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the-indigo-symphony · 1 year ago

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Fakeclaiming is easy because it feels like activism. It feels like protection.

Spotting a "faker" feels like you're doing something. It feels like you're protecting yourself, your community, by pointing at someone and saying "look, I have identified the enemy". You get to feel good that you have done something to help, and you get to feel good to see one of your enemies torn apart by your allies. It's based on a simple reward system for community.

The thing is, though, is that this community isn't solid, and this reward system is flawed.

If a primary way of protecting oneself is spotting fakers, then you're always on-guard, always looking for the enemy in your allies. You'll look for patterns where there may not be any, because you want a leg up on spotting the next of them; you want formulas to rely on – one to decide if someone is faking, and one to decide if someone is not. You want to make the process of protection as simple and easy as possible. And in turn, the easier it gets to "identity a faker", the more often you get that rush of spotting one, that camaraderie of tearing them apart with the "real ones". You have made it easier to justify hurting others, because you have made it easier to win that reward system. And yet, at the same time, because you must remain on-guard, you stress yourself over whether someone fits the formula(s) you have crafted. If all your enemies are fakers pretending to be allies, then you must be ready to turn on any of your allies and tear them apart, too. You must rely on this second formula; these rules you have enforced to decide who is real and who is not. You must not ever think about the process beyond how you can better improve your formulas.

There is no repeal, once a claim has been filed. There is only dogpiling and tearing them apart, demanding they apologize, delete their blog, kill themselves for "faking". They are the enemy, this is what has been declared, and you can tell because they plug into the formula. You can tell because they did something we don't approve of. You can tell because we have declared it true, and you must always believe us and never listen to the person we have been tearing apart, because you wouldn't want to risk defending the enemy, would you? Because...

Conveniently, people who speak out about this reward system are often automatically considered fakers, too. Because their voices are seen as defense of the enemy you have already branded, so they must be enemies too, right? I must now be your enemy for telling you the flaws in this system; in this community. Because only enemies to a community say there's something wrong with that community, don't they? They can't possibly be members of the community who want it to be (even) better. They can't possibly be real members of your community who you have plugged into an arbitrary formula that doesn't even make sense most of the time. They can't be people who have thought about this for two seconds and decided, "Actually, tearing people apart doesn't sound like a very moral action."

Fakeclaiming is a flawed reward system that depends on the idea that the main enemies of any community will always be trying to pretend to be them. Will always be wolves in sheep's clothing. And that the way to help your community – the way to get that rush of justice against your enemy – is to never truly trust your allies; to be prepared to hurt them at a moment's notice; to create formulas based on confirmation bias and plug people into them if they do something against the rules you have decided upon.

I'm aware this is scathing. That's the point. Fakeclaiming doesn't serve any productive purpose; all it does is give the same rush that hitting a child gives a parent.

I am also aware this will likely be used to make me out to be a "faker". An enemy. Very well, go right ahead. Anyone who would decide criticism about the way they go about harassing and tearing apart their own supposed "allies" is an act of "the enemy" is not someone I wish to associate with, so please do reveal yourselves, so that I may block you and move on with my life that does not involve hurting people for the rush it would give me but does involve thinking critically about accusations.

Fakeclaiming doesn't even help the community the way it's supposed to. Drop your formulas. There are better ways to help your community, like accepting our variance and differences, offering advice born from personal experience, and advocating for more awareness and acceptance in your everyday life. Go leave a positive comment on someone's post. Go make a positivity post. Be there for people. I believe you can do better, and make this community better, in turn.

#front soup.txt #discourse mention #long post #had thoughts about this today #fakeclaiming #suicide baiting

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thebaddexample · 5 months ago

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FILM THEORY: DEATH RETURNS TO INANIMATE INSANITY!! BUT IT'S NOT TACO OR LIGHTBULB!!

Warning, spoilers and possibly cringey or bad writing, but it's 1am for me so eh

(First off, shout-out to my mom for coming up with this idea for me to make a theory on- You're the best :3)

(Second, thumbnail by me :])

(Thirdly, I might rewrite this during the day at some point because I'm really tired, but had to get this out before I slept bcs I'd forget to otherwise)

(Fourthly, I know that this isn't a completely original idea, and people have done it already, but I wanted an excuse to make a theory and there's evidence, so I thought "why not?" It'll make people upset with me if I'm right, and I get to pretend to be Film Theory for a bit. It's a win-win!)

(You are legally required to read this post as MatPat's voice /silly /j)

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With the horrifying tweet that Brian made last Saturday, there's a lot of people (including you, probably) worried about who will die in the finale, the harsh battle between whether we say "bye" to a bright light, or "so long" to our sour cream schemer. My answer? Neither!! Object show community, inanimate fandom... whatever we call ourselves! I'm about to present to you why our beloved (and somewhat recently hated) host is going to be the death of the season.

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First of all, the trailer (and @inanimateinsanityfan 's recent tumblr post "invitation") has somewhat implied that the focus of the movie, the A-Plot at least, will be around Cobs attempting to get to MePhone4 somehow, whether it be luring him up to Meeple Headquarters or trying to get down to him. We've seen from previous episodes that Cobs wants him dead, but it's hard to tell if he's changed his motive, since we haven't seen him since Episode 13 "Mine Your Own Business". However, he has been consistently sending his newer MePhones to eliminate MePhone4, as 5C clearly states in Episode 6. The newer models have features like tracking (much like MePad) and knife hands (NOT like MePad), which MePhone4 doesn't have, which should in theory have made him easier to kill.

Speaking of the abilities, the MeLife function is only ever used by MePhone4, or at least we only ever get to see him do it. Why? Well, I have an idea but that's a theory for another time. The point is; MePhone4 seems to be the only Meeple product with the ability to bring people to life, and has all of the contestants on there as far as we know. This means that, unless there's a creative solution to perma-kill one of the contestants, MePhone4 needs to die first for any perma-death to occur in the first place.

And hell, removing the regeneration ability as a whole would be a great way to cap off the season, to establish that there's no more retrying and that everything is now set in stone. And even if we do get that damn FOURTH season (bonus points to whoever gets the reference), it'll at least spice things up with having, say, MePad as a host instead, leaving the spot open for someone else to claim and have an interesting story arc of their own.

This shot already pulls up a parallel between MePhone4 and MePhone3GS, and though 3GS isn't really confirmed dead, they're definitely not gonna be alive any time soon. The parallels could imply that MePhone4 is destined to a fate similar to 3GS; no longer in service, probably broken, and maybe even killed of by Cobs himself.

In addition to this, all of the other MePhones we've seen have all died; MePhone4 technically died with 4S and 5 in the Season 1 finale "Journey Through Memory Lane", 5S and 5C were introduced and immediately killed in Season 2 Episode 6 "Let 'Er RIP", and MePhones 6 and 6+ were also immediately killed upon introduction in Season 2 Episode 8 "Theft and Battery". The MePhones all have something in common, and that is unavoidable and quick death, much like real iphones honestly.

Does this mean that MePhone4 will have to die as a result of MePhone's faulty creation? No, but there is a pre-established pattern with each of the MePhones that goes as a cycle, perpetuating Cobs' cruel style of doing things; he creates something, claims it's his favorite for a year, then makes something a little better and throws the pre-established bond away to die, and rinse and repeat.

But hey! That's just a theory!

An Object Theory!!

Uh- what's the opposite of "greetings and salutations"-?

"Goodbye and see-you-laters!!"

#inanimate insanity #example infodump #ii 16 #ii mephone4 #fan theory

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tfdtreasurer · 8 months ago

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sorry for not asking about eridan but, why the feferi hate?

Don't worry anon I fully expected this question to be one of the first. Besides, Eridan and Feferi are foils to each other and thus any look at one is being done in the context of the other. Narratively, they're inseparable. My actual nuanced opinion on Feferi is that she's a bad person, a fascinating character, and yet one that I feel is so tragically misunderstood by everybody that it leads me to not liking how she's liked. If that makes any sense.

The short answer is she's one of the most casteist trolls out there. And not in the way Equius is, or Gamzee becomes, or Eridan claims to be. Her's is just a little too real and it kinda gives me icky vibes.

The long answer is... Well there's a reason a whole essay was in the works. If Eridan alludes to Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick of 1851, Feferi alludes to Rudyard Kipling's poem "The White Man's Burden" of 1899 (which in a semi timely way, was published to the context of the Philippine–American War). In her first pesterlog with Kanaya, "burdens" is the word used to refer to her responsibilities. Not really enough on it's own, but then you keep reading Feferi pages. Eridan being the best that alternia breeds, seemingly exiled from living in the sea to serve her captives' needs. The captivity of animals that she's associated with bolstering that. How she espouses a desire to unite the races, but mentions having plans for the throne, implicitly retaining imperial power. Her weapon being named after the triple entente, an alliance of colonialist powers. How she remarks royalty is so civilized, alluding to the colonialist projects of that era being referred to the West's civilizing mission. The way she talks to Jade and is quick to use the r-word, like she'd have to make her speech a hundred times plain. Just the way that she often has other people doing things for her that seems to emulate the delegatory voice of the poem. Eridan being the orphaner for her. In the Make her Pay flash (which is the best flash don't @ me), she has Sollux fight for her as she seems to sit back. Even her creation of the dream bubbles is something she asks of the gods to do for her. And if you think I'm searching for patterns in the clouds here with my ancient-ass 1800s literature: just take a look at the regime of Beforus Feferi. How casteism wasn't abolished, it just became patronizing the lesser and pretending that considering them lesser but in need wasn't the inequality is was.

