#at least he is taking notes

[rghema]

Tanthamoretober Day 23 - Baking Pies

(Heavily inspired by The Anatomy lesson of Dr Tulp by Rembrandt and the Salt Bae meme)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Lan Wangji Goes To Lotus Pier AU: Part 1: Dread on Arrival

(Part 2)

[turtleblogatlast]

That middle child feel when you’re the one who successfully gets you and your siblings out of trouble only to immediately get jumped by them afterwards

[screwpinecaprice]

Just a silly guy, with silly silly thoughts.

@glowweek Day 2

Casual | Surprise

A casual surprise?😬😬😬

[lotus-pear]

i think you guys are onto smth..

i unironically got invested in this HELP

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

i wanted to put Wally in my Barbie movie fit <3 he's gonna go watch it with his bestie

it backfired <3 poor thing's in a crisis

[raiiny-bay]

the kids released a new album

[veinsfullofstars]

🪞 Fallen angel... who do you see staring back from the Mirror? 🪞

(ID: Kirby series fanart of Galacta Knight and my personal interpretation of his Mirror World counterpart. GK hovers above facing slightly to our left, his feathery wings spread wide, shaded in lilac and tipped with gilded wing talons, a swallow-like tail visible. He holds his shield forward in his left hand (our right) and his lance to the side in his right (our left), a single magenta eye leering at the viewer through the visor of his mask. A halo of heart spears floats and shines angelically behind his horns. Below him, M!GK hovers in the same pose but flipped horizontally and without the halo. Visually, M!GK has mostly the same features as GK, with his color palette being darker and less saturated (dusty purple body, dark gray armor, gray mask, maroon lance, rose-gold horns and weapons accents). His eyes are not visible in the shadow of his mask, but there are signs of erosion running down the metal surface in rusty orange lines, almost like tear tracks. Instead of feathery wings, M!GK has wings composed of jagged shards of pink crystal, glittering and lit from within by a luminous glow. A few pale feathers can still be seen peeking out from his back. END ID.)

Hey, so... what if... I went a little insane for a minute? What if I just... concepted a character... for the sequel... to an AU... I've told no one about... and haven't even finished writing yet? What if I then... pulled the salt shaker labeled "ANGST" out of the pantry and just... unscrewed the cap all over this poor lad? Oh, and Galacta Knight's here, too, I guess.

Sketch started 02/21/24, render started 03/01/24, finished 03/06/24.

[rickybaby]

‘F**K THAT GUY’ - RICCIARDO FURIOUS WITH STROLL’S CRASH REACTION

[katakaluptastrophy]

Once again thinking about how nightmarish the River bubble was...

It lasts for nine months. The ghosts stuck inside it can't quite keep track of time passing, but think it's been around eight weeks.

And of those perceived eight weeks, they don't fully work out what's going on until a 'week' or so before Harrow awakes in the bubble.

These people spent what they perceived as two months of moments of horrible realisation and forgetfulness as Harrow's unconscious mind tried to construct a simulacrum of Canaan House and "enforced certain rules to keep [her] cast on-script".

We know about the "wrong" and "confused parody" NPC versions of the living scions of Canaan House, but what did Harrow's storytelling mean for everyone else? Were they always in control? Did they ever find themselves in places or doing things they didn't remember deciding to do, or distinctly remembered doing before? Imagine having flashbacks of your own awful death while your companions look on incomprehending. Imagine being the only one in the room not claiming to recall that this all happened differently before. That conversation a 'week' before Harrow's arrival must have been so validating and so utterly devastating.

And they still all chose to stay.

[veliseraptor]

So there's a poll that crossed my dash (https://www.tumblr.com/lansplaining/739863989923856384/in-a-time-travel-situation-to-save-himself-jgy if you're curious) about what JGY would do if he traveled back in time. There's lots of incredible but totally dissenting ideas in the notes, and now I really want your perspective. JGY dies in Guanyin Temple and wakes up in the past: what's his game plan?

oh man this is an interesting question! and so much of it is "it depends", particularly on "where in the past does he end up."

