#they're being failed by the system

[radiocrypt-id]

The bad kids haven't really looked too closely at the Rat Grinders (meta wise I know it's a commentary on different play styles and how shitty xp farming is and how op players/parties can become by doing the bare minimum if they put in the time while everyone else plays the damn game) but I find the split perspective problems absolutely fascinating. I can't wait for the Bad Kids to look at the Rat Grinders with envy and anger that the Rat Grinders got to live a normal highschool life without all this insane danger and experience being a teenager without it being the end of the world for them. Right now they just hate the Rat Grinders energy and are matching it back (which is a very high school thing to do. To have beef with a whole other group of kids and not even know why but you'll die on this hill because they started shit first)

Because to the Rat Grinders, from a purely outside perspective, the Bad Kids are fucking monarchs of the school, right? They skipped classes, ran around town, fought people, got arrested, hung out with a big devil? Every new staff member came at their recommendation? One of them has both her dads working at the school?? The destroyed school property, got teachers killed, straight murdered the coach? These fucking kids run around and are apparently scott-free? because the principal liked their chaos enough to let it go and help them avoid the police? To the Rat Grinders, the Bad Kids are untouchable. They're exempt from the law. They're liars, cheats and need to be humbled. It's unfair. From everyone elses perspective, it really does look like the Bad Kids have been given crazy favourtism.

Meanwhile, all of the Bad Kids have died at least once. They've been irreparably changed and are in a constant state of fight or flight. They assume everything is dangerous and anyone might be an enemy because for two goddamn years that was the exact case! They couldn't trust any adult first year! Literally anyone could have been infected with Kalina second year! who knows what happened with the Night Yord but I fucking bet they had issues with Yorbies pretending to be helpful just to kill them! Everyone, for two years, has been out to get them! They can't even sleep! And now they have to grind so hard or they fail. Adaine has a seemingly full time job after school basically every day because she literally can't afford to live? Fabian has taken on the most physically strenuous classes and sport one dude could and has dreams of also being a social legend because he's fucking lonely in that big house and he just wants to fill it. If anyone in the party fails or dies Riz is shit out of luck and wont ever get into a university? He so desperately wants his friends with him so he's working over time and ignoring his limits to make up for his party members not caring about the future. Fig is going through the strangest arc I've ever seen in my life? she's hard avoidant and taking three classes, so a 250% work load, because she's desperate to fill her time so she can't think about all the other work she has to do that if she ignores too long could crush her under the debt of her band from her label, or how alone she feels without her girlfriend around. Gorgug is so desperate to prove himself that he's doing four years of school work in one, trying to play catch up and also prove himself at the same time, he's taking it all so seriously but also is so fucking tired. And Kristen. Mother fucking Kristen "hey girlie" applebees. Expected to dedicate her life to a god with no direction, with the weight of failure being her gods death, while also being in school and also at your friends insistence needing to run for student body president and getting your priorities so mixed up and being completely left behind by her peers who didn't have to rework their entire world view and understanding of life in the span of a few months every few months.

The Bad Kids are in a terrible place. They're suffering. I want them to just say it out loud, to stop pretending they have it handled and are fine. I want Riz and Adaine to yell at the party to get their shit together. I want Fabian to tell someone how alone and abandoned her feels. I want Kristen to scream at Cassandra that she agrees, that it's not fair, she's just a kid, how could she be enough all on her own with no help? It sucks a god can only rely on a child, for both the god and child! They're both suffering from this arrangement! Neither is happy! I want Gorgug to beat the shit out of Porter with his inventions and rage at the same time, to make the best shit and use it in the most stunning way anyone has ever seen. I want Fig to finally get some freaking help, to have her teachers and parents reach out in a meaningful way and stop telling her to figure it out alone because clearly the pressure is too much for her to handle and she's drowning. I want someone, anyone, to look at the Bad Kids and tell them to stop. To help them. But I know it wont be that easy. I know it'll be the Rat Grinders yelling at how unfair it is the Bad kids get everything while they're on the sidelines that'll get under the Bad Kids skin and they'll yell about how awesome they are and that they didn't ask for any of this shit to happen to them and to fuck off. I know it's gonna get so much worse before it gets better. I know they'll figure it out and that it'll be a painful road there.

#dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #dimension 20 fhjy #dimension 20 fantasy high #d20 fantasy high #fantasy high #fantasy high junior year #d20 spoilers #d20 fhjy #d20 #kristen applebees #figeroth faeth #riz gukgak #gorgug thistlespring #fabian seacaster #adaine abernant #somebody help these kids man #they're being failed by the system #words

[awkward-teabag]

I have to wonder how many people celebrating AI translation also complain about "broken English" and how obvious it is something was Google translated from another language without a fluent English speaker involved to properly clean up the translation/grammar.

Because I bet it's a lot.

I know why execs are all for it—AI is the new buzzword and it lets them cut jobs thus "save" money and not have to worry about pesky labour laws when one employs humans—but everyone else?

There was some outcry when Crunchyroll fired many of their translators in favour of AI translation (with some people to "clean up the AI's work") but I can't help but think that was in part because it was Japanese-to-English and personally affected them. Same when Duolingo fired many of their translators in favour of LLM translation. Meanwhile companies are firing staff when it's English to another language and there's this idea that that's fine or not as big a deal because English is "easy" to translate and/or because people don't think of how it will impact people in non-English countries.

Also it doesn't affect native English speakers so it doesn't get much headway in the news cycle or online anyway because so much of the dominant media is from English-speaking countries and English-speakers dominate social media.

But different languages have different grammar structures that LLMs don't do, and I grew up on "jokes" about people speaking in "broken English" and mocking people who use the wrong word when it was clearly a literal translation but the meaning was obvious long before LLMs were a thing, too. In fact, the specific way a character spoke broken English has been a way to denote their native tongue for decades, usually in a racist way.

Then Google translate came out and "Google-translated English" became an insult for people and criticism of companies because it was clearly wonky to native speakers. Even now, LLMs—which are heavily trained on English compared to other languages—don't have a natural output so native English speakers can clock LLM-generated text if it's longer than a sentence or two.

But, for whatever reason, it's not seen as a problem when it goes the other way because fuck non-English readers or people who want to read in their native tongue I guess.

#and it's not like no people were doing translations so wonky translations were better than nothing #it's actual translators being fired for a subpar replacement #and anyone who keeps their job suddenly being responsible for cleaning up llm output rather than what they trained in #(which can take just as much time or longer than doing the translation by hand from scratch) #(if you want it done right anyway) #hell to this day i hear people complain about written translations of indigenous words and how they 'aren't english enough' #even though they're using the ipa and use a system white english people came up with in the first place #and you can easily look up the proper pronunciation and hear it spoken #but there's such a double-standard where it's expected that other languages cater to english/english speakers #but that grace and accommodation doesn't go the other way #and it's the failing of non-english speakers when an english translation is broken #you see it whenever monolingual english speakers travel to other countries and utterly refuse to learn the language #but if someone doesn't speak in unaccented (to them) english fluently in their home country the person 'isn't trying hard enough' #this is just the new version of that where non-english speakers are supposed to do more work and put up with subpar translations #even as a native english speaker/writer i get a (much) lesser version of this because i write with canadian spelling #and some people get pissed if their internet experience is disrupted by 'ou' instead of 'o' or '-re' instead of '-er' #because dialects and regional phrasing/spelling is a thing #human translators can (or should) be able to account for it but llms are not smart enough to do so #and that's not even getting into slang and how llms don't account for it #or how llms can put slurs into translations because it doesn't do nuance or context and doesn't know the language #if you ever complained about buying something from another country that came with machine-translated instructions #you should be pissed at companies cutting english-to-[language] staff in favour of glorified google translate #because the companies are effectively saying they're fine with non-native speakers getting a wonky/broken version

[adxmanial]

Ok I get that you hate voting and fine fair. But would you stand by and do nothing in the trolley problem? How would that help anything. I just see you attach this element of approval to the act of voting, that just... isn't really there.

