#like this isn't a conspiracy

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

*tries to organize my thoughts*

*remembers i'm not in school and therefore beholden to neither heaven nor hell nor any man's grading system*

*joyously shredding & tossing all my carefully arranged 3x5 mental notecards into the air like so much beige confetti. raising my arms in victory, cheering raucously until i accidentally inhale bits of homemade confetti*

(*coughing up itty bits of paper like a cat evicting a hairball with a firm understanding of tenants' rights*) wait wat happens next

[jaypentaghast]

at least he got a free hat?

[hopeinthebox]

Like Crazy -> Set Me Free Pt.2

On Loneliness & Identity: Sylvia Plath / 'FACE' Mood Photo / Heather Havrilesky / Like Crazy MV Photo Sketch / Olivia Laing / Like Crazy MV / Jenny Slate / Like Crazy MV / Adil Arif / Jimin - Like Crazy / Overdose-8 / Fernando Pessoa / Robert Mapplethorpe / Rainer Maria Rilke / Set Me Free Pt.2 MV / Cameron Awkward-Rich / Robert Mapplethorpe / Jimin Invisible Face Ver. / Jimin - Set Me Free Pt.2 / Set Me Free Pt.2 MV Photo Sketch / BTS - Idol

[utilitycaster]

like actually it's wild to me as someone who mostly exists on the fringes of the D20 fandom, since CR is by far my main one, that a lot of the really popular voices there are popular fanartists who low-key hate like 99% of what D20 is and tend to fixate on like, ships between barely-seen side characters. Like okay, so you don't like D&D as a system and think it's inherently imperialist and violent; you don't like that they no longer do hour-long Adventuring Parties (which started when they were in full lockdown and quickly ended once the industry was back on fairly regular footing); you don't like that they joke around in the talkback show even though that's true of every AP talkback show and I listen to at least four of them; you don't like the D20 formula of ending with a big combat at the end; and you don't like that characters weren't redeemed because you feel as though the narrative didn't give them time to be redeemed and this season should have been longer despite it being standard length for an Intrepid Heroes season and "the narrative" is shaped by Brennan Lee Mulligan, DM, as well as the cast's choices.

Like, real talk, I watch/listen to a lot of actual play and at least four talkback shows (for CR, NADDPod, WBN, and sometimes D20) and when fans get mad that the talkback has too much joking around it's an almost flawless litmus test that person hates the show but their blorbo is on it or their fandom identity rests on it or some other sunk cost fallacy. And if they start talking about the story as if it is not driven by the DM and the cast, you know they're really mad about the DM-ing and the cast choices but are too cowardly to say "Hey, I disliked what Brennan did here." And if you add it to the fact that D20's fandom in particular has a real problem with "liking the right stories is activism :)" and this story doesn't spell out Capitalism is the BBEG (thought it does, hilariously, take some very good shots at Evangelical Christianity and the hypocrisy of the religious right) you get this. I really think a lot of these people don't like D20 much; they like some platonic ideal of D20 mixed in with no small dose of their own personal desires and it's like, if you want a more than 20 episode series that's low combat...why are you going to D20.

[dellovestorant]

Transcript under cut:

Tom: Lewis said in Monaco didn't he that he doesn't expect to out qualify George for the for the rest of the year I think he said there are so many ways to interpret what he's just said what's your take on it

James: well I think if you just look at the stats 8-1 then maybe well it was 7-1 back then but maybe It would be reasonable to think if that trend continues there won't be many times when he'll be on pole I think that if you sort of try and read into that stuff that isn't there like there's somehow he's got a systematic disadvantage on qualifying day that's not true, and not fair the car is in, as so far as we can make it, the cars are identical, the engine use is identical.

If the cars are different on setup it's because that's what the driving team, driving engineering team on either side of the garage have iterated too but they have the chance to have identical stuff if they choose.

On one occasion this year and famously in Monaco, they had a different front wing on the car because we only had one available and we took the decision that we would get that wing on the car as soon as we could and it had to go to one or the other and we had a conversation and Lewis said no, let George have it so but equal equal equal every other respect

Tom: James there's been a recurring theme from Hamilton this year saying that his feeling in the car goes away during qualifying

James: well I think that if you come back to my, and I emphasize that it's my hypothesis that that the cars don't like being hustled, that they give you the best lap time when the driver is surprised by the lap time, and I think it'll be interesting if you talk up and down the pit Lane and see whether this is an experience elsewhere but when the car is producing good laps the drivers are almost like you know I wasn't expecting that it just, I was jus t I was almost cruising and when it's qualifying and it's sort of the pressures on and it's time to deliver that those I don't think those are the circumstances that get the best from from quite fussy tires.

