Dash of Mystery to go with Misery

Damian: I am studying you.

Tim: That's somehow worse than the staring.

Damian: Drake, I have come to a realization.

Tim: Oh no.

Damian: Your continued survival is statistically improbable.

Tim: Wow. Thanks.

Damian: I am serious.

Tim: So am I.

Damian: You consume caffeine instead of nutrients.

Tim: Coffee is a nutrient.

Damian: It is not.

Tim: Agree to disagree.

Damian: You sleep approximately once every lunar cycle.

Tim: That's not true.

Damian: Last week I observed you asleep in a chair for fourteen minutes.

Tim: See? I sleep.

Damian: That was not sleep. That was your body temporarily surrendering.

Tim: Tomato, tomahto.

Damian: Those are the same word.

Tim: Exactly.

Damian: Your logic is a plague upon this household.

Tim: Yet here I am.

Damian: That is precisely the mystery.

Tim: Are you done?

Damian: No.

Tim: Of course not.

Damian: Yesterday I found you drinking coffee while holding a second coffee.

Tim: One was backup coffee.

Damian: Explain the third coffee.

Tim: Emergency coffee.

Damian: And the fourth?

Tim: Emotional support coffee.

Damian: Drake.

Tim: Damian.

Damian: That cannot be healthy.

Tim: Neither is fighting crime dressed as a bird.

Damian: Touché.

Tim: Thank you.

Damian: However, there is another matter.

Tim: Why does that sound threatening?

Damian: Because it is.

Tim: Great.

Damian: I have discovered your search history.

Tim: You WHAT?

Damian: I was using the Batcomputer.

Tim: That's not an explanation.

Damian: The point remains.

Tim: Why were you looking through my search history?

Damian: I was not.

Tim: Then how—

Damian: It appeared before me.

Tim: Define "appeared."

Damian: You left twelve tabs open.

Tim: Ah.

Damian: Drake, why were you searching "can a human survive entirely on coffee and spite"?

Tim: Research.

Damian: Why did you search it seventeen times?

Tim: Thorough research.

Damian: Why was one of the tabs a forum titled "I Haven't Slept Since 2018 And Here's Why"?

Tim: Community outreach.

Damian: Why did you bookmark it?

Tim: Networking.

Damian: You are impossible.

Tim: You noticed just now?

Damian: Father should take you to a physician.

Tim: The physician would just tell me to sleep.

Damian: Because you need sleep.

Tim: That's just one doctor's opinion.

Damian: Every doctor would say that.

Tim: We don't know that.

Damian: We absolutely know that.

Tim: You can't prove it.

Damian: I hate arguing with you.

Tim: That's because I'm winning.

Damian: You are not.

Tim: Agree to disagree.

Damian: Stop saying that.

Tim: Agree to disagree.

Damian: Drake.

Tim: Wayne.

Damian: We have different last names.

Tim: Not emotionally.

Damian: What does that even mean?

Tim: Nobody knows.

Damian: Sometimes I wonder if your brain functions differently from everyone else's.

Tim: It does.

Damian: That was not a compliment.

Tim: I know.

Damian: I genuinely fear what goes on inside your head.

Tim: Mostly spreadsheets.

Damian: That's somehow believable.

Tim: And conspiracy theories.

Damian: Less believable.

Tim: About our family.

Damian: More believable.

Tim: For example, I have a chart tracking how often Dick says "trust me" before something goes horribly wrong.

Damian: There is a chart?

Tim: Several.

Damian: Show me.

Tim: Absolutely not.

Damian: Why not?

Tim: Because you're in the charts.

Damian: …

Tim: …

Damian: How many charts?

Tim: Twenty-three.

Damian: Twenty-three?

Tim: Twenty-four if you count the pie chart.

Damian: There is a pie chart about me?

Tim: Everyone gets a pie chart.

Damian: Why?

Tim: Data visualization.

Damian: What is my pie chart measuring?