I think the first answer is actually to a certain extent "freeze and despair" because the thing is that from Jin Guangyao's perspective, he's never had a whole lot of options. His mistakes - or at least, the things that got him in trouble - look like, if not inevitabilities, a question of "what could I have done that would've been better?", at least at (his own) first impression. I think a lot of the time he makes the choices he makes because he feels cornered into them. He kills Nie Mingjue because otherwise he will die. Whether he was directly responsible for Rusong's death or not (I tend to think not, but I also think the text is deliberately ambiguous), it's a matter of preserving what little reputation he has (and MDZS tells us, repeatedly, that reputation can be the difference between life and death). The incest is thoroughly accidental and, once it's done, fairly inescapable without severely damaging both his own reputation (not an insignificant matter) and that of Qin Su, who he cares for deeply; once he knows he does what he can by ceasing to be intimate with Qin Su.

The only thing that I think is definitely not about feeling cornered is Jin Guangshan's death, which is far more personal; but there is also the consideration that if he doesn't kill Jin Guangshan he is quite probably going to be pushed out, one way or another. I don't remember if it's explicit or not, but Jin Guangshan's bringing in of Mo Xuanyu isn't not a threat that Jin Guangyao is replaceable.

So I think Jin Guangyao, back in time, looks at his options and thinks what am I supposed to do that won't end in disaster, when part of what doomed me was what I am (my mother's son), in and of itself.

He can try to stay in Nie Mingjue's good graces, but that means submitting himself to abuse from Nie subordinates and accepting his "place" with the Nie, which he doesn't want. If he never works as a spymaster for Wen Ruohan, then he never has the means to gain status, and if he works as spymaster for Wen Ruohan then he gains Nie Mingjue's suspicion if not enmity, which is likely to spiral rapidly both because of Nie Mingjue's inevitable deterioration and their drastic differences in perspective in general. If Jin Guangyao ends up with the Jin, he ends up having to do the same things that make Nie Mingjue so angry with him on behalf of his father, because it's not like he can say no. If he kills his father, he might have a chance, but he's also then committed a crime that if anyone discovers it will earn him universal approbation and has to live in fear of that for the rest of his life, intensified by his previous experiences/trauma from the former timeline. If he tries to make sure Nie Mingjue dies in the war, that's risky in itself, because if he is implicated even slightly in it he's also doomed.

Then, if he's only traveled back in time to when he's already joined the Jin after the Sunshot Campaign, it's even worse: he's already in a bad position with Nie Mingjue, who is going to become a (at least potential) threat to his life, but killing Nie Mingjue triggers Nie Huaisang's revenge. Killing Nie Huaisang is maybe an option but he would have to get away with it and that's intensely risky, and not something I know that he necessarily wants to do.

(I think he would kind of like to kill Nie Huaisang. I think he is very angry with Nie Huaisang. Definitely not going to be getting close to him at all, and I think would cut him off from any personal connection as politely as possible. Imagine how Nie Huaisang would feel about this with no understanding as to why, it's fun.)

If he doesn't do anything - leaves Jin Guangshan alive, leaves Nie Mingjue alive, leaves Nie Huaisang alive - he might be able to get through it alive. But from his perspective (at least) I think there's decent odds that Nie Mingjue would kill him, or at least a significant risk of it - if nothing else, because Nie Mingjue is going to lose control eventually and Jin Guangyao is a frequent target of his anger even when he is under control. And even if that doesn't happen, again, there's likelihood that he will have to live under his father's oppressive thumb for a long time, knowing that he's, not even hated, but just worthless to him. Knowing that his mother was worthless to him, and feeling, I think, that by being filial to his father he's betraying her. If Jin Guangshan doesn't just kick him out of the sect with nowhere to go.

I do think that while there's a part of Jin Guangyao that could, maybe, accept a low status as a means to survive (and I don't know that he would have anything but a low status in any other sect but the Jin; even his killing of Wen Ruohan doesn't earn him general respect), I think he would be miserable, and always resent it. I think that would feed into the despair, too: that this is his fate, that all his struggle and striving was for nothing and this is all he can do if he wants to live. That there was never any place for him in the world.

and taken all together this is why time travel fix-its where things are different because "Jin Guangyao just [whatever]" kind of drive me a little nuts, both from a logical and a character perspective. I'm not saying it's impossible. just that it's very difficult, and there's not a lot of pathways to happiness for my boy on his own without help - and where is he going to get help? just like the first time around, he's on his own.

[moongothic]

So I'm confused about something. There was a cover story about Ms Goldenweek and other Baroque works agents breaking Crocodile out of prison but he just. Told them no? And stayed there with Mr 1 and Mr 2? I don't get why he wanted to go to Impel Down just to break out when he had the chance

I can't tell you 100% why Crocodile chose to stay in prison and go to Impel Down, but my best guess really is that he was just...

