#sorry i really went off on one here!!!

[youssefguedira]

V, JoeNicky & Nile

V. An abandoned or empty place.

When Joe pulls the sheet off the couch it kicks up enough dust that it makes Nile sneeze. The couch underneath is old, wooden frame rotting, fabric stained and full of holes where moths have eaten away at it. 

“Sorry,” Joe says to Nile when she finally manages to get the sneezing under control. “Didn’t realise it was that bad.” He puts his hands on his hips and looks down at the couch. Nile looks it over.

“There’s no saving that,” she says, wiping at her eyes. She can heal from falling over ten stories, but she can’t get away from allergies.

Joe frowns. “I liked that couch.”

The house is older than anywhere else they’ve brought her, and has been abandoned for long enough that it’s falling apart. But through some trick of posing as their own sons, or something, Joe and Nicky still own it, even if there’s a giant hole in the roof and all the windows are broken. Why they’d decided to come back here, Nile doesn’t know, but it’s a nice enough area, and a good distraction from, well. Everything. Growing back a leg, she’s discovered, is not fun. 

From one of the other rooms – she thinks it’s the kitchen, she’s not actually sure where Nicky had wandered to – there’s the sound of something breaking and crashing to the ground, and a muffled curse. 

Joe makes a questioning noise in the vague direction of the kitchen. A few moments later, Nicky appears in the doorway, covered in dust. “I am okay,” he says. “But I think we will need to go out to eat tonight.”

“Nothing?” 

Nicky shakes his head. “Unless you want to start a fire and go hunt some rabbits.”

Joe grins. “Just like old times, right?”

Nile shakes her head firmly, which makes Nicky smile. She loves them, but there’s no way they’re doing that. 

“We can probably clear out enough space in here,” Joe says, gesturing to the floor. “Get the sleeping bags out of the car. Probably have to start a fire anyway, but…”

Nile looks around again while Joe says something to Nicky in Arabic that makes him laugh. The house is falling apart, sure, but it’s structurally stable, and the bones are all there. It could be something. They’ve got time to make it something. 

Nicky is the one who goes for pizza in the end – he doesn’t trust Nile and Joe to order it if left to their own devices – while they try to clear out a space in the living room. Eventually, though, after Nile has another sneezing fit, Joe suggests they just take the sleeping bags outside instead, which works out a lot better. He sets about starting a fire with practiced ease while Nile sets out the sleeping bags around it. They’re far enough away from civilisation that she can’t hear cars passing by, which is kind of surreal, and the stars are brighter than she’s ever seen them. 

When Nicky gets back, two boxes balanced on one arm and a bottle of wine in the other, he looks over their makeshift camp and laughs. “Just like old times, then?” he asks.

Joe grins. “Except we have pizza.”

“And actual sleeping bags,” Nile says.

“Ah, these modern inventions could never quite match the comfort of a pile of furs,” Joe says wistfully. Nile gives him a look. She’s ninety percent sure that one’s bullshit, but she can never quite tell with him. 

Nicky sets down the pizza boxes, and jogs back to the car to grab the pack of plastic wine glasses they’d bought before they got here. 

“We should’ve bought marshmallows,” Nile says. “Could have made s’mores.”

“Well, we’ll have to go to the hardware store tomorrow anyway,” Joe points out. “And I think it’ll be a little while before we can actually sleep in there.”

“Tomorrow, then?”

“Tomorrow,” Nicky agrees.

[alongtidesoflight]

so here's my honest thoughts on dragon age: the veilguard, after ~40 hours of playing. i finished the main quest after having finished all companion quests and major faction quests. just to clear up what content i saw, i played as an elven transmasc rook who is a member of the lords of fortune. he romanced lucanis (although after finishing the game i'm now leaning towards taash). i don't know what's happening in playthroughs that have a different race, gender identity, romance or faction going on.

full spoilers ahead, i mean it. don't read further if you want to avoid them. i don't want complaining about it in my asks.

oh and also, if you're worried because of a few negative reviews online i can comfort you by saying don't give a fuck about a certain big name youtuber who is very much tied to bethesda franchises giving this a negative review. i'll explain why.

