#its just a natural consequence of being a shitty person

[feyriejane]

new favorite thing is showing people the shitty books my ex wrote and hearing them talk about how shitty they are. it makes the sun shine a little brighter

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

You said you wanted to talk about power sets and I have to say- have always been a bit confused about Seers. I've done so much research (because one of my ocs is a Seer of Heart) but I've really come up with nothing (I'm NOT the best at classpect stuff, the whole passive/active thing goes Right over my head for example). So! I guess I want to hear your thoughts on it (or if you want something more general, hearing your thoughts on the passive/active thing would also be nice)

so seers are the passive counterpart to mages, and they're both combined under the similarity of "sees the future."

Thing is, "the future" in homestuck is a mutable concept, being laid down by the actions of the players. this is the split between the seer's powers and the mage's powers: the mage's "prophecies" always come true, because the mage's ACTUAL ability is to CHOOSE a future. mages, an active class ("exploit their aspect to benefit themselves" according to calliope) actively use their aspect to collapse the possibilities of the future into a single course of events that Definitely Will Happen. because players are 3d beings experiencing time in cross-sections, this appears to be prophecy, rather than active determination.

on the flipside, then, Seers are the actual prophets, because their powers allow them to see the branching paths of the future (along with letting them just, like, regularly "see" things associated with their aspect - terezi can see brain ghost dirk, and kankri jumps in on the cronus/meenah conversation right as something pale is happening, implying that he's able to sense relationships developing so he can cockblock them.) passive classes "allow their aspect to be used by others" (according to calliope), so that's what seers do: they see the branching paths of the future through the lens of their aspect, and by doing so, serve as guides for the rest of the party - Rose, after god tiering, is constantly leading her party down the "most fortuitous path," and terezi, whose mind powers are associated with consequences, behavior, choices, and karma, is a master manipulator, able to see the branching webs of outcomes from even minor changes in behavior.

That all being said, Aspect is tied to fundamental personality, and Class is tied to character arc. The Seer character arc is hubris, followed by a fall from grace, and then with self-inflicted "blindness" to cope with the shame and guilt. For example, Rose's need to be the smartest person in the room made it easy for Doc Scratch to manipulate her; this led to her mother's death, which Rose coped with by drinking herself stupid. Terezi's overconfidence in herself as a master manipulator led to her eschewing her personal feelings and painting herself into a corner where the only viable option was to kill her BFF Vriska, the guilt of which she coped with by throwing herself into a toxic relationship with Gamzee, which was a loss for the forces of justice and karma, but a big win for the clown (plus all the stuff with her literal vision). And Kankri is currently suffering from both at once, his insistence on being the team's "spiritual leader" making him widely disliked, and his insistence on celibacy a self-induced "blindness" to his clear feelings toward latula and cronus - feelings which make him act really shitty to mituna, and make him step between cronus and meenah right as meenah's about to make Cronus reconsider some harmful behaviors.

Heart, meanwhile, is associated with feelings, intuition, motivations, the soul, and the self. Its players are characterized by vulnerability and sincerity - its players have very strong emotions, sometimes overwhelmingly so, and are also naturally gifted at understanding other peoples' inner selves, able to see them for their best... and for their worst. There's generally two ways for an Aspect to manifest "at its worst" - toxic overabundance, or "inversion," where it starts to exhibit the traits of the opposite. A Heart player at toxic overabundance is needy and fawning, demanding attention at the same time as they enthusiastically allow those with stronger desires to walk all over them, in an attempt to please the strong desires they sense - Dirk often flips between critical/controlling and needy/desperate; Nepeta lets Equius walk all over her; Meulin has TWO awful, shitty boyfriends who do horrible things to her. At inversion, they become misanthropic and manipulative, using their influence over emotion and desire to engender terrible outcomes - seeing only the worst in others, they actively work to ensure the worst sides of others are provoked into the open. At their best, then, a Heart player is able to separate good desires from bad, just wishes from selfish ones, and encourage the best in people while helping them deal with their worst.

So a Seer of Heart would start out arrogant - perhaps a Mean Girl type? Someone assured in not only their ability to engender their desired emotions from others, but entitled to those emotions. "You know you love me!" is the "vibe," so to speak. Heart players are naturally capable of sensing motives and emotions; a Seer of Heart turns that up to eleven. They'll be perfectly assured that their ships are the best ships, that their read on people is the correct read, that they'll be able to tell how others feel and how they'll react. Also they might be able to see ghosts because of Heart's sway over souls.

When something finally happens that shatters this arrogance, they'll fall into willful self-blindness to cope with the guilt and shame. As Heart is what they can see, that means they'll deliberately try to obfuscate their ability to sense feelings, motives, and emotions - perhaps literally isolating themselves and becoming a NEET/hikikomori, perhaps replacing their brain with a computer, etc. etc.

Once they overcome this and figure themselves out, they're going to specifically be great at, tbh, therapy and life coaching. able to literally see all emotional conflicts and the ways in which people will emotionally respond to certain situations, a Seer of Heart is going to be amazing at helping others understand themselves, their own feelings, and the feelings of the others on the team. they'll be insane diplomats, too, able to grok at a glance what all parties on a negotiation desire. you can't lie to a seer of heart!

[davekat-sucks]

the whole "hs' point is to spite the audience" thing is just false as well, cause it forgets the whole video game and point and click theme of the site. stuff like act 1's arm bit and such were the type of old school adventure game logic where you're thinking one way while the game expects another. the frustration feels incidental. there were also other moments that would feel straight out of a sierra game, but much like those games, it never feels like the dev was spiteful. an asshole who set up a rake to laugh at you if you stepped on it sure, but not actively malicious.

also you know, that bit of a control is why the jabs at the audience in earlier acts work. if i crash the car, you know thats on me. if you crash the car and blame it on me, then no surprise that i'm just going to think that you're a dick. you can't be a trickster like bugs bunny but also the aggressor.

But audiences/readers giving input commands would later soon be discarded in later Acts of the original Homestuck webcomic. Even now for Epilogues and HS2/Beyond Canon, there is barely anything remotely relating to gameplay. One could argue it's because Alt Calliope and Ult Dirk are taking control, thus we cannot give commands. But it isn't like we are also actively seeing them give said commands to the characters that make them and the narrative worse each time. Any consequences towards the person in charge is not there either and it mostly falls on the characters themselves that had to perform the action (ex: Rose or Jade having the affair, not Alt Calliope being the one pushed it to happen). We do not even have any actual flash gameplay in HS2/Beyond Canon. Like how we got the flash game of John having a strife battle with Dad Egbert as our introduction what the battles will be like for Homestuck. All we get is a shitty visual novel because it is easier to code and made out of laziness to save time and money. It's not even like a walk-around exploration either like they did for John exploring his home upon entering the Medium, the segments in Alterniabound, or even Openbound. It's just click to read next textbox line like in Hiveswap Friendsim and Pesterquest. Doesn't help in the meta sense, it tries to imply the blame is not on the characters or even the ones that trying to take control, but the audiences/readers for wanting the series to continue, despite we had never once given any proper input command. The only thing that counts as being somewhat participant is just by giving money on Patreon for the project to continue. That's why Epilogues/HS2/Beyond Canon has shocking and bad moments because that's the story/characters themselves saying FUCK YOU to to the readers. Some people in the fandom also justify the bad things that happened in the story is because the original webcomic had always been trolling us. Hussie had always had an asshole persona, so it is just in nature for the writers to also troll the audiences. But that has lost all its meaning at this point that it's hard to tell what's genuine or what's suppose to be a joke. So all it ends up being is watching a shitty fanfic and shitty choices that nobody knows who to blame. Ult Dirk? Alt Calliope? Andrew Hussie? WhatPumpkin? James Roach? HICU? Or us for liking this series and had wanted to see it be better and have a legacy? The series fumbled when it was under Viz Media and the only way to read Homestuck is through an unofficial collection. Where the fuck can this series go even as the Kickstarter game is still in development hell after 10+ years since it was funded and the last update on that Kickstarter was just in 2021?

