#for.... 5 days ....

[secretmellowblog]

People who try to analyze what happened on Tumblr on November 5th, 2020, often really overstate how much it was actually “about” Supernatural. As someone who has never been in the supernatural fandom ever but dID join in on the hysterical destielposting—it was really more about the stress of the pandemic and the 2020 presidential election.

The two biggest Youtubers I’ve seen try to dissect “what happened that November 5th” in video essays both weren’t American—- and I think that explains why they both tried to explain the hysteria primarily via analyzing the Supernatural fandom/the original show, rather than through the lens of the election. And while those videos are cool, valid, informational, and make lots of really well-considered interesting points— I can tell you that me and almost all my mutuals had literally no knowledge or interest in the fact that “oh supernatural had made nods at the ship in the past but the creators were adamant that I wouldn’t be canon” or etc etc etc etc. the first time I learned about any of that context was way later, watching videos where people claimed that fandom history context (that I did not know anything about) was the actual reason for the hysteria.

But the reality is that people latched on to the Destiel stuff because it was a piece of big useless inane zero-stakes fandom news in a time when we were desperately waiting for serious high stakes election news. We were latching onto a “positive “ piece of inane stupid fandom news in a time of great stress, with all the desperation of a drowning man who latches onto whatever piece of wood will keep him afloat.

The core of the hysteria was that Americans (who make up a huge chunk of tumblr’s userbase) were currently glued to their laptops watching the live presidential election vote counts come in. These vote counts were taking an extended amount of time due to the pandemic causing high numbers of mail-in ballots, resulting in a constant state of Election Day Stress for multiple days straight.

This was also during the height of the Pandemic. People had predicted Trump’s presidency would be bad; no one had predicted it would be this apocalyptically bad. No one had predicted pandemics and lockdowns and hospitals overflowing with bodybags. remember Trump spreading Covid lies and conspiracies?? There were so many Qanon conspiracies about democrats being Satanic child traffickers who had to be put to death, and coup threats were mounting from the right wing side. It seemed like this election was a choice between ‘centrist democrat’ and “apocalyptic right wing conspiracy theory authoritarianism,” in the midst of pandemic conditions that people feared would never ever improve— and it seemed like a close election.

Another major point was that Trump voters were more likely to be antimaskers/Covid deniers, while Biden voters were more likely to take the pandemic seriously— so Biden voters were more likely to send in mail-in ballots instead of risking the in-person voting crowds, which meant their ballots would take much longer to count. And so, in many state electoral vote counts, it would initially seem like Trump was very far in the lead— only for Biden to slooooowly build up an agonizingly small lead as the mail in ballots came in, and then defeat Trump at the very end.

So you’re just watching these news sites giving live election updates, refreshing the page every 2 minutes to see if you’re going to live under a spineless centrist democrat or a literal Qanon Dictatorship. And then you go on tumblr to distract yourself, and there’s more election posting, and more agonizing over the votes, and more stress and despair—-

And then it’s been days and we’re right at the crucial tipping point where it’s anyone’s game and the next few hours will determine whether Trump will win, so you need to keep your eye on the vote count, because the next hours will determine the future of the pandemic and your country and your plans for your entire life—

And then stupid Destiel becomes canon! And it becomes canon in the silliest way possible!

If Destiel had become canon at any other time, it would have been a big goofy tumblr celebration? But we wouldn’t have gotten the insane explosion of hysterical interaction.

The entire core of it was the contrast between the inane meaningless stupidity of fandom news vs the actual stressful election news you wanted to hear! It really is best conveyed in that meme where Castiel says “I love you” and Dean indifferently responds with a piece of important election news.

It’s about the contrast between the low-stakes inanity of fandom and the massive life-destroying stakes of a terrifying election. There really was no reason it had be Supernatural specifically, except that Supernatural was a thing everyone knew basic things about from dashboard osmosis— it could’ve been any other equally huge silly fandom ship news about a ship everyone *knew of* but might not necessarily be invested in (ex. Stucky becoming canon, Johnlock becoming canon, Kirk/Spock becoming more canon somehow, etc etc etc.)

