#i know i said last post that that was the only contribution i'd make about this fim and then never again

[currentlyonstandbi]

#like minds #murderous intent #like minds 2006 #tom sturridge #eddie redmayne #nigel colbie #alex forbes #OKAY BEFORE ANYONE SAYS ANYTHING #i know i said last post that that was the only contribution i'd make about this fim and then never again #but i think the spring sun turned me temporarily insane today and this happened #even i can't believe i willingly made another like minds post #and an edit too???? i don't make edits i make shitposts and the occasional analysis/meta post if the media is worth the effort #but an edit? with edgy quotes to boot? i just don't do that and yet here we are #i'm still like fighting the cringe to post but at the same time it's kinda a vibe #i see people make incredibly well put together edits and i'm over here with an on fire garbage can of a post #quote #literature #tom sturridge edit #eddie redmayne edit

[splitster]

answering asks

you'll have to befriend her first sorry

chocolate was the first sweet that Pom had so it's her favorite!! she won't go nuts or anything but she is very easily manipulated if you promise her a bar of chocolate

↓ more asks under the cut!! ↓

wraithification ideally does preserve peoples memories! part of the process is forming the core that holds said memories, so as long as the process goes somewhat smoothly then the person should wake up very disorientated but with their memories and personality in tact.

naw she's thankfully immune to most elemental hazards. one of the perks of being a wraith!

YEAHH i've been trying to keep up with the comics! this comic is a bit old at this point but i'm so glad bald dingo is canon 💖

i think it'd be funny so yeah sure

there is always an inherent risk to the process. i'd say the absolute ideal circumstances you could have would be if a wraith like pom and a doctor like yonny were working together to increase the likelihood of survival. the process hasn't been studied at all, given the rarity of wraiths as an organism and the added rarity of a wraith becoming so attached to a creature that it wants to convert it.

there is a metaphysical aspect to wraiths as a species that defies understanding, so the person being wraithified or the wraith themselves having a strong will for survival would definitely contribute to the success of it. thankfully, unless there's a VERY specific set of circumstances (that are relevant only with someone like yonny wraith who has two cores), the subject would fall unconscious and not form memories of the wraithification itself (which is fortunate, because that would be kinda horrifying).

if she's saving dingo and this is a last ditch effort, pom absolutely puts her whole being into it. it's very, very hard on her and she has every last bit of energy sapped from her. depending on her reserves, she could end up hurting herself with the amount of energy it requires. but wounds are temporary and death is forever, so pom would persevere through and give it her all to save him

yeah! pom's skin might technically be fake because it's made from goo, but she still feels sensations through her goo. she probably doesn't get itchy that easily. she's probably a little ticklish? but i'm not sure if you want to try that on a wraith that could easily stab you in a heartbeat...

wow when i was looking back for this pic i realized i first posted about the pom wraith au on september 1st, so the au is like 4 months old... time flies

WAHHH THANK YOU....🥺💖 asks like this are never a bother!! my favorite part about posting my content online is the engagement like this, i'm very happy to make stuff that you and your bro can bond over

procreate on an ipad! i use an empty cheezits box and three splatoon manga books to prop up my ipad to draw on, and i've been told its one of the worst drawing arrangements ever documented, so no matter how you draw it's probably gonna be better than my set up

of course! i didn't like... invent wraiths or anything. i just expanded on the little tidbits of what we know about wraiths in the pikmin universe. anyone is free to make their own wraith ocs or their own headcanons on what wraiths are

whuh... have i? i post pretty frequently. i used to post a bunch for a week or two and then disappear for 6+ months repeatedly so this is very good compared to my historical track record lol

AHH thank you!! i'm glad that i can inspire!

thank yall for all the asks, i'll continue getting through them... slowly

#modask #pom pikmin #pom wraith au

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

I really don't have any time or respect for people who call themselves marine mammal scientists while acting as lobbyists and continuously misleading the general public about marine mammal welfare.

Animal welfare is a relatively new scientific field - especially in cetaceans. It's really only in the last few decades that we've been actively studying and determining welfare parameters in dolphins and whales.

That said, we have scientists like Dr. Isabella Clegg, Dr. Jason Bruck, Dr. Heather Hill, Dr. Kelly Jaakkola, Dr. Kathleen Dudzinski, Dr. Fabienne Delfour and many other incredible scientists, research fellows and facilities contributing amazing welfare data.

Not to mention the fantastic global Cetacean Welfare Study

We're learning how to study welfare, what good welfare and bad welfare looks like, what affects welfare the most, monitoring welfare acoustically, comparing parameters to wild animals, what is actually the best habitat for these animals and so much more.

Yet you have people like Dr. Naomi Rose, Dr. Lori Marino and Dr. Ingrid Visser who claim that "the science is settled" on cetacean welfare. That we don't need to do anymore research, show's over, nothing to see here. Tank bad, sanctuary good, don't look at over there at the actual research, trust us - we're the scientists.

That's why I get so frustrated when I see people uncritically use these scientist's sources. Or any sort of anti cap media who take their word as gospel, regurgitate Blackfish talking points and deliberately mislead with emotive, anthropomorphic language.

I can't understand why, when presented with the notion that these animals may not be suffering, that the response is anger.

Why? When I realised that the orcas at SeaWorld were living a much better life than what was portrayed in Blackfish I felt relief! I was happy to see the high energy enrichment and training session videos.

I was happy when I travelled all the way to Orlando from Australia and spent hours and hours at SeaWorld at the underwater viewing area. I asked questions and I watched the orcas rest, play and engage in sessions. I was excited about the idea of being apart of this world and getting to work with animals using positive reinforcement and prioritising welfare.

Little did I know that only in a few years I'd be networking with those amazing welfare scientists and working with dolphins! I don't expect others to have the same journey I did, but I hope some of what I post can make a difference in changing how people perceive cetacean welfare.

There's a lot more we need to learn and study but a lot of the current data is pointing to positive/neutral welfare states in cetaceans in human care. I hope more will be published on orcas - a lot of the data is in bottlenose dolphins (which is probably why lobbyists aren't targeting them in legislation as much anymore).

Cetacean welfare is in no way a settled science, so be very wary of sources that claim it is or make uncritical claims about "captivity".

#cetacean welfare #orca #killer whale #blackfish #seaworld

[ryunumber]

Two Years of Ryu Numbers (on tumblr dot com)

Hi!

July 14th marked two years of running this novelty blog. As with last time, I'll be taking a week off (that I would have taken around the 14th if I could keep my dates straight) for a bit of a breather. I'll still be around to answer questions that don't require that much research, but regular posting will resume on August 7.

Thank you for two years of Ryu Numbers (on tumblr dot com)!

(more below)

I don't particularly have much to add besides that everything I said last year still holds. It's still true that the only reason I've been making posts near daily for two years is that people keep sending in requests, correcting my mistakes, and Engaging with the Content™, so whether you've been sticking around or just getting a small kick out of seeing this blog's posts every now and then: hey, I think that's neat of you to do. For your sake, I hope this blog continues to be a bit amusing in some shape and/or form.

I did open up submissions in the past year, and while I'm fairly certain about 50% of the time people are using that as a second request form (it's not, and those get deleted), a few people were nice enough to go through the effort of making the diagrams themselves. So to that end, I'd like to thank @nico-robin-official, @catgirldragon, @torka914, @sorrybutiforgotmyusername, @blasteg, @jurrasicoresposts, @hbmmaster, @throw-your-boat, and @hymnsoffuel for contributing to the blog and seeking out Ryu Numbers themselves.

And of course, a big thanks to @kchasm, for maintaining this colossal diagram of Ryu Numbers and responding to my irrelevant natter, and @skapokon, for keeping me honest by sending in corrections, both right after a post goes live and months after the fact. Lord knows otherwise I'd never look back at the 1400+ posts I've somehow accrued.

...Well, circumstances allowing, here's to a third year of trifles and technicalities, then.

#meta

[riddles-n-games]

So, I wanted to make this as an appreciation post for the fandom. Looking at all the reveals we've gotten in the last few days and seeing how much the world of TIG has expanded so quickly, I've been getting a bit nostalgic.

When I joined this fandom, it was August of 2022, barely a month out from the release date of The Final Gambit, the finale of The Inheritance Games. I found out about TIG at a random bookstore on a road trip and I had immediate interest (the hot tub scene sold me so quick). I was also still somewhat new to Tumblr back then but I wanted to see what the hype was here.

Back then, we were still in the Averyjameson vs Averygrayson era even though I'd say things were cooling down a bit. But, that's not my point. The community was getting ready for this; there were chapter reveals, theories, and oh, it was awesome. I was so happy to be part of it. And some of the people who made it a lively place back then are still here, but unfortunately, some have gone quiet. @averysjameson, @guppyclato, @lesbianator3000, @margolovescoffeeandbooks, and @cherryschaos, thank you for making my days back then. I know you may have moved on, but I thank you for the contribution you made at the time.

The only thing I will not miss is the toxicity that Averyjameson and Averygrayson fans plagued this fandom with and divided us so much. We had a lot back then to still savor, why did we have to do that to sour the tag when this series had so much more to offer than just the romantic subplot? There was a mystery at large and so many other characters to love. We only seemed to agree on hating Emily and the old man. Moving on, let's never do that again and if there is another love triangle, let's try being more mature about it. I know we can. If Gray, Avery, and Jamie moved on, so can we.

When we were told of The Brothers Hawthorne back in October 2022 and given those first chapters for the new book, I was over the moon. We were going to finally see the POVs of two favorites; Grayson and Jameson. I was so excited to see from Jamie's perspective, to get a mystery set in London and for him to solve it with Avery; it was an Averyjameson dream. However, come the actual release of the book and I was honestly so disappointed. I'm not sure why it didn't hit the levels it should have but I already said my piece on that and while I still have some disdain for that story, I look fondly at the parts I did love. And funny enough, I told myself Grayson's story will just have to do only because I was feeling sour over Jameson's plot. But low and behold, I loved it! It was deep, funny, interesting, and held my attention as if I was in TIG all over again and it hit more high notes than Jameson's. I may attribute that to the familial connections we see displayed there but it felt more rewarding and even if JLB still had more for Grayson's development, that didn't mean Jameson had to suffer for it. However, I'm hoping that this story here was a fluke and I'm putting my best foot forward in believing that maybe reading Averyjameson through Avery's POV again in Games Untold will give back that familiar feeling I've been missing for two years. I never said I wouldn't try again.

