#or anyone who happens upon this post

[phoenix--flying]

I like to think that I am funny

[thefirstknife]

New article with more details (from Jason Schreier who first broke the story). If you can't see it, I'll copy the whole text under read more.

About 100 employees were laid off in total (8%) and one of the main reasons listed is "underperformance," "sharp drop in popularity" and "poor reception of Lightfall."

So you know when for the last year and a half content creators have been shitting and pissing on the game as a full-time job and the amount of negativity and ragebait content became the only thing to make content about for them? Well they certainly won't take the blame, but I will let it be known. These people either don't understand the influence they have or they do and they're doing it on purpose, and I don't know which of these two options is worse, but I am 100% confident that their campaign of rage and hate contributed to this.

You don't base your entire community around constantly hating everything about the only game you play (despite clearly not enjoying it anymore) and somehow avoid galvanising thousands and thousands of people into perceiving the game negatively. Imagine being employees who have barely worked there for 2 years and the only community reception they've seen is 24/7 hate train for their work and then they get fired because of "poor reception" and "drop in popularity." How can they not take that personally? I am absolutely devastated for these people who delievered a banger product and who were met with an unrelenting barrage of toxic gamer children which ended up having more sway over their boss than them.

Which brings me to the next bit and that's FUCK THE CEO. He is now my mortal enemy #1. I am projecting psychic blasts directly into his brain. What an absolute spineless coward who is more willing to bow down to fucking gamers than to protect his own employees. This is absolutely rage inducing because this has happened before. From the article from 2021 about the toxic culture at Bungie:

Reading this shit from the new article absolutely fucking sent me into blind rage because I immediately remembered this. Another instance of employees suffering because of comments on reddit. And because of toxic players. And proof that leadership is not protecting employees and is instead siding with players.

Match made in heaven. Asshole gamer content creators and asshole CEOs, all of whom sit at home on piles of money made from someone else's labour. I hope they all explode. None of the people that worked on this game deserve this.

Another article with an infuriating comment from the CEO:

In an internal town hall meeting addressing a Monday round of layoffs that impacted multiple departments, Bungie CEO Pete Parsons allegedly told remaining employees that the company had kept “the right people” to continue work on Destiny 2.

"Kept the right people." Really. Veteran composers weren't the right people? Die!

Bloomberg article in full:

Bungie’s decision to cut an estimated 100 jobs from its staff of about 1,200 followed dire management warnings earlier this month of a sharp drop in the popularity of its flagship video game Destiny 2. Just two weeks ago, executives at the Sony-owned game developer told employees that revenue was running 45% below projections for the year, according to people who attended the meeting. Chief Executive Officer Pete Parsons pinned the big miss on weak player retention for Destiny 2, which has faced a poor reception since the release of its latest expansion, Lightfall. The next expansion, The Final Shape, was getting good — not great feedback — and management told those present that they planned to push back the release to June 2024 from February, according the people, who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. The additional time would give developers a chance to improve the product. In the meantime, Parsons told staff Bungie would be cutting costs, such as for travel, as well as implementing salary and hiring freezes, the people said. Everyone would have to work together to weather the storm, he said, leaving employees feeling determined to do whatever was needed to get revenue back up. But on Monday morning the news got worse: Dozens of staffers woke up to mysterious 15-minute meetings that had been placed on their calendars, which they soon learned were part of a mass layoff. Bungie laid off around 8% of its employees, according to documentation reviewed by Bloomberg. Bungie didn’t respond to requests for comment. Employees who were let go will receive at least three months of severance and three months of Bungie-paid COBRA health insurance, although other benefits, such as expense reimbursements, ended Monday, sending some staff racing to submit their receipts. Laid-off staffers will also receive prorated bonuses, although those who were on a vesting schedule following Sony Group Corp.’s acquisition of Bungie in January 2022 will lose any shares that weren’t vested as of next month. The layoffs are part of a larger money-saving initiative at Sony’s PlayStation unit, which has also cut employees at studios such as Naughty Dog, Media Molecule and its San Mateo office. TD Cowen analyst Doug Creutz wrote in a report Monday that “events over the last few days lead us to believe that PlayStation is undergoing a restructuring.” PlayStation president Jim Ryan announced last month that he plans to resign. Many of the layoffs at Bungie affected the company’s support departments, such as community management and publishing. Remaining Bungie staff were informed that some of those areas will be outsourced moving forward.

[paperglader]

in this episode Imogen:

Took off her circlet. You know, that one that finally gave her peace and quiet, that soothed her constant pain and anxiety, and that gave her the confidence and energy to get back to fully feeling comfortable on her own skin after years. That’s the one. She just took it off.

Told laudna that she was disgusted by the fact that delilah was always watching them. You know, something that laudna fully has no control over whatsoever.

Admitted that she felt like she’s “tainted” and that the gods have been ignoring her for her entire life, in spite of her trying over and over to reach them. So she doesn’t really want to save them.

