#just how callous and entitled some of these people act

[abstractredd]

yknow, one of the sad things retail has shown me is that the average middle aged/older person has no manners. when i say to customers at work "what can i do for you?" i get "i need" or "i want" or even straight up "give me". theres rarely any "may i" and god forbid they say please. its not hard to look a person in the eyes, say "can i please get ___" instead of barely acknowledging me and barking demands at me like i'm a robot. it's disrespectful. and it's really sad that the generations that taught us manners growing up seem to have forgotten theirs entirely.

#retail #retail woes #idk just a thought #shutupberri #like acually its sad #these people are grown adults #and they act like children #i love my job but sometimes it really gets to me #just how callous and entitled some of these people act #ngl it’s usually cig smokers too with the ‘give me a pack of this’ like fuck you #retail worker #retail workers #retail memes #customers #grocery

[ccuniculusmolestus]

Trip to Rome NSFW? I can't help but wonder if the revelation of the diary happened after they did it. I'M LIVING FOR THE ANGST

Ah yes, a fellow angst connoisseur! (Winterbunny fans, seek help) (/affectionate)

Also I rlly hope I amswer this ok I've written and deleted like 1920192 paragraphs bcd I wanna answer properly LOL

I'm working on a fic for this but I seriously don't know what order to put things in, or maybe I'm just lazy!!

I would like to think it makes most logical sense if:

They're fighting a lot during the Rome trip

A fight turns kinda steamy idk

They have a good night's sleep after thats over.

Henry's migraine has been coming on for a few days at that point but hits full force the next morning

BECAUSE Bunny is relatively more comfortable being closer to Henry now* he becomes even more entitled and snoops around for his diary cuz he's bored (I think Henry was bed ridden for a couple days at that point)

We all know, that like, Bunny didn't really care about the murder. I domt even think he cared about being left out. I think what REALLY got to him was the stuff Henry had written about him. We only know about "cuniculus molestus", which is relatively tame, but knowing the extent of Henry's annoyance with Bunny, I think its safe to assume he REALLY went in whenever he chewed Bunny out in his diary

Like, imagine you have a friend who you get very close to, thinking that you've made a nice connection with someone (which is rare for you). Then you start feeling like this friend, once you guys become close, is using you for your money. THEN this friend starts acting like an entitled brat and practically makes your life Hell.

I'm not saying Henry was obsessed to the point of just filling his diary with "raaarghhh i hate bunny he is so stupid dumb bitch" but whenever he WOULD write abt Bunny it would be callous, like, detached at best, cruel/insulting at worst.

*this is purely my headcanon, based on no like, factual evidence (yet) but I think Henry and Bunny were physically intimate way before the Rome thing, but they just never talked about it, or acknowledged it outside of the moment of close proximity (mainly because Bunny didn't want to face his possible bisexuality diagnosis and Henry just couldn't be arsed). Plus it happened rarely. I feel like they'd become more physically comfortable with each other immediately after they were intimate (caressing each others heads/petting one another, leaning on one another, like soft intimacy) but afterwards they'd kinda avoid one another for a few days, and especially avoid touching each other (like even the brush of a hand) because it would make Bunny uncomfortable (hes homophobic)

Based on this I think

Bunny felt even more entitled than usual to Henry's belongings and personal space, so he went snooping around his stuff when Henry was dead asf

Also, based on their already established intimacy, Henry mightve written some cruel things regarding the more intimate parts of their relationship/vulnerable aspects of Bunny.

Because I guess he was like, "Hes not ever going to read it so I can just vent my frustrations here) (WHICH, I had a whole theory a while back about how Henry intentionally left his diary around for Bunny to read....so maybe he wanted to get the ball rolling to have an excuse to get rid of Bunny) (that's a link)

But also. Theres another possible twist , like, what if Bunny found the diary first? And the fight that ensues after turns into something else purely because they're being vulnerable with one another in the moment.

Henry, in his desperation to get Bunny to shut the fuck up, and Bunny, in his explosive anger (also, cliche movie scene moment 🤓 Bunny won't shut up and Henry's afraid someone might hear them and he's also lowkey enjoying Bunny screaming at him (toxic) so he just grabs him and kisses him)

Honestly I wanna explore both scenarios in two separate one-shots BUT like, I don't wanna be repetitive w my fics like the people (my 2 readers) probably want something new (they don't care)

#LOVE GETTI G ASKS #thank u for the ask! #i hate this ship its the worst btw #they give me a HEADACHE #me when the toxic gays are being toxic again #can they shut up #ask #the secret history #bunny corcoran #tsh #henry winter #tsh donna tartt #winterbunny

[ccchloister]

It's so strange how the problems that come with existing online have forced me to find words to explain concepts that I assumed were mostly universal. I thought knowledge, talent, expertise, hard work and persistence were skills that were valuable and should be encouraged in everyone. A.I. has taught me otherwise.

A.I. might as well stand for Anti-Intellectualism, because that's the spirit behind the excitement. It literally takes the skill and labor out of skilled labor. Learning is being treated like an inconvenience, a problem to be eliminated in the name of efficiency. Entire disciplines are being treated as grand sacrifices in the name of mass production and instant gratification.

Why does art need to be efficient? It's not food. It's not medicine. It's not shelter. How fast are people shoveling content into their gob that between social media, streaming, and physical media, it's still not enough? Technology has already pushed creators to pumping out content at an unhealthy and unnatural rate just to try to appease social media algorithms. Now that same output is being used to train new algorithms to pump it out even faster while cutting creators out entirely. It’s sick and cruel. And instead of this exploitation being treated like an injustice that needs to be corrected, I'm told "It's inevitable. Adapt or die. Don't put your work online if you don't want it taken", delivered either with condescending pity, callous apathy, or malicious glee.

If A.I. fans aren't taking the "hardened pragmatic realist" approach, then they are shallowly aping socialist ideas, blaming capitalism for exploitation, not the tech. A very "guns don't kill people, people kill people" take. Just because exploitation of creatives is not a new concept doesn't mean A.I. isn't responsible for making it INFINITELY WORSE. They’ve also decided that people shouldn't be pursuing art and knowledge for the sake of profit and that the skilled creators trying to protect their labor are greedy, elitist gatekeepers trying to keep art from "the common man" (because creatives aren't the common man, apparently). It's that same resentment and distrust of experts that's typical of anti-intellectualism, except creative fields are in this weird place where they aren't even respected the way STEM is, so there's an extra layer of belittling and disrespect to the othering. Consumers feel entitled to art, but they don't understand how it's made, and they definitely don't respect it as a discipline.

The glut of creative content available for "the common man" to consume has never been greater or more accessible, but it's still not enough. It's not enough to just consume art. They want ownership. They want the sense of accomplishment that comes from making something, without having actually *made* it. And despite their finger-wagging at creatives wanting to protect their careers, they also want to make some money. Etsy is flooded with A.I. prints, kindle is filled with A.I. books, spotify is loaded with A.I. songs. There’s even A.I. kickstarters. Along with replacing writers and animators, CEOs want to replace actors, voice actors, and models with simulacrums they can make do whatever they want, forever, and A.I. fans are hoping they'll be the ones hired to facilitate that process. Even without actively profiting, A.I. still devalues the work of skilled laborers. Why commission a skilled artist when for 15 dollars you can buy a machine that will give you infinite works of the same or better quality, instantly? Do you have faith in consumers to prioritize ethics over convenience? Do you think it's right and fair and good to make compensating skilled creators an act of charity rather than a necessity?

A.I. users overestimate their contribution to the final product, thinking their idea is so unique and their vision so strong, that of course they should claim ownership… conveniently ignoring all the infinite little decisions A.I. made for them based off the knowledge and fine motor skills of millions of artists. It's like they think fully realized Good Ideas are a natural resource waiting to be excavated, and traditional creators had the unfair advantage of pickaxes, physical strength and a knowledge of geology to find the rich veins. Now A.I. is providing scanners and and powerful machinery so "the common man" doesn't need strength or knowledge to quickly mine those same veins first.

But that's not what art is, and that's not how creation works. Art is communication. Imagination is fostered through life experience, observation and processing information with your human brain. It's something every living person could do, because every person is unique with unique life experiences. Creation is practice, study, experimentation, problem solving, and adapting to limitations. There is nothing stopping anyone from doing these things. Natural ability has been grossly overvalued: most people with "talent" were not making hyper-realistic paintings at 13 like Picasso. What happens is a child shows a slight aptitude, the adults in their life notice and give them positive reinforcement, and then they are motivated and encouraged to pursue that interest. So instead of treating the naturally talented as having an unfair advantage, why not blame the adults in your life for not encouraging your interests at a young age. Or if you want to be brutally honest, blame yourself for not pursuing your interests despite a lack of external validation. You have agency.

I try to imagine, what is an A.I. fan's idea of a perfect future? One where no one has any advantages that another person doesn't, where "everyone's special so no ones special"? Where all labor is automated and no one has to do anything they don't want to and everyone spends their infinite free time bettering themselves for it's own sake rather than for money? Every time they mention the evils of capitalism and how we need universal basic income and other ideas of a post-work society it makes me want to pull my hair out. We don't *have* those things. We aren't even close to those things. So it is functionally useless to factor that into your argument. Who is Tech to use A.I.'s elimination of thousands of jobs in non-Tech industries as a bargaining chip to try and incentivize the government to create safety nets for those displaced? Since when has your government prioritized it's citizens over corporations? Have proponents always been this naive, or only when trying to assuage concerns over the consequences of their new toy?

