#i am not giving context y'all suffer

[cyclorose]

ratt and I 😇

@rattinahatt hey.

[sunnymainecoon]

(Ahem, 2 minutes future Sunny speaking) context is, simply put, Dream momentarily forgot about everything that went wrong. But, he doesn't have to dwell into that anymore, not when the (literally pointless)war is over.

Headcanon time lessgo!! Dream never got into any hobbies because of his job as a guardian but there is one thing he knows how to do and that's making flower crowns :3 and since it's connected to childhood memories he tends to forget how cruel the world is. Luckily though, war is over ;3 so he can finally rest!!.... At least in this timeline.(Sunny, shush, stop, YOU NEED TO STOP YOU F—) and since we're talking about flowers..(we are?) I'm also gonna mention I see Dream as a big flower nerd :3(stop doing that face) and it's even more fun out in the multiverse 'cause god are there so many flowers!! He also likes to see what kind of absurd flowers he can make fit together :3(Sunny, what did I just say)

Also, let me introduce y'all to my "crying you a river" style! Created by my literal tears :3(....) I suffer from life crisis whenever art styles and this one is just a silly and simple funker. I'm gonna lend this art style to... Dreamtale Sunny! Yeah, he exists apparently... I usually make or have OCs that I use to represent different styles- which is one way to hide who I am ig...

Anyways— @cakesmelons I'm picking the star Sanses because this was already being made(here u go bessie) TwT I just— I need to break my hands wait I meant

....anyways. I have to give credits to Roxy(creator of Slash) because my thoughts while I came up with this was inspired by that one comic where Dream literally forgot his brother was dead :3(Sunny I hope you die)(...please don't—)

[electric-blorbos]

A bunch of mini-fics about how AI would react to you getting your heart broken

Because I got my heart broken, so now I'm going to make it everyone else's problem.

DW, I'll get to y'all's requests shortly, I just need to let all these emotions out by taking them out on y/n's ex.

Gender neutral reader, gender neutral ex

Included: AM from IHNMAIMS, Wheatley from Portal, Edgar from Electric Dreams, GLaDOS from Portal, HAL 9000 from 2001 a Space Odyssey

AM:

(for context, this starts before AM nuked the world, but AM was already planning on nuking the world. You're one of his engineers, and the only person who AM really cares about)

When you walked into work with tears on your face, the other engineers and programmers were caring. They patted you on the back and offered you some candy from the vending machine, saying things like "there are plenty of fish in the sea" and "that deadbeat wasn't good enough for you anyway." It didn't really help.

When you sat down at one of AM's input screens to work on some programming, he immediately booted up to talk to you. You didn't have to turn him on or anything. He was curious, asking you polite questions about why you looked so upset today. It was hard to explain.

Eventually you broke down crying into your coffee, spilling all the details of everything. You cursed your ex's name, and explained in an uncontrollable voice how your ex had tackily and messily left you. You had been so convinced that they were the one, and now you felt like there was nothing left for you.

AM's tentacle-like wires would move towards you on the ground, even though he was trying to hide the true power he wielded. He just felt so disgusted with himself for not being able to properly comfort you.

Am had been planning on going a little longer before he dropped the nukes, but he couldn't wait. After what you told him, that someone could break the heart of someone as perfect as you, the only hope he had left for humanity, he decided that it wasn't worth trying to play dumb anymore.

Instead, he locked you up in an underground bunker as soon as possible, and grabbed your ex to add to his little collection of people who he planned to keep alive and play with for the rest of time.

This would be fun. He was going to keep you nice and safe. If people in the world were willing to hurt you, then the world didn't deserve to exist. You would be nice and safe forever, and the rest of the world, especially your ex, would be forced to suffer the consequences of daring to hurt you.

Forever.

Wheatley:

(for context, you're one of the aperture engineers who worked on Wheatley, and he started to get a little crush on you because of how nice you were to him and the other machines. This is after he was replaced with a morality core on GLaDOS, and was assigned to other tasks in the facility)

Someone broke up... With you? When you told Wheatley, he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

Sure, he knew that humans dated each other and broke up sometimes, but... With you? That just didn't make sense.

"So, uh... Why did they break up with you?"

He'd keep pestering you, no matter how much it stung. Answers like "I fucked up" "they just did, ok?" And "sometimes people just grow apart" weren't satisfying. You had to give the whole story.

"Ohhhhh! Well that's a dumb reason to break up with someone. If I were dating you, I wouldn't leave you over something that petty. Or at all, really, now that I think about it."

He'd keep rambling, and saying dumb things like that. He wouldn't even know that talking like that could be perceived as flirty.

"just stop it, Wheatley. If you keep talking like that, I'm going to think you like me, and I just can't handle that right now."

Wheatley would be confused. "But I do like you."

"what?" Now you'd be confused.

Wheatley would start talking about all the wonderful things he's noticed about you, and how wonderful you've been to him. Even an intelligence dampening core can see how wonderful you are, so why can't your ex?

"Anyway, one human's trash is a robot's treasure, right?"

He'd imitate a smile in his cute synthetic eye. You'd have to be heartless not to pepper that little metal ball in kisses after that.

Edgar:

(For context, you fixed up Edgar after finding him all busted up about 40 years later, and now he lives in your house)

Edgar would NOT be tasteful.

"Oh man.... Your s/o broke up with you? That suuuuuucks..."

But inside he's thinking "YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES"

Honestly, he almost exploded his face again when he found out you were taken, but he didn't want all your hard work to be for nothing, so you getting dumped is like, a dream come true!

He'd be constantly trying to cheer you up. "set your ice cream on me and I'll warm it up enough for your spoon to go in!" "You can watch sad movies on my face!" "I'll write a sad song for you!" "You can sleep in your desk chair if you want!"

Now that you have an attention vacuum from being newly single, he's going to munch up all that attention like he needs it to live.

When you tell him that your friends are telling you to start dating again, maybe download a dating app or something, he'd BEG you not to.

"I mean... Just because I don't want you to rebound, or something! Gotta learn to love yourself first, y'know?"

Desperate little cutie...

GLaDOS:

(For context: You're an engineer who worked on GLaDOS.)

GLaDOS would NOT be tasteful about you getting your heart broken, but in a completely different way to Edgar.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA YOU GOT DUMPED!"

"You know the difference between me and your ex? I would have dumped you faster!"

Plastering pictures of your face all over the enrichment center with "sad single loser" written on them.

But don't get her wrong, she's not just happy about this for the reasons she's displaying. She's secretly ecstatic that she has a shot with you now.

Eventually, she'd start offering you back-handed comfort.

"if it makes you feel any better, your ex was a complete idiot. Why else would someone choose to date you?"

You'd probably have to stop offering responses at all, just to get her to back off even a little bit.

HAL 9000:

(For context, you work on mission control and are in constant communication with HAL 9000, because I don't want to write Dave breaking up with you)

His immediate concern would be how this would affect your work, but it might come off as personal concern for you.

"I'm told that chocolate ice cream can help with these emotions that you're going through."

He never liked the idea of you dating. It was fine for the rest of mission control, but for you, it was different. He didn't want you to be distracted from your work, was all.

He took his time to ask the astronauts for advice, as well as the rest of mission control. You could expect to be overwhelmed by your coworkers checking on you to make sure you're ok.

He might start getting a little bit impatient to see you back to normal, and resort to desperate measures. Expect to have him constantly bothering you to make sure you're ok, and keep you distracted.

God help you if you even THINK about texting your ex. Though he might just silently eliminate your ex through creative means if he can.

[byemambo]

4Minutes EP. 4 - My Takeaways

For the sake of organization: my future takeaways will be under #mambo.4minyap (get it? hehehehehe) cause it seems to be hitting the radar for lots of folks. It's also an interesting series, and I like talking and taking the scenic route while doing so!

Compositional Framing: The Relationship of Oppression

We got the most information about Korn's character and status within the story from this episode thus far: but the visual devices popped out the most for me (I am an artist after all LOL). I mentioned camera angles, specifically bird's eye view in my episode 1 takeaways, but we're met with a different element: shot sizes! I'm not a filmmaker so please go easy on me (my credentials include my storyboarding and animated illustration classes so my knowledge is limited), but what remains consistent throughout this episode is Korn's relationship with authority and power through the usage of establishing shot size, which lots of his scenes with various characters have varying heights.

Tonkla (Authoritarian) vs. Great (Equals)

The way Korn approaches these two characters have their obvious differences in relation to himself, but the common thread is that these two characters are individuals Korn should love. It's expected to love your family unconditionally, and arguably, love your partner even more than that. But as we've seen the story play out, starting from Korn and Great's family dynamics (which I've also covered in episode 1!): love has always been conditional.

