#BIG PIST LETS HOPE IT SHOWS

[hyunchans]

HYUNJIN :: VERSACE FOR W KOREA (JUNE 2024)

[robjn93]

hi! ^_^

i was wondering if you could help me get into dc comics! i’ve always leaned more towards the movies/shows, video games, and fanon content.

if you have any reading guides at your disposal, i’d really appreciate them! even just naming a few starter comics would be cool.

i hope you don’t mind me asking this of you! i discovered your acc on tiktok and your edits made me wanna get more into the comics when i was formerly disinterested. your characterization takes are also pretty spot on!! :D

thank yew

IM GONNA CRY AND PUKE THANK YOU OMG getting into dc is not difficult but its also pretty challenging depending on which era you wanna read and which family you wanna get into. unfortunately im mainly a batfam-head so i have mostly suggestions about batfamily characters, i hope you wont mind :3

batman: year one is a must in my eyes but i dont see batman: ego advertised nearly as much and it pains me, its a very interesting read on the duality of bruce wayne and batman and an excellent analysis on purpose and motivations

after that, if you wish to continue reading batman related things, i suggest reading about the robins!

batman: year three (batman #436 to #439) serves as a retelling of dick and bruce’s first encounter and its the most used retelling, since it also introduces tim drake but i digress

year ones are your friends! robin: year one and robin/batgirl: year one are stories you should check out but, for the love of christ, keep AWAY from nightwing: year one. i dont know what they were thinking there. if you liked reading these, dick grayson could be the guy for you but, warning i guess, he has lots to read about so make sure to find a good reading guide for him.

after dick quits and becomes nightwing, jason todd is next and luckily the easiest read since he didnt do much except for dying (rip). he is super straight forward, batman: #408 to #425 and detective comics: #568 to #582. a good read for jason and bruce is also batman: the cult!

alas jaybin must die and so here comes a death in the family, batman: #426 to #429. im not a red hood fan personally but batman: under the red hood is kinda a must read. if you liked jason todd, i’m really sorry you’ll never see good writing again

after a death in family, you can read a lonely place of dying when that freak tim drake appears, batman: #440 to #442 alternating with new titans #60 and #61. TOOOOO GOOD. sorry.

tim drake is kinda complicated because the 90s were annoying but you can read detective comics: #618 to #621 and then after batman: #455 to #457 for the important things and him becoming robin most of all. after that the three robin miniseries, robin (1991), robin: the joker’s wild and robin: cry of the huntress are next and finally theres a big one, robin (1993)

if you like tim drake i plan on making a proper reading guide #soon so stay tuned i guess LOL. you cant have tim without stephanie brown, which kinda appears shortly after tim’s initiation as robin. detective comics: #647 to #649 are her origin story, showcase ‘95 #5 is a really underrated stephanie story and then you can just read robin (1993) since she is in there a lot.

i have a stephanie brown reading list ready to be reposted so trust it will be soon! finally damian wayne :3 read batman: son of the demon since its a way better origin for damian over the racist ‘talia is abusive and a r@pist’ morrison retcon.

damian is a really difficult character to get into cause unfortunately most of his stories are racist dogshit but the good stuff is GOOD. robin: son of batman will change your life 5ever. another fun read is robin (2021). to get hooked on daminika.

on the topic of batman’s supporting cast lets go with the batgirls. acknowledged as batgirls, we have barbara gordon tho she is largely more interesting as oracle! i wish you no harm so please don’t read the killing joke, it’s such a lame story and downright misogynistic towards babs.

just let it know that (sigh.) the joker left barbara gordon in a wheelchair. batman: chronicles #5 is genuinely one of the best stories ever, will make you weep and choke and die. after that, birds of prey (1999)’s yuriful antics will charm you.

the current batgirl, cassandra cain, is currently having an ongoing serie! her origin story is in batman: #567 and detective comics: #734. warning: she appears right in the middle of an event called batman: no man’s land so i suggest looking up batman: no man’s land reading guides if its too confusing for context. im really sorry. after that PLEASE read batgirl (2000). too good.

stephanie cheated and managed to be both robin and batgirl so you should read batgirl (2009) which is fairly context-less? or better, they explain most of the context in-comic so it should be fine.

these are the main batfam characters but, throughout reading, you might meet some new and maybe lesser known characters like azrael, huntress, anarky etc. etc.

a read that kinda exists outside all this is also gotham: academy which is quite new reader friendly and genuinely very fun.

hope you have fun :)

[antiloreolympus]

10 Anti LO Asks

1. i actually saw a LO fan say LO's take on Orpheus and Eurydice, bc Orpheus is usually Apollo's kid, that Orpheus will also be an abusive creep and Persephone will "save" Eurydice from him by keeping her in the Underworld. I hate it here lmao.

2. just watch. persephone's magic fertility will override hades' broken pp and theyll name the babies (who for whatever reason only look like hades) after the dead nymphs like its the harry potter epilogue again to "prove' persephone actually cares about them and to be "unique" over using zagreus, makaria, melinoe, etc.

3. I honestly hoped that this trial would finally be a change for Persephone to stand up for herself, even as insane as her reasoning is, and prove herself a "Queen", yet the whole trial has made her regress even more. She is not defending herself, she's just letting Hades and others take care of it while she makes doe eyes and does nothing but be pushed around. I'm waiting for when the so-called "empowered dread queen" shows up, because we're pushing into year 4 with her as meek as ever.

4. @ other anon:

the “masterpiece” Webtoon I read is called Castle Swimmer.

It’s not Greek mythology related at all but it’s my favourite Webtoon and updated the same day as Lore Olympus. The main characters are gay and there is a disabled and trans character as well.