I think it’s true that people who weren’t paying agonizingly close attention to the American election news got swept up in it, and that non American Supernatural fans also were extremely excited for purely fandom reasons — but the entire reason it blew up to an unprecedented degree was because of that core of stressed out terrified Americans glued to their computers watching election results and suddenly receiving stupid fandom news instead, and deciding to just hysterically parodically hyper-celebrate this absurd useless zero-stakes news.

I think it was also all elevated by the fact that, as I said before, this happened at the crucial “tipping point” of the election where the next few hours would determine the winner. The fact that Biden began to slowly develop a lead in the hours after made it feel, hysterically, as if the hours after Destiel became canon was somehow the turning point where he began to win; so celebrating Destiel felt like celebrating that slow turn towards victory.

The tl,dr is that it’s so important to Remember the Fifth of November …..in preparation the inevitable hysteria that will happen in the presidential election on November 5th of next year. XD. Personally I’m rooting for Johnlock or Frodo/Sam to somehow become canon in the eleventh hour right before the democrats win

#November 5th #november 5 2020 #the fifth of november #just a random ramble #November 5th 2020 is such an important day to me #it really is a holiday #but it does confuse me when I see people analyzing it primarily as a supernatural thing #instead of a ‘hysteria over an election reaches a breaking point when inane zero stakes fandom news comes out and we all latch onto it’thing #but yeah!! #this is my personal essay out of love for the holiday

[ato-dato]

Aziraphale please! He’s been through enough!!!

#this took AGES #but I really like it I think #anyway #can you tell how intense my hyperfixation has gotten?? #really intense #I rarely think of something that isn’t these two idiots #anywayyy #have a nice 5 days till season 2 #good omens 2 #good omens #good omens season two #aziraphale #aziracrow #ineffible husbands #crowley #anthony crowley #I Hope this happens on s2 #art #artwork #my art #fanart #digital art #drawing #comic #fan comic

[ytilaremehpe-sselhtaed]

All of us right meow:

#boop #boop o meter #april fool's day #tumblr culture #cats of tumblr #the creation of boop #best 5 am activity ever ❤️‍🔥 #sleep is for the weak #ytilaremehpe-sselhtaed

[squidsmeister]

dungeon meshi is my favorite road-trip comedy film

#dungeon meshi #my art #laios thorden #senshi #marcille #chilchuck #chilchack #izatsumi #laois #laius thorden #sorry guys I don’t know which spelling is correct here #chilchucks car is a beat up beige Honda civic #laois never got a license because even though he’s actually a good driver he just never cared enough to do it #plus he wants to travel in some wacky way. like on a five person tandem bicycle or some shit #marcille never got a license because just fucking look at her #plus she gets motion sick in cars. she just would #senshi walks everywhere and has no need for cars #izatsumi just learned what a car was two days ago and she’s pissed that chilchuck doesn’t have a lambo #chilchuck doesn’t have time for any of this. he has to get his daughter to soccer practice at 5

[floccinaucinihilipilificationa]

#good omens #´hello friends!! how are you!! #I hope you're doing well! ( ´ ▽ ` ) #I have a big cough but otherwise I am good! It's nothign bad I am just very slimey #usually I am not a cough person I am not sure where this is coming from #most of the time I just get a stuffy nose #has my nose gotten stronger #but there are good news too I have already found a VERY good chestnut to put into my pocket this autumn!! its very small! (❁´▽`❁) #it's been a very warm autumn in Germany so far so it has not really felt like fall yet #but yesterday it was all rainy and stormy and I had two new books and it was the best day possible to have a slimey cough (: #and now I feel SO much autumn I am close to buying a set of window colors #I do not know what I would to with the window colors I just have this strong urge in me to buy a window color set #the last time I did a window color was at the birtday of a class mate I think she turned 9 and I made a deer #but for some reason we did this craft 5 minutes before we all had to leave so we had to carry our window color deer home wet #unfortunatly for the deer and me I fell down the stairs of her house and smeared the deer all over me and i screamed the entire drive home #which wasn't very long but it probably felt very long for the mother who had a screaming child covered in window color deer inside her car

