#here's the basics of their history and culture

[bethanydelleman]

A friend shared a Chinese Jane Austen fan fiction novel with me where a Chinese princess wakes up as Mary Bennet and most of the novel so far has been devoted to mocking English cooking and it's hilarious:

For someone from Daxia, a culture with thousands of years of culinary history, where dishes are crafted with meticulous care and refinement, this kind of food was nothing short of horrifying—an unbearable assault on both taste and smell!

This indicated the overall level of culinary expertise here was quite lacking; aside from frying and roasting, there seemed to be no other methods of cooking.

Yesterday’s chicken wings had been overcooked and tough as firewood, and they hadn’t been marinated beforehand, so they lacked flavor. Today’s salad was merely tossed with some oil, nothing more than the pure essence of the ingredients, which had nothing to do with cooking skill. It seemed the English were not poor cooks; rather, their palates were far too easy to please.

Oh no! Now British embroidery is under attack:

Mary was slightly taken aback. She had merely made a few simple alterations to the dress, spending no more than half a day on it. The embroidery she used was basic, with the simplest patterns and stitches, yet to the Bennet sisters, it was breathtaking. Could the standard of embroidery here really be as crude as their cooking skills? Mary felt she had uncovered the truth.

I'm so amused! I am pretty sure Princess Mary will end up with Darcy, but who knows!

It's only translated up to Ch 9, then you can read the raws in Google translate here.

[artist-issues]

So if you believe every biblical word is 100% the word of your god, not to be questioned, only obeyed, regardless of how far humanity develops, how do you manage Ephesians 6:5-9?

Should human trafficking victims simply obey their captors “with a sincere heart” given that they are “servants of Christ” and the Bible urges bond servants to be “faithful and obedient?”

Hell, it promises obedient slaves will be rewarded in Heaven.

To anyone reading, seriously, check the whole verse, the context doesn’t make it better.

If your argument is that all in the Bible is above question, how do you account for that?

Nobody said "not to he questioned, only to he obeyed"—if what you MEAN by "not to be questioned," is "not to be carefully examined in order to get it right." The Bible straight-up says to carefully examine God's words. So don't be disingenuous.

Every Biblical word is 100% the Word of God, yeah. Ephesians 6:1-9 says:

"Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise), so that it may be well with you, and that you may live long in the land. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the integrity of your heart, as to Christ; not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, serving with good will as to the Lord, and not to men, knowing that whatever good thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free. And masters, do the same things to them, giving up threatening, knowing that both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no partiality with Him."

The chapter is talking about Christian-human relationships with other humans. Starts with the most basic human institution—family. Moves on to slaves and masters. Slaves, indentured servants, bond slaves, were all common in the time of the Bible being written. It was not cultural taboo to have people living with and working for you, or even being bought and sold by you—what the Bible is saying here is actually very counter-cultural. Because it means you have to keep treating them as equal humans, not objects or beasts of burden you can beat or mistreat however you want. Which is a low bar in our minds, but was an incredibly high bar back then. It's called "interpretation." You can't just take words written in a specific context and time period, for a specific intent, with a thousands-of-years-older vocabulary and culture, and go "oh, well in my time period and my language that word means this." It's about as dumb as saying the Wizard of Oz is about queer sex purely because of how many times the word "queer" is printed in the book.

Human trafficking victims are not the kind of "slaves" this verse is talking about, and I bet you know it.

In fact, there is too much anti-human-trafficking philosophy in the Bible for even the most ardent atheist to try the same little "discredit the Bible" smear tactic you're trying right now. Anyone who knows anything about history (beyond a mere 185 years ago, that is) and can see concepts beyond the far-West-ideology of "slavery bad" can have a more intelligent discussion than this.

I'm tired of the same old tripe.

Don't you see that God is using the same term, "slaves" to refer to Christians, HIS people, who are also called His "sheep, children, beloved, inheritors, heirs?" In this same verse? So then when the God who invented humanity uses the word "slave" can't you infer that maybe He doesn't mean it with the same baby-level-100 1/2-year-old connotations that you do? If He's using it to refer to the very same people He loves, protects, sacrificed His life for, and goes to unimaginable lengths to bless--then do you really think this verse is talking about people who are categorically worth being treated as less than human?

That doesn't make sense. You can see that it doesn't make sense.

