#it makes us try to understand people in their contexts more

[dailymanners]

"Talking over people can be a hard habit to break, particularly if it’s part of your common methods of communication.

There are some legitimate reasons why people develop this habit. People that come from cultures or families that are generally loud and compete for the speaking floor get used to functioning in that environment. If you don’t talk loud and elbow your way into the conversation, then you just don’t get heard.

But that kind of communication doesn’t work in a more polite society or the workplace. Talking over other people can be seen as rude, dismissive, and disrespectful to those who aren’t used to that communication style.

Interrupting can also make quieter people feel excluded and unimportant, which isn’t really how you want people to feel in a good conversation.

9 Ways To Stop Interrupting People

1. Practice active listening.

Active listening is focusing intently on what the speaker has to say until they finish their thought.

Many people do not practice active listening. Instead, they skim the speaker’s words while trying to think of the next thing they want to say. This is a problem for a couple of reasons. First, they’re not really listening and may miss important context or statements that the speaker is making. Second, it makes the listener appear as though they are not engaged in the conversation.

And that second point is especially bad if you happen to be talking to the boss or having a sensitive conversation with a loved one. You don’t want to appear to be disengaged or uninterested.

Try to avoid thinking about what you want to say while the other person is thinking. Instead, quiet yourself and just focus on their words.

2. Pause for 10 seconds before speaking.

Sometimes we interrupt other people due to miscues in the flow of conversation. These cues can be easy to miss if you aren’t practicing active listening because they are often subtle. The speaker may have paused for dramatic effect, comedic timing, or just to gather their thoughts before they continue.

A good way to stop interrupting people is to simply take ten seconds between the time they stop speaking and you start speaking. It might feel awkward, but you can always explain this away as you were just thinking about what was being said, which you should be doing anyway.

That pause will also give you a little additional time to read the speaker and look for conversation cues for them, like if their facial expression denotes thought or a joke.

3. Purse your lips or cover your mouth.

Perhaps you need an active reminder to help stifle the impulse to talk over other people. You can do that by pursing your lips or adopting a posture where you can cover your mouth. Pursing your lips helps because it’s common body language for being in thought. The person you are speaking to will interpret that as you thinking about their words.

You may also find it helpful to rest your chin in your hand and put a finger over your lips, circumstances allowing. That would be fine in a personal conversation but will probably look a little off in professional conversations or meetings.

Either way, it’s a physical reminder to stop yourself from talking over people who haven’t finished what they have to say.

4. Repeat their statement back when appropriate.

When communicating with another person, a common piece of advice is to repeat their point back to them in your own words to show that you understand what they are saying. This can be a helpful piece of advice for not interrupting or talking over people because it forces your mind to stay focused on the speaker.

This is most helpful in a personal conversation where the other person expresses something of deep importance. Like, think of when a friend is having a hard time, or maybe you’re having a discussion with your boss about a work responsibility.

5. Allow the speaker to continue if you do interrupt.

You’re going to mess up. You’re going to fall back to that old habit and interrupt someone sooner or later. It’s okay! Really. No one is perfect, so don’t expect yourself to be either.

Stop yourself when it happens. Just say, “I’m sorry for interrupting, please go on.”

The habit of making that apology will help you maintain better control over when you decide to interject into the conversation. And it has the added benefit of communicating to the speaker that you realize you made an error, are apologetic, and give them back the floor to continue speaking.

6. Make notes if you are in a work setting or group conversation.

In a work or group setting, it is helpful to carry a small notebook with you. That way, you can jot down notes and thoughts you have about what’s being said to revisit later. Some people interrupt because they are afraid they will forget their question or point. The notebook is the solution to that problem.

Plus, it’s helpful to collect these thoughts and notes for when you get to the end of the presentation. You may find that your question was already answered or your points covered by the end.

7. Acknowledge your interruption if you need to make one.

There are times in conversations when you need to make an interruption. Perhaps there is a bit of misinformation being shared that you need to correct. In that scenario, just limit yourself to providing the appropriate context or information required for the comment.

“I’m sorry to interrupt you, but…”

Make your point, and then step back out of the flow of conversation.

An interruption is sometimes necessary.

8. Ask a friend to help you.

Changing a habit can be hard work. You can make the job easier by enlisting the help of a trusted friend or family member. Have them keep an eye on you and just give you a little nudge or inform you when you’re interrupting, so you can better avoid it.

After the conversation is over, they can just tell you, “Hey, you interrupted John while he was talking about his trip.” That way, you can acknowledge it with yourself if you feel it slipped under your radar.

9. Practice with a partner.

A great way to change any habit is through regular practice. You can practice not interrupting with the help of a friend by just asking them to talk about a thing. Suggest they talk about something with their work, an event in their life, or a situation they had to deal with. Then, take that time to actively listen to what they have to say, work on your own internal narration, and stop the triggers that cause you to talk over people.

Make it clear that you are asking for help with this specific problem and may not be entirely invested in the conversation. You don’t want your friend to be pouring their heart out to you, and you’re not paying attention because you’re thinking about how you speak.

Keep practicing. Keep working on listening and just being quiet when other people speak. The more you work at it, the easier it will be to ditch that interrupting habit and be a quality conversationalist.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Why is interrupting people rude?

In many cultures, interrupting people is rude because it shows disrespect to the person speaking and the point they are trying to make. People like to express themselves and feel heard by those they are talking to. To interrupt is to deny them that right.

What are the consequences of interrupting people?

If you regularly interrupt someone, it might make them pull away from you or not want to talk to you. After all, if they can’t say what’s on their mind without you jumping in every five seconds, they’ll look for someone else with whom to share their thoughts, their news, or their worries.

Nobody wants to feel like they are part of a one-sided conversation where only what you have to say matters enough to be listened to.

Talking over people is also a problem if you are being given instructions. You may think you know what someone wants you to do, but unless you listen to their words carefully, you are likely to make errors or not doing things the way they want them done. This can lead to trouble of all sorts, especially in work situations but also when it comes to helping out a friend or partner.

Interrupting people can make you seem arrogant, rude, self-centered, and uncaring. These are not qualities you would wish to convey to others because they lead to weaker relationships and destroy the relationships you have already built up.

What does it feel like to be interrupted during a conversation?

When someone interrupts what you are saying, it can feel like what you have to say isn’t important. This can extend to feeling like nothing you have to say is important if someone in your life like a partner or parent always talks over you.

When you don’t feel heard, you may feel unloved or not respected. It can also make you feel powerless if the other person disregards your opinions and makes choices for you.

Being interrupted can also lead to feelings of anger and annoyance. It can cause ill-feelings toward the person who interrupted you that last well beyond the conversation."

#again I might not 100% agree with everything here #but there's still some good points being made #manners #good manners #courtesy #etiquette #politeness #submission

[yolowritter]

In Defense of Chloe Bourgeois Part 1: Who is Chloe?

Well...shit, here we go again! Hello there everyone, welcome back to the source of my endless exasperation! Before any of you pick a side to the argument, I want to make it perfectly clear that this isn't a post about whether or not Chloe should have had a redemption arc. This is not my point, and any argument for either side have been repeated so many times by now that I can recite most by memory. So, let's begin by establishing why exactly I'm even writing this post!

Chloe Bourgeois is one of my favorite characters in Miraculous Ladybug. The...the fanon version, obviously. Canon can go keel over in an alleyway, it already has more holes in it than the average swiss cheese. I've been a part of this fandom for a good few years now, and at the time of watching Miracle Queen was understandably upset at the...direction, that her character was taken. It left a sour taste in my mouth because I honestly didn't see it coming, but I'll get more into that later. Point is, I was once a defender of Chloe's redemption arc. I am not stating if I am or not still one of those at present, because that's not what the point is. Regardless of what side of the fence you're on, we can all agree that her character was horribly mismanaged in the latter half of this show. Erratic, extreme and oftentimes illogical choices that sound stupider than Lila's average gaslighting scheme, and a character who previously had an arc going for her now being defined only by the sheer inconsistency that writhes every moment she's on-screen. I'll be honest, I no longer particularly care if Chloe "should" have been redeemed or not, because either avenue could have allowed for some brilliant (or at the very least pretty decent) storytelling.

This defense strives not to strip anyone of their arguments, nor to challenge anyone's headcanons, or make a point about what the "correct" way to handle Chloe's character should have been. Again, I lost interest in the debate a long time ago. I'm simply here to examine who Chloe is as a person, what drives her, what her life experiences have been like, and where all this could logically lead from both a writing and human perspective. I care about Chloe as a person, and about a character who if nothing else, at least acts consistently, in a way where the audience can watch them and understand why they're acting like this. I'll be trying to give context to some of her actions and fill in as many plot holes as I can, as well as giving a glimpse as to how a possible Redemption or Corruption Arc could have gone. So without any further ado, let's dive right in!

Firstly, let's start by laying out some common ground. After the Gabriel Agreste post, I think it's necessary to establish some clear lines as to what exactly we're talking about here. So before anything else, let's look at what we learn about Chloe in Season 1, yeah? Without going episode-by-episode, we generally don't get a good impression of her. Chloe is clearly spoiled by her father, used to always getting her way, and has no problem pressuring others into making that happen. She treats her classmates more like annoyances if not outright minions (Sabrina and on occasion Kim), has little consideration for other people's feelings, and likes appearing superior to everyone else. A pretty bad start, all things considered. She bosses Sabrina around, and we're explicitly told that Chloe often bribes her with her second-hand stuff, or whatever she wants to get rid of. Sabrina clearly doesn't know how to stand up for herself, and Chloe seems perfectly willing to take advantage of her doormat status. She also has the roots for a sweet sweet superiority complex firmly planted, considering how she rejects and humiliates Kim when he tries to confess his love to her. I'll be damned if I ever understand such bad taste, considering how Chloe is generally disliked by the rest of the class, but the point stands. She could have just told him no, even rudely if need be, and left it at that. Instead, she actively chose to humiliate the poor guy. Something similar happened with Nathaniel, whose feelings about Marinette she made public to everyone else for what seems to be entertainment value.