[genericpuff]

every time i try to go easier on rachel and give her the benefit of the doubt, i find shit like this

i was literally just trying to wrap up the hades x thanatos conversation text edit that i've been posting over on my IG and felt like adding a couple extra panels so i went back to this episode (ep 215) to try and find panels of hades and hecate talking that i could segue out of the end part of the hades x thanatos conversation

and i found this

and i was like "oh yeah they visualize the doorbell ringing with a literal bell, i guess that works-"

that bell isn't rendered in rachel's usual style, it's very cell shady with zero texture

but no, no, don't do this puff, you're just being paranoid, it's just a silly little bell, are you really jumping to the conclusion that rachel and her team didn't draw this just because it looks a little off???

just throw it in google reverse image search so you can put this to rest and prove to yourself that it is, in fact, just a drawing of a bell, i don't need to be reading too much into it-

OH COME ON-

[brother-emperors]

poetry might not convince me to pay attention or care about the medici family beyond necessity, but you CAN convince me to turn the spotlights directly onto lorenzo de' medici with phrasing like this. intimately linked. even wedded, you say. and with galeazzo maria sforza's named mentioned. fascinating choice of words.

Magnifico: the Brilliant Life and Times of Lorenzo de’ Medici, Miles J. Unger

[winepresswrath]

Oh so you are one of the jiang' soupbot' yanli who will throw jiang cheng under the bus for little xianxian. Cool

this like the time someone accused me of only caring about Wei Wuxian's feelings. thank you for the laugh anon but also are you lost.

[batsplat]

let’s talk about casey/vale helmet swap https://www.tumblr.com/charlespecco/667773184404324352/they-got-the-taste-for-it

(link)

we should!! dropped everything when this happened, big big day for the feud lovers amongst us. here are the posts in all their glory:

jacket and cap situation - and possibly even cardboard box situation - changed between photos, raising the exciting possibility that more than one meeting occurred at this venue, perhaps even on separate days. and more documentation of the historic event:

casey's got a helmet with a little turtle on it sitting somewhere in his house... peeking at the helmets and the captions, clearly "pleasure" was very much the word of the moment

during that weekend valentino said this:

while casey said this:

discussed here but there really is something to how valentino always talks about casey's talents and casey always talks about valentino's smarts. also details that are important to me personally, like valentino's (sincere) enjoyment of that rivalry, how casey would have enjoyed to see valentino fighting at the front, the learning from valentino thing, this idea of casey's achievements being validated by racing in his era... yeah that weekend gave me a lot

this is obviously all hugely endearing but deadass the funniest aspect of this whole encounter is that like,,, y'know, casey was talking shit about valentino less than a month after the race weekend where they met. I just don't think there's a purer distillation of their unique, beautiful dynamic for casey to show up, take some smiling photos with valentino, say "the pleasure was all mine", while during the same time span extensively having a go at valentino to the press. complete disconnect as ever, this disciplined dedication to never moving on that is... well, I was about to call it 'unmatched', but I suppose valentino shows he can very much match it when it comes to non-casey rivals. the two supreme grudge holders, bless them. like I need to be very clear here that casey was saying this in the very same month in which these photos were taken:

just so charming to me. "the pleasure was all mine" casey are you sure though. zero compunction at chatting shit about valentino in practically the same breath where he's the-pleasure-was-all-mine-ing him, like this is a crucial aspect of his characterisation. these little details like him having another go at valentino over the towing (a lovely theme of their rivalry, casey in general was on a bit of a one man crusade against towing)... "he was good in the head-to-head battles, but also at catching a tow" - there's no real relationship between these two statements, bit of a non sequitur if we're being honest, which is delightful because it lets you know it's something that still pisses casey off years later. one of those things where you can tell he's been sitting on this for nine years, just like the intense ducati schadenfreude - the years have passed, but the emotions never fade <3. "from then on, I didn't want to be his friend" so you wanted to be his friend before that, casey? is that what you're saying? it's so key to this rivalry that every single element of it was felt so intensely by casey.... whereas valentino is going "can't do this, too many memories" buddy full on having his nostalgic moment because this rivalry has just gone down in his mind as a fondly remembered part of his career he has done zero hand-wringing or reflection about in the intervening nine years. what a fantastic little episode like it really nails their dynamic perfectly in the year of our lord 2021

