okay, so in a rare moment for me, there's a discourse thing i want to bring up, and that thing is. okay. so on iskall's stream there's this thing that can happen where someone brings up a criticism of his content or vault hunters. frequently it's self-evidently wrong, but sometimes it's not. and then iskall spends the next thirty minutes shadowboxing this guy, explaining himself, and completely derailed. and this is an iskall trait we all know and sigh bemusedly about, because he cares about the community and wants people to understand his intentions! he wants the community to understand his decisions!
however, it's not the community as a whole he's fighting; he is in fact, arguing with One Guy, who often doesn't represent the wider community, and who normally won't have their mind changed. hell, sometimes it's believable that they're satisfied having just managed to upset iskall, and they'll leave, no change to their mind, perfectly pleased that iskall's responding at all (that's what i firmly believe the people who poke at the 'you don't upload enough and that means you're falling off and a bad person' wound are trying to do, at least).
in the vault hunters community, we refer to this as iskall getting One Guyed, and it's typically viewed as bad, because it ends up focusing an entire moment on a single guy's negative opinion as opposed to on the larger picture. and it's an understandable thing to have happen! but it's frustrating to watch from the outside.
and so now i am looking at that cat poll. and the way everyone is still shadowboxing someone who has since apologized. and the way i would have never ever known about any of the negative comments about jellie if it weren't for fellow mcyt fans constantly putting them on my dash to dunk on them. and it's like. if you look through the notes most of them are just... normal? it's only a tiny few of people (and the pollrunner, who has since apologized) who were being dicks. it's a very, very ignorable demographic.
but. well. there was One Guy. and we had to correct them.
and folks, i don't know how to say that i almost never see "lol mcyt is cringe" type comments unless one of you puts it on my dash. both because i don't go looking through the notes of things that are likely to have them or go looking for reasons to be upset and because it's just... not that common! very frequently these days it is, in fact, One Guy!
i have almost never seen that poll on my dash without at least one instance of the One Guy. instead of being for fun, it's mostly become about explaining ourselves to someone who will not listen and will not change their minds, and treating this as a the whole of the Other Side of that poll, when most people are being... fine. they're fine! the majority of the people voting for the other side are doing it for perfectly normal reasons that don't require fighting about.
and man. let me tell you. after spending as long as i have watching vault hunters development? it can be just as frustrating to watch a fandom get One Guyed as it is to watch iskall.
Something I love to think about is every iteration of Leo’s relationship with Splinter and how Splinter’s interests always define how a Leo presents himself.
I used to abide by the idea that a Leo will simply emulate his Splinter directly, and to an extent I still believe that to be the case, but moreso I think Leos have a tendency to mold themselves into what they believe is their Splinter’s ideal son - someone who embodies all the traits Splinter has explicitly shown to admire or value in a person.
Most of the time, they try to be a dutiful and honorable boy abiding by the full extent of ninjitsu teachings. Then you have Rise Splinter, who very much still has undeniable prowess in the art of fighting and being a ninja, but when it comes to how he shows his interests to his boys…one thing reigns supreme.
Acting. Shows. One liners. Flamboyance in the name of gaining an audience’s attention.
He showcases Lou Jitsu movies on repeat for the boys, passing down the morals and words from those movies to them with no small amount of pride. All while fully expecting them to respect these teachings.
So, of course, Rise Leo picks up on this. He’s a Leo, after all, as much a daddy’s boy as any other variation of him, only he clocked his father’s interests to be different than most others. He picks up on the art of showmanship, of keeping things to himself so as to be a more exciting twist later, of treating the world as a set to act in.
He’s an actor, not just because Splinter himself was one, but because Splinter likes acting and showed one particular actor (unknowingly to the boys, it was himself) as the pinnacle of all his teachings. As someone to value and admire. And even more than that - Splinter focuses on the character the actor is portraying rather than just the man himself.
And I think this is all even more interesting when taking the turtle tot short into consideration, because very, very briefly, just as with many times else throughout the series, we see how easily Rise Leo aligns with his other selves, seeming to pick up the sword easier than his brothers do their own weapons - after quoting Lou Jitsu of course. After emulating his idol - the person who his father seems to admire so much.
Point being, it’s so interesting to see how Leos tend to mold themselves in one particular way throughout every variation - that being, what their father is shown to value most in people.
Today is January 27th, which is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and I'd like to get some stuff off my chest.
First, I'd like to take a minute to point out that it is not Yom HaShoah, which is the day Israel (and by extension large portions of the Jewish diaspora population) uses as Holocaust Remembrance day. Yom HaShoah is on the 27th of Nisan, a date that was selected to commemorate the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, centering Jewish resistance in our own story. That date was selected nearly five decades before the UN picked January 27th, which was selected to center our white saviors who came to liberate Auschwitz. This is utter bullshit. And no excuses for not being able to handle a moving date on the Gregorian calendar - April 19th would be the Gregorian equivalent, and it was not selected.
Having said that, given how many infographics I've seen over the last four months about how people are increasingly denying or doubting the Holocaust, I figure any day that acknowledges it is a good thing, so yeah, let's take two days to remember. I think it's worth it.
