#it was so bad last night

[cherrysnax]

cats subreddit is helping a bit

[axoqiii]

augh

[chloesimaginationthings]

The Mikes and Vanessas celebrate 10 years of FNAF!

[lesamis]

If you're up for it could you explain what is making the Germany government stuff so funny? I can find news articles about it (a coalition is dissolving? There's been tension for a while?) but they're all fairly serious. Thx!

ohhh, sure thing! i'll do my best!

i'll say upfront: this is a pretty serious thing to happen. our chancellor fired our minister of finance, Lindner, which definitively breaks up the governing coalition. germany will likely have snap elections at a moment in which far-right parties are polling extremely well. if news coverage about it seems like people are Worried, that's because, well, they are.

however. the reason it's funny is because our minister of finance was fired. ministers aren't really... ever fired. like, it's not a done thing. i'll fully admit i didn't even know it was an option until yesterday. and our minister of finance wasn't just anyone, he was one of the most mocked and hated figures in politics to germans who vote anywhere left of center.

the coalition that governed until yesterday was made up of the green party, the social democrats, and the neoliberal party (FDP). the FDP is infamous (and i mean, my parents already raised me to hate them for that) for playing kingmaker in coalition governments: they never get all that many votes, but they get just enough that whoever they agree to form a government with will probably succeed. they then tend to force extreme concessions from their coalition partners, because hey, if we walk off, you can't govern at all! so you better play along!

for the past three years, this behaviour has been extremely frustrating for germans who voted for greens or social democrats, because policy from their faction was constantly being blocked by the FDP and often by Lindner personally. the FDP received 11,5% of votes in 2021, but to many of us, it felt as if they were the only party who really had any say in the governing coalition. it made the green and social democratic coalition partners look spineless and passive.

and now, i invite you to imagine how on the day of the US election results, the day the whole world rolled their eyes at the sheer fucking stupidity and pointlessness of it all, at NINE IN THE EVENING, just as germans are getting ready to settle in to bed to dream of nightmare global politics -

the news suddenly breaks that our notoriously invisible chancellor just decided to fire Lindner for that exact behaviour. this chancellor comes out and says, on camera, to the entire sleepy nation, that acting the way Lindner did - blocking necessary policies, refusing to approve budgets unless his party's interests were met - was childish, selfish, irresponsible, and unfit for government, so, whoops, he had to go. shame. coalition over, i guess.

so, politically, that was a long-needed but never-expected moment of triumph for those of us who think the FDP is a clown show made up of human TESLA shares, and it came at a hysterically funny moment.

on a personal level, i can barely explain how uniquely hateable Lindner has always been. he's what would happen if a stock index graph came to life. he hates poor people with a relish; he mocks welfare recipients and would ax minimum wages in a second. he's everyone's business major roommate who shows up in boat shoes fresh off a yacht to discuss NFTs with you. throughout the entire time that he's used his rich boy policy blackmail strategy, he's been smug about it, and he was never taken to task for it, and millions of germans have been longing to throw rotten fruit in his face since 2017. and now we finally get to do it. via memes. on the day of trump's election win.

so that's why it's funny.

[kitamars]

hhhnhhghgjjghgugujgutuutghn piskin……..

[silvykinesis]

We’ll go together 💙

[luxris]

it’s hard to summarise just what this show means to me. it’s brought me endless joy and inspiration, as well as introduced me to some of my closest friends. it will forever hold a very, very special place in my heart.

thank you, bad batch 🖤

[shalom-iamcominghome]

It's absolutely true that delusions can take on religious elements and be fueled in part or whole by religion, but dear l-rd, do I hate when people blanket all religion under this whole "it's all delusion, anyway!!!".

No it is not, and I know that because I know what it's like to have gone through delusions! I was reminded of that difference recently, and I'm religious. Not everything that you personally disagree with is a delusion, a narcissistic power play, or anything else. Sometimes you disagree with others. I am pretty religious, but I am more than willing to agree with non-theists about their opinions because they come up with good ideas and we are equal human beings. In fact, the atheist has strengthened my own religious beliefs because I am challenged by them to actually think things through. My whole issue with this is the - funnily enough - holier-than-thou, stigmatizing attitudes that are necessary to say things like that.

As someone who has a vested interest in mental health and accurate information about it, this stuff unironically angers me. The human in me wants to educate people, but the ape in me wants to take away the terms delusional, narcissistic, gaslighting, and every mental health term under the sun away until people learn how to properly use and apply them. The only people you are hurting are people who are already hurting.