[sewer-sermon]

dnt normally post oc stuff but i suddenly remembered an old one of mine that was inspired by @bogleech's harmburger stuff (particularly the variation in awful hospital)

idk if they had a name before but its Redbert now!! (Red "40" Bert for long)

they're a cheap shitty fast food megacorp's twisted experiment to make a "meat recycling program", so that when meat went rancid you could recycle it into edible stuff again, so they could save money on outsourcing their meat products! it worked but it also became alive and really really scared

they sound like the most stereotypical awkward "visibly bullied in highschool" nerd you can picture, however that manifests in your mind (i personally think of pete spankoffski from nerdy prudes must die but it's slightly different for everyone). they're pretty timid so it was easy enough for the fast food chain to convince them to work at one of their establishments, and they're technically company property so they didn't have much of a choice anyways, their sentience was entirely unintentional but ultimately means they can learn how to work a cash register and flip patties for peanuts and scraps so naturally they were put right to it!

they are technically food grade at all times- the experiment that birthed them was a success! said experiment being that they basically just threw a metric fuckton of meat in various states of freshness (from "severed, still-bleeding appendage" to "straight roadkill") into a giant vat together and blended it, and the combined hubris of this action alone plus everything else the company had done to get to how bloated it was present-day reviled the universe so badly that the thing was Immediately stricken with life if only to have an outlet for the sheer appall it felt at that microinstant.

it created this single homogenous kind of meat that immediately absorbs anything not resembling it (besides other meats), including bacteria, flies, debris and such, and just. Turns it into more meat. so it can't technically spoil bc any time something tries to break it down it just breaks it down quicker into more meat. that also means they don't really ever get less fresh than "literally still kicking & screaming"- they might get a little nasty being made to stand out in the summer heat but it'll digest back into more, fresher meat the second they get into some air conditioning! so it's totally safe for them to be serving people food & in fact they make the place cleaner just by kind of idly standing around (however they can't leave their bucket. that much contact with the ground might have consequences for the building's infrastructure eventually)

my horrible meat chicken they just wanna scroll thru youtube shorts in the break room

one of my friends asked me if they could lose mass and i said that you could in theory scoop some out of them but if you used your bare hands, it would start taking mass from you rapidly enough to actively feel yourself losing skin cells and the sensation will almost definitely jar you into dropping it on the ground where it'll either fall back into Redbert or crawl into them. sometimes they run under the fridge and we're not really sure what happens to those ones, but sometimes employees find them a couple weeks later hiding behind the grease trap. they hiss

but funny aside they will turn anything into meat eventually but they struggle to digest metal, so they probably get scooped semi regularly with some metal implements that are changed out when they wear down too far and the excess is made into burgers or something. it's to keep them from getting too big that they inconvenience the other workers too much, but i will note that they were in fact smaller upon creation and the scoopings have become more frequent as of late

they were made with my love of drawing long serpentine things in mind and also raw meat :> and chickens! they don't really have to look like a chicken they just reuse those limbs the most consistently bc it's the least offputting way they've managed to make themselves look (as part of their customer training they were made to carefully study how people reacted to their appearance upon using various arrangements of limbs, organs and bone fragments as facial features)

don't know if ill post abt them super often, i don't do a lot of oc stuff often, but maybe ill doodle them whenever i get bored and i have some spare time so ill make them a tag :V

have the old version of them + art i did of them as an animal crossing villager(??) under a cut bc it's Old!

[gammaraydeath]

So, Ro. Do tell us/me everything you want to tell. Or to be more specific, tell me five facts that you think one should know first.

omg yes hi!!! this is exciting :D thank you so much for asking! this is very long bc i love to talk about ro. this got very long so i'll have to break this up into two posts, i'll add the remaining facts in a reblog!

she has the spacer background. born on arcturus station. it does have a permanent population and i assume the space equivalent of on base military housing. hannah took maternity leave but couldn't stand being idle, and didn't take to motherhood as naturally as she had hoped. rose's father, placeholder name chuck, wound up being her primary parental figure. once rose was old enough to qualify for daycare/education services on larger noncombatant alliance vessels, around 5 years old, her parents sold their arcturus apartment and she was henceforth spacebound. dad took the career hit - hannah kept climbing the ranks and taking postings that rose could not board for. as a consequence, rose was closest with her father. naturally, he tragically perishes, leaving hannah in a tough spot. grieving, busy, and now with even more pressure to succeed in her career to provide for her child, she sent rose to earth to live with relatives, finishing her education in a more traditional high school setting. rose, ro to her close friends, had always had a bit of a rebellious streak though. having lost her father, feeling unwanted by her mother, cut off from the only life she had known and the unease of being planetside, she leaned fully into the shitty punk teen act. she plays a futuristic bass/synth instrument in a garage band. they play in dive bars. she gets her hands on all sorts of things she shouldn't, courtesy of her older "boyfriend". she doesn't go to school. she makes her poor gramma's life hell. her relationship with hannah is at its worst and most fractured, and although they will get closer (they do love each other), there will always be some distance between them that neither knows how to close. a series of misadventures culminates in ro committing a bit of light treason - given a choice between charges being pressed or her skills put to use for the alliance, she enlists. anderson is a personal friend of hannah's, and although he doesn't have a ton of weight to swing around at this point, he's got enough clout that when hannah calls in a favor he vouches for her daughter, and it's enough. ro takes her second chance extremely seriously, knows that she's starting with a disadvantage, and works hard to prove herself.

she also has the war hero background. i have this whole idea for how elysium goes for her - she's a second lieutenant, which is a bit of a high rank for her age, but hey she becomes commander at like 29 so whatever lmfao. she's rapidly rising the ranks, we'll just say that. she serves on the SSV Denver (placeholder ship name that also might just be kept) and mostly keeps to herself. she's known for being very serious, by the books, and studious. huge departure from her personality before enlistment. most are intimidated by her demeanor, and she feels unable to make friends. she's not yet the charming and personable commander that can befriend a whole crew. she does, however, have 1 friend - allison hartley. kid genius, only 19, intelligence specialist. allie comes from a rich family, skipped over high school, had full ride scholarships into the most prestigious universities, participates in community, sports, clubs, is kind, and is just an all-around good person; she stays humble despite her privilege. and she sets her sights on ro, the dour, quiet goth girl and works very hard to break down her walls to befriend her. and it works! and one day she convinces ro to take leave with her to visit her family's ski resort in illyria on elysium. and it all goes so very wrong, but not immediately! first, they do get to enjoy their vacation for a few days. they wind up meeting a veteran named louise, who is bitter about a recent divorce (get her drunk enough and she'll start opening up about her ex wife but anything less and she's a brick wall), and a bartender named audax (possibly the only turian who likes the cold; he's fond of skiing in his free time) that ro is a little bit taken by. all that time in space and she's never really met an alien before. these two, along with allie, will form ro's "squad" when shit goes down. ro is responsible for forming the plan to rally civilians to take back their city - block by block, they push back against the invaders, and they're gaining momentum. it really seems like they're winning, and the pirates all pull back like a tide going out. turns out they were clearing the area for an incoming orbital strike. allie is among the casualties. when the invaders return in force, ro pulls herself together enough to direct survivors to safety and hold the line until backup finally arrives. ro, louise, and allie's parents on her behalf all accept the star of terra award. audax receives his own dues, and has his moment of fame for being an exemplar of interspecies cooperation. ro gets a memorial tattoo of allie done in her honor - this will later be wiped by the lazarus project, and is redone as a pair of black bands around her bicep; one for allie, one for kaidan.

