#tl;dr

[mowiththehat]

Okay can someone tell me if I’m the weird one for not seeing it like that at all? I scrolled past many takes similar to this one, but I think outie Mark isn’t as horrible as y’all make him out to be.

For one, this scene doesn’t show he has no capability for empathy, it just shows he really misses his wife. I’d even say he does show empathy in that very same scene. He apologises for the fucked up things at Lumon, for having put innie Mark there, says it was his way of protecting innie Mark of all the pain and grief that was constantly weighing him down up there. He says he’s glad innie Mark could make his own first steps at love.

But also, he would give all that up for Gemma. And at first, in outie Mark’s mind, it isn’t even really giving that up, because he genuinely believes that reintegration would solve everything, that innie Mark could be happy as well. He thinks that, not because he doesn’t see innie Mark as a person, but because he thinks they’re the same person. Which is a valid opinion to have – nobody really knows how exactly Severance works, how personality and identity work, it’s just different philosophical viewpoints. Them being the same person is also an opinion innie Mark had for most of the series, btw.

In that conversation innie Mark says he doesn’t want to reintegrate, and that’s when outie Mark decides he wants Gemma anyway. That’s when he becomes selfish.

And yeah, I suppose you can think outie Mark is a jerk for that. For putting Gemma above everything, for wanting to hold his dead wife and speak to his dead wife and for wanting for her to be alive again, no matter the cost. But the discourse I have seen paints him as much more of a villain than I think is justified.

The innie/outie communication scene and the way it exposes outie mark as someone still totally incapable of having real empathy or understanding what they’ve all done via severance hit so right. Even if they fuck up anything else they will have always done this so right

[markscherz]

A friend of mine sent me a yt video of a guy who was relocating frog eggs (prolly a vernal pool) and showed 1000s of baby frogs coming out of the water in his backyard. she asked me how I felt about it as a ecologist. I felt like it was irresponsible to do, especially to post videos on it, but probably not "ecological terrorism" like people in the comments were saying, because I see baby frogs in nature come out of water in hoards sometimes too. Kind of a mixed bag.

But I wanted to ask you, since you're a herpetologist and waaay more experienced than me: how do you feel about the yt channel "frog army YouTube"?

Many frogs and toads are classical R-strategists. Some toads can lay 20+ THOUSAND eggs in a single clutch. The whole point of that strategy is that not all of the offspring survive. In fact, it would be really rather bad if all of the offspring were to survive, because (1) they wouldn't be feeding the predators and decomposers that live off of their noble sacrifice, and (2) they will require massively more resources than they otherwise would. It can have all kinds of detrimental down-stream effects.

This is the reason we often see swarms of tadpoles darkening some small pools (especially ones where there are no fish!), and later hoards of froglets (that's the technical term) emerging from pools at once. It's an evolutionary strategy, that only few individuals survive to achieve reproductive age.

Point 1: it is *fine* if not all the tadpoles survive to adulthood. That's how the system is supposed to work. You are not doing the system favours if you are changing tadpole survivorship to 100%.

Now, humans really are fucking things up in a lot of environments. Environmental pollutants, like heavy metals, can cause major issues for wildlife, and especially frogs, which (1) are not as vagile as e.g. birds and medium- to large-sized mammals and thus cannot escape the problem zone effectively, and (2) are EXTRA sensitive to the environment because of their permeable skin.

Point 2: we do have some responsibility to do something if we notice that there is a major problem emerging, which could dramatically alter the population dynamics for one or more generations of frogs.

However, *moving* clutches of eggs that are found in polluted pools is not the right move, especially for your average person. There are many reasons that it is not the right move, but chief among them are

(1) A lot of frogs that lay eggs in vernal pools have tadpoles that cannot survive being in larger ponds, and certainly cannot survive in streams or other bodies of flowing water.

(2) A lot of frogs that lay their eggs in vernal pools are already adapted to less than ideal conditions, and have excellent strategies to overcome those conditions, such as incredibly quick metamorphosis (sometimes just a few days!)

(3) By moving clutches of eggs, you could easily be moving the pathogens or pollutants that are causing the problem in the first place.

(4) If there is Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis fungus around, you are spreading chytrid, and that is VERY bad. Chytridiomycosis has already driven several frog species to extinction, and caused massive population collapse in several others.

(5) If you do not know the species, attempts to rescue them might be aiding the advance of an invasive species.

(6) It's often illegal to intervene! Many species are protected by law, and you are not allowed to remove them from the wild. Consult your local laws.

Point 3: the responsibility to do something does not include removing the frogs and raising a frog army.

So what should we do if we find a clutch of eggs in an oily pool? Or in a nearly dried out puddle?

First assess the nature of the problem. Is the pool just about to dry out? Then leave it alone. The tadpoles will probably be fine (and if they're not, they'll provide rich nutrients to predators and decomposers). But are there signs of pollution? Then assess: is the pollution covering a larger area? Or is it localised? If you find dead frogs or other amphibians is a major warning sign, and it needs to be brought to the relevant authorities. Contact your local environmental agency/department, and notify them of the precise location of the problem, and its extent. Document everything with photos and videos.

Point 4: there are organisations and agencies specifically tasked with intervening in cases of environmental damage. It is *your* job to bring it to their attention, but unless instructed by them, you need not take any further action. It is their job to know what to do, and to take appropriate action.

TL;DR: 'Raising a frog army' is for the likes, not the frogs, and is not environmentally responsible or ethically defensible. Build a home for the frogs, and they will come.

[birdmitosis]

What are your opinions on selfcest?

(I need to answer so many asks in my inbox... I'm sorry this is late! I will be late again/some more!!)

But I really wanted to finally get around to this one because I actually have some very specific thoughts on selfcest, which is that I feel like it would be... not necessarily "more liked," because people like what they like and are into what they're into, people are squicked by what they're squicked by, etc... but seen as less scandalous if it didn't have "-cest" as part of the name.

To elaborate, I don't think it has any similarities to incest unless the specific individual characters in question outright do think of their "other selves" in a familial way. In many cases this just isn't the case, however -- the relationship doesn't map that way in canon itself, or the other selves are totally noncanonical in the first place. I can think of some exceptions (Galerians, where almost all the clones of one particular person think of one another as siblings, including the one who was raised separately and didn't know about any of that so doesn't feel a sibling bond with them but they still seem to consider him one) but in many cases, that's just not what's going on. It's clones, or a changeling, or a time loop, or a multiverse, or something else where the canon doesn't portray them as feeling any sort of familial bond -- and where sometimes the canon actually outright makes a point to show or talk about how different they are.

