#you obviously want to do those bad things

[ridiasfangirlings]

How to buy K merch in the Year 2024

I got several asks about this so rather than do each individually, I’ve decided to just make one big How to Buy K Merch in the Year 2024 post. I’m going to skip over the more obvious western sites like eBay and focus more on Japanese sites here. Because there hasn’t been much new K merch in some time keep in mind that most of what you will be looking for is secondhand, which means availability will vary.

Shopping Services

For some of these sites you will need a shopping service, so we’ll start there. This is by no means a comprehensive list of available shopping services, just ones I’ve used and liked. 

FromJapan - This one is very straightforward — copy and paste the url of the item you want into their search bar. For anything in certain sites like Rakuten this will pull up a page that will give you the item and its price in your currency and you can just click add to cart. For other sites you may need to request a price quote, there’s a small form to fill out and they’ll get back to you on if they can order it. Timing depends on when you make the request. The nice thing about FromJapan is they will hold items for you for 45 days, so you can collect multiple purchases from multiple sites over time and have them all shipped at once. The bad side is that after 45 days they will discard your items, so keep an eye on when your oldest item arrived (you can see how long it’s been at their warehouse on your account page, and they will email you as the deadline gets close too).

Treasure Japan - Treasure Japan is a much smaller service than the others on this list but also the one I’ve used the longest. Being a smaller service means they tend to be more able to purchase items that might have seller restrictions, particularly from places like Mercari. Some listings when pasted into other shopping service sites will have a ‘cannot purchase from this seller’ warning, because some sellers don’t want to deal with shopping services. I haven’t had much trouble with this merchandise-wise, but when I’ve run into it with j-fashion Treasure Japan has been able to order when the bigger services couldn’t. Their site is set up so you will input different sites in different sections, there’s one for auction, one for ‘flea market’ (this will be places like Mercari) and one for shopping sites. 

Buyee/Tenso - Buyee is a shopping service, Tenso is a forwarding service. They’re owned by the same parent company but are separate sites and you’ll need a separate account for each. Buyee is directly integrated with some sites like Mercari and Yahoo Japan, you can put in the url into their search bar and get a listing that you can buy immediately. Like FromJapan, any sites outside of the ones they’re integrated into will require you to request a quote (I found this more difficult with Buyee than FromJapan, personally) and they will sometimes be unable to purchase items. They will hold your items for 30 days at no charge, and you can request to consolidate packages for shipping.

Tenso, as I said above, is a forwarding service and somewhat more complicated. Basically when you sign up they will give you a Japanese address (presumably one of their warehouses) and you can then buy directly from Japanese websites, inputting the address you were given in the address field and paying with your own credit card. The items will be shipped to Tenso and from there you can have them sent to you. Obviously this is more complicated than a shopping service. I’ve used it mainly for things that didn’t involve an item being shipped (this is how I signed up for Fan Clan back in the day, for example, though my lottery goods were sent via Tenso too) or sites that require you to sign up to purchase from. I wouldn’t recommend it for any marketplace type site unless you’re fluent in Japanese, since sellers on those sites may try to communicate with you. 

Stores 

AmiAmi (no shopping service needed) - AmiAmi is mainly for new goods but I’ll mention it here anyway, in case K ever gets more merch. AmiAmi usually sells out on preorders, you place your order and they will let you know when the item arrives. You pay at that time. They do sometimes get used merch though so you can keep an eye out there, sometimes there will be decent deals on items that only have small flaws like the box being damaged. 

Amazon Japan (may or may not need a shopping service) - Did you know overseas people can buy from Amazon Japan? You do now! You will need to make a new account, even if you have an Amazon account in your country. Whether you need a shopping service or not depends on the item. Anything sold directly by the company will likely not need a shopping service — the majority of my K manga and the stage plays were all bought directly from here, and when I was supplying raws for Countdown and LSW I was buying the magazines from here as well (I’ve also used it for Pokémon plushies and sewing books). If the item is being sold by a third party seller though you will likely need a shopping service. The site will tell you when you try to check out.

Surugaya EN (no shopping service required)/ Surugaya JP (shopping service required) - This is a secondhand shop and a great place to find merch. The main difference between the English site and the Japanese one is that the Japanese site has a larger selection (particularly doujinshi, and even more particularly spicy doujinshi). The English site periodically has free shipping sales so keep an eye out. Surugaya also has physical stores and will sometimes share merch between the store and the site so keep that in mind too, I have had items canceled before because they sold out in store and the listing hadn’t been updated yet.

Mandarake (no shopping service needed) - Another secondhand shop similar to Surugaya. I have not actually purchased from them myself and am not fond of their interface but I know people who have bought things from here. Like Surugaya they share stock with physical stores so something you want can sell out even after you’ve purchased. 

Lashinbang (shoppng service required) - More secondhand shops. Lashinbang is rather small though so they don't always have much stuff, at least not for K.

CDJapan (no shopping service needed) - This is also better for new merch than secondhand but still worth a mention. I’ve found their prices tend to be worse than a lot of other stores though, this is more of a last resort for me.

Otaku Republic/Goods Republic (no shopping service needed) - Otaku sells doujinshi, Goods sells merch. The main draw is that these two are easy to search if you’re uncomfortable dealing with Japanese sites. I haven’t used them in quite a while but when I was buying from them they would send me free gifts with every purchase (my S4 cup came from them, as well as a bunch of clear file folders that I didn’t take pictures of because they’re being used as sewing pattern storage right now). The main downside is that while shipping is free over $50 they massively mark up the base prices to make up for it. I eventually stopped using this site because the shopping service was cheaper even with shipping and fees, you are paying for convenience. A lot of their ‘inventory’ is just listings from other sites including Surugaya, so check there first.

GoraShop (shopping service required) - This is Gora’s direct bookshop! They only have the season novelizations and Idol K books right now, as well as some Ayaka stuff. 

Kinkurido (shopping service required) - This is the King Amusement Creative shop. All Memories was sold through this shop but is currently sold out, if they ever restock Gora will likely announce it on their Twitter. They do have some other small K goods available, including some CDs and artbooks (and Sarumi body pillows). 

Marketplaces

Mercari Japan (Shopping service needed) - If you’ve ever used the English version of Mercari, here it is again but Japanese edition. You can find a lot of good used pieces here but prices are set by the individual seller so be wary of overpaying the first thing you find. Be sure to use a translator to look at the description in case you're buying a damaged item. Sometimes shopping services can try to negotiate the prices if you ask. 

Yahoo Japan Auctions (shopping service needed) - Similarly as above, if you’re familiar with eBay this is fundamentally the same thing. Some shopping services will allow you to place last minute ‘sniper’ bids, and most will let you set a maximum bid and keep bidding on your behalf until that max is reached. 

Shopping tips and things to know

The good news about buying from Japan right now: the yen is weak, so you can get deals! In the US, anyway. This may depend on your country so if you’re unsure on the exchange rate you can google “[your country’s currency] to yen exchange rate” and it should give you an approximate.

The bad news: shipping is killer. Keep that in mind, especially if you’re buying heavy items like bags or shoes (yes, K has those, there are several SuperGroupies collabs. If you want a S4 purse or Yata Misaki shoes keep in mind you will probably be paying through the nose for shipping). For the European types, you may have additional taxes too so be aware of your country’s import laws. Ditto when it comes to customs. For my fellow Americans, I have never had a customs issue even when buying fairly pricey dresses so you’re probably okay on that end but I can’t speak for other countries. 

Character tax is real. Basically, more popular characters will likely have more expensive merch because there’s more demand — for example, Fushimi and Yata merch tends to be more expensive than, say, Silvers merch. Keychains and pins are usually cheaper than larger items like figures and standees either way though. 

Most of the Japanese sites will need to be searched in Japanese. For character names, I suggest going to the K wiki and grabbing your favorite character’s name in kanji and using that to search. For pairings, while marketplace sites like Mercari may have listings under the pairing name sites like Suruga will use the two individual character names so you’ll want to search under that. If your browser doesn’t have an add on to translate that’s very helpful to grab in order to make your experience easier. For K itself, in general this is really the downside of having a favorite series with a one letter title. However, using ‘Missing Kings,’ ‘Return of Kings’ or ‘Seven Stories’ can be helpful here but will likely mostly turn up merch made for that specific season/movie. 

If you want to look up something specific like a plush but don't know the Japanese word for it, Jisho can be helpful. Look up the kanji for the word you want and then copy-paste into your search. The downside is sometimes there are multiple words for the same thing or a word may be in kanji but people use the hiragana more often and you won't know, but it should get you on the right path to start.