Now, we've entered a new era and this is a third for me; The Grandest Game and Games Untold. During this period, I met @hathorneheiress, my fanfic bestie, and a lot of my current supporters have been with me since TBH. I thank you very much for sticking with me by liking, reblogging, and commenting on my posts. You make my day in the same way I assume my content makes yours. I haven't said that enough and I don't think it will ever be. I'm happy that we're all still here now and going into this new unknown with our theories, headcanons, new characters, and plots. I'm sure it will be a blast. Thank you for giving me that feeling again these last few days; it felt like being with Avery and the gang, running through the House, finding another clue, waiting in anticipation what it reveals.

I hope that this next series is everything we hope for it to be, a new start for Gray, a chance to bond with the new characters we met in The Brothers Hawthorne, and an opportunity to make it feel like the hay days of the first book. I hope that Games Untold lets us relish that feeling with the original cast, to relive the good old days, to meet up with some old friends we haven't seen in a while, and to have that final hurrah that leaves us on the highest of highs in the best way possible. Maybe it'll make it easier to say goodbye to the ways it used to be and embrace the new storytellers but of course, with the way JLB leaves us hanging with every story she gives, who is to say that'll be it?

Thank you to everyone who makes theories, headcanons, fanfics, fanart, and so many other things that leave us wanting more. Thank you to everyone who showers that content with support in the form of likes, comments, and reblogs. Thank you to everyone who has been here from the beginning, in the middle, and now. You all made this a special place. Thank you to everyone who made this community that way and continue to do so every day. I'm happy to be a small part of that. See you in the next post.

-Mystery Girl's Red String

#appreciation post #tig fandom appreciation #tig fandom #tumblr journey #the inheritance games #the hawthorne legacy #the final gambit #the brothers hawthorne #the grandest game #games untold #tig #thl #tfg #tbh #tgg #gu #tig headquarters #TIG HQ

[cringefail-hermitry]

I've been wanting to make a post like this for a while now, and well, having just finished a crucial stage of my life, I think this is a good a time as any.

It's gonna be a long one

Like, *LONG* long

Like, I Am Going To Mention Every Single One Of My Mutuals By Name long (if you'd rather not be tagged in the future, do warn me)

First of all, the primary purpose of this post is as a letter of thanks for the wonderful months you Tumblr peeps have provided me this year. I am not hesitant to say joining the hellsite was the single best decision I have made in the last 12 months, heck, I think about 2/3rds of the friends I mantain regular contact with nowadays came from here. But this wouldn't be a long post if it was just a brief "thanks y'all for improving my life". I'm gonna get into detail. And I'm gonna be sappy about it. You can't stop me. You're not my mother. And not even my mother could stop me from posting this.

I would've said "I thought long and hard about who I'd start with", if there was any question about it. There isn't. @tearychildren, where do I even fucking begin. I can't really say anything too specific because if I begin I don't think I'll stop and half this post is gonna be about you, and this is already a very long post, so I'm just going to leave it at this, you already know well enough just how much you matter to me.

Going onwards, another of the early spots goes to who I believe was my first mutual, definitely one of the first people I followed, @chlorohexidine, a long-time mutual and recent good friend, our daily chats, however short, never cease to be highlights of my days, your art is really cute (love me some rounded shapes) and brainstorming ideas for your TTRPG campaigns is always fun (I really like your worldbuilding, too). It's only fair to mention your (and my, just needed to make this segue well) good friend @xsenpi, infodumping touhou to you both genuinely got me through that month, and Undertale 2: Revenge of The Robots with Rei and TC has been a blast so far.

@soundsofastar is another that warrants special mention for actually changing my brain chemistry and making me appreciate the local wildlife even more than usual (if we ever meet in person, WE ARE GOING ON A NICE LONG WALK TO LOOK AT BIRDS TOGETHER, WHEREVER IT IS WE ARE WHEN THAT HAPPENS, MARK MY WORDS). Your art also makes me feel things. Not many things make me feel stuff a lot. That is impressive. I should be in a good spot to finish reading the Illuminae Files within the next few days, so please do pester me about it, otherwise the piece of media that the next person I'll talk about recommended to me will consume all the time I'd read it in.

So, the next person I'll talk about, @northwest-cryptid, thanks for letting me use our DMs as my Mabinotepad, and for getting me into Mabinogi in the first place, you've been both the direct and the indirect cause of many good times, and I gotta be honest I kinda admire you a lil' bit (and if you know anything about how I talk, I am horrible at expressing vulnerability, admiration and these sorts of emotions without a bunch of euphemisms unless I'm doing this sort of tangent where I attempt to talk about myself in a more depersonalized way, so what that sentence there essentially means is "I admire you a lot and you are an inspiration").

Another pivotal figure in how this year shaped out is @ratlesshonret, creator of The Bird Nest, site of many good times, who has exposed me and many others to some wonderful media (I AM GOING TO FINISH POCKET MIRROR SOMETIME, MARK MY WORDS), reading through all the chats in the server is usually a blast, too. Your contributions to my life cannot be understated. Seriously, thanks.

The next great friend I'll mention is @transgender-lea-crosscode, we've started talking more only recently, but have already bonded a fair bit, I reckon, damn you're good at Blazblue. You've dared to make me good at the game and for that, I commend you. You should say words about Zeroranger in my general direction sometime, I'd be happy to hear/read them.

Now for those mutuals that I don't really speak to, but are responsible for like, 75% of my total notes, like, everyone is more than welcome to jump into my DMs and start talking about anything whenever, but y'all specifically are folk I'd have started talking with regularly ages ago if I knew what to talk about. @hoshinoreika2004, @ward-leon, @edenplumreal, @tabnk2, @tapok-eve , @boofbv and @sorcerousbrick, thanks for all the lil' dopamine hits.

Shoutouts to @wretchedbirdthing for being normal about that bird, you're a blast to see on my dash and I wish you luck snapping those collarbones in twain to hear those gay little squawks.

@freiflies and @ottisbuns, alongside Tapok, Vic and Honret, y'all bring life into The Bird Nest, and although I haven't really shown up much there recently, I still read most of everything, the words are cool, keep up the good work!

@genericgirl420 and @mikusays-transrights, you two are the mutuals that suffer the least with The Distances, so let's do this in a more, well, local fashion. É genuinamente bom ver que a comunidade brasileira do tumblr está ativa e saudável, aumenta minhas esperanças de encontrar outras criaturinhas desse site maligno pelas ruas, sua presença, por si só, já melhora meus ânimos, por isso, agradeço profundamente.

Ok back to speaking in simplified Old German. This next section goes out to @lemocoffe and @teacup-of-doom, both of whom I haven't really interacted much, but what little there was was quite great, this is, in fact, an invite to do more of the interact-y thing. Y'all are cool.

Another shoutout to a frequent view on my dash, @lobotomise-me-please, whose "Boobs Girl Music" post still has 10k notes to me, I'll get back to mass reblogging it someday (if y'all wanna help, check out @boobsgirlmusic for the post, that's my Boobs Girl Music sideblog where I reblog Boobs Girl Music)

@aurora-veil, @limbuscompanyyuri and @thevanishedpeople-intothenight are up next, some of my first mutuals, y'all post good. And have been doing so consistently. For the past like, 9 months or so. That's impressive.

@meltingadoration, @holyitsquiverrflynn and @jestressofnihil, my more recent moots, there hasn't been much time to do the friendship-building and knowing each other thing, but all that means is that there's still many opportunities for that, which is cool.

Last but not least, the mutuals who I haven't quite gotten to know as well, but I'm inviting to chat anytime, @readysetgargoyle, @atlasmothss, @meeresengel, @flesh-borne, @b-kut, @aureatecenotaph, @risingdragonblade, @agender-witchery (your posts helped me immensely in figuring out gender, thanks for that) and @lich-of-lcorp. Y'all are cool, we should talk more.

And one last section for all those who I've been in touch with but aren't mutuals with, for any and all reasons (I do tend to reblog very, well, erratically), y'all deserve to be on this list, but I just didn't wanna bother you too much (I do have words of thanks to say though, if you want them, just ask).

This post is still too short to express how thankful I am for y'all existing. I don't think text could ever do it justice.

#long post #like #my longest post by a very wide margin

[appleflavoredkitkats]

don't support here lies love the musical as it comes to bway

my post on here lies love is getting rounds and while i still stand by everything i said on that post, my grievances with the musical has Grown in the last couple of weeks of me researching about it. granted, i still need to do more— i want to do an essay on it in the future because i would hate for it to run on broadway for long, but because that takes time, i thought, at least, i would need to make a post detailing what i find wrong about this musical. even if it's not the most comprehensive, i want more people to be informed about it as soon as possible.

so, have this. ramblings at 5am. i'll try my best to gather sources, but information i have regarding the marcoses comes from a lot of non-digital resources like classes, museums, and physical books. in this case, i recommend the following resources to learn more about who the marcos family is and what they did:

"the kingmaker" by lauren greenfield. native filipinos can watch this free on youtube, but if you aren't from the ph i recommend using a vpn to access it or find a pirated version somewhere else

online martial law museum

if you can buy it, "some are smarter than others" by ricardo manapat, a book detailing marcos' crony capitalism and all his faults

i'd also like to preface: i am not a saint. i am not a historian nor the smartest person who can detail everything marcos did when he was born. i'm trying to do my best with what i know, and i am down to learn more if others want to chime in.

lastly, here's a fresher on the names of people involved, because it can be confusing:

ferdinand marcos — i will try my best calling him ferdinand but most people, including myself, often call him just "marcos" despite the fact that they technically all are marcoses. he was the president from 1965-1986

imelda marcos — i will refer to her as imelda. wife to ferdinand and contributed a lot to his reign of terror. she is still alive today.

bong bong marcos — son of ferdinand and imelda. his name is often shorted to bbm, which i will use. he is currently the present of the philippines

ninoy aquino — marcos' main rival who he indirectly murdered. not a perfect guy tho, just the lesser evil. i will just call him ninoy

now, onto the real deal:

thesis statement, so this can be easy to follow: despite the intentions of the musical being anti-marcos, much of how it is written and presented will inevitably become propaganda to brighten the image of the marcoses. by putting imelda in the forefront, making her entire character do what she does supposedly out of love, audiences will come out of the theatre sympathizing with her and her family. not only is this politically dangerous, but it is incredibly insensitive to native filipinos who have not only gone through the struggle of martial law, but also is suffering through bbm's presidency today.

