#second of all THEY'RE NOT EQUIVALENT PRODUCTS

[theradicalace]

yknow the funny part is i saw that it was eligible for substitutions and thought to myself "surely i don't have to specify that i don't want substitutions on this. surely my coworkers are not dumb enough to try and substitute an apple pencil"

well they are and i did need to specify

they SUBSTITUTED my fucking apple pencil??

[aibafiles]

in my romeo & juliet opinion haver era again i just saw A Take and i was gonna write a Response about it but im just quietly seething

[rcmclachlan]

Uh-oh spaghettios, I accidentally wrote more pregnant!Buck.

+

In a shocking twist, the squirrelly-looking resident who's tasked with administering the spinal (and who Tommy keeps side-eyeing like he's mentally preparing himself to take her down if she makes any sudden movements) turns out to be a rockstar, because Buck doesn't even feel the pinch of the local anesthetic, never mind the actual horse needle. Even Nadine, their nurse, blinks after it's over and says, "I've been doing this for thirty-three years and I've never seen a spinal go that smoothly."

Which means the two weeks Buck devoted to reading Reddit posts about bad experiences with pre-C-section subarachnoid blocks were all for nothing. He could've done something more productive with that time instead of silently spiral. Like deep clean the bathroom or build a birdhouse.

He forgets to be mad about it the moment his legs start tingling, and from there it's only a few minutes before his body goes completely numb from the chest down. "Holy shit, that is so weird. It's just—it's a complete void. Babe, punch me."

One of the nurses is in the middle of putting a sterile blue scrub cap over Tommy's hair and stops what she's doing to stare at Buck in horror. Tommy just sighs through his surgical mask and says, "No thanks."

"You could stick your entire arm inside me and I wouldn't even know," Buck tells him, delighted, as they wheel him into the operating room. It really is like there's nothing below his sternum. "You could carry me around and work me like a muppet."

Dr. Esfahani must catch the second half of that because she starts laughing so hard she almost falls off the stool she's sitting on.

"Glad to see we've got our head in the game," she chortles. "How are you feeling, Evan?"

"I'm not!" He says cheerfully while two nurses set up the curtain across his belly. "Doc, have you ever had a spinal block?"

"Sadly, no." Dr. Esfahani's eyes curve above the edge of her mask. "And when I had my kids, their labors were so quick that I didn't have time for an epidural, either. Be grateful you'll never know what it's like to push the equivalent of a Ferrari through a keyhole unmedicated."

"Bad ass," Buck whispers, and she laughs again, then spends the next two minutes introducing everyone on the surgical team. They're all standing at the ready like a NASCAR pit crew.

Once the introductions are over, Dr. Esfahani turns her attention elsewhere. "How about you, Tommy? You ready?"

Tommy's sitting at Buck's shoulder like a particularly attentive German Shepherd, his gloved fingers trembling where they're slotted between Buck's. "I'll just be glad when she's out and Evan gets the all clear."

Months ago their OBGYN walked them through the reality and the risks of carrying to term—for whatever reason, male anatomy means there's a much higher risk of atony, which means a higher risk of hemorrhaging—and Tommy's been a nervous wreck ever since. He thinks Buck doesn't know, and to his credit he's hidden it well. Not once has he ever shown Buck anything less than bright-eyed enthusiasm and excitement about starting this next chapter of their lives, but Buck has woken up more than once in the middle of the night to find himself clutched against a rabbiting heartbeat while Tommy whispered, voice cracking in half, "Please, please, God, please..."

Buck turns his head to look up at him. He looks like what's-his-name at the very end of The Departed: goofy as shit in all the sterile wear the nurses made him put on. He even has to wear the puffy shoe covers. Between the scrub cap and the mask, his face is almost completely obscured, but all it does is highlight his eyes, which are fixed on Buck like there's no one else in the world, let alone the room.

"You look so stupid," Buck says thickly, squeezing Tommy's hand hard enough that something audibly pops. For a second, he thinks he might explode from the sheer build-up of love in his body, which would be so embarrassing, considering everyone in the room is there specifically to make sure he makes it out of here intact. "I've never been more attracted to you. Wanna make out?"

"You know I would, but I don't think they'll give us new masks," Tommy murmurs, every bit as tender and sincere as he was five months into dating, when he'd interrupted Buck's passionate defense of ocean sunfish to say, "I'm in love with you. Sorry. I just—what were you saying about swim bladders?"

"He's right," the scrub nurse says, deadpan. "We're rationing those. You take it off, you're outta here."

Buck squints at her. "I don't think no shirt, no shoes, no service rules apply."

She squints right back. "Please tell me more about the rules of this hospital, Mr. Buckley."

"Evan, stop antagonizing the very nice, very knowledgeable person holding the tray of very sharp instruments," Tommy says. The corners of his eyes are crinkled in a specific way that means it's taking all his willpower to play the rational adult and not join in on the snarkfest.

Seriously. The human body can't hold an entire baby and all this love without serious complications, right? What if they cut into him and he just starts flying around the room like an untied balloon?

"All right, all right," Dr. Esfahani says, clapping her gloved hands together. "Time to add one more child to this veritable daycare. What do you say, Evan, Tommy? Are you ready to become parents?"

The reality of the situation hits him suddenly like a second lightning strike, and he grips Tommy's hand hard as he rides the waves of excitement and terror, inhaling and exhaling through his nose to help ground himself.

He closes his eyes and thinks of Evan Buckley of nine months ago, sliding to the floor of Tommy's bathroom and weeping bitterly because the test in his hand was a death knell for the relationship he'd finally found after searching his whole life.

If he could go back in time—before Tommy got so freaked out by Buck's incoherent sobbing and the locked bathroom door that he broke it down; before Buck babbled apology after apology for his parents' negligence by not having him tested for the carrier gene, for being the one to suggest they stop using condoms in the first place, for wanting to keep it even though it meant the end of them; before Buck took the test because Chim had jokingly said earlier that day, "you've looked and acted like a wrung-out sponge all week, are you pregnant or something?" and felt like the ground was crumbling beneath his feet when the little plus sign appeared—he would take that scared, resigned man into his arms and tell him that everything was going to be okay. Better than okay, even. Everything was going to be amazing beyond his wildest dreams.

"He stays," Buck would whisper, and hold him so tight they'd start to merge. "Not because he thinks he has to, but because he wants to. He stays because he loves you and what you've made together. You're enough. Isn't that wild?"

When Buck opens his eyes, Tommy's right there, looking at him with so much love and pride in his gaze that it's palpable. Literally. She's moving around in his belly like she's doing stretches to prepare for what's about to happen. Like she's every bit as impatient as they are to finally be part of the life they're building.

"I'm not scared if you're not," Buck rasps, and tilts his head up as Tommy leans down and kisses him through the mask.

"Speak for yourself: I'm terrified. But when has that ever stopped us?" Tommy presses another kiss to his mouth like a notary affixing an official seal. "Let's get this show on the road, huh? Let's meet our kid."

An hour and change later, they lay her, clean and perfect and swaddled into a sleepy burrito wearing a little hat, on Buck's chest where she gets to hear his heartbeat from the outside for the first time.

He stares down at her, awed speechless, and thinks, oh, now I'm going to explode from love. Everyone hit the deck.