On buying spicier goods: most shopping services have it in their terms that they will not buy adult items. In practice, however, this depends. I've had FromJapan refuse to buy perfectly tame G-rated doujinshi. Treasure Japan has in their terms that they won't ship adult items but like 70% of my doujinshi collection was purchased through them, with an R18 Sarumi book purchased as recently as last year. I've heard Buyee also states that they won't ship adult items but it's hit or miss if they turn down your order, and if you buy directly using Tenso they likely won't even open your package. Keep your country's laws regarding importing in mind, especially if you think customs might be likely to poke around in your package. Don't get in legal trouble just for spicy drawings.

Buying secondhand is a marathon, not a sprint. Sometimes it takes a while for what you want to show up, so just keep looking! When I was collecting my nui set I literally bookmarked the search for “K ぬい” (nui) on Mercari and checked every day or so, which may be more obsessive than you want but it does get the job done (I was molded in the merch search mines of trying to find lolita dresses that haven’t been sold for 10 years, so I’m used to this kind of thing). If you keep looking you may even find things you didn't know you needed, like this Sarumi bedsheet I forgot to add into my collection post.

Happy hunting!

#k project #Talking K #helpful guides #there are other stores I may have forgotten but this is most of what I use #if anyone has alternate sites feel free to put those in the comments #the good news is since K is less popular now the merch tends to be cheaper but the bad news is it's harder to find #you just have to keep looking #I can't believe I forgot my Sarumi bedsheet #it's because this is an older picture I'm not using it right now

[txttletale]

(Other than the really weird bit about "Male presenting Doctor") what were your thoughts about the specials?

pretty mixed bag, pretty messy, but good overall. i think they were very obviously a nostalgia trip for people around my age lol and it worked! i loved seeing tennant and tate back onscreen together, their chemistry hasn't aged a bit, and honestly just watching doctor who that wasn't written by chris chibnall was a breath of fresh air. they weren't boring, like seasons 11 and 12 were, and they didn't go too far off the other end into nonsense like flux did. characters want things again! the show can let itself just be silly! i was literally cheering out loud when donna and the doctor were just saying random scifi gobbledegook at each other for like a solid several minutes during the star beast.

the structure of the specials kind of baffles me. i love wild blue yonder--i think it's definitively the best of the specials as a standalone, it's absolutely fantastic, creepy and atmospheric and bringing things around to RTD's strength, which is well-written characters interacting with each other and letting good actors just act. but at the same time i dont understand why it exists? it feels like...idk. imagine if you watched the star wars original trilogy but instead of the empire strikes back the middle film was just a feature length film about luke and han surviving on an ice planet with no reference to anything that happens in the last film except the two characters' relationship. and then the next film was still return of the jedi, unchanged. it felt like that

i liked all the weird campy silliness of the star beast and the giggle, and they were both very fun! neil patrick harris gave a fantastic performance, there are a lot of very memorable sequences from the giggle, but it's very very all over the place. so many threads get kind of picked up and go nowhere. the toymaker's haunted house dimension goes nowhere. RTD's eyerolling social media commetnary goes nowhere (thank god tbh but yknow im illustrating something here). even the toymaker kind of goes nowhere, after ncuti gatwa shows up he's bascially an afterthought who loses by dropping a ball. obvious parallels to david tennant's first episode with that ball scene could be made, but just... aren't. it feels like load-bearing sectikons of the plot and themes were cut out to make room for a backdoor pilot for the stupid fucking UNIT spinoff

oh and it goes without saying i fucking hate all the UNIT wank in the star beast and the giggle. i hope space nine eleven 2 happens to their stupid fucking avengers tower i cannot stand kate stewart who is constantly a murderous bonehead (in the giggle alone she gets two pepole killed by not listening to the doctor and assuming that this teleporting godlike entity could be restrainted by Two Guys) who is both in and out of universe just a boring nepo baby with no merit of her own

um. i still dont know what happened with the regeneration. i think the implication is that when david tennant dies hell time travel back to become ncuti gatwa inside himself--at least the rehab dialogue seems to make that implication. but it's not really explained or explored? baffling. i do think that fourteen getting to settle down and live a peaceful life with his friends is cute.

oh yeah and the ask said other than that but goddd there was some good stuff in the star beast and honestly with the state of the UK media i will take any perspective on trans people that includes baseline human erespect but some of those lines made me cringe so bad. anyway overall i am cautiously optimistic for the future of the show--oh ncuti was fucking great did i mention that i instantly bnought him as the doctor he owned the scene, the moment he was there it was clear he was the protagonist, and i liked the church on ruby road well enough too--i am cautiously optimistic but i worry that a big UNIT-shaped tumor will devour huge chunks of it and it'll be annoying. also russel t davies is like 60 and i just dont want to hear what he has to say about twitter so im not looking forward to dot and bubble

#ask #doctor who

[pumpkinsy0]

tldr: @buddyaldridge is a 30 year old weirdo proshipper who talks shit about ppl behind their backs, block em and report if you can/want to

just wanna let everyone know theres a omegaverse mpreg dallyboy writer whos been an all around WEIRDOOOOO cause their brain is LITERALLY porn rotted and they cannot fathom ppl actually having fun at all, their @ is @buddyaldridge aka @pelopsides previously known as @madelynprior

in 2020-2022 the outsiders tumblr they used to be @madelynprior and theyre a hardcore dallyboy stan which is already fucking weird, but on top of that, they would make teen pregnancy omegaverse smut fics which??? and im not gonna give you the ss, nigga im givin yall the LINKKK to see it with your own eyes so you know im not crazy

how ik its them is bc on their acc RIGHT before they switched to their buddyaldridge acc, and before that acc was named “pelopides”, they used to go by “madeleinepryor”, how ik its the same person is bc on a good chunk of their post, theyd tag it as “#madeleinepryor dispatches” on top of that, they just straight up linked their ao3 acc😭😭

heres what the link goes to, they linked their ao3 acc, they just changed their username on ao3 as well from madeleinepryor to greasers

now me calling them a proshipper isnt me talking out of my ass, they say it themselves like ughhhhjjj

as for them talking about other ppl, i wont share ALL the screenshots bc idk if the ppl theyre talking bad about would rlly feel comfortable w those being posted, if they know, they can feel free to post it on their own accord, so like i said, wont share, but i HAVE seen some and i can conform that they have done it, its ABSOLUTELY NOT above them

for now ill post the ss i CAN post rn which just proves my point

now ignoring that theyre talking smack, theyre just so odd and obviously didnt rlly think this through bc 1967 is ALREADY IMPLIED in the 60s, youre just incapable of reading things that arent about teen boys getting it on w each other PLEASE get a grip on reality😭😭

theyve talked about 14 year olds and their post on their acc just to shit on them, once again, GROWN ASS PERSON TWEAKIN OVER THE IDEAS OF A 14 YEAR OLD🗣️🗣️

NOW maybe your asking “how do you know the discord user and the tumblr user are the same person” AND I WILL ADMIT, while i DO have strong feelings they are the same person, its not 100% proven, HOWEVER buddyaldridge DOES go by buddy and that discord users name is buddy, so while its not concrete, the link IS there, once again, feel free to come to whatever conclusion you wanna come to about that

but what ISNT disputable is the fact that theyre a proshitter

additionally just this??? reblog from them????

on its own, not MUCH, bit considering the fics they make this is SO weird like??????

and finally, ive heard that theyve specifically came for me about my haitian shepards and maybe even my heritage, saying that they hated race hcs??????like using me as an example, they ss my acc and talked shit, someone contacted me about it and they dont have ss of it specifically, but they can vouch for it, and im not just gonna dismiss that, bc while they dont have ss, they do have ss and proof of everything else, so i do believe them, and theyve said if they find it they would show them to me, do what you wanna with this info

ANYWAYS buddy, your brain is unironically pornrotted, ur being a lil baby who cant do anything but cry and moan online on discord of all places and ur doing all this as a 30+ year old, and its CRAZIER bc youre doing all this while having “minors dni” in your pinned post, while also writing about minors, in a fandom MOSTLY OF MIDDLE SCHOOLERS!!!! (aka minors!!! ik age is hard for you to grasp) on top of that, literally ANY and ALL race hcs is way more believable and enjoyable than any “ideas” you’ve been cooking up in that odd demented, shriveled up pea brain of urs

anyways yea, that all i have to say, and im speaking for myself here, but i mean this with every fiber of my being, i dont know how you function in life but i DO NOT want you to go any farther, and i think others would/DO feel the same, ive seen what makes you cheer and i am PROUUUDDD to make you BOOOOO, you shouldnt be near minors at all, fictional or non fictional, you should BARELY be near other adults

plus if you go onto their acc rn, notice how when anon called them out, buddy aint even say they were wrong?? JUST SAYIN🗣️🗣️

im tagging everything i can tag bc i DO NOTTTT want mfs interacting w their blog, and want as many ppl as possible to be aware, dont say anything to them, dont give them attention bc obviously they’ll think this is funny and post it on their shitty discord server or whatever and giggle like they arent a grown ass nigga w bills to pay, trying so hard to cling onto their high school days, making fics about a canon middle schooler getting banged and pregnant, pls block and report do whatever u wanna do, just plssss dont let this proshitter on this damn sight near kidssss😭😭

dont take this as me WANTING drama, i dont, i just dont want ppl coming in this fandom thinking posting this shit and doing this is ok, youre bullying ppl for doing harmless things meanwhile your just making straight porn about a weird ship left n right, thinking YOUUUUU of all ppl have the place to talk about anyone or anything like your opinion on anything is valid😭😭

you NEED stones thrown at you

if anyone has anymore ss send em to mmeeeeee, but in the mean time ill be doin my own thing wooooo‼️‼️🔥🔥