[rest of the post under the cut]

despite what a lot of criticisms claim, the intentions of the musical is not to be pro-marcos. this is stated in their instagram post:

david bryne also stated these in an article from the guardian:

"The mindset of the Marcos regime and the mindset of disco music to me doesn’t seem all that distant. The hedonistic, escapist feeling of losing yourself and being transported to another world, like you feel on the dance floor and like you feel in a dance club, that’s a means to divorce yourself from the rest of the world, just as Imelda did.

When you’re dancing, you’re in this psychological and sonic bubble, in the same way that powerful people create a bubble around themselves. So I wanted to give an audience a taste of that feeling.

In the first half, when the play is dealing with her childhood, her upbringing and her meeting with Ferdinand Marcos, it’s meant to get the audience to empathise with her and understand what’s driving her and then they’ll understand how that manifests later on."

so, it seems promising: an anti-marcos musical that will make audiences dislike empathizing with her. initially, i really liked the concept of audiences being lost with the music similar to how the marcoses were able to play a lot of their supporters.

but, and a big but, 1.) there's a lot to pick apart from these statements, and 2.) i fucking despise how they presented imelda in the musical.

let's discuss the first point: the instagram post details that the intent of the musical is to dispel disinformation created about the marcoses. first thing's first, if this truly was a musical that aims to educate, then broadway is probably the worst way to do it. while the west and native filipinos could share the award of most misinformed about the marcoses, native filipinos are the ones most affected by it. we just suffered a terrible election last year with constant speculation and reports of vote buying. i've heard accounts from people from the province that bbm would send representatives to bribe those in poverty to ensure a vote. we are suffering in the worst education crisis, with the most corrupt politicians you can think of.

so, if this musical aims to educate, the fact that you can only access it by viewing it live on broadway is incredibly... backwards. how are you opting to dispel information when those most affected can't even access it?

what's worse is the statement that says that modern history of the philippines cannot be told without the usa. it is such a patronizing, surface-level statement that gets my blood boiling. it is true that our histories and present-day contexts are intertwined, especially since the filipino diaspora in the usa is incredibly huge, but that's because this is all a product of american colonization + imperialism. stating like the philippines owes the usa to retell our native stories mirrors much of the savior complex-esque sentiments the usa had when they colonized us.

now, onto bryne's statement. the main problem i have with it is him insinuating that imelda is a victim of circumstance. he wants us the audience "empathize" with her and understand her downfall. this is common rhetoric uninformed people, even filipinos, used to excuse imelda's contributions. that she was supposedly "poor", that marcos put her through hell. but genuinely, and i cannot emphasize this enough, imelda was an absolute ass on her own accord.

no, she did not grow up poor. her wikipedia even states that she grew up in a wealthy family, born into the romualdez political dynasty. my history professor even claimed that she attempted bribing the mayor when she lost one of her beauty pageants. despite the repetitive "i'm doing this for love!" bullshit the musical regurgitates, imelda did not even marry marcos out of love. in ricardo manapat's book, he details how marcos attempted to swoon imelda by showing her his vault of money (of course, possibly stolen). she was enraptured by marcos the moment she saw his WEALTH.

i want to emphasize: imelda is not fucking stupid. much of what marcos did to the philippines was thanks to her. i would recommend watching the kingmaker documentary for all the details, but just know she is still alive and incredibly wealthy. she is well-known for her absolute gaudiness and all of that comes from her money-centric mindset. she does not give a shit about love.

here's some accounts by ricardo manapat from his book. on imelda falling in love with marcos (btw, she had a fiance at the time and didn't tell him she was marrying marcos until said fiance found out on the damn newspaper):

imelda being aware of the wealth she accumulates in politics:

on this note, i'd love to discuss how historically inaccurate the musical is. i'd like to preface that i've only listened to the only available version of the musical which is the 2013 version on spotify. this could have changed, but either way, the general tone of the narrative already reads to me as extremely incorrect, anyway. i'd also love to detail every discrepancy of each song, but again, i'll save that for a future essay.

in general, the musical's plotline follows imelda, a "humble and poor" girl from leyte who grows up and marries ferdinand. she repeatedly expresses she's doing this all out of love. thus, the musical insinuates that imelda is merely a victim of circumstance, and that she didn't become evil on her own accord. and yet, from what i've presented so far, she was very much aware! she was not passive. you have to understand, SHE was the reason both men and women had equal opportunities to become corrupt in our government.

what marcos did was also imelda's fault. the genocide and displacement of indigenous people, the mass torture and murder of journalists and politicians, the stealing of companies and mass wealth, the mass delivery of non-native animals to the philippines. she condoned all that. yes, marcos cheated on her, but she also used that as a means to manipulate him into doing whatever she wanted. they are both horrible people.

speaking of, marcos' song in the musical was also really bad. he could be written as lying for all we know, but his "fear" of japanese soldiers invading the philippines is also up for debate. there is speculation of the marcoses collaborating with japanese troops, which also led to the murder of marcos' father's political rival.

and while i don't know if there's actual dialogue outside of the songs, i don't think this musical actually informs us much of the marcos' faults. the songs, which will be the most accessible thing to native filipinos, express nothing but generic descriptions of what characters feel about certain situations. it's hard to understand or know what these people are actually doing because it's just so vague and ambiguous. how are you supposed to inform when none of the music details, well, anything? the information given is so minimal that i pray, at least, the musical would have more explicit scenes about marcos' atrocities.

and that's my main problem with the musical. with how much they spend sympathizing with imelda in the first act, i don't think everything the marcoses have done can be encapsulated in the second. of course, i'm not asking to give me a detailed rundown of everything they did, but let's be honest, this musical was never about dispelling disinformation. if it was, then they wouldn't spend an entire act and a half sucking imelda's dick. it's not about educating audiences about martial law. it's about humanizing imelda, with martial law and the marcoses' atrocities as a second priority. it makes me sick to my stomach seeing how pure imelda is presented when travelling to meet other world leaders, or how she's seen as the person who insisted that ninoy move away from the philippines.

it was never about education or re-information. in the end, these were such pretentious and performative statements to defend a historically inaccurate musical.

and tbh, that's just the tip of the iceberg of why i hate this musical. another thing is that, holy shit is it obvious that it's written by two white people. they mispronounce "tacloban" (should be tacLOban not tacloBAN). these characters are also just... not distinctly filipino? they're so white in mannerisms. i need more insulting humor, more grit. in fairness, the richer you are in the philippines the more connected you are to western culture, but i would have loved to see that disaparity more in the songwriting. they really peaked (/s) when they wrote these lyrics:

this is... awful, in a cringey what the hell manner. i hope they changed it for the bway production, because this was blatant evidence that the songwriters barely took the time to understand our culture before writing.

if you don't understand what it says, "titi mo" (the correct spelling is tite but i digress) means "your dick". i think imelda is trying to call marcos a dick, but they literally translated dick in tagalog. but tite isn't an insult, it literally refers to a penis. "mo" is the equivalent of "your" which also makes ZERO sense. the lyric literally goes "how can a your penis run the country?", like WHAT.

so you know, maybe there's a reason why many filipinos fucking despise this show on twitter. we are insulted for good reason. they are sensationalizing and glamorizing our suffering for their own gain. we native filipinos and other filipino diaspora who can't access the show have nothing to gain. here lies love is profiting from our struggles that we are still recovering from and experiencing today. imagine if you made a musical about hitler explaining he is a victim of circumstance to disco music. insensitive, isn't it? i'd love to ask the cast of here lies love if they'd ever show the musical to living survivors and families of victims of martial law.

and what's worse, because of course it gets worse, misinformation like this is what boosts the reputation of corrupt politicians in the first place. manapat quotes what leonard saffir wrote about how marcos built his reputation in new york via a biography filled with disinformation. the excerpt is too long but it's quoted from this article by the new york times. and now we are living in an era of another musical based on imelda being shown in new york — time is a flat fucking circle.

what sickens me is that this musical is possibly a lot of americans' first exposure to the marcoses, and what will they think? imelda is just a poor girl, imelda is just a victim, imelda is blah blah blah. that will be stamped in their head. even if some filipinos have come out of this musical dreadful that they sympathized with imelda, not everyone is gonna have the same experience.

^ this an excerpt from one of theatermania's articles. dictators have feelings too, i guess!

objectively, there is nuance when it comes to anyone. but the problem is, we cannot afford to consider nuance in politics. we cannot sympathize with imelda right now when people are dying of poverty under the marcoses' hand. the marcoses are very much alive, very much in power, and very much willing to lend their offspring to other positions of power. they turned the entirety of ilocos into a bunch of marcos dicksuckers, and i'm afraid that this musical can make a ton of their audiences be oblivious to the true extents of the marcos' atrocities. i'm already seeing people on tiktok say that there's nothing wrong about this musical, or that this can exist when miss saigon and evita exist (which in on itself are problematic beliefs, because they are glamorizing other country's sufferings too).

i am privileged enough to be educated about marcos, and while there is much to be done in terms of disability and lgbtqia+ rights, i am lucky to be less impacted by the marcoses compared to other people. but there are hundreds of thousands of filipinos severely affected by marcos. what's worse, is that there are plenty extremely uneducated that they are unaware that marcos is directly contributing to their suffering. my history professor told us that other countries are using the philippines as their model for successful disinformation campaigns. in this era of disinformation, we cannot afford to disinform even more. as sad as it is, the usa has a lot of power and control over the philippines (and the world, tbh), so one wrong step into the wrong direction and we're fucked. this musical fails the message it attempts to preach and i cannot imagine how much more people are going to spread misinformation about the philippines like they did during the 2022 elections.

to end off, i'd like to mention to everyone that imelda marcos has actually listened to the musical. in this new york times article, she says, "i'm flattered, i can't believe it!". i don't know what to tell you— if imelda herself says she likes the musical you claim to be anti-marcos, then what does that say about the musical?

i guess i'll end with, i am willing to change opinions once i see how the musical is being executed. if they emphasize the atrocities done by marcos and give proper information about the timeline of events, then i can be more lenient. but if i still see any attempts woobifying imelda, then i stand by what i say. this musical is insensitive, disrespectful, and just fucking hurtful.

#here lies love #imelda marcos #ferdinand marcos #bongbong marcos

[theonethatyaks93]

HAPPY 30TH BIRTHDAY ANIMANIACS!!!!!

I just want to say how truly amazed I am with this show. There are very few words that can describe it. I put a few in the picture seen above, but this is barely anything compared to everything I've said. Animaniacs has changed my life in ways that many shows can only dream of. And I'm thrilled to be here today to celebrate its legacy.

