#the redditors are right btw

[teacupsandcyanide]

btw i saw people on reddit who genuinely believe that poppy is belinda's "actual" daughter and always was and that it's just that the series was set mostly in the wrong universe, the Doctor got us back to the right one and then in the last scenes had his memory "resettle" of the "real" universe

despite the fact that:

The Doctor met the real Poppy in Space Babies. So if she was always Belinda's child, how is she also Captain Poppy? Am I supposed to extrapolate, via the same incredibly generous methods of interpretation, that it's just double-casting and another massive coincidink?

Even if that's the case, spending the majority of the story with "Belinda 1" then ending it with "Belinda 2" and never finding out what happened to "Belinda 1" and being left with the possibility that she just stopped existing is a bizarre and awful writing choice. Unless it's framed as a horror story, which it wasn't.

Literally none of that lines up with anything else and I genuinely don't think it was RTD's intended meaning, I think he meant that the Doctor retconned the universe so that Belinda always had a baby, which is a different, equally stupid thing

Even if he did actually mean what the redditors believe, he was so ineffective at communicating this through the story that he may as well have daubed it on a cellar wall in Ancient Latin using his own shit. The redditors are all explaining it to each other too which is a real testament to how "obvious" an intended meaning it is

[theboredhooman]

okay but kame and asa are literally 100% in love i don’t make the rules ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

long post overanalysing and yapping about these two lesbians + spoilers for the ‘mononoke: phantom in the rain’ movie! go watch it right now if you can 👹👹

kame is literally asa’s most precious thing. you can NOT tell me she's not. even if you don’t ship them it is very obviously canon.

asa was soo flustered and didn’t want to tell kame about this, even blushing?? like understandable though it’s basically a confession

one of asa’s first reactions was always to check if kame was okay whenever the mononoke appeared

sure, it could’ve just been a friend thing, but asa was constantly looking out for kame in the ooku

defending her and taking the blame for all her mistakes and trying to protect her from harm, standing up to awashima and mugitani

asa i know what you are i saw that blush when kame smiled after you told her she could work with you instead of mugitani (I get you she was so cute tho)

”Such neat handwriting” asa’s eyes were so soft it actually broke my heart when i saw awashima cutting kame’s hair

the well scene….just…

asa trying to pull up kame, and kame doing the same for her

also asa being sort of lifeless while she hangs there until kame tells her that ‘it’ll be alright!/I’ve got you!’ and suddenly she snaps out of her shock, gaining emotions again

also it was so cute when they were talking next to each other at night

speaking of which, kame making asa promise to not let go while they sleep and asa adjusting to a more comfortable grip while holding hand was just; auGHHH 😩

ALSO ALSO “Kitagawa made me realise what was important, what I should never throw away,” and then KAME TURNING TO SMILE AT ASA AND ASA SMILING BACK WITH THAT ADORING LOOK IN HER EYES?? (note: there was also minor foreshadowing here with the empty doll cupboard but i think that had more to do with kitagawa)

and the cut off after saying she needed to say something important was really suspicious like what did she say??

idk how this related but afterwards she became more focused and hardworking on her job(but also more rigid and firm in her beliefs) and kame tipped out her water instead of drinking it (because she became the opposite? more rebellious/defiant maybe? idk)

speaking to the medicine seller, she said she understood kitagawa’s feelings, which makes me think kitagawa also had a thing for her friend lol like there was absolutely something going on there if she(kitagawa) fell apart after her friend left

only mildly related but i believe karakasa’s next target was probably going to be kame and she was used as bait for it (as something a redditor* mentioned was asa may have sent kame away to protect her rather than the reason kitagawa did, OR lure out karakasa) edit: nvm i remembered wrong it was utayama i believe (due to perhaps resentment within the doll’s umbrella*) or asa (following the logic that awashima and mugitani were both the head housemaids(?) favoured by utayama before asa, although again the end goal was probably to attack utayama)

also when asa was addressing the other maids of the ooku before the birth celebratory ceremony and bowed, kame bowed but nobody else did (which means they didn’t respect asa)

then kame got mad and showed her support for her girl like hell yeah 👏 and asa gained more confidence which i think was sweet

oh and asa was also like “the thing that kept me grounded was lady kame” 🥹🥹

she also said (acc. to netflix subs) “And yet, I yearned for nothing more than to share meals with Kame. And spend countless nights just staying up late, giggling and talking to her.” SHE SOUNDED SO LOVESICK 💔

btw love how the medicine seller instantly knew asa was looking for her boo lmao

anyways i think it mayyy not have been requited on kame’s side, at least canonically, but I have literally zero doubt asa was in love with her. then again homophobes and censorship. uh. it’s alright i ship them very hard either way i need more lesbians in my life hehe.

in conclusion. Harold they’re lesbians. thanks for coming to my ted talk. yeah o7

*redditors talked about the choice of karakasa as the yokai.(i recommend reading it, it’s very interesting imo)

[lyrakanefanatic]

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheInheritanceGames/s/aXvI2s1MTg

if i could shove my foot all the way down somebody’s throat, i would do it to this person.

OPEN THE LINK AND READ BEFORE HAND BTW!!!

okay. im gonna make this brief because this person literally pissed me off so badly and then they had the AUDACITY to mention gender roles.

they said “oh, if lyra was a GUY and stalked grayson hawthorne for a year, then got mad when he didnt pay attention to her” or some other bullshit. like how… HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING TO MENTION GENDER ROLES RIGHT NOW WHEN YOU ARE THE ONE BEING SEXIST.

idec. people hold female characters to SUCH a high standard.

first of all, SHE NEVER FUCKING STALKED GRAYSON??? she tried to get his number. thats it. she in no way harmed him and when he told her to stop calling, SHE IMMEDIATELY DID. grayson engaged in those phone calls, so dont act like hes a baby and lyra forced that phone down his throat. she didnt.

edit: i didnt add this bc i forgot but i have to mention this now

and since that person mention lyra being a stalker for GETTING SOMEBODYS PHONE NUMBER, then why dont we start being technical?

the hawthornes sending letter after letter to averys house about the will was stalking. grayson showing up at. her. school. just to talk to her about the will was stalking. but wait…. thats not right. it’s only okay when grayson does it!!!

AND EVERYTHING MENTIONED IN THIS POST ACTUALLY MAKES ME WANT TO DIE. “oh, but lyra was mad at grayson for not calling her back, yadayada” HEY. DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT THIS IS? SINCE YOURE SO SMART DONT YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT THAT IS? THATS SOMETHING CALLED A FUCKING FLAW.

YES lyra being petty is bad. but it was ALSO bad when grayson was outright rude to avery for no reason in the first book, or when jameson treated avery as a game again, FOR NO REASON in the—KEYWORD—first. book.

because guess what? do you wanna read what that says?

book 1! as in book 1 in a trilogy! as in square 1 for characters to learn to grow!

this bitchbag moaned and whined about lyra not being perfect. WELL GUESS WHO TF ALSO WASNT PERFECT IN THE FIRST BOOK OF THE TRILOGY THEY APPEARED IN?

grayson hawthorne.

jameson hawthorne.

OH RIGHT! THE GUYS THAT EVERYBODY IN THIS FANDOM D RIDES LIKE THERES NO TOMORROW!!

oh my god. you’re so right. if lyra was “half as intelligent as she claimed to be”, then she would have realized through her trauma and obvious depression that the guy who she had been blaming because she is a flawed character who is still growing wasnt at blame. YOU SOLVED IT!!!

guess what!!! if you would have clipped every one of lyra’s “annoying and whiny” depressed thoughts and stuck them together but changed her name to grayson, i deadass would have thought that jlb wrote graysons pov of the inheritance games. you know why? OH RIGHT, BECAUSE THEY GO THROUGH THE EXACT SAME FUCKING HEALING PROCESS!

except everybody’s baby grayson DOESNT immediately get better at the end!! yeah, it took him 4 books to heal!! but oh no, lyra needs to be a perfectly healthy no bad days mother teresa #2 in the first sentence of her FIRST BOOK IN A TRILOGY for people to not raise their pitchforks!! fun fact: YOU ARE SEXIST!!

if you agree with this redditors points: you are sexist.

if you loved grayson even in the first book/even after you finished the trilogy but agree with this redditors points: you are sexist.

ALL IN ALL, THANK YOU TIG/TGG NON-TUMBLR COMMUNITY FOR BEING THE MOST SEXIST PEOPLE ON THIS PLANET, DONALD TRUMP WOULD BE PROUD 🫶🫶🫶

ps. im tempted to make a reddit account and reply to that post and ALLLLLL its comments, but just making this actually made my blood boil. like im being serious when i say that i had to stop mid writing. because im genuinely done with blatant sexism i cant stand it and i especially cant stand knowing that nobodies safe if even BOOK CHARACTERS are being targeted.

(also btw NO i dont think you’re sexist if u have genuine criticism for her character. but this wasnt that. this was blind hate and sexism because nobody nowadays has even a shred of literacy comprehension. there was a reply of a girl genuinely criticizing how she was written and i understand that, but this? this was genuinely sexist and it actually makes me mad that even book characters are facing harsh standards like this.)

[some-pers0n]

Demoman is one of the characters in the fandom I feel most people straight up ignore or don't know how to write. Blunt, sure, but I do stand by it. Demoman is such a fascinating, intriguing character with the most fleshed-out backstories, yet is oftentimes relegated to being Soldier 2.0, only now with poorly written phonetics.

