#if you fear you might be faking it

[sparkly-lexi]

am I even a real trans girl?

I mean, I hate being called he/him, facial hair gives my dysphoria, I'm literally on HRT and growing my tits and everything

But I don't even own an Ikea Blåhaj Shark Plush From Ikea

I'm such a faker 🥺🥺

[cobaltfluff]

so i started playing persona 4

where are the QoL features

[whump-galaxy]

The whumpee fighting to convince their team they’re not weak. Excessive training, a facade of irritability, even getting into unnecessary fights to “prove” how “strong” they are.

But none of that lasts during real battle. They spent so much time creating a veneer of power that crumbles at the slightest test.

[wiihtigo]

these frauds

[neonhellscape]

new rt everyone shes a freak whos pretty sure shes been been given the role of rogue trader as an act of divine intervention to eventually replace the godemperor and bring new glory to the imperium which she thinks is dull and stagnant. dont worry about why she keeps marazhai caged in her trophy room like he's bait its not important and completely irrelevant to the fact ive joke nicknamed her simon thresh. has anyone noticed a lot of slaaneshi demons during warp jumps lately

[mlobsters]

did not have kristen doing some cute flirting?? and maybe kissing?? the adorable nun at the silent monastery in my bingo card for this episode of evil. ok, kristen

[grinchwrapsupreme]

being super normal about White calling Billy "a dreamer"after the events of Maybe No Go

[anastacialy]

y'know, i keep making a habit of swinging my bat at hornets nests, but i have to say i'm getting so, so tired of people complaining about shows not making perfect sense when they aren't even close to done. we're four episodes into this season of doctor who. we're four episodes into this season of bridgerton. and yet in both fandoms i keep seeing people whine that such and such didn't make sense or it wasn't explained all the way and by god you guys i think maybe explanations might come later in the season. this is something most viewers will recognize as being called a 'plot.'

[egregiousderp]

Feel free to reblog for larger sample size, because this can only get exponentially funnier the more results it gets while simultaneously utterly straining my bromance of many years.

[blujayonthewing]

I was trying out variations on colorways for aubree's outfit and, with a few of them, realized that her outfit has trended slightly less colorful over time, and specifically less yellow (originally a green and yellow striped vest, then a green vest over a yellow short sleeved shirt, and now possibly a white shirt and green vest, with only small amounts of yellow embroidery). this wasn't intentional, but nonetheless, the concept that, as the adventure has worn on, she's outwardly losing color-- and specifically in favor of browns and whites, the colors associated with the halfling god of death-- is compelling to me. I mean, I suppose if I had been doing it on purpose, the shadowfell arc immediately following our literal deaths and mysterious rebirths would have been a really good time for the most muted palette... but, then again, aubree was still relatively fresh then, confused and traumatized but also still powerfully and stubbornly alive where it counts; vibrant, burning, shining light into dark corners just by existing. but the more we learn, the heavier things weigh, the fewer outlets she has, the less she feels like she can relate to the people who should understand better than anyone... she's still righteous and angry, but she's also just... sad, and tired, and growing more tired the more she feels like she has to keep herself together for everyone else. and gradually, quietly, her colors are washing out.

[ostensiblywhump]

At the Hook (Line, Sinker)

Augusnippets day 10: execution | fake execution | begging for mercy

Word count: 499

Trigger warnings: description of death, implied/referenced panic attack

——————(0)——————

Mag knows his face goes pale when he sees the man waiting for them, the thick, wicked hook in the ceiling. The assistant holding rope in a telling noose.

They absolutely don’t care if this man’s reputation is being used to frighten them into obedience. Either that’s the case, or talking will buy Cassander time to scrounge up a miracle to let them escape, or they’re both fucking dead.

“Please,” he whispers; louder: “Please, no, I don’t, I don’t—! Not like this, fuck, not like this!”

“Not like this?” the man—Marcus? Marius? Martin?—says, an easy smile spreading across his face. “That can be arranged. There are plenty of ways to—”

“What do you want?” Mag interrupts, because they really don’t want to know all the horrible ways maybe-Marcus has found to kill people. He already knows this man would see him hung slowly, death by strangulation instead of a broken neck. “What do you want?! I’ll do anything!”

They want to yank the words back as soon as they leave—it’s too much to give. But maybe-Marius wouldn’t accept anything less, anyways.

“Are you sure?” maybe-Martin says, nearly pouting. “I’ve been wanting to see what a destroying angel will do to someone. It eases up while it’s liquefying your liver—what does the anticipation do to you, feeling better but knowing you’ll die?”

“No! Fuck no! Please, I said I’ll do anything, please!”