Mentioned being genuinely scared of meeting Liliana again. Totally not a problem, I’m sure nothing bad will happen there. Specially not in the next couple of episodes.

Said some unfair stuff to fearne, that I genuinely think is coming from somewhere else entirely, and I hope we circle back to eventually.

It’s safe to say that I am officially ✨worried✨ about the farmgirl

[soffies]

I LOVE Rogue!!!! But I don't want him to be a new River Song, I hope they can meet again, and in a chronological order. I don't want the Doctor to go through that again, meeting him in his last time and then go backwards in Rogue's lifetime. It's not fair. They can't meet at the end.

[ineffablefool]

Hey, if you're having a good lol at Trump's ridiculously tiny hands on that New Yorker cover, then I hope you know that I -- a transmasc AFAB person with small hands and gotdamn do I wish I could change that -- am taking notes on Who Thinks Laughing At Transphobic Humor Is Fine, Actually, As Long As I Personally Think The Target Deserves It.

I am not telling anyone what to do, or not do; and here on our beloved hellsite, I am a total unknown to about 99.999944% of you, meaning you have essentially no reason to care what I think.

Maybe you've got a friend who's got Small Hands, though. Maybe he's dysphoric about it, or they get clocked a lot because of it, or xe is just tired of people pointing it out. Maybe at some point you told them, her, whatever, that no, there is nothing wrong with nir hands. They aren't laughable. Those are good hands, dammit, and you don't see a single funny thing about them, and anyone who does is just an asshole.

Oh, your friend might think, looking from your reaction to that image, and then down at their own little hands. So that was a lie, then.

Intellectual honesty would seem to lead to the conclusion that these cheap physical-appearance-based digs are either always appropriate regardless of your opinion of the target, or that they are never appropriate regardless of your opinion of the target. If you are scrambling to justify why it's totally cool, actually, to use transphobic humor if only you can find a target who's bad enough to "deserve" it -- that means you think transness can be worth mockery. You're just saving the transphobia for when you think nobody in the room will call you out for it.

I'm not the boss of you, though, so. If you really insist on your sacred right to being able to make fun of a dude's girly hands -- some dude, somewhere, there has to be a situation where you can finally make these jokes that you've been sitting on all this time -- then I guess that is your decision.

(same with any other kind of humor that trades on bigoted stereotypes. believe me, I'm not looking forward to all the upcoming political cartoons that will Very Creatively exaggerate Trump's weight, either.)

(inb4 "I'm trans and I will still laugh at Trump's small hands from now until doomsday": I guess that is your decision. It's probably good for your current followers and friends to know that about you, because that may give them info they need to make some decisions of their own.)

[romaritimeharbor]

guys i have no idea when this happened but i have like, multiple new genshin ocs bouncing around in my head

[lakecoded]

okay honestly. and i promise i will stop thinking about the deeply mediocre film argylle after this. but people have been talking about how confusing and how meta it is. but it isn't even that weird or meta????? like grow up! watch weirder movies

[eclarinet]

same soup... different day

[galacticlamps]

very minor thing I still definitely deserve a medal for:

being raised catholic, and now as an adult repeatedly falling in love with characters that fandoms like to declare catholic, but still managing to reject those headcanons because at heart I'm too much of a stickler for accurate analysis to get behind them when i know the person in question is really meant to be anglican/episcopalian/whatever other flavor of christian

i am being, as the poets say, so brave about it

[trlvsn]

wrightworth haters/unbelievers are actually very important to me in this fandom. sometimes i read a post that elaborates on them being horrible and i feel so refreshed and cleansed from my own interpretations and projections it's very good for the brain (also i put some good thoughts in the tags on accident read them maybe)

[obnoxiousarcade]

I have a longing to be understood more than anything else i think

[doverstar]

so far taylor swift’s new album is…not…good?

[tchaikovskaya]

i feel like if anyone who knows me as a person and my Lore and interests etc decently well were to stumble upon my reddit acct and looked at the post history they would be able to figure out it was me in like 6 posts/comments, 8 tops. across 3-4 very cringe and pathetically specific subs in particular.

[neogotmyblack]

Clearing my drafts bc over the past year I felt a twinge of the chance to offer folks an out or a grace period, so to speak, to get themselves together, but after due consideration I shouldn’t have to hunt, scroll, check and follow up to see if someone un-racists themselves tbh. I may go back and see if they redeemed themselves when addressed and if I see they did, I’ll qrb my own post and say as such, but I’m not a detective. As such, I’ll also not go back to see how active someone is or isn’t anymore.

If I see the thing happened at any point, I’m posting it which will explain the flurry of posts suddenly this morning that were released from my drafts and a potential barrage of posts I may make later. That includes things from over years that I’ll transfer from my notepad, bc originally I started keeping the screencaps and names there & once I started posting here, I paused posting old ones in favor of the most recent transgressions as they happened. Maybe the writers acct is still up, maybe it isn’t; dc. I’m keeping the names on my notepad with a note but all pic evidence will go here with their @ as well bc i don’t see why I should have it taking space on my phone 🤷🏾‍♀️ Maybe the screen-cap is 3 years old, maybe they don’t even have tumblr anymore, iDC. Maybe I’ll use queue, maybe I won’t.