In other words, hey! I'm a fanfic writer who has a ton of opinions as well as a neurotic need to analyze every character they come into contact with. Pleased to see you're reading this. I've already done a little doohickey essay like this with Medic a while back. The purpose of these long rambles is half of me combing through every instance of the character and pulling them apart to see how their character works...and also me not-so-subtly venting and complaining about mischaracterization. Shocking how a fandom where the main characters are all very clear-cut stereotypes with some slight subversions here and there can't seem to get them.

This essay will go through Demo's beginning and all the way to his latest appearance in the 6th comic. I'll touch on how his character shifts and is expanded upon. I doubt he changes as much as Medic has over the years, but I think it will be interesting to see. I'll just go over bits of characterization, try to rationalize it, and then try my best to sum up all of the traits by the end and try to describe his character in the most canon-compliant way.

With that preamble out of the way, let's begin. This is also 7k words btw just...be aware of that, okay?

Before we actually get into proper character stuff, I wanna lay the groundwork first by exploring the types of characterization I see from Demo. Pick them apart. See what they're really like.

So, of course, there's the popular Redditor opinion of Demo that's mainly shaped by the way people play him in the game. There, people will describe Demo as being generally a bumbling drunkard. It's not too uncommon to see people say that he's an angry drunk. A man who is more concerned with alcohol and drinking himself into a stupor than anything else. I've also seen people say that Demo straight up can't read, which...euhhhhggg. He feels more like an alternative version of Soldier at times, which, again, isn't accurate to his character.

I don't care at all for this characterization. I do think a good chunk is rooted in racism and it's generally very uncomfortable for me to look at for too long. This characterization is pretty shallow and empty, which makes for a boring and offensive caricature. Reddit moment.

The second one is more interesting and the version you'll see more on Tumblr. It's this...odd version of him. I can't exactly put my tongue on what is off about it. It seems more accurate to his character. He's a foil for Soldier a lot of the time (Boots n' Bombs is his most popular ship let's be real) and generally isn't exactly seen on his own. Sure yeah there's the oddball art of him and him only, but let's be real most of his tag is mainly just him being in the background or saying a jokey-joke.

I actually fell back into Ao3 for a bit to skim over some fics to see what kind of characterization there was of Demo there to refresh my memory, and some of the common throughlines was shockingly that he doesn't drink a lot. "He rarely drinks!" I remember reading once. That's not right, no. He's an alcoholic. Like that's a core part of his character. Another fic had him being called "Cyclops" as a pet name. Ew. Anywho, other than that it's Demo being pretty into cryptids, having the Eyelander as a buddy guy, etc and etc. It's fun, but also it's missing...something.

Then, it hit me: Demo rarely is seen as an individual. He reminds me of Heavy in that regard, where most of his appearances have him be the straight-man to another character. Most of the time he's secondary and just a folly for the other characters. It's disappointing in that regard. Like you see a lot more stuff for characters like Scout, Medic, etc and etc with their own unique characterization stuff and getting their own attention.

So...then what is Demoman's character, exactly? Well, that's what we're here to see. It'll be pretty interesting, no?

----

So, funny thing is that Demo didn't change nearly as much as Medic has over the years. Sure yeah, the concept art of Demo was more of the generic stereotypical Scotsman. White, ginger, sideburns, that whole thing. Cartoony and fun design, but eventually they went with the Demo we all know and love today.

Looking at the concept art, it all seems pretty standard for the tone that Invasion was going for at the time. Nothing really to note there other than Demo's face being a stock angry grr grr expression. It is interesting to see how the idea of him wearing an eye was a constant even from the beginning though.

This then brings us to the voicelines. Ahh, good ol' characterization. Demo here is characterized as being jovial and having fun. He's throwing out insults left and right, damning them to hell and laughing at them as they die. Usual typical mercenary stuff. This is just personal headcanon material, but I always rationalize the way the mercs act on the battlefield as being a result from adrenaline and generally being drunk on blood. They aren't as mean when off the clock, but it's worth noting that these are how these characters act when a gun's in their hands and they're exploding people left and right.

TF2 really likes basing the characters off of the class they play as and how they act. Scout is fast moving and his gameplay is oftentimes getting right in someone's face and bolting, which is reflective in his hotshot personality. It's only reasonable that Demo is an explosive, fun, and generally cocky guy when out and battling. He's lobbing grenades and sticky bombs left and right. He isn't afraid to yell to the Medic he just blew up that he's been shagging his wife and calling the Scout he just chopped the head off "twinkle-toes". He teases and such when it comes to the other team.

However, the voicelines also very curiously give us a really fascinating look into his character. He's an alcoholic. He loves his scrumpy, which is not whiskey, shockingly. I thought it was whiskey for the longest time, but no! It's a cider! His stock melee is the bottle he uses to drink, now turning it into a quick weapon. His model in the main menu is him holding up the bottle itself. His default melee taunt is him taking a swig from the scrumpy bottle. It's a core part of his identity, let's be real. It's a part of the whole Scottish stereotype he has going on.

The game of course follows this. There's a lot of lines where he's slurring and babbling in a cartoony drunken way. A good portion of it is just him making vague threats...but a lot of it is also sad. He calls himself a one-eyed bloody monster. He weeps and cries. When jeering, he says he's hit rock bottom here. Interesting new development.

Apologizes for pausing to ramble, but I don't get why people try and sand down the edges to Demoman's character by making him out as though he isn't an addict. He is. That's something that is made abundantly clear. The iconography of alcohol follows him like his own damn shadow. I dunno. It bothers me.

I digress. There's some other bonus stuff I think is quite interesting. Most of his battle charges involve the other team. "Let's gettem lads!" and all. I think it's neat how he views his teammates as just that. Teammates. Those he fights alongside with. Another thing of note is how he occasionally has lines that are...odd in a way. Poetic and dramatic. Something that subverts the typical characterization. When he loses at rock paper scissors, there's a chance he'll say "Oh, 'tis a dark day", which. well then okay buddy.

So to recap: for characterization in-game, Demo is an alcoholic Scotsman who is generally pretty witty and functioning despite the incredible amounts of booze he drinks. He is energetic, bombastic, and generally hearty and having fun. He's not taking things terribly seriously and is generally just going about and blowing stuff up. However, there is a very noticeable streak of sadness to his character. When drinking, he reveals undertones of self-deprecation and hatred. Why? How?

...well, you just need to take a gander at his character card.

Erm excuse me what the fuck.

I honestly do not understand the logic behind this backstory. Like in a practical sense. Like, yeah!! obviously this backstory is sad and such! I really actually like this backstory and honestly I love writing him in the context that this happened to him. It's just that...I can't wrap my head around the idea of this being Demo's backstory given that everyone else has pretty silly little blurbs here. I think the darkest it gets is Soldier going to Germany years after WWII ended to kill people.

This??? Sure yeah TF2 gets a lot sillier and more cartoony comedic as time goes on, but even with the current tone where is the funny? I ain't complaining, I love me my angst, but this is so jarring to see. I suppose that explains why they retcon it later, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Hey, at least it gives us an explanation to why Demo is sad. We can pretty easily gleam a reason for his current behaviour in the game from this: his messed up childhood. To begin, Tavish Finnegan DeGroot was abandoned by his parents and left to live in an orphanage. Eventually, he was adopted and brought up by some foster parents, who he then murdered in an attempt to blow up the Loch Ness monster. This was when he was six years old. Actual child. 

He then went back into the orphanage, where he would tinker with bombs. Why? Insert whatever headcanon here, but for me I think it's a feeling of fascination, yet also heavy guilt. Perhaps revenge. Either way, he loses his eye from these experiments. Eventually however, he's brought back into the family when word spreads of his excellence when it comes to manufacturing bombs. The use of the word "lovingly" feels exceptionally sarcastic, but that could be in part to how his parents are later characterized. Either way, this is a result of the DeGroot tradition, which, and I quote, is wholly unnecessary and cruel. It even cites it as him being reintroduced into his family as the "end of his unhappy childhood".

...so yeah. Pretty safe to say the reason for his alcoholism is to cope with that. He feels the guilt over that and will breakdown into sobs over it even. Yikeesss... It can also mean that he feels as though he's held up to incredibly high expectations, having the entire DeGroot family lineage to live up to. Again, later on he's being nagged at for not being as hard-working as his father, who, in good ol' TF2 fashion, blew up the Queen for a nickel. It does certainly feel that way, no?

So this introduces a new wrinkle to Demoman's current characterization: he's an alcoholic who is happy and has an upbeat and fun personality (at least on the battlefield), but underneath it he's hurting and feels ashamed of who he is. He drinks to cope and manage it, yet it only seems to exasperate problems at times.

Can I safely say that Demo is the merc with the most fascinating and intriguing backstory and personality thus far? Sure yeah I love Engie a lot as well, but Demo's character actually feels like it is a result of the backstory written for him. Like all of the other mercs sure you can go on and on about stuff with them, like Scout and Spy and their whole deal, Sniper and his parents, everything with Heavy, etc. Demo?? Right off the bat there's something to chew on in terms of actual character writing.

What an interesting character! I sure hope later installations of the story will follow through on this and give him ample screentime!

Anywho, time for the Meet the Demo video. Again, a departure from the Meet the Medic video and how I rambled on and on about that one, but it was mainly due to MtM being something to mark a drastic shift in Medic's character from serious and angry to more silly and mad scientist-esque. Meet the Demo, due to it being one of the Meet the Team videos made so early on, doesn't really get the benefit of a short with a story, but I digress.

