#getting up on that soap box

[atopvisenyashill]

not to keep harping on but definitely the complaint i see that really sticks in my craw is that the only reason or the main reason robb planned to banish catelyn to seaguard was because of their argument over jon. it’s certainly a factor but they have spent the entire war arguing over every decision robb makes! ned tells robb “keep your mother in your council” but robb really does not! he has her there, yes, he lets her speak, yes, but oftentimes he will disregard her advice without any appeasement, misstep badly, and be worse off politically in the exact way she warned him of. she’s not the only person he blows off - he’s not exactly nice to edmure either, for example - but cat is right when she suspects there’s an element of “kings are not supposed to have mothers” and “wedded to his war" and she clocks this long before the argument over jon! robb tries to get rid of her at the beginning of a clash of kings when all cat has done is urge him to continue peaceful negotiations with the lannisters!

robb is angry because he’s in over his head and he knows it, and it's got very little to do with jon! robb is losing this war and his best friend was the son of a man who crowned himself and lost the war!! robb knows exactly what’s going to happen to the north if he loses and despite everything, he cannot seem to win despite being a near prodigy in battle tactics. and here his mother has been this whole time, fighting him on every front - just like the lords but he cant punish them for disagreeing can he? - and being so frustratingly right about more things than his lords, and now they’re picking at this wound in their family that has never been allowed to heal and a lot of resentment that both robb and catelyn are feeling at their general situation gets focused in on each other. this is such a tully thing too (pls remember these are canonically unpleasant people!) because look at lysa projecting years of resentment onto sansa, look at the entire cat, hoster, edmure situation, or even hoster & blackfish’s relationship. family is so important to them but in times of stress, “doing everything for family” becomes an anchor pulling them down, until the only thing left is to lash out at each other.

most of the lords are happy to let this nonsense play out! catelyn does not even have the privilege maege & dacey mormont do at being head of their own house - she’s just a wife, just a mother, just a first born daughter. when she disagrees, they don’t see an equal arguing with them, they see a woman sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong. they do not give a single solitary shit about like, ~the plight of bastards~ they just believe, like robb, that sansa is currently “tainted” by her marriage to a lannister and can’t be allowed to inherit, that arya is dead, that the boys are dead, that jeyne is not yet pregnant, and a bastard boy castle raised who looks like ned is better than no boy at all (see edric storm, addam of hull, and larence snow). these men have not spent the last fourteen years cooking in their resentment over this situation the way catelyn and robb have!

jon is a reason. but so is rickard karstark, jaime lannister, willem lannister, tion frey, renly baratheon, walder frey, and theon greyjoy. ned is a reason as well, and bran, sansa, rickon, arya, hoster, edmure, perhaps even lysa and sweetrobin. jon is the final straw but robb isn’t (only) sending catelyn away because of some righteous fury on his brother’s behalf! he’s sending her away because she is an easy, socially acceptable target for all his frustrations and failures and fears that he can project on, and punish, in a way he cannot punish his enemies, his lords, or himself.

and catelyn is as always very aware of the deeper motivations in her son’s mind, and resentful that she doesn’t have the power to push back; she’s just a mother, after all.

#getting on my soap box #robb stark #catelyn stark #valyrianscrolls #catelyn stark defense squad #cat/robb and ned/sansa/arya are the most interesting & realistic depictions of mother/son and father/daughter relationships send tweet #like the jon snow of it all is always relevant. but she is also right that she’s being punished for being a woman who won’t shut up. just b #some of her advice (SOME! NOT MOST!) is sketch or not good doesn’t mean they’re not punishing her. it’s not like edmure gives good advice! #but guess which tully is sent away!!!!!! edmure gets to have flaws. he gets to be wrong. catelyn does not. #motherhood #mothers and sons #gender politics in asoiaf

[jasper-pagan-witch]

Jasper Thoughts: Difference

Anyway, in light of the post that Tired Monday Jasper made last night, I want to reiterate something: It's good if your magic, religion, or practice is different.

The more we break the mold of "what magic looks like", the more we don't have to end up with 300 identical pseudo-Wiccan witchcraft books being the only thing available in print.

The more we break the mold of "all magic is witchcraft", the less we get of white people preaching about how "everyone's secretly a witch" (which is a dangerous claim where I live, given what politicians are in power here).

The more we break the mold of "what works for me has to work for you", then more resources will be available to people who can't do that whole "visualization-smoke cleansing-pray to a god-worship the moon" routine.

Don't be afraid to try things, to make things up, to just...do whatever. Find what works for you, even and especially if it doesn't work for other people. Make your practice yours.