One of its main themes is choosing your own destiny. The lore, colors, and story are rlly appealing. It does have its dark moments but it balances really well with the humor.

I highly recommend reading it instead of Lore Olympus💕

5. LO is not the only Webtoon to introduce us to a lead who has "big dreams" who ends up dropping all of it as soon as she meets the love interest, but even comics like True Beauty or Let's Play still give the FL's interests and a life outside of the men, while LO makes it so Persephone has nothing outside of Hades. Also, neither of the mentioned claim to be "empowering" women like LO does, making Persephone's lack of goals and life outside of Hades even more disingenuous to what LO claims to be.

6. The idea of "independence" cannot work as a goal in LO or any HxP story, because unless RS makes up a completely new ending that matches nothing from the actual myths (which tbh I wouldn't put it past her) then Persephone IS dependent, either via her mother or her husband, so the "goal" is null & void. If the romance was secondary, then this wouldn't be as much of an issue, but as you pointed out Persephone has no real goals outside of Hades, so how is she "independent"? She is nothing w/o him.

7. I could be wrong, but I remember in a Q and A that Smythe mentioned that she considered Hera to be the deuteragonist (secondary protagonist) of Lore Olympus. If this is true, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Hera (as many have pointed out before) has nothing to do with the Persephone Myth. With this being said, shouldn't Demeter be the deuteragonist? Especially since the entire myth was about her, to begin with?

I really wish Smythe would step out of her 'Hades is a perfect bae' obsession and actually explore Persephone and Demeter - maybe even showing us even more positive aspects of their relationship, and even showing the Titanomachy from Demeter's persepctive so we can really feel her pain and understand her reasons to keep Persephone away from Olympus. 

8. If anyone needs to stand up to Apollo, it HAS to be Persephone, because so far everything from her money woes to her scholarship to even her housing and covering up MASS MURDER is taken care of by other people, while she does NOTHING for herself, minus a vague "feeling" she can't control. You want her to reclaim her agency? Have her punish her r//pist, not have Hades do it, or Hera, or anyone else. Let Persephone show she's the Dread Queen, not a scared child stuck in a sexualized body.

-----FP Spoilers/Mention-----

9. FP// We shouldn't be a full year and a half after the AOW to just now know the dead nymphs' names when Persephone never once mentioned them especially at the MOMENT of her explaining their demise. RS can pat herself on the back all she wants, but it's so clear now a lot of LO is her too little, too late trying to "fix" mistakes that shouldn't have been there in the first place. It's like Persephone having a birthday out of nowhere so people could technically not call out P is a teenager 😑

10. fast passing is gettjng really tiresome with this comic but honestly i just wanna see the shit show now thats all. but like . the shitshow has gone on for too long. i didnt really think one season could just be “he he hoo hoo ha ha Bullshit Courtroom Things Lawyers and Juries and Judges El-Oh-El”. i wish i had some real criticisms but like this is all i got man. this is all i got. im so tired now. oh and fhe “why does the king love u” “well actually im in love with him” sent me . its ridiculous. im so mad (negative).

[stormyoceansmain]

I've never had an episode of 911 I hated before so 5x03 was...a new experience. This show is usually pretty good about digging in to how creepy and disgusting people can be which is something I love about 911 and makes it stand out from other shows. If I wanted to watch r*pists be creepy I would watch Criminal Minds, or Law and Order: SVU. Hoping that this storyline is dead forever now and we can all bury this episode and never speak of it again except for the last 15 minutes.

it really is a strange and unsettling experience to come out from an episode of 911 like ‘yep, i fucking hated that’, and not in a this-show-gives-us-so-much-pain-i-love-it-so-much type of way, but in the im-so-pissed-off-i-will-never-rewatch-this-episode-it-was-garbage kind of meaning..

honestly i thought one day would be enough for me to cool off and get over it, but the more i think about it the angrier i get, because you’re right: this didn’t feel like i was watching a 911 episode, this felt like any other police procedural show we’re already in overabundance of, and it makes me mad because this is not the show i fell in love with

i was never against them revisiting athena’s trauma with the r*pist, and i still think there could have been a very interesting story to tell in that, but this was not it, and i expected better from this show because they HAVE done better. i don’t mean to compare storylines (and if im stepping out of line, or saying something bad please let me know), but there are parallels that come to my mind when i think about the main plot points featuring in it, which are a woman’s trauma, an abusive man, and an episode that doesn’t heavily focus on the firefighters. we saw these same plot points with maddie and doug, and yet, if i think about how these stories were handled, it feels like they belong to two completely different shows. i just didn’t find the same care and respect im used to when faced with such serious and sensitive subjects, which just baffles me because you’re right, this show IS really good at portraying them usually, so i can’t really understand what the hell happened here

obviously the copaganda of it all was AWFUL and it made it almost unbearable to watch, but there’s something else too. i guess part of it is in the fact that.. idk, I can’t find the right words to explain it, but the way they portrayed the r*pist just felt.. off?? like, i don’t want to say he feels like a stereotype, because he is a fucking r*pist, i don’t want him to be deep or something, but he felt like a second rate villain and there are just some choices that don’t sit right with me: that scene with him and athena’s underwear was just so unnecessary (he r*ped women and collected trophies of them, he beat athena up, we had already established he was a disgusting piece of shit), and michael laughing when he learned athena shot the guy’s junk off was so out of place too

another thing is that the strength of this show comes from the characters, and the relationships between them, but in this episode there was a disconcerting lack of both. we didn’t really get to see how athena was feeling, what she was thinking, the big emotional struggle she had to face when she was attacked was seeing herself as a victim, and i thought maybe the episode was going to explore more of that since the reason why the r*pist got to harry was that she once again didn’t think of herself as a victim, but it didn’t. the r*pist also said to harry that they were going to see what was more important to athena, being a cop or being a mom, but she wasn’t put in a position where she had to make a choice. then athena said ‘when you came at me, you came at everyone who loves me’, which would be a wonderful line if we actually saw her asking for help and everyone coming together to help her and harry, but the little we got was done off screen or just not given the right amount of space

anyway, im gonna shut up now because this is already too long, im just complaining, and i doubt im making much sense, but i fully agree with you: i hope this storyline is done for and that we can all forget about it ever happening

[lostcauses-noregrets]

Hey Lost have you seen that new article about how Yams originally wanted Levi to die in the finale but his editor talked him out of it because apparently it wouldn't have been "meaningful"?