Bottom line: if God said slavery was morally acceptable, guess what? It would be morally acceptable. He invented reality, your brain, and morality. But He didn't say that, so grow up and be serious. Instead, what He said was listed above: no matter your circumstances, be it as a child, father, slave, or master, remember and conduct yourself as if you're all slaves of God, and you're living to please Him, not each other or yourselves.

God condemns "man-stealing" in Exodus 21:16. Deuteronomy 22 condemns rape. The same God wrote 100% of the Bible through several different authors across centuries by the inspiration of the very words with His Spirit. No, this passage of Ephesians does not tell sexually trafficked victims to obey their kidnappers and rapists. And you know it. Got anything else?

[apoptoses]

So I think there's a real world point and also a meta point here that serve as some kind of explanation, and unfortunately (in my opinion) the real world issue holds the greater weight on why Lestat is the way he is.

In America, we (sadly) really don't study French literature. The great American novel forms the backbone of most schooling, and then the British greats, and more recently scattered works by people who belong to minority/oppressed groups in the US. People know basically of the Count of Monte Cristo, the Three Musketeers, and Les Mis. And most of those because they've been made into films or stage shows. French philosophy is a fairly niche category one would only encounter in college, if then, or via encountering someone well versed in it who introduces them to those works.

(French history that's not exclusively Louis XIV, Marie Antoinette, or the French revolution? Forget about it. We don't learn any of that in school, except in brief mentions, and for the hobby historian French history books are pretty much limited to those topics)

For Anne, who grew up Catholic, those works would have been even more narrow. The Catholic Church has a list of 'banned' works which would tempt one into sin, and during her childhood Dumas and the Count of Monte Cristo was actually on it. Her awareness of Roman and Greek history was due, in part, to the fact that those cultures have biblical ties and thus history books about them were okay'd by the Church.

Then on top of that we have her admission that she struggled to read until sometime after college. Why, she doesn't really say, except to say her mind 'wandered' when she was assigned to read in school (which imo points to possible adhd considering she did take adhd medication later in life). And so she struggled with all reading to the point she didn't actually finish reading some of the works required for her master's thesis. Finishing a single book by Dickens, which she did love, took her over a year. Most of her early knowledge of literature came from stories she heard read over the radio or by her parents. And her later knowledge, which she had at the time she was working on iwtv, was that which she was assigned to read in college- which again, was mostly American and British works.

Which makes the blurring of her and Lestat all the more relevant here: Lestat himself does not learn to read until he becomes a vampire, and even then we don't see him mention reading at all until sometime after his return from Paris. At that point he picked up detective novels which, like Anne, he'd first heard read aloud on the radio.

And so like many underprivileged people who learn a skill later in life and then feel shut out by those who'd known it from their youth, I have to wonder if Lestat himself didn't feel some kind of way about reading and literature and eschewed reading for a good while after picking it up. His own mother knew of his desire to read, even read in front of him, but never shared literature with him and didn't push back against his father when he was brought home from the monastery, where he might have learned to read some.

That's a great wound right here and I wouldn't be surprised if for a time he felt derisive of French literature and those who were well read. Lestat was one of those harecatcher lords, aristocratic in blood but not in daily life, an outsider to the group he technically had the right to be a part of. Anyone who grew up like that would be liable to reject those things valued by those who spurned them, or those they feel like they're outside of. I can picture him in iwtv times sneering at Louis for picking up a book by Dumas and refusing to read it himself, though he very well could have, and mocking him for being a backwater intellectual.

(And sure, in iwtv he knows Shakespeare- but was he reading it, or did he pick it up the way he picked up his lines for his own plays? By hearing them over and over again?)

And you're right, him being so admiring of the British doesn't really make sense at all, unless you look at it from the angle that his pop culture awakening came at a time when British was synonymous with cool in the US. And by that time Lestat doesn't really seem to care for France at all (and why should he? He experienced mostly pain during his brief time in that place, much like Armand has little positive memory of Kyiv: it's all overshadowed by his kidnapping and loss of homeland)

So it's funny because despite his past in some ways Lestat is the most American of vampires. He embodies the American ideal of an immigrant who sheds their nationality, takes up the English language, and submerges themselves in American media. And via that Americanness he can be anything but also in some ways be nothing all at once.