I'm not voting for someone supporting genocide hope that helps

#this isn't a fucking philosophy class #if we vote for biden after he gave the absolute green light to commit a genocide #do you think that they will change their minds next year? #or will they continue to support genocide because they realize that genocide isn't the last straw for voters #and nothing will ever change #and don't misconstrue my fucking hatred for biden as hating voting #I voted 'blue no matter what' last year #and this is where it got me #forgive me for being entirely fucking disenchanted and done with this entire system (sarcasm) #voting isn't doing shit #I'm going to protests to rip apart this entire system at this point #presidential elections don't mean shit vote for your representatives #they're the ones who have the most control over your fate in your state/cities #but don't tell me I have some kind of moral failing for not voting for biden just because trump will be running too #my message to the democratic party is clear: change your candidate or I'm not voting

[antimony-ore]

It is 2023 and no one is fixing inflation or the housing situation, we could all use a third, or fourth, or-

#I'm tired of monogamous heterosexuals insisting everyone do the same thing they're doing because their god/jesus/bully/daddy said so #I say #it's all going to shit and you are never going to retire #the system is going to fail jist when we can no longer take care of ourselves and we're all going to start dying #soo #fuck nasty and be promiscuous #realize bigamy is no longer about aseemblig a harem #adapt and overcome #sorry for being too real I'm just not getting any healthier any more likable or any more financially stable #I try to have realistic expectations and I have eyes so...

[definitelynotlazav]

I have some fucking thoughts about Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn Era 2 (and by extension Mistborn Era one) and the ways in which they mirror Avatar: The Legend of Korra (and by extension Avatar: The Last Airbender) but it is too late for me to type them up so I will have to do so another time

#the short version is that the sequel series takes a world in which the protagonists of the initial series fight and destroy an unjust #system and turns it into a setting in which the new protagonists must defend a clearly failing system from a variety of threats while givin #lip service to real world political realities and movements and portraying most of them with a liberal's laughably inept view of them #but still making them Integral To The Plot because the author wants to make a whole thing of it. #and in doing so the whole thing becomes a series in which characters I enjoy drove me absolutely insane by being inherently unable to choos #answers that make the most sense in regards to the questions that the series is actively raising. #which is maybe worse in Me2 because at least in legend of korra the main character doesn't go 'well I feel for these striking workers #guess I'll go actively hide the failures of their government from them' #they're both god's specialest little cop though. I'm telling you the parallels are uncanny #BS

[aro-culture-is]

Lithromantic culture is hating the unrequited love trope, especially when the char lacks the guts to confess.

.

#Anonymous #aro culture is #aro #aromantic #actually aro #actually aromantic #ask #mod phoenix #lithromantic culture #honestly idk how i'd tag this best #but i *hate* the idea of it being like a big failing to not confess #to be completely honest i think people are unnecessarily cruel about how anxiety can affect things like this #<- sincerely the defender of our system (phoenix) who is well aware most of our system would literally spiral so badly if 'talk to them' #is the only advice we got when dealing with our anxiety relating to our trauma #which it frequently is #like the idea that it's a failing to not confess #feels exactly like the vibes we get when people tell us to just ignore a trigger #like cool! that's not helpful #also if ppl aren't ready to confess that's like. okay. honestly if they're that nervous to confess there's probably some therapy to be had #before they can have healthy boundaries in a relationship anyways imho #if saying you like someone causes a fear of rejection so strong you can't communicate it #i'm very worried about a relationship in which that dynamic is facing a normal need to communicate hurt

[melonthesprigatito]

Let's be real, Rhyme has, on at least one occasion, gotten so flustered when trying to ask a girl out that she immediately super speed swan dived into a nearby dumpster.