Eridan is interesting in combination with her because they're designed to contrast each other. Eridan is so deeply associated with hipster inauthenticity, pretention, over exaggerated theater, and explicitly mentions that villainy is practically a performance for her. She calls comin off as a diabolical sort "showwmanship." But pay attention to the way that each frame dropping their quirk. Eridan drops her to become more genuine for a moment. Feferi has to be asked to drop hers and gets mad that she's had to peasantify herself. And the tragic part is that although Eridan is in the position of the audience in that poem, in essence the soldier sent to brutally occupy the Philippines, Feferi also sees her as one of the ones needing to be civilized. Eridan is to her half devil and half child, fluttering and wild, needing to be restrained by a moirallegience she seems to have never wanted from her.

I don't mean to let Eridan totally off the hook. I see her character as being under a dramatic form of siege mentality, perceiving herself to be the target of everyone's hostility. As she's the orphaner, I feel vaguely inclined to give it to her a bit. Like yeah, I can't imagine that job title comes with the perk of making friends. But her siege mentality xenophobia primarily makes her think that everybody that isn't Feferi must hate her, to the point where she only trusts people when her relationship with them is adversarial. The subversion central to Eridan's character is that while she may be genuinely xenophobic, she isn't a supremacist, nor genocidal in intent. The weapons she claims to be amassing to conquer the surface aren't military, it's just whaling equipment she uses to prevent everyone dying. The Brand Whaling Gun and Bomb Lance. Some derivative of the Greener swivel harpoon gun (that I have yet to 100% identify but I do have the original picture used for the Photoshop). Broken killing lance heads (as can be seen in my pfp being held by captain Ahab).

So why do I hate Feferi? Because she does think herself superior to others, in a way that is supremacist. She's a paternalistic casteist of the highest order and it is gross.

But here's the twist: if people believed in the Feferi I just outlined, I'd love the character. Because I still do fundamentally believe in redemption and rehabilitation of people with really shitty beliefs. Feferi could've been a character who narratively served to demonstrate how her beliefs may appear good intentioned, but actually warns the audience of the trap of real life paternalistic racism that justifies colonialism with a friendly face. A narrative where she had character development and evolved alongside Eridan. Symbolically, the orphaner killing the idea of paternalism would've been goddamned beautiful. But instead, what I got, what we got, was the fandom never picking up on the nuances, the comic itself electing to skirt around the problematic elements, all leading up to this strange quirk of Homestuck where once you're aware of all this, you really can't look at cutesy Feferi fanart the same way ever again because it never gets addressed. And I think that's sad. But, until the people that like Feferi are in the same boat as me in wanting a redemption arc for her, I'm gonna stay her #1 hater.

#eridan #eridan ampora #she/her eridan #homestuck analysis #homestuck character analysis #PMIO theory #ask response #we dont tag character hate here we leave their tag alone #even when we think they'd be better off hating too

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coraniaid · 9 months ago

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I remember reading a good post on here a year or two -- which I'm afraid I've been unable to track down again -- which pointed out that the Buffy writers' retroactive creation of a central coordinating "Watcher's Council" in Season 3 makes the fact Kendra wasn't expecting to meet Buffy when she visited Sunnydale in Season 2 rather strange. Surely Giles would have been sending in reports about Buffy's vampire-slaying to the Council, and surely the Council would have passed these on to Kendra's Watcher when he became worried that something bad was about to happen in Sunnydale. The post suggested as an explanation the theory that, after Buffy died and Kendra was activated as a Slayer, the Council just assumed Giles was coping really badly with losing his Slayer and dismissed all of his follow-up reports about her out of hand as a sad delusional fantasy.

In the same spirit, I'd like to propose that the fact Faith clearly is expecting to meet Buffy when she arrives in Sunnydale in Season 3 suggests that, inverting the pattern above, Giles has been lying to the Council about Buffy all summer and pretending that she's still in town doing her duty as a Slayer (and that he isn't spending all his time flying around the country desperately trying to find her).

This gets a bit long, but bear with me.

Faith knows about Buffy and she's heard at least a few stories about her (she calls her "infamous" and asks: "so, B, did you really use a rocket launcher one time?"). Faith can only have heard about past Slayers from her Watcher, who must ultimately (indirectly) have heard any details about Buffy through Giles sending reports back to the Council.

But Faith isn't just aware of Buffy as some abstract former Slayer. She comes to Sunnydale looking for her ("you're ... uh, Buffy, right? [...] I figured this was my chance to meet [you]") and, I suspect, deliberately arranged her fight with a vampire at the Bronze to make this happen (in particular she only seems to start fighting back once she has an audience...). Why didn't she head to Jamacia in search of Kendra? Well, clearly her Watcher must have told her that Buffy Summers was alive and that it was Kendra's death, not Buffy's, that had led to her being called. (Clutching at straws, but if you go back and watch the episode, Faith does nod slightly when Cordelia talks about Kendra dying; maybe her Watcher told her a bit about Kendra too?)

But how could Faith's Watcher (or anybody else), knowing that Faith has just been called as a Slayer, be sure which of the two previously alive Slayers had just died? (The show later retcons that only Kendra's death would have called a new Slayer, and Buffy's wouldn't, but I don't believe the writers had decided this was the plan before the end of Season 5's The Gift. The Mayor doesn't seem to think this is how it works, for example, and there are some things the writers said at the time that seem to rule it out too. But even if that was always what would have happened, if two Slayers at a time is unprecedented, as the show suggests, how could the Council be sure?)

The simplest answer must be that somebody told them that Kendra died. "Somebody" being, of course, Giles. But when did he tell them? The earliest he could have done it was at the end of the Becoming two-parter (Kendra dies in part one, but Giles is a prisoner for most of the following episode and I doubt Angel was letting him mail postcards back to England).

But the end of Becoming is also the point where Buffy leaves town and goes into hiding for months. Any report that Giles sent the Council from this point should have mentioned this, surely? The Council have all sorts of resources that they could have used to find her. It didn't have to be just Giles himself haring off after every false lead. But apparently, it was.

So, I think Giles wrote to the Council after Kendra died to let Sam Zabuto know and (whether actively or through omission) just ... let them think Buffy was still in Sunnydale. And then when it was time to send his next report in, he just ... kept pretending Buffy was still in town. Once he failed to tell them she was gone, he could hardly admit that she'd actually vanished weeks ago, could he? The Council generally have a pretty hands-off management style, but I don't think they'd have kept paying him if they realized he didn't actually know where his Slayer was or what she was up to. They might have decided earlier than in canon that he wasn't up to the job and needed to be replaced. Or even that this technically made Buffy a "rogue Slayer" who was refusing to follow her Watcher's orders. I think it makes sense he wouldn't tell them.

Which is why, over the summer, Faith's Watcher was telling her stories about Buffy Summers, the Slayer with a rocket launcher, stories which made Faith think she was living and Slaying in Sunnydale. Even though, for most -- maybe all -- of the summer Faith spent with her first Watcher, Buffy wasn't in Sunnydale at all.

(The show's a little bit vague about how much time passes between the start of Dead Man's Party and Faith's arrival in Faith, Hope & Trick but I don't think it's credible that it was enough time for Giles to be reunited with Buffy, for him to tell the Council she was back (and them to believe him), for the Council to tell Faith's Watcher, for Faith's Watcher to tell her, for Kakistos to murder Faith's Watcher and for Faith to flee Boston and travel over 3000 miles to Sunnydale through whatever combination of hitchhiking, freighthopping and motor vehicle theft she's meant to have used to make it there (she can barely cover the costs of the cheapest motel in Sunnydale: I don't exactly think she could afford a cross-country flight). When Giles gets through to the Watcher's retreat in England, enough time has passed for them to have found out about and confirmed Faith's Watcher was dead, and that can't have been quick either: Faith wasn't exactly rushing to tell them.)

So, all in all, Faith is pretty lucky she arrived in Sunnydale when she did. A few days earlier, and she'd have missed Buffy entirely. Maybe eventually one of her attempts to stage a fight so she could look cool in front of another Slayer would lead her into meeting the Scoobies and Giles and figuring out what was going on, but maybe not. Maybe Kakistos would have caught up with her first.

And, even if it's not intended, I like the symmetry of Kendra not knowing Buffy would be in Sunnydale (because Giles truthfully told the Council she was and they didn't believe him), versus Faith going to Sunnydale specifically to meet Buffy not knowing she might not even be there (because this time the Council did believe Giles but this time he was lying to them).

