wine-dark-soup · 9 months ago
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arcanists: we wield the most complex form of magic... arcanima. one must master arcane geometry to weave patterns that respect the flow of aether, which in turn will create powerful creature that can help you in combat. this is very dangerous and very powerful, it's not for the weak of mind
also arcanists: anyway we use that power to inspect ship crates lmao
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millie-multifics · 2 months ago
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In Another Life
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Firefighter!Eddie Munson x Potential Reader
Eddie builds a better life far away from all the misfortune of Hawkins.
Warnings: Mentions of injuries, death and conspiracies.
Word Count: ~1k
Masterlist
Just a little thought I had. I’m open to continuing it if there is interest.
x x x
Much of Hawkins remained blissfully unaware of Vecna’s final emergence and his beasts in the Upside Down, though a certain group of teenagers and their parents were forced to face the tattered remains left in the wake.
Though Eddie had not faced the Upside Down nearly as many times as the people he now considered his closest friends and valued acquaintances, his already challenged life had taken a nose dive right into interdemensial dirt and ash.
The government had edited the narrative from the first precieved notion of Eddie being responsible for the heinous murder of Chrissy Cunningham and others to point the blame to the deceased Jason Carver, even putting in the detail of Max and Eddie being attempted victims to explain away their injuries.
Though Eddie’s life had been less than luxurious before, most of citizens of Hawkins had continued to shun him, not believing the goverment spun web of lies.
Eddie had not dare left the trailer for over a month when Uncle Wayne had sat him down, encouring his beloved nephew to escape the cruel borders of the small town. Wayne had assured Eddie that leaving did not mean he was running from his problems, just looking for peace of mind and the opportunity to shop for groceries without mothers dragging their children out of the store in horror at the sight of him.
Steve had given into his nepotistic expectations, accepting a job at his fathers dealership as a car salesman. His first action of business was buying Eddies beatup van for a lot more than it was worth. Steve was quite nearly fired that same evening when his father discovered the new eyesore on the lot that no one would ever spend a penny on, nevermind $5,000.
The money had gotten Eddie across state lines to Illinois, specifically Chicago where he found himself an older apartment and anonymity. Here his misfortunes had not earned a five page feature in the newspaper, his story and face hadn’t even warranted the front page. He had found a job as a Bartender at an establishment called “Stones Throw” in the middle of the city. Reggie, the owner had interviewed Eddie on the spot. He only had two questions- did Eddie have any bartending experience? And if the obvious metal head could handle listening to different genres of music for hours on end without blowing a gasket? Eddie had debated lying about his lack of serving experience but ultimately was truthful and he could only promise that he would try his very best not to pop his top at patrons jukebox choices. He wasn’t exactly sure why but Reggie hired him on the spot.
Stones Throw is where he met the people who would help change his life for the better. Lacey, the truest example he had ever seen of the term tiny but mighty, she had a glare that had any rowdy patron fleeing before the bouncer even had a chance to toss them out. She had convinced Eddie to seek out a program to finally complete his GED, and she helped him study every night behind the bar. Her elder brother, Joey, frequented the establishment with his fellow Firefighters and their shared love for D&D made them fast friends. It took two years but the O’Ryan siblings had convinced Eddie that he should explore the possibility of becoming a Firefighter as he had the passion and potential to thrive in the field. Joey started inviting Eddie along to the gym, knowing the average build of the metalhead would not equate during training. Eddie slowly began filling out his black uniform t-shirt in a way that drew in plenty of female attention, something he avoided since intimate company meant revealing the deep scars that spanned across his torso from the Demobats sinking their sharp talons into his soft flesh.
The required medical examination had nearly jeopardized Eddie’s eligibility to join the program. The physician concerned with the scars that sunk deep into his tissue. He had fought hard against the comprehension, volunteering to do test after test until the doctor could no longer question his capabilities. Eddie fought the burning in his lungs and the ache in his joints again and again until his body grew used to the physical work. Wayne sat proudly in the first row on the day Eddie graduated from the academy, his other friends from Hawkins occupying a small section in the middle. The Stones Throw was packed full that evening, a party to celebrate Eddie’s success took over the bar. It was the first time in years that all the people who Eddie loved were gathered in one place. A feeling much deeper than content settled in his chest as he watched new and old seemlessly merge into one. Henderson, Wheeler, Byers and Sinclair were talking over each other to give Joey the fill on their D&D characters as he would be joining them for their reunion session the next day. Steve leaned on the bar, completely smitten with everything that was Lacey O’Ryan. Wayne and Reggie shared a table, no doubt sharing stories of Eddie’s shit disturbing tendencies. Robin argued with Max about which song would be played on the Jukebox next, Eddie was tempted to hide the cup of quarters placed next to the machine so he didn’t have to hear another Madonna song.
“For one night and one night only, please welcome to this very humble stage… Corroded Coffin!”
In that moment Eddie thought he had finally made it in life. He was starting a good career, his life was full to the brim with people who loved him and he was finally back on stage for the first time since discovering the Upside Down.
The guitar strings rumbled under his fingertips, a bead of sweat rolled down the nape of his neck as his wild curls swung around his shoulders then his dark eyes met yours across the room and he knew there was just one thing missing from his life.
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judjira · 1 year ago
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the office
tags: fluff pairing: reader x jihyo after hours wc: 1938 back to masterlist
Drat.
Your keys to the apartment.
You left them at your desk, in your cubicle. You can still remember when you tossed them onto your desk this morning, lazily and with a huff, as you were about to start another day as a mindless corporate slave.
Sulkingly trudging back inside, to the lobby of your office building, you shoot an apologetic smile to the night guard who barely even reciprocates.
Soon enough, you’re on the elevator, mourning your forgetfulness.
But don’t worry, it’s alright. Soon enough, you’ll get those keys and be out of here in a jiffy, exploring the nightlife.
Then, maybe you can marvel at the grandeur of the city that is somehow asleep and awake at the same time.
For now however, the elevator dings at your floor, and the doors slide open.
Your floor of the office is the same as the one above it and below it. Rows and rows of cubicles that are barely different aside from a nameplate.
Of course, people customize their cubicles to their own liking, but the point of working is to not be comfortable, why would you want to make your workplace feel more like it’s yours?
Because it’s not. It’s not your space. It is owned by some cruel, nepotistic CEO who lives in the lap of luxury, all the while his workers slave away, barely earning minimum wage.
Everything in an office space is hostile. The glaring fluorescent lights that flicker every now and then, the narrow and tight walkways amongst cubicles, the drab white and grey colors that are too boring to look at. Everything in here screams hostility.
Therefore, why would you wanna own any of it?
Still, though, you ponder as you arrive at your cubicle, the only sign of personalization, a bobble head of some video game character or anime protagonist that you really like next to your monitor.
There’s nothing wrong in trying to make it a little less hostile.
You grab the keys by your desk, dutifully ignoring the stack of papers next to your monitor that are reserved for tomorrow morning.
Tonight, you explore.
Where to first?
“You died.”
“Aw, you gotta be kidding me!”
That attracts your attention immediately.
Because the office is empty, no one should be here in these disgusting, loathsome, horrid walls that confine an individual to the end of their life.
But there is someone here. And it sounds like the space does not confine them to misery as of this moment.
In fact, it sounds very much like they are playing a game.
You peer over your cubicle walls, and spot another cubicle, glowing light shining out of it in the office that is only lit by the hallway outside.
The voice actually sounds familiar. You’ve worked with this person before.
And you’re actually disheartened.
Because this person is the laziest, most unprofessional, most unproductive piece of shi—
“Oh, hey!”
She waves, and you sigh in dismay.
“Hello, Jihyo.”
The woman in the chair beams at you, controller in her hands, as she waves you over.
Jihyo is younger than you. Maybe not in terms of age, she’s only a few years down, but in terms of experience and maturity? You’ve got about centuries more than she does.
And with her bright grin, tied hair, and folded up sleeves, you are only affirmed of this fact.