this is why they're great, right... if you put them in a situation where they just talk face-to-face, they would be fine. yeah, even if you made them get dinner together if the premise of the conversation isn't exploring their respective challenges, emotional revelations and soul-searching. their interpersonal chemistry is decent, casey enjoyed chatting to valentino... always, always it was valentino the character and not valentino the person he has his problems with. you can tell valentino thought casey was all right too - the podcast thingy confirmed my belief that valentino just fundamentally did not vibe with jorge from day one in a way that clearly isn't true of valentino's relationship with the other aliens. valentino took one look at jorge and went 'hm this guy seems annoying', but casey? yeah no he'd happily chat with him, just plays it by ear depending on how the rivalry is going and sometimes enforces a little distance just because. no complicated feelings, no massive emotional investment, no compunctions about any element of how that whole story unfolded. when they meet again, there's no real ill will because,, hey, they just did a bunch of things to each other rivals sometimes do to each other, right? whereas casey - my intrepid little grudge holder and reluctant student of the dark arts of communication - doesn't waste the opportunity to proselytise his version of events to the press shortly after the encounter, a tasteful full week after valentino's final race. whole thing fits in perfectly with my thesis that casey sometimes gets to play the valentino role in this rivalry - and does such a lovely job at it. love them both, love this encounter, love that casey's "the pleasure was all mine" is so blatantly flirting with dishonesty. a meeting of the greats

[mixelation]

i dug up a scene i wrote years ago for plasticity re: itachi and shitty fiction. context is that tori is hobbling around from a hip injury while they stay in a small town to figure out their lives. this was written BEFORE i decided icha icha was a Thing which is why there is a bizarre lack of mention of it. because of that, who fucking knows what this scene will look like when i do get to this part

Tori spent the next few days laying in bed and drifting between sleep and absolute boredom. She’d occasionally stagger over to the bathroom and managed to wash herself with a wet towel a few times. The ninja mostly ignored her– Sasori disappeared for a full three days to scope out a place for the sealing ritual– but they would occasionally leave her with cartons of their left-over take-out meals. Itachi brought her a truly terrible novel. No one ever offered to help her to the bathroom, which her pride was secretly grateful for. 

She decided against the soldier pills, until Sasori returned and informed her she should be getting light exercise to strengthen her bruised muscles. 

“I put them back together,” he said tersely. “You won’t damage them further by walking. I’m not that incompetent.”

So Tori, unsure of how she had accused Sasori of incompetence, popped a soldier pill and went for a walk behind the hostel. It had a tiny, largely unkempt garden, with an algae-covered pond full of koi that were miraculously still alive. Next to it was a bench that looked like it might collapse at any moment, and Itachi was tempting fate by sitting on it. 

“That book you gave me sucked,” Tori said by way of greeting. Itachi acknowledged her by turning his head slightly. 

“You look like a ghost,” he said. 

“Thank you,” said Tori, quite genuinely, and continued with her walk. 

When she’d done a full loop around the garden, and then a smaller loop around the pond, Itachi was still sitting there, ankles crossed. She sat down next to him and the bench groaned. 

“Do you want it back?” she asked. “The book, I mean.”

“No. I found it in a cafe.”

“Oh, so you didn’t read it?”

“No.” 

They sat in silence. The day was still, with little wind to rustle the leaves, and the various conversations going on inside the hostel could just barely be heard. A woman was yelling, angry, while another room was filled with drunk laughter. Next to her, Itachi looked deceptively normal without his cloak. His baggy clothes made him seem too thin, and his posture was loose and relaxed. 

“What was it about?” Itachi asked.

“Hmm,” said Tori. “A guy comes into a lot of money and moves to the country. For some reason he’s really good at hiring farm-hands to run his estate, so he makes even more money by relying on those hires. Three outrageously beautiful women fall in love with him and he has to choose one to be his wife.”

“Sounds contrite,” said Itachi, leaning back further into the bench.

“It gets worse,” Tori continued. “Almost two hundred pages in, the author remembers conflict can be fun and there’s some drama where the rich guy starts getting death threats in the mail. But then his childhood crush shows up and that plotline gets dropped for a while.”