All in all, Season 1 Chloe has all the stereotypical makings of a popular girl from a 2010s American high school movie, including the narcissism, bullying, strong-arming school staff into not punishing these behaviors, inflated ego, and the complimentary minion! Except...Chloe isn't popular. With anyone, actually. Most of the class dislikes and barely puts up with her on a good day. They don't laugh along or jeer at whomever she's giving trouble to. Instead we have several instances where people actively try to either push the teachers into doing something or remove her from a situation where Chloe is causing problems. Think about the filming scenes in Horrificator for example. Chloe is acting like her usual self again, and refuses to allow Marinette to be the lead actress because she'll get to kiss Adrien. A tragedy, I know! Therefore, there's a whole plot to get her out of the room long enough for the scene to happen. People actively consider her at the very least a pain in the rear, and probably someone they just don't even want to talk to.

Obviously this isn't an excuse for anything she does. My point here is that from the perspective of the narrative, even while acting the part of a "Queen B", Chloe reaps none of the benefits, and in fact only serves to make people dislike her more with every episode that passes by. Even Adrien, who I'll circle back to in a second, her childhood friend who has a good opinion of her when he first comes to school, eventually stops trying to defend Chloe's behavior. There are, I think, a lot of reasons as to why she acts this way. Precisely none of them are an excuse or a "get out of jail" free card. Chloe still chooses to behave the way she does, regardless of the motivations.

About Adrien, we know that he and Chloe have known each other for a long while now. She was quite possibly his singular friend during his otherwise relatively isolating childhood, and she's very clearly attached to him. Chloe constantly clings to Adrien and drapes herself over him, and while he seems to find it annoying, there's still never a sense of disgust like with Lila in later Seasons. She's being suffocating, but there is never a connotation of romance here. Still, Chloe does everything she can to keep Adrien close to her, and (in Origins) "teach him how things are" in school. She's the one who got him signed up as a student in the first place, mind you, so she very clearly wants him to be around her. And while Chloe does brag about him being a famous model, she could just...do that without ever actually bringing Adrien out of the house? Clearly that's not the reason why she went through all the trouble to actually get him in the class, because bragging about it would probably go worse if she did it in front of him, or in an environment where Adrien could easily hear about and react to it. Chloe is very possessive of her "best friend" (and only friend, discounting Sabrina), and constantly belittles Marinette for trying to get close to him. Mind you, she doesn't find out about her feelings for Adrien until Season 3 I think. We never see Nino get bullied for befriending him, so what gives?

I'll talk about reasoning later down the line. For now, let's move onto Season 2. Amidst the beginnings of Ladybug handing out Miraculous jewels like candy to her best pals, seriously Season 4 overdid it, Chloe also exists. And during Despair Bear, Adrien finally puts his foot down about her behavior. He tells her that he can't be friends with someone who acts like a bully, and Chloe is genuinely hurt by this, to the point where she does her best to put on a good show and convince Adrien that is capable of not being an ass. Which is actually the case, believe it or not. She holds back the snides, does her best to make casual conversation with the people she considers to be inferior to her (I'll get to that, don't worry), and makes a real effort to keep at it for the sake of their friendship. The reason why she blows up here is made very obvious by the episode itself. Chloe is in unfamiliar territory and clearly reining herself in a lot, which Despair Bear pokes fun of in several back-to-back scenes. She doesn't want to do this, clearly has mutual dislike for the people she's forced to put up with every day and has made up her mind about a long time ago, for the sake of the one person she considers a genuine friend. And mind you, Chloe never uses Adrien for something. She brags about his job in Origins, and preens about their friendship often, but she never takes advantage of him like she does Sabrina. I will get to their toxic friendship in a minute, don't worry, but Chloe chooses not to try doing this with him. Adrien is...oblivious, to put it nicely, and she could easily try and play around that to serve her own goals, but she doesn't. Keep this in mind.

Anyway, she blows up because Armand (also c'mon, if you wanted to make the joke that Chloe doesn't know her butler's name, Jean "insert today's last name" was more than enough, Thomas) keeps lugging her teddy bear and playing pretend with her in a room full of people. I'm sorry, but that may be the most relatable Chloe moment in the whole show. Are you kidding me??? Of course she'd be embarrassed by this! I mean sure, her reaction to the situation is wrong, she shouldn't have screamed at him or threatened the man's job, but Chloe has serious anger management issues. That is obvious, because she acts like this every single day! Why would Armand do this??? She's already way out of her comfort zone by even hosting the party in the first place, surely there's easier ways of reminding Chloe not to be a bitch? Just tap her on the shoulder and say "miss, remember Adrien?" because that's the whole reason this is happening! The teddy bear is completely unecessary! Especially the voice acting! It made me laugh so hard when I first watched that episode but can you blame Chloe for being pissed? Again, she reacted poorly because her self control is comparable to Plagg's when there's camambert in his field of vision! So yeah, it's wrong to scream people's ears off like that, but she was also upset. And she's fourteen mind you!

Anyway, my actual point about Season 2 is that we get to see Chloe's character development. Thank Nooroo, finally a proper arc in this damn show! And we also get to see her family life. Side note, Andre Bourgeois is a spineless coward who I'll be bashing momentarily. But Chloe's mother is horrible! Audrey Bourgeois is blatantly neglectful, if not abusive to her daughter! She treats Chloe the same way Chloe treats everyone else! As disposable, expendable things that don't "deserve" her attention because they're not good enough. Like, if this doesn't give a six year old some hefty trauma along with an inferiority complex, what will??? And the situation becomes even worse as Chloe becomes incresingly desperate during Style Queen, trying again and again to please Audrey by copying her behavior (which she's been doing this whole time) even more intensly, and acting like the entitled, self-absorbed narcissist that her mother is! And this is where we see exactly why Chloe does what she does! Again, none of this excuses her actions, but it does help us understand the behavior. Audrey constantly puts Chloe down and belittles her the same way she does to Marinette...only to later pick the kid that Chloe is jealous of (I will explain this in a second!) to come with her to New York, where Audrey had presumably yeeted herself off to years ago and never bothered to come visit! We already know that she pressured her husband into giving up his love for film to stay with her, maybe even during her pregnancy or after Chloe's birth. Only to promptly vanish and leave him (a person who never grew a spine or managed to stand up to what is undoubtebly a toxic relationship) with her miniature copy. It's obvious that Chloe's barely ever seen Audrey, but she idolizes the woman because that's her mother! Heck, Adrien idolizes Emilie even if she was arguably not a great person (see here) and Chloe is always kicked to the curb for just doing the same!

Audrey is a horrible person and an even worse role model, but when you're five years old and she disappears from your life, is it any wonder that there's a steaming hot pile of mommy issues here? If Chloe has been told by Audrey from the moment she was old enough to understand words that she isn't "exceptional" enough to "deserve" her time, then isn't it obvious why Andre tries and fails to make up for this by always coddling his daughter and giving in to her every whim? He's trying to please her and give Chloe a sense of self-importance that Audrey made near-impossible to develop, and also makes up for his own absence by basically bribing his own child! Not that Andre is innocent in this! If anything, he's even more at fault than Audrey! Because while she flew off into the sunset to fire her twenty-seventh unpaid intern of the week, he was still in Paris with Chloe! Who grew up with him, mind you! And sure, he got elected into office and had a busy job as a single parent! You know what else he did? Crime! Almost everything he does in this damn show is completely illegal! Bribery, blackmail, undue termination of Roger's position as a police officer, who Andre doesn't even have juristiction over mind you (because Paris had the National Police until like 2021-ish if I recall correctly), he's just a corrupt, scummy politian whose ideas (see Megaleech) are harmful to the people he's supposed to be serving and outright motivated by greed! And also, we are explicitly told that he taught Chloe to do these same things! Andre Bourgeois is a total idiot who's probably been committing tax evasion for all we know, and Audrey is a self-absorbed diva who bullies her own child constantly, when she even bothers to go see her! Which is never, unless she needs to be in Paris for some other event related to her job!

Thomas, what the heck do you mean Chloe is evil? Lila is an accomplice to a domestic terrorist, and a psychopath against whom the only protection is the show's PG rating! If Lila could, she'd burn Marinette's house down for shits and giggles my good man! Audrey is everything I just mentioned, Andrey is a corrupt, spineless politician, Tomoe physically abuses her daughter with fucking katanas on the daily, Gabriel Agreste is that domestic terrorist who almost fired every nuclear warhear in the USA by the way! Because that was stupid of the NYC special to do! But he still did it! Plus the genocide in Shanghai! Accident or not, Hawkmoth is still responsible! And later on he also put his son in a room! A rubber room! Thankfully there weren't any rats, as if he needs another OSHA violation! Are you people insane when you say "I don't know why Chloe acts like this"? Have you lost your marbles??? Do you want me to have an aneurysm? Of course a child is going to act the way Chloe does if this is the shit she's been dealing with since Day 0 of her life! Does that make it okay? Absolutely not! But does it mean that she deserved what happened to her canonically? Also no! I'll talk about how the corruption arc could have worked at the end, because they tried and failed to do that, so let's circle back to the "jealous of Marinette" thing from a minute ago, kay?

Note: We're doing this in part 2 because this is closing in on 3k words already. The whole rant is done, no you don't want to know how long it is, I'm just splitting it because nobody will ever read 7.5k words worth of anything on Tumblr dot com.

< next post >

#miraculous ladybug #marinette dupain cheng #chloe bourgeois #character analysis #in depth #extremely in depth #god help me please #i may have a problem #analysis #that's the problem #chloe bourgeois has reasons for being chloe bourgeois #this took me two weeks #seriously though #writer problems #skill issue #it's solely my issue #anyway yeah #i have to go post the other 2 parts #so... #i'll see myself out

[maximumqueer]

One Piece and Media Literacy

So this entire post was born out of me trying to understand why there are certain readings and interpretations of one piece that get under my skin so much. I like to think that I am normally pretty open to different readings of a text. I’m an English major, literally 90% of my degree is discussing different interpretations of fictional media, and that often involves encountering people with different readings than my own. That is good, and I think that as long as a reading can be backed up with good faith textual evidence it’s a valid reading. And that was the sticking point for me,  that the takes that I kept seeing had logic behind them. I could see how and why the person sharing them came to the conclusion they did. But, what I realized is that even though these conclusions did make sense, it also relied on an incredibly literal, surface level take on the scene that also oftentimes ignored the context of how and why the moment was taking place. In other words, a lack of media literacy. 

I’m going to use two scenes that I personally view as getting misconstrued as a result of this as examples. The first one is Shanks' conversation with Whitebeard, particularly this sentence Shanks says in response to Whitebeard questioning Shanks on the loss of his arm. 