Even if we did achieve that techie utopia, what makes them think most people will use their free time productively, exercising their brain for it's own sake? Because speaking for myself, I can have every good intention of using my time to create and learn, but those things frequently lose out to short term, dopamine-driven feedback loops like social media and video games. Without any external incentives, I guarantee far less people will pursue learning for its own sake if the knowledge-based roles that keep society functioning are filled by machines. Think of how we've had to reintroduce exercise into are lives just for exercise's sake. Hows that going? Again, speaking for myself as an overweight person: Not Great. I might intellectually know physical fitness is important, but the difficulty and unenjoyable nature of exercise and the benefits not being immediate and obvious means it frequently loses out to activities I do enjoy. I know not everyone is like me, but many, many people are. Now replace physical fitness with cognitive abilities. Abilities that require work, who's benefits are totally abstract, and would be wholly unnecessary for living in an A.I dependent society. If that doesn't give you chills up your spine, then you must stand to benefit from a culture of stupidity that's hopelessly dependent on tech. And I hate you.

No ones going to read all this.

#AI #Tech #Art #Artists #creation #anti intellectualism #knowledge #labor #exploitation #Long #word dump #future

[hush-house-yard-sale]

Hey Librarian, I just wanna ask, how fortified is your house against thieves? Specifically people who might take a peek at books? Specifically diaries? Specifically looking for pages that might imply your true feelings for someone and all this "I don't like you" is just an act because you developed affection towards someone but want to push them away cause the m-word is not a place for love and so you just pen these memories away in a book so all that love will not die? Cause I would HATE it if someone sent an expedition of talented followers to break down locks and seduce guards just to infiltrate *my* inner sanctum and read about all these things I actually wrote myself.

I'd hate it and I'm just... Checking how you prepare against those?

-Cul... cumber. CUCUMBER

How... fortified is my house against... thieves? You... you want to know how fortified my house is against thieves? Oh, for the love of—

First of all, Mx... [scoffs] "Cucumber," you should be well aware that there is no need to resort to breaking and entering if you wish to look at books. This is a library. The purpose of a library is so that patrons can come and look at books. No, I daresay that the only reason one would need to resort to breaking and entering is if one were trying to, oh I don't know, bypass the librarian and steal the books for yourself. And I assure you, Mx. "Cucumber," that that is something for which I will not stand!

Second of all, the only book in Hush House authored by me contains my life's work. You are very sorely deluded if you think I have not made arrangements for its publication, should my endeavors succeed! If you want to read my "diary," as you so dismissively call it, you can purchase it from any reputable retailer of occult works in 2-4 business years. But frankly? I doubt you will even bother, given the disdain you've had for my "nerdy essay." At best you'll flip through it searching for confirmation of this theory you've concocted to fill the void left by the Forge-of-Days' various rejections, and fall back to your opium when you find nothing of the sort. I could translate it into— into Vak if I so desired and it wouldn't make a difference to the amount of information you'd retain upon reading! Perhaps I shall! Perhaps I already have!

Furthermore, for all your obsessions—oh yes, I know all about your obsessions. Do you truly think yourself subtle? Or clever?— you clearly have no pride and no self-respect if you intend to send your followers to discern my feelings for you. Did your followers also write this letter for you? Do they choose the people you woo? When you kiss your lovers, do they position your head for you? There are some things that must be done personally Mx. "Cucumber," if they are to be done at all. And if you will not then you are a coward, and have no hope for earning even a crumb of my respect.

You may be obsessed with me, for what reason I cannot possibly fathom, but you have shown that you have no respect for me, no respect for my library, and no respect for my life's work! You hide behind a false name, and pretend that I am too stupid to see through it. No, I know only one person this callous, this self-centered, this entitled, this... immature.

YOU ARE THE DESPICABLE THIEF OF THE HISTORY OF INKS!!!!!!!!

You will receive no further correspondence from me until the tome is returned.

Firmest disregard,

The Yard Sale Librarian

Post Scriptum: Please inform your followers that my legion of guard vipers is ever-growing. And soon I will overthrow the world.

Post- Post Scriptum: Every last one of them is asexual.

#Weather Factory #Cultist Simulator #Book of Hours #Book of Hours Game #BoH Spoilers #Correspondence #Cultist #//Sorry this took so long! It took forever to decide how I wanted to respond. #//Also Cultist-anon if you wouldn't mind giving me your Cultist's pronouns/with your next letter I'd appreciate it. #//The Yard Sale Librarian is nonbinary and uses they/them #Anonymous #Wretched Cucumber #Consultations

[inthememetime]

You may notice I frequently make the Fenton parents anywhere from morally gray to outright evil. Why, you ask?

They nearly killed their best friend (did kill him though it's not known until later), and never once even visit him in the hospital. Then when they're next around him, they act like nothing happened. This is not because he's an evil asshole- they don't know this until later- this is because they are ether:

A- so entitled they think Vlad owes them friendship despite their actions towards him.

B- are actively attempting to gaslight him. (And Vlad says they haven't changed a bit, making their 'friendship' almost certainly abusive)

C- are too stupid to realize someone stuck in a hospital for YEARS has been horribly injured

D- are just too callous/cruel to care.

Their idea of 'science' is bigotry. All ghosts are evil- even the ones proven to avoid hurting people and who actively try to help. That's not what science is. Science is making a hypothesis- all ghosts are evil- and then looking at the evidence. Eventually, that evidence leads pretty clearly to 'ghosts are apex predators fighting over territory- Amity Park. They are dangerous, some are evil, but most don't care about what people do, and some try to help.'

I'm not saying Vlad is better! He is bad! He does unethical cloning experiments on Danny, repeatedly hunts down and hurts people, and does horrible things to animal ghosts. But if your character's parents are just as bad as your archenemy- that's a problem.

They are incredibly neglectful. They also play favorites- and make sure the kids know 'your sister/brother is my favorite', which is incredibly cruel.

In short, the Fentons are almost as bad- just a thin, gray line apart- as Vlad. But there's two of them. And that's how I like to play them frequently, unless I'm choosing to ignore a lot of canon.

#danny phantom #inthememetime #vlad masters #jack fenton #maddie fenton

[anawkwardshit]

Rest In Peace, Technoblade

Alex is dead. Technoblade is dead.

I do not want to discredit him by not calling him by his real name, as he should be remembered as a person before a character or YouTuber, but he only told us in death, and I do not want to use it willynilly like I am entitled simply because he is gone, even if he gave that information. Honestly, I do not know what he’d prefer, so Techno is what I will continue calling him from here on. It is the person he introduced himself as when he inspired us all, so it’s what I will continue to call him (until I know more). Calling him by his real name now is in remembrance, to acknowledge that he is a person before anything else.

It’s heartbreaking, and I bawled my fucking eyes out like a goddamned baby. Because even though I didn’t forget he had cancer, I did not bother to dwell on it. He acted like he was getting better, like everything would be okay, and I believed him. I’m not mad that he didn’t say anything, that he kept that to himself; he deserves that privacy, and I know he didn’t want to have us all mourning him before he was even gone, but the whole thing still hurts.

I’m so fucking mad, not at him, just at life and everything that meant he was the one who paid the price of some stupid disease that he couldn’t even avoid.

He was a person, but even still, the thought of him dying, it was unfathomable to me, still is. I was at a fair when he posted the cancer video, and I bawled then, too, but I thought it would be okay. He acted like it would be, and I held onto that; I’m not mad that he was being optimistic, I’m just mad that life was cruel enough, callous enough, to decide that he should die anyway.

This whole thing makes my head hurt. I’m still in some sort of shock. I have no words, I barely understand. I feel like everything is falling apart, and the thought of his friends, his family, going through this, too, just makes me cry even more. It’s so fucking dumb, Vidcon just happened, everyone was riding on the high from that, and now this devastating news—I feel like my world has collapsed around me, like reality is warped. Part of me hates that he was dying while everyone was so fucking happy and oblivious, me included in that.

I know he died before that video. The production of it, how long it likely took to put together, along with his father saying he died 8 hours after writing his final words, proves that he died before today—and none of us fucking knew.

That’s not his fault, not anybody’s fault, but knowing I was oblivious to it and now suffering through grief over it when I wouldn’t have been had there never been a video, makes me hurt so much. I feel selfish, and knowing that doesn’t stop the hurt either.

Part of me still kind of expects him to rise from the dead or some stupid shit, like this isn’t reality, and reality is shit, like this is some stupid ‘Angst with a happy ending’ fic. I hate that. I hate it. He’s gone, and I’m still grappling with it.

He worked so hard to create content for us, to make us laugh and entertain us, and I want that to be a reminder to people that I don’t think he’d want anyone to stop creating and being inspired by him simply because he is gone now.

After all, Technoblade never dies.

Rest In Peace, Alex, Technoblade. I promise you are missed.

#technoblade #rip Technoblade #rest in peace #technoblade never dies #long live the king #blood god #mcyt #youtube #cancer #death #dream smp #rememberance #grief #minecraft #rip

[kaffeebaby]

wait pls expand on lalo being a yassified chuck!!!!!