#wordgirl #wordgirl rhyme #wordgirl villains #wordgirl headcanons #Look I saw one fan art of Rhyme wearing a t-shirt that said Oh Man I'm Pan #And I was like yep #Gonna incorporate that into my belief system :) #Rhyme being cringe fail at non platonic relationships because she grew up as a social outcast in her hometown #Completely oblivious to flirting because no one's ever done it to her before #She just thinks they're being nice #And at the same time having NO IDEA how to flirt. #Rhyme being like: Is this a Normal Person Thing????? Am I doing it right???? #I headcanon Reason to be aro/ace #Which unfortunately means he is of zero help #Reason being like: I'm sorry Rhyme I don't know how this works either

[doppelnatur]

to a certain degree i don't think there is such a thing as purely internalized and internally directed bias. i don't think directing bias at yourself is morally much better than directing it at others it's just a lot harder to stop. that said, as soon as your self cruelty begins to affect anyone else it's just cruelty. a gay man being homophobic is not any more justifiable than a heterosexual man. then again, maybe this entire way of thinking shows a lack of compassion for myself and is a form of bias.

#Idk I'm being mean to myself about capacity and ability stuff. #I'm. Very aware I still hold a lot of ableism. I really really try treating others with kindness and like noticing when something is an #Ableist impulse and seeing it looking at it and letting it go. And I think I usually do a good job. I do. But it's so much harder when it's #It's me and there's no other expert on my experience and my normality than me and I just don't trust me to. Actually know what's going on #Idk I think ableism is the most active unlearning I'm having to do. With both racism and queerphobia it was very gradual #Fatphobia I feel like i never really like. Took in. Idk why and obviously there's some just straight up misinformation that I'm correcting #But that's all so different #Learning about ableism was such a huge thing for me and it helped me let go of so much self loathing and all that all at once #And to also just be kinder to the people in my life. Like significantly. I think I'd be an absolute pos if not for the autistic community #But like. I feel like I've hit a plateau and there's just. Part of this belief system that's just. My character at this point and I don't #I don't know that I'll ever be able to get over it and I think it makes me a bad person or at least a worse person like. In an unfixable wa #Maybe I need to think of myself like the world. Where I don't think an ideal utopia can be built but that just means we have to keep trying #And get as close as possible and watch all the lik e easy fail points carefully and mend and repair. #Like part of the reason I could let go of self hate is just that I genuinely became a significantly better person #Not just the internalized ableism part but the external butt they're the same kind of anyways right #Idek it's 1am

[thedreadvampy]

Feel like I should say I like abled ppl. some of my best friends are abled (FOR NOW). I'm also not pretending I don't have gaping blind spots. This is a loving kneecapping not a punitive one. we all gotta learn someday that there are whole invisible worlds we manage to look away from all the time.

#just cause a lot of people are tagging that post like YEAH I'LL BRING AN AXE I'LL MORE THEN DOWN WITH MY CAR #in this house we understand ableism as a systemic failing that individuals have to learn to actively push back on #not primarily as an individual failing worthy of punishment #In This Blog We Operate From A Position Of Transformation Not Punishment #same for eg men. don't hate men. do think that there's a lot that you largely only viscerally understand if you have experienced misogyny #do not think we should punish ppl who haven't experienced misogyny for not knowing. #do think that when cis men experience being treated as women even temporarily it often shakes some stuff loose for them #i do not hate the average upper middle class slash lower rich person i just think they're fundamentally ignorant of the way the world works #i think that losing their money. (actually being poor. not doing a 5 weeks for £15 challenge it whatever.) is a good thing #i want them to experience poverty not bc i hate them and want pain for them but bc i want them to understand that the ppl who do #experience that #Are Exactly As Much People As Them #and to get at least a sense of the indescribable little things that fuck you up but don't get talked about #or can't be fully explained #it's not. vengeance. it's frustration at ignorance and a desire to teach through experience. #red said

