so we get the narrative effect

we appreciate that

he's got a podcast in another life

honesty was about to go to the tunnel job but, turns out, it wasn't a tunnel job

it was actually a mad max job

and they get cocky and do more than they were planning to, which is never a good idea

so, by the third attempt, the guy who's been doing the dropping-in maneuver gets very spooked by what he finds in there

which is a lot of people with white eyes who look directly at him when he shows up

which prompts militia trucks to pull them over

so honesty runs the fuck out of there and gets smashed into a pole

depiction of honesty, ruby and born in the morning after the incident, had they been together:

honesty gets saved and cared for by some homeless folk

after his face got smashed into the pole

and he clarifies they were trying to steal from a convoy

which he would have said no to had he known the job before being taken to do it

he asks hot sauce to protect him

which hot sauce agrees to, but I think this is too much work for one hot sauce alone, especially if she's keeping an eye on everything else

nona offers her help, but is rejected, on account of being dumb

I wonder if nona will somewhat reveal her powers of healing protecting these kids at some point

OH, ALSO

teacher angel sus person mentioned not being technically a doctor but getting a crash course in triage

which, continues to be sus behavior

is teacher angel helping with the fights? with war? with secret confrontations?

we'll have to wait and see!!

THAT'S IT FOR NOW!! I haven't had a lot of time to read and recap and I'm currently falling asleep as we speak, so sorry for such a short one this time!!! ♥

[n1ghteeea]

what r ur thoughts on each of the ghostbusters’ families? from what we see or hear about them

Ohhh boy do I have stuff to SAY!!!!

Egon: so first of all, I do NOT consider the woman we see in later seasons his mother. She could not have possibly been like this based on how Egon turned out. The only canon info we have about his parents from s1-2 is that once in college Egon got an A- and they didn’t speak to him for a week. So. A family of perfectionist scientists, valuing results over process, probably emotionally closed off, and who, though not intentionally, still ended up making him feel like he’s only of worth if he’s useful and perfect.

So, I’m not their huge fan, and I doubt they maintain a close relationship.

Also I dislike uncle Cyrus greatly, sorry to all uncle Cyrus fans, he evokes unspeakable anger in me, I want to hit him with hammers.

I must say though that Egon having multiple ancestors doing the most random sidequests ever is hilarious. Like wdym there’s a guy who summoned a dragon. Wdym there’s a guy who caught a witch.

The dragon is Egon’s son btw and he’s great.

Overall: 5/10, not a horrible family but definitely had a bad effect on him.

Ray: THIS GUY WON THE FAMILY LOTTERY!! Amazing, sweet aunt Lois who cares about him and his friends and can admit when she’s in the wrong. Cool cousin Sam who operates a whole farm by herself and is also super nice. A (dead) uncle who gave him a castle and a duke title! Fun (also dead) uncle who left his shop for him to inherit!! Like come on, dude won this life.

10/10, no notes.

Peter: ohhhh. Ohhhhhh. This poor man. Dead mom whom he clearly loved, but who passed too soon, deadbeat FUCKING dad whom Peter still cares about but never lets him see it because he is still hurt over this man choosing his conman life over his son continuously when he was young OUGHHH their dynamic is so unbearable to watch, I swear to god. Jim Venkman when I catch u.

Overall: 3/10 this dude is literally a walking catalogue of family issues.

Winston: this one depends on what you consider canon! In s2 he says he has no family, later he mentions he had a grandma who (from what I can guess) was nice. In s4 we suddenly see his dad who has a very weird conflict with Winston regarding his job that gets resolved with a snap bc writing SUCKS, and in EGB he mentions his sister.

Overall: 6/10 mostly bc we don’t really know anything about his family but he doesn’t seem traumatised by them. Points.

Janine: we only really see her family once and they seem very regular and nice, she seems to have a good relationship with them, so no notes here.

Overall: 7/10 points for being a good fam, but no points for not having personalities.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Regarding the “Is Marinette a Stalker?” post, I want to say thank you! Because I did something like Marinette and self-doubted my younger-self’s actions. A bit of context, I’m (37 y/o, female) one of the many adults that loved MLBCN when it started airing. When I came disappointed at the show by S4, I turned to the fandom to look out for fanfics, and was surprised by the salty side.

Don’t get me wrong, I kinda get the why’s and the reasons, and even though I enjoyed a Mari-salt fic titled “The Schedule” (iirc), I… sorta felt ashamed at myself? When I was 19, I fell in love with this guy, and it seemed that he liked me too. Our university had a system only for students where we could do lots of administrative stuff, like choosing our classes. At my time, there used to be a search tool on it to look out for our classmates’ schedules; in my curiosity, I searched for his just to see if we shared free periods. (Btw, today I do feel that it was wrong that my university had that function).

At my defense, after finding my crush’s schedule, I also searched for my friends’, just so I could organize with them to set up a table for our LAN parties. At the end my feelings weren’t reciprocated, my heartbreak ocurred close the next semester’s start, so I searched his schedule one more time, but just to avoid having classes with him.

