#you know what's genuinely insane?

[egophiliac]

happy new year Ego!!! Just wanted to let you know that I absolutely adore your twst fanart and the tags are just an absolute pleasure to read! You are my greatest inspiration for my personal twst art and I just wanted to thank you for your wonderful masterpieces <333 if possible, may I ask what are some of your headcanons for the diasomnia family? If not for diasomnia then any other characters are fine as well!

thank you, and happy new year! 💚💜💚 that is amazing to hear; it's always a little bewildering but super flattering that other people like my silly little doodles so much!

I don't think I really have any really solid headcanons and also canon keeps validating me left and right (FLUFFY DOMESTIC DIAFAM IS REAL). mostly just kind of...impressions and general thoughts, if that makes sense! lately though I've been kind of obsessed with thinking about Lilia's hair, and specifically when/why he ended up cutting it. (l-look, we're bouncing around the timeline and I gotta make decisions about these things when I draw, it's relevant) (I mean I would probably be weirdly fixated on this anyway, but.)

I think I've settled on the idea that he kept it long until he went to NRC, partly because 1) I like drawing The Ponytail, and 2) I think he thought of NRC as a chance to reinvent himself a bit! he gets to go and be a wacky carefree teenager for a few years and have fun! (officially he's there to keep an eye on Son #1, but how much trouble could he get into, really.) so he gave himself a Cool Teen Haircut to go with his fresh new Cool Teen Persona!

also maybe he had some reflection on his hair's troubled past with three kids...

...and had to weigh his vanity versus the fact that he was going off to be around hundreds of kids on a daily basis, and. the choice suddenly seemed obvious.

[moonkhao]

WE ARE | EP16

[twocutlines]

does anyone remember in s6 when eddie said "i hate being forced to date it feels like i have to perform" and they immediately panned to hen (at the time the only canon lgbt member of the team) giving him a Meaningful Look that was not explained whatsoever. like what was all that about

[rambles-about-minecraft-ocs]

one of my favorite things about zedaph is that on a server full of people that find strange and oft-overlooked minecraft mechanics or rare events and then see just how far they can push them in the name of spectacle or efficiency or world-breaking, zed is over here finding these mechanics in order to do the weirdest things he can think of in as entertaining a manner as possible

like i 100% have faith in zedaph's theoretical ability to be just as efficient or spectacular or world-breaking. if he wanted to do that stuff, i trust that he absolutely could. but thats so far from being his priority. instead, hes going to spend around a week of irl time focused entirely on eventually having the good luck to spawn in something insanely rare so that he can convert it into something even rarer, the result of which being something that 99% of the server reacts with complete and utter shock that it even exists in the first place, just because its zany and funny and he wanted to. and i love that

[avicecaro]

hate to say it, but part of ending the stigma around sexual assault means not assuming every woman blames herself. yes, female socialization encourages it, but that doesn’t make it a given, and the goal of all of these campaigns is to eventually diminish the proportion of women who do blame themselves. it is entirely possible, and increasingly common, for women to experience sexual assault and not feel shame or guilt, which we should be happy about. but instead, there are only so many times you can hear “you know it’s not your fault, right?” before it sounds like “it was your fault”. and there’s only so many times you can hear “don’t blame yourself” before it sounds like “you should blame yourself”. because it feels good to say, doesn’t it? sure, you don’t believe she’s guilty, but you do believe she should feel guilty, so that you can disabuse her of the notion. just something to consider.

[introspectivememories]

too many of you guys think nico is the loser and not lewis for letting the divorce go on for so long. like they're both losers about each other. emotionally constipated idiots who can't talk about their toxic homoerotic friendship that imploded on itself like 8 years ago and are now making it everyone else's problem. yeah nico's on television or in beer gardens talking about lewis all the time but like every other month some reporter is like "lewis, what's your favorite moment in your career?" and lewis no hesitation is like "oh man, karting, y'know? everything was simpler then" and then spends another six months skirting around nico's name. like this whole thing they're doing in the media isn't some kinda extended foreplay for them. they're both still pressing on the bruise to make sure it's still there!!! every few months, they're literally just asking on public television, does it still hurt for you like it does for me? and like clockwork, someone will release new information about them or one of them will say something about each other (in my heart, he's still my best friend/yes... and teammate) and the answer will remain the same, yes, of course, always.