#jasper post #jasper thoughts #personal #jasper gets up on a soap box

[toshio]

Dude why are you so pressed about my ask? My point is that you’re manipulating your photos even if just angles and lighting and yes you see results from push ups everyday but those results don’t outweigh the long-term damage it does to your body. You don’t see it now because you’re still in your 20’s. But the advice you give is dangerous and is going to hurt people. Those people on youtube get the same criticism because they’re giving terrible advice with inflated results.

i’m not pressed over your ask, however i think you clearly are if you’re still sending me long angry messages on anonymous instead of coming out of hiding and having a civilized conversation with me.

my main frustration with your original message was the false accusation that my photos were edited, as if i have the time to literally import my iphone camera selfies into photoshop and alter my physical appearance to look more muscular than i really am.

anyway, doing pushups is a great exercise that requires no equipment or gym. to anyone reading this, if you want to start your fitness journey and develop a chest, i think it’s a great start. i don’t know why this anonymous person in particular is so pressed and vehemently against simple & effective home workouts (some people can’t afford gym memberships so i think this is a great solution) but i hope they find peace. LOL

#btw always do your research and don’t listen to random people online. especially on anonymous #the fact that this person is anonymous gives them 0 credentials i’m sorry LOL #like unless this person comes out of hiding and fully gives us proof that they’re some paid fitness guru… #idk why people wanna get on their soap box when they’re sending anonymous asks to people on tumblr like 😭 #and i forgot to mention yes working out in general tires your body out #pretty much everything in life you do has risks #like idk what their point is #try looking up stuff about pushups being bad for you online because i can’t find anything #like yeah working out will make you sore…that’s the whole point 😭

[pollinatedpansy]

Just a random FYI to anyone who cares, I'm a weird little gender anarchist trans freak thing and if you have any attraction to me that makes you gay (blanket term) regardless of who you are, hope that helps 😁

For anyone who wants to feel my wrath/understand what the fuck I'm talking about please read the tags, you should get the jist 💕

#terfs can suck my dick thanks #being enby is like not being enough but also being too much at the same time #im not trans enough for some of my trans counterparts #but at the same time im too much for them #and ofc there are the cis people who think my identiy and existence is too complicated and too political #and dont get me started on the cis people who think im just “woman lite” or whatever bullshit they make up to make themselves feel better #IM A WEIRD AGENDER TRANS FREAK THING THANKS #to anyone and everyone who actually sees me for who i am. thank you #to anyone snd everyone who cannot get it through your thick skulls who and what i am. go take a gender studies class #if i have to get back on this soap box again im gonna start chasing people with my wizard staff while throwing dubia roaches at them

[magg0t-bible]

Why There's No Bartosz in the Origin World: A Calculated Infodump

So I know there were a few people who were upset about the fact that Aleksander and Regina's relationship didn't make it to the Origin World despite both of them still existing without time travel. I've also seen some people who said they felt bad for Bartosz because he didn't make it to the Origin World even though his birth wasn't the result of time travel. But after some careful consideration (read: hyperfixation go brrrr), I think I've come to a fairly logical conclusion about why this is the case. Originally, I thought that Aleksander and Regina only met because Aleksander pulled a gun on Ulrich to stop him from bullying Regina, and that event no longer happens with Ulrich out of existence. But there's more than that, and in this essay I will here is my explanation.

In season 2, when Clausen is interrogating Aleksander about the disappearance of his brother, the real Aleksander Kohler, he mentions that his brother disappeared "without a trace. Nothing." When someone in Dark disappears without a trace, nothing, we can pretty safely assume that time travel is to blame. Clausen assumes that his brother is dead and suspects "Aleksander" (Boris) of being the guilty party, but the disappearance happened in Marburg, not Winden, so we don't see it play out. It could be a Mikkel situation (taking on a new identity and a new life in a different time), or a Mads/Erik/Yasin situation (he just died and his body was dumped God knows when).

The letter that Clausen receives tipping him off about travelling to Winden to get answers about his brother's disappearance would at this point likely be presumed to have been written by Claudia. But after the events of season 3, it's much more likely to have been written by The Unknown, for 3 main reasons:

First, it includes the same quote ("he who has eyes to see and ears to hear...") that The Unknown says to Gustav Tannhaus before murdering him in 1888,

second, the handwriting on the letter matches the handwriting used by The Unknown when he writes the notebook,

and third, the motherfucker knows everything. Everything about what happens in both worlds, at every time, and is constantly catapulting between timelines murdering everyone in his way to make sure those events keep happening. (Though it remains unclear whether or not he knew there was a third world.)

So with this information under our belts, there's a pretty strong theory that The Unknown fabricated the Marburg incident to look like a murder and to make Boris Niewald look like the guilty party, which would lead to the following chain of events: Boris changes his name to Aleksander > he flees his past and comes to Winden > he meets Regina > the two of them get married and have Bartosz.