#curly shepard #ponyboy curtis #tim shepard #angela shepard #darry curtis #darrel curtis #dallas winston #sodapop curtis #johnny cade #steve randle #two bit mathews #the outsiders fandom #the outsiders 1983

[atopvisenyashill]

seeing how some greens act like rhaenyra being groomed by her uncle, and subsequently being unable to let go of him, is HER personal failure turned me into a rhaenyra extremist when i simply enjoyed her character beforehand.

im really glad you're speaking about it because even though it's fiction, it still perpetuates a very dangerous rhetoric

wait this gives me an excuse to ramble, pls excuse me if i phrase things maybe a little crassly here, it’s a delicate topic i’m speaking indelicately about but also, i think i should be allowed bc [redacted] BUT-

obviously i don’t like, love, some of the changes to the show but i think the first half does a great job of setting it up to where you can see both alicent and rhaenyra are surrounded exclusively by much older men who want to fuck them, and have just no way of knowing who is being genuine with them. because no one is really! so you have episode 4, where alicent is sleeping in a room with pornographic art on the wall and being called to her husband’s bed and she can’t say no, and he’s not going to do anything to make the whole thing even marginally easier for her. and then you have rhaenyra, pulled from her bed by her uncle to a brothel, and she’s completely exposed, and she’s experiencing new things, and he’s purposefully trying to make this feel good but also overwhelming for her, then abandons her drunk & confused & half naked. this is The Same Thing - they’re both being used and manipulated by a much older man, but because that manipulation looks different, they react different. but it’s still manipulation.

yes, the type of abuse is different when it’s like, your ugly ancient grandpa grooming you vs a handsome 30 year old stranger you met online that you tell all your high school friends is your boyfriend, but ultimately, both the grandpa and the 30 year old boyfriend are abusers but more importantly, the granddaughter and the high schooler are both victims!!! i think a lot of people when analyzing this whole thing, will pin daemon as a groomer but then completely forget that this also makes rhaenyra a victim. some people will even hee hee haw haw over it because “oh your feminist icon would rather marry her groomer uncle than her gay cousin in the book” DO YOU HEAR YOURSELF. could it possibly be that rhaenyra prefers daemon to laenor because daemon has manipulated her into thinking she is only free with him? she is only safe with him?? could it possibly be that he has been giving her gifts and taking physical liberties with her for her whole life, and being the Good Cop, Sweet Confidant to her parents Bad Cop her whole life, that she feels taken in by him because he is all she knows???? in the same vein that alicent just swallows all the poison and bullshit from otto because that’s her father, and his protection is all she knows????

honestly part of like ~the discourse~ that’s most frustrating is that most greens just refuse to see rhaenyra’s pov or see that she’s also a grooming victim grasping for power to protect her own children, again just like alicent, but on the flip side, most of the analysis from the blacks side is like “if you think nyra is a victim of grooming you are just as bad as the people calling her a whore for having children out of wedlock” and like, how do you even engage with that. with either of those opinions. you can’t wksjd so if youre, ya know, like a normal fucking person who can see how both girls are being manipulated, but you have like a fondness for nyra specifically, it’s just constant bad takes. there’s nowhere to go to escape the bad takes.

i thought we had already hashed out this idea that being aware or unaware of your victimhood doesn’t suddenly mean you’re not being oppressed during the main show with arya and sansa but no, we’ve actually just taken this exact same annoying fandom discourse about which teenage girl is dealing with being abused in the most acceptable way and made it a thousand times worse.

#and like the ~analysis~ side will be like ‘nyra is a dumb bitch for trusting daemon’ but if you said that about ali and larys you’d get shot #and i’m not even exaggerating the way people talk about her it’s always this ‘she should have known better’ HOW #if u get that ali couldn’t have ever known better when it comes to her own kids. why does this not apply to nyra. #perhaps………….it is bc you cannot concieve of her as anything but the aggressor. #asks #anons

[ladybugsimblr]

Dizzy Des on the Music Industry, Bailey Kay, Money vs Marriage, His Legendary Career & More | JUICE CHAMPS R E B E L. T V - 118K Views - 10 hours ago

Comments 43K

wakeupmrwest Best interview yet! You don’t want to skip a second of this. Thank you Dizzy for joining us and schooling these dudes.

Dizzy Des This is why I started this network. A platform to speak our truth!

redpillscholar I knew Bailey Kay was just like all the other 304s. Using 🐱 to get ahead. No talent. You don’t want a female like that Dizzy. She’ll ruin your brand.

BadKidForLife King shit! Mad wisdom! I was taking notes!

kingb 🧢🧢🧢🧢🧢

bkstan 🦋🦋🦋

futuretoxicex Did you even listen to the interview before coming in here with your stupid butterflies? Take your twerking somewhere else. Dizzy was spittin facts.

rubberbandshan Reported dot com. Let me get outta these comments before I puke.

Ocsar: So you really suing BK?! How did it get this bad?

Dizzy: I don’t know! I’ve been asking myself the same damn question. One minute we’re all good, reconnecting, and then next thing you know she’s skipping out on business deals.

O: We know things started going downhill after your album release party. What really happened that night?

D: I had an amazing time and I made sure Bailey did too as everyone saw. But I don’t think she was able to handle those old feelings coming back. Instead of being honest with herself and going for what she really wants, she turned on me instead.

O: Wait. Wait! Run that back. Old feelings? You two had something going on?

D: We have history.

O: What kinda history? You smashed the Queen?

D: Let’s just say when Deangelo brought Bailey Kay to my door she was crackable. She was willing to do whatever it took to get put on. We worked hard, partied hard. Wild times back then.

O: Woooow!

D: Unfortunately we couldn’t make it work as a team. I tried but she chose a different direction. I guess she thought Khalil would do her- I mean do it better over at Blueprint. Obviously she chose wrong. I’m the King of this shit. We could have been on top of the world. True music royalty.

O: I mean BK is definitely on top of the world right now. Are you trying to take her down?

D: Funny choice of words but nah. I want her to keep winning in this industry. But I also want what’s owed to me.

D: Once I win my court case, get my simoleons and maybe a thank you, I’ll be waiting for her with open arms. Ditch those cornballs you got controlling you Queen. You need a high value sim like me to make you be the beautiful butterfly you claim to be.

#bk history: the toxic male version #longest heaviest sigh #gross #hate it here #why are they so fine tho? #bc the toxic problematic ones usually are 😭 #bklegacy #bklgen2 #bailey kay #dizzy des #oscar west

[rubenhopclap]

Despite Ruben having more screentime than any other RG, nearly all of it has been spent interacting with the BKs, interacting with Wanda, or literally performing.

So it is a little difficult to tell, which of these is most like the way that he is normally, the rest of the time.

But with the info of voting against Kipperlilly, and with the one moment that doesn't fit into those three categories, I think he might not even have specific beef with the BKs (or with Kipperlilly) and that's just what he's like right now.

Ruben's main characterization is that he's desperate for attention. His type is "anyone who thinks he's cool. Straight up." Not conventionally attractive, skinny, rich or popular people who think he's cool. Just literally anyone who will give him attention and treat him like he's special. I think the way that he is with Wanda is probably close to the way he is with anyone he's talking to romantically, and it's different because he's already receiving a different kind of attention. (Same thing with performing.)

The rest of the time he's consistently described as smirking or sneering, and engaging with people in a way that pisses them off. The big examples we had before Kipperlilly were Fig and Gorgug, so it might have just been that he had some mysterious problem with the BKs in particular himself. Maybe he still does, maybe he separately has a problem with the BKs for being popular and with Kipperlilly for being a nerd who cares.

But there is one single moment where we know some behavior of his that doesn't have anything to do with a specific other character. And that's the scene where Yolanda Badgood's death was announced to the school. And Ruben was described as smirking.

Now you might interpret this as incredibly callous, and it is pretty callous. But we don't know how much yet. If the giant did the killing, then Ruben might not actually have known the death was related to Lucy's death at that moment. Which would make it about as callous as Adaine dunking on the dead oracle.

