#so I watched the movie cause someone on reddit was like 'remember the movie where jack black and the guy from enchanted hooked up'

[richardsondavis]

I personally thought that the AI art and AI writing thing was a bipartisan issue.

What I mean by that is that I thought that the reason AI Art and AI Writing has the most criticisms is because leftists would lose their hold in culture, their influence to the masses and the fact that a machine can do what they do but simpler is fact of that.

I don't like It'sAGundam for the record, I find his voice a tad insufferable and very annoying. Saying that of course, would get me labeled an SJW but I digress. He reviewed the trope of One Piece, the part where the MC goes and collects friends so that he can reach a goal, and said that it's done so many times that an AI would be able to do it. I find that statement to be a support to my initial belief that AI is a threat to the woke left. That the woke left will now be bereft of their influence in the modern world. No more Captain Marvel, No more Miles Morales, no more woke Marvel, no more Te-Nehisi Coates, no more woke writers, no more.

Just don't let Chuck Dixon get a movie, fuck. Although if the anti-woke would hear that I'll be labeled an SJW, fuck.

Christ Almighty, I want to say that the woke and anti-woke are equally bad. I already saw examples of the woke disowning me and being vile to me for making opinions which I am prepared for cause I've been with the anti-woke for years now but in recent years I've mellowed out and have circled to going full purple-pill with a more bluish hue.

I did grow up with Tumblr and Pinterest so I was used to a lot of woke concepts but then again I saw them a lot and I really am very pissed at some concepts like those LGBT drawings or that the trannies unite bullshit. Gets irritating cause those are so immature and fail to see the reason those are made. TumblrInAction would've been better, y'know? They know their stuff and they really are neutral at times. I still question Reddit keeping KotakuinAction but TumblrinAction is a no-go? What the actual fuck? TumblrInAction had more substance to it. Fuck. KotakuinAction has a lot of nutcases in my experience so keeping that shit around is more beneficial in the long run cause they need a Boogeyman to point to.

Someone to blame.

I started this post cause I thought AI art and AI writing is a left vs right issue. It isn't. Oh, god I remember kukuruyo saying to me that Jujutsu Kaisen's women are drawn that way cause he has difficulties in drawing them and that the fact that the JJK author said he draws his women conservatively because the parents are watching is a woke talking point. I am subscribed to that fuck's webtoon by the way because I need to appease my still active anti-woke side. I need to.

Where was I? Oh yeah. I got the answer that AI isn't a right vs left issue from KotakuinAction. I asked. That really helped. And that started a roll for me in really posting my thoughts on that subreddit. I did for a while. Asked about the translation and localization issues. Got some good answers but also got some typical answers. I've considered many of them but Christ.

I've made two posts about it and I've only gotten three answers that are the best. I really loved those answers. They were, in my opinion, nuanced and brilliant. The rest, when considered with my experience doesn't really hold water for me. Perhaps I haven't experienced a terrible localization yet. Wait, Seven Seas. I have seen Seven Seas and I have seen some shit with them that even pirating them is not a fucking option anymore. Fuck them. Christ, them and their insistence on injecting woke bullshit. I was reading this magical girl manga and in one of the panels, the main male MC said that men are trash. That's just fucking bullshit, man. I severely doubt that's what he said and worse part is that there is no other translation online for that chapter aside from the official one by Seven Seas. Fuck.

I am now currently reading Webtoon. Starting with I'm the Grim Reaper again and frankly, I've applied some of the anti-woke rhetorics I've learned recently and it's not helping me out. Fuck that shit. Fuck thinking I'm a villain. Fuck thinking that I should be a victim. I am capable of making my own choices. Regrets are better when you've made the jump. Fucking bastards, why'd I ever respect the anti-woke?

There's this post on Tumblr about a dude saying that one of his favorite YouTubers is It'sAGundam and I don't blame him. His like Nux for Western society. He really is Nux, thinking about it. I liked Nux when he made the Fairy Tail defense video. I found it genuine and really touching.

I should stop but I have a lot to say. I want to stop but I have a lot to say.

I SHOULD STOP BUT I HAVE A LOT TO SAY!!!!!

Stopped.

Thanks for reading.

[paradisetemporarilymisplaced]

So I was being a basic bitch the other day and listening to my true crime podcasts when it occurred to me just how suspicious Nile’s “death” would look to everyone not in the Guard, leading me to a train of thought that, 2200 words later, absolutely got away from me but I can’t let go so I’m inflicting it on all of you!

To set the stage, we know the movie takes place over approximately a week. Here’s what happens to Nile from the military’s point of view:

She dies is very seriously injured

She heals without a scratch

Just before she’s supposed to be shipped out to Germany, she vanishes, leaving two men concussed (and presumably reporting being knocked out by a woman with short hair wearing civilian clothes)

She goes AWOL for several days

They get word from the CIA that she is to be reported killed in action (details unclear)

So, at the beginning of this very weird week, the USMC has to tell Nile’s family of her death critical injury. What her family was told depends on how long she was dead – a Google search tells me that family will be notified in person within 8 hours of a soldier’s death, but we don’t know how long her first death lasted. For an injury, however, they’d get a phone call to notify them and the unit would arrange for them to visit as soon as the soldier is transferred out of a combat zone. Like I remember when I was in high school, a guy from my church who was a Marine was really seriously injured in a helicopter crash in Iraq and from what I could tell, his parents were told immediately and were flown out to Germany to see him, so it stands to reason that Nile’s family would have been informed relatively quickly after her throat was slashed, one way or another.

And then, she goes AWOL. Her family would be notified while the USMC tried to figure out where she went, not least because the military would want to know if she’s contacted them. (And it’s possible that her family may have been on the way to Germany to see her since we know that’s where she was supposed to go!) So for several days:

Nile’s mom and brother have no idea where she is

They know she was seriously injured and most certainly should not have been moving around on her own

They can’t get a hold of her

The military can’t tell them anything

And the next thing they know for sure is that she was “killed in action.” After being injured and vanishing into thin air. And they presumably cannot produce her body or any concrete evidence of her death. In any case, something sketchy is going on, so they’re like. SMELLS LIKE A MILITARY COVERUP.

In a surprise to probably no one, there is a well-documented legacy of mysterious US military deaths, particularly of women of color (TW for sexual assault in these links). The cases of LaVena Johnson and Vanessa Guillenin particular have made national news because of their families’ persistence in seeking justice. Likewise, Nile is a Black woman, and her mom and brother are most certainly hypercognizant of (a) state violence against Black people and (b) these high-profile cases of suspicious military deaths. So her family are seriously side-eyeing the situation, knowing that (a) the military has a serious incentive (and a documented history) of covering up things that make them look bad and (b) nothing about Nile’s disappearance and supposed death are adding up.

And Andy’s right. Nile does come from warriors. And you know who else does? Her brother.

Don’t get me wrong. Nile’s mom would absolutely not back down. She’d know something was up and want to get to the bottom of it. But based on what I know about Gen X parents (mine), they’re not the most technologically savvy. Like they can use the internet, but they didn’t grow up with it the way we young millennials and Gen Z did. So Nile’s brother takes the lead. And what do zillennials do best?

Social media.

Nile’s brother starts going hard on any site he can, trying to get the word out to see if anyone knows what happened to his sister. He starts a Reddit thread. He starts a Facebook group. He reaches out to the media and true crime bloggers and podcasters à la Sarah Turney, getting loud and being a general nuisance in hopes of getting some answers. He gets his friends and Nile’s friends involved. Maybe eventually Dizzy, Jay, and others from Nile’s unit hear about it and reach out, telling him what they saw and how weird it all was. He’s drumming up interest, and soon “Nile Freeman” becomes a household name (at least among the true crime fans).

Copley is, of course, trying his best, but at this point there is just so much that it’s impossible for him to scrub everything. Sure, he can erase new footage of Nile and the Guard, but what can he do about Reddit threads and podcast episodes that are speculating something weird has happened? Maybe he could hack the sites and shut those things down, but honestly, that’s the last thing he’d want to do, because that only adds weight to the theory that Nile’s disappearance is a military coverup. So eventually he has to tell Andy what’s going on.

Andy, obviously, does not take the news well. However, she is also completely computer illiterate, because that’s Booker’s job and he’s the only one who ever bothered to learn what the internet is in any meaningful way. (She probably calls Booker for advice, and for the record, I think Booker would have no qualms about shutting down conspiracy threads, tinhats be damned, but Copley is too concerned about the consequences. He’s ex-CIA for crying out loud, he knows how it’ll look if they scrub every mention of Nile’s name from the internet.) Maybe she confers with Joe and Nicky but, let’s be honest, they’d be equally unhelpful. So at this point, she knows they have to bring in Nile.

But the thing about Nile is that she, too, knows how to use the internet (duh). Aside from her being a young millennial/digital native, we know from the cave scene where she’s giving Booker suggestions on how to track Copley that she clearly is even more computer savvy than the average person. And for that reason she almost definitely took over the day-to-day tech stuff after Booker’s exile. So I think it would be foolish to expect her to be unaware of what’s happening. She’s not contacting her family or posting on the message boards or anything, but she knows what’s up. So Copley and the team probably sit her down to “break the news,” but we know the girl does not have a poker face (see: literally shooting herself in the foot and not being able to play it cool whatsoever) and cracks immediately, telling them she’s seen everything about her case – she’s not interacting with any of it, she certainly didn’t instigate anything, but she knows. (And she is so goddamn proud of her brother.)

At this point, I’d like to pause and consider Nile’s role in the overall narrative of this movie. She’s set up as a foil to Andy, obviously, but she’s also a foil to Booker. Booker, who, like Andy, is a serious pessimist, but who, unlike Andy, still has very fresh memories and trauma associated with being the new kid, which have destroyed him. In his mind (and Andy’s), if Nile communicates with her family, she’ll become just like him in a century or two – bitter, alone, and stuck with her grief and memories of watching her family die and knowing they died resenting her. It’s a small sample size, but this is the only experience they have to go off of.

But it doesn’t have to be like that.

There’s been a lot of discussion of TOG being a fundamentally queer movie – a group of people brought together because of something inherent about themselves that is different, that must be hidden, that causes others to hate, fear, and reject them. Booker’s backstory is the archetypal traumatic “coming out” story – his family learns who he is, hate him for it, and attempt to cast him out of their lives. He’s stuck with his trauma, his pain, his loss, and it consumes him.

But what if Nile’s family would be the opposite? What if her “coming out” to them as immortal is met with acceptance, love, celebration? What if her family is just overjoyed to have her back, and they don’t care what the circumstances are? I'm reminded of this incredible post from @shitty-old-guard-deaths a while back, where Nile’s mother hits Booker with a frying pan because “my baby let me believe she was dead for FIVE YEARS based on your bad advice???” (which may or may not have inspired this whole tangent). Nile takes the advice of someone who did the same thing she wants to do because she doesn’t want to risk her family’s rejection. She wants the good memories with her family and is afraid that showing them her true self will bring her unbearable pain, forever replacing those memories. But, with high risk comes high reward.

Anyway. Nile and the team are trying to come up with a plan for how to handle this whole thing, but she’s not really participating because she’s too afraid to hope. Until finally, quickly, so she doesn’t lose her nerve, she suggests she reach out to them, knowing that, realistically, that’s the only solution before things snowball even further out of control. The team is shocked, but realize that she has a point. They decide that Copley should actually be the first point of contact, posing as a US government official to talk with them and test the waters.

So Copley goes to Nile’s family’s house to talk with her mom and brother. They’re probably distrustful and apprehensive, but nonetheless secretly ecstatic that their work has paid off. They talk and review all of the information that they’ve collected, including testimonials from the people on Nile’s base and recent sightings (along with photos) of Nile (with the same three people) over the last few years that people have sent them but they haven’t posted publicly. At this point, Copley’s like, yeah this is about to blow up, we gotta put our cards on the table. He convinces them to come with him to some safe house/black site/whatever he can get that is technologically impenetrable (I’m picturing them in like, an interrogation room at a police station kind of deal), takes their phones, locks the doors, and brings in Nile.

What follows is the most delightful reunion scene of all time, bringing Joe, Nicky, and even Andy to tears as they watch and listen from outside the room. With Copley’s help, Nile tells her mom and brother about her immortality and what’s been going on since she died (within reason, of course), and they are thrilled. They don’t understand why (because no one does) but they don’t question it and they see it as a gift from God – she’s been resurrected, she will live, and she has a purpose. Her mother and brother are so happy to see her again and are willing to agree with pretty much anything to stay in her life as long as they can.

So. They set up some complicated agreement (they bring in the other three for support/intimidation as needed) setting the terms of their relationship. They swear Nile’s family to secrecy, maybe bringing up the lab to show how high the stakes are, and they readily agree. They come up with some cover story for Nile’s brother to share on the message boards (maybe that the government has opened an investigation but because it’s an open case he has to shut it all down? Tells people to direct their tips somewhere else? Something to that effect). There’s still speculation, of course, but without Nile’s brother at the helm providing the energy, the hype dies down as news stories are wont to do without any movement. And Nile’s family goes to work for the team. The experience has taught them that Copley can’t possibly do everything himself, especially when it comes to social media, so Nile’s brother takes the lead on the day-to-day tracking/social media while Copley and her mom focus on finding jobs and scrubbing their traces afterward.

So there you have it: Nile gets to integrate her biological family into her found family and spend the rest of their lives with them as it should be, Copley gets some badly needed help managing the reality of social media, the team finally has a positive narrative surrounding outsiders Knowing About Them AND about interacting with people from their previous life, and the audience gets the happy ending to this very lovely and very queer story to counteract the pain associated with Booker’s family.

Plus, you know, I’m a sucker for both a good government conspiracy theory and for Nile getting every good thing she deserves.

[nekobadassclub]

LATE !

At school with M/n who is looking for his friends who are running late 🤭

M/n:Are yall coming to school today  Yes or No  🤔

Jin: Yes we running late because of someone

Namjoon: Hey M/n is the teacher in the class yet

M/n:Not yet why how far away are yall?

Jungkook : is that a meme of me ?

