#i am mean and a hater i am aware

[inkskinned]

this is just my opinion but i think any good media needs obsession behind it. it needs passion, the kind of passion that's no longer "gentle scented candle" and is now "oh shit the house caught on fire". it needs a creator that's biting the floorboards and gnawing the story off their skin. creators are supposed to be wild animals. they are supposed to want to tell a story with the ferocity of eating a good stone fruit while standing over the sink. the same protective, strange instinct as being 7 and making mud potions in pink teacups: you gotta get weird with it.

good media needs unhinged, googling-at-midnight kind of energy. it needs "what kind of seams are invented on this planet" energy and "im just gonna trust the audience to roll with me about this" energy. it needs one person (at least) screaming into the void with so much drive and energy that it forces the story to be real.

sometimes people are baffled when fanfic has some stunning jaw-dropping tattoo-it-on-you lines. and i'm like - well, i don't go here, but that makes sense to me. of fucking course people who have this amount of passion are going to create something good. they moved from a place of genuine love and enjoyment.

so yeah, duh! saturday cartoons have banger lines. random street art is sometimes the most precious heart-wrenching shit you've ever seen. someone singing on tiktok ends up creating your next favorite song. youtubers are giving us 5 hours of carefully researched content. all of this is the impossible equation to latestage capitalism. like, you can't force something to be good. AI cannot make it good. no amount of focus-group testing or market research. what makes a story worth listening to is that someone cares so much about telling it - through dance, art, music, whatever it takes - that they are just a little unhinged about it.

one time my friend told me he stayed up all night researching how many ways there are to peel an orange. he wrote me a poem that made me cry on public transportation. the love came through it like pith, you know? the words all came apart in my hands. it tasted like breakfast.

[woolydemon]

my hobby is looking up character playlists and judging them btw

[fogwitchoftheevermore]

evolution smp 🤝 comics

having a pretty large backlog of content that many people are unwilling to consume before getting into the fandom so they make art/fic/posts from a “solely read fanfiction and not consumed the media itself” space and it results in beliefs about the world/characters/lore that are extremely divorced from the series itself overtaking the fan space.

[ctl-yuejie]

[eggmeralda]

is it weird to go through the tags of people you completely disagree with. out of curiosity

[rimeiii]

I know I just made a post about the complaints but what do you fucking mean the new rateup gacha is paywalled. I know PB is new to this sort of gacha game but at this point, I really do think they need to do some more research and look at how other gachas manage their own rateup gachas as well as their game balancing, because this is getting fucking ridiculous.

Several issues I have with this:

(Rant post again, feel free to skip over. I'm tired at this point.)

It's giving Pokemon Unite new character being paywalled vibes. And people complained HARD about Unite because new characters are often busted while shifting the meta greatly, which is like. Really Fucking Bad for Ranked!!! You can make the argument that WHB is a PvE game but still, not a wise decision when PvE meta and viability can change over time. Look at how, in Arknights, the standard DP generator combo became the Flagpipe combo the moment Bagpipe was released, or how people started using GoldenGlow over Eyjafjalla for her global range. You can clear stages with other units, it just becomes much more complicated. And this game's current meta for easy clears is L-rank skill spam, so if this trend keeps up...

The amount of communication regarding patch notes is atrociously low. Early on, there were some ninja patches without any prior notice as to what they're for - the last time I've seen this happen is on Brave Frontier (which is where we used this term most anyways), and they've stopped doing sudden patch fixes without any announcements after their servers have mostly stabilized (which was around Zevalhua or Alfa Dilith arc iirc, this was nearly a decade ago). Even GBF announces major patch notes like the raid instakill after Belial raid implementation exploit, only doing stealth fixes for things like fixing skill descriptions (and EVEN THEN they still announce what they fixed). Some days after launch I've tapped into WHB only to be greeted by a ~400 mb size patch, which is really fucking draining on standard shit SEA net, and often with no discernible reason behind the update at all. Which often leaves me wondering, what the fuck were they fixing to warrant such a huge patch - especially when there wasn't any obvious difference between patches?

Related to the above, one of the things that I feel pissed players off about this current banner is the fact that there was no indication that it was going to be a paid gacha. The prior announcement only mentioned the usage of Solomon's Seals, which people naturally assumed could be purchased using Guilty Gems. Having separate gacha materials for a time limited banner would make sense to most seasoned gacha players - this system is used in many CN games like Honkai Star Rail and Arknights to differentiate between banners. In HSR it's to differentiate between permanent items (Regular Warp) and new/limited items (Event Warp), while in AK it's to differentiate between older units (Kernel Headhunt, up until Suzuran's banner) and newer units (all other Headhunts, including Limited Headhunts). In both of these cases, you could use each game's respective Guilty Gem equivalent (Stellar Jade for HSR, Orundum for AK) to grab these gacha items. Which, again, is not the case in this new banner.

