#and since the admin is incompetent

[queer-froggit]

why do a character study on a fairytale character when you can do one on the fanfiction rewrite of that character and get away with it...

[centrally-unplanned]

Oh I did wanna log the thought: since Trump's campaign was so often vague and contradictory on its agenda, there was an uncertainty around what his administration would actually be. "Soft" and "hard" versions abounded in the take market. Now that we have the EO's, what does that suggest?

I think it is pretty bad, I would rank these as 80 percentile on a soft-to-hard scale. He was talked off the ledge on the maximal tariff stuff, it looks like - he is still gonna do some, which will suck, but I think the smart money is not on "20% tarifffs on every import" and they do look more like bargaining tactics now on some cases like the Canada/Mexico ones. On trade & economics we didn't get anything too crazy.

On everything else each thing was just...20% more extreme than expected. Pardoning everyone he could from 1/6, including those who attacked polices officers, that is cold. Trying to remove birthright citizenship for legal immigrants, everyone expect the illegal side but damn. The trans rights EO is "complete", it isn't a "get rid of this DEI stuff/preserve women's spaces" thing, it is categorical in its denial of existence. I think the "tech right" is currently pretty worried about their talented immigrant hires given how restrictive the situation looks to become. Almost every EO was expected, but more than half had something that was like "oh shit they went there".

I saw someone (Noah Smith I think) comment that it is a little ironic that "The Resistance" spent itself during Trump's first term when he was, until 2020 at least (very important caveat), pretty much in practice a normal Republican with an incompetence/trolling streak. Now they are burned out while the Trump admin they thought they were fighting in 2016 is finally here, ready to wreck shop in 2024.

Fortunately early days are always the most heady, we will see how this actually goes. Not a great start though!

[nishnormp]

cheavy ramblings

Been thinking about the stinky BLU classic heavy from the comics lately. He's basically the villain of the final issues, and was practically built to be unlikeable from the start so his defeat could be more satisfying; buut since its been years since an update came out and I am slowly going insane, I think it would be funky to explore him more (bonus cmedic feature)

Few disclaimers: I'm not excusing his actions (I myself think hes a bitch) and I do NOT ship him with tf2 medic (also I dont think tf2 medic is unmasked cmedic bc 1)why would he sabotage himself in the issues by acting like That 2)uhh reasons later 3)this panel) also some of my takes aren't original, but I've expanded on em a bit

P1: Medic hater activities

As we all know, cheavy's greatest sin was dunking on + killing tf2 medic

Somehow he and tfc demo got sidetracked by medic's question, but the most hostile he gets towards tf2 medic here is jeering at the fact that they're going to hunt down his old team; which tf2 medic doesn't seem bothered by.

( @number1yisuchongfan actually brought this up before me) This panel pretty much sums up why cheavy is pissed: medic was implied to have a record of being weird with parts (he lost his license bc he stole a man's skeleton), he blew ALL of his budget meant for healing on exotic parts (that he put in cheavy's teammates), AND he revived the enemy (said enemy slips away a few panels later just as cheavy gets informed that three of his mercs died).

(also, the weird p3do tfc scout and soldier arent included in the 'three good men', since they died much later) Speaking of the 'good men' comment-

P2: Good leader at some point?? Not anymore tho

Hes gruff and an ass, but cheavy has a soft spot for his team; the tf2 mercs call each other strictly by their classes, but the tfc ones know each other names (also see cheavy's way of describing his dead teammates and his immediate reaction to go over there rather than curse/assume their incompetence)

He gets curious about australium, and from here on out he gets fixated on it- enough to be more unreasonable than usual. Cheavy is pretty amicable with Bea, and the way he acts with her is probably more in-character for what he was like back in his prime rather than the hot-tempered man that the later panels show.

I mean . He and his team were highly recommended and even took out ALL of the admin's elite teams, leaving the tf2 team for last. He may be a drill sergeant, but I don't think he was a genuine tyrant for most of his career; they aren't purely business-basis with each other (some of them formed close bonds, like fred and virgil), plus- any elite team would be able to capitalize on an overly prideful and control freaky leader (+a constantly demoralized team) sooner.

With three of his mercs dead and his plans failing against a team that he saw as rejects, the mental strain is showing badly. Tfc mercs don't have much personality in their games (or their own comic about them during their prime) but one of the few dynamics mentioned is between the Heavy and the Engineer+Medic. Tfc engie is the one who stepped up to ask about cheavy's plans, and he also gets the brunt of his anger. Earlier, cheavy answered bea's question and encouraged her, but now he's yelling and mocking the capabilities of one of the men he coordinates with the most.

Tfc scout's line may just be him not understanding/underestimating australium (esp since apparently cheavy had to ask grey mann what it even did), but it also reads as him seeing cheavy having officially gone off his rocker; his shaky grasp over leadership might kill the team before being deprived of yellow rocks does. Both scout and engie are thrown off by his attitude, implying that cheavy isn't usually like this (I can't imagine them being coordinated if they all shrimp away like that).

