#like yeah its been a while in internet time but

[lightbulb-warning]

i used to freehand comics all the time as a child and since the part i liked was the drawing part i would just draw panel after panel because i didn't want to stop drawing to think about icky icky words, plus the story TOTALLY still made perfect sense! to me! and noone else, but 'whoooo caaaaares omgggg its not like comics and sequantial art are a communicative meeediummmm lmaoooooo'. i spent my entire childhood telling myself stuff like "oh pfft I know this story by heart- ill SIMPLY remember the dialogue and write it later" ...and. I can't help but admire baby maiora's (call that a minora ba tm tsk) fucking audacity? hubris? confident wrongness? kid couldn't even remember to finish the comics in the first place? INCREDIBLE levels of unearned self assurance, wish that were me, genuinely- what an icon!!! anyway i think i have forever cursed myself

[garnet-xx-rose]

Idk if it’s because of how I’ve curated my feed but I rarely see people shitting on Christine. Any E/C space I’m in is mostly about centering Christine and her satisfaction.

That said, I feel the constant need to warn people that “If you like Erik and Christine as a couple, remember not to have that kind of relationship IRL” is kind of annoying. I get the intention, but people, including young people, aren’t stupid and don’t need constant reminders to not be inspired by their toxic faves.

Like yes girl, I know the Phantom is not a real man. I wish a wealthy, nerdy, musically talented, intelligent old man that lived underground and wanted to help me with my music career was real. But he’s not, so I’m gonna indulge in fiction.

Bless the rest of y’all that get involve in the discourse though. Honestly, could not be me.

[meirimerens]

I would love to listen to your podcast (if you wanna have one) about anything, but something about languages intrigues me. Please, tell me more : )

had to think for a second about what this was about I'm guessing it's my Nopony In This Country Is Pronouncing Przewalski Correctly and now listen..... I have no more to tell you because the like. Concept of languages and within that phonology (the study of the patterns of sounds in a language and across languages) is so wide you wouldn't have enough of a life to say everything about it. Unless you got one thing in mind. But I'm Flattered. Idk if I'd be much of a podcast guy I love visual stimuli. shan't lie I've had for months the idea to do a. Franco-Cantabrian Archeological iceberg... with shit like....... Fontainebleau "water breaking" carving... the Réseau Clastres Only Know Depiction Of [Animal]..... stuff of the sort. but oh well. FLATTERED.... maybe one day. Podcast ideas anyone.

[rumi411]

could you explain your cyber fantasy tag? how do you feel about technology and the internet in general

aaaaaahh the tag is multiple things!

but a majorly a mix of 1) an oc storyline - it deals w cybernetic technicolor!! ¿: & the act of Hunting Something, burying/obscuring yourself while simultaneously wanting to be the Headline. 2) anything that reminds me of the bleed btwn human reality & online graphics 3) expressions u can only create/do online! the internet as the Final 3rd Space 4) my gripes w the fact the future is reality :/ n i gotta navigate 5) aesthetics! tech 90/00s futurisms old graphics neat symbols

im a y2k baby Tech Knows Me i was 9 unsupervised on the family computer only knowing about #strangerdanger creating fake mes on livejournal ff.net deviantart just to connect w others that shared my interest!!

for the story my insp bases r paprika n 90s00s video girls i think i have a video girls tag (not my vgame tag). but essentially the woman being the nonhuman being the computer ! computer from man*woman from computer (*theres so many eggs in tech spaces lol)

i think my sister tag for cyber fantasy would be an open listless oh. web/degradation aesthetic that has no real structure & makes me melancholic rather than excited

also im mediating the fact i wanna read derivative shitty buzzfeed articles about technology about online fandom culture about online social movements but im the annoying uncultured 20smth. so the writer will have to be ME :(

ANYWAY i love this magazine logic(s) https://logicmag.io its woc led & all about tech!

tldr

the internet: fun sometimes. should be much better

modern technology: DO IT. PuLL IT. PULL THE TRIGGER.

