#obviously i am talking about

[becauseanders]

first you torture the pretty man, then you give him a praise kink the size of russia

[wren-again]

Me with every character I'm obsessed in Arcane:

Yeah, okay, it's a ✨gender thing✨

[crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington]

return to sub level 50

[inkskinned]

you know, you know. no gods, no masters, no kings on pedestals. everyone is fallible. death of the author. you know! you are balanced about your intake of media - you allow the wiggle room, the grace, the gratitude, the skepticism. nobody above criticism.

but still. a weird gut-punch feeling, something akin to betrayal. you read the article. surprise! an author you love is actually: a serial fucking predator.

well, shit. what now. no, you knew he was a person (all people are), but now you're wondering - what have i overlooked by accident? what messages have i internalized that are strange and cruel? and also, like, what the fuck?

his actions lay a thick glaze on top of everything. like each place is now ruined, opaque in a new way. but okay, fine, you've done this before. you knew better, right? you've been betrayed by many a cherished childhood author.

still, this stickiness. fuck. can you pick up that book again. will you read it to your children. you've recommended it to others - will you ever do that again? and of course, of course, no parasocial relationships. you were theoretically above this kind of sentiment. but the artist informs the art, right.

so it's not something as clear-cut as feeling he owed you, specifically (a stranger) better behavior - just that you kind of, in a distant and odd way... sort of trusted him to do better. it's not like a real trust or something speakable, just the faint hope that the product (good books) was a thin representation of the soul. now it feels like the product (good? books?) was a mask. in some small or insignificant way, your previous support of this person lent them power. your money and your time and your laughter.

and the thing is - you have this terrible, echoing sensation. how many times will this happen? over and over. you find out that the singer you love is actually a predator. you learn over drinks that your favorite high school english teacher is in jail for what he did to her. you listen to the news idly and suddenly discover that a woman you used to idolize has been abusing her kids for an actual eon.

what can you touch without the static melting off. you can't even really complain about it too much (you were supposed to know better, and besides, you don't want the same re-split "it's not your fault, love what you love" basic advice), but now it's here. somehow, it feels like - you let him into your life.

it's not that things need to be pure or an artist has to be like, endlessly perfect, mindful. demure. it's more just this terrible truth that has been replayed through your veins so often it feels criminally vain. power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. did you want any one person to be worth that power?

it's just that he wrote books where he seemed to understand that. he seemed to know about hierarchies and unfair systems and bigotry and privilege. you thought they were books about what it means to struggle. you thought they were about having power and still using it for good rather than for control. he spooned you a narrative of being a good guy, a kind soul. you fucking bought what that fucking monster sold.

maybe that's why they were fantasies, after all.

[kizzer55555]

The Vampire Aesthetic

Ok so Danny knows two billionaires personally and they really couldn’t be more different. Yet they had one thing in common. A vampire aesthetic. Sam is fully into goth. Spiderwebs, bats, the color black. She enjoys fangs and fake blood and the darkness of her soul. Meanwhile, Vlad is Vlad. If his name wasn’t enough, the dark clothing, pale skin, and flying around with a cape and fangs with coffins in his mansion really sells it.

Danny doesn’t know many rich people so he thinks this might be some kind of trend. (If Paulina is rich, her family likes the chupacabra) So he just thinks that all rich people have some kind of vampire thing going on.

Cue Danny somehow ending in the Wayne household. Maybe he was brought over as a friend of one of the bats, maybe rescued from a field trip/vacation gone wrong, maybe some other situation. But he is there in civilian form with civilian Waynes and Danny just takes a good long look around the inside of the mansion.

“So where’s the vampire aesthetic?

Everyone freezes.

Danny just starts looking around, checking behind paintings and feeling the walls for secret levers. Used to secret passages with Vlad and possibly Sam. The Fentons definitely had them when they were temporarily rich.

“Come on, I know you guys are hiding it.”

Cue the entire batfamily thinking that this is another Tim and that he is fully aware that these people are the batfamily. Danny hangs around the mansion more and the bats just start dropping their disguises and not even bothering to hide stuff around Danny because they assume he already knows. (Possibly even trying to recruit him to be a new bat) Meanwhile, Danny, who does not know these people are batman and his birds, just does not pick up on any of it.

He grew up in a health violation with a giant ballon observatory lab above his head and a portal to the afterlife in his basement. He is a half dead teenager who has tea with the god of time and his godfather is the other parent to his clone child. He’s used to death lazers being scattered across his home and mysterious stains on clothing.

People are weird! He doesn’t judge!

[gingerswagfreckles]

Probably the only thing giving me any hope at this point is that every few days some random gentile posts in the Jewish subreddit something along the lines of "I think I'm going insane am I going insane what's going on why is every single comment on my social media feed straight up Nazism why does nothing get taken down when I report it why is my niece simping for a terrorist organization what's happening are you guys seeing this shit." And the answer is always yes ofc we have been seeing this shit for a while. But it's always nice to get some confirmation that someone else is seeing it too.

