One of my favorite things about the ASL Brothers is the fact that Ace was the one brought out the sake and proposed becoming brothers.
Not Luffy or Sabo but Ace.
Ace, who believes he is unlovable, Ace who believes that his blood is dirty, Ace who believes that he didn’t deserve to be born, Ace who thinks that his life is worthless, Ace who believes that his mere existence is a crime.
And yet Ace saw these two boys and approached them without apprehension or fear of rejection even though he was proposing something as irrevocable, something as bonding as brotherhood
I've seen a couple of takes about Disco Elysium being copaganda going around recently, and beyond the fact that DE is relentlessly critical of the police force in general and makes explicit reference to the failures of the system that allow the officers in game to abuse their power, I also think it's important to note that there very literally is an in-world version of copaganda that the writers of the game use to parody that romanticised view of the brutality of policing. The RCM at their inception were structurally inspired by in-world copaganda- their culture, their "fashions, even weapon preferences, borrow heavily from classic Vespertine cop shows." Every investigation is it's own little drama, every officer imagining themselves to be the bad-ass hero of their own crime serial. Detectives name their cases like they're naming episodes of a TV series in a "robust but literary system"; a title that "draws inspiration from snoop fiction and Vespertine cop show staples". They give themselves nicknames to sound like cool, suave fictional officers- Ace, Dick Mullen, etc.- from the cool, suave world of copaganda.
The legend of the RCM's inception, the "point of contention" over its uncertain origins, is even an extention of that; the whole organisation is shrouded in this self-fictionalising mythos that allows for distance that in turn obfuscates much of its violence to the officers that participate in it. They get to convince themselves that they're not abusing their power; they're the hero of the story! The dichotomy of "good guy" taking out the "baddies," a manifestation of the libertarian fantasy of the "good guy with a gun" who does what it takes, just like in Annette's detective novels, and at the same time who rails against oversight bodies like Internal Affairs/'the rat squad' because due process slows down the immediate satisfaction of Swift Justice, despite Internal Affairs existing to protect the citizens from overreach on behalf of the police. "Wanton brutality" from police in their real world is a cold bitter reality but Dick Mullen was "made to crack skulls," "bend the rules and solve cases no one else can," and which version of that story is more comforting to the overworked, underfunded officers of the RCM?
The level of fantasy and detachment required for the cops to still see themselves as the good guys after everything that they do in the line of duty mimics The Pigs and her breakdown too; she parallels Harry so clearly. Both "did right by the kids" in the past, hoping for a better future- Marianne (The Pigs) by looking out for Titus and the Hardy boys when they were young, Harry in his role as a gym teacher. Both abandoned and left behind by the system that the RCM uphold- a brutal capitalist landscape with no safety nets. Both turning the source of their trauma into a costume, a performance, a shield, shaped by "radio waves and cop shows." The Pigs uses RCM items scavenged from the Esperance where they'd been thrown away, while Harry uses the Dick Mullen hat that Annette gives him but both are essentially in costume.
Harry identifies himself with the fictional detective as a kind of wish fulfilment; Dick Mullen is "wicked smart." He doesn't fuck up his cases and when he's sad it's not pathetic; it's effortlessly cool brooding and everyone sympathises. Everyone loves him. His violence- "skull crack[ing]"- is justified because he's a "good guy" enacting that violence against the victims of police brutality sorry "bad guys". He doesn't ever face repercussions; "Dick Mullen won't be sent to the clink for the sake of some legal niceties!" So if Harry is Dick Mullen then his failures, his breakdown, they're all just a part of being a "bad-ass, on-the-edge disco cop." He's not wrong, he's a hero! This idealised fictionalised idea of the police force, this "new, sadly better, reality" that both Harry and The Pigs cling to is "escapist stuff," "receed[ing] into a ludicrous fantasy world," so far removed from the brutal material reality that they're in.
My point is, idk. Disco Elysium is so far from being copaganda. It is a multi-million word long dissection of it, of the purpose of policing, of state sanctioned violence and its interaction with capital and the fallout experienced within the wider community as well as the trauma cycle created for individual officers. A dissection of how copaganda interacts with RCM culture and perception, and by extension how we interact with irl perceptions of police through that lens.
rapid fire french rayou strikes again (transcript below the cut)
[Video transcript:
[ENG] Etoiles: I— I’m speedrunning it [Mario Party], but it’s like—
[FR] Etoiles: The next person to bust my balls by saying, ‘he’s going to miss the Ascension [French competitive event happening this Saturday 28/10]’ even though my plane is at six PM, you bunch of morons, it’s not because ZeratoR [Ascension event organiser] said once that I’d miss my plane that I will miss my plane, because what you guys don’t understand is that a plane doesn’t get missed if you arrive three hours in advance, and the last time I missed the plane was because my corresponding flight was one hour and a half [late]!