[glassiskies]

in which aziraphale reverts to old habits, crowley is outraged, and they still do not talk about it

#good omens #ineffable husbands #I need you guys to know I started this a month ago but couldn’t work on it bc of classes #and as soon as the quarter ended I inked colored and added an additional page in the span of like 5 days LMAO #aziraphale #crowley #also Crowley has only been made aware of real communication tm bc of nina and Maggie #I firmly believe aziraphale will not learn the art of saying what you mean until well into season 3 #yay miscommunication #comic #2023 art

[lalage]

miss mona megistus

dress is sarah burton for alexander mcqueen 2016 with mona specific alterations

#genshin impact #mona #ill level my mona one day.. i mostly gnshn with my fav 4 stars bc i have them at max constellations and 5 star weps now lol

[ulgapodatkowa]

I have so many thoughts but I at least want to address the "for the new unicorn" note. because first of all it's so incredibly gratifying for izzy to finally be accepted into a community. it was shown before that the crew cares for him in some way but it was the first time he really saw that. that he isn't useless and alone, that he still has a place on the ship. even more so the crew WANTS HIM to be on the ship. and also that they want him to embrace his disability which doesn't make them think any less of him.

but also the choice of words. because inherently it rings queer, unicorn as a symbol of queerness. and even if it may have a negative sound when you use it differently here it is extremely positive. izzy is not only accepted to the crew, he's also accepted to the queer community, to the family. the unicorn on the revenge was also the one that was leading the ship, so one can argue that they want him to take that role in their dynamic.

and you can see that he does so immediately. he puts himself together and starts helping the crew. he's still bitchy but no longer violent and cruel. he helps stede and lucius immensely because that is what he does now. he's part of the family. twat.

#ofmd #also don't talk to me about the shark or the cigarette scenes. i need 3-5 business days to recover #our flag means death #izzy hands #once again feral bc of con o'neill's acting choices #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd spoilers #ofmd meta

[memedreamm]

i don’t care about straight actors playing queer people in media all i care about is if theyre going to put their whole pussy into it. tom hardy of course ive had gay sex im an actor. keanu reeves and river phoenix going to gay clubs in seattle and making out in public. heath ledger almost breaking jake gyllenhal’s nose because he kissed him too hard. when will actors do this again. 

#if ure going to be gay put ur whole pussy into it sotp acting like protestants who can barely hold hands for 5 seconds #guess who watched mopi and brokeback mountain in the same day and has ruined their psyche #brokeback mountain #keanu reeves #my own private idaho

[rotyolk]

miku day yippee!!!

#hatsune miku #miku day 2024 #miku day #vocaloid #ミクの日 #初音ミク #ミクの日2024 #3/9 #id in alt text #digital art #clip studio paint #no rant in tags this time i stayed up till 5 drawing this FOR NO REASON. HAHA

[eela]

working hard hardly working etc

#happy valentine's day shout out FRIENDSHIP!!! #persona 5 #p5 #akira kurusu #ren amamiya #ryuji sakamoto #p5 morgana #haru okumura #yusuke kitagawa #futaba sakura #makoto niijima #ann takamaki

[burnpyygmalion]

falin and marcille as the dragon j.c. leyendecker painting

closeups under the cut!

#my art #dungeon meshi #falin touden #marcille donato #delicious in dungeon #farcille #this took me around 5 days good god

[annabelle--cane]

"the magnus protocol had a whole ARG beforehand? what?"

yes! it did!

"oh so I need to have participated in this whole big thing to actually understand the podcast?"

not at all! from the official post-mortem put out by RQ, "while the ARG was not something that was necessary to participate in to understand the magnus protocol, it was designed to contain a wealth of background story and context that would enrich any player's listening experience."

"a wealth of background context that would enrich my listening experience 👀👀👀 how can I learn about this?"