I wasn't born in the 90's. I didn't grow up with this show like I know a ton of people did. I was exposed to it, mainly through the Hub Network ads for reruns, the once-in-a-while YouTube video reference, and even in fifth grade when my teacher showed us a clip of "Wakko's America" for our state capital test (which by the way I passed). I didn't acknowledge this show's presence, at least until 2020. That was a rough year, not only for me, but for everyone. Online school sucked. I couldn't see my friends. I was always crying myself to sleep and staying up late just watching videos to wash away my sadness and hurting. It was hell. I didn't have any comfort. At the absolute worst of times around October, I saw that one of my favorite channels posted a video on the trailer for the reboot of a show called Animaniacs. I was curious, mostly since I'd never heard about it before (well, I thought I hadn't). But the way the characters looked and the amount of people talking about it got me interested enough to click on the video. I listened to the reviewer's thoughts, not really understanding much, yet still being enticed to continue. I watched the actual trailer afterwards and...the rest is history.

I instantly fell in love. I watched the trailer on repeat before the reboot's release, laughing and singing along. I researched the show more and discovered a ton of voice actors I knew. I loved the characters, especially Yakko, I listened to the songs, I watched the interviews, and I talked about it constantly to my family and friends. While I didn't have Hulu, I still kept up with the reboot quite heavily. For Christmas, I got my first piece of merch, a T-shirt, and I got the first 25 episodes of the original show. I watched them on repeat with my sister and we both laughed, sang, and danced around whenever the show came on. After taking a fandom break, I got back into the show in 2021, which came with a new appreciation for Pinky and The Brain and fanfiction. Around this time, I was finally able to watch the reboot and entire original series since I got Hulu. My merchandise collection expanded, my knowledge of the show grew exponentially, and my desire to contribute to the fandom was intense. Not much has changed since then. Granted my merchandise collection is bigger, I can do impressions of a few characters, I met some of the voice actors, I joined the community on Tumblr, I actually wrote some fanfiction, and I've seen so many Animaniacs episodes now that it'll make your head spin. I'm so proud to be a super fan.

My appreciation and adoration for the Animaniacs franchise knows no bounds. It changed my life in amazing ways. And I can't believe its thirty years old today. I'm struggling to keep my emotions in right now, it's all so surreal. So, to all my followers I encourage you to give this show all your love today. It deserves it. Thank you Animaniacs. Thank you so much for everything you've done. You have made me a better individual and have fueled my love of animation for nearly three years. I hope you continue to inspire many more like me to laugh, be silly, and sing "Yakko's World" to pass a geography test. Animaniacs is the greatest show of all time, and I'll never stop saying that. (Ps. this isn't the last Animaniacs Anniversary related post I'm making! The next one will be long! And I'll also be showcasing my Animaniacs merch collection! Stay tuned!) Goodnight Everybody!!

#animaniacs #animaniacs 30th anniversary #this show is everything to me #i'm so happy it has lasted this long #pinky and the brain #I love this show so much #I hope y'all love it too!!

[o-uncle-newt]

Cabin Pressure Advent Day 27: Zurich Part 2

Okay, now that my face has loosened up from the grin it's been in for the last twenty minutes...

I think that it is important for me to say here that this is my favorite finale of anything ever (obviously in combination with Part 1). In any medium.* It's just so so perfect, emotionally resonant (which I don't need to devote SO much time to because as I noted JF did it perfectly here) and one of the funniest episodes JF ever wrote of anything.

It's also got some absolutely GENIUS plotting and impeccable attention to detail, including such tiny things as having Theresa establish in Part 1 that Martin has told her time and time again about the St Petersburg saga, and therefore she remembers enough about it to contribute when they're planning in Part 2 by pointing out that in St Petersburg Gordon would have been able to take anything small out of the aircraft. It's unnecessary- JF could have given the line to someone else- but the fact that he not only gave it to her but gave us enough information for it to make sense that she said it works so well. And then when there's "stop quickly" "that I can do," and Arthur screeches them to a halt, it's a perfect reminder from last episode about the brake pads, which is such subtle set up for Martin to suggest that they be given in lieu of payment. (Sure, if I were Bruce Fraser I'd be a BIT more suspicious that the guy who offered 14k only showed up with 12, but he's also the kind of guy who likes Arthur's Goofy painting so maybe it's just better all around not to trust his discernment.)

When I first listened to this episode exactly nine years ago, I was a couple of minutes late, and so it wasn't until months later that I first heard the amazing cold open with Tiffy. Which, by the way, is so so funny... I love it so much, it's just perfect as a recap-without-being-too-info-dumpy and as just a peek into Arthur's world. Which is fitting, because I really see this as Arthur's episode. There are very few episodes that feel that way- St Petersburg was KIND OF one, but it ended up being more about how the rest of them jump into action to protect him than him being able to do anything. But here... this is Arthur's moment! He's INCREDIBLY active in this episode, whether solving the ID problem or realizing that Gordon is trying to trick them. He doesn't usually get to be so it's really great

If I had to rank the others in terms of their relevance to the plot after Arthur, it would probably be Douglas, Carolyn, Martin. Douglas is definitely the key one, and I'd argue that without his key role, Martin would be basically irrelevant to the plot here- the episode tries to convince us that Martin might not take the job, but even once he has a real practical way to stay with MJN we kind of know he won't, and have known since Yverdon. But Douglas, as JF noted in Farewell Bear Facts, has to prove he's worthy of being captain and put himself on the line- and he has to be able to serve in a mentorly capacity for Arthur (where it's a bit more paternal, even) and Martin.

On that last note, I used to be a bit annoyed by Douglas telling Martin to take on his shtick, because I was like "Martin is fine just the way he is, imagine if he turns into DOUGLAS"- I still kind of think this way (though of course I'm sure it's more metaphorical than him pretending to be Douglas exactly) but relistening to the whole show, including some of my least favorites, reminds me that Martin could kind of use being someone else... who he used to be was really fucking annoying lol.

As far as Carolyn, I WILL add something about her journey here because JF doesn't mention it in his post. He talks about how her journey is to be more vulnerable to Herc, but I think it goes farther, in a way I've talked about here. The question she finally asks Herc- why does him saying he loves her mean something different now than it did to his previous exes- is her being vulnerable to HIM, but also an expression of an inability to be vulnerable that she'd shown to everyone, not just him. The whole time- til at least late S3, at least- she couldn't trust people, she felt like she needed to rule by fear, and it takes vulnerability for her to accept that eventually she's not the one in total control and people are doing things for her because they care about her and the company as something bigger than her and that it's not totally in her control. Maybe this episode it manifests itself in the question to Herc and being vulnerable to him... but it also manifests itself in her changing the name of the airline. It's OUR Jet Still.

A few smaller notes:

Martin, Douglas and Arthur all saying Yellow Car is my favorite thing ever

I use the phrase "a thousand strawberry lollies and the Princess of Liechtenstein" all the time and it's one of my favorite lines ever

The scene with Douglas-as-Gordon and Martin-as-Douglas is possibly the funniest exchange JF ever wrote (I feel like I say that kind of thing a lot)

And... "I hate flying into the sunset" is such a fantastic line to very-nearly-end on. It's a tie back to Limerick, but it's also an expression of how they literally are ending with a fairy tale ending, flying off into the sunset... which they'd all said wasn't possible in Zurich Part 1! Though Arthur was still right- it wasn't a totally fairytale ending, it was more like The Jungle Book. Martin's not there, he goes off with the girl to the human village. And so it's not a fairytale ending, where everything freezes at an unlikely ending point- it's BETTER. They're all in the best possible places for them, as characters, to continue, even if it's bittersweet, and it's amazing.

I do have to say- doing this every day has been such a joy. I may come back tomorrow to do a final thing but I'm not sure, but in the meantime, thank you for being here and I hope you enjoyed as much as I have!

*It used to be tied with the finale of Detectorists, and I still love the S3 finale, but they then fucked it up by doing that Christmas special last year which was honestly horrendous.

#cabin pressure #cabin pressure advent 2023 #cabin pressure advent #john finnemore #zurich part 2 #also for all who celebrate #merry christmas #or should i say #GET DRESSED YOU MERRY GENTLEMEN

[arlecchno]

mission accomplished [ scaramouche x reader ]

nineteen | forelsket

prev masterlist next

things didn't turn out so well when scaramouche got a flat tire whilst heading for the hotel, yet maybe, it turned out for the better.

warnings: swearing, just a blurb of scaramouche's lore (if you could even say that it's lore), me and my love for the only one bed trope, reverse comfort at the end i think, a lot of unnecessary scenes but probably still important to the plot

a/n: sorry for the late update... i keep procrastinating on this chapter lmao. this is pretty long since i'm posting once a week now, like around 4.5k words of complete garbage, but whatever, just think of this as a filler chapter i guess. happy reading!

grammatical errors may occur so please let me know if i've made any mistakes!

“you have got to be kidding me.”

“i'm sorry, there's really only one room left that is available, all of the other rooms are fully occupied by the students of snezhnaya university.”

scaramouche scoffed. “we are students of snezhnaya university.”

the hotel receptionist stopped typing on the keyboard and looked at him confusedly. “oh... you guys are um, students?” the woman scratched her head in confusion. “i had a thought that you two were in your late 20's... seems like i was wrong.”

she wasn't wrong. at all.

“are there seriously no rooms left except for that one?” you asked frustratingly, cutting off the previous subject.

the receptionist sighed. “i'm sure of it, though, i'd be more than happy to inform you if there were any changes.” she averted her gaze back to the computer screen.

“...fine. we'll take the room.” scaramouche said shortly after, making you quickly snap your head to him.

“you cannot be serious right now. no way in hell am i gonna share a room with you!” you whisper-shouted, tugging his shirt slightly.

the ravenette rolled his eyes. “it won't be that bad.”

the young woman gave the key card to scaramouche, and he mumbled out a thanks before heading for the elevator, along with his bag. you grumbled out a few curse words, but reluctantly followed suit.

oh it was that bad.

“everyone's fucking with me today.” was all you said at the moment as you and scaramouche stood in the entrance of the hotel room, baffled at what you're witnessing right now.

one. stupid. bed.

things were already going bad when you two were held off from arriving to the hotel early because scaramouche got a flat tire on the way here. you never expected to actually share a bed with the guy you've always hated, multiple times at that, but here you were, once again.

scaramouche groaned, bringing up a hand to rub his face in annoyance. “i can't believe this is happening.”