Tommy doesn't get to hold her for almost fifteen minutes because he's crying so hard that Dr. Esfahani refuses to hand her over until she's reasonably sure Tommy won't drop her.

"I think Dad needs to take pointers from you," Buck murmurs to her tenderly. She squirms a little in a way that feels like agreement before she falls asleep, already bored with existence. "Your daughter says you're totally not the cool dad."

"That's fair," Tommy sobs into Buck's scrub cap.

[virgobingo]

i wish people didn't try to filter geto's decision through a western lens because they're forgetting a huge part of the puzzle and it's the fact that sorcerers are oppressed by non-sorceres in the world of jujutsu kaisen. geto’s whole thing is "there's so few of us and yet we work ourselves to death for your peace of mind, while you remain ungrateful".

it's all more equivalent to health care workers trying to treat a virus. which also aligns thematically with the subject of labour across the series (jujutsu sorcerers being spread thin to the detriment of inexperienced workers, a job you value vs a job that compensates but drains you of your spirit, the myth of meritocracy) .

which is why controlling the output of cursed energy should be seen as the equivalent of being born with or developing an immunity to a disease. this is why a "culling" sounds possible to geto to begin with— people being pushed to adapt or die in their lifetime to prevent future outbreaks, like one would with a virus. strongly differing to kenjaku, because they essentially yearn for this disease to spread out of morbid curiosity (while geto wants the work to end):

geto is a character you are meant to see yourself in. as, in all likelihood, a laborer yourself or someone that will become one. his story is that of exploitation at the hands of a system that only cares for results. leading to isolation in hopes of achieving high productivity.

tangentially, i think a subject that is often ignored in these discussions is the financial incentive to take on more and more work onto your plate too. mei mei is perhaps the clearest example of this, no explanation needed. nobara, a second, when she explictly tells us sorcerery work is the only way a small town girl like her can make it in the big city. megumi, a third, when we learn the money the school gave him helped keep him and his sister tsumiki afloat.

while gege does not delve into geto's past, we can safely speculate part of the reason geto keeps working day after day, after day— despite his wavering convictions is because there is something that encourages him to do so. financial stability would not be an odd motivater. after all, why do we push ourselves everyday to work jobs that no longer add anything meaningful to our lives? geto is the type of character that forces us to examine such things.

as an aside, when he first dons the robes of a cult leader, money is at the forefront of his concerns. if it wasn't obvious before, gege tells you again— choosing not to be a sorcerer, implies a serious loss of income.

i think, all in all, geto's spiral does not hinge on the fact that he was secretly evil the entire time. it lies in disillusionment of a system that only seeks to preserve itself. note that this is why yuki works outside of it. no doubt her experiences as a former star plasma vessel informed her reasoning. it's also why gojo decides to become a teacher and change the institution from within, wielding his privilege as a shield over others.

[greyias]

#it's wild that this site champions hobbyists but is so disrespectful to professional artists#I guess it's the whole thing of when people have a little knowledge they tend to overestimate what they know#anyway that's my vfx artist rant for the month#ya'll don't even know what a macbeth chart or a LUT is

☝️

I’m convinced if ppl on this site knew how crappy gifs look before you color them properly, they would appreciate editors more

[ayeforscotland]

What is Dataflow? Part 2: Diagrams

This is the second part of a couple of posts about Dataflow, particularly why it's important for the world going forward and relating to the Crowd Strike IT disaster.

Read the first part here.

Before I get into this one today, I wanted to address a couple of things.

Firstly, Dataflow is something that nearly every single person can understand. You do NOT:

Need to have a degree in Computing Science

Need to work in IT

Need to be a data analyst / Spreadsheet master

If any of you see the word 'Data' and feel your eyes glazing over, try and snap out of it because, if you're anything like me, Dataflow is much more approachable as a concept.

Secondly, what do I mean by IT?

Traditionally in most of our media the all-encompassing 'IT department' handles everything to do with technology. But every business works differently and there are many job titles with lots of crossover.

For example, you can be an infrastructure engineer where your focus is on building and maintaining the IT infrastructure that connects your organisation internally and externally. This is a completely different role from an Application Portfolio Manager who is tasked with looking after the Applications used in business processes.

Both are technical people and come under the banner of 'IT' - but their roles are focused in different areas. So just bear that in mind!

Now that's out of the way, let's begin! This one will be a little bit deeper, and questions welcome!

An Intro to Diagrams

You probably do not need a history of why pictures are important to the human race but to cover our bases, ever since we put traced our hands on a cave wall we have been using pictures to communicate.

Jump forward in time and you have engineers like Leonardo Da Vinci drafting engineering schematics.

You get the idea, humans have been creating diagrams (Pictures) for thousands of years. Centuries of refinement and we have much more modern variations.

And there's one main reason why diagrams are important: They are a Common Language.

In this context, a Common Language helps bridge a language gap between disciplines as well as a linguistic gap. A Spanish electrician and a German electrician should be able to refer to the same diagram and understand each other, even if they don't know each other's language.

The reason they can do this is because they're are international standards which govern how electrical diagrams are created.

A Common Language for Digital?

Here's an image I've shown to clients from governments and institutions to global organisations.

Everything around us, from the products we use to the bridges we drive over and the buildings we live, work, enjoy and shop in had diagrams backing them.

You would not build a skyscraper without a structural engineering diagram, you would not build an extension on your house if an architect couldn't produce a blueprint.

Why is there not an equivalent for the Digital World and for Dataflow?

Where is the Digital Common Language?

This is the bit where the lightbulb goes on in a lot of people's heads. Because, as I mentioned in Part 1, the flow of data is the flow of information and knowledge. And the common mistake is that people think of dataflow, and only ever think about the technology.

Dataflow is the flow of information between People, Business Processes *and* Technology Assets.

It is not reserved to Technology specialists. When you look at the flow of data, you need to understand the People (Stakeholders) at the top, the processes that they perform (and the processes which use the data) and the technology assets that support that data.

The reason why this is important is because it puts the entire organisation in context.

It is something that modern businesses fail to do. They might have flow charts and network diagrams, and these are 'alright' in specific contexts, but they fall to pieces when they lack the context of the full organisation.

For example, here is a Network Diagram. It is probably of *some* value to technical personnel who work in infrastructure. Worth bearing in mind, some organisations don't even have something like this.

To be absolutely clear, this diagram will hold some value for some people within the organisation. I'm not saying it's completely useless. But for almost everyone else, it is entirely out of context, especially for any non-technical people.

So it doesn't help non-technical people understand why all of these assets are important, and it doesn't help infrastructure teams articulate the importance of any of these assets.

What happens if one of those switches or routers fails? What's the impact on the organisation? Who is affected? The diagram above does not answer those questions.

On the other side of the business we have process diagrams (aka workflow diagrams) which look like this.

Again we run into the same problem - This is maybe useful for some people working up at the process layer, but even then it doesn't provide context for the stakeholders involved (Are there multiple people/departments involved throughout) and it doesn't provide any context for technical personnel who are responsible for maintaining the technology that supports this process.

In short, nobody has the big picture because there is not a common language between Business & IT.