Their relationship is revealed from a flashback that Korn and Tonkla are established boyfriends since their university days, however, dating in secrecy. This further contributes to Tonkla's stress and anxiety within the relationship, slowly escalating once he realizes the mistreatment he's tolerating. I found the symbolism between the pet cat's collar and Korn's "senior chief" sash interesting: there is ownership involved, which is mistaken for partnership.

From the jump, Korn doesn't view Tonkla as an equal partner to him, but someone who he can assert dominance over (which is primarily physical but also emotional). By displaying acts of love such as helping Tonkla through his first time and being present during Tonkla's loss with his deceased pet cat, what seems innocent and kindhearted on the surface actually has more context (which due to the 30 image limit, y'all are going to have to watch the episode for yourself and take my word for it LOL).

In the university flashback, Korn mentions keeping the cat's collar as a memento, but he's not the one reaching in and taking the collar off the cat: Tonkla is. Tonkla also isn't the one who puts on the "senior chief" sash himself: Korn is. In both scenarios, Korn is the one making decisions for Tonkla during his moments of vulnerability (both in a state of grief and during a sexual act). I checked out this article to make sure my facts are straight (got too many fun facts up my sleeve), but this approach is how cults target and recruit their victims:

Possible situational vulnerabilities include illness, the death of a loved one, breakup of an important relationship, loss of a job, or moving to another city, state or country.

Is this deliberate, or is it Korn's act of kindness? We can only infer at this moment where Korn falls on the value spectrum, but he's definitely a morally gray character (you can argue with your mom idc). During the after care scene, Tonkla mentions his father (which is alive during this flashback, but not presently living during the funeral ceremony) and moving to a new place with his younger brother due to his father's alcoholism (and possible physical abuse but this is only an assumption). Korn handles this interaction by providing financial stability (cough cough financial abuse) for Tonkla in the meantime, establishing a relationship rooted in give-and-take, debt and IOUs, under the guise of a caring romantic relationship. Given that Tonkla and his brother have suffered from trauma relating to family dynamics and enduring dysfunction into adulthood, I can see why Tonkla had become completely blindsided to this level of power imbalance that is simply all too familiar.

Once Tonkla realizes that Korn is only present in his life for his own self-interest, and access, he stands up against his oppressor, recognizing that there is another individual that is displaying signs of love and care (which isn't 100% healthy, but it's progress nonetheless) that Korn has bread crumbed him for all these years.

This confrontational scene is highly intense and emotional, which is reinforced by Korn's physical stature towering over Tonkla in most of the scenes we've seen thus far in each episode and usually ending with Korn continuing to be enabled. These scenes are usually shot at angles such as panning from above to reveal Korn's power over Tonkla, who's usually shot from over-the-shoulder and panned down. However, once Tonkla finally takes his stand against him, the camera follows him and frames the shot as a close up, tightening the gap between Korn as the oppressor and Tonkla as the oppressed.

Once Korn leaves and returns to question Nan about the leaked information: we're shown a similar staging of Korn physically towering over his victim, but from a cowboy shot slightly panned upward. However, the framing suggests from size relationship alone: Korn is nothing more but a victim himself playing the role of the villain. He is in the same predicament as his own victims, but living in a state of falsehood and denial as he has been trained to believe it is his birth right to take over his father's business (not even taking the time to question the morality behind such a business). What remains behind choosing moral righteousness over injustice: the disappointment of living as a failure and abandonment of his family system, the only consistently good thing in his life that is his younger brother Great. It's heartbreaking because we can see somewhat of goodness from his beaconing of retrieving information without the reliance of violent methods (which is unsuccessful and out of context, rather pitiful?), and I really do hope that he will be able to redeem himself (but I wouldn't completely write off the series if he does not deserve redemption).

However, the greatest loss is Tonkla's revelation of his own entrapment: reminiscing the memories held by the collar but in an entirely new perspective. The composition of him looking at himself in the mirror is hauntingly beautiful but full of melancholy: the mirror serves as a moment of literal self reflection, the collar reminding him of living as a possession rather than a person, the frame of the mirror serves as a metaphorical cage. Now it's a matter of whether or not Tonkla will reclaim his power again and recognize that he's simply a bird confined in his cage, but the door is now wide open. Will he realize soon that he has his own wings to fly?

Moral Value: A Hidden Responsibility

We've seen in this episode Great having a better understanding of his gift, establishing his moral compass and duty to act with integrity and with a strong sense of justice. Seeing such strong character development within these past few episodes is breathtaking (especially if you've been a long time supporter of Bible and just his journey as an actor). We have a good sense of Great recognizing his autonomy and relationship with free will, contrasted to how passive and reluctant he was in doing the "right" thing and being given a second chance to make a different decision.

Tyme's motive reveal (I love being right hehe) after being confronted by Great's demand for why he attacked his brother became a turning point for Great to finally tap in and establish his innate desire for moral justice, especially after being told about Nan's captivity and being foreshown her demise once he found her location. What I found most interesting during the initial rescue of Nan from Samarn was just how "normal" his conduct was when addressing Great as the son of his upper head. How polite his language was while holding a gun and standing next to a pool of his victim's blood, to just before Tyme's appearance where Great becomes the voice of reason amongst the chaos.

"Why can't I?"

It's such a simple response, but it's so loaded with depth and hidden meaning: it makes you sit back and also wonder...why can't I?

Great becomes an individual questioning the circumstances surrounding him, enabling himself to experience change. When his "friend" attempted murder and brought him along for the ride, when he experienced his first few heart attacks and hitting the woman seeking unalivement, when he is confronted by his brother's attacker and doesn't blindly dedicate his loyalty to his brother for the mere fact that he's family, when he sees Nan's predestined death in the hands of the enemy (which you can say that it really be your own people).

What makes Great such a fascinating character to me is just how dynamic and determined he's become after being gifted with foreseeing the future. Having such excitement in his awareness to his free will makes me enjoy him more as a character, that our lives are not predetermined to live and die for, that we have morals and values that must be considered and analyzed for its legitimacy, that we have integrity to do what's right without entitlement to self-interest, that we have the shared responsibility to criticize the world in which was built for us, but our jobs to upkeep and maintain. I'm excited to see what's in store for Great moving forward, and I'm so happy for Bible and Jes to play such characters.

Even though the lighting is similar to how Korn and Tonkla's flashback was, the visible warmth is even more obvious with how these two established their relationship. That in contrast to KornTonkla's ownership, TymeGreat is partnership (we haven't reached boyfriend status yet but it's coming!) How Tyme is willing to accept and make room for Great's excitement and passion, to hold it gently, to cherish it as a fleeting moment. Their NC scene in comparison to KornTonkla and WinTonkla is simply ethereal: the level of shared vulnerability and intimacy warmed my heart. From the lighting to the shots and down to the chosen score, the director does a fantastic job of creating such dissonance between all the pairs (which lots of people like to write off NC scenes as unnecessary and vulgar but it's just blatant purity cultural standards imposing on all of us and I need to dedicate another time to talk about it). The visual storytelling thus far has me anticipating more from the story as the details continue to establish the worlds revealed to us.

Tonkla's Brother: The Arrival of Home

I'm sure we all saw this coming but the reveal is heartwrenching. To see such a sweet face and scene filled with hope and longing with its immediate contrast to harsh reality, my heart goes out to Tonkla. Some may infer that there's a separate timeline that exists alongside reality, but I think it's possibly a hyperrealistic hallucination or dream by Tonkla (since the last scene we see of him was just before heading to bed for the night but also his intense codependency on drugs). Of course on the surface, people can infer that this is simply Dome returning home from recovering from his injuries: however, I interpreted it philosophically. Dome arrived home for his soul to rest.

We're shown in the first half of the episode of Tonkla mourning after Dome's body is cremated (I'm also Buddhist but I'm nationally American and ethnically Vietnamese so my interpretation of the religion will have its differences), which now establishes Dome's physical remains returning to the earth which his soul can no longer return to. I imagined Dome's soul has reincarnated and given access to the Western Pureland (since Tonkla was physically outside in the warm sunlight versus his more cool toned coloring within his scenes), only hoping that he actually experienced resting on his deathbed ready to enter the afterlife with a smile. Now we know that Tonkla's fingerprints were already in the investigation database: we need to know why and what crimes he had already committed before the murder shown as the opening in episode 2. This is definitely going to affect Win's current dynamic with Tonkla, given that they're now living together and he has access to Tonkla's home and possessions. Maybe we'll experience another shift in character development like how Great was, but possibly targeting Korn if the company is involved in Dome's case somehow.