i'm starting off with the things i liked

the game looks really pretty. i was worried it wouldn't feel like thedas anymore (with them trying to "focus on northern thedas only" i thought they'd make a clear cut in environmental design. they do and they don't. it's complicated. i'll elaborate on it when talking about the negative stuff). anyway it does. minrathous feels like kirkwall. treviso enchanted me like the winter palace did. the hossberg wetlands reminded me of the hinterlands and a couple other inquisition maps. arlathan looked like... arlathan. the crossroads were different, but familiar. overall i like the way it looks and feels. it's thedas, with a twist. it's a good one, and gives everything a solid but unique feel.

combat is top tier. if you're a hardcore dragon age player you WILL miss the tactical aspect of it for a bit, but i promise you, once you're used to the way the combat works, you will be lapping that shit up. and once you get to ability combos you'll mourn the control you used to have over your companions in battle a bit less

the MAIN quest and its story. i expected worse, way worse. and for a while the game even had me tricked (harr harr you'll get it in a second) it is Really That Much Worse. but holy shit was it good. i walked away satisfied ngl.

your choices have SOLID weight. there's consequences, good AND bad. i got minrathous blighted, ruled over by venatori, and the leader of the shadow dragons ultimately died because of my decisions. i made those at the beginning and throughout the game. he died at the end. DAVRIN died because i didn't expect what i was saying to have that much weight. i thought i was in the clear. he had hero status. well turns out, your choices can still get your companions killed even if you do everything right. i fucking love him. he shouldn't have made that sacrifice just because i told him to do everything it takes once.

the inquisitor, morrigan and dorian being there, surprisingly. there's also negatives to this though, see below.

speaking of companions dying and the inquisitor playing a bigger role: the final quest feels like me2's suicide mission. i was blown away by it and the fact that i got to see the results of all my efforts playing out in front of me.

bioware are NOT trying to redeem solas. they love him as a character yes, but i wasn't forced to see any good in him. he betrays you. he fucked my rook over twice. he fucked him over right back, for good this time (the veil wasn't torn down, i anchored it by binding him to it, he's doomed to uphold it). but solas really lives up to his name as the trickster elven god. rip to all the people who grew really attached to him over the years.

varric died. if you like him that's probably as hard reading it as it was watching it. varric died and the game lies about it until the very end. when the realisation hits, it hurts. but in the very best way.

the amount of care they put into gender expression and trans identities this time around. (i'll add onto this with negative points as well too).

rook feels very much ingrained in the world of thedas. he doesn't ask questions that expose the player to lore through dialogue as if he's stepped foot into thedas for the first time. those conversations feel very solid and good. i hope other faction players got as much joy out of this as i did.

and the things i didn't like and boy there's a lot unfortunately

the music. let's just get that out of the way holy shit. it doesn't feel like it belongs in this universe. it gets so incredibly sci-fi-y at times you'd think it's taken straight from mass effect andromeda. there's not a single song unique to veilguard that i really enjoyed. it broke my immersion, real bad. hearing a busker play the tavern songs from inquisition on a lute right after i killed some venatori with wobbly bass songs playing in the background is just odd. weird tonal shift. don't like it. it's made for people who like flashy light-weight cinema.

tevinter nights is required reading. the podcasts are required listening exercises. the game is so fast paced, especially at the start, that there's no time to introduce you to characters and how much weight their names carry in-game. i would not have known who half these people are if i hadn't skimmed over tevinter nights. i'd care even less about them than i already did. there is no time to get properly attached to them. people will act as if you're talking to a legend personified and you'll be thinking man goddamn which chapter of tevinter night were they in again and what did they do???

there's a weird mismatch with the animations. you'll have beautifully fluid ones, like emmrich casting spells. and then you'll have rook's face animating in the most unnatural manner that's sorta reminiscent of mass effect andromeda's "my face is tired" addison, when their emotions SHOULD be landing with the player rn instead.

i'm not vibing with the art style. sometimes it works. most of the time it doesn't. at points i felt like i was watching tangled.

that also brings me to some of the dialogue. same issue. i am watching frozen. i am watching tangled. someone on the writer's team really likes the adorkable trope. bellara is its victim.

for all the talk about identity, bioware sure doesn't like theirs. the grey warden armor got a redesign again and it just makes them look like a generic army. i hate it lol

in general, i don't like the armor design. the wardrobe/appearances system is fine, but it's just not helping if all the armors are just... kinda bland or downight bad looking? and don't get me started on the lords of fortune armor. that is orientalism personified.