Sure thing! Cut just for those who don't wanna read a post about Chuck and Lalo

I was mostly being a bit jokey about it, but I honestly think that Lalo and Chuck have a lot in common when it comes down to the details. It's really no coincidence that as soon as Chuck leaves the show, we're presented with Lalo, who ends up bullying Jimmy into the exact opposite direction Chuck was. They're both incredibly selfish, they're the main man in charge, and they both seem to act like they can't stand not getting their way. They're one-track minded and stubborn to reach their goals, even to the point of their own destruction. They both have this level of emotional coldness, like they feel nothing, even though they have quick tempers. Kinda like nothing matters, except for the stuff that they want to matter.

In my opinion, Lalo is much more extreme in this way, just due to the fact that he actually kills people and puts others' lives at risk without even thinking twice. When he sees Nacho run into the building that's about to be taken down by the DEA, Lalo is just amused and entirely neutral to whether Nacho is going to make it or not. He's happy when Nacho makes it back, but I doubt he'd have cared at all if he hadn't, even though it's a dangerous situation and Nacho is way too high up to be risked at all like that. It's a genuinely high-stakes moment and Lalo is just sitting there humming and whistling, which reminds me a lot of Walt right after Drew Sharpe was murdered tbh. And similarly, I think Chuck used Howard as Jimmy's punching bag for years in this way, completely ignoring any pain or stress it would have caused Howard because that's what Howard was "supposed to be" doing, exactly what Chuck told him to. They both have such callous natures when it comes to playing with other people's lives, right down to casually disrespecting others. Like, they both devalue everyone around them just by the casual nature of their refusal to give a shit about anyone else.

It makes sense that Lalo wouldn't really see the value of other people's lives, given the world he's always lived in, but I always saw the two of them as having similar levels of entitlement, pettiness, spitefulness, and callousness. But Lalo has a lot more likeable traits than Chuck does. He's cooler, he's more composed, the people around him treat him with utmost respect, he's suave and a funny character... Whereas Chuck is genuinely needy and annoying and nagging and "lame." Lalo is a hot guy with blood splattered on his face and Chuck is basically like if a crazy old cat lady was a guy obsessed with his charismatic younger brother that everyone else likes more. This is what I mean by "yassified," like he's more conventionally attractive and ideal even to straight guys, he's what they want to be like, even if his actions are usually considered more monstrous.

The only major difference other than personality traits is that Lalo willingly breaks the law and Chuck refuses to, meaning that all of Chuck's actions are more within reality to viewers, which I think makes him seem more like a real asshole and less like a badass evil cool guy. I think this is a major factor as to why people like Lalo but not Chuck. You can easily view yourself as Jimmy, being berated by a holier-than-thou asshole who thinks you're scum, but how easily can you picture yourself as Fred from Travel Wire, innocently trying to help some stranger and being murdered during your shift at your job that doesn't pay you enough? It's like a classic example of the idea that characters killing people is okay because fictional lives are made up, but characters being annoying is bad because the audience's annoyance is real. Lalo could gruesomely skin someone alive on screen, but people would still hate Chuck more because he's mean and annoying and sucks to the average viewer. It doesn't really matter that his actions never reach the moral lows that most people would agree Lalo's do. Lalo is kinda like the anti-Chuck in the sense that even if Chuck did something great, everyone kinda already made their mind up about him and would still hate him anyways. You know, the sort of behavior that the show advocates against via it happening to Jimmy his entire life.

I hope this makes sense and isn't too rambly lol. TLDR: Lalo is more conventionally ideal and Chuck has too few redeeming qualities, so even though they're both awful, people like Lalo more, thus making him "basically yassified Chuck"

#chuckposting #laloposting #my own writing #long post #not brave enough to put this in the main character tags #this is just my own view of them and maybe other people dont see any similarities #but i think every brba and bcs character has at least something in common #and its fun to look at those similarities and the patterns

[essayofthoughts]

In considering Keyleth’s anxiety and newness to the world, do you think that affected how closely she bonded with certain members of the group at first, verses the relationships she develops with them later once she gets to know them (for example people she’s not typically paired off with like Grog, Scanlan, & Pike), and do you think these bonds affect her later in who she looks up to as inspiration when she becomes a leader?

(Part 1)

We know that Keyleth's early friendships within the group were Tiberius and then later, when he joined them, Percy.

Tiberius and Percy both seem to have gravitated to Keyleth for similar-ish reasons, though not entirely. Tiberius calls Keyleth "Highness" and seems to seek her company in part as another highborn person (though it's innaccurate as the Ashari don't really have a class structure as we'd think of it, according to Marisha and Matt and Keyleth was apparently uncomfortable with the term) and in part because she is similarly magically skilled - remember, Pike joined the group later as well, only a little before Percy, and much of the group, Tiberius and Percy especially, did not really take Scanlan very seriously because of how he acted. Percy may have gravitated to Keyleth due to her social status but it's made clear by Taliesin that Percy found some kinship with Keyleth due to that weight of assumed responsibility - it's not class or social rank so much as that sense of duty. For all that Percy and Keyleth argue at times they do both agree that leaders should serve their people; Percy can be callous but he does think about the long term benefit to people (which is why he thinks he's damned for making guns) and Keyleth is incredibly conscientous about how her actions impact others (remember her apologising down listening spell to Ripley for them insulting her?).

Vax changes things a little. Percy is basically built on repression and a willingness to compartmentalise, to do what is needful regardless of personal feelings and to, entirely aware of the morality of a choice, make what he deems the best long-term decision even if it's awful. If Keyleth had looked solely to Percy she would have lost the heart and conscientiousness that makes her her. Tiberius doesn't really seem to think of leading, he just does, and seems to take the fact of his rank and social status to be enough of a reason for what he wants to do to work. If Keyleth had followed Tiberius' example she would have become quite entitled.

Instead... there's Vax. Who encourages her with the idea that her thoughts and feelings do matter, that she shouldn't have to set aside her worries when their choices are limited but that they should do what they can to find another choice, a new option, a way to make up the difference. Vax reminds her that they feel things for a reason and to ignore those feelings just isn't good for you.

Vax would know. Vax seems to have been dealing with depression for a good chunk of his life.

There's also Vex, who Keyleth doesn't have a huge amount of 1-on-1 time with but we know she looks up to her immensely. Vex who's always making sure they have money, always haggling them the best possible deal, always taking care of everyone in this big overarching way while Vax looks at the nitty-gritty emotions. I think it helped Keyleth to see that even people as similar as the twins could be drastically different and approach things in drastically different ways - and that both helped. Both kept them alive and well and gave them those chances to be happy.

I think Pike very much helped Keyleth ease up with religion. We know the Ashari don't tend to be terribly religious - while some worship gods they don't seem to be very organised in the doing so - and we know that Keyleth in particular does not agree with blind faith in the gods. It's a good thing there's Pike: even when a god is ostensibly good Pike twice threatens gods if they hurt her friends. She says that if the Raven Queen doesn't change Vax for the better then she [Pike] and her [the RQ] are going to have a problem. She damn near demands that Pelor give them back Vex. Pike believes utterly in Sarenrae's teachings and is stubborn and fierce enough that I genuinely think that if Pike was ever told by Sarenrae to do something against Sarenrae's teachings her response would be "Who are you and what have you done with Sarenrae?" - demanding answers and an explanation before even considering doing as told, and looking into alternatives as the first option.

Grog, we know, helped Keyleth understand how and when anger could have a purpose - something I firmly believe he and Pike bonded over - and I think that helped her understand that she could feel while doing things. Not just that her feelings were good - but that her feelings could drive her choices. She didn't have to aim for Percy's constant endeavour towards (and failure at) objectivity, she could allow her emotions to exist and be a part of why and how she did things. That she could care about things and that could matter.

Scanlan taught her to approach things with humour, to remember that there can be cheer in things and to take cheer when one can. I think he also taught her not to trust anyone absolutely: that even when people claim they're fine, compare their words to their actions and be sure. It's better to check in one time too many than not to check in at all.

As for her inspirations as a leader - Keyleth gave a lovely speech when she became Voice of the Tempest. I recommend revisiting; it's extremely good.

#keyleth #critrole meta #vox machina #skeletonsloverockcandy #ask #my meta #living up to my username

[ausetkmt]

Jon Caramanica

Caramanica is writing a forthcoming book about the life and cultural impact of Kanye West.

Oct. 19, 2022, 2:20 p.m. ET

We may not yet have hit the nadir of the current debacle of Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, but Monday night’s interview with Chris Cuomo certainly felt like some kind of bottom.

In the back of an S.U.V. heading to a meeting with the chief executive of the conservative social media app Parler, Ye jousted with Cuomo for 20 minutes, largely rehashing the provocations he’s been harping on for the last two weeks: his anger with Jewish executives; his desire to think freely, independent of the expected Black celebrity narrative; and his belief that all Black people are Jews, and therefore he cannot be deemed antisemitic.

During one of a few fraught exchanges in which Cuomo pushed back on bigoted statements, Ye replied testily, “Are you gonna give me a platform? Are you gonna give me a platform?”

Throughout his career, Ye has gobbled up platforms — sometimes others’, sometimes ones he has built himself. The very act of consuming public oxygen has been a centerpiece of his art for two decades. And even though in recent years Ye has, time and again, expressed sentiments that have been uninformed, ill-phrased and profoundly concerning, he has routinely found ways — whether through the success of his business ventures, or by strategic disappearance and recalibration — to paper over the disturbances. He remains a tendentious superstar, but a superstar nonetheless.