[ENG] Etoiles: I was just saying to my chat that I love them :)
Tina: Awhhh
Foolish: See, once again I have a feeling maybe that wasn’t—
okay so i was thinking of a joke earlier about how in DPDC Amity Park's slogan "a great place to live" is not only city propaganda but also the city lording it over the rest of America for being normal. But then I remembered that, despite how many DCU Cities with heroes in it there are, the amount of cities in America without heroes still far outnumber the amount of cities in America WITH heroes.
So I did a little digging so the joke would still land. Something most heroes have in common is that they operate in major cities. What makes a major city? I found that the general consensus is that the population is roughly over or around a million. THEN I looked up the populations of cities in the DCU that I thought of off the top of my head. So Gotham, Metropolis, Starling City, Central City, Jump City. All of them ranked up to millions in population (most of them were in the tens of millions).
Amity Park's wikipedia describes it as being similar to specifically Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco.
Philadelphia's Population: 1.576 million as of 2021
Chicago's Population: 2.697 million as of 2021
San Francisco: 815,201 as of 2021
Whiiich means that Amity Park if we take that from canon, is probably a major city. There are approximately 19,000 cities in America with probably less than a hundred that are major cities. Adding the DCU major cities wouldn't skew the data too much.
Which MEANS that I can make the joke that Amity Park's "great place to live" is not only just typical city propaganda, but also its Amity Park lording it over the other major cities for being one of the only major cities that doesn't have problems bad enough to warrant a superhero or a vigilante. Cue stage left the Fentons and Phantom :)
Amity Parkers were probably SO proud that they didn't need a superhero. They didn't have to worry about things like 'world ending threats' and 'super-powered individuals' and 'staggering property damage'. And then enter Fentons.
It also could be used as an excuse for why nobody took notice to Amity Park getting ghosts if folks like me aren't huge fans of the notion of a media blackout via Tucker, Technus, or the US Government. Or if you want to keep Amity Park as its urban city self. Amity Park's news on ghosts gets drowned out in a week because there's news on more popular, well-known cities going on every other day. The shit going on in Amity Park is every other major city's regular Tuesday and it gets filtered as such.
stop reblogging posts that are bait for self deprecation, whether it's intentional by the op or not. (stuff like "BE HONEST are you pretty or not"/"would your fav actually like you IRL? tell the truth"/etc you get it hopefully.) i get when people do it to vent but you're not helping yourself or anyone who's following you who would be tempted to use said post to be mean and cruel to themselves in the tags or w/e. don't give anyone, including yourself, that kind of opportunity or avenue. i don't even get why people make these kind of posts. again, i get if it just blew up accidentally, but you're on The Blogging Site so be more mindful about what you post.
Ive polished up dialogue and framing, in total there should be 30 panels, exactly the tumblr image limit haha! Everyone who is participating gets to draw a panel! I will message you the dialogue, and a general layout once I get everyone in! :) I look forward to this!
30/30 Participants [full!]
If you are interested in joining, please message me here on tumblr or Discord! [Discord would be preferred in the long run]
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-> Deadline for panels?
2 Weeks! Hoping everything can be ready to go to post by September 24th!
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-> What style to use?
Your own! I would love it if you can have as much fun as you can making the panel! The more unique each panel is the better, I dont want to constrict anyones artistic ability outside dialogue, where characters are in a room, and a vague framing idea/expressions.
As for coloring, fully colored and digital would be preferred! Just blue blobs can also work! With the exception of 4 specific panels, flashback panels, in a black/white/red scheme to help differentiate what panel is a flashback, and what panel isnt. I will let you know if your panel is one of those specific 4!
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-> How will posting and crediting work?
When the panels are all done, I will gather them up into a singular post on this blog. Below the comic itself in order of panels would be everyones @ to the blog they want credited, Multiple blogs can also be credited ofc (For example If you drew panel 3 you will be the third @ on the list)
You are also free to add a signature or @ to your blog in the panel art itself!
