#which is Bonkers

[pianokantzart]

What do you think Luigi's friendships with DK, Toad, and Peach will be like in the sequel (and maybe Yoshi, if he's introduced)? We saw very little of their interactions in the movie so there are lots of possibilities.

No kidding. One of the things I'm most looking forward to in the sequel is Luigi properly interacting with the rest of the cast. Poor guy was in a cage for so much of the movie that he barely got a word in with anyone besides Mario.

Donkey Kong seemed to like Luigi from the get-go, but if DK and Mario continue to have tension between them despite how many times they've saved each other's life, Luigi's going to get roped into that tension, even if he just ends up as a guy on the sidelines begging the two of them to chill. I see a relationship between Luigi and DK as friendly but strained, with Luigi siding with his bro while understanding the gorilla is a good guy at his core, and DK not taking Luigi even remotely seriously in a "condescending big brother" sort of way.

I'm pretty certain Luigi and Toad would get along great. Movie Toad is just pure friendliness, easily enamored and endlessly excited. He and Luigi also fill the same sort of role: not much of a fighter, but happy to help out in every little way they can, with the big difference being Toad craves excitement while Luigi wants to avoid it. I can envision them forming a bond of mutual admiration, with Luigi envying Toad's confidence while Toad admires Luigi's physical abilities which... whether he recognizes it or not... aren't too different from that of his brother.

Princess Peach and Luigi have great friendship potential, but I can easily see Movie Peach accidentally getting overprotective of Luigi. She was already pretty protective when it came to Mario, even as he proved his strength and competence over the course of the film. This was for good reason of course, but it's clear Princess Peach is dedicated fully to two things: helping those who won't back down, and guarding those who don't want any part of the fight. Heck, her royal duties revolve around ensuring a civilization that can't hold up in the face of conflict is able live out a life of peace and contentment, so it'll probably be new territory for her working with Luigi; utterly terrified, yet willing to put himself in harm's way for those he loves. I'd really like to see that.

[homosandhomies]

the fact that i watched smosh for the first time in KINDERGARTEN and now i’m finishing my first semester of college???? time fucking flies

[sourbombz]

You know I DO wanna watch a raincode playthrough again but I do fear I'm going to hear any refernce on Number One again and start going insane. This is not inherently a bad thing but I'm debating if I'm able to handle the emotions at the point of life I'm at

[thebookworm0001]

wait what do you mean the lord of fortune background randomly drops that you were enslaved by Tevinter before joining the Lords

[nullians]

My pragmatic just-do-what-can-be-done brain cannot fucking take this. Mother has been yelling and guilt tripping this worker guy about an issue that’s pretty much on both of them, and she’s been going in circles instead of asking productive questions like JESUS. Stop being an asshole and solve it. Or not. And all this yelling is happening in the house so she is setting my conflict sensors off. I’m so stressed

[elgringo300]

Lime

I am insulted

...only during exam week

[gallifreying-your-posts]

In honor of doing gallifreyan for almost exactly two years, here's how many files I have in my gallifreyan folder on my computer. (I didn't organize them into a folder until 2023, but the oldest gallifreyan file I have is from July 2022.)

That's 225 files over about two years. I can't do math and I don't know how many per week on average that is, but that's not as many as I thought I had done... until I remembered I've also filled over 3 notebooks, each with 240+ pages, with gallifreyan designs. So the number of designs I've done, not including doodles on scrap paper, is somewhere close to a thousand. I think.

[fierceawakening]

Still cackling about that Jesus post. Like…

Dominionist dumbasses: SWOLESUS KRYSTE *Metal riffing*

Other Christians: Did… did you guys just gender essentialism so hard you broke a religion?

[a-method-in-it]

So having read a bit about North Korea (really recommend Without You There Is No Us for anyone who is curious; fantastic piece of investigative reporting by a Korean American journalist), this was immediately weird to me.