And to explain even further... I think my view on selfcest is influenced by the fact that for a couple of decades now, my views on selfhood have been such that... I don't think "self"cest inherently feels self enough to feel offputting to me, either. Yes, you can have situations where someone looks at a clone or alternate universe version of themself and goes "that's 100% me" in a way that never really treats the other like their own person, and in that case it wouldn't appeal to me... But even since I was a teenager, I've always considered that if one person was suddenly two people, the second person unavoidably becomes their own person from the moment of separation, the moment either of them says or does anything that starts to develop them in a different direction from the other. And a lot of the time "selfs" in selfcest are even more different than that: Think of the Spider-Verse movies, for instance, or the possible interactions between a Transformer and their alternate universe selves if you crossed some of the cartoons and comics together. Pavitr Prabhakar and Peter B. Parker just do not feel like the same person; neither do EarthSpark Arcee and Transformers Animated Arcee and IDW comics Arcee.

TL;DR though, uh, I have to assume you're asking me because of Slay the Princess. 😅 In which case that was a really long and roundabout way of saying... Honestly, I don't even think "selfcest" applies in STP. (Mostly, at least.) While the voices are all parts of the Long Quiet (and the vessels are all parts of the Shifting Mound), they are different enough people that they necessitate their own names, they have different relationships with one another, they disagree with one another to the point of dislike at times, their actions if they could act on their own would be VERY different, and especially once they have their own bodies I just don't register them as the same person anymore. And I truly think the game backs me up on this, because... the Shifting Mound and the Long Quiet also used to be the same being originally. Go back far enough and arguably any ship that isn't the Narrator/one of the other characters is selfcest! But it so doesn't feel that way to me, not even to the extent that most people mean it.

I have the occasional selfcest ship, but long story short, voices shipping and vessel shipping doesn't actually feel like selfcest to me at all* if that makes sense.

[author-of-oddities]

Imagine Fiddleford convincing Ford to smoke with him in college. It's the week before exams, and Ford is beyond stressed, despite having A+++'s in every single course. Fiddleford sees this day in and day out, and no amount of reassurance seems to help, so he does the next logical thing he can think of and invites Ford out. No textbooks, no math talk, no research.

Just the two of them, out in the woods, with a joint.

The first couple hits really help, Ford notices. His anxiety went from a boil to a simmer, and eventually, to nothing at all. He's quite enjoying the company of his friend, too, who is giving a semi-present lecture about the stars.

Ford doesn't stop there.

Another hit, and Ford's convinced he can hear footsteps further down the trail. There's no light, but what if they catch us, Fiddleford? What if they expel us?

One more, and he can't stop rambling about how he feels watched, how it's as if the trees have eyes. Despite Fiddleford's reassurance, he insists that he's right. Eventually, Fiddleford takes pity on him and guides him back to their dorm, where Fiddleford instructs him to just lay down while he gets a TV dinner going.

The 25 minutes that it took to heat the tray was more than enough time for Ford to fall asleep, then wake up, having endless amounts of nonsense to tell Fiddleford once he did. It was all something about this odd triangle-man who wanted to play chess, but also praised Ford on being one of the most intelligent people in the world. Apparently, he was from another dimension, and wanted to help their dimension communicate with others, bridge the gaps between them and make history.

Eventually, he ended with a desperate explanation of, "he said he's be back, Fiddleford. He just doesn't think I'm in the place to comprehend this right now."

Come the next morning, the pair never spoke of it again.

[catbountry]

Look, I know the Deltarune fandom has collectively decided that pre-Big Shot era Spamton is called "Addispam," but for interpersonal characterization reasons, I write the Addisons calling Spamton "Spamison." By putting the "Spam" in his name right up front as a prefix, it serves to further alienate Spamton from them. They want to remind him that he is not like them; he is a short, janky prototype, an old guy using tactics from a pre-commercial Internet that are much slower and easier to get around than banner ads and pop-ups. He is an inferior version of themselves and they make sure that he isn't allowed to forget it. His tactics are so disliked by internet users that his unsolicited emails are labeled "spam" by a bunch of nerdy users that think quoting Monty Python is peak humor (this was very common in nerd circles in the 90's and early 2000's; trust me, I was there and I was doing it). Perhaps "Spamison" suggests that he be called "Addispam" just to feel a little bit more included, to feel like he could be one of the Addisons, only for the Addisons to ignore this suggestion unless they want favors from him.

Spamton hoarding money to make Pipis nests or just straight-up eating it comes from him having experienced a time where, for years, he did his job and making money wasn't a thing he even thought about until he was forced to flee from a decommissioned ARPANET to NSFNET, which was still a government program but with more private interests involved, and then flee AGAIN to the increasingly commercialized World Wide Web. Having money means that his home won't be abandoned or destroyed. It means he won't go hungry or sleep out in the cold alone. He was never cut out to be a salesman. He actually really sucks at it, no matter how much he tries, and has to resort to outright, blatant scams, preying on the most gullible users out there and barely scraping by as spam filters become more and more common for email clients. Being a Big Shot provided stability, safety, and having so much money meant that he could indulge in its excesses and the power it brought, going completely go to his head and giving him a massive ego because now he is important and famous and people want to be around him. And then when the phone calls stopped, he was rudderless, unable to pick up on anything useful to keep from going bankrupt almost immediately. Money allowed him to thrive, and he needs money in order to barely survive.

There's definitely a lot more of this I'd like to properly explore that I haven't even mentioned. But the idea of him having had to uproot his entire existence, twice, just to be able to find a home that wouldn't be destroyed, is something I haven't seen anybody else expand upon. He's in his 40's and didn't have an actual childhood, instead just being created fully formed as The Email Guy, and going from that, to Spamison, to Big Shot Spamton, to the glitchy, dumpster-dwelling Spamton G. Spamton we've all come to know and love.

Also I like the idea of him always having been short to really give him that short man syndrome that later goes into a full-blown Napoleon complex and serves as yet another reason for him to resent the Addisons. They treat him like a young, exploitable intern despite the fact that Spamton is nearly two decades their senior based on the fact that he's so much shorter than them, he has eight fingers instead of ten, and he's inexperienced in sales, the thing that the Addisons were created for. Indignity upon indignity.

TL;DR:

[ghostpebble]

SONIC MOVIE 3 TALK BELOW (SPOILERS! YOU WERE WARNED)

I know there's been a little bit of debate over the Moon Scene and the Falling to Earth Scene. How were they breathing on the moon? How was Team Sonic (and later Shadow) not burning up in the atmosphere upon re-entry?