Keeping Bartosz in existence definitely would've been in The Unknown's best interest as Bartosz needed to produce Noah, the perpetrator of many of the Adam's World disappearances, and Agnes, who the Unknown would get with in both worlds to produce Tronte, and the Nielsen loop would continue.

So ultimately, in a world without time travel, Aleksander Kohler never disappeared, and the other events subsequently didn't occur. Boris Niewald never changed his name, he never fled to Winden, he never met Regina....and they never had Bartosz. (Yes, the writers could've come up with another reason for Boris to come to Winden and meet Regina which could've yielded Regina Niewald and Bartosz Niewald, but based on the way everything was set up, it would've required an explanation and I'm not sure such an explanation could fit into the dinner scene without being hamfisted).

I won't lie, I was pretty sad about losing Bartosz as he was my second favourite character behind Claudia (who thankfully made it), and he was the one member of the teen generation I really thought would survive. But if you can come up with a way for him to still exist, by all means, write a fix-it fic. That's what they're for. (Some good examples can be found in this post by @haljathefangirlcat)

#garden of eden #dark netflix #dark spoilers #dark s3 spoilers #bartosz tiedemann #aleksander tiedemann #regina tiedemann #thank you all for allowing my autistic ass to get up on my soap box and scream about my silly little show once more #though this post is hella long so I doubt it'll pop off as much as my 'Jonas and Martha are Marek and Sonja' revelation

[bitchfitch]

I've been trying to find the post i originally made this image for for Days but I'm officially giving up and just posting it again. It's their old designs but this is still how they stack up against each other and like, a taller than average person.

#Aetius being fucking Big is 90% of the humor in its vibe. The fucker can look you in the eye and then rear up to be twice your height #It Still does the 'im just a little baby guy! just an itty bitty kitten' thing #but it does it while being crush hazard sized #Serapis never gets why people treat him like hes the dangerous one. #like he Is the better fighter but if you didn't see them fight you couldn't know that. #Aetius is a lion who can calculate orbital paths in its head Its Not like. Not Dangerously. #its turbo dangerous. its smart enough to be able to treat finding you like a fun puzzle box #Its the type of fucker who would have multiple phds and its middle paws are the size of dinner plates. #It Will Fuck You Up. #It exclusively uses its intelligence and strength to get into the pantry and eat soap. #its a bastard kitty cat first and foremost

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

Man those people on your ‘why are you straight edge’ poll are really showing their disdain for people who engage with any sort of drug… if I may add, I voted for having a medical restriction (my liver is failing thank youuuu immune system) AND I also take prescription opiate medication to help with pain. Every time I take my painkillers on days where I’m not working so that I can enjoy my hobbies I have complicated feelings about it because anti opiate rhetoric is just EVERYWHERE and it’s like… I just want to have a nice day. Getting over the ‘oh but it can be ADDICTIVE’ stigma is so important and it’s really not different just because I have a prescription. People who are so nasty about drug use for recreation are so stressful to me.

Ikr it's like people have such disdain for addicts, and drug users in general. I get upset about this because while I personally am a very casual user and I spend most of the time sober and am self assured so I can walk people being dicks about it off, but I know addicts and their lives are hard enough without all the stigma piled on top of it. I just wish everyone could be addiction neutral and pro harm reduction but they're so moralistic about it. I wasnt the politest I could have been about people not drinking and having sex because I was trying to keep it light and I know people take things like this really serious and it kinda backfired.

But like I totally know what you mean about the opioid thing. I really think that our society could benefit from being a little more addiction neutral, because yeah sometimes substance dependency does ruin your life, but I'm neurodivergent and I've met people where I think that doing life with drugs is better for them. Like you raise a great point about opioids. They're dangerous and addictive but if you're in pain because of a disability you need pain management. It's not really an option if you want to lead a normal life. There's a lot of heroin addicts who got that way because they needed pain management and their doctors refused them on the basis that they might become addicted, but taking a daily pill to improve your life, while it may be illegal depending on the substance, isn't bad. I bring up my own neurodivergence because I've heard of the same thing with ADHD and stimulants. Most people who have an ADHD diagnosis can get an Adderall prescription, but undiagnosed people and people falling through insurance cracks will sometimes turn to the street version. And it's like those people, both the ones with a script and the ones who are self medicating, should not be forced to live a substandard life because of someone else imagines there's some purity to a life without drugs. The goal should be to get those people the drugs they need in the safest way possible.