Hi Anon, sorry, it's taken me so long to reply that this new article isn't new any more! This info comes from an interview with Shintaro Kawakubo, Isayama's editor, which came out round about the same time as chapter 139. Many thanks to @momtaku for pointing me to the source from @kasumi_kasa on twitter. The gist of it is that Isayama appears to have been undecided whether Levi would live or die at the end of the series. Kawakubo argued that if a character was to die, their death should be meaningful to the plot. As a result, Isayama decided that Levi's death would not have much meaning, so he let Levi live.

My interpretation of this is that I can kinda see where Kawakubo is coming from. In terms of plot, the one thing that Levi could do that would affect the outcome of the story was to kill Zeke and stop the rumbling. After he had accomplished that, whether he lived or died would have no real bearing on the story. Although part of me will always wish that Levi had died and joined Erwin and his fallen comrade in the Pathsterlife (© @momtaku), I have to agree that his death would not have served any real purpose in terms of the plot.

I also argued in the past that there was no real plotworthy reason for Erwin's death, other than to remove his formidable experience and strategic intelligence from the story. Turns out that was only partially true. With the benefit of hindsight, I think the most significant reason for Erwin's death was that it set in motion Levi's pursuit of his vow, which ultimately led to him killing Zeke, and thus playing a critical role in stopping the rumbling.

Sasha is another example of a death that was meaningful to the plot. I was quite fond of Sasha, more so than other members of the 104th, but I initially couldn't understand why Isayama was making such a big deal of her death. Of course it was Sasha's death that ultimately brought about Gabi's epiphany that she had been wrong about the devils of Paradis island, and which ultimately led to her joining the Alliance.

One character it's a bit harder to apply this principle to is Hanji. I know there's been a lot of discussion about whether it was necessary for Hanji to die when they did, with many readers arguing that their death served no real purpose. Although I thought Hanji had a good death; they went out heroically, and were welcomed into the afterlife by their comrades, I still wasn't really sure what impact their death had on the plot at the time. There was a lot of discussion about the nature of the "afterlife" when chapter 132 came out, whether it was real, or just a way to give Hanji a nice send off, and I can't help wondering now if this was one of the ways that Hanji's death was meaningful to the plot. Their death provided a way to introduce the existence of the afterlife and show that their fallen comrades were watching events in the "real" world unfold, thus setting up Levi's moving vision in the final chapter.

Anyway....sorry Anon, I've gone way off piste here, but I hope that somewhere in this ramble you'll find an answer to your question!

[wizkiddx]

Forget the world

I really really hope everyones okay at the moment. The world is truly fucking shit, but sending all my love, and it is okay to feel completely done at this point (I do hence why I wrote this instead of meeting my deadlines :/)

Summary: readerxtomholland -- pure fluff when everything gets a bit much for Y/n

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A third lockdown in the UK. More than 1000 deaths in a day. US capitol riots highlighting just how stark the white privilege is. The worlds a scary place and sometimes it gets too much. It’s good to be informed, to be politically and socially active, fighting the good fight… right? Well yes, but we are humans.

Humans are more complex than that. We ruminate we feel and we empathise. None of these issues have directly affected you, but that doesn't mean these things don’t hurt you - even a little. Bit by bit, a person can so easily get chipped away until there’s not a lot of fight left.

These daily 5 o’clock briefing, the prime minister in all his stupid oafish idiocy invading your living rooms with his persistent if oh so incorrect chat of ‘how well the UK has handled this crisis’. Then going on to spout more and more bad news. It was like a scheduled form of torture that Brits just had to through. And it just got a lot.

What didn’t help at all to you, was the fact your boyfriend was leaving for work again. You’d barely had him for two weeks before he was being whisked away in his private jet again. And even that time, it wasn’t really couple quality time… not by a long shot. Because of the complicated and ever-changing laws in the UK, you had both moved into his parents' house rather than being stuck just the two of you over Christmas. Don’t get the wrong impression, you lovvvveeeeeddddd his family - it was crazy, chaotic and infuriating in the best way.

That, however, didn’t get away from the fact you missed him. You missed lying in till the afternoon. You missed having breakfast for dinner after cooking it up in your skimpy pyjamas. You missed silence - of the two of you just coexisting. You missed your Tom.

SO fair to say you were not feeling particularly over-enthused on this overcast Tuesday morning. Somehow sensing this while you were still asleep, Tom chose not to wake you and instead crept out the room to go golfing with his brothers and dad for the last time before he left. Having woke up a couple of hours ago, you made the executive decision to just stay there - just feeling like the energy it’d take up to move was too torturous to expend. When Tom and the boys got back then, they immediately recounted the whole experience to Nikki - Harry showing off at his particularly good round - before Tom naturally started searching for you. His mum, being almost psychic, instantly noticed and just shook her head over Harry’s droning voice as she pointed upstairs. And with a thankful nod, he snuck away - if anything grateful for the escape.