Conclusion

So what do we do? Well we need to have a Common Language between Business & IT. While we need people with cross-functional knowledge, we also need a common language (or common framework) for both sides of the organisation to actually understand each other.

Otherwise you get massively siloed departments completely winging their disaster recovery strategies when things like Crowd Strike goes down.

Senior Management will be asked questions about what needs to be prioritised and they won't have answers because they aren't thinking in terms of Dataflow.

It's not just 'We need to turn on everything again' - It's a question of priorities.

Thing is, there's a relatively simple way to do it, in a way that looking at any engineering diagram feels simple but actually has had decades/centuries of thought behind it. It almost feels like complete common sense.

I'll save it for Part 3 if you're interested in me continuing and I'll make a diagram of my blog.

The important thing is mapping out all the connections and dependencies, and there's not some magic button you press that does it all.

But rigorous engineering work is exactly that, you can't fudge it with a half-arsed attempt. You need to be proactive, instead of reacting whenever disaster strikes.

[thewadapan]

Spent today checking out The Amazing Digital Circus and Murder Drones, and god, the kids today have it so good when it comes to this sort of content. When I was a teen, I was obsessed with Red vs. Blue and RWBY, which I think it's fair to say are the equivalents of the time, and the sheer gulf in terms of writing quality and production value is stunning. I hear there were some rumblings of unprofessional conduct from the production company, which would hardly be surprising considering this is yet another guys-working-from-their-basement success story, but much bigger companies with much shittier business practises consistently put out much worse content than this.

The Amazing Digital Circus is definitely the better show of the two, thanks to its slam-dunk premise and some great writing from Gooseworx. The producers have talked about aiming to fill a perceived gap in the market between kids' cartoons (The Boss Baby) and adult animation (Bojack Horseman), and I think they have successfully threaded the needle to create a very unique tone. There's a sense of these works existing totally outside the mainstream media machine; they're not getting BBFC rated, but you just know millions of kids are watching them. It's on YouTube and the fact that it looks like some Frozen Spider-Man kids' slop just means da parents won't question what their kids are watching.

But truth be told, there's nothing objectionable about the content of The Amazing Digital Circus whatsoever. It's unusually metatextual and loosely apes the aesthetics of much darker media, touching on slightly more existential themes than your typical kids' cartoon, but it still has a lot in common with those same cartoons. The zany characters are all fairly one-note, and the emotional arcs of the episodes are honestly quite straightforward. The second episode in particular has an absolutely textbook plot structure to it. It's a far more self-assured and traditional style of writing than you ever see in this kind of independent work—certainly far more so than Murder Drones, which is written by an insane person.

More than anything, I'm reminded of how I felt watching Puella Magi Madoka Magica: that it's a very solid work of fiction, but that the people who'd get the most out of the work are isolated teens struggling to make the transition into adulthood. Certainly if nothing else, the fandoms of these shows must be bringing a lot of kids together around the world. I adore this soundbite from Goose: "Above anything else, I just wanted it to feel kind of lonely." You see Pomni's worldview shatter, she suddenly finds herself in a body that feels completely wrong, and she has to construct a new kind of belonging for herself.

As for Murder Drones, that show's absolutely fucking nuts, yo. The writing is at once painfully basic and utterly incomprehensible. If someone just sat down and explained the plot straightforwardly, it would be fantastically boring. But man, the presentation, the sheer delight the animators seem to approach every scene with...! I'd say it's clearly trying to use "the characters are robots" as an excuse to expose da kids to some absolutely shocking levels of gore, much like the Transformers movies, but midway through the series it starts straightup swapping the oil and wires for blood and bones and you've got to respect that.

The writing itself is so excruciatingly irony-poisoned that it goes beyond cringe and somehow wraps back around again to being sincerely funny. The show kind of wants to have its cake and eat it in terms of constantly lampshading how flat and cliché the emotional plotting is, but also clearly aiming to genuinely tug at the heartstrings and whip fans into a frenzy. And it kind of succeeds, I think! The way it veers between bizarrely high-effort implementations of memes, seriously cool fight scenes and horror visuals, and big emotional moments is very disarming. If The Amazing Digital Circus is an attempt to faithfully rework the American-cartoon formula for a slightly older audience, Murder Drones aims to crib the aesthetics of high-school cartoons while actively rejecting every traditional narrative technique used in those stories. Which means it's kind of bad, which means it's also kind of great.

If it's not already, then within a couple of years it will be deeply cringe to have ever been into Murder Drones in particular or (to a slightly lesser extent) The Amazing Digital Circus, in much the same way that everyone seems embarrassed to admit they were ever a Homestuck fan. But like with Homestuck, I feel like these series are genuinely pushing at the frontiers of storytelling in a way that's commendable and might inspire new kinds of writing once the fans grow up.

ENA is also pretty good, for the record.

[copperbadge]

Immediate Writer's Block

Had a comment on another post where I thought I'd probably need more space than the notes in which to respond, so:

constant-state-of-self-discovery Oh I get the envy I feel it right now how the fuck do you manage to write without impassable writers block after 5-9 sentences because I haven't fucking figured it out lol

I do have some advice on this!

I think most writers get blocked from time to time, it's normal and my general strategy is just to wait it out, but if you're frequently blocked after only writing a very little bit, I think the problem is one of two things: either you don't know what you want to achieve with the scene you're writing, or you don't know what should happen next within the scene to achieve that goal. If you frame "I'm blocked" as "I don't have an answer I need" then often you move from just sitting there, sweating and staring at a blank page, to thinking productively about how you're going to get where you're going. It's the difference between not knowing an answer and not knowing an answer but knowing where to look for it.

An invaluable piece of advice for this, which I think I picked up from someone who got it off a National Novel Writing Month messageboard, is "When in doubt, ninjas attack." It's not meant to be literal, you don't need to have ninjas or fight scenes just because you don't know what to do, but it helps to get the creativity flowing again. If you don't know what should happen next, or you know but you're having trouble actually writing the scene, it can be very helpful to induce a moment of uncertainty or surprise -- to have a metaphorical ninja attack. One time I did this literally -- the POV character was just on the road somewhere and I didn't know how to get them from a pastoral country road to their actual destination in an interesting way, so I had them get attacked by highway bandits and have to fight them off, which also allowed me to demonstrate that the character had significant unarmed combat skills. But it can also just be like, two characters who are having a boring conversation can be interrupted by a third person, even just a stranger asking for directions, or there can be, IDK, an explosion, or something goes missing, or etc.

Sometimes it also helps to leave it alone but keep it in your mind and go do something else -- listen to a podcast, take a walk, read a book, not because those things are distracting but because all our inputs eventually feed into our brain and come out as reactions. If you're thinking about your book while you're wandering around a park, something you see in the park might have an impact on it. If you've got YOUR story in mind while reading someone else's, you might be more inclined to look at what they're saying and see what you think of it, how it might play into your work.

And honestly, sometimes you just gotta go past it. I'm working on the next Shivadh novel right now and it opens basically with Simon the chef getting into a spat with his love-interest-to-be over some cheese. He want the cheese, she won't sell him the cheese, so they get off to a very contentious start. But I suck at writing conflict especially when it's basically "A character I like is being pompous and another character I want people to find likable is being stubborn and somewhat unpleasant". I've been stalled on it for a while. But I know where the scene ends up, like I do know what the goal is, so I just...skipped it and went on to writing a scene I like better, where they meet a second time and actually discover each others' identity and that they're about to be forced into the grownup equivalent of a school project. Once I've gotten dug deeper into the story I'll come back and write it, and by then I'll have the benefit of knowing the love interest a bit better.