When I read that Mari having Adrien’s schedule was “stalker behavior” I was like “OMG, was I a stalker? And worse, I was legally an adult!”, but I can’t remember my friends being creeped out by me. I don’t know if it is a subject whose meaning has evolved as time went on, or maybe it can change according to our different cultural/countries’ POV. But we do crazy stuff when we are young-adults, and worse when we are adolescents, add first love/crush feelings, and well… (just look at Hey, Arnold!’s Helga, she had it bad for Arnold and went to do stuff that by today’s standards is a serious case of bullying).

If the issue is the “breach of privacy” and the “3 years”, well, the first one isn’t touched on the show, maybe Mari got the pattern by observation, or Alya helped by asking Nino, or maybe even Chloe said something loudly, or my personal fan-favorite: as Class Rep, Marinette has access to that information to make easy her duties! And as for the second issue, they are 13-14 years old, my bet is that if their school makes fixated schedules for its students, so it wouldn’t be difficult to guess Adrien’s schedule for the next 3-years, and since his father was Marinette’s favorite designer, she might have followed his seasons releases, and might been easy for her to add it to Adrien’s schedule.

I want to clarify that I’m not looking to invalidate people’s feelings about this, or saying that they are wrong. In the end, we all must remember that Marinette is just a fictional adolescent character in a cartoon show, and cartoons will exaggerate actions just for the sake of the plot. We don’t like something about the characters’ actions and/or personalities? We teach and explain to the children why is wrong; and as adults, we tell ourselves to be wary if anything about it is in our daily actions, so we don’t fall into the “hating something that is a reflection of us” projection.

I like to think that I was a good adolescent and young adult that didn’t do anything morally or ethically bad, so it really freaked me out that part of the Marinette salt fandom. So, a thousand thanks! And sorry that your friend, cousin and you had to deal with that stuff.

(Post this ask is in reference to)

Before we get started, I wanted to say that your university having that feature seems incredibly dangerous. Most people are going to use it the harmless way that you did, but boy does that have the potential for misuse. Way better to let students decide if they want to share schedules on their own.

Anyway, while I will absolutely agree that the show occasionally takes Marinette too far, leading me to understand why her behavior bothers people, I think that biggest issue in her writing is actually something you sort of brought up:

I fell in love with this guy, and it seemed that he liked me too.

It sounds like you had some sort of relationship with your crush and that makes a world of difference to how your actions are going to be perceived by others. Checking the schedule of a guy you don't know? Kinda creepy. Checking the schedule of your friends including the friend you have a crush on? Normal.

Let's look at a personal example to show you what I mean. When I was in high school, I learned parts of my crush's schedule. On my way to lunch, I would purposely walk by the area where he hung out so that I could say "hi" to him as I walked past.

This statement probably raises some questions in your mind like how did I learn that he'd be there? The answer is incredibly innocent. I learned that part of his schedule by accident because his hangout spot because was also my hangout spot during my free periods. I just happened to go by one day to see a different friend and ran into him, thereby learning a bit of his schedule. After that, I took path A to lunch instead of path B because they took the same amount of time and I liked seeing him for two seconds every day.

It's also worth noting that we had the same hangout spot because we had a mutual friend group! We were in the same small club and spent a lot of time together. We even hung out together outside of school and club activities. We eventually dates for several years because he asked me out! So when I said, "hi" to him every day, it didn't shock anyone or creep him out because I wasn't some random girl. I was a friend taking a moment to acknowledge his existence before going about the rest of my day.

An additional mitigating detail is the fact that I could have told you details about several platonic friends' schedules because that's just what happens when you know people and pay attention to their lives. We all know random crap about the people we care about. Crushes simply enhance your attention, making you way more aware of everything you do, say, or think about this person. That heightened attention might make you feel creepy at times, but that feeling doesn't automatically make you creepy. It's more complicated than that. The details of the situation matter because there's a ton of nuance around this topic. Nuance that actually makes it hard to give examples because this stuff can be incredibly personal. What person A find cute and charming is a hard no for person B.

That nuances goes beyond crushes on people you're close with. For example, you don't need to stop going to your favorite coffee shop because the new barista is cute! You are not stalking them by maintaining your usual habits! You're not a bad person for experiencing attraction toward a person who is working! It only gets weird if you start crossing social boundaries like if you start asking them on a date every time you see them even though they are very clearly uninterested and you've never actually talked to them beyond simple pleasantries.

This is where we circle back to Miraculous.

While the early seasons of Miraculous gave Adrien and Marinette a few moments of friendship like playing games together in Gamer, those moments quickly stopped. By season three, they barely interacted. This happened for an obvious reasons. Miraculous is an episodic formula show in almost the purest sense of those terms. The writers have made it clear that the episodes are designed so that they can be watched in any order leading to all sorts of weird moments like Felix telling Marinette that Gabriel is Monarch only for her to act like this is new information in the next episode. This was explicitly done so that people who missed the first reveal didn't feel left out:

Talking about previous episodes, [the writers] then say that... the 5 last episodes of season 5 (Collusion - Revolution - Representation - Conformation - Recreation) go together and there is a direct continuation between them. (However, one of their rules as Miraculous writers is that these episodes can also be watched and understood independently.)