the world states should have been carried over, full stop. i know they said they didn't because they want to separate what happens in the north from what happens in the south, which... i could have lived with that. but the inquisitor sends you letters that keep you up to date on... the south of thedas. you learn that there's a blight again, that people are standing strong but it's difficult, denerim's fallen, the rulers are taking care of it, orlais is fighting and they're successful for a while, etc etc. what's good bioware. i thought we don't care about the south this time around. why are you feeding me so much boring generic information. if you're not gonna show any of it and just write letters, then carrying the world state over should not have been an issue. i have a game dev background. those few lines of code would not have broken your budget or pushed your engine's limits. fuck right off.

this gripe of mine carries over to all the cameos. as a lord of fortune you have to deal with isabela a lot. it's fun. i missed her. you get to go drinking with her and taash and bellara! also my hawke romanced her. she's not mentioned once. they had the opportunity to put a sentence or two about her in there with not a lot of effort, trust me.

when varric dies, all she has is a single line about it. for gold, for fortune, for varric. she only says it if you interact with her on your way to the final push. that's not mandatory.

morrigan is there. kieran isn't. the old god soul that mythal and then solas absorbed? who cares at this point, the gods are dead now and solas is locked away for eternity. i suppose? why is morrigan there. she feels unneeded. i wish they'd just left her down south, at least that way i wouldn't have had to witness her god awful redesign.

dorian at least feels as if he belongs in this story. the shadow dragons are a crucial part to protecting minrathous. he's also weirdly underutilised. isabela and morrigan had more lines than him in my playthrough.

on the topic of romance: bro that was underwhelming. no, genuinely. you know when romance picked up a bit? after the point of no return. i heard maybe two lines of companion banter about it before that. maybe i missed something which i honestly doubt, but romance did not play much of a role in lucanis's storyline. i saved his grandmother as he wished me to (and if you read tevinter nights you know she was rather abusive and their relationship not the healthiest) and told him to focus on his family. a reunified family my rook wasn't even introduced to as a partner at the end of all that.

really, do not buy this game if you're only in it for the romances. others might be better, lucanis's basically gave me nothing. except for an outing (the second coffee date i had with him, it was getting repetitive) all of it played out once i committed to the final quest. the sex scene was a fade to black. annoyingly right after davrin died. if you're looking for well paced and good spice, pick up something else. the sweet talk and the final goodbye were nice though.

for all the good the ever-presence of gender identity does, it is brought up in such a disruptive manner too. it doesn't even play out naturally if you CHOOSE the lines that are meant to be said. hearing the words trans and non-binary in this setting doesn't feel right, and i'm saying this as a trans guy. i think it could have been handled more gracefully. the amount of times my rook went "i'm a MAN" as if he's about to start drumming on his chest and roaring any second now got super nerve-grating. "i'm so glad you're into me... the me who is trans. remember?" just. tell me one trans person who'd talk like that to a person they've grown close with and are trying to romance. this game doesn't handle sexuality well, so all this hey my body might not look like the way you're expecting it to look talk amounts to nothing anyway. i feel about this the way i feel about krem: this is partial exposition to trans experiences... packaged up for cis consumption. the ONLY exception to that is interacting with taash. holy shit was all of that heartwarming and bro did it feel good and natural to talk to them about theirs and rook's gender.

rivain and nevarra are new locations added by veilguard. they're also incredibly underwhelming, small and constricted maps. rivain is a coastline with a few ruins. the hall of valor is a partial ruin nestled into a cave on a beach, with a fighting pit. isabela is there in her skimpy outfit commentating your pit fights. that's it. i'm sorry if you were looking for a bustling pirate cove or whatever. you're not gonna get it. the nevarran crypts btw are a long ass dungeon crawl. that's it.

speaking of maps. i thought people were being dramatic when they said you're gonna be fighting the same enemies on them again and again. i thought they were figure of speeching it. they're not. you WILL fight the same amount of enemies. in the same spot. every time you reload the map. best to stay on a map and clear out the enemies and do as much questing on that map as you can before leaving, because you WILL have to do it all over again once you return.

the three choices i made for my inquisitor didn't matter lol she didn't have to face solas and therefore couldn't stop him at any cost as she had sworn (maybe because my rook tricked solas into binding himself to the veil, there was also an option to fight him. would she have stepped in? who knows). blackwall wasn't mentioned. and either her using a small amount of her forces in the final fight was the reason the civilians of minrathous fared so well..... or it just didn't matter. ultimately i think she had very little impact on anything

[askdacast]

"how did the guy with no friends win?"

except, he did have a friend in the end

Pearl, a past winner who was also all alone the entirety of DL and went mad because of it

Pearl, who won because the person who betrayed her at the very start atoned for what he did by sacrificing himself and giving her the win

("I guess I forgive you after all...")

