#I'm not going to be comprehensible

[wherestoriescomefrom]

rian johnson took all that time, put in all that effort to make glass onion a fantastic period piece to the first four months of pandemic, a prescient narrative that anticipates the stupidity of rich billionaires, and then pulled the rug from under us because the world of benoit blanc just straight up doesn't have the mona lisa anymore

[calicoscurse]

I think I've realized my biggest pet peeves with most protocol theories I've seen so far, and that it's people act like it's still Archives. Like hinging on Smirke's 14, or including so much Jmart and Jonah lore that it would be confusing to someone only listening to Protocol, and in general people cannot scrub Archives from their brain of it and are viewing things with those lenses on. But it's also interesting? Because I'm almost certain Jonny has mentioned knowing people are going to do this. And I'm sure the team will take advantage of that and there will be things in there that won't disrupt a Protocol only listeners experience, but will lead a Archives listen on a fun wild goose chase because it would mean something big in the Archives universe and be a big red herring or just stop people to a dead path because they aren't looking at it clearly

[purble-gaymer]

simple thoughts on meta knight and gender euphoria

[reading-comp-posting]

You have inspired me to start making reading comprehension questions for a server’s political memes channel. Do you have any tips to make good questions, or pitfalls to avoid?

I did want to answer this ask but I waited a bit until I had more actual posts queued before doing so

When I'm doing my gimmick, the first question I ask myself is, "taken completely literally at face value, what is this post saying?" Then, I ask, "what does this post actually mean?" or, alternatively, "what was the reason that this post was made?"

Of course that is not necessarily the best way to do it or the only valid way, it's just the easiest way for me to start breaking a post apart.

I also try to lead a hypothetical person who is reading my questions to try and think about things in a way that would help them understand the post. For instance, on the nsfw snow post I tried to direct my hypothetical answerer into understanding that the one image that was removed was probably due to copyright issues with the photographer as opposed to some algorithm gone awry that thought the snow was porn, which can be verified by checking the notes of the post.

[m3tr0n0m333]

Makes Nine hallucinate(?) An emotional support Sonic. As a treat :3

Calling it "Smoke & Mirrors" because I need something to tag it as....

Anyways that paradox prism energy stuff really does stuff to ur brain frfr (the reason I said hallucinate(?) Is because you really can't tell if this is a mind illusion or something the paradox prism conjured up. Yeah.)

Basically, Nine wakes up one day to see ??? Sonic ??? But obviously not Sonic, his appearance is too distinct from what Nine remembers. (And he's all sparkly/crystally.) Of course, as Nine tries to figure out how to get rid of this supposed hallucination, this Sonic insists that he's the real Sonic- returned to see Nine. And the mirage genuinely seems to believe it. Nine can't convince him otherwise.

Nine's well aware this isn't real. That doesn't really stop him from indulging in the fantasy of having Sonic back. Yeesh.

[thats-godscomma]

So I just learned about "Shawn's Resume" which was the Official Resume made by Shawn Spencer posted to the USA Network site sometime in 2006, but apparently the link doesn't work anymore so people have been settling for a summarized version on LiveJournal but GUESS WHO FOUND IT???? BECAUSE BESTIES IT IS ON THE WAYBACK MACHINE

Here's a link to Shawn's Resume via the Wayback Machine

The video links don't work, but you can still scroll through and read the whole three-page interactive resume :) You are very welcome

[7goodangel]

Me, several years ago: "I'll never try digital 3D art... just have no interest to learn it. Already have learned other art forms that I barely use anyway... so why add to that ?..."

Me, currently: [Is attempting to model a donut in Blender] "... uh... I can explain..."

[sailorblossoms-snowbaz]

Baz's raised eyebrow:

(yet another "Simon identifies as 'Baz-sexual' for very good reasons' post)

few things have annoyed me more with these books than when people do not take Simon's "I don't know anything about anything but maybe I'm just a Baz-sexual" comments seriously (dismissing it with a combination of not paying attention to what he's putting down and good old confirmation bias). He even says it in less "goofy" ways with lines such as "he's the only person I have ever wanted" (in the context of thinking about having sex) (note the emphasis on ever) (yes, it's one of the clues saying he didn't want to have it with Agatha, in case it's not clear)

"Like Baz has only ever wanted Simon, Simon has only ever wanted Baz," is necessary to bring up before I get to my point here. I have seen Simon being read as in love or attracted to Agatha ("he must have been or else how they had sex?"... I mean, Simon tells you why it happened without attraction, but even if he didn't, we could make an alphabetized list of reasons it can happen without it, the desire to fit in is no joke) or the idea of Simon liking all sorts of girls, including the girl he pointedly doesn't notice despite her being obvious to others, for the sake of drama and conflict. I have wondered if they don't believe the characters, or if they find the highlighted sentence here boring. "It's boring if the characters only want each other," "in real life people want multiple people" – indeed, but not everyone is wired the same (and why are we stuck on "real life" so much anyway in stories about half-dragon and vampire boys falling in love). But it's not like this sentence is without conflict. Note Baz's eyebrow...