Tim: Reasons you have threatened violence.

Damian: That should not require a pie chart.

Tim: That's what I thought.

Damian: …

Tim: …

Damian: How many categories?

Tim: Forty-one.

Damian: FORTY-ONE?

Tim: In my defense, a large percentage is "Drake annoyed me."

Damian: That is a valid category.

Tim: It is the largest category.

Damian: As it should be.

Bruce, walking into the room: Why is there a laminated pie chart labeled "Causes of Damian's Murder Threats"?

Tim: Because organization is important.

Damian: Because Drake has finally lost what little sanity he possessed.

Bruce: That's not an answer.

Tim: Agree to disagree.

Bruce: I'm taking away your printer.

but then you look at jiang cheng's actions instead, and it turns out this guy's actually busting his ass really hard for his loved ones? wei wuxian gets beaten by gusu lan, and jiang cheng carries him back. wei wuxian and lan wangji get trapped in the murder turtle cave, and jiang cheng runs for seven days without rest to rescue them. jiang cheng and jiang yanli secretly visit wei wuxian in yiling. helicopter-parent jiang cheng goes charging up dafan mountain the moment jin ling sends a distress signal flare. jiang cheng goes running after jin ling whenever he gets into trouble. when jin ling cries, he cries to jiang cheng. and - of course - jiang cheng only got his core melted in the first place because he led the wen patrol away to save wei wuxian.

what's interesting is that, whenever jiang cheng is saying or doing something cruel, the narration always adds a few extra sentences describing how cruel jiang cheng is being. an aside about sect leader jiang's infamous ruthlessness, wei wuxian's snarky commentary about how jiang cheng can never let a grievance go, or just a description of the vicious sneer twisting jiang cheng's face - the narration never just lets jiang cheng's actions or words stand on their own.

And Magneto is like "I see. Whatever will I do."

When I was recently invited by a queer student group to give a reading at their college, it was faggots who got angry at me after I read from my book Deviant Propulsion. One young man angrily confronted me, “The things you write are not making room for discussion or acceptance! My parents love and accept me, but they would NEVER accept the things you write in your book!” Hmm. How weird to be in this position, I thought, but decided to say what I felt was best. “First of all, your parents SHOULD love and accept you, so stop giving them brownie points for something they SHOULD do! Second, this is your world too, stop walking on eggshells and take up some space! And not only that, but do you realize you’re asking me to write different books for the love of your parents? You need to get off that shit right away and get crazy and open to the possibilities of your life!”

When I was twenty, everybody hated us, and in many ways I can look back on that now and realize how great it was for me. Never once have I written a poem or anything else with the love and acceptance from others in mind—my writing is mine, and has always been mine! Society’s hatred has kept me true to my creative punch. But how do I get young faggots to realize that this time of assimilation means that we need to become even angrier and more rebellious and creative so we can change the grim, apathetic direction in which we’re all headed?

So much attention and so many resources now go towards creating a pro-gay military, and this has brought us a horrifying sense that we need to serve, we need to sacrifice, in order to be loved and accepted. FUCK ALL THAT! Being queer in this brutally homophobic world is more than enough sacrifice! And with the pro-gay military also comes the ever streamlined pro-military gay body, worked on obsessively, a machine for the common good of the state. It’s never been more unacceptable to be fat, and no one knows this more than fat faggots like me. Being fat these days is not just unacceptable because it’s unappealing and gross to mainstream society, but it’s also now seen as contrary to the very movement for acceptance. The mainstream war machine regiments our appearances, actions, and lives. Fat bodies do not fit into military-issue battle fatigues!

An old friend asked me once, “Doesn’t it disturb you that men only want to be with you because you’re fat?”

“NO! I LOVE IT! How about your boyfriend? Would he like it if you got fat?”

“NO! He would LEAVE ME!”

"Ah, I see! Doesn’t it disturb you that he only wants to be with you because you’re skinny?”