[david-watts]

got in trouble for telling the bloke on the architecture programme on the television to shut up and tbh it was worth it because I am sick to death of mainlanders going ‘ooughg the power,,,, of the landscape,,,,’ like fuck off

#you’re not even showing the best area of that particular area yet alone actually powerful landscapes #you won't do that because it's near a half-abandoned shack town without paved roads and sometimes there's whale carcasses #like there was when I went there #it's either the landscape or the wombats there's hardly ever any acknowledgement people live here #part of me does suspect they don't wanna acknowledge the massive issues here like the health crisis or the housing crisis #or that this place has a people history #which I think people don't want to acknowledge because of the black war and the resulting genocide #like yeah a good chunk of here is wilderness and it should be protected and celebrated but also there is so much. #I hesitate to say fetishism because that feels extreme. but it feels like that. #with all the mainlander or even international seachangers driving up the prices of everything because they're a lucrative market #and I understand that. since the manufacturing industry collapsed here and the poms stopped buying our apples #you gotta do what you gotta do. #but like. the air of exclusivity some people want is annoying at best #and shit like 'the power of the landscape' is fuelling that #I mean hell if we get acknowledged as being bigger sheepshaggers than the kiwis that's a start #idk. I'm just so annoyed because I'm terrified of needing to go to the hospital because there's a chance I mightn't get care #meanwhile the only references to here are how pretty the landscapes are. and when there's finally a discussion about failing hospital #systems we're never mentioned despite how bad the problem is here. y'know?

[midrashic]

the thing about anakin skywalker is that i think his character is one that actively eschews nuance, and i don't mean that in a bad way, and inasmuch as i think any kind of character interpretation is better than another, i actually encourage people to view him without nuance (which is why i heartily disagree with lucas's and stover's characterizations of him of "he makes bad decisions, as any of us could, but he's not a bad person; his fall is his fault but not the result of any innate evil"). partly because star wars deals with archetypes and not characters, partly because this is actually an extremely rare situation for a character to be in, it makes sense for people to be doing anakin wrong, but the usual call for nuance just does not work. the atrocities anakin commits are so out there that you can can either believe that his fall was not his fault or you can believe he's evil. what nuance calls for--holding both in your mind simultaneously--would and does work for the vast majority of villains, yes, & would and does work for villains who commit one crime equivalent to anakin's worst moments. but not for anakin.

#no actually even if pushed to our limits all of our morally neutral masses wouldn't massacre children #and the canon DOES encourage both readings but i think it only makes analytical sense to choose one to endorse in a fannish context #my general attitude 'anakin did not fall because he was a predominantly selfish insecure person' #is one which chooses to focus on his slave background and narrative redemption and is incompatible with other parts of canon #and i do want to stress that this is i believe a role for a very specific fannish context for which the kind of story star wars is is key #yes backgrounds of dehumanization realistically encourage traits like selfishness and insecurity. #but that's a stance that works with a narrative that indicts a system of slavery which star wars is patently not #yes in real life it may not make sense to deal in registers of 'fault' and 'being a good/bad person' #but that's a stance that works with a story of psychological realism which star wars is patently not #for the average fan-- #the people engaged in a meta war about attachment and how much it's appropriate to defend anakin in a tumblr post etc etc-- #i think it's not. useful. #to honestly even make these posts or have these conversations #here's where the nuance comes in; you're both right depending on which reading of anakin you embrace and they're incompatible. #any attempt to reach a consensus based on a 'nuanced' understanding of anakin is going to fail because. anakin's not nuanced #any reading of him as such (IN THIS CONTEXT) is incoherent #filed under: nota bene #midrashic: meta #hyperfixation: blog blog wank wank #fandom: opening crawl goes here #ch: fulcrum of the force

[absentlyabbie]

seriously, though. i work in higher education, and part of my job is students sending me transcripts. you'd think the ones who have the least idea how to actually do that would be the older ones, and while sure, they definitely struggle with it, i see it most with the younger students. the teens to early 20s crowd.