Taking the L with grace

More specifically. Crocodile had lost everything. I think deep inside he might've been literally too depressed to want to go free again.

Like he does literally say that. He gave up.

He had been building his reputation as "the Hero of Alabasta" for at least 10 years at this point. He had built not just a criminal organization that he had been running for four years, but also he had been running legal business stuff (like his casino) for probably longer than that. A decade's worth of work and effort to take over a country, and most importantly, get away with it. The reason he had orchestrated that whole rebellion was so that the rebels and the royal family could "take each other out", leaving the country wide open for a World Government Official such as himself to take up. The reason Baroque Works was doing this all in secret was so that the WG never found out, otherwise they wouldn't have let him have Alabasta.

But indeed, his plans were foiled by a kid in flipflops in less than 24 hours, just at the final moment before Crocodile would win. He lost everything. And the World Government found out about what he had been planning.

So even if he escaped from that prison with his former agents, what was he going to do?

He wouldn't be able to take over Alabasta anymore because he did not have manpower (as he had lost all his goons), and having lost his financial empire he wouldn't be able to build a new army any time soon. And even if he did, now that they knew what he had done the people of Alabasta would not accept him as their new king, even if he personally assasinated Cobra and the entire family. Not to mention, the WG finding out about his plans meant that they had every fucking reason to try and stop Crocodile if he did as much as set foot on that island again. By which I mean, they could launch a Buster Call on his ass. Send all the fucking Admirals after him. And so, even if Crocodile still believed Pluton was somewhere in Alabasta and that he just had to comb through the entire desert to find it... Between the Alabastan people and the WG in the way, finding Pluton would not be easy. Especially when Robin wouldn't even be there to just point him directly to it. It could take years, if not decades, while fighting off the WG by himself. And that's while assuming Pluton was somewhere in Alabasta. Like WE the readers now know Pluton is in Wano, but since Robin didn't tell him that. All Robin said was that the Poneglyph "didn't mention the weapon", and Cobra's reaction to the name merely proved the weapon's existence in Crocodile's mind. But surely, because Crocodile is a smart young man, he'd understand there was a risk that Pluton could exist, but just not be in Alabasta, right? Like that would be a possibility too, right?

I think this is why Crocodile has given up on Alabasta. He had one opportunity at seizing the country, and he failed. And without Robin, he could spend the rest of his life combing through a haystack for a needle when there's no needle, and he'd have no idea. I think is why he explicitly says in Impel Down he no longer has "interest in that country". He won't be able to pull off another stunt like this, ever.

And that leads us back to "why not escape earlier and avoid going to Impel Down to begin with". Thanks to his status as a Shichibukai, Crocodile hasn't been on the run from the WG for like two decades. And the past 10 or so years he has seemingly lived a life of luxury in his funny little casino. But now, having lost everything, he'd be back on the run. And because he's a world famous former "hero of the people", there would be nowhere he'd be able to go where people would not recognize him and send the marines after him. So he'd be on the run, for the rest of his life or until he'd get capture again. And mind you, the guy does not trust anyone, so he'd be on the run alone. Without any purpose or goal.

And you might be thinking, "Daz and the rest of BW was still there!", yeah, arguably true. But at this point Crocodile had no reason to trust any of them. Like personally, I think the reason Crocodile ended up taking a liking to Daz was BECAUSE he chose to follow him to Impel Down when he really did not have to. Like Daz showed an unusual level of loyalty to Crocodile, and I think Crocodile recognized that. That's why Daz is still with Croc, post-timeskip. But Miss Goldenweek and co? Crocodile had no reason to believe they wouldn't betray him if given a chance and a reason. And if the WG would come chasing his ass, they'd have plenty of reason to try and betray Croc (handing Crocodile over to spare their own lives). Not to mention, when they come release their former boss from jail, what did Miss Goldenweek say?

"Let's do Baroque Works again"

As I've already explained in detail, I think we might know why Crocodile wasn't interested in being Baroque Works' "boss" again.

So. Yeah. If in Crocodile's mind he'd be on the run from the Government for the first time in two decades all alone, in a situation where rebuilding what he had before would be bloody hard if not downright impossible, and he wouldn't be able to obtain what he had spent the last decade working for regardless...