#btvs #I wish Faith's Watcher had a canon name so I could stop typing 'Faith's Watcher'#maybe I'll just pretend 'Diana Dormer' is canon after all

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thrandilf · 6 months ago

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Oof, yeah. People in fandom spaces really love making every parent abusive, and the way they so desperately want to pretend that it‘s canon is exhausting.

I‘m baffled every time I see it. Parent barely raises their voice, and doesn’t immediately whisper an apology?

ABUSE

Parent puts their foot down in any situation where they are at odds with their kid?

ABUSE

Parent grieves a little too hard for a little too long, and isn’t present at 100% capacity?

ABUSE

And it always feels like surface level teen angst that is blown way out of proportion. It‘s especially telling when you notice the pattern of 'the child has never done anything wrong, ever, in their life.' Because at that point the projecting, and not wanting to take responsibility for their own actions becomes painfully obvious. Because blaming the parents is easier than accepting a characters flaws.

(unless these flaws are; 'cares too much' or 'being insecure'. Because those are cutesy enough I guess 🙄)

AND THEN there is the fact that, putting actual mythology aside, Nezha and Red Son are treated as LITERAL ADULTS IN THE SHOW.

*incomprehensible screaming*

Sorry for the vent, I got a little heated. But I‘m so fucking glad there’s at least some people in the fandom who agree that the bastardizing of characters is getting way out of hand.

I'm right here with you anon I've also been a bit heated but YEAH

No what kills me about LMK is how the parents in question may be a bit gruff/rough around the edges, DBK is someone who's generally like that regardless of who he's talking to

But never does Red Son or Nezha even face consequences when they do screw up in their parent's eyes

Like abusive parents will have that undercurrent of Bad even when nothing's gone wrong but here even when THEY DO fuck up there's no consequences

And when they don't it isn't a Toxic Bad dynamic either

AND AS YOU SAY Red Son and Nezha are also both portrayed as adults in LMK and while they do want to make their parents proud and care about their opinion they are on much more of a peer level than someone would be if they were an actual kid/teen

Same with Mei because I've seen bad takes on her parents but in canon it's literally just "we don't see eye to eye/we have our own familial/cultural expectations which you don't share but we love you and are proud of you and we don't care that our entire house is wrecked and that you took the sword we're glad you have it" like HELLO? But people will act like she should cut them off or they're bad parents

Like Mei and Nezha's parents both overtly say they're proud in the limited screentime they have while caring about their children who they naturally have differences with but that's It.

And Red Son's parents are down to just do whatever he wants I guess re food truck family business and it's just. oh yeah I'm sure they don't value his opinion huh like sure DBK likes cooking but this was clearly Red Son's idea.

#lmk #torment nexus #ask

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ensemblesongs · 23 days ago

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at this point i think it's rather unlikely that they'd kick ibuki from akatsuki, seeing as how they're already selling merch of the new akatsuki and such. i think a lot of people *are* asking specifically for ibuki to be removed from the unit, but do you think there's another approach we could take to try to reach a sort of compromise? like asking for specific parts of the writing to be fixed rather than undoing the whole thing? do you think they'd listen to us more that way? genuinely asking

It's definitely unlikely now, you're right. It was already too late the moment Happy Elements doubled down by posting the pre-recorded stream discussing his addition to AKATSUKI. After all, these sorts of things—cards and events themselves—are planned years in advance. Personally, I would scrap them all, but I know that isn't realistic. I just don't know how they thought it was a good idea whatsoever. But, you see, this is a flaw within Ansta itself that I've been aware of for a long time. To fix the core issue, we'd need a total reform, but that would be an insane amount of work and I'm not sure if they're willing to do that.

This ask reminds me of how they attempted to make amends in a way in regard to their somewhat unfavourable portrayal of the Amagi Village as cult-like and lesser-than (that often gets made even more egregious by ignorant fans via doujinshi and fanfiction that takes place there, which some argue to be alright—if you want to take creative liberties—as long as you aren't claiming it to be a depiction of Ainu people specifically. This is actually what HE sought by removing the traditional patterns from their assets like Live2D models and BGs, allowing even Ansta's writers themselves to pretend that it's a random, fictitious village rather than the very real indigenous group that they were actually based on down to their very designs, especially Rinne's, because being normal about the people your ancestors oppressed is too difficult, I suppose. Personally, I wouldn't do so.) by turning it into this Wakanda esque, sci-fi setting instead. Which was really stupid of them. I think they meant for it to be flattering somehow, for them to be more advanced than the majority... to get to be like, "see, they aren't cavemen after all!" In the end, most people don't like this decision or downright ignore it or tried to deny it and say Rinne was lying when that's... not how story-telling works even when it comes to unreliable narrators, and in some ways, it was detrimental when it comes to the uneducated person's perceptions of them.

Anyway, the entire event story or major chunks of it would have to be rewritten. Some AKATSUKI fans actually liked the first half, while others felt despair due to the mischaracterization I mentioned prior. Many fans have already lost all hope and quit altogether, but the remaining ones, and the protesting ones, deserve some form of acknowledgment or compensation. When it comes to the racist elements, Ansta is racist at its core, so there would have to be an overhaul of the entire plotline they had planned and partly executed for Ibuki and AKATSUKI already. From the start, it had unsavory undertones, but it could have been salvaged to the point of even being good if they hadn't done this or at least done it in a different way. Like I said, it is the reality for many Ryukyu, but I just don't trust them with a narrative like this, especially if they do not educate themselves, get sensitivity readers and receive input from real-life Ryukyuan people. Even the person writing Ibuki's solo isn't someone who can understand his struggles whatsoever. It's just some guy.

Not to mention, Ibuki seemed to be set up for this from conception, since even his name is a reference to the Meiji restoration, from a period that AKATSUKI's current direction has been referencing, as people have discovered recently. Ibuki also seems to tie into !! era's "Okinawa arc", which some have been keeping up with for a while. I think it started in Submarine, if I'm not mistaken. The Okinawa arc is littered with underlying anti-indigenous sentiments whether they meant for it to or not, ones that are hardly challenged by the cast (and, less importantly, also sort of muddied up the Shinkai cult lore. Some like it, others have mixed feelings).

!! era should have taken an entirely different direction From the Start if they didn't want this to happen, I fear. Because they couldn't do interpersonal drama with a few real-world effects (the suicides caused by the war) and a dilemma surrounding morality now that the scale of their world is larger, and it would have been repetitive regardless, they had to give characters like Eichi something bigger and eviler to do, such as his "idol colonization" affairs. A character who's meant to be a loveable albeit morally grey idol is campaigning for the destruction of the environment via the Atlantis project, silencing indigenous voices, etc... I love Eichi, and this isn't unrealistic of a continuation for his character. He's meant to parallel Godfather, after all. Nonetheless, it's painful to watch and more so to acknowledge when something like this is happening, which makes me wonder if it'll even be contested any further at this point.

Sorry for rambling about how flawed this era is at its core, I just think people should be aware of it... Back to the main topic, I think one possible alternative is that they could make Ibuki depart from AKATSUKI at some point down the line, not now, but sort of like graduating after having grown with his seniors, a dabufe-esque situation where he finally finds himself 💭 Ibuki was always meant to be kept off the path Esupuri is on, he would be solo, then.

To actually answer your question, I do think that they might listen to us if we ask that way. Even if it was an infinitely smaller change, just fixing up one line, they did that much after the revolt caused by the leoizu retcon during Sena's center event. I think a compromise could be good.

Semi-relatedly, I agree with the sentiments shared by our-ensemble:

#꒰💌꒱#I don't blame people for aiming higher

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ravenadottir · 1 year ago

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drag race: boys edition

we had gender bent edits, we had paralell universes, and i'm not sure if someone has done this, but in case it hasn't, here it is. did i need to do this? yes, yes i did. enjoy!