[makesyouevil]

my fav panel from my recent lil jjk comic✨

[royalarchivist]

Tubbo: Phil, should we just pick someone and target them and make sure they don't get in?

Phil: Jesus. No??? [Laughs]

Tubbo: Ok, sorry, I just wondering if we were on the same wavelength–

Phil: It's against the rules, first of all!

Tubbo: How is targeting against the rules???

Phil: It's literally against the rules.

Roier: [Starts messing around with his soundboard] 🔊💥

Phil: Alright, target Roier. I'm kidding– [Cracks up laughing]

[crybaby-bkg]

I think Deku has a bit of a mean streak, actually. he’s no Bakugou—that’s for sure—but he’s not this innocent, sweet angel baby that the media has painted him out to be. but you only catch it when you least expect it, when you’re pushing his nerves, when the stakes to everything around him are high, when he’s tired of endless sleepless nights and just—snaps.

“Oh?” you go, grin unfurling like some grinch, chin resting on your hands as you leer at him from across his expansive desk. “You’re mean.” your words are teasing, a snarl that curls your mouth up. Deku stutters, eyes going wide, jaw snapping shut in surprise as he tries to think back on how rude he just sounded.

“No, I’m not—I mean, you wouldn’t stop and I just—there’s a lot on my plate right now—and you just—you keep on—I’m not—I’m not mean.” He’s sputtering, hands all over the place, the glasses perched on the bridge of his nose falling even lower with how he jabbers on and on. it’s endearing really, to see how he tries to upkeep his image of being so kind and understanding, even though his nostrils just flared at you. and his eyebrows turned down and he gritted at you, his hands were balled into fists, his words were so nasty, so ugly, so unbecoming for Deku.

you liked it. loved it even—vowed to get him like this every single fucking second that you could.

you pick and poke at him whenever you see him, teasing him and pulling at him. pushing him around even though the hero is so much stronger than you, so much bigger. and he lets you, tries to defend himself but—that’s not what you want. you want the ugliness, the snark, the mean.

he snaps, eventually, when you least expect it. grabs you up in black whip when you go to push him against the wall for the third time in only a minute, his eyes suddenly dark, the aura of the room suddenly charged.

“That’s what I was looking for.” you whisper to him, the grin spreading your face quickly dissipating in only seconds when you become the prey. when you become the one pushed up against the wall with teeth at your neck, a hand in your underwear, bullying your hole with too thick fingers.

“Why do you want me to act like this? Be so mean to you, huh?” he sounds so frustrated with himself, with you, growling and nipping and licking when you don’t answer quick enough. but your breath is caught in your lungs because finally—finally, did you get what you wanted. it just took a little bit of pushing, you suppose.

[strange-aeons]

See him face :)

[fiendishartist2]

whats going on up there

[mochasucculent]

I'm rewatching Arcane, and after my third time seeing season 1 I had a hot new reading on Viktor's scenes in episodes 6, 7, and 8.

Like a lot of other people, I felt it was weird and unsavory that Viktor - very close to death with a disease that affects his lungs - suddenly starts experimenting on his disabled leg. Those two things have nothing in common, save for the fact that the cause of both might have been the toxic fumes of the undercity, which could have resulted in Viktor being born disabled if his parents were also subject to those conditions.

So why does Viktor try to "fix" his leg when his main goal is to utilize the Hexcore to prolong and improve living conditions before he's gone?

Viktor in acts 2 and 3 is motivated to save himself long enough to make a difference in the world. Even though Hextech is revolutionary for Piltover, it hasn't reached who Viktor wanted to help this whole time, the disenfranchised in the undercity. In his mind, he hasn't done enough to change the world for the better, and he will be gone before he has the chance to do so.

After realizing the Hexcore responded to organic matter when it absorbed Viktor's blood, he experiments with plants, only to find that they wither and die soon after the Hexcore makes them grow.

This causes him to visit Singed once again for anything that could help him figure out how to use the Hexcore for magic that could save lives, one last shot at accomplishing his dreams.

Viktor parted ways with with him as a child upon seeing that Singed was willing to hurt Rio, his salamander test subject, in order to prolong her life. Viktor didn't understand that cost before, but he does now, being in the same position as Singed and Rio simultaneously, both the scientist trying to make a breakthrough and the subject he needs to save in order to do so.

Like Rio, Viktor is not his own end goal to his scientific pursuits. Singed is trying to save his daughter, Viktor is trying to help his people. He's his own means to an end, and is now willing to pay the cost of getting there.

