#but you didn't see my other analysis it's way more unreal

[endy-merimo]

the one little theory-headcanon i have is that when Agent Curt Mega tries to stop the deal with Sergio and starrs shooting and DMA is leading his arm is that Owen actually counted the bullets so he knew that that particular gun, which was probably Colt Model 1900 (it's one of the most popular guns during the cold war and it has magazine with 7 bullets), didn't have the 8th bullet so the last "shot" won't kill Curt.

[hussyknee]

i'm so confused rn, can you explain the goncharov thing?? i get off tumblr for five minutes

(Edits closed as of 28 Nov.)

Lmaoooo

Nah I getchu. So this post has been circulating for like two years:

Link to post.

But yesterday, it had inspired someone to do this:

Link to post.

Next thing I knew there were fake Letterboxed reviews.

Goncharov moodboards. Really good ones.

Link to post.

Meta analysis. So many fake meta essays. Disturbingly good ones. And of course the memes. (Edit: HAVE I SAID THIS SHIT IS DISTURBING)

As you can see, the myth just started to grow, characters and ships and tropes being added one after the other, almost bizzarely without contradiction, until there was enough of shape to the whole thing for people to start posting fanfic about it on AO3. "No beta we die like ice-pick Joe" is already a tag.

Link to post.

It was hilarious in the beginning, but the way it's developed within less than a day, kind of like it's being willed into existence, is freaking me out a bit. We're toying with powers beyond our comprehension. 😂😂😂

Link to post.

Of course, there could be an ulterior motive as well.

Link to post (tags mine).

Edit: guys, please tag these posts "unreality" so people with disassociation issues can filter them out (not this one, this is an explainer). <3

----------------------------------------------

Edit 2: Aparently the boots in the original post are actually referring to a movie called Gomorrah that came out in 2008, directed by Mateo Garrone, based on the Scampia Feud. And other people had also been making posts about the fake movie for a while before the poster took off.

found by @thepotch

Edit 3: Explainer: why did those boots have this movie on them anyway?

Edit 4: Alt text added to all images courtesy of @valentineish ❤️

Edit 5: Turns out tumblr has done this kind of thing before. Nine years in this hell place and I had to have "Squiddles" and penis smp explained in the replies.

Edit 6: This post collects the Lore so far.

Edit 7: Lynda Carter (real one)/ earns more/ Tumblr cred.

Edit 8: Holy shit y'all we have the theme music. With sheet music. And it's on Spotify!

Edit 9: THERE IS A TRAILER WITH THE THEME MUSIC

----------------------------------------------

I made this post 18 hours after the movie poster went up. Closed edits 27 hours after first posting. So all of the above happened within 45 hours of the movie poster going up.

Edit 10: Google document live-compiling all the lore so far (Day 3)

Edit 11: Masterpost of Goncharov soundtracks (Day 3)

Edit 12: Entertainment news articles covering the Gonch-posting (real) (Contd from yday)

Edit 13: The music from the masterpost all compiled into a 31-minute original score with video edits on YouTube (edit: unfortunately taken down)

Edit 14: Staff's Goncharov art showcase for Tumblr Tuesday

As of closing on Day 3 there are 371 works in the AO3 tag.

-----

Updating with Day 3 shenanigans I missed yesterday:

Edit 15: Goncharov TV Tropes page

Edit 16: Ethics of Gonchposting

Important PSA 1 (how to reduce harm to Tumblr's neurodivergents)

Important PSA 2 (reality affirmation, anti-bullying)

Important PSA 3 (why you should stop trying to vandalise legit information sites)

Edit 17: Character lore from beezlebub whose poster they originated from

Edit 18: What we know about/ Director Matteo JWHJ0715 (#unreality)

Edit 19: Link to post with screenshotted and described NYT article (scroll down) and this golden exerpt from BuzzFeed: 💀

(alt text included)

End of Day 4 there are now 485 works in the Goncharov tag on AO3

----

Didn't get to update this on Day 5, so these are the Day 5 doings:

More trailers!