Explanation: Plotholes!

But I don't like that answer, so here's some coverup options, scientific and not!

1. The Moon Scene

Scientific: First, a little background. Our moon has no atmosphere, but it does have an exosphere. That exosphere is very thin, and contains no oxygen, only small traces of hydrogen, helium, argon, and neon. So, even with that exosphere, we know humans can't breathe up there. But that's just humans. While the gasses up there are thin, they're still present, even spread apart as they are. The fact that Sonic and Shadow are able to breathe up there could be due to their Chaos Energy allowing them to collect gasses nearby and to duplicate enough of the molecules to breathe. Or, alternatively, they're just able to survive on the thin traces of gasses available to them as aliens. At the very least, we can assume they don't need to breathe exclusively oxygen. Do with that what you will.

▪︎ These would also apply to Tails holding his breath. There is no sort of atmosphere, exosphere, or the like in space. There were no gasses for him to breathe, but there were on the station. So he took a breath and jumped out, and was fine until he fell unconscious (which was likely due to his weaker nature compared to the others, despite his experience with high G-forces  and extreme temperatures).

Non-Scientific: Their Super Forms have a grace period after using them, allowing a few extra minutes of invulnerability. This is weirdly less likely, as it sort of makes less sense (read: why would you still have the abilities of the Super Form after you'd stopped using it?), but if this one works for you, I'm glad!

2. Burning Up

Scientific(ish): Alien durability. In the first movie alone, Sonic crashed a tank and Robotnik's jet craft with his body with a Spindash (which is just his body), and survives that small but powerful explosion that he took the majority of. In the second movie, he fought Knuckles (a seasoned, strengthened warrior) and survived numerous battles, survived an avalanche, and (in both Super Form and not) survived the battle with Robotnik at the end of the movie. In the third movie (bear with me, I've only watched it once!), he fights Shadow, gets slammed into buildings, is one of the only people able to move under intense gravity, survives his Super fight with Shadow, and survives (although is knocked unconscious by) the Eclipse Cannon's beam. This isn't even covering Knuckles' durability (surviving hits from Sonic, getting run over by a car, etc) or even Tails' who is a bit weaker (also surviving the avalanche, manages to fly a biplane with no training). So. Alien durability. Tough fur, tough quills, tough skin, tough bones. (Even though Tails passed out, he managed a few seconds on re-entry and was fine overall.)

Non-Scientific: Pure Chaos Energy! Who's to say it didn't activate some sort of strengthening when in active danger, even if it wasn't visible to us? Not much else to say here. This is a very easy answer to come by.

3. Talking in Space

I was going to say "I got nothing," because there's no way for sound that humans are able to hear to travel in space. But the gang aren't humans, so that opens up some (unlikely) possibilities.

Scientific: They can communicate using gravitational waves. I know, that sounds weird, but gravitational waves are some of the only "sounds" we have in space. And they're not even sounds! They're just waves, but scientists use specialized computers to transform the frequency of those waves into sound. The thing is, if this were how they communicated, not only would the mental mathematics likely be far too complicated to be a language, it would also mean that they would be hearing these sounds near constantly! Black holes radiate gravitational waves. Stars radiate gravitational waves. The Earth radiates gravitational waves. All this to say, not only would it be really difficult, it would also be really annoying and loud for them. If you like this one, go for it, as complex as it would be in practice.

Scientific(ish): They're able to communicate on a different level than humans. Or, that is to say, they can communicate telepathically. I don't like this explanation. They would've done that before to communicate private plans, but, if you like this one, there you go.

Non-Scientific: Plot convenience of letting us as viewers hear them talk, but they actually spoke using ASL or some equivalent. Shadow was in an English speaking facility in the movie verse, so at the very least there was a possibility he learned it from someone there, or even from Maria (ignoring any development of ASL over 50 years and any translation errors occuring because of it). Sonic could've learned ASL over the ten years where he had nothing to do on Earth but watch, wait, and entertain himself. So, yeah. Sign language!

Anyway, again, these are just plothole coverups for what was overall a fantastic movie. And if you actually read all that, lmk if you have any other coverup explanations you like! :D

[k-is-for-potassium]

hey guysss

i have stuff to say 😔

so ive been hiding that i use this site from my parents (yes, i know, scandalous) and after a close call i think that it's wise to not use tumblr on my phone anymore :/

note: on my phone

ive still got a tablet that i use (sometimes) and i can log in on there and check on y'all :D

and also, i think im low-key addicted to this site, so it's good to take breaks lol

and remember:

this is not "goodbye"

this is a "see you later"

and i still love y'all, and i hope y'all still love me even if im not gonna be active as much :)

[tarbuchyloewenthal]

i loved and hated dragon age: the veilguard???

apologies for the extended rant i'm about to go on.

i loved being back in thedas after 10 years, and i loved that final scene with solas. the emotional beats hit just right in that moment.

i loved to absolutely annihilate groups of enemies with arcane bomb popping off every five seconds.

i loved almost all of my companions' arcs. they had so many moments of genuine pathos.

yet all these barely made up for my growing frustration throughout the game at the dialogue and dialogue system, the repetitive quest design, and narrative focus.

this game shares pretty much all the features that i hated when i first played mass effect 3 all those years ago. from the opening of the game skipping everything except the most minimal story set up in favor of bombastic cinematics to the extensive use of auto dialogue taking away the feeling that i had control of my player character.

bioware has apparently gotten into the bad habit of thinking the set up at the beginning of a story is unimportant. i hated starting off with a bang in mass effect 3. i hated it in inquisition. and i hate it now in veilguard. to me it feels like narrative malpractice to forgo the most vital part of the story. only getting a slickly animated cutscene to set the scene in the story instead of any actual attempt to know rook and their relationships with varric, harding, and the world at large really put me off.

the large amounts of auto dialogue only exacerbated my frustration. mass effect 1 (and 2 to a slightly lesser extent) made the dialogue wheel and voiced protagonist feel like an actual evolution of their previous dialogue systems in kotor and jade empire (and origins even though that came out after). i felt like i had actual input. conversations flowed like rpg conversations had always flowed. but in veilguard conversations feel way too passive, only needing my input when the game wanted me to add a small dash of emotional flavor to the conversation or the ever present binary choice for major story moments.

that's not to say bioware didn't write in a lot of reactivity. there's an absurd amount of unique dialogue depending on lineage and faction choices, but i, as the player character, never felt like i was in the drivers seat for any of it.

