#bc this is REAL argument

[nobleriver]

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live | What We (1.04)

I tried everything!

[unsung-idiot]

don't show him modern technology; it won't end well

bonus under the cut:

[lazylittledragon]

ok someone please correct me if i'm wrong but am i weird for thinking those 'audiobooks don't count as reading' posts are ableist as fuck????

[anewbrainjughead]

robert wearing sarah down until she loves him compilation

[mythmagicetc]

breaking my silence...eddie making that face in 8.08 when buck was talking about "privacy of your own home" wasn't him in disbelief at the idea of buck respecting his privacy. that was him realizing buck thought he was watching porn on an ipad fully clothed mid-afternoon in his kitchen.

[1doesnotsimplyhavejust1fandam]

This has most definitely been said before, but we were robbed of the core four quarantining on-screen together at Buck’s place. ROBBED I say

[sunlight-shunlight]

i feel like on the one side, there's often the idea that ~oooh if you like solas you just want to woobify him and ignore his flaws~, and i don't think that's the case! but i do try to think about it when writing. bc it is interesting in dai when he has his insane opinions about every race including his own, and his legendary ability to manipulate and lie by omission and compartmentalize, and the way he can be quite ethical and kind, but turn that off instantly if it conflicts with a Greater Good™️, or something strikes him as a tyrannical ideology, or just pisses him off personally.

but also. i have to say. veilguard was soooo unconvincing on making solas seem particularly threatening? it did a better job on defanging him than even my mildest takes, i feel? hfjsdhfjsk

like maybe the "worst" thing solas does in the game is making rook forget varric's death and then hallucinate him being alive. pretty bad! that overrides all of solas' previous morals about free will, and cynically uses the memory of his friend that he just killed. but makes sense bc he's pissed about being in regret jail and wants to escape as quickly as possible. fair enough! in theory, i have no objections. gaslight gatekeep regretboss, why not.

but then it falls apart SO quickly if you think about it at all. let's ignore how dumb the regret prison is as a concept bc it literally only works on solas, and the evanuris would not have regrets. he has access to rook's brain, and he wants to make them develop more regrets so that he can put them into the prison and pull himself out. ok!

to do this... solas makes fake varric be nice and give them pep talks? why?? the EASIEST way to make rook develop regrets, is if fake varric starts guilt tripping them and psychologically tormenting them? make varric blame them for the blight wiping out half of thedas (like solas regrets destroying arlathan), and then they'll be so regretful! done! he could've gotten out way sooner, if he just used the unethical mind control he was already doing more effectively?

if he couldn't control fake varric's behaviour, and it was just based on rook's own memory, then... why did he let them keep thinking varric was alive? varric actually reduces their regret levels just by seemingly not being dead? he could have needled rook about letting varric tragically die as their beloved centrist bestie (like mythal lmao) and then they still get regrets, and he can escape! but somehow he mind controls rook... ineffectually, for no seeming purpose? fhdkhjfghkdf. i'm just not convinced!! this is flop-tier antagonist behaviour.

[mintedwitcher]

Tbh I can't help laughing about the "Lou doesn't like sex scenes!" criers because like.... girlypop what show have you been watching? None of the characters have Actual explicit sex scenes.

There are implied ones (madney, bathena, henren) and fade-to-black ones (Athena and her hookup in s1, Hen and her ex) and even post-sex scenes (Eddie/Shannon, Eddie/Marisol, Buck and his hookups in s1) but this is not the show for gratuitous sex scenes so like. What are yall gloating about? Ooh the new guy on the "we don't do explicit sex scenes" show doesn't want to do explicit sex scenes. Oh noooooo. This is totally unheard of and is totally a reason to hate him (heavy on the sarcasm if you can't tell).

Literally get up girlypop you're throwing a tantie about a scenario you made up in your head. "Bucktommy can't thrive since Lou refuses to do explicit sex scenes" no one on this show does explicit sex scenes. It's literally a non-starter.