Trailer 1 (My favourite)

Trailer 2

Trailer 3

Trailer 4

I also just found out about the Goncharov Game Jam.

It appears this opened a day after after the meme took off.

Goncharov was first entered into Wikipedia between Day 4 and 5 (attempts to vandalise it with fake info don't count, incidentally – please knock that shit off) under List of Internet Phenomena. This was then expanded into its own Wikipedia page at the end of Day 5 because, according to the talk history: "the topic now meets the notability threshold for its own artice due to significant coverage in The New York Times and other sources cited." We're on Wikipedia, people!

And then we made The Guardian half a day later. So while the meme is definitely dying down to embers by now, it still stays winning.

YouTube channels with episodes on the meme:

InformOverlord (4:30)

Lessons in Meme Culture (2:43)

End of Day of 5 there were 511 works on AO3, and End of Day 6 (today) there are 556.

--

🚨BREAKING 🚨 from Martin Scorsese's daughter's TikTok (real actual)

tw: unreality:

We did it you guys!

Clarification: Francesca Scorcese asked her Dad about the meme and Martin played along. Please reblog this PSA to help Tumblr people with psychosis. Thanks.

Final edit: Day 8. Media reactions to Scorcese's TikTok (everyone from Forbes to Vulture). That one Tumblr user who said they'd do a screenplay if their post got notes has promised to shoot a single scene, but please don't be dicks just because you reblogged it; leave them alone until they get around to it themselves. As of end of Day 8 there are 609 works in the AO3 tag. I love all you lunatics. Peace! ❤️

[mastermindmp3]

Chloe et al.

Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus (hereby referred to by Chloe et al.) is a very classic Taylor Swift song. With a strong emphasis on the lyrical twists on phrases, distinct visual imagery, and an understated backing track (the piano is crystal clear, and the later backing vocals are so lovely.)

We see that idea of a distinct visual in the opening lines. The speaker describes "Your hologram stumbled into my apartment, hands in the hair of somebody in darkness, named Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus, and I just watched it happen."

Describing her (presumably, lover) as a hologram implies that they are not, truly, real. They are not grounded, not a physical thing she can have. Later in the song, she mentions a lover who "needed drugs more," so this hologram-state could also imply that they are under the influence. Her lover has their hands in another person's hair; they are bold enough to bring their affair almost to her door, with someone the narrator can't even see. The names dropped in this opening are not literal people, but the kind of exasperation of "who is it this time?" names listed from the top of a hat. They are, also, rather generically common English names.

And I just watched it happen. The narrator, knowing that her lover is not solid, not real, doesn't seem to bother to stop them. She goes on to describe how the two drift over "the decade," and how her lover, too, "just watched it happen."

(Also, I love the use of the phrase "saw my bones out with somebody new." If her lover is a hologram, unreal, then she is bones - solidly real but dry, dead.)

An interesting point in all of this is ambiguity. The narrator doesn't know who her lover is seeing in darkness, and she addresses this song directly to her lover(s?) I did see an analysis bringing up that the speaker could be addressing two different people, as the chorus's main refrains imply different types of relationships.

If you want to break my cold, cold heart, just say "I loved you the way that you were." Here, it sounds like the narrator and her lover have been together for a very long time, and her lover no longer loves her present self, longing for her before the change. If you want to tear my world apart, just say you've always wondered. This, on the other hand, implies a lover who is returning, who is tempting her with old times.

This reading is also propped up by other songs from the Tortured Poets Department which confirm the idea (Who's going to stop us from waltzing back into rekindled flames) However, I like that it is also left in the dark, even for the listener. Who is left wondering if they could've made it? Who said they loved her the way she was?

The final verse ponders her lover(s), and has my favorite extended metaphor I think Swift has ever written. "Can we watch our phantoms like watching wild horses, cooler in theory but not if you force it to be; it just didn't happen." It's so direct: We tried to force this relationship to work, and it broke down. The idea of phantoms as past lovers (dancing phantoms on the terrace / my beloved ghost and me / well, me and my ghost, we had a hell of a time ) is scattered throughout the Tortured Poets Department.