☼༄I always keep track of changed usernames or extra accts of that person that may pop up in my reading while perusing the tags & they note it in their bio or w/e in my phone too so there’s a paper trail (so to speak) so obviously I’ll be adding that lol

[torgawl]

fontaine and furina having this theatrical motif around them has always felt intentional. the way furina was characterised in the first two patches almost being the personification of the ostentacious nature of european, and more precisely, the french monarchy has always come across as aforethought. the same way furina was presented as not having her nation's sympathy and indulging in her own pleasures is very akin to marie antoinette, as we all probably know (and this makes even more sense now knowing she has a similar fate of being sentenced to death by the guillotine, which we can almost infer is also related to treason by acting against the security of the "french state" or genshin's version of it: fontaine). now, to make my point i want to quote a few characters and expand a little on what i have interpreted of them.

let's start with lyney who is introduced and has a bit of a monologue on magic in the teaser for fontaine.

"the essence of magic is getting people to believe a lie. and the most important part of this is what people see."

lyney tells us, the viewer, the interpretation of a lie depends enterily on what you see and how you see it. doesn't this resonate perfectly with the title for fontaine's last archon quest and the theme that was presented to us all the way back to toy teyvat's teaser narrated by dainsleif, "masquerade of the guilty"?

"people don't realize how much they expect their eyes to tell them the truth. but it's not real it's all a show. and every part of the show is carefully controlled. controlled how? by choosing the right time, the right place and the right people."

i pointed out how lyney talks to us as the viewers because i think we're very quick to exclude ourselves from being seen as a character. it's easy to infer that a major plan is taking place thinking of one character (or a group of characters) fooling the others. but i always thought it was curious the way these things and the emphasis on being part of a play was pointed to us (you and me, if that makes sense) like we were going to be the ones fed a lie so that the curtain could fall eventually at the end. you know what's curious about this specific lyney quote? how the camera pans to clorinde and neuvillette as we heard the words "the right people". specially after seeing the trailer for the last part of the archon quest, having neuvillette aknowledge he now knows his role and hearing furina say at the end she hopes he enjoyed his part in the play ties perfectly with this.

"but keep your eyes peeled, and you might be able to turns thing to your advantage."

weather you think of yourself as the viewer or not, this phrase feels like a presage for what the future might look like.

after lyney's monologue, arlecchino chimes in and the conversation stirs a little.

"in a nutshell, magic is what you see with your own two eyes. very fun, but it's not enough."

she seems to be indicating that having a trick inst enough, that making people believe the lie is what makes the show. this trick has to be so perfect and believable that it's impossible to see through which she then compliments with:

"let me make something clear. you think of yourselves as magicians. but when you're on the stage, you're first and foremost actors. good actors hone their craft to mesmerize the whole crowd."

arlecchino makes a distinction between magicians and actors and, this way, the narrative of being part of a play is introduced once again. which makes me think of her hand creeping out from behind furina in one of the posters for the next update. so it has me wondering what her part of the play may be. seeing arlecchino characterised as a wolf in sheep's clothing and someone who would betray the tsaritsa in a heartbeat almost makes me wish for that to be the case. but i also wonder if she is doing something in exchange for the hydro gnosis. theories apart, she's definitely weaving her threads in there somehow.

i could skip the next part since we already know the furina we meet is but a superficial layer of who furina actually is and her role as the hydro archon. but the way she is introduced in the fontaine teaser really ties with everything mentioned in this post, making it clear she's the main character in the play.

"ugh boring! why do I even bother? when are we going to finally see a real twist for once?"

she's described by dainsleif in the teyvat teaser as someone who "lives for the spectacle of the courtroom" as we all have seen through the first patches. it also correlates to the whole theme of justice as entertainment which many people have expanded upon. she asks to see "a real twist" and who better to do that if not the queen of flamboyance herself?

i wanted to point all of this out because, since the beginning, i think it's been obvious furina as a character was always implied to have people change their view on her. not only by other characters but also us, who are part of this big play by following fontaine's story. this was highlighted by the sheer difference in the way traveller is treated or used in fontaine compared to other regions, having other characters play the big important moments as if we were side characters (loss of protagonism), and the ammount of control we are given over (our influence in court and our role as a lawyer, for example). this change in opinion furina was fated to have has always beem hinted to be triggered by some sort of sacrifice. being so influenced by marie antoinette, having furina turn into a scapegoat or a martyr and getting people's respect after death (either real or metaphorical) feels to fit the narrative. this is why players not liking furina has never really bothered me. i believe furina was not characterised - when she was introduced to us - to be liked, quite the opposite. it was faux, a way to manipulate our own perception and opinion on her. i think part of our "role" was to be tricked, much like what we are hinted at throughout the narrative.

[avid-adoxography]

Good morning everyone.