[eternclsunshine]

random muse headcanons + self-perception.

Trinity. Never had a great self-esteem growing up and that's to blame on her misogynistic family & shitty upbringing. It's made her very introverted, quiet, and she never thought of herself being worth anything or capable of anything. Her self esteem only evolved when she went off to college - since she was away from her family and able to find out who she is without outside interference. Being pretty and quiet, she received a lot of comments about being intimidating or unapproachable. It was jarring at first but over time she just... grew to like it? It felt like 'her thing' and she molded herself into filling that quiet confidence 'badass' role. It was a way to embrace her femininity without having to change her introverted nature or change anything about herself. It was a true 'who run the world? girls' moment for her and now she walks on the ground like she owns it. A mother <3

Valeria. Trying to break into the industry as the artist, but constantly facing rejection and a lack of support has really worn down her confidence and self worth. She's very aware that she's a 'flop' and a failed venture and she dwells on it a lot - even if she's much happier in life now. Deep down she's a very wounded person and kinda seeks validation from others by forcing herself to be outgoing or agreeable. Tries to force herself into being this idea of a 'good person' even though its not 100% genuine and she just feels like shit inside. Wants to be better but she almost always chooses the option of being self destructive :/ a true tortured artist lmao

In her Fame verse she's a lot more unhinged though. She constantly forces this unproblematic polished image on herself to be liked, and the love from her fans/media has definitely gotten to her head. If someone goes against her, she's vengeful and (lowkey) convinces her fans to do her bidding/dirty work by attacking people online. Doesn't care about the consequences of anything and just does what's beneficial to her. Morality is just questionable and close to being far gone.

[lady-laureline]

There's been a lot of discussion about the validity of neurodivergent self-diagnosis, including a fair bit of fuss about the notion that there is a whole swathe of people faking their disability for attention, so I think it's a great time to dissect a few fun topics such as representation, intersectionality, prejudice and privilege (this post is unapologetically long).

Tl;dr for the people at the back: cracking down on perceived fakes has unintended consequences. If you don't know what you're talking about, what is "believable" is not for you to decide.

×××

To those with concerns, a few questions. What was your first encounter with disability? A joke in a movie, perhaps, or an insult you heard at school?

Incidentally, did you know the brain uses your first impression as the foundation for your understanding of any concept? This can be tricky to reflect on (we all have a built-in resistance to changing our minds), but if you are comparing the people you see online to Rain Man you might have some catching up to do.

There's this insidious notion of being "reasonably disabled". People tend to go for an all-or-nothing dichotomy without really thinking about it, which is detrimental to literally everyone in between. Personally, I think it has something to do with our discomfort around being bad at something. As if being blind was somehow more legitimate than having poor eyesight - it sounds ridiculous, but tell me there isn't a part of you that thinks this way.

Likewise, there are plenty of neurodivergent folk that are able to function in society, but will not quite match up to the neurotypical standard in certain contexts, whether we lack the performance skills or just have a different taste in things. Y'all seem to be having difficulties translating a theoretical understanding of this into not cringing like we're bringing down the average grade.

×

Okay, but aren't we talking about a medical diagnosis? Surely that should be left to the professionals? Yes & no. Hope you don't mind that I explain with the help of anecdotal evidence.

I am at a point where I am feeling pretty good about how I identify, i.e. officially diagnosed with adhd, and self-diagnosed as autistic. Through a combination of digging through online resources and a whole lot of recuperation, I've been able to put many of the struggles I was fighting blind with into a framework I am able to understand. I feel more like a person than I ever have in my life, and that, for me, is the greatest benefit of a diagnosis, official or not.

While I am certainly not ruling out seeking a doctor's confirmation of my autism at some point, there is some trepidation involved.

A non-trivial part of this is my adhd diagnosis experience. This was during the pandemic, I was just coming to terms with being burnt out and was so so ready to finally get some answers as to why. An immigrant (read: used to paying for healthcare) living in the UK, I naturally opted to seek guidance and support from the National Healthcare Service at this vulnerable time in my life. If you're familiar with the NHS, you can probably guess how it went to bother this already overwhelmed and underfunded organisation that definitely did not want to deal with my trauma dumping.

After being coerced to try an SSRI "to find out what's under all that anxiety" and having a terrible time with it, plus feeling legitimately gaslight in my pursuit of getting to the bottom of what it would actually take to get approved for an assessment, I found out about my right to choose and swiftly obtained both my diagnosis and prescription via Psychiatry UK, a private organisation.*

A decidedly shitty experience overall, but I ended up with a lot of useful insight into navigating the bureaucracy, and I can safely say that taking (the right) medication has helped a lot with symptom management, and thus, life in general.

×

Now, autism has been in the public eye much longer than adhd and has accumulated more research over the years, but its implementation is far from adequate, especially for autistic adults. Some of the studies that shaped the understanding of doctors practicing today betray the derogatory and/or infantilising beliefs of doctors of the past.

So I have concerns about the toll another clinical runaround might have on my mental health. It would take a lot of work, too - prior to assessment, you are more or less expected to build a convincing case for yourself, which means you have to do enough research to persuade a medical professional who may or may not be inclined to think of all this neurospicy nonsense is a waste of time.

Even if I did get approved for an autism assessment with the NHS, the waiting list is years (yes, years) long. Private care is prohibitively expensive, unless you're desperate enough. Or, you know, rich. I've seen prices in the thousands (yes, thousands).

I'm also unsure, in practical terms, what I stand to gain from an official diagnosis as opposed to, say, seeking out a local branch of the autistic community. Not because I don't trust institutions, but because "access to accommodations" rarely gets elaborated on further, and is not a guarantee. There are also situations where the label would create incompatibility where there previously was none - for example, certain immigration policies reject autistic people outright. Not that I'm thinking of moving to New Zealand, but still.

There's a lot to consider. I haven't gotten around to making an exhaustive list of pros and cons and I don't think I'll have the energy for it anytime soon. Please feel free to add your two cents if you'd like.

×

Alright, so an official diagnosis isn't quite the no-brainer you thought it was, but "that doesn't excuse people labelling themselves for the fun of it".

Buddy. Friend. Kindred spirit o' mine.

We are doing this because we are having difficulty surviving in a world that wasn't built for us. I don't know what your definition of "fun" is, but I can think of a few other things I'd rather be doing than grappling with burnout and existential crises for half of my twenties - because that's what happens when you grow up being told that your lived experience isn't real. That you couldn't possibly feel this way, because the rest of the class feels fine.

People worrying about fake disabilities are still trying to fit neurodivergent content into a neurotypical point of view. They see someone trying to normalise the disabled experience and think: "If I did that, I'd be doing it for attention," then carry on to brutally mock them as some sort of righteous punishment for being too weird online.**

I have had to sift through a metric ton of trauma to build my identity back up from scratch. Really puts the "fun" in "dysfunctional". And believe it or not, I have had a relatively easy time of it.