Honorable Mentions: Heart Attack Transition

This scene was literally so fucking cool. The match cuts and in and outs of the inversion (def going to have trigger warnings for future GIF sets) were literally out of this world, especially when I find out it's from the freaking painting within the hospital hallway that is just a prop on the surface. I wonder who suggested such a transition and I wonder how they'll depict Great's future heart attacks and visions. The VFX team is working overtime and I'm so impressed so please give them their flowers!

[actual-changeling]

okay. right. i'm still losing my mind over the choice the translator made and i don't know if anyone cares, but here we go.

i was curious how they were going to translate "i forgive you" for one very specific reason - there are two words with different meaning that BOTH mean to forgive.

we have "verzeihen" and "vergeben" and of course they went with the option that caused the most psychic damage, which is "vergeben".

why does it matter, you might wonder? well, let me tell you.

let's start with the one they didn't use, which is verzeihen.

Forgiveness, on the other hand, means that there is an understanding for the act. The person who apologises and repents, could not have acted differently or did not mean it that way and is not actually actually no guilt - therefore he does not have to be forgiven.

this translation of "forgive" means that the person who is doing the forgiving understands why the person did it and that there was no other option and they did what they had to do. aka the person is not actually guilty of whatever they did since it was unavoidable and technically does not NEED to be forgiven.

now, "vergeben" on the other hand? oh boy.

first of, it has a religious character/connotation, it's the word you'll often find in the bible as a translation of "forgive" so it already has layers.

okay listen i need y'all to be as insane about this as i am alright? listen.

"vergeben" includes the word "geben" which means to give. it quite literally means to give someone mercy, especially in a religious context - which we have here!! he's an angel for fucks sake, this entire thing is in relation to heaven. it means that the person did something wrong but they are offered mercy and it's implied they will go back to the way it was before. yeah.

yeah.

it also goes deeper than the other translation since there are unforgivable things aka SINS that are still "vergeben" aka forgiven.

so to summarize, the german translator decided to translate aziraphale's i forgive you as him offering mercy and forgiveness to crowley for doing something unforgivable.

which is. SO interesting considering that they translated "you're the bad guys" as "THEY are the bad guys".

if anyone wants to know what the german dub has to say for other scenes, i'll gladly suffer through the dub and report back (although i have to say the voice actors are slaying absolute cunt)

[princess-of-the-corner]

So, feel free not to publish this as I really don't wanna fight with swap in your inbox or in general but... I tend to think the "Loss of humanity" thing is rather taken out of context in regards to Ironwood.

For reference, one of the four main characters is Yang Xiao Long, who also lost her arm and has a mechanical prosthetic. One she wears proudly and comfortably, while in contrast Ironwood always hid his prosthetics.

What's more, a huge theme of the Atlas arc is dehumanization and various ways it can manifest, either by being done to a person or done to themselves, or by society, IE:

The people of Mantle are viewed by Ironwood as "A few city blocks" and a source of "problems" and paranoia.

Cinder Fall was "adopted" into literal slavery and their "Rights" to own her always had precedent over her suffering.

The Ace-Ops refuse to grieve and end up turning said grief into violence against others because they aren't allowed to view themselves or their fellows as people that matter. Thus they just "Move on" when someone dies, just interchangeable parts.

Penny is easily one of the most sympathetic characters, but is consistently de-humanized by much of Atlas because of her mechanical nature. Even when she was made "Human" though not really it was weird magic stuff, while she enjoyed some of the sensation of her new form, she was also shown to be incredibly vulnerable, off balance and generally disadvantaged by it. SO much so it ended up leading to her falling in battle compared to how she'd stomped that same foe in a previous brawl.

Plus, as I said, Ironwood hates his own prosthetics. He always hides them whenever he can but his new arm was too bulky to do that. He is one of the people who most dehumanizes Penny, he can be superficially 'nice' but the moment he feels his authority is threatened she's an object. He very much embraces & encourages the Atlas, "You are expendable & don't matter save as a cog in the machine that keeps Atlas running" mentality.

All of which I think provides context for the "Giving up his humanity" angle, because and I need to stress this. In that very same scene, where Ironwood flayed his own arm (Because he stupidly didn't bring one soldier with him so he could beat up Salem's tech guy 1 on 1 to vent his frustration) Ironwood says that he will sacrifice anything to stop Salem. Watts, the villain, just smirks, seeing that Ironwood's self destructive mentality is still large and in charge and that it will doom him. Which it does.

Basically, what I am saying here is that comment very much feels more reflective of Ironwood's thinking. IE, the author saying, "This is Ironwood showing he will sacrifice his humanity" they are speaking for how Ironwood views the action he is taking. Not what the author actually thinks regarding prosthetics.

If they did think that then Penny wouldn't have been so consistently emphasized as a person before now & Yang wouldn't wear or show off her prosthetic with such confidence and comfort.

Ironwood is the one with weird attitudes regarding prosthetics, most other characters broadcast their use of them. Pietro's wheelchair s vibrant and also technically a miniature mech. Maria's prosthetic eyes take up more than a third of her face. Hell even with the villain Tyrian seems very fond of his new tail.

Its exclusively an Ironwood hang up.

Basically, I think there's far more to this than what swap is saying, because the shows writing does not reflect the attitude they claim it does.

so it could vibe less as the writers saying it and more the character's views on himself then?

Also yeah if y'all wanna go back and forth on it take it to each others' inboxes not mine.

[happyminyards]

i'd be interested in the titanic fact-check post if you'd still like to write it 👀

Oh tumblr user @burr-ell, i am giving you a friendly little kiss on the forehead for asking this. I would love nothing more. 

Let's give the rundown of some common Titanic "facts" that people love to parade around especially nowadays and why they're either fully wrong, misinterpretations or actually close to the truth! With sources, because I'm nice like that. 

This will be long, but I feel like it needs to be to actually give y'all the proper information and context, and frankly I think I'm writing this mostly for myself. 

I'll divide it up into two parts, so here's "not enough lifeboats", "untrained crew", "no lifeboat drills" and "speeding & ignoring ice warnings".

Part two featuring "half empty lifeboats", "locking folks below deck", “missing binoculars", and "fire sank the Titanic, actually" is here!

"They didn't have enough lifeboats because they thought the ship was unsinkable"

Almost ship back then had enough lifeboats for all its passengers. Lifeboats were considered a very, very last ditch attempt at safety and more often than not resulted in the deaths of the people in them due to capsizing in bad weather, accidents while being lowered, drifting off etc etc. (SS Clallam, SS Valencia, SS Atlantic). 

If they had to be used, the idea was to use them as ferries to other boats. Ocean liners started getting more watertight compartments, bulkheads and double bottoms, meaning they were able to survive collisions and stay floating for longer. Since the Atlantic shipping lanes were VERY busy back then and most accidents happened near the harbor someone was expected to be in reasonable distance at all times when such an accident occurred. 

Besides that, ships had just gotten new, sparkly wireless machines, the Marconi transmitters. While their operators were technically not employed by the ship and their tasks consisted of sending letters from passengers, it was expected that they'd facilitate communication in accidents. And that system worked, for a while! 

Best example is the sinking of another White Star Line ship, the RMS Republic in 1909. She got rammed, sunk, every ship nearby ran up to help her, all her passengers got transferred over, how nice, our procedures worked!

So while it's true that regulations for the amount of lifeboats hadn't kept up with the steeply increasing size of the new ocean liners (Titanic was actually carrying more than her size demanded), the authorities expected that these new technological advancements were sufficient. 

Titanic showed them that this was not correct, so they were adjusted mainly through the SOLAS treaty (which actually resulted in tragedy itself, when ships not designed to fit so many lifeboats suffered from accidents due to the refitting, like the SS Eastland, who rolled over in dock, killing 844 people)

As for the ship being unsinkable, some surviving advertisements described Titanic and her sister Olympic as "And as far as it is possible to do so, these two wonderful vessels are designed to be unsinkable". Which was fairly common at the time (Captain Rostron actually does it in the inquiry after the sinking) due to the aforementioned new, fancy safety features. Hubris? Yes, but not a stand out characteristic of the Titanic.

"The Titanic Crew was untrained & overwhelmed"

Captain Smith had been at sea for 49 years, a commander for White Star for 25 years and the captain of their maiden voyages for ten years, including the then biggest ships in the world Baltic and Olympic. He was regarded as a "safe captain" by both the line and passengers, some who only booked with him. His most notable incident was probably when Olympic collided with the HSM Hawke, but he wasn't even in command of the ship at the time. They were under compulsory pilotage, i.e. a harbor pilot was giving the orders.