But most people in that scene weren't actually reacting to Yolanda's death anyway. They were reacting to the Pass/Fail news. Max Durden's party was happy about it, but a lot of people were upset. I think Ruben was smirking about that. I think at some point during that assembly he was probably making eye contact or taunting some people who were affected by it. I don't think it's because he has some issue with people who care about their grades, they're just the people available at the moment to be a troll at. And at this point it looks like that's probably also his reason for acting the way he did towards the BKs and to Kipperlilly, because he doesn't need an extra one.

Obviously this doesn't actually make him look better as a person, than if he had been messing with Kipperlilly (or the BKs) because he specifically wanted to upset her/them as individuals. He's clearly a huge mess at this point in his life (just like every Rat Grinder and every Bad Kid). Despite my obvious bias, it's not my goal to make anybody like him. Just maybe think about him for longer than two seconds.

If Ankarna is manifesting in him at all, it seems very likely that she's doing it this way, by twisting his desire for attention into something that engages with rage.

#fantasy high #fantasy high junior year #ruben hopclap #kipperlilly copperkettle #rat grinders #fhjy spoilers #for the kipperlikers who see their own experiences in that moment or want the angst etc: you're valid #ruben's pov and whether he actually got how much it meant to her are irrelevant to her experience #she felt how she felt. she has a pov that can be sympathized with and normal teen struggles. so does ruben tho

[bigbrainlivestock]

2# Canon Subaru Sakamaki 🦇⚰️ Facts that make me gush blood

⚰️Subaru has very….alternative taste (emo theory confirmed?!?!) He thinks spider webs, crows, bat/ dragon wings, thorny vines, and skulls all make a cool appearance to his beloved coffin, while ayato&yuma think it’s creepy ^^

Translation: @dialovers-translations

“Ayato: What do you think 'bout this one (coffin)?

Yuma: Ah! Why a huge cross out of all things!? Ya really think this guy will like that?

Ayato: Ah...? I guess you're right, it's kinda creepy. Oi, Subaru. Let's go for somethin' else after a--

Subaru: Not bad...

Ayato & Yuma: Haah..!?

Subaru: should probably put this one on the lid. Also…It'd look even better by adding a pair of bat wings. ...Wait, no! The dragon wings are kind of temptin' too..

Yuma: No way...That's the sort of thing he likes?What's wrong with your lil' brother's taste!?

Ayato: Don't ask me!! Subaru's creation (coffin design) is...on a whole different level.

Yuma: Skulls and crows...Ah? And are those thorny vines and snakes running across?

Ayato: And can we also mention the really creepy face in the middle? Is that a monster of some sort?

Subaru: Take a proper look! It's a devil! Can't you see its horns?

Ayato: Do devils have horns?

Yuma: Beats me. ..Or rather, why would a Vampire put that on their coffin?

Subaru: I just thought the design looked cool, that's all.

Ayato: Then these spider web-like patterns were done on purpose too?

Subaru: Obviously.

Yuma: I don't get it.

Ayato: I don't even want to understand.” ⚰️

#diabolik lovers #diahell #dialovers #diabolik lovers drama cd #diabolik lover boys #ayato sakamaki #diabolik lovers yuma #mukami yuma #yuma mukami #subaru canon facts #diabolik lovers meme #diabolik lovers subaru #sakamaki subaru #diabolik lovers cd #sakamaki ayato #diabolik lovers ayato #diabolik lovers canon facts

[thesublemon]

best picture

For the first time in a long time, I watched all of the movies nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars this year. Partly on a whim, partly for a piece I’ve been working on for a while about what is going wrong in contemporary artmarking. I cannot say that the experience made me feel any better or worse about contemporary movies than I already felt, which was pretty bad. But sometimes to write about a hot stove, you gotta put your hand on one. So. The nominees for coldest stove are:

Poor Things. Did not like enough to finish. I always want to like something that is making an effort at originality, strangeness, or style. Unfortunately, the execution of those things in this movie felt somehow dull and thin. Hard to explain how. Maybe the movie’s motif of things mashed together (baby-woman, duck-dog, etc) is representative. People have been mashing things together since griffins, medleys, Avatar the Last Airbender’s animals, Nickelodeon’s Catdog, etc. Thing + thing is elementary-level weird. And while there’s nothing wrong with a simple, or well-worn premise, there is a greater burden on an artist to do something interesting with it, if they go that route. And Poor Things does not. Its themes are obvious and belabored (the difficulty of self-actualization in a world that violently infantilizes you) and do not elevate the premise. There’s a fine line between the archetypal and the hackish, and this movie falls on the wrong side of it. It made me miss Crimes of the Future (2022), a recent Cronenberg that was authentically original and strange, with the execution to match.

Anatomy of a Fall. Solid, but not stunning. The baseline level of what a ‘good’ movie should be. It was written coherently and economically, despite its length. It told a story that drew you along. I wanted to know what happened, which is the least you can ask from storytelling. It had some compelling scenes that required a command of character and drama to write—particularly the big argument scene. The cinematography was not interesting, but it was not annoying either. It did its job. This was not, however, a transcendent movie.

Oppenheimer. Did not like enough to finish. But later forced myself to, just so no one could accuse me of not knowing what I was talking about when I said I disliked it. I felt like I was being pranked. The Marvel idea of what a prestige biopic should be. Like Poor Things, it telegraphed its artsiness and themes and has raked in accolades for its trouble. But obviousness is not the same as goodness and this movie is not good. The imagery is painfully literal. A character mentions something? Cut to a shot of it! No irony or nuance added by such images—just the artistry of a book report. The dialogue pathologically tells instead of shows. It constantly, cutely references things you might have heard of, the kind of desperate audience fellation you see in soulless franchise movies. Which is a particularly jarring choice given the movie’s subject matter. ‘Why didn’t you get Einstein for the Manhattan project’ Strauss asks, as if he’s saying ‘Why didn’t you get Superman for the Avengers?’ If any of this referentiality was an attempt to say something about mythologization, it failed—badly. The movie is stuffed with famous and talented actors, but it might as well not have been, given how fake every word out of their mouths sounded. Every scene felt like it had been written to sound good in a trailer, rather than to tell a damn story. All climax and no cattle.

Barbie. Did not like enough to finish. It had slightly more solidity in its execution than I was afraid it would have, so I will give it that. If people want this to be their entertainment I will let them have it. But if they want this to be their high cinema I will have to kill myself. Barbie being on this list reminds me of the midcentury decades of annual movie musical nominations for Best Picture. Sometimes deservingly. Other times, less so. The Music Man is great, but it’s not better than 8 1/2  or The Great Escape, neither of which were nominated in 1963. Musicals tend to appeal to more popular emotions, which ticket-buyers and award-givers tend to like, and critics tend to dislike. I remember how much Pauline Kael and Joan Didion hated The Sound of Music (which won in 1966), and have to ask myself if in twenty years I’ll think of my reaction to Barbie the same way that I think of those reviews: justified, but perhaps beside the point of other merits. Thing is. Say what you want about musicals, but that genre was alive back then. It was vital. Bursting with creativity. For all Kael’s bile, even she acknowledged that The Sound of Music was “well done for what it is.” [1] Contemporary cinema lacks such vitality, and Barbie is laden with symptoms of the malaise. It repeatedly falls back on references to past aesthetic successes (2001: A Space Odyssey, Singin’ in the Rain, etc) in order to have aesthetic heft. It has a car commercial in the middle. It’s about a toy from 60 years ago and politics from 10 years ago. It tries to wring some energy and meaning from all of that but not enough to cover the stench of death. I’d prefer an old musical any day.

American Fiction. Was okay. It tried to be clever about politics, but ended up being clomping about politics. At the end of the day, it just wasn’t any more interesting than any other ‘intellectual has a mid-life crisis’ story, even with the ‘twist’ of it being from a black American perspective. Even with it being somewhat self-aware of this. But it could have been a worse mid-life crisis story. The cinematography was terrible. It was shot like a sitcom. Much of the dialogue was sitcom-y too. I liked the soundtrack, what I could hear of it. The attempts at style and meta (the characters coming to life, the multiple endings) felt underdeveloped. Mostly because they were only used a couple times. In all, it felt like a first draft of a potentially more interesting movie. 

The Zone of Interest.Wanted to like it more than I did. Unfortunately, you get the point within about five minutes. If you’ve seen the promotional image of the people in the garden, backgrounded by the walls of Auschwitz, then you’ve already seen the movie. Which means that all the rest of the movie ends up feeling like pretentious excess instead of moving elaboration. It seemed very aware of itself as an Important Movie and rested on those laurels, cinematically speaking, in a frustrating way. It reminded me of video art. I felt like I had stepped through a black velvet drape into the side room of a gallery, wondering at what point the video started over. And video art has its place, but it is a different medium. Moreover video art at its best, like a movie at its best, takes only the time it needs to say what it needs to say. 