“Didn’t think I’d see you around here at this hour, you workaholic.”
Hey! You actually take offense to that. You take pride in the work that you do, you’re good at it.
But somehow, the fact that you’re actually taking pride in the mindless slavery you’re part of disheartens you further.
Still, you shake that off.
“What are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be here after ho—are you playing video games?”
You cut yourself off as you stare incredulously at her computer, a video game screen paused.
“Okay, they’re just called games, you boomer. No one calls them video games anymore. And yes, I am. Y’know, these PCs they let us use have some really high specs.”
Jihyo tucks her feet onto her swivel chair, and you notice that she is still wearing her formal button up, unbuttoned at the neck and sleeves folded, and her slacks, that seem rather stretchy and comfortable. She’s not even wearing her flats, as she perches her bare feet on her chair.
“Jihyo, you could be fired for this.”
She scoffs, smirking as she turns back to the computer to unpause the game.
“As if. I rerouted their monitoring apps to an empty unit over in one of the other cubicles. They think I’m just doing work. They have no clue what I’m actually doing.”
This is what’s always pissed you off about Jihyo. Always lackadaisical, always carefree, always about avoiding work. There was probably never a moment in her life where she thought about work.
Still, though. The smile on her face is quite telling, as she offers you the controller that’s in her hands.
“Wanna play?”
It betrays every measure of what this space is supposed to be, an oppressive, capitalistic nightmare that traps you in its clutches, never to be free.
But Jihyo looks as if the space around her barely even touches her. As if somehow, the cubicle she’s called her own is a safe haven from the nature of the space around her.
And indeed it is. Chock full of all sorts of personalization, stickers, mini posters, figurines, colorful pens and pencils, sticky notes. All of it screams Jihyo. Well, you think it does.
You don’t know Jihyo well. All you really know about her is the fact that she’s a relatively new hire, she doesn’t like doing work, and she sometimes steals other people’s food from the refrigerator.
But seeing all of this now, it’s a glimpse—no, more than a glimpse. It’s a screenshot of what Jihyo’s world looks like.
Jihyo is smiling at you, untrapped, unbothered, and unbound from the world you call work.
It makes you wonder.
“I’ll just watch you, if that’s cool.”
She shrugs, unpauses the game again, and scoots her chair over in the small cubicle to make room for you.
You grab one of the chairs in the cubicle next to her and sit.
“So, what brings you back to the office? Got a few more files you’re working on, you workaholic?”
The insult makes you roll your eyes.
“For your information, I was just getting my keys. Unlike you, I actually finish my work on time.”
Jihyo chortles, to herself more than anything. And the sound she makes, loud and proud, isn’t as bad a sound as you thought it would be.
“As if that’s something to be proud of, you boomer. Do you even have any hobbies?”
Hobbies. Unironically, that’s a word you haven’t heard of in a long time. When’s the last time you actually spent time doing something you personally enjoyed?
“Well…yeah, I do. I mean…sometimes.”
Your defense sounds weak, even to your own ears, as Jihyo fixes you with a look of pity.
“You gotta learn to get out more. Enjoy life. You’re not gonna discover the answers to the universe sitting in your cubicle, jotting down timesheets.”
The way Jihyo talks about it, almost preaching and sagely, sounds as if she’s got the answers to the universe herself. Which makes you scoff.
“Is that what you’re doing? Discovering the answers to the universe?”
Jihyo actually pauses her game again at that, and instead of glaring at you or shooting another insult at you, she grins with that impossible positivity that has no place in this world.
“Hey, it helps.”
Does it, you wonder? Is that why Jihyo seems so free from the burdensome chains that everyone in this office seems to carry? Amongst all of your coworkers, Jihyo is indeed the only one that seems to carry some semblance of individuality.
Hell, within time, even you molded your personality to better fit the tight box of corporate work, becoming another cut out copy of the mindless drones that offices today produced.
And that is…sad.
“Look, far as I’m concerned, I need my me-time. And this constitutes as part of that. I’m an individual, not some cog in a machine.”
Jihyo’s right. If there’s anything her unbridled carefree attitude succeeds at, it’s defining herself as a person, breaking from the walls of normality and moldong her own space to live in.
Perhaps that is why she’s always drawn your attention.
“…well, whatever works for you.”
You manage, watching as she strikes an enemy in her game with some sort of lightning bolt.
“Yeah, it works for me. And it’ll work for you too, y’know. As soon as you get that stick out of your ass.”
You hate to admit it, but maybe she’s right.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
And keep it you do. But that’s not the only thing you keep in mind.
Jihyo, from this close, is a beautiful woman. Well, you imagine she’s beautiful from far away as well. Not that you need to imagine, because you’ve seen her from afar. In fact, it’s what originally drew your attention to her.
She stood out in a crowd of fresh hires, her effortless beauty and cheek-to-cheek smile always somehow managed to catch your eye. Then, when she started being the most frustrating co-worker ever, your eyes always seemed to land on her form.
And now, with this night of nights only just beginning, she’s only somehow gotten more beautiful, the only light illuminating her face coming from the monitor in front of her. She’s sticking out her tongue to the side, evidently focused on her game.
Until she glances at you, catching you in your moment of weakness.
And she smiles.
“I thought you were going to watch the game, not me.”
Instead of backing down, as you normally would, you shrug, ignoring the way your heart pounds at the confrontation.
“Sorry. Can’t help it.”
She hums, before taking her phone, and handing it to you.
“Here. If you’re gonna just stare at me all night, you might as well make yourself useful and order something.”
You blink at the phone, before looking back up at her.
“Are you really gonna stay here all night?”
Jihyo shrugs, grinning.
“Hey, it’ll make me look productive.”
The illusion of your momentary romanticization of Jihyo doesn’t dissipate at her careless comment. In fact, it only affirms your thoughts.
You admire Jihyo. And her capability to just be herself, no matter how oppressive the environment.
“…and what makes you think I’m sticking around?”
Jihyo’s gaze turns to you, and it’s only then you fully shed yourself of all of your assumptions regarding your frustrating co-worker.
Because it’s only then that she smiles fully, as if she truly sees you, caught up in a web of mismatched priorities and lost humanity. She sees you past all of that, and truly smiles.
“Is that really a question when you’re staring at me like that?”
No. It isn’t.
You already made up your mind. This is where you’ll be spending your night of nights, away from the city, away from the lively lights, away from the surreal sounds.
Here, inside a space that is not quite yours and not quite Jihyo’s, but still tailor-made to the two of you.
A space where you can truly just be yourself.
“Don’t be so assuming. I’m just here to make sure you don’t mess up the servers.”
“Yeah, yeah, sure. Come on, scooch closer so you can see the screen.”
And Jihyo will be with you the whole time.
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starswornoaths · 14 days ago
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4. Reticence
Serella has been keeping a secret. One so immense and important that she has actively hidden it from all that are nearest to her with only the promise that all would make sense in due time.
And then she scheduled herself for a hearing with the Houses of the Lords and Commons.
Set post 6.0
word count: 1,904
~
It was hard not to find some level of amusement in being on the other side of House proceedings for a change, thought Artoirel. He and Aymeric had hidden their enthusiasm at having an hour or so break before the end of the day rather admirably—at least, in Artoirel’s admittedly biased estimation.
More to the point, they had been required to take the hour and recuse themselves from the last case of the day: a proposal of some manner from the Lord Speaker’s very own betrothed, one so secret she had apparently told him naught of save for its existence.
Not that Serella had not wanted to; not only had she kept it from him, but from the entirety of House Fortemps as well, even going so far as to instruct the lot of them—Aymeric included—to remain away from her residence in the Firmament until the proceedings had concluded, lest anyone say the proposal was anyone’s but hers and thus taint it in the eyes of the people as some nepotistic endeavor.