About that intersectionality:

My trials as a disabled immigrant have been frustrating, but I'm also a young, straight-passing, cis white woman. People of colour go undiagnosed at far higher rates - their symptoms are overlooked more, and when they are recognised they are often misconstrued as threatening. Trans people get written off altogether, because transitioning apparently means there are no other medically relevant aspects of your life? Same thing if you're overweight.

I cannot speak with authority on these experiences, but I can say that defining someone by a single facet of their personhood is redundant and insulting, and causes real harm when that preconception bars access to the care they need. It's high time we put work into understanding how our differences interact, and hammer home the fact that intersectionality isn't the exception, it's the rule.

If there's one thing that's going to make it harder to recognise the signs of genuine neurodivergence, it's facing constant doubt. Which we do, about our struggles themselves, and the severity of them. The things that happen to us either happen to nobody, or they happen to everybody - so don't be such a bummer, it's neither the time nor the place, etc.

Maybe there is no adequate time or place for these conversations by design. Maybe the discomfort you feel has less to do with sensing pretense and more to do with rejecting something you don't understand. Maybe it's possible for us to think, speak, and act a little differently than you do, all while being sincere. Maybe letting us exist as we are won't make the world implode.

Food for thought.

×

I'll end on this note, because there is always someone who needs to hear it: Whatever the rest of your life looks like, if you are neurodivergent, you are part of the community. I believe you. You belong.

×××

*In the case of the NHS being unable to provide adequate care, it is a patient's right to request access to an alternative healthcare provider, free of charge. This is known as the right to choose. I've linked Psychiatry UK because they have a comprehensive explanation (and they were nice to me), however their waiting lists have also extended into oblivion.

**Like when Chloé Hayden (actor, author and disability rights advocate, with diagnosed auDHD) received overwhelming backlash (after posting a video of herself displaying unmasked joy) that led to her stepping away from social media.

[landofzero-archive]

Battle on the Sugoroku Board - God Won’t Roll The Dice 8

(Location: “Battle on the Sugoroku Board” program set)

Ibara: Is everyone familiar with the “Keynesian beauty contest?”

Yuuta: ………?

Ibara: Well, it has nothing to do with idols, so you wouldn’t know it.

It’s an analogy for the stock market. In the financial market, the value of a company—its stock price, is determined not by its performance or financial soundness, but by its popularity.

A contest where a vote is held to determine the most beautiful woman out of 100 participants, and a prize will be given to the person who votes for first place—

—When gambling on something like this, voters vote not for the woman they think is beautiful, but for the person they think is beautiful on average.

That’s what we call the Keynesian beauty contest.

If the Keynesian beauty contest were held in “Battle on the Sugoroku Board,” the popularity would probably be shared between the NewDi and CosPro teams.

Popularity has nothing to do with determining who wins or loses “Battle on the Sugoroku Board”…… But it is a consequence of it.

That’s why NETV is trying to let the idols from weaker agencies win, correct?

So they can gamble behind the scenes and profit greatly from the stakes.

Rinne: Oi…… Are we the targets of gambling!?

I’d rather join their side!!

Yuuta: This gambling addict is a worthless adult.

Rinne: Whaddya mean “worthless adult.” You have a weird way of speaking, don’t you.

But that doesn’t explain it. It’s true if an unpopular idol wins, they’ll make a lot of money.

Arashi: Natsume-chan said that may be why they brought in a shady director.

It’s been a while since he last worked. He couldn’t turn down the opportunity to produce a program, right?

Madara: As a result, he couldn’t escape from this evil deed.

However, NETV is a company that distributes programs overseas, so it’s not illegal is it?

Natsume: YeS. The headquarters is located in areas where gambling is legAL. In other worDS, what we’re trying to do is a matter of feeliNGS.

A matter of feelings—nO. It might be more accurate to call it a moral issUE.

Don’t involve us in that shitty “stagING.”

Don’t look down on idOLS.

…… Just for thAT, we’re fighting togethER.

Naturally, this’ll be a blow to those invested in NETV, like Ibara-kUN.

But you don't just see idols as pawns for your businesses, riGHT?

You just want to make monEY, I’m sure there’s better jobs out theRE.

Ibara: Hmm. Are you trying to appeal to compassion?

If they’re not breaking the law, then I have no obligation to cooperate.

In fact, if the company I’m invested in is trying to make money like that, then, from a manager’s perspective, I’m in luck♪

Rinne: …… Oi.

Ibara: Oh! Don’t lose your temper!

Stable management also means that they can invest in the entertainment industry, where you don’t know whether it’ll hit or miss.

Profits are important for keeping idols alive when their asses are on the line.

In fact, because of this, no-name idols are being used. That fact is unshakable.

Natsume: I didn’t think you were that heartlESS. Negotiations have broken down— it looks like the NewDi team has no choice but to try our beST.

Ibara: Make no mistake, I’m not saying we won’t cooperate.

I merely told you the facts. There’s a strong will to fight together—but simply fighting together won’t solve this problem.

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. If you’re hit with capital, you can fight back with capital. That’s how society fights.

If the gambling house is open for us, it’s a matter of joining the table.

For example, raising the bet—what if we raised the stakes?

Rinne: Raising the…… Heh, I getcha. We’re in for a do-or-die game.

Arashi: Don’t use gambling as an example. We’re still students, aren’t we?

Yuuta: Please explain more clearly, vice prez.

Ibara: Yes, yes. Don’t worry!

This is just a hypothetical. Do you know what would happen if a bet was being held in front of you, and the person you were betting on won via match-fixing?

You know that only those who know about the match-fixing will benefit immensely, right?

So, what if that match-fixing doesn’t work, and you fail?

Those who know about the match-fixing will be wiped out. The risk and return of match-fixing are balanced because the underdog targets win.

In other words, you do two things. Stop the match-fixing, and then bet big on another candidate.

We’re going to take back the match-fixing. I have a vision in my mind of everyone involved going out onto the streets, and they’d bet so much money that they would win that they’ll consider CosPro a threat!

If we do that, they’ll never gamble again. …… What do you all think? It’ll be quite enjoyable♪

Natsume: …… I’m stunnED. I wasn’t telling you to go that fAR.

Ibara: Ahaha! That’s what it means to make an enemy out of me♪

Philanthropy! Fraternity! Benevolence!

A loving punishment for those who trampled on their love for idols……☆

Yuuta: Huh, your catchphrase changed!?

Ibara: I don’t know what you’re talking about? I’ve always had a love for idols?

Yuuta: Scaryyy…… This person’s really troublesome to make an enemy out of, huh.

Madara: I’ve accepted things like that up until now, so I think it’s fine to do whatever you like.

But, that gambling place—it’s open in secret and seems impossible to enter.

Even if it’s not a real place, but an online one.

Ibara: Well, I guess I’ll have to look into that now.

In order to ensure the fairness of the gambling, this program is probably broadcast in real time on a site that can’t be accessed from within Japan.

In fact, its real-time nature will support our plans. We can delay the response.

If we ask the complicit production director for information about the gambling parlour, he’ll tell us right away.

He seems to be talented, and just like Natsume-kun, he’s someone who just wants to make a “good program”—

“Staging” may also be accepted as part of the production.

This program, like NETV, is not pandering to existing forces. They want a program that supports the underdog…… And I think I can persuade them to do something like that.

And so, first, we contact His Majesty, who seems to be close to the staff.