it made my rook feel completely disconnected from the story they were ostensibly the protagonist of, like they manifested into existence mere seconds before showing up to the bar in minrathous.

and the quests, individually well paced, all mainly followed the same formula of walk down a path, grab loot from side paths, fight some enemies, and listen to your companions talk all the while. part of why i like rpgs is the feeling that i'm inhabiting a world that revolves around more than combat and puzzles for loot. even if that's mostly what video game rpgs boil down to at the end of the day, it's the illusion of that which sells me on the game world. when all your quests involve that same formula, it flattens the game world to nothing but a combat arena. which, to be fair, i felt was a problem all the way back in mass effect 2, as well.

i also didn't like how all the lore reveals flatten nearly all the setting's mysteries down to solas and the evanuris. they were really neat in isolation, but taken together they kind of hollowed out the world.

ok, so i'm tiring even myself out by now, so i'll just mention in passing the relentless and unnecessary expository dialogue, as if the writing team didn't trust the cinematics team to get across literally any information (i'm looking at you bellara on the approach to d'meta's crossing).

this rant gives off the impression that i didn't really enjoy veilguard, but i did. it's just that the things it does well are what you expect from bioware, and the things i find issue with have become a bit of an unfortunate pattern from the studio. the game was so good, but it could have been so much better.

[whinlatter]

In Beasts the idea of Harry buying all of these items for the house he would live in with Ginny is on one hand super sweet because it shows he takes the relationship seriously and on the other hand super irritating because why does he assume he gets to choose all that shit himself without even asking Ginny or without even asking her if she wants to move in?? It's the fact that Harry is making decisions for them by himself and assuming she'd be cool with it. I don't like that tbh. It's like when Harry realizes he has feelings for her in HBP and instead of wondering if she's moved on or if she would even still like him, he worries instead about Ron's reaction. ????? I lowkey feel like Harry should have felt really miserable that Ginny had moved on and liked Dean more than him. But it's like he is arrogant about her feelings for him or something. He doesn't even question it. I can't decide if that's cute or annoying lmao. Like I am not sure if this is Harry truly understanding Ginny and knowing her tastes ("Yes she'd love these egg cups!" "Dean doesn't make her laugh like that! She must still like me we get on so well!") or if its just Harry being a self-absorbed dumbass (SHOULDN'T HE THINK ABOUT HER FEELINGS IN BOTH SITUATIONS!!!!). Like I am over here as a staunch Hinny shipper thinking... "What if Ginny wanted different egg cups, Harry?!" Now she has to pretend she likes your ugly egg cups because if she wants different egg cups it might cause a fight cuz you'd act like a little bitch about it? Am I thinking about this too much?? TL:DR can Harry be normal about something for two seconds or is that not possible. I want Ginny to have a wonderful, caring boyfriend that thinks about WHAT SHE WANTS.

ahh i see where you’re coming from, anon, but i will defend harry and his egg cups a bit here.

there’s no denying that harry is a bit selfish in his relationship and asks of ginny in canon. there’s arguably some necessity to this - the plot demands it - and it reflects something of who harry is and the coping/survival mechanisms he’s developed by the series end. it’s the reason i’ve written his arc in beasts as him having to face up to what he’s asked of ginny, as he discusses this in his letter to her in the next chapter. his arc is him grappling with a loss of identity after the war, trying to look towards building a future he never thought he’d have, and finding out that a big part of that is learning to be on a team with ginny after a long time demonstrating some understandable, but not excusable trauma response behaviours where he hasn’t always treated her as an equal.

which is where the egg cups come in. they (and other assorted crockery) represent harry, at a particular lost moment after the war unclear what he’s for, trying to self soothe by imagining the familial domestic stability he has always craved and buying a little token of that aspiration he can have by him to keep him going. it’s supposed to be a sad sweet (slightly pathetic) image. but there’s no malice in it, just a very lost lad who has gone through a lot doing his best to try and have things to look forward to that might make him happy, like having some dippy eggs and toast with our girl.

i will also reassure you that, should ginny dislike the egg cups, i have no doubt that hjp would bend over backwards/drop serious galleons to source her the egg cups of her dreams.

[self-spaghettification]

callum is a trojan horse s6 theory

In the event that the Novablade doesn't work on Aaravos, because .... he's already been stabbed with it, then...

Aaravos intentionally made Callum terribly afraid of him so Callum would HAVE to go to the Starscraper to kill him—so scared that he’s even doing it when he knows—and Rayla told him—it was a bad idea to bring the pearl. he just made it easier for him. the irony is wonderful. so Aaravos gets the sword, the last ingredient to his revenge on the stars, who he swears will fall.

so he's not dying at the hand of the Novablade, it's his weapon

Added thoughts from mutuals were-- Startouch elves were probably barred from entering the Starscraper for some reason, that’s why he needed to use Callum as his vessel, his Trojan horse—throwback to Fall of Lux Aurea btw, "You allowed my vessel to walk ...directly to the source of all your power?" He's done this before—anyway

Today I Realize

the intro to the show directly supports this idea

just the novablade, on screen. while the stars are falling. in aaravos’s name

in his name. the novablade is literally in his name. but also. metaphorically. likely going to be used/ the stars will be falling in his name

in the intro of a show planned out by arc, an intro set to go the rest of the arc

those bastards knew what they were doing since s4 while everyone was bashing it and they were doing this. they were doing this. isofjdsokfjlskghjoiyet4rwehsufdiggjkhlytr im so ILLLLLL

love you show creators for also making it evident it's gonna be callum/supporting my theory further because

The only other place Aaravos's desire for the stars to fall is mentioned is in Patience.

And what's right below this part that closely parallels the arc 2 intro?

Ziard, Viren, and Callum. in S6, Claudia is also likely interacting with Aaravos. (S6 poster) so...why isn’t she here? Only Callum and Viren are here. Could it be because they’re fulfilling such similar roles?

After the end of s5, we know Viren is likely not the main player in Aaravos's game now, not an option (in one way or another) so

next up as Trojan horse / vessel…

Yeah

so excited for hearts of cinder 2: epic fail: so good at "hero" stuff he accidentally doomed the world

[wesleysniperking]

Usopp Rant 😡 TL:DR

It pains me…

“If Usopp doesn’t do anything in Elbaf, I’m giving up on him. I love Usopp. I do. But if he’s useless in Elbaf, I’m letting him go.”

Or better yet…

“Even if Oda were to throw Usopp a bone, it won’t make up for 10 years of uselessness.”