This ridiculous rule* means that the on-screen relationships can't develop and grow as that makes the show feel too serialized. This limitation meant that Adrien and Marinette could NOT become functional friends with a developing relationship as that would require a certain viewing order. The same was true for Ladybug and Chat Noir's relationship. They could not become stronger over time. They had to stay stagnant.

Without those friendships, Adrienette was reduced to being all about Marinette being unable to function around Adrien and Ladynoir was reduced to being all about Chat Noir flirting relentlessly while Ladybug constantly shot him down. The only side of the square that was allowed to be a true friendship was Marichat because they could interact without it leading to a romance since they weren't in love, which is a major problem since Adrienette is what became canon in spite of it having the substance of unset jello. How are we supposed to ship a couple that never knowingly interacted???

This inability to have developing relationships is why the writers wrote Marinette more like a fangirl than a friend with a crush. But fangirl behavior only plays well when there's a level of separation between the fan and the object of their affections. The fan can't actually know their crush because that makes the fan feel creepy and weird. This is Marinette's main problem. The thing that understandably turns a lot of viewers off. The way her crush is written simply doesn't fit the story canon is going with.

If Marinette and Adrien had been written as true friends and were allowed to have more of those early show moments where they did non-romantic things together, then Marinette would come across light-years more relatable than she does in canon even if her actions didn't change.

It's not that Marinette never has questionable moments, she absolutely does! It's just that a lot of those moments are only questionable because of the nature of her relationship with Adrien. They would all feel wildly different if Adrien was her close friend or boyfriend.

To see what I mean, think about how much less creepy it would have been if Marinette claimed to have Adrien's schedule after she and Adrien started dating. Your instant assumption becomes that he gave it to her! You also have the addition of Gabriel's controlling nature to mitigate the way Marinette's rickshaw date plan comes across. It goes from awkwardly over-the-top to sweet because she's just trying to find a way to spend a few minutes with her boyfriend whose life is too controlled to allow for proper dates. Same exact episode setup, wildly different read because context matters.

It really is sad how much the writing failed Marinette because it's normal to be a little weird around your crush. Wanting to get to know them better and spend time with them is completely understandable and common behavior! But the writers didn't just decide to keep Marinette and Adrien from being good friends. They also decided to give Marinette an active running gag of trying and failing to confess. This gag requires her crush to be extremely active while the show's formulaic nature meant that the crush could never have true progress. This lead to the show constantly putting Marinette in awkward positions and questionable situations. It's a terrible call if your goal is to actually tell a romance. They would have been way better off to make Marinette shy and afraid to confess as a contrast to Chat Noir's bold flirting. The most I'd do in that setup is to let her have the occasional secrete admirer thing where she leaves Adrien a gift or sends him a note like we saw in The Bubbler. That way a much stronger way to play Marinette's crush.

*Quick note: status quo rules are fine in shows that don't have overarching plots, but Miraculous is a romance with an overarching plot. Both of those elements require you to have some level of serialization to your story. I recently used ABC's Castle as an example of this. Almost every episode it a unique murder mystery, but the characters' relationships progress over time. There are also several plot lines that run through the show, leading to a handful of episodes that do need to be watched in order. Notably, all of the major status quo changes happen in that handful of serialized episodes. This is the type of show that Miraculous needed to be for its main story lines to work.

[max1461]

One thing I will say, now that I've had direct experience with my mental meat severely malfunctioning: drugs are broad-spectrum, and personal exercise of... I won't say "virtue", but choice, can be targeted. I'm not saying that drug addicts can just choose not to be addicted or something, I'm not that naive. What I'm saying is: what are the full mental knock-on affects of dampening one's cravings? If opiate addiction is ruining your life this might be the least of your concerns, but if you're conceptualizing these GLP-1 agonists or any putatively similar drugs as some kind of general purpose "self-control booster", this is might be something you want to think about.

I often get a craving-like-feeling to do math, I'll have this moment where I'm like "you know what would be good right now? One of those group theory problems where you have the orders of a bunch subgroups and you have to deduce the order of the group" and then I'll go look for one online or whatever and solve it. This is, in fact, one of my more consistent motivators to do math, and if those cravings were less frequent I would probably know a lot less. A core part of romantic attraction for me is a craving-like-feeling for my partner; not just in a brute sexual sense but in a more abstract one. To have that lessened would be, from my perspective, essentially my capacity for romantic love being dampened along one of its axes. Would I want that?

When I was a kid, I played a lot of video games. Sometimes I'd play for hours a day. And I really cared about the medium; at that point in my life my ambition was to become a video game designer. When I turned about 16, I abruptly lost the immediate-term desire to actually play video games. I still cared about the medium just as much, I still had lots of thoughts on games and game design, but in a moment-to-moment sense actually playing games was no longer something I wanted to do very often. It ceased to be something I desired in a raw hedonistic sense. It was work. I would sit down to play a game because I was interested in it intellectually, but after 20 minutes I'd get burned out and have to stop. This shift probably altered the course of my life in a huge way—it reshaped something fundamentally about who I was and who I was becoming. I still care a lot about games as a medium, and I'm not in any way torn up that I didn't go down the path of trying to become a game designer. But it does disappoint me sometimes that I can't have anything like the relationship to games that I used to, because my brain has decided they aren't "fun" in that purely hedonic sense anymore.