Namjoon: Yep Jun got all the memes of everyone but were getting off topic here

Jungkook: were a hour away M/n😅

Jimin : is she in class now M/n

Yoongi : No she can't be she always late

M/n : And those are facts she never on time which I don't mind because it give me time to finish homework from my other classes because I be staying up and reading Wattpad or watching horror movies and games 😔

Jin : Wait did we have homework 🤔

Taehyung : Yes we did it was a 10 page essay about something we watched I did mine on watching M/n trying to make the devil his bitch😐

Yoongi : wait what M/n doing what now

M/n : Taehyung nobody was supposed to know that but anyways I did mine on vines

Jungkook : I did mine on Iron Man

Namjoon : I did mine on friends

Yoongi : I did mine on sleeping

Hoseok : I did mine on dancing

Jimin : I did mine on hanging out with friends

Jin : I forgot we had homework 😓

M/n:

Namjoon: Is she in the class yet cause we at the gate 🤨

M/n: she's not here yet 😐

Jin: Good I hope she forgot about the homework 🙂

Yoongi: She probably didn't she never does 😒

Jin:

Hoseok : were almost to the class 🤗

BTS walks in the class and goes to their seats that is near M/n

M/n : She really late today so Jin you'll probably finish the essay before she gets here if everyone of us does one part 😎

Jin: Yes 😆

A few minutes they all helped Jin finish his essay and the teacher still hadn't arrived yet 

M/n: Guys you know what I just noticed 😓

M/n: Nobody here but us .......

Yoongi : I'm check the sign 🤨

Hoseok: Guys today's a teacher work day that's why nobody here😔

M/n: but the teachers not here either 🤔

Hoseok : because everyone when home and were locked in the school until tomorrow🤭

Jungkook: Were all gonna fucking die 😭

Jimin: What do you mean we are locked in here until tomorrow 😅

Yoongi:

Taehyung: Should we I don't know call the police

Namjoon : The police would just laugh as if we're pranking them 🥲

Jin: This is why we should have check before coming to school but why was the doors left unlocked for anyone to walk in to the school 😐

Hoseok: That I do not know 😑

M/n: So we stuck in the school until tomorrow 😔

Hoseok: pretty much 😓

Taehyung :

M/n: What type of game 

(((＼（＠v＠）／)))

Jin: I wouldn't have ask that Jigsaw games is usually life or death 😐

Namjoon: Jigsaw is not real he just a made up horror movie character 🙄

M/n: Actually Jigsaw is real Namjoon google the story 🤗

Yoongi: We could jump out the window since we on the first floor but the alarm to the school may go off 💀

Hoseok: Yeah and glass may pierce you so nah I'm good 😑

M/n : What type of game 🤔

While they are busy talking they don't notice the principle car is still outside 😶

M/n: 12 True Creepy SCHOOL TEACHER Stories From Reddit: https://youtu.be/DzOrW0zJAxk

Jin: I'm not watching that nope no 

Taehyung: looks like our teacher doesn't 😂

M/n : Yep maybe it is our teacher 🤣

Jungkook: Guys there a car outside

Everyone runs towards the window and notices the principal car still there

Namjoon: That's the principle how can we get him notice where in the school ?

Yoongi :  Throw something out the window to get his attention

Jimin : M/n give us your laptop

M/n : Hell Nah to the nah nah

Hoseok throws out M/n notebook with his essay in it out the window

M/n : my work 😭

The principle looks up after getting out his car

Principle : Wtf was that

The principle picks up M/n notebook and looks up and see everyone arguing about what to throw out the window to get his attention that they stuck in the school

Principle : Well let me get them out of there 😑

The principle unlocked the door then walked to the classroom they are in and opened the door

Principle : Get the fuck out 😑

Jungkook: were free

Jimin: thank you so much for coming back

Taehyung : .....

M/n: Fuck this shit I'm out mhmm fuck this shit out

And Everyone when home except M/n and BTS who when to eat

M/n : wait a minute were is my fucking notebook ?

Hoseok : The principle kept it 😅

M/n: my essay was in there now i'm have to write it all over again

Jimin : or you could go see the principle when school is back on Monday so you can get your essay

M/n: there were more then just my essay in that notebook guys remember my how to get away with murder plan

Yoongi : your one way to get money without working plan as well

Taehyung : and your how to be a high class stripper plan

M/n : hey hey that plan worked and yall know it

Jin : yeah it did but those plans can get you suspended  or land you in jail

M/n : i'm go cry in a corner now 😢 😭

Jimin hugs M/n : its ok we'll sneak in and get the book back

Namjoon: how we have no idea where the principle live?

M/n : actually I do 😅

Hoseok : how do you know where the principle live

M/n : that's a long story I need something to get of trouble and I was walking home back from the park and noticed the principle in a house with a cheerleader outfit on and heels while dancing and singing along to  Milkshake so i recorded it just in case I get in trouble and to black mail him when I do get in trouble

Taehyung : Wow just use that video to get your notebook back Monday

Taehyung has signed off

M/n : that's the plan see ya Monday guys

M/n has signed off

Jimin has signed off

Jin has signed off

Jungkook has signed off

Namjoon has signed off

Hoseok has signed off

Taehyung has signed out

Yoongi has signed out

[linkfms]

☠️    *   what  is  up,  party  people  !    i’m  jojo  (  she/her  ),  23,  and  in  the  pst  timezone.    it’s  been  a  while  since  i’ve  been  in  a  group  so...  pls  bear  with  me.    anyway,  under  the  cut  you’ll  find  more  info  on  resident  emo  boy:  link  !   i’m  so  excited  to  write  with  u  all,  and,  if  u  ever  want  to  plot  give  this  a  lil’  like  or  send  an  im  over  @  yea right#4256  !

lincoln  “link”  seong  was  spotted  in  the  fashion  district  adorning  prada  combat  boots,  with  some  airpod  pros  on.    they’re  most  likely  listening  to  when  you  were  young  by  the  killers.   you  may  know  them  as  @hyperlink  or  as  that   jeon  jungkook  lookalike.    their  twenty - fourth  birthday  just  passed.    while  living  in   tribeca,   they’ve  gained  a  bit  of  a  reputation.    they’re  known  to  be  erratic  but  on  the  other  hand   vehement.    wonder  if  they’ll  be  the  next  person  to  hit  the  headlines.   (  cis male  &   he/him  )

↳     THE  BASICS:    STATISTICS.

full  name:   seong  hyunjae  (  성  현재  )    /    lincoln  seong.

nickname:  link,  and  will  probably  only  answer  to  link  !

age  &  date  of  birth:   24  &  november  21,  1996.

hometown:   born  in  busan,  south  korea,  but  moved  to  jefferson,  connecticut  in  2006.

current  location:   tribeca,  new  york.

education:  completed  high  school  and  attempted  first  semester  of  university,  but  decided  to  pursue  music  instead.

occupation:   drummer  for  indie/alternative  rock  band,  my  time  (  sound  is  similar  to  bands  like  the  killers,  the  1975,  and  paramore  ).   also  is  an  affiliate  with  an  esports  organization  !   doesn’t  play  competitively,  but  streams  and  creates  content  for  them  weekly.

sexual  orientation:   pansexual  &  panromantic.

gender  &  pronouns:   cisgender  male  &  he/him  pronouns.

↳     THE  BACKGROUND:   BIOGRAPHY.  (   tw:  mentions  of  alcoholism  &  abuse  )

seong  hyunjae  (  later  given  the  english  name  lincoln  seong...  thanks  linkin  park  !   )   was  born  in  the  heart  of  busan,  south  korea.    his  parents  married  at  the  age  of  21,  due  to  the  cultural  expectations  of  having  a  child  born  out  of  wedlock.    while  things  seemed  to  be  smooth  sailing  for  a  while,   the  couple  realized  the  real  struggles  of  adulthood.   financial  issues  came  into  play.   stress  from  working  multiple  jobs  every  single  day  took  a  toll  on  their  mental  health,  as  well  as  their  relationship  with  each  other.   link’s  mother  began  to  develop  an  alcohol  addiction,  and  her  abusive  behavior  came  following  after.   their  home  was  falling  apart,  with  four-year-old  link  falling  asleep  to  muffled  screaming  and  glass  being  thrown  on  the  next  room  over.   his  father  was  able  to  withstand  it  for  a  while,  but  he  drew  the  line  after  coming  home  from  work  to  see  large  cuts  on  the  side  of  his  son’s  thigh,  and  a  bruise  forming  across  his  cheek.   that  was  when  he  knew  his  wife  was  dangerous.    so,  one  night  when  lincoln’s  mother  as  at  work,  he  packed  his  belongings,  grabbed  link,  and  left  without  looking  back.

for  a  while,  it  was  just  the  two  of  them.    they  found  ways  to  make  it  work,  and  despite  the  fact  that  it  was  a  constant  struggle,  his  father  never  wanted  link  to  lose  his  childhood.    in  fact,  his  father  gave  him  everything  he  could  give   —   but  most  importantly,  as  cheesy  as  it  sounds,  his  unconditional  love  and  support.    as  someone  who  lost  his  own  parents  young,  he  made  sure  that  link  would  never  feel  like  he’s  being  deprived of  that,  ever.   they  created  this  tight-knight  bond  because  of  that,  which  can’t  ever  be  broken.   and  now,  link’s  fondest  memories  always  involved  spending  time  with  his  father.    one  favorite  memory  of  his  involved  morning  jam  sessions  after  breakfast.    link’s  father  was  previously  a  lead  guitarist  in  a  garage  band  with  a  few  of  his  high  school  friends,  so  while  he  was  playing  riffs  on  his  electric  guitar,  eight-year-old  link  would  be  banging  the  coffee  table  with  plastic  straws.   

when  link  was  about  ten,  he  and  his  father  sold  all  of  their  belongings  and  moved  all  the  way  to  jefferson,  connecticut  for  a  job  offer  that  he  couldn’t  refuse.   fast  forward  a  few  years,  and  he’s  a  teenager  in  high  school.    growing  up  link  was  more  of  an  introvert,  and  would  spend  his  time  in  the  computer  lab  playing  video  games  or  browsing  in  online  forums.   he  was  a  regular  in  this  my  chemical  romance  forum  (  under  the  username  @hyperlink  ),  and  made  a  lot  of  his  lifelong  friends  over  there.    one  of  his  online  friends  jokingly  suggested  one  afternoon  that  they  should  start  a  band  over  their  nightly  skype  call,  and  while  it  was  initially  shrugged  off  as  dream  more  than  an  arm’s  reach  away,  my  time  was  born.    link  had  to  endlessly  plead  his  father  to  buy  him  a  secondhand  drum  kit  off  of  craigslist  for  christmas.   but  once  he  found  it  under  their  tree  that  year,  it  sparked  this  drive  in  him  to  learn  and  practice  nonstop. 

their  first  official  band  practice  happened  a  day  after  link’s  high  school  graduation  (  which  was  also  the  first  time  everyone  saw  each  other  in  person  !   ),  and  they  spent  that  entire  summer  making  music.   at  first,  link  only  thought  of  it  as  a  hobby...  since,  he  was  attending  his  first  year  of  university  that  fall.   but  after  playing  their  first  few  shows  and  making  all  these  memories,   he  couldn’t  keep  the  band  in  the  backburner.   he  dropped  out  not  too  long  after  to  pursue  his  music  career  full-time.   moved  out,  spent  the  next  few  months  working  long  shifts  at  the  local  amusement  park,  and  shared  one  two-bedroom  apartment  with  his  bandmates.    one  of  their  songs  went  viral  one  crazy  night,   and  the  next  thing  they  knew,  they  were  being  signed  into  a  record  label.   now  ?   they’re  one  of  the  biggest  alternative/indie  rock  bands  out  there  with  multiple  platinum  records,  sold  out  world  tours,  and  millions  of streams  each  year.   their  time  finally  came.

↳     THE  INSIDE  LOOK:    PERSONALITY.

link  definitely...  gets  babied  a  lot   (  by  his  bandmates  and  his  fans  ),   and  he  uses  that  to  his  advantage  :]   because  of  that  he  gets  away  with   a  lot  of  things,  but  it’s  usually  with  things  that  are  small  like  eating  the  last  slice  of  pizza  and  it  would  be  justified  with  “  no  he  is  a  growing  BOY  he  NEEDS  it  !  ”

that  being  said,  he  eats  nonstop.   the  guy  carries  a  sandwich  bag  full  of  cheerios  wherever  he  goes.   his  friends  know  that  if  they  can’t  finish  eating  something,  they  can  always  donate  it  to  link  for  a  good  cause.

when  my  chemical  romance  announced  their  reunion  tour  in  2019,  he  threw  his  phone  across  the  room  and  cried.   my  chemical  romance  (  with  green  day  and  linkin  park  as  a  close  second  !  )   are  his  all-time  favorite  bands,  and  a  lot  of  my  time’s  sound  is  heavily  inspired  by  them.

when  i  tell  u  that  this  man  is  so  chill,  i  mean  it.   like  things  could  LITERALLY  be  on  fire  and  he’d  be  like   “  just  throw  some  water  on  it  it’ll  be  fine  😎  ” ...  he’s  not  the  type  to  worry  about  things,  and�� is  more  of  a  go  with  the  flow  type  of  person.   he  doesn’t  even  need  to  be  zooted  to  be  like  this.   KJFGDG

being  in  the  band  and  a  part  of  the  entertainment  industry  caused  a  small  shift  in  his  personality.   maybe  he  just  blossomed  ?   who  knows  !   but  because  he’s  been  exposed  to  the  rockstar  life,   he  was  able  to  open  up  more.   he’s  always  seeking  thrills,  big  or  small,  and  won’t  have  the  time  to  think  about  the  consequences  for  his  actions.  

because  the  my  chemical  romance  forum  that  was  once  his  second  home  shut  down,   he’s  since  moved  on  to  reddit.   social  media  isn’t  really  his  thing  (  and  his  fans  always  get  mad  at  him  for  posting  a  selfie  once  a  month  then  dipping  ),  but  catch  him  on  subreddits  making  comments  or  starting  fights  for  the  sheer  entertainment  of  proving  someone  wrong. 

this  might  sound  bad  but...  he  still  can’t  wrap  his  head  around  the  fact  that  he  isn’t  ?   financially  struggling  anymore  ?   even  if  he’s  already  bought  a  house  and  two  luxury  cars  for  his  dad,  he  still  gets  ticked  off  if  he  sees  something  small  like  an  APPLE   that  is  marked  a  dollar  and  a  few  cents  over  the  usual.   he  catches  himself  using  things  until  they’re  ABSOLUTELY  worn  out,  and  still  leeches  off  of  his  bandmates/friends  when  he  can.  <3   also,  if  something  is  broken,  he’ll  be  the  type  to  figure  it  out  and  fix  it  himself.

people...  don’t  exactly  remember  the  last  time  he’s  slept.   it  could  be  the  insomnia   (   it’s  definitely  insomnia,  thx  childhood   trauma  !   )  but  it’s  almost  gotten  to  the  point  where  he’s  afraid  to  fall  asleep  on  his  own.   he’ll  always  try  to  find  ways  to  sleep  in  someone’s  company,  even  if  it’s  just  him  crashing  on  a  couch  while  someone  is  watching  tv  right  there.   if  he’s  alone  though,  he’ll  always  try  to  find  ways  to  distract  himself  like  stream  for  10  hours  straight.

speaking  of  trauma...  he’s  also  scared  of  relationships.  after  witnessing  the  way  his  mother  treated  his  father,  he’s  cautious  of  history  repeating  itself...  but  with  him.  so  whenever  he  catches  himself  even  falling  for  just  a  little,  he  dips.

his  life  revolves  around  the  4  m’s:   marvel  movies,  minecraft,  music,  and  my  chemical  romance.   that’s  it.

a  link  😏   to  his  pinterest  !   also,  i  don’t  have  any  wcs,  but  if  we  plot,  i  promise  i’ll  use  my  big  brain  to  brainstorm  something  with  u.  <3

[suchalonelysunflower]

Okay I’m having a real AITA moment here and since I don’t have Reddit and Tumblr is basically my diary at this point... feel free to ignore.