“you're taking the floor.” you flatly announced, brushing past him to land yourself on the only bed in the room.

the ravenette stopped from his actions to glare at you. “w— why do i have to sleep on the floor?! i drove us here! what did you even contribute to this trip for you to get the bed?!” he argued, stomping to you.

“simple. i exist. i think that's enough contribution, to teyvat even.” you simpy replied, relishing in the comfort of the soft sheets.

“you–!” scaramouche tried arguing further, but no words fell out of his mouth. he only sighed as he walked off and started unpacking his stuff.

you stared at the ceiling. “you know, we can share the bed if you want.”

“and why should i do that?” he asked, stopping from his actions to look over at you.

you fixated your eyes on his indigo ones in return. “well, the bed's pretty big, and we can make a barrier like last time, it kinda worked.” you explained from your lying position on the bed.

scaramouche widened his eyes the moment you mentioned about the pillow barrier. the stupid makeshift barrier that absolutely did not work last week. you only think it worked because you were too busy sleeping like a log to even realize you were tangled up with the ravenette in bed, instead of the makeshift barrier separating you two.

he averted his eyes from you, focusing back on unpacking. “no thank you.”

“guess you're on the floor then.”

“sure, whatever.”

he'd rather sleep on the most uncomfortable place than to even have the same events possibly repeating again.

and he's afraid you might wake up this time.

you groaned for the hundredth time.

“why the hell is he not picking up...” you stared at your phone screen as your friend, once again, left you on voicemail.

childe hasn't been in contact with you for over two weeks now. ever since the trial, you've never heard of childe updating you on any upcoming leads. if anything, childe was always the one who'd share the details to you first before anyone else, yet things left you dumbfounded as he never returns your calls now.

you've asked your other colleagues about it, well, signora to be specific. she only told you that childe's been going through a rough patch lately and that you should leave him be for some time, though he's still always present at the precint, which makes you even more clueless.

i'll try again later, you thought to yourself. he's fine, i'm sure he is.

“you wanna check out the hotel before it gets crowded?” scaramouche asked out of the blue, making you fixate your eyes on him from the bed.

you pondered on it for a moment before answering. “yeah, sure, who knows we might get new leads.”

standing up, you sauntered over with your phone in hand, scaramouche already waiting for you by the opened door.

“do you know what room yun jin and viktor are in?” he asked, holding the door for you.

“not sure, i haven't really asked her about it.” you said, eyeing the number on the door of your hotel room, 515, it read. “viktor's been kind of acting strange lately, so i don't really want to bother him.”

scaramouche hummed, taking the key card with him before closing the door. “what do you mean by that?” he asked, walking with you to the lift lobby.

“by what? viktor?”

“obviously i'm talking about him.”

you and scaramouche halted to a stop in the lobby.

“he's kind of been ignoring me for the past week, have no idea why.” you paused, pushing the down button beside the elevator. “i asked yun jin about it, but she told me it was normal of him to be like that sometimes, which is pretty weird.” you said, focusing your eyes on the number at the top of the elevator that's slowly coming to your floor.

the male beside you raised a brow. “you haven't confronted him about it?”

“of course i have, silly. um, tried at least. he's been avoiding me all the time, doesn't even sit with me in class now.”

the chiming sound of a ding can be heard, and the elevator door slowly opens.

“you don't even see him out of class?”

“see who?”

both you and scaramouche snapped your heads to the familiar voice. viktor and yun jin were in the elevator together, hands interlaced.

calling what you were witnessing right now weird would be an understatement. for the past few days, viktor has done nothing but avoid and ignore yun jin, yet here he was acting normal again, with his hand in hers. the tall man even had the slight audacity to speak up those two words in front of you, the other person he's been avoiding all week.

“oh, it's luna and ivan! where are you guys headed to?” yun jin beamed, walking out the elevator with viktor trailing behind.

you rubbed the nape of your neck, not expecting for them to appear right in front of you. “um, we were just gonna go to the car and get some stuff that we didn't manage to bring along.” you lied. “are you guys on this floor?”

yun jin smiled and nodded. “yup, room 516!”

“516?” scaramouche inquired. that's just right beside yours.

“yeah, it was one of the only rooms left, glad that we even managed to get one considering that we were kind of late.” yun jin said awkwardly, fidgeting her clothes.

you tugged scaramouche's sleeve lightly, making him look at you. the ravenette raised his brow, and you gestured your eyes to the elevator, a signal that you two should get going.

scaramouche nodded at you, looking back at the couple in front of him. “we really need to go, luna left her plush and didn't want it to be left alone in the car for far too long.” he made up an excuse, a dumb one at that, making you glare at him.

“a plushie? that's cute.” viktor said, chuckling along with yun jin.

you faked a smile, gritting your teeth. “well, ivan, we should go, now.” you said furiously, grabbing scaramouche's arm to drag him to the elevator.

“see you two soon!” yun jin grinned, waving at you two until the elevator doors closed.

letting out a scoff, you folded your arms and sent a death glare to scaramouche, in which he paid no mind to. “seriously? a plushie? i'm not a child.”

“it's fun seeing you get all embarrassed, sort of like entertainment for me.” the ravenette said, slightly smirking at the thought.

“it's not funny.”

“it– it kinda is.”

scaramouche was laughing now, much to your dismay. you tried suppressing the urge to not join him on this, but failed miserably when the male beside you snorted, completely falling into a fit of giggles at his actions.

“oh come on! you need to stop putting me in embarrassing situations!” you said while giggling, slapping his arm playfully while doing so.

“or what?” he teased, finally looking at you and leaning closer.

you stared into his indigo eyes in return. “well, i'll...” the words you intended to say died down momentarily as you both look into each others eyes, seemingly like time has stopped.

the distance between you two was long abandoned, face just inches away from each other. looking at scaramouche's flawless face in awe, your breath hitched just for a moment.

you can't remember the last time you were this close to scaramouche. was it when you were sick? was it the time when you both hid in a closet to not get caught? or was it during trial day when you fixed up scaramouche's tie? you really can't tell.

looks like this just adds to the many list of times you've ever been this close with the man you hated the most.

the elevator doors suddenly opens and out of instinct, you both jolt in shock and immediately turned away from each other, flustered by what just happened.

a small group of people, snezhnaya uni students you assumed, walked in the elevator, ignoring the way that you and scaramouche were standing awkwardly at the back. you rubbed the jawline of your face nervously and stared at the mirror beside you.

the elevator had mirrors on all sides except for the doors, so you could basically see what everyone is doing at the moment.

and, if you look a little more closely, you could see the faint crimson that's creeping up onto scaramouche's neck and ears, as much as he tries hiding it with his hands.

“i'm not gonna lie, this venue is ginormous.” you said in awe, looking at the huge place that will hold the grad ball. presumably, you had thought that it'd be a bit smaller, but it seems like you were wrong in so many ways.

the venue was almost fully decorated— with lots of round tables, a big space in the middle (for the classic dance, you assumed), and buffet tables were already set up. some bits of other decorations like lightings, drapes, and a disco ball even, were being decorated by the organizers. though still on the works, the ballroom already looked dazzling.

“don't think we're even allowed to go here yet.” scaramouche commented, eyeing the red tape across the ballroom.

“how are we gonna know every corner of the ballroom then?”

the male beside you did not answer, making you glance at him. he had his signature smirk, and a very knowing look that only you could ever read.

“no, you're joking.”

his smirk only grew bigger at your sentence, and at this point, you might think he was smiling like an idiot instead.

and that's how you two ended up decorating the ballroom, disguised as the many other workers in the area.

“how the hell are you so sure we won't get caught?”

scaramouche looked at you, stopping himself from decorating the round table. he tilted his head to a direction, as if gesturing for you to look over at what he's pointing at. “see that dude?”

averting your gaze to a male a few feet away from you two, you nodded. “yeah, why?” you asked, looking at him warily. the man was sitting on one of the chairs, legs propped up on the table while he scrolled on his phone lazily.

“that's the head organizer.”

“why is he just... lazing around? shouldn't he be the one going back and forth to make everything look as perfect as possible?”

scaramouche hummed. “exactly. seeing how stupid that guy is, he probably couldn't care less if there were people sneaking around as 'workers', much less if there were more additional workers, probably makes him more at ease.”

“do you think we could sneak around and possibly get the files for the plans of the event?”

“what?”

“he looks kind of clumsy to be honest.” you said, and as if to prove your sentence, the man suddenly fell to his butt on the floor, and quickly regained his composure to sit back on the chair embarrassingly. “it's gonna be easy getting those files, i assume.”

scaramouche shrugged, continuing on fixing up the round table to avoid suspicions. “sure, we'll try later.”

and again, that's how you two ended up sneaking in the back of the ballroom, where you assumed the organisation's office is.

“isn't this kind of silly?”

“what is?” scaramouche asked, walking along the halls, careful not to make much noise.

“sneaking around, kind of feels like we're kids trying to avoid getting caught stealing cookies by our parents.”

the ravenette snorted. “that's a very specific description.” he said, scanning his eyes at a closed door of a room, reading the text on it to see if it was the office you two were looking for.

“isn't that basically what being a detective is? sneaking around to get evidence, secretly go on many undercover duties and disappear to months end?”

you looked at him. “well, yeah, but it's pretty funny if you think about it. two grown adults, sneaking around people, going all out just to get some promising leads, it really just reminds me of my childhood days. isn't it the same for you?”

scaramouche was surprisingly silent upon hearing your question, not even taking his eyes off the door he was inspecting just now. you looked at him, puzzled, and nudged his shoulder.

“dude, you okay?”

it took a moment for scaramouche to finally move. “i'm fine.” he mumbled, already heading off to the next location, leaving you behind.

you stared at his figure, confused as to why he's suddenly changed his demeanor and did a whole 180. did you say something that bugged him?

“found it.” scaramouche said, pointing at a closed room ahead of you. he looked at you across the hall, one hand shoved in the pocket of his pants.

you smiled and nodded in acknowledgement, walking over to him.

you've already reminded yourself to ask him about it later on. for now though, you'll have to focus on your plan.

“for a klutzy guy, he sure is pretty organised with the files.” you said, flipping through the files in one of the steel cabinets.

you two have been in the room for about ten minutes now, and much to your displease, you have yet to find the file you were looking for.

scaramouche rummaged through the files on the desk, letting out another curse when the files on there were pretty much useless.

“i don't think we'll find anything here.”