Yet, the question goes unanswered - all her questions do. She doesn't know if it'll be enough to "float in your orbit," if the memory can fade from this "scarlet maroon." Chloe et al. much like its title, is a song uncertain, and in that uncertainty, the speaker reveals a bit of her heart, the held anxiety like a breath underwater. The only actual conclusion the narrator comes to that she will wonder.

"Will I always wonder?"

[sophieinwonderland]

I feel like this isn't the first time you reblog something that's meant to be interpreted ironically without any indication or even an "unreality" tag, and you receive questions or complaints, and it's a little unfortunate. I'm not gonna tell you how to run your blog, but I wish you had more understanding that many folks don't "get" these things, and it's not a skill that can be trained.

Were those other comments for reblogs or for posts I made myself?

I remember some comments like that on my anti-endos' playbook.

and it's not a skill that can be trained.

I mean, it kind of is, isn't it?

Not for everyone, of course. I get there are some people who, due to mental disorders, will struggle significantly more than the average person and may not be able to understand.

That's fair.

But... there are other people who I think could more critically analyze what they're reading, and for those people, it's a really, really important skill to have and to train.

Especially when our schools just don't do a very good job teaching media literacy or critical thinking, which this plays into.

So I think you're left with a mix of people who may just not be able to understand due to mental illness, and others who could learn but have been neglected by an education system that favors compliance and uncritical acceptance of whatever they hear, taking it at face value.

And maybe for the second group of people, it's good to be challenged a bit.

What's the cost-benefit analysis?

As I see it, if I had tagged the reblogs, people would have ignored the posts and continued on their way, forgetting all about it.

The way I did it, I realize, may have created some short-term confusion and distress. But it also gave me an opportunity to introduce people who may not have known before to what "doublethink" was and to draw attention to how anti-endos use it.

I think it was a good outcome. 🤷‍♀️

All in all, I'm not going to pretend I chose not to tag as unreality for some altruistic reason of helping to teach people to recognize satire on their own. Truth is, I forgot. I didn't think about it.

But I don't see the outcome as a negative either.

In the end, people will have to accept that I'm probably going to forget to tag something as satire or sarcasm or unreality sometimes because I don't think about it. And there may be other times when I don't tag things that way because I think it takes away the punch.

I'm a complicated and confusing person.

I may not always say exactly what I mean or make myself clear on things the first go around, but if people are left confused by my actions, they can ask and I'll try to explain my rationale.

[daz4i]

Top 5 Nikolai moments (I miss seeing you gush about him)

i miss gushing about him too ;-; so thank you for the opportunity >:3 it's unironically very good for my health. and sorry for the late reply hehehe 🥺

under a read more if it works bc it's. long (added pics and they take a lot of space :P) also tw for ig some slight gore and blood?? bc it's nikolai lol

1. one of my most favorite lines in the entire manga tbh:

he is the only one who gets me . also what happens next is extremely hot (he gets cut in half) (dw it's coming up later in this post)

2. bird speech:

he is the only one who gets me pt 2. also love seeing him be genuine. in the anime his voice acting is SOOOOOO good it's unreal. also he is so beautiful without his eye cover. look at him

3. the thing that came right before it:

1 god he is so hot when he stabs and goes insane (sorry for the horny on main it will happen again) 2 i just love the duality in this entire scene. this is my take but i think he does feel guilty for killing as he says afterwards, but part of his guilt is because he does enjoy killing and inflicting pain, so his words here^ are genuine, but are in fact his guilt speaking, he just exaggerates his enjoyment, and later expresses his guilt in a more direct way

(also this scene is so much better in the manga, i love his cartoonishness here, the blood splatters, the lines covering his face etc. the anime was very underwhelming in that regard)