“Love…. Love?” Tom hesitantly crept into the room, your body facing away and still wrapped like a burrito in the duvet. You rolled over and gave him a small smile, to which he grinned at and immediately leapt on to the bed. Land directly on your stomach. With force. You let out an ‘ooof’ as his not so petite body knocked all the air out of you, making you groan and recoil to your side as he laughed pitifully at you. “I missed you” He just grinned, worming his way from lying horizontally across you until he was lying completely on top of you his chin resting on your chest bone as he smiled at you. “And you thought you’d jump on me to show that?” “I couldn’t help it you just looked so peaceful” You quirked your head, not seeing his point. “And your not allowed to look like that without me!” He huffed, finally rolling off you as you giggled at his stupidity. “But seriously you good? Its 12 and you’ve not moved yet.” “Mhmm just… just.” “You're just just?” He teased, now leaning up on his elbow as he smiled down at you. “Exactly. I just can’t deal with today.” You sighed as you spoke, looking up to him with eyes as if asking him to help. It made his jokey and teasing demeanour take a serious turn, his eyebrows furrowing as he really inspected your face - as if trying to the find the answer written in small print under your nose. He whispered a ‘what do you mean’ asking you to go on. “I don’t know …it’s just lockdown and America and…and you going. I’m just self-pitying really.” “No” Tom stated rather adamantly, as he sat up and then pulled you up by the arms earning yet another groan from you as he interrupted your cocoon of warmth. “You're allowed to feel shitty because it is all actually very shitty indeed.” You rolled your eyes at that, even if you did agree because you didn’t want to be the mopey desperate girlfriend who can’t handle when he goes away. “Y/n/n I’m serious. The news and everything… it’s a lot and you're allowed to feel like you can’t comprehend whats going on.” In response you just nodded, averting your eyes away from his because, for no real reason at that moment, his eye contact seemed to be forcing you to cry. But the boy did not let up. Instead, he crawled up to you, his legs sandwiching yours as he kneeled in front of you. “And… I’m going to miss you a lot when I go.” Tom gently pushed your chin up so his locked eyeline with your watery ones that instantly started to overflow. Tom murmured an ‘oh love’ as he threw his arms around you, letting you cry into his shoulder - most probably ruining his new fancy golf shirt.

You stayed like that for some time, him gently hushing you and stroking the back of your messy bed head. Until you’d finally calmed into little hiccups and Tom arched back. He cupped his hands around your cheeks, his thumbs brushing away your tear tracks. “Let's have a just us day huh? We can… forget the world.” “Forget the world?” Your laugh was a little wet and sad sounding but it was music to Tom’s ears and only spurred him on more. “Yeh! Fuck the world. It’s just you and me and we can do whatever you want!” “You’re stupid” you just giggled, trying to hide your face because he had you blushing like a lovestruck teen… which was exactly how he made you feel. “I know! So come on what should we do… movie or something isn’t right because you still can think about- I got it!” He leapt off you and started looking around the room, first pulling the chair out from its position in the corner and then whipping the duvet cover off your legs. “TOM! what-“ “We are building a fort!” And his stupid grin said it all. It took next to no convincing before you were running downstairs with him, ransacking the sitting room of all blankets (earning you some comically quizzical gazes from his Dad and Sam) before running back up.

This stupid stupid boy that you had to pleasure of calling your boyfriend had you revert to a seven-year-old as the two of you attempted to construct this fort. Attempted being the keyword, it kept collapsing when one of you accidentally stubbed your toe on the chair holding all the structural integrity of your creation (*Tom). However, after a ridiculous amount of attempts you were adding the piste de resistance - aka fairy lights - to the interior while Tom set up a game of Harry Potter monopoly on the next floor you’d made.

And that’s how you burned the day away; laughing whilst getting overly competitive at your Harry Potter knowledge; ordering pizza that you forced Harry to delivery to the entrance of your fort from the front door (you even managed to make Harry knock on the makeshift blanket door, which had the two of you cracking up no end); generally just being stupid together. Before you knew it, the time had ticked to half eleven and the both of you knew it was time to bed down for the night. With a sigh, signifying the beginning of the end of Tom’s last day in the UK, you went to crawl out of the fort - expect your boyfriend had other plans. Rather, he yanked you back towards him so you almost fell into his front and then proceeded to roll you both, so now you were lying flat on the ground while he leaned above you. “You … little miss… are not going anywhere.” You hummed at him about to ask why, before being rudely interrupted as he pressed his lips against yours. You didn't fight it though, immediately relaxing into it and wrapping your legs round his waist to pull him impossibly closer. After a few moments, you broke the kiss staring up at him with the softest eyes. “Sorry I just had to stop you from ruining the moment.” He jibed, and again you went to scowl but were cut off by his soft lips on yours once again. Tom only pulled away when both of your lungs had started to burn a little, needing to come up for air. With a whisper telling you not to move, Tom bolted out the fort. You could hear him scurrying around in the room - to be honest, it sounded like he was ransacking it- before the big light was flicked off and he crawled back in in the darkness.

This time you’d learned your lesson, waiting patiently until he spoke first. “I got a surprise… it was uh- supposed to be for when I was already away but I think now works too” You couldn’t see his face through the darkness, but what you knew, either way, was the excitement that’d be on his face - he loved revealing stuff like this to you because he is, as previously mentioned a child. And then he flicked the switch and the interior of the tent was illuminated by a pattern of stars, projecting upwards and swirling around on the blanket roof. The sight had you audible gasping, this time the dim light it gave meaning Tom could see your eyes widen in delight. “Tom its-“ “Not as beautiful as you.”

