At Voxtek, We Strive For Nothing Less Than Perfection ~

surface is beautiful...do you feel approaching nightmare?

IM SHAKING AND CRYING

👁️👁️

Y'all

Im not on tiktok and never have been, but I downloaded RedNote just to see what is up, and I am witnessing something truly amazing

The Chinese user community is giving the American tiktok refugees an overwhelmingly warm welcome, meanwhile the American users seem to have collectively agreed that not only will they not let the app be taken over with English and they will provide Mandarin subtitles for everything, they are LEARNING MANDARIN. Ive scrolled through so many videos of Americans offering greetings in Mandarin to try to acclimate to the new environment and be respectful, and speakers of both languages are posting lots of tutorials on language basics and internet slang in Mandarin

My God, there is an AMAZING outpouring of curiosity and delight among everyone to learn about each others cultures and daily lives. People are posting videos of landscapes, cities, towns, and natural areas in USA and China, posting recipes and traditional foods, vlogs of everyday life, and reaching out to find people with similar hobbies.

And it's not just young people! There are loads of videos from middle-aged American guys who have come to post about fishing or motorcycles and are now happily chatting with Chinese users sharing the same interests using Google translate

One American guy who was like. in his 60's had a comment on one of his videos that was like "Red Neck?" and he replied "Yes!" and I just about fucking lost it

Also the Chinese users love, and I mean LOVE, Luigi Mangione. He is apparently broadly adored in China. There is SO much fanart and SO many edits.

There are many threads initiating Chinese users to ask questions of American users about the USA, and vice versa, and everyone on both sides is clearing up a lot of misconceptions. Some of the questions I saw a lot from Chinese users were: "Is it true that American parents kick you out of the house as soon as you turn 18" (not often, but sometimes) "Do you all really wear shoes in bed" (NO!!! Apparently a lot of characters in American sitcoms are shown lying in bed with shoes on which I never noticed before!) and "are there really guns everywhere" (yes).

For the most part Chinese content creators seem just overwhelmed by the sudden influx of hundreds of followers that are super enthusiastic about what they're doing. A lot of them have made posts about how initially they thought the uptick in follower count was some kind of error, or that there was some kind of joke or prank, but then they realized the interest and enthusiasm was genuine and now they're welcoming all the newcomers.

I found several posts by Chinese users saying that this felt like a really profound historical moment, where these previously separated worlds are suddenly smashing together and suddenly there is freedom to learn about each other's cultures and connect. One of them said something along the lines of "This is a 21st century Tower of Babel and even though I'm an atheist I hope God lets this tower stand." OUGH MY HEART.

The app itself works a little bit like a video-based version of Pinterest. It's not really my thing so I probably won't be on there long term but it's been amazing to see what's happening.

Sleep alone

"Ah, so he is just a boy."

⚠️ Siren

Some people don't get it, but for me, like a BIG part of why I actually ship Billford in a specifically romantic fashion is because well... It just makes everything SO MUCH worse and more painful, doesn't it?

Like the fact that Bill CARED about Ford (and this part is certainly cannon, the romanticness of it might be up for debate, but Bill CARED, Bill LIKED him), the concept that Bill LOVED and still LOVES Ford even after all those years, the fact that Ford is the one person in trillions of years that Bill is open with, and that he can relate to, the one person in the entire multiverse he wants to keep, the one person he loves...

And yet, Bill still hurts him, he still betrays him, he still haunts and abuses him...

It just makes Bill so much worse

He CAN care, he CAN love

But that won't stop him from doing awful, violent, twisted things, even to the one person in the whole universe that actually MATTERS to him.

And that just makes it so much more horrifying and honest to goodness tragic

fanfic writers are so fucking awesome man. they write novel length fics that are sometimes even better than some published bestselling books written by professional writers. like fanfic writers are professional writers to me and they gift us their masterpieces for free. they give us something we can look forward to after a long day. something from which we can seek comfort when life is hard. something that can be our own little getaway. in a world of capitalism, despite everything, they give us all of these for free. like holy fuck. shout out to every fanfic writer. I wish all fanfic writers a very ‘I love you with all my heart and soul. I thank you from the bottom of my heart’

I don't feel like Orion trying to stop D-16 from killing Sentinel was because Orion felt like Sentinel deserved to live. I mean, he crashed an entire train into the guy just minutes before.

Imagine you have a chill best friend who is the voice of reason between the two of you, but he goes through a trauma that turns him into a roiling pit of rage. You keep reaching out to him and he keeps shoving you away. He is suddenly getting fusion cannon boners from beating the shit out of potential allies, and you have to beg him not to blow said ally's head off. Your friend frames this restraint as "the last time I will show mercy."

When Orion says "Don't be like Sentinel", I don't think he means "Um, have you considered that ACTUALLY this is not The Proper Way to change the government?", I think he means "You are losing yourself and it's scaring me and it's hurting you."

He was not trying to save Sentinel, he was trying to save D-16.

the most annoying people are people who don't understand storytelling. they be like "oooo how convenient that this thing happened to the main character in the very beginning". yeah no shit. that's why the story begins here