And I come down really easy, to the point where I forget to take prescription meds and don't experience any ill effects, but I have a friend who experiences a come down from their adhd meds thats not unlike the comedown ive seen from my other friend who's a meth user, and this friend with the ADHD meds can't function without them. But when the doctor and the pharmacist get them their meds on time they live a perfectly happy fulfilling life. That's what I mean when I say I'm addiction neutral. Most people who get addicted didn't just pick up heroin or whatever one day for shits and giggles. When I fuck around with "highly addictive" substances I make sure I'm in a good place and it's not a problem to drop them. People who develop problems are usually either they're escaping from something or self medicating. The goal for society can't be to never do drugs we've had drugs literally for longer than we've been humans.

I've heard second hand of a study which I haven't gone looking for, I might, because as you can tell this is a bit of a soap box for me, where they gave Heroin addicts a prescribed dose of heroin like you would pick up Percocet for chronic pain at a pharmacy, and because those addicts weren't shooting up mystery amounts and worrying where they were going to get their next hit from so they didn't start rattling and all the other things that make addicts lives hell, they were able to start doing things like holding down jobs. That study should have been a game changer. I want addicts to be able to live, and selfishly I want to be able to go to the drug store when I'm bored and say "one mdma high no fentanyl please" and leave with something to spice up the afternoon. That's like, not a moral failing on my part even though I'm not self medicating I'm just having fun.

The way the war on drugs has ruined drugs, which like, genuinely drugs are sort of magical when you think about it. Not just the fun ones either. Like when I was a baby I had a really bad bladder infection that absolutely would have killed me if I had had that same situation just like 100 years ago, but my mom was able to force a pill down my throat and it went away. Since then I've probably had at least a dozen little things like that that would have killed me dead if someone hadn't invented a chemical that could interact with my body and make it genuinely not a problem. and the fact that we have that for things like chronic pain and we're too afraid to use it because of stigma is so insane. Like god forbid people get high.

#drug posting. #my soap box #im sorry you activated my trap card anon #this isnt even getting into how hallucinogens can be a genuinely spiritual experience. #not everyone can do them obviously ive had some people on that poll who said their doc told them not to smoke weed due to a family history. #...of schizophrenia and that totally makes sense brains are weird and you wouldn't want to fuck up the chemical balance if its precarious #but also I can do them and i really really like them #i talked to Yuggsothoth and i want to do it again some day #i think thats beautiful #like people have used hallucinogens in Religious ceremonies for centuries and i understand why #what is the reason to take that away? other than bigotry?

[slu-tea-ftm]

...Dude, this is fucking Grindr, I didn't come here for a perspective lesson.

Bro really saw my profile and decided to play teacher.

#if another trans guy messaged me like “hey! i'd like to hook up with you but i don't like the term ”eating out“ when talking about myself” #i'd be like “okay so what do you prefer then? i don't want to make you uncomfortable” #LIKE NORMAL ADULTS WHO COMMUNICATE SHOULD FUCKING DO #“eueueughhh but the cis men!! the cis men will think it's okay to say it because you did!!!” okay?? #not my fucking problem they can't/don't want to communicate with their partner(s) #this has no business getting me as fired up as it does...it's Grinder ffs... #on my soap box again #me and my soap box

[scythemichaelfaraday]

I wanted to clarify something because I’ve gotten some interesting anons from people after I made a certain post.

I personally don’t like Jimmy, but that’s because his character triggers me in a lot of ways, but I do not think anyone should be bullied or fucking harassed over liking him or shipping him with Johnny (or whoever), or relating with him or making art of him. I’m not gonna go out of my way to disrupt other people’s fun. The joys of unlearning what is “socially acceptable”.

Because at the end of the day it’s all fiction and as long as it’s not hurting yourself or other people, it doesn’t matter. It’s all pain food. Feast.

#jthm #johnny the homicidal maniac #im sorry for who I was when I was younger and getting into other peoples business #I’ve since learned to just give a thumbs up and move on #also I’m not gonna make a whole post about it but I do apologize for that post #I literally should know better as someone who copes in maladaptive ways myself what that can look like #also sorry for putting this in the main tags… im not like trying to soap box or anything #I know that my relationship with this fandom is… a clusterfuck and my opinion does not matter in the end 😂 #but like I hate seeing people get harassed for shit

[atopvisenyashill]

i was thinking more about characters Performing Gender, but not necessarily Transgressing Gender. I wound up focusing on Ned and Sansa bc I feel like I understand them the most but-