So given that this is the Holocaust Remembrance Day that centers our goyishe friends, let's talk about how our goyishe friends should observe the day.
1. It is likely that you never learned a lot of details about the Holocaust. Holocaust education usually boils down to, "and the Nazis put Jews in camps in order to kill them, and a lot of Jews were killed in gas chambers, and about 6 million died in all." Go learn some details. Read or watch an account from a survivor. Learn about the medical experiments, or the death marches. Learn some details about what the gas chambers were actually like. Try to understand the horror. Learn about the SS St. Louis or the Evian conference in 1938 where almost every country on Earth decided it was better to let the Jews die in Germany than to allow them into their own countries.
2. On that note, take the time to understand that anti-semitism neither began nor ended with the Nazis, and that even the "good guys" were incredibly antisemitic.Try to recognize that the antisemitism that was present where you live right now in the 1930s didn't just disappear, it just went into hiding. Think about where it might be hiding now.
Basically, because this is the Holocaust Remembrance Day for the goyim, I want to focus our remembrance of what happened on the goyim. What did they do? What could they have done to help? Why didn't they? We can come back in May for more Jewish focused learning, but the Holocaust could not have happened without A LOT of willing goyim, and I think we should spend the day remembering them and their actions.
And as a side note: if you happen to read this and you've chosen to spend the day engaging in Holocaust denial or Holocaust inversion, then know that my hope for you is that something happens in your life to teach you empathy and basic human decency. And I hope it isn't pleasant for you.
does anyone else get so upset when you think about all the things that happened to your f/o... all the things they went through? all the things they haven't healed from? the pain that they may still be enduring? how you can do your best to help them but you can't protect them from everything. so you just love them the ways they needed before, how they deserved. and you see them happy because they finally accept, at least in some ways, that they do deserve it. they deserve love like all beings do
Hey, gentle recognition for the people who are taking care of themselves in "not aesthetically-pleasing" ways. To the people who have to do things they don't want to because they know they would suffer more if they didn't, to the people who have to brush their teeth with their fingers, to the people who have to use washcloths to bathe, to the people who need to punch pillows or scream into them to express their intense emotions, to anybody ashamed about the way they need to live and take care of themselves.
You are doing the very best you can with the hand you've been dealt. It's not easy, it's not pretty, but it sure as fuck takes so much to do these things. You are doing what is best for yourself, and I, for one, think you deserve to be proud of that. Self-care isn't easy. It isn't pretty, often, but it's something you shouldn't be ashamed of or hide away because it's deemed "grotesque" or "not really self-care (because self-care is pretty and non-threatening to 'normal peoples' senses)"
[A sad violin song plays over an image of a sad hamster]
Pac: This doesn't have anything to do with me – I wear a blue sweatshirt, you're crazy, this mouse doesn't even have a sweatshirt, this hamster! [Reading chat] Am I a depressed hamster?
[ Transcript continued ↓ ]*
–
Pac: Actually– that's fine! I embrace that idea – of course I'm going to be depressed, are you crazy? [He hits his desk, then starts counting off people on his fingers] Fit is gone, Richarlyson is gone, Ramon is gone, Bagi and Empanada who were always there when we were there are also gone, I haven't seen them! It's just me and Tubbo, and sometimes Philza shows up.
Pac: I lost Chume Labs, I lost the Favela, I lost Murder Mystery, I lost Ilha Chume Labs, it's crazy! Look at how much I've lost, and I've gained nothing! Of course I'm going to be depressed, are you crazy?! How am I supposed to be happy?!
Pac: [Reading chat] "You have us Pac," that's true, thank you. No, that's true, sorry.
* NOTE: Please note that this is an incomplete transcript, as I was primarily relying on Aypierre's translation mod at the time and if I am not confident of the translation, I do not include it. As always, please feel free to add on translations or message me corrections.
tony asks “what are you looking at?” and rhodey responds “i’m looking at you” and i’m supposed to believe they aren’t desperately in love with each other??? i don’t think so.
when you mentioned in your tags that there was hardly any laughingstock i didn't believe you at first, but holy shit ur right. YOU AND @krasytoonz MADE ME INTO A LAUGHINGSTOCK BELIEVER. I WILL PAY TRIBUTE TO THESE SKRUNGLY FUCKERS SOON, MARK MY WORDS *shakes fist into the void*
no yeah Seriously though its just us out here, fighting for our lives in the fucking Trenches. in ten years someone is gonna use the word 'laughingstock' casually in conversation and im gonna have War Flashbacks
steve and robin casually taking on each other's interests like its nothing. Robin watching sports games and occasionally giving her best go at basketball (and having an absolute blast swimming laps) with steve. steve listening to robin play and trying new weird music with her and even fucking around with her trumpet when she'll allow it. they're not the best at their new interests but they just do it together anyway and have fun just engaging with their hobbies together
just stobin hanging out and joining in on the things the other loves. not really into it personally but its that hobby with the other that makes it fun