[sysig]

my 2nd request !! The skeleton brothers wearing matching pajamas :D

Day 13 - The Friendship Brothers

[muirmarie]

jim being canonically the shortest one of the triumvirate is genuinely so important to me lmao, like yesssssss, let that beefy babe be shorter than both his boyfriends!!!!

[starsonablackboard]

it's fascinating to me that every member of the party pre- and during loops treats siffrin with some flavour of alienation. like, bear with me. this post is going to sound like im here to give a hot take that the party are Bad Friends, Actually, but i promise you that's not what i mean. you're with me? okay. let's go.

isa idolises him (in the having a crush on someone type of way).

mira views them almost as a book character (the whole "the aura! the mystique!" conversation).

odile calls them a child to their face multiple times.

bonnie is... well, bonnie. kid is coping how they manage.

in the very beginning of the journey we have isa and mira, who, out of all five, are the most familiar to eachother. they're from the same country, they both actively follow the change religion, they both occupy (or occupied, in isa's case) well-respected positions in society, they're very close in age and i would assume socioeconomic statuses. they share a lot personality wise, too. they're both anxious about not being enough, about not changing enough, they're both open and emotional and affectionate, they even both like romance novels! they are very in eachother's comfort zones. they are very understandable to eachother.

then there's odile. she is as different as it gets – she's ka buan (and well half vaugardian but nobody knows that), she's old, she has different religios beliefs and different history with body craft, she's confident, self-secure, reserved, sarcastic and at times cold and makes it very apparent that she's not into openly displayed affection. but also, she is actively choosing to be seen this way. she is comfortable with being perceived like this.

and then, there's siffrin. a mysterious traveler with mysterious past that doesn't like to be touched and never talks about his feelings. where are they from? what he believes? what did he do prior? why did they join them? noone knows. situation kinda similar to odile's, but kicker is, we know siffrin does not want to be seen this way.

mira, being a somewhat sheltered not very experienced young adult (she's from dormont with population less than a regular highschool class, and has been living in the house for some past years) with more familiarity with books than with real world obviously views them more as a cool character than a person. and i can't blame her! siffrin doesn't help her view them any differently either.

isa i assume catches feeling almost immideately (the whole journey takes less than a year, sif is second to last to join and we know that isa's crush has been going for months) and it's universally hard to not idolise and idealise the person you're having a crush on, so even tho isa is more experienced than mira, i imagine he fails to see siffrin as a whole person too.

odile out of all of them grinds my own personal gears the most. i love you, old wise lady, but oh god. the amount of times she refers to the party and in particular siffrin as kids or children is sure something. and the thing with kids is that you generally don't view them as equals, so, no "seeing siffrin as a person that he is" there either.

that's general dynamics. now to what interactions we actually see in game:

odile mocks siffrin for being forgetful. every time siffrin forgets a word, everyone reacts as if they don't remember that vaugardian isn't siffrin's native language. both isa and mira behave patronisingly towards them (jokingly, but still). the whole party spends some time comparing siffrin to a wild animal in the dictionary conversation, mira saying "what a perfect analogy" with stars in her eyes. one time siffrin desides to open up and tell them about stars, they mock him. when he kills that sadness more violently than usual, they all look at him as if he murdered a baby (i still don't really get why btw. they've been fighting side to side for months). the whole ghost event. ohhh ghost event my beloved.

all of these, for me, point to a very deep yet unacknowledged disconnect between siffrin and the rest of the party. the not-understanding. the unfamiliarity. the alienation. siffrin is other even in their own little ragtag bunch of misfits.

now AM I SAYING that means that the party is bad actually?? no!!! for every interaction i named there's multiple others with them being supportive and warm to sif. also, siffrin, famously, is very bad at telling when something bothers them, so noone whould even know if they were doing anything that upset him. and, on top of everything else, i think it's very natural for a party of very different people traveling in a lot of hurry and discomfort and plain mortal danger for months to develop a bond where "i would die for you, my siblings in arms, but i also will poke fun at your religion when it starts to sound too impossible for my worldview. what do you mean stars are there in the daytime too? don't be silly". i actually really appreciate their friendships being imperfect, because it's so much more interesting and thought provoking this way. like, I've been thinking about this for weeks.

and also, this specific type of imperfection plays into the core themes of siffrin's character. to be welcomed, adored, loved, even, but not understood. not recognised. not known. and to not even try to explain untill the world is literally ending.