I have seen this moment be interpreted as Shanks intentionally losing his arm to teach Luffy a lesson in leadership, that what makes a good captain is one who is willing to put themselves and their life on the line for the people they care about. I do think that is a lesson Luffy took away from this moment, but I don’t think that this scene is framing it as intentional. The meeting between  these two characters is grandiose, and the dialogue they use exemplifies that. Just before this, Whitebeard asked Shanks “What enemy did you give that left arm to?” (One Piece, Ch. 434, pg. 11).  Whitebeard isn’t asking Shanks if he literally gave his arm to an enemy, but rather asking who he lost his arm to, but in a verbose way. As such, Shanks doesn’t mean that he intentionally gave up his arm. And while he could have said that a sea monster took it, he instead switched focus from the thing that took it to the person who he lost it for. It shows Shanks' mindset towards losing his arm, and how he does not actually view it as a loss, as it was lost saving a kid Shanks saw potential in, a kid who would be a part of the new era. 

I will also say that the implication of Shanks intentionally losing his arm makes him a worse person, and cheapens his and Luffy’s relationship. The implication being that the emotional distress we saw him in when Luffy was kidnapped and in peril was at least to a point faked. A person in distress is not worrying about what lesson they can impart onto the person they’re saving, and as such saying that Shanks could have in that moment decided to intentionally give up his arm paints him as a much colder, more calculating character, which I would argue would be to the detriment of his character.

And I know that this reading is in part trying to explain why Shanks, a very powerful character, would lose his arm to a sea monster in the East Blue. But this was Shanks from 12 years ago, I don’t think it takes a massive leap in logic to assume that he simply wasn’t as strong of a character back then. Add to that his attention mainly being focused on making sure he got to Luffy in time, and I think him losing his arm in that moment makes perfect sense. 

The second scene is when Rob Lucci suggests that Luffy’s use of gear 2 is causing him to shave years off his life. 

What Lucci says here is often taken at face value, and then applied to every other gear we have seen Luffy use. This is also information that is stated as fact, more often than not. That every time Luffy uses gear 2 or 3 (pre - ts) or gear 4 or 5 (post - ts) that he is taking a couple years off his life. And as this all stems from Rob Lucci, we have to ask 1: Is Rob Lucci knowledgeable enough to actually make this claim? And 2: Is he a trustworthy source of information? 

The first question is up for debate. Lucci could very well make an educated guess about the strain Luffy is putting on his body. But at the end of the day he is only going off of very limited knowledge about both Luffy and his devil fruit. The second question, I would argue, is a resounding no. Lucci is a member of CP9 (now CP0) an intelligence agency that focuses on infiltration. Part of Lucci’s job is to lie and coerce people. This is also the man that killed his fellow soldiers that had been taken as POWs to prevent the county they were fighting from having the upper hand. That is not the kind of person whose word you can take at face value.

It is also worth noting that the broader scene that this line of dialogue belongs to involves Lucci trying to psyche Luffy out by telling him that there is no hope of him or his friends winning, using the claim that he is shortening his life, as well as information that his crew is in a tunnel that will soon flood, killing them. And while some of this info is true, that is not the reasoning behind Lucci telling him it. He wants Luffy to be discouraged and to feel like there is no possible way for him to win. The information he tells to Luffy does not have to be true for this tactic to work. 

What I’m trying to get at here is that analysis that does not take in the broader context of the story, or the established characterization of the people in the specific scene being analyzed leads to a reading based in ignorance, as not all of the information is being considered. It can also lead to misunderstandings within the fandom, like how I’ve seen it stated that Luffy using gear 5 shortens his life span. There is no canon backing for this, other than the literal interpretation of what a villain said about an entirely different gear nearly 20 years ago in real time. Or it can unintentionally paint a character that has previously been characterized as deeply caring for the protagonist as being cold and distant instead, more focused on making the next generation is strong - both physically and as leaders - than about saving the protagonist's (who at the time was a child) life.

#one piece #one piece spoilers #one piece meta #monkey d luffy #red haired shanks #rob lucci #media literacy

[hogans-heroes]

https://www.tumblr.com/hogans-heroes/744517790110826496/httpswwwtumblrcomhogans-heroes74451655142580

no because if u do rewatch i need to know how u perceived some of the scenes and dialogue, mainly when bucky asks buck what he thinks of them and buck says he doesn’t think anything of them and i’m like what on earth does that mean😅 or when they first came in the room and everyone got weird and quiet and i even got weird vibes from buck and bucky and i’m like ok is this just racism

Thanks for making me stop my chores and look at the episode again with subtitles so I could get the rest of the dialouge lol.

When the guys first walked in and introduced themselves, Buck nodded and said "Gentlemen, welcome to paradise." (On second look the bunks they took were the empty ones, Hambone was just sitting on one).

Then in the library Alex says to Buck, "Back on that first day, all the guys looked to you. You got the final say. So why didn't you gripe about us bunking in 8? [their barrack number]"

Buck: "Well let's just say I knew you weren't spies."

As far as Bucky asking Buck what he thought of them, Buck's response that he hadn't been thinking of anything came across as having not given them a second look, they were just three more guys to him, though I suspect Bucky was asking because he knew they were up to something. I'm sure there's a certain "itchy" look about guys who are contemplating escape, which Bucky would be very familiar with.

This is kind of where we get into the realm of needing to have an entire lifetime of background in that era to really understand, but we can try. Alex and Macon were definitely getting a variety of Looks when they walked into the barracks, which could be for any number of reasons. It's safe to say there were at least several guys there that weren't happy about it and had that deep-runnign predjudice, and we also need to remember that even when someone wasn't racist, having your whole world perspective turned around is gonna take you a few seconds to come to grips with (meaning you never knew there were Black pilots and if you were from certain areas of the country were living with segration as normal whether you liked it or not, which explains a few "deer in the headlights" looks). From Alex and Macon's perspective however, it would suck to be on the receiving end of those looks no matter what was behind them, and they certainly would have a right to be worried about bunking with people they felt they couldn't trust. Alex seems to be more quick to trust than Macon, which of course could be for any number of reasons.

#thanks for the ask! #looking deeper is always good #it makes us try to understand people in their contexts more #good or bad

[kienium]

i have such a hard time with tone indicators still because i don't know what the fuck i mean either. how am i supposed to fake it until i make it in these conditions

#kie rambles #brought to you by the two mega autism trucks having sex where my brain should be #rant in tags #also even tho ik what the tone indicators are supposed to mean??? i have no clue how to apply those to a social context #it's like taking a test but the study guide is written entirely in emojis and i dont know what the subject is #“you said the thing you should know how you intended it” well. #when you spend your whole life trying to make your interactions palatable through masking #and suddenly this new tool that's supposed to help you get intentions across appears #i dont know how to use it without unmasking fully and i dont know how to do that yet #TONE INDICATORS ARE GOOD BTW. they help so many ppl and help people feel more free to joke around with each other w/o hurting one another #just saying it's. still hard to change the wiring of “indicate tone for neurotypical people to understand” -- #-- to “don't indicate it at all until the end” #basically i still wanna use them bc theyre helpful to lots of ppl but like when i fuck up constantly pls be patient #feels like masking 2 electric boogaloo #masking as a nt person thats masking as a nd person. maskception. let me out of here oh my god #also im in class rn making this post instead of paying attention so if i repeat myself like 8 times im sowwy

[unproduciblesmackdown]

that moment when: everyone's lives are restricted and constricted and these imposed consequences are attributed to anyone's continual individual failures to seek, find, and follow the Correct Path through Life, and so everyone is left on their own to only be seeking & finding these failures as well as the only answer to how their lives can be better....versus Not seeing the world as the free marketplace meritocracy of everyone's personal failures/successes, nor everything in your own life, and thus not forever having to scrutinize Where You Must Be Bringing It Upon Yourself by fucking up or at least failing to do the correct thing, and exist only in perpetual punishment for your ongoing failure and occasional temporary reprieves from it. recognizing everything that wasn't & isn't & wouldn't be [this is because you're bringing it upon yourself] and thus having more capacity & capability to look at the realm of your personal individual self, reality, experiences, life through the perpetual instances of seeking, finding, and following your own needs/wants through one's inherent personhood and exercises of autonomy and recognition of where & when & how one recognizes moments of their existing freely & in more resonant genuine alignment with themself, you know? endless examples to be found in endless fractals of [where & how are people's lives made smaller]. and that of course this doesn't preclude the ability/option at any time to question one's choices, since you'll be able to find more Actual choices available to you (and, also crucially, find more actual choices made by others that are in the pursuit of limiting Yours) to look at, and people getting to exercise their autonomy isn't the same as "everyone doing anything they want regardless of how it affects others" since that [how does it affect others?] element instead being Regarded would be able to lead to recognizing that, in fact, an effect might be the infringement on others' autonomy, hence: There's A Problem....like the ability to just go ham with [questioning???] anything in existence, certainly including oneself, b/c the "norm" is such that rather you're only supposed to be able to question yourself for your failings (or those positioned as less than, thus, beneath you) and not even have the language to express a questioning of aspects of life beyond that b/c stop calling anyone "cis" they're just Normal, Just Be Normal and it would all be fine