Even had she not told them that she had a new project in the few moons leading up to today’s session, it was increasingly clear that she had been keeping something of substantive purport from them all. It had been a trial, not getting swept up in Aymeric’s idle curiosity in the quiet moments between meetings, but Artoirel had persevered in maintaining an air of disinterest.
At least the wait was almost at an end. 
“They told you naught of what this proposal will be?” Artoirel had asked once they had been seated.
“Absolutely nothing. I was only told of her intent to bring a proposal to the floor, but naught else.” Aymeric answered.
The risers they had found seats in were in the ideal spot to observe both sides of court while remaining on the fringes of its halo of light. Aymeric had expressed relief that they might be afforded some small privacy from their position, and Artoirel was inclined to agree with the assessment.
It was privacy they found themselves immediately grateful for when the looming doors at the end of the hallway opened, their creaking groans announcement that the petitioner had arrived.
All stood as a show of respect for the petitioner. Her brother and betrothed were no exceptions.
A knight held each door open as Serella entered, though she thanked them both as she crossed the threshold.
The cane in her hand thumped particularly loudly when compared to her soft footfalls, though her limp was substantively better than it had been in months of recovery. Though she moved with some care, it was clear that this was not a bad pain day.
Beside him, Aymeric murmured a prayer of gratitude to Halone for that. Artoirel hissed an, “amen,” in time with him just as Serella reached the stand and set what looked like a portfolio binder in front of her.
When she looked up to signal she was prepared, the Speaker for the House of Commons smiled and stood from her seat.
“We bid you welcome, Ser Arcbane,” she greeted with a polite incline of her head, “and as we understand it, you have come with a proposal.”
“Thank you—and yes, if I may begin?” Serella asked, already opening the document organizer.
With the two Houses in agreement, she looked up at those gathered officials and evenly met their gaze.
“The People’s Republic of Ishgard has fought for every sunrise since the dawn of the Dragonsong War. Even after peace was achieved—with Dravania and Garlemald both—Ishgard still must rebuild and renew. But even such victories come at a much higher cost than they ought: for nearing a decade now, the people have had to claw themselves out of the snow and ice every day just to see the sun.”
At that, she leaned on her cane and used it to turn carefully toward the crowd as she asked, “Who among you recalls what it felt like to run barefoot through the grass? Do you remember the last time you could? For those who lived and worked in the sweeping fields of Coerthas, do you not mourn the memory of wheat brushing your fingertips? The gentle hum of honey hives? Have you not ceded enough of yourselves to Calamity?”
The crowd began to murmur amongst themselves even as she turned back to the court with a thump of her cane and continued, “Given all that we have accomplished in spite of every trial, I cannot help but wonder how much further still we could go should we find a solution to this problem.”
A smile crept up on Serella’s face, then. Artoirel knew its like: it was that same smile that had won over gods and conquered tyrants, that had him concede his pride to welcome her as sister, that had thawed Aymeric’s heart that she might hold it.
With the same confidence she had carried with her to the edge of the stars, she tipped her chin up as she said, “and I believe we might have it.”
Beside him, Aymeric gasped in time with Artoirel. The Lord Speaker glanced at him as if in disbelief. Mayhap it was, to a point; Aymeric had often said—to anyone who would listen and half that would not, frankly—that spring returned to Ishgard the moment his betrothed had crossed the Arc of the Worthy. Surely not even he had ever thought it would be quite so literal.
That whispering in the pews quickly rose to a buzzing. From where they were seated, the silhouettes of the gathered masses whorled and tangled like a swarm of bees in their hive.
Swarming which stopped with a series of three sharp cracks of a gavel strike. Almost immediately, those gathered fell silent as a crypt.
“Ser Arcbane,” spoke a representative from the House of Lords, “what you propose is no small thing—even were we to agree that such a feat was viable, what would you ask of Ishgard in exchange?”
“Permission to research it. Naught more.” Serella answered, producing a series of documents and holding them aloft to be transferred to the Houses for inspection. “Myself and a team of aetherologists, astrologians, and scholars have been discussing the theory—it is sound, but untested. We would seek to delve into Azys Lla to obtain more information and run small-scale tests safely, away from anywhere on Eitherys. Based on what recordings and technological advances that have thus far been discovered there, the Allagans not only recorded all of history prior to their downfall, but the station continued to automatically record for centuries thereafter—aether levels of Eitherys included, catalogued by region and era.”
“Meaning…” rasped a member of the House of Commons as the implications fully sunk in.
“But surely such a venture would have immense costs on the city—and not just monetarily!” said a Lord.
“I do not ask for coin." Serella answered. "Those researchers that have worked with me have been fairly compensated elsewise, will continue to be fairly compensated elsewise, and joined for the knowledge to better the world with besides.
"As for the risk: I will not gainsay the enormity of what I request. Failure could be catastrophic, and for more than just Ishgard, potentially. Which is why I only propose a start: to gather and review the data, to see exactly what can be done. At such a time, if our findings and tests prove the theory to be sound and safe for all involved, I would then request to enact it.”
The Houses of the Lords and Commons almost immediately fell into each other, delegates on both sides of the table leaning toward one another in a rare show of mutual, if tentative excitement.
After a short eternity, Aymeric’s counterpart in the House of Commons waited for her colleagues to return to their respective spots before beginning to speak.
“We have yet to review your initial findings and put it to vote, of course,” she began, “but ere we do, I believe I speak for not just those to either side of me here, but for all those present when I ask: why?”
“Why?” Serella gawked with an arched brow.
“Your philanthropic work is well documented, and I for one fail to see the merit in bringing it into question— ‘tis more a personal curiosity that I am confident at least a few here also share.”
For a moment, Serella tilted her head and considered the question. 
Slowly, she answered, “In truth, my reasons are threefold: the foremost being that this feels a natural extension of other work I have done—here in Ishgard, as well as elsewhere. The data found in Azys Lla can also potentially aid all of Eorzea, if not Eitherys for all we know. I do not intend to scrap the things that are unrelated to our initial focus.
“Moreover: it is no secret I am betrothed to the Lord Speaker. I once asked him: ‘what do you consider a luxury in Ishgard that is not considered one anywhere else.’ His answer was simple and yet poignant to me. “An open window,” he said. What an encapsulation of how Ishgard’s people are routinely denied simple pleasures.
“But in truth, I have a more selfish reason aside from all that: I promised him spring. I should like to offer it as a wedding gift.”
At that, the air in the room grew thin from the collective gasp, though all that hushed murmuring was silent.
It was impossible not to glance over at Aymeric in that moment, though Artoirel was fairly confident that he was far from the one one whose attention so shifted. 
For his part, the Lord Speaker stared at his beloved, eyes wide with awe and filmed with the sheen of unshed tears. Though he had brought a hand over his mouth, it was clear through his splayed fingers that his jaw hung agape as his lips quivered.
The Houses called for a recess to deliberate, as they did for every matter brought for a vote. Artoirel had to gently guide his friend away with a hand at his back, twisting sharply down a hall accessible only to those in office to afford them some privacy. Bathed in the light of the setting sun, it almost felt warm. 
They had barely cleared the doorway into a private office before Aymeric’s whole body stuttered in a barely-repressed sob. 
“They never needed to,” Aymeric whispered in a thick, cracking voice. “They never needed to even try, but—”
“Such is not her way,” Artoirel said, awkwardly rubbing his back as he added, “I should think you might love her less if she tried any less—”
“Never,” Aymeric immediately rasped, his throat tightening around a sob he tried to swallow. “I could never love her less, I—”
With no armor to conceal or impede him, he began to crumple into himself before Artoirel wordlessly pulled him into the crook of his shoulder. Through the fabric of Artoirel’s coat and his own tears, Aymeric mumbled, “I love them so fucking much.”
The Lord Speaker did not dissolve into open weeping, but after a few minutes of silent, hiccuping gasps, he righted himself with a red, splotchy face he scrubbed dry. Together, he and Artoirel returned to the courtroom with a shoulder thoroughly soaked on his coat, and neither made mention of either. 