Another thing that pissed players off is the monetization. Now, me and a friend have both voiced out our gripes with this game in our GBF crew server, and it's mostly related to the gacha rates and scarcity of resources. Solomon's Tears, Greater Key and Lesser Key rates, how little Guilty Gems we get? All discussed by us. It got to a point non-players end up getting interested to listen to what we have to say about this game. And recently, after finding out just how expensive the Solomon's Seals packs are (if they're really $30, then they're the same price as a GBF Suptix for a 10-pull, and a Suptix is a 10-pull PLUS a unit of your choice from a given pool of units), it got to a point where we're just not surprised. It's insane how much we've grown tired of the constant bad decisions.

Even though I'm against harassing the devs, it's decisions like these that are VERY worthy of criticism imo, and very understandable for it to be the reason why one might choose to drop the game. I understand that you need money, but the monetization practices and gacha mechanics being introduced are not F2P friendly. In fact, I doubt they're friendly for dolphins, either - only whales and leviathans can reasonably benefit from them. And I've talked extensively about the game design choices that confuse me at best and piss me off at worst. Me personally, I've definitely reached my limit on leniency for the devs, and I've been lenient on other games as well, notably Limbus Company. Look, as much as Project Moon fucked up with how they handled the Vellmori situation, LCB also had a very rocky launch with worse stability issues than WHB (I nearly couldn't beat Kromer bc of them), but I still stuck by it because it was F2P-friendly, had a super engaging world and characters paired with a superb story, and the devs were communicative about everything (roadmap and emergency updates included). It got to a point I was about to willingly drop money for the paid battlepass if Gregor had a paid EGO reward (AEDD Gregor ended up being free but I bought some Google Play credit just in case - which was diverted to Muse Dash in the end) if not for the controversy. The monetization and paid gacha being the rate-up in WHB is definitely the straw that broke the camel's back for me.

As for what I'm going to do with my WHB account? The fan server I'm in was compiling the bugs they've found as well as other concerns regarding the gameplay and gacha mechanics in particular, to send an email to the devs. I might help around with these efforts if still required and see if there are any positive changes (especially in terms of monetization). I've stopped playing regularly for now, and I feel like this is a game I'm likely to drop in the future. Which is a shame, because while I find the premise interesting, to me it isn't enough to justify the shoddy game experience. Especially when I have other games on my plate - chapter 12 H stages are coming in AK, and Lone Trail is next week btw!

I'll just vicariously enjoy the plot through other people's playthroughs, mostly because that's what interested me about this game in the first place. I'm sorry, I just can't force myself to play the damn game at this point.

[torgawl]

unpopular opinion but a ship being queer coded doesn't make it compelling

[trashbatistrash]

,

[forever-rogue]

I don’t know if your still taking request about Miguel but im going to shoot my shot 🕷️🕸️

What about a request where after arguing with the reader (hater to lovers) and he falls into a small crack of the universe and gets a glimpses of married life with her and them having kids. Then he realizes he doesn’t hate her🥲

Totally okay if you don’t want to write it 😊😊

AN | Miguel really is just a big old softie at heart! I hope you enjoy 🥰

Warnings | Language

Pairing | Miguel x Fem!Reader

Word Count | 2.5k

Masterlist | Main, Spider-Man

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

“Yeah?” you tried to glare at Miguel with as much venom as possible. Judging from the unimpressed look on his face you realized your words probably didn’t land how you wanted them to, “well…well you’re big and stupid! And ugly.”

You heard a snicker from behind you and quickly turned to glare at Peter. He straightened up and cleared his throat immediately. The corner of his mouth ticked up in a smirk as you sighed internally, “that’s the best you could do?”

“I, I…umm…”

“No matter how convincing your words or points are, I’m not changing my mind,” he pushed past you, not even bothering to look you in the face. The rest of the spiders all parted for him, already whispering among themselves, “you’re off any missions from here on out.”

“I hate you!” you shouted at his retreating back, trying to swallow down the tears that threatened to well up and pour down your cheeks.

“I know you do,” of course he heard. Curse the super hearing, “I hate you too.”

You scoffed and turned on your heel, storming off to go anywhere but here. You hated Miguel, you hated his stupid face and his stupid rules and everything about. 

Well, that’s what you were trying to convince yourself of anyway. But you knew, deep down, that it wasn’t true. You didn’t truly hate him. You didn’t think you were capable of doing that. 

“Do none of you have anything better to do?!” you shouted loudly, waving your hand around as you stormed out to go…anywhere but there. You just knew that Peter and Miles were following after you, accompanied by some small coos from Mayday. 