This one is stylized more like an interview, which, in canon, means he's telling this all to The Director and all. It opens with the title screen before the horns section seep in, cutting to a clip of Demo running while explosions go off behind him. A freeze frame cut before a voice-over of Demo comes on with the iconic line "What makes me a good Demoman? If I were a bad Demoman, I wouldn't be here discussing it with you, now would I!?"

Okay so just more confirmation and all of Demo's personality in-game. According to his bio, he has a short temper and all, which could explain him getting louder when asked that question. I don't think it's a joke or him exaggerating, since he seems genuinely pretty upset by the suggestion. He would have to be good at his job in order to be telling you this, yeah? Why even bother asking? It's an interesting bit of characterization that somewhat expands on that short temper.

More generic footage of him running about while explosions go off before coming back to the interview of him explaining a bomb in its simplest form. "One crossed wire, a wayward pinch of potassium chlorate, one errant twitch... and kablewie!!" Seems like filler dialogue, but I always like taking note of the fact he uses the chemical compound term as opposed to something more colloquial. It's just headcanons, but I really enjoy thinking that Demo is pretty damn smart and really gifted when it comes to making bombs and general chemistry. It's a clear passion and love of his and I like touching on it when I can.

The next couple seconds are shots between him taking a good swig of his scrumpy and then blowing up a level three sentry. It's just showing off his capabilities as a class. Nothing special (other than being cool and showing he's competent at his job). The real interesting part is his breakdown where he's on the verge of tears, exasperatingly telling the camera that he's...off. He knows it. There's not too many black Scotsmen, especially ones with a busted eye. "They've got more fucking sea monsters in the great Loch Ness than they got the likes of me" he says.

But, he perks up! He talks over a clip of him baiting a group of BLU mercs into a sticky trap. The voiceover is also really fascinating here. The way Demo talks reminds me something out of an Aesop fable. It's a very curious and fascinating way of talking. I wish this bit of characterization stuck around since it's pretty fun. "Come and get me I say! I'll be waiting on ya with a whiff of the ol' brimstone. I'm a grim bloody fable...with an unhappy bloody end!" is really cool.

The video ends with him taunting the mangled corpses followed by a rendition of the main theme with bagpipes. I should probably also mention Drunken Pipe Bomb, his theme song. It's an upbeat and fun piece with a mixture of the typical TF2 sounds (funky jazzy drums and bass guitar) as well as a Celtic flair, what with bagpipes, whistles, etc and etc. There's also a kickass surf rock section. It's quite the battle theme and definitely reflects a lot of Demo's character as being an energetic, explosive type of character who is proud of his Scottish roots.

So that's pretty much it for SFM bits for now. How about we take a step back and look at the first-ever actual TF2 comic: WAR!, where Demo really gets a big break for his characterization. We don't care about the Saxton Hale or Jarate ones. WAR! my beloved...

But first, the actual WAR! update. It was the sixth major content update released back in 2009. Remember when this game got actual content updates? Me neither. The update was based around the rivalry between the RED Demo and the BLU Soldier to excuse why they were adding new items for the both of them, with Soldier in the end winning the little contest and getting the Gunboats.

For canon lore, the update serves to introduce the idea that the RED Demo and BLU Soldier had a comradery at first. Friends! Interesting piece of characterization to have Demo explicitly go against RED and become friends with Soldier. The two of them do bounce off of each other quite well when they're paired up, I will say. They're both heavy-hitters in terms of gameplay and their personalities are quite loud at times.

For added voicelines, there's a bunch of the Administrator denouncing their friendship as well as domination lines for both Solly and Demo whenever they kill each other. Demo pretends he hates Soldier, but asks if he's okay, tells him that he loves him, and generally is like "but we're still friends though, aye? :]" He does care a lot about their friendship, which is pretty sweet and cute. Sure hope that lasts.

In the WAR! comic, we see Demo in a mansion. He's loaded! It's also confirmation that the mercs are given quite a lot of money, but apparently not enough for Demo's mother. She's nagging him about not working and saying that he should be ashamed for being so lazy, to which he rebuttals, saying he has three jobs and has made millions annually. Apparently not enough for his mother, since Demo's father worked twenty-six jobs.

She also brings up an interesting piece of information. "No demoman worth his sulfur ever had an eye in his head past thirty!" which implies that missing an eye is a family tradition to lose your eyes when working this job. Would this also imply that Demo is not thirty by this point, since he still has the one eye? Eh, whatever. 

Demo taking care of his mom in this old, nagging state is pretty neat characterization, as well as him holding down two other jobs besides mercenary work for RED. He's very capable and talented! He's also extremely caring and sweet. Even when his mum is complaining and griping about him not living up to his father, he gets her tea and takes care of her. He does respond with a lot of "I know mum" when it comes to that. He's heard it all before. She keeps saying the same stuff. I like thinking he knows fully well he can't live up to the extreme work ethic his father had or truly impress his parents and is pretty bummed out about it, but that's just headcanons.

Anywho, Pauling's there. She's there because the Administrator wants to break up the friendship between Demo and the BLU Soldier and instead have them be pitted against each other. While Soldier needs to be tricked and insulted by Demo and told that he's a civilian (something that he hates apparently), Demo is more coerced and convinced.

He's still loyal to their friendship, but, aye, there's something different about that sword there. Here's an interesting bit of characterization: Demo being a sword guy. There's a lot of medieval stuff relating to Demo, what with DeGroot's Keep, the Eyelander, his general way of speaking at times, etc and etc. It's fun and I think he takes great interest in medieval-period stuff, but, again, headcanons.

Demo feels conflicted. How could she make him choose between his best friend and this cool ass sword?? He doesn't give an answer, but Miss Pauling further pushes him to choose violence when leaving even more stuff for him as well as telling him that Soldier said that he'll join the fight. It's then assumed that Demo agrees by that point.

It's interesting to compare and contrast Demo and Soldier. Soldier, despite hearing all of these mean things, still wants to be friends with Demo. It's until "Demo" calls him a civilian, something personal and sensitive to him, is when he decides to betray him. Demo meanwhile is more swayed by things that he loves, but the final push is that betrayal. He only acts when he's finally told that their friendship has been severed. Curious how their loyalty is strong in those ways.

...I should probably sometime mention the actual retconning of his backstory however. Hoouhhh boy let's go. So, for the 2011 Halloween update, there was a comic alongside it. This comic had some cute gags, like Heavy giving a little boy he scared seven grand. However, the main attraction is the rewritten backstory for Demo.

I mentioned earlier, but I honestly can't blame them for maybe trying another crack at a Demo backstory that isn't as bleak and miserable. I do really like the original one because I'm a sucker for angst, but this backstory does work a lot better tonally when you're just trying to write some goofy stuff, especially if it involves Merasmus at some point.

The story retcons the whole thing and seemingly makes it so that Demo has always been with his parents and the reason he lost his eye was not because of some brutal accident but rather a currrseeee ooohhhh spookyyy. He's hired by Merasmus to sweep up the place a bit, with him being exceptionally clear to young Tav to not touch any of the accursed tomes. He does, of course. Nothing too much in terms of characterization. It's more just saying "Hey Demo's eye is cursed and that's why he lost it but! hey! it comes back once every Halloween!!"

Again, I can't really knock this version of events. They're simple, but goofy and fun. It's all up to whatever you're trying to accomplish with Demo methinks. If you want silly and whimsical stories, you can have that backstory. If you want gut-wrenching angst, probably should take the initial one.

Aanndd that's virtually it for Demo being important. Demo doesn't get too much plot relevance later on. He's just kinda done with. He shows up in Expiration Date for a quick gag where he returns with a bunch of beer, shouting and cheering while being unaware of how they all just learned they're going to die in three days. He then shows up again during the bucket scene and doesn't do much other than mouthing somethin' (I can't tell you want tbh). A new thing is that he plays piano! That's fun! He then kinda watches Scout try and ask out Pauling and he yells for him to describe what she looks like, which is just what Demo currently sees her as (drunk, blurry, etc). He then fights in the big battle yada yada and shows up at the end with the beer again.

The MVM trailer I suppose is a thing to be noted. Here, he's a BLU Soldier and is playing cards with the Soldier of the same team. Seems like regardless of teams, there's some sort of bond between the two of them. All that happens is that Demo is down to bust up robots with the rest of the RED mercs. Pretty much it.

It is quite unfortunate to see Demo relegated to a role so passive in the story and comics. I've mentioned it before, but I do have an ever so slight grudge against Soldier for taking up the majority of the screentime when it comes to the comics. Yeah, he's really fun to write about, I can't blame the writers for doing so, but also like...c'mon... In the end, we're left with a good chunk of the mercs being underdeveloped in exchange for a ton of Soldier trivia. Props if you like Solly though; your fave got the best treatment.

Ah, but still! Demo has some moments in the comics! Let's go through them! 

Uh. Upon checking most of the comics before the mainline ones, it appears he does not say even a single word. Or even show up in a good portion. Well that's disappointing. I thought he at least said like...one thing. The most he does in terms of characterization is put on a crown in A Fate Worse Than Chess, and even then that's just a silly cosmetic. Damn.

It's fine though! Because now we have the mainline comics! Hot damn finally some actual casual Demoman TF2 writing! Let's get a look and see what his normal usual personality is like! I wonder what fun shenanigans he's been up to.

The first time we see Demo he's babbling about his job being replaced by robots and looking utterly dishevelled and depressed.

Okay. That's...yeah pretty in line for his character thus far. An alcoholic who is struggling with some stuff and oftentimes will have a very vocal breakdown in front of others.