[sallymew4]

EVERYONE STOP WHAT YOURE DOING RIGHT FUCKING NOW

EVERYBODY SHUT UP IMMEDIATELY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[blueskittlesart]

*sigh* thoughts on Nintendo's botw/totk timeline shenanigans and tomfoolery?

tbh. my maybe-unpopular opinion is that the timeline is only important when a game's place on the timeline seriously informs the way their narrative progresses. the problem is that before botw we almost NEVER got games where it didn't matter. it matters for skyward sword because it's the beginning, and it matters for tp/ww/alttp (and their respective sequels) because the choices the hero of time makes explicitly inform the narrative of those games in one way or another. it matters which timeline we're in for those games because these cycles we're seeing are close enough to oot's cycle that they're still feeling the effects of his choices. botw, however, takes place at minimum 10 thousand years after oot, so its place on the timeline actually functionally means nothing. botw is completely divorced from the hero of time & his story, so what he does is a nonissue in the context of botw link and zelda's story. thus, which timeline botw happens in is a nonissue. honestly I kind of liked the idea that it happened in all of them. i think there's a cool idea of inevitability that can be played with there. but the point is that the timeline exists to enhance and fill in the lore of games that need it, and botw/totk don't really need it because the devs finally realized they could make a game without the hero of time in it.

[smile-files]

not gonna go in depth on my feelings about the finale right now... i'm just so happy for cabby!! :)

[vanillajunmyeon]

not to sound absolutely deranged but i have been reading merthur fics (as usual, what i have been doing daily since march) while at work (yes) and the rush of serotonin is just unmatched, i'm giggling and blushing JUST because my blorbos are getting together for the 500th time in a different way

the merthur addiction is going splendidly everyone who knows me is quite done with me

[nartml]

was it casual when i had a panic attack at the thought of you dying was it casual when you risked your entire carrier just to feed me lunch was it casual when you were willing to die protecting me even though you wouldn't accomplish any of the goals you devoted yourself to was it casual when i spent so many nights rolling around in deep thought about whether you think of me like i do about you was it casual when i wished for you upon a shooting star was it casual when i refused to let you continue your way down a path of self-destructive loneliness even though you wanted me to was it casual when you needed to kill me and only me to grow stronger and be entirely untethered from your past but you just couldn't was it casual when i preferred to bear your pain and hatred and die fighting you as opposed to giving up on you was it casual when i could trade blows with you (read your heart) even though your supposed wife couldn't was it casual when i was your one and only was it casual when the hands that we blew off of each other bore the evidence of our cosmic connection was it casual when you cried your first tears of relief and happiness after you lost to me was it casual when you kept in touch with me but not with your wife was it casual when we fought and laughed and became inseparable was it casual when i can't exist without you was it casual when i put all my goals on hold because how could i focus on them when i can't even save you was it casual when you were my main motivation for training to become infinitely stronger was it casual when i'd remain a fool my entire life if being smart meant that i had to give up on you was it casual when you know my heart i yours was it casual when

[jupitermelichios]

This is a great thread! At the risk of being boring, I want to drill down into the numbers @canadianwheatpirates mentioned a bit more, both because I think it's interesting, and because I think you run into a problem with blockbuster movies where most people can't really envision the scale of the production, because it is ludicrously huge.

For comparison

I also think it's useful to have something to compare against to get an idea of how scale has changed over time, so for that purpose, bear in mind that the Wizard of Oz (one of the most expensive movies ever made when it was released in 1939) had a budget of $59,000,000 in today's money, and a cast and crew of around 438 people (although there are some roles which are now credited but weren't in 1939, such as catering, security, and drivers, so total crew in today’s numbers would be a bit higher than that)

Working out how much the actors were paid is almost impossible, because they were paid weekly salaries, not a flat rate for the total movie, but Judy Garland made $500 a week, and the Ray Bolger and Jack Haley (Scarecrow and Lion) made $3,000 a week (yes really, 6 times what the star made, just because they were adult men and she was a teenage girl). Those translate to roughly $10,000 and $64000 a week in today’s money.

Paying the Stars

Of Avengers: Endgame's approx. $350,000,000 budget, $135,000,000 of that went to paying only RDJ, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Evans, and Chris Hemsworth. Four people, and only a small portion of the main cast, and they account for nearly 40% of the film's total budget alone.

I picked them because we do know fairly accurately what their salaries were, thanks to leaks. We don't know what Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner, Brie Larson, Chris Pratt, Paul Rudd, Benedict Cumberbatch, or Chadwick Boseman were paid, but at the very least, given how big their roles were and how big a part of the MCU they both are/were, it's likely Jeremy Renner and Mark Ruffalo were getting something close to what ScarJo was paid, which is another $40,000,000 combined.