Actually, this was part of a larger shift in my personality that occurred when I was a teenager, in which I became fairly anhedonic in most areas of life, and as a result shifted away from most simplistically pleasurable activities and towards endeavors that provided a more diffuse, harder to quantify form of gratification. Not because I'm virtuous—but because I'm meat, and the simplistic sources of gratification largely stopped working!

What I'm trying to articulate is something like... yeah, you're made of meat, which means in particular: you are made of meat. When you take a drug that alters your meat, there is a sense in which you become somebody else. And this also happens all the time for reasons you don't control. But that doesn't mean it's good or acceptable in the general case. Sometimes, often, it's bad! Or it's good and bad in ways that are hard to tally. The brain is complex, and, like I said, medications are broad-spectrum. They don't differentiate between the neurons that make you crave a burger and the neurons that make you love your wife, they modulate all the neurotransmitters the same. Actually the bodybuilder Mike Israetel specifically says in an interview somewhere that when he's on steroids, he loves his wife less. It's just physiological. And I believe him.

In the past few months I've had to take lamotrigine for seizures. Lamotrigine is also a mood stabilizer. I don't need my mood stabilized, in fact I rather like my usual array of moods. One of the things lamotrigine evidently does is induce a positive bias in processing of faces—response to angry and fearful faces is lessened, while response to happy faces is unaffected. Sounds great, right? But the visceral response to fearful faces is an important component of affective empathy. You don't want to hurt someone, in part it seems, because your brain has a visceral reaction to the real or imagined sight of their face in fear. Scores on the psychopathy checklist correlate with impaired ability to discern fearful faces, but no comparable impaired ability to discern faces displaying positive emotions. If you can't internalize someone else's fear or sadness, you can't empathize. I know that I don't feel like myself on lamotrigine. Now this is not to be taken as at all scientific; I've got a lot of weird brain stuff going on right now and I don't feel like myself anyway. But in any case, lamotrigine is meant to be one of the seizure medications with the fewest cognitive side effects.

You are made of matter, and messing around with the matter that makes you up can change you in unknown and unpredictable ways. Me growing up to become a linguist instead of a game designer, that reflects a really complex and multi-faceted shift in who I am and how I used my time. And it was brought on by all kinds of things, all sorts of personal development over the years, but a load-bearing component was probably the simple down-modulation of an impulse, a loss of simple hedonistic capacity that caused me to search out radically new uses of my time in my teen years. That shift was endogenous, but certainly a drug could have done it. So my point I guess is that no drug is... what word am I looking for, "apolitical"? That's not what I mean. But I'm saying something conceptually similar to what people often mean when they say no technology is apolitical. Except instead of the body politic I'm talking about the body itself, the body and mind. Uh. If you take a drug to "increase your willpower", it might turn out that you become someone you wouldn't have chosen to become, in ways you never even considered. You might be fine with that or you might not. But it's not so simple as taking the person-you-are and turning up a willpower knob, it's never that simple. I think a sort of techno-pessimism towards this notion of a miracle drug is very warranted.

Last week's WITH was about the pursuit of treatments that might do for addiction what GLP-1 agonists do for cravings for food, and the guest had an interesting point about how you can have phenomena with very complex causes (the main examples here being opiate addiction and the general rise in obesity) that do not require you to untangle or address those causes in order to procure solutions. Like, is addiction a disease, a social ill, a product of trauma, a failure of willpower, or all of these things?

It doesn't necessarily matter! It turns out that "craving stuff" is a pretty basic neurological feedback loop and it may be tractable to pharmaceutical intervention. Heck, GLP-1 agonists may be that intervention: people have reported (and clinical trials are being conducted to study) that these drugs, among their many effects, simply blunt cravings, to the point where people have as a side effect of taking them for diabetes or weight loss also found they helped cut down on drinking, or gambling, or using other drugs.

So even if GLP-1 agonists don't have all the miraculous effects reported (there are some reports they may be effective as an Alzheimer's treatment!), it would be crazy if we have discovered a drug that allows us to better marshal our faculties to decide which cravings to give in to, a drug that simply imbues us with self-control. And I think that's really interesting, because it's an outright clash between two ways of seeing the world: a moralistic one in which virtues are the product of individual decisions, and in which taking a drug to achieve some outcome that "ought" to be a product of virtue might be seen as cheating, and one that reminds us that, for better or worse, we are meat, and all our complex behaviors arise as the result of the state of the meat that we are--and from which view, refusing to acknowledge the mutability of your meat in aid of achieving your goals, or even broader social benefit (addiction is really bad and there very few good options to treat it), is simply goofy.