There’s a few moments left of my birthday. And people I know irl know that birthdays are kind of a big deal for me because, believe it or not, I do have happy memories related to them. It’s the one day I allow myself to be a bit selfish because, well, it’s my birthday.

And is not only for me, it’s for everyone. I know all my friends birthdays by memory, I always make sure to congratulate them on the day, sometimes even at midnight because I want them to feel appreciated, even if they don’t like their birthdays, I want to show them that I’m happy that they are here in my life. So if I remember your birthday (given my terrible memory sometimes) it is a big deal and it means I care about you. And even if I don’t know your birthday, but I see someone congratulating you then of course I’ll say happy birthday as well! I just... I like birthdays and I love my friends (internet friends as well, you guys are amazing)

Well, today everyone forgot about my birthday. Well, not everyone. My family remembered and we actually had a good time watching Disney movies (cause COVID, you know... lockdown?) and I was kinda sad because yay! Another year not being able to be with my friends on my birthday... Although my best friend did remember and she sent me a gift, she was the only one.

I have 3 group chats; one with my friends from work, another one with high school friends and another one with lifelong friends. None of them said anything. And I was like, okay, maybe they’ll do it later because I know one of my closest friends always waits till the last moment to say something. Until now he hasn’t said anything.

And it’s not like they don’t know. I posted things on my story, they all saw and decided to ignore it or just didn’t give it much attention. They saw my best friend’s story and ignored it as well. But that’s not all. They all talked in the groupchats like a normal day, none of them addressing me.

They tend to ignore me every time I say something, which I’m used to and I’m not usually mad because they talk about things I’m not familiarized with (they are all in the same major but we’ve been friends since we were 15) But, it still hurt.

In another group chat someone even started to plan their birthday on Wednesday, asking everyone where they want to go knowing we are in the middle of a lockdown in a pandemic that has taken so many lives... why would you even do that? I’m sitting in my living room on my birthday yet another year because I care about the people around me. Please keep in mind my country is still vaccinating people and they are only vaccinating doctors at the moment. So we are all at risk.

Not only that. But someone in that group chat actually asked “wait, isn’t it sunny’s birthday?” And another friend said “lol no it isn’t” and kept going with the conversation before I could say it was. Because it is my birthday, none of them said anything and kept planning the other party.

I invited them to my house on previous birthdays, most of them didn’t come but they told me because they couldn’t make it (I love a bit far from the city, but Nothing crazy since I still went to their place all the time) Now I wonder if they just didn’t want to. But I still said hello on their birthdays, I post stories, I congratulate them on group chats... I take my time for them because they matter to me. Is it selfish if I ask the same? Or at least something that’s not this?

This post is in no way a means for you to feel sorry for me or to feel obligated to say anything about it. I’m just very conflicted about my feelings and I chose writing as a therapy.

What I’m conflicted about is that I love my friends, but they are hurting me right now. They must have a reason, but I don’t know if the reason is me. Was I ever annoying in some way? Do they see me as a friend anymore? Why didn’t my guy best friend for 10 years say anything to me today, knowing how much I like my birthday? What happened?

Am I the asshole because I care too much about my birthday and I’m just being sensitive? Or is it okay to be mad at them? Can I be mad at them? I’m mad and sad and I don’t know if I’m allowed to be over this...

Now. If you read all of this, thank you for being so patient and letting me rant for a while. Emotions are hard. So thank you, and I hope you have a wonderful day and an even awesome birthday when that time comes.

[pikameme-dayo]

okay i am losing my mind trying to find the name of this movie so help me out internet.

-Mocumentary/found footage movie that starts out similar to blair witch: a group of young adults travels to a town where an incident at a warehouse/office/factory (???) years ago caused the place to close down.

-They mention a specific date to the townsfolk and are met with answers of “oh yeah that’s when such n such happened at this place and it’s been closed ever since!”

-They interview a priest/reverend at his church and he has a super sketchy back room and is giving them very vague answers

-The land near the church has a bunch of old graves

-Someone has a necklace with like an evil eye or a saint medallion to protect themself but it gets accidentally thrown out of the rv/camper at some point

-On their way to the abandoned building their rv breaks down and they don’t have what they need to fix it right then and there so they decide to just walk and carry their equipment the rest of the way

-When they get to the building they use a drone to get an arial view but the drone malfunctions and crashes onto the roof so they decide to go in to the building to get the drone back

-Once inside, creepy stuff starts happening and they realize they’re being stalked by actual people, not ghosts

-Turns out a cult uses the place for rituals and the group gets split up, each member getting captured individually (one guy hides in a bathroom and is using an IR camera when he gets caught)

-One of the last people to get caught ends up hiding in a room where the cultists keep their robes so they put on a robe to disguise themselves and walk down the hallway with the cultists in order to escape

-(spoilers) the movie ends with the people tied up to the old graves from earlier in the film and they’re killed one by one by the cultists

I watched it on either netflix or hulu but for the life of me i can’t remember the name of the movie. i’ve scoured the internet trying to find it but all i found was a reddit i post from ~75 days ago of someone else in my exact position. help me horror tumblr. you’re my only hope.

[rydenstories]

I heard my best friend’s voice again. I almost immediately wished I hadn’t.

REDDIT

I remember when my childhood ended, and I suppose that isn’t normal. Many people, I’m sure, just grow into adulthood naturally. For me, though, I felt it end deep down in my core when my best friend, Whitney, died. We did everything together; even alternated having dinner at each other’s houses each night. Living just across the street, it was easy for us to spend all our time together. Then, at 11 years old, she was just gone forever. Some hidden heart defect that had been with her since birth, it was hard to understand as someone who was just shy of 11 myself. Still, like a severed limb, something fundamental felt as if it had been brutally removed and I went numb. I drew back into myself and didn’t talk to anyone for weeks. 

It got worse when I woke up one morning, looked out my bedroom window, and saw a moving truck in front of her house. Apparently, her parents couldn’t take living there without her and the pain split them up. Their house was empty and they were gone in a day, without so much as a tearful goodbye. 

Days after that, I couldn’t sleep without having night terrors that I still cannot recall to this day. I’d try my best not to sleep at all. Instead, I’d stare out the window at that empty, brooding house, imagining that Whitney was still there. On one of the many nights that I woke up, sweating and racking my brain for what exactly had frightened me, something about the light outside looked different. I pulled myself out of bed and walked over to the window. A single, blue light shone from somewhere inside the house; in Whitney’s room.

Honestly, I thought I was still asleep and dreaming, that’s why I decided to forgo waking my parents and instead, quietly snuck out the back door. I didn’t even bother to get into my tennis shoes and coat despite the fact that it was a freezing March night. I barely noticed the biting cold as I ran across the street and behind the house, knowing the sliding glass door in the back had never had a lock. 

The emptiness inside the house felt so very wrong to me. I’d basically spent half of my childhood there. It was home, and now it wasn’t. Nothing was left behind except a low sound coming from somewhere upstairs. Before I knew it, I was at the top of those stairs and staring down a hallway with all doors open except one. Light leaked from underneath. Again, somehow believing in my mind that I was dreaming, I didn’t hesitate when walking down the hallway or opening that bedroom door.

What had once been a little girl’s crowded, toy filled bedroom was now near empty, but not completely. There were a few boxes, an old desk, and Whitney’s TV. It was pink, Hello Kitty themed, with a built in VCR and Karaoke machine. She’d gotten it for Christmas and I had been jealous.

It was turned on, tuned into a children’s movie we both loved - Thumbelina. I felt myself smiling as I walked closer to the TV. I stood there for a minute, feeling tired and a bit in a trance as I watched the colorful characters dance across the screen. It only lended to the dream like moment when the screen fuzzed out and the image was replaced by a face - a real face.

Whitney’s face.

“Emily? Is that you?” her voice spilled from the speakers, unmistakable. My heart began to beat a little fast, but feeling that there was no way I couldn’t be dreaming, I responded. “It’s me! Whitney, I miss you!” Her face was close to the screen, basically the only thing visible. “I miss you, too.” There was a pause after she said it. A few moments of silence where I didn’t know what else to say. Or maybe I was afraid I’d wake up and the dream would be over.

From somewhere downstairs, there was a crashing noise. It startled me enough to cause me to turn towards the door, and it was that moment that I knew that I was awake. Nothing moved in the hallway and no other noise came, so I turned back to the TV. It was still fixed on Whitney, but the picture was coming in even more fuzzy. This made no sense. I was awake - I knew my friend was dead - but there she was, on the screen.

"Aren't you..... dead?" I didn't want to say it out loud, but I had to ask. Plus, feeling much more awake in that moment, part of myself reasoned that it COULD be a recording. If I hadn't been fully awake before, maybe I dreamed the previous responses. However, when Whitney smiled almost immediately after the question, I knew it I probably hadn't.

She giggled. "Of course I am, you know that!" With each word, the screen grew a little fuzzier. "Ask me anything if you don't believe me!" her voice echoed, sounding off-key and almost layered. "C'mon.... don't you wanna know what it's like? Being dead?" Again, Whitney laughed, her face still taking up a majority of the tiny screen. 

I shook my head, tears involuntarily streaming down my face. So many questions rushed through my mind. Why was she doing this? Why did she want me to know this? 

There was a second of silence on both ends. I, frozen in front of the TV and her, staring from somewhere inside. Whitney's smile began to grow larger and larger - each tooth sharpening into points. The voice that came from the speakers now sounded more like seven, and all were deep and filled with blissful rage. "Well, why not?" it bellowed and the screen flickered black.

Everything on my tiny body trembled. It had already been cold that night, but something inhabited the air in that moment that felt sub-arctic. My feet were already cautiously propelling me backwards before my mind even registered them doing so. Still, my eyes didn't leave the TV screen as it rotated between plain black and white. Gurgled sounds came from the speakers. They began to form words around the time my body reached the threshold of the bedroom door.

"IIIIIITTTTT FEEEEEELLLSSS AAAAAAMMMMAAAAZZZZZIIIIINNNNGGGGG!!!!!!" It chanted over and over again, the sheer volume greatly contrasting from Whitney's quiet voice. The floor underneath my bare feet began to shake. The windows rattled. "Oh, don't gooooooo!" The voice called from the TV. The screen finally ceased flickering, illuminated the bedroom with plain white light for a minute before shifting back to a distorted, almost human-like face - nearly resembling Whitney, but not quite. "Don't you want a hug from your besttttt friendddddd!?" It shrieked. 

Just then, the face pushed through the screen and into the real world. In three dimensions, it was hideous. The skin of an 11 year old girl stretched over the face of something horrid - something inhuman. Black goop dripped from it's overstretched, grinning maw, onto the carpet. Sharp, angular shoulders emerged as well, then long arms with dirt-covered fingers reached out. Reached down. Braced against the floor. 

With every move, it's face became more distorted, it's voices multiplied. "DON'T YOU WANT TO FEEL THIS? IT FEELS SO GOOD!"

I still didn't even notice the steady stream of tears falling down my face. "No! You aren't Whitney! I don't want this!" My eyes couldn't leave the steaming, elongated, horrible form that was pulling itself from the tiny Hello Kitty TV into the real world. Somehow, though, my hand reached for the doorknob. In a flash, I slammed it closed behind me and practically launched myself out into the hallway. Almost instantly, as the door latched, no more light leaked from underneath. The house was now dead silent. Still, I didn't stay to take the chance, running home and locking every door behind me. 

The following day, the house was silent. Not a single suggestion that anyone was inside, so once the babysitter let me outside to play, I snuck back in again. The bedroom door was closed, as I left it, and the TV was off. The carpet underneath, once tan, was blackened and burnt. I unplugged it and, despite being a very skinny 11 year old, lugged it across the street and into my dad's work shed. At least, I thought, it would be safe there.

Neither of my parents ever asked questions about it, even when I asked them to please not touch it under any circumstances. There would be nights when, despite knowing nobody had been out there, I'd look out a window to see the shed lit up. Instead of repeating the same mistake, I'd wait until morning and always find the TV plugged in somehow. I'd unplug it again, move it away from the outlet, but it'd always find it's way back there until it inadvertently got sold while I was at summer camp in high school. 

Now, to this day, I don't know where it is - though there are times where I think it doesn't matter. There are more than a few nights where I wake up with the TV on. Sometimes, it's a fuzzy screen and others, it's a children's movie I love. Pulling the covers off me, as if it's nothing abnormal at all, I get up out of bed and unplug the TV set, hoping that her familiar face doesn't flicker onto the screen again.

[boog-shitposting-edition]

So I been playing a ton of Kenshi and watched all of the Mandalorian in a single day shortly before and it’s got me thinking about what makes what I consider a good action hero, because there was definitely a time where I thought the phrase “good action hero” was an oxymoron.

I grew up around some angry, unstable dudes who had that bad habit of watching horror movies and opining that in the same situation they would simply shoot the monster with the gun the character was holding. I got some views on the model of masculinity that sees the male ideal as functionally a tool for performing violence, condescension and occasional reddit-approved banter with all other emotional responses pared away or suppressed. This seems like a good way to manufacture a product for performing labor rather than developing a whole functional human being. So I generally veer away from that sort of thing pretty hard.

So I’m resistant to the Mandalorian at first, right? All the ads are basically star wars apocryphica and a power armored fighty gun boy. The last star wars thing I’d seen was The Rise Of Skywalker and my faith in the franchise is low. But it’s been a hot minute, the hype dies down, and my girlfriend is a better and more patient fan than I’ll ever be so we give it a go. And the first thing that really nails it for me is what a DORK the mando is. I’m delighted, his life is violence interdispersed with being an absolute buttfumble disaster. He slips and falls over things he could never have predicted, he burns his life down for a baby he finds in the desert. Pedro Pascal references Boba Fetts stiff menace and plays it off as someone who has no social skills other than stiff menace and it’s FASCINATING. Him explaining to the village woman who is obviously into him that he hasn’t taken the armor off since he was thirteen isn’t a badass declaration of martial devotion, it is the single saddest and most awkward interaction I have ever seen filmed and it hits all the harder for the fact that this is a character I’ve mostly ever seen as an action figure with a spring loaded missile backpack. Instead of being a faceless emotionless action-cudgel, Pedro amps up the body language in his acting to really sell you this heavily psychologically damaged, desperate, viking-space-catholic mess with no life skills other than violence and a devotion to his people’s creed that borders on obsession. Rather than paring himself down making him a psychological fortress, the Mando is an incredibly obvious walking raw nerve (”I’m not sad-” “Yes you are.”) So, Kenshi.