Pearl, who after healing from that betrayal went on to open her heart to alliances in the end (Nosy Neighbors + Grian et. al.) and eventually did find one she could call...family (The Mounders)

Pearl, who was the ONLY one to extend that invitation to the friendless villain ("I guess you found your family after all, Scar")

Because she was the only one who knew what it was like to be all alone, like him

But also come back from that dark place and reach out to someone who suffered just like her

And in the end they became a duo, she even tried to sacrifice her life for that fellow 'undeserving' lonely person, and only didn't because he wanted a 'fair' (for a given definition of that word) fight

Even at the end, Scar's "I'm gonna get you Pearl!" loses just...a tinge of the angry, bitter bloodlust he'd been baring throughout the session, and sounds almost playful

And then "she's dead scar. you won."

He killed the only person left who considered him a friend because she, in a sense, gave her life to him

It didn't start with the duel. It started with her hand of forgiveness.

but also because Scar really did become so much better at pvp like dang his red kills were vicious

[bitchthefuck1]

Who would you cast as Kaz? How about all the Crows?

You're going to be disappointed in this answer, but my preference would be to go with a cast of unknown/newer actors, which inherently means that I can't give you a cast list :/ idk I just feel like that would be the best choice for the story practically and thematically.

That being said, I honestly feel like the best way to adapt soc would be in animation. I know that would literally never happen, but in general when it comes to stories with very vibey worlds and magic systems I feel like animation is almost always the best way to go. It's really easy for the sets and costumes to look cheap or super generic in live action, and that's even more true for any effects for the magic system. Soc has such a unique flavor and atmosphere that even if an adaptation had, like, game of thones money and an insane powerhouse creative team, it's just really hard for me to see it getting done right in live action.

[camgoloud]

he still has his tonsils. by the way if you even care

[moeblob]

OCs today because I really missed them. Since I wanted details still but with less effort (aka no shading) I opted for their DND AU versions.

Not pictured: Paul (a Pauladin if you will) messing up and probably nearly dying for the fifth time.

[nibbelraz]

shang qinghua deserves to be a) squeezed like a stress ball and b) a god who kind of but not really lost control

And now I want to talk about how cool it would be if like uh uh the system and sqh were having custody battles over who has more control over the world and obviously its the system the system is really wierd and thats an entire discussion but qinghua is the author and that's really really important to me he should write stuff into existence I think but also last week I had an idea that went like uh sqh loses more and more power as he changes things, so when he's transmigrated in as a baby he loses a lot of 'power' unintentionally and then when mobei comes in there's a thing and when sy comes in he literally just loses it all and he knows this inst really his story anymore

Aahahaha it's 2am I'm gonna stop yammering now good luck on your future endeavors

Mobei is always squeezing Shang Qinghua like a stress ball but affectionately

I, on the other hand, squeeze him and shake him around like a chew toy

Your idea tho!!!! I'm very interested in that!!!

CUSTODY BATTLE OF POWERS a fitting description

It's kinda like, yeah he was a God of that world because he wrote it out and can change anything on a whim.

But once you're actually a part of that world, well it's a little hard to change it since you're living in it.

I'm really interested in Shang Qinghua slowly but surely realizing he's not really in his own story. Yeah he wrote it yeah he made the character but when does the line between "I wrote this character" and "theyre an in depth person with feelings and lives and to me they were only written in a second but here they're actually someone " blur

He spent his whole second life clinging to everything to live and worrying about that characters future and using everyone around him to save himself

When did he really see these people as...people

A one off character becoming his friend

A minor character dying to advance the plot, does he see the grief? Does he say they're characters to help digest what he's done? He never meant for any of this to be real, so how does he handle it?