Past Lives. I’m a human being, and I respond to romance. I appreciate the pathos of sweet yearning and missed chances. And I understand how the romance in this movie is a synecdoche for ambivalent feelings about many kinds of life choices, particularly the choice to be an immigrant and choose one culture over another. The immigrant experience framing literalizes the way any choice can make one foreign to a past version of oneself, or the people one used to know, even if in another sense one is still the same person. So, I appreciate the emotional core of what (I believe) this movie was going for, and do think it succeeded in some respects. And yet…I was very irritated by most of its artistic choices. I found the three principal characters bland and therefore difficult to care about, sketched with only basic traits besides things like Striving and Being In Love. Why care who they’d be in another life if they have no personalities in this one? It’s fine to make characters symbols instead of humans if the symbolic tapestry of a movie is interesting and rich, but the symbolic tapestry of this movie was quite simple and straightforward. Not that that last sentence even matters much, since the movie clearly wanted you to feel for the characters as human beings, not just symbols. Visually, the cinematography was dull and diffuse, with composition that was either boring or as subtle as a hammer to the head.

Maestro. Did not like enough to finish. Something strange and wrong about this movie. It attempts to perform aesthetic mimicry with impressive precision—age makeup, accents, period cinematography—but this does not make the movie a better movie. At most it creates spectacle, at worst it creates uncanny valleys. It puts one on the lookout for irregularities, instead of allowing one to disappear into whatever the movie is doing. Something amateurishly pretentious in the execution. And not in the fun, respectable way, like a good student film. (My go-to example for a movie that has an art-school vibe in a pleasant way is The Reflecting Skin). There’s something desperate about it instead. It has the same disease as Oppenheimer, of attempting to do a biopic in a ‘stylish’ way without working on the basics first. Fat Man and Little Boy is a less overtly stylish rendition of the same subject as Oppenheimer, but far more cinematically successful to me, because it understands those basics. I would prefer to see the Fat Man and Little Boy of Leonard Bernstein’s life unless a filmmaker proves that they can do something with style beyond mimicry and flash.

The Holdovers. Did not like enough to finish. It tries to be vintage, but outside of a few moments, it does not succeed either at capturing what was good about the aesthetic it references, or at using the aesthetic in some other interesting way. The cinematography apes the tropes of movies and TV from the story’s time period, but doesn't have interesting composition in its own right. It lacks the solidity that comes from original seeing. (Contrast with something like Planet Terror, in which joyous pastiche complements the original elements.) The acting is badly directed. Too much actorliness is permitted. Much fakeness in general between the acting, writing, and visual language. If a movie with this same premise was made in the UK in the 60’s or 70's it would probably be good. As-is the movie just serves to make me sad that the ability to make such movies is apparently lost and can only be hollowly gestured at. That said, the woman who won best supporting actress did a good job. She was the only one who seemed to be actually acting.

Killers of the Flower Moon. The only possible winner. It is not my favorite of Scorsese’s movies, but compared to the rest of the lineup it wins simply by virtue of being a movie at all. How to define ‘being a movie’? Lots of things I could say that Killers of the Flower Moon has and does would also be superficially true of other movies in this cohort. Things like: it tells a story, with developed characters who drive that story. Or: it uses its medium (visuals, sound) to support its story and its themes. The difference comes down to richness, specificity, control, and a je ne sais quois that is beyond me to describe at the moment. Compare the way Killers of the Flower Moon uses a bygone cinematic style (the silent movie) to the way that Maestro and The Holdovers do. Killers of the Flower Moon uses a newsreel in its opening briefly and specifically. The sequence sets the scene historically, and gives you the necessary background with the added panache of confident cuts and music. It’s useful to the story and it’s satisfying to watch. Basics. But the movie doesn’t limit itself to that, because it’s a good movie. The sequence also sets up ideas that will be continuously developed over the course of the movie.* And here’s the kicker—the movie doesn’t linger on this sequence. You get the idea, and it moves on to even more ideas. Also compare this kind of ideating to American Fiction’s. When I said that American Fiction’s moments of style felt underdeveloped, I was thinking of movies like Killers of the Flower Moon, which weave and evolve their stylistic ideas throughout the entire runtime.

*(Visually, it places the Osage within a historical medium that the audience probably does not associate with Native Americans, or the Osage in particular. Which has a couple of different effects. First, it acts as a continuation of the gushing oil from the previous scene. It’s an interruption. A false promise. Seeming belonging and power, but framed all the while by a foreign culture. Meanwhile potentially from the perspective of that culture, it’s an intrusion on ‘their’ medium. And of course, this promise quickly decays into tragedy and death. The energy of the sequence isn’t just for its own sake—it sets up a contrast. But on a second, meta level it establishes the movie’s complicated relationship to media and storytelling. Newsreels, photos, myths, histories, police interviews, and a radio play all occur over the course of the movie. And there’s the movie Killers of the Flower Moon itself. Other people’s frames are contrasted with Mollie’s narration. There’s a repeated tension between communication as a method of knowing others and a method of controlling them—or the narrative of them—which plays out in both history and personal relationships.)

Or here’s another example: When Mollie and Ernest meet and he drives her home for the first time, we see their conversation via the car’s rearview mirrors. This is a bit of cinematic language that has its origins in mystery and paranoia. You see it in things like Hitchcock or The X-Files or film noir. By framing the scene with this convention, the movie turns what is superficially a romantic meet-cute (to quote a friend) into something bubbling with uneasiness and dread. This is not nostalgia—this is just using visuals to create effects. It doesn’t matter if you’ve seen anything that uses the convention before, although knowing the pedigree might add to your enjoyment. The watchfulness suggested by the mirrors and Ernest’s cut-off face will still add an ominous effect. It works for the same reason it works in those other things. Like the newsreel, it is a specific and concise stylistic choice, and it results in a scene that is doing more than just one thing.

In general, the common thread I noticed as I watched these nominees, was the tendency to have the ‘idea’ of theme or style, and then stop there. It’s not that the movies had nothing in them. There were ideas, there was use of the medium, there was meaning to extract. There were lots of individually good moments. But they tended to feel singular, or repetitive, or tacked on. Meanwhile contemporary viewers are apparently so impressed by the mere existence of theme or style, that being able to identify it in a movie is enough to convince many that the movie is also good at those things. The problem with this tendency—in both artists and audiences—is that theme and style are not actually some extra, remarkable, inherently rarifying property of art. Theme emerges naturally from a story with any kind of coherence or perspective. And style emerges naturally from any kind of artistic attitude. They are as native as script, or narrative, or character. A movie’s theme and style might not be interesting, just like its story or dialogue might not be interesting, but if the movie is at all decent, they should exist. What makes a movie good or bad, then, is how it executes its component parts—including theme and style—in service of the whole. When theme is well-executed it is well-developed. Contemporary movies, unfortunately, seem to have confused ‘well-developed’ with ‘screamingly obvious.’ A theme does not become well-developed by repetition. It becomes well-developed by iterationand integration. Theme is like a melody. Simply repeating a single melody over and over does not result in the song becoming more interesting or entertaining. It becomes tedious. However, if you modify the melody each time you play it, or diverge from the melody and then return to it, that can get exciting. It results in different angles on the same idea, such that the idea becomes more complex over time, instead of simply louder.

Oppenheimer wasprobably the worst offender in this regard. Just repeat your water drops, crescendoing noise, or a line about ‘destroying the world’, and that’s the same as nuance, right? Split scenes into color and black and white and that’s the same as structure, right? That’s the same as actually conveying a difference between objectivity and interiority (or another dichotomy) via the drama or visual composition contained in the scenes, right? When I watched many of these movies, I kept thinking of a behind-the-scenes story from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The story goes that Joss Whedon was directing Sarah Michelle Gellar in some scene, and when the take was over he told her how great she was, and that he could see right where the music would come in. And Gellar replied that if he was thinking about the music, he clearly wasn’t getting enough from her acting alone. This conversation then supposedly informed Whedon’s approach to “The Body,” a depiction of the immediate aftermath of death that is considered one of the best episodes of television ever made, and which has no non-diegetic music whatsoever. Not to imply that music is necessarily a crutch, or to pretend that “The Body” is lacking in other forms of stylization (it is a very style-ish episode). But more to illustrate the way that it is easy to forget to make the most of all aspects of a medium, particularly the most fundamental ones, once one has gotten used to what a final product is supposed to feel like. 

And that’s why most of these movies don’t feel like movies. They create the gestalt of a movie or a ‘cinematic’ moment—often literally through direct vintage imitation—without a sense of the first principles. Or demonstrating a sense of them, anyway. Who needs AI when the supposedly highest level of human filmmakers are already cannibalistically cargo-culting the medium just fine.