“this is stupid, we should just head back.” scaramouche muttered, heading over to the door. he stopped abruptly when he heard footsteps from outside, quickly turning around to face you. “someone's coming.”

you widened your eyes, and frantically searched for a place to hide. the room wasn't that big, with only a small number of cabinets filled with files, so there were technically zero spots to hide.

out of nowhere, scaramouche took your hand in his and dragged you under an old desk at the corner of the room, secluded from the open space. if someone were to stumble inside the office, they won't be able to notice the two of you hiding under the old desk, lest they went further in the room, in which you silently prayed it won't be the latter.

it's pretty tight space, but it was still able to fit in the two of you, even though you were squished up with scaramouche. you looked at the ravenette, but he avoided your gaze, opting to look out on the person coming inside instead.

the door opened, and a voice popped up. “is the ball really going to go smoothly, boss? i feel like we're still missing a few things for the event.”

“don't worry, everything's perfectly fine. it's not like we haven't done this a hundred of times before, and who cares if we miss out on a few stuff? it's not gonna affect the event.” another voice said, footsteps walking in the room.

the other cleared their throat. “what about that spotlight? i heard there were a few screws loose, and the workers didn't manage to find them.”

the sound of a file being landed harshly on the desk echoed throughout the room. “who the hell cares?! we already don't get paid enough for this shit, i couldn't care less about some stupid screws being loose or a backdrop being slightly off, as long as you get the job done we are out of the responsibility.”

“hurry up and go home, i don't want to be here any longer.”

soon after, the footsteps slowly fade out, and the door closed once more.

you let out a breath of relief the second they left, and looked at scaramouche again. he still had his eyes on the door, not even budging to move from the uncomfortable space.

“scara?”

“hm?”

“they're gone. we can go now.”

scaramouche finally looked at you after what felt like decades. “oh.”

getting out from under the old desk, you stretched out your limbs, the ravenette awkwardly followed you after.

“don't think that file was there before.” he said after a moment of scanning through the room, sauntering over to the desk in the middle of the room. “y/n.”

you glanced at him, bringing down your hands from the stretch you were doing. “what?”

“it's the file we're looking for.”

it was well past 9, you and scaramouche were back in your hotel room sitting on the provided chairs, with your laptop propped up on the small round table showing the pictures you took of the event planning from the file.

“it just looks like any other planning i've seen before.” you said while slurping on the instant noodle cup you made a few minutes ago. given how you and scaramouche were too busy sneaking around the hotel until late evening, you two didn't even manage to get proper dinner by the time you were done.

“there's no use in wasting our time on this if it's useless then.”

you squinted your eyes to look at the planning details better, reading on and on about backdrops, lighting timings, and whatnot. it was all useless, just like what scaramouche had said just now.

letting out a huff, you leaned back on the chair. “let's just wait until tomorrow. we still have time before the grad ball starts.” you glanced at scaramouche. he has been zoning out a lot recently, and it was no doubt that he was doing the exact same thing right now.

“are you tired?” you nudged his shoulder.

scaramouche slowly looked at you, face blank. “huh? why? are you?”

“stop twisting the question around, i'm asking about you.” you pressed, a frown plastered on your face. “you look tired.”

“i'm fine.”

“no you're not.”

now scaramouche was the one frowning instead, glaring at you furiously. “if i say that i'm fine, then i am fine.” he slammed his hands on the table as he stood up, walking away, making you more puzzled than you already were.

sighing, you closed the laptop on the table. guess there's no use in pushing him on the subject, you thought as you continued on finishing your food.

“you sure you don't want to sleep on the bed? there's still plenty of space here.” you asked, looking at him lying on the carpeted floor from the bed you were sitting on. “i feel bad.”

scaramouche had his back to you, so you weren't able to see what expression he was making as of now. “it's fine. hog the bed all you want, i'm not going up there.”

you raised a brow, but didn't question any further. “okay, just tell me if you wanna get up here. i don't mind sharing.”

the ravenette only replied with a hum as you got under the covers, getting ready to finally sleep after a long day of sneaking around.

except that you couldn't sleep at all.

it's around midnight— you think. it had been a few hours since you got into bed, but you haven't even managed to get a wink of sleep. scaramouche was sound asleep now, his soft snores can be heard if you listen close enough.

groaning, you turned to the other side of the bed in hopes of the new sleeping position helping you enter dreamland faster, but to no avail. you groaned in frustration once more.

“you should really stop doing that.” scaramouche said from the floor, voice husky from just waking up.

you propped yourself up with your elbow, and turned to look at scaramouche. “'m sorry, did i wake you?”

scaramouche slowly sat up, raking a hand through his bed hair. “it's fine.” he said, rubbing his eyes. “why're you still awake?”

“couldn't sleep.” you mumbled through the dark room, laying back on the bed as you stared at the ceiling. “been like that for the last couple of weeks.”

the ravenette raised his brow, but it went unnoticed by you. hearing the sound of rustling, you turned your head to the side, just to see that scaramouche had placed his pillow on the bed.

he sat at the edge of the bed, looking at you. “you okay?”

you scoffed. how ironic, you thought. he was the one who's been odd the whole day, yet he was asking you if you were okay, when he should be asking himself that.

“i could ask you the same question.”

at that, scaramouche fell silent. you turned your head back to continue on staring at the ceiling, again, in hopes that it'd bore you out to the point that you're asleep. unfortunately, the archons above really, really hates you.

you heard the sound of rustling sheets once again, and you turned to look at scaramouche, who was now suddenly under the covers, his back to you. “thought you said you didn't want to be up here.”

“you look like you needed company.”

you looked at him confusedly. at the lack of an answer from you, scaramouche huffed and turned to you. it was dark, you could barely make up most of the view in the room, but it was still enough to see the male beside you up close.

“i can sleep just well without you here.”

“sure you can.”

“wh– of course i can!”

scaramouche only shrugged, continuing on staring at you with a fond expression on his face. “what's on your mind?”

“...what d'ya mean?”

rolling his eyes, he brought up a finger to poke at your temple a couple of times, as if to further prove his question. “what's stopping this mind from resting?”

“ugh, stop that.” you swatted his hand away, though not harsh enough like you always do. “was just thinking about you.” you blurted out, making the ravenette widened his eyes.

scaramouche barely believes in the archons, yet he fervently thanks celestial above for the dark room, for you wouldn't get to see how red he's getting from just a single sentence.

eyes wide, you quickly fumbled for an excuse. “n–not in that way! i was just thinking about how you were kind of quiet the whole evening.” you said awkwardly, fidgeting the hem of your shirt. “did i say or do anything?”

“...no, you didn't do anything.”

“then why have you been acting weird today?”

scaramouche looked away from you, sighing. “it's just... when you mentioned about childhood, it just reminded me of mine.” he muttered.

from the years you've known scaramouche, he has never, ever, talked about his family background. you never questioned why, afraid that you were crossing boundaries. now that he's willing to even mention about it, you were shocked to say the least, but stayed quiet nonetheless.

“i didn't respond to your question because i... never experienced any of those stuff.” he paused, glancing at you. “my mother, she, abandoned me when i was little.”

“oh archons, i'm really sorry. i shouldn't have asked that.” you said, scratching your head.

“it's fine. it's been decades now, i rarely care that much anymore.” he let out a breath of a chuckle, somehow amused. “it just hit home when you talked about childhood.”

you stared at him for a long while, and he did the same to you. sighing, you went closer to him and pulled him into an embrace, leaving the ravenette in complete shock.

“you're a strong guy, i'm sorry all those shit happened to you.” you mumbled, wrapping your arms tightly around his middle. scaramouche hovered his hand over your hip for a moment, before reluctantly wrapping an arm around your waist, relishing in the comfort you're willingly giving him.

scaramouche is anything but strong. he had always thought that he was the most weakest among all, yet you make it seem like he was far from fragile, which is ironic, truly. you've always made him feel like a different person, you always never fail to make him feel alive, make him feel like his emotions matter, make him feel important.

it was one of your greatest qualities. you always bring out the best out of someone, and never ask for anything in return. you've made him feel things he never even thought he had, and you've made him feel like he was a perfect human being, despite the many flaws and imperfections of his.

for the last couple of months, your efforts for him only grew bigger. in spite of you two not being able to stand each other, you never stopped making him feel like human. and for the past few weeks, his views of you have changed very differently.

he never thought of himself being in love, just the thought of those four letters make him gag. but with you, he thinks, anything is possible. and after many sleepless nights of being in thought, he has now come to terms at this moment that maybe, just maybe, he has the slightest feelings for you.

it's not something he'd ever tell you of course, and he has never planned on doing so in the future, afraid that he might ruin what you two currently have. he has come a long way with you, from not able to stand being in the same room together, all the way to you being in his arms right now. he does not think it's worth the risk of ruining whatever the hell you two are at the moment.

he sighed after what felt like forever, and hugged you more tightly. “thank you, y/n.”

no response.

he looked down, just to see that you were sound asleep, in his arms. he smiled fondly after a few seconds, brushing your hair just a bit. you looked so peaceful right now, and he slightly missed this view of you.

he wishes he could see you like this every day, every morning, and every single night, but then again, he does not feel like you'd reciprocate his feelings anyways.

he sighed again, bringing you more closer than before.

looks like you do need company to sleep better.

forelsket. from: norwegian. means: that overwhelming gut-rush euphoria exclusive to the beginnings of falling in love. (please correct me if i'm wrong lmao i got this from google)

taglist; @beriiov @hopesandlegacy @cloudsandrenoswife @salamiwrites @thenightsflower @bleedingwhiteroses222 @lisiastak021 @yuuki4646 @lez-zuha @ryhie @sleepy-waffle @yoursockstinks @shizunxie @moonxma @kunikuzushiit @anonwhocried @vqqrii @luminesuprrmacy @calxb-do @sixscara @xooya @mobiussdarling @mafukissu @antri13

(unfortunately i am unable to tag those that are in bold, i'm sorry!)

want to be added to the taglist?

#h✧˖—mission accomplished #scaramouche x reader #scaramouche #genshin impact scaramouche #genshin impact #genshin #genshin x you #genshin impact imagines #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact reader insert #genshin scaramouche #scaramouche fluff #LOLLL I HATE WRITING THIS CHAPTER SO MUCH YOU DONT UNDERSTAND #kunikuzushi x reader

[ayeforscotland]

Hey previous anon

Sorry i think you misunderstood me about 'the deficit', more specifically that the average Scot currently receives more in public spending and contributes less in tax than the national average. Nothing to do with the national debt, more that the way Scotland is currently run is not financially sustainable and in order to BE financially sustainable as an independent country it would have to cut the things that make it better than the rest of the UK. Or tax people more. Which is a great way to sell a referendum.