His line of thinking for both of these situations are pretty questionable. For the first one, he knows that the bots extract australium from the body, but he also knows that the mercs likely have nothing in them anyways (note the emphasis on his dead mercs, this is him taking revenge but also he is NAWT going to get any australium for those extra immortality machines which is still a pressing issue for his engie). In the second one, he first tells medic that they'll try figuring out how to stitch the machine on him, which leads to medic stabbing him and cheavy retaliating. Cheavy then goes all the way with attempting to kill him, stating that he'll just gets his answers from the administrator. Its soon revealed that he wants to fight tf2 heavy, but even that is ??? Like cheavy knows that he and his team are old as hell, but he's going to try having a fair fight with a guy in his prime anyways? He didn't even know that he could just slap on the machine at the time, and the unnecessary risk for what seems to be a quest to satisfy his ego is antithetical to his supposed goal of getting the rocks and making his team immortal. At this point, his hatred of medic has completely overridden his rationality; there were many ways for him to have killed both of them, yet he didn't take em.

P3: Cmedic

I saw some posts abt how cheavy is likely coded as homophobic due to how he treats medic (a presumably gay-coded character) bc of the "stay in the kitchen"-esque dialogue, and the way cheavy undermines him in verbal + physical ways. I do not have a very solid defense for this . aside from everything I listed before.

Just to clarify, I think its cheavy's fault for alienating medic from the start: loss of medical license aside, medic's inventions DO work splendidly for healing. Would it have been more concerning since medic is . meant to heal? Maybe. But mercs are literal murderers for hire, personality quirks should be the last of their priorities. The guy is passionate about showing off his stuff, and he was even enthusiastic about getting on the battlefield and healing cheavy. I'm not saying medic was going to be 100% loyal, but he's willing to do his job for the classics as long as he wasn't disrespected so damn much.

The tfc mercs with personalities are ones that oppose their tf2 counterpart; tfc sniper is a sadist rather than a swift professional, tfc pyro is...also a sadist rather than having tf2 pyro's misguided bubbliness, and cheavy does not respect his team's (current) medic. This in conjunction with the complete and utter lack of not just presence but also mention of tfc medic leads to the popular belief that the guy just up and left because of the disrespect.

(Writing inconsistencies be damned I like to cope) so what if it wasn't the case?

These are one of the few lines in tfc that describe a cooperative nature between certain classes. Like I mentioned earlier, tfc has less media compared to tf2 so its easy to slot personalities onto them as villains (tfc sniper's gun blowing people into giblets kinda helps), but I don't think these can be ignored. Fred was the one who represented the rest of the team's opinions to cheavy, and the phrasing in the second pic is even stronger; the heavymedic duo was always a thing, even in tfc.

Sort of. Gameplay-wise, cmedic is more like a roided out scout armed with a medkit that can give enemies and disguised spies tuberculosis, grenades that can send him across the map, and a gun that can destroy sentries (situational). He doesn't need to cling to his more offensive teammates as much as tf2 medic, and while his kit can instantly heal a teammate to full no matter the percentage + give overheal- its strictly melee ranged and has no ubercharge. In a narrative sense, cmedic would most likely oppose tf2 medic as a more 'grounded' healer. He prevents damage to his team by erasing enemies himself, doesn't go too overboard with his biochemical arsenal (his brew is potent but hes stuck with the melee-ranged kit and no crazy mechanic like uber), and can typically run off by himself (provided he isn't jumped by two soldiers or smth). Its a matter of game design, but can translate to the comics in an interesting way.

Medic is the only one who speaks of cmedic, and while the mention itself has no violent reaction- no one else speaks of him. I can't imagine him being easily forgotten since the heavymedic duo is just too iconic, so what if smth exceptionally horrible just happened to him? If cmedic was close to cheavy than everyone else, his loss/disappearance could explain cheavy's immediate dislike for tf2 med; not only replacing his own med, but with the complete opposite in terms of personality as well.

(I could expand on cmedic more, but this post is already long enough as is so I'll probably just make a separate one gah)

[ron-kamonohashi-wiki]

The Mystery of Eliot Moriarty's Odd Fandom Wiki Page

Have you ever wondered why Eliot's page on the RKDD Fandom Wiki is like that? Babbling about a clone project and whatnot?

Please bear with me, it's a bit of a lengthy explanation.

First of all, that's not the wiki anymore. The actual wiki can be found here.

The wiki moved to wiki.gg in December 2024 (I made a post about it here but not many have seen it orz).

I moved the wiki because Fandom Wiki is a shitshow of a site (nicely put; if you want to know more, you can check the Discussion post on the old wiki, or read this tumblr post I made (it's about another wiki I forked, but also about Fandom's general misdeeds)).