Heck, this takes the cake…

“When Usopp told Nami to lie that’s when I lost all respect for him. The crew should have left his lowsy a** back in Water 7. He became what he was so afraid of.”

Nah. I was wrong…

“If Van Augur loses to this useless bum, it’ll ruin all of One Piece for me. It’ll be a major a** pull.”

Regardless of wherever and whatever direction Oda goes in with Usopp, I’ll always stand behind Usopp. No doubt about it. It honestly gets my goat when people in snark threads or even official One Piece pages (*cough cough* Reddit, YouTube, Worstgen) continue to criticize Usopp for small things, like they just really want him to lose (nitpick the h*ll outta him). Like, no kidding. But there’s one thing that really bugged me about Wano….

And what that was—was in a famous scene when Nami’s about to get annihilated by Ulti, and Ulti tries to force Nami into denouncing Luffy’s dream, and Nami remains firm by opposing the villainess…and Usopp wants Nami to lie and say Luffy will not become pirate king. He thinks this and urges for this to happen. For her to do so.

Now, I do honestly understand why he said that, and why he did it. If people had good reading comprehension and knew how to pick up on context clues this wouldn’t have to be brought up in anything regarding “Usopp’s bum-a**”.

Point blank, Usopp didn’t want Nami to die.

Lying means nothing to him. They both know Luffy is going to become Pirate King. They’ve seen their captain make the impossible happen!

Ergo, my main gripe is that it seems what Oda did is that he had to paint Usopp in a bad light in order for another character to look good. Nami is awesome. Kudos to her for staying head-strong. But in the same breath I stand by Usopp’s actions and see nothing wrong in them. Luffy wouldn’t look at Usopp badly if he found out what he did, because as the strawhat himself said, there’s no such thing as playing fair in a pirate fight (I may have paraphrased this), and what’s important is Nami making it out alive.

A dead navigator? How else are they getting to Laughtale. F*ck winning the raid/battle when the Strawhats are down a member. It was already looking rough with Luffy…

So, the misconception that Luffy would be mad at Usopp for saying that to Nami is illogical. Besides, how can Usopp force his ideals onto others? Yes, if he’d been in Nami’s same exact situation, he would’ve done what she did. But the point in that scene FOR HIM was about wanting to protect a friend. He loves Luffy, and has already defended his dream (e.g. Arabasta). The first one to do so! But for Usopp, what’s important in that moment is Nami making it out alive. He CAN’T watch a friend die. He can’t watch a friend die in the hands of some b*tch with a power trip; trying to force Nami’s hand. And sure, Nami remained head strong, and she did the d@mn thing. But when other people and fans decide to commend Nami for that moment while also putting Usopp down, things get really ugly for me. Nami fans and Usopp fans should be allies. But it doesn’t happen because they praise Nami and kick Usopp down to the ground.

No, this doesn’t go for EVERY Nami fan, and I’m not saying Usopp fans aren’t guilty of this.

So, I don’t criticize Usopp for his actions. Nor do I criticize Nami for her actions. What I’m trying to come to terms with is how it seems like it’s the whole classic case of painting one character in a very bad light in order to paint another character in a very good light.

Very SEEMINGLY so, Usopp regresses (no he did not regress!), and Nami progresses (cheers! 🥳😕…haters ruin it).

It’s a bit disheartening to have to defend Usopp over such pettiness. But I’ll continue to trust in the process. It just seems like Usopp fans are running on switchblade faith. And sometimes that faith isn’t enough.

But there’s indeed a beauty in the whole concept of retrospect, and at this point, it really does appear that in the overall One Piece narrative, in the overall grand scheme of things, Usopp is the true underdog.

And if people are so certain that Usopp doesn’t a stand a chance against Van Augur then why even entertain the idea? People always maintain (and it STRONGLY appears) that outside of Luffy vs Blackbeard, Usopp vs Van Augur is the most anticipated duel in the Blackbeard Pirates vs Strawhats battle.

Again, why even insult Usopp, if y’all are associating this “sniper with the ice cold drip” with “bum Usopp”? And if Usopp winning would be such an a**pull, will that keep y’all from watching? Will y’all not stop and look? Y’all low key have some big expectations for Usopp (who y’all consider fodder).

The fight might not even happen, yet haters are still looking forward to it. The speculation is strong with this one.

I honestly don’t understand it when people say Usopp is holding the crew back. How??? If that was the case Usopp would be given more focus. The camera would stay on him a little longer.

It’s like Usopp can never win.

Like this BS…

“Yeah, but Luffy and Law wouldn’t have been turned into toys because Haki can counteract DF powers. So, they would’ve been able to successfully mitigate the situation without Usopp’s help.”

Why???

“No. Usopp is still useless. Perona could’ve been defeated by Robin if she were there. Strawhats can make it without Bum Usopp.”

But in all seriousness, I think most of the hate is honestly just bitterness and impatience. And overall, misguided expectations. But people just don’t know how to articulate stuff proficiently in a debate (the comment section) without hate.

If you’re going to like a character, you have to know what you’re getting yourself into. And if you don’t want to do the research, then just pick up on the fine details and know what you want (know who you are). Usopp has flaws, but to just straight up say “I wish he could f*ckin die” and some other hot mess? No dice! If you don’t like him, move on. If you like him, but can’t love him at his “lowest” then get to steppin’.

There are a lot of bitter fans who’ve been unimpressed with Usopp post time skip. But there are even some far more bitter enough to the point to say that whatever he accomplished pre-timeskip was his peak, and that the whole fight with Perona was Oda “just throwing him a bone”. Some aren’t even satisfied with Enies Lobby Usopp, because he didn’t get a decent 1 v 1. “He should’ve had Sanji’s fight”. Typical shonen fan, I guess.

Yet, this bitterness also stems from the upset of Water 7’s narrative working in favor of Luffy instead of Usopp (apparently Longnose was the bad guy here 😒).

Ugh…The Sniper King joke isn’t fun anymore…

“Yeah. I truly just separate Sniper King and Usopp now. Meme aside. They really are separate people, and Usopp is just a bum.” [Proceeds to show panel of when Usopp was on the ground, heavily injured after the Franky family “dealt with him”. And the crew found him. And other racial slurs follow…]

Final + Conclusion

Usopp is still my favorite One Piece character (unconditionally), and I hope he’s given the justice he deserves. I love Sniper King, but I don’t want him to comeback because of the haters.

Usopp needs to get the last laugh.

His fans deserve the last laugh.

We will get the last laugh.