So yeah -- I think a lot of breaking a writer's block, especially when you don't need rest but are just stumped about what to do, is to twist and look at it from another angle. It's not that you don't know what to write, or don't want to write what you know you have to -- it's that you don't have the correct answer to a question, or you need to leave that part alone to ferment and come back to it later. At least, for me.

[exeggcute]

in a similar vein to the stuff I was talking about recently with google (unknowingly?) selling invalid ad placements, here's an interesting post I saw on linkedin the other day about advertisers who think they're buying ad space on one domain but are really buying ad space on another:

so, for context: the woman behind this post was one of the creators of the sleeping giants campaign, which was a (pretty successful!) attempt to choke out right-wing "news" websites and other peddlers of misinformation by drying up their advertising revenue. she went on to found the check my ads institute, which does a lot of the same stuff and more; one of the recurring themes of check my ads' messaging is that advertisers often aren't aware that they're running ads on unsavory websites (and are therefore inadvertently funding those websites via their ad budgets, even though they genuinely want to avoid doing so)... in part because advertisers frequently aren't aware of where their ads are running, period.

in this post specifically, she's not talking about individual advertisers but about one of the companies that exists to connect advertisers (brands who want to buy ad space) and publishers (websites who sell ad space)—in this case, an ad platform called unruly, although they recently got absorbed into a bigger company called nexxen.

nexxen is an all-in-one ad platform that's both a DSP (demand-side platform, which helps advertisers buy ad placements) and an SSP (supply-side platform, which helps websites sell ad placements). they make money by taking a cut of each transaction.

what's happening here is that unruly/nexxen worked with a publisher called yorogon.com who was selling inventory (i.e., ad space) through nexxen's platform. so if you're an advertiser who wants to run ads somewhere, you can go to nexxen and buy inventory from their available sellers; in other words, ad space offered by yorogon.com is one of the "products" for sale on nexxen's markplace. (most of these transactions happen in split-second auctions, though... it's not like shopping on ebay.)

the problem is that this seller who nexxen authorized as "yorogon" wasn't actually running ads on yogoron.com or any of yorogon's nonexistent clients' websites... they were running those ads on fucking breitbart lol. basically the equivalent of a supermarket agreeing to sell some new cereal on behalf of the manufacturer, but the boxes are actually full of thumbtacks.

we can pretty safely assume that breitbart did this on purpose because they know that a lot of the big advertisers with fat wallets shy away from publishers like them—for a number of reasons—which means that they have to sell their inventory to smaller, shittier advertisers with less money to spend. otoh there's no reason to believe that nexxen was deliberately taking part in the charade; for one, the information that led to this discovery is public, so anyone who gave half a shit could've figured it out (including nexxen or any of their advertisers lol). not exactly some vast conspiracy when your extremely public records give away the mismatch. and for two, the whole "promising to run an ad in a certain location but actually running it in a different location" is a massive fucking no-no even if the "different location" isn't andew breitbart's personal wank cave. from that last link I just shared, scroll down a bit and you can find this:

note that the warning code isn't "you're buying ads on a shitty website that sucks," the warning is "you're buying ads on a website that isn't what it says it is." but there is a dedicated warning code! because back to the cereal metaphor from earlier, this is like—okay, even if the cereal box is full of actual cereal instead of thumbtacks, it's still a problem if you thought you were getting honey nut cheerios and then opened the box and it was full of apple jacks instead. (and god knows I would never willingly buy apple jacks.)

whatever you're selling, it has to be accurate: if you offer ad space on golflovers.com but you actually run the ad on golfenthusiasts.com, that's still a major issue and the advertisers you work with will rightfully jump on your ass about it... assuming they ever find out, lol.

what's really interesting to me, though, isn't so much that an ad platform was selling misrepresented ad inventory—because as far as I can tell, that happens all the time—but more that we only know about this particular instance because it involves breitbart. check my ads is specifically hellbent on throttling breitbart's ad revenue, which is why someone was even poking around in these seller lists in the first place. anyone else could have; the advertisers who unknowingly bought ad space on breitbart theoretically could have, and nexxen certainly should have.

but for all the ad quality and transparency standards in place, any parties involved in the advertising supply chain still have to take action and check their records to make sure they're following said standards. if they get complacent, bad actors absolutely can and will try to slip through their defenses. and what's especially embarrassing in this case is how many safety partners unruly/nexxen was working with who claim to mitigate this exact scenario... although one of them was doubleverify and they kinda suck lol

[666writingcafe]

Asmo's Greatest Fear

Content Warning: personal headcanon about Asmo's injuries from the Great War, discussion about death

I stand alone in a room surrounded by mirrors, forced to confront my actual appearance. Not the one I've spent many hours perfecting via various beauty products and spells, not the one I assume as a demon, but my true form.

We all have scars from the war. Lucifer obviously has the most, since he was the one directly fighting Father, but after observing the others, I believe I come in a close second. I was the only one among us that had no prior experience in fighting or even self-defense. I mean, I could attack using my words, but even the most scathing insults can't do much against swords and spells.

Needless to say, the "jewel of the heavens" is now a pale imitation of what he once was.

The right side of my face is burned beyond recognition. I lost all the hair there, too, and I doubt it's ever coming back. The other side is littered with scars, and what hair I do have is thin and wispy, on the verge of snapping off. Both the burns and scars move down my body in an uneven criss-cross pattern. There's not a smooth patch of skin to be found anywhere.

It's easy for people to say things like "don't judge a book by its cover" or "it's on the inside that counts" when they're looking at conventional beauty, but when they're presented with someone like me, all that goes out the window. In their eyes, I'm a freak. A monster. At best, something to feel sorry about.

And there lies the problem with this form: I'll never be treated like a person with thoughts and emotions. I'm reduced to a sideshow attraction for others to gawk at. Not even my brothers are exempt from this gut reaction. Oh, they've learned to temper it as they've gotten used to it, but there's still that momentary flash of disgust or pity when they catch me like this.

Perhaps it's fitting that I became the Avatar of Lust. It grants me, among other things, the power of illusion. I can appear however I want, and using that alongside my charm ensures that people like me.

And that I'm not destined to be alone.

"EEEEW! You're UGLY!"

I turn my head in time to catch a round black creature fly across the room, its back hitting a mirror. Rope soon wraps around it as a piece of tape appears to cover its mouth.

"I can't believe that actually worked." Zephyr? "I tell you what, Asmo, your Little D. is a real pain in the ass." What I assume to be No. 5 thrashes in protest. I wish I had it in me to chuckle at the sight, but any time I try to move any part of my face, it ends up looking contorted.

Making me look even more like a monster.

Satisfied with No. 5's condition, Zephyr turns their full attention onto me. Their eyes travel up and down my body so intensely that I wish the ground would swallow me whole. Silence is almost worse than words where this is concerned.

"Tell me, do you wish you were dead?" The question catches me off guard. It doesn't help that they asked it so casually, like they're inquiring about the weather.