The way that he's characterized here is rather fascinating though, I'll say. He's depressed. From what we can glean, this is what his life has been like since the layoffs. He's gained weight (what with Soldier's very blunt "Hello fat Demoman!"), hasn't shaved, his clothes are dirty, and beer bottles are scattered in the living room. Even the Eyelander is like "dude you need to let it go" when Demo mumbles about robots replacing jobs. He's presumably lost his two other jobs and has just been laying on this couch, drinking booze and watching TV and nothing more, despite his mum's nagging.

This is a side of Demo we don't really see. Sure, yeah, we see the hot and tempered side (ex: Meet the Demoman and the general game) as well as the sad and weepy side, but it's never to this degree. Like full on depressive episode. Yikes. Sure yeah he gets dragged back into the plot and instantly gets back to himself (albeit more orange than actually black)(I keep forgetting how whitewashed Demo was in these first few comics), but it's played for laughs and gags.

What an interesting piece of characterization, no? I've seen a fair amount of major depressive disorder, BPD, PTSD, and or bipolar headcanons slapped onto Demo and tbh I can't blame them. I'd be really interested to see some fic explore that in greater detail. I'm too busy writing Engiemedic yaoi to do anything for now though. Womp womp.

The ending bit of the comic has Demo and Pauling mainly chat with each other. Oh yeah!! Demo and Pauling! They've got a couple pretty neat lines. For the usual contract it's just jokes about his alcoholism, his eye, and a couple about his mom and just general gags. In the Tough Break update, she's out drinking with Demo and nearly spills the beans about her job. Fun. I really like the Miss Pauling characterization where she regularly hangs out with the mercs. It's cute.

In the comics, she talks to Demo more like an actual equal than, say, Pyro or Soldier. She talks to them like they're children roughhousing in the backseat. Demo sits up front and the two go back and forth. Demo is the more mature and reasonable one here. Another thing that's a common bit of characterization in the comics is that Demo isn't...drunk. He's not slurring nor acting in a way that makes it immediately clear he's inebriated. He's pretty lucid. This can be from the fact that he's a very high-functioning alcoholic, but it also makes him out to be actually pretty all-there for most of the time. I've seen far too many fics where Demo is in a perpetual state of shitface drunk so that was a nice refresher.

Demo reappears in the second comic, where we get some pretty neat characterization. He's out on the town in disguise. I keep forgetting about that "What do you see?" "Not a damn thing. Let's switch places" gag that's so funny. Whatever. He is the voice of reason when it comes to Soldier. The straight-man character. He's not really...drunk here. He's not slurring his words nor is he exactly doing anything. He steps in front when Soldier starts yelling at an elderly woman, instead approaching her with a calm and kind demeanour. He holds Soldier back when he goes to strangle Scout for. I guess just being there.

So there's Demo when he's just doing stuff normally, I suppose. He's generally pretty level-headed, albeit because he's up there with Soldier. He's the Normal One when posed next to a guy like Solly. A little disappointing, but there's probably more in comic 4.

Ah the Swordvan comic. Demo and Pauling head over to Sniper's house to retrieve him. An odd bit of characterization is that Demo just takes one look at Snipes' house and goes "Welp, nobody's here. Let's get out". He doesn't seem terribly thrilled to be here, further backed up by him saying that there's just gonna be fingernails and jars of piss and he straight up says "good riddance" like what is his issue with the bushman??

Now that's kinda interesting. Demo sees Snipes as being kinda just gross and a raving lunatic. He could easily be in-place for the audience and just saying what we're thinking, but I think it's interesting to see that Demo, the guy often portrayed as being the weirdo party guy, being very straight-forward. He think Sniper is some sadistic madman and just wants out. Unfortunately, he's given a neckfull of Sniper's homemade family moonshine, so he can't get out quite yet.

A very common thing in these comics it seems is Demo being the voice of reason, which is pretty interesting. The straight man to everyone. When he wakes up to Pauling spitting on him to wake him up, he goes "eughhh gross, but, hey, it worked!!" before then is knocked out. He then stays quiet for the rest of the scene, unless of course you're counting the deleted pages. There's no dialogue, but Demo breaks free from the ropes binding him, yells at Sniper, then pushes past before then inserting three syringes-worth of the moonshine into himself and passing out. Alcoholism joke as per usual. Shockingly the first one we've gotten so far.

In the submarine ride down, Demo's passed out with his scrumpy in hand. Again just a gag about him drinking a lot. He then kinda stays in the background for the rest of the comic, only appearing really once to hold a vat of liquor, before then coming to in the final shot where he holds Sniper's dead body. Heyyyy Demo I thought you thought Sniper was a weirdo freak.

Nothing too much to say from this comic then. It's just establishing more and more that Demo plays a very...straight-man character role when it comes to the comics at least. He's reasonable, level-headed, and often just says whatever comes to mind. He's kind and will instantly rush to someone's aid when they're hurt as well as just generally being pretty good-hearted. Nice!

Comic 5 mainly just features a gag with Demo's liver being so overworked that he starts turning his other organs into alcohol distilleries. The whimsy. The line that I find most fascinating from this comic is from Spy.

Like oh okay so he straight up doesn't eat anything other than alcohol and aspirin. Water literally poisons him. Probably just a throwaway gag, but geez. It does say that he is kinda in pain all the time, at least to the point where aspirin is one of the few things his body can handle. Someone out there can probably work with that and make it angsty. Other than that, not much else for Demo.

Comic 6! The final one! Home stretch here folks before I can wrap this up and give a thesis on whatever the heck Demo's character is. Demo, again, is mainly just here for gags. It's the one thing I do really wish that the comics did more: explore Demo's backstory. Like you don't even need to keep the original one, but it's still fascinating to bring up the fact he has a family lineage at all. Instead, he's mainly just a straight-man character. But, hey, whatever. I'm just the one analyzing these silly comics and jokey joke characters for gay melodramatic yaoi fanfiction.

There's a gag about Demo's liver coming back to him after leaving. These soap opera drama scene could parallel the type of shows that he was watching when having that depressive episode, but that's maybe a bit of a stretch. He then gets included in that fun group shot, where his pose mimics that from the Meet the Demo, before then gets a one-on-one scene with Medic. 

These two are such a fun duo I wish Jaggerbombs was a more common pairing. Ah well. Medic catches Demo up on everything whilst he's stitching up wounds. The medi-gun is broken so they're doing this the old-fashioned way. Demo has a gag where he's still drinking, only that it's hydrogen peroxide instead. This then leads to a scene where Demo asks why Medic never gave him an eye. Reasonable methinks. Medic responds saying he did.

Demo gets upset. He raises his voice for the first (official) time in the comics. Again, his temperament. I think it's a reasonable thing to be upset about tbh. Like imagine being told after all this time you could've had your eye back. He then learns that, no, the procedure has been done before, but rather that it never sticks because of how his eye socket is cursed. Demo asks how he can't remember this, to which Medic goes "Hooh :] It's because I scooped out a part of your brain" because of course he did. He then forgets the entire conversation + probably Medic entirely.

Aaannnddd that's pretty much it for Demo. That's his last speaking role. Just a quick, simple gag about his eye being cursed, his alcoholism, and generally being the straight-man for others, even if he does have a couple silly gags too. Seems like a culmination of everything he is in the comics.

To conclude: Demo is a character I feel can take on two main roles depending on what kind of tone you're going for. If you want angst, you've got a character who carries the guilt of murdering his foster parents as well as the burden of being a DeGroot, turning to alcohol to cope with his sadness and general inability to deal with it all. If you want silly goofy stuff, you have Demo being a straight-man or a neat party guy if you like the bit from Expiration Date where he brings back beer and such. Of course there's nuance. I find it best to try and find a balance between these two opposing sides. It just takes time and practice to really get a hold of his personality methinks.

I do wish he was more in the comics though as his own person, y'know? He's very reliant on others in order for his character to function, whilst most others have scenes where it's just them doing something. I wish he was used more than being the guy who drags the others back to reality. Damn it sucks to see that the fics where he's mainly just the straight-man are kinda right in that regard.

But for character traits? Hm, let's see. I find it's just trying to make sense of what's given to you and seeing what best fits for the tone of story you're trying to go for. However, for me trying to write him? Well...

His alcoholism is a central character trait. He is definitely 100% an alcoholic, regardless of however people try and sand him down. I personally really like sticking to the idea that he straight up can't eat anything but booze and aspirin because I think it's funny but also sad, but that's me. I think him having a flask of scrumpy on his person at all times is a neat headcanon as well.

Another big trait with Demo is his frequently shifting mood when drunk. He can swing from loud to weeping in a couple moments. I wouldn't say he's particularly angry nor aggressive, no more than any other character at least. He's most volatile on the battlefield, but otherwise at the base I feel it wouldn't be an uncommon sight to see Demo partying until dawn or holed up in the living room and sobbing. Poor guy.

In spite of what many think, Demo is certainly not lazy. He's a workaholic is anything. He holds down three jobs and rakes in a lot of money in order to live up to his name as a DeGroot. It could be because he likes working that much or that his mother just nags him to push himself that far. That also ties into his self-deprecation, another core trait of his, but that's pretty obvious to see.