SO glad you asked. sadly, many of the materials made for the arg have been taken down since the game ended 😔 (ex., the official OIAR, magnus institute, and bonzoland websites. (edit ii: I found partial wayback machine captures! see below) though @strangehauntsuk is still up!), so we're a bit low on primary sources, but in terms of learning about what happened:

for a starting point, I would really recommend this video by @pinkelotjeart

it's super accessible, it was made in real time as the game progressed and follows the solving and revelation of clues as they happened, it hits all the major points of the mystery and moments of community insanity while eliding some of the nitty gritty puzzle grinding, 10/10 would recommend.

here's the official summary put out by RQ, and I'd recommend reading through this once you've already gotten a basic handle on the flow of the story and the basic connections between major clues and events. it's got some fun behind-the-scenes info and lays out the thought process behind the puzzles in simple terms

here's the full masterdoc of all puzzles and resolutions put together in the statement remains discord server. masterdoc my absolute BELOVED, masterdoc my bethrothed, masterdoc my soul mate. I'd recommend this as a second port of call after the above video as it either contains all details about the puzzles or links to other expanded docs that do.

here's the narrative summary doc that lays out all the plot and lore discovered in three pages of plain prose. if you just want to get to the good bits as fast as you can and get blasted directly in the face by contextless lore bombs, this is the doc for you. if you don't want to start with the video, I'd say this is another good entry point.

once you've got the lay of the land, some of the game materials that I found particularly interesting include:

the in-universe east germany expat usenet forum, with all content translated into english. most of it is irrelevant space filler with occasional extremely sus lore, but I still found it fun to read through. love to soak in some fictional forum drama.

chdb.xlsx, the spreadsheet of the names of all the children the protocol 'verse magnus institute was studying/experimenting on. EDIT: here is a version of the sheet without any annotations and with all of the names in their original order, kudos to @theboombutton for catching that the commonly shared copy had the order swapped around.

klaus.xls, a (very corrupted) spreadsheet with what looks like the classifications of a bunch of old OIAR cases.

EDIT: have a few more saved materials from the game that I forgot to include.

an in-universe audio ad to apply to the OIAR that ran before archives episodes and kicked off the whole game.

an in-universe video ad to apply to the OIAR, this one is an official upload that's still up from the game itself. you can subscribe to the OIAR's official youtube channel today, if you so chose.

the robo-voicemail greeting from the OIAR's phone line.

EDIT II:

here is a wayback machine capture of the OIAR's official website.

here is a wayback machine capture of the bonzoland website.

(pretty sure both of the above captures just archived the home pages, though I haven't tried clicking all of the links. I'd say they're still worth looking at, the home pages give a good window into the vibes.)

once you start poking around in these documents, you'll find a bunch of links to others with further information, the materials I've included here just contain what I feel to be the most relevant details to getting a broad feel for the whole game. once again, huge shout out to the statement remains server, I was barely in there as the ARG was in progress and only ducked my head in every so often to find links like these. true mvps of the fandom.

#gonna pin this for a bit because every day I get 2-5 asks saying 'there was an arg? how do I learn about it?' #tmagp #video #marina marvels at life

[say0ranarts]

02/02: a promise; bound to meet again.

#persona #persona 5 #shuake #akira kurusu #ren amamiya #goro akechi #hello omg it's p3re day AND shuake day...!!! #just art

[moonilit]

He got some fact checking to do

#Crepus lost like 5 years of his life at that moment #He will lose more #You can tell me Diluc cried and was all ‘was i a bad older brother’ #I don’t believe it #Kaeya probably told him he will go check things out in sumeru #And diluc was sure. #They are kids they probably don’t know how long a mile is #‘Far’ is just what’s behind the hill #I like to think crepus took the next ship immediately #He didn’t even returned to the winery that day #He just handed Diluc to addy jcsthnk #Crepus #kaeya #diluc #genshin impact

[wuzeio]

the kevneil arguing dynamic is deeply important to me theyre like 2 chihuahuas yapping at each other. like 2 flies buzzing at each other and then hitting the windows

#aftg #all for the game #aftg fanart #all for the game fanart #neil josten #kevin day #andrew minyard #they yap in the car for 5 minutes and tucker themselves out and SNOREEEE MIMIMIMIMMI #andrew: u damn mouth breathers...