"Wh-what?"

"If you had the choice between existing in this form or not existing at all, would you run eagerly into death's arms and let it take you away from all your suffering?"

"I..." Tears threaten to fall down my face. "I mean, I've thought about it."

"How many times?" Did I upset them? Their tone certainly makes it seem that way.

"I don't know! I've--"

"--lost count?" I can only manage to nod my head. Zephyr appears seconds away from biting my head off, and I'm honestly trying to not provoke them any further.

No. 5 raises its hand, and Zephyr magically makes the tape over its mouth disappear.

"3,613,969," it gasps. "At least since my creation, anyway." Zephyr nods their head as they make the tape reappear. After a few moments of contemplation, they quietly mutter,

"41."

"What?"

"3,613,969 seconds is roughly equivalent to 41 days," they explain. "Obviously, we don't have that much time on our hands, because we're expected to wake up sooner rather than later, so I'll just have to do the first one now and give you the other 40 once we've recovered from this experience." What in the actual hell is Zephyr talking about? Give me 40 what? Insults? Beatings?

My confusion seems to amuse Zephyr, for a slight smirk forms on their face.

"I still see you, Asmo. Your scars don't scare me." They step closer to me. "But I know you want proof, so here it is." Before I can fully register their words, they quickly close the gap between us and kiss me.

Hard.

Taglist: @lost-in-time-wanderer, @fuzztacular, @dianedancer18, @sweetbrier2908, @flare-love, @completelyshatteredbrokenmschf, @thunderlightning351, @l3v1chan, @anxious-chick, @5mary5, @expressionless-fr, @tenkobitch, @budbuddnbuddy

[galactic-rhea]

I am totally here for Cars worldbuilding ramblings

THANK YOU, USER FAN OF THE SOAP

I'm glad I'm not scaring all of my audience lmao.

Now, let me talk to you about how nightmarish ableist is Cars 2.

You see, I was subjected to a very special kind of torture called "I have two nephews who were obssesed with Cars 2, not 1 or 3 or Planes, but Cars 2. And they would watch it for three times, every day, for about two months. And I had to be with them".

Which I'm sure did something bad to my brain, my standards of what's annoying in a movie are wrecked and I can still hear dialogue per dialogue on my mind.

Cars 2 got away with a special kind of ableism that I want to believe any other movie wouldn't have been able to get away with on our current era, all because is Cars.

But there's also A LOT OF violence in that movie, we see on screen characters violently exploding, being subjected to torture and also the equivalent of open-heart surgery, black market of organs, and a literal bomb being put into an individual. Because is Cars it just could do so.

The thing about Cars 2 is that all the villains are disabled cars. They're unable to function properly and constantly will be unable to turn on their engines, are called slurs and, in the case of the rich-mafia adjacent ones, literally have hired medical assistance (a tow truck). And all of this because we're told that their parts have been descontinued, which technically gives us the grim implication that they're basically left to die slowly as they can't keep changing their parts. There aren't humans, and this isn't a human-post apocalyptic universe (no matter how much people Insist, i refuse to accept that theory). Which means that the fabrication of these parts and thus, the ones in charge of the literal poblation's development, must be other vehicles, most probably Cars.

Very powerful and rich Cars like it goes beyond a comparison in real world, they aren't the ones in charge of meds or health care, they're literally in charge of the whole production/birth of Cars, and by deciding what parts to make and what parts to descontinue they're slso deciding who gets to live and who gets to die.

And this isn't possibly a "new" problem, is probably something rooted in the Cars' universe culture for thousands of years. If let's say the Wright brothers were, idk, bikes. They created the first plane (which then died in seconds), so they're basically Victors Frankesteins and this is legal, this is absolutely completely normal in this universe because otherwise there's no way for new models to exist.

So every generation of vehicles have this deep, ingrained thought of " we're building the generation that reemplaces us, in every way they're better and as soon as there's a better version, we will cease to exist and cease to be produced".

I remain of the theory that parents in Cars basically buy parts and assembly their own child and then as time passes, they change parts until we get the general "adult" model. But this also means some parents might be unable to buy parts and what not, does this stunt the child development? Probably.

In Cars 3, Lightning McQueen is unable to keep compiting because the new gen is of much better tech, so I assume it's already happening to him what I just explained: At some point, the production of their parts/ maintenance becomes obsolete. So Lightning can keep on living, for a long while, but no matter the reparations or even the modifications, apparently you can't completely modify a car otherwise you would have a Thesseus ship predicament.

In Planes, Dusty is capable to get several modifications, but they aren't extreme. However we see a little car that's able to change into a plane, and we see he apparently has a split personality , which makes me a bit icky because -gestures-, Hollywood also loves to make awful reps about DID. But, this seems to support the idea that extreme changes= basically a different person in the Cars universe. And an awful idea is to face the familiars of a vehicle that got into an accident "we can save them by almost completely rebuilding them, but might as well be a different person".

So back to Cars 2, all these villain Cars are disabled and suffering because someone, literally decided that isn't worth it, these models can't continue their existence when our engineers/doctors already created a new version.

And they must go along with it! They must accept it, because their society has been accepting it for hundreds of years by now! And so the movie decided to make them the literal mafia and a violent murderous group of terrorist and spies, what a move.

The movie tries to make Mater to be some sort of disabled character as well, he keeps being called dumb, ugly and whatever for the whole movie, he's all covered in rust and shamed for an oil leak. And nothing of this is resolved or really addressed, because not only his problems aren't even comparable to those of the villains (is implied he's rusty and all covered in bumbs just because he choses to), his character arc is basically that he's capable of solving a mystery not even the spies figured out at the time, the classic "actually i can be useful" that Hollywood loves.

And we learn the motives for the villains, and like, yeah, that's awful! All those murders and a political fraud to try to get rich by owning oil, but no one gives an ounce of sympathy for a group of characters that literally need medical assistance almost 24/7. The mafia guys can afford to hire tow truck and the big multi-millionarie villain can afford his constant surgeries, to the point of being able to disguise himself and look "normal"

And it drives me crazy that no one mentions this, but I can't blame people, most people weren't subjected to this movie three times per day for 60~ days.

If anyone read this far, you should thank to @soapysudz for fueling me (GET IT?!! FUEL?! -recorded laughs-)

[itsclydebitches]

This interaction popped into my head fully-formed today and I knew no peace until I wrote it out. They're friends, your honor 😭

“Getting long, huh?”

Trent froze in the act of putting up his hair, a few tendrils slipping to fall in his eyes, obscuring Roy. It was still instinctual to flinch back, his father’s acidic voice ringing in his ears as he said again and again and again how it was past time for Trent to see a barber, each reminder casual like his judgment was a given. Well, it always had been. Trent never found the courage to admit that he was a regular of salons and that each product they sold there cost more than his father’s first rent. His lip had curled, barb-like, when Trent had last visited, the shoulder-length cut exacerbating the news of his firing. He could only imagine what his father would say if he saw it now, curls licking at the small of his back.

Trent’s mind processed all of this in a matter of seconds, journalistic instincts finally overriding the fear to focus on reality: the neutral tone of Roy’s voice. His appreciative glance. Their normal coffee hand-off that Trent had to resurrect numb fingers to complete.