Just wait and see, he’ll come in clutch again.

[markscherz]

i love trying to identify frogs, and ive made progress, for example i can usually tell if a frog is in the families of ranidae (obviously) hylidae and bufonidae, as those are the ones in my area. but i find it quite hard after outside of those families. i feel like just sort of memorizing what families have which attributes is a bad way of going about it, so do you have any tips to narrow down types of frogs, or what i could look into and research about it? i feel like you may have answered this before but i couldn't find it in your FAQ

Vibes and location my friend, vibes and location. There isn't really a recent-enough key to anatomically determine families, and even if there were, it would not work based on external appearance alone—there is too much variation within families, and also many diagnostic features are only in the skeleton.

The best way I know is to just see lots and lots and lots of frogs, and slowly puzzle together which family they're in. For me, that keys my brain into the vibe that the family has, even when the animals are diverse.

BUT, you always have to be aware of what the analogues are in other families. For instance, dendrobatids and mantelline mantellids can look extremely similar—but nothing else looks anything like them. If you know where the animal is from, you can tell which family it is.

A more challenging example may be 'tree frogs'. There are almost identical-looking tree frogs in at least six families (e.g. Arthroleptidae, Hylidae, Hyperoliidae, Mantellidae, Rhacophoridae, Centrolenids). If you don't know where the frog is, there are some traits you just have to know. For instance, arthroleptids have veritcal pupils, whereas centrolenids, hylids, rhacophorids, and mantellids have horizontal pupils. Hyperoliids have weird triangular pupils. Hyperoliids also have weird gular pads in males; some mantellids have special femoral glands. There are special bones in the fingers of some groups and not others. And the way they reproduce can differ—rhacophorid treefrogs mostly make foam nests, whereas mantellid and hylid treefrogs mostly make jelly nests over water. Centrolenids are pretty distinctive.

But this wouldn't be a problem if you know where you are: if it's a treefrog and you're in South America, hylids and centrolenids are your prime candidate. In East Africa, arthroleptids, hyperoliids, and rhacophorids overlap, but are easy to tell apart. In Madagascar, there are only really mantellid treefrogs that look like this, though there are two similar-looking groups that are not closely related. In Southeast Asia, hylids and rhacophorids overlap.

Then there are the ranid-looking frogs, and honestly, this is also where I really struggle. Most of these were formerly in Ranidae, but then we realised they were vastly distantly related, and so they were split—but those splits happened without clear diagnoses for the groups. Consequently, consistent differences between ptychadenids, dicroglossids, ranids, conrauids, pyxicephalids, many mantellids, etc. are essentially unknown, afaik. And many of these can occur together in the same place. In these cases, you get a better clue to the FAMILY if you can work out the GENUS, which is extremely counter-intuitive, but that is just how it is.

By the way, this problem is not unique to amphibians—in birds it is just as bad, and many well-known groups do not have synapomorphies

[ghostmartyr]

I don’t really think Ymir went back on anything her arc built up to, I think her goal was to live a life that she could be proud of, and by saving r&b she followed her principles. It’s tragic but that’s the irony of Ymir, she always wanted to be selfish but couldn’t escape her nature of being a good person. Historia on the other hand…yeah her arc is fucking infuriating

I'm breaking my own commitment to not dip my toes into this, because impulse control what impulse control.

Here's my starting point problem with that:

Ymir does not save Reiner and Bertolt.

At best, her actions get them a pat on the head by their oppressors. They continue to live out being child soldiers for a society that considers them devils. Bertolt dies in their service almost immediately after. Reiner is a suicidal mess whose will to live is bound up in other child soldiers he's responsible for.

No one is saved.

That's a fair tragedy, with someone trying to repay a debt only for it to amount to nothing because the cycles they're all caught up in are larger than any one personal act of altruism. Even trying to good can't undo the harm of systemic cruelty. It's a valid plot for a story like this.

Except Ymir is one of the few characters who realizes how fucked the world is. She's a better person than she ever wants to be, because being good gets you jack shit and she knows that -- but she can't help but lend people the hand she was never given. On its face, that makes her a good candidate for a hopeless sacrifice that saves no one.

The core problem is that, again, Ymir knows how fucked the world is.

You’re going to kill yourself, the ultimate act of submission. Is that how much you want to please the people who treated you like a nuisance?! Ymir, Chapter 40

Ymir kills herself for Reiner and Bertolt, providing the people who left her with decades of living a nightmare a weapon.

Doing stupid shit to help Reiner and Bertolt out tracks. If they hadn't shown up, she'd still be in that nightmare, and she killed their friend.

But she specifically kills herself in a way that aids people who violated her, who will continue to abuse Reiner and Bertolt, and continue to launch offensives that put Historia's life at risk. Ymir has the knowledge to understand that she's not saving anyone from anything here.

There are many potential layers of story that could have been approached with this, but the bottom line for me is that Ymir's most solid convictions are all ignored when she goes with Reiner and Bertolt. There are facets you can examine to make it make sense, just as there are all kinds of things you can examine with Historia's reversal of her arc. It's always a tragedy when someone fails their principles so stunningly. It's the Bad End coming as was dreaded.

It's just that the story does not examine any of it. It's taken as a given that Ymir goes through with this, leaving us with Ymir killing herself for people who hate her in order to give Reiner and Bertolt a temporary reprieve that only condemns them to a familiar suffering.

Even then, you could make a case for characters doing stupid things if the story at least admitted that it was a ridiculously bad idea on all fronts. Our protagonist's arc is built on that. Eren makes bad choice after bad choice after bad choice and every character in his vicinity rightly goes "what." Characters can utterly fail the best of themselves and it can still be a compelling story.

With Ymir, there simply is no story. She chooses to die, and it's taken as inevitable that a character who is so anti-fate and so anti-dickheads would die in a way that benefits a "fate" she rejected and a bunch of dickheads.

Ymir kills herself, and it makes Marley happy and saves no one. She knows enough about the world to understand that.

I do not personally think that the story should get credit for tragic irony that amounts to "what if everything went to hell" without actually bothering to come up with a why for everything going to hell.

Eren's a tragic disaster; Ymir's a dropped thread.

[aerodynamic-acephalic]

Do you ever think about Havoc going to Call and Aaron's bedrooms and wondering where they are between tbk and tsm

I think about it a lot

Imagine being Havoc.

You're sleeping in your room. The fight with other chaos-ridden has worn out all four of you, Call especially. He's not even here. Tamara and Aaron leave with Alex and the weird old lady. It's a little suspicious, but they tell you to stay back, and they'd never do you wrong, so you stay back.