Because of Fandom Wiki's Forking Policy and their endless greed and disregard for their communities, the old wiki, unfortunately, cannot be deleted. The new wiki also cannot be advertised on the old wiki. (Fandom even removed a Discussion post where I posted the wiki's Discord server link because of that. Not even a trace of the deletion was left behind when there usually is one.)

In a failed attempt to get the wiki to be auto-deleted (which happens under specific conditions), I removed a lot of content from the old wiki. This was caught because of a software upgrade orz Fandom then restored the deleted content.

However, Fandom is staffed by a bunch of morons, and whoever oversaw the restoration process doesn't know anything about RKDD.

Hence, they restored old versions of pages and joke pages made for the wiki's annual April Fool's prank. (Even though these edits were reverted and the joke pages removed on April 2nd, more than half a year before the wiki forked! Eliot's page was, I'm pretty sure, edited afterwards too.) These idiots simply chose to restore the longest versions of pages and all pages/files that have ever been deleted without double-checking anything.

(There also restored the Timeline page which I started years ago, and deleted years ago too - during the run of the Tragic Cruise Case after Toto said he and Ron have only known each other for a year. Searching for "Thomas Moriarty" and "Lacie Moriarty" still redirect you to Toto's and Mofu's page respectively although they, too, were only there for the April Fool's prank. Images I uploaded and deleted after discarding a template idea several years ago were also restored. Etc.)

I've been the admin of the RKDD wiki since 2021. I wrote the majority of the articles. The editors who agreed to and supported the fork wrote the rest. None of us wants the Fandom Wiki to stay up, but, hey, the wiki gets maybe 1,000 views a day (on a good day; it's usually around 500 or under), and Fandom is just really desperate for money. Community values? They've never heard of them.

I am so sorry for the inconvenience. Readers are as important to a wiki as editors, and they fucked you over with this just as much as we were.

It would be lovely if you could use the new wiki. It actually gets maintained and updated. It also looks nicer and works better on desktop and mobile, and has less ads! (Installing the wiki.gg browser redirect helps too.)

And Eliot's page is perfectly normal as it should be (for 364 days a year).

TL;DR: The proper Ron Kamonohashi Wiki is on wiki.gg, not Fandom Wiki. Eliot's page is like that because Fandom's incompetent staff restored its April Fool's version.

[themagical1sa]

UPDATE: IT'S CARINA/GAEMI OFFICIALLY A SUPER TYPHOON.

METRO MANILA IS OFFICIALLY IN STATE OF CALAMITY.

the typhoon here might turn into a super typhoon just before it reaches taiwan. yikes

filipinos on tumblr, stay safe

[xzeroweek]

AND ANOTHER YEAR HAS PASSED!!

I'm glad I was able to bring out another year, despite my incompetence to remind people at least here this event's still going

So, don't worry, those are going to be implemented next year once prompts are in place!!

And again thanks to mod @sueanoi-mmx for helping with the entires when she could!! Here's to better effort for next year!!

And thus this also begins our make-up week for if anyone missed the initial week this was all happening!! I also forgot to remind everyone that's happening, so you guys have another week so we can reblog your stuff!!

May think about doing a mini event- and idk probably also post for last year's one since I never did LOL!! But that'll be discussed in the near future.

Stay cool this summer, happy pride month, and I'll see y'all on the flipside!

~Admin Vincent🐰

[the-burd-lord]

Heavily inspired by @deafenedsaltwater 's concepts. Idk what was in that post, but it sparked me to make a whole heap of sketches and ideas. Dunno how far I'm gonna roll with this concept, but for now it's rollin kinda far.

Loads of info below:

Four is the math teacher with X as his TA. Four's one of those teachers that really knows the material, but because they know it so well he thinks it should be easy for anyone to get. So they're kinda harsh with the students if they get something wrong.

Whereas X gives more positive reinforcements for students, and isn't as harsh with them. X doesn't know as much of the material, and probably looks to the teacher's textbook if they're lost. One of those teachers who kinda learns with the class.

Airy is the school's nurse and teaches the Home E.C. class, and he's awful at both jobs. When he's not starting fires or teaching the course like it's some kind of wilderness survival camp, he's mainly works as the nurse.

As a nurse, he misdiagnoses things constantly if it's not an obvious injury, and uses a bunch of herbal remedies for the few things he does know how to help with. Mainly scrapes and stomach aches.

Two often times subs in for him when Airy has to take care of a sick student, who often times will fake being sick so they can get Two to teach the class.

MePhone teaches coding and AutoCAD as an extra circular, and probably typing for lower grades. I keep slappin' a bunch of classes onto 'im cause I remember taking so many throughout high and middle school.

He doesn't enjoy teaching coding or typing since he doesn't see them as creative as making actual models for things in AutoCAD, even though the other two can be used creatively. MePad's kinda left to teach those classes despite being a TA.

Also it's a very hands off class where he gives them the basics of how to use the program, and the rest of the class is leaving the students to make whatever thing fits the assignment.