[s0fter-sin]

i’d love to know how much of early day's spn subtext was deliberate or just a happy accident bc the subplot of 1x08 bugs is sam and dean butting heads about how they were raised and sam hating it while dean tells him he should accept it as they protect a family; predominantly a father and son

the father and son argue bc the son is different and not who the father wants him to be while the son feels ignored and shunned (aka sam). sam spends the episode empathising with him and telling him he can look forward to going to college to get away from him just like he did while dean cuts in to say he should stick with his family

the entire episode, dean defends john and the way he raised them ("maybe he needed to raise his voice but sometimes you were out of line"), it even starts with him and sam arguing over their illegal ways of making money and how they were brought up in the life; dean adapting to and enjoying it and sam wanting to be honest and straight

they talk about sam being sure john is and always has been disappointed in him just for dean to say john used to go to stanford whenever he could to check on him and something about his expression is so bitter; like he knows john would never express that care for him

but at the climax when they're trying to get matt to convince his dad to leave, sam is the one telling him to tell the truth and make his dad listen whereas dean tells him to lie; implying he wouldn't trust his son enough to believe him

he outright scoffs at sam and asks him what he was thinking for trying to get matt to tell the truth

the entire episode, dean is advocating for the kid to work it out (almost to just take it) and stay with his family but when push comes to shove, he tells him to lie

sam who spent years resenting john and his family for how they were raised, fell back on "making him listen"; echoing all the arguments he had with john, trying to force him to understand who he is while john's too blinded by vengeance to even begin to try. the same way sam refuses to see how they were raised and why they were raised that way from john’s point of view, hinting at how similar people they are (which still isn’t an excuse but also not the point rn)

dean winchester, the king of repression and masking (and fawning), dean who at this point is still staunchly defending john, tells a shunned kid with a harsh father to pretend in order for his father to care enough to listen to him and believe him

dean knows reasoning won't work bc he's watched it happen over and over again with sam and john

even the way matt tries to say, “but he’s my… (father)” feels like he’s coming over to dean’s point of view; that matt as a son respects his father to enough to tell the truth and no matter how much they’ve fought, that should trump everything. but dean still insists he lies. and matt tells the truth. and his father doesn’t listen

there's no way they intentionally made dean subconsciously know that a man raising his son in a mimicry of how john raised them wouldn't respect or trust his son enough to believe him about something potentially life threatening after half a season of john ignoring them about something potentially life threatening

right?

[lotuseaterconference]

I actually don't have any sense to what extent "male loneliness" is a real problem, like if the social trends being described are real and if they're especially bad for men, but it is annoying to me about how kneejerk a lot of the conversation is around it. Bc let's be real, there is a specific type of person who is ideologically committed to rejecting the suggestion that any kind of social problem is worse for men, and even if it is, thinks talking about it is with that framing means Letting MRAs Win, which is very tedious

[mongeese]

Interesting that Kim is like almost always portrayed as being dominant and enjoying control in fanworks, which absolutely does have evidence in canon and is an interpretation I personally agree with to an extent. However, in the actual game, he's always letting Harry take the lead, letting you decide where to go, who to talk to, whether or not to take on additional cases, etc etc. Obviously, the doylist explanation for this is that Disco Elysium is a video game where the whole point is that the player can decide what happens and in what order, and Harry du Bois is the player character. Kim has to let you do whatever you want because otherwise it would be a boring and restrictive game. But if you look at it from a watsonian perspective, it can have so many different fascinating implications for Kim's character. Like, does he just implicitly trust Harry that much? Or does he trust the RCM that much, that he thinks any officer of the RCM must be worth following? Does he feel a lack of confidence in his own abilities to run the show? Is he simply more comfortable in a passive role? Is he just entertained by this deranged amnesiac man and wants to watch the show play out? Is he worried there would be consequences for stopping Harry from doing what he wants? Would it break some kind of unspoken rule (either for Kim personally or for the RCM) for Kim to outright refuse to let his temporary partner honor his strange whims? Kim is someone who clearly exercises an extraordinary amount of self-control, and is proud of it. But he doesn't appear to have any interest in controlling other people (at least in a professional context). I need to study him under a microscope

[angelsdean]

don't know how people multi-fandom. dipped my toe into another one and immediately backed out bc everyone there was insufferable.

[hotmess-exe]

"MY life has gotten marginally better or been unaffected under the current administration, so give the Democrats YOUR vote"

that's what y'all sound like. fuckin entitled. or do none of y'all actually believe in one person, one vote lol

just say that other people's problems, well-being, stability, and dignity is secondary to your fucking comfort under the status quo.

if things are "better under Biden" for you to such an extent that you feel entitled to other people's fucking votes, I got news for ya — you were probably fine under Trump too 🙃

[saturnniidae]

Saw someone say wakfus animation looks like something made by ai.....imgonna tie you up and throw you down a well. don't even play it's fucking puppet animation tons of studios and series use that it does Not look like modern ai generated slop 💔

[highlordofkrypton]

i would love to hear some of your opinions on illyrians!