In CO, when Simon says Trixie is cute, Baz's reaction is a boyish "I'm going to puke" comment, which is likely part of how he dealt with jealousy and thinking Simon was straight for years: masking his feelings with "harsh" or sort of "edgy" jokes (probably not the right words to use, but getting too hung up on precise wording is the reason I never finish these posts). In awtwb, Simon calls Pippa cute, and Baz raises an eyebrow...

By those reactions, we could say the idea of Simon calling someone cute because he finds them attractive crosses Baz's mind – or is something he feels in some way, even if the thought doesn't explicitly cross his mind. It's something the reader might assume as well... however, I don't think the way Simon uses cute – which can be used in many different situations – says anything about attraction for him. I mean, a gay man can see a girl being cute or gorgeous as well – Baz certainly does! (attraction is portrayed in these books as thoughts derailed, repetition, sentences being cut off, fixating in a detail no one else notices like they do – you see it with Baz and Simon, Agatha and Niamh, Shepard and Penny. Shep doesn't just call Penny cute – he loses his entire goddamn mind for a whole page about her cuteness and her knees. It's not just a passing comment).

I don't think those scenes when Simon says "cute" is highlighting something about him, other than the fact that he's able to note cuteness. I think it's saying more about Baz's insecurities (I know I once posted something long about it somewhere...) Baz brings attention to it in a way with his reactions... because he's bothered by it. It's something that's sort of hidden and sort of contained, but it's there.

Baz doesn't find himself desirable, partly because of his vampiric nature. But part of it is also about the complicated and messy fear that perhaps... Simon has a problem with being with a man (I know I have unpacked this in other posts, finding them though...). Perhaps "a girl would be better" (It's messier with boys than with girls, it's a thought that comes out before he catches himself with "I don't actually know anything about being with boys or girls".... "I don't know anything about being in a relationship," he says, while still being able to catch there was something wrong with Agatha and Simon's relationship when Simon talks about – because Simon will process things he would rather avoid when it's about opening up to Baz, he wants Baz to know things that would help Baz understand him better, even if he himself would rather not understand... still Baz can't let go of the programming of all those years believing in the golden couple – he has spent a longer time believing that than dating Simon, after all) (Agatha is alive and beautiful, the sort of beauty that's used to "embody" "desirability".... and Baz is "not alive"...) (as a side note, have you noticed the idea – or the actual action – of sex with Agatha is used both with Simon and Baz to indicate a lack of desire toward women?)...

While Simon thinks of Baz as the only person he has ever wanted – Baz is as desirable as it gets for him – Baz struggles with feeling desirable at all. Baz doubts and wonders and has to catch himself – even if he doesn't notice he's doing that. Even if he doesn't consciously think "a beautiful girl who is alive is more preferable than me, a gay male vampire." That is a far more interesting conflict than Baz having legit reasons to be jealous, I think. The fact that he has truly nothing to feel jealous about, and yet... he just can’t help it. It's hard to go against years of programming, of going against the idea that everything about yourself is undesirable and it's better to hide it – another way he matches with Simon. They also match in their insecurities, with small differences: Baz is so amazing and attractive while Simon doesn't feel like he's good enough for him, he can do better than him, etc... while Baz clearly only has eyes for Simon, Simon feels like Baz is merely stuck with him. And the conflict here is that you think "they need to TALK and voice their thoughts for the love of god, what do you mean Baz doesn't know Simon sees him as the love of all his lives??"... talking is not enough. That Simon and Baz only have eyes for each other is not without conflict. Sometimes we need to keep hearing some things, and even then... the fears and insecurities don't go away. Especially when we have spent a really long time believing ourselves to be unwanted, undesirable, something to be hidden. When we have been exposed to things that confirmed those beliefs for longer than we have been exposed to things that challenge them

[statementlou]

https://www.tumblr.com/louisupdates/754934426217152513/goodbye-faith-in-the-future-world-tour-272024?source=share

did he or did he not lose fans then?