very, astonishingly often, they don't know how to work with .pdf documents. i get garbage phone screenshots, sometimes inserted into an excel or word file for who knows what reason, but most often it's just a raw .jpg or other image file.

they definitely either don't know how to use a scanner, don't have access to one, or don't even know where they might go for that (staples and other office supply stores sometimes still have these services, but public libraries always have your back, kids.) so when they have a paper transcript and need to send me a copy electronically, it's just terrible photos at bad angles full of thumbs and text-obscuring shadows.

mind bogglingly frequently, i get cell phone photos of computer screens. they don't know how to take a screenshot on a computer. they don't know the function of the Print Screen button on the keyboard. they don't know how to right click a web page, hit "print", and choose "save as PDF" to produce a full and unbroken capture of the entirety of a webpage.

sometimes they'll just copy the text of a transcript and paste it right into the message of an email. that's if they figure out the difference between the body text portion of the email and the subject line, because quite frankly they often don't.

these are people who in most cases have done at least some college work already, but they have absolutely no clue how to utilize the attachment function in an email, and for some reason they don't consider they could google very quickly for instructions or even videos.

i am not taking a shit on gen z/gen alpha here, i'm really not.

what i am is aghast that they've been so massively failed on so many levels. the education system assumed they were "native" to technology and needed to be taught nothing. their parents assumed the same, or assumed the schools would teach them, or don't know how themselves and are too intimidated to figure it out and teach their kids these skills at home.

they spend hours a day on instagram and tiktok and youtube and etc, so they surely know (this is ridiculous to assume!!!) how to draft a formal email and format the text and what part goes where and what all those damn little symbols means, right? SURELY they're already familiar with every file type under the sun and know how to make use of whatever's salient in a pinch, right???

THEY MUST CERTAINLY know, innately, as one knows how to inhale, how to type in business formatting and formal communication style, how to present themselves in a way that gets them taken seriously by formal institutions, how to appear and be competent in basic/standard digital skills. SURELY. Of course. RIGHT!!!!

it's MADDENING, it's insane, and it's frustrating from the receiving end, but even more frustrating knowing they're stumbling blind out there in the digital spaces of grown-up matters, being dismissed, being considered less intelligent, being talked down to, because every adult and system responsible for them just

ASSUMED they should "just know" or "just figure out" these important things no one ever bothered to teach them, or half the time even introduce the concepts of before asking them to do it, on the spot, with high educational or professional stakes.

kids shouldn't have to supplement their own education like this and get sneered and scoffed at if they don't.

[nunyabznsbabes]

Katniss is like Lucy Gray this, Katniss is like Sejanus that, and yes fine that's all good and true and lovely but Katniss Everdeen is also a direct parallel to Coriolanus Snow and people NEED to start talking about this because it's driving me crazy.

Think about it: they both grew up poor and deeply vulnerable, losing parents at a very young age, with a matriarchal adult (Katniss' mother and Coriolanus' Grandma'am) who fails to provide for them emotionally and physically. They intimately understand the threat of starvation, even developing with stunted growth because of it, and their narrations in the books share a fixation on food. Throughout their childhoods, both experienced constant fear and suffered a fundamental lack of control over their circumstances. Because of this, they're inherently suspicious of the people around them. They resent feeling indebted to others, especially those who have saved their lives. They're motivated almost entirely by family and deeply connected to their communities. Both are used and manipulated by the Capitol, both are forced to perform to survive and despise every inch of it, both are thrown into the Arena and made to kill. Both have a self-sacrificial, genuinely sweet sister figure acting as their conscience. Peeta and Lucy Gray - performers and love interests with a fundamental kindness and sense of hope about them - fulfill markedly similar roles in their narrative. Both contribute to the development of the future Hunger Games, Snow throughout tbosas and Katniss towards the end of Mockingjay.