In the notes, OP says that the UN rule preventing citizens of the DPRK from traveling abroad is UN Resolution 2397. So I looked it up and read the whole thing.

First thing that jumps out is that this was passed in 2017, which...the North Korean government has prevented citizens from traveling except under very specific circumstances for decades; this is, in fact, a huge point of pain for people on both sides of the 38th parallel, many of whom were permanently separated from their relatives. Over the last 40 years there have been some supervised visits allowed, with participants chosen by lottery, but even that has been sporadic. Some families have been able to exchange letters or pay brokers in China to facilitate communication, but others have never seen their relatives again.

The idea that freedom of movement has only been restricted for citizens of the DPRK since 2017 is bonkers. But I suppose it's possible there were past resolutions that said something similar, so I press onwards.

The resolution is only 11 pages and most of it deals with cutting off the sale of goods, especially petroleum, to the DPRK in response to its latest nuclear missile test, which took place in violation of international law.

In addition, the resolution does indicate that member states should not allow DPRK nationals to work in their country for the purpose of earning money that supports the illegal missile program and should "repatriate to the DPRK all DPRK nationals earning income in that Member State’s jurisdiction and all DPRK government safety oversight attachés monitoring DPRK workers abroad." This applies unless the person has dual citizenship or is a refugee.

As an aside, it is kind of funny to see references to government attaches monitoring citizens working abroad in a document that is being proffered to support the idea that the DPRK is totally chill with people going abroad.

And it's worth pointing out that Amnesty International reports that a lot of workers from North Korea who work abroad are actually forced labor whose salaries are confiscated by the DPRK to fund government operations. So like, these people are not freely traveling to other countries for work and they are materially aiding the illegal weapons program, even though they don't have much choice in the matter.

But even ignoring that, this document really doesn't support the idea that the UN --- which actually is a more or less democratic institution by the way, unlike the DPRK which emphatically is not --- is somehow the reason North Koreans cannot travel abroad.

They can't travel abroad because the North Korean government places huge restrictions on their ability to do so and has since 1953. This is just a fact.

Yes, the way people in the West talk about North Korea is not good. However, that is mostly because people like to make it out to be either kooky or innately evil --- whereas the reality is that North Korea is a brutal dictatorship that places heavy restrictions on its citizens. It is neither kooky nor evil; it is a country that is the unfortunate victim of 70 years of totalitarian rule by a single family willing to go to extremes to maintain their grip on power.

According to Amnesty International:

citizens in the DPRK are not allowed to criticize the government or read or watch "reactionary" content,

the country in 2023 implemented new restrictions meant to limit South Korean-style speech, and these crimes are theoretically punishable by execution in order to "'break the spirit' of those 'polluted' by South Korean language and culture."

forced labor still appears to be common, including labor by children in industrial settings

some of this forced labor, again, includes people sent by the government to work in China or Russia whose income is then confiscated by the state and whose movements are controlled while abroad

arbitrary arrests by law enforcement are common as a way to suppress dissent

prison camps for dissenters and critics of the government appear to still be operating

You can criticize the way people in the West talk about and think about North Korea --- and the way American foreign policy has made the situation there worse at times --- without caping for a dictatorship.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is not democratic; it's not a republic; it's not even actually communist. It's a totalitarian state ruled by a brutal dictator for his own benefit, where people suffer as a result of his regime.

Refusing to acknowledge that is tankie shit.

really turns me into the joker hearing people be like "oh citizens of the DPRK can't travel to other countries or work, they're all trapped there" when that was literally a UN thing. like the UN is the one who decided that not the north korean government.

[cumulo-stratus]

Me whenever i wake up to a message from you

me too man, me too

[keferon]

Head in hands.

I know the entire fandom loves Elita One being "on the good side" but I personally prefer her sitting on a throne made of dead bodies

[andiamburdenedwithgloriousfeels]

in hindsight this was the least crazy part of 2020

i can't believe i'm starting 2020 with a solo CATS screening. the oppulance.