Also I know its a tired comparison but 'our trade is currently restricted by the entity we do the vast majority of our trade with, so we need to erect massive tariff barriers with it and completely restructure our export market in order to reclaim our sovereignty' really?

'None of the practicalities of making this immense change really concern me so long as we have the capacity to make the decisions for ourselves' fucking really?

There's a reason why this blog only posts about the fuckups of Westminster, funny and many as they are, and its because you don't have answers about how to make this work beyond 'it will work.' 60% of your trade is with the UK? Doesn't matter, the EU will sort it out. Never mind the presumed change in tastes and preferences or the differences in competition structure, it'll just work. Because it has to.

As it stands, support for independence is about 50/50. And running with that comparison, what happened the last time the government made a decision with little consideration of the consequences that half the country opposed?

Again its pointless because this is your identity so nothing's gonna get changed here, and I recognise the same is true for me. It's just frustrating.

Okay so I reckon you're pulling this from the annual GERS report which accounts for Scotland as a region of the UK rather than if Scotland was an independent country. This means the GERS contains multiple UK-wide expenditures which are not controlled by the Scottish Government. These costs are applied to GERS as a population percentage of total UK Government expenditure, this happens regardless of where that expenditure was applied and whether it was the Scottish or British government that spent the money. This *is* impacted by UK National Debt. There's a line in GERS called the 'Public Sector Debt Interest' which is the interest on the debt accrued by the British Government that Scotland contributes to paying off. From 2019-2020 this added up to an additional £4.5 Billion. Lastly on the economics side, several revenues like Oil & Gas taxation, corporation tax and VAT are controlled by the UK Government. Changes to those can drastically alter Scotland's income without running it past the Scottish Government. Now on to Trade - It's funny you talk about barriers when the UK has just bent over backwards to get a deal for Northern Ireland through. The only reason you would talk about erecting a barrier between Scotland and England is because you believe the British Government are going to deliberately negotiate in bad faith. And sure, you might claim that that's their right, but that's not exactly going to win anyone over to the pro-union side. I never said anything about ignoring the practicalities so I'd appreciate you don't put words in my mouth. Becoming an independent country will require hard work and effort, and it's 100% worth it if we are able to then make our own economic decisions. We barely have to look back six months to see a Tory Party tanking the economy on a whim over the course of a week. I have plenty of criticisms about the Scottish Government - it often moves at a frustratingly glacial pace to enact change. Some policies stagnate because of lack ambition from senior civil servants. But that's nothing compared to the ridiculousness of the Westminster system who are often outright malicious in their policy-making - and they hold the purse strings for the devolved governments. There is a democratic deficit in the UK, and it's why many people support independence. I know this is probably difficult for you to reconcile with which is why unionists tend to opt for the barrage of practicalities first, and you're never happy with any of the answers so you just resort to saying we've not answered the questions. At the end of the day you just don't want Scotland to leave the UK because you see that as part of your identity - and that's absolutely fine. But pretending that Scotland is some unique economic basket case is silly. I'm cool with unionsts who openly say they are passionate about the union, they don't need to dress it up.

[yesloulou]

Hey! I love your gifs and also the fics you share!! Do you have any favourite writers? In particular who post on tumblr, I’ve never really liked using ao3 :( thanks for all your amazing gifs and edits and for keeping us fed even when daniels not driving!!! ❤️ (p.s. my app crashed in the middle of writing this once already so I hope it didn’t send half written lol)

anon you're so sweet ahhh ty for this ask 😵‍💫

tell you the truth it's always strange (in a good way ofc!! but still strange) for me to get compliments for making gifs bc like, im literally doing something so fun? it just didn't (still kinda doesn't) make sense to me that I get all these kind and wonderful compliments simply for some random leisure activity that i LIKE to do... but then I started to realize maybe life doesn't like, need to be hard, you don't always need to like suck it up in order to produce something of value. you can enjoy what you do and still contribute to something. this realization (and watching our blorbos doing what they love in their vroom vrooms every week) inspired me to finally quit what used to be my dream job last week. i am now enjoying my time off to figure out my next step literally like mr daniel ricciardo lmao. grad school me would've thought this was batshit insane but again like daniel im in a very good place rn and i want to thank everybody here for this 🥹 your girl is no longer suffering for money and she's decided never to do that ever again. she's free 💖

soz this is literally not what your ask was about but since you've decided to like my stuff this is what's also gonna come with im so sorry 😚

ok cool now onto the fun stuff! there are so so SO many talented ppl here, every writer i've ever reblogged from i recommend them wholeheartedly!! since you liked my fic recs i'll assume we're into similar tropes and characterizations sooo in terms of personal favs here are my fav writers in alphabetical order

@mysticalbreadcollective just know i got myself an ao3 account bc this bread story became registered users only. here is their fic tag annnnd also this perfect one shot on tumblr <3

@officialmood ik you said you don't like using ao3 but believe me you will want to read everything she writes ie time traveller max and SCWC and many many more. SCWC actually prompted the most unhinged fic rec i've ever made (it was on anon at first soo)

@powerful-owl em's fic tag aka what i call how on earth am i reading these for free. her ao3 where the hunger game au resides which has been described as "like it's laced w drugs or something"

@toastandvegemite ok buckle up

almost fic tag (every time i go in there i feel like im visiting disneyland eataly anthropologie and my fav club all rolled into one) (the way the phrase 'almost fic' actually gives me mood boosts now bc that's what she tags her writings with)

nav

ao3

and very importantly hybrid au (where daniel is a quokka hybrid) (which may or may not get written) (but there is fan art already somehow)

again ty for this lovely ask i'd like to know about your fav writers too let's stay in touch!!

#maxiel #asks #*

[my-name-is-siduri]

Sid's GenLoss thoughts, or, how Vinny is the key to all this

gif by hackerling

As I mentioned in my last post, I really don't know who anyone in GenLoss is outside of Jerma and Vinny. But I was immediately invested when I saw it was filled with lore.

I haven't seen too many people talk about gl!Vinny, so I figured I'd make my contribution by talking him in particular. (Spoilers, obviously.)

The carousel.

Vinny is an outlier in episode 2, both in his actions and how others react to him. We see this as soon as Ranboo first enters the carousel room. While there is urgency in Vinny's voice, he doesn't seem nearly as panicked as the others. Compare and contrast how everyone else acts while the carousel is turning:

To how Vinny acts:

For most of the carousel sequence, Vinny is quiet and distant. He doesn't address or even look at the camera when he passes by it on the carousel. The most we get after Ranboo first arrives is as he leaves, but in both instances Vinny's shouts are almost half-hearted.

Then there's his introduction.

The title on this clip upload is inaccurate. Unlike all the others, Vinny makes no attempt to beg for his life. He doesn't beg to be freed or try to escape. Vinny just tells us he's useful because he's a hoarder and spends the rest of the time listing the things he's hoarded. Even after becoming 'the taken', Sneeg still mentioned that looks forward to the chance of staying alive.

But Vinny doesn't do any of that, nor does he does it appear that he wants to. He just wants to talk about something else. Plug and plays. Wooden ducks. Anything other than surviving and escaping.

Vinny doesn't speak much while chat solves the pipe puzzle, but there is one thing he says that stands out: "I welcome death at this point."

Vinny's reaction to death, and the candy room.

As Vinny climbs out of the tunnel and stands up, he pauses and looks at Niki's body.

See clip here.

Although he's not as animated or dramatic as the others, Vinny is clearly shocked that she's dead. He questions why Ranboo and Sneeg are so focused on candy and Mouse Trap while Niki is dead on the floor. Of course, both Ranboo and Sneeg have been heavily brainwashed at this point, while Vinny likely hasn't. Curiously, after they brush off Niki's body, Vinny seems to brush it off too. While it may be that self-awareness only comes in bits and spirts, I think it's more likely (as we'll see later on) that Vinny was still aware and decided it was best to play along.

The other two moments in the candy room are interesting as well. Vinny takes Sneeg's suggestion and tastes a piece of candy, only to spit it out with disgust. "You're eating this stuff?" As others have pointed out, the candy is definitely not candy, but we don't know what it really is. All we know is that it didn't taste good.

And finally, Vinny makes one more comment before they leave the candy room: "What am I even doing in here?" To which, Ranboo can't give an answer.

From this point on, I'm going to skip ahead to Vinny's death and work my way backwards.

Reaction to Vinny's Death, and the laser room.

One of the few times we see Ranboo and Sneeg react to what's happening around them is moments before Vinny's dummy hits the ceiling.

It's curious that they have such a strong reaction. They did nothing as Niki screamed for help and let her die. When Ethan dies later on, they give no reaction. And Ranboo simply moves on when Austin and Sneeg are crushed to death.

But here they are, screaming at him hitting the ceiling. And when Vinny dies, they flinch at the sight. It was a subdued reaction, yes, but it was more than could be said for the others, except for maybe Slimetowel. Even afterwards, when they pass by Vinny's body, they're still uncomfortable by the sight.

Whatever really happened to Vinny was so shocking that pierced through all of their mind-control and scared them.

(By the way, this doesn't quite tie into the bigger theory I'm getting at here, I just thought it was interesting.)

"Goddamnit."

Out of all the on-screen deaths, Vinny is the calmest about his.

Niki cries after she's shot and completely breaks down before being shot again. Ethan screams at whatever it is that happened to him behind the fake wall. Austin and even Sneeg scream as they're crushed by the wall.

But Vinny? Sure, he does yell as he flies through the air and hits his head against the ceiling, but it hardly compares to the sheer horror the others experienced. When he realizes that he's about to die, all he does is lean his head back, says "Goddamnit", and lets the comically tiny anvil crush his head.

If anything, Ranboo and Sneeg have more of a reaction than Vinny does. Vinny is resigned and accepts his fate. Hell, he smiles just before they throw him. And those things he said before: "I welcome death at this point." "What am I even doing in here?"

How is Vinny so apathetic to what's happening without being forced to? Well…

"Guys, don't worry about it. I got this. I've done it before."

When presented with the laser room, Ranboo and Sneeg are at a loss (haha) on how to solve the puzzle. Vinny confidently tells them he's done it before. Ranboo tries to ask what he means by that, but Vinny doesn't elaborate and simply tells them that they need to throw him across the room. (I'll be fully honest, the reason I think that line is important and intentional is because it sounded like he was reciting a script word for word rather than him naturally speaking LOL)

He might be implying that this has happened during one of his funny stories like whatever happened at the wooden duck factory…but I think it's a lot more literal than that.