Taking the L and just going to prison might've been the easier option

[hasarjunadoneanythingwrong]

Why does Arjuna say shit like that?????????

he just talks like that tbh

[iclimbtreestofeelalive]

okay i'm gonna say something and you all have to give me a chance. ready?

we need to stop making fun of poor american southerners who distrust the government. it's real easy to call them all conspiracy theorists and dismiss them, but half the time, its built off of a genuine feeling of being abandoned by the infrastructure meant to keep them safe.

in appalachia, a lot of people lost their homes because of coal mining operations. a lot of people worked in those mines, and then when the mines stopped being profitable, they got tossed out with the bathwater. a lot of appalachia is poor, malnourished, and i don't blame them for not trusting rich politicians who dismiss them as stupid and lower class.

if yall actually listened to half the things poor southerners say, you'd realize that a Lot of common leftist complaints are virtually identical to the rural grandma who doesn't hold with electronic money and politicians. it stems from a genuine feeling of abandonment and ostracization by the people who run the country. functionally, someone living paycheck to paycheck in the city in a tiny apartment has infinitely more in common with someone from rural appalachia than a politician. high rent, high taxes, food insecurity, feeling lied to by those in power, a general sense of frustration. it just sounds fancier coming from a city mouth than one with shitty teeth and a southern accent.

tl;dr stop dismissing southern people as stupid. they're absolutely right not to wholeheartedly trust politicians, because they've been fucked over by them time and time again, and honestly, id rather talk to a southern person who openly distrusts their representatives than someone from the city who wholeheartedly believes that Frederick Jamestown OldMoney III genuinely cares what people think and can be convinced to change his ways.

[anaid-queen]

Valkyrie: I'm not a jealous person. Tanith: *amused* No? Valkyrie: Nope. *pops the 'p'* Not at all. I know Skulduggery loves me, why would I be jealous of anyone? Tanith: So... last week when we got drunk downtown... Valkyrie: *sips her drink* Yeah? Tanith: You tore down all those Grace Kelly Movie Night posters... for fun? Valkyrie: *freezes with the glass halfway to her lips, then hastily gulps* Yup. For fun. Tanith: *raises a single eyebrow* Valkyrie: Uh-huh. I was. Practicing my vandalism skills. Been a while. Tanith: *smiles indulgently* Right.

[highfunctioningfleshrule63]

hey, your video compilation of 4chan post about shield is a great ressource for fandom psychology. Interesting to see another user who lurk the wrestling board and use tumblr. Did you ever work on compilation of the tumblr fandom during the peak of the shield era ? I did not research it yet. xoxo

glad someone liked that video, only in times when im super fixated on something will i end up searching through the 4chan archives for more content...unfortunately 4chan vernacular tends to get a laugh out of me (if it isnt absolute lowtier content, had to scrape through a lot of that). the shield stuff i tried to get from when it was at its peak and you'll see posts on there from 2013+, but i also got modern stuff now bc the boardspeak actually changed with it.

ironically it is way easier to deepdive and compile stuff from 4chan bc it has a much better archival system than tumblr; ive also looked for lots of old stuff on deviantart due to the crossover but i found that it has a pretty shitty way of archiving/sorting older posts (just like on here. ive been on tumblr since 13 so i know what sorts of areas to look for, but its still very hard to find it directly on here. i havent spent as much time as i did getting those posts for that video so i can try harder.)

fandom psychology is interesting to me too so im happy you saw my video with that angle. ive collected lots of old shield fangirl content off of sites like weheartit and pinterest (ironically those are often better at keeping images up for longer periods of time) too but i didnt know if i should make a comp, maybe i will. i also looked through random forums and places like lolcow dot farms (which only really granted one of the screenshots...not too much discussion over there for good or bad. i was hoping to find discussion abt shieldfangirls or wrestling rpf but surprisingly they didnt think to make a "point and laugh" thread abt those topics). i find it interesting how much shieldrelated psychosis was on both sides of the spectrum (tumblr vs 4chan)....i could talk more on it but im a little brainless and sleep deprived rn

heres some extras i had that didnt make the cut (plus just some of my favorites):

and these were from a thread talking abt the modern stereotypical tumblr wrestling fan (specifically talking abt aedubs young bucks fans/the elite fans)

(*fangirl in this is a term im using loosely of course)