4. arm moment (not in the manga yet ;0)

again. stellar voice acting. a very emotional moment, most emotional than we've ever seen him, and he seems so conflicted too! with the new context the most recent manga chapter added to what comes before this moment, it makes it clearer where some of his conflicted feelings come from, as well. i already wrote a whole analysis of this scene on the day the ep came out lol i won't get into it again

5. a two frame combo >:3 (easier to take from the anime. also i think they were well adapted!)

me when i'm normal and well adjusted. and gay

this is kind of a sequel. it was my original #5 bc i straight up forgot abt that^ somehow but it's the same scene so it counts. and i love this frame so so much you have no idea

along with fyodor's jesus imagery and nikolai essentially betraying him. what if i went insane and started biting people. this frame means so much to me you have no idea.......

also bonus frames that just don't have as much emotional impact but i wanna share them bc i love him and this is a post for me to gush about nikolai after all:

this entire page <3 he is such a good actor (unless you subscribe to that one theory that he actually died here and was written back into life with the page or smth. idk) (+ small cameo from my other main bsd f/o teeheehee :3)

unironically one of my fav frames in all of bsd just bc he's so pretty. and i love the ?. you're so right king keep on speaking your truth with no fear.

m. my cover photo. also one of my most favorite frames in the entire manga. also one of the most me coded frames that isn't dazai lol

my boy in his cryptid era

another moment i prefer in the manga sm and i had a very vivid image of how it'll look and sound in the anime and i was kinda disappointed it didn't end up happening (tbf. other nikolai scenes DID end up looking exactly the way i imagined they would lol)

me when i'm having an identity crisis and letting it out on my cat:

ok the last one ik you may be sensitive to bc it is the most gory thing here so i'm giving you a warning to stop scrolling here

(unless you wanna see anyway in which case this is just a warning to prepare you <3)

and another line to actually take up space

this is my equivalent of sfw sasuke

okay there we go:

i need to eat him so fucking bad

and that's all i have to share i think <3 might've ended up using like 80% of his screentime here ngl. worth it. i love him sm

[nitrosodiumequilibriumproject]

Analysis of the "Pursuer"

It's come time to figure out how I'm ever gonna make AI for this game. Previously, because of the way that code works in Scratch, Chubb moved X steps forever. One step after the other. The actual number was ((0.001 * Hunger) + (Distance / 1000)) steps, which started off as a tiny amount, before getting faster and faster. Now, as far as I know, Unreal won't work like this. This sort of increment system would be better suited for calculating his speed - it'd be some sort of variable, like EventTick-Set Speed-0.001-(Cast to BP_ThirdPersonCharacter)-*-Hunger-+-(Cast to BP_ThirdPersonCharacter)-Distance-/-1000). And then, it would set the speed every 0.1 seconds or something, giving time for the code to update when you chuck food at the pursuer. 0.1 seconds is good because it's the same time as the Distance var takes to update; the smallest actual number the game uses in calculation, as far as I know. If I find a smaller number I'll make it that.

Then, there'd be a basic EventActorBeginOverlap for when it hits the player (opening a "you failed" map which it'd stay on for 15 seconds or so before going back to the attract screen). On that thought, I might make a mockup of the game in PowerPoint, as I had done over a year ago with the original Sweat Pursuit idea in summer 2022. Yeah, it's been cooking for a while.

Speaking of, I might go for the neon-lit street racer aesthetic of Sweat Pursuit instead of the Savanna Rumble thing. It's tough. My idea for this is mostly; it fits better on the 80s icon of the arcade machine, I've already done it, and it allows for a more abstract design. This is a little tough to explain, but I'll try. You're more likely to see a pair of chunky, unrealistic, angular go-karts on the streets of some cyberpunk city then you are in the African savanna. A more grounded setting means everything has to be brought down to that level. The original idea for Sweat Pursuit is wacky and cartoonish; you're throwing burgers at a nefarious fatman to distract him and slow him down. Bringing that idea into a more realistic setting without changing the formula (which I don't want to do, because the formula is objectively perfect) just isn't gonna work. Even I admit that the Savanna Rumble didn't click the same. Tearing across the asphalt in your perfectly-tuned buggy, flames erupting out of the exhaust, slinging fresh burgers at Chubb as he rumbles towards you, inching closer and closer, hand nearly grabbing you... before he's smacked in the face with a patty sizzled to perfection, giving you the opportunity to quickly swerve off his warpath, if only for a few seconds. It's cool! It's just cool, and a little bit stupid, but it's cool because of how implausible and silly it is. That's what I wanna do, not lions!!!