Only once you were back out in the fresh air, which currently did little to help your nerves, did you turn around to face your friends. You held up with your hands and shrugged at them, “well? Say what’s on your mind then.”

“That was…a lot,” Miles scratched the back of his neck awkwardly as he looked at Peter, “what happened?”

“Is this about what happened in-”

“Yes,” you hung your head with a heavy groan, “this is about Shanghai. Somehow it is all my fault and that means I cannot ever do anything again.”

“But it was…everyone’s fault,” the boys exchanged a look as Mayday made a small sound of confusion, “not just yours.”

“I’m well aware of that…I thought everyone was aware of that, but for some reason Miguel is not,” you scoffed at the sheer thought of him, “he has this like personal vendetta against me and I have no clue why. But I am so tired of it. Maybe he’s right though, maybe I’m not cut out for this.”

“You’re not seriously considering leaving?” Miles’ entire face dropped as you shrugged, “I’m sure he’ll be over it soon.”

“Even so…maybe it’s time I don’t do this anymore,” you waved your hand around, “maybe it’s time I’m not some sort of fool with a weird radioactive spider bit doing vigilante shit.”

“But…but-” Peter had no clue how to follow that up - he’s been through those exact thoughts several times before, “you can’t just leave.”

“I dunno Peter,” you whispered, “it’s a lot to think about. But for now I’ve gotta go. I’ll see you guys later, okay?”

“Promise you won’t leave leave without saying goodbye?” you’d miss these two most of all if you did leave. But you had your own decisions to make.

“Swear on it,” that much at least was a promise. 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Miguel stopped dead in his tracks as he looked across the park. Part of him was sure that his eyes were playing tricks on him, but no - this was a reality that was simply different from his own. Anything could happen…and apparently anything did happen. 

Because there you were, crouched down and talking to a small boy that was staring back excitedly with a big smile on face. You reached out and ruffled his dark hair before he ran off again, running towards the jungle gym. You straightened back up and shook your head fondly. But then - then - the real surprise came…in the form of himself. 

Alternate universe Miguel walked up to you and threw an arm around your shoulders as you shook on your tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his cheek. No fucking way. His breath hitched in his throat as he continued to watch the two of you, attempting to process what in the actual hell was happening. That’s when he noticed the bands on both of your fingers and the fact that the small boy you had been talking to looked suspiciously like a combination of both of you.

“No way,” the actual Miguel ran his hands through his hair in exasperation, “there’s no way.”

But…this was a different reality and he knew, maybe better than anybody, that anything was possible. He hung his head and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose; he was here for a reason, for a job, and he couldn’t let himself get distracted, and potentially ruin any canon events. He could feel the pull of curiosity getting the better of him; this was definitely not a reality that was any of his bingo cards. 

Really though, it should have been. Just because you believed he was an asshole, and let’s be honest he was, didn’t mean that he didn’t care about you. He probably cared too much  if he was being honest, which had led to him being overprotective of you and then…led to the current situation at hand. But you had fallen into the belief that he hated you and then you started to hate him and…yeah. Things were a mess essentially, but he could at least rest easier knowing that you were safe. 

He was going to turn around and complete what he was supposed to, really he was, but Miguel also knew that if you fell out of his view he’d probably never mind you again. And he had to know the current state of affairs between the two of you was. 

With a heavy huff, he camouflaged himself and hopped into a tree closer to the two of you. It wasn’t spying or anything…it was just gathering some intel. Sure, yeah, that’s what he was going to go with.

“Did you get everything for dinner, amor?” you raised an eyebrow and looked at him curiously (he’d been on the receiving end of that look so many times), “and don’t even bother lying to me.”

“Of course I did,” Miguel knew that he was lying. He knew himself well enough.

“Miguel,” you huffed and he groaned lightly, “you didn’t get anything yet, did you?”

“I haven’t gotten anything,” he admitted and Miguel couldn’t help but laugh at himself, “I’m sorry, amor! I got so busy and I had Diego and…yeah.”

“Yeah?” your hands settled on your waist as you sighed heavily, but with nothing short of fondness. You reached over and patted his cheek gently, “how about I take Diego and then you can go to the store? The big dinner is tomorrow and we need to get started on everything tonight. Think you can handle that, big guy?”

Actual Miguel couldn’t help but laugh at this version; he was whipped for you. The real, or whatever you wanted to call him, wasn’t quite ready to fully admit that just yet. But deep down inside he knew it was true. 

“Okay,” he leaned over and kissed you softly, “whatever you want, sweetheart.”

“Smart man,” you beamed at him and he wrapped his arms around your shoulder.

