#yeah some lame sword that comes outta nowhere

[the-black-bulls]

what might you think of Nero and Sally as a duo?

Send me duos or trios and I'll give you my opinion

I think I like this duo more than I expected!

why it's complicated?

well, here's the thing, I absolutely despise the concept of making nero a scientist in the movie cause if there's one (1) thing that I hate with a burning passion about black clover; it's to make the black bulls serve clover kingdom in weird ways that doesn't fit with their characters or journeys, like, I'm already annoyed by the double standards of exiling the bulls but still reaching out to them to do the kingdom's biddings, but why even nero is working there... the mere implication that she's doing some dumb lab work INSTEAD OF having fun with the bulls in the, I quote, "fighting tournament held every ten years" is making me so, so pissed.

alright, movie rant over, now for the good part...

I absolutely like the sweet potential of nero and sally's friendship on its own: I can see them ironically become besties, their interactions would be hilarious with their polar opposite personalities, and it'd be entertaining to see them get nerdy about magic tools and scientific stuff while everyone else gets brain damage just hearing them 😂

so yeah, I like this duo FOR SURE as long as we agree that scientist nero is bullshit and she, I don't know, has her own workshop instead which is where she and sally bond and become partners in the future after sally's done with her time serving the kingdom

also I love this screenshot a lot!

SHE PROTECT!!

[furibond]

ok imunna air out the rest of my marineford frustrations cause externalizing stuff helps me let go of it, under readmore for convenience

ok so part of my frustration comes from being spoiled - if you know from the start that the pirates will fail, watching all these cool new pirates struggle against smarmy marine assholes knowing the assholes will come out on top doesnt feel fun, while i imagine the intended experience is for the viewer to be rooting for the pirates expecting them to win, and then be shocked and grief-struck when ace dies.

some of my other grievances are legitimate, though!

1st problem is this arc is too focused on new characters. we already lost the strawhats at sabaody, but in impel down the focus was consistently on luffy, with a rotating cast of familiar faces joining him and only 3 new allies introduced. marineford is a constant parade of new faces, some of the main emotional beats of the arc hang on those new faces, and sometimes it does not work at all. like, oars jr, sure, the flashback with the hat was cute enough and the animation and voice acting compelling enough that yeah, you feel for the guy when he nearly reaches ace then drops not-dead. squard, though? i dont feel shocked by his betrayal, cause i dont know him and he shows up outta nowhere with a spider on his face and a shirohige-sized sword. i dont feel moved by shirohige's forgiveness and his repentance, cause i barely know shirohige at this point and squard's little flashback after his betrayal wasnt enough to make him endearing. theres a stretch of episodes after the tsunamis freeze where luffy doesnt show up at all and it is Such a breath of fresh air when the impel down ship drops down in the middle of the battle cause why should i care abt this war otherwise?

also maybe it's just cause i'm bad at strategy but the battle makes so little sense to me? like it seems pretty clear that shirohige could destroy like all the marine small fry and the 3 admirals could destroy all the pirate small fry, but after their big opening moves of the twin tsunamis getting frozen by aokiji, they p much just sit back and watch for a huge chunk of the arc? like yeah having all the small fry wiped out early on would be lame, but u could have the admirals engage shirohige and the division commanders and then shift the narrative focus to the smaller battles, so i dont have to wonder why all the big names arent doing shit. the shichibukai get a pass cause it's been long established that they barely listen to the marines and it was an ordeal just to get them to show up, but everyone else confuses me

finally, ace's stupid death, copied from a chat:

alright so i knew from tumblr and fanfic that ace was gonna die saving luffy from akainu. alright, sounds angsty, i can get behind this. somehow nobody ever mentions that the reason akainu had such an easy shot at luffy was BECAUSE ACE STOPPED TO ARGUE WITH HIM IN THE MIDDLE OF THEIR ESCAPE CAUSE HE WAS TALKING SHIT

like your father is literally sacrificing his life back there so that you and your fam can escape with your lives and you gotta "defend his honour" by throwing your life away fighting some shitty marine instead of honoring his sacrifice by getting the hell outta dodge??

and additionally the mechanics of his death r so dumb??? he dies because magma burns hotter than fire? no it fucking doesn't?? in what world???? so the guy made of literal fucking fire dies cause the hot rocks were too hot and burned the fire? i.

aight thats it thats all i had to rant about, now i feel better

[leam1983]

On Autumn

I call these chilly, wet days with bright colors and overcast skies the Dying Days. Nature's nowhere close to dying, she's just tucking herself into bed. No, what's really dying is a chapter of life itself. Maybe I see too much syncronicity in this, but defining moments in my life usually happened somewhere between late August and late November.

Today felt like one of those days: colorful, vibrant, chilly, with the earth smelling of decay outside the office - and everything telling me to get the Fuck outta Dodge while I still can.

The Big Boss is in denial. He's repeating to anyone who'll listen that the chip shortage is on its last legs. It's not. Appointments and referrals are in the pits, our no-shows are through the roof, and our clients are down to basically begging and groveling, plastering superlatives on dogshit rebates and hoping beyond hope that calling Joe Average for his 2014 Corolla's going to land them a buyback. My call center colleagues are filling in for the satellite teams that handle tire-change season for local garages. Hours might shift to a nine-to-five to reflect this, which I don't mind.