Sansa as a hostage is imo the most obvious (bc it’s so well done) moment of someone clearly Performing Gender but not being transgressive in that performance. Which isn’t to say it’s not a complicated performance; it’s a fine line Sansa walks between weaponizing her gender to protect herself without seeming too fake. She’s trying to placate the Lannisters by playing the perfect, dedicated, air headed betrothed because it’s the only defense she has - if she outwardly rebels, she will be punished in a likely violent and/or sexual way (which isn’t even conjecture - when she says “or maybe he’ll give me yours” Joffrey has her struck with an armored hand). She’s not quite successful in being convincing but that’s because it’s a rather extreme situation; despite no one believing her, she does make herself seem meek and stupid enough that no one suspects she’s plotting to escape with Dontos until she’s well away from KL. The fact that she even has Dontos to confide in is because of Sansa’s relationship with gender! When she saves him, she covers her rebellious slip by playing up Joffrey’s intelligence & his role as King; she reaches for “tools” of her gender AND of ~proper manhood~ to save a life and herself from another beating. Her retreats into the godswood and silence are very much Sansa attempting to recharge from these draining interactions, the same way a knight would need to stop and eat and rest after a fight. She is fighting, constantly, by forcing herself to stay within the narrow confines of a specific type of gender performance as a way of shielding herself from harm.

Ned yelling at Cat is another big one, and I’ve seen the scene referred to as Ned using his patriarchal power to scare Cat, which is a great description. It feels like a Performance because Ned is putting on this terrifying Lord Stark mask in an attempt to get Catelyn to stop asking about Jon (and Lyanna). This is not how he usually acts with those he loves! When Ned is with His People, he is welcoming of questions, curiosity, emotion, even transgressive thought (to a point! the idea that Ned is a feminist because he lets Arya learn to fight is Not accurate but you can’t deny he allows significantly more flexibility wrt gender expression than most of the fathers we meet in this series. the bar is in hell tho). Yet when Cat asks him about Jon’s mother, Ned scares her so well she stops asking & still remembers the moment bitterly over a decade later. And if that snippet we see through Bran’s eyes of Ned praying that Cat will forgive him does come after she asks (like it’s suspected), it’s clear not only that this is a performance he’s putting on & weaponizing against Cat, it’s one he does not like using as a weapon against someone he is close to. After using the power his gender gives him to cause harm, he retreats to the godswood and silence to pray and rest, much like Sansa. A spiritual cleanse, the way a soldier may pray after battle, to reset and reconnect Being A Proper Man to Being A Kind Man.

I think there’s something interesting in that two of the characters most widely defined by how well they adhere to Westerosi gender norms both dislike feeling like they had to weaponize their gender. They are exhausted by the performance, because it’s a performance. This isn’t Sansa getting excited over tourneys, or Ned teaching his sons to fight; it’s toxic masculinity, it’s structural misogyny. It’s something they’re good at, excel at, and connected to something they enjoy but when it’s paired with violence, whether done by Ned or done to Sansa, it crosses over in their minds from an innate part of themselves (The Gender) to a performance necessary due to survival (The Gender Role). And that after these performances, both retreat to nature & god as a way of resting and cleansing from the experience.

#valyrianscrolls #ned stark #sansa stark #getting on my soap box #there’s something here too about romanticism. like shelley and coleridge and whitman. the need to return to nature to undo society’s harm. #especially with the way various romance movements and romantic tropes are played with by their characters. #i can’t even remember who said it which just shows u how shitty an english major i am aksjd but about how. #like society is necessary but just as necessary is the ability to escape into nature. i *think* it was coleridge i’m probably wrong. #the gender war makes corpses of us all #gender politics in asoiaf #obviously you can point to several moments for both of them. sansa calling petyr father. ned’s relationship with theon. wherein they both #are clearly performing something for an audience. #there’s like 12 other branches of this in my head. jaime’s romanticism. being knighted bloody & the sacrilegious nature of the sept sex. #and his inability to escape his gender performance the way ned & sansa do. ned being willing to cry in front of others but robb only ever #crying in the dark with his baby brother after he loses ned. cat’s tower stuff & finding solace in sewing. #i’m gonna try to write up something about loras & renly here too. tomorrow. #also i wrote this at the train station after work so if there’s errors or it makes no sense just pretend u never saw it skskdj

[lesenbyan]

getting really fucking tired of tumblr getting all personal and heated about the lighthearted 2 option poll of the week

#there's not a right answer!! it's fucking opinion!!! stop trying to fucking soap box!! #people are allowed to think different things!! #like yeah some people are doing it as a joke but it's indistinguishable from the people doing it for real and I swear to GOD #my dash is about to get so fucking slow when i get fed up enough to start unfollowing for shit #calm the fuck down #personal; #and if anyone's about to come at me abt this; just block me bc I'll just block you #it is literally giving me Super Anxiety bc the part of me that has issues with unreality has issues with this shit #and I can't do anything about that

[downtherabbitholewithlucy]

“I was 12 years old when I started playing guitar and I mowed lots of lawns. I still haven’t gotten good. I’m not a good musician. That’s why I wear what I wear on stage to cover up for why I’m such a terrible guitar player. So they’ll [the audience] go “Oh look, look what he’s wearing!” and they just go “Look how, look how weird that guy looks!” and then, and then they go “Wait a minute, we didn’t even check if he was playing.” ” 

- Wes Borland

________________________________________________________

SPIN Magazine: Why create such an elaborate spectacle?