Even with two of their number recused, the Houses approval passed almost unanimously.
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theduckeminence · 1 year ago
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I’ve been curious lately about the idea of a rewrite for Pakku’s little character arc.
Yes, he is a traditionalist master waterbender and a massive smug jerk when refusing to teach Katara. He was a sexist up until he decided that upon learning Katara was Kanna granddaughter, he saw her as a student. Now from the way the show framed that moment, it seemed more or less nepotistic. There was also the fact that by the end of the series, it’s become canon that Pakku and Kanna ended up getting back together to which everyone called BS on for how quick that is. Now honestly I can’t ignore or deny any of this as the way the series framed Pakku’s development is dubious at best. We go from sexist nepotistic jerk to “meet your new grandpappy!” and that’s about it. Sure there was a bit of Pakku and Kanna in the North and South comic but due the the extremely questionable writing of the comics, I resolve from really including it very much
(I could mention how we never really saw Pakku’s development during the time of Gaang’s adventures and the time we had for the show but I’ll probably mention it another time).
I would also like to add some moments to give into him being more sympathetic such as a more softer or relatable side to him, while also giving more nuance to his character’s arc.
As such, I propose a couple ideas/headcanons of my own that may add to this sour old crusty bastard:
Wouldn’t it be interesting if he had gotten married to another girl following Kanna’s disappearence?And/or maybe that his family arranged him to marry another girl? Though if he were to take another hand, arranged or not, it wouldn’t be a very happy marriage. Therefore, he might have decided upon staying single for the rest of his life. The insight of how he must’ve dealt regarding this decision can depend how you would want to frame it. Whether he was content with the idea or, if you want to go for a more angstier route, depressed about it, that’s all up to you.
If we had gone with the more depressing option of him staying single, imagine how it must’ve been for him to be alone for most of his life—with no one to go home to and spending nights by himself eating meals alone. This may as well hit harder when realizing that since tribes are usually more communal and closely-knitted, Pakku living by himself puts him out of place. And though he could spend the evening having dinner with a friend’s family, or find content in the silence of his home, he cannot ignore the utter pitiful loneliness of not hearing any laughter nor the sound of children/grandchildren roaming the halls.
Speaking of children, Pakku has always wanted to have a child or more of his own. When he was still a young man, he dreamt of coming home to a caring wife and excited children where he can pick them up and toss them up, all while telling them stories about his day. But ever since Kanna left, that sort of dream had drained away into, well, just a dream.
Though, as he grows older, sometimes he would see the young boys and girls play in the snow, away from doing any of their chores or classes. While he would scold, there were some occasions where he slips from his hardened expression to entertain the children with a shower of snowflakes to little snow puppet-figure shows.
When he moves down South and spends more time down there, he becomes known as the local Grandpa-kku (much to his dismay to the pun).
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warsofasoiaf · 1 year ago
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What army do you think is the most overrated in history?
As with all questions about "overrated" and "underrated," the question is, who is doing the rating? Being "overrated" or "underrated" means evaluating someone's judgment, while being "bad" or "good" means evaluating performance. The latter is far easier to evaluate.
Take for example, the Mongols. The Mongols were an exceptionally good army, one of the best in history for a whole host of reasons including their highly exceptional C2 system. But in "The Death that Saved Europe," Cecelia Holland argues that Ogedai Khan's unlikely death was the only thing stopping the Mongols from conquering all of Europe to the Atlantic Ocean, and this just doesn't stand up to scrutiny when evaluating their performance in Hungary and Poland. The Mongols struggled with European stone-walled castles, and moving further into Western Europe would only see the castle density increase. They're still incredibly good, but that's a clear case of overrating.
Or by contrast, take the Red Army in the Winter War. By all conventional metrics, the Red Army was absolutely abysmal in performance - poor tactics, poor leadership, poor equipment. Yet Adolf Hitler thought that they were so garbage that all he would need is a swift kick in the door for the rotten foundation of the Soviet Union to collapse like old scaffolding, and it very clearly did not. Clearly, that was a case of underrating the army. By contrast, modern non-military historians frequently overrate the performance of the Red Army in the Second World War to the point of parody, omitting the exceptionally high levels of unnecessary casualties stemming from poor military performance.
But if I had to pick, I'd either pick the Iraqi Army of Saddam Hussein or the current Russian military, which has largely inherited its weakness from the Red Army.
The Iraqi Army of Saddam Hussein was considered the 5th strongest army in the world, with a formidable array of tanks, aircraft, and missile defense systems. Using primarily Soviet equipment, it was believed to be by far the most powerful regional hegemon in the region despite it's rather lackluster performance against Iran during the Iran-Iraq War. In practice, the officer corps was extremely nepotistic and poorly-trained. The T-72 was shown to be an underperforming tank compared to modern Abrams, the Soviet missile systems proved unable to detect stealth fighters or handle Wild Weasel SEAD missions, and the aircraft were poorly maintained and their pilots even worse. At Medina Ridge and 73 Easting, Saddam's ground forces were poorly organized and sent into complete disarray. Far from being a million strong legion that could enforce its will on the region, it was a hollow, rotten tree trunk about to be struck by lightning.
I've already spoken at length about Russian weakness in the current Russo-Ukrainian War, but it's extremely indicative of systemic weakness when a so-called Great Power army is incapable of performing multi-theater combined arms warfare in the 21st century. This has been a staple of warfare and an overriding design feature of military equipment for decades now. Russia's much-vaunted hypersonic missiles are being intercepted by old Patriot AD systems, turning them into yet another Wunderwaffen. Their technology is not even comparable to last-gen systems and their troops incompetent. For a military that was vaunted as the second-most powerful in the world, its diminished capacity has shown it to be far inferior than numbers would suggest. Its vaunted tank fleet are vulnerable to old anti-tank weapons down to bargain-bin fwoop tubes. Its aircraft can't be stealthy and can't secure airspace even against a vastly inferior airforce. It's sole aircraft carrier is more of a floating environmental disaster whose maintenance log reads like an SCP entry. The T-14 Armata and Su-75 Checkmate are vapor-ware projects established primarily, it seems, to embezzle money for more dachas and yachts. Worst of all, its logistics corps are so deficient that countless Russian soldiers are dying from easily treatable injuries. This was supposed to be the mightiest army in Europe and the military leader of the non-Western world, the lynchpin of the "new multipolar world order," the army that was to defend the Motherland against NATO. It's losing badly to an army that wasn't even ranked in the top 20 by military observers using a combination of legacy Soviet equipment and the stuff that NATO found in the back of the toolshed.
Thanks for the question, Anon.
SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King
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hannahssimblr · 10 months ago
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Chapter Two (Part 2)
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We sit in the beer garden of a lively pub near Smithfield square, and the sky is blue and perfect and birds are chirping high in the trees whose branches overhang the muraled walls. Izzy wants to get drinks for everyone, and when she asks me what I want I shrug. “Oh, I don’t really feel like drinking.” I say, not adding in the part about how I’ve been avoiding drinking alcohol at all in front of people I don’t know very well lately. 
“That’s fine.” She says immediately. “I’ll fetch you a club orange or something?”
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“Yeah, that’d be nice.” She goes away then and I’m a bit startled. I was expecting her to force me to have something alcoholic, but she didn’t. She didn’t even ask me why I’m abstaining, and I didn’t have to make up some excuse about antibiotics. Nobody else seems to care about it either, and when she brings our drinks to the table on a little round tray, nobody makes any designated driver jokes, they just take their ciders and their beers and have them without even batting an eye at my fizzy drink. 
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“So do you like NCAD?” Simon asks me, drawing me out of my own head. I nod. “Yeah, it’s alright. I preferred it in second year where we got to specialise into something more specific. The general nature of first year didn’t do it for me so much.”
“I was the same when I was there, you get lumped in with all the weirdos too.” He laughs, and so does Izzy, and I realise that NCAD being full of oddballs probably is a universal experience, rather than something specific to my year. 