Miguel was watching with wide, curious eyes as the whole thing unwrapped. Eventually the two of you left, the small boy - who he assumed was named Diego - in tow. He wanted to keep following you but he knew that wouldn’t be productive in any sense. Instead he was just feeling all sorts of things.

He was so intent on wanting to learn every little bit of your life in the short time he had; he didn’t even hear Miles pop up behind him. 

“What are you doing?” Miguel startled so harshly that he almost fell out of the tree. Instead, he narrowed his eyes and glared at the young spider, “everything alright here?”

“What are you…why - nevermind,” Miguel knew better than to question what Miles was doing there, “don’t sneak up on people like that, Miles.”

“Sorry,” the boy didn’t sound sorry at all, “you’ve been gone for a while and this seemed pretty simple so I wanted to make sure that nothing had gone wrong.”

“It’s fine,” Miguel hissed and looked around surreptitiously to make sure you and this Miguel had disappeared from view, “I just got a little…distracted.”

“Distracted?” Miles repeated. That was odd…Miguel was always all business and no play. Something was definitely going on, “are you sure you’re alright?”

When Miguel didn’t respond Miles looked around to see what could have gotten the man so distracted. He didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary and wasn’t able to draw any meaningful conclusions. Miguel turned to the younger boy with reddened cheeks and wild eyes, “yes. Now go back and focus on your jobs. I’ll be back soon.”

“If you’re-”

“Positive,” Miguel narrowed his eyes in a glare, “just let me do my work.”

“Okay…” Miles didn’t want to go, but Miguel already seemed annoyed and he wasn’t going to push the issue, “see you later.”

“Goodbye Miles,” he watched him pointedly until Miles left again. Once the boy was gone, he groaned loudly and smacked his head against the tree. 

The worst part of all was that Miguel had now lost track of you. He huffed heavily…it looked like his personal espionage quest was finished for now. 

Even if he never saw you again, at least he would always have this memory of you. 

He just hoped that the you back in your world was willing to talk to him, despite how awful he had been. 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

“What are you doing here?” your entire face fell as you looked at Miguel standing on your doorstep. You sighed heavily, and without waiting for an answer, started to close the door, but Miguel stopped you by lodging his foot in the door, “Miguel.”

“Don’t go,” he barked out, surprising both of you. His face warmed up as you opened and closed your mouth a few times. Your frown quickly returned and you crossed your arms over his chest, “I mean don’t…please don’t leave the team.”

“Give me one good reason,” you waited for an answer, but instead you were met with silence. You could tell that he was struggling with trying to say something but still you didn’t receive an answer. Scoffing, you tried to push him, “exactly. You don’t need me. Goodbye.”

“I don’t want you to go!” that caused you to stop in your tracks as your mouth dropped open. Miguel groaned, scrubbing a hand over his face at the sudden and seemingly unexpected confession. He waited for you to yell at him or something - anything. But instead you studied him intently. 

“Say it again,” your voice was less confident than you’d intended. You cringed internally but the expression on Miguel’s face made you feel slightly less awkward, “please?”

“I don’t want you to go,” he repeated softly, a small little half smile pulling up the corners of his mouth, “I’m an idiot.”

“Yeah,” you agreed with a nervous laugh, “you are Miguel.”

“And I’m sorry,” you hadn’t been expecting his first confession, and you definitely hadn’t been expecting an apology. Maybe you’d fallen into the wrong universe without knowing it, “so…yeah.”

“Are you going to kiss me or…?” you knew there was still a lot to go over but right now you really wanted this. You’d both been dancing around this for far too long. 

His hands found your face and he kissed you without hesitation. Apparently that was all he needed in order to finally make his move. It was almost embarrassing how often he thought about and wanted this. You hesitated for a moment before kissing him back and jumping into his arms, eager to have him all over you. 

He kissed like he did everything else - with purpose and his whole heart in it. It didn’t even phase you that you were making out in the middle of the hallway of your apartment building. Neither of you pulled apart until you were desperate for a breath of air. 

Miguel set you back down and the two of you exchanged shy, but happy smiles. He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, unsure of what exactly to say. He hadn’t thought this far - he definitely hadn’t thought he’d get to this point. 

“What changed your mind?” you asked quietly and his eyes widened in surprise at your question. Not that it was a weird question. 

“I’m not sure you’d believe it,” you couldn’t help but laugh at that before gesturing around and between yourselves.

“Miguel,” you dropped your voice so only the two of you could hear, “we have spider abilities and can travel between different universes. What could possibly that’s so crazy and I wouldn’t believe it?”

“You sure you want to hear it?”

“Duh.”

“That job I went on,” you huffed slightly because it was that very job that he’d forbidden you from going on, “I saw something.”

“Let me guess,” you had to hold back your giggles as you figured out exactly where this was going, “you found us and we happened to be married. Maybe with a kid?”