He's the kind of teacher who's real in tune with internet culture and reality tv so he uses a bunch of modern slang phrases or casually gives hot takes on shows if he overhears the students talking about them. Everyone thinks it's cause he wants to be "hip with the kids" when in reality he just has brain rot.

Clock's the history teacher. He discusses each history point with the same tone and enthusiasm, and remembers the years and eras with pinpoint accuracy. Kinda put too much emphasis on the dates, and how long events lasted, over the content of those events.

He's the teacher you can get to go on a long side tangent about something unrelated to the material, but they'd always find a way to bring it back to history.

Idk I also think it'd also be funny if he co-taught an economics class with Four (thinking there'd be a lot of math involved) when it's really more so about theories.

Out of all the teachers, Four and Clock are the most knowledgeable and could probably teach college level courses if they wanted to.

Animatic is the PE teacher with too much energy and gives the harshest workouts but thinks they're easy. Mainly cause he does them alongside the students and always has energy after to run laps around the school. Two would have probably told them to tone it down.

Speaking of-

Two is the health counselor and sub for Home Econ., but also has a bunch of unofficial jobs. They're the unofficial vice principal mainly cause the rest of the speaker boxes are kinda incompetent at their job, and they have to mediate not only students but teachers too (mainly Four and Animatic). As well as sub in for Airy, or even act as a supervisor, when need be.

Some other ones I haven't drawn yet are Daddy Long Legs as the music teacher, Popcorn as the theater teacher, and Hourglass as the English/Literature teacher.

The speaker boxes are the principle/VP/admin. They all kinda interchange with each other, considering how similar they all are also cause they switch out a lot in the original show.

Dunno who the science or art teacher would be, cause I'm mainly going after object shows I've seen. Honestly I may just swap some roles around.

Mainly doing this as a thing for funsies, but boy howdy is it a rapidly rolling snowball.

[fuck-customers]

Fuck new hires and management wtf

Luckily, this didn't happen to me directly, but I was warned about it and this has happened before.

About 6 months or so ago, we got a whole new crop of new hires. Then, a coworker warned me that someone stole money out of her purse and to make sure that I don't leave my stuff in the breakroom. I appreciated the warning, but I don't carry a purse and I keep my phone and wallet on me at all times. I forget whether it was the same day or a few days later, I heard directly from the SM that she knew about the situation and knew who it was that was the thief and was taking steps to remedy the situation.

Cool. Great. Whatever remedy happened occurred behind scenes and I didn't hear about it again. However. They key problem is that nothing was changed in the breakroom lockers. The locks were not updated. There was no sort of monitoring system in place, like a sign out sheet or something like that. I would very strongly object to security cameras being put in the breakroom, as that is our private space, but I'm sure other preventative measures could and should have been taken. Nothing was.

Honestly, we're supposed to have a manager bag check us before clocking out each shift, but the management now is so incompetent that she either doesn't know of that store policy or doesn't care to enforce it, which is probably a contributing factor to this situation.

Today, I was warned by another coworker that this situation happened again. It's ridiculous. I personally did not witness anything, but since this only happens when several new hires are hired at the same time, I strongly suspect it's one of the new hires who did this. Yet I can almost guarantee nothing will be done. The first time, the employee who was stolen from claimed she was going to take legal action, but it appears she never did, or at least nothing came of it. I hope this time the victim does sue.

Posted by admin Rodney

[haitianhistory]

On Haiti's 220th anniversary

Two hundred and twenty years ago, former slaves and free people of color accomplished the seemingly impossible: defeating one of the most formidable European armies of the day and establishing a new state where bondage, as it existed before 1791, would be forever abolished.

For those who have followed this blog since 2013, you know that I (admin A) have rarely allowed myself any sentimentality when discussing Haitian history. I have tried to present a nuanced portrait of Haiti’s past by addressing the weight of the many isms that have plagued its history (colonialism, racism, neoliberalism…) and by taking a critical look at the role of Haitian leaders throughout all these episodes.

Two hundred and twenty years after the unthinkable, Haiti finds itself without a president, grappling with what seems to be a permanent problem of armed gangs, little security, renewed multifaceted tensions with its Dominican neighbour, and on the brink of a new UN occupation through a Kenyan mission. The young woman who started this blog a decade ago would have said that there are little reasons for us as Haitians to celebrate—not because of a difficulty appreciating the great shoulders on which we stand, but because, at twenty-two years old, I didn’t believe in what I felt was useless romanticism binding us to a distorted past while also blinding us to the reality of the disastrous present.

Today, it’s not so much that I find much to rejoice in given the current state of affairs. It’s that I realize, what is the point of all this if there is no hope? Why this blog, why study the history of Haiti at all, why care about the country? For those of us with family there, why not temporarily send money in the hope of helping them relocate here, there, and anywhere except Haiti? Why not congratulate the complete erosion of Haitian sovereignty, as post-1986 Haiti, and especially Haiti of the last two decades, has shown so vividly the complete utter failure of its foreign-backed governing class?

