#the sooner you realize that the better

[horce-divorce]

I don't know how to explain to you chucklefucks that for the most disenfranchised among us, NOTHING HAS FUCKING CHANGED since Trump left office. We know how bad it was, we were fucking here. And we are TELLING YOU, not speculating about the future, we are TELLING 👏YOU 👏NOW that nothing fucking got better for us and some of us ALREADY have nothing left to lose THANKS TO BIDEN AS WELL. NOT JUST TRUMP. WE HAVE BEEN DOING THIS SHIT ALL ALONG. Not JUST once Trump got to office!!! And NO IT HAS NOT BEEN FUCKING EASIER. WTF. Incoming tranmission from Planet Neoliberal Voter Privilege.

You stupid pricks don't even seem to realize that Trump leaving office DIDNT MEAN HIS APPOINTEES ALL WENT WITH HIM. THEYVE STILL BEEN THERE THE WHOLE TIME. Alive and WELL AT WORK helping to push some of the worst antiqueer legislation we've seen in DECADES while Biden, who barely has 2 brain cells left to rub together, decomposes before our very eyes.

If you think TRUMP was the thing that brought neo-nazi fascism to the mainstream, you are so comfortably privileged to have gotten to ignore it, to have never fucking heard it until then. And you are way too out of touch to be addressing the people you think you're talking to rn!

The "sign off on your glorious revolution" bit really gets me. Lmao. What a fundamental misunderstanding of the issue. What a hilarious way to misconstrue entire swaths of political ideology. You think Policial Jesus is going to come and save your ass, so we must think that too, huh?

Shits gonna hit the fan this year regardless of who "wins" the election, and it's not merely because of The Orange Man. It's also because of everyday lay people like this OP who have merely been privileged enough to ignore the suffering of your neighbors until now. Your privilege is running out, not because the revolution is coming, but because the hegemony that affords you that privilege cannot continue indefinitely. That machine runs on a profit-growth-extraction paradigm and we are running out of resources to extract from.

I don't know how to explain to these fucking people that you are the tone deaf motherfuckers we're talking to when we say you need to stop talking and learn. You have reblogged support of BLM and UBI and Palestine but at the end of the day you *don't fucking listen* to what we're saying in those posts. At the end of the day you are not hearing our cries of pain. And its pretty fucking ridiculous to turn around and point at people EVEN LESS PRIVILEGED THAN YOU and say "don't you realize that YOU'RE going to threaten MY safety and stability with your uncouth actions?" Well, bully for fucking you, because we already lost that! It's been gone! It never came back for some of us after Trump left!!!! You got to plug your ears and pretend the pandemic was over while millions of us became disabled and homeless for the first time as a result!!! While BIDEN admitted HE DOESNT THINK ABOUT IT ANYMORE!!!!! You got to go back to your life while protestors railing against our tax dollars being used for GENOCIDE are being injected with KETAMINE by the COPS!!!! If you thought TRUMP was that fucking scary! At least he outright said what he was doing!! Biden is continuing his work with ICE, continuing to increase surveillance and crack down on any kind of protestor, cop cities are expanding UNDER BIDEN, DEMOCRATS ARE ALSO VOTING FOR MASK BANS!!!!!!!

It is SOOOOO BLATSNTLY SELF CENTERED to think that you losing the privilege of a comfy life is the biggest threat to ""our democracy"" rn. YOU got to ignore how bad shit was until now. Some of us NEVER HAD THAT LUXURY. Our democracy fucking died decades ago and YOU got to keep playing Weekend at Bernies with it's corpse while the rest of us dug our own graves. And now you're scared because you stand to end up like us.

Lol. Lmao. Get fucked. This type of attitude is only furthering the class/social divides that already exist between voters and WILL. NOT. get anyone to vote harder for Biden. In fact, it just makes me wanna fist fight a Democrat even more than I already did.

First they came for the indigenous, and you didn't say anything bc you got yours. They came for the immigrants, and you didn't say anything bc you've always been a citizen. They came for the prisoners and their voting rights and you said if they didn't want to lose their rights they should follow the law, even while they made it illegal to mask, to protest, to be gay and trans in public- its so easy to just follow the rules! They came for the trans kids and you said, but we already have gay marriage, I thought it was safe to be queer now, and I dont have trans kids so I don't see how this affects me... they came for palestine and you said Oof. Well. That's the price of freedom for me, I guess!

And now they're coming for you and none of the other targets are left to feel worried for you, because we have already been living through your worst nightmare, UNDER BIDEN.

You look fucking stupid.

if you could EVER find a dem as outspoken and angry for the people as trump is for the white 1% then maybe we wouldnt be having this discussion.