But in this moment, following two straight weeks of offensive chatter — “I’m going death con 3 on Jewish people”; “the guy’s knee wasn’t even on his neck like that” (on George Floyd); “I prefer my kids knew Hanukkah than Kwanzaa. At least it will come with some financial engineering”; “Bernard Arnault killed my best friend” (on Virgil Abloh); and more — it’s challenging to imagine a future for Ye in which he bounces back as crisply as he has in the past. Alienating people, even loyalists who hope he’ll return to old form, has always been part of Ye’s cost of doing business, but now it is threatening to become his core achievement..

Call it what you will — a heel turn, a villain arc, a worrisome descent into reactionary politics, a manifestation of what Ye has described as mental illness, a gruesome side effect of extreme wealth, an embrace of true hate. What it does not appear to be is a performance. Instead, it is a new, brutal and detrimental iteration of the sense of grievance that has been Ye’s essential animator since even before he signed a record deal and released his debut album, “The College Dropout,” in 2004.

It is one thing, however, to lash out from feeling excluded — a music industry that isn’t quite ready to accept your gifts, a fashion industry that isn’t sure how to handle an interloper with vision and a sense of entitlement. But Ye is a mogul now, an entrepreneur in the clothing and sneaker business who wields levers of power, influence and authority.

And yet still he lashes out, resulting in the most troubling stretch in his career since the series of events that led to his hospitalization in 2016.

The domino effect began early this month, when Ye and the Black right-wing commentator Candace Owens appeared at Paris Fashion Week wearing T-shirts that read “White Lives Matter.” What he may have been presenting as an offhand gimmick quickly became emblematic — when Ye is questioned or attacked, often he doubles down. (Just a couple of days ago, his associates were giving out the shirts to homeless people in Los Angeles.)

The discourse quickly became unruly, spreading across social media — in one example, Ye began posting texts between him and the Supreme creative director Tremaine Emory, who had formerly worked for him. The exchange was callous and stern, a tug of war between righteous indignation and indignant self-righteousness.

By now, battle lines had been drawn. Ye took refuge in an interview with the Fox News host Tucker Carlson, in which Ye suggested that the “White Lives Matter” shirt was “funny,” and that the Clintons had been attempting to control him through his ex-wife, Kim Kardashian. Later, Motherboard posted unaired leaks from the interview, including one in which Ye posited that “fake children” were planted in his house to improperly influence his children. On Twitter, he lodged a litany of complaints about Jewish people.

Over the weekend, he returned to Drink Champs, the rowdy and usually uproarious podcast hosted by the rapper N.O.R.E., only to re-emphasize his hateful stereotyping. However, egging Ye on, or giving him the space to ramble unchecked, is beginning to have consequences — for others, at least. On Monday, N.O.R.E. apologized for not rejecting Ye’s hate speech in real time, and the episode was removed from the internet.

Later that night, Ye videoconferenced in to Chris Cuomo’s program on NewsNation from the back seat of a vehicle, with no light. The content of the conversation toggled between coherent and worrisome, and the staging felt haphazard and desperate. He was largely unable to meet the camera with a firm gaze. He appeared like a man being conveyed to nowhere.

Perhaps crucially, it gave the image of a man truly untethered — from other people, from loving counsel, from shared social ethics.

“The common understanding,” he told Cuomo, “more oftentimes than not nowadays, is not the truth.”

And yes, sometimes that is the case. But the antisemitic sentiment that Ye has been espousing is gross, and also gross in its casualness — familiar, tiresome tropes that serve only to incite hatred. (On Wednesday, in an interview with Piers Morgan, Ye appeared to apologize for some of his comments. “Hurt people hurt people, and I was hurt,” he said, in a short clip released in advance of the interview’s airing.)

If this run of interviews and social media bursts feels familiar, it’s because there is a certain cyclicity to how Ye has navigated his public life. Early in his career, his loudest complaints were often followed by his most ambitious achievements. But in recent years, the balance between volume of grievance and level of achievement has become destabilized. This recent time period feels like a callback to 2016, when Ye cut his Saint Pablo tour short and was briefly hospitalized; not long after, he publicly embraced Donald Trump and questioned whether slavery was a choice.

In that era, like the current moment, Ye would not, or could not, turn off the faucet. Sometimes it seems that he wants words to mean something other than they do. He has burned through several cycles of trying out ideas in real time only to recalibrate when he found — intentionally, or more likely not — the outer bounds of acceptable discourse. But there is no apparent fail-safe in place now.

Which leaves the responsibility to others. So far, there have been a handful of efforts to hold him to account. After Ye’s tweets, Elon Musk — soon to be the owner of Twitter — tweeted, “Talked to ye today & expressed my concerns about his recent tweet, which I think he took to heart.” The influential radio D.J. Funk Flex called out rappers and industry executives over their silence, suggesting they still hoped to work with Ye down the line. A few celebrities have expressed their exasperation; others, like Diddy, have attempted to intervene directly, only to have Ye target them publicly.

And yet people still tune in, perhaps out of schadenfreude, but also perhaps because Ye is drawing upon a cultural bank account so vast and deep and long-running that he is difficult to disentangle from our modern understanding of celebrity. For years and years, he has stepped out over the line, then crafted work — music, fashion or otherwise — that appeared to justify, or at least partially excuse, his baser impulses. Whether that dynamic can continue is the remaining question. It is also worth considering at what point outrage morphs into concern — if Ye needs help, who would be in a position to provide it to him, and from whom would he accept it?

The media outlets giving him airtime in this moment are riding the border of responsibility and irresponsibility. He has already been suspended from Twitter and Instagram for his incendiary behavior. He has terminated his partnership with Gap. His Adidas partnership is “under review.” Soon, he may have no mainstream partner platforms of any kind to speak of.

Which may explain why he reached an agreement in principle to purchase Parler, the faltering right-wing social media app. (The parent company of Parler is owned by Owens’s husband. Perhaps Ye is, among other things, a recurring victim, witting or otherwise, of right-wing grift.)

For decades now, Ye has been building new worlds and waiting for people to populate them. But even if he does make Parler his megaphone, it’s unclear whether he will simply end up doing anything beyond shouting into the void. Speech may be free, but attention is not.

#Kanye West Is Running Out of Platforms #kanye #mental illness #kanye west #kanye west is ill

[electricea-archive]

pride posts - day 28!

ryuji’s reaction to being broken up with really depends on how it’s handled by his boyfriend - that’s not to say he reacts extremely immaturely and throws a fit, but i feel like if his boyfriend were to break up with him in a really callous manner or not really give him any real answers, i think it’d be hard for him not to become irritable - and i don’t think it’s being broken up with that is causing his irritation, it either stems from - feeling like his boyfriend is being unnecessarily mean-spirited in doing so, or avoiding and dodging his questions or pleas for explanation.  he realizes that he’s not someone entitled to closure, but i think it would be hard not to feel a little confused if you really like someone and you think that things are going great and then suddenly, they’re breaking up with you and not really giving you any real reason or explanation.  i feel like he would want to know, if only to know what he could do better for his next boyfriend.  also this goes without saying, but breaking up with him because of an affair with someone else/to be with someone else - isn’t something he’d react well to, at all.  i think a part of him would genuinely wish them the best but i also think it’d be hard for him to stomach, essentially being thrown aside for someone else and yeah, i think there’d be some bitterness there.

for most amicable break ups, though? he takes it pretty well - he understands that feelings fade with time and the last thing he would want would be for his boyfriend to feel forced into carrying on a relationship they have no real investment in.  likewise, if his boyfriend has to make a difficult decision like moving away or going to a different university, he wouldn’t begrudge them that.  i think he’d also be understanding if the break-up was his fault - being a phantom thief can really kill a guy’s dating life and while he hates keeping secrets, it’s just something that he feels he has to do, so if the secrecy became too much for his boyfriend, he wouldn’t blame them one bit for that.  likewise, if he unintentionally acted inappropriately or rudely or rubbed them the wrong way somehow, he’d try his best to understand that too.

i think for the most part, he handles being broken up with pretty well - he just wants nothing but the best for his boyfriend, even if that doesn’t involve him any more and even though it would be difficult, he would try to go his own way and live his own life - there might be very rare instances where he holds out hope for a future reunion, but he’d try not to fixate on that too much and while he would reach out amicably, he would never try to pressure someone back into a reconciliation.  sometimes people find their way back to each other but a lot of the time, people also don’t - and that’s okay too.

#okay wow this is long #i just kind of started typing and didn't stop lmao #headcanons #( pride month 2022. )

[vanquishedvaliant]

So there’s this trend I’m seeing on social media about people boycotting / encouraging people not to buy the upcoming Mass Effect remasters.

The reasonings being somewhat varied, some valid, others not, but mostly centering around one thing in specific; cut content relating to same sex relationships that didn’t make it into the games.

Now, I understand not being interested in the product being offered; I’m probably not going to buy it myself for a lack of specific features like multiplayer and... just not needing the buy the game for my fifth or sixth time. It’s completely valid to think the remasters are just not doing enough for you to justify a purchase, or that their faith in the company doing it properly in their current state isn’t there. I get that.

But the mood that’s come up lately isn’t just disinterest; it’s downright outrage. Violent, ideologically charged opposition to even the concept of the remasters because of a perceived failure to meet their extremely specific and often high standards and notions of progressiveness.