I don’t know what hope is supposed to look like in this situation. Hope for what? Hope for a change under what conditions, under whose authority? On what would this hope be grounded? Perhaps, despite the best efforts of my twenty-two-year-old self, I am becoming as naive and sentimental as the people I silently criticized then...

Perhaps, however, I recognize that Haiti does matter. Even the most cynical among us would admit that there is something profoundly radical in breaking the bonds of slavery, in affirming that people of African descent could not be stripped of their humanity, that there is something poetic in saying “no” in the face of impressive odds. Newly independent Haiti did not live up to some of the promises of its complicated Revolution. The 1825 French imposition of an indemnity severely affected freshly formed Haiti (beyond the 19th century), but it does not excuse the incompetence of Haitian governments, then and now. Haiti could, may have, and I certainly hope, will change, will remember what 1804 ought to have meant.

Perhaps, especially for the people who currently live in Haiti, particularly the women of all ages who face the constant threats of sexual violence, Haiti has a responsibility to itself, to its unprecedented idealism, to all of us.

Given all these reasons, I find it necessary to maintain a guarded optimism, acknowledging that ideas hold significance and possess the potential to materialize into reality.

[vicholas]

i can't remember which page exactly but before october 7 one of wikipedia's pages on israel-palestine conflict had a section continually stressing how many Poor Israelis have died but another page linked in that same section showed statistics clearly displaying the far higher rates of death for palestinians. been wary of wikipedia's handling of this topic since

It's pretty bad, I only learned today that their official policy is to use the term "Israel-Hamas war" :|

It's extremely easy to exploit Wikipedia's guidelines regarding sources and 'neutrality' to endorse fascist bias. Wikipedia's bureaucratic system just makes it harder to fight against that because they make it harder to change that status quo when the biased version is considered the neutral one.

This person in that one discussion page put it well:

How do you take a stance in neutrality when you're convering a conflict in a world of biased journalism? What is the use of having a list of "reliable sources" for Wikipedia if those sources are unreliable in a specific topic? Wikipedia admins are too spineless to take strong stances in things like these, regardless of importance or consequences. That's how you get the right wing taking advantage of that.

Even a decision as simple as "The BBC is a reliable source when it comes to X topics but when it comes to Y it should be analyzed how it handles the topic, rather than taken as gospel just because it's the BBC" is too complicated and how their policy of reliable sources works. The BBC either is entirely reliable in everything or it is not.

It's particularly irritating seeing people in the discussion page saying stuff like "we can't call it massacre because we have to wait first for media to agree on how to call it". You can't preach about being all about neutrality and they say that you aren't allowed to call a person killing another 'a murder' unless the news explicitly used the word murder.

But that's not the Wikipedia way of seeing "neutrality". The Wikipedia definition of neutrality is this:

And it's worse because Wikipedia's influence in the world means that whatever they call the page has a strong chance of increasing the usage of the name of their choice. But somehow I feel like Wikipedia admins have no conscience on how much they affect bias.

So of course people who want the article to be named 'incident' instead of 'massacre' insist on keeping the 'incident' title "just for now" and wait to see what terms ends up more commonly used. Because of course the term that Wikipedia uses will bring more search results over time.

They know it and they exploit Wikipedia's system of bureaucracy by making the title changing discussions go on forever so it keeps making this the common term.

Sorry if I sound insane I need people to understand how frustrating the inner workings of Wikipedia are and how people exploit the flaws in the system for their own gains and Wikipedia admins are too incompetent to even admit this is a problem.

A lot of us who grew up with the internet didn't even get to know physical encyclopedias and thus the Wikipedia model has been kinda internalized as the only way to handle encyclopedic knowledge, but god this isnt normal. A historian has to take stances towards biased sources and analyze them in order to reach conclusions rather than relying on a list of "trusted" secondary sources as gospel truth. An encyclopedia writer should be no different! The whole model is wrong.

[valictini]

(Anon from previous ask)

What doesn’t sit right with me is that Quackity said during a stream that there was no volunteer positions within his studios. Wouldn’t that mean that he or his team would have budgeted in order to account for admins payements even before the last merch drop ?

Even if you assume he wasn’t much involved in the behind the scenes workings of his company, didn’t know how many people exactly were working under it, it’s impossible to ignore the eggs admins, he literally played with them for months (putting aside Chunsik who joined much later, that makes 10 eggs who have been around for 6 months/an entire year).

Then if volunteers were never supposed to exist, wouldn’t they have budgeted in order to have enough money to pay AT LEAST these ten people every month ? Even if there was indeed a bad apple higher up who was misusing the funds before, this shouldn’t be an issue now.

I’m sorry for the rant, it’s just that the financial issues argument has felt very inconsistent for me since it was first brought up and I need to air my frustration.

Yeah I feel you anon, I really feel you.