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“Was there someone in your year who made their final project using their own period blood?” Izzy wants to know, and I’m taken aback by her question. I wonder where she heard about Marnie’s menstrual cup sculpture.
“Yeah, there was.” 
“Yeah there’s at least one of them every year. They always love doing that.”
“In my year some lad made a film of him wanking himself off and put the stills from it on the walls.” Simon comments. 
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“Oh my God.” Says Gabriel with disgust. “What is wrong with this college?”
“It’s just all these fine arts people in one big room together, it’s bound to get weird.” Izzy says. “When I specialised in print it was way more civilised.”
“My girlfriend did ceramics though.” Says Simon. “And there was a girl in hear class who made a cast of-”
“Enough!” Cries Gabriel. “I can’t hear about these depraved people. It was not like this for me, I hate it.”
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Petra arrives then and gets herself a pint of cider, she’s carrying a little Mezzotint bag, and Gabriel wants to know what’s in it. 
“One of those ceramic bud vases that came in this morning.” She says. “Evie and I were admiring them.”
“Yeah Simon’s girlfriend did them.” Says Izzy. “A very nepotistic addition to the Mezzotint shop, in my opinion.” Then she punches his arm. “I’m joking, she’s brill.”
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We go back to chatting, and I try not to think about how cool and intimidating every one of them is. I felt the same way on my first day in the studio two weeks ago, and it hasn’t faded much as I’ve gotten to know them. Izzy is talking about a gig that’s coming up in a couple of weeks that she’s rehearsing for. She sings with a band sometimes called Earthworm and makes us all promise to come and watch them play. I realise that in the two years I’ve lived in Dublin I’ve never gone to a gig. It feels like a very strange thing, considering how many opportunities there were, but Marnie or Dean were never interested in music, and so I wasn’t either. 
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She’s talking about the songs they’re thinking about doing when Simon is distracted by the arrival of his girlfriend. “Oh, here she is.” He says with a grin, and we all look around to see a petite, dark haired girl come into the beer garden with a big pint of blackcurrant in her hand. I do a double take. That’s Michelle Tengu. That’s Jude’s ex. She comes over and settles into the seat next to Simon and he hooks his arm around her neck and pulls her into him to kiss her hair. 
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“Hi guys.” She says in droll, northside cadence. “How are ye getting on?” I wait anxiously for her to notice me. Or not notice me, as there is every chance I left so little of an impression on her both times that we met, but she frowns at me with recognition. “Oh, hi.”
“That’s Evie, our intern.” Simon tells her.
“No, I actually know you.” She says. “You’re Jen’s friend, right? We met you a good while ago in a cocktail bar.”
“You did, yeah.” I say, and then hesitate. “How is Jen?”
“Yeah she’s… well, you know, the usual.”
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“Oh right.” I don’t ask what she’s up to, because once I start talking about her, I’ll have to think about her, and thinking about Jen will always lead to thinking about Jude, and thinking too much about either her or Jude makes me feel completely sick with guilt. I haven’t spoken to either of them in over a year, and even though once, last year, I saw Jen in the deli queue in Supervalu, but I didn’t go over to say hello to her. I just paced through the aisles of the supermarket pretending to be looking for something until I saw her checking out and leaving. 
“Aw, Jen is the best.” Says Izzy. “We love her, what a sweetheart! I can’t believe you know her. This really is a small town.”
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“Yeah it is…” I say, frowning into my Club Orange. For some reason I feel uneasy. Like it’s all about to start getting even smaller. 
Beginning // Prev // Next
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mzannthropy · 5 months ago
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What's weird about the DJATS casting is that the actress who played Daisy's mom Jeanne is only eight years older than Riley. The actress who played Marlene can't be much older than Sam Claflin or Will Harrison. Though,in Daisy's mom's actresses case,she seemed to be wearing old age makeup. Maybe Marlene was a young mom,or something. Either way,it kinda bothers me.
But why does it matter?
Okay, so there are actors playing characters who are supposed to be much older than them. And? Is it worse that people being ageist towards Sam Claflin? Fictional characters are fictional, they don't exist, nobody can hurt them. Sam Claflin is, however, a real person.
What is worse, an actor playing a role that is of a very different age than them, or screenwriters botching up the story they're supposed to be adapting? What is worse: an actor playing a role that is of a very different age than them, or sidelining Sam Claflin, who carried the show, in favour of his nepotistic co-star during the Emmy campaign? (And then DJATS lost out on everything except costumes and sound mixing, serves them right). I just think we have bigger problems than the age of actors.
It's not like anyone cares when it's done the right way. I don't see anyone pointing out how well the actors in My Cousin Rachel were cast, age-wise. Rachel Weisz is 16 older than Sam and that felt very true to the story. (I don't see anyone talking about this film here at all, apart from me. It was also a book accurate adaptation, but again, nobody gives a fuck.)
Nicola Coughlan is 37. Yet the character she plays on Bridgerton, Penelope Featherington, can't be older than 20. A few years ago, she was in Derry Girls, playing a teenager when she must already have been in her 30s. She excels in both roles. Jennifer Lawrence wasn't 16 when she was cast as Katniss in Hunger Games. Neither was that milksop that plays her stupid boyfriend. Everyone loves them (but me. But that's not the point here.).
It's just acting.
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300iqprower · 1 year ago
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Hi, random person whose seen some of your posts before but never interacted before here. If you don't mind me asking, why exactly do you dislike Nasu and his writing and all? Not trying to sound combative or anything, just curious.
very TLDR, he's extremely narcissistic and a massive nepotist based on how he treats his coworkers, he's a sellout based on how much he focused on gacha markets and how he's revised stories to pander to a cult of personality he's cultivated for himself, and based on his actual writing these days he doesn't seem to give much of a shit both in terms of telling a good overarching story (only caring about what's immediately going on instead and gleefully tossing anything both before and after into a garbage fire to achieve an immediate goal), and in terms of properly representing other cultures and ways of thinking in this series that's supposedly about history he's insultingly ignorant or outright bigoted. And all of that makes me infinitely more upset than if it were someone clearly trying their best and falling short.
Lostbelt 7 is this at its most blatant, from the Brazil Mexico to the abject racism to the dinosaur soccer tournament with a space clown in this tooootally serious chapter.
And i know you asked about his writing specifically, but also just as a person Nasu is probably a pedo. Like as in, there's substantial evidence from a long sustained pattern of behavior that he is at minimum intentionally marketing to and profiteering off of pedo's, if not outright one himself.
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twopoppies · 2 years ago
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Hi Gina. Something has been bothering me for a while now I just need to get it off my chest. Sometimes I feel like people's attitude toward the Azoffs might just be anti-semitism, whether they're conscious of it or not. Like, it really rubs me the wrong way whenever I see people saying that the Azoffs are controlling Harry or that the Azoffs are greedy. Obviously, those things could theoretically be true, but I think that the immediate urge to jump to those conclusions without much proof or knowledge of the actual situation is troubling to me.
Hi love. Yeah, I don’t think you’re completely off base. Perhaps people don’t realize how antisemitic the way they characterize the Azoffs often sounds.
What I find really funny is that in 2014 when we started seeing Harry around Jeff and Irving, people were really excited. There were theories that Irving was going to sign the band (obviously this was before the “hiatus” was announced) and save the day. There was lots of talk about how Irving helped 30 seconds to Mars get out of shitty contracts and maybe he could do the same for 1D. Clearly we were very naive.
But the hatred has grown as our fandom has split. As Harry’s career grew and Louis’ stalled, rads decided that the Azoffs and Harry were responsible for that, that the Azoffs were evil, that they ran the entire music industry, and that they controlled every award show, interview, article, and streaming platform in favor of their artists. So now they’re just money grubbing, greedy, nepotistic, cheats.
I just find it all boring and a little bit gross.