[westernchords]

2020: a replay & reflection

so... here we are at the near end of a very long, unsettling & strange year. and at this particular moment in time, spotify has released its 2020 wrapped feature, an annual highlight for gay people everywhere (self VERY included). since the world is very large & this is a personal blog with a limited scope, i'll talk about what i know best: the view from my corner of the musical world.

i only had two songs in common with any previous year -- i wish i missed my ex by mahalia & sugar by brockhampton (... i know, the heartache is loud already,)

4 unique rain asmr audios made it into my top 15 (they help me sleep lolol)

show tunes was my #4 most listened to genre and yet not a single one made it into my top 100. (i'm pretty sure it was all of my late night waitress sing alongs)

i discovered 1,012 new artists and 162 new genres

all very fun and interesting things! however, in looking at this year, there are two things to discuss that are most important: the amount of time i spent listening to music (111,989 minutes) and my top song, fake mona lisa. let's discuss both.

on time: in short, music means a lot to me. in long, i mean that music has been central to my life for as long as i can remember. i think of my church choir and my mother singing eartha kitt and corrine bailey rae in the kitchen, my father's surprise talents at piano when he would play in chapel, and how i like to make up little ditties to sing for my dog or while i cook or to solely entertain myself. if one was to take a look at my journals, each entry is annotated with the song i was listening to or suited my mood at the time i was writing. at any moment, i am capable of revisiting the emotional landscape of old memories all set to the very soundtrack that holds that particular past closest.

i still remember plucking violin strings at 5, how i used to stack music books so i could sit up straight on my piano bench because i was too short at 7, picking up woodwinds in highschool and letting my best friend act as conductor, and now, singing endlessly- day in and day out, because it makes me feel like i am traveling home. i think of creole folk songs that connect me to my family, my diaspora. i remember the favorite songs and artists of people i don't know anymore, but still. it stays with me. my friend cj says i have a great emotional sensitivity to music, but more so, music simply connects to every cornerstone of who i am. the creation of it, the listening, the love of it. the constancy.

music is integral to my daily routine and life. since i was 13, maybe younger, i have always believed that the first song i hear in a day sets the tone so i always try to play something i love and makes me feel joyful to start off on the right foot. i will do this my entire life. every day is permeated by sound and the data shows it. 111,989 minutes is almost 3 months straight. this doesn't even count soundcloud listens or youtube tracks or music i play on my own. this felt fitting. music, this year in particular, has been a salve to both new and old hurt. and maybe i am picking at my scabs, but 2020 has amplified so much anger and shame and fear and despite that, there is so much joy in art. music is a balm for the world, it is poetry in its own right.

on fake mona lisa: so .. i am kind of obsessed with this song. fifteen hours worth of listening, i text my friends i'll join the video call soon - i just need one more replay, i got high and played this song while lying in the middle of a meadow and experienced more emotions than i had had in a very long time, my friends lovingly tease me about it so it's sort of like a character trait now, kind of obsessed. my turning to this song was the sort of romance that i didn't anticipate, but fell very hard into and, if you know me, you know that's my favorite kind. let's get into why: when dedicated side b came out, i was heartbroken. there's really no other way to put it. i was alone, back in my childhood bedroom, and harboring a reopened wound from past relationships that maybe had never closed in the first place. i was in this strange, melancholic knee-deep-in-emotions place & if you're an avid CRJ fan, you recognize that's a place she knows and sings about well.

as a song, fake mona lisa tends to be one of carly's more lyrically opaque tracks. which is fine, i'm a storyteller at heart, i'll craft my own narrative. (and honestly, there wasn't much legwork here.) without doing a full blown analysis, here are pieces that i find important to note about the song lyrically and resonate most with me -- big or small.