I'd love to know what he read after his return to Auvergne and the establishment of the Vampire Court, and if he returned to his 'roots' so to speak. But sadly he's too busy dealing with kidnappings and replimoids for us to hear much about that lol

Armand, Haussmann, and Paris:

The thing about Paris that's not really discussed in the VC books themselves is the Haussmann project.

In 1853 Napoleon III commissioned Haussman to completely renovate Paris. The plan was to tear down all of the old structures and rebuild the city; reorganizing the streets and reshaping them to accommodate more green spaces, and replacing smaller buildings with taller apartment blocks in more uniform style.

The Paris Armand knew when he arrived as the coven master and which he came to know as the theater leader would have looked something like this:

Dark, winding streets leading off wide boulevards and short, leaning buildings.

The Haussman project would see all of these places systematically torn down, occupants removed to other areas of the city while new buildings were put in their place. In some areas workers were destroying and rebuilding things 24 hours a day.

At this time Armand would have been living at the theater on the boulevard du Temple, Paris's street of theaters:

This dagguerotype shows the boulevard in 1838. This painting, in 1862, looks much the same:

But by 1863 all but one theater on the street had been destroyed, and that was only because that theater was on the opposite side of the street shown in the painting. How and why it wasn't pulled down, I don't know- no information on it seems to exist, just like no explanation for the very small handful of other old structures that were left untouched.

That theater, the Théâtre Déjazet, still exists today. But it was established in 1770 by Comte de Artois, so while it could have been Anne's inspiration for Armand's theater it's not the 'rickety wooden rat trap' that seats 300 that Lestat describes in TVL.

Anyways, knowing all of this, I think it makes even more sense why Armand so quickly grabbed onto Louis and was ready to run away with him at any cost.

Armand, who'd been kidnapped from the monks, who'd had his palazzo torn out from under him, who'd established something of an existence under Les Innocents and was then ripped out of that world when the cemetery was destroyed. Who was watching the city he'd finally come to know get systematically torn apart. Everything that was familiar to him was being taken again.

So why not let Louis burn the theater? He arrived in Paris in 1870, just as Haussman was dismissed. But the work of destroying and rebuilding Paris was set to carry on. Chances were the Theatre de Vampires would be next, and if that were the case there's no way the crypts beneath the place would remain safe and undiscovered.

And if he'd stayed where would they go during the renovation? What would they do? What would the point be in continuing trying to run a coven he was bored of and a life he didn't care for in a new location?

Armand was going to have to begin again somewhere- better that be with Louis, out in the world, than roaming a now unfamiliar Paris. And even though he didn't burn the theater himself, allowing/instigating Louis to do it still gave him more control than letting a stranger come in at some unpredictable moment to demolish things all over again.

(And what of Lestat, what does he feel about these changes? He never could have shown Louis the Paris he knew and loved, which existed when Louis was still mortal- that Paris was largely gone)

Chances were Anne might not have known most of this at the time she wrote interview or even TVL. But I think it still makes a lot of sense and brings up a point about Armand and immortality that I don't see brought up much- that not only do vampires lose every mortal they've ever known, but with time they also see the destruction of every place they've ever known or loved.

(ps: I'm not an expert on this topic or anything, so if anyone does know why some buildings were unchanged or has any interesting historical info to add by all means please, reblog and add it on!)

[isa-ah]

the exhausting slog of listening to anecdotal horror stories where rednecks are continually villified even if they dont do anything. "he was just so creepy... one of those fat mullet redneck types" ok and? ok and? and? ok? and the premise of the story is he smiled at you in passing? ok? and? there was one by someone who lived in the same kind of area i grew up but they were very proud to say they were middle class so you can imagine how many digs they took at the broke people around them that are systemically left to rot by the government. wow he only had two teeth? and theyre brown? are you going to step down out of your gold plated horse drawn carriage to pay for this man to go to a dentist? bc he sure as fuck couldnt afford to even if he wanted to. oh that guys fat? hes fat AND he has a mullet? doesnt he know only skinny middle class gen z kids are allowed to have those? what a disgusting perv. dont even get me started on old men who, oh god. wear flannel and have a truck. jesus fucking christ put them down already

[serpentface]

Do psychotropic drugs and/or ritual play a role in any of the blightseed cultures? A pretty broad question, lol

Yeah that’s a very broad question, the answer is about as much as it tends to play roles in real history. Alcohol is pretty ubiquitous (outside of cultures that abstain from intoxicants) and used for a variety of purposes, opioids are commonly used in some parts for pain relief or recreational purposes, stimulants (usually in mild, natural forms) are used to provide extra energy, and hallucinogens are most commonly used as part of a larger religious framework (rather than for recreational purposes). Any more elaborate answer kinda has to be case by case in a certain culture or part of the setting.