But a lot of people's reaction to the existence of GLP-1 agonists--or for that matter any medical intervention for things which are moralized as willpower problems--includes contempt founded on being wedded to that moralizing framework. I think a lot of moralism develops as a response to conditions of existence being imposed on us that are objectively pretty miserable, and that when we discover the occasional intervention that liberates us from that pretty restrictive framework, our attitude should be one of jubilation: hear, O ye people, that what was long believed to be an implacable trade-off of human existence is no more. But I think a lot of people's reaction is to double down: I had to suffer, or someone I know had to suffer, therefore you ought to suffer as well, or else our suffering has no meaning.

[therookerydatv]

This is a non-Veilguard post but it is a Solas post and a Varric post so buckle in.

Background: I joined a Veilguard Discord server because I'm insane, and we were discussing Cole and the whole choice to make him a Spirit or more Human, and it almost got into an argument but thankfully it figured quickly, but I was still thinking about it because something about it all rubbed me the wrong way. A lot of people lamented their choice in making Cole more Human or cheered that making Cole more Spirit was the correct choice because of Solas' own regrets and pains that came about from him gaining a mortal body.

Subjectively I have always chosen to make him more human, but I guess me choosing as a player is different from within the context of Inquisition. In DA:I every choice you make has consequences, sometimes trying to backpedal out of a choice once you're far enough in will result in you not getting your way because that's what it all is, Choices and Consequences. As much as the result of Cole's change is on you the player, it's really a Consequence of your favoring Varric or Solas' method.

Solas' entire view of Cole's predicament is colored by his own negative experience of having a body and living in the physical world, waking up to a physical world where the Veil was created just amplifies that regret in pain, every instance of him trying to help with his Wisdom becomes something worse to him personally (All that Wisdom and he can't help himself) but with Cole he actually can help! He can fix this, with not only Wisdom but experience! He's become a person, he doesn't like being a person(and then he does because of the Inquisitor, I feel this is true romance or friendship), so Solas knows that Cole can 'return'(made) more Spirit and the confliction will end.

Varrics positions, his view, I feel is colored by the people he couldn't help, the ones he couldn't help get their revenge or solve their problem in time in a way where no one could get hurt (Cole literally reminds him of Anders just in reverse) And this time, Varric knows better, he knows how to fix this, he knows how to not blow up the Chantry, he can fix it this time. (This time the love will be enough!!)

Objectively, both are answers, I don't think either of them are right, because it's one influence over the other, but a choice has to be made otherwise he'd become a demon.

Solas and Varric are having their idealogical battle(custody battle) over which direction Cole needs to go in to avoid binding or demonhood(which college to send him to). The added layer VG adds to this and every banter Solas and Varric have is also fascinating, because outwardly it's an Elf and a funny Dwarf fighting over the tall awkward Human child, but after VG??? After those regrets??? Girl...

But I feel that reducing that scene to Solavellan at times is... disingenuous, when really, it's a Solvarric scene of we're being objective.

This is THE custody battle of all time. (My weed kicked in bear with me)

Solas' version of his world doesn't exist anymore, the world with no Veil and spirits essentially pillaging the bodies of the Titans to gain bodies doesn't exist anymore, the first victims of what the Elvhen did calls him Chuckles, a demonym in true friendly jest to him, it's the first thing Varric calls him when he reaches out to talk to him at the beginning of Veilguard, up until that point he calls him Solas, the Dread Wolf, Fen'Harel.

Varric is a result of years of time happening to the version of the World Solas brought about. Its...it's like God is talking to a creation of his that has every right to hate him, to want to desire to go back before all the bad shit, and instead Varric says, okay, get the anger out, how do you feel now? Empty? That's okay too, take your time.

Solas is a weary traveler ready to end it all and Varric is the equally weary traveler who says, tell me about it, and then talks your ear off so much you start believing in the world again.

Basically, Varric's method is to embrace the history and the scars, embrace the hurt and once it's done, get something to eat. Varric forgives but doesn't forget, his plan has Cole let go of his anger in the end, but Cole will remember the hurt he felt, and inflicted and so will the people he inflicted them on.

[gyaruhana]

Hai since you aren't taking actual fic requests right now and only headcanons I wanted to ask if you also do those rankings? If you haven't seen basically people ask a question like 'who would be the biggest gentleman in a relationship' and the person who asks either gives a few characters for the writer to rank and write a few sentences or let the writer choose which characters they think fit best

But yeah I've basically have been seeing this a lot recently and had to think of you and your blog because I think I'd be something nice and short to write when you don't wanna do hc's/fic's and could help with potential writers block !

And if you plan on doing that then here would be your first ranking request !! :3

So out of Thanos, gwi-nam and niragi who would be the most freaky and rough in bed?

(btw I know this is long and I hope this wasn't a bother to you, I just ramble a lot about things I'm interested in and I just love your blog and everything you've written so far and I hope you continue <33)

im in love with this ranking system thingy uhm oh em gee ?!?!?!?!

i will absolutely be ranking now it's such a cute concept😭😭

below is my personal ranking.. (also thank you for liking my writing it always makes me so nervous when people compliment me..)

No.3: Choi Su-Bong/Thanos (Squid Game)

Thanos is rough, yes. He likes choking you, he likes making you cry - not to mention he really enjoys edging you for as long as possible to watch your face contort in slight pain as you beg him to let you cum.