“Is she also in love with him?” Itachi asked, the beginning of a smile twitching at the corner of his lips.

“Obviously,” said Tori. 

“And I suppose she’s also outrageously beautiful.”

“Of course. She’s the most beautiful of them all. And we’re three hundred pages in, fifty to go, and I’m thinking– wouldn’t it be a cool plot twist if she was the one sending him threatening letters?”

“That would be quite dramatic,” Itachi agreed. 

“I know, right? But then it’s revealed the threats are coming from a previously unknown character, who wants to marry one of the other girls, and he apologizes because he’s finally gotten brave enough to ask her to marry him.”

“And does she?” 

“That’s the thing! She does, but first she has to have this whole thing about how the rich dude is still better, but she’s not as perfect as his childhood sweetheart, so she might as well marry someone else. Like nothing any of these other characters do is allowed to invalidate how awesome rich guy is, even if it’s something totally normal like be a woman and not be in love with him.”

Tori had scooted to the edge of the bench by then, gesticulating wildly as she described her distaste for the story to Itachi. He barely moved at all, but did turn his body slightly more towards her to ask, “And that took fifty pages?”

“NO!” She said, waving her arms. “It took like ten pages. Then the rest was their wedding, where everyone we’ve met in this story has to give a speech about how perfect the rich dude and his wife are, and how everyone wishes they could be him. Or fuck him, if they’re women.”

“Terrible,” Itachi said, now smiling. Sort of. There was a slight raise of his lips.

“Yeah,” Tori said, slumping back into the bench. “Anyway, thanks for bringing it to me, I guess.”

“I’ll admit,” Itachi said, “I was hoping it would be about ninja. I quite enjoy civilian takes on us. It’s amusing.”

“I don’t think even ninja could have made that story better,” Tori grumbled, stretching her legs out in front of her. Her hips were sore, and stretching hurt, but in the nice way where your muscles relax afterwards. “Not even ones that cry every time they have to stab someone. Are you saying you didn’t even read the back cover before you decided it was sufficient entertainment for me?”

Itachi glanced at her. “I’ve found reading tiresome recently,” he said calmly. 

Tori opened her mouth to ask why, but then shut it. He was losing his vision. She knew that. Even without her foreknowledge, she’d seen him rubbing the corners of his eyes after reading cooking instructions, back at the base. 

“Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“Hmm.”

They sat in silence and Tori stretched her legs some more. She wondered how she’d feel after the soldier pill wore off. If she felt alright, she could see if she could walk into town and get her own dinner that night. 

“Maybe,” Itachi said, “you could tell me about the next book you read. You’re very thorough in your explanations about everything wrong in fiction.”

This time there was an actual, macroscopic smile on his face. 

“Oh,” Tori said, dumbfounded. She had thought Itachi didn’t particularly care for her. He’d told her to her face to shut up plenty of times, and he wasn’t much for for friendly ribbing like Deidara or Kisame. “Y-yeah, sure. I’ll pick one about ninja.”

Itachi didn’t comment on that. He stood, the smile drifting from ‘barely visible’ to ‘only noticeable if you know the exact line of his poker face.’ 

“Kisame wants to try a barbecue restaurant tonight,” he said. “You should come, if you can walk.”

He left. She wondered if he realized how ominous he sounded. 

[local-fire-dumpster]

Reverse Au where instead of Ace, Sabo gets captured to be publicly executed.

Ace managed to overpower Teach by just a little, so the later makes a run for it and somehow manages to capture Sabo instead, which suits him just fine.He still becomes a Warlord as Sabo is the Revolutionaries No.2 and worth a lot.

When Ace finds out while tracking him he has a stroke. Likewise Luffy who is on Amazon Lily like in the canon timeline also has a stroke.

Basically both of them end up infiltrating Impel Down independently, in an attempt to rescue Sabo and join together once they find out.

With both Ace and Luffy working together the guards and Magellan couldn't stop them from reaching Level 6 and freeing Sabo.

There'd be a lot of angst and tears bc Sabo still got amnesia and straight up does not know who they are but ultimately it'd be a happy AU because they all make it out alive while the navy gets humiliated by Luffy once more.