Now it’s not exactly news that Bioware has had a rocky relationship with inclusivity over the years, with queer characters flitting in and out of recognition and prominence, appropriation of queer archetypes, and less than stellar execution of what characters they do include. I’ve had my complaints with these myself from time to time, though it’s still always struck me historically as a generally positive, if clumsy attempt at progress that I appreciated despite the flaws; remember that the original Mass Effect 1 came out in 2007, and was the focus of a major media scandal about even including romantic relationships at all in the game, nevermind same sex ones. That’s 14 years ago! The most recent game in the series is 9 years old!

We can talk about the social standards of the times and the progress we’ve made, and we can also talk about the merits of restoring and improving media as it was, or recreating it to more closely reflect the values of today and which or both of them is a worthwhile pursuit, but I don’t think that’s what’s being sincerely argued here.

What we see instead is some protestation that failure to make the exacting changes that they see fit according to their personal ideology is some kind of radically regressive statement, as if it’s a conscious, malicious decision and not either one made in good faith or not at all. This movement has collectively decided that the remaster needs to contain exactly the changes that fit their fleeting whims or the entire thing’s at best a wash and a wasted effort, and in some cases a ‘homophobic’ statement of hatred, or cynically callous laziness. 

Let’s remember; the focus of this argument is the presence of available simulated dating options in a 14 year old game. The arguments posits that some of these alternative options are ones that were cut from the release of the games, notably the first one, and have some or numerous assets that exist in various forms within the game files that with some work can be accessed in the game with user-made modifications. Some of this is true; though much of it is exaggerated or misconstrued in terms of its scope or viability.

Many of these people just assume that this cut content that someone else has restored in a mod somewhere is just some sort of simple toggle done in moments without effort, ignoring the work those modders did on their own time and money to introduce those features. 

Even if we just hand wave any standards of quality or continuity or polish and integration these mods have, you have to consider the dozens to hundreds of volunteer man hours of labor these fans put into many of those mods to make them viable that a company paying it’s employees a fair wage and time to do without overworking has to budget. Which I should mind to you is something also incredibly topically relevant in game dev these days. Adding new content costs money. Restoring old content, still costs money.

Even then, the viability of many of those original assets is at question in itself; the 'ingredients’ used to create the content are not equivalent to the ‘cooked’ content found in the game files, so some of them are difficult to work with or lacking in features or quality. Hell, we know for a fact that half of the god damn development data for ME1 is just fucking gone, which is why the DLC isn’t making an appearance in the remaster at all; it just doesn’t exist anymore and would need to be remade from utter scratch.

Now there’s a dozen reasons undertakings like these would or wouldn’t make their list of priorities for remaster given the other work they are doing re; texture and model uprezzing, gameplay updates, etc. It’s not exactly strange for them to recreate the game largely as it was with a more limited scope of changes. Perhaps the decision was made to preserve some parts of the game largely as it was; with mostly minor cosmetic changes to things like Miranda’s camera angles; things that don’t have much overhead or ripple effect. Perhaps restoring the content was considered, but didn’t make the cut- maybe for the same reasons it didn’t make it into the game in 2007. Maybe for different ones.

Only the people involved know.

Now, would I like to see some of that content restored and improved? Sure! I think it’d have been a great thing if they’d promoted the series as having new or restored content; if they’d promised us such things. But they haven’t, and while it’s one thing to praise taking an initiative like that if they had, I think it’s completely unreasonable to be outraged that they didn’t.

We can celebrate that kind of outstanding and excellent steps forward in inclusivity, but we have to understand that while someone not being ahead of the curve may not be exciting or even disappointing; it is not in itself an act of directed aggression. And treating it like one is a waste of time and energy that we can direct to protesting actual aggression, or celebrating those outstanding steps.

But here’s the major thing that kills me; all those mods they love and praise aren’t going anywhere.

The remaster will come out and unless Bioware is so completely tone deaf and media blind from the past year they pull a WC3, the old versions of the game will all still be available. All those user made mods they cite in these arguments about “how easy” it is to add content to the game will still be there, ready to play as they always were. Some of them might even work or be easily made to work with the new versions!

All of that will still be there! And we’ll have access to a new version of the trilogy that is far more accessible to new players who haven’t yet been exposed to so much of the games content that they are desperate for more of it.

Just look at Mass Effect 1; that game has not aged well, and it was kind of a sloppy mess even when it came out! How many new players can we get to enjoy all the good things the series has to offer with an easily accessed, more enjoyable package to play through the entire series without issue? I’ve done numerous replays of the trilogy through the years, and Mass Effect 1 is always a huge stumbling block. It’s just a pain in the ass, straight out. Don’t you want at least the option to fix that?

And if not, you don’t have to buy it and no harm is done to you! Enjoy your existing version with your mods and familiar features and flaws.

And if you truly, genuinely care so passionately about Bioware improving their record of inclusivity; look instead to the new game that’s coming out and look forward to that instead. Every game in the franchise has been better than the last at this; ME1 cut the same sex relationships, but ME2 had some. ME3 had even more, and then Andromeda had yet even further than that after patching!

How many will the new game have?

Look forward to that and make it clear to bioware you’re looking for that in their games; just.... ease off this ridiculous vitriol in trying to get people to avoid the remaster because it’s not good enough for you. No one needs to have this bullying done to either the developers themselves or the players looking to buy the game for themselves or others. It’s simply not productive.

Especially with this franchise’s sordid history with excessive media outrage and entitlement that’s been absolutely exhausted.

Just... relax. And have some perspective.

#mass effect #me #mass effect legendary edition #mass effect legendary #long post

[adriensaltprompts]

Submitted Prompt: "Deposed and Exposed"

Diverges from canon during the “Queen’s Battle” arc.  After Chloe’s stunt with the train, Ladybug is quite naturally furious over the utter lack of regard she showed for the safety of everyone involved.  Even more furious at how, deep down, some part of her isn’t even surprised – why should she be, when Chloe has done nothing but demonstrate that same utter lack of regard for others time and time again?

This isn’t unusual behavior for her.  It’s par for the course.  It’s NORMAL.  And that – that sickens Marinette, right down to her core.  The notion that this is just typical Chloe, that the only REAL difference is that this time, her reach extended further than normal.  She’d stumbled across more power, and promptly misused and abused it, because that’s just what she DOES.  And it’s painfully clear that she doesn’t recognize that she’s done anything WRONG – how could she, when that’s NORMAL?

What’s not normal here is the prospect of punishment.  Chloe is far too used to getting away with little more than a slap on the wrist; all exceptions to that rule were promptly blamed on whomever she deemed responsible for forcing her to experience those consequences.  After all, it was never her fault.  She never DESERVED to be disciplined.

So Ladybug reads her the riot act.  Reads her for the filth that she is.  Not because she expects any of this to sink in or encourage her to ‘change her ways’; at this point, she’s not no faith whatsoever that Chloe will ever WANT to change.  And the thought of softening the blow, of ‘going easy’ on her when that’s precisely the sort of compassion Chloe has taken for granted, when that’s the sort of reasoning that Miss Bustier has used to excuse and enable her cruelty, when she has been offered the benefit of the doubt time and time again and taken it as something else she was entitled to…

No.  No more.  Ladybug lays it out in no uncertain terms – and when Chat Noir tries intervening, tries defending what she’s done, she turns her pain-sharpened tongue on him as well.

And Chat Noir bites back.  Slaps her with his trump card, declaring that none of this even matters because she could have restored it all with her Lucky Charm.  So there’s no point in even getting upset about it, right?  No real harm was done.

He thinks that’s a winning argument.  That throwing that in her face will shut her up.  And indeed, “his lady’s” mouth works silently for a few seconds, while she goggles at him – long enough that he feels his lips curling automatically into a smug little smirk.

But oh, the darkness that follows.  The way her glare slices into him, pinning him to the spot; how fury oozes through every word she spits out, barely restrained, simmering white hot as she reminds him that there was no akuma involved.  No guarantee that she could access the Miraculous Cure.

More than that, though, the existence of the Cure doesn’t matter here.  It’s completely beside the point. It doesn’t change the fact that Chloe showed such callous disregard for the safety of others – the very citizens that heroes like them are meant to protect.

And Chat Noir has just revealed that he cares just as little as Chloe does.  A stunt like this is no 'minor embarrassment’ or 'innocent mistake’. For him to play it off so lightly, dismissing the very real danger involved – the fact that Chloe could have killed people…

Not to mention all of his other wretched behavior.  The way he’s treated her, his supposed partner, like she was never anything more than a prize to be claimed.  But Marinette doesn’t start listing any of that off.  She just goes for the Ring.

Maybe she’s able to wrench it off his finger immediately, while he’s too shocked to react.  Maybe it comes to a fight.  Doesn’t matter.  She’s done.  DONE.  Done with going along with what a couple of privileged, entitled rich brats want from her.  Done with playing nice with those who refuse to offer the same courtesy in exchange – who just absorb that compassion into themselves like a pair of black holes, never feeling like they need to return the favor.

Neither of them care about anything other than themselves and what they want out of life.  And she won’t go along with it.

It’s not a pretty fight by any means, but it’s necessary.  And when she sees Adrien afterwards, chest heaving, disheveled, glaring at her with more fury than she’d ever thought he possessed – the fury of someone who feels robbed of what they’re clearly entitled to – the twisting pain in her chest just mixes with her own outrage.