I will answer this because this anon actually brings a concrete question to the table rather than just "hurhur but you're a larrie??" (tell me you can't actually refute any of our points…). Anyway this post shows the decrease in Louis instagram followers between the screenshots taken directly after the release of Faith in the Future in Nov '22, when he changed his bio to promote that album and the tour tickets, and now, when he changed it again to mention the current release. But I'm putting that response under a cut because I'm tired of the actual POINT of all this nonsense getting lost in a sea of made up things people insist are important:

There is no rational argument you can make to say that Louis has less fans now than he did 2, 4, or 6 years ago. You don't need a spreadsheet of details you need to USE YOUR EYES! He has gone from filling theaters to filling arenas and stadiums. His second album made a higher chart position than his first album. His festival has doubled in size EVERY year of its existence. And for that matter: his insta post engagement numbers remain about the same (despite the fact that older posts should have way MORE likes due to having been there longer, even aside from follower counts.) SO WHO FUCKING CARES ABOUT HIS INSTA FOLLOWER NUMBER???? Serious question: what does the word "fans" mean if these things aren't what matters? ALL of this quibbling about what he should do to make things better and people can't even see that THINGS AREN'T BAD.

Anyway to address the specific question- (con't......)

NO- HE DID NOT LOSE FANS. HE LOST SOME INSTA FOLLOWERS. THESE ARE NOT THE SAME THING. As I said above, literally what does it mean to lose fans if that number change coincides with him having higher sales, more audience members, and higher engagement than ever before? Whatever he lost ISN'T FANS. I wouldn't be surprised if a significant factor was something like a bot purge, but also yes: I'm sure a lot of casuals followed him around the time of his big album release and later unfollowed him. That's extremely normal because that's how casual engagement works, and why the definition of fan really matters. Louis and his team understand this and have referenced it repeatedly, talking about how lucky he is to have *us* specifically, to have the kind of dedicated fanbase he has, to have the KIND of fans he does who will allow him to do what HE wants. @dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram named the issue of depth vs breadth with regard to fans a long time ago, and pointed out why having DEPTH is so much more important. It's like this- artists who are on top 40 radio have more numbers on things like insta follows, and for a time on sales and tickets. But those aren't FANS- they're people with a casual interest. And as soon as that person isn't being forced in their ears 10x a day, those people lose interest and stop supporting them, stop buying stuff and unfollow, and those artists end up doing the 'opener on the jingle ball' circuit rather than their own tours. One Direction as a whole, and Louis maybe most of all or near to at this point, have something MUCH MORE VALUABLE than that- DEPTH FANS. Louis has fans who will support him even if he takes years to release music, or stops parading around with a pretend girlfriend to stay in the headlines at least once a month, or completely changes his image and genre, and that is UNHEARD OF. It's ASTONISHING and worth SO MUCH MORE. And they get that! THAT is why he always bragging about us, why industry people he works with are always so agog about us, why he will do anything for US- not for randos. He is also growing his breadth- and it's OBVIOUSLY WORKING whatever his follower counts are, but that is always going to be secondary to doing things for THE FANDOM because that is his sustainable business model. That is what keeps him onstage and reaching number one. And not coincidentally, the things they do are also working to grow that- much more valuable- commodity. So the fact that that's exactly what these chuckleheads complain about- that he does things that are just fandom facing or serving rather than everything being aimed at recruiting casual fans- does nothing but betray how completely they, unlike Louis and his team, misunderstand the actual drivers of his (actual, existing, happening) success. Luckily for Louis, he and his team rely on their own data harvesting (they do a LOT of it) and growth metrics (they're off the charts) rather than the smug assumptions of random (mostly quite new to this) fans and the few bitter people leading the complaining about everything Louis does.

[bluebobatea]

if sasuke was the main character then he probably would've been a LOT more sympathised with than he is now (which is to say rarely). like the narrative wouldn't even need to change to show his pains or 'his side of the story', bc it does that plenty. it's just that he is not the main character. and idk what it is about our human minds but we tend to sympathise with main characters automatically (unless ofc you go off the rockers insane and do something like obliterate almost everyone from the planet *cough* eren yeager *cough*)

an instance that comes to my mind where this does happen is with lelouch from code geass. while i don't agree with his character motivations, people generally do sympathise with him as he is the mc and as viewers we know he isn't inherently evil. sasuke's goal towards the end is slightly similar but ofc people love to hate him so they don't even try to understand where he is coming from.

my point is, most people while engaging with the naruto story don't read between the lines and so don't see how traumatised and in pain sasuke is and hence don't understand his character motivations. heck, they don't understand a single bit about him and so they automatically hate him, as he is supposedly going against the main character's goals.

which is really sad given all that he has been through.