[listen, i saw a video from runner eye and if i can't stop thinking about it, you have to be the ones to be punished by it, i don't make the rules.]

roberta mckenzie. a comedy queen from glasgow. she loves the audience, mostly working up the patreons in hopes to find a gold mine of weird info dump, enough to make the rest of the bar laugh. is the makeup rough? yes, very much so. is the material roast winning? not exactly... but she's new to the game and is trying her best. plus, her outfits pay homage to jamaican patterns every chance she has and most of us enchanted by the charisma and bad puns.

rhonda. one-name-only for a one-personality-only and that is... snake! she's the one pretending to be zen and "i don't do drama" but has the most snake rattle sound effects during her confessionals. she also tries to steal henrietta hotts from luna kohko, and the audience saw it from A MILE AWAY. unsuccessfully of course... HAVE YOU SEEN LUNA? she's the trade of the season.

kassandra. she dj's on the weekends all mounted in silver gowns and small boobie bibs (as she calls them despite being annoyed other people refer to them as that). kassandra has issues with everyone that ISN'T doing recreational drugs at her gigs and call them "stiffs" for it. however, despite looking and sounding harsh... well, that's about it. there's a reason she and luna get along so well!

glitter renell. "a traditional drag queen" according to herself, and to new queens it only means "my uncle in a wig with a rough and patchy makeup work and plastic-ey wigs". the only queen not wearing "fantasy" by britney but who's noticing?? her special number involves ripping off the sleeves of her outfits and revealing MASSIVE biceps, but often times they pop off on their own. got the magic mike title of the season.

ingrid. she's a "sporty type of queen", has multiple tricks with golf clubs, and despite having a couple of head hitting tricks in her history, she tries her best. it sometimes can serve her as a pole to drop to the ground in a split and honestly? work. ingrid is considered one of the hottest and cutest since her shyness brings a different glow to her eyes, which are LOST in pink glitter and magical rainbow shaped makeup. she dares and we love it, leave her alone.

luna kohko. this is a SEASONED queen, alright? makeup on point, fashion in place, attitude to donate, and walking the runway like she built that shit. however, when it comes to friendships in the werk room... don't speak, don't come near, don't come around... in fact, don't come at all. luna doesn't waste time with phony queens and prefers things exactly the opposite of her: straight. she's a lesbian, which means she loves dating drag queens, and since entering the show she has a LIVE AND THRIVE romance with the innocent henrietta hotts. "if that crusty fucking hippie so much as breathes the same air as henrietta again, we're gonna have a fucking problem, yeah? i've seen her lurking the machines trying to strike up a conversation about climbing. there's only one building henrietta is gonna climb and it's not a limp one."

noelle waves. "we have a wall of fabric in that werk room and you continue to come out in swim suits. STOP - RELYING - ON - THAT - BODY". she's a bit reserved most of the time, but if the "girls are fighting", she's the first to step up and play MOTHER. the public likes her, but she's not exactly winning challenges. "safe" defines noelle better than "creative" or "winner", but she tries and helps everyone during challenges.

henrietta hotts. THIS GIRL HAS IT, OK? her signature look is the red lipstick and the blonde wig, and with those beautiful freckles, her persona is very much the girl next door. it makes the judges go "i feel like i haven't met henrietta yet, and i know there's someone in there that needs to... ROAR. also, baby... you need more makeup." is she the smartest? no. is she the most problem-solving? no. is she the most graceful? YOU BET HER ASS COVERED IN GLITTER SHE FUCKING IS.

graham cracker. ANOTHER UNCLE IN A WIG. barely knows how to walk in heels and is giving kim chi vibes. however, because of her leadership skills (which are not comparable to noelle's) she does manage to maintain her position for a while since most of the girls are lowkey scared of her. she's unpredictable and most of the contestants suspect she's straight.

carlota miranda. THIS IS THE MOST EXTROVERTED QUEEN ON THE RUNWAY, however, the boom mic needs to enter her throat to pick up what she's saying due to her bashfulness. not a fighter type but if someone comes for her???? she'll definitely... apologize for it. "fuck, don't fight" is her motto, followed by a timid little giggle since she tries not to curse. her style is "executive realness" but covered in crystals and diamonds. "it's either a mugler or nothing, babes. i don't have time to look like cel. sanders..."

felicia butterfly. annoying as alyssa edwards and untalented as... well, [REDACTED WINNER OF SEASON 4]. she's a one trick poney and the trick is... well, the public and the production are still trying to find it but in the mean time she becomes the bud of the joke. it's kind of entertaining watching her trying to understand anything in the werk room. it gets old but... she leaves pretty soon, so no problem there.

doge style. always wearing dogs' styles on her wigs, it's her signature. the poodle poof is AMAZING. she also becomes friends with everybody, particularly with the nervous ones, like carlota and henrietta since doge's hugs are infallible to relax the girls in situations of stress. she sometimes lets a facial hair look take over if the look calls for it, while the others are afraid of embracing it. "i'm not a woman impersonator, i'm just creative, get over it!" she has a HUGE CRUSH ON ELLA FAME, and it's reciprocated. rumour has it they fucked on the first week and are already planning a getaway.

ella fame. the most exquisite wigs in the werk room NO QUESTIONS ASKED. has beef with gigi goode for the title of best hair styles, but since her house is older and richer, she thinks she has a better chance to win this one pool on twitter. overall, ella has a walk to kill for, one that graham cracker has been trying to learn since day one. "i got it from naomi... you either know it... or you dont." she tells and retells the time she walked the same runway as naomi, even though everyone keeps reminding her that it happened as elijah, not as ella, but as she says in the confessional: "these bitches are so fucking jealous they're causing me intern wrinkles.".

jacoba zabinski. she's not very creative, doesn't have an interesting name, doesn't know how to walk differently than a constipated bear and doesn't know how to wear a wig. to be fair, she's only in the show to get clout for her male persona, jakub. bodybuilding is not paying off since his scandals in multiple gyms for his part time job as an instructor. so instagram shit tea and self taner brands have been the bread winning besides being the biggest bitch in the room. she enters the porkchop hall of fame. OBVIOUSLY.

#litg #love island the game #litg s2 #litg season 2 #litg arjun #litg bobby #litg carl #litg elijah #litg felix #litg gary #litg graham #litg henrik #litg ibrahim #litg jakub #litg kassam #litg lucas #litg noah #litg rocco #this has been on my mind for exactly an hour

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utilitycaster · 1 year ago

Note

I think the reason some people aren't taking the 'sister' comment in the way I believe Ashton meant it is because Laudna referred to Imogen in a similar manner, so I wonder if they assume they'll follow that same direction?

I mean. Laudna did, in fact, mean that comment platonically, to the point that Laura, as Imogen, was fully expecting a rejection and the consequences thereof, and now has painted herself into the corner of making a heroic but rather painful to watch effort to make something of it while Laudna continues to be like yes I have a girlfriend! anyway let's wander off while dancing, let's fail to answer any of her questions, let's literally need to be walked through the attempts at Battle Couple maneuvers, and generally act as some kind of monkey's paw object lesson in why you better let the fuse of a slowburn actually burn slowly. Anyway, as I've said, I don't care for the very saccharine OOC Love Marriage Baby Carriage fanon that's been present for Ashton and Fearne, and am pro their casual hookup, but like...honestly? Were I capable of placing curses, which I am unfortunately not, I would curse every ship I did not care for to become canon the way Imogen and Laudna did. Which is to say, if you do ship Ashton and Fearne, go for it, but you should be on your knees begging to whatever you believe in and possibly some things you do not that this does not follow the current pattern, at least, of Imogen and Laudna.

Secondly, I have not done my time in fandom, watching people with truly the most rancid only child energy bleat "omg besties! siblings!" at every ship they not-so-subtly wanted to sink, only to watch those same dullards be like "no but when it happens in canon with my ship it's different." Or at least, I am watching this because it is happening, but I am not taking them remotely seriously. Hypocrisy is terrible for a lot of reasons but its one saving grace is it is a double-edged sword; anyone trying to dance around this has completely shredded their capacity to ever again play the "um actually I see them as siblings so it's kinda gross that you ship them" card along with, to be honest, their general credibility, and like, really. For this?

Thirdly, if people look at two characters and say well THIS happened once so it DEFINITELY will happen again with two ENTIRELY DIFFERENT PEOPLE with ENTIRELY DIFFERENT HISTORIES and ENTIRELY DIFFERENT MOTIVATIONS that's dumb as hell. We don't have to pretend like it isn't dumb as hell. This is neither how people nor causation work. I mean it could happen, but that's because coincidences happen. I certainly wouldn't use it in any sort of serious argument.

And finally, I don't know how to put this more nicely, and as you'll see in a moment I have a vested interest in not bothering to, but playing pro bono public defender for bad takes in my inbox (let alone when I'm not even the OP of the post I assumed prompted this?) is at least intended to be so utterly thankless by design that I don't know why this is the second time this week someone has voluntarily done it unless you're trying specifically to evoke this particular flavor of breathless rant from me in which case you could just give me a topic and ask nicely; I would gladly oblige.