Singed gives Viktor a variant of Shimmer to experiment with, the idea being that it will stabilize an organism while the Hexcore's magic affects it, hopefully allowing it to survive through the aggressive and sudden healing process.

Viktor injects the Shimmer into his leg, as well as carving runes into both his brace and thigh to channel the magic towards there before he offers the Hexcore his blood. It does Something to his leg which we don't see till the following episode.

The new reading I have of this scene is that the reason Viktor chose his leg specifically is not because he was trying to "fix" it, but because:

-He's not willing to put others' lives at risk and knows he's not long for this world, so the only test subject he's willing to use is himself

-He knows the organic matter he tests the Hexcore on might die

-Viktor's leg is a part of his body he's willing to lose if things go wrong and it rejects the transmutation (he also knows that he could just fully die then and there too and is willing to take that risk)

Obviously, the scenes involving Viktor's experimentation center his physical disabilities (shots of his back brace, the focus on his leg) and equate them with the disease that is literally killing him. The narrative lens shows us that Viktor "curing" himself begins with his disability, which sucks.

So while the boat scene undoubtedly is written to be "triumphant" because Viktor's leg is no longer disabled (shown by him dropping his crutch, the swelling music, the parallel to the scene where a child Viktor can't keep up with his toy boat), a different reading is that it's another experiment to him.

Viktor is stress testing the organic matter he infused with magic, and the scene is triumphant because he's realized his leg isn't deteriorating or weakening - it holds up. The mutation of the magic in his leg survived. It's a sign that maybe he can use the Hexcore on the rest of his body, keep himself alive long enough to do what he's always wanted to do: leave a legacy that changes the world for the better.

To me that's a much more in-character perspective for Viktor in these scenes than what is being said narratively through directing, framing, music, etc. Previously, Viktor had never expressed distaste for his disability as an adult, only commenting on it as a part of why he was isolated socially from Piltover. To me, him testing the Hexcore on his leg is merely an indifference to its current state, rather than a preference to have it changed. I don't even necessarily think it'd be a bad thing if Viktor did outright say "I would like to not be disabled", because I'm sure many other disabled people feel that way from time to time, but season 1 really does a poor job of pushing that framing of "curing" disability onto a character that did not express those perspectives himself at this point.

It gives off a big ol' "aw, poor Viktor, not only is he dying because of the political landscape that leaves disenfranchised people to suffer preventable diseases, but he's got a disabled leg too!" One of those things is much more problematic than the other lol.

Season 2 definitely hurtles Viktor very quickly into the Machine Herald perspective in which he thinks humans must evolve past ANY limitations of their original bodies, but to me season 1 Viktor just doesn't feel that way about himself. His primary concern has always been rooted in how to improve the lives of his people permanently, and it's only when he's actively dying that his secondary goal is to live long enough to see that happen.

It's something he drops completely after his experimentation results in Sky's death. He's immediately spiteful of the Hexcore and tries to destroy it - and himself.

Viktor now accepts that he will die before he's able to change the world the way he wanted, and hides the fact that he fucked with his body from everyone as he awaits his demise. "Fixing" his leg is not something he celebrates in and of itself, it's now only a reminder that the pursuit of his dream resulted in someone else's death.

The narrative does well in season 2 to frame Viktor's Glorious Evolution as a Bad Thing at least, and Jayce's speech at the end about Viktor never being broken is extremely valuable and important, but it's just weird to see him say this:

Cause to me now, that ain't what Viktor was trying to do at all! The writers may have retconned that to be the case, which is fine, whatever, but season 1 in isolation does not support that idea to me after this rewatch.

Overall, I think Arcane can have confusing directing sometimes that focuses on evoking feelings and themes rather than the richness of its characters, their dynamics, and the world they inhabit - to the detriment of all the above. In season 2, this resulted in a lot of scenes that felt emotionally unearned or muddy to me, like pretty much everything with Jinx, Vi, and Vander together rip.

It's for this same reason that I think it took me so long to really come to this reading of Viktor's season 1 scenes, because the directing bias REALLY wants to make you feel sorrow and hope alongside Viktor, even though it means he'll seem to randomly start equating his disabled leg to his illness. It just felt like a weird disparity to me until I watched these episodes again and was like "wait" lol.

Anyway peace and love on planet Earth I cannot stop thinking about Viktor Arcane

[gayafsowhat]

Eepy hours

[manchesterau]

the switch into and out of sister daniel is like watching a performance