(transcription at bottom)

what i'm basically saying is that this song is about risk and young love and sex. its about secrets, cheap thrills, fast & easy desires, and the fantastical euphoria of a dead-end-but-still-fun “we're young so what's the matter,“ relationship. (very reminiscent of LA hallucinations, imo) and to me, someone who has been in and out of this same subset of emotional affairs, fake mona lisa stuck with me. vegas is a city of high risk, high reward- where else to chase that superficial, unattainable someone? more so, the song gives you the understanding that the relationship doesn't last, but that was not what carly ever truly wanted out of it. fake mona lisa is, at its core, about over indulgence in pleasure as a stand in for actual love + commitment, something i am oft to do myself & only did more of after dedicated side b dropped. i latched onto the slow and simmering exposition into glittery pre-chorus, starlit imagery, shiny-faraway vocals, and frankly, there was no competition for my song of the year. the song is a dream. i love it and i know what that says about me, but i stand by it. 

dedicated side b, especially fake mona lisa, carried me through the healing process of heartbreaks that crystallized into many other things- indulgence, desire, risk, short lived romances, secrets, joy, kisses i should've kept to myself, spontaneous dance breaks, tears, etc., it is an album about love, recovery, and returning to the self. fake mona lisa is just my favorite stop on a long train ride to an okay-ness with aspects of romance (both with the self and others) that i am still figuring out the messy, rose-tinted, contours of.

and sonically? i just adore the key of d minor.

as a last touch point, fake mona lisa was only the tip of the iceberg of songs  i obsessed over about not-exactly-ideal romances. again and again and again, heartbreak anthems appeared in my top 100, a deviation from my typical warmth towards romantic sentiments that appeared in past years. instead, there is a sense of love-at-a-distance, a painting yourself as the object of desire, a severed attachment, a not wanting to commit at all (see let's be friends, heartbeat, want you in my room, all by crj ... all appearing on the list.) however, much of what appeared celebrated love and having tremendous, special, struck by cupid, feelings. it's all there. what i'm saying is that carly rae jepsen writes music for lovestruck people- both lucky and not so much, hopeless or hopeful -- you name it. she writes about how you can fall in love with almost anyone, soundtracks for the highs of the first throes of intimacy, the first (and last) kiss, the shared moments between two people when they are each other's whole world, and the palpable distance of heartache, separation, and the landscape between. 

she writes as though she is both eros and psyche, armed with arrows of cascading melodies, tipped with a salve for suppressing+healing+amplifying heartbreak, and lyrics so intimate and dreamy, you really can't help but believe in love with the way she speaks of it. love is a venture from shame, a fantasy that is more real than anything else, tender and kind, pleasurable, and escapable into. the world is better in it, the world is better because of it. in carly rae jepsen's discography, love is the defining pillar of experience. a northern star and guiding principle. it is the only thing, no matter what form. & frankly? i cant help but agree.

as a final note, in hanif wills-abdurraqib's emotion review for MTV, carly rae jepsen's public displays of affection, he says this:

thats all for now. bye 2020.

- august

///

transcription of my notes:

verse 1:

city/star light imagery

i am known for wearing a star stamp on my cheek

infatuation & attraction

paints a photo of a starlet and her lover, a fair weather affair

pre-chorus:

always waiting fro a chance the object of desire

a high from love, addictive pleasures

chorus:

sex & art & risk taking (art synonymous with beauty. + seduction)

she knows she cant handle this in a real way, but wants it

desire vs/& (in conjunction with) pain

verse 2:

an idealistic worldview, hoping for the best, always somewhere else not present. 

dreamy lyrics + dreamy state of mind, cloudy even.

specifically the words fake mona lisa:

contrast, beautiful yet fully acknowledged to be unreal/superficial

a stand in for “real art“ aka “real love“