#answered #Anonymous #cr tag

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abysmal-poetry · 26 days ago

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Hopeful Nothings

I write, as if words could heal the wounds I tore myself, as if the rhythm of syllables could cleanse the chaos I've created. Hope pulls at my ear, soft and dangerous, like a promise it never intends to keep. Every time I listen, I sharpen the knife and offer it once more, whispering, "Please, do it again." Why did I ever assume it would get better? Why would I deserve anything? I should know by now it's never worked in my favor. oh poor me, always suffering. oh poor me. I hate everyone I know, then question why I'm alone. Fucking poor me. Righteous indignation drove me here, on a road I paved with my own hands. I am to blame, it's not trauma, it's not pain, it's not despair. It's me. I am the toxin, venom seeping into everything I touch, self-loathing corroding life itself, wearing bitterness like a crown. I am the decay, slowly killing what I hold dear, rot eating away at what's left of me, always dragging me back into the same pit of misery. I am the selfishness I hate in others, the cold indifference I despise. I am no better than hopeful nothings, the illusion of change, trapped in endless repetition. Disgusting. I walk with entitlement, always judging, always smirking. As if I'm not just another moth being devoured by flames. As if the rain falls differently when it touches me and the oceans don't swallow it all the same. If only the universe would listen, surely, it would bend to my will. What do I know? I know nothing. I pretend I am interesting, my plight is so unique, my feelings simply cannot be understood. All I've done is dig this grave. I plunge the shovel deeper, discarding peace and love for the comfort of words on paper. Spitting on happiness, as if it were beneath me, all to freely be a martyr. Do not pity me. Pick up a stone and throw it. I carve suffering into verses, like a child tracing circles in the sand, pretending it means something, mentioning my fear, my longing, my dread, and my ache, wrap it in a bow and preach apathy. What have I done to be more? I tell myself I'm hollow, spin stories of fleeting reflections, dance with synonyms, arrange words into patterns, as if structure gives validity. Point my fingers at God, fate, and the ones who left me, a poisoned cup I raise to my lips, swallowing each drop like salvation. oh poor me. Always suffering. oh poor me. I write, as if this act isn't selfish, as if spilling my soul onto the page isn't just another way to admire the mess I've made. I fold my pain into metaphors, dress it up like it matters, like these words could rewrite me, rebuild me, redeem me. But they don't. They can't. The ink dries, and I am still here, pathetic, worthless, waiting for the next line to tell me who I am. The truth is, I don’t write to heal, I write to hurt. To pick at scabs, to bleed out every mistake, and call it art. Look at how fractured my soul is, look at these marks of sacrifice. This gives me validation, doesn't it? The same old song still stuck in my head. Always crying for myself, endlessly. What a sad, sorry existence. Fucking poor me. I write it all down as if it fixes anything. As if these words somehow change me. I am feasting on my corpse, savoring the last shreds of guilt, each ounce of failure and regret. Every stanza, a chunk of flesh, each line, a bone in my teeth, every poem, a mouthful of blood. Do not pity me. Fucking poor me. Always suffering. Fucking poor me.

#ache #depressing poem #poem #sad poem #suffering #poem on tumblr #sad thoughts #poetry

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eiirisworkshop · 1 year ago

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The Measure of a Tit

A Sailor Moon ficlet Available to read on Ao3 here.

It was nice to get all the senshi together for a vacation—at least, once the usual “we can't go anywhere without having to save the world” had been dealt with. That whole mess was days ago now, though, and they were enjoying the chance to unwind a little. This evening, Chibiusa and Hoturo and the cats had passed out a while ago, all cuddled up in a heap on a bed in one of their hotel rooms, and the rest had wound up sprawled on in a loose circle across the sofa and floor in the font room of Michiru and Haruka's suite, eating increasingly cold pizza, bickering and giggling their way through a wandering array of subjects.

“It wasn't my fault!” Usagi insisted while Rei hummed doubtfully.

“Here's the thing, here's the thing though,” Makoto said, leaning forward on one elbow and pointing at Haruka. “I swear—and there is no way to say this that isn't a little weird but—I swear you have different amounts of tit at different times.”

For an impressive fraction of a second, both Haruka and Michiru kept their expressions schooled, then they caught each other's gaze and burst out laughing. Haruka slid sideways down the TV stand she was leaning against to rest her forehead on Michiru's shoulder while she collected herself enough to answer.

“I do though!” Haruka said, sitting up and tossing a hand in the air. “Okay, look. I'm not wearing anything under this.” She stood, deftly undoing one more button on her shirt as she did to show a significant amount of sideboob.

“Oh jeez,” Usagi mumbled, half shielding her eyes with her fingers.

Haruka continued over Usagi, “So this is my tits in their natural state, but—”

She halfway hopped over Ami to retreat into the next room. To the sound of a zipper and a fair amount of rustling, the other senshi exchanged bemused looks while Michiru grinned knowingly. Then Haruka returned, doing up her buttons to show only a tasteful amount of cleavage and looking markedly bustier. “This is me in a padded bra.”

“You did not pack any,” Michiru half-accused.

“No, of course, not—this is yours,” Haruka dismissed breezily. “And it's a good thing I'm only planning on wearing it for a minute; the band is too tight. But the point is,” she preened a little, turning side to side, and grabbed at her own chest, “extra volume, extra bounce. But!”

She ducked to the next room again, reaching up the back of her shirt to unhook the bra before she was even through the door. This time, when she returned, it was with her buttons done most of the way up and her chest looking distinctly flat. “I never said I was a boy,” she said with a bit of a shrug, dropping easily into a more masculine speech pattern. “Then again, I didn't have to.”

Minako took a breath and made several false starts at forming a question, then settled on, “How?”

“It's called a chest binder,” Michiru answered, draping an arm around her partner's shoulders as Haruka sat back down.

“So, like a sports bra, but more?” Makoto ventured.

“Pretty much, yeah,” Haruka said. “Though, not actually recommend for wearing during exercise.”

“Most of the bras you own are sports bras, though,” Michiru noted.

“Yeah. Bunch of sports bras, couple binders, that green one I should really just let die because the elastic has given up, the nice one, and that blue one you got me with the matching shorts, which is padded to hell and back.”

Michiru giggled, Usagi hid in her hands, Makoto nodded impressedly, Ami looked thoughtful, and Minako and Rei both pretended they weren't blushing.

“Anyway,” Haruka said, undoing a couple buttons to show just a little of what looked like a tanktop underneath the shirt, “the moral of the story is, yes, you are not imagining things, how much tit I have varies wildly depending on what I'm wearing. I don't usually bother with a binder under a blazer, because the jacket is structured enough that a sports bra is plenty, but I think the day we met at the arcade may have been one of the few times I did wear a binder with my uniform, so Usagi—it really wasn't your fault.”

“Thank you! Eep!” Usagi scrambled to catch the pizza box she had knocked off the table with her gesture of vindication.

“I was under the impression,” Ami began softly, “that binders were usually worn by transgender men and drag artists.”

“Most often, sure,” Haruka agreed, “but really they're for anybody who wants their tits out of the way for a while. And,” Haruka smirked, continuing in a more feminine register, “I never said I was a girl, did I?”

Usagi frowned around a bite of pizza from the rescued pizza box. “I thought you were a lesbian?”

Haruka laughed. “That one I definitely am!”

#eiiri made this #fanfiction #sailor moon #haruka x michiru #haruka tenoh

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crystalsenergy · 1 year ago

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Vulnerability and human life ✨

~theme song: Resolution by Yasuharu Takanashi

(reflection pills series

by Paty | crystalsenergy)

so, what about it?...

and what if I told you:

"Express your greatest fear now. Face it, if you feel like crying, cry. Let it out. Sigh. If your chest hurts, cry more. Then, take a deep breath. It will pass. You will have let it out. And face what you feel."

...Would you say this to me?: "Wow, Paty, that's intense, why?"

if so, I'll respond: No, that isn't intense.

I am doing what needs to be done.

→ and what needs to be done?

encourage people to live naturally with the most basic thing we need to live: our feelings, our emotions.

can you imagine how many things we have bottled up and repressed, which generate various issues we face today - patterns of feeling, reacting, living, thinking, deciding. I'm not interested in just continuing my work talking about remedying, remedying, remedying the problems that I always see existing.

it's already clear that if we don't stop at some point to see what may happen because of our current and wrong way of dealing with emotions,

soon we will explode with more and more cases of mental health issues.

the problem will mainly be because the mask of "being fine" will be extremely perfect and almost impenetrable. and then it will be hard to see.

because every day, right now, we reinforce the masks of perfect and beautiful lives. and we rarely make room for what I proposed initially and which, perhaps, was strange for you to read: "cry, feel, face."

but it is also quite clear, from a psychological perspective, that stored, unassimilated, or unrestructured emotions play a significant role in defining who we are.

and although we don't deal well with our emotions, not even directing them properly,

they are our root, the most basic of what we are, the first thing we express when we are born. many of us cry when we are born, and certainly cry when we want to eat, when it hurts.

feeling is the most human thing, and are you pretending you don't have that?

it's not strong or heavy, and if you thought that when I suggested that you do the basics - spend some time with your emotions - it's probably because you're so accustomed to a vibe of not living the most internal things,

sometimes even accustomed to a life of facade, mechanized, only earthly, material, or with a lot of toxic positivity (= 'I feel something bad, and then I quickly replace the sadness with a good feeling, stuffing my sadness in a hole, without facing it, without "sitting" with it, understanding why it arose).

It's obvious that it's something simple, and quite unhealthy to do.

when we force ourselves not to feel, not to have problems, not to go through any internal mess = big negative effect on us and others, including those you don't even know.

because we get unaccustomed to our own vulnerability and we become unaccustomed to the vulnerability of others.

gradually, the natural sensitivity fades. Empathy decreases. we close ourselves off to what involves this. and we reinforce a pattern of nonexistent perfection: "constant positivity".

"Paty, so do we have to show everything?" → Obviously not. there is a huge difference between just not showing everything to everyone (1) and forcing yourself not to feel (2). it's the second case I'm focusing on. because the first one it's so normal, and who are we to disrespect each other's process and way of living their emotions? as long as you live, that's okay. each person will experience this in their own way.

now, I ask you:

was there any week in your life when you were 100% happy every day? cheerful, upbeat? c'mon,

let me know, please.

and on bad days, did you face what you felt?

did you talk about it or express it in some other way? [conversation isn't the only way to express what you feel, although it's very effective]. or did you stuff it into a hole? did you cover it up with some addiction, escapism, or toxic positivity?