SORRY IT TOOK ME FOREVER, but this subject is so personal to me, I get scared sharing because the internet and this fandom is known for bad takes. I'm tagging @amalhe-kofee because you also sent an Illyrian ask which I will answer too, but I thought you might like this answer!

For context, someone on Reddit posted the perfect question to help me structure my ideas: Where do you come from and how does that change anything?

MY RESPONSE

Finally! Time for me to start my unskippable dialogue cutscene 😂

Disclaimer: This is based on my personal experience only and I understand that this is a romantasy book (aka, I know it's not that deep). SJM's intention is definitely not about exploring tribal poc culture. Also, please excuse my usage of some terms, I'm trying to stay surface level and avoid too many identifiers as I am not comfortable. It's my first time wording these thoughts out loud, so please give me grace. This is very intimidating and personal.

I'm a mixed-ethnicity second generation immigrant in Canada, and the notion of identity is something that I think a lot about. I'm also in a part of Canada that has its own cultural struggles, and on top of being a woman of colour, I am often shoved into either camp of the language wars, or the secret third thing of an immigrant that doesn't belong here anyway, oop.

I struggle with the Illyrians and the representation of Rhysand in particular because to me (emphasis on to me because I don't trust people here not to come @ me about what's in the text/explicitly written), he reads like he has no specific cultural identity or more specifically, poc identity? I do give grace because the worldbuilding is enough to tell a story, but not meant to be scratched in such a way.

The way the Illyrians are described doesn't feel like a culture, but rather an outsider's point of view what they think the culture is like, but have no belonging to said culture. I also feel that a lot of poc/tribal cultures (one of which I am half and both my parents home countries were colonized) have extremely strong notions of family and tradition. I just don't get any of that outside of the warrior culture? Like it's not imbued in the characters.

Also, when cultures are assimilated/colonized, this also comes with it's own issues that is felt generations onwards. More on my mother's side than my father's side, but I can feel that something was lost over the different eras of different "colonizers" (sorry I'm lacking the word) and there were other things gained. It shaped the language, the food, the clothes, etc. Both my parents come from extremely poor villages, and I can also see how falling under the rule of empires and other Western countries have affected how they perceive the world and themselves.

That said, being mixed also comes with a whole new set of identity crises and trying to understand where you belong. It's a challenge, and I feel like it would make more sense for Rhysand to struggle with who he represents as High Lord because he is part of both of the major demographics of the Night Court. I absolutely stand by the questioning as to why he doesn't do anything for Illyria, and it would be interesting if he simply shunned that part of him. That's valid too.

It's difficult to synthetize my thoughts into a single post, sorry; I just find the notion of the Illyrians and the discourse around POCs very jarring in this fandom/in regards to this book.

I did start writing a fanfic of the story of Rhysand's mother and father to touch on these themes of Illyrians before and after the arrival of the High Faeries, but also Rhysand's mother's life in her village, then being torn from what she knew and thrust into a whole new world alone. Is it freedom? A better life for her children? Which culture does she prioritize?

[longsufferingcritic]

It's frustrating how the conversation around generative AI came so close to tackling the environmental impact of tech, but ultimately focused on generative AI and generative AI alone, ignoring other aspects of computing like advertising and web hosting that have a larger yet less recognized impact.

Because of the excessive focus on AI images, I haven't even seen Tumblr complain about cryptocurrency in a while. You know, cryptocurrency, where the most common process (proof-of-work blockchain) inherently requires massive and ever-increasing energy consumption. There are thousands of data centers running thousands of computers at maximum capacity 24/7/365 for the exclusive purpose of cryptocurrency "mining". BitCoin mining alone consumes more electricity every year than entire countries.

But many anti-AI activists who bring up the environmental impact of generative AI are apparently only doing so as an addendum to their main reason for opposing it. So it's rare to see serious discussions of how, say, AI-generated online scams and SEO spam waste literal tons of electricity in web hosting to profit off of actively making the world a worse place. Instead it's generally "Stop using AI images because it steals from artists... and also it's bad for the environment, so there."