Deep down, she wasn’t surprised with Chloe.  She’s surprised with him, but… in the days, weeks and months to come, as she takes time to process all that’s unfolded – all that will unfold in the wake of this – Marinette will find herself questioning that.  Wondering whether she should have been surprised.  She does her best to come to terms with this, grappling with her own streaks of selfishness and entitlement that this has exposed to her, working to deal with everything and rebuild herself into a better person.

How those two deal with it is only her problem in the sense that they may strive to make it her problem, by causing problems that Marinette and Ladybug will have to deal with.  Beyond that, however, it’s not her problem at all.  It’s all on them, isn’t it?

#submitted prompt #submission #Adrien salt #Adrien salt prompts #Adrien Agreste #Chloe salt #Chloe salt prompts #Chloe Bourgeois #Miraculous Ladybug #ML salt #ML salt prompts #ML Writing prompts #Show!Miraculous #Show!Marinette #Show!Adrien

[arcticdementor]

An unlikely thing happened to me on my two weeks’ off. I watched an HBO Max miniseries that mocked some aspects of wokeness.

Mike White’s “The White Lotus” is a tragicomic exposé of our current moneyed elites and the psychological dysfunction they labor so mightily under. There’s a blithe, unthinking finance jock, with a worked-out bod, an uneasy new wife, and a shitload of money, who can muster misery at the slightest ruffle in perfection. There’s the beta male, married to the mega-rich corporate CEO wife, worried about the condition his balls. There’s the super-uptight gay manager, hanging on to sobriety, as he performs for his clients; the mega-wealthy, overweight lost soul, played by Jennifer Coolidge, whose life is a pampered abyss of emotional desolation; and an aspiring young journalist who reconciles herself to money and indolence over a mindless career of clickbait snark.

…

And the most repellent characters are two elite-college sophomores, Olivia and Paula, packed to the gills with the fathomlessly entitled smugness that is beginning to typify the first generation re-programmed by critical theory fanatics. You watch as they casually abuse and denigrate their brother — a young man consumed by living online; you see how they mock anyone who doesn’t meet their exacting standards of youth or beauty; you watch them betray and lie to each other; you see them condescend to someone still struggling to pay back student loans (see the clip above); and you witness the co-ed of color, Paula, act out her antiracist principles, with disastrous real world results for a Hawaiian she thinks she is saving from oppression. She leaves her wreckage behind, gliding away, with impunity, to another semester of battling racism.

At one point, in a memorable scene, as the white daughter expounds about the evil of white straight men, her mother points out that she is actually talking about her brother, sitting at the same table. An individual person. Right next to her. Someone she might even love, if such a thing were within her capacity. Someone who cannot be reduced to a demonized version of his unchosen race and heterosexuality. And the only character one can bond with, and root for, is indeed this young white American male, awkward but genuine, whose story ends with a new bond with his dad, an escape from online addiction, and a newly revitalized human life.

“The White Lotus” is not an anti-woke jeremiad. It’s much subtler than that. Even the sophomores seem more naïve and callow than actively sexist and racist. The miniseries doesn’t look away from the staggering social inequality we now live in; and gives us a classic white, straight, male, rich narcissist in the finance jock. But it’s humane. It sees the unique drama of the individual and how that can never be reduced to categories or classes or identities.

And this step toward humaneness is what interests me. Because if we can’t intellectually engage people on how critical theory is palpably wrong in its view of the world, we can sure show how brutal and callous it is — and must definitionally be — toward individual human beings in the pursuit of utopia. “The White Lotus” is thereby a liberal work of complexity and art.

…

Applebaum’s Atlantic piece is a good sign from a magazine that hired and quickly purged a writer for wrong think, and once held a town meeting auto-da-fé to decide which writers they would permanently anathematize as moral lepers.

Similarly, it was quite a shock to read in The New Yorker a fair and empathetic profile of an academic geneticist, Kathryn Paige Harden, who acknowledges a role for genetics in social outcomes. It helps that Harden is, like Freddie DeBoer, on the left; and the piece is strewn with insinuations that other writers on genetics, like Charles Murray, deny that the environment plays a part in outcomes as well (when it is clear to anyone who can read that this is grotesquely untrue). But if the readers of The New Yorker need to be fed distortions about some on the right in order for them to consider the unavoidable emergence of “polygenic scores” for humans, with their vast political and ethical implications, then that’s a step forward.

…

And then, in the better-late-than-never category, The Economist, the bible for the corporate elite, has just come out unapologetically against the Successor Ideology, and in favor of liberalism. This matters, it seems to me, because among the most zealous of the new Puritans are the boards and HR departments of major corporations, which are dedicated right now to enforcing the largest intentional program of systemic race and sex discrimination in living memory. Money quote: “Progressives replace the liberal emphasis on tolerance and choice with a focus on compulsion and power. Classical liberals conceded that your freedom to swing your fist stops where my nose begins. Today’s progressives argue that your freedom to express your opinions stops where my feelings begin.”

The Economist also pinpoints the core tenets of CRT in language easy to understand: “a belief that any disparities between racial groups are evidence of structural racism; that the norms of free speech, individualism and universalism which pretend to be progressive are really camouflage for this discrimination; and that injustice will persist until systems of language and privilege are dismantled.” These “systems of language and privilege” are — surprise! — freedom of speech and economic liberty. If major corporations begin to understand that, they may reconsider their adoption of a half-baked racialized Marxism as good management. Maybe that might persuade Google not to mandate indoctrination in ideas such as the notion being silent on questions of race is “covert white supremacy,” a few notches below lynching.

…

And then there’s a purely anecdotal reflection, to be taken for no more than that: all summer, I’ve been struck by how many people, mostly complete strangers, have come up to me and told me some horror story of an unjust firing, a workplace they’re afraid to speak in, a colleague who has used antiracism for purely vindictive or careerist purposes, or a hiring policy so crudely racist it beggars belief. The toll is mounting. And the anger is growing. The fury at CRT in high schools continues to roil school board meetings across the country. Some Americans are not taking this new illiberalism on the chin.

This isn’t much, I know. Read Peter Boghossian’s resignation letter from Portland State University to see how deep the rot has gotten. But it’s something. It’s a sign that there is now some distance from the moral panic of mid-2020 and the start of reflection upon the most zealous aspects of this new illiberalism.

#andrew sullivan #substack #the white lotus

[kitkatopinions]

Accidentally deleted my Tyrian and Watts asks while I was trying to fix a mistake so... Sorry about that, everyone! Here they are! Tyrian and Watts for the RWBY character asks!

Let’s do Tyrian first, because I have less to say about him, I feel like.

My top three ships for the character

Tyrian/Watts. Dysfunctional villainous romance of the century, no one knows how they’ve managed to make it to their tenth anniversary without killing each other, including them. Tyrian/Salem is my second top ship for him. Major Bellatrix/Voldy vibes with this one, but I could see it. Tyrian/Hazel is my third ship for lack of options. Does this one make sense? No. But I can at least see Tyrian being super flirty and Hazel being endlessly tired, but never really stopping it. (Also I hate Hazel so much lol.)

My three least favorite ships for the character

Tyrian/Qrow sucks for me. Like... I kinda feel like two people fighting each other just gets shippers, which is fine and totally understandable. But for me, Tyrian poisoning Qrow and almost killing him and calling his beloved niece a bitch and then killing Clover is a big no from me, dog. On that note! Tyrian/Clover is also one big no from me, since Clover murdered him. And Tyrian/Ozpin is another really big no from me. Tyrian and his crazy Salem worship can stay five hundred and fifty feet away from my son.

My biggest criticism for the character

They went a little too much on the crazy in the fourth and fifth season and it made him feel annoying. Like, I don’t mind the Bellatrix vibes, but I do mind the movie version Bellatrix vibes, sometimes. It just got kinda annoying. I wish his crazy was always more on the dangerous side and less on the kooky side, but that’s just personal opinions.

My favorite thing about the character

The way people are so uncomfortable around him. Whenever Tyrian talks to Emerald or Mercury, he’s honestly freaky. Like both me and the characters are waiting for him to snap. That’s a great quality in a villain that we’re meant to hate or love to hate. He has a real presence and it’s enjoyable.

A headcanon I have about them

Tyrian doesn’t often try to act normal, but he can, and he’s got a great ‘respectable, cool guy’ act that’s actually a little reminiscent of Qrow or Clover. He’s even passed himself as a Huntsman here and there.

What I would change about them if I was making a re-write

More involvement in volumes 4 and 5, and I’d treat him a bit more seriously and make him a bit more dangerous. Maybe I’d have him wound a member of Team RNJR in his attack as well as poison Qrow (maybe give Jaune a reason to unlock his semblance in season 4 and in response to the pain of a member of his team. Also, his ‘Tyrian purple’ color should be more than just the color of his eyes. Like, how come so many RWBY characters season 4 and onward have such boring colors? I’d give Tyrian some strong purple and pink.

What I I think of their character allusion and what (if anything) I would change about it

Tyrian alludes to the animal fable ‘the Scorpion and the Frog,’ and that’s... really in name only, I think. A part of me wants to give them some kind of points for having Qrow work with him against Clover, only for Tyrian to kill Clover, which lines up with his ‘its just my nature’ scorpion stinging the frog so that they’ll both drown and die. But they didn’t mean for Qrow to really be wrong! They didn’t mean for the lesson to be ‘Qrow shouldn’t have trusted the poisonous villain’ it was ‘wowza does Qrow’s semblance hurt him. :( Too bad Clover got himself killed.’ Which makes the whole allusion kind of suck.