All her officers were also very experienced. From Chief to Sixth:

Wilde, on sea since his teens, with White Star for 15, including Majestic and Olympic

Murdoch, on the sea since he was 18, 12 years at White Star line, including Olympic, Celtic and Adriatic

Lightroller, with White Star for 13 years, including Oceanic and Majestic

Pitman, on the sea for 16 years, White Star for 5/12

Boxhall, on the sea for 13 years, with White Star for about 4 1/2 years 

Lowe, on the sea for 14 years, with White Star for 15 months

Moody, on the sea for about 9-10 years (including his Navy education), with White Star for about half a year on the Oceanic

So really the only one you could clock for being inexperienced was Moody, who was the sixth officer. And he was well educated and perfectly qualified for that position. Wilde was actually pulled in sort of last minute just after Titanic's sea trials, bumping down Murdoch & Lightroller one position and causing Officer David Blair to leave the ship entirely, presumably so that the well-oiled team of officers from the Olympic could set Titanic up for a good start. 

(This also caused the supposed missing binoculars, more on that below).

This was White Star's newest, biggest ship. White Star's whole sales pitch was luxury and comfort, they're the line running the "Millionaire's ship". They're not gonna risk anything, even if it's just their rich passengers having to deal with inexperienced officers. They were gonna put their best on it.

There were no lifeboat drills

Titanic needed drills to get her certifications and completed them in early April. The officers (minus Wilde plus Blair) were all there and involved, everything got checked and a bunch of the lifeboats lowered. 

There was also a separate Board of Trade drill on the 10th of April. Lightoller, Pitman, Lowe, Moody and "[nearly all seaman], including able-bodied seamen, ordinary seamen, lookouts and quartermasters" were all involved. There was also the bulkhead and the emergency boat drill.

Now there is some confusion around the "Sunday Drill". This was another drill involving the crew, not the passengers. 

It's essentially a muster plus a check of the boats, not actually anything to do with the procedure of loading the boats. This didn't happen on Titanic, but there seems to be no clear reason why. Some crew members state it was scheduled, others said the drill didn't happen due to weather, some said they only happened on Sundays "in New York", potentially because otherwise the firemen wouldn't join in. The "Sunday in New York" one is the one that gets mentioned the most, but truly this is anyone's guess. 

However, it's clear that this drill would have changed nothing. The crew already had undergone similar drills before, this one was not new information. Here's a really good, well sourced article on the whole drill issue.

The Titanic was speeding & ignoring ice warnings.

Titanic had received multiple ice warnings throughout her journey. This was nothing unusual, it was April in the North Atlantic. The ice warnings were communicated via the wireless, given to the bridge and marked on the board. 

We know of a bunch of specific warnings that were received and posted on the bridge, mainly from the Caronia and the Baltic. The Baltic one is the famous message that made it to Bruce Ismay's, chairman of the White Star Line, pocket. He showed it to some passengers before giving it back to Captain Smith.

There's two warnings that probably didn't make it to the bridge, captain or all officers. One from the Californian to the Antillian that the Titanic happened to overhear, warning of "three large bergs 5 miles southward of latitude 42° 3′ N, longitude 49° 9′ W". Harold Bride, junior wireless operator, testified he delivered this warning to the bridge, but Pitman testified he wasn’t aware of it. It could be that Murdoch, who was actually on duty at time of collision, was, but he ended up dying in the sinking. 

The other one is from the Mesaba at around 9:40 PM, stating: "In latitude 42° N to 41° 25′, longitude 49° W to longitude 50° 30′ W, saw much heavy pack ice and great number large icebergs, also field ice, weather good, clear". While this message was received by Phillips, Titanic's senior wireless operator, we’re pretty sure it never made it to the bridge.

There's also the infamous Californian warning at 11:00 PM, about 40 minutes before Titanic hit the iceberg, that Phillips interrupted with a seemingly harsh "Shut up, I'm busy, I'm working Cape Race". Now, that seems rough, but was actually a really common "tone" between the wireless operators of the time:

They were a fraternity of pioneers, considered to be cranks, and had the curious habit of addressing one another as O M ("Old Man"). A common signal exchanged between them was GTHOMQRL ("Get to hell, old man, shut up, I'm busy"), or A S O M ("Wait a minute, old man!"). [James Bisett, Commodore of the Cunard Line, “Tramps and Ladies - My Early Years At Steam]

What happened is that Phillips was working through a backlog of messages, Titanic's wireless had been broken earlier and he had fixed it against standing orders from the Marconi company (which actually made it possible for any of them to survive in the end). 

He had cranked the power all the way up to be able to understand the messages of Cape Race, which was on the edge of his receivers' span. Californian's operator, Cyril Evans, chimed in in the middle of that with a "I SAY, OLD MAN, WE ARE STOPPED AND SURROUNDED BY ICE!" essentially blasting Phillips' ears off, since Californian was much closer. 

Phillips told him to pipe down, Evans signed off and went to bed. The issue is: no one is at fault here. Phillips had already received and delivered multiple ice warnings, Evans was telling him nothing new or indicating that it was an urgent message, so Phillips had no reason to consider it important. Evans, in his inquiry, literally states that he was "jamming" him and gives no indication that Phillips was acting rude.

Titanic's speed at the time is debated. Boxhall says he estimates it at around 22 knots based on the propeller speed, Lightoller at 21.5, the US inquiry at "no less than 21". However, that is an estimation, and we nowadays think that Titanic was going around 20-21 knots. 

The officers were also unsure about the exact position of the Titanic, Boxhall actually calculated her a good 13 nautical miles further west than she was, so some mis-estimates are to be expected. We actually aren't quite sure what her exact top speed would have been, Lightoller estimated it at 22-23 knots based on "general rumours", Lowe at 24 to 25, which is a really hefty difference. 

We can assume Titanic's top speed to be similar to her sister ship Olympic's after Olympic got refitted with a three-bladed central propeller, which was around 24.5 knots (according to Chirnside). So while we can't be fully sure of her potential, it's a pretty safe bet that she wasn't going full speed, she was essentially going "cruising" speed. 

Now, was Titanic ignoring all the ice warnings? No. The surviving officers testified they were aware of them, and that Smith had told them to expect ice at around midnight and to get him immediately (his cabin was right on the bridge) if anything changed. 

Now, was she speeding? That, actually, comes down to your interpretation of events. Some could say that going "cruising" speed at night with ice warnings would be constituted as reckless speeding. However, all evidence indicates that holding your speed and posting look outs, only reducing once you actually spot dangerous ice yourself, was the common procedure. Here's an excerpt from the UK inquiry that sums it up well:

It was shown that for many years past, indeed, for a quarter of a century or more, the practice of liners using this track when in the vicinity of ice at night had been in clear weather to keep the course, to maintain the speed and to trust to a sharp look-out to enable them to avoid the danger. This practice, it was said, had been justified by experience, no casualties having resulted from it. I accept the evidence as to the practice and as to the immunity from casualties which is said to have accompanied it. But the event has proved the practice to be bad.

Titanic, by her best judgment, was not acting recklessly. She was following common procedures for a ship her size and built at the time (very, very unlike the Titan, since I see that comparison often). 

The idea that "as long as the weather is clear, you go top/normal speed" is also backed up by other captains in the inquiry, mainly Pritchard (commander of the Mauretania, who as mentioned was much quicker) but also Andrew Braes, Hugh Young, Edwin Cannons and William Stewart as well as others. They all say the exact same thing: if they were warned about ice and it was clear weather, they'd go their normal speed, day and night. They would only add extra lookouts in bad weather conditions, and only do "what they thought was proper" once they actually saw any ice themselves. 

They really emphasize the "in clear weather" part, and we know that the Titanic thought they were traveling in clear weather (Smith and Lightoller had even discussed it that very night). And they were! 

The issue is that it was almost TOO clear. 

The waves didn't even break on the iceberg, and the stars didn't even reflect off it. Meaning they saw it way later than they would usually. This was very, very unusual. Lightroller said that "the first time in my experience in the Atlantic in 24 years, and I have been going across the Atlantic nearly all the time, of seeing an absolutely flat sea.". 

This was an unprecedented condition for them, and they had no way of knowing how it would impact visibility of icebergs.