First of all, I believe Quackity said he knew that there were volunteers, but he thought people were eventually hired after a trial. Also, I think the egg actors role was explicitly a volunteer role. Since it was supposed to last for like, 2 weeks, I can understand the reasoning. It should have probably been reevaluated after it was made clear that the eggs would stay longer though.

What still baffles me is that no official structure was implemented for when a new language would be included. I feel like one paid manager per language would have been the BARE minimum, but instead, we got Lumi (with later Lea) carrying the entire french side of the server alone, for months, for free, while also playing an egg.

Honestly, the ONLY way I can see Quackity being fully ignorant of the real state of things is that the administration lied about everything, especially the payment (as in, they showed fake receipts, declared that they paid people when they didn't, and pocketed the difference) AND, critically, that Quackity never checked himself.

This is in the realm of possibilities, and I wouldn't be surprised if it were what actually happened. Doesn't change the fact that it would mean that Quackity was sorely incompetent and naive, and doesn't excuse the real harm that this caused to the volunteers. But hey, at least he had no ill intents.

The fact that in this scenario, he never talked to the admins privately is, again, baffling to me, but seeing how limited the communication seemed to be between admins and ccs, it unfortunately is in the realm of possibilities too.

So here, this is the most generous scenario I can think of for Quackity. Unrealistic ambitions combined with absolute incompetence of how to manage such a big project and blind trust in people that ultimately exploited his ignorance.

Still, the fact that he never hired any HR and never personally checked why, for example, there were languages that were consistently left out of official announcements are a big red flag to me, and a reminder that we just don't know wtf happened. I want to believe he never intended for the abuse, but there are ways he has facilitated it when, as a law student, he should have known better, and people have every right to not trust his intentions.

[forthedancingandthethriving]

So it occurs to me that a consequence of me using the Orpheus Arc to catch up to canon is that CPU is missing (and thus in the clutches of Encode) for months. Obviously nobody's having a good time, least of all the younger Admins and Lag. Oh Lag isn't taking this well at ALL.

And of course despite the emotional devastation they still have to keep things running, so after the first couple of weeks the Council appoints someone to fill his position (until he comes back, our main group insist on adding). They figure the worst case scenario would be somebody they don't know who'd probably try to change things up.

And then it turns out fucking CURSOR is the most qualified for the job.

Which, you know, kinda sucks but isn't the end of the world.

Well, unless you're Vitality, who already hated Cursor more than anyone else did and was in a coma during the last two arcs and so missed Cursor saving Renata's memes and just generally showing off the character development she hadn't realized she'd had. To Vitality this is the Absolute Worst Case Scenario and their department is absolutely going to be torn apart by either incompetence, malice or both.

So she's completely unprepared for the Reign of Cursor to be... pretty much exactly like normal? Cursor's still being as much of a bitch as usual but she's running things just as well as CPU would and is keeping things about as close to how he would as she can given the circumstances. She keeps the search for him going way longer than was mandatory, and honestly probably longer than she was supposed to. While she's obviously not got the emotional capacity to deal with the issues of Abyssal and Lag and the rest she's surprisingly good at directing those who do have it at them as and when it's needed. And that's while also helping Antivirus coordinate the hunt for his missing Inmates and upgrades to Computer Hell's security.

You'd think a few months of this would be enough for Vitality to check her biases but she's a stubborn old fox so she's waiting for the other shoe to drop this whole time.

And then, a few days after Hobo Mario goes up, she passes by Cursor's office and overhears her on a call with a member of the Council practically begging for more time before they call off the search and declare CPU to be presumed dead. And it's pretty clear this isn't the first time she's done this.

Unfortunately, with how long it's been, how many possible leads have resulted in dead ends, and how thin Adminspace's resources are being stretched just cleaning up the recent disasters, it's getting harder and harder to justify putting so much effort into finding one Program, even one as accomplished as CPU. This is especially the case now, since apparently Glitch Productions has begun the selection process for a new SMG universe and so the main group's department has to start gearing up for that as well pretty soon.

Ultimately Cursor's able to get two more months until the Council calls it. She thanks the Council member, ends the call, then throws a bunch of poorly manifested daggers at the wall while screaming in rage (there's a lot of stab marks already there) and slumps down into her desk chair afterwards.

Vitality continues on her way, somewhat shakily, as she tries to come to terms with the realization that she knows nothing about the faceless woman she'd been so certain she had all figured out.

OOOUHUUH.. OWIE.. OH THIS IS GREAT BUT OWIE..

Vitality being so stubborn in her biases only to have them shaken in that way.. oouhugh I love this. She's probably going to do a lot of self reflection and change her tune about Cursor.

And poor Cursor, having to constantly beg the Council for more time to find CPU :( She no dount gets the logic in it, but that doesn't mean she agrees.. oougghg..