My friend laughed, “OK, you got me!” His mouth watered as I drank my delicious chocolate milk shake. He loved chocolate milk shakes, but would only drink them vicariously through me. While others live in fear at the gym, I’m eating a cream-filled cannoli with a smiling man’s hard cock hiding inside. Our love truly is free because it’s unsanctioned! The Joy of Gay Sex has no chapter for us, and I’m glad! Fuck the experts and their claustrophobic parameters!

You don’t know true freedom until you don’t want what they want you to want. Coming from white trash has advantages people with money don’t seem to understand. For years I’ve watched friends whose parents are doctors and bankers live in fear (even while rebelling) that they’re not good enough, not achieving enough, not clean enough, and especially not thin enough. The quest for socially-acceptable body fat ratio has never been discussed in my family, too consumed with bill collectors and police reports and how the judge will react.

When I escaped rural poverty for life in Philadelphia I was still a kid, skinny and conventionally cute, and I made friends with guys my age who were turning tricks for quick cash. My first boyfriend in the city was a coke dealer who kept me out of the skin trade, kept me in parties, kept me high and frantic. When he went to prison, I was lucky enough to fall into friendship with a group of vegans and macrobiotic spiritualists. For ten years my life revolved around eating well, animal rights, paganism; it was a beautiful ten years.

When I started working at Giovanni’s Room, the queer bookstore in Philadelphia, my diet became more vegetarian than vegan, and I started to gain weight. There was plenty of talk about this from customers, and especially my faggot friends who warned, “You better be careful, you’re getting FAT!” One regular customer who had a crush on me came into the store drunk one evening to stroke my cheek and tell me, “If you lost forty pounds you’d be my ideal!” And I said, “Oh really? How much do you weigh?” He beat his chest, “I’M A HUNDRED SIXTY POUNDS OF PURE MUSCLE!” I nodded and said, “Well, if YOU lost a hundred sixty pounds you’d be MY ideal!” He didn’t get it, standing there drunk and confused in his self-centered fantasy, as though I should have been grateful that he told me the secret to winning the trophy of his big hard cock.

They didn’t seem to understand that I didn’t care, and never had cared about my looks. And what they also didn’t seem to register was that there are a lot of faggots who love fat men. And there are precious few of us fat faggots to go around. While my friends were warning me to be careful, lest I lose love, they were missing the simple fact that love is for everyone! At the bookstore, the guys buying the fat porn like Bulk Male and all the other blubber-zines were starting to give me the glad eye. Hmm, it was something new, and I felt adventurous and titillated.

Suddenly, and I mean suddenly, my dance card was very full—being a self-assured fat gay man made me an overnight rock star! Now men bake me endless chocolate cupcakes, make me peanut butter cream sushi, and prepare my favorite deep fried vegan ham and noodles dishes. They indulge me, I indulge them—full, fully loved. Food and sex over long blissful nights have plucked my fat flower from the massive bouquet of cultural shame and released me in ways I never knew when I was thinner and with men who were obsessed with thinness.

There are faggots I know who are only attracted to the fat Elvis, and you feel the soft purr as they talk about His chubby neck and breasts. Some people get angry when debating how long Elvis was fat, furiously whittling it down to six months as though the dead are anything but thin. Let me assure you that a photograph of the fat Elvis will not evaporate from your wall in six months. Yes, you can jerk off to it for the rest of your life, I give you my word!

Existing simultaneously outside queer and straight norms is liberating, and constantly exciting in ways I had never anticipated. The tedious, predictable world behind us, we have it our way—and I mean that sexually as well as politically! Outside the respectable domain, the vantage of an unjust world is always clearest."

Golp: a roundel purpure.

Roundels are circles in heraldry. They are named according to their color, which also has its own lingo. Let’s meet them!