[obnoxiousarcade]

I have a longing to be understood more than anything else i think

[notorioushiphopcrew]

also i sent an email i kind of regretted. but also feeling that a large part of that was formed by the very intense emotional state i was in where i was experiencing crazy anxiety and doubts and shame about the way i acted and i felt like everything i wrote in that email was so terrible and also i felt so emotional and so ashamed of it and so sure everyone who knew it woild judge me and know how irrational i am and i could tell logically it probably wouldnt be a big deal but couldnt feel it and like. i feel a bit awkward now but ive fully calmed down and honestly? it was kind of fine actually. its just been a while since ive been UP THERE in that kind of state and i guess it kind of does give you perspective on how your emotional state really affects you so deeply and your perception of things. and like yeah i might retract a few things or be like "eh not mt best move" on some things but realising overall it doesnt matter and i can FEEL that. it is really crazy how many problems exist in your head and you can understand logically its not rational but you just have to bear it for a bit

[vshushmshu]

UP AND DOWN AND UP AND DOWN AND AANYYTHING I DO IS NOOO SINNNNNNNN !!!!

[astranauticus]

im back on my 'never shutting up about animatics i cant make' bullshit but like, orv and changgwi by ahn ye eun anyone

[giratina-plushie]

what this is teaching me is that im funnier and more correct and i should make more posts

[todayisafridaynight]

Snap you are the king of sexy funny back when you did Yamtien just goes to show you have a talent for humor and cheesecake.

there's something about the title 'king of sexy funny' that's really tickling me thank you so much anon ill take that crown with honor

[pizzapizzadickz]

.

[the-curators-bullshit]

hmmm thats a good point and im so tempted and im feeling messy

so, what happened between you and the other hellsite person?

stuff, but billie eilish has that one song about not talking shit on the internet. and I wanna be cool like that

[snekdood]

im not gonna say you cant use the n word w a hard r on a almost fully anonymous tumblr account where you claim to be black-

I will say that it makes you 100% more suspicious and worth keeping an eye out on you bc usually its neo nazis pretending to be black that spam saying the n word w an r and use tumblrs weird trust for almost fully anonymous accounts to their advantage to get away w it

you can say it, but, if you Are a neo nazi pretending to be black, I will say, you're not doing a good job of convincing me rn that you actually are.

[meejijis]

Crazy how a couple of years ago when the dark times from 2016 to 2018 of the dsp fandom vs the dsp critical blogs fandom wars was around, the same anti that used to "call" me out for shipping a height gap pairing spreading misinfo saying im a p word and harassed/send hate other ppl in the dsp fandom alongside the other dsp critical blogs is somehow still an anti and still acts like an anti at the age of 25. That's sad.

[bugflies00]

i have so many thoughts about the tommy song/video and theyre a jumbled mess. i wouldnt call this an analysis this is just. most of my thoughts surrounding the video and what it shows about tommy

one of the things that stuck out to me (outside of how depressing and just like. is this guy okay) is something that ive always respected tommy for because he's always stuck with it and its his like. fervent conviction in people doing things theyre passionate about. thats always been one of the things he talks about all the time!!!

when AI started appearing he was talking about death of creativity, with the internet he's always talking about how the real tragedy is the algorithm killing people's passion by driving them with views and money, and even when he talks about youtube itself, and nowadays standup, its so full of passion.

and i think thats really important because it would be extremely easy for someone like tommy, who's in the process of maturing his online image from a very loud, immature and PASSIONATE persona, to make fun of it. it would be so easy to do like so many other creators and laugh at how "cringe" it was and make a quick cash/attention grab with a funny clip of him laughing at himself. but he never has. well don't get me wrong he's laughed at himself or old videos but it's always just. good natured taking the piss out of himself, it's never this like. mocking your younger self who was so excited to do what they did only because now its "cringe".

not only is he constantly giving that advice to other people (its been years of him replying, to any kid in his chat or donations asking advice on how to be a creator etc, "just go and do it if you love it!!"), he's coherent with how he applies it to himself. he realised he was making cash grab tiktok react vids and hated it so much he just stopped uploading for a while.

i dont know i just think there's something admirable about being able to still be sincere in a time where everything especially online has to be processed through a layer of irony. and its even funnier because he's more sincere THROUGH the irony i mean he's literally going into standup.

letting yourself create something that "means" something is fucking hard especially when half the internet still sees you as a kid who screams around. except the thing is that kid DID make stuff that mattered and that meant something because he was, in his own words, having fun.

