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Harrowhark aboard the USS Enterprise, about to face crushing disappointment: "So this guy everyone's always talking about, Bones, what's his house?"

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[ID: a tweet by John Wiswell @/Wiswell that says "The Bulwer-Lytton Awards for Worst Opening Paragraph went out and, man, I totally disagree. This opener is hilarious." Attached is Diana Murtaugh's winner for Fantasy and Horror: "Sir Arthur Pendragon, High King of the Britons, son of King Uther Pendragon, nephew of King Aurelius Ambrosius, who was in turn the son of a long list of people who weren't kings and thus don't matter, only slept with his sister once, but boy did it come back to bite him in the ass." End ID]

My absolute favorite is Günter Berner's 2020 entry:

"Cripes! I yelled.  I couldn’t stop saying it.  Cripes!  Cripes!  She was dead."

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i’m sure you probably get this a lot but a place where no one has died fucks me up in such a wonderful way

it’s hard for me to explain why i adore it so much but like, i can’t listen to it just once in one sitting and i start crying almost every time i do but like that’s part of the beauty of it if that makes any sense??

it’s just like. it’s just so poetic and beautifully devastating. i’m obsessed with it. sorry i’m kinda bad at putting words to why i love it so much it’s just amazing

words can’t express how grateful i am to you and to everyone who truly listens and allows themselves to feel it

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why are time loops always only like 1 day long?

the real horror is a months or years long time loop. no speedrunning your torture here. you have to sit with the consequences of your actions for a loooong time before the release of knowing the consequences and actions have been erased.

but oh, all the actions and consequences are gone. those relationships you built? empty. you can never build them again without the constant guilt of knowing that it's not as real the second, third, thirtieth time when you already know all their secrets and they none of yours.

but you can't hide. you can't isolate yourself because what if this is the time the loop breaks and then what? years gone by of missed chances with people who have changed you a thousand times and now circumstances have changed. you can never build back what was washed away by your own inaction. they'll never be able to meet you like they did the first time if you don't choose to meet them the first time every time

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pro tip: ash nazg durbatulûk ash nazg gimbatul ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul

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[ID: a bluesky post by Joseph Fink @/planetoffinks that says "It took many years of people saying that Carlos, a character whose traits are mostly based on me, was 'autistic coded' to Realize Some Things." End ID]

Back in 2013, I posted a Welcome to Night Vale fic and someone commented, “I’m autistic and I see myself a lot in the way you write Carlos. Did you intend for him to autistic?”

And I was like “I’m flattered you think so! No, he’s not intended to be autistic, but I’m glad you can see yourself in him.”

Now twelve years later I spent some time this evening trying to track down that comment to give a very belated clarification. Whoever you were stranger, hey. I only said no because I based Carlos heavily on me, and since I wasn’t autistic, Carlos wouldn’t be either. Well. I’ve learned some stuff in the intervening decade that strongly support your literary analysis.

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i love when a song is an acquired taste. you can listen to something once and go huh. there's something here even if im not quite ready for it yet. and you listen a couple more times. and then bam a couple weeks or months or years later you listen, youve finally worn the song in and it's the most beautiful thing you've ever heard

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i truly believe that if mary had weaponized thomas's ability to be a petty little shit more often, he would've loved it. he'd be devoted to her. anna would be mary's right hand, but thomas would've been her left, y'know? ugh they had such potential

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Stop being mean to me I’ve got eyes and I’m not afraid to cry

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hey man what’s wrong with you

the usual

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I'm just posting but I think it's important to distinguish control freaks who hate losing versus control freaks who hate being forced to play. Initially, I thought about this because of Jonah Magnus and Gertrude Robinson, who would be "hates losing" and "hates being forced to play" respectively. Let's call them Type A and Type B.

In a structure that exploits them, Type As don't need the rules that bind them to change, merely their place in them. Opposing something means implicitly admitting it was harming you in the first place. A system only does not benefit you if you're a victim thereof, and you cannot admit you're a victim. Class traitors also fall into this category, I suppose. Type As seek to be at the top of the structure, not to dismantle it, because they identify with the exploiter.

From Danganronpa (sorry. sorry), we can see Togami as a Type A. He wants to win the killing game at the expense of everyone else and place himself on equal grounds with the Mastermind because he is more like the Masterminds than the rest of the victims (I'm not a victim). His Type B counterpart is Kirigiri, who will dismantle the killing game by any means necessary because they tried to set the rules for the game arbitrarily and following them would be stupid (I'm not stupid). Pushing it a bit further, I think Vriska from Homestuck is a Type A and Rose Lalonde is a Type B. One ruthlessly pursues the role she thinks she should get to be; the other throws her assigned role in the trash, or tries to.

Both types have pride, but I think there's more spite in Type As, "I will thrive under any set of rules, however arbitrary, just to show you that fuck you, I'm that good", whereas Type Bs have the awareness that under certain circumstances a winner is more similar to a loser than to the house, "If you try to impose an arbitrary set of rules on me I will smash this whole thing to pieces".

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am always obsessed when someone says to a character “call off your dog” about another character.

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HARRY DU BOIS ISN'T A REAL PERSON???????????? i thought he was some. actor or something. like.. daniel radcliffe. or jim carrey. i don't know my actors. anyway i thought he was some leonardo dicaprio guy

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They should invent a tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow that doesn’t creep in this petty pace from day to day

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Back in 2013, I posted a Welcome to Night Vale fic and someone commented, “I’m autistic and I see myself a lot in the way you write Carlos. Did you intend for him to autistic?”

And I was like “I’m flattered you think so! No, he’s not intended to be autistic, but I’m glad you can see yourself in him.”

Now twelve years later I spent some time this evening trying to track down that comment to give a very belated clarification. Whoever you were stranger, hey. I only said no because I based Carlos heavily on me, and since I wasn’t autistic, Carlos wouldn’t be either. Well. I’ve learned some stuff in the intervening decade that strongly support your literary analysis.