If he can back it up, it’ll be the beginnings of a fun show♪

Let’s follow the example of Natsume-kun’s beloved Hibiki-shi and make it a fun event for us too!

Natsume: HmM, what kind of cruel drama (Grand Guignol)(1) are you planniNG? If you’re going to use Nii-san as a reference, you should be planning a comeDY.

Just don’t let your vice flourish. If you screw them, they’ll screw you baCK—and on that one point I’ll agree with yOU.

TL Notes:

A Grand Guignol is a play of macabre or horrific nature.

Previous | Directory | Next

[that-gay-jedi]

The thing you have to realize about accelerationism is that it just doesn't work. Human behaviour simply doesn't go the way accelerationists think or claim or hope it will. It may sound like such a cynical position on paper but it actually relies on people on the whole being far more proactive, more practical, and less prone to intellectual or moral cowardice than they are. Our relationship to accelerationism is like conservatives' relationship to trickle-down economics.

No matter how bad anything gets, there are enough people who are simply never going to pay anything more than lip service to making the world suck less, or who will remain misguided, or are enthusiastically engaged with things that make it suck more, or otherwise serve as either obstacles or bystanders that things getting visibly worse just does not yield any real positive change in most real world cases. Human beings are so good at closing off reality when they want to, and so good at finding pseudo-ethical justifications for ignoring how bad things get, and are susceptible enough to propaganda in the other direction that there is no usable ideological choke point, there is no limit to what fresh hells people will continue to accept and allow and even actively contribute to out of either selfishness or ignorance even as their own lives become smaller and more stressful and will either never make the connection between the actions and their consequences or will willfully deny it.

Now I'd like to be confident and certain in saying that, conversely, making people's lives better snowballs into them having more energy/freedom/whatever else was needed to in turn make more people's lives better and that doing good for its own sake works the way accelerationism doesn't. Trickle-UP liberation, if you will. I would LIKE to be, but I'm not. Sure some days I believe that, but some days I very emphatically don't, and other days it's a fuckin coin toss. What I am certain of is that at least it's more effective than accelerationism, and that if you help one person hoping they will later help others but they don't, at fucking least you've still helped one person. A world that's 0.0001% less shitty tomorrow is better than one that stays exactly the same and an improvement of 0.00011% is still more improvement than 0.0001%.

And it's been hard for me to learn this and I'm not gonna pretend I even fully have learned it (yet?). There are some practices that never really become second nature and some lessons that we all have to grapple with to varying daily degrees for a lifetime, and maybe this is gonna be one of those for me. But I don't really have to fully believe in it to do it.

[tonydaddingham]

the reading comprehension on this godforsaken website is genuinely insane. it's such shit ppl went after you for responding. fwiw you singlehandedly restored my faith in the GO fandom a little while back, some of the only well thought-out takes for miles (til i started clicking on the reblogs n found more). there was nothing wrong with defending yourself from people who didn't even read the meta. for something you put this much effort into, it'd be weirder not to be defensive

ive sat on the whole thing over the last dozen or so hours now, with a good mixture of upset, anger, some kind of numbness, and incredible amounts of anxiety. i posted that response out of the second; i was really angry, and i flew off the handle. whilst i don't appreciate being told by the other anon that i shouldn't be so attached/shouldn't have been so upset, they have a point, and were right to highlight (intentionally or not) at the very least that that is the root of the problem. i likened the fiasco to some secondary school bullshit, but i didn't realise - or want to acknowledge - that that applied to me too. the whole thing has reawakened ancient history that i thought i had gotten over years ago - more than a decade ago, even - and it very much turns out that that isn't the case, and was simply buried. the uncomfortable thing i also ran into is that the incident has made me re-examine myself with a little more, and definitely overdue, scrutiny - the post attacked at what i now think was my ego, and my over-confidence, and sense of entitlement. that's so uncomfortable to admit, but here we are.

i don't mind people disagreeing with me, but i still stand firm that i don't think sending an ask ridiculing someone, or adding tags that equally can be interpreted as being plain unkind, is a nice thing to do. it's shit - i felt humiliated, and self-conscious in a fandom that until this point, for all my controversial takes 😂 - had made me feel that i had a space to share them, and whilst may not be agreed with, would still be valued by nature of them belonging to a person. i have no doubt that everything on that post wasn't at all personal, but it still felt that what i had spent a lot of time, excitement, and joy writing was worthy of being laughed at, as if i were stupid for writing it (let me be clear - idc if people think the original post and the take within it is wrong, that's absolutely fair enough). it then called into question - what else have people been nice to me about, politely interacting with me about, and yet elsewhere those same people are being horrible about it?

that line of overthinking is entirely my issue, that's noone else's fault, but i do think that had these people just simply kept their opinion to a DM, or somewhere else where the original poster is unlikely/not going to see it, it might have all been avoided. people are entitled to share their opinion, i have no issues with that fact, but it can have consequences... just like the consequences of me rb'ing it once the anger had set in, and i ceased to think rationally. i am sorry that i reacted out of anger, without much - if any - rational thought; that it was bitchy as fuck, and - without the maelstrom of emotion attached to it, as it was from my perspective - it was objectively uncalled for. im embarrassed i reacted like that, and im aware that its only served to make me come across as even more ridiculous than the original post ever could 😂 but i want to settle in with what this has brought up, especially the shitty stuff that i thought i had long gotten over, and look at why i reacted the way i did - i think i was right to defend myself, but perhaps not in the way that i did.

as a separate note, and just really as a PSA to anyone waiting on me in my ask box or has sent me messages - im going to halt on posting any original posts/asks for a while (knowing me, because i can't help myself, a 'while' will probably be like a day). that's in part because im shitting bricks about posting anything in general (this ask response included), but also because - like i said before - i don't want to continue posting stuff when im now wondering how much is coming from a less-than-humble place - im worried that it's a lot more than i ever thought, which is vulnerable, but that's how it goes.

[anarchistettin]

something that kinda sucks but is also a kind of strength happens after you pass 40: you realize some traumas and discomforts are going to take a long time to recover from, and that you have to get through that time - you have to live it.

Someone just died, you just got evicted from your family home, you just got divorced, you just got a diagnosis and it ain't good news.

Something that's been quietly occurring to me lately is the dread of the time, roughly five years from now, when 12% or so of the moral tyrants currently pretending to be "woke" or "progressive" will come out of their stupor. It's happened so many times in my life that the indices of it are BLARING LOUD. An emotional response to a "correction" that says "I know that's true and in five years I'll stop revenging myself on you, maybe, but fuck you for suggesting my bloodthirst for hypothetical strangers is anything other than a very healthful coping Mechanism"

this kind of interaction didn't used to be perceived at that level - I'm pretty sure, in this society, that it's a consequence of regular web use - an inevitable outcome of being observed too much of the time, at a level of the brain that wasn't evolved for ever being under scrutiny.

natural sorting explains a lot about why tumblr didn't die when it didn't, who's using it, and what's happening to them over time - it's not a moral issue at this level, it's just a neuro/biological one

I'll have to make a decision about it! sucks to be isolated but it sucks worse to be involuntarily converted into a right winger all het up about HBO's latest cop/military propaganda, or Disney's latest love letter to cosmopolitan assimilation …

having life-or-death passionate feelings about fanfiction was funny five years ago; five years hence a fraction of its biggest victim/perps will just begin to start assessing the damage they've been doing to themselves and others. Oof they will have to write about it. Others will respond with equal or greater emotion; schisms of moral value will form, arguments will resume. Reaction - that thing that makes "reactionary" a bad thing to be - will continue to pile dirt on fucking comprehension.