His heart is another big trait. The guy loves. He cares for his mother even when she nags at him. He sticks by Soldier's side until he feels as though he's been betrayed. He takes care of the Eyelander and treats it like a pal. He generally cares a whole heck of a lot about people and other things. He wears his heart on his sleeve and says what he means. He doesn't feel a need to really hide who he is as a person. He's loud, fun, and just naturally pretty sweet and kind. I don't think he's ever really "mean" outside of the game stuff. There's also the whole "being hired to explode people" part but ehhh that's just the silliness in him :]

Demo also being generally pretty...normalish. He's a guy who's really just going through it when you take the angst option. He oftentimes will try and hold back others from doing something stupid when sober. I feel like when he's drunk he's more willing to get in on dumb shit, but still. However, this doesn't mean he's wholly a normal person. I think you can do a lot of headcanons here where you bring out some traits that are otherwise not talked about too much.

There are a lot of liberties to be taken with Demo's character as per usual. A ton of writing a character to be, well, in-character is just getting down their voice and mannerisms. Understanding their personality and motives is just half the battle. Demo sometimes speaks like an old-timey medieval knight or poet or whatever. He's generally pretty well-spoken and whatever. For the love of god if you want to write him, you don't need to include phonetics constantly. Please. It's so much better that tu'try toh spell everay whurd like tis. Oftentimes people will just know what the character sounds like regardless. Just try and mimic his way of speaking more and you'll do wonders for actually making that character sound like, well, that character.

I've neglected to mention Demo being a black man a lot because, well, it never really pops up a lot in canon. I think the most recognition we get for Demo being black is him just saying that he's black. He's a black Scotsman and that's about it. It's curious since I've seen a number of fics where it's all period-typical racism angst and whatever, with Demo being used as a way for the author to get up and proudly say that they think that racism is bad by having Demo being called a slur and getting upset. How progressive. 

I dunno. I never really personally touch on period-typical bigotry stuff myself due to the fact that this is Team Fortress 2. Rocket jumping was invented before stairs. Besides, this is the late 60s/early 70s. The civil rights movement happened by this point. Not everyone walking the streets is gonna be some abrasive bigot. I don't know why people want to try and make it "historically accurate" to begin with since this series has never been period-accurate to begin with. I don't particularly think TF2 is a great series to go on about tackling period-typical bigotry either. Literally if you want Demo angst you've got the actual mountain load of angst with his backstory right there. Obviously of course people are allowed to write what they want and I do fully believe that sharing stories and portraying bigotry is important, but why with TF2??? Do people just really look at a POC and think their existence is inherently political and they need to make it clear they think Racism Bad, even though the tone of canon really doesn't match that?? Ah well. I'm just rambling.

Regardless, Demo is just a character where you can take a lot of different avenues with. Maybe you can explore his trauma and try and write about how he feels trying to live up to his family name. What about his issues with his now-deceased father? Maybe you can forgo that and have him be a partner in crime to Solly or whomever else, with the occasional glimpse into his more sensitive self. Really, it all just depends on the story you're trying to tell. Ultimately, writing Demo with a healthy mix of comedy and angst is probably what is best done if you just want a pretty in-character version. He can be out on some grand adventure to take down Nessie with a merc or two AND have it be a story about him coming to terms with his past. That's just a me thing though lol.

Demo, like the rest of the cast, is an easily moldable piece of clay. All of the mercs at their very core are just funny character archetypes. They can be whatever you want them to be. It's just best to work with their original characterization and personality in mind, y'know? Fanfic writing is mainly about having fun anyway.

Speaking of which, enough procrastinating for me. I need to get back to writing my yaoi...

[telemachus-let-me-hit-it]

There isn’t much point to this story but it’s weird and kinda funny enough that I wanna tell someone.

So I’ve been hyper fixated on Greek mythology almost my entire life, which means I’ve obviously liked it longer than Epic has been a thing. As a result, I was in several subreddits that relate to it (Greek mythos in general, lore Olympus, even à Hellenic polytheistic sub—anything that’ll give me more Greek myth content I’ll at least check it out)

I saw someone post in the Hellenic sub what I’ll summarize as basically “I’m Hellenic and I HATE the way the epic fandom is full of proshippers and they’re constantly “proshipping” Hermes x Odysseus. “ along with more incorrect usage of the word “proship” that made me cringe.

Now to be clear, I don’t identify as a proshipper and i don’t really like/trust that community for an entire other reason that relates to propara stuff—it’s just the “pedos/zoos/necros are welcome as long as they’re anti-contact!!!1!!” Because that sends flags to me beyond the color of fucking red and rubs me the wrong way BUT NONETHELESS. The definition of proship itself is not bad, and I politely corrected them, something along the lines of “hey just for education’s sake, you’re using the word “proship wrong” pro doesn’t mean problematic, it JUST means in favor of creative freedom and not harassing people for their FICTIONAL interests. “

And then someone replied like “hey you’re wrong that’s not all what it means, it does problematic and I’ve seen them harass normal people more than anything! Dm me so we can talk about it!” Again I’m paraphrasing because what they actually said was honestly more aggressive and I don’t have the notification right in front of me anymore. But I went “Hey I’m not really interested, I think you’re just gonna try to give me more misinformation and you’re coming on way too strong for my tastes. “

So then, they dmed me anyway LOL. And said “don’t misinterpret my texts or put words in my mouth again. “ and I was like??? Ok??? And then they asked to have a debate about proshipping and if fiction does influence reality and I was like? Well maybe? Idk? Like they wanted to get into philosophical and political ideas about pedophilia, shipping culture and shit and it’s like…dude this is uncomfortable, and it’s 3 am for me and you already crossed my boundaries by dming me when I said I’d rather not. Then they said “btw I’m autistic and English isn’t my first language” and finally I was like nah, I’m not doing this. Over text, about emotionally charged topics, we can’t even get on the same page about some basic definitions AND there’s a communication disorder and a language barrier? I’m not doing this. I deleted that entire Reddit account because it was just an anonymous burner anyway, and then I logged in and blocked them from my actual main account because I don’t wanna see them again lol.

Disclaimers:sorry if calling autism a communication disorder is incorrect—I’m not a professional on this topic

Other disclaimer:I do know the correct definition of proshipper but I DO NOT identify as one because the whole anti v pro drama is too stressful for me, (plus the pro para stuff just personally makes me super uncomfortable ) even though I DO agree with the “fiction is just fiction” logic in a GENERAL sense. But I also don’t have an issue with every single proshipper, some of them are alright. It just HEAVILY depends and I kinda treat it as a spectrum.

Disclaimer:Uhh Redditors are weird ig

-mod note

Side note maybe I don’t look in the right places but the epic fandom doesn’t seem to be full of proshippers at all tbh? Like despite Greek mythology being chock full of super dark relationships and horrid actions, the average epic fan seems pretty normie and can’t even handle something as mild as Calyspo or sharpwolf

[quietbluejay]

Dark Imperium #1

guess who's back back again

so okay i really liked this trilogy first time i read it, you know, chewing on the furniture in a good way type of deal so i'm hoping it'll hold up

okay so let's start out with DEATH OF A PRIMARCH so the whole thing starts by going on about how human minds just can't grasp the size of space and reality, especially if you add in the warp etc etc I'm pondering, whither this somewhat-flowery prologue why did Haley choose this way to introduce his book? honestly, I got nothing right now

this is what it segues into btw yeah i'm remembering how i didn't like this opening blah blah two fleets are fighting hey wait okay let's look at this

right from the beginning, we're doing this, huh right from the beginning, Haley is drawing an equivalence between them

anyways the narration goes on to talk about the space marines

yeah this is continuing to not pull punches again i am wondering why people say Haley unironically thinks the Imperium is the good guys etc etc even a giant void battle that seems all consuming is nothing compared to the death of stars, etc etc

"care how they are spent" nugatory that's a new one

dangit, haley, why'd you make me eat my words and now it's time for our narrator to judge Fulgrim's decoration abilities

narrator: even though Guilliman's ship had more gold on it, it was still in better taste than Fulgrim's "an affront to decency"

Fulgrim and the EC managed to outmaneuvre Guilliman and turn a rout into a trap [4:40 PM] I feel like when your whole thing is being plan guy, and the guy who just wants to go back to Margaritaville and who has quit fights before because they're boring regardless of the strategic consequences outmaneuvres you, that you should take a good hard look at yourself and also not compound the mistake by being a leeroy narration: Once, Guilliman wouldn't have made such an error

narration: he's at his freakin limit

i thought that was the funniest way to phrase that sentiment, in case you are wondering

I'm not really a fan of the style of the beginning, tbh i don't think haley can really pull off this style it just feels kind of obnoxious ah! it's like what thorpe did except thorpe did it for the entire book it's basically writing prose as if it was game fluff like if this was game fluff i'd say it was great

THIEL THIEL BBY ITS BEEN SO LONG Guilliman is going out in the armour of reason, which sounds like something a redditor from 2011 would make up and with Captain Andos and Thiel who is a captain now i do especially remember this section and how Guilliman and Thiel are written felt pretty jarring after Know No Fear and I was complaining about ooc thiel he's got more sass than this but you know what i'm gonna let it go as a different writers thing ok back to the story as per usual when a primarch shows up, there's the obligatory simping annnd also im just gonna let it go as a "this is guilliman's pov of thiel"

guilliman sadly thinks about how the new kids look so reverently at him and like dude thiel isn't one of those but like "thiel" and "modest" don't really go together anyways, i'm letting it go, i say