[blorbocedes]

f1 twitter is convinced mclaren forced daniel at gunpoint to not adapt to the car and flop 🤨 the train of logic behind "yes we want the driver we paid tens of millions for to Not perform well so we fall behind a tightly contested constructors battle for 4th vs alpine which is a 30 million $ difference" make it make senseeeeee

[kenobihater]

man. i looked up a tarot deck i remember being interested in a while back and clicked on the creator's site. i got distracted from her shop link by her "health tips" link and suddenly remembered why i did not buy anything from this lady years ago. she deserves a world record for the number of bat shit new age health conspiracy theories she crusades for. there's some harmless medical habits and dietary beliefs, the typical antivax bullshit, the ol' pineal gland calcification spiel, but then i saw mention of ingesting both Miracle Mineral Supplement (bleach) AND colloidal silver (heavy metal suspension) and it just went downhill from there

and my personal favorite:

[netscapenavigator-official]

Sometimes I have these vivid moments where my brain likes to come up with conspiracy theories that I can't disprove and are kinda reality rattling, but I just kinda gotta be like "meh," and move on.

The latest is what if religious people are right about life on Earth being a test for the afterlife... but what if the test isn't existence, but religion, itself.

As in, what if the "God" that created humanity specifically made religion on Earth as toxic and dehumanizing as they could possible think, and only those who can stare their maker in the face and say "I disagree with your rules" and not follow religion, are the ones who make it into the "good" afterlife. Like, what if our "God" specifically wanted to make themselves sound like an extremely evil, snobbish being, where the one and only rule in "religion" is to trust them blindly. That way, after death, they can filter humans between those who were strong-willed enough to maintain morality, even when told it's against their entire life's purpose; and those who blindly followed immorality because they were told it was what the creator wanted. In essence, religion is the pre-afterlife test that aims to sort humans into those who will show compassion, even if it damns them; and those who will internalize fear and become nothing but a yes-man to "God."

.

.

.

Anyway, enough of that. I'm making mozzarella sticks for lunch.

[manu444]

I swear to fucking god if I see anyone be like "oh they bought this one too", "they're making argentina win everything" or any sort of shit like that I'm gonna light something on fire. What world do you people live in in which we are both simultaneously poor as hell AND have enough money to buy the world cup, the copa america and the olympics?? No tenemos ni para un alfajor!!

[ganondorf]

out of genuine curiosity, why does RAMCOA not exist? i know you mentioned its linked to satanic panic but abuse at the hands of cults are very real and it feels more like that? idk

like you said here, the source of RAMCOA is linked to satanic panic, NWO shit, which both are inherently antisemitic. cult abuse, religious abuse, trafficking, and organized abuse are very real things, obviously. ritual abuse, as in abuse that occurs in a ritualized manner (ie a kid being assaulted on the same day every month), is even a viable concept, although there's been no actual documentation of that happening (but theoretically not impossible to have doled out). RAMCOA is not

for further context RAMCOA is literally just the re-branded name for SRA (satanic ritual abuse). there is no separating RAMCOA from that no matter how much people try to insist otherwise. the very basis of RAMCOA's existence is satanic panic and antisemitism. the foundation of both RAMCOA and SRA are found within antisemitic illuminati books and have no clinical or legal evidence to back their claims. the chairman of RAMCOA SIG is literally a conspiracy theorist and believed preschools were building underground tunnels for satanic cults. a majority of patients treated by RAMCOA therapists have sued for medical malpractice and abuse done to them by these therapists, and many therapists who propose ritual abuse as a key part to their treatment of dissociative and trauma-based disorders have been disbarred for their actions

so for starters, "mind control" is a hazy concept. there's no proof of it actually being a thing that exists. as another example, one of the biggest criticisms of the BITE model is its reliance on the idea of "mind control." and what i've seen other people describe as "mind control" is just gaslighting + conditioning, which ARE very real things. but what RAMCOA refers to as mind control is literally just like MKUltra type shit

there is genuinely no evidence for the existence of "programming." the human brain is not a computer, it is too complex and people are too varied to be able to manipulate so precisely. conditioning is real, but programming is not. as far as i've been able to find all the programming stuff comes from straight up conspiracy theories

moreover, there has yet to be a single case of RAMCOA that ended up having any ground in reality. like not even "yea the cult existed but they didn't do that" like i mean absolutely zero evidence of these cults ever existing in the first place

now i do think that people BELIEVE they went through RAMCOA because they were actively coached to believe in it. but ultimately it just ends up being gaslighting and conditioning mixed with religious fervor. and i think some of it is also just delusion, as someone who is schizophrenic