Hell, you knew how fucking corny this was. And how if any of your mates ever recounted the story you’d be recoiling is dismay at the cliche-ness of it. But at that moment you swore your heart could burst, looking between the twinkling projections and Tom’s dimly glowing features - the blue light bouncing off his cheekbones and making him look just even more divine. “We are sleeping here tonight because I just don’t want this moment to end” You whispered making Tom chuckle as he lay back down next to you, letting you curl into his side and resting your head on his chest - so you were watching the swirling walls whilst listening to his heartbeat. “This fort… will always be ours.” He spoke lowly, reaching for your hands and entwining his fingers with yours slowly. “I’m going to mis-“ “Shhhhh” He blocked you from finishing the phrase, pressing a kiss to the top of your head before continuing. “ Don’t forget we’re forgetting the world yeh? It’s just you and me.” “Just you and me isn’t half bad.” You whispered, using your thumb to draw little meaningless patterns on the top of his palm. “No… not half bad at all.” His voice was so quiet, so calming he barely even used his voice - rather just breathing the words out as he squeezed you into his chest. You knew he was trying to make you fall asleep. This is what he always did, a kiss to the head, his voice barely existing, him squeezing you just a little tighter. But you didn’t want to. Because that meant that he’d leave when you woke.

You desperately tried to fight the waves of relaxation, trying to pay attention to each little swirl and tinkle of the projector but it was hypnotic, and that coupled with the steady beat of his heart had you soon losing the battle. Tom could tell you were fighting, Tom could always tell. So he gently shifted his arm under you baggy t-shirt, allowing Tom to trace little circles on your bare skin. That was enough to have force your eyes to become deadweights as they locked shut.

“I got you…I’ll still be here when you wake up” You hummed, pressing yourself into his side a little more. “‘hankyou for… for…” Tom grinned, knowing you weren’t going to make it to the end of the sentence. But that didn’t matter. At that moment, the only thing in the world that matters was having you in his arms.

“I’ll always forget the world when I’m with you.”

[philtatosbuck]

Let me just say that this is only my opinion, and that all of these things personally give ME bad vibes. I have friends who are kcers who I love deeply. However, in general, here are a list of twenty red flags in kc shippers that make me stay away from them in particular;

1. They hate Damon for being a r*pist and then have Caroline be best friends with Katherine, who canonically r*ped Stefan, her actual best friend. I actually don't care who hates Damon or whatnot, nor do I give a fuck about Stefan. it just grates on my nerves that they'll condemn one r*pist and prop up the other. 2. They call Hayley moon moon and refer to her as a slut, whore, homewrecker or any of the above for having a baby with klaus. 3. They say the plot for klaus impregnating someone is stupid, then use the same one for fics with Caroline being pregnant after the episode where they have sex. 4. They only acknowledge Elijah, Klaus, Kol and Rebekah as Mikaelson siblings. that's... more of a personal tick for me but it's whatever. 5. Elena is the big bad demon who tries to kill Caroline and/or Klaus. bonus points if bonnie is too. 6. Hate fics for Elena for "making caroline be klaus bait/trying to kill the originals" in which Bonnie and Stefan are let off the hook completely for their part in literally everything. canonically ignoring that Stefan, Damon and Bonnie were 100% the ones who most times made plans to kill originals that involved using Caroline as bait, and that Elena was actually Very concerned about Caroline more than anyone wants to give her credit for. 7. The ones who hate Daniel gillies because he likes Leah Pipes / Cami / doesn't care about klaroline. 8. The ones who body shame DRR and PT. 9. The ones who say Hayley is a 'walking incubator' and the originals is misogynistic, only to turn around and have Caroline like... be the most misogynistic ass character?? 10. The ones who say Caroline is more important to Klaus than Rebekah or Hope. 11. The ones who kill Hayley off to make Caroline a mother to Hope. 12. The ones who demonize Tyler and act like his hate for Klaus is invalid as if Klaus did not enslave him. 13. The ones who write fics in which Caroline shows up and just starts being the absolute worst towards Cami? in that same vein... The ones who write fics in which Cami is completely out of character to justify this.

14. The ones who have Kol and Caroline as best friends. This one in particular isn't that bad but it's super weird because Kol has interacted with Caroline even less than Elijah but no way will he not find her annoying. 15. Stelena-Klaroline hybrids who also love kalijah or kennett. i have to add that last part because i actually do not mind stelenas separately but the ones who love klaroline and kalijah/kennett tend to be so weird and just make shit up 16. The ones who when faced with the fact that jomo was rooting for kennett at first, say 'but klaroline makes way more sense' despite the fact the same episode where klaroline started is the episode klaus had Tyler bite/try to kill Caroline? bitch. 17. The ones who have Elijah be in love with Caroline out of absolutely fucking nowhere in fics to create tension between Klaus and Elijah 18. The ones who make Rebekah and Caroline besties despite their clashing personalities and the fact they can barely stand each other and Caroline has repeatedly slut-shamed Rebekah. 19. ANYONE like that person who wrote that 'Hayley Marshall; homewrecker' fic. They are an entire red flag on their own 20. The ones who have Caroline in new orleans and then kill marcel off or the ones who make marcel caroline's son. electric chair for y'all.

[buckysboobs]

There’s this acc in here Ik you know it cause you mentioned that you blocked that acc (flqn or whatever) A month ago they wrote about Bucky in the dr and always put tw Seb Stan and not to long ago that person gonna make up some shit that she had in her dr about Seb that he’s not safe and she tried to contact him and through deuxmoi to let people know because someone on her anon said that whatever the situation was, it was supposed to be addressed and that acc was making a whole big deal saying oh that was in my dr and I’m debating if I should say or not and then she didn’t say shit (like how tf you start something then get mad for others asking you what happened) then she started commenting on the pammy and Tommy series and then saying oh how Seb looks ugly with this haircut (this bitch 🖕🏽🙄🙄) then today she’s talking shit about Steve kemp and the whole fresh movie. Saying oh if I see people writing about Steve kemp then you need help and then made two post about canablism and how she better not see shit about Seb. I’m telling you this proves the haters are literally up seb’s ass cause you could easily not support the fucking film BY NOT fucking watching it Orr stop paying attention or blocking all the post you get of Seb buttt nooooo you sit there typing out of your ass making some fucking situation up talking about oh protect Seb from this person and then next post you shit talking about him and making a whole shit about Steve kemp being a r*pist and how shitty Seb is for playing Tommy and supporting Pamela Netflix show. I stg they don’t like Seb but they running their mouth like he’s their next door neighbor

this is genuinely disturbing, that person needs help and i hope they get it immediately. they need to rot in hell.