Does he finally see everyone as real, or does he simply become a character as well?

[kangaracha]

daffodil + chan

a song

the prompt: daffodil (a god bows before a mortal)

read it on ao3

---

"You have no power over me."

running through his hands like water, and suddenly the earth is not his to control. The skies do not turn with the twist of his head, lightning does not fork in the air when his eyes, dark as night and yet still lit by some unearthly light, fall upon you, his mouth wide as if to gasp for a breath he cannot take-

And yet, still, it shivers down your spine; the magic that draws you here even as you rip it apart, the prize of your conquest to rip the world into two.

"Take it back," he hisses through his teeth, the ground trembling with every syllable that slides down his tongue. You watch his mouth as it forms the words, the flash of teeth behind thin lips reminding you of the way that the swordsman you'd fought through to get here had smiled at you - the last of his seven challenges, the last of his demons, or angels, or citizens of the sprawling, damned city he claimed as his kingdom.

And here you stood, at the pinnacle of the eighth, and stared him in the eye without cringing away because now you knew the truth. Now you knew that what he whispered in the dark was a lie and what you saw with your eyes wasn't always true, and though he may be a god and a king amongst beings that you could never hope to rival, a god can only hold as much power as you give him. A god can only claim dominion over a beast that bowed to his dogma. 

You see now that you are no beast. You are no believer in any lie he utters to the darkness.

"Take it back," he says again, the note of his voice changing. He pleads, his brow furrowing and his shoulders curling in as if waiting for the final blow. "Take it back now, before it's too late."

"I can't," you tell him, and you watch him fall to his knees, and you know that it's wrong and your heart pounds in your chest and it

like the ground does at the impact of his knees, crumbling into the pieces it was in when you first took his hand, alone on the side of the road with only one thing to call your own. And what was that thing, the little warmth you'd held to your chest in the dark and the cold? What had you traded away for the comfort of the house that crumbled around you now? Why had you destroyed him to get it back, where was it now, why did it not appear within his hands at this, the hour of his reckoning?

"Please," he spits into the cold ground, the dirt and the leaves and the curl of ivy that grows up the walls around you, old and ancient and not yet sprouted from its roots all at the same time. His hands curl in the dirt like he can reach down and pull the earth to him, like he can stop the wane of his power if he just tries to hold on a little bit tighter. "I know what you want, and I don't have it. I can't lose-"

Broken, fragile thing. Small god of limited earth, crouched at your feet like he might worship you instead. You'd thought him all-powerful once, and then you'd thought him severe and his servants and beasts and playthings petty, and then you'd thought him

because he'd smiled at you in the garden that bloomed from his own hands when you expressed your desire for a flower to tuck in the braid of your dark hair, and his hand had been soft in yours, and when he looked out across his kingdom and the clamouring faces of the people he'd brought to live there, he'd looked at them the same way that he'd looked at you.

Beneath your foot, the ground cracks, fracturing outwards like a spiderweb. It's your heart, you realise morosely, sinking from your chest and into the depths of the earth, disappearing with whatever he'd taken from you; and it was a wretched thing and it had betrayed you a hundred times over, but you still mourn at the loss of it and all the dreams it had carried with it. It blooms in your flowers in the corners of the room, embeds itself into the land and sings along with the song of his power, a thing you can hear but cannot touch, a beast once born that now does not belong to you.

"I'm sorry," he says, his breath like mist in the cold air, and even without your heart, you can't bear to see him so cold.

Your hands reach for him without permission, your body kneeling in the dirt before you can stand your feet firm upon the earth and refuse to move. He flinches away, but your fingers are soft upon his chin and the curve of his jaw, gentle when they brush the soft dip of his neck. "I only wanted to know what it was," you tell him with a voice that cannot hold itself steady. "I thought if you loved me, you would give it back." It's the only voice you have - you are not like him, or like Felix, speaking with many tongues. You don't have any power of your own.

"It's because I love you that I can't give it back." His voice is hoarse, every word a knife that he swallows without ever once flinching. "It's because I love you that I couldn't tell you what it was."

"But didn't I deserve to know?" you question. "Doesn't my life belong to me?"

Finally, his eyes rise, looking up at you with a fire that belies the cold of his skin. "Of course it does," he gasps, and his hand reaches up, dirt-stained fingers dragging at your cheek. "That's why I gave it to you, and I never asked for anything else."