Repetition is a theme in GenLoss. In fact, it's what 'generation loss' means in the first place: repetition until degradation. Several people seem to have gone through trials before they happen, such as Slimesicle having a part of the Mouse Trap puzzle inside his 'slime.' And wait…didn't Slimesicle and Sneeg die on Day 1?

Everyone being held captive by Showfall has done this before. They've been trapped, put through puzzles, failed to escape, and died.

For whatever reason, Vinny remembers this. He knows the puzzles' solutions. He knows when he's not supposed to be on-screen. He knows that they've failed to escape before, and he's just biding his time until his next death.

But what if he's just being mind-controlled the way Sneeg is, you ask? He's not. Things aren't completely censored for him. He was shocked when he saw Niki dead. He found the not-candy to be revolting. He's still aware of the horrors going on around him. He's just desensitized because he's gone through it before, and he'll probably go through it again.

For a brief moment, however, something different happened. He got through the lasers farther than he ever has before. It's different than before. He smiles. "I made it!"

"Goddamnit."

#Generation Loss #GenLoss #GenLoss spoilers #Generation Loss spoilers #gl!Vinny #Vinny Vinesauce #Vinesauce #Sid does writing #Sid posts

[teaveetamer]

Okay, so let's address this since it's so obviously meant for us. And for the record, I'm not blocked by OP. I went to check their blog to see if they had anything else interesting to say about the conversation started yesterday. I'm taking a screencap because the post this is attached to has little to do with the issue at hand, and frankly my beef isn't with OP.

Personally, I wouldn't have screencapped the post. I believe that if someone blocks you then you should respect that and not interact with their posts. That's why I personally, when talking about the situation, did not reblog or spread the post with the screencaps further. Since I know Gascon will probably read this I'll make my feelings clear: I think it was a bad call to screencap someone who blocked you.

However, I'm not surprised that you, my not so anonymous dude, decided to present this entirely devoid of any context to make it seem to your friends and followers like there's somehow a moral equivalence between what you do and what was done in this situation. I know you struggle with nuance and context, so I'll spell it out very clearly.

Gascon was directly invited to contribute to a conversation. The user who invited him had no idea that Gascon was blocked by the OP of that post, because Gascon didn't even know he was blocked by the OP of that post. The invitation was a good faith attempt to engage and provide the OP with analysis from a user they believe has expertise in the subject at hand. Gascon screencapped the original conversation that he was invited into and probably would have never seen otherwise, in full with complete context, and gave his response (as well as notifying people that the user in question had him blocked).

Now, I'm not Gascon, but I can say with almost 100% certainty that he does not care to interact with this person beyond this encounter, and he was never going to be invested enough to actually seek this person out beyond what he'd been tagged to respond to. And I know this because Gascon has repeatedly said over the course of the last year that he's bored of 3H and has no interest in discussing it further unless specifically prompted by a third party.

You, on the other hand, have been relentlessly stalking and screencapping and harassing people for months now. You have no qualms about sending hate anyone's way, in fact you even pass blog names on to your buddies on Discord and Reddit and then brag when harassment happens. You find people on other social media sites to continue harassing them even after they've blocked you on one platform. Your blog has literally hundreds of screencaps from Nilsh and FantasyInvader and probably others that you use to whip your followers up into a frenzy. You are literally so obsessed with some users that you stalk their blog and then leave rude comments on the fics they recommend. You learn that you are blocked and you take it as a personal insult, and you do not stop harassing them until they have gotten so sick of you that they leave the platform entirely. And even then you don't stop. You still can't take Nilsh's name out of your mouth even though he's been gone for like six months. If you were a fictional character, I'd be Enemies to Lovers shipping you two by now with how obsessed with him you are. I mean really, full nine yards, 500k slowburn.

An analogy: you're basically saying a guy getting rejected by the same girl twice is the same level of harassment as a guy getting rejected by the same girl two hundred times. Like yeah, Guy #1 probably should have been better about hearing her "no" the first time and it was definitely an error in judgement to ask again. If she's upset by the interaction, I'd call him out. But good fucking lord it is not even remotely as severe as refusing to take no for an answer two hundred times. The only reason you would ever present them as equivalent is, frankly, if you are Mr. Two-Hundred and you're trying to make yourself look less creepy. You are Mr. Two-Hundred, my dude.

Also nice of you to continue insinuating that the women who call you out for your blatant harassment are all histrionic just because we don't like... *checks notes*... being stalked and harassed by some random 35 year old man on the internet over our opinions about a video game character. For your information, I'm neither screaming, crying, nor throwing up. I'm just holding you responsible for your behavior. Sorry if that upsets you, but there's a pretty simple solution to getting me to go away that you haven't tried yet. It's called leaving us the fuck alone like we've been asking you to for months. I would blissfully never talk about you ever again if you just stopped harassing people.

Not tagging you in this post because again, I don't encourage harassment. I doubt I need to tag you anyway, considering you've been stalking my blog ever since I called you out for that other little harassment situation you incited, so you'll definitely see it.

#Edelstans be wildin

[tomwambsmilk]

absolutely agree with you about the shiv drinking being a super separate thing to whether she keeps the baby and like the impact that will have. I think it's much more interesting even to look at it like "either she's already aborted it and is continuing as usual, or she feels immune to the consequences of drinking while pregnant," or something else more complicated and tangled. like Ming always says about succession being reproductive horror, the implications of her drinking are Much more interesting and nuanced than "she's trying to induce a miscarriage through drinking." and that is just looking at it from the media angle and not even from the. real life existence and repercussions of fetal alcohol syndrome.

Scrolling back through some old asks and this is from a week or so ago after I was posting about the 'shiv killing the baby with alcohol' jokes. Anyways. I wanted to come back to it because Shiv was maybe drinking again this week (other people have pointed out that in the scenes where she's holding alcohol, she tends not to definitively drink, which could be Shiv avoiding booze or could be Sarah Snook not actually drinking because she has lines, who knows). And I think you're right that, setting aside all the jokes and looking at the character and the narrative, yeah, I think both of those are strong possibilities. I'll also say that I know some doctors will advise that alcohol is okay in moderation, which - personally that's not a risk I'd take because of my experiences having family members with FASD, but I'm not a medical doctor I guess. So there is a third possibility where she's been advised that alcohol is okay 'in moderation', but because of how integral alcohol is to the way Waystar conducts business her idea of 'moderation' is very different than anyone else's. Still, it could contribute to the idea that FASD is something other women have to worry about, not her.

Or, it could be a 'fuck-it' response - in the bar before Logan dies she's drinking club soda, so it's very possible she didn't drink through that first 20 weeks. But her father just died and she's been told it's okay in moderation so fuck it, she'll have a few drinks, what the hell, it should be fine, right? It's just a temporary thing. In that case it could be associated with her grief, and could maybe be an indicator that she's anticipating her grief to be briefer than it actually will be - making the personal exception of 'I'll drink when I'm grieving and it'll be fine' only works if you expect your grief to last a few days, and not much more.

I will admit that there is a part of me that sees the logic of it being a sort of fetal russian roulette. I don't think Shiv wants to make a choice in either direction. On the podcast, Lucy Prebble said that being pregnant isn't necessarily bad news in itself - but it is horrendous timing. That makes a decision much harder than if no part of her ever wanted to be pregnant, especially if she isn't sure about the state of her marriage with Tom, and especially if she's not sure she'll ever find someone else, which I could see being a very real fear. There are obviously options for single women who want to have kids, but because of the dynastic implications of Roy pregnancies, I doubt Shiv would feel comfortable going the route of a sperm donor or adoption. Still, it's not how she wanted to have kids, if she had kids. And with the push-pull of those two influences, it certainly becomes easier if the decision is made for her. I could see her drinking as sort of a "if it's fine it's fine and if it's not it's not" sort of situation, consequently.

Tbh I'm not opposed to interpreting the drinking in light of the pregnancy - I was mostly just a bit upset about people making light of something that has had such serious impacts on my life and the lives of the people that I love. It's one thing for Shiv the character to be flippant or unconcerned about it, but the 'kill it with booze' jokes just rubbed me the wrong way because of my own experiences

#asks #anon #succession spoilers

[trifoliate-undergrowth]

A Very Religious family friend contacted me to say that she's going to be in town visiting my mom if I wanted to see them, and mentioned that she was coming sooner because mom had said she might not live until Christmas. That's interesting because I had just heard (from another family member) that mom was declining and asked her about it directly, and got a vague answer.

I thought of asking her about it, and pointing out that refusing to tell me what's going on when I've directly asked doesn't help anyone, but. I know she's not going to suddenly become more mature or develop better communication skills, she's not going to start talking to me. Also, if I brought it up to her it might turn into her asking me to visit sooner, and if I DON'T do that, I might get off not only not having to see her at Christmas as planned but not ever having to see her alive again. And that's honestly a joyful thought to me.

Like the idea that she might be gone soon is such a relief for a variety of reasons. I've been feeling sort of in limbo with job/potential move stuff, I would leave stuff at my parents' house but I don't want to see her while dropping it off, I don't mind my dad as much (his main crimes are letting my mom do whatever unquestioned and reacting poorly when I came out, compared to my mom, I can deal with that) so I could maybe repair our relationship a bit if he can bring himself to be cool about gender now, I could even leave Thistle with him, I wouldn't leave her with mom in the house bc the last TWO SEPARATE OCCASIONS I left cats with her that I thought we had decided as a family were inside cats she threw them out of the house while I was gone and I'm not taking that risk with Thistle. But the alternative once I move out is leaving her at her old home with my friend for awhile, where she will continue to bully her cat siblings in the way that made my friend want to give her to a single cat household to begin with. (My current roommate wants me to take her as she clearly prefers me and screams when I'm gone, lol. I'm glad because I love her very much but may not have an apartment for her to live in for a year or two while doing seasonal work and didn't want to claim her if my roommate wanted her and would have a better place for her. But I get to keep her! Yay!)

Like idk what to tag this as. Probably vent is close enough but it's a weirdly positive vent. My aunt kept trying to pressure me to spend Thanksgiving with them awhile back and saying that I'd regret it when she's gone and that she regrets not saying things to her mom. I'm sorry about that for her but, secretly, I'm glad her mom is dead too, she contributed to making my mom the way she is and she also was a nasty difficult person to deal with and it's a relief to no longer have her to deal with. I'll probably feel the same about my mom. I was done with the endless sisyphean attempts to salvage our relationship years ago. Break is almost over so calling this post here

#personal #vent ? #queuing the ding dong the witch is dead gif