It's easy to ignore these similarities because, as mirrors of each other, they are exact opposites. Katniss is from District 12, viewed and treated as less than human; Snow is the cream of the Capitol crop, given the privilege of a name with social weight, an ancestral home, and the opportunity of the Academy despite having no more money than a miner from 12. Katniss has no agency over her life, and responds by being kind whenever she's able, while Snow justifies horrendous evils in order to continue his quest for complete control. Katniss does everything she can to protect her family; Snow does everything he can to protect his family's image as an extension of his own ego. Katniss loves her District and connects with its inhabitants on a meaningful level, but Snow is indifferent at best to his peers - the apparent "superior people" - and only engages with his community for personal gain. Katniss emerges from the Arena horrified at herself and the system, but Snow takes his trauma and turns it into an excuse to perpetuate the violence with himself at the top. Katniss cares for Prim until her death and then snaps at the loss of her little sister, while Snow survives on Tigris' blood, sweat, and tears and then torments and abandons her, presumably because she calls him out on his insanity. Snow actively adds to and popularizes the Hunger Games because of his vendetta against the Districts following his childhood wartime trauma - Katniss briefly agrees to a new Hunger Games in the pursuit of vengeance, but later stops them from happening by killing Coin and choosing a life of peace and privacy. Snow is obsessed with revenge, but Katniss empathizes with the Capitolites and does what she can to keep them from suffering. He exists in a cruel system and selfishly upholds it; she exists in a cruel system and works to dismantle it for the good of her family and community, at great personal cost. And Peeta and Lucy Gray are incredibly similar, but Katniss and Peeta forge a relationship of genuine love and understanding that shines in comparison to Coriolanus' obsessive projection onto Lucy Gray.

So, yeah, Katniss is Lucy Gray haunting Coriolanus. But I bet you anything that eighty-something year old President Snow looks at her, the girl on fire, bright and young and brilliant, emerging from a childhood of starvation with a relentless hunger for success, a talented and charming performer helping her win the Games, and he sees the ghost of his own past. And that's why he's so afraid of her! Because if he sees himself in her, then he's up against his own cunning, his own talent for manipulation, his own charisma, his own genius. He's up against the version of himself that he once wished to be, with the nightmare army of his childhood at her back and her star-crossed lover at her side, spewing Sejanus' truths in his own voice. This isn't to say that Katniss ever achieved the level of power and agency that Coriolanus did during her time with the rebellion, but it is to say that Snow was taken down by what truly terrified him - his own morality, come to finish the job.

#the ballad of songbirds and snakes #tbosas #katniss everdeen #coriolanus snow #president snow #lucy gray baird #peeta mellark #everlark #tbosas meta #the hunger games #thg #snowbaird

[xian]

been away from kpop social media for so long i forget how much i despise most of it

#in particular: the shortest memories + wanting to be the mean girl with hot takes soooo bad + hating anything new #+ complete absence of critical thinking skills + pretending to actually understand queer culture + being 'holier than thou' #did you know that every single time a new company announces a new group there will always be the flood of 'rip their old groups' #'pay attention to your existing groups!!!' #without fail since 2014 I have seen this firsthand #do y'all not realize that these are entertainment companies not parents foregoing birth control right #ofc they're gonna make new fucking groups #that's how business works? #and please give me empirical proof that they're 'mistreating' their older artists esp in the context where they're all just investments #and the nct takes omg #y'all hate cunty music sooooo much #everyone loves to hate sm so much like it's some sort of dysfunctional negligent parent #girl it's a company #one of the largest entertainment powers. actually has a good system of conceptual artistry. actual innovation #like i'm sorry one single modulation in a song will light your ass on fire #ppl are so concerned about songs being one single mood rather than an interesting journey #maybe that's my adhd talking but like normal song structures are so fuckin boring #e.g. compare exo's sweet lies vs like monsta x's nobody else #very similar vibes #but you know what makes sweet lies better #that fucking song structure. a good team of rnb producers. intricate vocals with good musicality #no hate to hyungwon ofc but nobody else is mostly vibes but sweet lies is INTERESTING. #also with riize lmaoooo #siren was so good? the rhythms and textures hello does anyone even care anyone #can't y'all let us have fun #did you see how much sauce they had #y'all realize musical records are more than just 'i need to be able to listen to this with earbuds while on a walk' #dancers djs and clubbers will beat your ass #y'all want riize to fail soooo bad