[undead-moth]

I know I've been on about this for a while now and I'm being a hater but you're telling me SydCarmy was "always meant to be platonic" even though there are two seasons of writing making use of tried-and-true explicitly romantic tropes, themes and writing signals, and SydLuca is going to be romantic because...he was nice to her on screen for a few minutes?

I don't even care if people ship SydLuca, or if they just prefer it, but you can't honestly tell me that you believe Carmy was always meant to be a friend but Luca is an obvious love interest.

Just because Syd and Carmy haven't kissed or confessed their love to each other doesn't mean that isn't very obviously the direction this show is going. The Bear has already shown you who is endgame. It has shown you every episode of the show so far.

Honestly I really don't think The Bear fanbase understands this show or cares about these characters or the story being told here, which is unfortunate because this show is shockingly well-written in comparison to most shows right now, and we should be so grateful for it but all we're doing is complaining that the writers led us on by not making a ship canon fast enough. It's just. Sad.

[shedidntevenswear]

yeah, that's the thing for me, as a woc. we see the way some white fans are acting about this, their dismissal, their rudeness, the way they make us feel dramatic and stupid for talking about it, and that's honestly just as big if not a bigger loss than taylor being with him. people love to talk about how fandom spaces are safe spaces and places of comfort but it constantly keeps being reinforced that that does not apply for us. we don't get to turn this off or pretend it doesn't affect our lives. we have to keep talking about it because it is that deep for us. and it gets incredibly frustrating and hard not to feel resentful of the people who can just move on because this is just internet bullshit to them. like i'm not saying talking about it will solve racism and islamophobia and antisemitism, but it will make people from those communities feel heard and supported and validated, which is a thing that is sorely lacking as a whole. that can't be a bad thing, in my book.

^^^^^^^^^^^ !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[protect-namine]

I am about to start a neji route (because I feel that I need at least three playthroughs to fully understand neji and his plays, so I can't leave him for last). so my thoughts on this may change, but for the moment, my thesis is that neji and kisa are the same kind of thespian, just in different fonts.

(I am slightly exaggerating kisa'a character here. there are hints and I do think pushing the envelope of what her character could be is part of what makes kisa... kisa. as I'll explain later, for better and worse, kisa is constrained by the conventions of being an otome heroine.)

anyway. in essence. neji turns Other Persons into stories,

and kisa turns Other Persons into performances,

while they both simultaneously run away from, avoid, or sacrifice Becoming Persons themselves, for the sake of theater

or maybe it's the other way around. something something discovery if not recognition of the self through the other... except they're both unreliable narrators so who's to say if the recognition actually takes hold, really. kisa at least is a little bit self aware. neji, on the other hand, deals with realizations of the self through writing, without actually processing them (e.g. ms robin, domina, etc).

I keep thinking about (novel) kisa closing her eyes and feeling like her sense of self would melt away until tsuki centers her and gives her theater as a way to heal from the grief of losing her mother. it happens again during tsuki's univeil performance: kisa curling in on herself and tsuki pulling her back to theater as way to help kisa move forward with her dreams. pretending to be others is more fun than being herself.

and then there is neji (insert spiderman pointing at spiderman meme). but in his case, he would rather play eccentric roles, caricatures, comic relief, than be a Person With Depth on stage. neji is always either a seer of some kind (a fortune teller, a ghost who sees 10 seconds into the future) or a bit character (employee A), or... whatever he initially planned for domina. he is the mechanic behind the stage, but never the lead actor. his vulnerabilities do not need to "stolen" for the story, though others' are fair game.

kisa does not think about gender as it applies to herself in her daily life (mostly) and only sees it through the lens of acting and theater. how does she act mukai vs maiden, charles vs chicchi? the same way that neji does not think about the motifs and characters he writes as a window to himself, but rather as objects to be put on stage. rukiora is based on a younger neji, mary jane is I Am Death: Revisited (mary jane is to takihime as gashadokuro is to jacob), sissia is always meant to be the foil to I Am Death. but neji doeen't really understand that just like how he didn't understand oh rama havenna. sissia (kisa route, jack jeanne ver) is to kisa as domina is to neji.

literally kisa at her most extreme is just theater thoughts 24/7

kisa "I don't like being me; I'd rather be other people" tachibana 🤝 kokuto "I need to experiment and witness visions I can't create or I'll die" neji: this is a totally sane and Normal way to cope with abandonment and grief 👍

(it is not implied in the game, but since kisa turned to theater to cope with grief as a child, I wonder if the reason she never looks too deeply into tsuki's disappearance is because she's once again using theater as an excuse to conveniently Not Think About It. out of sight, out of mind. tsuki must be doing well, wherever he is, whatever it is he's doing.)