[anonymous-dentist]

I'm going to be honest and say that I do not give a single fuck about the Federation and the workers. And why would I? they were the main villains a couple of months ago but now I'm supposed to feel bad because Fred, who admitted to know about quackity's torture and apparently participated in whatever happened to either Antoine or Pierre (I don't remember right now), is dead? I'm sorry for Tubbo, but I laughed when I saw it.

It is so ridiculous to me that now, after months of hating the Federation, some islanders want to defend the workers. Or how now I'm supposed to feel empathy for the organisation that has kidnapped, torture, brainwashed and killed people.

And now, with the addition of the eye guy, we have three (four, if you count the residents. something not even the admins seem to be doing lately) different factions that we know nothing about. What's the Federation goal and motives? who knows. What does the Rebellion want and what are the codes? keep watching to find more cryptic books that explain not a thing. The fuck is going on with the eye guy, what does he want? wouldn't you like to know that.

It feels as if the residents now have to seat and watch passively and just accept whatever happens, because no matter how much they might what to try, their actions won't affect the story whatsoever.

sorry for the long rant, I'm really passionate about the server but since the eggs' disappeared i've only been disappointed with its direction

I feel like people have seen a few of the workers act chill and decided that all the workers are doing their jobs against their wills and that they’re all good people being forced to do bad things. And, sure, some workers are like that, like Walter Bob. But also? Many of them aren’t. It’s a complex situation, but we the audience have only seen a handful of workers. We haven’t even scratched the surface! Because like. What about the guys who pulled out Child Baghera’s feathers? What about that mysterious thing the Federation had that scared Child Cellbit to the point of abandoning his beloved sister in a panic and trying to swim away from Point goddamn Nemo? When Child Cellbit said, “Don’t trust the workers”, he meant all of them, and he was such an optimistic kid that he had to have had a GOOD reason to say that

Like when people say that it’s wrong for Cellbit to kill all these workers I obviously agree because Murder Is Wrong. But also?

THE FEDERATION IS ACTIVELY HOLDING EVERYBODY ON THIS ISLAND HOSTAGE

Nobody would’ve gone to Purgatory if they weren’t on the island. The Brazilians legitimately crashed by accident and weren’t allowed to leave. The Feds purposefully sabotaged the French’s plane. Every single hardship the islanders have faced since the start of the series is because the Federation essentially kidnapped them and they’re holding them hostage and torturing and killing and brainwashing them. They’re literal human experiments! Why would I feel bad for the organization actively breaking literally just So Many Geneva Conventions?

Like, sure, Fred liked Tubbo, but Fred also enjoyed Quackity being tortured and brainwashed. Fred helped operate on Pierre. Fred seemingly had connections with the Eye and Cucurucho.exe. It sucks that they’re dead, but like. Okay? I feel bad for Tubbo, but Fred knowingly helped torture and possibly even kill who knows how many individuals over their time with the Federation. They were a higher-up. They had some amount of free will.

So do the regular workers, actually, because these Fed Streams have showed us that the workers have personalities. We know that there are rebels in the workforce. There’s an office culture. Workers sabotage Federation equipment (ie the coffee machine) and get away with it.

The workers (outside of Walter Bob) only started having personalities in September after the eggs disappeared, and on a meta level it’s because the admins A) wanted something to do and B) because the writers suddenly needed to show how incompetent the Feds apparently are because like. The Eye, ig. And people only started caring when the workers were dying, which only ended up villainizing both q and ccCellbit yet again (because the fandom’s favorite hobby is hating Brazilians.)

[viathecloset]

Dear Taetae lovers,

I write to you all with utmost respect and understanding, don't mind sharing this with your circles as you like as well.

Let me start off by thanking the wonderful and extremely professional fan bases and their admins who are ever so hardworking and dedicated without missing a beat. (With a few going on an indefinite rest today I thank you all so very much for your dedication and love)

I just deactivated my twitter accounts today, I have been planning on for a while now but today felt apt enough.

Taehyung has worked so incredibly hard throughout his career, but especially since the second half of last year and with the beginning of layover we've got endless content from him, even after he enlisted we got multiple photoshoots, an MV as an actor, a gift song and a digital single all in just 3 months. I couldn't have been more greatful to witness such artist who is so very passionate about his own craft and loves his fans so dearly. Every moment of it ive thoroughly enjoyed and made me proud of my artist.

That being said, the outside hasn't been quite a pretty site to say the least, constantly tagging the incompetent agency, huge blunders, sales being cancelled, fraudlence over that faced with hypocrisy of the fandom, shippers, biased armys, boycott, shippers, other fandoms everything, everything has been so tough, even on mental health sometimes, and said fanbases and our fellow Taehyung lovers have constantly defended and stood up for him, which might have inturn be a little stressful on us who just wanted to appreciate our favorite artist.