Roy was not his father. No one at Richmond was.

“Yeah,” Trent agreed, voice scratchy. He took a hasty gulp of his drink. “It’s never been this long before.”

Non-committal grunt from the other side of the office. That was the Roy equivalent of dragging his chair over, propping his chin on his hands, and begging for all the juicy details.

“I’m... thinking of cutting it again?”

That got a reaction. Roy’s head whipped around in a gesture that screamed ‘ABSOLUTELY NOT’ but his response, when it came, was just another measured hum. No pressure; plenty of space to accept a statement, or engage with the question. Trent had to bite his lip to keep from laughing outright. But god, Roy was trying so hard and that felt so good.

Though he was likewise trying to be kinder to his past self, Trent hated that he’d caved and cut his hair a day before approaching Richmond, that snide voice in his head insisting that he’d be lucky to make it into the building -- they certainly wouldn’t hire a slovenly poof, as his father might say. Ah, but then that voice did have a hint of his Scouse accent, didn't it? Really, Trent hadn’t given it much thought until Ted mentioned having a bag full of hair-ties and suddenly he was desperate for the length back, if only to make use of something that Ted had held.

Embolden by caffeine and the mellow mood, Trent decided to gift Roy some truth.

“I grew it this long for him,” he said, head nodding towards the closed door. Behind the glass Ted was pecking at his keyboard in a manner that was not adorable, not at all, because describing a middle-aged American as ‘adorable’ was too much, even for Trent’s purple prose. So Ted was merely whatever word instilled the desire to kick one’s feet and doodle connecting hearts around the edges of a journal.

Trent’s crush was no secret -- to no one but Ted, anyway -- but speaking about it now, openly, mere feet from the man himself... that was thrilling. Ridiculously so for a Tuesday morning spent with Roy Kent.

“I missed a couple of appointments back when the book was going through proofs and then we had that week-long storm, remember?" Trent mimed the sheets of rain that had flooded their streets and turned flower beds into dirt soup. "I came in drenched one day, just sopping, with my shoes squelching and my blazer ruined. I’m pretty sure I scarred one of the security guards when I threatened to get him fired if he didn’t find me a towel in the next thirty seconds. I was a bitch, no two ways about it. Meanwhile, Ted took one look at me, gasped, and said I was a mermaid.” Trent grinned at the memory, fingers fluttering. “Then he lent me a shirt and I spent the rest of the day wondering if the purple made me look like Ariel.”

“...Did you keep the shirt?”

“Of course not. It was lost--” air quotes, “--at the cleaners.”

Roy snorted in amusement. Trent was surprised though when his expression grew tight and when he spoke, so quiet Trent almost didn’t catch it, there was an undertone of hesitance; like Roy feared overstepping some line.

“Grew it long for him,” he said, “but are you keeping it long for him? I mean, what the fuck do you want?”

Trent blinked, considering. Oh. Well. If you’d asked him point blank he would have said categorically that he wasn’t someone who changed himself to appease others... but then, forty years pretending to be straight didn’t really support that, now did it? The truth was that he wanted strangers to stop staring on the street whenever he went out with his curls and a skirt. He wanted to teach Amelia how to braid his hair, just like he braided hers each weekend. He wanted a fucking buzz-cut to combat the summer heat. He wanted to make the flower crowns he’d never even dared to imagine in his youth. He wanted to spend less of his salary on products -- or at least feel less guilty about the indulgence. He wanted to borrow Keeley’s scrunchies. He wanted to donate it all to Locks of Love. He wanted hair long enough to impulsively dye it red, just to see Ted laugh.

Trent wanted to go back in time and find the courage to change his own body without riding the coattails of a crush’s compliment. He wanted to accept that there was no version of himself he liked without the influence of Ted Lasso and kiss him, kiss him, kiss him in gratitude.

“I don’t know,” Trent admitted, “but for now I want this.”

Roy gave a short nod, his shoulders relaxing. He glanced towards the window where Ted still sat, huffing in a manner that a brave man might have called fond, and returned to his work.

Once they’d settled into their daily silence, Trent couldn’t resist:

“I do want it long enough for him to pull.”

“Fuck off!”

Across the way Ted jumped, wondering what had Trent laughing like that and Roy slamming through the door, yelling something about "TM-fucking-I."

Watching Trent tip his head back so his hair flew, danced, caressed his cheek as it passed, Ted decided he’d just have to ask him about it over dinner.

[stellerssong]

the thing i believe about morphienne (in any iteration, canon-edge, au, whatever you like) is this. it takes them absolutely fucking forever to say the string of words "i love you" to each other and that's if they even get around to it. because they just don't see the UTILITY of it. why the fuck would you say something as trite and limiting as "i love you" when you have this intense and all-encompassing and deeply intimate connection-slash-entanglement that defies linguistic classification? it's almost insulting to pin a ridiculous little word like "love" on a relationship like the one they have. which is not to say it's not romantic, sexual, etc, it's just, they're both aware on a molecular level of how much their relationship matters to each other and to themselves, and how many more layers to their relationship there are than just lover/lover (god/supplicant. king/seneschal. right brain/left brain. chaos/order. and so forth). it feels a little like going around saying "the sky is blue" or "you need to breathe to live" all day to them. like. they know. they both know. and as far as they're concerned, what could be more beautiful and terrible than just knowing and being known?

the thing i believe about dannyluce (again in any iteration) is that more or less fresh out the fuckin' oven danny says "i love you. no you don't have to have a response to that. i just wanted to say it, because i think it matters" (or the equivalent) (because he was made to be better. and part of better from the morpheus perspective is loves more easily or is easier to love). and it scares lucienne absolutely shitless because oh. shit. oh shit wait i love you actually can mean something profound if you let it. and you can just say it. without it being a whole Production. it means Everything and you can just say it and that doesn't keep it from meaning Everything. okay one second have to lock myself in the hermetically sealed chamber and Scream for a bit

and that ALSO does not preclude a deep, genuine, and romantic love between the two of them it's just. well. it's an adjustment!

also danny is a hands talker and does strange elbow motions sometimes. but we've been through this before.

[david-talks-sw]

Where do you sorta stand in terms of "Adhering to Lucas's" vision but also like "Well Lucas isn't making it so Star Wars is open to interpretation" Like don't get me wrong I don't like Karen Travesis's take on Star Wars for a whole host of reason and I think if anyone ever did a story and said "Well the Empire is right" then you are completely doing Star Wars wrong. But if someone legit wanted to do a story having a critical eye on the Jedi Order or IDK the Republic or even coming at Star Wars in a way that George Lucas wouldn't cover it cuz they are ideologically different, IDK, how far should that go?

I think the main thing to keep in mind is that it stays consistent with the spirit of what George Lucas was trying to say, if not the letter.

You can try alternative narratives, focus on certain characters, do it in different genres, but at the end of the day the message needs to stay the same.

And if you can't do that, at least try to be fair about your criticism of that message.

Different narrative, same conclusion

You can explore and certainly argue that the Empire brought about order and peace, and that it is better than the chaos and war present during the Republic.

You can argue that maybe, if instead of a Sith Lord who rules by fear, the Emperor was a benevolent dictator who lead by example, then the Empire wouldn't be as bad.