[relaxxattack]

via the last ask, is Karkat a freak or would it just be a form of troll polyamory? or am I forgetting some important quadrant lore or smth and this is a dumb question

KIDS REALLY DON’T KNOW THAT KARKAT’S GAY ANYMORE… i joked about this earlier but i didn't think it was true 😭😭

ok i don't blame you for not knowing since, imo, fandom seems to have forgotten this when it comes to karkat and alternian analysis. somehow. even though it's his whole thing.. let me explain.

basically, karkat vantas is queer.

his arc sort of pointedly mirrors dave’s in that it’s about how hard he’s compensating for that - constantly obsessing over romance and “doing it right”, then enforcing that on himself and others.

karkat starts as a bootlicker. he wants to be in the military, he wants to fill his quadrants, he wants to lead, he wants to be the best and most successful troll that's ever lived... to make up for the fact that he's mutated. this isn't just implied, it's stated; karkat is desperate to prove he can be the Standard Alternian Troll.

karkat is a mutant marked for extermination, which obviously is different to sexuality. but it's worth noting that karkat's arc is already about putting up fronts for things about him that are "wrong"...

...especially when it's revealed that his sexuality is also "wrong".

trolls believe in having one destined partner per quadrant- four separate relationships that must not mix. it's enforced both culturally and by drones. but the concept of a troll romance that goes "beyond the four quadrants" is introduced to us by karkat's ancestor. we come to realize that karkat's romantic issues might not just be circumstantial-- they might be a legitimately different form of attraction he feels.

towards the end of the story, when davekat is officially canonized, the story plays a little cheekily about "nobody knowing" which quadrant dave and karkat settled in.

because just like how dave came to terms with how bullshit the cultural restrictions of human sexuality are, and talks about this at length; karkat may have realized that it's okay to break the rules.

while some people think that this means karkat was destined for "human romance"... i personally think that's a bit silly, since karkat has proven he can't stick to pure red feelings for someone. it's more likely that his new relationship involves all those quadrants he loves, simultaneously. who cares about rules?

TL;DR: yes, karkat vantas is queer for a troll and that's all there is to say on the matter.

[egophiliac]

"IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A JOKE" As someone who's been playing TWST since march and stopped going out of my way to be spoilerfree after I got stuck at Overblott!Jamil? That's honestly been one of my favorite things about it - seeing something in fanart or a comment you think is just fans joking, only for it to be canon. "The economy!", "May I also throw a tantrum?", Malleus' gargoyle thing, and... everything about Rook being my top examples.

there's a whole bit in Trey's platinum birthday card where he goes on about how he became increasingly obsessed with mustard for like a week straight until the other students held an intervention. how are you supposed to talk about this. how can you bring up something like Trey's descent into mustard obsession to the point that the other characters are worried for him without it sounding like the most obvious lolrandom "he mentioned it once and now fandom acts like he puts mustard in everything" joke. also, how can I slip this into every Twst post from now on, because I need everyone in the world to know that this is a real canon fact about Trey "I'm just an average normal guy (who sticks my hands into people's mouths and owns 20 toothbrushes and used to eat flowers off the side of the road)" Clover.

for bonus points, 1) the punchline is that he still doesn't even like mustard that much, 2) he's saying all of this to Leona, and 3) Leona is actually kind of invested in Trey's mustard story for some reason, which is the most unbelievable part of all of this to be honest. (then Trey gets distracted by a painting of the Cheshire Cat and Leona takes the opportunity to powerwalk away to freedom before they can start talking about dijon versus spicy brown or whatever and extend this bit even longer)

[quirkle2]

it's nice to feel childlike wonder again

[markscherz]

check out this neat little guy i found in a park in northern california! he was iridescent, so cool!

Pretty sure this is a Sceloporus, which are just awesome lizards. Did you get a chance to see the belly? Because it can be just *stunning*.

[src]