#brought to you by: i think one of my feelings lately of A Shift is in my less than ever running this like continuous background function of #looking for Thee Answer (just like the black suits) in any & everything that could serve as the Key to like. whatever could fit into place #to like set things on a [hell yeah. life? better] path. juxtaposing this recent sense of things with the [lol. in retrospect i Do see a new #context wherein i can Recognize smthing abt myself] past going on of like. granpa greentext story be me be fifteen i'm in college b/c i hat #school i also mostly assumed i'd probably fail out freshman yr but didn't. i've never known what i'd wanna major in & as a sophomore i'm de #supposed to figure it out in time for scheduling my jr yr classes (though Ideally have known from the start / been scheduling thusly) & so #many evenings during dinner i'm furiously perusing the daily print news as i've been doing for some yrs to Keep Up W/Current Events but now #also consciously like ''boy i hope in the course of doing this i stumble across some info that sparks some eureka moment of Getting what my #major should Obviously be so i can understand the rest of my life around [do job] b/c i sure as hell don't understand it around [be married #much less [be parent] so one option remains obvi'' whereas now i realize like lol you Were figuring out a guiding light in doing so & that #perspective being honed was one of Having A Political Analysis times....which also provides another Example of [only being able to interpre #what makes your life & your world the way it is: via Your Personal Failures to have already Had Better] in that just like i often forget i #misguidedly (but also reasonably; clearly also using & seeking that autonomy & freedom) tried to have a better existence within the #situation i was in by Coming Out As Trans to parents via an email that was then not directly discussed ever; b/c any legitimate discussion #was not permissible like how so many matters of [supposed correct existence] are Unspeakable so as to be Unquestionable #languaging that succeeds & sustains itself having to be expansive / flexible / creative / evolving too. Making Up Words hell yes #anyways so i also forget i Did try to propose majoring in things that Did more approach what i was suspecting were things i'd wanna do #but even the first like expression of anything on the periphery of that was met with ''no you'd hate it b/c you'd have to deal w/Stupid Ppl #every day'' (by which was meant; with believed inherent synonymity: poor people) & then i also will oft forget i pushed for it any further #which i Know i did b/c of it next being met with angry & aggressive ''i've never heard you talk abt that interest before So'' #(wonder why? withholding info to protect yourself=finding room in one's life for existing more freely; exercising the autonomy to Do That) #but it's easy to forget b/c The All Encompassing Perspective was rather [i'm sure Failing to just Know my major for the sole possibility fo #defining one's entire life: The Correct Dream Job] & then Failing to push it or just express it & be understood ''correctly'' even if i Did #have any ideas in that realm. vs seeing how i Was succeeding & was recognizing shit & pursuing it & looking out for myself & etccc #it's undeniable lol like the framing even that Blaming Oneself is an autonomy seeking response. b/c your autonomous power in your own life #sure Would be more immediate if Everything Really Was Your Fault (when ofc really this is abt obscuring & denying the responsibility of ppl #who have the power over others' lives & then have to act like this is all the fault of the Others; they themselves have never Truly Chosen) #no victim blaming no condemnation of anyone's ''passivity'' here babey #re: the undeniability it's how like. maybe you've only Just realized you're not cis but in doing so it's like ''oh That's what i already #recognizing in various ways throughout my whole life'' it's all always Been there/going on & perspex shifts + new lenses can reveal them

[redysetdare]

I keep seeing other Aros say things like "Having a crush sounds like an anxiety attack" and while I get the misunderstanding I need y'all to realize that it's literally just the vagueness of the wording that's making you think this.

Crushes often get described as causing a "racing heart" you know what also is described that way? someone being excited. Someone being overjoyed. and yes, someone feeling anxious.

And the thing is, it's not wrong to assume anxiety because yes - Crushes can cause a bit of anxiety but the reason for the anxiety is different. Someone may be anxious around a crush because they want their crush to like them and don't want to embarrass themselves. It's just the generic anxiety of wanting to be likable to people but instead just being geared towards a specific person.

There's also the fact that a crush, like anxiety, does trigger adrenaline. but so do many things, such as going on a roller coaster. People enjoy roller coasters just fine because of the adrenaline rush and everyone agrees that going on roller coasters aren't anxiety attacks.

Basically what I'm trying to get at here is "this sounds like an anxiety attack" shows a misunderstanding of symptoms and in some cases is willfully ignorant as it shows that you don't wish to learn beyond your own understanding. And this misunderstanding is due to how vague the wording used to describe crushes usually is. It's using words and symptoms that depending on the context can mean different things.

TL;DR Crushes are no more like "anxiety attacks" then getting an adrenaline rush on a roller coaster. It's okay to not understand something but maybe don't call what you don't understand an "anxiety attack"

#text #aro #aromantic #aroace #also i believe this is also a fundamental misuse of 'anxiety attack' as there is so much more to anxiety attacks than what a crush describe #but i digress #i say this as an aroace person who used to feel similar but then when i thought on it more i realized it was just the vague wording #also the roller coaster analogy i think works really well #i dont like roller coasters but i cant understand why people would #also dont take this as me saying 'you guys are all doing this purposefully' cause im not #i understand the disconnect there especially with how things are worded #im just trying to say dont jump to the assumption of it beng like one thing #when literally just discussing it more and getting context can make it so much easier to understand #apologies if this is all over the place im a bit out of it lmao #i just had a thought process and my ADHD brain wouldn't let it go until i shared

[consciouschunkofmoss]

screaming my lungs out why do people make subtitles completely different from the actual audio ?? the fuck is wrong with you

literally thats so fucked on so many levels and im just plainly tired

#please let me watch a video with proper subtitles who are not seemingly pathetic attempts at fixing your script post-production #just let me actually know what the fuck is going on #bc otherwise its just a new milestone towards making it even more needlessly difficult to understand your shit #also i know its not my place to say that as fiercely as im not disabled in such a manner #but for those who truly cannot have access to the audio i think its pretty gross of you to change the entire structure of your words #even if to fix how linear and coherent your video is #why would you choose to do that when you Know that the main demographic of people who use captions are solely dependent on it #there is no excuse to cut entire pieces of your commentary to add ''smarter'' takes when you could just. do what youre meant to #(on the terms of this specific task. if youre so set on doing it) #which is just pass down the words one by one without changes ! #literally i am so on edge because that stresses me out so much #im not sure if im just being mean on this subject #because i do know there is *a lot* of work around developing fully working and well timed captions to a video #(specially if its long like those essay types) #but dude i dont want to get a headache every time i try to watch a video and fight for my life to understand the whole context to it #to which a nt person already has complete access to #its frustrating how this manner of editing never seems to have nd/disabled people in mind when exercising it on an actual video #(sorry for repeating video a lot. im not sure what else to use)

[jewishvitya]

A pro-Palestine Jew on tiktok asked those of us who were raised pro-Israel, what got us to change our minds on Palestine. I made a video to answer (with my voice, not my face), and a few people watched it and found some value in it. I'm putting this here too. I communicate through text better than voice.

So I feel repetitive for saying this at this point, but I grew up in the West Bank settlements. I wrote this post to give an example of the extent to which Palestinians are dehumanized there.

Where I live now, I meet Palestinians in day to day life. Israeli Arab citizens living their lives. In the West Bank, it was nothing like that. Over there, I only saw them through the electric fence, and the hostility between us and Palestinians was tangible.

When you're a child being brought into the situation, you don't experience the context, you don't experience the history, you don't know why they're hostile to you. You just feel "these people hate me, they don't want me to exist." And that bubble was my reality. So when I was taught in school that everything we did was in self defense, that our military is special and uniquely ethical because it's the only defensive military in the world - that made sense to me. It slotted neatly into the reality I knew.

One of the first things to burst the bubble for me was when I spoke to an old Israeli man and he was talking about his trauma from battle. I don't remember what he said, but it hit me wrong. It conflicted with the history as I understood it. So I was a bit desperate to make it make sense again, and I said, "But everything we did was in self defense, right?"

He kinda looked at me, couldn't understand at all why I was upset, and he went, "We destroyed whole villages. Of course we did. It was war, that's what you do."

And that casual "of course" stuck with me. I had to look into it more.

I couldn't look at more accurate history, and not at accounts by Palestinians, I was too primed against these sources to trust them. The community I grew up in had an anti-intellectual element to it where scholars weren't trusted about things like this.

So what really solidified this for me, was seeing Palestinian culture.

Because part of the story that Israel tells us to justify everything, is that Palestinians are not a distinct group of people, they're just Arabs. They belong to the nations around us. They insist on being here because they want to deny us a homeland. The Palestinian identity exists to hurt us. This, because the idea of displacing them and taking over their lands doesn't sound like stealing, if this was never theirs and they're only pretending because they want to deprive us.

But then foods, dances, clothing, embroidery, the Palestinian dialect. These things are history. They don't pop into existence just because you hate Jews and they're trying to move here. How gorgeous is the Palestinian thobe? How stunning is tatreez in general? And when I saw specific patterns belonging to different regions of Palestine?

All of these painted for me a rich shared life of a group of people, and countered the narrative that the Palestininian identity was fabricated to hurt us. It taught me that, whatever we call them, whatever they call themselves, they have a history in this land, they have a right to it, they have a connection to it that we can't override with our own.

I started having conversations with leftist friends. Confronting the fact that the borders of the occupied territories are arbitrary and every Israeli city was taken from them. In one of those conversations, I was encouraged to rethink how I imagine peace.

This also goes back to schooling. Because they drilled into us, we're the ones who want peace, they're the ones who keep fighting, they're just so dedicated to death and killing and they won't leave us alone.

In high school, we had a stadium event with a speaker who was telling us about a person who defected from Hamas, converted to Christianity and became a Shin Bet agent. Pretty sure you can read this in the book "Son of Hamas." A lot of my friends read the book, I didn't read it, I only know what I was told in that lecture. I guess they couldn't risk us missing out on the indoctrination if we chose not to read it.

One of the things they told us was how he thought, we've been fighting with them for so long, Israelis must have a culture around the glorification of violence. And he looked for that in music. He looked for songs about war. And for a while he just couldn't find any, but when he did, he translated it more fully, and he found out the song was about an end to wars. And this, according to the story as I was told it, was one of the things that convinced him. If you know know the current trending Israeli "war anthem," you know this flimsy reasoning doesn't work.

Back then, my friend encouraged me to think more critically about how we as Israelis envision peace, as the absence of resistance. And how self-centered it is. They can be suffering under our occupation, but as long as it doesn't reach us, that's called peace. So of course we want it and they don't.

Unless we're willing to work to change the situation entirely, our calls for peace are just "please stop fighting back against the harm we cause you."

In this video, Shlomo Yitzchak shares how he changed his mind. His story is much more interesting than mine, and he's much more eloquent telling it. He mentions how he was taught to fear Palestinians. An automatic thought, "If I go with you, you'll kill me." I was taught this too. I was taught that, if I'm in a taxi, I should be looking at the driver's name. And if that name is Arab, I should watch the road and the route he's taking, to be prepared in case he wants to take me somewhere to kill me. Just a random person trying to work. For years it stayed a habit, I'd automatically look at the driver's name. Even after knowing that I want to align myself with liberation, justice, and equality. It was a process of unlearning.