[shijiujun]

Hi! Is it okay to ask you for a small advice? I started reading Thousand Autumns recently (currently on chapters ~85-88) and I'm having a bit of a problem with Yan Wushi's character. I am so turned off by his behavior towards SQ for the whole novel up to this point and I just wonder - is it gonna get better...? I can't stand seeing him openly abusing SQ and treating him like shit, I'm sorry (1)

I know he's evil and it's expected of him to be bad but with future romance prospect I'm really struggling to like the relationship between him and SQ; and if in the first half of the novel I didn't expect big changes, now I keep hoping to see something different from him but I'm not seeing much. He keeps treating SQ horribly. I'm not sure if I can forgive him for what he's done and has no remorse whatsoever - (2)

- abusing SQ and manipulating him, using him as an experiment as if he's a toy to play with; selling him to a r*pist knowing he'll be tortured to death...! And after everything that happend I still barely see anything good in his attitude towards SQ. I can't help but think SQ deserves so much better. I suppose I should try to have some hope for the upcoming chapters to be better? Is it worth it to continue reading or nothing will change? Excuse me for writing so much, Thank you

---

Heya! Oooof okay so you’re totally valid, Yan Wushi isn’t like a character for everyone - so let me break it down with the first part and then the second part where his attitude turns for the better XD

Spoilers under the cut

Before SQ goes to save him:

Yan Wushi does have a goal which is to play mind games with Shen Qiao and (1) throw him into despair (2) try to see if Shen Qiao is a worthy opponent - sure, he’s an asshole with an agenda of his own. YWS doesn’t believe that there is any good in anyone - he thinks Shen Qiao is a hypocrite and that everyone will turn evil given the right circumstances, and so YWS doesn’t trust anyone, or even considers anyone as an equal to him.

He wants to see Shen Qiao become evil basically and does everything he can to direct him towards that but I’d say his actions (with two exceptions) fit his character and the two motives above pretty well and I’m not sure I’d count it as abuse (based on my understanding of abuse, feel free to disagree). I think it’s easy to forget that Shen Qiao is not delusional or naive or ‘innocent’, and he does not paint YWS as some saviour or a friend (at least in the beginning) - he knows who YWS is, knows that he’s insane, not compassionate, totally evil etc. even from the start the moment he realizes that YWS and his disciple lied to him.

1. He lies to Shen Qiao that he’s his shizun, and then sends him to kill someone, but he’s not there to enforce it

2. Throws him out on the streets without his memories, but Shen Qiao is anything but a weak youngling, once again, YWS doesn’t do anything to him

3. YWS turns up at the temple and has Shen Qiao read the scripture - SQ’s not sure what’s going on at first but he more or less figures it out, but also the scripture reading inadvertently helps to heal him (and YWS knows this)

4. YWS flirts with Shen Qiao for a reaction for a while, he’s not genuine of course, but Shen Qiao knows he’s not genuine

5. YWS doesn’t help Shen Qiao out when he’s faced with an opponent while he’s still injured just to see how long Shen Qiao can hold out for - but firstly, Shen Qiao never really expected him to help in the first place, because he has no delusions about the man - and YWS ends up helping anyway, of course not out of the kindness of his heart, but I don’t see why I should hold that against him XD

6. Stands by and watches as Shen Qiao and his shidi Yu Ai have their confrontation - Sure, he’s there to watch the drama, but it’s Shen Qiao who makes the decision to go with him - the lesser of two evils

7. Forces Shen Qiao to fight him while he’s still injured because he wants to see if Shen Qiao’s recovery level has reached a certain point, enough to be an adversary worth dealing with - yes, he’s forcing Shen Qiao to fight when he’s still blind and weak, but throughout the fight you realize that YWS is right - it’s that very battle that basically lets SQ recover his previous abilities by a bit. He’s not hurting SQ for the fun of it (out of sadism or shit) - he purely (or evil-ly) wants to know if SQ is every bit of the skilled warrior he’s heard about 

The exceptions are these: (1) When he plants the demonic seed thing in his heart (2) When he trades SQ to Sang Jing Xing for his sword, knowing full well that SJX has a habit of sexually torturing his prisoners - I feel like YWS was almost warming up to SQ when his habit of distrust and everything kicked in and he reverted back to his cynical self - Not an excuse for what he did though, because yes Shen Qiao especially didn’t want the demonic seed thing firstly (and YWS knows this), and then he despaired at being left to SJX. This is the incident that has SQ basically give up on YWS and allows him to erase any notion of him ever becoming friends with YWS. I’m also rather curious how exactly SQ kind of like got over this - but in the settings of the book, I guess it’s explained away with (1) SQ actually fully recovering as a result of this incident (2) SQ has a big heart, and forgives YWS after - but whether or not that’s convincing, that’s up to every reader.

