#though I won't post it in that case

[medicinemane]

One ring to rule them all

Tonight’s Exquisite Golden Eye of Exceptional Staring belongs to Round Frog!

[starmonsterrr]

[ * hey hello quick announcement I vibe with proshippers now (I have sorta nuanced views but I'm closer to being proship and I'm comfy hanging out with them so. If you don't vibe with that there's the three dots in the top right corner of this post, click that and it should give you the option to block me) ]

Edit 2: [ * HEY WHY DO I HAVE MORE FOLLOWERS NOW. THAT AIN'T RIGHT. THAT DOESN'T ADD UP. WHAT'S UP WITH THAT. I THOUGHT MORE PEOPLE WOULD UNFOLLOW AND MAYBE BLOCK. ]

[cara-delaney-author]

One thing that's been gnawing at me about the new Hbomb video and the... everything in it is the realisation how some people are "I always knew XYZ was a plagiarist!"

Okay, that is great. Genuinely, I'm happy that you recognised it early. But that is so, so hard to do nowadays. There's genuinely so much plagiarism out there, and it's incredibly exhausting to try and spot it.

Not just because a lot of plagiarists hide it with a lot of effort. But because there is so much stuff out there, it's impossible to be able to recognise it all. That's what makes it so easy to get away with it for so long - there's a decent chance it just gets lost in the noise, and nobody ever hits both your content and your plagiarised sources close enough together to notice.

How do I know this? Because I used to enjoy two channels run by the same person - one about media (primarily gaming, mostly sci-fi and horror), and the second channel was a "tales" channel, dedicated to recounting true stories, or urban legends. Think the Franklin expedition, the Bloop, or Dyatlov pass.

Well, I say "recounting", but during the video about the Donner Party I realised that I was listening word for word to the Wikipedia article about the incident. I'm not kidding, I pulled up the article and just. Read along. For the entire rest of the video.

Turns out almost all of the videos on that second channel are like this. No, there is never a single source cited (which I didn't realise because I was watching on the PS4 and didn't see the description), and a cursory glance at the comments showed nobody ever mentioning this. I know I only noticed because I'd looked up the Donner Party earlier that week (which is why I was watching the video), and recognised some of the specific phrasing. Until that point, the video had been presented as if the Youtuber was reading from his own notes, sort of like a half-freeform presentation based off of bullet points. Which it very clearly wasn't, now that I went and checked half a dozen of his videos and found the exact same thing happening in every single one. A few minutes of intro written (hopefully) by the Youtuber himself, and then just a reading of the Wikipedia article with no attribution whatsoever.

So now I can't enjoy either channel anymore, because I have to assume the main channel is also 100% just someone else's words read out loud without the original creators' permission. And even if it isn't? The whole thing is soured for me now regardless.

My point is that a lot of systems today are set up to enable this kind of behaviour, from the absolute deluge of "content" to the easy to replicate tricks like flipping footage and applying filters to trick people into not recognising it as stolen. And then the piece moves on too quickly for the average viewer to stop and wonder why something might feel familiar.

Nobody is a bad person for not recognising plagiarism, even if it is incredibly blatant in hindsight. But if you see a video or read a long essay, that makes grand claims and shows you a lot of different things, but never cites any sources... if you have a few minutes, maybe check to make sure you're not consuming something that was wholecloth stolen from more deserving creators.

[tethered-heartstrings]

hiii! just wanted to give everyone a heads up that I am having gender-affirming surgery next week and will very likely not be on very much if at all as I recover. I will try and have memes and posts scheduled but I probably won't be able to make more when those run out. I'll also up my queue/rb my old posts. in my absence please feel free to check out my ao3/fic masterlist and older memes/metas/etc. or my ko-fi if you like what i make!

[luc1ferian]

you know what I think Hyde was onto something, we should beat old politicians to death again

[stinkrascal]

okokok. straupdate tomorrow and this time im not lying i promise

[telleroftime]

Where are you all getting Ryōmen as his given name???? /gen It's his title is it not? Two-faced? 両面 by itself is a noun but here it's an adjective, is it not? It's describing him???

[stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage]

This. This. This entire conversation with Morrigan actually makes me want to sob. She and my Tabris always becomes close friends over the course of DAO; that, paired with the fact that my Tabris always romances Alistair, makes everything about this hurt so much more when you take DAO's ending into account.

Her confusion over why my Tabris didn't send her away. Why she didn't abandon her after they learned of Flemeth's plans. Why Tabris went out of her way to slay Flemeth and bring her the true grimoire. She asks Tabris why, and is baffled when the answer is, "I did it because I'm your friend," as if it's that simple.