Legends stories have done this before.

You can even argue that the Rebels are terrorists and that the attack on the Death Star was the equivalent of 9-11 for the Imperial citizens, like this guy does.

But at the end of the day, that's a fallacy.

The previously-shown Empire storyline makes it clear that Moff Trachta is ambitious and greedy, as are his fellow conspirators. They're hypocrites who tell themselves "it's for the greater good" but really it's just so they can backstab each other to have the top job.

And the war the Empire's peace replaces was one orchestrated by the Emperor himself, so the entire regime is based on a lie, because really the only thing the Empire's system runs on is greed and fear, as shown in Andor.

Finally, while some of the Rebels' methods are hard and dark in nature... it's a war. And the narrative makes it clear that at the end of the day, the enemy they're fighting are space nazis. And 90% of the stormtroopers we're shown range from bullies to extremists. That one Imp pilot saying "millions died on the Death Star" also mocked Cara Dune for the genocide of her people, seconds prior.

The smaller narrative may take some deviations, it may question some aspects, but the larger one is consistent.

The moral of the story remains the same: the Empire is evil.

Different tone & characters, same message

When George Lucas made the six films, he had a very clear idea in mind, in terms of genre and style: imitating the Saturday matinee specials (think Flash Gordon), blend them with long standing psychological motifs derived from mythology, add dash of Buddhist philosophy: you get Star Wars, a movie for kids.

But I would fully expect a horror movie about a stormtrooper being hunted by an ice spider to go "fuck this 'we're all connected, we're all symbioms' bullshit. Die you creepy bastard!"

Same goes for Andor.

It's not rated PG-18, but it's still very dark. This isn't a movie for kids, it's a movie for teens and older. It opens with the eponymous character shooting someone in the face.

In Andor (and Rogue One) we see a side of the Rebellion we hadn't seen before. A darker one. But the genre of those productions demands a darker outlook on these concepts.

Cassian lives in a world where everything is nuances of gray.

He's the perfect kind of character to tell this story.

As is Dedra Meero. She is written as an underdog in the first half of the show. You're rooting for her. But then the series reminds you that: "hey, she's as much a nazi as the rest of them". She's willing to torture people to keep her job or get a promotion. The narrative frames her as ultimately evil.

Because at the end of the day the message is the same. The Empire is evil and it takes regular people to beat the elite 1%. Greed vs compassion, fear vs hope.

Now suppose there was a series opening on a "Gray Jedi" character, juggling between the Dark and Light Side with little to no effort or repercussion, sabering someone in the face.

That fucks with the message. Because it's okay for Cassian to do it, because Cassian doesn't need to deal with space magic, he lives in an un-mystical, cold and harsh part of the galaxy where you're either evil or less bad, rarely good.

But the 6 films make it clear that for Force sensitives, things are binary. They have to be or bad shit happens.

Gray morality works in Star Wars if we're talking about non-Force sensitives. In the case of a Force user, that's a darksider waiting to happen.

Criticizing the narrative via unreliable narrators

You mentioned Karen Traviss. For all my criticism re: her stance on the Jedi philosophy and their relation with the clones, I think her definition of Boba Fett is the best one yet (probably because she actually likes that character).

As a result of this personality, an eventual Boba Fett film would have to be Jedi-critical, because if you ask him, the Jedi took his father away from him. And you can argue using logical points all you want, his pain is emotional, not rational. Him being right or wrong is irrelevant, his pain is real.

Same goes with the recent Tales of the Jedi.

Dooku's an unreliable narrator, he is a character notorious for lying to himself and to others, he's poisonous and deceitful.

Of course three short films shown through his point of view would cast him in a noble "free thinking" light and the Jedi as infuriatingly obtuse.

The problem comes in when the author steps in and sides with the unreliable character with a subjective opinion and says that character is objectively right.

Okay, so now we have a situation where you've deviated from the established narrative.

You're having someone say the Jedi are asleep at the wheel and Dooku is the only one ahead of the curb when the movies and TCW show us the Jedi being just as aware and frustrated as Dooku is.

You're having someone say the Jedi can do more than what they're already doing, when Lucas' story shows us that there's really not much more that can be done, and Lucas himself confirms as much.

Which brings me to my final point.

Being fair with the criticism.

That's what it comes down to for me.

You can criticize the Jedi Order (I do so right here). But just be fair about it. And be informed.

For example, you can question whether the Jedi's rule of non-attachment is good or not.

But first you gotta know what attachment means, in the context of Star Wars. It does not mean "emotional attachments", aka "relationships". And it's not about repression.

So if you go into it thinking either of those things then your criticism isn't really 1) informed 2) done in good faith.

Because in Star Wars, the term "attachment" is used in the Buddhist sense. It's not about depriving yourself of bonds, it's about being able to let go and move on from who/what you love, when it's time.

Other example: you can argue the Jedi "accepted" the use of a clone army bred for combat because "we don't see it in the movies"... but you'd be disingenuous.

Because Attack of the Clones takes place over a bunch of days. You're not gonna be shown every second of those days. That'd be like arguing that "we never see Mace Windu eat in athemovie, so Mace is unable to eat".

AOTC is a movie about how Anakin fell in love with Padmé and lost his mother, and how Palpatine rose to power by engineering a war, a storyline shown through his and Obi-Wan's POV. The film isn't gonna stop and touch on a point that isn't directly relevant to those two storylines.

In TCW, you see the Jedi, some Senators and some civilians are the only people to treat the clones like, y'know, people. To argue the above, you'd have to deliberately ignore the 12 Jedi we're shown caring for their troops and just focus on Pong Krell.

Also, I think we've criticized the Jedi Order enough. Don't you think?

Different artists, mediums and tales have done it so much that the very clear, very obvious message of the Prequels has been twisted into something else.

If you look up any George Lucas interview between 1999 and 2021, he'll say it's about Anakin and the Senate's greed, it's about how a good kid becomes a bad man and how a democracy becomes a dictatorship. The Prequels weren't about the Jedi.

Instead of challenging the notion that the Jedi are good, which has been done baselessly for over a decade, I think it would now be fair to explore whether the Prequel Jedi were all that bad.

Oh. We're not trying to be fair? My bad then. Let's keep misinterpreting the source material because we like it more that way then say it was how it was originally intended to be.

[pumpkinsy0]

Babs! We need a fic where older Ponyboy (maybe 18, gonna turn 18, let's just make him 18 for now) is in his senior spring break and honestly had no plans. Curly finds him, tells him he's going back to Haiti to see family and invites him along.

Nothing dramatic, just two excited boyfriends going to one of their home countries, Ponyboy gets to hear new languages, see new sights (he loves laying on the white beaches with Curly, listening to the ocean. They usually say nothing during that time--they don't need to) eat new food and of course meet more Shepard family. They're just as wild as the ones he knows in America, but there's such a sense of love and belonging in that home. They instantly love Ponyboy (there's just something about this white boy that ain't threatening.) They already call him names Ponyboy tells himself are just casual endearing ones. (No they've already adopted him, he's their token white boy) Pony wants to compare Haiti to his home, and it's sort of like that, but in it's own unique way.

Also, he learns of Curly's government name. The second he heard it, he felt Curly stiffen as an auntie came over and kissed both his cheeks and spoke about hos tall he was getting. Ponyboy could pratically feel the rage rattling around in Curly's body.