there is also the meta perspective of how kisa in-game inhabits a role where the player can (and is expected to) self-insert. otome dictates that protagonist kisa must be malleable to the player (who can choose to focus on a variety of relationships in her stead), and the plot dictates that actor kisa must be malleable to her stage roles (jack or jeanne, maiden or hero, flower or vessel), and novel kisa dictates that kisa must malleable to pretending to be other people because it's more preferable to being herself.

every thought she has about herself must be tied to acting, somehow. kisa's personhood is defined through stagecraft. she is the maiden, and mukai, and charles, and chicchi, and sissia. she can romance anyone in the school, of the player's choosing. she can be jack, and jeanne, and jack jeanne. don't get me wrong; kisa is her own character and has a strongly defined personality, but the story also demands for her to be malleable. a painting and a blank canvass at the same time.

neji externalizes where kisa internalizes. where kisa Must Perform™ to function and to avoid herself, neji Must Create™ to function and to avoid himself. scriptwriter neji dictates that neji must use everything at his disposal — his memories, his classmates, his obscure knowledge — as inspiration for stories. director neji dictates that he must use everything he knows about his actors — their complexes, their relationships, their weaknesses and strengths — as inspiration for stories. from the cook (mitsuki) needing apricots for a recipe and wanting to harvest honey from a beehive, to mary jane (fumi) being good at sewing and wanting an equal in jacob. suzu and sou fighting and developing a rivalry leads to jire and fugio fighting over chicchi. kai limits himself as a vessel in hasekura, and kai learns to embrace his desires as the priest. from the water/ocean/drowning themes, to rukiora being based on neji's younger self, and her family life and relationship with domina.

every thought neji has must be tied to stories, somehow. neji's personhood is scattered through stagecraft. the more you read his plays and lyrics, the more you get a glimpse of who he is. it is to the point that neji himself doesn't... really see how his stories reflect himself. ms robin being a "random" song the jazz lounge singer sings thay hasekura and ando can dance to, oh rama havenna being a so-so throwaway play that neji doesn't understand why it's entertaining. lmao. neji, please.

and this is why when problems arise, neji becomes a demanding director and kisa becomes a chameleon actor with a shaky sense of self (we don't really see this a lot because jack jeanne is not that dark of a story and kisa is still an otome heroine of an uplifting game, but it's a reasonable conclusion if you push hard on the kisa from neji's "good morning" exercise, or kisa going ham on method acting as charles. kinda wish the game explored more of that. I think a very stressed kisa can get lost in method acting, just as a very stressed neji is almost paralyzed by the fear of the death of talent).

idk where I was going with this. just. them. they have the same issues, just in different fonts. and I think that's actually what first attracts neji to kisa. kisa "steals" (to borrow neji's own words) just like him. kisa is a fountain of inspiration, an ever changing muse. and neji provides kisa with an endless amount of prompts and characters for her to inhabit. kisa does like to play pretend a lot. that's why she's in theater!

kisa and neji: Art Imitates Life people stuck in a Life Imitates Art video game

ANYWAY usual disclaimer that I'm jotting down livebloghing thoughts and I know some spoilers to neji's route but I'm only just about to actualy start his playthrough so. yeah. this was drafted all the way back in may lol, opinions may change and all that

[freshcut-chetney]

I think the thing that's really bothered me and made me drift from CR in the past few months is just how rushed it's felt. I truly don't know if it's because the cast are tired of doing this after years, if Matt's tired of DMing after years, or if they thought a faster paced campaign would be better but personally I have not been fully vibing with it since the start.

The fact that a character tied to VM was introduced as their guide in the first episode, already distracting from the story because everyone was going crazy for more VM cameos. That he died in episode 3 and they named their group after this stranger who knew them for 72 hours. This felt like Matt trying to recreate the heartbreak of losing a party member in C2, but because it was a scripted death from a character that was only around for 3 episodes and had made almost no meaningful connections to others in the group, it didn't feel that impactful.

The What The Fuck Is Up With That game took away so much from finding out the characters backstory slowly. C2 characters were so cagey about their backstories, it was a treat to find out more things. I don't think we even found out about Caleb's real training until episode 60? But with C3, suddenly we have most of the characters revealing their backstory or at least big chunks of their backstory by episode 6.

That they were pushed into finally choosing a group name when, at least for M9, the name came more naturally.