On October, not long after the current escalation of violence, I had to take a taxi again. A Jewish driver stopped and told me he'll take me, "so an Arab doesn't get you." Israeli Jews are so comfortable saying things like this to each other. My neighbors discussed a Palestinian employee, with one saying "We should tell him not to come anymore, that we want to hire a Jew." The second answered, "No, he'll say it's discrimination," like it would be so ridiculous of him. And the first just shrugged, "So we don't have to tell him why." They didn't go through with it, but they were so casual about this conversation.

In the Torah, we're told to treat those who are foreign to us well, because we know what it's like to be the foreigner. Fighting back against oppression is the natural human thing to do. We know it because we lived it. And as soon as I looked at things from this angle, it wasn't really a choice of what to support.

#riki babbles #I had this in my drafts for ages and I was like 'not the time' but a friend encouraged me to share so here it is #palestine

[guinevereslancelot]

i never spoke or understood a target language better than when i was unemployed and just spent hours bingeing tv in that language

#closest substitute for listening to actual conversations #i know podcasts exist but the tv allowed additional context for the words making it much easier to understand #i will never have that amount of free time in my life tho so i will never learn the target language #also i lowkey gave up on it bc i wanted to learn it to speak with my beloved great aunt who had nobody left to speal her mother tongue with #but she died two years ago shortly after i moced home 💔 #and i wasnt confident in it enough to speak to her and she was already sick and in the hospital when i got back :( #anyway i COULD go to canada for some exposure to the language but its silly and pointless now #plus i have a new job #i started learning spanish instead but i have no more motivation and now my duolingo owl is dying of neglect like a neopet #i feel like i have a stronger base in french to try again but there's no point bc french is basically a useless language tbh #like i saw a few job postings looking for people fluent in french and english where i live but i cant imagine they use it much #anyway i dont want to answer phones for a living #and with nobody to talk to my french will never be that good #anyway rip duo owl im sorry #i will try to do some lessons but i will never be fluent in anythinggg 🥲 #american school system die by my sword #why do they not start teaching languages until the neuroplastisicty of childhood is gone..... #only people in actual bilingual families or rich people who pay for tutoring or additional classes get to learn a second language? #unless you're naturally gufted at languages #which i am not #its sooo embarrassing #this has been a shitpost

[stinkbeck]

lol just realized people fucking suck so bad + when i go into the world people r just sizing me up bc people fucking suck—not bc i fucking suck lol

#like i don’t have 2 keep trying 2 establish that im actually good. that’s just a remainder of my scapegoat status from childhood #people r right to be wary or to look at u weird. it’s no fault of mine. there’s no way u can walk + be decided to be irredeemable #and if someone does think that then there’s something up with them and not me #LOL I FEEL LIKE THIS DIDNT MAKE ANY SENSE #it makes sense with more context lol. like everyone’s wary of people bc people suck and i’m a person so people think i could fucking suck #when i feel like people r looking at me with hostility it’s bc they’re wary of me not because there’s something inherently wrong about me #which is hard 4 me 2 understand because i’m used to blaming myself for my scapegoat role.

[ambrosiagourmet]

I've been thinking about Laios' succubus lately. Mulling it over a bit.

Because I've seen these pages brought up a fair bit, but almost entirely in the context of shipping (on all sides, really). And I really want to understand what they are doing for the story beyond that.

When I went back to reread the scene and section, a few things caught my interest: the way Laios responds to both forms of his succubus, the themes of the volume the chapter is found in, and the other events of the chapter itself.

So let's dive into those three things, and what I think they say about the succubus scene's purpose.

Laios is never fully frozen by the succubus

So. If you compare Marcille and Chilchuck's reactions...

to Laios':

-

There is a difference. Sure, the basics may look the same once it turns into Scylla Marcille, but even then, it functions differently.

Chilchuck and Marcille are completely frozen once they catch sight of their succubus. Izutsumi, as well, isn't able to look away, and completely freezes up once her 'mom' starts talking to her. As Chilchuck describes, "just looking at them makes you unable to move."

And yet, Scylla Marcille has to actively convince Laios to comply. He even looks away from her at one point!

Laios accepts this succubus, but he is never actually helpless to it in the same way. Taken in? Convinced? Sure, at least enough to let things happen that he probably should question more than he does. But magically compelled? Not really. Not the same way as everyone else is. So that's interesting. But let's move on for now.

2. Volume 9 is all about drive and desire

I don't often look at chapters within the context of the volume they are included in, but I think there's some really fun things to be found with that perspective in mind.

For one, volume 9 starts with an exploration of what desire brought Laios to the dungeon:

And ends with a question of what desire brought Laios to the dungeon:

It's also very concerned in general with questions of why people do what they do. Why they are in the dungeon, why they are with the people they are with, why they stay, what they fight for.

In addition to Laios, we see it with Marcille...

Izutsumi

Kabru

and Mithrun

Hell, we even get it for the demon!

It's certainly not the only volume concerned with desires and motives, but it is particularly focused on these ideas.

The succubus scene fits quite well into the ongoing question about desires, especially Laios' desires. It is even placed at an interesting spot within the volume. The volume is six chapters long, and the scene takes place at the start of the 4th chapter. It's almost smack-dab in the middle.

With all this in mind, it is interesting that, with both versions of the succubus Marcille, it's not totally clear which parts of her Laios is rejecting.

The first version of Marcille looks human, but Laios attacks when he identifies her as a monster. The second Marcille looks like a monster, but he seems to believe that she is the real (human)(ish) person that he knows. So is he rejecting the monster at first, and then accepting the person? Or is he rejecting humanity and only interested in the monstrous?

Something to consider as we look at the next point...

3. the rest of the chapter is a seduction, too

This is one of those things that might not be apparent on a first reading, but is crystal clear on a revisit. We see the succubus try and charm Laios over 7 pages, and then see the Winged Lion do the same thing for the next 19.

Much like the succubus, it offers the mingling of monsters and humans. Much like the succubus, it offers belonging.

(and this is the point where I absolutely must also link this post by fumifooms on the succubus, which has some great ideas on how the scene is informed by Laios' trauma and desire for acceptance!!!)

But, back to the point. The Winged Lion wants to feed on Laios just as much as the succubus did, and it uses similar strategies to try and make that happen. Though this chapter isn't really the turning point for the next Lord of the Dungeon (it is Marcille who will, eventually, become the Lion's next victim), it certainly behaves like it is.

Laios is convinced. The succubus gets its meal. By the end of the volume, the reader begins to understand how concerning his desires are. Together, it is all very good at building up that sense of dread and pending disaster, as we see exactly how and why Laios might just fall into the Lion's open arms and bring about the end of the world.

-

So that's the three things I noticed. But there's still something I want to touch on by looking at the way these observations overlap, and what they reveal, together.

As I said, by the end of the volume, you can feel the tension growing. Just as Kabru and Mithrun do, you look back for an answer to the questions that have been built, chapter by chapter: why is Laios here? Where will his loyalties fall? This chapter, and scene, seem to prove the inevitable truth: he will choose the monster, of course. He will choose the seductive, easy power of the Winged Lion.

But the details of what actually happens tell different story: one in which the Lion is wrong.

First, as a reminder - even in Scylla Marcille mode, the succubus never fully entrances Laios. It convinces him, but it doesn't have him completely under its thrall.

Similarly, in the dream, the Lion does convince Laios to embrace the world he is offering. But even within that dream, Laios continues to ask questions that will be vital to him later. It is because of those questions that Laios comes to a new understanding about Thistle.

And it's this realization that he cites later as part of his reason for refusing the Lion's offer.

He is thinking through things the entire time, just like he continues to question the succubus even after it turns into Scylla Marcille.

Laios also expresses an interesting reason for why he wants to see the future of this world. He's not just invested because it would mean people liking what he likes, or him getting to spend time with monsters. The thought that comes immediately before his acceptance is about what he wants for monsters and people.

I don't think it's a coincidence that this statement - "we're living beings that share the same world, but all we can do is keep killing each other" - can apply to the various humans races just as much as it does to humans and monsters. The thing he is thinking about here isn't just a matter of his personal daydreams. It's an idea that underpins every conflict in the story.

Laios caring about how people as well as monsters in this manner is something that the Lion gets wrong every time. Even at the end, he still frames Laios' desires entirely around hating people and loving monsters.

The Lion has heard him express an opinion about the future of the world! It happened right there in the dream, right in front of him! He just didn't take it seriously, and didn't view it through any lens other than "Laios likes monsters more".

He's convinced that he understands how to get to Laios. Maybe the Lion can't truly see everything, or maybe his vision into everyone's deepest desires has made it hard for him to realize how much choice still matters. That people can, and do, choose which desires to act on, and how to act on them.

Whatever the case, he's wrong about Laios, and the story shows us this over and over again.

After all, look at how the succubus interaction plays out:

A monster uses Marcille to appeal to Laios...

He realizes that something about the situation is wrong, and rejects her.

It changes strategies, and makes new offer: to turn him into a monster.

It also assures him that his friends are, or will be, taken care of.

He accepts. Or rather, allows the monster to have its way with him.

But Laios is not as helpless as he initially appears, and what the Lion thinks is a successful seduction also contains the seed of an idea that will allow Laios to later resist him.

We even get to see Izutsumi playing a similar role in both instances, as the one person fully able to take action in the face to the illusion.

The story lays out what is going happen, and then explicitly tells us that the demon and the succubus are thematically related.

The chapter performs a great sleight of hand here - everything about it seems to indicate that Laios is doomed give in to the option to have his deepest desires realized. But if you look closer, it also contains the evidence that he won't. There's a lot more going on for him.

Yes, he still falls for obvious tricks. He is still extremely into monsters, and he still doesn't feel like he fits in with other people. He may, deep down, crave to surrender to the monstrous - to let it absorb him. But he questions more than he seems to. He considers more than people realize. He cares so much more than anyone gives him credit for.

And I think this is part of why we see the succubus called back to so many times, especially with the wolf head addition to his Monster Form, which he specifically added due to his encounter with the Scylla Marcille.

This all stays with Laios. It doesn't just foreshadow the path of the story, it is fundamental to how and why he walks that path. It's not about him choosing monsters, and it's not about him choosing people. It's about how he considers both, and cares about both.

And it's about the forces that think they already know his answer. Mithrun and Kabru. The Winged Lion. The succubus.

It's about how they are wrong.

#dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #dungeon meshi spoilers #laios touden #winged lion #dunmeshi analysis

[mossy-rock-in-a-field]

Several weeks ago, my retirement-age mother requested that I play Baldur’s Gate 3 for her because she has trouble with controllers/keyboards and wanted “to see what all the fuss is about with that cute wizard boy.” For context, my mother and I have done this sort of thing in the past with certain RPGs (dragon age, mass effect, etc.), but it’s been a few years since she’s personally requested a game like this. Basically, I control her Tav but let her make all the choices so she can determine how the story plays out without worrying about mechanics. She treats it like a choose-your-own-adventure book.

Anyway, here is a list of some of the things my mother has said and/or chosen to do throughout the course of BG3 in no particular order:

She is (obviously) romancing Gale. She is quite smitten with him and his passion for books and learning; she also thinks he’s polite and qualifies as “relationship material.” She also REALLY likes the things he’s said about his cat so far (my mom is a cat lady), so I know she’s gonna flip shit when we meet Tara in Act III.

She’s playing a normal druid Tav with a generally good alignment. Her favorite spell is Spike Growth because she thinks it’s hilarious whenever enemies walk into the AOE and die. I usually end up having to cast it at least once per battle per her request. Sometimes twice.

Contrary to her alignment, my mother tasks me with robbing every single chest, crate, barrel, and burlap sack we come across; this also includes people and their pockets. The party is always at max carrying capacity. ALWAYS. She doesn’t like selling things because “what if I need them.” The camp stash is in literal shambles. There is no hope of organizing it. She’s got like fifty seven sets of rags and a billion pieces of random silverware.

She MUST talk to every animal and corpse in the game. I think five hours of her total playtime so far (47ish) has been spent speaking to animals as many times as humanly possible. Like, I was thorough in my own playthroughs, but this is on a whole other level.

She did NOT get Volo’s lobotomy, but she did let Auntie Ethel take her eye in hopes of a cure for the tadpole. I did not understand the logic then. I still do not understand it now.

She is far more interested in fashion than equipment stats. Do you have any idea how much gold I’ve had to spend on dyes just to make things match? SO much. Same vibe as that “please someone help me balance my finances my family is starving” tweet but instead of candles it’s thirty thousand fucking bottles of black and furnace red dye.

We broke the prisoners out of Moonrise, but they got on the boat too early and bugged the fight by leaving Astarion and Karlach behind. Wulbren Bongle somehow got stuck in combat mode even after engaging the cutscene on the docks below Last Light; he he kept trying to run ALL THE WAY BACK TO MOONRISE nine fucking meters at a time while I frantically tried to finish the fight with the Warden, otherwise Wulbren would have run straight into the shadow curse. (I would’ve let him go; fuck Wulbren Bongle, all my homies hate Wulbren Bongle. But my mom didn’t know that, and she wanted to keep him safe. So.)

She had me reload a save like eighteen times to save the giant eagles on top of Rosymorn Monastery. Wouldn’t even let me do non-lethal damage just to get past things. I think getting that warhammer for the dawnmaster puzzle took us like an hour and a half alone. (Yes, I know you can use any warhammer, but SHE didn’t.)

She’s started keeping an irl notebook to keep track of her quests between play sessions. She writes down ideas and strategies when she thinks of them during the week, then brings them to her next game session at my house. I think she wrote about three pages on possible approaches to the goblin fortress alone.

She insists that I pet Scratch and the owlbear cub before every single long rest, no exceptions. Sometimes I have to do it multiple times until she is absolutely sure that the animals know exactly how much she loves and cherishes them. She has also commissioned a crocheted owlbear plush from a friend of hers and is very excited.

I’m sure there’s a bunch of stuff I’m forgetting, but those are some fun things I thought of. She’s enjoying the game and is telling all of her retired friends to get it and play it for themselves. She asked me “what is Discord” yesterday and I think my life flashed before my eyes.

anyway shout out to my mom for being neat

Part 2 — Part 3 — Part 4 — Part 5

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #gale #gale of waterdeep #astarion #gale dekarios #laq talks #I talk #she stares at me real hard after she makes a choice too #like squinting to see if my expression gives anything away #if it was a good or bad call #I keep my face blank as shit it’s hilarious #I have not told her I’m writing fanfic for this game #nor will I ever #jesus christ

[yamujiburo]

Why I Love Hanamusa

I get this question very frequently but have never given a really in depth, definitive answer. All just kinda implied through my comics and spread out asks. So here's this I guess! Long post ahead:

First, as a Pokémon fan in her mid 20s, I love seeing a ship where the characters are both in their mid/late 20s. Already, they’re much more relatable to me and my current experiences. Most Pokémon ships are between preteens, which can be cute but ultimately don’t interest me as much as they used to when I was a kid myself. Not enough to get super invested in and draw a lot of fanart for anyways haha.

I’ll also start by saying that canon doesn’t always influence whether or not I’ll ship something. I’m much more drawn to potential. Could the characters work together? Do their personalities work together in a nice way? I feel like this so much of fanon is anyways. Especially with queer relationships because they’re rarely depicted in the first place. A lot of the context for these ships is usually up to the fans to piece together or make up in general. And that’s the fun part to me!

Jessie and Delia have only met in the anime a handful of times. Any interaction they’ve had has either been pleasant, or just a typical Team Rocket interaction, with Delia dismissing them/not seeing them as a threat. Already a great jumping off point for me since, truly, they don’t have any actual beef or true, ill feelings towards each other. It’s not TOO out of the realm of possibility for them to potentially fall for each other. “But Jessie chased Delia’s son around trying to steal his Pokémon!” That’s where that dismissive and aloof attitude that Delia has comes into play. I’ll go more into Delia’s whole deal a bit later but I do think this aspect of her personality is a large reason why this ship can work. It’s not that she doesn’t care that Jessie has a bad past, but she can tell that, on the inside, Jessie’s a good person. And, in a scenario where Jessie is trying to become a better person, is forgiving enough to give her a shot. I feel like this is such a solid foundation for a ship. A character who has done wrong but is trying to be better and another character who is willing to help them be better. A classic dynamic!

It’s not just one-sided though; where Jessie is the only one benefitting and learning from the relationship. I believe Delia could get a lot out of being with someone like Jessie. To understand why, I think it’s important to know these characters’ respective backstories.

Jessie is an orphan/foster child who grew up in poverty. Her mother Miyamoto (from The Birth of Mewtwo) was a Team Rocket operative herself, who went on a mission to find Mew. In order to do this, she had to leave Jessie when she was just a toddler. Unfortunately, Miyamoto went MIA on her mission leaving Jessie to more or less fend for herself. Jessie went through life with zero stability, evident by her MANY different careers and constant moving around. It’s implied in the show that she went from foster home to foster home, and later in life tried being an idol, weather girl, florist, wine connoisseur, actress, most notably a nurse and finally a Team Rocket field agent. And even while in Team Rocket, she, James and Meowth were always doing odd jobs to get by. We see that Jessie used to be a sweet kid, and even adult, but the world and her circumstances repeatedly did her dirty, leading her to become the character we know today. Hot tempered, mean, selfish, etc. But despite this, her soft side does still shine through for the people and Pokémon she cares about. She is incredibly loyal.

Delia, unbeknownst to a lot of fans, also had a rough past (see Pocket Monsters: The Animation). Like Jessie, she had a lot of dreams and aspirations like wanting to be a model and even a trainer. But when she was 10, her mother didn’t let her, telling her that she had to stay home and learn to run the family restaurant (she’s an only child). Delia’s father left her and her mother to be a trainer, and never returned. When she was 18, she married Ash’s father and became pregnant shortly after. But right after Ash was born, he also set off to be a Pokémon trainer. And soon after that, her mother passed away, leaving Delia with just the restaurant and baby Ash. This gives so much context to Delia’s attitude in the show. We see that Delia is pained whenever Ash leaves on a journey, but she never shows that pain to anyone. ESPECIALLY Ash. She’s very quick to shoo him off when he shows any sign of wanting to go on another journey and even when he returns home, she acts more excited to see Pikachu than him almost every time. Without all this backstory, it’s easy to just read this as a funny gag, BUT with context, I think it really shows how quickly Delia shuts down and detaches in order to not confront her own feelings. She’s afraid of losing people and getting hurt again.

All that said, I think Jessie and Delia provide each other with EXACTLY what the other needs. 

Aside from becoming rich and famous, Jessie’s biggest aspiration is to get married. In my opinion, this is more so an underlying want for love and stability. There is no one more stable in the show than Delia. Delia’s lived in Pallet her whole life, she’s worked at the same restaurant since she was young and she is always there when Ash comes back home. She has all the love, patience and stability Jessie needs and craves. While forgiving, Delia’s not stupid and can keep Jessie in check. Delia’s also just an angel, which I feel, would make Jessie want to be better. And on top of all this, on more of a surface level, Delia’s a chef and excellent cook. She shows love through cooking and Jessie, who grew up poor, regularly starving and eating snow, happily receives that love. Jessie’s able to live a happy and healthy life with someone like Delia.

Delia, as stated, is very stable. Likely pretty monotonous and solitary, especially living in such a small town like Pallet. This isn’t a bad thing but it’s a little sad when you consider that Delia also had dreams of traveling, being a model and a trainer. She had to give up so many dreams in order to fulfill her duties as a restaurant owner and mother. And even now, when Ash is off on his journey, she feels the need to always be home and be that stable pillar, leaving behind any ambitions she had, thinking it’s too late for her (she’s only 29 btw). But then along comes Jessie, dangerous, passionate, an absolute firecracker. Someone who’s whole life has been about chasing dreams and either, never giving up on them or finding a new dream to chase. Upon learning about Delia’s past aspirations, I could see Jessie pushing her towards them, letting her know that life’s too short and she has nothing to lose from trying. On top of this, Jessie’s also loyal. She, James and Meowth are depicted as doing anything for anyone who gives them food or shows them kindness. Delia does both so there’s no way Jessie would leave her. This fulfills an essential need for Delia, who is afraid of the people in her life leaving her.

There’s so much potential for mutual growth and learning between these two and I adore that. They compliment each other, they help each other and they bring out the best qualities in one another.

I’m not really sure how to end this and I could truly talk about them even more but I don’t want this to be tooooo long haha. OH I could end it with maybe the most funny aspect of this ship that I've brushed over and also what drew me to it in the first place. Jessie. As Ash’s stepmom. THE END.