[1] “The Sound of Money (The Sound of Music and The Singing Nun).” The Pauline Kael Reader. (This book contains the full text of the original review, rather than the abbreviated review that I linked earlier.) 

#posts: art #movies #am rusty at blogging and don't have all the virtuous nuance i would like in this but we will go with it

[asarajaa]

OKAY. MEETING BACHIRAS MOM FOR THE FIRST TIME. 🤭🤭🤭

(no pressure if you don’t want to do it ofc bbg<3 )

Ofc bb but have patience, I’m a little bit down cause I didn’t like at all my last post so yk 😭✋🏽

Omg I’m so dumb, I answered it without the fic made HAHAJJAJAJA, when I got it I’ll put it here and I’ll tell ya, k love? Have some paciencia 😽💗

Update: k so I already did it so here you go my love, hope you like it <3!

Warnings: fem!reader Words: 656 Disclaimer: English isn't my first language so I apologise for any mistakes or misunderstandings! Taglist: @merlucide

Meeting Bachiras mom for the first time

₊˚ෆ To help me with this, I will pretend it is the second part of the Bachira falling in love hcs.

₊˚ෆ Indeed, his mom liked you.

₊˚ෆ First of all, when Bachira got home and told her mom about you, she was super enthusiastic to meet you!

₊˚ෆ After Bachira made a move and you guys become boyfriend and girlfriend, the next step was meeting each others parents, being Bachira the first.

₊˚ෆ When the time came, you were extremely nervous, Bachira tried everything to make you feel less nervous but obviously it didn't work.

₊˚ෆ You wanted to everything go great. Your friends always says that is like having a second family and that creating a bond with his mom is important bc she's gonna be like a second mom to you.

₊˚ෆ You made yourself a list of 5 rules to follow when you meet his mom (which made Bachira laugh at you because- babe, my mom is super chill you don't need to do those things.)

₊˚ෆ Rule number 1: Do not show empty handed. It doesn't matter if you give her flowers, some dessert or a gift, Bachiras mom will appreciate it and think that you're a very nice and sweet girl. She's the type of person who appreciates the small things so giving smth to her will be perfect.

₊˚ෆ Rule number 2: Dress modestly. Look, Bachiras mom wouldn't care if you go with some jeans and a cute top, in fact, she would compliment you. But if you go dressed like if you're going to some club she would not think bad of you but neither she'll think good of you. I believe that as an artist she's very into the fashion world and if you're meeting her with a cute outfit she'll like you.

₊˚ෆ Rule number 3: Don't try to be somebody that you're not. She want to meet the person her son fall in love with, no one else. She'll like you just the way that you are! As an artist, Bachiras mom know about being judge so don't worry about those things.

₊˚ෆ Rule number 4: Always offer to clean up. Of course, she wouldn't let you, but it would be nice seeing the effort of your actions that his son never stops talking about.

₊˚ෆ Rule number 5: Try having a one on one time with her. Women to women bounds are super special so you have to use the opportunity to grow a very strong relationships. Honestly, she always wanted a daughter so just talked with her about girl things and it would be awesome!

You and Bachiras mom were left alone, she told Bachira to go to the store to buy some dessert (you bought flowers) so now you girls were alone.

"So, how did you knew you wanted to be an artist Mrs.Bachira?" you asked her enthusiastic, the dinner went awesome and you guys were having a great time.

Bachiras mom loved your question, nobody usually ask her about her profession and you were actually interested.

As the night went by, you girls ended up having a girl talk about the latest in fashion, the new tea about celebrities, skincare and make-up.

When Bachira came with the dessert, he was confused. He left you guys silent and when he come back you were sitting next to each other talking passionately about some new viral linase mask that gives a botox effect. Although he wasn't complaining either.

"Word of mouth is that the mask also works to give definition on the curly haired girls." you said showing her the video of a girl trying it.

"Really?" she said leaning to you "Bachiras cousin has curly hair, i'll show it to her."

₊˚ෆ She loved you, like she would call you some days to exchange tips and your calls last hours.

₊˚ෆ Bachira was more than happy when he find out, It seemed perfect to him that the two women in his life got along so well.

nksdhfsbfv idk what I did.

I feel like It was too short, great rules tho

28/04/24

© asarajaa — Please, do not copy, translate or reuse my work without my permission.

#sofis loves #bllk bachira #asarajas works #blue lock #blue lock x reader #bllk #asarajas works (bllk) #bachira meguru #bllk x you #bachira x reader #blue lock bachira #bachira fluff #fanfiction

[mappingthesky]

♡ "wait...is this a date?" plane @ nymphia plspls

i wasn’t sure if this was supposed to be an @ or if it was intended to be an ‘&’, but i am very intrigued by the concept of nervous jane needing to know whether this is a date, so here’s this <3

“Was it too much?”

Jane was asking questions, but she wasn’t exactly listening for answers. She seemed to be supplementing those all on her own. It would be annoying, except the conclusions she was drawing were so incorrect that it was almost endearing somehow. Her eyes were elsewhere when she scurried back to the table, anywhere but on Nymphia.

“Jane.”

“I know you said you didn’t want to do nice dinners after we went to Pearla the other night. At least not yet. Or ever. Um,” Jane continued, clearing plates, her brow tightly knotted. “But it really wasn’t that expensive, you know. And even if it wasn’t a date, it was just nice. For me. To get out. Um. With you, of course.”

“Jane.”

“Besides.” Jane carried a stack of serving plates and bowls and miscellaneous silverware past Nymphia. “I really like to cook, believe it or not, so this really wasn’t a big deal, I promise. I probably would’ve done it anyway.” She dropped the dishes in the sink, and started to backpedal. “Not that I would do this if you weren’t here. I mean, I would’ve eaten. But, like, I wouldn’t have done this exactly, because, y’know. That’s a lot of effort. But not too much efffort.”

Nymphia huffed from her chair, staring at the ceiling and waiting for Jane to work through her spiral.

“Or was it not enough?” Jane auto-piloted back to the table, reaching for the wine glasses. Her voice was sort of desperate, sort of defeated, and Nymphia knew she’d inadvertently made Jane much more nervous than she’d anticipated. She felt a little bad, actually, because Jane wasn’t really breathing between sentences. “I just- I know you said you wanted to take things slow and I know you didn’t want to go on dates. Um. Officially. So I just thought it might be nice to stay in and-”

“Jane.”

“No, I’m sorry. It was stupid,” Jane interrupted, a little too embarrassed to let Nymphia get a word in. She went to clear Nymphia’s plate. “We could catch a movie or something if you want to go out, or I could just drive you-“

Nymphia’s hand stopped Jane’s wrist mid-reach. “Jane.”

Jane blinked and paused and finally looked to Nymphia, looking more unsure than Nymphia had ever seen her. All she’d wanted was to scope Jane out, take her time to make sure she was every bit as good and sweet and serious about her as Nymphia had been hoping she was. She didn’t think she would end up completely dismantling her. It was sort of ridiculous how increasingly, obviously frazzled she’d gotten the longer Nymphia had drawn this out. It was also completely, stupidly charming. Most people didn’t care enough to get nervous around Nymphia. Most people wouldn’t invite her over for a home cooked meal after taking her on half a dozen outings she hadn’t let them call ‘dates’. Most people weren’t Jane.

“It wasn’t stupid,” Nymphia took Jane’s hand gently between hers, her fingertips gliding softly over Jane’s knuckles. “It was really nice.”

“Oh!” Jane inhaled sharply. Definitely not relaxed, but breathing. It was an improvement. “Good. I’m glad. Um.” She blinked, processing. “Really?”

Nymphia smiled, her laugh a short puff of air from her nose. Jane’s eyes softened, a look of relief washing over her.

“Really,” Nymphia let her gaze fall upon Jane’s hand, held between her own. “It was the best date I’ve ever been on.”

She glanced up through her lashes. Jane looked a bit awe-struck, a bit in disbelief.

“Wait. So.” Jane blinked, a little hesitant to look Nymphia in the eyes, then did it anyways. “Was- Is this a date?”

Nymphia’s lips twisted to one side, a little pucker of a smile. She nodded slowly, a warmth to her chest as she watched the light flood Jane’s eyes. “Yeah. It is.”

Jane couldn’t hide the megawatt smile that spread across her face as she ducked her chin down, her laugh a nervous flutter of air.

“I didn’t mean to torture you,” Nymphia teased, tilting her head to follow Jane’s eyes. To make sure she hadn’t completely broken her.

“No, it was my pleasure,” Jane said breathily, already a little excited, a glimmer in her eye when she looked over and said, “I’d do it all again.”