“H-how did you know?!”

“Because,” you opened the door and gestured for him to follow you inside, “in almost every universe I’ve gone to where we’re there we’ve been…together.”

“Oh,” his cheeks turned red as closed the door and leaned against it, “oh.”

“Oh,” you teased in return, “I wondered if you’d ever notice. You know what that means, right?”

“What does it mean?”

“I think it means you should kiss me,” there was a coquettish look on your face as he swallowed thickly, “unless you don’t want to?”

“I want to,” he stepped closer to you as you smiled up at him, “I really want to.”

“So do it.”

[nthspecialll]

"Oh, but Arthur needs to rest"

I am a big hater of this saying just as much as the next person, however there is one thing that I always think about when hearing it, and when in general hearing Dutch talk about Arthur's sickness, and that is the fact that he might not have known that Arthur was dying.

Without a doubt Dutch knew that Arthur was sick, but if he knew that Arthur was dying, I am not entirely sure. This is the late 1800, sicknesses were as common as rats, meaning they were everywhere at all times. People are always sick, people are always coughing, being pale, throwing up and heavy in breath, it was not something that was uncommon. Take Hosea, who is well aware that he is sick, who is coughing constantly and have people comment on it just like Arthur has in chapter six, they are both sick, however they are both still working.

At that time, being sick was not an excuse to rest, especially in a gang where you don't have a lot of flexiblity when it comes to your income, you need it consistantly, especially from your highest earner, Arthur.

Even if you were deadly sick, the idea that you should just rest for however many months it would take for you to die, would not work in the gang setting. Again, Arthur is the highest earner and at this point in time, the idea of one person's individual happiness and comfort over the group's comfort didn't really exist. Even if you were sick, you would be expected to work, either because you couldn't affort to rest or because you were needed at work for the labour.

So yes, while it is absolutely a heartbreaking sentence to hear as someone who knows that Arthur is actively dying, it might not have been meant as "roughly" by Dutch who has the benifit of doubt. Would it make it better that Dutch is yelling at a man who is sick even if he isn't dying? Not entirely, but it does put more prespective to it.

[loquora]

I'd like to take a couple of minutes to talk about NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writers Month) and their terrible, very bad, no good stance on genAI (generative artificial intelligence) and why I won't be writing anything for this challenge again.

I'm very aware that I am an active and vocal genAI hater. But I am willing and open to hear about positive and useful things LLMs (large language models) can do. There are valid scientific uses for the technology and some really fascinating medical and academic breakthroughs that come from LLMs. But the use of genAI in creative writing context is complete bullshit.

Come with me for the breakdown.

The first part of their statement:

NaNoWriMo has made it clear they are not just tolerating genAI in their month long writing challenge, but that those of us who don't are 'classist' and 'ableist' because we don't.

The post was later amended with a list of reasons why they make each of those claims. We'll start from the top.

GenAI uses the technology in a way that is morally, ethically and environmentally bankrupt. See, all LLMs have to train on something. When you're using it to, say, detect cancers you can feed it images of cancer scans so that it builds up a dataset of what those look like to predict future scans. But when you want to generate text, images and video you have to feed it text, images and video. Those things came from people, actual people and actual artists who overwhelmingly did not agree to train anything with their work and can no longer wrest their work from the machine now that it's been stolen from them.

It also isn't 'intelligent' at all, considering it has that word in the name. Think of genAI like an alien learning our language with absolutely no frame of reference for what it's learning. It can predict that the letters "w-e" and "c-a-n" often come after the letters "y-e-s" because the phrase "yes we can" will come up often in training data, it's a common phrase. But it doesn't actually understand what any of those words MEAN. Just that they often follow one another so that when prompted it will, statistically, try put those letters and words together again.

So when it comes to actually writing or responding to prompts what you're getting is the most likely outcome based on a massive amount of data input. It is not actually giving you feedback on what your writing looks like, it's giving you the most statistically possible response based on input. It's fake feedback, a thousand other feedbacks crammed together and extruded into a goo that looks and sounds like feedback but is actually meaningless. ChatGPT doesn't understand your writing sample anymore than a phone tree understands your anger and desperation when you continue to say "OPERATOR" as clearly as you can to try to get through to a real human. Both understand you input a word and will output based on that, but context, emotions, cultural mores etc. are all beyond it.

This is why AI is so absurdly shitty at things like math, counting letters in words and identifying words that start with the same letter. It's mashing together a million math problem answers betting on the likelihood that statistically someone has already answered that question enough times in the training data that it can spit the correct answer out at you.

TLDR: If you're using genAI to get feedback on your writing you're not actually getting feedback on your writing at all, but the most statistically probable set of words that relate to feedback. So right off the bat the idea that genAI is going to help you be a better writer is just flat wrong. It doesn't know how to write, it doesn't even know how many Rs are in the word 'strawberry'.