"But you wouldn't give back what you took in the first place."

The sudden violence of his voice crumbles the walls and fractures the sky, the clouds blooming te dark colours of a bruise. The absence of his hand on your cheek stings in the cold; his face turns away, screwed up in regret and a pain he won't allow you to feel. You lurch forward before he can disappear, drawing him into your arms; stiff shoulders, spine of beaten steel, slow beat of a heart you once held in your hands. 

He'd stood so tall and unmoving in the morning light, when you'd first walked down this path, and now in the dark of the setting sun and the ending of the earth, his weight slumps into your grasp, his resolve melting into the warmth of your body. "I didn't want you to suffer again," he says to the soft cotton of your shirt and the curve of your collarbone, his breath a whisper against your skin. "I couldn't watch that, when you asked me to make sure it would never happen again."

Surprise comes in the pause of your breath and the still of your arms, the jump of a heart you're not sure you still possess. "I asked you to make me forget?" you question the world behind his back, and into your neck, he sighs.

"You couldn't forget," he murmurs. "She was dead before I found you, and when I took her from your arms - you couldn't forget. There was nothing I could do to fix what had been broken. And then you begged me to let you forget, so I remembered her for you." He pauses, his throat hitching like he's swallowing something down. A sob maybe, or the tears he will never let fall. "I can't give her back though. She's not here anymore."

You push him upright, your hands on his shoulders, his neck, his face. Brushing away the hair that falls in his eyes, wiping at the blood that drips from the cut on his cheek. "Why didn't you tell me?" you ask, because the answer is incomprehensible. "Why did you let me go this far?"

"Because I was scared," he admits, and his teeth clench and his spine stiffens against the urge to hide away from you again. "Because I'm a wretched, evil, stupid thing who thinks they can-"

His words die in your throat; vile, wretched things that you store away to spit out later, into the ground where they belong. He is none of that; he is soft, and hesitant, until your fingers find the sharp curve of his hip and the lines of his back, dragging him closer and his lips open like there is nothing in the world to devour but you and

[sciderman]

Sometimes i remember a comics moment i randomly came across somewhere, where Sam Wilson mentiones a musical and Steve Rodgers says he doesn't like musicals, to whitch Sam goes "Guess that means you really are straight" and even tho i don't care about Cap America or the Avengers, the moment stuck in me for that quote by Sam. And like....Sci, any ideas if straight men actually don't like musicals or is that bullshit?

actually i think i know more gay men who hate musicals than i know straight men who hate musicals. i've had a drag queen stop me point blank when i was about to sing a barbra streisand song, and i know so many gays who pointedly hate abba. so based on my experience i think the inverse is true. most of the straight men i know are kind of impartial about musicals, but gay men? hate.

my theory is that a lot of gay men don't want to fall into stereotypes, maybe. but thaaaaat's just a theory! a gay theory.

[hella1975]

going crazy about an oc again. like it's my fault

[wat-zu]

bada bing bada boom hits you with a broom aka your ocs

thx for letting me borrowing them grabs them in my pocket and gives them back to u

Pinkie by @mary-games-and-arts

Avion by @thedancingartist

Cross by @nzn43

Emerald blue by @applesaucify

Dorado by @toon-melody

Alvia by @flairya

[dreamspring]

im really not saying this with any real hate in my heart but. sanji pissed me off so bad for doing that to robin i literally don’t care... if the intention was meant to be ‘oh he relies on her and isn’t afraid to ask for help’ that would be sweet and cute if he literally had just called for her from the BEGINNING. instead of calling her only AFTER black maria beats his ass so bad he can’t bear it anymore and then out of desperation calls her for help. it just. does not make the point i think is trying to be made.

furthermore its just sooo hypocritical that it makes it impossible for me to like this. sanji refuses to fight black maria because of his chivalric code that he would never hurt a woman ok fine! (or not. whatever not the point). but he’s totally okay asking his female crewmate to enter into a life or death situation where she will have to fight for her life because HE got himself into a death trap he refuses to take care of himself because of… his ideology. his ideology that hurting women is bad. which is why he calls robin. a woman. to fight to the death for him. because he won’t take care of his own mess. which he only got into bc he entered a room upon seeing naked women. ok girl.