I'll just take this as an opportunity to talk about the one established sect that pretty much REVOLVES around psychoactive use. This is the Scholarly Order of the Root, which is a sort of mystery religion + elite community of scholars who currently occupy the Ur-Tree and its forest in the far southern Lowlands (southeast of Imperial Wardin, on the same land mass).

The Ur-Tree is the obligatory Huge Fucking Fantasy Tree (and its surrounding forest). It’s a mass of vegetation about a mile tall and almost as old as Plant Life Itself, its upper branches are primeval plants, which become more modern the nearer they get to the ground (and each 'level' holds tiny ecosystems, some containing descendants of LONG-extinct arthropods/other small animals). Its lowest branches and the surrounding forest are contemporary plant life, and all is connected and protected by an incomparably MASSIVE fungal mycelium network (which is itself a living god).

A lot of the Scholars' more secretive practices revolve around experimentation with substance use with the goal of expanding the Mind and transcending the body to fully connect to the Dreamlands, and they have a supply chain of traders and mercenaries called Rootrunners who traffic substances into the Lowlands. Most of their psychoactive use is in a very intentional capacity and not just like, for fun, but a LOT of them are just straight up addicted to cocaine (in the form of alchemically refined bruljenum, which is used for practical purposes of its stimulant effect during long hours of work).

All known psychoactives are desirable for experimentation (particularly hallucinogens), with each having properties that either allow expansion of the Mind, transcendence of the body, or outright divine communion. Their effects are logged in great detail and interpreted to form the basis of the Scholars' understanding of the natural world and reality itself.

The most important substance is Ur-Root, which is root matter from subterranean levels of the Ur-Tree that have both their own intrinsic psychoactive substances and a very, very high concentration of living god mycelium. The tree root contains DMT and the mycelium has its own wholly unique effects (being an actual living god). They alchemically refine it into a purer, more potent form, and use it to expand beyond the body and directly commune with the Giants, a group of entities they have identified as the only true gods.

An Ur-Root trip starts off with minor visual distortion, which turns into shifting fractals that slowly obscure the vision. Eventually the senses are entirely taken over by a 'tunnel' of rapidly shifting fractals and geometries. In a complete trip, the experiencer gets a sense that they have been pushed through a membrane and entered another realm, finding themselves in a distinct experiential Space.

At this point they may encounter entities which communicate to them in a language impossible to describe but wholly understood. These beings are understood to be the Giants, or at least aspects of the Giants that mortals are capable of comprehending (they often take familiar tutelary forms of the Mantis or the Snake, or appear resembling the same type of sophont that the experiencer is, all composed of ever-shifting geometries). The experiencer often feels a sense of unconditional and endless love from these beings, though the Giants may be more hostile and may appear in the form of the Trickster (usually a cultural figure regarded as malicious, be it an animal or otherwise) in a bad trip.

(^Up until this point, this has mostly just been a DMT 'breakthrough' experience ft. 'machine elves' and the like).

They are then removed from this space and returned to something that feels like the real world, but is nearly unrecognizable. They have a sense of rapidly moving through time, and will usually see 'the spires' towards the beginning, which just so happen to look like this:

(source + some context via Implication- the spires are exactly what this art is depicting)

The experiencer continues to move across an unfathomable amount of time, occasionally 'seeing' other such flashes of unfamiliar landscapes and creatures, and yet also being devoid of all their senses, the 'seeing' is pure, unfiltered experience. There is a sense of interconnectedness with all life, and that one has become the forest (or even Life) itself. The sense of time is wildly distorted, the trip lasts only about 5 minutes but feels like an eternity and is understood as literal hundreds of millions of years.

The experiencer has usually lost any remaining sense of Self and individual consciousness during this phase (in which case this time distortion is usually a neutral or even peaceful experience), but some retain a fraction of their identity, and find themselves trapped and conscious while experiencing what feels like eternity (which can be LIFE-CHANGINGLY distressing, even after the fact).

(^This latter part of the trip is the effects of the Ur-Tree fungus).