Second point has the same issues as the first:

I actually agree with them on the point that if your brain doesn't handle certain writer activities well it's perfectly okay to use an outside source for help with it. GenAI isn't actually helping you be a better writer, though; it can't. It doesn't understand anything you write nor can it provide meaningful feedback when it's just spitting out statistically probably words to you based on your input. So while the point here is actually good on the surface, the solution of using genAI to help people who have trouble with certain aspects of writing is still not correct.

The final point:

Again, this is a very good point... if it wasn't being made in conjunction with a defense of generative AI WHICH DOES NOT HELP OR SOLVE THIS ISSUE. In fact, because of the known issues of bias in how genAI LLMs are built they can make issues for marginalized writers worse.

I genuinely have no idea how this very true paragraph about people who are routinely pushed out of traditional writing spaces is helped by genAI. Their entire point thus far seems to be that genAI is a 'cheap' alternative to some traditional writing aids but considering genAI doesn't work like that it's all dead in the water as far as I'm concerned.

If NaNoWriMo was actually concerned with solving these access issues to things they consider critical to writing in general, why not offer a place for real people to read and critique one another on their platform? There are myriad other technological solutions that don't cost huge amounts of water AND actually help aspiring writers!

All of this to say that you should write for yourself, write what you enjoy and get better the same way generations of people before you have: by reading other people's work, talking to and exchanging time with other authors and writing and rewriting in your own words until you're satisfied.

Wasting water asking genAI to do things for you that would make you a better writer to do yourself or with trusted allies is just that, a waste.

[kremlin]

i actually do know who needs to hear this, it’s most people, in fact, it’s likely you, statistically; we are entering the american election campaign season, and there are caveats i’d like you to be aware of, and to that effect, i am cashing in on my many years of demonstrated knowledge about The Computer.

you indeed cannot trust what you read on the internet. someone will, indeed, go on here and tell lies. this is no shocker to you, you know this, i know this, i know you know this, but i insist you think about it.

you must know my beliefs regarding conspiracy theories fall far, far to one side of the spectrum: i do not believe them. i dismiss them out of hand on principle. axiomatically. and i am here today to tell you the concept, existence, execution, and proximity of paid, phony, engagement-manipulated, political advertisement is not only real, it is the status quo.

would you describe yourself to others as:

A.) smarter than than they think you are

or

B.) not as dumb as they think you are

if you responded with option A, you are more than likely to be greatly more susceptible to these underhanded messages than you think. option B respondent’s outlook is brighter, only relatively. to restate this in a more digestible way, there are two wolves inside you, one takes top-voted comments to reddit posts on face value. the other, takes top-voted comments to reddit posts on face value. you take top-voted comments to reddit posts on face value.

those responsible for such comments are effective in their endeavors, because they think about it. they do not approach their work mystically nor inefficiently. they know what to say to you, because they know what language you speak.

a thoughtless individual would read one of the only proper noun phrases in this post, “american election season”, and limit their perspective to exactly two possible entities to watch out for. this individual has, with a pep in their step and a whistle on their lips, stepped directly on a land mine. maybe this individual was you, if so, don’t sweat it, allow me to yank you away at the last moment by your shirt collar. there's tertiary actors at play, and possibly even more, if only we could invent a word that mean's "the fourth thing" and so on

a very large, very easily guessable country has, for some time now, engaged in organized astroturfing or misinformation or disinformation or whatever-you-want-to-call-it campaigns, to great effect, with their angle being to flood the airwaves with so much conflicting information that you, the individual, feel hopeless, and lose your confidence in discerning truth from fiction.

i use this example not because that country or my country or this election or whatever is a key component here, they're not, this applies to everyone using the internet socially, and if you don't think there are disingenuous actors' words appearing on your computer screen at some regular rate, you're also stepping on a landmine.

you just have to think about things, and maybe, from time to time, turn on an electric stove and put your finger on it to remind yourself that there is indeed a very real, objective reality we live in, and that if you find yourself asking, "how can we see if our eyes aren't real", someone has put rats in your head

it goes beyond just politics though, hell, i would describe all of modern marketing to use essentially these same tricks. don't fall for them! my technique is to just approach any written text found online, most especially "comments", with the same utter hater energy as salieri in amadeus.

and hey, while you're at it, pass this thinking along to kids, they're kind-of the first generation that has to deal with an internet that is mostly ingenuine meaningless bullshit, not like we had it, when it was mostly genuine meaningless bullshit.

[lacrimosathedark]

I need to know what the fuck is wrong with Radioapple Haters.

I don't mean the people who just don't like the ship, I presume most of them are fine. I mean Haters.