I just want to say to yall that you've done well, you've worked hard. But very there is going to be an unavoidable drought we might be facing very soon though. And it might be a long one. I just want to say, take that break, keep your playists running, stream anyway you want, appreciate him but if u need to take a break, go ahead and do it, its okay, we can come back anytime he comes too, its gonna get a little quieter now though but don't worry, the love isn't going anywhere, we shall keep showering him with so much adoration, we shall hype his activities, we shall keep streaming,buying and voting as necessary but take a break if u must, there's a world outside X or Instagram or anything for that matter. Do what you must, take that break off socials trust me Taehyung would love it if you prioritized real life before social media. You did well, we can sit down now it's okay ♡

[male-to-less-male-derogatory]

The #imperialism posts saying "Trump is fucking up the tools of US imperialism lol" have a point.

Where they overstate their case is attributing it to "not understanding anything". I understand that the current admin is incompetent, but this hasn't come out of nowhere and it does not take a grand plan.

The US right wing narrative since the Clinton administration has been a rejection of multilateralism, international consensus-seeking, and coalition-building.

Connotations of "equality" or "inclusivity" does not stop these from being key components in the form of imperialism contemporary Marxists describe in neoliberalism.

Whether US airstrikes in Kosovo would reduce or worsen ethnic cleansing of Armenians was not an important point of contention to the American right, nor was it which international partners called for or opposed the move. The important question was how much the airstrikes would cost and who was paying for it. The suggestion of concomitant benefits from 'trust among allies' or some 'rules-based international order' isn't something the GOP is unable to grasp, it is what they picture when you say 'imperialism'. The 'New World Order'. The 'Deep State'. An international consensus that has consistently ridiculed and rejected Republican politics as irrational, unprofitable, and unprincipled.

...and thus:

The Trump administration's international approach places strict bilateral transactions as the proper unit foreign policy is to be judged on. This is based on long, long-standing view of military support as a commodity the US was selectively 'selling' for free, as if exploiting US labour to maintain a monopoly - in the extreme of this view, any form of international law is a collusion towards anti-competitive business practices.

You can call this wrong (I sure do), you can call this stupid and immoral, but it is not just some individual eccentricity borne from late-imperial decay, and fascists don't identify with the establishment enough for it to be 'self-destructive' to them.

The state of their country is broken to them. There's some third definition of (Cold War era?) American Empire they are trying to revive.

Meanwhile, the world jeers at them and the British are just nodding in a corner like "yeah this is why you gotta grieve loss of your Empire properly. They've been taking it really hard since the US stopped being an empire and became a regular country. You know, sometime around WW1."

[terresdebrume]

Story time: when I got my first full employment contract with the current school last year, the guy making our timetables was an incompetent. As in, it was the Friday before classes started again, several teachers were still meant to teach three classes at the same time, and he point blank refused to work on the thing anymore.

So, since we did need timetables and nobody was doing anything, I said "gimme some time", opened google sheets, pushed my sleeves up, and managed to have something functional by mid-Sunday. The Big Boss, who was visiting at the time, asked me to be in charge of that for the school year.

Months pass, we had way too many versions of the timetables because the school pretty much doubled numbers through the year, and also (key element) I butted heads with the admin team several times over things they asked that were either not possible or stupid, but which HQ wanted anyway bc they refuse to realize that Cambodia is not Singapore and we sometimes can't do the exact same things they do.

Anyway, a little after the middle of the year, this guy H suddenly appears at one of the meetings. I go 'can I ask why he's here?' and I'm told he's here to 'help'. From that moment on, I did not receive a single scrape of information about timetables. Decisions were made without consulting or informing me, meetings happened that I wasn't even aware of, etc.

At this point you may realize, as I did, that I was subtly pushed out. I made the passive aggressive decision not to notice this, which led to probably more stress than I should have taken on...but still, I kept it up, until a couple months into this year, when the then-Principal told me that since they couldn't have 2 people in charge of timetables, they would have to go with H.

Now, I was quite bitter about the way we'd gotten there, but considering I'd been seriously considering handing in my 'resignation' from that responsibility, I ended up feeling more relieved than anything else. (Also, because I'm not perfect, I have to admit there was a bit of schadenfreude when H's first attempts at making timetables without considering what the teachers wanted gave him noticeable backlash.) In the meantime, H continues to make himself essential to the school in an attempt to become Head of Secondary, and is put in charge of organizing progress reports and Parents/Teachers conferences.

Fast forward a couple months: H did not become Head of Secondary, because he point blank refused to work with one of the teachers in the department. He is still in charge of timetabling & reports & PTCs organization, and is (not unfairly) expecting a big bonus for his performance last year. Problem: H's husband has to move to Paris for his job, and H intends to follow him before the end of the year, aka before the intended end of his contract. Consequently: H does not get a bonus.

H is not happy (which to be fair: he's right there) and decides to hasten his departure to Immediately, then is convinced to come back with what I have to assume is significant incentive. H is still leaving as soon as possible, though, and has to find a replacement for his responsibilities. So, who does he ask to pick up the torch?

To which my response was of course a polite but firm

NAH