That covers October, and only October. November is usually dialed in months in advance, ahead of the Holidays, and now we have nothing. The salesforce might see its hours slashed within a week. I'm fine, being on the Production team, but the Sword of Damocles is still up there, all dangly-like. For the second week in a row, we've got nothing planned for Friday.

Next week? Hey Google, play The Twilight Zone's theme.

All because the global chip shortage is driving prices and import costs up the wall. Things get spread out across the chain, but the consumer ends up picking up the saltiest part of the final tab. It's hard to present anything as a great deal when you're looking at a 10% upmark cost for even last-gen sedans. That means no buyback offers. That means no clients for us, and those that do hang on are told to revise their expectations.

When I took the phone, I used to be able to bring in fifteen, maybe twenty referrals and appointments a day. Now, with the same skills and toolset, I bring in three. Sometimes five or six, on my better days - and that's for the mid-range and high-end sectors.

Try calling in and around factory and manufacturing districts. Try convincing a young mother that's already struggling to make ends meet in the midst of the Delta wave that shouldering a debt in the tens of thousands is worth it when her car's barely six years old.

Fuck, no.

The call center's deserted, our huddles turned into the seven or eight remaining regulars hashing things out around the coffee machine, and it's gotten harder than ever to keep the froshes motivated. Now, more than ever, they're aware of how upper management sees them.

They're disposable, and it pisses me the fuck off. We're some of these kids' first job ever, some of my youngest colleagues are still in their mid-teens - and the fun they had over the summer's evaporated. Now we're just the breadline they need for their smartphone contract or their tentpole console and PC releases. The breezy ones turned into cavalier types, then turned brazen - then stopped giving a shit. Four of them are playing hooky almost weekly. Instead of addressing things responsibly, the floor manager's pacing around the lanes and aisles, taking anyone aside who isn't transfixed with their desktop's set of Web apps.

"I'm afraid you're not giving us your 100%" is something I've heard several times over the past week, now. She's given it to me, too. I used to think Floor Manager Boss Lady could look fierce when she needed to - a moderately non-cliché Girlboss type - and now all I'm seeing is a cornered animal. Whenever she reports back to The Actual Boss, it's with taut skin and deepening worry lines. She's terrified.

The veterans feel it, too. Apart from their pension, the paycheck made their modest lives livable. Now, though? Those with enough strength left are scrambling, and those that can't are in the process of navigating HR's darkened halls to try and find an exit that doesn't land them on the unemployment line. Half of these guys' work is starting to look like the kind of stuff you'd see pushed around work placement agencies: pages and pages of LinkedIn printouts and Indeed screengrabs.

The Actual Boss is spending more and more time at the gym. He handles things well, but you can tell that there's a punching bag, somewhere, that's taking the blame for everything from the strikes in South Africa's silica mines to the various manufacturers' head offices being stuck trying to keep the shareholders in line with offers that aren't too generous.

Others don't have release mechanisms. Some colleagues of mine stormed out of the floor manager's office, cussed out shitty scripts in full view of Production team members or just stopped giving a shit. Our metrics are getting worse, which makes people feel worse.

People openly talk about looking for other jobs. In Quebec, at least, etiquette demands that you don't publicly discuss job-hunting while on the clock. There's been several reprimands, already.

As expected, nobody gives a shit. I sure as fuck don't. I don't give in to the temptation, but I also haven't worked my own authority as a fill-in supervisor all that much. I shield the other supers, all the while nodding at the mouthier types and adding I feel ya on the after-hours Discord group.

I've got three interviews lined up. Work's already notified. Supervisors and floor boss accepted that with looks of quiet resignation, but Actual Boss came up to me, offered to give me a raise out-of-pocket (assuming I didn't tell anybody) and more or less begged me to stay.

We get along well, but I also get along with girls in Accounting. How's it going to look for me if I drink from that cup and one of these girls notices weird extras in my slips? I can't do that, not in good conscience.

One of the sales reps took me aside, a few days back. They're not fazed yet, they're partly paid by commission. They make cash even out of sales they cinch outside of our referrals and appointments.

"You know why you'd never really hack it as a salesman, Brain? You're too nice. You empathize too much."

I realized that this was coming from the rat bastard in the salesforce; the salamander who's okay with pricing overused and worn-out demos as close to Stock price as he could without breaking the law.

I smiled icily, took a swig of coffee. "Yeah, it must be nice knowing you'll just go back to the same four Nissans and that you won't ever have to confront a customer's dissatisfaction. Betcha you sleep real well, at night."

He didn't pick up on my sarcasm. "They're just opinions, bro; I'm just here to deal, y'know?"

Sure. Deal away. In the meantime, some of my colleagues have been driving the same busted sedan to the point of being ordered by the cops to get their cars towed in for servicing - all because they can't structure their budget around a broken part that costs two hundred dollars to fix.

I caught one of my older colleagues weeping, alone in the cafeteria. An older lady, sweetest person you've ever met; everyone's Favourite Grandma, no matter the lack of blood relations. She was crying, because she wasn't sure how she was going to afford Christmas presents for her grandkids.

I hugged her after sanitizing my hands, social distancing be damned. If it weren't for my Disability Savings Account, I'd be forced to stick my inhalers on my Visa.

I figured the end of my tenure there would feel like a big, huge nothing-burger. Woop, one office - and zoop; another office!

Instead, it feels like I'm watching clumsy hunters trying to work out how to put a lamed hunting dog out of its misery. Doom and gloom around the water cooler, either in the meatspace or on Slack.

Time to send more resumés - except I'd rather stop and hug more people for a few days, first.