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spinalembrace · 1 year ago
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I furiously binge-watched the two seasons of Wayward Pines (2015–2016) yesterday (missing at least one episode and parts of some, since I couldn't access them at all/in their entirety). Since I was watching alone, I decided to rant out my contemplations down on paper, which I will recount here (spoilers of course):
Season 1
If the Ballingers were revolutionists, why did they rat out Beverly, causing her to get reckoned?
Why on EARTH would they think public executions are the answer in a pseudo-community living off of lies? (See e.g. Camus' Reflections on the Guillotine [1957] for a humanitarian discussion of public executions.)
If putting people back to cryo-sleep is an option, why not use that with the citizens as well? Adults are fertile too — why aren't they such a precious resource to the company/cult as well? And — as long as people are thought of as resources, even in that ideology, isn't it a huge waste to respond to misdemenours with DEATH?
How homophobic and heteronormative is a community so focused on reproduction? (They turned to this question briefly in season 2, answer of course being very. I was not satisfied with the extent this question was discussed — being, it nearly was discussed at all.)
How is the company/cult not eugenic and nepotistic inherently? (It is.)
Why does Theresa show so much resent for Katie, when Ethan is the one who has consciously betrayed Theresa? Misogyny? Internalized misogyny?
The people running the company/cult are adults — on what basis do they then think adults are incapable of habituating to the new situation? Aren't the other adults then just worries about their own monopoly over power? Children might be the future but they are also easier to control — hence the adults leading the children are the ones creating the picture of that future.
Hypnotherapy is bullshit.
2000 years in the face of evolution is merely a blink of an eye.
How white and ignorant do you have to be to think culture = a couple classical piano concertos, classicist home decor, and a few paintings from 1500–1900s?
All the aberrations look have male bodies? What does this tell of the perception of evolution? Or degeneration? (This question was brought up in season 2, really not giving satisfactory answers and continuing to view sex and gender in an overly dichotomized and binary way.)
Why would the aberrations be more adapted to the 41st century? What is the evolutionary biology behind that?
How very lame to do the "evil man listens to classical music in a secluded mansion while others are dying on the streets".
Why does Wayward Pines have so much guns and ammo, if there is only one sheriff and the reckonings are done by hand?
Season 2
The aberrations don't seem that complex or scary.
Why does this season as well have to rely on a white male archetype to lead on the story?
The minute they find a female aberration, they dress them up (sexualize/shame their naked body) and find it even more convenient to abuse them.
Where the fuck did that guy get a twizzler?
There are no artists in Wayward Pines? Yet another depiction of "essential roles in society", where the arts and humanities are left out.
What are the ethics of weaponizing viruses, sacrificing oneself tp kill over one third of another population? What is the use of the evacuation? Don't the aberrations deserve to reclaim their territory, especially since the human invaders can save themselves in another manner? Didn't they learn anything about the possibility for cooperation?
The repetitious clips of the aberrations just screeching at the cliff do not do justice to the complexity of the aberrations. They seem like blood-lusted "monsters" yet again.
This is where my notes end. After sleeping through the night and rethinking Wayward Pines, I find the two seasons very discontinuous. Season 2 beginning with a voice over of Benjamin really set the mood to think they would be the main character — after the season I don't even remember what they did or what happened to them after all? It also was disappointing to see that Theresa's character was not developed further and they became a side character, even though the viewer was engaged to their character from the beginning. Also I can't stand, nor see the value or meaning, of the monogamous heterosexual quarrels happening in both of the seasons.
Okay bye !
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starleska · 2 years ago
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hey in your Big Jack Homer is Disney post you mentioned that you wanted to go more into depth about how Prince Charming is part of Disney history? I can't seem to find the post about that one if you had made one about that topic if there was.
ahh, great spot anon!! so sorry, i wrote that post in an absolute frenzy and didn't word what i meant well 😂💖 i feel that Prince Charming in Shrek the Third very much isn't part of this running making-fun-of-Disney narrative, and that's part of why the movie doesn't hit as strongly as the others! we've all got our grievances with Shrek the Third, right. and i think the big thing that makes it fall flat is that Prince Charming's vengeance plot could've been handled in a much more interesting manner. the Fairy Godmother's iron grip on the happily-ever-after industry made for a compelling continuation of the oppression Farquaad pushed onto Shrek and his fairy tale friends - a different context, but the same money-hungry, power-absorbing, intolerant culture that the folks behind Shrek were mocking Disney for. but Charming recruiting the villains with the promise of a happily ever after isn't played through a nepotistic angle, or with any kind of sympathy for the villains who want that happy ending...it's just empty. Charming is a hollow villain whose vanity and desperate desire for approval could have told an interesting story wherein Shrek and the others become actually harmed or oppressed again...but all of the threat comes from the villains, who are far more powerful than Charming!! the pieces are there...but the execution wasn't great. it's weird...Charming had the most obvious motive out of every single main Shrek villain to begin a new regime which stamps out fairy tale creatures, but that just didn't happen. you can write a pathetic villain without compromising on your message, you know?
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vidreview · 2 months ago
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VIDREV: "We Finally Watched Nukie: The VHS Grading Video" by RedLetterMedia
[originally posted april 24th 2023]
youtube
there's so much i could say about RLM and won't, at least not today. you can't claim to have a serious conversation about video essays on youtube (or the tenor of nerd-related online media criticism generally) without talking about the Plinkett Star Wars reviews, and even still that convo would be incomplete without discussing their on-again-off-again relationship with abject somethingawful-style offensive edgelord shitposting. unlike an embarrassing quantity of their contemporary peers, however, the RLM guys grew and learned and changed, which is a big part of why i've stuck with them for so long. i was a teen in the 2000s, i also said slurs and thought being offensive was just good honest fun. i grew up as they matured, in contrast to a sea of other adult entertainers existentially committed to never doing so.
RLM is probably the closest thing i and a fair few millennials (from a very particular background) have to a Roger Ebert. i don't always agree with their takes, and there were a good couple years after The Last Jedi when i stopped watching them because it felt like they were playing too hard to reddit's tastes. i came back to them in 2020, when they (like me) finally just threw the entire mainstream blockbuster hollywood industry in the trash out of exhaustion and boredom, thus kickstarting what's honestly been the most consistently good run they've had in a long time. and i have to say, as someone who has been watching and reading online media crit for damn near two and a half decades now, i cannot overstate the immense psychic value i've come to place on the opinions of actual honest to god adults who like sci-fi and hate what's become of it. their spite for all things corporate schlock gives me infinite life. the fact is they've been producing entertaining, ambitious, and often shockingly insightful media analysis for more than ten years now. their Jack & Jill review remains an essential touchstone on the nepotistic business of modern ad-funded filmmaking! at least for me
but okay, i said i wasn't gonna talk at length about the legacy of RLM so i won't anymore. i'm here to talk about this relatively recent one-off documentary of theirs, which is nominally an extension of a years-old running gag but is in actuality a very matter-of-fact conversation between adults about the role of speculative collector's markets in nerd media. they begin by discussing the news story of a Back to the Future VHS tape selling for tens of thousands of dollars on eBay, thus sparking much buzz about the potential unmined value of old tapes. this serves as a springboard for an honest to goodness investigation of the entire phenomenon: the grading process, the inferiority of VHS, what it means to collect things, and to what extant the whole damn thing is a scam. they approach this topic with all the unflinching cynicism you'd expect of the crew who melted 2,387 vintage Star Wars figures in a vat of acetone simply out of spite.
the real throughline of this video is the question "what creates value?" and their answer is what i came here to talk about. condition, scarcity, and providence are the words they come back to-- how well-preserved is the collectible, how rare is it, how much story does it have as an object? they cite Beanie Babies here, the perennial example of corporatized speculative bubbles. one thing i really appreciate is how they clearly differentiate casual collecting from the activity of speculators. there's a pernicious expectation culturally that anyone who keeps a functionally useless Old Thing (vhs tapes, action figures, trading cards) must be doing so at least in part in hopes that its value will increase over time. as someone who does collect a few Old Things i've always hated this expectation. there's a lot of stuff i used to have and sold because i didn't really have a choice economically, and honestly in most cases it left me feeling kind of dirty. i don't like the idea of a toy that never gets played with, a movie that never gets watched, a card game that never gets played. i don't want to own a thing because it might get me money later. the things i collect are collected because they represent something personal to me, much in the way the RLM guys keep and display their own collectibles.