That's $175,000,000, literally half the film's budget, paying just six people.

(If you're wondering why RDJ came back for Civil War, Infinity War and End Game after he famously quit the franchise after AoU, it's because his agent negotiated $75,000,000 a movie, plus insanely high profit share - reportedly an additional $55,000,000 from Endgame alone)

Paying everyone else

In total Endgame has an unbelievable 4,041 cast and crew listed on its IMDB page, 6 of whom account for 50% of the total budget. So that's $175,000,000 left over, paying the salaries for 4,035 people, plus paying for all the materials for the sets and costumes, hire of vehicles and locations, fuel, hotels, plane tickets, legal fees, the cost of marketing, residuals to comics creators (although this is marvel we’re talking about, so that’s a laughably small amount), and all the other costs that go into making and selling a film beyond just paying wages.

Wizard of Oz spent $134,000 for every one person employed.

Endgame spent $86,000 per person (or $43,000 per person if we discount the 6 biggest stars). Even accounting for RDJ being the highest paid actor in history, the movie is still making its enormous budget go further than Wizard of Oz did (and yes, part of that is overseas CGI houses, although not all of it). If Endgame had the same cost per crew member as Oz, it would have cost $542,000,000, and even accounting for things like different length of production, when you factor in the increased cost of location shooting, the fact that the cost of materials relative to labour has increased dramatically over the last 80 years, and said overseas VFX houses, there’s a pretty good argument to be made here that Endgame actually should have have cost more than it did. They could have cut RDJ’s salary to the same as Judy Garland made for Oz, and they’d still be stretching their budget impressively thin.

TL:DR; $350 million sounds like an insane amount of money, and how much of it went to famous actors is pretty crazy, but it’s also paying the salaries of an unbelievable number of people. Modern movie productions happen on a scale the studio system of the golden age of hollywood could only dream of.

Full breakdown of the numbers of cast and crew below the cut because again, I don’t think people really grasp the scale, and it’s (imo) interesting to see it broken down

26 directors (2 main, the rest assistant or 2nd or 3rd unit directors)

2 writers (plus massive number of created by and special thanks to credits for comics writers, but I haven’t counted them, because Marvel Studios was shit about paying its writers even before they were taken over by disney)

1 DP (director of photography, or cinematographer)

16 producers or co-producers

164 actors (minimum, there are likely some uncredited extras who haven't bothered to add themselves to the IMDB page)

69 editors

11 casting directors and staff

163 art, production design, prop, and set decoration staff

112 Hair and Makeup staff

17 Production Managers

242 camera and electrical crew

89 sound and foley (sound-effect) crew

63 special effects artists and crew (this is physical effects stuff - pyro, minitures, that kind of thing)

249 stunt co-ordinators and performers (can you imagine trying to film literally anything else in hollywood at the same time as this that required stunt performers when 249 of them are all away working on a single project, that must have been a fucking nightmare)

6 continuity and script supervisors

49 drivers and transportation staff

73 Musicians, composers, conductors, and music producers (who are sepperate from the on-set sound guys)

43 location managers and scouts

76 animators

89 costume and wardrobe staff

350 additional staff (this is stuff like actor stand-ins, interns and production assistants, security, catering, personal trainers for the actors who have stunt stuff to do, basically anything that doesn't fall under one of the other job titles)

and an unbelievable 2,131 vfx artists and designers

One of my personal internal conspiracy theories is that big budget special effects movies and streaming series with like hundreds of millions or billions of dollars sunk into them are some kind of very open embezzlement schemes.

Even the best paid actors and directors and such can't explain the budget. The money certainly isn't on the screen when it comes to anything from costumes to cinematography to visual effects or editing. It's openly known all the jobs that contribute to "making the pictures look good" are getting their parts of the budget slashed. The Avengers Infinity Wars movies have got $300M price tags and they do NOT look like it. Rings of Power cost like $700M and literally used off the shelf craft store fabric for armor. They dump cheap CGI in because there's no union to keep the pricing fair and shoot everything on green screen so there's no travel and where is the money going?

But for example if you're a producer you also get paid, and all I can think about is how producers with business degrees are deciding on how the budget should be used on these huge shows with country sized price tags and if the budget isn't going into anything or anyone involved in the actual work of the movie, but the guy who thinks the movie needs to cost less and be a business product also thinks he has the most important job and he gets to decide where the money goes? Are these guys just like "okay, our salary will be $299M and the rest goes to the production itself."