However, I'd argue he's not entirely the type to force you into anything if it makes you super uncomfortable. The only exception for this is when he's high and not really mentally present but most of the time he doesn't push you too far over the limit.

Of course, don't mistake this for me saying he's not rough! He totally is. But, compared to the others I'm ranking, he's def less extreme..

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No.2: Yoon Gwi-Nam (All Of Us Are Dead)

This is pretty self-explanatory.. we've seen plenty of scenes with him and he does NOT play.

Again, he also likes seeing you cry and choking you and blah blah blah but he's more freaky than Thanos which is why he's number two on my ranking.

He's ONLY degrading. There's nothing nice about this man. Maybe he would've pretended to be a little nice but he drops all that when he's fucking you honestly.

However, he's still only no.2 because while, yes, he isn't above being violent toward you and man handling you - he's not quite as bad as who i put as no.1

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No.1: Suguru Niragi (Alice In Borderland)

No.1 for a reason.

He's the roughest and the freakiest best believe it !! He really doesn't bother playing nice whatsoever. If he sees you and he likes you, he'll just claim you without a care in the world.

Just really kinky in my opinion!!

prolly into gun play, knife play - anything incredibly violent sorry not sorry. I mean.. we all know the typa guy he is so..

i'd argue he views you ENTIRELY as a doll for his pleasure. Not anything more honestly.

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CONCLUSION: First time ranking and I may have made it a little fancy set up bc i got excited at this concept..

But, yes - Niragi is No.1 on this list. I feel like he's just a real kinky and rough asshole. Although, I do totally see Gwinam being similar to Niragi in the future when he reaches PEAK dickhead-ness.

My king Thanos is only No.3 bc he's not totally mean at heart i feel.. he's just really rough when he's high but I don't think he'd be the same level of rough as Gwinam and Niragi.

anyway, hope my ranking was good !!

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(thank you sm for this idea i need more holy moly..)

[rarepairdumpster]

Firelight Viktor AU Part 1

Inspired by THIS ART

Pairing: Viktor/Silco (Arcane) Rating: M C/W: Trauma Discussion, Hint to previous SA, Honestly this AU is a lot of politics with underlying sexual tension

Firelight Viktor taking full advantage of Silco's bad depth perception to race circles around him.

Silco eventually grabbing him and pinning him down and snarling in his ear about choosing the wrong person to be toying with.

And then Silco hears the sound of something priming, and he looks down to see a freakishly advanced pistol a hairs breadth from his belly.

"You sure about that?" Viktor asks, voice carrying an almost mechanical overtone.

Silco smirks and releases Viktor, holding his hands up. "That's quite the weapon you have. Fascinating engineering."

"Keep moving. Don't stop until I say," Viktor orders 

Silco complies, but he's endlessly amused.

Finally, Viktor is back on his feet, gripping something to keep his balance. The pistols aim never wavers though.

Next thing Silco knows, a blast of energy hits him. He wakes up a while later, groggy and sore from where he'd slammed into the ground.

"A stunner," Silco growls, anger chasing away his grogginess. And then he laughs. "Ingenious, Viktor." 

Because he already put 2 and 2 together.

The next time Viktor comes home from the lab, Silco is sitting on his couch smoking and drinking brandy.

"Do sit down, Viktor. I thought we might finish our conversation."

Viktor can't get over the audacity of Silco inviting him to sit down in his own fucking house.

Viktor chides himself for not grabbing his stunner before he left the lab. "I'm not interested."

"No?" Silco smirks. "Then I suppose there won't be an issue when Chief Marcus arrives in ten minutes."

Viktor freezes. "You wouldn't."

"Wouldn't I?" Silco's gaze sharpens. "As far as the firelights are concerned, I'm an unscrupulous monster; isn't that so?" 

Silco takes a sip of his brandy, casual as fuck.

Viktor looks down and his grip on his cane tightens. "You flooded the Lanes with Shimmer. You're constantly sending your enforcer dogs after us. What else am I supposed to think?"

"Flooded the Lanes with Shimmer?" Silco laughs at that. Actually, full-body laughs for about 3 seconds. "As powerful as I am, I can't force an entire city to become addicts."

Silco pushes a hand through his hair, laugh fading to a resigned smile.

"I don't make anyone take Shimmer," Silco continues. "It fills a medical need that Piltover has both caused and neglected to treat. Addiction....I can't control that. All I can do is help mitigate the torture of withdrawal."

"It-Its not medicine," Viktor repeats what he's heard Ekko say dozens of times before. "No one has ever been helped by it. Just hurt."

"It is medicine." Silco taps the side of his face and chuckles, without mirth. "Without Shimmer, I'd be dead on the side of the road. I was the first person to use it. To be helped. And I fought to make it available to others. And the firelights have been trained to look at me like I'm an animal with no compassion. Because that boy, the saviour, carries a personal grudge against me."

"He said you killed Benzo and Vander," Viktor spits. "I don't blame him for having a grudge."

"Did he also tell you I killed the enforcer that Benzo and Vander were about to sell us all out to?" Silco raises an eyebrow. "Sit, boy, and I'll tell you my side of things."