Borland: It’s like ritualistic war paint I’m the cherry on top, the sore thumb that makes the band stick out. I don’t fit in and that’s just what makes it work. I don’t think I can ever go back to wearing normal clothes on stage. It’s totally a mask, something to hide behind. It’s really easy to get confidence when people aren’t looking at what you are in the mirror every day. I get self-conscious. And if I can shroud my whole body behind a façade. I feel great knowing there’s a shield to deflect any humiliation I might feel. 

________________________________________________________

Guitar.com: You tend to wear bizarre costumes onstage and those wild, black contact lenses. What's the deal with that?

Borland: It just covers me up as much as possible so I don't ever have to ever show all of myself. I've always been into collecting masks and wearing masks onstage. It's more fun for me because I draw and do a lot of art work in the band. It just makes it more fun to be able to do it on myself just to try to turn myself into different characters. To look like an alien or something. I think it makes it more fun for fans too.

Guitar.com: Do you enjoy being a celebrity?

Borland: [Our singer] Fred [Durst] loves it. But I just don't think I'll ever be able to understand the whole human being worship aspect of it. People going, "Man, you're a guitar god," and I go, "Where?" And I'm glad that I'm making an impact on some people's lives, but I'm the kind of person who would rather be respected for what I'm doing than who I am. The masks and costumes are a way of avoiding all of that.

________________________________________________________

The Believer: Did you always dress up onstage?

Borland: Yes. I went to an arts high school, and had always been interested in sculpture and painting and drawing. Guitar kind of became a hobby of mine, and I had seen David Bowie and Kiss and Alice Cooper and Marilyn Manson—even GWAR—and so when I started playing in garage bands I started doing little things onstage that were nothing more than a mask or minor makeup, because the stage seemed like such an opportunity to do something outrageous. And it kept growing and growing and growing. When Limp got signed, that changed my aspirations from being in fine art. Being a musician was the job I didn’t expect, and I ended up going, “How can I incorporate this?”

The Believer: By the time we saw you on MTV, you had incorporated it. The makeup was not minor.

Borland: Well, I was bored. There’s so much downtime on tour. I ended up going around and finding thrift stores and costume shops in towns, spending whatever per diem or money I had on makeup and lipstick, and I started putting outfits together. And as the band gained more success—like, suddenly I didn’t have to carry anything or tune my guitars—I had more resources for stage outfits, and I started thinking about the show all the time.

The Believer: On TV you seem to have two personas. The polite, uncomfortable guy on camera feels different than the bunny monster, whose energy is both very aggressive and very engaged.

Borland: It’s what allows me to have that power. And I’ve noticed that the more elaborate the costumes got over the years, the more they developed into characters, the more I felt like someone else. It’s like pulling on a shirt, but having the Superman symbol underneath. There is also a very different character I have in Black Light Burns, my other band. I grow my hair and mustache out, and wax the mustache and then paint it on even bigger. I’ll wear period clothing that looks like Bill the Butcher. But in that band I’m the singer, so I don’t wear any contact lenses, because I feel that takes the audience away from me. When my eyes are dead and black-looking, I lose a connection with people who are looking at the singer to connect with the band, so I won’t do that.

The Believer: How did your bandmates feel about playing hard rock/ rap with someone dressed like a vanilla gorilla?

Borland: At first I tried to get the other guys to dress up, too, but they didn’t want to do it, so that sort of became the thing in Limp Bizkit—you’ve got a bunch of guys who look like normal dudes, and then one guy who dresses like a space alien or a zombie. But soon I started getting into more-serious art and artists, then started going to the opera. I went to The Damnation of Faust that the L.A. Opera put on, like, eight years ago, and was just thrilled by the costumes. So I started researching opera-costume makers and stage makeup, and it just built and built.

The Believer: Your costumes never seem to connote just one thing, like one thing that’s scary, one thing that’s ironic. What comes to mind right now is the Technicolor lounge-singer phantom who’s not wearing any pants.

Borland: Oh, yeah! The prom outfit. The hair for that is made of feathers. But all the characters come from what effect I want to put out. That’s the main thing: everything onstage has to make me feel, in some way, tapped into this little-boy thing, where I want to be a superhero or I want to be a warrior. I want to be filled with all this energy that comes from tricking myself into thinking that I’m more powerful than I am, or have more confidence than I would be capable of in normal clothes. It’s just becoming a monster in some way, and that helps me go out in front of ten thousand people and act like I own the place.