After SQ goes to save him:

1. So after the SJX incident - where he chose to self-destruct and die, taking SJX along with him but ended up surviving and being able to cultivate properly again from the start (previously he couldn’t because he could only recover to a certain extent as there was some blockage etc., but the blast in this incident clears the blockage) - and after he’s sort of recovered like 50-75%, he hears of an ambush on YWS by the leaders of like 5 other sects, and decides to go forward to save him 

2. Not because he harbours any like delusions on YWS, but to show him that despite all YWS has done to him (especially with SJX), SQ is still SQ, and he still adheres to his own principles, that YWS did not make him change his mind about being good basically

3. YWS’s views of him starts to change because of this - YWS has never found someone with this much grit to stick to his own principles etc., to still be kind and righteous basically despite being betrayed again and again. Of course this does not excuse the fact that YWS did indeed deliberately leave him to a potentially painful death with SJX - and SQ doesn’t forget either. 

4. SQ saves YWS, and then his heart melts because while YWS is recovering from the ambush, he has two other personalities that show up - so YWS when he was much younger, then YWS when he was a teenager, and YWS now. So YWS as a kid and teen are more trusting and open, and SQ likes kid YWS a lot (like as kid brother), and now-YWS wakes up occasionally from the switch in personas, he realizes that SQ likes kid-YWS and starts thinking about why SQ hates him and likes his kid self.

5. Even then, YWS still does try to jump ship once and leave SQ and other evil people behind in a dangerous cave, but thankfully teen/kid-YWS personas fight to turn up in time, and then YWS goes back for SQ

6. SQ knows this - he doesn’t think YWS has had a sudden change of heart or shit, and knows full well that if it was now-YWS, if kid-YWS didn’t turn up, he would probably be left to think about how to leave the cave on his own

7. YWS’s behaviour towards SQ does a 180 - now that he knows he cannot sway SQ, he starts to listen to SQ, and despite all the barbs on the surface, even if he disagrees with SQ’s positive outlook, he makes an effort to contribute and consider SQ’s opinion even if he doesn’t, intrinsically, believe in it. Starts putting himself in front of SQ, and of course SQ doesn’t believe this all the way to the end, where he realizes that he actually, just that tiny little bit, has started liking YWS and doesn’t want him to die.

8. Then they confirm their relationship in the extras, and YWS does do that hot-and-cold thing once so SQ figures out his feelings for him properly - It’s SQ that initiates the confirmation at the end I think

---

I think at some level, YWS cannot stand how naive Shen Qiao is, and some of the things that he’s leading Shen Qiao to think about/discover are valid - And throughout the book it’s proven true - SQ is kind to Chen Jing, but Chen Jing sells him out (not just once but thrice). He’s kind to and has always doted on Yu Ai, but Yu Ai sells him out too. The elders in his sect - some of them obviously turned to Yu Ai over him despite SQ never having given them reason to doubt him. I don’t think YWS is being deliberately cruel (or abusive) - he’s forcing SQ to look at reality, a reality that YWS sees and lives in.

He always asks Shen Qiao why he trusts others so easily, and afterwards, Shen Qiao does admit that YWS is right in this aspect - he won’t give up his ideals and how he gives everyone the benefit of the doubt, but through YWS, he realizes he needs to be able to think ahead to protect himself and the ppl around him.

Doesn’t excuse the SJX thing YWS did, and I’m sure SQ doesn’t conveniently forget about that either, but in terms of how/why they got together, I guess it’s because despite everything they do know each other best, and are soulmates (tho not only in the sugar-spice-and-everything-nice way i.e. SQ does think YWS is handsome and YWS thinks SQ is the cutest thing ever later). SQ has seen the worst of YWS, and YWS has seen the worst of him - and SQ is made to realize that what he was before was not the best path he could go on because of YWS, but he adjusts his attitude slightly and holds on to his ideals sufficiently. 

On the other hand, YWS still does not believe everyone except his Ah Qiao can truly say they’re good and keep to it in every way, still thinks the worst of a lot of people if not all, but he stops to consider SQ’s POV and input now, whose opinions and every action now mean more to him than anything else ever will. Of course he has to prove himself and earn SQ’s trust back, but I guess he also doesn’t expect SQ to reciprocate, even after he developed feelings for SQ, knowing full well that he’s a mofo and SQ has every right to hate him after all he did.

They don’t fix each other, they’re not each other’s salvations, but they fit and come sort of to a truce, despite having differing views and principles.

Manipulation? Sure, but I think we forget that Shen Qiao is not a victim (except the part where he’s given to SJX) and his agency in every situation is apparent - He’s pretty clear-minded, he knows what Yan Wushi is doing, knows what his character is like, knows that he’s doing/saying things all to get a reaction out of him. He doesn’t expect YWS to help him either, because he knows YWS is here for fun and games. He doesn’t go along with YWS just because, either. He just made a wrong call by trusting that YWS reciprocated his feelings of friendship (not that it’s his fault at all), but that is certainly a moment of weakness he probably regrets.

---

In summary, I personally wasn’t all that put off by YWS’s behaviour, altho I agree the SJX incident is pretty much unforgivable. For me I read this more from the SQ perspective, because his strength shines in every moment and interaction with YWS and overshadows YWS by a lot, which is why the end makes sense to me.

In response to your question - yes YWS does get better when he’s finally totally convinced that SQ is not a hypocrite (although yeah it takes him a while to get there). And for me it’s nice to see Shen Qiao figure out himself, and also his feelings for YWS after, but also never once compromising himself for YWS.

But YWS is definitely less palatable than most other characters in danmei, so it’s natural if you dislike him and remain unconvinced! It happens XD If you hate this, I suggest you try Wu Shuang! Set in the same universe and timeline, and actually doesn’t have much angst - full on bantering between the main CP, constant veiled insults etc.