#screams I LOVE NERVOUS WRECK JANE #thank you for this anon!! #prompt #she writes #planymphia #wtf is pearla idk. all i could think was la pearla #so yeah restaurant name fs fs

[centrally-unplanned]

I have been seeing a bunch of buzz recently online about a possible "decline in value" of the ivy league+ degree - Nate Silver didn't start it but he certainly accelerated it. And while there is nothing robust you do see things like surveys of hiring manager opinions out there to suggest its possible, its not a crazy idea even if its far from proven. So assuming its real, why would it be happening?

1: This discourse is obviously happening because of the recent protests at top US schools - essentially its the idea that elite students are hyperpolitical, coddled, and out of touch with reality. This causal path should be very, very silly. The vast, vast majority of students at Columbia are not protesting. They don't really care about this topic! Sure, if asked, they agree Israel Bad Right Now, but otherwise they are busy with finals and job apps. This is of course equally true at most other schools, its just not a mass movement in that way (protesting to be clear rarely is). This is a specific instance of the general trap of selection bias - the visible students aren't the median ones.

Stacked on top of that is the second level of selection bias - the median protestor is not a business major or engineer! They are exactly the kind of students for whom being a politically engaged activist is *good* for their career, not bad, or at least neutral. Schools produce a large diversity of career outcomes, and those students self-select on how they spend their time, there is no "median" student to observe really.

And ofc all of this has to rest on the foundational reality that people are products of their context - jobless 20 year old's surrounded by young peers protest a bunch, that is what that context produces. The large majority of them will become mortgage-paying white collar workers by the time they are 30, this identity will not stick with them. If they become political activists it will, sure! But if you are the hiring manager for Palantir this isn't going to be the trend for your hires. There are "politically liable" hires out there but you aren't going to predict them via the sorting algorithm of "was at Columbia in 2024", that is for sure.

Now, as much as this is a silly idea, humanity are zeitgeist creatures - I can't actually reject the idea that, despite it being silly, hiring managers might use this moment to feel like they are "over" the Ivy League and start dismantling the privileged place their applications currently get. Cultural tipping points are vibes-based, and amoung elites (unlike the masses, who don't care much) Israel/Palestine has an awful lot of tense vibes.

2: Still, I don't think this is explaining those survey results people are throwing around, and I don't think its explained (very much at least) by the general "woke uni" trends of the past half decade. It is instead downstream of wider trends.

There was a time where companies really did want "the smart guy". You could major in English at Harvard, write a good thesis on Yeats, and be off to the trading desk in Chambers St two weeks after graduation. Those days are over - for complex reasons we won't get into - and nowadays people expect their new hires to be as close to experts in the field as they can manage. Students have internships, consulting clubs, capstone projects with real clients, specialized sub majors, the works. These are all ways of saying "signaling quality" has gotten more legible and more specific over time. Why would I choose a Harvard English major over a University of Illinois finance major who did a research internship with our specific Chicago firm on midwest agricultural derivates markets? Students like that exist by the bucketful now, and the Ivys cannot monopolize them. Partially because they choose not to; Columbia could actually say fuck it and make its school 90% finance majors, but they don't want that, they specifically recruit intellectually diverse students. Which means State School finance types will fill the remaining slots slots.

The other reason they can't monopolize is much simpler - numbers. The US has way more "elite" jobs today than it did in the past. Programmers and their adjacencies are the biggest growth sector, but everything from doctors to analysts to lawyers is all up up up. And do you know what isn't up? Undergraduate enrollment at elite schools! Columbia's has grown by like 10% over the past 20 years; Harvard's is essentially unchanged. For, again, reasons, these schools have found the idea of doubling or tripling their undergraduate enrollment, despite ballooning applications, impossible. Which means of course Microsoft can't hire from Stanford alone. So they don't, and they have learned what other schools deliver talent, and no longer need Stanford alone. The decline of Ivy Power is in this sense mathematical - if a signal of quality refuses to grow to meet demand, of course other signals will emerge.

I therefore personally think, while minor, the Ivy+ schools are experiencing declining status, have been for a while, and will continue to do so (though there are offsetting trends not mentioned here btw). But its structural way more than cultural.

#Do not take anything here as a moral/value judgement of any specific group of course - its all from the analytical lens

[stelladess]

On power creep, card games (mostly as an example) and gacha. Also how to prioritize what characters/cards to try and get. Kinda felt the discussion around power creep in the context of gacha is often kind of... incendiary and not very helpful, we are all here to have a good time.

So, this was mostly some stuff I have been thinking about in relation to Arknights, because I do not play Star Rail as seriously and play no other gachas then those two. I have played the yu-gi-oh card game since I was a little kid (some of my earliest memories is learning the game from my brothers or playing Kaiba the revenge on PC) so I am coming at this from a primarily TCG perspective and with the prior background of "has played game which has been made unrecognizable by power creep, and still loved playing it." So obviously, this already predisposes me to not see power creep as the biggest deal.

So... first of all, the incentives that causes power creep! Well this is pretty straightforward, the way a trading card game or a gacha makes money is by making you want to spend money on new cards/characters. You also need to have a solid team or deck as a whole, usually you cannot just brute force your way on a single powerful card or character. As a result to prevent players from just getting one strong team/deck and then never updating again is why we end up with power creep, since the option of just outright banning cards tends to piss people off even more and is straight up not a thing they do in gacha games. As a result, since players will usually not want to spend money/pulls on a character who will not improve their team/deck, especially when its so often chance based what you even get, it means that to make people keep pulling packs you gotta upgrade the power over time of new units. Generally the developers want to keep this at a slower pace, since it feels bad if someone gets a great character/card and then one month later they are weak, and if people feel like what they put in do not pay off they will not keep playing. But occasionally there are bigger bursts of power creep to kind of bring the state of the game to a new level, often brought on by accidentally making something too strong, at least that is how I think this goes from my experience. But for example, if when Typhon came out her damage was worse or just on par with Rosa, how many would have pulled for her? Sure you´d get some who would because they like her story, personality, design, etc. But not that many would have if we are being completely honest here.

This is not to say that power creep cannot be a problem, especially if too severe, as already touched on earlier it feels really bad when your favorites no longer hold up. I just want to highlight that it is an inherent part of the game that cannot really be avoided. It can also add a big pressure to feel like you have to keep up by getting all the new characters or cards, which can cause a lot of stress due to the random nature of who you get. Which is where the other thing I wanted to talk about comes in....

You do not need every strong or limited character. And in fact you wont use most of them because you have finite team space. In a trading card game you focus in on a playstyle you like, or a few if its affordable enough, and then focus on building and enhancing those instead of getting every good card in the game. I think this is the healthiest way to view it in a gacha too. Prioritize who suits your playstyle and your team, or to fill weak spots you got (or you just like as a character of course). You do not need all the top tier characters in the game. You can skip multiple top tier characters in fact and still do just fine, these games are not balanced around the assumption you have *every* single one of the best characters or cards. And in fact, having to slowly make adjustments to better suit your needs is, to me at least, one of the most fun parts. And a lot of the strategy and fun of these kinds of games disappear if you have access to all the strongest options and can just brute force things. It is not healthy for your mental state to fret over having to have all the best options and it makes the game less fun, to me at least. These games assume you only have maybe half of the top tier options, and you can beat pretty much everything with that if you put some effort into strategizing, which is fun~!

#arknights #i think tagging it as arknights is appropriate here at least? #my “gambling preys on people in bad ways” vs how the limitations caused by the randomness adds a fun level of strategy for me opinions clas

[illputdownmyrootswhenimdead]

the internet is a stupid place because you can see someone get accused of "openly supporting child porn" just because they like. post their works on ao3

#thats not what that means. do you know what words mean? #are there some things on ao3 that people shouldn’t be posting? maybe so #but there’s a hell of a leap between ‘fictional story involving fictional characters with fictional events happening’ #and ‘irl minors being exploited for real CP’ #using a website ≠ supporting CP #i think it’s uh. how you say. really stupid #dove talks #the fictional content you write and enjoy don’t indicate your morals #like if that was the case i guess im a serial killer because i enjoy creating and consuming bloody and sometimes graphic horror media #and yes of course you have to be responsible with what content you consume. but that doesn’t mean cutting out anything morally challenging #and only consuming ‘safe/good’ media #that helps nothing. it’s good to consume media that isn’t ‘safe’ sometimes #the belief that the fictional media you consume is equivalent to your morals is how we get people saying if you read a book like lolita and #enjoy it in any way. that you’re a bad person and obviously want to do bad things #when lolita is from the perspective of a predator and he’s actually the bad guy there #so of course his behavior is excused in his own perspective #but people who read the book can figure out with critical thinking that hes wrong #it’s the same thing. if you write a character who’s a bad person who does bad things it doesn’t mean you want to do that. #this is very. very simple stuff. but i see grown adults saying that if you write and enjoy ‘dark’ media #you obviously want to do those bad things #which is. genuinely so stupid #like i said. if that was true. i would be a serial killer. because i enjoy violent horror. #it’s stupid #delete later maybe