Vulnerability. That's what makes us human and that's what connects us.

we long to feel. but, due to human difficulty, we have longed so much to hide and pretend to feel almost nothing, preferring to trivialize others' suffering in favor of egoic self-satisfaction, indifference, aversion, superficiality.

we don't want to admit that we have a lot of the other in us.

we want to spread that we are "self-sufficient" and don't need anyone when in the end, in the middle of the standard trajectory of "detachment" and "self-sufficiency," we have several internal expectations poorly met and extremely misdirected. and this, in the end, isn't even self-sufficiency.

blocking your emotions is blocking your humanity.

in the end, the domino you played comes back and hits your back. it will come back, unfortunately. because you're in the middle of all this: you don't differ from others in the aspect of feeling.

feeling is what connects people and reminds us of the existence of other beings. it's what makes us noble, connected.

the tears of emotion or happiness when someone gets married. It's not you getting married, but you FEEL a bit of the other's happiness.

the tears when you see someone cry, even in a movie. it's not you who feels the pain or sadness, but you feel, because you understand, even if for a brief moment, part of the other's suffering.

the smile from seeing someone achieve something,

the excitement someone transmits to you just by being excited themselves,

Mirror neurons.

the joy in seeing people laughing, ending up laughing along.

just situations to exemplify that what unites us is the feeling. so allow yourself to feel. I already allow you and am open-armed to accept all your sides, no matter how ""ugly"" they may seem, with eternal quotation marks.

It's not ugly to feel. Nor is it ugly to express.

Do not feel or label people who admit their feelings as "weak," or who "will achieve little in the world." stop seeing the next person as your adversary.

if it helps you see the problem: you are close to the other.

with you, it's just you and no one else. following your logic, with the other, it will be just the other and no one else. okay... and when you need it, what do you expect to receive if that's the way you think life works? In an extremely "me, me, me, me" way.

Accept to be more vulnerable, as much as each one can now, whether in the expression of a small affection, an observation gesture, or something big, immense. But let it exist. In your own way, but let it exist.

and it is not necessary to relate to people to remember that you're here to exchange & experience emotions. just look around you: there are so many beings needing you!

#vulnerability #reflection pills #writers on tumblr #writing #my writing #reflective #reflections #contributions #crystalsenergy

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juneibyou · 1 month ago

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yknow what, i'm getting tired of even trying to take the high ground in the Vagueposting Game. i've been beating around the bush with jokes to make my points but like man i'm tired i wanna say what i have to say at least once, even at expense of dumping a big open letter at somebody on my account. this absolutely will not end it but he's getting so uppity about it now that i wanna throw my thoughts out somewhere. here's a big message for That Boy (who i will identify to dispel the veil of vaguing and for confused mutuals who care as Jeffy aka catboybeebop) or whatever goon he has stalking my account for him (both options equally as pathetic). if he takes one random point from this as a gotcha to try and tear it all down i need yall to help me take $20 from his dresser as penalty money:

do you genuinely not see the fact that you've been the one keeping this up for months purely based on your own lack of restraint. the fact that my continued joking and posting has exclusively come from your inability to just let it go, to stop making the random dunks, to stop name-dropping me in the replies of random people i've never met because of vague associations. i bring this shit up in response to occasionally finding out you've been up to it way harder, and even that reaction-to-a-reaction is enough to reflect as if i'm bringing it up too much. think about that

do you not realize that you're slowly pushing away people and affecting your reputation by doing this, that so many of our shared mutuals have gradually become more and more grated by this constant passive-aggression and dunking every time we deign to interact for whatever reason. you keep taking the fact that i even dare to come near your posts as an indictment as if we don't still end up in the same circles with semi-regularity. like of course i'm gonna end up seeing it if you're vaguing me directly under fanart of my sona. come on boy

i've been laughing this whole time both because of how meaningless it's all been to me in my general life and out of schadenfreude but it's just tiring and sad at this point. make fun of me all you want for posting about it too, laugh it up all you want to distract yourself, the fact still remains that for every couple of vagueposts i make whenever we're in the vicinity enough for me to predict you're mad, there's like 10 occasions of you trying to force your personal beef upon every random mutual or friend you know because you can't stand to hold your tongue.

this isn't just about me, this is one of the main reasons i stopped being friends with you. you have literally no restraint when it comes to people or things you don't like. at any given opportunity you'll find a way to hamfistedly bring up your personal vendettas, couching it under some semblance of "but i won't say anymore" repeatedly until you've given the whole game away through context clues. everyone fucking knows you don't like changed or whatever tumblr microcelebrity blocked you this time already you can skip that cutscene we've already seen it. hell i've had the "That Boy" thing going on mostly as a bit, anyone that knows me is painfully aware of who i'm talking about at this point, i don't even pretend like i'm having restraint the way you do. naturally the fact that you've been continuing to do this about me is gonna scan as pathetic and hilarious to someone with the pattern recognition to notice it

honestly hell i probably would be leaving it be by now too if it weren't for how many times you've claimed you're done with it or it's pointless. like man if you're done why are we still here talking about this. if it's pointless why do all these random teenage mutuals i've never seen before in my life have to know about me. think about this for like one whole second

you're trying so desperately to turn this around to your win, to your injoke, to your entertainment to laugh about, right as you've reached the zenith where even for your standards it's just become repetitive and sad. you're trying to catch me out through what i post, missing the forest for the trees. taking the admission that i've guessed at exactly when you're posting about me as a win, missing the implication that it's so obvious that you'll be set off by any vague interaction that i can guess it down to literal minutes of certainty. trying to look for any example of me slipping up and telling an opinion harshly or being vaguely hypocritical to try and sink my entire position and stop taking your months-long L.

you're just missing the point man. you've been missing the point this whole time. don't take this as an ultimatum, i can't force you to do shit, same way you can't force me to stop making you into a punchline (no matter how hard all the random friends and partners you've sent to DM me have tried). but just. come on man. Come on man. this whole time i feel like i've been trying to act as the final boss of the deep-seated problem that broke us apart in the first place, and the whole time you've just been galivanting around bringing me up to any random schmuck that happens to mention umineko or something. i've been doing all this for two reasons, to have fun, and to make a point, and this has gone on so long i'm getting tired of the bit and you're no closer to getting the damn point

i've thought this shit was done like, five times now man. i'm not forcing some never-say-shit-again restriction on you like you tried to negotiate with me. this is for your own sake man. your beef can just be your beef, and trying to make it everybody's problem all the time is going to ruin your life

tl;dr: if you actually listened to yourself the first time you said you were done talking about me ever, literally none of this would have happened. i'm tired as hell man, so are the people i know, so are some people we both know, and as much as i've put my energy in to have fun with it at the end of the day you are doing this shit to yourself

if i had slightly more energy this is where i would catalogue every time you've said you're done talking about me or this doesn't matter or is stupid actually with a "guy who is still posting about it" counter

#i spent minimal effort fucking with this guy but he dragged it on for so long that even that minimal effort managed to drain me eventually #kinda impressive actually #i've probably missed something or made some Classic Blunder that he's gonna use to ignore everything i said #but like who gives a shit it's 1:30am i wanted to say something beautiful and true before we go back to slinging shit for the next year aga #n #no categorisation tags this shows up to the people that need to see it and then dies like the fynn post