[specific-dreamer]

dally: let’s grease [ponyboy] up!

darry: i guess that’s your decision to make huh dal

dally: it’s a greaser decision darrel, ponyboy just notched his first knock out

darry: he’s 14 years old

dally: wtf does age have to do with it? only god and the devil knows what i was doing at 14

darry: his heads always in the clouds and he still got that childhood innocence about him, i’m tryna keep it that way; hell, his dumbass is still naive to fucking racism

dally, flabbergasted: what? how the hell? i got arrested for-

darry: hold on watch this. ponyboy!

ponyboy, who was very much not listening to them: yeah?

darry: how come dally never pays to get in at the drive in

pony, shrugging: he don’t like doing things the legal way

darry: yeah but why? what’s the real reason

pony: there’s another reason?

darry: yes babe. okay how about this, what’s that pin on steve’s jacket? who’s it for?

pony, excited he knows something darry doesn’t (false): the black panthers

darry: uh huh, what do they do?

pony: feed poor kids before and after school

darry: kids that look like us or them? *gestures to the rest of the gang, who are all noticeably not lacking melanin.*

pony, blue screening: what ?

darry: told you dal

dally: oh my god, wtf

darry: you still wanna grease him up

dally: hell no!

*insert brie’s skit outro: this is tulsa 1967!*

[blueskittlesart]

in the nicest and most non-confrontational way possible. i feel like some of you think that anything that isn't directly openly spelled out for you within a story is "missed potential" or "unexplored." like. sometimes there are implied narratives. sometimes the point is that you as the reader are supposed to think and draw your own conclusions and participate in the story. the writers not directly spelling every little detail out for you doesn't mean that the story is poorly written or missed its own plot details somehow. PLEASE.

[star-lights-up]

I…. made an animation?

I hate the last two bits (I think I’m definitely going to redraw them when I have more energy) but i LOVE good siblings raven and Charles. They are the ultimate duo. 💛

[abi-ablog]

A strange side effect of Disco Elysium being as popular as it is is that I’ll occasionally see internet personalities I follow talking about it the same way you would talk about like…the new Pokemon game (graphics, mechanics, the story, it was pretty good, 9/10, I recommend it etc.) and I’m just…mystified.

Did we play the same game?!? HOW are you talking about it like that. Unless you’re trying to spare people from spoilers I don’t understand how that is your takeaway.

Disco Elysium is not an experience that you can rate out of ten at the end like you’re grading a fucking dog show!!! It’s a game that is constantly pulling you apart and ripping out your insides and telling you to decide what you think of them.

I feel like ‘the writing was good; it made me laugh a lot’ is not accurately reflecting the experience here!

Disco Elysium doesn’t let you play it without getting your hands dirty unless you’re failing to pay attention to the things being said or intentionally ignoring them. The game is constantly challenging you with the consequences of your actions and beliefs. Even staying neutral is a position that the game criticises you for taking, challenging what you consider to be ‘neutral’. Why even in a confined pretend world you feel the need to not take a stance.

And you just played that and were like…yeah pretty good. I liked the story. It was funny when x thing happened. No reflection, no examination of why x thing happened, no discussion of how your identity played into how you saw the game and the choices you made, no thoughts on the central ideas of the story in a game that’s basically ALL story and personal introspection? No. Okay. Cool, whatever.

[uncanny-tranny]

Something I love that some trans people do is talk about their pre-transition selves with no context as to their transition.

Like, if a trans woman talks about her past by saying, "when I was in Boy Scouts..." and never elaborates that she's trans and that there was a time where she was a boy scout. I just think that kind of normalization is great (and honestly, it can be funny when others are like "a GIRL in the BOY scouts?????? My life is changed")

[astersofthesky]

Is it just me or does "ghost" L looks more soft and serene and pretty in this or it's just Light romanticizing the heck out of L in his imagination.

This scene happened 10 days after L's burial, meaning they stayed there for 10 days straight. What if the reason he asked the task force and Misa to live in an apartment because during those 10 days, he kept seeing L's "ghost" wandering in the headquarters.

Literally like this, he'd see L sitting in on his chair. He'd see L on the bedroom they shared with. He'd see sugar cubes stacked on each other and sees L putting another piece in it's tower.

Probably explains the dead eyes, those soulless, empty eyes. He is being haunted, not because of guilt, but because he actually misses L's presence (but he's too prideful to admit it) so this feeling of missing him reflects on his eyes. Light looked like a walking dead man in here.

What's even crazy is that Light blatantly mourns for L that even Ryuk notices.

Just look at his face. It was as if he's fed up at Light for just moping for days now. The way he asked, "Is your score finally settled with L?" appears he's hinting that "Are you done being depressed over your dead rival? Cause I'm starting to get bored af."

Which works in Light's favor because he now atleast a more concrete reason to dedicate himself to judging criminals because if he doesn't, Ryuk can just kill him. And he won't have his work thrown out the window just because he keeps on seeing L's ghost and feeling depressed at the sudden emptiness in his life.

Light, you are such a loser / pos

[goldkirk]

I get that everyone wants TikTok back but do we understand how bad it is that it’s happening the way it’s happening. Like we do understand how much of a horrifically choreographed process this is to boost and benefit Trump right. Can we all take a second to pause and go “hey wow something’s been getting fucked up and fishy for days now with Trump being turned into the hero about this even by the TikTok company themselves all of a sudden”?? (more chatter in the tags re tech companies and authoritarian autocrats)