i think thats what the format of the video was about too. i mean i think it was pretty clearly not a song thats meant to be streamed, its not purely music, its also a video because tommy is also first and foremost an editor who went to film college. its also not a "comedy" song like he's made some before, because those were all intentionally created to land as many jokes and make a big buzz— which doesnt mean they were bad! im philza is a contemporary lyrical masterpiece. but they had a specific purpose and it was to make people laugh and i think this video was completely like. opposite of what peoples expectations are of tommy. the "wow hes not a child anymore hes being mature🤓" reactions are the most obvious aspect of this (which, like, its been a while, get with the program).

i think the point of this was to make something that genuinely meant something but that was also like. as unpalatable to the algorithm and to the TommyInnit Viewer as possible. even now that he's gone into making quieter, more reflective videos, we've never had the flashing texts and the projector images and just all of that. hes always talking about how he hates the way the "youtube formula" has dictated the course of content and stolen all creativity for youtubers. its not meant to be a YouTube Video tm. its just meant to mean something to someone, and obviously process some sort of personal emotions, and i just think thats. yeah. yeah

i mean he even says so outright. "this needless, self indulgent spiral of self gratification" is pretty damn explicit. its not meant to be funny content its really a cry for help or for just. anything at all really

it was also a lot about perception, yknow the "entertainer" dilemma, "its all attention porn"... theres a layer of this point thats universal, everyone struggles with how they're perceived and i think any "artist" or "entertainer" figure can see themselves in it, but there's also a layer thats completely impermeable to most of us because it touches upon the sheer absurdity of a "youtuber". especially one of tommy's popularity. especially one who blew up so so fast so young. i honestly think its IMPOSSIBLE to process that. its about the ethics of having millions of people's time so readily available to you if you just press the right buttons to make the algorithm happy and then you've got them. im like 75% sure i remember him saying this on stream once, something like "your time is valuable" and if a fan didnt value him as an entertainer they should drop him.

and even here^ thats the saddest "lmao" ive seen in my life SORRY LOL but its really just. yeah im not gonna repeat myself it speaks for itself. perception and internet expectations and all that

one of the other images that stuck out to me was also this:

"yeah i know its too much like bo burnham but it wont be in a year though. in a year it will be like tom simons. just let me figure out what that means, ok?"

a lot of the video is about. influences and inspirations. the bo burnham references are so obvious he's poking at them, but i think he's raising a good point about the creativity that he's constantly praising. its never something that springs up on its own, its all about looking at others work and making it your own and feeding yourself with all those experiences and slowly, surely building your own way of doing things (tommyinnit "minecraft talent show" and "a tribute to dream smp" serial quackity + schlatt impersonator would know all about that) ->

and its daunting! its fucking scary to move away from that! which is also the main vibe i got from the video which, outside of his own issues with how he's perceived online, was the sort of existential dread that comes with actually creating. its one thing to preach you need to be passionate and create, its another to sit down and create something thats BY you. its a part of growing up! and we're literally seeing him do it live (well the bits that he chooses to show obviously)! thats also part of why i think tommy's so relatable to so many people is that he's so like. honest and real about what it's like to grow up, simple as that, and growing into yourself.

"this was everything to me" and using the picture of his younger self... man. theres obviously so much sadness underlying the whole thing but i think the nostalgia and melancholy in mourning being someone who was only inspired/excited by your interests and role models is universal. and obviously for tommy a lot of those influences turned out. well i think it was pretty damn clear who/what he was referring to here. ->

i don't think i need to go too in detail about that, especially cause a lot of the video was clearly a way to process his own personal emotions. especially with those next few images. i just hope he's okay and that god doubles his pain and gives it to mr beast to quote my friend bronzetomatoes. man.

of course he had to end with a funny clip about a hot anime girl and i think that kinda. sums it all up in a way. if that makes sense. at the end of the day its about the fact that he has to use humour to make the thing work when its out in the open, even when he tries not to and to be actually honest, but theres also the fact that hes literally a comedian and creating something "honest" IS through humor. its kindof a double edged sword

right well that was my jumbled mess of psychoanalysing tommyinnit i hope he is alright and all that because well that was. something