#hanamusa #hanamusashipping

[david-watts]

I feel kinda bad about those comments I made on that one post because I was being a bit of a dick, and it was because I was tired and misunderstanding exactly why people get so mad about ‘tiktok punks’ (please just call them posers. that word already exists and means what you mean) but like. I do stand by the fact that I don’t care if people end up buying from ethically awful places since it’s not easy or affordable to avoid, and quite frankly I understand if someone’s a bit lazy about it. but that one person accusing me of thinking ‘slavery is punk’ genuinely made me realise those posts about reading comprehension on this site being godawful aren’t hyperbole

#just been thinking about it again. mostly out of anxiety thinking people hate me for it #and yeah sure hate me for it. I'm not in charge of you. #my entire point had actually been in favour but that I could understand why someone would buy from sh**n #I mean I wasn't aware at the time the levels of laziness I thought the most was like. preripped tshirts and jeans with generic plain patches #already added. not like prepatched stuff with actual slogans like that's antithetical to the spirit #so like with that context you can see why I thought it was a bit harsh #now I'm even more 'yeah makes sense' about it #and yeahhh I shouldn't have doubled down like that but I was tired and mad because I'd remembered how fucking hard it is to find shit where #I live like. you have the usual 'if you're not skinny you're fucked' problem but the other problem is that there is a big reselling problem #where I live. it's been happening with furniture for a long time and as soon as nicer clothing started appearing it happened with clothes #and when I say 'nicer' I mean 'not totally dogshit' #and tbh? the stuff in the op shops was also likely made with slave labour. just because you didn't buy it doesn't mean it wasn't bought #and it doesn't stop the company from using slavery. so like. #oh and when I say 'I was tired and mad' that's not an excuse that's a reason why. #and that quote that led to the dogshit reading comprehension was about the fact 'it's nothing new that companies use subcultures #to make a quick buck' and that it's not entirely improbable that it'll eventually get considered part of the fashion #which yeah I actually understand that being awful in this circumstance because not that I've looked but it probably looks dogshit #yeah. I think my point about nuance stands most #on one hand; posers suck. companies trying to make a quick buck suck. slavery sucks. trying to op shop sucks. #but it's not like all of it can be avoided and if so like. maybe put some effort into it #genuinely don't understand people buying prepatched stuff. like actual slogan patches. that's incredibly boring #the point is that you customise it you fools #my problem really is that I automatically think the best of people. oh they can't be that bad. yes they are you dumbfuck.

[exeggcute]

the great reddit API meltdown of '23, or: this was always bound to happen

there's a lot of press about what's going on with reddit right now (app shutdowns, subreddit blackouts, the CEO continually putting his foot in his mouth), but I haven't seen as much stuff talking about how reddit got into this situation to begin with. so as a certified non-expert and Context Enjoyer I thought it might be helpful to lay things out as I understand them—a high-level view, surveying the whole landscape—in the wonderful world of startups, IPOs, and extremely angry users.

disclaimer that I am not a founder or VC (lmao), have yet to work at a company with a successful IPO, and am not a reddit employee or third-party reddit developer or even a subreddit moderator. I do work at a startup, know my way around an API or two, and have spent twelve regrettable years on reddit itself. which is to say that I make no promises of infallibility, but I hope you'll at least find all this interesting.

profit now or profit later

before you can really get into reddit as reddit, it helps to know a bit about startups (of which reddit is one). and before I launch into that, let me share my Three Types Of Websites framework, which is basically just a mental model about financial incentives that's helped me contextualize some of this stuff.

(1) website/software that does not exist to make money: relatively rare, for a variety of reasons, among them that it costs money to build and maintain a website in the first place. wikipedia is the evergreen example, although even wikipedia's been subject to criticism for how the wikimedia foundation pays out its employees and all that fun nonprofit stuff. what's important here is that even when making money is not the goal, money itself is still a factor, whether it's solicited via donations or it's just one guy paying out of pocket to host a hobby site. but websites in this category do, generally, offer free, no-strings-attached experiences to their users.

(I do want push back against the retrospective nostalgia of "everything on the internet used to be this way" because I don't think that was ever really true—look at AOL, the dotcom boom, the rise of banner ads. I distinctly remember that neopets had multiple corporate sponsors, including a cookie crisp-themed flash game. yahoo bought geocities for $3.6 billion; money's always been trading hands, obvious or not. it's indisputable that the internet is simply different now than it was ten or twenty years ago, and that monetization models themselves have largely changed as well (I have thoughts about this as it relates to web 1.0 vs web 2.0 and their associated costs/scale/etc.), but I think the only time people weren't trying to squeeze the internet for all the dimes it can offer was when the internet was first conceived as a tool for national defense.)

(2) website/software that exists to make money now: the type that requires the least explanation. mostly non-startup apps and services, including any random ecommerce storefront, mobile apps that cost three bucks to download, an MMO with a recurring subscription, or even a news website that runs banner ads and/or offers paid subscriptions. in most (but not all) cases, the "make money now" part is obvious, so these things don't feel free to us as users, even to the extent that they might have watered-down free versions or limited access free trials. no one's shocked when WoW offers another paid expansion packs because WoW's been around for two decades and has explicitly been trying to make money that whole time.

(3) website/software that exists to make money later: this is the fun one, and more common than you'd think. "make money later" is more or less the entire startup business model—I'll get into that in the next section—and is deployed with the expectation that you will make money at some point, but not always by means as obvious as "selling WoW expansions for forty bucks a pop."

companies in this category tend to have two closely entwined characteristics: they prioritize growth above all else, regardless of whether this growth is profitable in any way (now, or sometimes, ever), and they do this by offering users really cool and awesome shit at little to no cost (or, if not for free, then at least at a significant loss to the company).

so from a user perspective, these things either seem free or far cheaper than their competitors. but of course websites and software and apps and [blank]-as-a-service tools cost money to build and maintain, and that money has to come from somewhere, and the people supplying that money, generally, expect to get it back...

just not immediately.

startups, VCs, IPOs, and you

here's the extremely condensed "did NOT go to harvard business school" version of how a startup works:

(1) you have a cool idea.

(2) you convince some venture capitalists (also known as VCs) that your idea is cool. if they see the potential in what you're pitching, they'll give you money in exchange for partial ownership of your company—which means that if/when the company starts trading its stock publicly, these investors will own X numbers of shares that they can sell at any time. in other words, you get free money now (and you'll likely seek multiple "rounds" of investors over the years to sustain your company), but with the explicit expectations that these investors will get their payoff later, assuming you don't crash and burn before that happens.

during this phase, you want to do anything in your power to make your company appealing to investors so you can attract more of them and raise funds as needed. because you are definitely not bringing in the necessary revenue to offset operating costs by yourself.

it's also worth nothing that this is less about projecting the long-term profitability of your company than it's about its perceived profitability—i.e., VCs want to put their money behind a company that other people will also have confidence in, because that's what makes stock valuable, and VCs are in it for stock prices.

(3) there are two non-exclusive win conditions for your startup: you can get acquired, and you can have an IPO (also referred to as "going public"). these are often called "exit scenarios" and they benefit VCs and founders, as well as some employees. it's also possible for a company to get acquired, possibly even more than once, and then later go public.

acquisition: sell the whole damn thing to someone else. there are a million ways this can happen, some better than others, but in many cases this means anyone with ownership of the company (which includes both investors and employees who hold stock options) get their stock bought out by the acquiring company and end up with cash in hand. in varying amounts, of course. sometimes the founders walk away, sometimes the employees get laid off, but not always.

IPO: short for "initial public offering," this is when the company starts trading its stocks publicly, which means anyone who wants to can start buying that company's stock, which really means that VCs (and employees with stock options) can turn that hypothetical money into real money by selling their company stock to interested buyers.

drawing from that, companies don't go for an IPO until they think their stock will actually be worth something (or else what's the point?)—specifically, worth more than the amount of money that investors poured into it. The Powers That Be will speculate about a company's IPO potential way ahead of time, which is where you'll hear stuff about companies who have an estimated IPO evaluation of (to pull a completely random example) $10B. actually I lied, that was not a random example, that was reddit's valuation back in 2021 lol. but a valuation is basically just "how much will people be interested in our stock?"

as such, in the time leading up to an IPO, it's really really important to do everything you can to make your company seem like a good investment (which is how you get stock prices up), usually by making the company's numbers look good. but! if you plan on cashing out, the long-term effects of your decisions aren't top of mind here. remember, the industry lingo is "exit scenario."

if all of this seems like a good short-term strategy for companies and their VCs, but an unsustainable model for anyone who's buying those stocks during the IPO, that's because it often is.

also worth noting that it's possible for a company to be technically unprofitable as a business (meaning their costs outstrip their revenue) and still trade enormously well on the stock market; uber is the perennial example of this. to the people who make money solely off of buying and selling stock, it literally does not matter that the actual rideshare model isn't netting any income—people think the stock is valuable, so it's valuable.

this is also why, for example, elon musk is richer than god: if he were only the CEO of tesla, the money he'd make from selling mediocre cars would be (comparatively, lol) minimal. but he's also one of tesla's angel investors, which means he holds a shitload of tesla stock, and tesla's stock has performed well since their IPO a decade ago (despite recent dips)—even if tesla itself has never been a huge moneymaker, public faith in the company's eventual success has kept them trading at high levels. granted, this also means most of musk's wealth is hypothetical and not liquid; if TSLA dropped to nothing, so would the value of all the stock he holds (and his net work with it).

what's an API, anyway?

to move in an entirely different direction: we can't get into reddit's API debacle without understanding what an API itself is.

an API (short for "application programming interface," not that it really matters) is a series of code instructions that independent developers can use to plug their shit into someone else's shit. like a series of tin cans on strings between two kids' treehouses, but for sending and receiving data.