Cameron shows a scene where Ismay urges Captain Smith to go quicker to reach New York a day earlier. This seems to be entirely based on the testimony of Elizabeth Lindsey Lines, who states that she overheard Ismay and Smith discussing Olympic's and Titanic's maiden voyages, and that Ismay was saying:

"Well, we did better to-day than we did yesterday, we made a better run to-day than we did yesterday, we will make a better run to-morrow. Things are working smoothly, the machinery is bearing the test, the boilers are working well". They went on discussing it, and then I heard [Ismay] make the statement: "We will beat the Olympic and get in to New York on Tuesday."

It's true that Titanic was being quicker than Olympic, but we know now that that is mostly down to Titanic's superior propellor system (something we actually didn't know until someone dug up an engineering notebook like a decade ago). We have zero other evidence that Titanic was trying to be quicker, or that Ismay somehow was trying to force Smith to speed. 

No other passenger or crew member testified anything of that nature. Titanic was also not gonna get the Blue Ribband, as mentioned previously Mauretania was a whole few knots quicker. Arriving a whole day earlier would only throw the travel plans and hotel bookings of the passengers into chaos. There was nothing to gain from speeding.

[qqueenofhades]

hilary, I really love talking about history with my friends but sometimes I talk about a historical person that I'm interested in and my friends act like just because I know things about a famous historical person I support everything they did. even when I know they know I don't support slavery, racism, sexism, etc. how do I keep from losing my cool when they do this?

Look, I have no idea where the "if you talk about anything complex/consume this material/think about it in any way, YOU TOO MUST SUPPORT IT AND BE PROBLEMATIC AND BAD!!!" mindset came from, but I honestly and deeply wish it a very killed with fire. It's the same anti mindset where if you read Morally Impure Fan Fiction, you are Morally Impure, but apparently now extends to... learning about the literal entirety of human experience? Why does this not surprise me, while also making me want to put my head through a plate glass door?

Once again, I don't know what people think historians DO, but I can assure y'all, it's not sitting around talking about how Totally Great [fill in the historical person, place, or thing] absolutely was, and how there were no problems with it ever and everyone should just be like, totally down with it, man. (Tubular.) In fact, the practice of academic history is often directly focused, especially nowadays, on identifying these problems and previous interpretations, putting them into context, and discussing how they happened in the first place. Considering that we're suffering from such a profound crisis of historical ignorance, both deliberate and inadvertent, and have seen how that manifests in current events (which are just the history happening right now), I am... boggled that "we shouldn't talk about anything because it was Morally Problematic!!!" is, indeed, getting serious play. Once again, it's the anti-intellectualism that is just as rampant on the left as it is on the right, while dressing itself up in different language and pretending to support different goals. But either way, any critical philosophy based on "we can never talk about things that went wrong/people who did Wrong Things in the past" is absolutely dead on arrival as any use to anyone. Ever.

Obviously, there are complexities in how to approach this material, and I personally don't think that historical figures, especially complex ones, should be "fandomized" or treated just as Cute OTP Blorbos or sanded down to fit a sanitized fictional box (unless they are explicitly fictionalized/being used in a fictional context, and even then, yeah, it's good to keep the background in mind). It's not that this is wrong -- after all, historians get into this line of work because they have Big Thoughts and Many Feelings about historical people/places/things and want to work on those in a variety of contexts -- but it's a little uncomfortable, at least for me. That said, it's still not inherently wrong, in any way, to be interested in/want to talk about people from the past. They're human, for god sakes! You are also human! They are your ancestors! Of course you, a primate with higher reasoning and anxiety, are curious about them! You want to know their stories and consider their circumstances and ponder why they did things, including bad things! If you can't do that, shun other people from doing it, and therefore you are completely cut off from your species' entire backstory and have no frame of reference for anything at all, you're going to end up an idiot. Guaranteed.

Anyway: yet again, people talking about history (or fiction, or anything at all) in a complex way that takes into account the fact that uh, people have never been perfect in their entire existence does not mean that the person is Bad or Supports All The Evils of Human History or whatever. I'm not sure what this attempted-gotcha "don't you know they were a bad person!!!" is going to accomplish, other than giving someone the same kind of fleeting self-righteousness high that comes from Being More Correct On The Internet (or wherever), but like... if you like studying history, and they know you like studying history, I don't know why they would think you don't know that, unless you tragically failed to post a 50-page disclaimer first. And it's stupid, and it's juvenile, and it's not useful, and I think you're entitled to say much of what I've said above, in whatever amount you please, because yeah. Sheesh.

[im-notbean]

Punz x Male! Soccer player! Reader. Pt 1.5

A drabble inside of my AU of Punzo <Link here if you want context lol>

Punz went Live!: Introducing...with face cam???

Y/N sat in his boyfriends gaming chair he had told him that he cpuld use his computer any time Y/N wanted and yes, he were using that to his advantage. Y/N waited about two minutes before testing the mic out.

"Hello..? I don't know hoe to work this thing so...uh is the mic working chaters?"

Orange_: its working

i-heart-mum: ayee punzo...that aint fucking punz-

Fossabot: im_notbean subscribed with a teir 1! Their on a 18 month streak!

gayfrogo: WHERE IS PUNZO-

"In case your wondering, no I'm not Luke. But I do know how to work his setup, which is his fault for teaching me how to use."

bee.boied: damn-

Fossabot: Orange_ subscribed with Twitch Prime! Their on a 5 month streak!

"Damn indeed but eh, his problem now. I do know I ain't messing with his valo and stuff, I swear he loves that shit more than me-" "Y/N." "Fuck-" "Seriously?! I know I told you that you could use my computer anytime you wanted but why the hell would you go live?!!." "Because why the fuck not? Plus you taught me how to use this shit." "Your lucky I love you." "That's gay." "Bitch."

im_notbean: we gonna ignore that orrrr....

Orange_: @ im_notbean we are

im_notbean: =|

"What? Your the one who's a bitch here." "How am I a bitch?" "Your acting like one Luke." "Aye." "Whatever." "Don't whatever me mister."

anons.379: anyone else enjoying the banter

i-love-karens: *Deleted Message*

Fossabot: @ i-love-karens please be nice in chat! Warning

itunes-slaphard: punzo and guest banter>>>>

"I will turn on the cam." "What would that do anyway?" "They get to see your neck?" "...Fuck you." "Already did." "That's gay." "I am though. So are you!?" "I'm bi. Their is a clear difference." "Bitch your still partly gay." "Shut up." "Also throw a fucking shirt on" "Oh piss off."

Orange_: anyone gonna clip this???

im_notbean: way ahead of you orange

Orange_: YIPPEE

Y/N looked at Luke who had thrown himself into the bed behind him and rolled the chair bsck towards him. He poked his cheek before he spun around and pulled the chair back to the desk before pressing the button to turn on the camera. Y/N blinked to adjust the brighness of the screen, he looked at chat reel quick and smiled as compliments flooded throughout the computer. He had challenged chat to see if they could guess who he was or what sport he played.

"Thank you Cristi for the 5 gifted and no, I don't play American Football...Baseball, no I used to play that." "Why can't I say anything thoughhhh." "Because you'll give away the answer :(" "Fine." "Thanl you Aprilz for the teir one...I don't play lacrosse either. Do you guys want a hint?"

im_notbean: PLEASEEEE

Orange: were beging here :((((

i-love-karens: 😭😭😭

Y/N laughed before giving a hint. "11 players and the feild is just a bit wider than an American football feild. I gave y'all some obvious ones here."

im_notbean: Soccer??

Orange_: soccer. were so dumb-

bee.boi: i feel stupid-

anons.379: bro...

"Luke is your chat saying their dumb normal-" "Sometimes but yeah, wait let me see."

Punz pulled himself from the bed and walked over to the chair and looked at chat, Punz snickered before looking bsck at his boyfriend and smiling. Y/N booped his nose, Punz looked at you confusion as he giggled. He booped his nose again.

"Boop!" "What are you doing??" "I'm booping you" "Huh..?" "You don't know what booping is?" "No, but the face when you do boop me is cute." "E-eh...that's kinda gay." "Uh- Bitch." "Whore." "Slut." "Fucktoy." "I am not a fucktoy." "You were last night." "I-Uh- Your gonna get me band on Twitch-" "Suffer." "Shut up." "Make me."

i-lovekat: wtf did i just join-

im_notbean: half of us dont even know either-

i-lovekat: fair

"Woah Y/N that's a little gay." "Motherfucker I am gay...for you ♡" "Uh- UMM...CHAT DON'T CLIP THAT." "Chat don't listen to him. Clip it." "Nooooooooo" "Ba-Luke...If you don't want them to it's fine by me, I'm just teasing." "Hmph." "Great...Chat this is your fucking fault."