The trip ends with a sense of rushing through the ground and back up into one's body, at which point they will abruptly return to their senses and consciousness. The details are then immediately retrieved via interview and recorded in immense detail. The whole experience is understood as having been full comprehension of the Dreamlands, communion with the Giants, and then a tour through the act of creation.

This is done as part of the initiatory practice into the inner mystery-religion of the scholars, and as needed for study by high scholar-priests. It is not taken lightly, both as it is absolute communion with the gods and reality, and in that it can be a very, very difficult experience. People who have gone through this often walk away with a permanently shifted perspective, often in a positive and/or comforting way- a sense of interconnectedness with all life, a peace with the concept of death, seeing less of a point in individual ego and the concept of Self, and comfort in the sense of divine love they (may have) experienced. This heavily influences the philosophy of the Scholars and has had effects by proxy in the religious worldviews of the region.

Details of this experience are closely guarded, and initiates are given absolutely no prior knowledge and expectations for their trip. This is seen as a necessity- their naivety will allow for a true, unfiltered experience, and can be used to gauge whether they should or should not be accepted. Those that have a distinctly bad trip upon initiation may be assumed to have been 'rejected' by the giants and thus denied full priesthood, though this largely depends on How they interpret their distressing trip- those who identify this as a test and harsh lesson in a journey to enlightenment may be accepted (as this is how fully initiated scholar-priests interpret and handle their bad trips).

This inner priesthood is only a small fraction of the Scholarly Order, and its greater function is as a hub of education and repository of knowledge, and Scholar-trained doctors can provide some of the best medical care available in the setting ('best medical care in this setting' only means so much but it's pretty solid, relatively speaking). Only a chosen few Scholars ever get to commune with the Ur-Root, and most of the divine secrets revealed in the process are kept hidden (though they indirectly influence the politics and worldview of the entire order).

[cator99]

I always get detained at da border because PROFUNC never ended but basically I'm like if a targeted individual didn't even care

[icewindandboringhorror]

Recent game related things .. hrmm...

[specialmouse]

lgbt people need to stop thinking in terms of black and white and by that i mean stop thinking our oppression as directly analogous to the oppression of black people by white people it's not the same !

[kn11ves]

>find poc creator talking about issues regarding their comminity

>not part of it but find it interesting topic so watch lots of their videos about it and trends

>find her personality to be good and her stances fair and respectful

>put channel to oldest content to put interesting videos in a watch later

"THE TRANSES ARE INDOCTRINATING YOUR CHILDREN" "TIRED OF RESPECTING PRONOUNS" "TRIGGERED FEMINISTS" "PARENTS OF TRANS KIDS HAVE NO BACKBONES" "WOMEN WANT TO BE TRADWIFES"

>

[tariah23]

I hope that white gay couple who adopted that adorable little black child goes to hell so fast ohhhhh

[wurdulac]

i loved playing roadwarden...

[the-random-internaut]

Yo guys its flowerpot day here in colombia that's so cool :DDDDDD

apparently it's to celebrate the contributions of the ceramist trade to the history and heritage of the country that's so cool :DDDD

[unproduciblesmackdown]

also workshopping corbin bleu will roland (cheri steinkellner) selfie humorous caption like uhh when your circle small but yall [your musicals roles as a couple high schoolers had an incredible impact on [gay people: pointing] despite this Perhaps not being intended by the writing but like let's talk to the directors you know?]

[littlestickfish]

Pope Francis removed him for being ridiculously and virulently hateful toward the LGBT and other minority communities, going so far as to say they don't belong in the Church--the Church Pope Francis is currently endeavoring to make safer and more welcoming to these folks.

The misleading part has nothing to do with whether or not it's legal by secular standards. The misleading part is the implication that this was some sort of arbitrary and unreasonable move instead of a rogue bishop who preached hate facing consequences for his actions.