The fact that it seems like the big bad has already been revealed and they've been working on taking them down for over 40 episodes now. C2 Big Bad was revealed after episode 100. (I'm hoping this is all a red herring and the real big bad will come later but it's hard to top Evil Moon as the big bad)

I haven't watched C3 since episode 76 but downtime was so little last I watched, it felt like M9 got a lot more downtime to fuck around and have these deep and funny moments. Idk it all feels rushed to me and it's been hard trying to stick with it.

I really hope that if we get Campaign 4, we have a similar structure to C2. More downtime, less immediate backstory reveals, AND especially not doing constant callbacks to C1. Having VM get involved is cool for fans of C1, but even with how little Matt has them do, it still feels like they're supervising BH. BH are supposed to come into being heroes in their own right but it feels like so much of C3 since VM was introduced has been BH looking up at VM like "is this okay? Should we do this? How can we save the world like you guys did?"

[autumnalwalker]

Last Line Tag

Thank you for the tag @ahordeofwasps.

Passing the (optional) tag to @ceph-the-ghost-writer, @winterandwords, @oh-no-another-idea, @sarahlizziewrites, @sleepyowlwrites, and the usual open tag for anyone else who wants to join in the game.

In which Lacuna is experiencing the wonder of a new body that doesn't feel like it's dying after five minutes of light exercise but is still easily distracted by her own wandering train of thought:

Lacuna’s run comes to a sudden stop as the realization hits her that she could have been getting the various outfits she’d wished she could wear over the past few years enchanted to fit, and probably even fit flatteringly.  Or even mundanely tailored.  It’s not like she didn’t have the money.

She has just enough time to mutter “Wow, I’m dumb,” to herself before the treadmill running at max speed flings her off and sends her tumbling across the floor of the gym.

[spitblaze]

as someone who has spent my entire life taking everything personally. you guys have gotta stop taking everything personally

[the-girl-with-too-many-ideas]

Does anyone else get the feeling that at their core, all of mxtx's works are about cycles of abuses.

[thekimspoblog]

Demon trying to feed on my insecurities: "You're a bad driver"

Me: "Of course I am. I hate driving. Going 80 mph surrounded by tons of metal is nerve-wrecking. I try to do it as little as possible. Of course I'm bad at it"

Demon: "You're a bad writer"

Me: "Well that part's simply not true. I never claimed I was the greatest author of my generation, but when I put pen to paper I know what I want to communicate and I usually do it well. If someone isn't impressed with my work, that's unfortunate but they're entitled to their opinion"

Demon: "You're a bad leader"

Me: "Well I don't know about that! I mean there was that one time when... Ok look just because people don't see me as an authority figure doesn't mean... ���� You know you can be a real asshole, demon!"

[loverboybrightsideghost]

does anyone know how to do this. does anyone know how to do anything?

[fleastinger]

[kennys-parka-jacket]

alright, gonna get something off my chest. Then i'll watch Youre Getting Burgers

[the-proofreader]

I am so tired of bad faith people in fandom spaces. If you don't like someone's takes, guess what? Unfollow them! Block them even! You are not legally required to engage with them, and you're the shitty looking person if you keep replying on their posts trying to get them to feel bad!

Just... yikes on trikes and motorbikes, my friend. Log off for a few.

[trial-by-yuri]

Honestly Dialga from pmd2 saying "It's not a miracle" did more for me mentally than therapy could

[todayisafridaynight]

Same same same I was literally thinking of what RGG characters' zOMG! loadouts might look like earlier today help😭But I too was playing zOMG! on a horrid PC with a horrid connection... had to zoom out so far to get some slightly better performance from Flash that chat was nearly unusable...

I'm not totally sure I ever got to play the endgame areas like SS and DMS (definitely didn't get to finish DMS, it was just me and the besties + it's a reeeally long run), but those were some wonderful memories! My blorbo apparently lives in Deadman's Pass and it was a lot of fun crawling every inch of the map and coming up with headcanons and stuff. Sawmill was unusually un-performant though for sure, for how small the area is.

My friend group and I dropped it on account of the NFT investments and general downward trend, but sometimes... sometimes it calls to me...

my whole in-and-out bit with gaia is that sometimes i'd just feel too awkward to try and actually talk to anyone in the towns, so i'd just leave the site alone for a while until i felt brave enough to open it back up or i just really wanted to play zOMG (legit it had no business being as fun as it was)

i checked the creation date of my account and my sis actually made it when i was 8 ☠️☠️ but on that note i remember she wanted me to make an account so we could play zOMG together specifically but honestly i can only remember us playing a handful of times before we just played on our own

[mischas]

Would love to hear your thoughts on that scene in 3.01 ("you're not alone this time"). I always find it very upsetting that M has to remind R she exists, he doesn't ask how she is... somehow her trauma and everything she has been through becomes about him? Also LOVE the wordless phone call. M is especially brilliant in that scene.