[fromtheseventhhell]

One major factor missing from most debates on Arya and Lyanna's beauty is that they're being judged by their society's extremely patriarchal values. In both looks and personality, that context is essential to understanding how others perceive them. George explores the misogyny experienced by non-conforming women, especially with Arya, and it's interesting how he plays with that regarding their physical beauty.

Her mother used to say she could be pretty if she would just wash and brush her hair and take more care with her dress, the way her sister did. (The Blind Girl, ADWD) "You never knew Lyanna as I did, Robert," Ned told him. "You saw her beauty, but not the iron underneath. She would have told you that you have no business in the melee." (Eddard VII, AGOT)

These two quotes offer a nice summation of this idea. With Arya, her supposed lack of beauty is defined by her being a non-conforming wild child. Her hair is messy, her face is dirty, and she's often in "lower class" clothing while engaging in unladylike activities. None of this says anything about her physical beauty but it tells us everything about how she's perceived. Arya could be pretty...If she conforms to society's standards for a highborn Lady. With Lyanna, however, we get the opposite. Where Arya is judged based on her personality, Robert's romanticization of Lyanna is rooted solely in her looks. He doesn't know anything about the person she really was. There is an assumption that, because she looked a certain way, her personality must fit and Robert imagines her much softer and more passive than she actually was.

That Arya isn't pretty or Lyanna wasn't wild are two perceptions that George specifically pushes back against. This is where people miss the brilliance of them being linked as literary mirrors; it is largely about us learning more about Lyanna, but it touches on more than that. The significance of them being written as wild, willful, and with their own beauty is that George isn't writing his female characters around patriarchal expectations. When people debate their beauty, that's often the trapping they fall into. Beauty and non-conformity are treated as mutually exclusive factors when the story itself never makes that point; this is also the logic that leads people to the (incorrect) conclusion that Lyanna and Arya aren't meant to be similar. Arya's self-esteem issues around her looks and being a Lady make this a topic certain to be addressed in the future; George has made it a part of the story. The conclusion shouldn't be that "looks don't matter", but that looks aren't indicative of a character's value, personality, or morality.

[lachiennearoo]

Maybe I'm just so autistic that I don't get that everyone is just joking but...

It kinda scares me how many people genuinely believe Deadpool and Wolverine had sex in Deadpool 3, and didn't realize it was a joke made to spoof sex scenes that was done because in that moment they absolutely HATED each other and only wanted to murder each other.

Like... Where did the media literacy go? Did it get snatched by the TVA with Wade's wig or something??

[reading-comp-posting]

Hey everyone.

I have no idea how this happened, but I'm feeling completely fine and this condition seems to be stable. So this is the end of my hiatus that lasted a whopping three days.

The day I made the announcement that I was going on hiatus was honestly one of, if not the worst, days I have had in the last 5 years at least. Nothing even happened except my own poor mental health, but I just woke up that morning like 75% of the way to tears. I was choking down sobs when I wrote that announcement and for a good hour or so afterwards. I just felt so awful that I knew I surely wouldn't be able to do anything here for a good long while.

That night I went to sleep, and I woke up the next morning feeling good, notably better than I was even before my depressive episode started. Maybe it was the catharsis of the previous day. Maybe the hbomberguy video on plagiarism was so good it cured my depression. I genuinely don't know what happened there.

I gave myself a couple of days to see if it was a temporary thing and it's lasted so far. I was going to wait an entire extra week or so before saying that I was definitely better, but honestly I wanted to start posting again earlier.

We now (hopefully) return to your regularly scheduled reading-comp-posting

[agender-witchery]

Canto IV was really good

Project Moon does a cool thing that I really like with their stories, which in theory isn't really anything special, but I see so few stories do this that it really does single Project Moon out in my mind.

Each Project Moon game is in a dialogue with itself, having a discussion about politics and philosophy and society in general. They universally present the status quo as Not Great which is... evident for anyone living in the real world, but importantly to me, they do not present any proper answers to this.

This isn't to say that Project Moon stories are fence sitting nonsense that call for the importance of meeting in the middle, that's your own decision on whether you think that's worthwhile. And Project Moon DOES express opinions in the world they have created, so they're not cowards in that sense either. It's pretty clear, at least to me, that they believe things in our world do have to change, that the vision of capitalism that exists in the City is horrendous, and that we in the real world are on a clear trajectory toward the world of the City if action is not taken.