nothing can be called valuable if you can put a dollar sign on it, in my opinion. can there be a worse fate for matter than to be transmogrified into a metaphorical lottery ticket?
oh i hate this shit. i hate how our entire goddamn economy is just a series of gambling addictions stacked up in a trench coat called "banking." let's set aside cost of living, rent, education, healthcare, etc. i resent how expensive used clothes are now, how expensive vinyl is, old lenses for outdated mounting systems, weird analog a/v equipment, and honestly just like… everything? we're living in an era of such inescapable productive stagnation and engineered obsolescence, the only place left to turn to find something built to endure is the past. the demand for that stuff (and a lack of regulatory pressure to limit resale value) means sellers raise prices exponentially, which ultimately just ends up crowding out all the poors like me who just wanted some stupid little object to put in a corner where we can look at it and feel a fleeting moment of joy between shifts at the Food Pyramid. like i know this isn't A Big Problem but it fucking gets to me. everything old is expensive, everything new is expensive (ESPECIALLY if it's worth the money), and all the while we're just drowning in subscription services that treat every individual bank account like an oil field they've got mineral rights to. voting with your wallet doesn't make a lick of fucking difference when drainage enters the equation. god damned capitalists see a nickel changing hands and want a dime for each finger it touched. i made a video some years ago about all the Halo collectibles i had at the time and how conflicted they left me as i got older. i've all but removed the bookshelf from my recent essays because it just feels weird to me. the collection lingering softly behind you in a youtube video serves the same base function as a framed diploma at a doctor's office, which is… a little bit disquieting? i don't like that the only qualification that seems to matter in the world of media analysis is, functionally, how much money you have. but then that's true for becoming a doctor as well, isn't it. i guess it is kind of true of everything now. so yeah, the fact that RLM share both my enjoyment of collecting and my resentment towards most collectors means a lot to me. makes me feel slightly less psychotic
the big gimmick here is that they get a handful of tapes professionally graded (including a fake one just to see what happens), one of which is a copy of the wretched 80s b-movie Nukie. this is the aforementioned years-long running gag, a film that's been sent to them hundreds of times that they hadn't bothered to watch until producing this video. contending that this makes them owners of the largest private Nukie collection on earth, they proceed to put every single copy they own into a wood chipper to inflate the tape's perceived value ahead of listing their final, graded tape on eBay. i love this. i love this so much. generally i love how often the RLM guys destroy shit. in a world where everything is wrapped in plastic and rated for inevitable resale, there's immense catharsis in simply smashing something into worthlessness. we could use a lot more of that in some slightly more consequential arenas of human existence, imo
the tape sold for $80,600 and the proceeds were all donated to charity. that's awesome. but i wonder to what extent this whole episode works as an experiment. it certainly proves that you can create value where none ought to exist, though i think they should have listed a second Nukie tape without publicizing it like a week before releasing this vid just to have a control sample to compare from. but what i keep asking myself is, did destroying all those tapes ACTUALLY increase the speculative value of Nukie? it's not like they were in circulation before, and certainly the RLM guys had no intention of selling them down the line. the purpose of the wood chipper stunt is to create scarcity, but that scarcity only really exists in the narrative of Nukie as a running joke in RLM's videography. you're not bidding on the tape because it's the last, you're bidding on it because it's a funny joke from a youtube video. and that's providence, right? of course all that context imbues this worthless object with a parasocial value, it's the same thing as bidding on a prop from a movie you like.
but what kind of kills it for me as a proper experiment is that they explicitly say "we're donating the proceeds to charity." of course people are going crawl over each other to bid higher on this thing now, the internet LOVES seeing big numbers go to good causes. on the one hand, that's more providence. all of this is part of the mythos. whoever won the bid got plastic trash in exchange for giving RLM an $80k tax writeoff, which i think is hilarious. but that's precisely what pushes it into the realm of a stunt for me, rather than the proper experiment the rest of the vid puts a lot of effort into setting up, because our guys are very much pressing their thumbs on the scale. which, you know, i'm not REALLY complaining about this. anything they listed would sell for a lot, and i think we all know the aspiring VHS speculative bubble is a pile of shit. it doesn't need to be proven even faux-scientifically. but if we just seclude ourselves in the self-contained universe of this one video on its own, i feel like the stunt of the tape auction eclipses and maybe even undermines a lot of what came before. would it have been better if they'd held onto that now more-scarce graded tape with the intention of auctioning it off for charity someday at an unspecified date? for me, maybe yes. but of course everything you'd do to avoid unduly influencing the results of the auction ultimately results in giving less money to charity. i dunno. i don't even know if i'm complaining about anything at this point. i just know i've watched this video twice (once when it released, once last night because i was bored) and both times i found myself feeling somehow vaguely uneasy by the end. what does that mean? does it mean anything? supposedly it's my job to figure that out, but here i am at the end of this review and i've come no closer to really resolving it. maybe i am just unfairly cynical about youtubers doing charity.
in any event, i think this Nukie vid is an excellent example of what makes RLM special at their best. if you want a much more pure, personal, and distilled exploration of this emotion but filtered through the realm of memes stolen by corporations, definitely check out RLM's Dick the Birthday Boy: The Legacy Continues. anyway it's a good video so go watch it
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eziojensenthe3rd · 2 months ago
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Midnight Gaming: Cult Following
So I played Borderlands 3 last night, checked socials later to find.... Atari have announced for winter the 7800+, a new version of the old console.
So Borderlands is a series i've followed for a bit, having played since the 1st game which was a bit a chore to get through. Most of that game was fighting bandits and wildlife for 80% while traipsing through the brownest scrapyards in the galaxy. Its
In my opinion the worst borderlands in the whole series... and my most completed game of them all. Funny how that works.
So starting in Borderlands 3, I found a legendary grenade mod in one of the first vending machines you come across. I did the quest of fixing the vending machine for marcus and I find the legendary pistol infinity in a red chest... all before I even met the twins at the broadcast center... hmmmm I'm sure this wont devalue the excitement of finding a legendary in this game.
One of the biggest complaints you'll hear about borderlands 3 is that the writing is... awful... cringe... tries too hard to be funny. I think its because there was a push to make sure everyones line of dialogue had to be somewhat "funny". Its like the awkward kid who thinks people will like them if they're funny but they dont know how to be funny, so they just mimic characters they've seen that they think are funny in the hopes people will find them funny.
The Calypso Twins aren't great villians. Yeah everyone felt they were weak as antagionists. Infact thats something that the borderlands series has an issue with, they only had 1 great villian in the whole franchise, Handsome Jack. He was a narcissist, megalomaniacal, sociopathic jackass who will mock you in the early game and dehumanise you as a bandit. He very much hypes himself up as the saviour of pandora, destined to cleanse pandora of its bandit crisis which to him, is everyone on pandora who isnt groveling to him. He taunts you with glee as he watches you fall into his plan but then afterwards when you've assaulted the "bunker", you manage to land a serious blow against him, and he stops mocking you, instead makes it clear he wants you to suffer. His psychotic tendencies come out, unmasked, as he calmly tells you that once he awakens "The Warrior" he is going to go after everyone you've ever known before killing you himself, all in retalition to what you dared to him.