Comprehension is, in the mind of the moralist, equivalent to perpetration. Childlike obedience to an unexamined (often vague) code will be instinctively viewed as morally superior to any philosophy, any impulse to argue, any sign of dissent or disagreement.

Moral tyrants never stop hurting people, because they believe they're doing it for your own good, and instead of getting tired, they get obsessed.

People who are already behaving online as if their toddler-level morality is religious law will need rehab, social support, and a lot of forgiveness if they ever come out of it. Unscientifically I reckon 12% or less will, just based on personal experience. I won't be able to give it to them myself, it will have to come from people willing to be viciously and repeatedly attacked for having the temerity to disagree with their fledgling (straight up fucking christian nazi) ethics.

The reality on Earth requires banding together. Vicious, small-minded, puritanical, and careless condemnation hasn't led to solidarity, safety, or capability.

The idea that crusading mobs of moralizing scolds "represent" the "future" is as dead as the idea that dems would form a barrier against fascism. "All the old people dying off" just leaves a gobsmacking number of proud violent fascists and bigots - who've convinced themselves they're "progressive" - and no one remaining who's skilled or experienced in any way at explaining why "ha ha making up a guy to get angry at" is dangerous behavior. Armageddon level shittiness.

[mclwcc]

Trigger warning for homophobia and hate. For your last ask….I also think there is a huge difference in where and when you grew up with how it comes to how you perceive these types of coded words. I grew up in the 80s and 90s in rural America when children in my elementary school played a playground game called “Smear the Queer” and said you would go to hell for being gay. I remember the death of Mathew Shepard at the hands of hateful people crying gay panic and being told if you were gay you would die from AIDS and that HIV was Gods punishment. I remember hearing the word queer and twink and faggot being said with hate and derision. I remember being told twink was short for “twinkee” because a twink was “young, dumb, and full of cum”. I remember a limp wrist gesture being a deadly insult to the boys in my school. It took me many many many years to even admit to myself I was gay. I still don’t talk about myself or my partner with the people I work with cause even now I just feel like you never know who is hateful. I can’t imagine someone openly yelling out a gay slur in the street anymore, but I can imagine not getting a promotion at work. I feel very disconnected from the current generation and their use of gay coded language which my whole childhood was used with such hurt. It’s like homophobia went from what I experienced in my youth of being open and in you face to being all these coded cutesy terms. It sure feels like all the same insinuations are all still there just coded differently. Or maybe I’m just old and out of touch and letting my experiences color how I see things now. It’s even hard for me today to accept the reclamation of the word queer by the lgbtq+ community so I know my experience color my perception of thing.

no i think ur absolutely right. its not that ur old and out of touch, i think its that the younger generation is naive and overly comfortable. i have not had an experience nearly as intense as you in my childhood but i think growing up in quite a heavily homophobic country like romania and then moving to the uk was still quite a big culture shock to me. i kind of had the idea as a teen that romania as a whole is a homophobic culture and the west just isn't to that level (mostly out of jealousy for the things i was seeing on the internet lmao) and that perception deffo changed since ive been living here. essentially what i realised was that (especially) men were almost as shitty to women and gay people in the uk as they were back home, just way more covertly, because they knew how to say all the right things. so the only consequence of this for me personally was just that in the uk i am more likely to be negatively surprised by someone who i thought was chill, whereas in romania i was more likely to b positively surprised by someone who seemed like theyd have a horrible reaction to me coming out. but as far as i can tell british people themselves dont clock this at all, and a lot of them will just assume that if theres no overt discrimination happening then theres no discrimination at all. which is kinda scary from my pov but again, like u, idk whether to feel like im just reacting to my own circumstances and projecting

so to bring this back to what u said anon, i too am just naturally suspicious of stuff that seems inocuous in current western pop culture, which is why i too am so weirdly bothered by this new 'mctwink' thing and the greater trend that the portmanteau is a part of. even in terms of the reclaiming of 'queer', which is such a hotly debated topic that its become associated with a lot of other lgbt in-fighting, having been on the internet and in academic spaces enough to witness the sanitisation of the word 'queer' has been quite jarring if im being honest. in an academic space to me it feels like a euphemism with the same vibe as 'differently abled' instead of disabled and 'fluffy / huggable' instead of fat, where the word is said by cishet ppl not out of a genuine care for the community its meant to represent but rather out of a fear of accidentally saying smth wrong by calling the thing what it is (in this case, gay). people are still so goddamn afraid of the word gay in super progressive english humanities academia and its actually quite funny like thats the ONE word no one minds u using but bc YOU have ur own biases to unpack u think its a bad word, ykwim? anyways. this is a lot of digressions

i think there is a point where we have to accept that language changes. im very anti prescriptivist in that i think we should embrace linguistic evolutions and neologisms and all that bc like at the end of the day we don't make the rules, the zeitgeist does. and i worry that holding on to certain meanings and connotations of words after the words kind of stop carrying them is dangerously close to ppl who insist on using slurs or derogatory language because 'when i was young it didnt used to be an insult'. like i used to treat the usage of 'queer' exclusively as derogatory because of its history but at some point i had to look within myself and accept that the ppl whose classes im taking and whose books im reading are NOT using the word as a slur so i should not assume that to be their intent. which ik is a hard pill to swallow - especially hard for someone like u, anon, who also has trauma surrounding those words. idk i think the lgbt & academic communities shouldve been a lot kinder in that specific transition but whats done is done now i guess

so yeah. now we reach the silly little fandom squabble that's really only a tiny fraction of this bigger cultural issue. but as discussed before i DO think people are using these new tiktok terms as well as the repopularisation of the word twink in a secretly kind of derogatory way, maybe even subconsciously. and i do think straight but maybe not entirely masculine people like lando and oscar are somehow the target of that homophobia, but they r not the victim of it. there just is a sort of fetishisation and derision that happens in the process of calling them twinks that has subtle but real repercussions in the wider cultural environment. and to real gay ppl. 🥴 fun stuff

and re: this i think again this is a complicated distinction to make. mostly because this website rly does host the lgbt community in the way that a tiktok algorithm thinking ur gay and shoving other random gay ppl in ur face just doesnt. but bc of the fact that this is a curated community AND bc of the relative decay of tumblr, we tend to think that our community is disconnected from the most, when time and time again 2 or 3 years later the discourse on this website ends up rehashed on more popular social media to varying degrees of bastardisation. so yes obviously part of the thin line ur talking abt is stuff like the idea of lando or oscar actually seeing the things ppl call them, but at the same time it's not like we get away scot free with doing whatever. in the way that in 2019 f1 shipping and rpf were an isolated niche thing and now the formula 1 twitter account is tweeting on main about 'lestappen' even using that specific portmanteau. see what i mean? which is y im complaining on here abt the twinklaren situation, even though on twitter it doesn't seem nearly as prevalent, because i know it's gonna catch up at some point

[andypantsx3]

Tw: Misogyny and discourse (pls don't feel obligated to answer this)

Ok soo Andie I feel like you are so good at giving advice and you are just such an amazingly sweet and kind person and I aspire to be like you. That being said I am just stuck in a very uncomfortable situation and I sadly can't talk about this to other ppl close to me (you'll see why).