Now for Watts, the single best villain in my opinion.

My top three ships for the character

Tyrian/Watts. See above. This ship would be a dysfunctional mess, but it’d be a wild ride. Watts/Villain!Ironwood. I kind of hate this ship when it’s ‘fallen hero turned villain’ Ironwood. But if he actually had been written as a secret villain or obviously headed that way from the start, I can see him and Watts also being a dysfunctional mess of a wild ride ship, only with way more ‘evil power couple’ vibes than Tyrian and Watts would have. Also my favorite version of this features Watts having been the one to build Penny (maybe by stealing the plans from Pietro) and him and Ironwood raising a still bright and cheerful, still innocent and trusting, villain Penny who will attack to kill with a smile on her face and a ‘it was nice meeting you!’ And this is very weird and niche but Watts/Evil Stepsister (specifically the one with the sharp bangs and highlights.) Someone sent me an ask saying the Evil Stepmother and stepsisters should’ve been connected to Salem and gotten Cinder involved and I totally agree with this. I then started envisioning a world where the step sisters competed with Cinder and all three of them were raised in Salem’s circle. In this version of things, I could totally picture one of the step sisters having a romantic tension driven connection with Watts and the two of them subtly flirting sometimes (and bonding over their mutual hatred of Cinder.) I picked the sister with bangs for no real reason except that I like her look more.

My three least favorite ships for the character

Watts/Cinder. Watts thinks of her like a bratty little girl, and Cinder kills him. Watts/Lionheart. Kinda really hate this one because of how clearly Lionheart was terrified of him. Just a bit uncomfortable for me to see that in a relationship. Watts/Hero!Ironwood or Watts/HeroTurnedVillain/Ironwood. Sorry, but Ironwood in canon got such a bad, bad portrayal in season 8 and the end of season 7, and I just can’t help but blame Watts for quite a bit of it. I only like them as a ship if Ironwood is an antagonist from the start.

My biggest criticism for the character

They shouldn’t have killed him! He was one of Salem’s best followers and one of the best villains and it was such a big mistake to kill literally one of the only actual loyal followers. It threw off any character development for Cinder and it was a big mistake. I really wanted the Cinder / Watts / Neo team up to keep going! I’m so disappointed it got thrown away.

My favorite thing about the character

Watts is an entitled, petty bastard, and I think that’s so good for a villain that isn’t meant to be social commentary (because tbh, RWBY never should’ve tried to be social commentary.) Watts isn’t sympathetic, he’s an Atlas born and raised guy in a three piece suit, he’s posh, he’s upset because he wasn’t given exactly what he wanted. Most of the villains in RWBY are either victims of abuse, systemic oppression, or poverty, and that’s... Not fun in a show that’s never handled social commentary well and is about magical girls destroying Voldemort/Satan with the power of friendship (Ruby literally never says anything about Faunus rights iirc.) Watts is refreshing because he’s exactly the type of villain that you can expect in a show like what RWBY should’ve been, and he flourishes as that. Why would we be sympathetic to Watts when he’s just doing this all because he wasn’t picked first for his tech? Why would we feel soured towards conflicts with Watts and Team RWBY? He’s just a petty bastard being evil because he was snubbed. Why would we be frustrated that incredibly significant problems are being shoved to the side with Watts? He’s a fun villain, he’s not meant to be more, he’s not meant to make you emotionally invested only to then be gutted for it. You can hate to love him without it feeling bad. Maybe that’s why he’s just my favorite non-kid villain (other than Roman.)

A headcanon I have about them

Watts has been trying to build his own AI robot like Penny, in his spare time. He wanted it to be done in time to become a Maiden, but it wasn’t, and Salem gave that slot to Cinder and got after Watts for not contributing enough. He of course thought this was deeply unfair (especially after being made to contribute a lot to Cinder’s Beacon success without getting any credit for it.) And this just fueled his hatred of Cinder, his hatred of Pietro and Ironwood, and by extension, his hatred of Penny.

What I would change about them if I was making a re-write

I would keep him freaking alive and keep up the pair up he had going on with Cinder and Neo! But also I’d increase his relationships with Emerald, Mercury, Tyrian, Hazel... Just some more Salem’s Inner Circle moments to flesh out their characters. Other than that, I wouldn’t change much. He’s a pretty good character.

What I I think of their character allusion and what (if anything) I would change about it

Okay, I’ve talked about his character allusion in a very long post awhile ago, but I’m not scrolling down that far to tag it. To sum it up... I hate his allusion. XD I loved the Sherlock Holmes books and read most of them, and I didn’t realize he was supposed to allude to John Watson until I read someone else’s post saying so, and I started freaking out about how awful it was. Watts has so little in common with Watson, he’s essentially the anti-Watson. Which basically means he’s Sherlock Holmes, the opposite of Watson in almost every way, up to and including freaking faking his death which is one of the most iconic Sherlock Holmes thing ever. Watts is everything Sherlock Holmes is on his worst days, arrogant, callous, consumed with his projects, petty, smug, over the top - as well as being hyper intelligent and a genius who often just gets passed over. He has rivalries with his colleagues like Holmes did. And like I said, he faked his death, only to reveal himself to an old friend later on the cusp of carrying out a scheme. He’s evil Holmes! He has nothing to do with John Watson - caring, humble, down to earth, not brilliant like his friend but content to be ordinary and special because of his emotional depth and devoted heart, medical former doctor who spends quite a lot of time chronicling the successes of someone else because he’s content to live in the background. Don’t get me wrong, a ‘Watson’ character who is evil could work - Watson himself indulged in crime for the sake of Holmes sometimes in the original works and if he worshipped Salem or one of her followers and did everything for her while still being a more humble, more friendly, not brilliant person he could be good - but Watts is not that person. Even the gimmicks Watts is given are stupid and don’t make it obvious he’s Watson. Boy’s got a moustache and a revolver and they thought that’d be enough. Idk why they thought 'we’ll make him Watson’ when he’s clearly a Holmes! Also, he’s supposed to be ‘Watson if he’d met Moriarty instead of Holmes,’ and to that I say boo! Watson wouldn’t turn into a super genius just because he meets a different mastermind!

...That’s summing up my feelings, yeah. Because I have so many feelings about his warped, weird character allusion. If I was changing it, I’d just make him Holmes like I think he was clearly supposed to be.

[earths-roots-grow-up]

HC on how Prussia’s past shaped his fatal flaw that ended him

There’s TL’DR at the end btw :D just a long ramble about Gil’s psychology

I was thinking about young Prussia again and how specific circumstances of his birth and early life influenced his personality and life goals. And how those led directly to his downfall. I already mentioned a lot of such events:

how being born without land and having to fight for every square meter was something that influenced him from the beginning, bc he had this feeling of being treated by faith (God?) unfairly and that, because he had to fight for things others were given naturally, he was superior to them and his achievements meant more. He was special. It also shaped his belief that natural talents are worth a lot less than hard work and discipline.

how losing the Teutonic Wars to Poland and becoming a duchy under Poland was an incredibly humiliating event that installed this deep refusal of ever being in such a position again (of being powerless) and wild determination to instead always be the one who holds all the cards;

how, during his process of taking over blatic Prūsa's lands and extinguishing his culture, Teutonic Order ended up killing the personification. As in, really killing him. And how this act was something that shapes Gilbert' relations to others, as he was still a young, new representation, and he did something that, in the Nation's world, is one of the most terrifying things one can do.  Which kinda set up the stage for him and how others viewed him (in simple terms... not great reputation, kinda the black sheep of Europe) and it turned into this self-fulfilling prophecy.

I was lately thinking about this some more and I can see another huge way his personality was shaped as a young personification. It had to do with killing Prūsa - how this event was one of the critical moments for his evolution, right next to being born landless and losing the Teutonic Wars.

To put is simply:

He saw he did something terrible and he needed to live with that. He kept attacking bc he was just young, focused on himself and lacked perspective to understand the consequences, and when they came in the form of permadeath of another Nation, he was not mentally prepared for it. In order to be able to do deal, he had to somehow explain it to himself, make the act of killing Prūsa excusable, even resonable and just. And he did: he created a whole set of excuses, mostly revolving around how "he needs to take care of the number one". So any act is excusable because he has to take care of himself, fight for his own agenda. I think he was quite selfish even before, due to the ‘I’m special’ mentality mentioned at the beginning, that's why he felt so entitled in the first place, but this event cemented him in this self-centered, callous world view that was no longer just a generic character flaw, but evolved into a fatal flaw .

If it didn't, he would have to deal with the horrific act of murdering another nation and force himself through very painful self-analysis and self-actualization that would probably make him into a better person, sure, but it’s a challenging psychological process that requires effort and some amount of self awareness. He was simply not mature enough for such a thing, he was a KID. So he evolved a coping mechanism - he dived into preexisting imperfections of his character and developed a whole worldview that was pretty self-absorbed (and really? tons of people choose shallow coping mechanisms to deal with stuff instead of doing a deep dive into their own psyche and really hashing it out honestly).