I mean the people who hate it vehemently enough that they attack the creator for advertising duo art.

Apparently (correction: a member of the social media team on Viv's account) posted the new signed Alastor and Lucifer poster on Youtube, and people threw a goddamn fit, enough that that post is now down. I've seen screenshots, but the page itself is gone. It has since been replaced clearly without the ship name.

Like, seriously? All that because you hate a ship? Because they called out the Radioapple fans for art of the pair just in a poster together? The image isn't even ship art, Lucifer is glaring daggers at Alastor, as per usual.

Viv grew in fandom spaces. Alastor is literally an edgy Deviantart OC. She just released a Helluva Boss minisode with the cringiest weeb fan swooning over Blitz when he kills her FOR SHIPPING SOMETHING.

Radioapple is popular, EVERYONE knows this, it's only expected they would capitalize on it, even if just as a joke. (they do so regularly on tiktok)

The whole duo image (correct me if I'm wrong) was AMIR TALAI'S IDEA. Alastor's voice actor is REGULARLY joking around with Radioapple shippers. It's practically his hobby at this point.

Like, this was literally him the other day.

Like??? Calm yourselves.

And as for Viv herself, she has Liked a lot of ship art, including Radioapple.

The creator doesn't mind it, one of the actors finds it hilarious, and the other actor to my knowledge hasn't spoken on the ship but DID sign those posters, WHICH IS ALL THAT POST WAS ABOUT ANYWAY. A poster of two well-loved characters signed by their well-loved voice actors.

Look, 98% chance that Radioapple isn't going to happen, if only to make Alastor's sexuality and the ace rep ABUNDANTLY clear. But if Viv did decide to go that route? Okay? It's her show, not yours? Fuck off???

If you want to consider this duo art Radioapple, then there were ALSO Radiodust and Charlastor posters in the same vein and I didn't see people flipping shit about that despite, yknow, Chaggie and Huskerdust.

The canon of a series you otherwise enjoy can and will disappoint you. As a former of the Supernatural fandom, I am deeply aware of this. When Castiel went season after season with queerbaiting, when they killed off the beloved badass lesbian character Charlie, when Sam had a cool deaf hunter gf who disappeared and never came back, you know what the fandom did?

They made fanfiction about it. And let me tell you, some of it is much better than the series.

You could do that. Or, fuck, maybe someone else already has and you can go read that instead.

You don't like the way the series is going? That's fine. It's no longer for you. Stop watching. Make your own versions of them. But don't go off attacking people for enjoying the idea of Lucifer and Alastor being in close proximity.

The creative team, creator, actors, and artists/animators, is Radioapple friendly. If you can't handle that without throwing a tantrum, find the goddamn door.

I'm not telling you you have to like any ship. I sure as shit don't. But don't be an asshole about it.

[phantominzie]

Ranting about TSS

I would like to start by saying, yes, I am fully aware I don't post fandom rants very often (ESPECIALLY SASI). However, I've been feeling rather upset over the fandom and Thomas.

I would also like to mention that in no way is this attacking Thomas or any of his writers, hell, not even the fandom itself. I just need to let all of this out.

You're always totally free to skip over this, I know ts crit isn't everyone's cup of tea <3

To start, I am so just...tired? It's been so frustrating waiting for a finale for four fucking years and getting the bait and switch every time Thomas makes a post about 'upcoming Sanders Sides content!'

I understand taking time to work on something so important to cannon, but four years? I can also give him a little leeway for having some staff issues, but it's almost painful to only keep getting the series we love get downgraded so harshly over the years.

Almost all of the sides have been made so two dimensional. At first they felt so fleshed out, so real, and fandom focused their character on one sole trait (not unforgivable but a bit frustrating). Then, I guess Thomas just picked up on fandom and decided 'yeah! I'll just make them two dimensional too!' That's not what we want. And frankly that's never what we wanted. Occasionally, he'll give us breadcrumbs of character development, or show us a sliver of light to what they once were, but it's never the same.

And frankly, I feel bad for having my hopes so high for the finale. Sure it's been taking four years, but that doesn't mean it will be perfect, hell, it might suck. Of course, I will watch it, but I won't be happy about it. About the lies, about the bait and switch, about the constant merch plugs over actual content, about the four incorrect quotes over working on the finale, about the prioritizing of under five minutes long videos that no one will watch anyways.

I love that Thomas is working on things that make him happy, and I don't think I'll ever stop being happy about that, but he needs to take into heart that without content, merch won't sell anyways.

He made a tweet recently that said that we would be getting the finale in an uncertain number of weeks, but based on the past four years I don't even think it will come out at all. If it does, I swear that if we get a merch plug in the finale I'm going to lose my shit.