#i will never stop being fascinated by his abundance of creativity #people like wes that are so creative in many different forms and the things they come up with from their inspirations and imagination #are so interesting to me #and his reasoning behind it all is so honest and genuine. I feel like a lot of people can relate to it #but unfortunately most people slap on the freak or weird label and moving on before giving themselves the chance to really understand and #realize that they can relate to a thought process such as this #anyways i'll get off my soap box now #i just want an ounce of wes' creativity #Wes Borland #Limp Bizkit #nu-metal #Black Light Burns #down the rabbit hole

[sequesteredbhaalspawn]

I really want to make an all encompassing post at some point on how Larian fails at writing evil (in bg3) and two other all encompassing posts about how they failed at writing Viconia and Sarevok in particular. That isn't what this post is going to be, but I just need to air some things out for myself.

LIKE if you take all of the trauma that the bg3 companions have and combined them into one character, you have Viconia. And if you put in the effort to help her become a better person- becoming true neutral in alignment (the same alignment as Jeheira btw), you really get to see all of that. And yes it takes until the end of Throne of Bhaal to do, and it is actual work. You have to try, and keep at it, and it;s hard. It's not "just say nice things and then good things happen" there are a lot of ups and downs and unlearning of toxic behaviors that Viconia goes through. It takes time. It it's so rewarding to see her reach that.

I've said my piece on Seravok before. BUT I think it's extremely fucked they took such a nuanced antagonist, someone who killed a person your player characters is suppose to love (if you think they see that person as family) and you can still reach out to him, help him. make see how he was wrong and how it hurt him and the people he loved. get his alignment to change from chaotic evil all the way to chaotic good. But then Larian makes a black man who is incestuous and very abusive to his extremely white looking daughter/granddaughter. It's just so awful. I hated seeing it so much. Like seriously- why the fuck did they do that? It makes no sense. And I do think it's important to point out Sarevok being black. Larian treat the black characters in bg3 rather poorly. It's racist. Doesn't matter if they did it intentionally or not. If anyone is a black fan I would love to read any addition you'd want to add to this post.

They also just get so much wrong about this character? He was never a Bhaal worshiper. He wanted to use his situation of being a Bhaalspawn to obtain godhood. And this self distributive path is what causes Tamako to leave him. Because she knew she was going to loose him anyways if he didn't stop. And then he got into a new relationship where his new parent encourage his self destruction and benefited from it. Post series, in the end game slides, regardless if you helped Sarevok change his alignment or not, he personally escorts Tamoko's body back to her homeland, Kara-Tur (if you're interested there is a mod that let's Tamoko live and become a companion of Gorion's Ward. I haven't played with it yet, but I plan on checking it out. There are so many mods that let poc companions with scripted deaths live, it nice to see- even if those deaths could have been not written or at the very least have the abilities to save them should have been there from the beginning.)

Both of these characters are about the cycle of abuse, on rather it gets broken or not. Just like the companions from bg3 are. But Larian says "no they failed and in fact are irredeemable"

It's shocking that games from 1998 and 2001 had a better discussion on restorative justice. And yes it's a fantasy setting where you care suppose to fight people, you're not going to be able to do that with every character. But doing this better than a game in 2024? When we have so much more resources and knowledge about this? It's just disheartening.

That isn't to say that the original games didn't have their flaws, they very much did. The stuff from bg3 is just more raw right now.

#bg3 #larian critical #( okay i'm going to get off my soap box. ) #( getting worked up again and it's affecting me in a bad way. ) #( didn't proof read this so sorry if there are mistakes. ) #( thinking about viconia and sarevok and I'm just getting very upset. ) #( like the very idea that viconia would aid in the same abuse lolth put her younger brother through- the only person she loved ) #( ..and like do that to shadowheart and her parents? out shadowheart through the same thing that broke her faith in lolth? ) #( like not even evil aligned viconia would do that. ) #( i already said my piece on sarevok above. )

[missgryffin]

we are a gift economy

Highly recommend this article as a recap/starting point if anyone's curious about and/or following along with broader conversations around current fanfic issues/discourse:

I feel very lucky that Jily is "smaller" in the fandom sense, and therefore can fly under the radar a bit and not be as affected (at least to my knowledge) by the kind of damaging behavior discussed in the article. But all the same, a friendly reminder (and respectful request) to remember that

as a fandom, we are a gift economy, and as such, only personal, noncommercial use of fanfic is appropriate.