Of course much later he still had to deal with this fatal flaw, which ironically ended up leading to his downfall. If he did not have it, he would not be so obsessed with gaining power in Europe, and one way of gaining power was creating (and ruling!) the German Empire - and it was Germany who ended up making him irrelevant and then loosing his status as a nation completely. Is this tragic irony or what? His biggest fear of being powerless comes true due to events he himself set in motion, fueled by this fatal flaw in the form of trying to have all the power by any means necessary. Which IMO makes his character growth even more powerful, when at the end of Cold War he deices to open up the country and accepts the possibility of death and loosing all the power he managed to keep.

But going back to the subject: he needed to weed out pity and softness from himself to be able to get over this at such a young, tender age and keep his self-esteem intact. So he did and the effect was the creation of a very determined, self-confident but also quite narcissistic and ruthless person that we know as the Kingdom of Prussia.

TL;DR Prussia's fatal flaw is that he desires power and control above all else, including his relations to others, family and intimacy. This did not came out of nowhere:

He was born landless but still kept hearing he's a soldier of God and Important, it did not compute, so he evolved a strong entitlement that came from comparing himself to others (with land), and it fueled his conquest/ambitions.

Killing Prusa made him dive into and cement a selfish/callous nature bc he had to somehow explain to himself why he did something so horrendous in the Nation World. It made invest more into the idea that Power Is Worth It.

Losing the Teutonic Wars and his independence was a strong his that made him realize how awful it is to really LOSE, how scary and humiliating it is, and it became a powerful incentive to desire power even more, now fueled not just by entitlement/pride, but fear.

--

Sorry for having the whole thing in so many posts, I swear it’s supposed to create some kind of coherent profile x.x I just suck at  being coherent and it's a work in progress :D i just want to keep fleshing him out and adding new motivations to make him more realistic and complex, hope it's working, or is it an overkill?

#aph prussia #hws prussia #gilbert beilschmidt #hetalia #hetalia headcanons #historical hetalia #Axis Powers Hetalia #hetalia world series #hetalia prussia #hws #hetalia world stars #hetalia world twinkle

[hafanforever]

Pride and Prejudice

WOW!!! I am so, SO thrilled about the reception of my previous analysis “Keep Your Hands to Yourself”! I only submitted it one week ago, and it’s already reached over 1K notes! Thank you SO much to all my friends, followers, and other users who have checked it out! It is this kind of response to my analyses that motivates me to keep writing, especially for Frozen II right now, so here is my next one on said film! 😁😄

This analysis is my second one about King Runeard and his villainy. Like the first one I wrote about him and all the other Frozen II analyses I wrote after seeing the movie, I came up with a pun for the title: “Pride and Prejudice”. This analysis focuses solely on my thoughts and interpretations of his real nature, which Elsa discovers when she sees the snowy ice figure of him in Ahtohallan. This moment is only 15 seconds long and Runeard barely says more than 30 words in it; yet he displays pride and prejudice VERY well here, and that’s how I came up with this title! 😆

Although I previously talked about such detailed thoughts about Runeard, I can’t help but single out this one scene to discuss again because even though it’s brief, this scene alone provides enough about him that I can describe what he was really like. Now I don’t want to repeat my descriptions about him too much…but at the same time, it feels a little hard to do. 😉

So while Runeard was briefly seen and had only a couple of lines of dialogue in Agnarr’s story in the prologue, it is while Elsa is in Ahtohallan and sees figures of him and of other people from moments in the past, both in and near Arendelle, that Runeard’s true colors are finally exposed.

In summary, while Runeard was revered as a kind, noble, generous ruler in his lifetime, Elsa and Anna discover that he was actually an arrogant, manipulative, ruthless tyrant who detested magic and distrusted the Northuldra solely because they associated with magic. Runeard constructed the dam in the Enchanted Forest with a claim to the Northuldra that it was a gift of peace and would bring prosperity to their land. But in truth, he plotted to seize control of and eliminate the Northuldra using the dam with its true purpose of weakening the forest and starving the people of their resources so that they would be desperately forced to turn to Runeard.

As I described him before, Runeard’s lines in this short scene provide plenty of information for me to translate just what kind of person he really was in life. Runeard was in the highest social rank since he was a king, which gave him the most amount of power over everyone else. He was at the very top in society, and he wanted to make sure he remained at the top. In being a king, he had a VERY high opinion of himself. He saw himself as supreme, superior, the greatest person of all in regards to his social rank. He believed that all the power he ever needed was in his own status as a monarch. Runeard’s position as a king made him very arrogant and inflated his ego so much that he was determined not to let anything or anyone stand in his way of power. His determination was such that he was willing go to any lengths he considered necessary to prevent his authority and legacy as a monarch from being challenged, threatened, or ruined.

When the manifestation of Runeard appears in Ahtohallan, he is walking alongside his second-in-command officer, who says that he doesn’t understand what Runeard is trying to tell him. He orders the officer to round up Arendelle’s whole army and bring them to the Enchanted Forest, which the officer questions by wisely pointing out that there is no reason for the Northuldra to be distrusted. Immediately after these words are spoken, Runeard stops dead in his tracks before he states his reason why the Northuldra can never be trusted. When Runeard stops walking, he scowls as he turns to the officer, who immediately recoils. The man looks surprised as he does, but his face also shows fear, which is aimed at the king’s expression. Runeard’s scowl suggests that he is very displeased that the officer disagrees with him and is trying to argue about his decision. It suggests that Runeard was extremely intolerant and unaccepting of his judgment and kingly authority being questioned, particularly by someone below him in rank. It’s also clear to me by his scowl that he thinks that the officer should know better than to argue and disagree with him about anything. As quoted by my friend @victortky, the way Runeard’s tone of voice sounds as he says his next line is like he’s actually saying to the officer, “I’m always right and you are a fool for questioning me.”

Then Runeard says his infamous words that the Northuldra can never be trusted, simply because they follow magic, and he goes on by explaining what magic does to people, or rather, what he believes magic does to people. The fact that Runeard says “never” in this sentence underlines the concept that he was definitely set in his bigoted views about magic, that these views of his were conclusive and final, and that nothing could ever be said or done to make him believe otherwise. This theory is supported by his scowl before he makes his declaration; he immediately, clearly, and absolutely refuses to take the officer’s advice, AND he adamantly refuses to even CONSIDER doing so, just because he despises magic. The subtle revelation of his supremacy and arrogance here also emphasizes his severe stubbornness and flat-out refusal to ever give a chance to anyone magical, and all simply because he hates and fears magic.

Now it’s not known what Runeard’s motives are for hating magic, but I believe that one of his reasons is because magic is the only form of power some people consider to be greater than that of a monarch. It is the only kind of power that would be his competition, the only kind that could stand in his way as a ruler. Hearing him speak these words out loud is evident that Runeard feared and hated magic so much that it corrupted his judgment to the point that he would develop instant distrust towards any beings who either possess magical powers or have any kind of associations with magic. With this kind of judgment, Runeard presumably believed that anyone and anything with magical connections would view themselves as superior, as the most powerful beings of all, and thus far superior and more powerful than a king like him. I even think that Runeard was severely consumed by his fear of magic that it stretched further into feelings of paranoia. Such extremities would have made him develop a false concept that the Northuldra would believe that their relations with the forest’s elemental spirits made them more powerful than him. And who knows? Maybe Runeard actually wanted to eliminate the Northuldra because he thought that they might one day try to usurp him and take over his kingdom. If he saw them and their magic connections as a threat to his rule, then that, besides his coldblooded murder of the Northuldra leader, reinforces the idea that Runeard truly would have gone to any lengths he viewed as necessary to avoid having his kingly authority and legacy destroyed.

But Runeard’s final sentence of “It makes them think they can defy the will of a king!” is the one that I consider the most vital in deciphering his character. In particular, the deep scowl, head shake, and gruff tone of voice he exhibits as he says “of a king” really support my idea of what Runeard was truly like: power-hungry, arrogant, egotistical, mighty, hateful, callous, spiteful, superior, bigoted, and haughty. Furthermore, only seconds ago, Runeard said that magic makes people feel too powerful and entitled; yet when he says these last three words, HE is acting very entitled, like HE’S the most powerful person of all! He just looks and sounds VERY full of himself! He speaks as if he has a superiority complex. He also gives an impression of being a complete hypocrite. And even though he may realize this hypocrisy, he probably doesn’t care at all! Like I said before, Runeard apparently viewed himself as supreme and superior to all others, as the greatest person ever just because he was a king. And he PROVES all of these beliefs of mine with these words and the expressions on his face! Heck, I also think that Runeard’s monarch status went to his head so much that he wrongly believed that he was ALWAYS right in any situation, which, again, shows his arrogance, supremacy, and superiority.

But at least poetic justice was met when Runeard fell to his death during the battle that HE started between the Northuldra and Arendelle after murdering formers’ leader. And even though it took over 34 years, Runeard’s evil legacy is finally destroyed when Elsa and Anna discover his crimes, have the dam successfully broken, and form a true alliance of peace between the Arendellians and Northuldrans.

In life, Runeard was desperate to prevent his legacy as a king from being destroyed in the first place; yet ironically, his pride and prejudice are what led to his downfall and ultimately brought his terrible legacy to an end, effectively proving that in the long run, crime doesn’t pay. 😉

#Frozen 2 analyses #Frozen analyses #Disney #Disney Frozen 2 #Disney Frozen #Frozen 2 #Frozen #King Runeard #Disney Villain #villain #pride #prejudice #my stuff #mine