[vilefleurs]

I don't get female rage tbh, my rage relates more to autism

#and I know they're related but it's just I never felt like a woman in the terms the world presents even in the suffering #so the same strange feeling goes with the rage #I'm a woman but not the way the world thinks or presents a woman #I'm just here #now about autism I can not help being furious with how everything is #how the system and society failed with us #autistic rage

[ridleymocki]

(seeing so many bad faith interpretations of the argument, y'all are really going to make me do this, okay HERE WE GO)

.................................

What Ed says: "I think last night was a mistake. I'm not ready for... Whatever this is."

What Ed means: "I didn't want last night to happen so soon or under those circumstances. Things are changing rapidly, which makes me feel out of control and scared."

What Stede hears: "I regret sleeping with you. I don't want the sort of relationship that you're after."

.................................

What Stede says: "It was a fine fish. It was... whatever. I was just trying to make you feel good!"

What Stede means: "I only cared about the fish because you cared about it, and I care about you. I liked the fish because it made you happy. Ordinarily, I'm ambivalent about fish."

What Ed hears: "I lied to you. I didn't care about your achievement I was just placating you to get what I wanted."

.................................

What Ed says: "Here's the news: I'm leaving. I got a job on a little fishing boat and I'm leaving. I'm a fisherman now."

What Ed means: "I think I need to be away from you to figure out who I am, because I haven't been able to do that while we're together, and your lifestyle now is the life I'm trying to leave behind."

What Stede hears: "I've made a decision to leave you and have a life without you. I don't value what we have enough to work with you to find a solution, I'd prefer to end it."

.................................

What Stede says: "Oh, Ed. Seriously? You're not a fisherman."

What Stede means: "I think you're using this plan to escape and avoid your problems. It sounds like you're pretending to be someone else. It seems to me like an impulsive decision and I am concerned."

What Ed hears: "I don't support this ambition. I think you're incapable. I don't think you can be different from what you have always been."

.................................

This is the kind of analysis done in therapeutic environments. When I put what they mean, it's not just a rephrasing but a boiling down to the core issue. I could go on to the rest of the dialogue but do you see the continuing ship-in-the-night miscommunication?? It's tripartite:

failing to express one's current emotional reality with the most accurate and clear language, often because that reality is not fully understood to oneself,

misinterpreting the other's language, due to preexisting sensitivities and defensiveness about one's own understanding of the situation,

increasing frustration and sense of personal attack that results from those misinterpretations, which perpetuates and worsens the poor communication.

Importantly, this kind of pattern means you miss the best and most important kernels of communication in an exchange because you're reacting to the more inflammatory parts.

Stede: "This can be whatever we want it to be." (I am willing to make changes to our arrangement so that you're happy). Ed: "I don't even know who I am! Alright? I know I don't want to be a pirate. And you, you're blowing up, you're the toast of the town." (I think we want different things. You're just starting a journey that I've already finished).

With those two bits alone they could've sorted this out. The first is the answer to the second. But they didn't -- couldn't -- latch onto it because all their other baggage was getting in the way.

And I'm being proven correct that this is what is happening, because I have seen next to nothing on here about the above two lines, only reactionary takes of fans also focusing on the inflammatory parts because of their predispositions. You're doing an encore performance of what they're doing.

Point being, there are no bad guys in this scene, just repeated system failure!

#our flag means death #ofmd s2 spoilers #blackbonnet #ofmd #edward teach #stede bonnet #ofmd spoilers #ofmd s2 #ofmd season 2 #our flag means death s2 #ofmd meta #something something cracking up on the rocks #cocktail name? my mental state? who knows!