[bylertruther]

do you ever think about how will probably wishes he was braver?

that he could tell mike the truth about himself without having to speak in code. that he could stick to his guns when he's been wronged and stand up for himself rather than tucking tail and turning the other cheek. that he could be less shy, less sensitive, less cowardly, and maybe then his loved ones wouldn't forget about him as often as they do.

maybe then they would pick him first, rather than leaving him for last. maybe then they would want to hang out with him and hear what he has to say. maybe then they would treat him like they used to, like he can still take care of himself just like they can, instead of like a fragile little thing that they pick up only when they need him. maybe then they would care about him as much as he cares about them. maybe then he wouldn't doubt that it could all come crashing down once they know who he really is, and always has been, because the rest of him would've been enough.

like, maybe he wishes he didn't freeze or run away so much. maybe he wishes he wasn't so afraid all the time, of every little thing. that he could be brave like mike, el, or his mom. i mean, el's been through so much, too. why can't he be more like her? why does he have to hide behind her? he hides behind her when the monsters come crawling back, and he hides behind her when he can't bring himself to say what he really means—even after getting on her case about it.

he spent so much time on that painting. he didn't let anyone see it—it was that special to him. why couldn't he own up to that? there's no monster in the van with him; it's just him and mike and this painting of the party, nothing inherently incriminating or romantic, and still—he can't help himself. he retreats back into the shadow, shrinks into himself, and tells lie after lie to the person that he never lies to, that he knows doesn't fucking deserve that, just because he's too scared.

of course he'd feel like a mistake sometimes. of course he'd hate who he is (if That script is to be believed), when he can't even talk to the one person that would understand without lying straight to his face, over and over again, like a fucking hypocrite. of course he'd feel so lost without the person that tells him it's okay to be this way and shows him that there is indeed strength in it. of course he'd hate who he is when he's encouraging someone to be true and speaking about their courage, all while being incapable of taking his own advice, and giving the credit for all of his love and efforts and emotions to someone else.

so many people died to bring him back, so many people died just because he didn't stay dead when maybe he should have, and for what? so that he can continue to hide rather than live his life? so that he can turn into a "worse" version of himself? so that he can live in fear? so that he can continue to ache for a past that he can never return to, while everyone else moves forward and berates him for not doing the same? time stopped in the upside down when will went missing, and he's been stuck there ever since, too. too much has happened for him to move on from. too much has changed—he's changed. he's too different now, in every way, and the older he gets the more clear it becomes.

of course he'd feel like a mistake. of course he'd hate who he is. he's the common denominator here: in his loneliness and in this war. the boy who came back to life when others didn't. the boy that got possessed and couldn't fight it. the boy that turned into a liar and a coward and must learn to live with it, even if it's at his own expense. the boy that can't let go of the past and whom the past won't let go of either, because even after everything, he's still connected to this great evil that won't let him go. they got it out of him, and yet the tether remains, because of-fucking-course it would.

just—why? why him? why can't anything ever go right with him? why is he always the outlier? i think that overwhelming amount of fear, shame, grief, guilt, exhaustion, and loneliness would wear anyone down, let alone a teenager that never asked for any of it and has experiences so unfathomably unique that the only other people that could have possibly understood are literally dead.

#will byers #byler #mine #long post #will #anyway. this is how i always interpreted the i hate WHO i am line especially in conjunction with the word ''mistake'' + being different #within the context of EVERYTHING that's happened to will and continues to happen to him and how unique it is to him in this narrative #bc rly. if you were will.... wouldn't you feel like a mistake? even outside of that outside of the supernatural i'm speaking to my #friends that have ''Something Wrong'' with them. when something happens to you and you're not the same after and you're surrounded #by people who are able to move on and be normal—don't you ever have those moments where you feel like a mistake? when you're #growing up and still interested in your same old interests but your friends start moving on and then you see that they went back to #those interests in your absence—don't you feel like you were the problem then? when people are able to be brave and you can't #find it within yourself to overcome your fear—don't you hate that feeling? don't you feel that negativity towards yourself when you #know that you SHOULD do something but you can't bring yourself to and it works against yourself? like. everything that has happened #to will E V E R Y T H I N G !!!!!!!!!!!!! can easily make anyone no matter what part of him you relate to the most understand that #u kno wht i mean? anyway. i jus wanted to bring this up bc his life is a fucking tragedy even without the gay stuff n his current pov on th #and the way that That conversation always centers on fear and bravery it's like. obviously being gay is not easy in that era but i don't #think that line is ''i hate being gay'' with no factoring in of the great many things that have happened to him which alienate him further #as well as with how he does want mike to know and his alan turing poster and his talk with jonathan etc etc #his conflict has always centered around how other people treat him and his issue with that bc that's what makes him feel bad #that just because he's different that doesn't mean that he's Different and must be treated as such #he's different and has people that make him feel BETTER for it like look at s2 for example all of those talks abt using what he perceives #as a weakness abt himself as a strength that no one else can bring to the table. and in s3 when he still believed in being a nerd #and never getting girlfriends etc but when it came from mike thts when he called himself stupid n started down this path bc now #there's that sprinkle of doubt. n tht doubt is the scariest thing in the world—understandably so #also. he literally has an evil monster in his brain like bdkfjhsbkdjhfbskj IT'S JUST A LOT. #he is different for many reasons and has even more reasons to hate Who he is the kind of person that he is #jus my take 😁👍

[viviraptor]

one art thing that keeps making me want to pull my hair out is when ppl post a drawing and immediately call it bad/mention its flaws in the caption. whatever you think you're doing with that i can assure you it's not working

#vivi.txt #listen to me. putting my hands on your shoulders. #i know you think calling your art bad makes you sound humble and relatable and funny but that is not how it looks to other people. #i'm going to be harsh for a second it sounds like your self esteem is low and you're looking for interaction out of pity. #BUT YOU HAVE TO LISTEN i know this because i did it too!!!! #saying those things over and over made me believe they were true. and a lack of interaction made it feel like others were agreeing with me #and maybe they are! when you mention something's flaws to someone they're obviously gonna look for them and notice them #and they might just ignore your stuff BECAUSE of that #and whatever notes you do get you've conditioned yourself to believe that they came out of pity for you which FEELS TERRIBLE #you have to get out of the habit of putting down your work. you don't even have to love it you don't have to think it's perfect #but your own words are is going to influence how others perceive it and not always in a good way!! #plus whatever mistake you wanted to mention would probably be totally ignored by others if you don't say anything. streisand effect #JUST PLEASE BE KIND TO YOURSELF. PEOPLE WILL MATCH YOUR ENERGY AND BE KIND TO YOU IN RETURN OKAY. PROMISE

[goldkirk]

.

#I am struggling so hard to pinpoint where the lines are in discussions of situations like the franke and hildebrandt behaviors #because like ok #people keep being so outraged and angry and baffled that they viewed the kids as #deliberately willful and disobedient #and then transitioned into believing them to be infected with evil and or influenced or possessed by demons or under satanic influence #and that’s where everyone is like HOW COULD THEY THINK THIS HOW COULD THEY TELL THEM THAT HOW COULD THEY ETC ETC #and that’s where everyone loses me #like yeah. of course it’s wrong. of course it’s damaging and shitty. but like. what in the world is everyone so shocked and upset by #about that concept (not the physical abuse it caused obviously) #how are you shocked. how are you shocked? it’s just the logical conclusion of believing children have disobedient evil wills #like if you assume evil you’re only going to escalate from there. OBVIOUSLY #I don’t understand how it’s different #where do things cross these lines? no one explains that to me #normal life as usual while tons of kids including me spend years or decades believing we’re evil and under stubborn satanic influence #but in one of the rare situations where it rises to public awareness suddenly everyone is shitting bricks over it #I want those kids drowned in love forever and I wish it never happened to them and their situation #was definitely so so so extreme and severe and I am so glad R was so brave and desperate and got them out #but like. how is everyone so shocked #this is standard. this is common. there’s a huge subculture of people doing and believing this shit #like why is it different just because this case is so visible #so like how is it so hard for people to grasp that this is a widespread issue #I don’t understand #of COURSE it’s wrong to do to someone but like #so many parents and adults do so many of the things these two did just less #fewer hours. less intensely. not in a desert. not with handcuffs and shit. etc. #where’s the line legally? where’s the line culturally? #like how am I supposed to grasp that it’s not a problem until it’s at some level that #I know it’s all Bad but I mean in terms of when the populace starts to mass-care