I’ve heard about this game on and off a few years and finally got it a few days ago. It’s been in early access since 2012, appears to be mostly getting finished by its modding community, and glitches like absolute woah. There’s no core storyline, just a post-apocalyptic setting with some surprisingly detailed autogenerated NPC interactions with some options for starting conditions and the sole goal of surviving. It’s essentially a rapid sequence of story prompts hidden underneath a closely interlocked system of XP grinding, survival mechanics and dismemberment algorithms, and is appallingly my shit.

My first run at the game got pretty far, went from a lone confused desert wanderer to a 13 man village running a tidy copper-mining operation to trade with the ant people. In the early game, fight mechanics are basically a death sentence; my first character immediately got her leg torn off by a goat and I had to restart. All skills grow only by excersizing them; you have to fight to get better at fighting, you have to LOSE fights to gain toughness, and when you lose a fight the consequences can range from “these bandits are stealing all your food” to “this monster is eating your leg/heart/head” to “these slavers are taking your character away and your game experience is Different now.” And while I was proud of myself for finding a way to survive, grow and thrive with a low-combat squad, once I tried the basebuilding mechanics that basically just meant my town was a source of free food and money for local bandits while my squad starved to death, unable to abandon our locale. So I got fed up and restarted.

As mentioned the game gives you different start positions; wanderer gives you 1 character, some money and pants. Guy and his dog gives you a dog, which is fun. Exiled officer starts you with good skills and the hatred of your former commander, which complicates things. Cannibal Hunters starts you already in a fistfight with 30 cannibals. It’s exciting times. But I figure this time I’d like to start my squad a LITTLE more capable of defending themselves, so I look at the Holy Sword start; you’re a bandit who starts with a stolen holy weapon, minuses in most skills, no money and a 20,000 bounty on your head from both major factions.

So I proceed to character creation and notice I can pick whatever I want for player species/subspecies with this start. There’s robot people and warriors made of stone and baseline humans and all sorts of fun options, but you remember those ant people I mentioned before? In game they’re called the Hivers, you find ‘em in 3 recruitable varieties (prince, worker drone and soldier) and they have an interesting in-universe quirk; ones that grow up in the hive are pheramone-addicted, chemically wired into the needs and wants of all of their fellows, but if you’re away from your kin for over a fortnight this addiction dries out incredibly fast and cannot be reinstated. Hivers who ever spend any time away from the hive are declared “lost ones,” and are often taken advantage of in the outside world as they long for a new community.

In survival sims I dont often play dedicated fighters, I always feel like being a brutal fight-beast isn’t really in the spirit of finding a niche to exploit and growing from a fumbling plebian to a major power. But I was already starting this game with my ONLY advantage being a nice sword. And the soldier hivers gain a buff to experience gained for melee attack and toughness, and a debuff to literally all else.

Manual labor. Science. Engineering. Farming. Cooking. First aide. In a setting that heavily prioritized your ability to survive using multiple vital skill sets, my character would start with negatives in his skills for putting on band-aids and FEEDING himself. So I gave it a go.

Getting more wild here, it turns out the Holy Sword opening also takes place in a time in the setting with more recent warfare, so a bunch of the starting villages are destroyed and it appears that more of the nearby cities are controlled by the factions that have a bounty on me. So my character CAN’T rely on other people or meet anyone to recruit at first. He can run, he can scrounge and scavenge, and as mentioned above starting characters can take lethal damage from GOATS so he can’t even hunt for food; the only way I was getting a meal was if I robbed someone or ran into merchants on the road I could hawk my salvage to for a scrap of bread.

He eventually finds someone willing to join him on his travels in spite of being flat broke, a shek named Ruka running from a dishonerable loss on the battlefield, and comparing their skills he’s so useless for everything besides combat that I assign him to bodyguard her. And again, this game’s appeal is that the survival mechanics make good story prompts, so imagine that in character.

“Fine, I need a change. I’ll join you.” “Thank god. Lead the way boss.” “What?”

Things regarding my characters bounty are starting to heat up in town, so we head north into hiver territory. We get attacked by bandits and heavily injured, my soldier gets knocked out, so Ruka picks him up and carries him until we find a hive town. I saw these guys all the time in my last playthrough, I survived by selling to them, they’re super friendly, should be fine. Ruka walks into the local shop and before I can have her ask for directions and a medikit the shopkeeper is already shouting- “SKREEE! LOST ONE! GET OUT! LOST ONES BRING MADNESS”

Apparently, my protagonist being a hiveless hiver means there’s a THIRD faction that’s hostile to him; his own goddamn people. Ruka has to leave him under a tree not just outside but like 50 feet from the edge of town, and just has  to hope none of the local wild megafauna eats him while she rushes back in to buy things from the now abruptly friendlier shopkeep.

I’m finally sitting there, having Ruka watch my soldier hiver sleep while she cooks scavanged meat and waits for him to finish healing, that I realize what the story being generated here is and it’s a good one; a Hive soldier whose only skills are violence, frantically scavenging and stealing to survive until he can find the one circumstance where he’s comfortable, sacrificing himself to protect others. He steals a sword that’s obviously important to two major governments, just because he knows it’s powerful and thinks that power will justify his continued existence as a hiveless soldier drone, essentially buying his way back into his people’s good graces by performing his function. Literally wandering the world until he found a single person who was willing to boss him around again and devoting himself to their defense to a state of pathological damage just to feel like he has a hive again. It’s sad. It’s badass. It’s deeply, unsettlingly pathetic.

But I also think it’s what makes a really really good gruff action hero!

Hypercompetence in violence is really interesting when you acknowledge the damage it can do to your humanity in the storytelling! The Mandalorian is unsuccessful in repressing his empathy response so he just tries to tough through the pain it causes him as best he can, until he meets The Child and it snaps. The Hiver is essentially playing pretend at being still valued as a product for committing violence, even in the face of being openly rejected for his previously esteemed role. This stuff is INTERESTING.

TL;DR version, a lot of these “supersoldier raised by the military/fight wizards/karate” characters are super boring and obnoxious when they’re put forward as power fantasies, and really interesting when you realize that being raised by Fight Wizards is why they’ve never had a girlfriend and called their handgun “mom” once.

[megashadowdragon]

on lukes moment of weakness and how it is fitting for luke  among other comments

Personally I TOTALLY believe that George's Luke would have been VERY similarly to Rian's Luke.

And here is the reason why.... Luke has almost always been George's insert (lucas pronunced luke S )  and it makes total sense for Luke to be "exiled" and secluded away just as George became with Star Wars after the backlash of the prequels. But at the end of it, he comes back and stands up for what makes Star Wars what it is. Which is what Luke does for the Jedi and themes of Star Wars by the end of TLJ. He has learned from his mistakes, atoned for them, found redemption, confronted those he has failed, inspired hope, and learned to show compassion once again.

Now while George may have done it differently, I do believe that Luke being in exile was a metaphor for George's own relationship with Star Wars and its fandom.

www . reddit . com/r/StarWars/comments/ebb4f3/lukes_momentaneous_thought_of_killing_ben_solo/

I know I'm stepping on dangerous territory here by talking about The Last Jedi, and I only do this because I think this is an interesting take on a key moment of the movie. Just bear in mind that I do not intend to make my point-of-view the absolute truth of it. After all, this is just my opinion.

We all know very well how divisive Episode VIII was, with many people pationately hating that movie. One of the main reasons of complaint is the fact Luke Skywalker had attempted to kill his apprentice and nephew, Ben Solo, because he sensed the Dark Side to be too strong in the latter. Luke Skywalker, the only person in the entire galaxy that saw there was still light in Darth Vader, tried to kill his relative. When even Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda had lost all hope Anakin could be saved, Luke helped putting him on the path of redemption, helping Vader turn back to the Light and fulfill the prophecy of the Chosen One. It seems to be an insult that this same character gave up on his nephew so easily and tried to kill him.

I believe things must be analyzed more carefully.

I've just finished marathoning the Skywalker Saga (by the way, I STRONGLY recommend the Ersnt Rister order: IV-V-I-II-III-VI) and noticed something very interesting while watching Return Of The Jedi.

During the final moments of Luke and Vader's duel aboard the Death Star II, we see the young Jedi Knight wants to avoid fighting his father so as not to fall in the trecharous web of Palpatine, who wants to turn the young Skywalker to the Dark Side. Luke is hiding beneath the Emperor's throne. Vader chases him and, through the Force, reads Luke's thoughts to lure him into confrontation:

You cannot hide forever, Luke. Give yourself to the Dark Side. It is the only way you can save your friends. Yes, your thoughts betray you. Your feelings for them are strong. Especially for... sister! So, you have a twin sister!

In this moment, we see Luke's face and he's completely terrified by the idea Darth Vader found out about his sister. It is something new and Luke fears for Leia's well-being. Also, we hear from Vader's words that he cares a lot about his friends, the people he loves. Vader continues:

Your feelings have now betrayed her too. Obi-Wan was wise to hide her from me. Now his failure is complete. If you will not turn to the Dark Side, THEN PERHAPS SHE WILL!

Now we have something different. Since he was brought before the Emperor, Luke had been constatly confronted by Palpatine and Vader with the idea of him turning to the Dark Side. When Vader talks about the possibility of that happening to Leia, it's not a threat directed to him, but to someone he loves. In this moment, Luke loses it completly and attacks Vader viciously, totally enraged. The Sith Lord can't stand the power of his son, fuelled by hate and falls to the ground, defeated. In this moment Luke is prepared to make the final blow, but then he hears Palpatine laughing and clapping. This makes him go back to his senses and realize what he's been doing. He then turns off his lightsaber and refuses to kill his father.

"I'm a Jedi, like my father before me" and so on... we know what happens, so let's fast-forward to The Last Jedi.

When Luke is confronted by Rey, who demands him to tell what had happened between him and Kylo Ren, we learn how things unfolded through Luke's perspective:

I saw darkness. I sensed it building in him. I'd seen it in moments during his training. But then I looked inside, and it was beyond what I ever imagined.

In this moment of the flashback we see Luke's hand reaching out to his lightsaber, almost unconsciously. He then proceeds:

. He would bring destruction and pain and death, AND THE END OF EVERYTHING I LOVE BECAUSE OF WHAT HE WILL BECOME, AND FOR THE BRIEFEST MOMENT OF PURE INSTINCT, I THOUGHT I COULD STOP IT.

Here it is again. Like in Episode VI, we see Luke reacting in a similar way by the notion of something posing a threat not to him, but to the people he loves and cares about. Luke feared Ben would destroy everything he cherished, just like Vader had threatened by turning Leia to the dark. And, just like in the OT, it was a passing shadow:

It passed like a fleeting shadow, and I was left with shame and with consequence. And the last thing I saw were the eyes of a frightened boy whose Master had failed him.

I've already written way more than I expected, so I'll just conclude here. I've realized the act Luke commits in the Sequels is the same (or at least VERY similar) as from the OT: he attempted to kill Vader then his nephew, out of fear of seeing what/who he loved destroyed. He repented and managed to stop himself in the act in both situations. And he was ashamed. So, at least regarding this point of the movie, I see the same Luke Skywalker.

(luke had more to lose now then he did before 

another example which I saw dont remember where I saw it  but I saved the comments unfortunately I didnt put in the links:

edit: (now I remember www . reddit . com/r/StarWars/comments/9a3hdl/)

Luke considered killing Ben for about two seconds in a vulnerable moment

Sort of like he almost got baited into killing Vader by a few mocking words, and cut the hand off his own father in blind rage.

Luke is still just a person. If we've learned anything in Star Wars it's that the Jedi are not superhuman paragons of virtue and perfection, no matter how they might appear to the unwashed masses in the SW universe. They have the same flaws, temptations, failures, etc as anyone else. Yes the Force can help them overcome some of this, but they're far from perfect. Luke could have, and I agree should have grown in a positive way, but it's not impossible or even unbelievable that he didn't. He just had his life's labor wiped out in front of him and blamed himself for it. All those years of finding lost Jedi knowledge and artifacts, being what he believed to be the last Jedi in the universe with the responsibility to restart the order on his shoulders alone. All those lives that he took under his protection and guidance as the Master of the new order, wiped out in one night. Because of him (at least in his mind). Everything he was working towards for years just totally undone in a few hours and it was all his fault.

So he leaves and says fuck the whole lot of it. He lives by himself, stews in his misery and regret, retreats into himself and rejects the most foundational principle of the whole concept of being a Jedi: to help people. He's the most powerful Force user alive and he's wasting away by himself on some desolate rock, swearing off the rest of the galaxy because he thinks that he's a failure, that he wasn't strong or good enough, that he can't win, that it's not even worth it to try anymore, and that even at the height of his wisdom and power, it was all undone, and by himself no less.

another comment

Stuff has changed, I mean he’s quicker to come to his senses. I wouldn’t call that his flaw though. His flaw is one of his greatest traits, his care for his friends and family. It’s a flaw cause it causes implusive actions, lashing out on Vader, leaving Yoda, a single thought that he could stop a horrible fate in Ben.

I personal struggle with a temptation in my life, a temptation to do something my faith says is wrong to do. I may have overcome it some days, but other days, whether the same circumstances or not, I might fall into it. Temptations are a constant battle, not a one and done thing. Flaws are similar, you don’t just grow past a flaw after one instance.

Because a day may come when you will brought face-to-face with that temptation or flaw again, but the circumstances will be different, and it won’t be so easy to overcome.

You mentioned Toy Story in a post, and that’s a decent example when it comes to one facet. Woody might not get jealous when another flashy toy comes along that gets more attention like Buzz did.

A better example of the nagging of a temptation, like Luke dealt with, is in Lord of the Rings. The Ring is a constant temptation to the bearer and those around them. At least by the film, Frodo may have resisted the urge to use it under the tree, but he still was tempted to use it at other times, and it was a constant battle. Same with Bilbo. Bilbo held the ring for 60 years. And the temptation of it held him greatly. He drops the Ring in Bag End, letting it go. If he was viewed similarly to how people viewed Luke tossing the saber, that’d mean he freed himself from it’s grasp and from the temptation to take and use it. We see in Rivendell that isn’t the case for him. He has a moment of wanting to take it back, and even at the end of his time in Middle Earth, he inquires about it, although more innocently curious.