Andos is concerned-

yeah cmon man

andos: this is a bad idea guilliman: have you considered that IM BITING FULGRIM BITING HIM BITING HIM BITING HIM

oh, so he did actually put a little thought into it she said, throwing aside a large rock

okay but like the defenders have the advantage guilliman, bro

etc etc "he would not let his sons pay the price for his mistakes" well well well let's see what happens next like yeah okay guilliman is being stupid here but once again fulgrim is proving that he got smarter after he went full chaos

guilliman has weird experiences when being teleported

they're back to reality though it's not a very pleasant reality lol, there's a brief summary of the weird and horrifying places and things Guilliman fought in the heresy oh huh i thought it was going to say Fulgrim's ship was worse but it just says it's "of a similar ilk"

as we all know guilliman's special talent is microsoft excel yes that's relevant here it gets a brief mention

symbolism it's also lmao Haley took the whole thing about painting with bodily fluids and ran with it and was like "yeah everything is covered in mold" oh, hey, it's Corvo, I remember that name Novamarine dude (all the chapter masters are checking in with guilliman as they're fighting) Guilliman remember the last time he was on this ship and feels sad okay time to for real go into the main room everyone: it's a trap! guilliman: exactly! thiel: he could kill you guilliman: yeah i know thiel: dude i'm worried that the reason you want to do this is not entirely practical guilliman: what do you mean? thiel: pride goes before a fall guilliman: pshaw don't worry about it guilliman: anyways if i can't kill fulgrim in single combat i'll call you guys all in

and the chapter ends on guilliman walking into the room and yes this prologue has at least 3 chapters

Guilliman enters the Heliopolis which is full of bones and smells like "smoke and stale musk" grudgingly, i have to admit that at least some of Haley's style here is doing it for me even if i know he can do better

it's once again creepily silent and empty meanwhile he's getting the updates on his helmet

also we get informed that Fulgrim always kinda sounded needy but now it's the main tone of his voice "a poison masquerading as confidence" Fulgrim twits Guilliman about breaking up the legions which is an interesting first choice

Guilliman: I got honoured Fulgrim: nah, that was me Guilliman: anyways I'm a winner because I was slow and steady whereas you raced ahead into damnation Fulgrim: yeah actually I'm saved Guilliman: for fuck's sake and he gets a good look at Fulgrim

Fulgrim: yeah look what MY god did for me, a much better god than Emps Guilliman: the Emperor isn't a god yeah we really are getting a chunk of the high points of the trilogy established here

Fulgrim gets up in Guilliman's space enough for "his hot perfumed breath to caress guilliman's face" and either he's got really strong breath or - actually wait how does this work isn't he a giant snake is he leaning down to talk to guilliman like a child Fulgrim: join me Fulgrim: waggles eyebrows Fulgrim: aren't you tired of being nice Fulgrim: don't you just want to go ape shit Guilliman: nope, you got tricked Fulgrim: no, it's YOU who were tricked Guilliman: no YOU you can tell they're siblings Fulgrim twits him about loyalty and being more loyal to his little domain than anything else Fulgrim: oh yeah and how much of that is left after Angron and Lorgar? lmao Guilliman: bite bite kill kill kill Fulgrim: well that's convenient because i'm here to kill you as well

oh yeah Fulgrim revealed that the whole thing was a giant trap not just this but them showing up in the first place

as usual i'm not going to cover the fight scene Guilliman almost immediately calls in Thiel and Andos and then Fulgrim one-ups him by having a whole bunch of Emperor's Children hanging out silently in the room Fulgrim's evil sword cuts into Guilliman's armour and Guilliman somehow feels it "a spicy agony" ah, so, allergic reaction Guilliman manages to break the sword, which gets Fulgrim mad

meanwhile there's a ferocious battle going on between Guilliman's troops and the EC, and his side is rather outnumbered

Fulgrim is by this point pissed off with Guilliman he comes over and yanks off his helmet Guilliman gets a whiff and gags Fulgrim: pathetic is this foreshadowing for the mortarion confrontation yes, not even i am immune to making mortarion stinky jokes

Fulgrim aimed for where Kor Phaeron got Guilliman with the athame

guilliman collapses meanwhile the Ultramarines rush in to save him

:D Andos is panicking and uhhh i thought the whole point of making Space Marines not feel fear was to avoid this kind of thing??

that's a great bit "his armour caught on the corpses of his sons" he hears a voice and can't place if it's Thiel or not, and once again thinks about how many Ultramarines died to save him they teleport him out

and realizes he's dying for real and that Andos was right and he starts to panic about what's going to happen to the Imperium without him

and that ends the prologue!

[guiltiest-gear]

https://www.tumblr.com/guiltiest-gear/715236834516566016/ok-so-i-dont-need-your-negativity-in-my-life?source=share

still mad abt this btw. how dare you call my own creativity ai generated. and how dare you call me a redditor.

This was over two years ago??????

Anon why are you digging this shit up like, right now and here, huh, whuh

[quaranmine]

Missing 411 guy?

David Paulides, the guy who is the creator of "Missing 411" which is basically a conspiracy about suspicious clusters of people going missing in National Parks in the United States. He is also the bane of my existence for the past year as someone who is researching a story about someone who goes missing in a National Forest.

To start with, if you've ever been even on the fringes of "irl spooky stuff" videos on YouTube, you might have encountered this. There are a lot of youtubers and podcasters who cover this guy's content without understanding What and Who they are giving platform to. Sometimes, people don't even mention him but will relate the cases that he covers in his books or use the same conspiracy points as him. I would not be suprised if you watched a Buzzfeed Unsolved/Watcher video (which are fine btw) and then got recommended something related to Missing 411 in the sidebar since it's a similar genre. It's super popular to the point where its outgrown its creator. I can't stress enough that many of you have probably encountered this content, at least in passing, without knowing what it was.

So to recap, Missing 411 documents cases of real-life people who have disappeared or been found dead in national parks, national forests, etc and claims that these cases are unusual and mysterious. It frequently talks about missing person "clusters" and things like that. There is often an overt, if not outrightly stated, implication that something supernatural, crpytid, or UFO/alien related was involved. For starters, David Paulides has written a ton of books trying to prove the existence of bigfoot. Now, I have no issues with people believing in bigfoot, or cryptids, or aliens, but I do have an issue with people co-opting real life tragedies and twisting information to push this as conspiracy. I simply do not think it is helpful or respectful to talk about missing and dead people (and children!) like this. Also, with the high prices of his books ($100-200) he just reeks of grifter to me.

To me, Missing 411 "criteria" is a stretch at best. You will see cases "mysteriously" connected because both of these people wore red when they went missing. Both these people's bodies were found near water (as if many National Park do not have water features.) Both these people's bodies were found near granite rocks (like, the most common rock type in mountains lol.) All these cases involve the weather turning bad! (um, yeah, that's a big reason why people get in trouble?) He frequently claims that bodies being undressed is highly unusual, without ever acknowledging paradoxical undressing. Or he claims laughably weak connections between people like "these two women who went missing in different years are connected because they both had three letter names that started with A." I haven't personally listened to this talk but there is a data scientist mentioned in his Wikipedia page who examined the case data and found nothing out of the ordinary in them. If you don't want to watch a video (I don't either right now) then he also wrote this article. From a different person, this article from a podcast is also good.

David Paulides does not present Missing 411 cases with accuracy. He has been known to cherry-pick data and purposefully omit data to make them seem more unusual. Many cases he covers are either already solved, or have extensive information available. He does not retract information or admit when he is wrong. Even if he does present a particular case accurately, he has such a bad track record with reliable research that he cannot be trusted as a source. There used to be someone on reddit who would deconstruct cases he covered. In this post they found several instances of cases of Paulides missing sources and coming to incorrect conclusions.

Note there's a few differences in the sources I just linked. The data scientist and podcast skeptic both said they found the data to be accurate, while the redditors have found evidence to the contrary. The data scientist also says he found Paulides' presentation of information respectful, but I personally find all of this highly disrespectful. But despite these differences I think we can all agree....the claims of Missing 411 are pretty ridiculous.

Also, let's talk about David Paulides himself. Before becoming a writer, he was a cop in California. He was a cop who was fired for corruption (well that's hard to do), because he was caught soliciting donations for a fake charity he set up. That's straight from his Wikipedia page. He continues to use his past as a "dectective" to attempt to make his claims sound more reliable. There was also a redditor who pulled up some other career highlights from when he was a cop in the 80s, by looking at court transcripts and news articles. His job used to be entrap gay men by pretending to be gay, getting them to invite him home with them, and then arresting then. He and his unit were also accused of police brutality many times in the 80s, with Paulides testifying in defense of his unit. And he has not changed btw, he's a Qanon stolen election covid denier type of nut right now on his YouTube channel (according to reddit. I am not watching this man's videos.) So yeah, I think his character speaks for itself.

Anyway, I'm tired of hearing about this guy and seeing 411 related content pop up around YouTube, Reddit, Tiktok, etc. Pay attention if you watch things related to "creepy and unexplained real life disappearnaces." I do not think he is a good person, I do not think he can be trusted, and I do not think that his work actually benefits the families of the missing persons in question. These are real people. He turns them into spectacles to push ~unusual~ circumstances and paranormal activity.

[free-luigi-mangione]

anon you sounded like a very basic redditor, a 12 years old and at the same time very jealous of luigi. what kind of answers were you hoping for? lmao one thing you should start considering, is the fact that there are people here who considered and are open to both possibilities!

i truly don't understand what's so hard about understanding that so far we only know what prosecution wants us to know and that they were the ones who put all the dots together, so it's obvious the story makes much more sense if seen from one perspective. maybe they're right and he is guilty, but it's not something we can be sure of right now. it should be their job to prove he's not innocent during trial. if you scroll on here, you'll see how we have always advocated for keeping an open mind about the case because he's innocent until proven guilty and complained about the overcharges, because even if he is guilty, he should be fighting m2 and maybe eventually serving a much more lighter sentece.