[weirdmageddon]

i love these tags this person is so right

actually, can you imagine if dave was raised by B1 roxy?

i wanna get into this actually

(ok i had to spend a few hours rewriting this because IT DIDNT FUCKING SAVE AFTER FIVE HOURS OF WRITING WHEN MY COMPUTER UPDATED WHILE I WAS AFK so it would mean a lot to show this post some appreciation. i LOVEEE hearing what other people have to say)

even though these things mom does are presented in an extravagant, kitsch, jokey way, her intentions always came from a place of sincerity. she is simply Funnie

but rose reads too far into it and assumes things that aren't there, that her mother is passive-aggressively feigning interest in rose's interests simply because the things she does are so extra. "why do all of this if not to mock me"

im telling you right now if dave lived in this household he wouldn't assume antagonism, he'd go,

don’t forget who LITERALLY patented tangible jpeg artifacts as their post-scratch adult self and scattered shitty scummed up statue of liberties all over the planet. theres no way some of that overboard artful shit wasnt post-ironic / circling back around to genuine funny sincerity

dave's natural state is funny sincerity like roxy. he's had the natural capacity for this type of humor from the start and this is the direction he goes towards when he grows out of his brother's shadow by the end of the comic. dave and roxy share an earnest “so bad its good” type of humor

(lots more under the cut; the length of this meta analysis just got unwieldly with all the pictures and whatnot)

despite the alcoholism, roxy is a supportive mother. she's not the ideal guardian but hells of a lot more supportive of her kid than bro is. if she knew dave's interests she would totally indulge in them with some over the top silly goofy haha shit as a genuine gesture simply because she loves him

rose isn't too keen on it though. but she is more similar to dirk in her natural state of thinking of overthinking shit and assuming the worst, like the tags said

and yes dave got the sweet cuddly yet sometimes backhanded ouppy gene from roxy, probably even moreso lol

roxy's even said rose "sounds like girl dirk"

side tangent here, but this is something i wanna talk about.

i dont think bro should ever be in custody of children ever but if theres anyone who would be up to the task it's rose probably. i know she'd be able to keep up with him. not only does she have a defined personality (dave is more malleable and absorbs his environment like a sponge), if anyone can pick apart B1 dirk's batshit brain and probably be right on the money it's her. lil cal has been pumping patriarchal nonsense into bro's head and rose would be able to bring the fucking facts to the table without losing her own and being a living example of a badass little girl. i also don't think bro would try to force masculine roles onto rose like he did with dave, seeing as she is a girl, so she would actually have more of a leg up and get some passes that dave was never afforded. and rose wouldn't stand idly and accept any bullshit; she is no doormat. and i think this would earn bro's respect

but anyway, from this, couldn't we conclude roxy "sounds like girl dave"?

yeah okay. we havent even gotten into their penchant for funny typos or misspeaks, deliberate or otherwise

so, dave's environment

the sentiment "god you hope you can be as good as your bro at this some day" might have been genuine at the time when he idolized bro but of course he's not able to express that in any sort of sincere fashion because he's in dirk's fucking household. and this level 10 irony shit isnt doing dave any favors

his role models were the Internet and a vague idea of what Bro was like. So he built up his facade based on irony–not the literary definition of irony, as Rose might be quick to point out, but a popular concept of irony based on the idea that things that didn’t make sense actually made sense in some roundabout way. As a master of irony, Dave probably reasoned, he could see in a way other people couldn’t why a world that was scary and didn’t make sense really did make sense, and could therefore convince those people that he was superior to them. And he would wield his knowledge to maintain the appearance of superiority by calling everything ironic and pretending he didn’t care about things that didn’t make sense, and he would use walls of vaguely rhyming words to keep everyone at arm’s length so they wouldn’t discover his insecurities (source)

roxy's style is the embodiment of post-irony. being raised by mom lalonde would be like being raised by joel vinesauce ok

what can i say ….. (getting meta about this actually, hussie got these jpeg wizard wallpapers from a spyware website. link takes some time to load because internet archive)

rose is quick to read post-irony as actually being a joke/insincere, which in bro's case would be true. but i believe dave's natural instinct, outside of the influence of bro, is to read post-irony as genuine, which is exactly how mom serves it. we see this as early as act 3 from him; he understands her motives better than rose does herself:

and in act 6 intermission 2 i think it's pretty clear

but the thing is, it's always genuine from her. dave wouldn't have to second guess it because he's not one to naturally second guess someone's sincerity; that was learned due to his bro being virtually unassailable

there two types of ironies at play here:

seems like a joke, is actually genuine (roxy)

doesnt seem like a joke, is actually a joke (dirk)

you can make the argument that the second is is more psychologically destructive because it makes you question the reality of what is genuine sentiment and what isn't. dave never knew what was genuine and what was irony so he just sort of existed in this sincerity-ironic limbo and always did the opposite of what he genuinely felt on principle even if it always did originate from a genuine place.

"it just a joke bro i was just being ironic i dont actually x" is so much more trust-breaking and psychologically damaging than "wait are you being serious" / "i am being so fucking fr rn davy gravy" / "ok thats actually pretty fucking awesome. giant ass wizard statue" / "RIGHT"

how much about dave would change do you think? his character arc would be completely different for one thing, i think he'd have it good aside from mom's alcohol issues. he'd be left with the sweet and funny parts of him that we see at the end of the comic. the fake coolguy stuff is out, but this remains. this is dave in his element and we see it as early as act 1

he'd probably have no shades growing up in the lalonde residence* either cause those were given to him by bro straight out of the crater as an extension of his own cool image. and john gave dave ben stiller’s aviators for his 13th birthday to replace them so he could “spread his wings”

dave said he was wearing them for the ironies but i kind of doubt it. maybe post-irony but there was some reacharound to it being genuine because dave never put those pointy anime shades on his face again.

*though... it’s kind of hard to imagine him without his shades at all? B2 dave still got stiller’s shades from stiller himself so maybe getting them is a universal constant. i can imagine mom getting him them as a birthday gift cause shes pretty wealthy and probably could buy it out in an auction. but also itd be cool if john still gave him it as a gift

dave is actually a lot more genuine and easy to read than he lets on even when grappling with his upbringing with B1 dirk (again, see this post). this can be seen all throughout he comic but a good example is the evolution of thoughts about his interest in the preserved dead things in his room:

if B1 roxy was dave's guardian he probably WOULD have pursued paleontology because she wouldve indulged him in it and probably find it cool and worthwhile to pursue, instead of allowing dave to flounder under ironic detachment, being poisoned by irony to the point of gaslighting himself into believing he doesnt actually believe he thinks this shit is cool. even if it was indulged in this such a way; a superficially kitsch and ironic appearing presentation, it comes from a genuine place and inspires genuine interest. just read the comments.

basically, i think if B1 roxy raised dave, their relationship would have a surface level appearance of being bizarre or over-the-top but they’d have an unsaid mutual understanding that it’s completely in earnest and just build on each other's funny and absurd gestures of affection. rather than seeing it as one-upping each other, it'd more like collaboration of some silly bullshit that you take a step back and look at full and just say, "fucking incredible"

speaking of paleontology, mom had the proto-ectobiology lab. maybe they'd be able to use the equipment to appearify paradox ghost imprints of the dead shit to create paradox clones of things from the cambrian era??? sounds like a fun mother son bonding activity. and theyd actually put the sciencey shit in the household to use

oh god i know exactly the kinds of music shed listen too also growing up as a teen in the 80s. she on that (post)-punk/art rock/new wave/new romantic mtv stuff. XTC shit fr. this is a B-52S HOUSEHOLD. maybe the associates for the campy melodramatic flair. so he gets to keep the record on his shirt cause he is an enjoyer of the shit in her vinyl collection. dave would still gravitate towards musical expression and music itself but of more variety outside of just rap, with an 80s-90s, even 70s flavor due to mom’s influence. see this for perhaps a glimpse. ​she probably visited new york city a lot for business trips and because the music scene was cool as hell around that time, imports came straight from jfk airport, she probably got in on that a bit and have remnants in the form of vinyls and cassettes. in this way she could be distributing void to dave (influencing him with forgotten / presently irrelevant music). now he can REALLY rave about bands none of his friends have heard of. “hey davy grvay watcha listenin to” (he holds up vinyl cover) “omg snakefinger”

btw dave lalonde would look like this to me