That would be more similar to Luke’s case. To fall to the dark is a constant temptation that Jedi should always be aware of, and if you get close at one point, there’s the possibility that it’ll happen again, and if you aren’t prepared or it comes in a different form, you’ll either fall or get really close.

That turned out longer than I meant it, but I see this idea and..it’s just not the case.

another comment 

Just because you get older doesn't mean you necessarily get wiser and better.

Jedi are still people (and some aliens, but you get the meaning), and the prequels (and even the OT) showed that even the oldest and wisest among the Jedi were capable of mistakes and misjudgments.

I think it's unreasonable to assume Luke should have become incapable of making, or even repeating mistakes and succumbing to emotion.

Right because people only get better as they get older and we grow past our flaws and doubts permanently right?

You guys are weird.

Luke overcame that moment of doubt before he almost struck Vader down and you think what ....... Luke got some kind of videogame like powerup where that character flaw would never come back again?

Some of you have a very black and white (boring) opinion on life and human growth.

Spoiler: People have flaws, we don't all overcome those flaws.Your boy Luke is no exception.

Consider what nearly proved to be his downfall in Return of the Jedi: for all the Emperor's taunting about the Rebel Alliance's imminent demise, it was Darth Vader who finally pushed his Berserk Button by discovering that Leia was his twin sister and suggesting that if Luke didn't change sides, he and his master might have better luck turning her. Then, when Luke went berserk, it totally worked: he curb-stomped Darth Vader and still didn't go evil in the end. His father's killing off the Emperor also put an end to a whole lot of the Empire's evil and birthed the New Republic.

Flash forward thirty years, and once again someone is threatening everyone and everything Luke loves, and killing the guy would surely preempt a whole lot of trouble. In his heart of hearts, he doubtless remembers what Yoda taught him about how easy and seductive the Dark Side is, but he also remembers how Yoda's mistake of hiding the truth about his lineage from him nearly brought his downfall. He also remembers how killing the Emperor solved so many problems the way he'd better not try to solve them this time... Well, what's so tempting about that?

Luke had more to lose at this time. He knew what a relatively free, peaceful Galaxy looked like, and had other students to care for besides Ben. Instinctively, he was acting out of concern for them. Luke makes an important point when he gives Rey the truth: it is a split second. Luke is a hero, but he's human. He was impulsive and acted on instinct in his youth, so the fear of Ben turning is enough to push him to the edge for a second.

hopeforben . tumblr . com/post/623000635980333056/theres-a-significant-portion-of-the-fandom-that/embed

@emeraldspiral​ 

@daughter-of-water​

@someoneintheshadow456​

[buzzworddotie]

A little (not quite) Anxiety Ramble

Do something! Do SOMETHING! Don’t stop doing something!

Welcome to 2020.

It won’t stop, my brain will not shut off. We’ve been in lockdown for… to be honest off the top of my head I can’t even get dates right but I’ve been in isolation mode, working from home for about 4 weeks now maybe?

On week 2, I became more lethargic than I ever have in my life, I withdrew from any contact with other people, my brain was in a fog, I couldn’t focus. My muscles were tired and refusing to function and my energy was entirely zapped.

I managed to pull myself out of that by attempting to not guilt myself for eating that bowl of carb loaded cereal or allowing myself to rationalise that it’s OK to just watch a movie.

But here I find myself in that cloudy little place again. My anxiety is in such a way that my brain refuses to shut down and my motivation is becoming a precious commodity that I’m unsure of how exactly to keep it in a steady flow.

When the anxiety kicks in like this for me, I stress and worry about every and any thing. Things entirely out of my control, other people, how I am perceived, why I am not now or have ever been good enough for anything or anyone. 

My rational brain packs its bags and heads for the door as I stare in the mirror and hate everything I see looking back. My doubts, my insecurities, my shame - every dark little voice that can be mustered up gets louder and louder.

And so I overthink every action I make, I try too hard to impress a version of myself on people. I try too hard to force anyone who might give a shit that I am in fact OK! And you know there’s nothing saner than someone screaming “I’M OK!!” directly into another person's face manically.

Sleeping is the worst, or in my case not sleeping. It doesn’t matter how tired I may or may not be, I can be assured that as soon as I lay my head down that anxiety demon comes alive.

I cannot remember the last time I slept for a solid 7 - 8 hours. I can recall what it feels like to be at complete odds and ends at 4am because it’s happening every goddamn night!

Is this a symptom of what is happening in the world right now or is it just an exemplification of how screwed up I might actually be? These are the beautiful thoughts which haunt my brain in between scrolling through Twitter or Reddit, telling myself to not scroll through Twitter or Reddit and then, you know, casually reminding myself that I will never be good enough for whatever the fuck I think I should be good enough for!

I’ve always been a bit of an introverted extrovert, or am I an extroverted introvert? I’m not sure, the point is I’ve never had a problem being a bit “isolated”. I’m quite happy in my own company and just pondering about, in my own little world doing whatever silly things I decide to do with myself. However, that world of mine was always interrupted with everyday interactions - people I work with, the ability to visit someone and general activities which we just take for granted.

I’m starting to even question if I am as introverted as I liked to think I was at all! I told myself that being locked down wasn’t a big deal for me, not a massive shift in my life. I’m single, I live alone… Just a real wholesome and healthy picture there! “I’m OK!!!”

First World Problems.

One thing about me I’ve known since childhood is that I love my independence. I was told by my parents growing up I was the most independent of all my siblings. There is a sense of freedom that comes with independence and I think losing that is throwing me for a bit of a loop.

The freedom and independence to just make a decision to do something in the moment and being able to just do it. Even the smallest, stupidest of things like going for a browse in a shop. Such a boring and mundane activity but an activity that clearly ticked some kind of box for my mind.

Of course, I am wary of banging on about this word “freedom” but allow me to state, I do not mean freedom with the gusto of some hardcore, right wing, gun toting Murican (Or the Irish lady, she whom shall not be named… We all know).

No, I’m not trying to suggest my first world concept of freedom is being threatened on some conspiracy level, I accept the merit in the fact that for a period of time we have to do what’s best for the greater good. But jaysus, it’s not easy at times is it?

Without the fundamental freedoms which I take for granted as everyday life it’s as if my brain is being withheld vital nutrients for it to operate full steam ahead. Don’t get me wrong, this anxiety trip isn’t a new phenomenon for me, I know the bitch well, but I had such a great grip on things and I think the hardest part for a minute there was trying to figure out how I was allowing it all to spiral so ferociously when I know I have the tools to not do that.

It also bothers me because I am, by nature, incredibly laid back and positive. I flip between Energizer Bunny, Everything is Awesome and easily passing for a hippie stoner on my good days. So seeing myself behave erratically at times now makes me not recognise or like the person I am having to live with during this lockdown! Her neediness and desire to please is very, very off putting to me.

But maybe I just need to let her be a little bit, maybe I just need to let her know that it is fine. It is fine if a momentary lapse in the mind causes a mini freak out which embodies itself as wanting to just shut down, it is fine if she does just go a bit OTT at times with people to overly compensate for how weak and low she is feeling. It’s fine.

It is fine. Once you recognise that that’s all it is, it does not lessen your worth to behave in a way you might later regret and it does not lessen your value if you allow your insecurities or vulnerabilities to sneak through every now and then. You just have to hope that whoever is lucky enough to get the brunt of your vulnerability can appreciate the value in getting a taste of it at all. Because that right there, that vulnerability, that is a precious thing which is not afforded to many, if any at all. 

It is the most beautiful aspect of humanity, to be vulnerable. And it is really fucking hard to let go of. Vulnerability takes an incredible amount of strength, it’s a feather that keeps on floating through regardless of how much dirt and debris gets attached to weigh it down. It is delicate and strong all at the same time. 

And for me, it is terrifying to let that wall down. It feels frightening to think for a moment I let someone see weakness or gave a hint that I, with all my positivity and strength and being there for other people, could have a moment of weakness. It cracks the veneer of who I want to pretend I am.

Meet my friend, Anxiety.

Anxiety has been an under current which has existed within me since my childhood but something I only recognised as I began to get older and, yes, get help. Speaking to a professional allowed me the opportunity to begin to understand myself and learn about myself, gain self awareness.

Where I am now compared to where I was back then are completely opposed. At its worst, I was consumed by my anxiety and all the other little niggly things which tortured my brain. It all manifested in self-hate usually, maybe hate is a strong word but certainly a really strong dislike of myself! I would allow that to spin in circles in my mind until I was lost in it and trying to fix a million and one things about myself and others which really, was all very surface or non-existent.

The difference today is that I can, at last, recognise it. I can see the signs, at times I am deep within them and it takes a step back to shake it off and see it but at least I can find it within myself to rationalise and take that step back.

It doesn’t make it easy, there is nothing easy about managing mental health in the same sense there is nothing easy about managing physical health. If I want that toned stomach I will have to feel the burn and it has to work the same for mental health too!

Jesus, it is not easy at times. I will always remember an episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race in which the contestant Katya suffered severely from debilitating anxiety. During a walk through Ru asked the Queen if she was, in fact, addicted to the anxiety. This registered with Katya and as time has gone by and that interaction replays in my own mind, I realise it often registers for me too.

When it is all you know, you can easily become all consumed by the anxiety, the worry, the stress and you can get sucked right down into it. And you can find a level of comfort within that discomfort, it’s recognisable and it can feel easier to submit yourself to it than seek out the light and pull yourself back from it.

When I break it down I can see the various triggers for my anxiety:

Opening up and being vulnerable = Opening myself up for rejection.

Feeling like I cannot help = Opening myself up for failure.

Failure, rejection = Not good enough. 

Attempting to improve and increase my self worth is really something that I never understood was such an issue for me, mostly because the concept of “self worth” was never something that even showed up on my radar. But guess what? It’s a thing! 

Self love is not about having an over inflated and delirious ego, it is about recognising that you do have worth as a human being. Recognise yourself as a human being.

Oh god, she’s going to talk about her childhood...

So, why is it that I may not have always recognised myself as a human being, worthy of care and love? Well, I will refrain from the details that will cause my very being to quiver but I was raised in a home in which I received a lot of love, but it was unstable. Arguments, raised voices, depression and a lack of seeing love between my parents. A tumultuous family backstory which, while I was not in existence for much of it, carried a heavy cloud over all proceedings. I was in existence for difficult times with siblings and parents who butted heads constantly. 

I was a witness, I was shielded from being on the receiving end for the most part but I still stayed awake at night waiting for things to take a turn for the worse. I jumped at nothing and everything, like a scared little mouse. I was reserved and private with friends, I held the problems into myself and did not expose anyone to it. 

As well as this, I faced a level of mental, physical and, like so many other girls and women out there, sexual abuse. I won’t delve into all the details but it seems like some sick, twisted joke that once you are forced to be subjected to this as a child, you do not recognise the issue with it which leaves you vulnerable for it again as you mature into an adult and set off on your own.

This is because your self worth has been destroyed. So when you see ladies coming to the fore as part of #MeToo or another movement, or no movement at all, don’t be so quick to judge. These ladies have likely held their tongue because their self worth has been so low that until they became exposed to others discussing it they didn’t even realise what had happened to them.

I won’t dwell too long on that, I could spend a long time dissecting it but it isn’t for now.

I will note, neither of my parents were responsible for that abuse. However, what my beautiful, kind and lovely parents were responsible for was me and as much as it absolutely kills me to have to admit, there were failings. Aside from generally being exposed to an unhappy home, as a child I was used to bridge the gap. Something which ran into my adulthood.

If my father was angry, upset or, as I now reflect and realise, in a spiral of depression it was my responsibility to pick him out of it. From a young age, I was the fixer - a tool to try to make things better. 

Until I actually discussed this with a professional I never saw the problem here, everything was normalised to me, but apparently not great! It’s a lot of pressure to put on a child!

Add into that a complex / chip on my shoulder of never being as good as an older sibling, whom I perceived as the ‘golden child’, feeling like I had to keep things hurting me hidden for fear of disrupting an already disruptive home for which I felt responsible for keeping the peace or holding together and well, you get yourself a nice little stew that is a recipe for absolute fucked up adulthood!

Honest Reflection.

How could I ever expect to grow into a well developed individual? The balance of genuine love I did receive from my parents is what I believe kept me from falling down an even more desperate track, a track which I pondered along on many occasions. A dark road with flickering lights where the allure of escape was often far too real.

However, my internal commentary of having to be responsible for others actually kept me from ending it on many occasions as I could not release the feeling of not wanting to let anyone down.

Jesus, unpack this shit and it’s an absolute shit show! But I don’t claim to be special or unique, the sad reality is how many people went through a similar journey or worse and are now in their early to mid adulthood and attempting to get to grips with it all. And that’s only if they managed to find the tools and resources to recognise it in the first place.

Recognise that 1. You are not mental and 2. You are not a terrible human being. 

I can’t speak to anyone else but clearly I have lacked the tools to manage or cope with my emotions. Anything outside of my control freaks me out and I lose the absolute run of myself! I panic, I seek out approval and validation and often in unhealthy ways. I have had eating disorders which I have been in denial about, I have drank too much, gone off the rails and slept with far too many people! 

What now? What triggered my writing, which has evidently turned into an unintentional essay about myself (fair play if you’ve made it this far, you’re a better person than me).

I recognised irrational behaviour and a deep dip in my mood as well as an increase of self critical behaviours. That was when I began writing, this is now the future, or present, or wait, is this inception? I’ve incepted myself, just know as you read now a couple of days have passed.

And it took those couple of days for the lightbulb to click on but better late than never! 

Let there be Light!

I began writing this aimlessly as a means to just put my thoughts down and that was a step in the direction of realising I had to do something. I am now slowly picking myself back up from it all.

First step, I went to the chemist and I just asked what can you give me for anxiety, I am not sleeping, I have not had a proper night sleep in close to two weeks or more - I asked for…… Help!

Gulp, scary, try it sometime.

The Pharmacist gave me a product called “Avena Sativa” (check it out). I added 20-30 drops to a little bit of water and it immediately relaxed and eased my mind. I took more before bed and baby, when I say I slept! Pure, deep, joyful sleep - all the z’s.

But wait, there’s more! Thinking I might as well hit this from all angles, I also grabbed some Vitamin D supplements and began retaking my B-12. I don’t know if one or all of these things did the trick but I can certainly feel the easing effects.

So that’s the taking stuff, but that isn’t all I did - Oh no, that would be too short for me!

I knew I really needed to hit this hard if I wanted to pull myself out of the hole I could eventually be down deep within. I’m a fan of meditation, I get that some skeptical people might huff it off as new age hippie nonsense or whatever, but it can work. Youtube has a host of wonderful meditation videos and for me, switching off from the world and onto one of those helps me massively. 