[crowleys-dark-sunglasses]

I just know season three will have the biggest plan reveal and it's going to shock everyone

Cause I mean think about it, in season one the plan was Armageddon and the war between heaven and hell but that got screwed up thanks to Aziraphale and Crowley.

Season two's plan was unknown until almost the very end when you find out they were planning Armageddon 2.0 which was first foiled by Gabriel, but then once again interrupted by our lovely 'shades of grey' duo when they hid him with their (very importantly noted) 25 lazari miracle.

Now we've got season three which is supposed to be the second coming but there's very obviously going to be more than that because there has to be. The Metatron separated Aziraphale and Crowley for a reason. They very clearly showed that they're powerful when they work together, and that was only with them barely trying. So why exactly is that?

They started season two with Crowley and Aziraphale working together to protect themselves from heaven and ended the season with heaven being the thing that tears them apart and to me this is a giant metaphor or has to have all been planned from the beginning (the ineffable plan)

Just remember, Crowley and Aziraphale aren't the only outliers anymore, we've been shown that others can change too and if the head archangel and grand duke of hell can realize that sides don't matter then so can all the others.

The ineffable plan isn't just some plan for the world, it's a plan to fix a system that's been broken from, as the Almighty said, the very beginning. And it starts, as it will end, with a garden. In this case the garden of Eden.

The first time someone was ever given a choice

[doushiteworld]

Proseka friend told me that both God-Ish and All I Need Are Things I Like are being added to the game on JP covered by Nightcord (God-Ish) and Wonderlands x Showtime (All I Need Are Things I Like) and oh boy am I scared. They're also adding (Not) a Devil but it's not covered so I'm not worried about that

[lyssafreyguy]

God . . . imagine thinking Laios is a bad person who doesn't care about people. actual insanity.

[oneminutefiftysixseconds]

hot take uae learned absolutely nothing from jumbo at the vuelta and are running full speed toward a completely avoidable situation at the tour. would be funny if it wasn't so mind-bogglingly frustrating to watch.

this got long so ramblings under the cut:

angliru may have been a PR disaster and team unity was in shambles but podium sweep + "making history" is not the worst thing a team could learn from

but yeah -- bringing three guys who between them have eight GT top-five results in the past three years, and ALSO tadej is... a choice for sure!

prelude: i'd like to see them support tadej to attempt the double.

anon i agree that it looks very frustrating, but i can see this working:

adam will very likely be in a superdomestique role again this year, and has said as much in interviews. not having had much opportunity to race against strong competition or race much at all since his UAE Tour crash so i don't think there's anything to be worried about there; he'll likely support whoever is strongest and be an exceptional helper in the mountains.

the other two in the AAA trio however?

joão's had a pretty reasonable start to the year, nothing special but he's shown such form in the past and will likely be planning his season around the tour + potential vuelta ambitions.

he has spoken to GCN and thecyclingdane about the lineup this year:

"I think as long as we are all on the same page, it can work really really good," he says of the climber-heavy Tour de France selection. "But if one guy is not on the page, then we might have a problem. It is up to the directors to manage it, I will do my job and my thing, then I can only control what I do, not what other people do."

"the stronger we are the easier it will be to take it as a team, to support whoever is the strongest. normally tadej, to support him to do what he wants"

a cyclist? being vague to the media? shocker! but i think joão will likely be riding at the back of leading groups in the mountains in service of whoever is strongest rather than his own ambitions, and that strongest is likely to be tadej. he's unlikely to try something.

juan however has been in great form this year -- 2nd+youth at tirreno and a win+youth at itzulia (that would likely have been a podium/top5 if not for the stage 4 crash), 5th at romandie against plenty of 2nd-tier GC guys, as a great climber i reckon he has a solid shot at fighting remco for the white jersey (because remcoco will out-TT him on the flat stage 7).

he's talked to gcn too, and was a little clearer about what he thinks:

“Tadej has shown that he is the number one and the leader of the team, but Jumbo has proved in the Vuelta a España that different cards can be played,” he noted. “We also did it during the Tour and it is something that we also have to do to take advantage for Tadej.”

a col-de-la-loze moment, tadej haemorrhaging time with juan stood to gain could be very interesting indeed as to what cards the team and juan might play...