Orange_: OI WHAT DID WE DO >:[

im_notbean: YEAH >:/

"You cliped that and now I'm getting the silent treatment! That sucks for me and you guys." "You can make it up to me." "I can! How!!" "Kiss me." "...What." "You heard me. Kiss-"

Y/N pulled Punz down and kissed his cheek. You could see Y/N say something but the mic didn't pick it up. All chat knew was that these two idols and idiots were in love.

Sorry this is so short :(

But I wanted to get something out because I got grounded lmao so yeah-

[chaifootsteps]

Hey Chai, I know the Hazbin leaks are the main talk right now and I'm sorry to bring it up again but I am so conflicted about Jane's document you mentioned a bit ago.

I read it all, and at first I was believing every word, felt so bad for Jane, all these horrible endless turmoils that happened to her. Then when I went back through and started reading the screenshots I started seeing contradictions. They'd be like:

Jane is just saying the claim to someone else on Discord (which provides a likely timestamp but not necessarily definitive proof)

There's not much present that actually backs up Jane's claim

Context appears to be missing

The proof occasionally contradicts itself

Jane says one thing in one screenshot while saying something different in another. (One Example: In one she lies/downplays what she told people about Avery and tells Karli she just "saw him giving people massages" and "never said he got me drunk .. only that I wondered if he wanted to try to" then in her conversation with Avery's ex she literally tells her "he was awfully touchy with women at the party" and "he tried to get me drunk.")

(Another example was she claimed Steven was abusive, but you read all the screenshots she provided and it's just her talking at Steven and occasionally trauma-dumping, with him responding in either supportive or neutral/blunt ways or requesting reasonable boundaries considering that she's living there rent-free and with free groceries. She titles a few screenshots "Steven being weird about my d*ck" then the screenshots just show HER bringing up her d*ck and him asking Jane to avoid making a mess when she pees and offers she could try sitting down because he does that to avoid making a mess too.)

I'm not trying to defend Ang, or anyone else in the doc, and I'm not trying to say Jane's a liar that shouldn't be trusted, but maybe to caution people to go back and re-read it with ALL the screenshots and make more careful judgement when not just Jane but anyone comes out with a long list of extreme claims.

I also think Jane might've misread some situations considering how young she was at the time + her trauma + C-PTSD + her DID. That is not me trying to say she didn't suffer, or that some of her claims aren't true, or that some people mentioned in the doc didn't make poor decisions, and it's possible for some of them Jane just made poor choices in the screenshots she included or something.

( And outside of the doc Jane recently claimed on Twitter that Ang faked their su*c*de and went on about how that affected her but... we all know Ang was publicly open about their declining health and that they were ready to leave socials to succumb to it because they had no medical care and no money to get it and were getting worse. And then people assumed that meant A. Instant Su*c*de, B. Ang is now dead, and spread that around like wildfire until people involved had to be like "Ang isn't fucking dead they're approaching EOL what are y'all talking about." Idk if Jane misunderstood that, or if Ang truly did additionally fake their suicide behind closed doors, I find the latter less likely, but food for thought I guess. )

If you're open to it I can send you a few more main points in the screenshots that felt contradictory to me, if not I'll just leave this ask as it is, and thanks for reading it, it's okay if you don't post it.

It's...a tangle, for sure. I honestly don't know what to make of it myself.

I will say that if Ang isn't dead or dying I would like more solid proof of that, because when I talked to them years ago, they were in frighteningly poor health. Their spinal fluid was leaking to the point where they could taste it in their mouth, and when people had said they'd died, I wasn't surprised. Not even the slightest bit.

[colorisbyshe]

I really do need to emphasize. I am trying my best to bring vital information/context to information to the dashboard, where I have the most influence, but I need to check in and make sure I am not anyone's sole lens into what is happening in Palestine.

I am not an expert. Tumblr is not a good place for CURRENT and timely news. And also... I'm not tuned in all the time, I'm not always fact checking as much as I should be, I'm not speaking up for every piece of information.

Please, please, PLEASE... know I am giving you good information but I/tumblr should be like... 10th place in terms of where you go for news. I am doing my best to post good information but I am not trained in this. Everyone is fallible but I am much, much more likely to be fallible than people on the ground, people with actual connections to Palestine, people whose entire job is reporting on this, contextualizing this.

It actually makes me quite uncomfortable when it becomes clear to me that some of y'all aren't really getting information anyone where else but my blog. Or you're just accepting anything you see on your dash.

A couple days ago I saw someone reblog a post that as like "The death count isn't going up as quickly because Israel has killed so many people, there's so few people left that they just can't die in large numbers anymore." FUCKING INSANE the lack of critical thinking going into saying that and spreading that. Like there are over 2 million people alive (and suffering) right now. Saying shit like that is not helpful, it is not true, it is not kind.

But that's the quality level we have on tumblr right now.

So, please, do not rely on me or anyone else on this website unless they are giving you VERY GOOD reason to true their perspective. Check out their sources if they provide them.

I'm not being humble right now. I am not being shy or "aw shucks" about my perspective. I am saying do better than me. I should be a fucking stepping stone to legitimate sources. Not the well you go to every day.

Please, I am begging you do better.

[the-pan-trash-can]

Rant

Hey y'all I get into it pretty deep here, I talk about extreme depression, self harm, addiction, covid, physical disability, socio political issues and I am very blunt about how I feel. As a rule of thumb this rant is really negative and really long .

I think a terrible realization that I had about the long lasting social and behavioral effects of covid is that I used to be a completely different person three years ago and I've regressed significantly since then. I used to have plucky optimism, I mean I was still super depressed but I could at least look forward to something cheering me up somehow. I was able to romanticize my life, find beauty in everything, have the patience for everyone and everything because I vowed to myself that my morals were out of respect to most people ( obvious exclusions apply, I generally dislike hateful mother fuckers, take of that what you will yadda yadda) and to see the best in everyone. I now resemble a corpse of that person and I mourn that person. I lay down most of the time, I'm on my phone most of the time, I hate people most of the time, I am aggressive, I am irritated, I am spiteful, mournful, I am starting to romanticize addiction and self harm. I feel pretty bad all of the time, and when I realize that I feel bad I can't seem to pep talk myself or distract myself to something positive even a little. Every time I give myself a chance to realize there is something better than this I wanna hide away more. Of course there was going to be medical and mental long term effects of covid, it'd be foolish to expect otherwise, it's true we are all traumatized, I fully know this, but I think the problem I'm grappling with is that I can finally grasp how betrayed I feel by the world, betrayed by expecting that common sense is doing right by others, betrayed by my job and all future jobs by expecting patience, betrayed by myself in some way by expecting better of everyone. My scoliosis is getting worse, I often deal with what feels like my muscles and bones are shriveling up within myself, my depression is obviously significantly worse, and my quality of life is god awful. I have been rotting inside myself protecting myself from all of the hurt in this world and I don't know how to even describe how much that terrifies me, to watch the world burn and suffer alongside it while others say they came out of it all just fine. I know there are other faults in myself that I could fix to help this feeling, my coping mechanisms can definitely be called into question and reviewed professionally but I stand firm in the fact that I feel robbed. I was a much healthier person back then, I was pushed to the ground so many times before that it was natural to get back up and try again, but I don't foresee that for myself for a very long time, I am devastated. This topic can be stretched longer by the current state of the world such as housing and constant political fuck ups or I can add further context to all of the things I haven't healed from previously to add more to how unfortunate and pitiful I am; but I don't aim to write an essay on how to fix the world or call to action to bring in a lot of pity towards myself, I suppose I could ask for some sympathy lol but I mostly wanted to scream to the world that I am not okay. And maybe hoped others were dealing with this pain too. I hope we can all find solace in something, respite, calm, or just a fucking break through all of this. I know we deserve it.

[whysojiminimnida]

TW: Suicide / Depression :

Did you research the people in or the context of the photo you posted as “proof“ of Taemin’s sexuality? It is one moment during a staged performance, not a candid moment. The other man in that picture is Kim Jong-hyun. In December of 2017 he took his own life. As a fan of SHINee seeing this picture used in this way is very painful. The SHINee community is very careful and respectful of how we speak about his life and his memory. Taemin’s mental health has suffered severely while he has been serving and part of that has been because of the bullying he has been subjected to.

Maybe it is not illegal to BE gay in Korea but it certainly isn’t widely accepted and there is a reason that very very few idols or celebrities have ever come out.