Additionally, I stopped hanging out of my phone, for the best part at least. I have a bit of anxiety with my phone (of course I do). I went through a period of time where my phone was a bearer of bad news, any phone call could have been bad news and eventually, it was. I realised I find it hard to let go of that, the idea that if I do not have my phone on me and with sound on 24/7 I risk not getting an important piece of news, I risk letting someone down or not being there as I should be.

Should = dangerous word. Don’t let ‘should’ govern your life or mind. Every ‘should’ is an expectation and additional level of stress you are putting on yourself. Best advice I received was to replace ‘I should’ with ‘I want to’ and see what the end result becomes.

Let’s wrap this up.

All in all, this is a time that can lead those susceptible to anxiety, and even those who are not typically, to find themselves in the mental trenches. It’s imperative to look at yourself from the outside and attempt to recognise what might be the deep rooted cause of what is effing you up. Do you really hate your body right now or is your self worth a bit low because of some other reason that deserves to be addressed?

Maybe consider going a bit easy on yourself? Don’t beat yourself up over that response or message that you regret. Don’t assume you can control others, just be yourself. Speak your truth at any given time and allow yourself that beautiful release of scary, scary vulnerability. 

Don’t run from it or beat yourself up over every and any little interaction or negative thought, give yourself a break and pull yourself out of the addiction of dark thoughts. Seek out help, ask for help - even if you are just asking yourself. Make healthy choices that will have a knock on effect of making you feel good about yourself or happy in your decision.

It is far from easy, but again, nothing worth having in this life is ever easy. But then the end result, when you push through and put in that effort - it is so, so very worth it to be able to have that moment of that day when you actually don’t doubt yourself or hate yourself.

I will keep motoring along with my own work and efforts and I ask that you do the same, if you find yourself in that dark place. Push through and don’t give up on yourself, you’re all you’ve got and that’s a pretty amazing thing to have.

[purplesurveys]

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Do you get allergies in the spring? No, I don’t have any allergies nor do we have spring. What is your biggest pet peeve? I have a number of ~big pet peeves but one I can think of in particular right now are people who are constantly late to everywhere they have to be. That, and unresponsive groupmates when it comes to schoolwork. What is one thing you want to do before you die? See Beyoncé in concert. She’s my only favorite artist left that I haven’t seen put on a show yet. What is your favorite primary color? Blue. What movie, that is currently in theaters, do you want to watch? I haven’t been outside in weeks but I’m pretty sure there aren’t any operating cinemas at the moment.

Who do you look up to? Out of all the people I know, Andrew. He’s been through some tough waves, but it’s never destroyed his soul and he’s never used it as an excuse to be cruel to everyone. I have a lot of love and respect for him. What is your favorite brand of bottled water? As much as possible I avoid bottled water but if it’s the only available option, I tend to look for Summit because it tastes the purest out of the cheaper brands I know. Are you a healthy person? I honestly don’t know if I’m constantly well because I live healthily without being aware of it or because my immune system is just simply crazy defensive. I guess I can call myself healthy in a sense that I rarely get ill and I’ve never had any serious health issues; but I'm not healthy in that I maintain a certain diet or go to the gym. If you were to write a story, what would it be about? I’d write a biography on someone because it combines two of my interests – journalism and non-fiction. What color is your toothbrush? It’s maroon with some white accents on it. What is your favorite movie about? Two for the Road is about a couple who re-examines their many years as a married couple, with the film using their road trips and various cars to symbolize the different stages in their relationship. Good Will Hunting is a story of a young man who has had a very difficult life and eventually has to confront his past and himself in order to move on to his future. I guess I really like movies with introspective characters. Do your fingernails grow fast? They kinda do, yeah. When was the last time you got out of your home? March 10th. Have you ever played with fire? No, I’m scared of fire. Do you like poptarts? Only one flavor, chocolate fudge. I’m sure I would like more if I got to try more flavors, but they only ship like 5 flavors to the Philippines – strawberry (which I’ll obviously never like), cookies and cream (too sweet), s’mores (also too sweet), brown sugar cinnamon (boring), and chocolate fudge. What’s a distinct memory you remember from your childhood? I remember playing the Wii for hours on the first day our dad bought one for us and going to school the next day feeling completely sore.   Is marriage in your future? Yes. Do you like color pencils or crayons better? I love both but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to enjoy colored pencils more. Have you ever played Badminton? Yes, I owned a set before and I’d ask the househelp to play with me outside our house when I was younger. Do you like to wear plain clothing or creative, colorful clothing? Plain clothing but in various colors. I refuse to wear anything printed (at least in most cases cause I do own a few printed pieces, like a jumpsuit that I own). What is your favorite thing about each season? I like our dry season because then I get to wear all the tank tops, tiny halter tops, sleeveless tops, and shorts that I want, and I feel prettiest in those clothes. I like the wet season obviously for the rain and thunderstorms, which is my favorite kind of weather. Would you ever consider running for president? No, I’m insanely incapable. What color is the sky right now? I don’t feel like looking out but it’s midnight so it’s likely to be a very dark blue. What is your all-time favorite day of the year? Whenever Wrestlemania is on a certain year. Is March one of your favorite seasons? Idk about seasons but it’s not really a remarkable month for me. February is typically a very hectic month what with Valentine’s Day, mine and Gabie’s anniversary, and my org’s traditional month-long anniversary celebration, so March is actually that time where we finally get to heave a contented sigh and sit back after working and spending so hard and so much. Did you know that the flu is an infection of the respiratory tract? I don’t feel like fact-checking rn but one thing’s for sure, I’ve definitely been hearing these words in the news more these days lmao. Do you enjoy star-gazing? Cloud-watching? I like to stargaze. Cloudwatching not so much. Do you write little reminders to yourself? Only if I desperately need to be reminded, sure. Describe to me the happiest day of your life. I don’t think I’ve had it yet, but the one that’s the throne right now is the day I saw Paramore in 2018. Would you want a pet iguana? I wouldn’t know how to care for it properly so I’d rather give the chance to someone who does. Are you afraid of spiders? We have tiny spiders here so not really. They’re easy to shoo away. What website do you visit most often? Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, Tumblr. In that order. Exactly how many days have you been alive? According to Google, 8,041. What do you do on rainy days? It varies but I like taking a nap, fixing myself a cup of coffee, watching a video or a show to relax, or listening to music that would pair well with the rain. What color is your bedroom floor? Brown, as is the entire floor for the second floor. Are you an organized person? In some contexts. I like making spreadsheets and cleaning up our plates and utensils to help out our server when we’re done eating at a restaurant; but I also can’t keep the inside of my car clean to save my life. Do you use corny pick-up lines? No. How thick is your hair? Very thick. I already touched on this on a previous survey but my hair is difficult to handle, especially if someone’s planning a hairdo on me that needs a lot of bobby pins. What do you look like in the morning? Messy, and more recently my bangs have gotten so long that they cover my eyes now which makes for a shaggier/lazier look most mornings. Are you allergic to anything? What? Nope. Who is your favorite person? My girlfriend. How did you spend your last birthday? We had cheesecake and in the afternoon, Angela surprised me by having a box of sushi delivered to my house. Otherwise, we stayed home. Do you like chapstick? I don’t need to use it, so I don’t really have an opinion. If you were the last person on earth, what would you do? Break into Forbes Park and go inside all the houses lol. Do you know how to knit/crochet? Nope. Do you enjoy windy days? Sure, I like them. When was the last time you went to an amusement park? I don’t remember when our trip to Singapore was but it was either 2012 or 2013.

[hobby-board-gaming-101]

Introduction to Board Games

alIf you’ve just learned that a friend is into “board games” and you’re trying to figure out if that means they play Monopoly every day, this is the post to start at.

There’s really no better introduction that this video, by Shut Up and Sit Down, a group that reviews board games. The auto-generated captions are all right, but I’ve also transcribed the video below the cut.

Now that you’ve watched that video, you should understand why some people play board games. Do you want to maybe be one of them? If so, keep reading this post.

Here’s another way to explain what hobby board gaming is like (credit to Reddit user Russell_Ruffino): an analogy to beer. The board games everyone’s heard of, like Monopoly, Clue (a.k.a. Cluedo), Sorry!, and Uno, are like those mass-produced lagers you can buy in the supermarket. But “if someone … had only ever tried mass produced lagers bought from supermarkets,” they’d be “missing out on a whole world … [of] craft beers that you sometimes have to buy straight from the brewery.” Like craft beer fanatics, board gamers have lots of games we love that you’ve probably never heard of.

I love this analogy even though I know nothing about beer because it can be extended to lots of subtleties. Those supermarket lager games are called “mass-market games,” because they’re advertised to a wide audience and lots of people know about them. The craft beer games, meanwhile, are called “hobby,” “designer” (because the designer is listed on the box, like a book author or movie director), or “modern” (because most though not all were designed after The Settlers of Catan in 1996) board games. These designer games “can be an acquired taste, [and] there’s nothing wrong with someone just drinking the supermarket lagers, but once you've started getting into the limited run stuff it’s hard to go back to only drinking the lager.” (Here’s an article that goes in-depth on the differences between these two categories of games.)

Now, I don’t know if you’re interested in maybe becoming a real serious hobby board gamer, or if you just want to play good games more casually. If you think the latter is the case, check out Casual Game Revolution. This article gives a very good overview of what they think casual gaming is, or if you want a shorter read, try their about page. Their website will be a wonderful resource for you if you want to be a casual gamer, and my blog might be a bit unnecessarily esoteric. But if you don’t want all your games to be “relatively quick games that are easy to learn and teach” and want more than “light strategy,” Casual Game Revolution might be a little limiting for you. You are my target audience for this blog.

(I tried to write that a couple different ways and I feel like it still might sound a little condescending towards casual gamers. I promise that was not my intention, and casual gaming is amazing.)

I think that’s just about all I need by way of introduction to this blog. I would strongly suggest using the table of contents linked at the top of the site (next to my About page) to get around. Welcome!

Transcript of Shut Up and Sit Down’s video below the cut:

Oh, hi there. So, you’re here because a friend or significant other or colleague, a member of your family, church, or dogging community has told you they’re into board games: they’re a board gamer. And that’s got to make you nervous because surely anybody will be done with Monopoly and Snakes and Ladders after being a kid.

What if I were to tell you a secret: that these days, board games and card games are actually amazing. And you're going to find that hard to believe because you’ve got three preconceptions starting with this one: aren’t there like, six board games? There’s Risk, there’s Monopoly, there’s KerPlunk, Connect Four, and the one where the mustard man kills people with a fire poker. No! Actually, new board games come out every single week from countries as far-flung as Germany Japan, and yeah, America and the UK, and some of these board games are for families, some are rubbish, but lots aren’t. In fact, lots are absolutely fantastic!

Let’s look a preconception number two which is the board games are BORING! And actually, they’re just not. Let’s look at a game that came out just a few months ago, alright, this is Ladies and Gentlemen: a French game; a team game where half the players play baffled Victorian gentleman trying to make money at a pretend kiddie stock market, in real time, and the other half of the table play their wives, trying to use that money to assemble the best outfit. It even has additional rules for “maid’s gossip,” and a player who is a single lady! Now, see, this this game might sound mad to you. It might sound like a cross between bridge and OK Magazine, but it probably doesn’t sound boring. And that’s the truth of it, alright, the fact is that the table, as a medium, can be used for anything. You just pick the board games out there that entertain you! Let’s not forget that poker is a board/card/table game type thing, and no one would say that’s boring!

Which brings us on to point number three: board games are for kids. And they’re just not! Labyrinth: The War on Terror is a simulation where one person runs the American War on Terror as of 2001, and another plays militant Islamic fundamentalist movements. Probably not for kids… unless you’re actually Dick Cheney. K2 is a very simple, incredibly competitive game about racing to the top of K2, a.k.a. Savage Mountain, a.k.a. the mountain with the highest fatality to summit rate in the world. A game where, when I lost a mountaineer who froze to death in his tent in a blizzard, I felt like crying. And I'm 26! Probably not for kids (unless your kids are tougher than me, which wouldn’t be hard, to be honest). Archipelago is a game where players are European colonists trying to scratch out a profit from a South Pacific island chain; simultaneously working alone to develop the island, and working together to make sure they’re not killed in a violent uprising. Probably not for kids… unless you’re actually Queen Victoria (which I really hope you’re not… ‘cause that would be… weird).

Very quickly, board games start to look like a much more reasonable thing to do with your time. Whether you’re invested in heavy, chess-like strategy that’ll let you best your friends; whether you want to have fun without drinking; or whether you want to have much more fun while drinking, there is a game out there for everybody, and that includes you. Here are a couple of pretty much perfect games that you could probably have an incredible time with no matter who you are:

The Resistance is a game that pitches you and your friends as an underground resistance cell, with no taking turns, no dice, not even a board. You and your friends just have to decide which of you will go on missions, with the twist that secretly around the table is a team of spies. The spies know who one another are, but the good guys don’t know who anybody is. And as teams start coming back with the news that someone anonymously sabotaged the plan, you’ll start distrusting your closest friends. It’s just 45 minutes of your friends accusing, lying, theorizing, I trust him I don’t trust her, sometimes getting little powers like one player must show one other player what side they’re on, until the end one team wins or loses, and all hell breaks loose as you find out your girlfriend was lying to your face the whole time. Or did I get you wrong? Maybe your idea of a good time isn’t lying to your friends faces; maybe you're not the confrontational type. In which case, say hello to Tales of the Arabian Nights. [Middle Eastern musical chord.] Tales of the Arabian Nights is a storytelling game, where you and your… this is probably racist, isn’t it? Where you and your friends will just be telling stories together. Do remember those Choose Your Own Adventure books you had as a kid? This is like the mother of all of those. Using an incredibly clever system of cards, and this ludicrous book, and matrixes, you will have… [Reference Pear falls off table and thuds]. You will have stories which are different every single time, from rescuing princess, to being lost and befuddled by genies in the European seas, to fighting to- getting your way out of problems with luck and guile. You have no idea what’s going to happen when you start Arabian Nights, but you and your friends will have an unbelievable time, just, telling stories together. And yeah, while it’s possible to win… that doesn’t matter, like so many board games these days.

[Quinns] Ahhhh… [to wife] I don’t think it’s coming out! [Wife] A little dab of olive oil on a cotton ball will help. [Quinns] Ol- Olive oil? What is wrong with women! [this is actually funny and not just weird in the video, trust me]

As a kicker, in an age where books, movies, video games — where ownership is becoming digital — board games give us something real to play with: something you can just hold, and collect. Because to be honest, holding a hand of cards feels, just, really good.