The way Morrigan looks at the warden, the way her voice cracks when she says, "I want you to know that while I may not always prove... worthy... of your friendship, I will always value it."

She knows how this will end; Flemeth sent her with the wardens with the end goal of stopping the blight and obtaining the old god soul through the dark ritual. Morrigan knows that Alistair and Tabris are the only Grey Wardens here, and assuming they don't find more, one of them will have to die defeating the archdemon unless they agree to do the dark ritual.

With that context, her asking Alistair, "And what if a Grey Warden has forced to choose between the Warden he loved and ending the Blight? What should his choice be?" suddenly has so much subtext weaved through the words that I'm gonna start foaming at the mouth. She's practically telling Alistair that a warden has to die. She's scrutinizing his reaction to find any hint that suggests he would agree to the dark ritual in order to save himself and the woman he loves. And when he doesn't choose, she has her answer.

Morrigan made comments to Tabris about him, almost hopeful that their relationship was just a physical thing between them and not actually riddled with feelings... and then gives disapproval when Tabris says she loves him.

She doesn't want the warden to die; hell, she doesn't want Alistair to die, either; whether because she does actually care about him or because she knows it'll break her friend's heart if she loses him, or both!

Things would be so much easier if the only two Grey Wardens left to defeat the blight didn't fall in love, wouldn't they, Morrigan?

She knows that in the end, no matter the outcome, she will lose the woman she called sister and it's devastating.

Morrigan, who has never known true friendship. Who grew up isolated in the woods with an abusive mother and terrible implications for her future. Who discovered said mother planned to take over her body just as she did with her other daughters. Who doesn't understand kindness as it was rarely given to her without a catch. Who isolates herself from the others in camp. Who finally has a companion she cares about... and in the end, if her plan works and the dark ritual is completed, she'll end up pregnant and alone and wearing Tabris' resentment like a tender wound on her heart.

Or Tabris will reject the ritual, and will die to the archdemon.

Or her lover will.

I just- the dynamic between the warden, romanced Alistair, and Morrigan is so good and painful and rich that I'm gnawing on furniture as we speak.

[camgoloud]

kind of thinking about signing up for fandom trumps hate this year but this would be in spite of the fact that i've only written like 2 fics for exchanges in the last year. do people who follow me here even remember that i used to write stuff. anyway if i did sign up would someone promise to bid 5 dollars on me so i wouldn't have to be embarrassed about it

[astraveil]

some gposes I put together to supplement a wol question i got on bsky!

you can find the thread here!

[coquelicoq]

i wish i cared about food because as a living organism i do have to deal with food every day...seems like it would be easier to deal with if i actively liked eating it and thinking about it. but instead food is just the most annoying of all the chores that life consists of because it's impossible to ignore for very long. i resent having to think about it multiple times per day. not going anywhere with this just vaguely jealous of people who like food lol.

[incesthemes]

it's a chicken-or-egg kind of conflict, built on unreasonable expectations and toxic desire.

sam and dean choose to be codependent in 1.22 devil's trap: they both make grandiose statements that communicate their devotion to each other. but then, between 2.02 everybody loves a clown and around 2.04 children shouldn't play with dead things, sam starts talking about honoring their dad and trying to do right by him. he's guilty that john died before they could actually have a good relationship; he's just started to forgive him for their upbringing, and now he's gone and the way he copes with that is by trying to follow in john's footsteps, as if to prove that he's fine now with the life he's given them.

but john just sold his soul for dean and told dean that he might have to kill his brother—dean has come to perceive john as an enemy. john is asking dean to do the impossible, and on top of that he's left dean without anyone to guide him and tell him how to act. and so dean has cast john out in favor of entering a codependent unit with sam. sam is now all dean has left, physically and emotionally, and sam just declared his devotion to dean in no uncertain terms, chose him definitively, and so sam is therefore agreeing to fill in all of the holes john left behind so that dean can feel whole again.

but here sam is "allying" himself with john.

and sam obviously isn't intentionally trying to hurt dean; he's having a normal response to death. but sam's loyalty to dean and john can't coexist in dean's eyes, and that means sam is reneging on his commitment to dean, even though sam absolutely did not do that. and so dean he keeps to himself and refuses to open up about the truth because he can't trust sam to side with him, afraid of rejection or admonishment (which he receives anyway across the beginning of season 2, reinforcing those fears). he's angry and he feels alone because sam "chose" john when dean needed him most.