Tamara returns. Alone. She and takes you to the infirmary. It smells like Call. It feels like Call. He's not here though. Tamara talks to a few mages, then goes back to her room. You're just chilling, and-

Call. He's here. And he's scared. There are other people. Familiar people, wearing familiar emotions, but Call's presence on the other side of this damn door is overwhelming. You can hear him he's frantic he's just on the other side of this door let me out Tamara please he's here can't you see help no no he's going where is he going why is he going Tamara we need to leave now he's going he's scared he needs me.

Tamara opens the door and there's no one there. But you can smell him.

And you both race off and off, out and out of the mountain and into the woods you're oh so familiar with and-

Call. He's here. So is Aaron.

So is Alex. He's scaring them. He's going to do something bad. How dare he.

What else do you do? You attack.

Everyone is scared. Everyone is angry. Everyone's hearts thumping a cacophonous war cry. He bit one of you, and one of you bit him, and he bit one of you again, and there are mages coming and there are mages dying and there's chaos and magic and chaos tumbling around. Then it stops.

Call is gone. Aaron is gone. You and Tamara are in her room. Again. What happened? Was that dream? It could have been. Or maybe this is the dream? How long has it been now? Call still isn't here. Neither is Aaron. His smell is fading. Why is he so far away?

And comes the time to go home. But Call isn't here. Neither is Aaron. Tamara is here, though. She keeps you in a car. It's a little small, but it hugs you nicely. You remember being in this car before. But Call isn't here, so you try not to look for the feeling of his leg on your back, or his hands nestled between your ears.

We're at Tamara's house. Aaron isn't here. Neither is Call. Where are they? Where are you taking me?

The people in Tamara's house aren't nice. Or, they don't feel too nice. Even if they don't hurt you, they make Tamara scared. A little bit. She gets scared when you do a lot of things. You stay in her room a lot. She's happier that way.

You'll never tell her, but you're scared too. A little bit. You've been here once, when it was loud. Call and Aaron made it loud. Voices echoing through tunnels and ballrooms. It's quiet now. It hasn't been this quiet for you in 3 years.

Nothing smells like Call. At least under the mountain, you could feel his trace in the walls, in the room, in what was left. There's nothing left here.

How long do I have to stay here? Can I go home? Can I at least go back to a month ago? Please?

[catbountry]

Re: your reblog: No idea why a lot of men don't want anything to do with a movement that was regularly comparing them to bowls of poisoned M&Ms. It'll forever be a mystery

Oh fuck, that fucking post.

Like, look. I understand the importance of communicating why women might be intimidated by men. But that was such a bad comparison. I remember it being circulated by the kinds of people I was hanging out with who would wind up becoming increasingly right-wing, and it felt like every single time there was some sort of poorly articulated point about the fear that gets ingrained into us, it would just push these guys further and further away. This is purely anecdotal, but I was in a discussion with some guys in a server who said that they'd talked with multiple guys who were just kind of vaguely anti-woke not because of any deeply held principles, but because someone on the left was mean to them or disparaged them. In nerd spaces especially, these are guys who were likely already ostracized in school for being weird and are looking for, well, a safe space. And when perceived outsiders (other nerds who are demographically different from them) come in and try and make a space more inclusive, make it safer, and call anybody who objects a bad person... there's a really big social element to that. Like yeah, there's probably misogyny or racism or homophobia that could be unpacked, but those are things you can unlearn. And the best way for these guys to unlearn these behaviors is just through contact with people who are different from them with whom they have positive experiences. It's not the whole process, mind, but it's a good first step. And simply telling someone off for being bad when they might not even fully understand why it is that they have objections will succeed in getting rid of those guys from your spaces, but where do they go from there? Not the diverse and inclusive spaces we would hope they'd go, that's for fuckin' sure.

I don't want to say that it's our jobs to be super nice to these guys all the time, because you know what? Yeah, some of them do suck, as many people of all walks of life do. They won't change their minds because they see no reason to do so. But if you have the energy to try and level with these guys and just say things in a way that isn't accusatory and is just matter-of-fact, it works better. They're more likely to see you as a whole-ass person if you're willing to engage with them as a whole-ass person. It's exhausting, and I'm not the best at it, but goddammit, I've tried, with varying results. Even if they come in swinging, they can be tripped up by a simple "why would you say that?" or "I don't get it." Challenging them in a way that's not accusatory so much as it is asking them to self-reflect. Why would you say that? Why is that offensive joke funny? Why do you think it's an appropriate thing to say to people you barely even know?

I'm not one of those people that denies the existence of the male loneliness epidemic, though I certainly do think loneliness is up with everybody, not just men. I think neuroatypical men are particularly vulnerable; people with autism aren't any more likely than NT people to believe conspiracy theories, but I definitely found myself taking the word of people who I was friendly with when they perpetuated misinformation to me about shit like AGP or ROGD because why would they lie to me? Looking back, there were definitely people who were racist in a more lowkey way that wasn't immediately detectable by me because I couldn't hear the dogwhistles. But just by virtue of being a enby in predominately queer social circles, I have people around me that were able to challenge these views and help pull me away from these ideas (and help me realize that my gender is more "woman?" rather than just "woman"). These friends allowed me to realize just how stupid they actually were. There's a lot of guys, particular straight guys, who just do not have that in their lives. The bigots are always recruiting and there's nothing they love more than disenfranchised young men who are full of misdirected anger and resentment, especially ones who might be psychologically or emotionally vulnerable and incredibly insecure about it. It's a really hard mindset to get out of, particularly when your views get more extreme, and it's also something you have to actually want to change. Admitting you've been played for a sucker by people with agendas and who don't actually give a shit about you is hard. Nobody wants to admit when they've been had.

There's always a lot of resistance whenever anybody floats the idea that hey, maybe we shouldn't automatically assume these guys are assholes when we encounter them; they might just be ignorant, and you can talk to people who are ignorant without coming across as condescending or sanctimonious. Some of them might be assholes but let them show themselves first before deciding that you can't deal with them. But men are like most people; they don't want to see themselves as fundamentally bad or wicked. Nor should they. I know a lot of women who have been hurt by men; shit, I was hurt by the same man over and over and over again and was in denial about it for decades, and it was only after leaving him that I realized just how absolutely fucked he was as a person, and how he'd never have any incentive to change, even when faced with the consequences of his incredibly selfish actions. I tried so fucking hard to get him to improve only to be met with the same rote excuses for why he couldn't, and I kept giving him grace he did not earn. But also I was trying for 21 years. But his problems are his own. Not every man is going to be like him. I've known men who are, deep down, decent people, but they pick up shitty ideas that linger around them like a stinkcloud. The good news about stinkclouds, though? You can take a shower and smell better. You do it regularly enough, you won't stink no more. It's not an immutable trait. But it definitely helps to not hang around other guys who cluster and form a larger stinkcloud. You gotta wash your ass, if you must, as Del the Funky Homosapien once said.