......Curly has a french name. That's why he hates it so much.

Curly gets another tattoo and re pierces his ear, and Ponyboy get his first tattoo, a small thing on his ankle or on his back (someplace he can hide it from Darry till he's 18 and can run away legally). Ponyboy and Curly walking in the streets at dusk to witness the prettiest sunset Ponyboy has ever seen, sitting on the rooftop balcony smoking weed.

It's the greatest memories they'll ever share with each other.

Pony gets into Harvard with his essay he wrote about his time as a 14 year old and how he grew to love himself with the help of a tough as nails greaser who took him to Haiti.

.......forget a fanfic where's the production team to make this movie?

its been so long since someone called me babs, i actually jumped a lil /pos /lh

idk y im getting more asks involving haitian shepards,,but im REVELING in it, im ABSOLUTELY eating this up like im at the last supper

AND THIS FITS SO WELL W ONE OF MY IDEAS!!!! I REMEMBER ONCE I SAID MAYBE CURLYS REAL NAME IS PIERRE AND HE HATES IT BC ITS SO OBVIOUSLY FRENCH COMPARED TO TIM AND ANGELAS NAME, ITS JUST LIKE

tim, 𝓹𝓲𝓮𝓻𝓻𝓮, angela its even funnier bc i hc angela and curly as twins so its like, they whipped out this french ass name for one kid and looked at the other and just went “yea we’ll call her angela”, but i saved curlys entire life n just say his real name is christopher, i cant have my fav be plagued by the french COMPLETELY

(i also said that he hates it tim and angela would probably go “YO PIERRE U WANNA COME OUT HERE🤔🤔🗣️🔥” over and over)

and pony being adopted as the token white boy is SO real, ik they call him “blan” (if u dont know, “blan” is like, the haitian equivalent of gringo, best way i can explain it)

BUT IMAGINE ALL THE THINGS THEY CAN DO!!! they can get ready for kanaval,,,going to the waterfalls,,,,seeing curlys other family that also live in the more country side,,,they can teach pony dances,,,,they can even go into some caves!!!! they can get fresca,,,,get fruits from curlys cousins backyard,,,go on lil walks w curlys cousins to the store for, the possibilities, anon im gonna scream,,

they even have pics to never forget the memories!!! pony also has a scar bc of a lil mishap w a tap tap, but we dont talk about that❤️❤️

and as for curly getting his ears pierced and getting another tattoo ik he was getting looks and lectures from ppl but he did NOT care and honestly, go him

plus everyones speaking in kreyòl and barely knows a lick of english, curly was def the translator the whole time but thats ok, he thought pony looking confused was pretty cute n funny

i will never forget this, anon

HAITI MENTIONED RAHHH🇭🇹🇭🇹🇭🇹🌺🌺🌺🥥🥥🥥🥥

[that-left-turn]

I saw ep 1 of TBOC. It’s not gonna be the show we want for Caryl. Reedus is trying to hang on to us to pump up his cash cow dreams of being Daryl forever. I’m no fool and he doesn’t have me anymore. He keeps telling us this is his show but MMB was always a part of it? If that’s true why isn’t it called Cherokee Rose or something that nods to both of them. If no one else smells the lie yet I pity you. Best hour of anything twd ever is bait.

I think if someone genuinely enjoyed the storytelling of S1, they might like TBOC. Realistically, viewers have to expect writing that Zabel is capable of delivering and I don't think it represents what most Carylers are looking for in the show. He has a set of tropes and certain imagery that he'll hit again and again, regardless of what the show is. If you're fine with that, maybe you'll like it, but Nicotero was in charge for a good chunk of time and Gimple was free during post to stick his grubby fingers into the pie. It's never a sign of good quality when executive power shifts hands between people with very different visions for the show.

Norman needs Daryl and this spinoff. Listen to what he says: in many interviews, he mentions being tired of playing the same character story beats over and over. That's bound to happen when you stick with a project this long; actors get creative fatigue and that's why many of them leave long-running shows. He also says that he hopes the spinoff will go on for years and years. That's an indication that he either needs the project financially or other offers (that he likes or is willing to entertain) aren't coming in. Norman wants the audience to love him, so he tries to retcon all the bts drama. He should stick to hyping the coming season instead of rehashing things that will make the target demographic less likely to watch. No matter how he tries to spin it, this is his show and no, Melissa wasn't always part of it.

Being "a part of" something is still less than being the costar. That was the core of the original Caryl spinoff. They would both feature equally because the concept centered on their dynamic and chemistry. If you're left out of the title (a 1-season awkward subtitle isn't the equivalent of being a title character), you're second on the call sheet and the title cards credit you after your colleague, then there's nothing equal about how the two of you are perceived on set and in meetings, or the respect you're given. Whether you're listened to and how serious you'll be taken.

The title is really all you need as evidence that Melissa wasn't always part of the reimagined show and that she's considered 'less than.' Even if S3 were to be titled "The Book of Caryl," Carol and Melissa are still just a footnote, but if the show goes back to just being Daryl Dixon? That definitely and definitively says, this isn't your show. The billing in the title cards is the other 'smoking gun.' Fade in/fade out billing might look pretty to the regular viewer, but to anyone who works in the industry or in an industry-adjacent field, (title) credits detail the production power hierarchy. If her name isn't on the same title card at the same time as his, there's a power differential between them. His say weighs heavier.

"Best hour of anything TWD ever" is definitely bait. AMC (and Norman) need Carylers to watch. Everything that's been said and done to placate and draw back Carylers indicate that TPTB are concerned about viewership and that they know they need the Caryl fans. Despite that, they're emphasizing the 'friends' narrative and that should make Carylers more cautious. It's an indication that the payoff to their character arcs isn't there. Like I've said before, I don't know how the emotional climax of 206 will look onscreen, but the conceit of the script—you can't change the structure of the plot in post—is problematic and very poor storytelling.

My advice to anyone who's watching is to manage your expectations. Take what we know from previous exposure to Zabel's writing, and Nicotero and Gimple's preferences into account.

Melissa has input on Carol's character arc, but how that will actually look onscreen is determined by Zabel's writing abilities and studio/EP interference. Unless Melissa's contract terms state that she has complete creative control of her character arc (and it won't unless she also happens to be the showrunner), her vision for Carol will have filtered through many other people. Don't mistake what you see on the show for "what Melissa wants." Nobody will say, "We'll do as Melissa says because she knows her character the best," during a production meeting. TV production is a collaborative process, but it isn't democratic or "fair."

Realistic viewer expectations for TBOC would include:

a focus on the external plot and the visuals

a trite "message"

action sequences (The one thing which may have improved by having Nicotero in charge instead of Zabel)

Gimple-era 'action Carol'

Don't expect talks about emotions unless it's shipbait and please, don't expect canon. Especially not explicit, unambiguous canon. If that happens, you'll be positively surprised and if it doesn't, you won't be gutted. Nicotero likes to shipbait blondes and he doesn't care for the connective tissue that binds a story together. Zabel comes from network TV where keeping the leads apart, in an indefinite 'will they, won't they' by any artificial means, is how they hooked viewers to tune in week after week.