I know I'm missing things, but I've seen hundreds of movies that look gorgeous and beautiful and have amazing effects and camerawork and they're all a tenth of the big budget shows and movies, or less, so where is the other 90+% of the money going? It's VISIBLY NOT PRESENT IN THE FINISHED PRODUCT. Who has it?

[hermitcraftx]

The problem with a lot of traffic life interpretations in my opinion is they don't understand character foils or don't employ them in their writing. Grian-Martyn and Scar-Ren are genuinely pretty good character foils for a series that is not really scripted or planned out like a book is. I could go on and on about how they parallel each other and the similarities between them. Even the smaller details between the four usually match up

leaving the rant in the tags so I don't have a huge block of text again ueueue

[thewiglesswonder]

You know the TFA Decepticons aren’t an oppressed minority right? DJW even said their Rise Up rhetoric was a jab at how conservatives preach about Protecting Freedoms, and in the Allspark Almanac it’s explained they wanted to colonize other planets and the Autobots objected to that. The Decepticons were exiled for being military fascists.

I'd really, really love to know where I've ever said that on this blog, but since you seem very convinced that I did, let's look at the lore again. I don't feel like trawling the internet for this specific tweet/whatever form this DJW evidence has, so if you have that, I'd love to see it.

This timeline from the Allspark Almanac II pretty clearly states that the entire crux of Cybertronian society as a whole has rested on colonization, very early on in their species' history. Their "Golden Age" 8 billion stellar cycles ago is characterized by expansion that led to the colonization (!!!) of their solar system, further colonization only prevented by isolationism.

The earliest indications of the factional split that mark their history exist within the ruling class Guardians and the Malignus, defined as a "military caste". This implies that Golden Age Cybertron existed as a caste system. Which I would take a guess as not being particularly great.

And when we get to the first (again, quoted from the text here,) "military coup", it's executed by the political ancestors of the Autobots. Not a peep about the Malignus while that was going on.

This faction eventually becomes the Protectobots, and the most notable thing about them is that their leader attempted a Great Purge of "undesirable elements" from their society. I'd be hard pressed to think I'm wrong in thinking that's kinda fucked up. We're not given explicit reasons for this 17 million year war, but wars don't happen without someone to oppose someone else, and we get this in the form of the Destrons.

As for the point about colonization: my point is not that the Decepticon's motivations are not what we see in canon. Not at all. My point is that the Autobots have the same fucking motivation.

The Age of Expansion literally begins when the Autobots take power! It only ends when they butt heads with the Quintessons! Colonization, militarism, and facism, as you put it, are not traits that are unique to Decepticons.

And, according to this timeline and historical reasoning given, there is no mention of either faction's position on further expansion. The formation of the Decepticons is rooted in the divide between labor and military aligned Cybertronians. Both sections are equally responsible for the imperialistic efforts of their Empire/Commonwealth/whatever you want to call it, and make no mistake, this does continue into the present day! From both factions!

Assuming you're referring to my hefty lean towards the Cons in terms of character/exploration interest in the gist of your message, my goal here is not to elevate them to the same Good Guy Status the Autobots have by virtue of being the protagonists. I am fully and completely aware that they are a group of insane zealots that have rallied under a guy who was described by his own VA as an "elegant bully". Rather, I think what you're picking up on is my focus on the fact that the Autobots in Animated have more than their fair share of insidious shit going on.

They retain what is essentially a military dictatorship, with the position of Magnus being only theoretically beholden to the will of the Council and Guilds, as seen when Sentinel was able to fire Fortress Maximus with no approval from the Council and got nothing more than a disapproving sentence from Alpha Trion. We have no word on how their schooling institutions work, but all of it seems heavily centered on their version of the military they've concocted in the absence of warbuilds. And, just in case we forgot about Sentinel's proposed budget...

And that's not even getting into how fucked up Autobot culture is! They're unspeakably xenophobic, throw around propagandistic phrases like they're nothing ("Cogs in the Great Autobot Machine", anyone?), have an incredibly questionable justice system if Wasp is anything to go by, and this only seems to be getting worse at the end of Season 3, if Sentinel's curfews and public service announcements are anything to go by.

I'm not trying to make the Decepticons look better. I'm trying to make the Autobots look worse.

[izel-scribbles]

just finished malevolent relisten. needless to say the obsession has been rekindled tenfold its previous magnitude

[imitationdrow]

the "he did miss this" i gasped, i cheered, i blacked out, i died a little bit and came back, i forgot everything immediately and replayed the same scene again so i could relive it as if for the first time again