Also, genuine question, apart from the gun, bullets and the manifesto, what other items only made sense in the murder? And to better explain what I said in the paragraph above, about having only prosecution's "version" and keeping an open mind, if your life dependend on it, how much would you bet that those items really belonged to him and were not planted by cops? Pretty much every cop who was involved in the arrest had an history of doing so. I know, it's very unlikely but not impossible, so would you bet your life on it? They were very sloppy when writing down the items in the backpack and the fact that it took them so long to write it down? Most of the items he was carrying were quite small, it's not like he had a lot of clothes in there, so how is it impossible they didn't immediately see the gun? About the hostel and taxi images, we know luigi was in ny so I don't understand why that would be incriminating. If he was clearly starbucks guy then that would be "interesting". If you look closely at the cctv released until now, you may notice differences in the backpacks and jackets (and no, I'm not talking about colors). Those are some of the reasons why I don't feel like pointing the finger at luigi.

I haven't re-read your other asks, so I'm gonna stop at your latest one. I just want to add that it's funny that you claim that it's important that we "carry on his message" when we're simply advocating for a human being's rights, other people on other platforms only interact with posts is if they can put their own spin on the why or how he did it narrative, be disgusting towards his family and friends, diagnose him with a variety of mental illnesses and disorders, writing down entire paragraphs for "evidence". whenever the discussion is about healthcare or stuff like that, nobody gives a fuck. people are interested in this case only if they can have their own little fun. if we're talking about people "close" to luigi then it's interesting what you said because a friend of a friend that was just as close as matt has said that they've got the wrong guy, so i guess it's just pointless speculation at this point. luigi's views were pretty clear, as we can see on his social media, and i'm sure the majority of people would agree with him. doesn't mean we would do something as drastic though.

-anon w/o blog (sorry for writing so much btw)

anon you're much better than me that you explained all of this so kindly for that anon. also this is exactly how reasonable doubt is raised in court and as anon here explained, there's a lot reasonable doubt in this case and nothing is truly damning evidence as far as we're aware.

[dracaryswonder]

BTW I think I know what "not in the right mental state" they were referring to it's him messing up the timeline of the arrest and the mugshot but that's literally just that one little thing. Why are they making it seems like he went on an unhinged rambling about random stuff.

Also "break through to him" bitch unless you are a therapist he himself wants equipped with dealing with incarceration and solitary confinement trauma, y'all don't need to be talking to him or reaching out to him about stuff y'all can't even begin to imagine. He is not your fucking doll or your child or anyone you know.

It's quite ironic that redditors were calling us 'parasocial fangirls' when it turns out they have an even worse delusional parasocial relationship with him.

[smoshblr-aita]

AITA for embarrassing my coworker

I (18 male) currently work a minimum wage part time job while I’m saving for a car (ugh). This job is essentially just an assembly line to put food on trays. So one person puts on the ticket and the silverware and sends it down the line, the next puts on dessert etc etc. Well today I was 1 so I was putting on silverware, liners, creamer, sugar, salt, pepper, and silverware. It’s one of the most difficult stations and I tend to need to focus to read what each individual ticket needs (soup spoon, sugar sub, no salt, etc), we had a somewhat new guy alone on 3. His only job was to put butter on every tray, mustard on any tray with a sandwich, and soup on any tray that wanted it. I was somewhat a little salty probably because 3 is my favorite station and the one I’m an expert at but I had to be put on 1 because the person originally scheduled for 1 called off last minute. So we’re moving at a good pace, I’ve got the trays mostly backed up to the end everyone is doing their best. The manager keeps calling down like “need a mustard” “need a soup and cracker” “you put on the wrong soup” so on and so forth all mistakes by the guy on 3. No biggie it’s only his like 4th time working 3 alone (after like 2 weeks of training) and it’s not slowing us down too much. Plus I get it’s embarrassing to have the manager call out every mistake outloud in front of everyone, but quite frankly that’s just how it is since he needs the mistake corrected and needs to stay at his own spot on the line. So we’re in a lull where I’m not pushing trays because I had to replenish the stack of trays in front of me and switch out my silverware container so I’m not constantly pushing trays down. Again no big deal I can get us backed up again within 30 seconds. But instead this smug little jerk turns and yells down the line “HEY (my name) CAN I PAY YOU TO GO FASTER. HOW DOES TEN BUCKS SOUND” and my response was to yell back “HEY CAN I PAY YOU TO DO YOUR JOB RIGHT” my manager looked like a deer in headlights I’m pretty sure he thought might punch the kid (oh the new guy he’s like 16/17?ish, not much younger than me but not older for sure btw) well after trayline he came up to me (3 not the manager lol) and said that I really embarrassed him and did the “it’s just a prank bro” type defense where he said he was joking and I reminded everyone he was doing a bad job and what I said was too mean spirited. I basically laughed in his face. Because I thought my comeback was good. But then both my manager (who usually really trusts me) and another coworker who I usually get along with really well told me that I was a little harsh and he didn’t really understand how trayline works and he looked like he was crying after I insulted him back (I didn’t see because when I push trays I’m usually looking down at the ticket) and my manager implied I better go easy on him in the assembly for dishroom which really got to me since I don’t think my manager has every taken any one else’s side besides mine if I’m involved in a conflict, I’m one of his go to trainers and I know every station, he wanted to make me an assistant supervisor. So just the fact that he thought I jumped the gun with my retort is really having me doubt myself. I probably would have just polled my friends but I just got home from the above described shift and saw that the smoshblr aith is up and figured I could toss it in here to see what yall think.

Oh btw I put on anon which I feel like a little ruins the fun for me because it’d be cool to actually have discussions with moots about it being me but since I made the choice to put my age in here so I could feel like a real Redditor I’m keeping it on anon lol

[theladyofbloodshed]

Hey Chelsea! how are you today? I read 'A Court Of Tangled Flames' a while back and absolutely loved loves loved it!(ps:I recommend it every chance I get, and so do a million other redditors💗) and I just finished reading 'Consumed By The Flame' and LOVED that as well. I immediately wanted to start on your current In-universe NEZRIEL mates fic but I realised it wasn't complete and I don't think I can bear the heartbreak of a cliffhanger right now lol(still on the verge of saying fck it and just reading it) and I was wondering how many chapters you planned on for it?(this is purely from a curiousity point of view btw)

Just wanted to throw some Love your way! Thank you for writing such amazing fics *mwah*

Hello hello!

Thank you so much for the kind words. It means a lot that you recommend it to others <3

I plan to write Nezriel until just after the war. I'm up to chapter 53 in the book and there's 82 but I don't follow every single point. I'm not sure how many chapters this fic will have but it will follow a similar path. I do have another Nezriel one where they choose each other in universe when Nesta has enough of Cassian favouring Mor. It's set as if ACOSF doesn't happen when her and Cassian are still in a will they won't they situation - but that fic is completed.

And my biggest piece is a rewrite of ACOSF with a Nessian endgame with Azriel and Eris (and Tamlin) as her buddies.

Happy reading! :-)

[ashmp3]

šlag na kraju hihi TEO DAYYYY čitav dan razmišljam o tebi i jedva sam čekala da se vratim s planine samo da ti se javiiiim 😌 memorised it in my mental palace

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOVE I'm genuinely so proud to call you a mutual you're the hottest most right person about everything on here and i ADORE seeing people tag you in stuff and make gifsets for you bc well. you're a deity that deserves to be worshipped through gifts and trinkets 🙂‍↕️ 26 sounds scary but I'll join you next month so we can be scared together (dvadesete gazimo..🥳) ALSO using this opportunity to ask for plans for the dirty money, which perfumes are you eyeing ? I want to know everything about you 🫶🏻🩷🩷🩷

🥹🥹😭😭😭🥳🥳🥳🥳💖💖💖💖🫶🏻 Well it’s only natural i have to say… ali volim što planinariš i razmišljaš o tumblru that’s that prime blogger mindset 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️ hvala na tako lepim rečima stvarno čime sam ja ovo zaslužila sad da me pitaš ne bih znala da odgovorim 😭 (btw kad ti je rođendan… now let Me do the memorization) and omfg… Don’t even ask (ask away)…

Htela sam da se bacim na isprobavanje dekanata jer sam jebeni redditor i obožavam r/femfraglab 🙂‍↕️ pa ovako ispisah ti lepo… ali onda sam fazon hmmm možda da odem u sephoru i kupim sebi nešto kao čovek. Htela sam da isprobam i lush parfeme (i sprejeve mada dobijem glavobolju od lusha) anyway sad ću ti reći u mislima mi je devotion intense jer me tako nasmejao kad sam ga isprobavala ali nekako posle par sati nisam bila toliko oduševljena iiii jpg scandal mi je bio baš lep na koži. Inače sam dobila dva parfema za rođendan i kad sam rekla mami šta ću da uzmem sa parama iz kladionice baš se iznervirala alskdjdjskdj anyway……… Hoću da isprobam gucci flora gorgeous orchid i burberry goddess. I hoću da imam muža milionera kako sam krenula pihhh… ali zapravo sam htela da čuvam pare i onda u jednom trenutku da kupim kilian angels share ali mi uvek tako too much da dam 30000rsd jednostavno širim se previše… nadam se da ovaj nenormalni odgovor ima nekog smisla ali ako si isprobala neki parfem i imaš preporuku sve me zanima tvoja sam podeli sa razredom (ashmp3 nation)