Bezant: roundel or (gold) 🟡

Plate: roundel argent (silver) ⚪️

Torteau: roundel gules (red) 🔴

Pomme: roundel vert (green) 🟢

Hurt: roundel azure (blue) 🔵

Golp: roundel purpure (purple) 🟣

Pellet: roundel sable (black) ⚫️

This is very common in heraldry and also in English, due to that whole period when France ruled over England for centuries (the Norman Conquest) and had a huge influence on English vocabulary even to this day.

🟡bezant = from Old French besant, from ‘a Byzantine gold coin’, due to it looking like a gold circle (these coins widely circulated throughout Europe due to most countries not having any gold coins of their own, despite what medieval fantasy will tell you).

🟡or = from French or ‘gold’.

⚪️plate = from the English word, here meaning a ‘silver/white disc’.

⚪️argent = from French argent ‘silver’/‘money’.

🔴torteau = French-esque word meaning ‘little round cake / loaf / tart’, since it's a red disk.

🔴gules = from Old French gueles ‘red’, obscure today.

🟢pomme = from French pomme ‘apple’.

🟢vert = from French vert ‘green’.

🔵hurt = possibly from English ‘hurtleberry’ or from French heurt ‘bruise’.

🔵azure = from English ‘azure’ (a sky-blue color; pigment or paint made of powdered lapis lazuli), from Old French azur (12c.), from a French person's misreading of Medieval Latin lazur, from Greek lazour, from Persian lajward, from Lajward, a place in Turkestan mentioned by Marco Polo where lapis lazuli was collected.

🟣golp = origins unclear; often linked to Spanish golpe ‘blow’/‘wound’, hence a purple bruise.

🟣purpure = same root as English “purple”, from Latin purpura ‘purple dye’/‘shellfish from which purple was made’, from Greek porphyra ‘purple’ (origin uncertain).

⚫️pellet = from English ‘pellet’ and French pastille (same meaning), maybe referring to bullets?

⚫️sable = named after the dark fur of the animal of the same name.

Batman (taken back): You have contingencies dedicated to me?

Jim: Yes... Are you mad?

Batman excused himself, walking a few feet away.

Red Robin: He's refusing to show it, but he's actually glad you consider him such a good friend.

Jim (surprised): Oh... Okay. This isn't even the weirdest reaction I've gotten from him.

Disciple: Head Disciple Shen should watch who he associates with. I've heard that Shen Jiu has been going behind the sects back to fuck whores

Shen Yuan: Well if Shen-shidi is fucking your mother, then maybe she'll end up giving birth to a better son!

If you read the link the company does of course say they’re replacing the existing forums with new ones, and I’m sure no one would say the old ones didn’t perhaps need a lil bit of a glow up, some tech debt fixing… but there’s a few key notes in there:

They are NOT carrying over any history, data messages etc. from the old forums

They are NOT archiving, retaining or in any way saving the existing forums in any way

They have NOT provided any reasoning past ‘as part of continued efforts to support developers’

As an offhand, moderate read, this sounds to me like a desire for some change in the forums but deciding nuking everything is less expensive than rebuilding and carrying over info.

If I’m cynical, and likely realistic? Probably to increase sales of their latest GameMaker software by making it inherently more difficult for someone getting the older software for cheap pushing it to its limits. The amount of institutional knowledge on those forums is absurd.

And even if it is a benign reason, it’s still terrible because what do you mean you’re doing this with no recourse or potential for change? You sell software that runs on community goodwill? In an era where people are pulling away to open source software?? Crazy.

There are yeeeaaars of answers, plugins, suggestion, community built up on those forums - I’ve used the em to learn and grow my own skillet!!! And soon it won’t exist.

At the very least, they gave a ‘heads up’ - the deletion occurs mid December, so archiving by the community is possible from now. It’s just absurd that it needs to happen in the first place.

https://web.archive.org/web/20260000000000*/https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/

https://rpgmakerchat.com/

https://github.com/imraf/rpgmakerweb-archive/