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soulren · 1 year ago

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There's bad places in the world, you know. I heard an old man tell me this, through a migraine aura so bad I felt like the sun was coming straight towards me and me alone. There are bad people in the world, he said, but those were simple. Thoughts and bad ideas, childhood shit that was never worked out curled like uncut fingernails into harm. Bad places are dramatically different. Somewhere you feel short of breath, for no reason at all. Somewhere a detail sticks out, unnerves you where it really shouldn't. Your feet crunch heavy in the snow beneath a bridge where someone spray-painted the words "daddy longlegs" into the wall. The second "l" is faded. The paint is thin, black. Too thin. They must've done it from afar, or had a lot of control. Thinking about those details helps you. You can almost pretend the cold on your skin is the only sensation the darker and damper parts of your brain is sending. Does it remind you of the attic? Most kids have an attic. Not their own, not their attic or your attic. The attic. The one they went up into with a friend or all alone, at a house that might've been their parents or someone else's. Back when every shadow and around every corner was a place that imagination flooded and grew like mold-filled maple syrup. The attic where one might race down, swearing that they heard something stir, that they saw a shape. The details are embellished later. And when something bad finally happens in that place, no matter how small, even if just a feeling, some small part of you blamed the attic. Blamed the bad place. Where nothing quite sat right, for a reason you just couldn't place. A place where you'd feel uncomfortable breaking the silence, or fixing the noise. The man I mentioned at the start didn't tell me all of this. He didn't have too. Just a bit. Enough to get the mind rolling. Now I'm saying just a bit more. Pushing the ball down the hill. Into the thicket where you worry you'll see eyes. Past that one tree that feels wrong to stare at in the field, even during the day. Away from that alley you'd rather not cut across even though you're big and grown now. Through that one spot on the train station where you imagine someone once got into a fight, surely. That'd explain that feeling. We like to imagine we'd recognize the supernatural. That we'd be able to point it out, to articulate it. That somewhere there's a big book that'll give you the locations of impossible places, people in busy hats and creatures with strange patterns in their fur. But for something to be wrong, to defy the natural, it would have to be outside our perception. When we look up into the sky our eyes do not affix onto dark matter. They see the stars. We love their beauty, are terrified by how they die, and use them to navigate. We don't see into the black holes, the pockets of nothing. We often like to imagine that in times before there were people who wielded magic, waved their hands or used what we now know to be science to solve things. But there were most certainly others. The tunnel rats. The ones who ran off, who stayed close, who noticed just a bit more, thought about things in just a bit of an odd way. Who noticed the bad places, felt unsettled by them. The truly wise to the unknown of the world aren't those who peer with magnifying glasses, or those who shake sticks in the desert, or anything in between. It's the ones who keep their mouths shut, absorb and shake at odd feelings they get up high on planes or in front of a row of pines stretching back deep into the mountains. Or above a grate between two apartments with a grey stain on one wall. The ones who, every time they get a feeling they haven't found in any dictionary yet, even the ones passed down by grandparents far more into the esoteric than them, despite a quiet and tentative desperation, silently hope that this isn't it. That this isn't the time when it happens, when it comes. When they see. When they realize. The ones who have no idea what "it" is. The ones who, though they may keep looking at them from afar, avoid the bad places.

#writing

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sonkitty · 3 months ago

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Trickery Post #9 - Complicated

We're finishing up the series in this post.

Before we find the answer for tricking the Heaven elevator, let's go over a few things that I missed pointing out in the previous post regarding Muriel.

These are the types of things you pick up on noticing when you've played the pocket puzzles for The Pocket Trick and The Door Trick.

When Muriel is motioning for the miracle touch on closing the doors, their right arm gets very close to that line between elevator doors behind both Crowley and Muriel. Even though they get close, they still don't cross over past that line.

Because they did such a thing, the most likely reason is so that their reflection can be found in a specific way and place on the door handle reflection to the camera's right and Muriel's left. Muriel is "handling" some requirement.

Another thing Muriel does is look down to check their position. They do not start to look up until a door starts to be visually in front of their face.

These moves are to show us how Muriel plays as Crowley's trusted assistant for the trick.

Now let's move onto the real simple explanation for tricking the Heaven elevator. Finding the solution is a weird experience. Is it weirder than finding the Tied Hands? That's debatable since the Tied Hands, by virtue of being what they are, alert you that these games are absurd and full of weirdness. You really do need to be thinking outside the box (pocket) to solve these puzzles.

This play is definitely more advanced because you have to lay out many pieces in front of you and count, among other things. Then you have to trust this absurd method of play.

You might doubt me, but I am experienced enough in this game that I am quite confident this answer is correct.

This play is very, very in-depth, and the post it is based on only has 1 like that isn't mine. In case that was due to its length, going cut by cut, and focusing so much on Overhead Lights, this post is going to be trimmed down. Know that Overhead Light things are happening, even if I'm not commenting on them.

I am going to lay out a lot of pieces.

The more general ideas in play are:

-Crowley did not touch the buttons.

-Crowley did not touch the doors on entry.

-Crowley pretended to be arrested.

-Crowley entered and turned around. Then Muriel entered and turned around.

-Misdirection is a great answer for the question as a basic riddle, "How do you trick an elevator?"

-Something is going on with the lighting and shadows, as if the threshold thinks Crowley is a shadow; he is theoretically invisible on exit.

-Crowley was first.

...

For the first two touches of The Bigger Thresholds Trick, both explanations are only a few words. The explanations include a verb and a noun with the noun matching the multiplicative adjective. By that I mean, in the pub, there are two lanes. In the music shop, there is one sign on the window to the door. Ideally, the simple answer for Heaven would have a verb and a noun to represent the Triple. We're looking for a match to that type of pattern.

Another thing to keep in mind for this trick is that the buttons are the elevator's equivalent for doorknobs.

Excluding Crowley's name or pronoun, the answer for the first touch is two words. They are "switched lanes."

The answer for the second touch is five words. They are, "never let go of the door."

Remember these numbers: 2 and 5.

Given what we have so far, we are looking for a relatively short answer.

Let's go over these ideas and why I was not quite satisfied with any answer yet.

...

Crowley not touching the buttons is the easy answer, but it feels a little too easy compared to the past two touches. It at least references the Triple in that there are three buttons. There is a verb with "touch". The word "not" was probably a clue that the play was "not" so simple as to be done with that answer alone.

As already stated, at some point, I decided I wanted to make visual representations and GIF sets to help communicate that these Threshold Tricks are what they are. I was more strict on what segments of this trick to actually choose as GIFs.

Here is the original set:

Shortly after publishing and seeing the GIF set, it became evident to me that the trick is related to the chosen lighting and shadows of the atmosphere. Since the Threshold Tricks have two rounds, we might be able to get away with not needing a noun for the Triple or be satisfied with finding a three or a triple some other way.

...

Crowley did not touch the doors on entry is part of whatever is happening, but the main thing it lacks is that the noun, "door," is not tripled, and it re-uses a noun from another touch. So, let's dismiss that answer.

...

Crowley "pretended to be arrested" was my best guess by the time I was making the play being described in my post. I came up with it sometime during or after working on my posts about Crowley and Muriel.

Still, I was not convinced it's correct. It lacks a noun. For finding a three, I can mainly look to the letters within this prospective answer. Focusing on the phrase, "pretended to be arrested," there are 3 of the letter "r", 3 of the letter "t", and 3 of the letter "d". That's good to find because that's a triple. There are 3 sets of 3 found. While the phrase is 4 words, it does have 3 spaces when typed or written down.

When the doors closely slowly on both Crowley and Muriel, one of the doors has the word, "LETTERS" on it, so that's a clue that the letters within this answer are indeed worth considering.

Another sign that answer is the correct one is that when the doors close in on Crowley, he is shown to be contained in 3 windows that look like cells, reminiscent of a jail cell.

Still another clue is that Crowley literally says to Muriel, "You're arresting me, why would I be trying to trick you?" while inside the threshold. That's very likely a clue. For The Pocket Trick, Triple Part 2, Crowley has one line that says, "Do you need a lift somewhere?" as the clue that the Pocket Frame is Cars.

One problem with this "pretended to be arrested" answer is that its link with the lighting and shadows is limited. Lighting is heavily a clue, especially if pockets are involved. Pockets are involved here since Muriel put their notepad in a pocket on the way into the elevator. And pockets aren't just apparel pockets in this silly game. They're even visible holes or things framed between other things. The strongest lighting is on Muriel. They are wearing all white. While there are lines of white light along the sides, Muriel is still the subject that dominates the entrance scene and given the most focus in the lighting due to their white attire.

That could fit with, "pretended to be arrested," since Muriel is in uniform as their Inspector Constable presentation.

Another problem is we're still missing a noun in the part of the answer that is not Crowley's name or pronoun. Maybe we can get away with that. Maybe we can't. We're going to find out.

...

For Crowley and Muriel turning around, I suspected that's related to whatever the true answer is, but it's still not the answer. The clues are stronger with the arrest if I start looking at things like a lacking noun and number of letters within the phrase. Plus, the arrest answer is part of the dialogue.

...

For misdirection, both Crowley and Muriel engage in misdirection for this scene. It looks like Crowley is tricking Muriel instead of Muriel being his trusted assistant for tricking the elevator. In turn, they both misdirect the audience.

To find that "misdirection" answer, I had indeed tried to look up if there is a riddle or a joke to answer, "How do you trick an elevator?" I don't remember if I looked up if it was in a game or not, but that's what I found. "Misdirection" is the name of an achievement for a video game called Enter the Backrooms and involves elevators. "The Small Back Room" is the name of Maggie's record shop, and Aziraphale spelled that shop as "Backroom" on his list when preparing for the ball, so it's worth keeping in mind as part of an answer.

Misdirection is such a good answer, but it should be part of a phrase. Crowley engaged in misdirection?

Hmm.

Let's look at the LETTERS clue for this idea.

We already examined letters for "pretended to be arrested," but there is something we can look at in the letters for "misdirection".

Misdirection has a prefix, "mis," and it is three letters long.

I cannot come up with a phrase to be represented by each letter, but since lighting and shadows are on my mind, I can at least come up with, some word, followed by "in shadow" or "in shadows".

Misdirected in shadows? Missing in shadow? Melted in shadow? Meeting in shadows?

Nothing truly clicks, and the other issue is that the answer should be simple enough.

Now it's becoming too complicated. The mechanics are complicated to arrive at the answer, especially here, but the solution should still be a simple answer to the question, "How did Crowley trick the Heaven elevator?"