and as a result, because sam is of course still trying to be codependent with dean, dean's refusal to open up and be honest with him is equally seen as a betrayal of their commitment. to sam, honoring john is not in conflict with being codependent with dean. yet for some reason, dean won't even talk to him. he expects complete and open honesty from dean with their new dynamic—secrets are no longer acceptable because they're supposed to be on the same page, always—and he's not getting it, and it hurts. all he can see is betrayal.

of course sam is going to mourn his father after he's worked so hard to forgive him. of course dean is going to get frustrated at having no one to share his grief and anger with. of course sam is going to be hurt by dean's rejection. of course they're going to be upset at each other's betrayal of a profound commitment. it's a lot of reasonable reactions to unreasonable expectations, irrational perceptions, and half-truths that distort and warp their realities into something toxic and unmanageable. it's all about those subtle moments which unknowingly communicate betrayal of an undernegotiated relationship, all amplified by the heightened tension of grief and loss.

and around and around it goes.

[rudnitskaia]

I need a hug again. Much.

Also, have a funny lil cat with a smol pancake.

[nostalgia-tblr]

but unlike AO3's tagging system i do kind of consider TVA!Loki and Movies!Loki to be separate characters, similar to how Alligator!Loki and Sylvie are, to the point where i at first actually assumed everyone in the fandom (both the series-specific one and the mcu) would think the same on this topic especially since that series was about alternate universes and their associated different versions of characters.

so in my innocent imagined world there were - for instance - no long posts about how the main Loki in the series was "OOC" because well it's a different guy of course he's not the exactly same as that other guy. though there would i am sure be equally long posts comparing and contrasting and declaring one superior to the other, and doubtless people would argue about whether an alternate version was what the existing fanbase had wanted from the series and whether it was a good idea generally. so in my little bizarro-world the discourse is a bit different (as befits an alternate universe).

so like i still think of them as separate characters, but i am at least aware now that this is apparently an odd view of the situation somehow.

[asitrita]

Some people are all "Doflamingo is pure evil from the start", "he never cared for anyone", "he never really loved his brother, he was only using him, it's not like he cared for him nor anything like that".

Meanwhile, Doffy before and after killing his own brother:

The whorification is real with this one, just saying u.u

Not saying he was sane before, we know he very much wasn't, but judging by the change in his fashion sense, commiting fratricide against his last surviving family member really took its toll on him. He pretty much just went batshit crazy after that. Just look at him. Like, yes, his trausers were ridiculous since the begining, but he got much worst afterwards? XD Plus, he seems way more unhinged now than he did in his youth, he really lost it.

[jdorian]

Snippet Sunday 🎿

I was tagged by @jamespearce9-1-1 @disasterbuckdiaz and @malewifediaz thank you lovelies 💛

So I thought I'd give you the opening of the fic I have planned for Christmas~ (It's meant to be a sweet oneshot, but the research going into it is already getting out of hand lmao)

The whole thing started with Youtube — as most things do when 12-year-olds are concerned. Christopher shuffled into the living room with determination where Eddie was trying to figure out the settings of his new smart TV and Buck was folding and flipping the instruction manual back and forth, trying to find the beginning of it when Chris shoved his phone under his nose. “Look.” Buck frowned at the screen with intrigue. It was a video of people skiing; more precisely it was a prelude montage shot for an interview with a ski instructor who had Cerebral Palsy. “I wanna go skiing.” Chris announced without leaving much room for argument. Eddie looked back at them, momentarily forgetting the TV and straining his neck to see the video. Christopher, ever the sweetheart, put the video back to its beginning and held it out high enough for Eddie to see. “Huh.” “I wanna go skiing.” Christopher repeated and Eddie looked at Buck and Buck looked at Eddie — and the near silent conversation went as so: “You think this is a good idea?” Eddie hissed, keeping his lips as flat as possible, distorting the words to near incomprehension. “Well, it’s clearly something he wants to try.” Buck followed his lead and tipped his head into Chris’ direction by his side. “But what if he won’t like it? Maybe it’s not worth the risk…” “He loved skateboarding, would this be all that different?” Eddie just stared at him, chewing on his lips thoughtfully. “Come on, Eddie. Did he even see snow before?” “I can hear you, you know.” Chris chimed in with an exasperated huff and Eddie’s shoulders sagged in defeat.

✨no pressure tagging: @spagheddiediaz @daffi-990 @jesuisici33 @jeeyuns @ladydorian05 @steadfastsaturnsrings @eowon @heartshapedvows @nmcggg @rainbow-nerdss @evanbegins