“If I get the opportunity, I will obviously not give it up. It would be a big responsibility and I am going to prepare myself as best as possible to be in the best condition and, whatever the race situation, take advantage of the opportunities,” he said. “Tadej is the leader but I am not going to give up any chances the team or the race offers me. Obviously, I will go out thinking about winning a stage, if the circumstances arise, and also being able to fight for my personal goals in the GC."

he's young, hungry, hugely talented and ambitious -- the first non-jumbo of the 2023 vuelta -- and could probably try something if he wanted to, but given the rest of the team would be supporting tadej, it would have to be a very drastic situation indeed. he'd have to take so much time on the best bike rider in the world, and tadej would respond as strongly as we've seen him respond to jonas in the tour if juan were to become a threat to his GC. juan's chances, to me, lie only in tadej cracking badly and he would be stupid to attack him.

almeida is doing Suisse and ayuso is doing the Dauphine alongside the rest of the Tour squad barring joão/adam/tadej, so we'll see more of their form then.

as for the domestiques? i think it could be a good move to give the jersey away in the second week (should they take it in the first) on so tim & nils don't burn themselves out chasing the breaks on the flatter stages and then use marc & pavel to help retake it in the mountains.

if they're all on the tadej-is-our-leader orders there's certainly the climbing strength to answer a 2022 granon style attack -- as long as tadej is not isolated, and this is where the AAA cooperation could be crucial -- and their relative TTing doesn't matter as tadej is excellent, juan is good but not stellar and there's no TTT

all three of the AAA trio have likely been promised, if not outrightly then at least subtly, leadership for GC bids at other grand tours in the future. it would be a smart move PR and team-support wise (contract motivations unlikely to come into play: juan to 2028, joão to 2026, adam to 2025 and i can't see them letting him go just yet if he's still in form) to not end up with something like this: the movistar breakdown

picture the scene: it's the 2019 vuelta 2024 tour de france. marc juan gets in a breakaway and is the lone survivor. nairo tadej attacks from the chasing group and team orders come through that juan should sit up and wait. he has GC/stage ambitions but lost time earlier in the race, and thinks he can gain it back. he grudgingly waits after a very prominently internationally broadcast hissy-fit. tensions run very high in the team and it weakens their chance at winning the overall classification to the point of primož winning primož winning.

this would be supremely stupid and the team should avoid this situation at all costs, establish an order and stick to it. perhaps try for white with juan, as long as it doesn't jeopardise what matters more: the yellow jersey

(marc himself wouldn't reprise this i think he's chilled out a lot since then and knows he's not a gc rider.)

given primož's focus on this year's tour, jonas/visma as defending champions (sepp/matteo could be capable co-captains to either each other or a less than full strength jonas), remco's presence and the host of other GC riders that could present difficulties on the road to Nice, i think UAE will probably be too busy focusing on their competitors and winning with tadej for much intra team drama

doing the double for the first time in 26 years would, PR and prestige and history-making wise, massively outweigh winning with another rider/getting two riders on the podium

tadej won't be riding forever, and he won't ride the tour every year; there will be other opportunities for the AAA guys to try their own ambitions

they will have to be more tactically astute than 'another team catches the break then tadej go brrr' because the tour's parcours is harder than the giro's, the field is stronger, and well, it's the tour. there's always some surprises. i personally can't wait for july!

if crashes/cracks/whatever mean there's no contention from other teams by the third week? it would be heartbreaking to see tadej lose out on doing the double (this year is likely his best shot), but at the end of the day it's bike racing.

realistically? i think it's in everyone's long-term interests to focus on tadej and only switch focus if he abandons or loses like 30min remco-style, but humans are notoriously bad at thinking long term and they're racers by nature. we shall see, anon, we shall see!!

tl;dr:

uae's squad is either going to demolish everyone or demolish themselves and tadej's chances of doing the double.

as an openly biased tadej fan i want them to support him. i think adam and joão will support him unless the team say otherwise, and juan is a little more of a wildcard

the giro-tour double is more prestigious than the chances primož/jonas had to complete the giro-vuelta or tour-vuelta double last year so the team (and tadej) will want that more than jumbo likely wanted either of those outcomes.

anyone but tadej in yellow is not what they want and is temporary, like adam was going to be in 2023

now if juan does attack tadej? you heard it here first folks!