He pretended to be arrested by an angel.

A-ha!

That feels like the answer, but it's worth exploring the clues further to see if they give us any assurance we got it.

I've added three more words this time with "by an angel", and one of the added words is a noun that is not tripled, but still, the answer is simple enough for me to understand compared to, "misdirected in shadows," or whatever m-word I can think of. Now that I type this post, "Muriel" would be another m-word, wouldn't it? Speaking of Muriel, "angel" would be a way to include Muriel in the answer without directly naming them.

I like this answer so far though I'm a little uneasy about reaching 7 words. There is a tiny silly clue that's okay in that the previous touch of The Bigger Thresholds Trick had Crowley performing the Double from The Pocket Trick. He had 8 fingers out of the pockets, but the right pinky fingertip was cast in shadow. As such, it was 7 fingertips being shown during that touch. If 7 is the maximum number of words and the actual number we're looking for, we've found the answer.

Oh, but "misdirection" is such a good answer or part of an answer, especially with the context of the scene!

Crowley "pretended to be arrested by an angel as misdirection" is probably too many words and too complex for a simple answer. The answer is still limited in its link with the shadows.

Can we have three acceptable answers since it's the Triple and Earthly Objects has a Rule of Three? Or is that, again, too complicated?

...

Another notable thing that happens but does not really fit with any of these answers is that the doors close slowly and end up over Crowley's watch.

I've described the watch as something like a lookout.

Whenever I watch the scene, the doors closing slowly is when it feels like that's where I'm supposed to see the answer.

But I don't.

...

While I doubt this answer is the answer the game is looking for, an underlying core part of the trick in play is that Crowley trusts Muriel.

...

In my earlier play of this game, I remarked that Crowley being first is the most confusing thing he does, given how he tends to manage thresholds and entries with Aziraphale. When he exited the bookshop, he was first with Mrs. Sandwich instead of first alone with someone behind him.

After finding the closer link between Crowley and Muriel, I noticed that not only is Crowley first, Muriel is last. I don't know why it matters, and if it matters a lot since my intuition alarms have quieted over time, but my intuition does tell me it probably has an intentional reason, some unknown value the characters find in it.

I will try to skip over some of the parts of studying things sequentially since the main clue is actually...the repeated use of the word "blah." I told you the solution was weird.

We'll at least acknowledge the Pocket Chains before I go over the "blah" stuff.

Here is a cut that focuses on Muriel:

During the cut, Muriel creates a small pocket with their left hand and notepad. Their left thumb MCP joint aligns with their Pocket Chain.

I'm going to play this part as saying that's Muriel letting Crowley in for using their Pocket Chain during this upcoming trick.

Crowley's Pocket Chain is heavily dependent on human presence, and there will be no humans in Heaven, as far as we can tell. Due to the timing of when and where humans will be on screen during this trick, I suspect the mechanics at work are something like Muriel is allowing Crowley to use their Pocket Chain. Muriel wears all white, and White keeps. So, Muriel's play is to hold Crowley's place in the Rainbow Connection for his Pocket Chain.

Muriel creates a pocket twice with their right arm, torso, and bottom of the screen during this cut as well. During that, their right hand's shadow is over one of their jacket pockets and extended two fingers. These two characters are working together, so that's probably intentional as well.

Onto the "blah" usage.

I cannot believe the things this game gets me to do to play.

In the next two cuts, Crowley says the word "blah" multiple times, and Muriel says the "blah" multiple times with their voices overlapping for the last two "blah"s from Crowley and the first two "blah"s from Muriel.

Why do I care so much? Because of the numbers.

To play this part, I loaded up the video into an editing program and slowed down the audio so I could count the number of times each character said "blah" and when.

Crowley says "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." He says it 7 times, and here I am with my most likely answer at 7 words of "pretended to be arrested by an angel," based partly on a hint of 7 fingertips involving pockets from the previous touch on The Bigger Thresholds Trick mixed with a touch in The Pocket Trick.

There are two overlapping "blah"s because Muriel starts to say "blah" while Crowley is talking.

Muriel says "blah" 5 times. If I remove the 2 overlapping ones, I have 3 clear "blah"s from Muriel here on the Triple. The official subtitles clued in me into look for the 3 Muriel said since they are the 3 the subtitles credit.

When I realized the voices were overlapping and confusing me for who said "blah" how many times, I decided to check the audio more thoroughly.

Still in a cut with Muriel receiving focus, Crowley says, "Good job, you've arrested me," with his shadow's movement being cast over Muriel's jacket pockets and pocket chain. That specific dialogue is well-timed with those underlying numbers of the "blah" words I just checked.

Once the shadow is done with its movement, Muriel asks, "I have?"

Then Crowley says "blah" 7 times again with no overlap from Muriel this time. That is 3 times the game has given me a 7 now as a clue. Crowley is repeating this clue in this scene here with the arrest of this Trick.

When I pull back to think about it, the previous two simple explanations of 2 words and 5 words, well...2 + 5 does equal 7.

A lot more happens with the Overhead Lights and the dialogue and Muriel but that 7 was enough for me to start trusting my "pretended to be arrested by an angel" idea for the proper answer. I've only grown to trust it more over time.

It helps include Muriel in the answer, further supporting why it was worth taking the extra time and effort to consider the lighting, shadows, and that Crowley trusts Muriel. Those were all pieces that I considered important, even if I couldn't fit them together until several other steps were taken in the play.

...

Eventually, I finished my series of posts about Crowley's sideburns.

And then I was mostly done.

I have played since then, but it's not play I intended to cover with this project, especially in light of the very-upsetting-to-me news that season 3 was shortened to a 90-minute movie instead of 6 episodes.

If you want to see what I've been up to, check my Tumblr archive starting from July 2024. Most of my work has been struggling to understand retying for the Tied Hands, but I did work on some timestamp notes and a timeline theory. I recently found a couple of new patterns related to The Sunglasses Trick so have a post about that and a Food Curse head-canon that might explain the disappearing plate of Eccles cakes.

Something I've always wanted to add somewhere but had no place to is the following...

The Pocket Trick's core concept is, "Think outside the pocket."

I am not sure I the exact words for this hidden message, but it goes something like this: If you found The Pocket Trick, you've been thinking outside the pocket—using your imagination and playing with words—all along.

I was "thinking outside the pocket" from the start with the assumption that someone or something in the story wanted to tell us about the sideburns. I recognized the forces outside the story put some force inside this information.

Remember this gorgeous shot?

Do you remember that when I said I learned thresholds held significance, I thought Crowley was making the space more his own by using that newspaper like a door?

Do you remember how I said I learned thumb tips help manage Door Mode?

Do you remember how I said the tassels are the thumbs of the Tied Hands?

Do you see the tassel tips on Crowley's pants in that gorgeous shot?

Yeah, that's the game conveying this theme. I was right. He is making that space more his own. Crowley is using his pocket imagination powers to make a door like we thought, but he's doing so with his Tied Hands to help him set Door Mode on that thing.

Not only that, look at the shot just before it...

We see humans, yes, but only on the path in front of him. In the grass surrounding Crowley, there are no humans. Humans only appear past the next threshold, the edge of that path.

Crowley really did make that space more his own.

And if you're wondering how the human spy got into that space, I may have been right about Crowley needing a password to be approached or seen/sensed here. The human spy happened to have it. He had an earthly object, an intent to meet someone, and...a hat. Yeah, I think the hats are part of the passwords for this scene. Every character who acknowledges Crowley exists and can be seen in the park is wearing a hat (Shax, the spy with the briefcase, and the spy feeding the ducks). Everyone who is not wearing a hat goes on about their business ignoring Crowley, mostly giving him some space.

I thought that Crowley was making that newspaper a door to make the space more his own long before I named The Door Trick as a Threshold Trick and long before I realized the Tied Hands existed.

I named the game, Earthly Objects because I was playing with words and sensed the connection specifically to the Good Omens 2 story.

I figured out the thresholds of the sunglasses because I used my imagination of how a door to a snake-eyed demon who regularly wears sunglasses could work.

I figured out the steps for complex windows because I played with words. "The looker looks. The window sees." That was me playing with words before I knew The Pocket Trick existed.

I figured out the names of the Threshold Tricks and the words, or at least decent guesses, for their core concepts.

Obviously, I'm very proud of my play, and I wanted to brag about it somewhere. The end of this series is a place that feels fitting. One of the fun things about the game is to circle back and see all the things you caught and didn't catch before you learned more. You knew things before you knew them, and you didn't know that you knew them.

...

I never did figure out why Crowley wanted to be first when using the Heaven elevator. Well, not fully. I get it has to do with Muriel being "last" and something to do with the angel ranks, but there are more words and ideas I'm missing to find the answer.

In any case, this project is done. I hope you enjoyed this journey of play with me; please let me know if you did.

Thanks for your time.

(For reference: Trickery)

#crowley #david tennant #good omens #good omens s2 #good omens season 2 #good omens meta #good omens crowley #good omens analysis #good omens 2 trickery

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