I want him to see that fandom can't carry itself, and that if he doesn't have that finale have the actually well done makeup we've been begging for, or have our three dimensional characters back, then he won't have a fandom at all.

I'm almost angry that this is my special interest at this point, I'm so let down by the direction the series is probably headed.

I hope that no one takes this the wrong way, and if people leave death threats in my inbox (which has happened to people posting ts crit; no i'm not joking) then trust that you won't be answered. No one is to tag Thomas on this post, and if Thomas even finds this post then heed the words I've said. This isn't a threat to you, and frankly it never was. What is it is the frustrations of a tired and exasperated fan.

I'm sorry if this has rubbed anyone the wrong way, I apologize if it has. I hope this doesn't make people think I'm becoming some TSS hater, I'm really not. But I'm frustrated, and that's normal

Thank you for reading this all the way through if your here, I love you <3

[bouquetface]

Jungkook Predictions based on Astro -NEEDS TO BE UPDATED WRONG BT

If any fans would like to add or correct my predictions, please do so! I'm only a casual (and sort of a new) listener.

Also I hope everyone just takes this as fun. I do not mean any disrespect in making assumptions. I am well aware, I do not know him or his life. Take this as entertainment as we don’t know if his birth time is AM or PM.

Leo Rising w Moon:

He naturally grabs people's attention. He has a playful nature that can make him good with children.

2nd H (of money and possessions): Mercury conjunct Sun at 8 degrees

This shows he is intelligent when it comes to finances. He makes smart purchases and investments. He is unlikely to carelessly spend his money.

8 Degrees indicates a secretiveness about him especially his finances and possessions. It would be rare for him to intentionally show off his wealth.

North Node in 2nd

This shows generating wealth was apart of his purpose. At times, he may internally struggle with feeling he has not made enough. In virgo, he can be highly critical and nitpicky. At his worst, he can tie his self worth to his financial and career success.

Scorpio Mars in 4th House:

He often tries to hide his anger. He buries his anger deep down, allowing resentments to build. He can be an extremely unforgiving person when he feels hurt/betrayed.

When angry, he can have intense dark thoughts about revenge. However, he wouldn't be likely to voice these thoughts. He can be motivated by his anger and his haters.

He is HIGHLY protective of his family and loved ones. He can be very suspicious of new people's intentions when they enter his life.

Uranus conjunct DSC:

This shows his future spouse could be a surprising choice to some people. His partner may come from a different background than him (ethnicity, country or city, may be older - there is simply something that will surprise the public about his partner). This is emphasized with Jupiter in 7th, 7th H ruler in 9th.

He may even meet his partner while travelling. His partner would be highly intelligent and attractive (venus in libra). The partner is likely to be into fashion/style and aesthetics. I also see the partner is likely to be a sensitive soul (moon dk). I'm unsure how well they'd do with the extra public attention they'd receive from being with Jungkook.

His partner would be a stable and grounding person for him. They’d be a very supportive and caring person. He would need a partner he can respect. His partner would be intelligent and give good advice along with emotional support.

Predictions for Relationship Timeline:

2026 - This could be a significant time for relationships for him. If he is single, he could meet someone.

2029 - This is another significant time for relationships. He could even consider marriage this year.

This timeline is based on vedic but simply for fun. I'm not looking to deep into this - a few surface level observations based on his chart.

Thanks for reading! & if you are a fan, please let me know how accurate you find this. I would seriously love to hear a long-time fans thoughts.❤️‍🔥

[1800naveen]

Imagine telling someone that you like Tamlin and they go "How could you like him! He's a dumb beast, etc, etc!"

I like characters who are worse than Tamlin ever could be. YOUR BOOS MEAN NOTHING, I'VE SEEN WHAT MAKES YOU CHEER!

If a fandom has a character they don't like, I gotta like em💪🏾 (unless they're horrible, then I hate them too)

And why did a Feysand shipper comment on a post of mine? I'm a hater of that ship, be warned when you look at my blog now. Like if you don't get the fuck out and go defend your ship somewhere else, dumb ass comment🤨"Get your facts checked" how about you kiss my black ass? I DON'T NEED FUCKERS LIKE THIS ON MY BLOG NOW. (Rhys saying that anyone from HC will be treated like trash in Velaris is literal fairy segregation. Denying them food, shelter, making them feel not welcomed? Segregation right there. I AM NOT A SAFE SPACE FOR PRO INNER CIRCLE BULLSHIT, I AM A HATER THROUGH AND THROUGH)!

Hate the pro inner circle mfs, it's not my fault that it's a circle of fucktards who think they're the shit and better than everyone. And if you come into my comments saying "Oh, you're a bitch!" I AM A BITCH, WELL AWARE OF IT AND I LOVE IT.