APIs work by yoinking data directly from a company's servers instead of displaying anything visually to users. so I could use reddit's API to build my own app that takes the day's top r/AITA post and transcribes it into pig latin: my app is a bunch of lines of code, and some of those lines of code fetch data from reddit (and then transcribe that data into pig latin), and then my app displays the content to anyone who wants to see it, not reddit itself. as far as reddit is concerned, no additional human beings laid eyeballs on that r/AITA post, and reddit never had a chance to serve ads alongside the pig-latinized content in my app. (put a pin in this part—it'll be relevant later.)

but at its core, an API is really a type of protocol, which encompasses a broad category of formats and business models and so on. some APIs are completely free to use, like how anyone can build a discord bot (but you still have to host it yourself). some companies offer free APIs to third-party developers can build their own plugins, and then the company and the third-party dev split the profit on those plugins. some APIs have a free tier for hobbyists and a paid tier for big professional projects (like every weather API ever, lol). some APIs are strictly paid services because the API itself is the company's core offering.

reddit's financial foundations

okay thanks for sticking with me. I promise we're almost ready to be almost ready to talk about the current backlash.

reddit has always been a startup's startup from day one: its founders created the site after attending a startup incubator (which is basically a summer camp run by VCs) with the successful goal of creating a financially successful site. backed by that delicious y combinator money, reddit got acquired by conde nast only a year or two after its creation, which netted its founders a couple million each. this was back in like, 2006 by the way. in the time since that acquisition, reddit's gone through a bunch of additional funding rounds, including from big-name investors like a16z, peter thiel (yes, that guy), sam altman (yes, also that guy), sequoia, fidelity, and tencent. crunchbase says that they've raised a total of $1.3B in investor backing.

in all this time, reddit has never been a public company, or, strictly speaking, profitable.

APIs and third-party apps

reddit has offered free API access for basically as long as it's had a public API—remember, as a "make money later" company, their primary goal is growth, which means attracting as many users as possible to the platform. so letting anyone build an app or widget is (or really, was) in line with that goal.

as such, third-party reddit apps have been around forever. by third-party apps, I mean apps that use the reddit API to display actual reddit content in an unofficial wrapper. iirc reddit didn't even have an official mobile app until semi-recently, so many of these third-party mobile apps in particular just sprung up to meet an unmet need, and they've kept a small but dedicated userbase ever since. some people also prefer the user experience of the unofficial apps, especially since they offer extra settings to customize what you're seeing and few to no ads (and any ads these apps do display are to the benefit of the third-party developers, not reddit itself.)

(let me add this preemptively: one solution I've seen proposed to the paid API backlash is that reddit should have third-party developers display reddit's ads in those third-party apps, but this isn't really possible or advisable due to boring adtech reasons I won't inflict on you here. source: just trust me bro)

in addition to mobile apps, there are also third-party tools that don’t replace the Official Reddit Viewing Experience but do offer auxiliary features like being able to mass-delete your post history, tools that make the site more accessible to people who use screen readers, and tools that help moderators of subreddits moderate more easily. not to mention a small army of reddit bots like u/AutoWikibot or u/RemindMebot (and then the bots that tally the number of people who reply to bot comments with “good bot” or “bad bot).

the number of people who use third-party apps is relatively small, but they arguably comprise some of reddit’s most dedicated users, which means that third-party apps are important to the people who keep reddit running and the people who supply reddit with high-quality content.

unpaid moderators and user-generated content

so reddit is sort of two things: reddit is a platform, but it’s also a community.

the platform is all the unsexy (or, if you like python, sexy) stuff under the hood that actually makes the damn thing work. this is what the company spends money building and maintaining and "owns." the community is all the stuff that happens on the platform: posts, people, petty squabbles. so the platform is where the content lives, but ultimately the content is the reason people use reddit—no one’s like “yeah, I spend time on here because the backend framework really impressed me."

and all of this content is supplied by users, which is not unique among social media platforms, but the content is also managed by users, which is. paid employees do not govern subreddits; unpaid volunteers do. and moderation is the only thing that keeps reddit even remotely tolerable—without someone to remove spam, ban annoying users, and (god willing) enforce rules against abuse and hate speech, a subreddit loses its appeal and therefore its users. not dissimilar to the situation we’re seeing play out at twitter, except at twitter it was the loss of paid moderators;  reddit is arguably in a more precarious position because they could lose this unpaid labor at any moment, and as an already-unprofitable company they absolutely cannot afford to implement paid labor as a substitute.

oh yeah? spell "IPO" backwards

so here we are, June 2023, and reddit is licking its lips in anticipation of a long-fabled IPO. which means it’s time to start fluffing themselves up for investors by cutting costs (yay, layoffs!) and seeking new avenues of profit, however small.

this brings us to the current controversy: reddit announced a new API pricing plan that more or less prevents anyone from using it for free.

from reddit's perspective, the ostensible benefits of charging for API access are twofold: first, there's direct profit to be made off of the developers who (may or may not) pay several thousand dollars a month to use it, and second, cutting off unsanctioned third-party mobile apps (possibly) funnels those apps' users back into the official reddit mobile app. and since users on third-party apps reap the benefit of reddit's site architecture (and hosting, and development, and all the other expenses the site itself incurs) without “earning” money for reddit by generating ad impressions, there’s a financial incentive at work here: even if only a small percentage of people use third-party apps, getting them to use the official app instead translates to increased ad revenue, however marginal.

(also worth mentioning that chatGPT and other LLMs were trained via tools that used reddit's API to scrape post and content data, and now that openAI is reaping the profits of that training without giving reddit any kickbacks, reddit probably wants to prevent repeats of this from happening in the future. if you want to train the next LLM, it's gonna cost you.)

of course, these changes only benefit reddit if they actually increase the company’s revenue and perceived value/growth—which is hard to do when your users (who are also the people who supply the content for other users to engage with, who are also the people who moderate your communities and make them fun to participate in) get really fucking pissed and threaten to walk.

pricing shenanigans

under the new API pricing plan, third-party developers are suddenly facing steep costs to maintain the apps and tools they’ve built.

most paid APIs are priced by volume: basically, the more data you send and receive, the more money it costs. so if your third-party app has a lot of users, you’ll have to make more API requests to fetch content for those users, and your app becomes more expensive to maintain. (this isn’t an issue if the tool you’re building also turns a profit, but most third-party reddit apps make little, if any, money.)

which is why, even though third-party apps capture a relatively small portion of reddit’s users, the developer of a popular third-party app called apollo recently learned that it would cost them about $20 million a year to keep the app running. and apollo actually offers some paid features (for extra in-app features independent of what reddit offers), but nowhere near enough to break even on those API costs.

so apollo, any many apps like it, were suddenly unable to keep their doors open under the new API pricing model and announced that they'd be forced to shut down.

backlash, blackout

plenty has been said already about the current subreddit blackouts—in like, official news outlets and everything—so this might be the least interesting section of my whole post lol. the short version is that enough redditors got pissed enough that they collectively decided to take subreddits “offline” in protest, either by making them read-only or making them completely inaccessible. their goal was to send a message, and that message was "if you piss us off and we bail, here's what reddit's gonna be like: a ghost town."

but, you may ask, if third-party apps only captured a small number of users in the first place, how was the backlash strong enough to result in a near-sitewide blackout? well, two reasons:

first and foremost, since moderators in particular are fond of third-party tools, and since moderators wield outsized power (as both the people who keep your site more or less civil, and as the people who can take a subreddit offline if they feel like it), it’s in your best interests to keep them happy. especially since they don’t get paid to do this job in the first place, won’t keep doing it if it gets too hard, and essentially have nothing to lose by stepping down.

then, to a lesser extent, the non-moderator users on third-party apps tend to be Power Users who’ve been on reddit since its inception, and as such likely supply a disproportionate amount of the high-quality content for other users to see (and for ads to be served alongside). if you drive away those users, you’re effectively kneecapping your overall site traffic (which is bad for Growth) and reducing the number/value of any ad impressions you can serve (which is bad for revenue).

also a secret third reason, which is that even people who use the official apps have no stake in a potential IPO, can smell the general unfairness of this whole situation, and would enjoy the schadenfreude of investors getting fucked over. not to mention that reddit’s current CEO has made a complete ass of himself and now everyone hates him and wants to see him suffer personally.

(granted, it seems like reddit may acquiesce slightly and grant free API access to a select set of moderation/accessibility tools, but at this point it comes across as an empty gesture.)

"later" is now "now"

TL;DR: this whole thing is a combination of many factors, specifically reddit being intensely user-driven and self-governed, but also a high-traffic site that costs a lot of money to run (why they willingly decided to start hosting video a few years back is beyond me...), while also being angled as a public stock market offering in the very near future. to some extent I understand why reddit’s CEO doubled down on the changes—he wants to look strong for investors—but he’s also made a fool of himself and cast a shadow of uncertainty onto reddit’s future, not to mention the PR nightmare surrounding all of this. and since arguably the most important thing in an IPO is how much faith people have in your company, I honestly think reddit would’ve fared better if they hadn’t gone nuclear with the API changes in the first place.

that said, I also think it’s a mistake to assume that reddit care (or needs to care) about its users in any meaningful way, or at least not as more than means to an end. if reddit shuts down in three years, but all of the people sitting on stock options right now cashed out at $120/share and escaped unscathed... that’s a success story! you got your money! VCs want to recoup their investment—they don’t care about longevity (at least not after they’re gone), user experience, or even sustained profit. those were never the forces driving them, because these were never the ultimate metrics of their success.

and to be clear: this isn’t unique to reddit. this is how pretty much all startups operate.

I talked about the difference between “make money now” companies and “make money later” companies, and what we’re experiencing is the painful transition from “later” to “now.” as users, this change is almost invisible until it’s already happened—it’s like a rug we didn’t even know existed gets pulled out from under us.

the pre-IPO honeymoon phase is awesome as a user, because companies have no expectation of profit, only growth. if you can rely on VC money to stay afloat, your only concern is building a user base, not squeezing a profit out of them. and to do that, you offer cool shit at a loss: everything’s chocolate and flowers and quarterly reports about the number of signups you’re getting!

...until you reach a critical mass of users, VCs want to cash in, and to prepare for that IPO leadership starts thinking of ways to make the website (appear) profitable and implements a bunch of shit that makes users go “wait, what?”

I also touched on this earlier, but I want to reiterate a bit here: I think the myth of the benign non-monetized internet of yore is exactly that—a myth. what has changed are the specific market factors behind these websites, and their scale, and the means by which they attempt to monetize their services and/or make their services look attractive to investors, and so from a user perspective things feel worse because the specific ways we’re getting squeezed have evolved. maybe they are even worse, at least in the ways that matter. but I’m also increasingly less surprised when this occurs, because making money is and has always been the goal for all of these ventures, regardless of how they try to do so.