“Oh, calm down. I can think of some ways to use a thief as famous as you, if you’re willing to do anything.”

Mag’s heart leaps in relief; his first guess was right. “Yes! Yes, I’ll do whatever—!”

“What about him, though?”

And back down their heart went into dread.

“He’s my partner,” Mag says, not looking at where Cassander was forced to kneel beside him. “He’ll do whatever you want, too.”

Play along, they think, please play along, don’t act out and ruin this, it might be our only chance.

“Of course, yes,” Marcus(?) says. His smile widens, goes sadistic and ugly. “But I want to hear him beg for it.”

Fuck, we’re dead.

Because the keyword with Cassander is proud. He’d fought every step of the way here, to the point that he was more heavily restrained than Mag now. He never apologized or said he was wrong. He’d spit defiance to someone holding a knife to his throat.

A tense pause. Then:

“Please,” Cassander grit out.

Marius(?) raises a brow. “Go on,” he prompts.

“Please,” Cassander says again. Then, picking up speed: “Please, please, please, please, áni, áni, áni—”

He cuts off. The only sound is his frantic breathing.

Mag tries his best to keep from gaping, because what the fuck, while picking over the last word. What was that, another language? Ahni? Ahani?

… No. He’s saying áni. Because that’s Áléen.

“Please what?” fucking Martin(?) is saying.

The answering jumble of syllables is foreign to Mag, but apparently it convinces the motherfucker.

“Well, then,” he says. “Here’s what you’re going to do.”

[bittwitchy]

my gift is being annoying, see, i can hate myself and be so horrendously anxious that i think trying to make being alive easier for myself is somehow offensive to others bc thats how so many people online act like literally any accomodations not made by the doctors that dont care abt you at all are somehow unnecessary and ‘fishing for attention’ to the point i ruin myself and destroy my body avoiding accomodations bc i dont want to ‘seem like a bad person’ for quite literally needing help. but give me a tv show and 30 seconds with new information and i will either give you the most thought provoking theory or the most wildcard theory ever and always be correct.

[maximumzombiecreator]

It's often remarked how D&D 5e's play culture has this sort of disinterest bordering on contempt for actually knowing the rules, often even extending to the DM themselves. I've seen a lot of different ideas for why this is, but one reason I rarely see discussed is that actually, a lot of 5e's rules are not meant to be used.

Encumbrance is a great example of this. 5e contains granular weights for all the items that you might have in your inventory, and rules for how much you can carry based on your strength score, and they've set these carry capacities high enough that you should never actually need to think about them. And that's deliberate, the designers have explicitly said that they've set carrying capacity high enough that it shouldn't come up in normal play. So for a starting DM, you see all these weights, you see all the rules for how much people can carry or drag, and you've played Fallout, you know how this works. And then if you try to actually enforce that, you find that it's insanely tedious, and it basically never actually matters, so you drop it.

Foraging is the example of this that bothers me most. There's a whole system for this! A table of foraging DCs, and math for how much food you can find, and how long you can go without food, etc. But the math is set up so that a person with no survival proficiency and a +0 to WIS, in a hostile environment, will still forage enough food to be fine, and the starvation rules are so generous that even a run of bad luck is unlikely to matter. So a DM who actually tries to use these rules will quickly find that they add nothing but bookkeeping. You're rolling a bunch of checks every day of travel for something that is purpose built not to matter. And that's before you add in all the ways to trivialize or circumvent this.

These rules don't exist to be used, that is not their purpose. These rules exist because the designers were scared of the backlash to 4e, and wanted to make sure that the game had all the rules that D&D "should" have. But they didn't actually want these mechanics. They didn't want the bookkeeping, they didn't care about that style of play, but they couldn't just say, "this game isn't about that" for fear of angering traditionalists. And unfortunately the way they handled this was by putting in rules that are bad, that actively fight anyone who wants to use that style of play and act as a trap to people who take the rules in good faith.

And this means that knowing what rules are not supposed to be used is an actual skill 5e DMs develop. Part of being a good 5e DM is being able to tell the real rules that will improve your game from the fake rules that are there to placate angry forum posters. And that's just an awful position to put DMs in (especially new DMs), but it's pretty unsurprising that it creates a certain contempt for knowing the rules as written.

You should have contempt for some of the rules as written. The designers did.

[musclesandhammering]

Oh lord, see… I’m so annoyed we never got a deeper dive into their relationship, because I actually think it’s so much more complex than just “Thanos tortured Loki”. This is gonna be an unpopular take.

I keep describing it as a criminal striking up a partnership with a mob boss, because that’s exactly how it feels to me. Like was their relationship shitty and unequal and horrible for Loki? Yes! But did Loki freely enter into that relationship for his own purposes and hold some of the cards himself? Also yes!