I hear you! This got insanely long, like much more than you were probably expecting...

So my thing about this scene is that it's a favorite, if not my very favorite, outside of the episode's context. 3x01 tells us, not all that subtly, that Ryan wants to speak to Trey. He wants him to wake up. And I don't think Ryan even knows what he wants to say. And maybe that's reasonable, but we have to assume from context clues that Ryan thinks that because they fought it out and Trey's been in a coma all summer that they're square. Ryan tells Seth something along the lines of "I'd give anything for him to wake up" and yes that's his brother so it's incredibly complicated but also what the fuck.

The attack and shooting were intensely psychologically damaging for Ryan that summer but 1) the show never really attempted to treat it as such and 2) it impacted how he was able to identify with and console Marissa. It's pretty in character for him to keep things bottled up while she's all emotion and heart. Their similarly shared trauma is what bonded them in the first place but this was something they went through together, though having had different roles in each event. And somehow it's worse, because their coping mechanisms are different and there's a lot unsaid due to them being all-too-reliant on nonverbal communication. They are so separately traumatized in 3x01 that they've both contended that things will be okay when Trey awakes and probably not thought about anything beyond that. Ryan hasn't let himself consider Marissa's own trauma from the events because he already feels so, so bad that he brought Trey into her life in the first place. And that's not right, of course he should've given her perspective much more thought, but I think it's his way of coping. As Sandy says in 3x02, Ryan wanting to fix the situation is "the universal male instinct" rather than just sitting with Marissa and talking. The third season should've delved into this as they were trying to evolve the characters into adults anyway due to it being senior year.

As for the end scene you actually asked about (lol) I've chosen to see the scene as Ryan having seen Trey for the last time and lamenting the last real familial tie he had. Much of the Ryan we came to know is defined by his upbringing and frayed ties with his blood relatives. Trey's crimes are the whole reason Ryan ended up in Newport and I have to give that final scene credit for somehow bringing Ryan's complicated feelings toward his family full circle. I don't think he really knows what he's feeling but he's also just been in jail for a few days so he's probably been thinking about stealing that first car with Trey in 1x01 and everything that's come from it. Ryan's been confused and anxious all summer. The story he tells Marissa is an allegory for him feeling like a scared little kid again. As Theresa said in 2x23, "Trey's been kicking you around your whole life". Trey's crimes against Marissa are horrifying and I think Ryan's only way of acknowledging that was with his fist in that apartment. Because talking it out is something he was never raised to do. Ryan has alluded to basically raising himself but "It was always me and Trey against the world" is telling too. Ryan not only thought of him as a brother but as a protector. We saw in s2 how complicated Ryan's feelings are about his brother and we saw how Trey could manipulate Ryan pretty easily. I think 3x01 is an example of Trey pulling those strings again with just his presence. Him being around discombobulates Ryan so much and there will always be a power imbalance between them. Because Trey has the ability to make Ryan feel like a scared little kid.

Ryan sharing the story with Marissa means a lot because we never see him share much about his home life beyond little comments to Seth and an anecdote here and there. Even though Ryan doesn't have the emotional maturity to talk through everything with Marissa, she's still the one he's closest to emotionally. And he knows she'd never judge him for feeling lost and small. They get one another in ways that are overwhelming yet comforting and it's part of why they keep coming back together. This scene promises a closeness and Marissa's "You're not alone this time" is very key in this vulnerable position Ryan's found himself in. We never see him like this, and we have to assume Marissa has seen it infrequently too. Marissa's saying "I'm scared with you, if you're that scared little kid I'm right there too, we'll be scared together" and it's so simple. Because ALL Marissa wants is to walk through this with him. Even this schtick they have of "if we stick together, things will be okay" in the first three episodes is so much clinging to the other so they don't drown. And it's not just Ryan who wants to avoid it. Marissa wasn't taught how to process her feelings or trauma either. They enable one another sometimes because they're also afraid of that same vulnerability and even culpability; it comes out a bit in their 3x02 fight (Marissa knows Ryan lowkey blames her for Trey leaving and Ryan is still very confused about those things so he doesn't even consider them and is instead defensive). It's really the last time we see them actually discuss what happened in 2x24 (2x21 is barely discussed in 3x01) so we have to piece together a few things.

But resolving to stick together isn't in itself unhealthy, and they're so so young that it makes sense that they think (or at least wish) that clinging to what they've built together will resolve their problems. It's actually incredibly romantic, and I think goes to the root of why I love them so much. They're deeply traumatized characters who see those same things in one another and are constantly trying to survive.