However, the way they frame the two opposing sides of each argument they present is important. And key to that framing is that in every game you play antisocial, morally dubious murderers. This is a constant. The people you're fighting aren't the good guys, but hey, neither are you.

In Ruina, when it comes down to the final confrontation with the Reverberation Ensemble, you are presented with two opposing ideals. Carmen and the Ensemble would love nothing more than to see the world torn down in its entirety, built back up in their own imagining of an ideal society. The Librarians, on the other hand, are there to fight against that notion, that the world they have as it is can be changed.

And while I definitely fall on the side of "maybe there's hope to be had in this dying, hellish apocalypse" I do GET where the Ensemble is coming from. I GET what Carmen's trying to do. It's a naive and childish attempt at creating a better world from the ashes of the old, an idea whose inevitable result is tyranny, but to someone who's already experiencing tyranny, tyranny but this time you're on top seems appealing. And I also understand that, for the Librarians, even if the ultimate goal here is to create a better society without that sort of tyranny, well you're kind of murdering people to achieve that.

And I think all this plays into why I enjoyed Canto IV so much. First off, the main conflict in Canto IV isn't between Limbus Company and another group, it's the conflict between K Corp and the Technology Liberation Alliance, which can be further distilled down to the conflict between Dongrang and Dongbaek.

In the case of K Corp, they're a bunch of utilitarians, people who say that even torture is acceptable if it leads to lives saved. And they quite literally do this, torturing the Tearful Thing in literally every possible way, just to produce the tears needed for regeneration ampules, forcing it to cry for the sake of others. Dongbaek doesn't even fully refute that this might be useful, but she does assert that if you're going to go to these lengths, there better be a foreseeable end to it, you better be curing EVERYONE.

And then we have the TLA, a bunch of anprims who aren't exactly wrong in the assertion that the way technology is used within the City causes immeasurable harm, but do come to the wrong conclusion that ALL tech needs to be incinerated. And, for them to come against K Corp specifically is significant, because sure, K Corp literally tortures people to produce their ampules, but the results are tangible. Lives are, in fact, saved, even if we discount the K Corp Security that will cut their own limbs off just to get healed.

And where Canto IV manages to stop saying "both sides bad" is in bringing Limbus Company back into the equation. A third party, who doesn't adhere to the ideals of either side.

Does Limbus Company have perfect answers to resolve this conflict? No, you're still a bunch of murderers. But they do present a third perspective, that instead of looking only at total harm done and coming to the conclusion that torture is acceptable, and instead of looking at all the injustices caused and coming to the conclusion that the entire world needs to be reset, through exploring the fathoms of Yi Sang's EGO, we can come to consider the possibility of caring for the individual. That yes, this world is fucked up and living in it can itself be considered a crime against humanity, but that doesn't mean you can't help someone in a way that doesn't hurt someone else. Yi Sang went from being horribly depressed with nothing in this world, someone who desperately wanted to die and couldn't even be afforded that mercy, to someone who finally smiled. The world is still fucked up, and we don't really have a solution to that, but we at least made it a little bit brighter for one person, and in the future, we can keep doing that.

And also? Canto IV introduced Alfonso so really it's just the best chapter.

[solafruit]

imagine qtubbo being so sleep deprived he passes out in the town of fobo storage room, leaned against the chests... he has a nightmare, of this terrifying pyramid and boss fight... then, just as he felt he was going to die, he startles awake. he straightens up with his back still against the full chests, almost too tired to think... in front of him is a small duck, its small beady eyes staring into him. imagine qtubbo reaching a hand out to pet it, only for his hand to pass right through... still, the little duck snuggles up to him, and if almost as if it isn't just a product of his lack of sleep. imagine qtubbo feeling truly comfortable for the first time in days, if only for a few moments.

[thingscanalwaysgetworse]

Still not over Jumanji (1995). Imagine being trapped in a game for 26 years where you have to face all manner of deadly animals (plus a deadly hunter who looks like your dad), and then you get back to the real world only to realize that nearly everyone you know is dead except for two people, one of whom is now a cop who keeps trying to arrest you and one of whom has so much trauma from the first time you played the game that she's convinced you don't exist. Also now there are two kids who started playing the game and you all have to finish it together or else the kids will get stuck too and the nightmare will never end

and then?? you finally complete the game and everything gets fixed but you're suddenly 12 years old again in 1969 like nothing happened?? and then??? 26 years later the kids you helped save don't remember you because technically you've never met??? but you don't even care because they're alive and they have their family again, and you’re happy for them, even if they’ll never know just how much you care about them