It really is such a unique dynamic, because Loki had way more autonomy in that little set-up than, say, the Black Order. But he was also more anchored to Thanos’s base than someone like Ronan. And he wasn’t treated in a familial way like Gamora and Nebula. So, conclusion? Loki was his “ally”, not his employee, and there were undertones of a fucked up sort of mentorship.

I don’t think Thanos ever looked inside Loki’s mind. And I don’t think he ever tortured him, per se, as a punishment. Thanos knew what all the major heroes looked like- that’s how he knew Thor. And I think all the torture was framed as “training” or “enhancement” (much like with Gamora and Nebula) and, in Loki’s case, I believe he wholeheartedly agreed to it. Now, was he in a good place mentally when he made those choices? Oh hell no. But was he lucid enough that they were still his choices? Yeah I think so.

Loki was led into that trap by his own anger and lostness and search for vengeance and purpose, and those are the things that kept him there too. Like I said, he probably saw Thanos as a sort of demented mentor- he clearly told him about what happened that led him to Sanctuary, but Thanos didn’t know he was adopted so he must not’ve read Loki’s mind to get that info. So, Loki confided those bits and pieces. And you know what? You’re right, that “you’ll never be a god” line clearly struck a nerve, so I’m willing to bet Thanos did some confiding of his own.

They were allies- not on even footing, no, but Loki wasn’t being actively oppressed either- and they likely had tentative plans beyond the New York attack. Something along the lines of “you get me the tesseract, I’ll get you a throne, and then we’ll see what else we can achieve together.” Loki obviously knew their partnership would never make it that far (I don’t think he even really cared to win in New York), but he played into it anyway. And Thanos probably suspected Loki would betray him eventually (judging by how suspicious the Other was of him in A1) but he wasn’t certain of it.

And now, six years after it ended, here they both are seeing each other again for the first time. Thanos has an air of cocky bitterness about him, and Loki is clearly terrified but still defiant. This guy who no one dares oppose is standing there looking at this troubled soul whom he- in his own mind, at least- took in when he was rejected by everyone else, gave him an opportunity to achieve greatness, and then got ghosted by him. That’s gotta lead to some resentment. And from Loki’s pov, his deal with the devil that he made when he was at his lowest most shameful point is finally coming back to bite him and the people he loves. Yeah, neither of them is happy to see the other, and they both knew what was gonna happen.

*end rambling

“The Tesseract or your brother’s head. I assume you have a preference?”

Have….have we ever considered the fact how utterly disturbing it is that Thanos a) waves Thor in front of Loki because he knows that Loki would kill the universe to save him, and B) HE RECOGNIZED THOR AS LOKI’S BROTHER ON THE SPOT? 

I don’t think that Thanos, Thor, and Loki had a little sit down before the battle started and talked about familial relationships. 

This line, usually thought of in passing, means these things: 

Thanos knows how important Thor is to Loki, which means Thanos and Loki have talked about this beforehand. 

Thanos knows what Thor looks like which means Thanos has seen Thor from Loki’s head before

Thanos knows that Loki has the Tesseract. He could have chosen ANY PERSON on the ship to convince Loki to give up the Tesseract, but instead, he picked Thor out of the group and CHOSE to use Thor against Loki on PURPOSE. 

Thanos didn’t demand the Tesseract from Loki first, he WANTED to play with him and he WANTED to torture Loki and he WANTED to see Loki mouth “please” and he WANTED to see Loki’s desperation and he WANTED to see Loki break again, and he WANTED Loki to think Thor getting tortured was his fault, not Thanos’

Thanos knows Loki on an intimate level that we do not fully understand. 

Thanos probably knows Loki better than his family does

And Thanos, more than likely, killed him in the way that he knew Loki was terrified of 

[ktempestbradford]

I have been on a Willy Wonkified journey today and I need y'all to come with me

It started so innocently. Scrolling Google News I come across this article on Ars Technica:

At first glance I thought what happened was parents saw AI-generated images of an event their kids were at and became concerned, then realized it was fake. The reality? Oh so much better.

On Saturday, event organizers shut down a Glasgow-based "Willy's Chocolate Experience" after customers complained that the unofficial Wonka-inspired event, which took place in a sparsely decorated venue, did not match the lush AI-generated images listed on its official website.... According to Sky News, police were called to the event, and "advice was given."

Thing is, the people who paid to go were obviously not expecting exactly this:

But I can see how they'd be a bit pissed upon arriving to this:

It gets worse.

"Tempest, how could it possibly--"

source of this video that also includes this charming description:

Made up a villain called The Unknown — 'an evil chocolate maker who lives in the walls'

There is already a meme.