idk it's kind of annoying how fast people cinnamon roll-ified pavtir (either that or reducing his whole personality to the "chai means tea" joke)...I get that he's the youngest in the spider gang and has a pretty extroverted bubbly personality but in atsv he's also shown to be really smooth and charming and can be pretty sarcastic too? it's a part of his personality that's seen in a lot of his scenes like him flipping off the british museum, him talking to gayathri "tonight whatever-whatever", the sarcasm while he was arguing with spot, people act like he's too innocent to understand his own comments on miles and gwen even though they were really accurate and he said it himself that he's great at reading people
uhh I forgot where I was going with this so you can just stop reading now :)
i remember seeing someone call tubbo a fully grown adult at 19 (obvs before he turned 20) and i gotta say. i think maybe some people have a really skewed idea of what constitutes as "fully grown". and also what constitutes as properly mature. thinking that at 18/19 (or hell even at 20/21) people are now fully grown and mature is insane to me like yall thats how you get people thinking their life is over at like 23 and that 30 year olds are senior citizens 😭😭 be fr
excuse me i need to Muse on something for a moment
so in Wally's secret 'vinyl' audios, specifically the last few (if we're listening to em in chronological order), obviously he starts to sound more strained/distressed. his breathing is more labored, like it's taking all of his energy to make contact.
but the audio that really caught my attention was the "But i still can't see" one. cause he just said he has more eyes than he did before. he knows We draw them a lot, and it's thanks to that that he can see. but he still can't see?
so my question is: where is Wally physically? cause although he can (assumedly) see the WHRP goings on, he can see through the eyes We draw, that could all be on a, uh... more Intangible level of sight. like the spiral pit is forming an eye, and then there's the eye on the ceiling in the secret Staff Only section - could Wally be in the pit, that space between his reality and Ours, "watching" through the eyes? but unable to actually see with due to the pit being pitch black nothingness? is he somewhere else? is he stuck? he can see, but he can't... see.
(or is he trying to explain an abstract concept - he's not actually viewing anything, but he can sense it. like how he knows We're there, even if he can't see or hear Us. but he just doesn't have the words to describe it other than using physical senses - see, hear, look.)
and him saying "...that I can see. But it is still... I can't..." but it's still what, Wally? dark? something else that he doesn't have the words to describe, so he just says that he can't see?
i know that in the Livestream Trivia Document (compiled by @/the neighborhoodwatch) there was something said about Wally being in a box. my first thought reading that was "oh, so he's in storage? the physical puppet, i mean?" which would make sense - show's over, there's no more use for him. pack 'em up and put him away. but that paired with the "can't see" audio makes both seem a lil... connected.
Wally can't see > he's likely somewhere dark > the inside of closed boxes are dark > Wally's in a box. (or maybe the Neighborhood is the box? it's a stretch, i know, but the map is a box. television sets are often set up in "boxes". maybe it's less of a physical storage box and more of a 'boxed in' sort of thing...)
one question i've had since the Start of my interest in this incredible project is: how is Wally communicating? how has he connected to the site? how does he connect to our reality? the pit almost definitely has something to do with it - most likely acting as a bridge, or the deteriorating of the barrier between our two 'worlds' - but if Wally is in a box and Not the pit or even just in the puppet's reality... how is he reaching us beyond just seeing through the eyes he's given?
or is he in their reality, and he can contact through the pit or something, but he can't actually see the other side? Our side? he knows it's there - that We're there - but none of it is visible to him. maybe his apparent disassociation in the 14 bug audios is a demonstration of him contacting Us. we can see through him, but it's a one way street.
and speaking of the pit - i just had a thought. his whole thing with Us letting him in, opening... the pit on the neighborhood map is getting bigger and clearer. but the presumed Other Side, the one on the Staff Only ceiling, is small. it's the size of a ceiling panel. it seems to me that Wally is chipping away at his side of the pit or 'portal', trying to reach Our reality, but he needs Us to do the same thing on the other side. the QA can hear him calling, but there's no phone on their (Our) side of the pit. how do We call back???
there's a fundamental barrier & lack of understanding between Wally and the QA/Us. he's trying. he wants to be let in, but what does that mean, really? let him in where? open what? he's desperate. he wants us to understand. he's trying so so hard Without the right tools to clearly communicate what he wants. he can't see Us, We can see him, both know the other is there, but there's no way to connect. and the attempts are hurting all parties involved, however unintentionally
A small pet peeve of mine with cooking and baking is when recipes say the container rather than the amount
Like, instead of saying "500ml of cream" you say "a pot of cream". Or "a whole can of corn". Like okay which kind of can??? What amount???? Corn comes in more than one size you can't just tell me a can. PLEASE i am begging you tell me the WEIGHT
This is especially a problem with recipes from different countries, for example America. Because your stick of butter is different to our butter. STOP SAYING STICK OF BUTTER TELL ME THE QUANTITY IN GRAMS PLEASE I HAVE A FAMILY
that being said I feel like I see this crop up in like american recipes in particular. Idk if I've ever seen a recipe in one of our cookbooks that does this....
anyway please just tell me the gosh darn weight I am dying here I have a family I JUST NEED TO KNOW THE WEIGHT