This is the scene your friend is part of. It’s big, it’s beautiful, and it’s growing! Sales have been going up for the last ten years. Now, because board gamers are generally a pretty awesome lot, if you’re at all interested in this stuff, you should definitely talk to your friend about getting involved in a game. Alternatively you could visit our site, Shut Up and Sit Down, for news, videos, reviews, and plenty of footage of grown men dressed as wizards… for some reason. What’s wrong with us? Uh… BYEEEEE!!! [outro music]

[sightlessdarkcorner7]

50 Couples On The Creepiest Sleep Talking/Said In The Dark of Night

After reading these sleep talker stories from (Ask Reddit) you are going to have trouble falling asleep with your partner.

My husband is OUT OF CONTROL with his sleep talking. You almost can’t call it sleep talking, because you would swear this MFer knows EXACTLY what he’s doing. It isn’t just talking. He gets up out of bed, will literally be walking around the house doing things like he’s totally aware. Could hold a full conversation with you. It takes a minute to realize whether he’s awake or not, he’s so sure of himself. So probably the scariest thing was one night we’re knocked out, it has to be like 3 am, and his big ass BOLTS out of bed like I’ve never seen in my life, waking me up and frantically yelling, “WE HAVE TO GO NOW! WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE! FOLLOW ME! HURRY UP!” I literally go into full panic mode and start trying to grab things and get my dogs, all while trying to ask him WTF is going on, but he’s SO serious about this that I just trust that there must be something bad happening. Within a minute or so I noticed that as frantic as he was walking around, he wasn’t really DOING anything, just kind of going in circles. At that point it clicked that he wasn’t really awake [I had been woken up from a dead sleep too obviously] so I started saying his name over and over and telling him it was okay, and he kind of just snapped out of it and was like oh, sorry about that…

I was told by my SO that I said, “Give her a lobotomy, right through the temple.”

SO: Shhh be quiet. She’ll hear us. I ask who. SO Response: The woman who lives here. Shhhh she’s in the hallway.

Sat up at a 90 degree angle and said, “Violence causes and solves all problems.” Laid back down and said nothing else.

Woke up to go to the bathroom one night. As I move to get up my boyfriend goes, “Don’t go out there…” Thinking he’s awake and joking with me I go, “Oh yeah, why?” He sits upright eyes wide open and goes, “SHE’S out there.” I held it for the rest of the night.

Woke up the whole house shouting, “Where is the head?! Where is the head?!”

He did that sit straight up in bed thing that I thought only happened in movies then shouted, “They’re coming for my skinnnn.”

I talk in my sleep, and my girlfriend told me this story after we woke up. I had evidently, turned toward her, shook her with my face, and yelled “They took my god damn arms Johnny!” before slumping back over and going back to sleep.

Not my SO but one of my friends’ mother used to talk in her sleep frequently. Apparently she was petting her boyfriend’s hair and telling him all the ways that she could kill him and make it look like an accident. Told her about it in the morning and she just laughs and said they weren’t bad ideas.

My wife has the occasional night terrors. One night she woke up screaming thinking something was in the corner of our room. Really freaked me out cause I woke up to her trying to escape through the wall while pulling her lamp from the socket and throwing everything off of her nightstand. My dog and I just looked at her super confused. Dog noped out of the bedroom and slept in the guest room that night.

My boyfriend has PTSD from his time in the Marines and what they did overseas. The other night, I had my arm around his waist and he patted my hand and said, “You’re never going to make it out of here. You’re just another casualty about to happen. You’re going to die and luckily we’re married because you have life insurance.” .... we are not married.

“I wanna tear all your skin off your body… then maybe you’ll be quiet.”

My stepfather in his sleep:”I’ll will kill you, you bastard.” It was in the beginning of their relationship, my mum was a little bit scared.

A few months ago my husband was mumbling in his sleep, I asked what was up, he replied very clearly and loudly, “A CORRIDOR OF SEVERED HEADS.” I slept with the light on.

The first time we ever slept together I woke up to him looking at me. “Hand me my spear. I will kill you now,” he said. Then he closed his eyes and laid back down. I thought about it for like 5 minutes, decided I could take him, then went back to sleep myself. We dated for 6 years.

He sat up, pointed to the darkest corner of the room, and said, “There’s someone there!” I frantically said, “What do you mean?” And he insisted “There! There’s someone standing right there!” He then proceeded to lay down and go back to sleep as I used my phone light to check the dark corner. There was no one there.

He’s still watching us. He has no eyes.” Well, so much for sleeping tonight.

“They’re out there.” He says, eyes closed. “Who?” I asked. He shrugs, and uses both hands to gesture to the dark window. “Them.” We’ve had people in our yard before, so I had to look!

I wake up to hear him mumbling indistinct words, followed by “sudden infant death syndrome.” I was 7 months pregnant at the time.

My husband, almost every night, yells out “help…help…HELP” in his sleep. If I wake him when he does it, he’s hysterical until I can calm him down. It’s crazy.

“Don’t move or they’ll get you.” He says he doesn’t even remember having dreams that night.

Soon after having a child, my wife sat upright in bed in the middle of the night, shouted: “My baby! What has she done?!” and lay back down.

“Don’t worry about the lady in the corner.”

When we first got together, my (soon-to-be-ex)SO would scream at his ex wife in his sleep, saying things like “shut the fuck up you stupid bitch, I should kill you”. Now he screams those things at me in his sleep.

This wasn’t an SO but a guy I had a fling with. He abruptly began speaking gutteral gibberish in his sleep, then in his guttural voice shouted “I SAW HIM,” then continued the gibberish. Think straight-up horror movie demon voice. I think the devil took over his body for a moment.

My ex used to grind her teeth, talk and move a lot while sleeping. One night she was making this weird noise with her throat and me, being a light sleeper, woke up and decided I was going to get up and go to the bathroom when she suddenly snapped her neck and turned her face towards me and said real quick “the witch has arrived” and then turned her face away just as fast and stopped moving. I spent the whole night lying down wide awake trying not to piss myself.

My husband frequently sees things in our room in his sleep that are not there. Giant spiders on the wall, snakes, squirrels. He’ll wake up and tell me to get out of bed so he can find whatever it is he “saw”. One time he jumped out of bed and looked under the bed for snakes. My favorite was when he pointed to the corner of our bedroom and said there was a giant spider. He then proceeded to run out of the bedroom yelling, “I’m out this bitch, I’m out this bitch”. He doesn’t even talk like that normally. He’s also punched me in the back multiple times in a row because he was dreaming of fighting someone.

“We’re not alone,” at 3 am while camping in the 100 Mile Wilderness.

My SO has laughed in his sleep. Doesn’t seem creepy, but when you’re sleeping in dark and quiet room, and wake up to someone chuckling, then creepy is an understatement.

One night he repeatedly screamed “GET THEM OFF ME!” while biting his own arms. Alarming to say the least.

I’m not sure what’s more terrifying than your SO sitting upright and saying, “they’re here” only to collapse back into their deep slumber.

Screaming, “I am going to kill you Motherfucker!”

My SO used to (not as much over the years) speak German in his sleep. So, since I understand very little german, I’d catch a few words here and there and ask in the morning… It usually was something like “run”, “kill” ect. He had the strangest dreams/ nightmares.

I am the talker, my BF is weirded out by it in general… one night I sat up and creepily whispered “Help Me.”

He kissed my forehead and then said, in a really creepy sing-songy voice, “They’re coooooming, the terrorists are coooming! Dont worry though, they wont bang you.”

Violently shakes me awake “Don’t move. DO NOT MOVE.” Whispers: “We are covered in bees. Stay very still.” Turns over and falls sleeps.

My brother and I shared a room growing up. I would always wake him up with my sleep talking so he convinced my Dad to record me in my sleep. I said one very clear and loud sentence that night. “Go until you die.” No clue what I was dreaming about.

My ex once asked Her: “Do you see them?” Me : “Who?” Her: “The children.” That was a big nope!

Not words, but a laugh. My husband has, on more than one occasion, laughed in his sleep. But it’s not a normal laugh… It’s either a lot deeper and slower (almost insidious), or it’s a higher pitch (sometimes up and down rapidly with the pitch) and kind of staccato. Neither laugh sounds like him when he’s awake. It’s unsettling, but fortunately, it doesn’t happen too often.

I had an ex girlfriend who’s first language was Welsh. When she spoke in her sleep, bitch sounded like she was speaking in tongues.

Not 100% a talking in her sleep story but… When my SO is stressed she has dreams about spiders crawling everywhere. One night I was reading and she was asleep, she suddenly sat up and just stared at me. I asked her what’s up?

My wife doesn’t talk in her sleep, but I did wake up once to her sitting up, leaning over me and staring at me Paranormal Activity style. It was terrifying, and she has no recollection of it.

My fiancé is Chinese and didn’t have the best upbringing there. It is common for her to yell in a distressed tone in her sleep random Chinese phrases.

“We need to decapitate them and take them back to the lab.”

My SO informed me one morning that he had woken up in the middle of the night with my face inches from his, my finger in his ear and I was apparently whispering, “I just need to get in, let me in!”

“Are you texting demons?” Oddly high pitched laugh. “You’re friends with demons!”

My SO said she was going to the bathroom in the middle of the night. On her way back, I said, “It’s following you” and went back to sleep.

I’m the sleep talker but the best I’ve ever been told about was, “NO!! None of them have heads!”

“PUT IT AWAY. NOW.” (This was only our fourth night sleeping together and I didn’t even have anything out…)

Initially he just mumbled something I couldn’t understand. I turned around to face him and asked him what he had said. He responded in his sleep “don’t worry about it” and then laughed in this villainous way that I’ve never heard him use while awake. It honestly creeped me out.

[kob131]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-p7bD16Fmw

Well, seeing as someone on reddit was able to sit through and deconstruct this whole thing:

I’m not gonna be outdone.

Okay so his point about Maria was fair enough but this is a point anyone vaguely aware of the show is capable of doing. 

Also: he takes a stab at Ozpin for not being Ruby’s mentor...ignoring how maria is specifically FOR the Silver Eyes AND Ozpin did mentor Ruby in how to be a Huntress and a leader. 

Which leads him to say that Ozpin was being painted as the ‘bad guy’. … No, no he wasn’t. He was portrayed as being unusually emotional and secretive. Not as someone to be opposed (ESPECIALLY after Episode 3). So no, he’s wrong.

He then talks about Salem and Ozpin and barely says anything and then calls Qrow’s portrayal as good (ignoring how he attacked a kid and we’re suppose to overlook that.) Other than that, it’s again basic but functional.

Cole then goes on to praise the Brunswick Arc like everyone else does. Not even gonna bother talking about that because, again, basic but functional. All I could say is: the setting is not unique. A fuckton of horror movies take place on farms.

We move on to Argus where...same thing you would probably say about this scenario. Again, all I could say is: Ruby nor Oscar is blindly optimistic. Also: for someone who talks about ‘wasted potential’, you sure wasted potential in pointing out how much better done Jaune’s one scene could have been.

Then we get to the part we all know he gives a shit about. The finale arc. There he tries to give three better solutions off the top of his head.

Key word being ‘tries.’

Weiss’ Summons take Aura so it would fail before reaching Atlas and even if it COULD get to Atlas, Weiss would just get arrested by her dad and most likely lose the Relic to her father and then probably the bad guys. All ignoring how Weiss doesn’t WANT to go back to her dad alone because apparently Cole doesn’t give a shit about characters and their feelings. 

Qrow doesn’t have infinite stamina, fat lot of good his flight is gonna do when he passes out in the middle of the sea, drowns and some undersea Grimm *cough* LEVIATHAN *cough* gets the Relic and brings it to Salem.

As for the final point: her father is a greedy shithole who cares about no one but himself. You know, the kind of person who would sell something for his life to someone, like say, a magical lamp to a crazy Scorpion fanaus? 

So three solutions, three failures. Great job.

Also, let I be known that Cole here thinks Weiss would be able to kill her own father. So basically, he doesn’t know a damn thing about psychology in general, let alone how abuse affects someone. 

‘Why can’t Weiss talk to Ironwood herself?’

*jabs up at the third point* because, in your own words, she’d be taken to her ‘douche’ father (you know, the guy OPPOSED to Ironwood and locked up Weiss beforehand?) Gee, sounds like you were the one who didn’t think.

And yeah, not like everyone screamed in the writer’s faces that the split up was handled poorly and the writers outright admitted they didn’t do a good job with that. Yeah, fuck knowing your limitations, not like that hasn’t been the bane of this show since Episode 1.

Then he tries to talk about the letter Qrow sent Ironwood and says that could have caused Ironwood to meet up with them. Ignoring how that would have been ‘the house’ everyone wouldn’t shut up about in Volume 5 again as well as the fact that Ruby’s letters to Yang in Volume 4 prove the service is unreliable- Ironwood is shown to be closing the borders of Atlas AND becoming paranoid. Not only wouldn’t he leave because he’d be a hypocritic but he might not even TRUST the letter. So yet another failure to add to the pile.

And so apparently the writers have to explain why other options don’t work, because treating the audience like they’re children isn’t something that would waste time for no reason (because we know he’d just ignore it) but also NOT something that detracts from the work.

And now apparently we can’t spend three episodes with a final boss of a season (so he must hate the Fall Of Beacon since that’s a whole FIVE episodes. An ACTUAL whole five episodes.)

He also tries blaming both sides for this conflict (as if Cordovon didn’t have a chance to just let them go or at least contact Ironwood for advice since SHE’S trustworthy by being one of his underlings) because...he needs it to look as ridiculous as possible. And gee, people having an internal conflict, we have I heard that before...Oh yeah, OZPIN. You know, the event YOU PRAISED because Ozpin was too stubborn and as was the rest of the cast. But hey, who cares about consistency am I right?

And no, the show didn’t set up the Leviathan (NOT Godzilla) as this big epic battle. That was Cordovon. The Leviathan was the consequence of the epic battle, the heroes cleaning up their and Cordovon’s mess, Ruby using those Silver Eyes they’ve been talking about the whole Volume and to give Cordovon some redemption to show she isn’t a bad person. This was all telegraphed a mile away. You’d have to be pretty blind or completely ignorant to story structure and pay off to not see that coming.

And no, the Grimm aren’t scary because they’re big. They’re scary because they’re a deconstruction of the Mook trope, the trope of an endless series of low level baddies for the heroes to kill. Thing is, if there’s an infinite number of Grimm then any victory over the Grimm is meaningless. The leviathan is scary for the damage it can cause but what’s even scary is that killing it only temporarily solve the issue. Another Leviathan will show up eventually and if they survive THEN another one will show up. That isn’t even the full extent of the terror of the Grimm but I’ll just move on because I don’t want to write an essay WITHIN an essay.