Oh yes, the Wish.com Oompa Loompa:

Who has already done an interview!

As bad (and hilarious) as this all is, I got curious about the company that put on this event. Did they somehow overreach? Did the actors they hired back out at the last minute? (Or after they saw the script...) Oddly enough, it doesn't seem so!

Given what I found when poking around I'm legit surprised there was an event at all. Cuz this outfit seems to be 100% a scam.

The website for this specific event is here and it has many AI generated images on it, as stated. I don't think anyone who bought tickets looked very closely at these images, otherwise they might have been concerned about how much Catgacating their children would be exposed to.

Yes, Catgacating. You know, CATgacating!

I personally don't think anyone should serve exarserdray flavored lollipops in public spaces given how many people are allergic to it. And the sweet teats might not have been age appropriate.

Though the Twilight Tunnel looks pretty cool:

I'm not sure that Dim Tight Twdrding is safe. I've also been warned that Vivue Sounds are in that weird frequency range that makes you poop your pants upon hearing them.

Yes, Virginia, these folks used an AI image generator for everything on the website and used Chat GPT for some of the text! From the FAQ:

Q: I cannot go on the available days. Will you have more dates in the future? A: Should there be capacity when you arrive, then you will be able to enter without any problems. In the event that this is not the case, we may ask you to wait a bit.

Fear not, for this question is asked again a few lines down and the answer makes more sense.

Curious about the events company behind this disaster, I took myself over to the homepage of House of Illuminati and I was not disappointed.

I would 100% trust these people to plan my wedding.

This abomination of a website is a badly edited WordPress blog filled with AI art and just enough blog posts to make the casual viewer think that it's a legit business for about 0.0004 seconds.

Their attention to detail is stunning, from how they left up the default first post every WP blog gets to how they didn't bother changing the name on several images, thus revealing where they came from. Like this one:

With the lovely and compact filename "DALL·E-2024-01-30-09.50.54-Imagine-a-scene-where-fantasy-and-reality-merge-seamlessly.-In-the-foreground-a-grand-interactive-gala-is-taking-place-filled-with-elegant-guests-i.png"

"Concept.png" came from the same AI generator that gets text almost, but not quiiiiiite right:

There are a suspicious number of .webp images in the uploads, which makes me think they either stole them from other sites where AI "art" was uploaded or they didn't want to pay for the hi-res versions of some and just grabbed the preview image.

The real fun came when I noticed this filename: Before-and-After-Eventologists-Transformation-Edgbaston-Cricket-Ground-1024x1024-1.jpg and decided to do a Google image search. Friends, you will be shocked to hear that the image in question, found on this post touting how they can transform a boring warehouse into a fun event space, was stolen from this actual event planner.

Even better, this weirdly grainy image?

From a post that claims to be about the preparations for a "Willy Wonka" experience (we'll get to this in a minute), is not only NOT an actual image of anyone preparing anything for Illuminati's event, it is stolen from a YouTube thumbnail that's been chopped to remove the name of the company that actually made this. Here's the video.

If you actually read the blog posts they're all copypasta or some AI generated crap. To the point where this seems like not a real business at all. There's very specific business information at the bottom, but nothing else seems real.

As I said, I'm kinda surprised they put on an event at all. This has, "And then they ran off with all our money!" written all over it. I'm perplexed.

And also wondering when the copyright lawyers are gonna start calling, because...

This post explicitly says they're putting together a "Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory Experience" complete with golden tickets.

Somewhere along the line someone must have wised up, because the actual event was called "Willys Chocolate Experience" (note the lack of apostrophe) and the script they handed to the actors about 10 minutes before they were supposed to "perform" was about a "Willy McDuff" and his chocolate factory.

As I was going through this madness with friends in a chat, one pointed out that it took very little prompting to get the free Chat GPT to spit out an event description and such very similar to all this while avoiding copyrighted phrases. But he couldn't figure out where the McDuff came from since it wasn't the type of thing GPT would usually spit out...

Until he altered the prompt to include it would be happening in Glasgow, Scotland.

You cannot make this stuff up.

But truly, honestly, I do not even understand why they didn't take the money and run. Clearly this was all set up to be a scam. A lazy, AI generated scam.

Everything from the website to the event images to the copy to the "script" to the names of things was either stolen or AI generated (aka stolen). Hell, I'd be looking for some poor Japanese visitor wandering the streets of Glasgow, confused, after being jacked for his mascot costume.

HE LIVES IN THE WALLS, Y'ALL.

[tiredhecate]

Genshin impact

" why does that flower have a speech bubble?"

"OH SHIT THAT'S WHY AHHH"