Fellas, you are not a poisoned bowl of M&Ms. You might just be kinda smelly and in need of a bath. You can't remove the poison from those M&Ms, but you can clean up and become the best version of yourself. A lot of us have the stink of a lot of cultural ideas we've been fed without question, and you're not a bad person for having thought these things one time; it's a long process trying to challenge and prune these ideas. But you might be a bad person if somebody tries to reach out to you and you go and roll around in pig shit and declare how much you love being stinky, while also being upset that girls don't want to talk to you on account of the stink... unless they are taught from a young age to ignore it, or they also want to just socially isolate themselves by diving headfirst into the Bog of Eternal Stench. Those women do certainly exist, but they're not going to bring out the best in you, you know?

It's not an easy process, and it's not easy to reach out to people and have the psychological wherewithal to be able to handle some potentially wild shit. But if you're the kind of person who believes in rehabilitation in the justice system, then you should be able to extend that to people who just have some really shitty ideas that they just internalized without question who might just need to hear a perspective that they haven't heard before. Not everybody can do it, but for those who can? Try. You might help keep somebody from quoting crime or suicide statistics to strangers online in an attempt to feel some semblance of power above those they see below them in the societal hierarchy. You can't force change, but you might be able to nudge them in the right direction.

I think that's the best anybody can do. Try to be as kind as patient as you can, but don't take any shit, either. Remain firm in your principles. Remove yourself if you have to. But at least try, even when it's hard, because like it or not, we need as many of these guys on our side as possible of we want to affect the kind of change we want to see in the world.

... And that's all I have to say about that.

[fizzingwizard]

Watching a video about predatory tactics MLMs use to hook members, and one of them is like, "Just go onto their social media and like and comment on a bunch of their stuff. They'll feel loved and want to love you back!"

This is the perpetual problem with social media and the human desire for validation. It even existed in the days of livejournal, where comments weren't as In Your Face All The Time, but you still felt bad when you didn't get comments on a post and others did. Enter Facebook, Youtube Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr, Flickr, Reddit, Tiktok, and all their associated forms of users paying tribute to each other. It's so fascinating that even though the "dislike" button disappeared, or was never a thing, it is still easy to make people feel negative emotions around their social media experience simply by not interacting with their posts.

Enter "follow for follow!" "like for like!" "this blog follows back!" and every other variation. The thought process makes sense. "I want attention. You want attention. By giving each other attention, we both benefit!"

"... And if others see us giving attention to each other, they'll think we must have something exciting going on, and admire us and want to be part of us as well!"

You could argue it's no big deal when this happens on blogs. People's livelihoods aren't compromised like they are with MLMs. But I think I would probably argue back that it's this sort of pandering that creates the MLM mindset - specifically, the framing of "We might not actually like each other, but we're going to pretend like we do so others will think we're cool" as a "loving" thing to do. You're giving people what they want, you're validating them! It's love! You don't mean it... but what does it matter if they think you do?

(And when they find out you're fake, you can argue you're just playing the game like every other blog out there. You thought they were in on it. Aren't they wise to how the internet works yet? People don't like stuff they like, they Like them so their stuff will get Likes too, you silly goose! Anyway, would you prefer to be a nobody whose posts get zero interaction at all??)

Leaving MLMs aside, this applies to fan works as well and that's where it hits the most for me personally, as a fan writer. You see posts all the time with some message like: "Likes don't do anything, please reblog," "if you don't leave a comment writers/artists don't feel motivated to work," etc. Even things like "comment month! Go leave lots of comments on fan works this month!" play into it, although I'm not trying to say that sort of thing is bad - it's well-intentioned and maybe does some good, assuming people use it properly as an opportunity to leave comments that they want to say, rather than random "obligatory" comments because they've been made to feel bad for not commenting in the past.

Fan works take lots of time: weeks, months, years if you're me (teehee). It is disheartening to work hard, finally post your project, see it get a few notes and then vanish into the internet ether. Of course we want validation. The trouble is we have been groomed to believe "doing numbers" is proof that we've made it. You like me you really like me!

I do understand that there's a lot of competition in fandom, and we all have to self-promote to some degree. But in my eyes self-promotion that involves faking connection with others is harmful. What, this is fandom and it has little bearing on the real world! But it creates harmful mindsets about how relationships should be judged and weighed. It reroutes the fun of fandom into a weird market dynamic where friends become business partners. (You know what they say about doing business with friends...) And the worst part is how we can so easily rationalize it. "Everyone uses social media this way, it's expected, so it's fine." "I'm being part of the group by liking things I don't like! If I didn't do that I would be unfair."

It's not loving to say things you don't mean. It's not kind to fake emotion. And it's not this amazing thing to become the Biggest Fan On Turf. Yeah I'm speaking as someone who never was that cool, but think about it - Get 100,000 notes, enjoy the dopamine hit. Then tomorrow you've got to get them again. Get 10 comments when you're used to maaaybe 1. It feels amazing! Then tomorrow you've got to get them again. Or you won't be happy.

Someone will leave you a beautiful, thoughtful comment, showing that they really paid attention to the details in what you made and it made them feel a real connection. You'll read it, smile to yourself, and then the smile will fall as you scroll down and realize no one else commented.

That one comment was worth 100,000 obligatory notes all by itself.

It is very very hard to fight the social media pressure to Have the Most and Be Liked the Most. It gets easier when you realize how little that actually means. The social marketplace is predatory. It imitates the worst aspect of the business world, that which takes advantage of the enthusiasm and creativity of others. Your genuine feelings, what made you want to create art and enjoy others' in the first place, don't have any value in it. But your attention does.

It has become rather unpopular to say "make art for yourself" on tumblr and I get it. Notes and comments are more than just nice - it's that pesky human need for connection again. Still I think it's important to point out that there are those of us who have worked to extricate ourselves from the "feed me interaction" programming and made nests in our own corner of the web that we are perfectly content with. If you want to keep your fandom experience genuine, keep it small and appreciate every validating interaction with another fan that comes your way. You're very lucky, because you know they meant every word.