The man was a menace, and this level of disciplinary action is the least he deserves.

im fucking sobbing why did they kill him twice in a row in the community notes

[literaryvein-references]

Writing Notes & References

Alchemy ⚜ Antidote to Anxiety ⚜ Attachment ⚜ Autopsy

Art: Elements ⚜ Principles ⚜ Photographs ⚜ Watercolour

Bruises ⚜ Caffeine ⚜ Color Blindness ⚜ Cruise Ships

Children ⚜ Children's Dialogue ⚜ Childhood Bilingualism

Dangerousness ⚜ Drowning ⚜ Dystopia ⚜ Dystopian World

Culture ⚜ Culture Shock ⚜ Ethnocentrism & Cultural Relativism

Emotions: Anger ⚜ Fear ⚜ Happiness ⚜ Sadness

Emotional Intelligence ⚜ Genius (Giftedness) ⚜ Quirks

Facial Expressions ⚜ Laughter & Humour ⚜ Swearing & Taboo

Fantasy Creatures ⚜ Fantasy World Building

Generations ⚜ Literary & Character Tropes

Fight Scenes ⚜ Kill Adverbs

Food: Cooking Basics ⚜ Herbs & Spices ⚜ Sauces ⚜ Wine-tasting ⚜ Aphrodisiacs ⚜ List of Aphrodisiacs ⚜ Food History ⚜ Cocktails ⚜ Literary & Hollywood Cocktails ⚜ Liqueurs

Genre: Crime ⚜ Horror ⚜ Fantasy ⚜ Speculative Biology

Hate ⚜ Love ⚜ Kinds of Love ⚜ The Physiology of Love

How to Write: Food ⚜ Colours ⚜ Drunkenness

Jargon ⚜ Logical Fallacies ⚜ Memory ⚜ Memoir

Magic: Magic System ⚜ 10 Uncommon ⚜ How to Choose

Moon: Part 1 2 ⚜ Related Words

Mystical Items & Objects ⚜ Talisman ⚜ Relics ⚜ Poison

Pain ⚜ Pain & Violence ⚜ Poison Ivy & Poison Oak

Realistic Injuries 1 2 ⚜ Rejection ⚜ Structural Issues ⚜ Villains

Symbolism: Colors ⚜ Food ⚜ Numbers ⚜ Storms

Thinking ⚜ Thinking Styles ⚜ Thought Distortions

Terms of Endearment ⚜ Ways of Saying "No" ⚜ Yoga

Compilations: Plot ⚜ Character ⚜ Worldbuilding ⚜ For Poets ⚜ Tips & Advice

all posts are queued. will update this every few weeks/months. send questions or requests here ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

[homunculus-argument]

Honestly, "high art" of any kind isn't really any more or less incomprehensible or unapproachable than Tumblr meme culture. It's basically the same kind of thing, really, but with a longer time span and more reading to catch up to - things making references to things that were a thing earlier, and everyone kind of supposes that everyone who sees the work also has some background knowledge of the previous work being referred. Just imagine an art history teacher breaking down a tumblr post like

"...And here we see the next poster replying with this image. Here, this image of a statue has a very exact symbolic meaning. The figure of the statue is the Greek god Apollo, here in his role as a prophetic deity, which you may have concluded from the original post referring to future events that may or may not come to pass. In his hand, he is holding a dodgeball, raised on the level of his head, as if ready to throw it. The threatening aura of the image is multiplied by the way the statue's eyes have been edited to gleam omniously - the poster replying to the Original Post is expressing a symbolic, indirect threat, that the future that the Original Post's author described might come to pass, as if the patron deity of oracles had personally cursed the Original Poster to a fleeting gift of prophecy, as swift and brutal as being slammed with a dodgeball."

[scrolling down powerpoint presentation]

"...The second reply, here, has an image of a smiling woman wearing a helmet, standing in a row of people in similar uniforms. This reply requires some slightly deeper konwledge of Tumblr meme lore to understand - the image is a fragmet of a larger whole: a single frame of a gif, of a clip from the movie Starship Troopers. What is important here is the omitted context, which is the line that this nameless character famously says in the scene: 'I'm doing my part!' By posting this image, instead of the entire captioned gif, the replier highlights the implied obvious meaning behind it: They are not merely announcing their intention to actively work to see that the future that the Original Poster foresaw will come to pass, but wordlessly taunt them by implying 'you already know what I mean to do.' It is - in joking - a threat."

"And as you see here, the Original Poster has replied to these comments with a gif, which depicts an encounter between two robotic arms. The swift and dynamic action of the gif serves to express the OP's emotions, as the first robot represents the author themselves, and the second one is a stand-in for the two previous repliers. The way the first robot arm grabs the second one and starts beating it against the floor represents the author's anger. As surrogates for the two parties engaged in the conversation, the author is expressing their personal desire to grab the two previous posters and violently beat them against the floor."