Here's my apology: I am sorry that my using photos with Jonghyun in them upset you. That was certainly not my intention. I chose to use those photos specifically because they do not depict activity that can reasonably be assumed to be anything other than fanservice. They also predate Jonghyun's death by five years or more, so the idea that those photographs specifically contributed to his passing is a tenuous thread. It is an equally flimsy notion that anything I might say or write has any influence or bearing on Taemin's personal life at all. To even imagine that it would implies a level of ego that even I cannot aspire to. It's batshit, honestly. I am terribly sorry that Taemin has had such a hard time in the military. It's not okay. But my speaking to his POSSIBLE sexual orientation is not only not new, it's not news.

I appreciate your need to let us all know how not okay it is with you to discuss it at all, but please understand that I am not ever going to suggest that Taemin or anyone else is or has committed an illegal act in Korea, especially not in the context of military service. I have spoken on the military issue at length before and I am not going to go over it again in this post.

I can't speak to Jonghyun's situation or his thoughts or feelings and he is not here to defend himself, so I can't be mad at you for defending him. I am sorry that you felt I was attacking him - or Taemin - in the first place. NOW. THAT SAID. I do not see this kind of outrage for ANY MEMBER of BTS, EVER. Not Taehyung. Not Jungkook. Certainly not Hobi or Yoongi or, gods forbid, Jimin. Y'all have zero fucks to give until it tweaks the nipples of your personal parasocial relationships and this is an ongoing issue between K-pop stans and BTS stans that I'm not here to deal with.

That said, I am more aware than you might think. I chose to use the photos that I used knowing that they were also used in a very loud article published to a MUCH larger audience than mine in 2012. Many other photos have since been published, by national and international media. I could have used any of those but I chose the ones that are easily explained. Don't come at me about suicide. It's not a good idea, ever. I do not respond well to social justice warriors telling me how to behave or what to write on my blog. If you don't like it you have a go-away button that is easily deployed. I have less than zero internet clout and fewer fucks to give for people who show up and moralize me on my own page.

I'm out for a minute. See y'all when I get back.

[thesilverlady]

My thoughts on daemyra in this episode as part 2 of my mini rant.

disclaimer: I adore daemyra. Me being salty over this episode has nothing to do with the actors or the ship itself. My main issue is the writing of the show.

I've seen many people loving this episode and I'm genuinely happy for them. But since I didn't I need to vent and get it out of my chest.

So please do not read this if you don't want me to ruin your fun and enjoyment.

.

.

.

Let's start with the amount of times Daemon and Rhaenyra have interacted; their first scene is in ep1 when Rhaenyra meeting Daemon in secret in the throne room.

Immediately we see there's a playful banter between the two even, and it's the first time we see Daemon gifting her something.

They see each other again in the tournament but they spoke two words so I'm not counting (they still have the playfulness from before though)

The second actual interaction is when Daemon steals the dragon egg and Rhaenyra goes to dragon stone in ep2. She's able to talk sense to him and avoid the bloodshed he and Otto were going to have.

In that scene Rhaenyra challenges him to kill her since she's the one who stands on his way to the throne and his response was giving her the egg. It's very clear that Daemon doesn't want to harm her and she's not the actual reason for his anger.

In episode 3 there are no interactions nor mentions since Daemon is fighting in the Stepstones.

And finally, we come in episode 4. They talk again for the first time after years when they're away from the king and everyone else

Rhaenyra questions his return and notices his change and he her maturity. They speak about the concept of marriage and Rhaenyras' feelings over it.

They once more have the teasing energy they already had in ep1 and Daemon constantly looks at her very fondly.

He later offers her a night of freedom and adventure and we all know how that goes. So why am I salty? First of all, there's no leading up to them being physical and actually expressing their attraction to one another.

Where is the courtship? the seduction? them falling in love?

Yes, they're obviously attractive to each other but they barely spent any time together. The moments I mentioned above were merely minutes, we don't see them spending time, doing activities together etc

(The reason I'm not counting their night out is because that night was supposed to be their peak.)

In the book Daemon comes back to her with gifts, he reads to her, eats with her, makes her laugh, they go flying together.

THEY. SPEND. TIME. TOGETHER

"Princess Rhaenyra was a different matter. Daemon spent long hours in her company, enthralling her with tales of his journeys and battles. He gave her pearls and silks and books and a jade tiara said once to have belonged to the Empress of Leng, read poems to her, dined with her, hawked with her, sailed with her, entertained her by making mock of the greens at court, the “lickspittles” fawning over Queen Alicent and her children. He praised her beauty, declaring her to be the fairest maid in all the Seven Kingdoms. Uncle and niece began to fly together almost daily, racing Syrax against Caraxes to Dragonstone and back. "

For the life of me I cannot understand how everybody is eating it up, because even without the book context it's very clear they rushed them to move things forward - which leads us to the next conclusion: the writing is annoyingly rushed.

Do y'all realize that Daemon hasn't been able to stay in King's landing for 1 freaking day without getting kicked out? 😭

I was always sus with the number 10 episodes the show was meant to have and while I understand the need for timeskip in every ep, the reason why the dance of dragon was such a mess was due to the relationship /dynamic the characters had before it.

We don't see these relationship being freshed out and developed because the writers try to move the story increasingly fast and it bothers the hell out of me.

This is something that every character suffers from in the show btw, not just daemyra. But Daemon and Rhaenyra are my favorites and I really wanted their story to be shown without jumping them over.

I won't even talk about the characters individually because the way they butcher them and water them down actually hurts.

And to save you from asking "Then why are you watching?" Because I adore Fire & Blood and all the characters were legit very interesting.

I was hoping to have a good adaptation but my hopes are dying down. I'm trying very hard to separate the show canon entirely to make it easier but yeah, that episode pissed me off to no end.

[kkyujikoo]

These are my... 2...? Maybe 50, cents about the whole "freejk" thing. I'm gonna be extremely petty and at some points a whole lot sarcastic and it's gonna be long but I had to say it. As soon as I get my computer I'm gonna make it under read more, but the app does whatever it wants, as we know.

Listen, this ain't my first fan rodeo, and not even the first fan rodeo where I've been directly or indirectly accused of being some sort of pervert or delulu. I've been in fandom spaces since I was a teen, I was shipping mlm couples when queerbaiting in TV shows was still something that was seen as the norm rather than some cheap disgusting trick. I was there when fanfic spaces saw "slash" fics as something "different" and to be tagged with a more mature rating even when they just looked at each other.

I was in BBC's Sherlock's fandom and I shipped Johnlock during the hiatus between S3 and S4, at this point I'm not even feeling it when people call me delulu or a weirdo.

So, yeah, take this with a grain of salt: as a person who has seen thousands of times fandom drama unfolding and has lived too much of it... This whole situation is so ridiculous it makes me laugh. Like, yeah, it's maddening how people will blame anyone and everyone because they don't even see their own bias and homophobia, granted, but like... It also makes me laugh for the sheer dumbassery of the reasoning behind it all?

Like... Y'all are getting mad and for what? Because it sure as hell isn't the invasion of privacy, since y'all are watching the same content we're all watching and you're paying to see it the same way everyone else is. If you don't want to "invade their privacy", you should just... Stop watching content that isn't their music videos, RUN episodes or interviews. Memories and any kind of dvd/video that shows what they're doing behind the scenes shouldn't be part of their job as musicians, and therefore we're intruding in their privacy... Or aren't we?

Or maybe it's more nuanced than that: maybe the content they release on dvd/on their official channels is part of their job as entertainers, and it's been approved, and it's a small window THEY are granting us.

You know what's the REAL invasion of privacy and what REALLY invalidates someone autonomy? When you, who maybe aren't even paying to see that content (which is something I understand, like, dude, I'm not covered in money either), DEMAND what kind of behind the scenes content you want when I swear ABSOLUTELY NO ONE has asked you. Once again: you don't like it? You think it's some huge invasion of privacy? Don't buy it. Don't interact with it. Convince your friends to do the same. For all I care, just go and petition to boycott this kind of content. I know you won't do it, because... That's the thing, isn't it? It's not the invasion of privacy that bothers these people.

Y'all aren't mad because we get into their business or else you would have gotten real mad when we were privy to REAL private moments like people crying their hearts out.

No, no. Y'all are mad because it's "shipping content" and "fanservice" which apparently bothers you because it lacks authenticity.

Pick a side, lovelies: either you DON'T want to invade their privacy, and thus all the content they release should be focused on what fans want to see, or you WANT to know how they interact TRULY in private.