I have a cousin brother who is staying in the same city as me, because of his Uni he sometimes comes over when he has holidays or on the weekends. There is ofc nothing wrong with that, I like that he can relax here a bit and I get to spend time with him (it's my parents house btw). Everything was fine and well but then sometimes out of nowhere he'll start acting weird (also he's a devoted andrew tate fan so....). He'll just come and say horrible things to me like how I should take care of the house (he says its a girls job to do all the work whereas men should be allowed to laze around) , force me to do his uni work and projects and belittle and humiliate me when I refuse, he lectures me about my weight and calls me a cow, he takes my things without asking and goes through my stuff and messes up my room when I go for my lectures. He's just really nasty to me in general.

My mom doesn't say anything to him and she instead scolds me. She says that he is our guest and I am overreacting. She says he has done nothing to warrant my dislike for him and that I am being very petty and unreasonable even though SHE SEES THINGS HAPPEN RIGHT BEFORE HER EYES?! We also have this very toxic culture in my family where women are expected to give everything up for men's comfort without complaining and it is our job to bend ourselves backwards to keep the peace in the household by not fighting. She says these are just normal sibling things and brothers are allowed to do all this and I am just being oversensitive.

I really don't know what to do Andie. I definitely don't hate him because he's my brother but I don't know how to handle him or my family without getting distant or fighting with them :(

Hello my love!! This is such a tough situation and I am so sorry you've been put in this spot!! I am sending you all my love and support and hoping your family cleans up its act soon, but it sounds like instead you might be waiting a while!!

I am a very direct problem approacher by nature, so I'm not sure that what I would do would work in this situation!! My first thought is that it's your house, and you can welcome him into it while still establishing boundaries. If I was in this situation, I would probably end up telling my brother once he starts in on one of those behaviors again that he can stop right now and still be welcomed in your house, or he can insist on his course of action and will have to find somewhere else to stay. It's his choice.

In his own house he can have his own rules, but in yours, your feelings and your time and your boundaries are to be respected. I would hope framing it like that gives him the idea that he's welcome in general but with options and consequences to consider, instead of him just feeling like he's allowed to be there and do what he wants. But unfortunately it does sound like this approach would still make waves in your family if he chooses wrongly, so you would have to be prepared for that.

I'm not sure if it's best to take a less direct approach (be aware this is not a strength of mine) by doing his projects so badly he does poorly in school and then feels the need to do them himself, by buying a lock and key for your room so he can't go in it when you're not there, or by keeping your house even dirtier or something so that he doesn't like being there. But again this is like, not my strength so idk how good this recommendation is.

Idk!! This feels like such a bad situation to be in and you might just have to weigh which outcome is the most bearable to you; fighting with your family for some amount of time, or feeling shitty for the amount of time you have to see your brother while he's in university.

(Also if anyone else reading this has been in this situation before or has recommendations, please give them in the replies!! I feel like I'm such a bad problem solver because I only know how to bulldoze!!)

Anyway I just want to reiterate that I feel for you and I hope you are keeping your head up! While not exactly the same as your situation, I grew up in a physically and emotionally abusive household with a very misogynistic father and so I know all too well the kind of toll gendered standards (and blindness to/deference to male figures) can take on you. I have been told I was basically born with a stick in hand and all I knew how to do was poke the bear, so that's all I can think to do now lol. But regardless of how good or bad my advice is, I am 100% there with you and supporting you with my whole heart!!

I hope you find your way out of this, and I'm happy to chat/let you vent to me if you ever need it!!!!

[styxnbones]

4 for all for cass except for sects, for that one do 3!

ty for the ask! i always appreciate how much you like to hype up other ppl's oc

Essentials 4: not being in v5 they don't have any set predator type- but, since their Grip of the Damned means their kiss offers nothing but pain, they tend towards alley cat and sandman by necessity.

Life 4: in life, Cass already had the arrogance and controlling nature that would become their Malkavian madness, though before that point its debatable whether it was a straight up personality disorder. As for vices and addictions, Cass's vice has always and continues to be reckless overconfidence. She's always loved the rush of doing something she by all rights shouldn't be able to, defying expectations, and generally putting herself into and then escaping from dangerous scenarios- hence her nature as a Thrill-Seeker. She also had something of a recreational drug habit that has stuck with her in seeking out prey that is high, both for pleasure and for the sake of convenience.

Death 4: in LA she never had much of a coterie to speak of, but gained one when she left for New Orleans (aka the chronicle I played her in started)- who she rejoiced in inflicting her habit of giving shitty patronizing nicknames. Her favourite was Kristos aka Dirt Nap/Captain America, a gangrel fledgling who had been torpored since the civil war. He was directionless and gullible so she had lots of fun pushing him around. There was also Marcus (9-5/Marie O' Net), a stereotypically stuffy ventrue who had the audacity to have one dot in dominate and therefore earned Cass's ire for stepping on her toes. Clair ("Covergirl") was a mysterious and dangerous (read: hot) Tremere sent from New York to look into setting up a chantry, who Cass spent way too much downtime trying to find dirt on. And then there was Jean ("Socks-in-Crocs") a *very* rural gangrel who had literally the worst luck with frenzy rolls I have ever seen to this day and who consequently was held at arm's length from Cass. Broadly speaking she saw herself as the leader of this group, though she was happy to deflect blame for any fuckups onto Marcus since he was so keen to take charge. Other than that she was pretty buddy-buddy with a local Nos named Avery, though mostly in a 'keeping the competition close' kind of way, and towards where the chronicle dropped off she was making some contacts with a sabbat pack in the area.

Sects 3: which brings us to her opinion of the sabbat- which is largely dependent on who in the sabbat we're talking about. she was pretty chill with the pack she was getting to know- she admired how little they gave a fuck about mortals and how few roadblocks they put up for themselves in getting what they want (unlike many other kindred, especially in a cam city like New Orleans, who just love to make up secret rules) but she was also very aware that these guys were peons in the grand scheme of the sabbat and she held contempt for their lack of ambition (even if it made them more useful to her). As a whole, Cass doesn't buy the whole Gehenna-War-End-Of-The-World thing, but admires it as a tactic for keeping the masses in control. I think that she'd be unlikely to join the sabbat unless she got to jump in pretty high up the ranks, though she doesn't particularly like the idea of tying her loyalty to any one group. The thing that intrigues her most about the sabbat, though, is the idea of Paths of Enlightenment. Her sense of morality was already pretty deviated from the human norm even before the embrace, and since then attempting to cling to humanity has been thankless work (and largely pure luck- by all rights she should be way lower than Humanity 6 with the number of tests I had to roll) so shifting her mindset towards something else entirely probably wouldn't be too hard a leap.

Clans 4: Clan Hecata in interesting, since its something that has developed since her embrace. She had done some research on the Giovanni when she recognized her Kiss was similar to theirs, and found the history pretty fascinating. She generally appreciates the existence of the Hecata if only for the cover they lend her in lieu of any actual connection to them.