Then we get his condescending ‘oh the show can’t be sad yet!’ because A. not like half of Volume 6 was already depressing as fuck but also half of Volume 5, all of Volume 4 and half of Volume 3. By my calculations, 45% of the show has been depressing as fuck. But also B. it’s not like Darkness Induced Audience Apathy, where a show becomes so depressing people stop caring, is a thing. *cough* Evangelion *cough*

‘The Grimm were already pretty damn useless without a move that wipes sthem out with the blink of an eye’-

*edits out where The leviathan was about to break free and kill Ruby.*

Can anyone say ‘intellectual dishonesty’?

Also, apparently you bitch about the show showing Ruby using her Silver Eyes AS THE SHOW ESTABLISHED SHE COULD EARLIER (in those Maria scenes you praised again). So all that tells me is that you’re selective in what you bitch about. Also not like that ability does fuck all to humans, the main threat of the serie-Oh wait...

‘Their issues at Brunswick farm are never brought up again’

*edits out the scene where everyone realizes they were wrong.*

‘Blake and Yang never question if killing Adam was the right thing-’

It was.

‘Ruby being a useless main character-’ 

Aside from her decision in Volume 3′s finale causing all of Volume 4+ to happen, getting JNR to Mistral, saving Jaune’s life, anchoring one of the Nucklevee’s arms-sure...so your points only correct if we ignore most of her scenes Real great argument.

Also she gave two speeches in Volume 6, maybe three. Less than what she gave in Volume 1. Where she had less experience and less weight behind her words. Where her dialogue was MORE awkward. After she’s already been shown to do this. Where that’s been established as a key part of her character. So yeah, just another failure for the pile.

Then he bitches about Jaune not leading the plan and...he’s never lead a plan in his life. that’s Ruby’s job. She’s always done that. Jaune is the guy who analyzes the opponent and gives a way to defeat the opponent. He’s the TACTICIAN. Ruby is the STRATIGIST. So apparently Cole is either incapable of telling the difference or his vocab is so small he doesn’t know what tactician means.

It also doesn’t help his point that he gives the role of Tactician to Oscar because he defined one weakness about the mech and not Jaune who pointed out how to deal with it. So...he’s the one stealing Jaune’s characteristics, not the show. Great.

I don't think he means a damn thing when talking about Jaune, especially since he’s never cared before. This is just him looking for bullshit.

Also: remember how Cole knew absolutely nothing about Weiss’ abuse and how it would affect her? Yeah that comes back. Now he doesn’t know how PTSD works because he thinks fear is the only response a victim of PTSD can exhibit. While that is ONE way PTSD works, another way is to trigger the fight or flight response in a person. FIGHT or flight. As in, either run away or attack the source of your fear. Which is what Yang does to Adam. The source of her fear. … This is listed on the fucking Wikipedia page for PTSD, let alone what people in the fandom have said. But hey, research is for people with integrity, Cole needs to make a point, damned be the consequences.

Also apparently Yang not losing any fights since Volume 3 is a bad thing...because ignoring her development in Volume 4 with her dad is apparently good writing. Also apparent Yang needs to lose a fight due to PTSD to count because being out of commission for a whole Volume doesn’t count as an event. Her change in fighting style and way of thinking doesn’t count. CLEAR CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT doesn’t count. 

Yeah sure, he doesn’t mean any disrespect. And me and Dudeblade can tolerate each other’s presence in the same room.

Also, he tries talking about the animation and how the animators can’t express the same personalities like Monty did (ignoring things like Cinder and Raven’s fights that portray Cinder’s power hungry nature and Raven’s character of being a cocky, brutish asshole) and that all the characters can’t fight without their Semblances, citing Tock (a one off villain) and Adam (who lost more to his own reckless) (Also ignoring how Yang has been on a winning streak as Cole already said WITHOUT using her Semblance except against Adam.)

He then tries talk about the stakes, saying they’re too damn high all the time (almost as though the tone of the show shifted) before citing Volume 3 as a good example of high stakes (the Volume that CAUSED this tone shift.)

Also: apparently one shot of characters standing there shooting at opponent for a quick second is comparable to a build up shot of them shooting weapons and thus there’s no effort in the animation...ignoring how they did that EXACT SAME THING EARLIER with the Cordovon fight but again, Cole’s just doesn't care about what’s true at this point.

Also apparently not having an overarching villain in a Volume makes villains shit...so Volumes 1 and 2 are shit. You know, since there was no overarching villain in those Volumes either. He also tries to say that since we didn't follow Adam’s perspective, he’s shit. Again, never followed Torchwick’s perspective aside from once in Volume 3 nor Cinder except once in Volume 2. And then tries to say the show never told us that Adam was gonna be in the show because there was no Chekvok’s Gun...ignoring Blake’s vision of Adam and his own appearance in Episode 1, Yang;s vision of him in Episode 5 and his FUCKING CHARACTER TRAILER. Yeah, bet that Chekvok’s Gunshot Wound is hurting pretty bad now huh Cole?

‘Why is Adam doing what he is doing?’

...Because he’s a fucking obsessive asshole. That’s his character. He outright said before he’d keep hunting her down. They established this THREE YEARS AGO.

*BANG!*

Ouch, that shot really looked like it hurt. Not that I feel sorry for someone who fires a gun into their own face though...

Also: don’t try saying ‘a good villain is the hero of their story’ while showing a DC poster. You know, the group whose biggest villain (The Joker) is DEFINED BY HAVING NO MOTIVATION OTEHR THAN MALICE. AKA your exception is far more well known than the rule. Doesn’t help that your try to use movie Thantos as your ‘hero of his own story’ when the guy is known as the MAD TITAN. And don't try using comic book Thantos, he just wanted to fuck Death.

This is all ignoring how there are OTHER villians. You mentioned Red Vs. Blue earlier right? So you must be aware of Felix right? The guy who knows what he is doing is wrong but doesn’t care? The guy who goes out of his way to be sadistic? The guy whose motivated by his feelings of inadequacy and ego? Sound familiar?

That’s Adam. that’s Adam with a dash of pity and some better backstory. You ignore a fuckton of character archtypes that have proven themselves on par with the Well Intention Extremist if not SURPASSING it just so you could make a bullshit point about how Adam should have been your headcanon. Never asking if that was where Adam was going as a character or if it would have helped the themes and message of the story. You know, as a critic SHOULD.

Hm, plot device to make main characters grow, that sounds familiar...

Oh yeah, one of if not THE most iconic villians in fiction. Great job there, making the Adam you hate look as good as the best Dragon Ball villain.

And then he talks about Mercury and Emerald, saying the same shit everyone does. Then he bitches about Neo being in the Volume for no reason (*cocks Chekvok’s Gun*)

Also he says the villains just keep losing...ignoring how he directly SHOWS Volume 3 (and how the villains aside from Cinder have been given NO set backs so far) so better add that to the Mount Olympus of failure that is this video.

he then bitches about Yang not adhering to on specific version of PTSD (and if he makes that stupid ‘Strong female protagonist’ bullshit again, I’m gonna trap him in a room with rabid Bumbleby shippers) and says that Adam should have been treated as a main villain (ignoring how he has NO relevance to anyone else aside from Blake and Yang), and basically have Adam fight with Cordovon and the others alongside Blake and yang (ignoring how many people bitched about they couldn’t handle multiple fights in the previous Volume. Also not like Qrow would just knee Adam in the balls and cut his head off due to the sheer power difference between them) and have Adam destroy the mech (because...reasons. Totally not Cole has a yaoi boner for Adam.)

He tries to say the world of RWBY doesn’t revolve around Team RWBY in a show called RWBY...even though this is centered around a single character (adam) where the changes would do nothing since his reveal conveys the exact same information but with less time.

And then he tries to defend his bullshit by saying he actually does like RWBY, and that his bias is okay because everyone has biases...

*cracks neck*

Cole, there is a very clear difference where someone is trying to remove their biases from their work in order to prioritize the well being of the show and help improve the creator’s abilities and what you do. Someone whose actually trying to help the show wouldn’t base their complaints on their own personal opinion but rather what the creator was trying to accomplish and how well they did that. You did not do that, with how you keep complaining about how the show doesn’t do what you want even though it would either be repeating previous mistakes, making new or just wasting time. Someone whose trying to support the creators try to understand what the creators want to accomplish and give them directions on how to do that. You instead try to force them down the path you want them to go down, even though that is not their goal. Someone who actually accepts the show for what it is and enjoys it for what it is wouldn’t outright lie about the show, edit out information, constantly contradict themselves just to make it look bad, throw tantrums when things don’t go their way, throw in a bunch of bullshit and try to pander to a group for views/ego. You most certainly did all that, as the rest of my post showcases.

You don’t like RWBY, you like your HEADCANON of RWBY and react badly when your script isn’t followed. You’re no different than FMF except he sticks to his standards, unlike you.

In short, the only thing that was terrible here was you, Eruption Fang AKA Cole Palleman. You could have brought up some actual points (like how information is conveyed to the audience or how Adam’s character wasn't clearly communicated) but nope, you just pushed your bullshit.

My, how the mighty have fallen.

[monasticcellphone]

I saw a reddit post about how smart phone use is now greater than TV watching. The average person spending about 4 hours a days on TV or their phone. And doesn’t that seem absurd? Well I know I’m on my phone about 3 hours a day, because it tells me every once in a while, and I know it’s because I use it on the train to work, on my break from work, and on the train home from work. And I think about before people would go to work, come home, and then spend hours watching TV at home to unwind. All the while being inundated with Ads. Now the real market is for instagram and YouTube with ads being all the more covert. How our consumption of mindless entertainment is shaped by our working lives and how that mindless entertainment shapes our desires and minds. 

And it makes you think about the value of these things and our time. I used to always wonder why was TV so evil but movies or FILM or CINEMA seemed to hold a higher esteem? And I think the element of mindlessness and ads is important. 

I think it was Shklovsky who talks about unconscious interaction with the world in our everyday life and the dangers that has, and the goal would be to shock our selves out of this mindlessness. 

The only other thing I could be realistically Doing with my time on the train or on my break would be reading. And reading builds on something. It builds up to something. Scrolling through reddit and then instagram and then reddit and then tumblr does not. 

And it makes me think about propaganda and I hate using the word because people get so crazy about the term. But I think a big element of propaganda is its clarity. Its purpose and audience and voice is clear, almost overpowering. The inundation is of information in all forms is nothing like that.

Isn’t it all the more dangerous if I can’t even remember what I looked at on my phone for three hours of my life today? What images and words have been consumed? 

And then it makes me think about ideology. I saw someone call Zizek a grid locked pessimist for calling everything ideology. If everything is ideology, then where is the exit? While in psychoanalysis you can know the cause of your symptoms of hysteria, make the unconscious conscious, but still be hysteric. In ideology, you can know you’re within ideology, but still operate within its confines.

And I truly am satisfied with the response that it remains possible to “choose” your ideological values and live by them. Of course you’re still operating within ideology, but at least you can support it. 

[journalofhrr]

I wanna write down all my experiences but sometimes I forget :( I know something happened but I don't remember when or what...

Anyway

I Know I'm not from this universe not human at all. Altho I am inhabiting this body it's just a puppet. I have memories from before I came here. I can't remember why I came here tho.

I do like to believe I'm a Dog! I'm a furry and i like pet play. But I'm really a dog in a human body being piloted by an outside force.

I constantly feel like there is someone in the room watching me even when I'm alone. I never feel alone when I'm alone there is always another presence. And I never used to feel presences.

There is always eyes watching me they're every where on the walls on the table under the fridge behind the washer.

I'm afraid of people looking in the windows so all the curtains are closed the only light comes in the stained glass and I covered all the clear parts with post it notes. The window in the bathroom is covered in rice paper or some shit it's totally white.

I get so paranoid at work that someone is going to come in when I'm there alone and it doesnt help that I keep hallucinating this karmpus looking guy walking around the corner or behind the bagel slicer or into the bathroom so I see him and get spooked but like at least I work alone so no one can see how fucked up I am

And then like a handful of times I've heard voices usually I hear someone says my name and then just whispers like they're behind the wall talking about me but once again I work alone so

No one had sent me a message or called me in over a year and a half like 2020 was the last time anyone besides my wife and the BT have had contact with me. I have 0 friends. Cause if they were my friends I wouldn't have to reach out every single time. Communication is a two way street but I can't be the only one driving on it, every single time. So after I reached out to a person I waited to see if they would reach out to me..and they haven't not a single fucking person. I've had the same phone number for 16 years so it's not like they don't know what it is. Of course some of these "friends" talk to my wife but not a single message to me not in over a year and a half like what the fuck . What can I do other that take it as a sign that not a single person I've met in the last 13 years has ever wanted me or to be my friend.

So yeah total isolation from people and society. I watch YouTube videos. I reblog things on my main. I scroll a little on reddit. But that's it. I don't talk to anyone online. I don't make content. I do play video games and smoke weed and cook amazing food. So I'm just living the hedonistic life by my fucking self (aside from my loving bipolar wife and my loving ocd BT)(only someone who's brain is as fucked up as mine can deal with me I guess.)

I get obsessive with my interests and I like to collect altho I'm careful not to become a hoarder. My wife is a certified hoarder tho and it's taken us years to go through all of her stuff. We still have 12~ boxes to go through but after 5 years I'm kinda exhausted. There still might be some treasure but these are very disappointed looking boxes lots of cables and paperwork to sort.

Anyway back to my interests I watch movies 30-40 times listen to songs 8+ times a day every day, read billions and trillions of words of Harry Potter fanfic. Harry Potter is my deepest and most long lasting interest (my mother literally bred it into my reading me every Harry Potter but the last one that I was able to read on my own. Anyway only good thing she ever did) (of course fuck jkr I'm trans my wife and bt are trans I get it trust me) right now I'm obsessing over spose good thing he has so many albums that boys catalog is crazy at least 50 songs on my playlist and 3 more albums to go but that has nothing on my 100+ they might be giants playlist. But also my 4000+ collection of online adoptables dogs my 20+ playthroughs of Skyrim and the 7? 8? Copies of Skyrim I own lol thousands of Pokemon cards and dozens of statues and carvings and knifes and blankets and glass pipes and and and maybe I collect too many things but at least they are all nice useable items

ANYWAY

I am really smart high iq good grades really logical worked in electronics on helicopters all that shit so like I feel like I'm too smart to be so fucked up over haluctions :(

The 500mg of Seroquel has definitely helped with my depression. Like if my pit of dispair was a really deep swimming pool and Im usually doggy paddling in the deep end ready to slip under and not be able to touch the bottom at any moment. The Seroquel has like pulled a winter pool cover over top of the pool like I'm in the same spot but I'm sitting on the cover and since I'm not paddling it's much easier to deal with... I'll still feel empty and emotionless but it's not painful or so foggy. It cuts through the fog that's for sure.