[viktoriakomova]

I saw your tag about true crime fans on Reddit and I just wanted to know if you have any #thoughts about the Bryan Johberger case? Personally I’m not convinced of his guilt or innocence either way but it is disturbing how redditors demonize the defense team for doing their job and want to just send him to the firing squad asap (sorry this is non gymnastics related feel free to ignore lmao)

oh girl im so glad u asked me this lmfao

i think hes most likely guilty but it really disturbs me how the peanut gallery thinks throwing constitutional rights to the wind is fine just because theyre really emotionally attached to the case

ive gotten in several Fights in the comments with people on that case's subreddit to the point where i just lurk and downvote and dont engage anymore 🤡 like people are really sincerely convinced that they have a 0% chance of being accused of a crime they didn't commit and the State would never come down on them with all its might for unjustified reasons. lmao and lol.

like people suggesting that him waiving his right to a speedy trial is "retraumatizing" the victims' families because it will be dragged out longer and he CLEARLY did it so he's doing all this on purpose because he LOVES THE ATTENTION (that comes hand in hand with him literally staying in jail in the meantime but nope he just loves media scrutiny he's an attention whore!). meanwhile his lawyers NOT doing that, given all the evidence they have to plow through and the fact that its a CAPITAL MURDER CASE, would be a goddamn cupcake of an ineffective assistance appeal. but they dont know that because they learned everything they know about the legal system from law and order svu, and they dont understand that if this trial is bungled he'll walk away scot free! and they probably think double jeopardy is a moral outrage too lmao

and then there was a whole Thing about the issue of whether the trial would be broadcasted/streamed, and/or whether video recordings would be allowed. and people were like "transparency !!!! free press!!!!!" girl please be serious this isnt about free press (there are press passes for all major trials like this, btw) and you know it, this is about YOU consuming it as entertainment, integrity of the criminal justice system be damned.

same goes for stuff i saw from people during the kristin smart trial. like its literally written in black and white in the fifth amendment to the constitution that you have a right not to testify against yourself and people on twitter were still like "WHY CANT THEY FORCE HIM TO TAKE THE STAND!" and then once he was sentenced to "25 years to life" people were like "THATS WAY TOO LENIENT" bruh firstly thats the legal maximum and secondly he's realistically never seeing the light of day ever again lmao. if you dont understand what things mean just dont say anything!

the intersection of bloodthirst and self righteousness is crazy lmao. it dovetails quite nicely with gymtwt and the gymnastics subreddit in fact, like a lot of the rhetoric during the nassar sentencing (he literally did not have a trial i cannot stress that enough, he pleaded guilty) was deeply disturbing to me even though i also obviously believe he's terrible and should spend the rest of his life behind bars.

[dr-jigglebones]

I was with op through the first paragraph, but the post steadily deteriorates from there.

TL;DR OP's a fed/grifter/AI sis

- I have not seen anyone genuinely asking for the technology to be uninvented. Instead, people want it regulated and controlled to ensure it's used ethically.

- In its current form it absolutely has major moral concerns, ones that I see few if any solutions to. This includes but is not limited to the immense amount of water and power they use, the unasked, unpaid, and uncredited use of the works of others in the training data, and the horrible (often racist) biases that go unaddressed.

- You're right, fuck Disney. Though, I don't believe the doomerism that them winning will fuck over small artists (at least any more than they already are).

- Really depends, I've seen some of this, but I've also seen plenty of actual truth about what these "AI" actually are: they're just statistical models. That's literally it. ChatGPT and other LLMs are literally just the next stage of autopredict. Image generation is mostly the same. The ONLY thing a genAI does is make a statistical prediction based on an input. The only thing that differentiates "genAI" is the complexity of that statistical model.

- Agreed on the spiritualism aspect, but no, AI cannot do it as well as or better than a human can. They still even "hallucinate" or rather, Guess Wrong about details, though that's gotten slightly less obvious over time. The one thing genAI has is it can do things faster. It will never make a new idea, because it can only work with what exists in its statistical model. It will never have a perspective as an author or artist, because it isn't one. It is wholly an imitation machine, nothing more, nothing less.*

(Also calling out "Neo-spiritual woo" after writing up your own entire giant neo-spritual woo post?? (no, I didn't go digging through your profile like some fuckin redditor, it's one of your most recent posts and I saw it when checking your pronouns). Drugs making you think different isn't some fucking deep spiritual revelation lmfao. But whatever, that's not really relevant to this.)

- You're talking like a republican senator, screaming about fake news, misrepresenting the claims of the people you're talking about, and in fact misrepresenting the data yourself. The IEA's report Energy and AI projects that the electricity demand of data centers worldwide (ALL datacenters, not AI focused ones) is going to fucking double by 2030, with that increase driven mostly by AI. The power demand of AI-optimized data centers is projected to quadruple in that same time.** Power requires a source, and the majority of our power sources contribute to global warming, which let me remind you is an existential threat against humanity. Though you seem like the type to be a climate change denier.

The reactionary and ignorant one here is you.

Fuck capitalism btw. At least we can agree on that.

Speaking of fuck capitalism, fuck the capitalists using the creative works of others to generate a profit without asking and without compensation.

The purpose of art is to connect with the viewer. Using/thinking of it merely as a tool for influence is kinda fash tbh.

Wow, you almost got the point with the nuance you put in parentheses and kinda completely dismissed anyway. Almost.

They actually do pretty well, considering the money and manpower they're up against. It's an arms race after all, not some silver bullet. They poison the data so the genAI cannot replicate the actual image. They do *not* use generative AI, but instead adversarial AI. Seems like someone with an interest in AI programming would know the difference... Anyway, have you seen how firefighters stop forest fires by premptively burning long stretches of forest, such that the fire runs out of fuel to burn? It's a similar idea with Glaze and the like. Fight fire with fire.

Sidenote, funny how you don't mention the inarguably good things other types of AI has done, like analytical AI, and instead focus solely on genAI... Yk, like how it's been used to catch certain cancers much earlier than they could be before. But that's not as profitable as genAI, is it, grifter?

*I'm a computer scientist and software engineer that jumped on the hype train about AI when it first hit the scene. When I finally saw it for what it was I was a bit disappointed, but still at least impressed with some of the results (tho, admittedly, genAI was never more than a novelty to me). Then the ethical concerns became more widely discussed, and, here we are.

**I'd try to find some better sources with data about existing trends in power draw, as opposed to predictions, but arguing with feds isn't worth that much of my time.

Anyway, fuck genAI, fuck capitalism, and fuck feds like you.

Worst part of popular left wing AI discourse online is that there's absolutely a need for a robust leftist opposition to use of cognitive automation without social dispensation to displaced human workers. The lack of any prior measures to facilitate a transition to having fewer humans in the workplace (UBI, more public control over industrial infrastructure, etc) is a disaster we are sleepwalking into - one that could lock the majority of our society's wealth further into the hands of authoritarian oligarchs who retain control of industry through last century private ownership models, while no longer needing to rely on us to operate their property.

But now we're seemingly not going to have the opposition we so desperately need, because everyone involved in the anti-AI conversation has pretty thoroughly discredited themselves and their movement by harbouring unconstrained reactionary nonsense, blatant falsehoods and woo. Instead of talking about who owns and benefits from cognitive automation, people are:

Demanding impossibilities like uninventing a now readily accessible technology

Trying to ascribe implicit moral value to said technology instead of the who is using it and how

Siding with corporations on copyright law in the name of "defending small artists"

Repeating obvious and embarrassing technical misconceptions and erroneous pop-sci about machine learning in order to justify their preferred philosophy

Invoking neo-spiritual conservative woo about the specialness of the human soul to try to incoherently discredit a machine that can quite obviously perform certain tasks just as well if not better than they can

Misrepresent numbers about energy use and environmental cost in an absurd double standard (all modern infrastructure is reliant on data centers to a similar level of impact, including your favourite fandom social media and online video games!) to build a narrative AI is some sort of malevolent spirit that damages our reality when it is called upon

It's a level of reactionary ignorance that has completely discredited any popular opposition to industrial AI rollout because it falls apart as soon as you dig deeper than a snappy social media post, or a misguided pro-copyright screed from an insecure web artist (who decries a machine laying eyes on their freely posted work while simultaneously charging commission for fan-art of corporate IPs... I'm sure that will absolutely resolve in their favour).

It would be funny how much people are fucking themselves over with all this, except I'm being fucked over to, and as a result am really quite mad about the situation. We need UBI, we need to liberate abundance from corporate greed, what we don't need is viral posts about putting distortion filters on anime fan-art to ward off the evil mechanical eye, pointless boycotts of platforms because they are perceived to have let the evil machines taint them, or petitions to further criminalize the creation of derivative works.

[youve-always-had-me-cas]

The Reddit blackout is really funny because I fucking hate Reddit, I can't stand it, I will rant about the flaws in Reddit's Moderation system at the drop of a hat and as someone who used to mod a >300k subreddit believe me there are so, so many of them, but finally the admins of the website who have been profiting off the unpaid impossible labour mandated of their moderators by the structure of their website for years are getting the exact same treatment mods get every day. Your users are demanding an impossible thing of you. They hate you. They hate you. They want what you are offering them but their sense of justice is irreparably skewed and they will not listen to a single thing you have to say anymore. But unlike the people stuck trying to hold a community together under these absurd constraints they do not control you made this horrid mob of people and fostered this culture for decades this is entirely one hundred percent your fault.