Viktor purses his lips, but sits, as far from Silco as he can

"You seem older than the others. Where were you during the Day of Ash?" Silco asks once Viktor has settled in.

"Hiding," Viktor answers, frowning severely, "with my mother. We lived on the Entresol. She was ill and I'm...."

Viktor gestures to his leg. "But we heard the screams. The gunshots."

"We orchestrated it, Vander and I," Silco explained. "Our plan was to take control of the bridge and if we could, the port. If we had something Piltover required to survive, they would be forced to listen and negotiate." Silco's fist balls up and his jaw tenses. 

"We had a mole. Within our organization. I had been so careful with who we let in, but I was distracted." He thinks of Vander and Felicia and the kids. All liabilities. All weaknesses.

"Topside knew we were coming," Silco sighed. "We were out manned and outgunned before we even stepped foot on that bridge."

Viktor bows his head, listening. It had been a massacre. He remembers seeing all the bodies piled up the next morning, waiting to be buried. Remembers the flies buzzing around, crawling between parted lips and over open eyes locked in terror. He remembers the smell. He almost smells it now, thinking about it. 

"The enforcers cut through us like paper," Silco says quietly, voice little more than whisper now, as if his words might disturb the past. "We never stood a chance. Most of us were slaughtered without mercy. And those of us that survived.....we were hunted like animals, chased through the Lanes so hard we thought we'd never make it. We had to split up, try to separate their numbers,  give someone a chance to live and keep fighting."

Viktor is enthralled as he listens, unconsciously leaning forward a bit as Silco speaks. He had never heard this before, from anyone. No one talked about it and now he knew why.

"I ran to where Vander and I said we would meet if things went south," Silco swallows thickly and his fingers trail down the side of his face. "But he had gone mad. He blamed me for all the death. Said that I was the one responsible. His own hand did this to me."

When his fingers trail down the side of his face, some of the foundation/concealer is rubbed away, leaving patches of sickly grey skin visible.

It also reveals how deep the gouges from Vander's nails really are, like craters almost. He looks like he was mauled by an animal. A large cat or a wolf or something.

To think this was inflicted on him by a man?!

"I got away, barely," Silco goes on. "If it hadn't been for the Doctor and shimmer, the river toxins would have taken far more from me than just my eye."

"I...I don't know what to say," Viktor says softly, mind reeling.

Silco smirks. "You don't have to say anything." He finishes his brandy and sets the glass down before standing up. "You're smarter than this, Viktor. Just think about what I've said."

"Wait," Viktor says, raising a hand. "What did you mean when you said Vander and Benzo were going to sell us out? You've explained why you were at odds, but not that."

Silco sighed. "When the rebellion failed, Vander became weak. The only reason the lanes were saved was because he made a deal with topside." Silco's expression turned sharp. "He peddled our lives like tokens in the name of 'peace' when all it did was allow Piltover to keep their boot on our necks."

Viktor hesitates, uncertain.

"And Benzo encouraged him," Silco spat. "An insidious voice whispering in his ear. I don't have proof of who betrayed us on the Day of Ashes, but I have my suspicions."

Silco took a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair. 

"I don't blame Ekko," Silco finally says, causing Viktor's eyes to widen in surprise. "He didn't know what Benzo really was like. I doubt many people did."

his mind flashes back to a time in the last drop where Benzo was too drunk and cornered Silco and wouldn't take no for an answer

"At the end of the day, Ekko is just a misguided child looking for someone to blame for his heartache."

Silco can see that Viktor is lost in thought, so much information overloading him a bit. "You know where to find me," Silco finally says, tossing a card with a neon symbol that resembled an eye onto the end table.

Silco is gone before Viktor emerges enough to say "Hm?"

Part 2 Arch + Woods

[ceratedfish24]

OP, thank you. I have been saying this FOREVER. It is so rough to see people blowing Scott’s actions completely out of proportion and never treating Jimmy the same way. Like, if you’re gonna make Scott out to be this horrible person, then you can’t overlook Jimmy’s behavior. Of course, in the original context, they’re both perfectly fine, but, in the fandom context, Jimmy’s been mean or occasionally even downright cruel to Scott. Again, this is fine in the original context, because they’re all just friends teasing each other and we have to trust them to bring it up on their own if they actually have issues. The choice to always view Scott as a lying, selfish, manipulator and Jimmy as an angel is exactly what’s controlling the narrative. If you’re looking at Scott as a liar, which is strange to me because he’s one of the most honest people in the Life Series, then of course you’re going to think that everything he says must be a lie. If you unquestioningly view Jimmy as an angel, then of course you’re going to find justification for everything he does. It’s all about perspective. Scott has always been described by the other Life Series members as one of the kindest people on the server. Even Etho, though he has admittedly gotten a lot more comfortable amongst the Life Series cast, thinks that Scott is amongst the most approachable and trustworthy. If you choose not to believe then, then that’s fine, but you can’t go about saying that “everyone knows that Scott is manipulative” or “Scott is definitely manipulating because” or “everyone hates Scott because”. It is your choice to view Scott as a bad person that stops him from being redeemable to you, despite all of the evidence that he’s a very normal person. You are treating one person like a monster for things that the creators you love most partake in because that’s how the game works. Why are you picking on this one person?