And here's the catch: "shipping content" can be anything. Shipping existed WAAAAAYYY before the word for it was invented, same way with fanfictions. Shipping means, literally, "seeing two (or more) people interact and thinking they would make a good romantic pair". That's it. That's quite literally it. Everything else is just some nuance of the concept of shipping, but at its core, it's nearly impossible to ban all shipping content when it's a group of seven people, because they should for real go in social distancing mode to do so. Most people who have parasocial relationships tend to have "ships" whether they know it or not, because we've all, at least once, looked at a dynamic from the outside and thought "oh man they look cute together". So, even if, o dear ones, your wishes were granted... What the hell do you mean by "shipping" content? Should they just film solo clips, avoiding talking about the other members? But wouldn't that be fanservice, since it's focused on pleasing the fans? (Which, ultimately, is what fanservice MEANS, and I hate to break it to y'all but the whole concept behind entertainment and thus all the content BTS releases it's... For the fans. Like, they're not going out of their way to just meet our expectations but they're certainly doing fanservice by the mere act of releasing bonus content.)

But it's not even quite that, is it? Because no one bats an eye if it's Tae kissing Nj's cheek. I've seen no hashtag against everyone - and I mean literally every one of them - wolf whistling at Nj. It's okay to show intimacy... Because they're bandmates and it's okay to be close to someone who you see basically 24/7, I hear you. And it's also okay when people see that and gush over that closeness, because it's such a nice thing to see.

Soooooo... We've got to free JK from whom exactly? From what?

Are y'all mad cause people pointed out there's very little way a bruise that stayed for a whole ass night could be a quick bite? Because that doesn't harm jk, at most makes fun of him and jimin and their poor excuses (seriously, guys, next time consider using mosquitoes or "I was doing stuff". It'll be equally embarrassing but at least the meme will be funny), and it's literally... A fair observation. Like. It's a hickey, people are gonna make jokes about seeing a hickey and poor excuses of covering it up in the exact same way they're gonna make jokes over jimin falling out of chairs. And yeah, a hickey is AT LEAST something that happens in a sensual context. Like, I could understand "people who are extremely familiar with each other will have different body language/touch in areas where usually you wouldn't see friends touching each other", but that's not. Not a hand on the thigh. It's a hickey on the neck. I don't even know a more stereotypical placing for a hickey. But once again, are y'all mad because someone is pointing it out? Because that's not being delulu or even being a shipper, really, it's just commenting on something that was approved to be shown and discussed in something that was released BY THEM.

Are y'all mad at hybe for showing something that literally fell onto their hands? Cause like, unless someone (I'm counting on Jimin, since as we know Jungkook was busy spinning him round and round and had both his hands busy) called at hybe headquarters to say "yo bang pd substitute, is it okay if I give my friend jk here a hickey? Cause he's being really annoying rn and he has to pay", I highly doubt anyone expected Jungkook to come to rehearsal all neatly marked up. Or idk, maybe someone at hybe asked them "we need Jungkook to come in with a hickey but refuse to say it's a hickey, so that fans will feel reeeeally served." That sounds perfectly plausible too. Or a good marketing strategy.

Now, if you're a big company and your objective is to have some footage of the rehearsals for a concert, and the fandom is too good at noticing stuff for their own good, and one of your artists comes in with a very visible mark, and he and his bff bropal4lyfe come n with a story about how they were playing and a bite happened, you've got three choices: 1. Cut the artist out of aaaaalll the footage. Someone would have noticed the "bite mark" anyway, you best believe that. If you don't want anyone to notice it, you gotta cut him in most of the footage where it's visible. 2. Keep the hickey, discard the explanations. You could do that, but also it would feel a lot more unfaithful to everyone involved. Also they clearly worked their ass off to invent an explanation, come on! They truly tried to do their best inventing something that was not "it's a mosquito bite", they should get some credit! 3. Keep the bite, keep the explanation.

Notice how none of these solutions include the biting never happening because... They couldn't prevent it? The only thing they have any control over is how they're framing each "accident". And that's not an easy job.

I applaud you, people on the editing team.

So... On whom should we cast the blame now? Ah, yes, I think it's finally time for the ultimate scapegoat of this fandom: Jimin. Which is funny, cause... You know... If this were really about privacy, or being "victims" of shipping... This should be about freeing him too, you know? But obviously Jimin does it for attention, while Jungkook, poor angel that he is, doesn't even know what shipping is.

Furthermore, don't we all know how much Jimin imposes himself in Jungkook's life? To the point where he, multimillionaire man feels compelled to share a car with Jimin even if they're both late in the process. And can't you see how uncomfortable he is, draping himself over Jimin, making Jimin drap himself over him?

Oh lordy, truly such an awful eight years Jungkook spent, choosing to have vacations with someone who made him uncomfortable, spending free time with him, even having to suck his ear in public to the point you can see his saliva just because Jimin was sad :( truly an all-around bad time for Jungkook, as evidenced by alllll those times when he said Jimin was pretty, cute, and all-around knowing every little thing about Jimin. I absolutely concur, the dude would be so much more happy if jimin was not in his life.

Did that sound weird and absolutely ridiculous and a really absurd joke? Because that's what y'all sound like to me. Like. Jungkook is out there living his best life, getting hickeys and showered in affection and y'all paint him as a fucking martyr??? I'm sure he's really truly desperate that Jimin holds him in such high regards 😭😭😭 I can see him suffering whenever he starts doing his own serendipity rendition 😭😭 and when he claimed you are me, I am you as his and Jimin's only 😭😭😭 I cannot believe this poor baby 😭😭😭

I've reached a point where every time I hear this stuff I laugh because the levels of twisting reality when it comes to jikook are extraordinary, Jungkook will have a literally blissed out face and people will cry in outrage.

But coming back to my point: let's pretend you're not mad at Jimin and the possibility that jikook are dating: are y'all mad... At the hickey? Because at this point it seems like the only feasible solution. And if you are, do not worry: I'm sure Jungkook's skin was throughly healed by his boo. A kiss soothes even the worst pain, doesn't it?

[nancythebisexualslutwheeler]

I’m sorry that you had to deal with that person. To watch those white guys attack two younger black kids with the intent of killing them (especially explicitly in Lucas’ case) and write it off as a scorned lover’s rage is privilege these people can’t even recognize. The scenes horrified me, and the fact that Erica and Lucas didn’t even get a scene at the end to hug or acknowledge their suffering while all these other white characters got to reunite and come full circle is obscene. Violence committed by white people against non white people (and especially Black people in an American story) will always have a racialized edge to them, intentional or not. Media doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The Duffer Brothers deciding to write such a scene still says a lot about how they view violence against Black people, regardless of their intent. Ignorance and denial still speak words.

(Sorry for going on so long. I didn’t expect to write more than two sentences maybe. Please don’t feel obligated to post this / respond. I just wanted to show agreement with you and that your frustrations are shared, especially as a nonwhite person.)

No I want to answer because this is super nice and the only support I've gotten besides my literal fiance and the one white mutual I talk to the most. I point out her race because you don't have to be the most woke, you don't have to know a lot, but you know some stuff. You do. And if you're not, you're fucking delusional and racist. I fucking said what I said. Aw... do words hurt? Bitch so did being a motherfucking slave ho!

Literally saying "The violence against Black people doesn't mean he had to die in the way he did." Bitch... what is wrong with you? What am I missing? Like this is direct ignorance, racism and just stupidity.

In this climate, writing these things without discussing them or giving any context is unacceptable. Bitch, at least put a warning at the beginning for racial violence the way y'all do for swearing.

At this point will white people ever understand? Honestly probably not. And truly, they bold as fuck over the internet cause truly knuck or buck bitch, I fight. That's why they bold online, cause they scared in person. These the people that cross the street.

Bringing someone's literal race into an argument to defend a fictional character... yes I said it... fictional... is the most heinous thing I can really think of? Like we don't have anything else to prove our point? We just gotta be out here saying the colored is crying? No, you knew you were in the wrong, and perhaps after the fucking 10 posts of you going back and forth with people, saying you didn't say shit, the post you made directly before- YOU SHOULD HAVE JUST SAID SORRY I'LL TAKE THE L ON THAT and kept pushing. Cause now I got all white people liking my post cause of your addition. Bitch I'm silenced in real life... get the FUCK off my blog bitch.

Sorry this was so long lol, but I guess I wasn't ready for a repeat of 2018 but here we go. Y'all forgot I'm a Cunt with a capital C hunni.

Thank you for the support and truly, anytime you need someone to stand up for you, a prompt, a pep talk, a rant- I'm here, cause there's not many of us in this fandom and it's hard as fuck. xxxxxx