Jack was memorable, hateable and there hasnt been a single antagionist to match that level of vitriol. Steele in the first game didnt do much other than a couple of messages and dying at the end. Knoxx from the 1st games dlc was more interesting as an antagionist given how much he suffered under such incompetent, nepotistic leaders. The presequel had Zarpodon who was more of an anti-villian  and at the very least, a neat contrast to jacks descent in that game. The Twins just acted like cocky "haha funny, please laugh" kind of characters that dont have much beyond being sirens. But to gearbox's credit, the general idea of the main antagionists being based on streamers is actually a pretty neat idea.
Given the influence that a lot of online personalities have nowadays, with roving masses of fans supporting, villians who were influencers were a pretty great idea for an antagionist in the borderlands series. Just a straight up  literal cult of bandits who sees themselves as a family, supporting their "godqueen" as they wage galactic war on her behalf. Yeah that wouldve been a great way to explore aspects of streamer culture and even a bit on toxic family culture. Unfortunatly they didnt really manage to realise that fully and insteasd the Calypsos were just underwhelming.
So is there anything good about Borderlands 3? Yeah its hands down the best playing borderlands game. The combat in game feels more active compared to previous entries, I used to just stay behind cover and aim for weakpoints, occasionally using an action skill but in 3? I moved around a lot more and played more aggressively and I enjoyed that. The guns feel at their best with the unique gun quirks being fun to play with. And the skill trees? The fact you can choose from different action skills rather than just one with going down the skill tree opening up addons that can add more effects to your action skill and that the vault hunters in this being the most mechanically interesting. Yeah no this is honestly the best borderlands in spite of the dialogue and story.
And you can solve the dialogue problem in some way, you can look up on what files you need to remove to get rid of the dialogue on pc or you can just go into settings and turn the dialogue volume and subtitles  off and prepare to wait a bit during some sections.
Hopefully Borderlands 4 ends up playing just as well if not better than 3 and the dialogue becomes a lot more bearable and less trying to be funny... because the only thing thats funny is the movies rotten tomatoes score.
Anyway onto news. The entity that is currently puppetting the corpse of Atari has announced a new version of the 7800 for winter 2024: the atari 7800+.
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So you know how Nintendo released the NES Classic and it created a whole boom of mini consoles aimed at exploiting nostalgia? It was pretty big withb a number of stuff like the psone classic, a c64 mini and even a small dos pc that can play the oregon trail. Nowadays thats died down though something does come along to try and capitalise on nostalgia again. But at the very least this one looks to have a bit more to it.
For one it comes with a wireless controller for your use, a new game for the console with the news that more games are coming soon and that the console works with any 7800 game along with any 2600 games. So if you're interested in retro gaming, I guess you might be interested.
Thank you all for reading. Wont be a post tomorrow as i'm going out tonight. Feel free to leave feedback or game suggestions, anons are currently on.
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deviantartdramahub · 4 months ago
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Their comments were removed, but someone asked me if I could clarify my association with the forums as implied before. I was once an avid user of the forums. However, there was a lot of culture shock, and I left after this same culture shock got me banned from a number of other places.
In the pinned post here, there's a list of ten commandments called the ten e-cepts. Due to a need to be concise, they're written in the style of a first century philosopher, which means you're supposed to emphasize subtext a lot, and one of the decrees implies (via subtext) a site is the property of its maker and those rightfully appointed by them.
This I can get down with. So it goes without saying what I can get down with a lot less are people (who are obsessed with the individual whose suspension after all their harasser friends harassing everyone here got banned cements in place the modly power of the DeviantArtDramaHub mod who can verify herself), especially ones whose accounts are the means of ban evading by people who were forum-banned at the time so they can perpetuate the very culture people fear, comparing the managers of a venue to tyrannies who commit atrocities like autonomy theft when they could be doing something more fitting than being nepotistic like like worrying about the recent mass panic or doing the forbidden dance now that their account says "forbidden" (yeah that would be more productive). Entitled much?
Think about it. Among the most disliked individuals, even the likes of Triagonal (and Club-Dreamiverse, and to think they're after these two as they gain footing, I wonder why) never complained (as opposed to just talking about it) about being punished/banned/whatever even though she spoke about such things a lot, or made spammy feudal exchanges jabbing personal details about people (yo, can someone like Tri post a temple garment selfie without someone blowing up about tradition). But you got the other side of the spectrum here, people like Foruminator/Threadhoster who get hit once and suddenly they're a like FIFA player.
I can't wait for the full animalmageddon (Druid69 doesn't count despite what people say) because my very last hope for the place was RogueStarDemon before I saw he's a deviant.
I see you're starting to say "like" a lot like me, albeit differently due to your native language.
Both the thread closing and the suspension hold the same source, as well as a ban.
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vespertinesbaby · 1 year ago
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reflections on roxanne byob
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I dined at Roxanne's on Wednesday, September 6th 2023 with my dear friend JJ. The tasting menu was $95. It was a very strange dining experience indeed. Some of the food was good but it was all very odd. Nonsensical herbal pairings and gelatinous cheese. Pictured above is the cheesesteak tartlet (left) and the fluke (right). They really set the stage for the entire meal. RE: the cheesesteak, I just feel like not every single fucking restaurant in this fucking city needs to give their take on a cheesesteak. This was gross. RE: the fluke, this was very light and simple and yummy. If any dish on the menu was reminiscent of Björk's Vespertine (2001), it was this one. These two as the opening dishes set the stage for the entire meal, a bizarre oscillatory journey through Holt's attempt to deconstruct fine dining. She's the only one in the kitchen, the only one making all of the dishes. It is fun and unapologetically feminine (see cute animal wall). I'm not sure how good the food is.
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As an artist there always exists a propensity toward megalomania. You begin with a creative spirit and don’t know how to direct it and then you learn how to create in a variety of artistic communities. You meet people you love and you meet people you hate and you laugh and you cry and you are pushed to the limits of your being. You begin to see structures and hierarchies in whichever community you become a part of and wonder how you would do things differently if you were in charge. There is too much collaboration, too much attention given to stupid and/or cruel people because of whatever nepotistic journey they embarked on years before you ever considered yourself an artist. You have your own ideas and they can’t be executed wherever you are. So you decide to go it alone. And you’re free and you are again pushed to the limits of your being.
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But the problem is that the feat of creating something by yourself, undertaking some Sisyphean task, far outshines whatever it is that has actually been created. You are one person serving as director, actor, choreographer, costume designer, stage manager, conductor – an entire production resting in your hands. Or more like gripped in your fist with white knuckles, your fingernails leaving indents on your palm and the tension in your muscles visible to any observer. Yes, maybe you do need to escape for a time and see if you can do it on your own, or else a part of you will always resent your collaborators. But there comes a point where you realize isolation is not the solution for the creative euphoria you seek, it’s not how you reach your magnum opus. Whoever you choose to reveal this megalomanic part of your soul to, any critiques they have will be eclipsed by their saying “Well she’s doing it all by herself, that must be so hard!”  Creative expression is a form of communication and monologuing can only get you so far.
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Don’t we want more than that? More than just impressive, more than recognizing how difficult it was to do something. I don’t want my work to be valued based on the amount of work I put in but on the actual quality of the work I produced. Being consumed by ego and having such a profound desire for control that you can’t even work with others is a path I think every artist walks down at some point. Learning how to let others back in to push your art through megalomania and back into regular mania is the next step. Other people bring out the best and the worst in us. And they give the most constructive criticism and help us grow most when they are fully involved in the creative process. Relinquishing control is an art in its own right. Maybe I'm just projecting.
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All of this is not to say that there aren’t horrible, misogynistic, abusive practices engrained into the restaurant industry. It is difficult to imagine what working at a restaurant would be like without pompous chefs and creepy managers, male coworkers commenting on your looks, brushing up against you in the kitchen, breathing down your neck. In the industry, everything is heightened, its showbiz. Everything that is there was already there, it’s just concentrated. It's service. The changes that the industry needs are the same changes our entire fucked up fascist country needs. And the way to achieve this change is not via psychotic adventurist utopian individualism. Good art isn't made in isolation, revolution isn't manufactured alone, it's all made in community.
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