I’ve seen people go as far as to say that Scott is manipulating his audience, but then they proceed to list a bunch of reasons for this belief, all of which are things Scott doesn’t control. For example, the editing of his videos(he doesn’t do his own editing, and, what? Other people’s content has depicted him in an awful way?), MCC participants(Scott doesn’t have control over who of the eligible candidates apply, only who they end up on teams with, and, even then, he doesn’t have enough options to put everyone on the perfect team every time), being in MCC himself and winning often(Scott is a good player. Of course he wins quite a bit. Saying that Scott shouldn’t be in MCC is like saying that Grian shouldn’t be in the Life Series, specifically 3rd Life, which Grian had the most time to think about and ended up winning. That’s the exact same logic people use to argue that Scott shouldn’t participate in MCC.), etc. are all things people have said Scott, the real Scott, is manipulative for. That’s a very serious accusation you’re making of a real person. It could ruin his career. Additionally, it’s an accusation that so many of your favorite creators have avidly debunked. I can’t count how many creators have vouched for Scott’s character and found comfort in his presence.

One of the hardest parts about is that, when I talk to these people about it, many of them have said that they’re associating Scott and Jimmy with stereotypes as opposed to thinking about their actual behavior, which is so devastating to me. Why would you depict someone as pure or evil without thinking about how they actually behave or why? Declaring that Scott is evil when he’s actually completely normal is obviously harmful, but declaring that Jimmy is a saint when he’s actually completely normal is also harmful. If you think that Scott’s actions are horrible, then you have to address that Jimmy is equally guilty. It’s simply not fair otherwise.

I am also a bit surprised that people who make Scott and Jimmy's relationship toxic always make Scott the toxic one.

Like, to be clear, I don't think either of them are toxic. I just made a whole post about how their issues come from them wanting different things, not from one of them being toxic or something.

But fandoms love to stretch and dramatize, I get that. So I get why people make them toxic for fun.

I just don't get why it's always Scott.

Because actually rewatching Third Life from their pov's recently, Jimmy had just as many- if not more- moments where he was dismissive, argumentative, or selfish as Scott did.

Yet when the fandom zooms in on their issues to portray their relationship as toxic, Jimmy is always the victim, the one being manipulated, the one being dismissed and belittled, and Scott is always the mean and controlling one.

And it's just baffling to me. Genuinely. I don't understand why fans who make them toxic always do it by magnifying Scott's perceived wrongdoings and only Scott's perceived wrongdoings. I don't understand why fanon dramatizations always play up (to a frankly ludicrous degree) Scott's flaws when, to be frank, he's never been any worse than Jimmy, and nobody makes Jimmy out to be "toxic".

[sweaterkittensahoy]

About the whole Elon Musk salute thing. I don't get why there's a debate at all. If anyone wanted to confirm the obvious truth the level of investigative journalism it would take would be to go to 4chan's /pol/ board, find the thread where the attention starved little dickweed is posting and stroke his ego about how "based" it was until he confirms it. Why does ANYONE debate this? Are people unaware of this??

From a media standpoint, anyone reporting on it has to be careful about what they call it because if they say it's a Nazi salute without a qualifier, Elon could sue them for defamation and possibly slander or libel. So, they have to use protective phrasing like "appears to be" and "awkward gesture".

In regards to why regular people who can say whatever the fuck they like and not worry about a defamation suit? Let's go back to 15 months of so-called concerned people saying they're totally not antisemites, they're just antizionist. Or they're not antisemites, they just hate genocide (which didn't happen). They're not antisemites, it's just that some Jews are bad. They're not antisemites--you get my point. So either it's totally an 'awkward gesture' and we're all just sensitive, or OMG it WAS a nazi salute and OMG YOU GUYS NAZIS ARE BAD. BECAUSE I'M NOT AN ANTISEMITE IF A GUY I DON'T LIKE IS ONE.

When the Nazis started their long-term plan of eradicating Jews, they painted park benches yellow. Jews could only sit on the yellow park benches. Then, they removed the yellow park benches, so Jews couldn't sit anywhere in the park. Then, they refused to let Jews step into the parks.

And at each step, all those so-called "good Germans" didn't protest. They didn't write their city officials. They didn't walk with their so-called Jewish friends and sit on a bench with them. They didn't do any of it.

We are, for the record, way fucking past that at this point. A Nazi salute on national TV on inauguration day is, if I had to choose a particular moment in Nazi Germany for comparison, up there with Der Stürmer putting up kiosks so people could more easily read their latest Jew Hatred every single week.

And every single person who has downplayed the rise in antisemitism in the last several years but especially in the last 15 months by saying they don't hate Jews, they only hate zionists or they don't have a problem with Jews, they only hate Israel, or so on and so on, is absolutely responsible for our culture reaching a point where a man can stand on national television, give off a Nazi salute twice, and not be immediately shamed into oblivion.