[chemnections]

https://www.tumblr.com/gerardpilled/713163150311227392/i-appreciate-you-going-into-detail-on-the-lindsey

.

yeah, in this case it is more complicated than 'people holding lindsey more accountable for jimmy's underage relationship than jimmy'.

jimmy's actions are purely his own. he is being held accountable in the court system. he is not interacting and influencing people online. and lets be real, he isn't coming back. if he does, then that's a different conversation. but from a general public perspective, there is nothing left to do but move on. maybe investigate his friend james gunn.

it definitely appears that lindsey is getting more backlash, but the truth is that it is not solely based on jimmy's underaged relationship. that was just the cherry on top.

the criticism lindsey faces is because the long pattern of her behaviour of lying, manipulation and bullying. jimmy's case gets a lot of focus for a few reasons. it made the press, it breaks the 'it's just satire' excuse for msi. and it deals with the law. because it isn't actually illegal to be a shitty dishonest person (unless the lying is in court or for fraud, etc) - that just has to do with the morality of what behaviour we tolerate and what natural consequences are available.

lindsey lies. she lied about her racial background. about being adopted. that she plays bass. and much more. that is enough for some backlash because lying is wrong.

as for her tweets and jessicka. . . yes jessicka lies, but liars also tell the truth sometimes. and if its possible to distinguish the lies. . . some truth can also be distinguished - but i do believe in caution. saying that lindsey knew about jimmy's relationship really isn't that wild of an accusation. jessicka said everyone in the band knew. jimmy involved his underage girlfriend in band affairs at the time he wasn't shy about it. the situation at the time allowed for a relationship like that, doesn't matter if it was illegal. why would he stop talking about it if everyone around him was fine with it? not much changes in a few years, when lynz would join the band. i think steve's wife also posted about jimmy's underage relationship at some point- even though she has tried to back track that story hard.

lindsey has incentive to protect jimmy beyond friendship. it's her 'career' and reputation on the line, too. and realistically, we don't know the full scope of her lies and behaviour. just a drop in the bucket from what has been revealed through contradictions in her statements online and in interviews. people making observations isn't people making things up. jimmy is one of the people who would know the most out of everyone. if she doesn't support/defend him, what's stopping him from no longer protecting her from the things he knows about her?

it is very reasonable to be wary of an online anonymous claim - if we claim that anonymous online accusations must be treated like they are 100% truthful with no investigation, we will have incels making claims against everyone to cause chaos and kill the metoo movement.

but now things are different because the court case against jimmy is real. and let's be honest, it's a strong case. lindsey hasn't spoken out against him or the crime in general. removing msi from her bio isn't making a statement, especially when she is still claiming to be a bass player. she still follows him online. only time will tell if she ever does speak out against him. but i doubt it.

there will never be solid 'proof' of her actions. she's not an important figure like meghan markle - no journalist is actually going to dive into and document the things she has done and the contradictions in what she has claimed online.

i understand it's not the easiest to understand. i admit to being late to the party for realizing myself. because people like lindsey operate under the guise of plausible deniability. they have constructed a front for people to 'know' and respect and hide their bad behaviour behind the scenes. they often surround themselves with equally unreliable people so you don't believe them when they try telling the truth for once. and when what they are saying doesn't quite line up - you feel crazy. jimmy's case fully broke the illusion for me. made me really consider the accusations of lying, manipulation, bullying in relation to each other and once you notice the pattern you can't unsee it, even if you could excuse everything individually. although most can't be - her lies are very real. and normal people don't have a long list of lies and accusations of such a variety of shitty behaviour.

i've seen the fan that lindsey was accused of bullying talk about her experience on twitter. she has people to witness her claims. but she has moved on with her life and should be left alone.

there is enough information out there to judge that lindsey is not a person to trust. there is evidence that fans should avoid her. that is what i believe the criticism should achieve, to warn fans to steer clear away from her. the people in her life can deal with her grievances.

and it's important for fans to hold strong to the reality of these criticisms, because gerard clearly wants to brush her lies and bullying under the rug and have fans love her again. but that is not in the fans best interests. nor the band's tbh.

because she does want the praise and validation, for just being herself i guess. she does want to come back and influence people again to work for her interests.

the babysitting thing. . . i just can't trust it. it has some odd statements in it.

[mariposakitten]

It's been a minute since I rewatched, but looking back it's hard to find moments when Ed is genuinely angry. Like, yes, we see him lash out, we see violence, but I think it's inaccurate to assume it's always fueled by anger (and therefore is evidence of anger issues.) Instead, when we see violence (or threats of violence, or violence delegated to someone else), it often seems to stem from: a) the need to put on a show ("next one goes through your fucking eye!"); b) being tired, overstimulated, and hangry (snake incident); c) feeling hurt, unworthy, ashamed, and embarrassed (the stupid french and their stupid dinner party); or d) the need, as a pirate captain who has to keep the respect of his crew to maintain order, to punish disrespect in harsh and immediate ways (Izzy's toe, the french racist.) You could argue that anger plays a part in some of these, but it genuinely doesn't seem like the only or even main motivation. (I am restraining the urge to elaborate on this, otherwise we'd be here all day.) And I mean, sure, we can argue about whether the violence displayed was an appropriate way to react in those situations, but again, it doesn't seem to be primarily a response to anger.

So when do we see him angry-angry? I can really only think of three times: with his abusive dad, when he finds out about Calico Jack's deception, and when he's confronted with Izzy's betrayal. Notably, all times when he's driven by the need to protect someone else.

In one of those instances, he doesn't get violent at all - correct me if I'm wrong, but does he do anything to CJ besides yell at him and then jump off the boat? With Izzy - again, my memory is shitty but does he do anything other than punch him? Given the nature of the betrayal and its likely consequences, that seems downright restrained. The only time we see him lash out with extreme violence was when he, as an abused child trying to protect his abused mother and seeing no other way to do so, killed his much larger father - and honestly, if someone faults him for that I'm judging them.

This isn't even touching on the many times when an anger problem is notably absent. Like the scene where Izzy, Fang, and Ivan confront him about killing Stede - they're respectful, but they're firm and unafraid despite telling him things he absolutely doesn't want to hear and trying to pressure him into something he doesn't want to do. Y'all, that is not how people act around someone with anger issues, especially when that person has power over them!

I just. I don't see it. I see a man in a dangerous and violent profession who does, yes, have to be violent sometimes as part of that life, and I see a man who's been hurt and traumatized in ways that sometimes cause him to lash out, and yes, sometimes those two factors interact, but we don't actually see him acting - and, tellingly, other characters do not treat him - like a loose cannon who's going to fly into a rage and hurt someone for stepping out of line (which is how I would interpret "anger issues.") Where are people seeing this?

i know a big point of contention in this fandom is Ed's Anger. but the thing is that it's rlly hard for this to be an "agree to disagree" issue because the sides are like:

edward teach does have anger issues. in the show he becomes disproportionately and irrationally angry, and he expresses that anger in harmful and unacceptable ways. saying ed doesn't have anger issues is flattening a complex indigenous character for the sake of respectability politics.

edward teach does not have anger issues. every instance of ed's anger in the show is proportionate to the situation he is experiencing and ed is shown to be capable of controlling his anger. the way ed expresses his anger is normal and acceptable within the fictional comedy universe he exists in. saying that ed does have anger issues reflects implicit biases about men of color being inherently and exceptionally angry and violent.

and like, i've rewatched this show a billion fucking times at this point. i've seen these scenes more times than i can count. never, at any point, did i think ed's on-screen expressions of anger were indicative of anger issues. i have always considered ed's anger to be reasonable. even in the brief period of time before i began engaging with this fandom, i did not think ed had anger issues. i was surprised to find out that some people believe he does.

i just. i have a hard time, after watching this show over and over again and finding ed's anger to be a reasonable response to some very difficult situations, seeing people say they think those reasonable responses are indicative of anger issues. i've heard the arguments, and i just don't agree. and the question of why i don't agree really comes down to: am i subconsciously over-correcting for racial stereotypes and flattening the complexity of a character of color, or are other people reading ed's anger as more extreme than it is due to subconscious racial bias?

and that's. really not a question i think any of us are ever going to be able to answer.