That means no Etsy, no Lulu, no Goodreads, no Venmo. Fanfics are not like books for sale in a bookshop. They are gifts! They are hobbies! By all means, enjoy them for yourself: make covers for the .epub files in your e-reader, typeset your favorites and print them at home (I do this!) to reread them like a book, even bind them up yourself if you know how. But the key here is to do it yourself. Personal, noncommercial use. The moment commercial entities get involved in the process is the moment it all gets messy (and honestly, worse) for fanfic as a whole. The only currency that should be changing hands in fandom is kudos and comments. Full stop.

#things I wish I didn't have to think about #on fanfiction #sorry for the soap box but this topic gets me fired up

[kingdumkum]

I totally agree with your concept of love!! Too many people rely on the feeling of love instead of choosing to love someone, and they don't realize love takes work. You know?

tee my darlin, we're on the exact same page. I've been ruminating on this for a bit, trying to figure out the best way to say this without being Annoying, but it always comes back to this: love, the kind that lasts a lifetime, is a choice.

i know i got into it a bit here, but like. if you don't expect any other emotion to last forever, why is there a belief that love will? media is beautiful in the sense that we get to have some of the most amazing adventures, but it's also so damaging in how it twists the perception of what a healthy relationship looks like, or what real standards of love are. I could whip out a dozen examples, but they all boil down to how setting an unrealistic expectation for a very impressionable audience negatively influences their idea of what love, romantic or otherwise, is--particularly the young adults that haven't experienced love yet or don't have a healthy example to look up to. love, whether you're on the receiving or giving side, is not an excuse for bad behavior, and nor is it as eternal as media claims.

in my experience, as someone happily engaged and who's been spending a lot of time talking to Older Folks about what's made their marriages last (or end), the longest love is two-sided and it takes work. anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying or has found someone willing to sacrifice everything in order to keep their partner happy.

love is not sacrifice, but it requires compromise; love is not pain, but it requires the memory of happiness in order to continue. love is born from an emotion, but it continues with the conscious decision to make it so. if you're not happy, sad, angry, anxious, etc. 100% of the time, how can you expect love, as an emotion, to exist 100% of the time?

don't get me wrong, love is certainly something you feel, and if you don't feel it, you can not force it--but if you're looking for the kind of love that lasts a lifetime, you've got to be willing to make it a choice, too.

(interestingly, and for another tangent, is how so many continuations/time skips focus on how the original love interests separated after Some Time and are either (1) finding a new love story or (2) rekindling their love... almost like Hollywood is admitting they care more about telling how two people FALL in love and less about what someone has to do in order to make it last a lifetime... but I digress).

#any who that's a bit longer than i intended but #i wrote a thesis on this and it was one of my best-received topics ever #love is a choice. you must make the ACTIVE decision to love someone for it to last a lifetime #i hope this makes sense to at least one person and i hope it helps you make sense of your own version of love #media is so awesome in so many ways #but it's also so so damaging in so many others. #there's an unrealistic expectation for how people 'in love' should act or feel #and i'm here to say that's simply not true. #i'm happily engaged i've been with my partner my whole adult life. #they're the first Real Relationship i've ever had but when i say it took WORK to get this far... #we both had to make the conscious choice that YOU are it and every day we live up to that expectation. #there are days where they drive me NUTS and i'd rather be alone than talk to them but i know there are days where they feel the same #but no matter how many times we don't actively FEEL like we have love for each other we CHOOSE to love each other #because we both know that we have so much love to give and get and hold even when we're mad even when we don't feel very loving #any who that's my daily soapbox on love i have Really Strong Thoughts on this will gladly discuss further as needed #tee thanks for letting me speak so freely i really do love Love and conversations like this #kasey's soap box #one eyed king

[bunnyb34r]

Oh! I figured out what the lush box scrubbie reminded me of! It smells like popsicles! Specifically the yellow ones in the mini Pop-sicles box, or the mango/pineapple otter pop! :D

#marquilla #tastes like it too 😏 #i really really hope it wins bc it's the only good thing in the box sgsgsgsggs #it's a scrub but you can also use it like an exfoliating body wash which is really cool bc it's moisturizing too! #i decided i hate the passion fruit soap agsgdggd it smells nice when you open it but the second you pour it out it gets so strong #and so unpleasant imo but i am trying to use it up so it doesn't go to waste but im just using it on my legs bc it's #exfoliating and i can use all the exfoliation i can get on my legs but also so i dont have to smell it agdgdgdgd #havent used the coffee scrub bar yet not sure if i want to... im just gonna cut a small piece off if i do. and im not gonna use the lip #scrub bc i hate coffee so much it's espresso so double yuck. still have to try the lotion though which ill try this week hopefully