[johnismyreason]

Henry

PART 2

I finally managed to become what I wanted to be. I worked day and night with Janet to pass our exams. And we both got there. We are finally nurses. We were only 12 years old when our fathers went to war. They were not called in 1914 but in 1916 because of their age. They saw their friends a little younger being called. When they were on leave, they returned home wounded, traumatized. Most didn't talk about what was happening at the front, but some did, and when that happened, my father would order me to leave the living room or bar where we were going together. I tried to eavesdrop but they didn't speak loud enough, and my mother chased me away. Before my father left, there was first my brother who was 21 years old in 1914. The perfect age for a patriotic sacrifice. He didn't come back. My mother cried for a straight month. I thought she was going to die of sadness. The day my father went to war two years later, my mother ran after the cart that was taking him away, begging him to come back for ten minutes. She stopped when she tripped over a rock. I lifted her up, brought her home and took care of her until my father came back at the end of the war. Janet's father also returned, but he was no longer the same. The horrors he saw traumatized him to the point where he stopped talking, except in his sleep where he screamed in fear. Janet and I decided to become nurses because we wanted to take care of these soldiers. Today we have succeeded and we are celebrating this victory together, as we have always done.

Janet moved to Birmingham. I don't see why, this town is really not well frequented. She keeps telling me that things are going to change, that more and more bourgeois people are moving in, that it is now time to buy before apartment prices go up. "No way," I replied, "I already have what I need". We spent an entire weekend together, in her new city, going out, drinking, celebrating,... In a week's time we both start working in the new hospital halfway between Birmingham and my home in Sheffield.

"Hurry up, I'll miss my train!" I told her, pressing her. I elbow my way between passengers in the station lobby.

"Y/N, wait! You have 15 minutes left before your train leaves, slow down!" Janet grabs my hand to make me stop. "Here's your purse. Do you have your ticket?" I check in my bag pocket and take out the folded paper.

"There." I show her, relieved. "Well... It's better to say goodbye here, rather than on the platform, you'd be able to get on the train with me."

"I don't do that anymore..." she sighs. She caresses my arms and looks at me with a nostalgic look.

"What's the matter?" I ask.

"It's just... Everything's going to change. We won't see each other like we used to, I couldn't take my bike, ride for five minutes and be at your place. Who I'll talk to at night, and..."

"Hey! Everything's gonna be fine, don't worry. We work in the same place together, we'll see each other all day. And then, it's life, things change," I take her hands to calm her down, before hugging her against me. "We'll always be together, I promise." Janet hugged me harder against her chest as a sign of approval. "Janet... you're suffocating me now..."

"Oops, sorry!" she quickly cleared out, giving me my breath back. We laugh before finally saying goodbye. I take my suitcase in one hand, my bag on my shoulder, the new white gloves I just bought to congratulate myself on passing the nurse's exam, and I leave. Janet stays fixed, waiting to stop seeing me to leave. I turn around one last time, wave at him with a big smile, and continue on my way.

People on the dock are pushing me, and I'm trying to get to my car. My suitcase is slowing me down. Why does my car have to be at the end of the line? I struggle, dodge people in my path while trying to find my way around. I stop to ask an agent if my car is the one indicated on my ticket. He tells me that no, it's the opposite. I sigh with frustration. I turn around to get back on my way without wasting any more time, but a man runs into me, dropping my new snow-white gloves in the brownish mud.

"For God's sake..." I bend down to pick them up. The man does the same "They're screwed now..." I look up to scream at the man but my heart stops when I see his face. I hadn't seen him in 4 years, he's changed so much, and yet I would have recognized him among thousands. "Henry?" His eyes open slightly.

"Y/N ? I... What... What are you doing here?" he asks as he gets up, training with him.

"I... um... I came to spend the weekend here with a friend. Janet, do you remember her?"

"Is Janet here too?"

"She lives in Birmingham now."

"Oh I see..." he replied, nodding. We look at each other for a few seconds, not knowing if this scene was real or not. I have a silly smile on my lips that I try to hide in vain. A whistle brings me back to reality.

"Shit... my train will be leaving soon." I quickly pick up my suitcase that I had put on the ground. "I have to hurry, my car is the opposite"

"I'm coming with you."

"Oh... no, don't bother," I replied shyly

"Don't be silly, let me carry your suitcase" I didn't have time to fight back that Henry had my stuff in his hands. He took my hand and guided me through the crowd. His palm is hot against mine. He stepped up, I've never known him like that before. He's changed so much... He was a shy boy, who didn't have many friends and now he's... a man. His hand in mine and the crowd remind me of the night we were at the village ball. He had dragged us into the middle of the piste and we had been dancing all evening. I've never laughed as much as this night. We then spent the night together walking around in nocturnal silence. Henry stopped suddenly and took me out of my memory. "Here we go." He put my suitcase at the foot of the car door and turned towards me.

"Thank you, you didn't have to, you know..." I put a lock of hair that had come off my bun behind my ear.

"I wasn't going to leave you alone with that big suitcase," he smiled at me. "And then... it's good to see you again." I look at him and I feel my pulse increasing, my cheeks blushing. "I'll buy you new gloves, I promise!" he continues.

"Oh no, I'm sure I can wash them. It's nothing."

"No, no, I insist! I'll send them to you by mail. Besides, do you still live with your parents?"

"No, I moved out. Remember that little abandoned house I loved?" He nodded as I climbed the first step of the train, "Well, I bought it. She wasn't worth much considering the state it was in."

"It's true that it was far from being a palace," he laughs. A whistle sounds to say that the train is leaving. He starts slowly at first, I move into the wagon, take my place and put my head through the window. "When will you be back?" Henry asks while walking with the train.

"I don't know yet... Soon I hope so!"

"Okay, I'll wait for you," he said a little louder so that his voice would cover the engine noises. He raises his hand to me so that I can take it and say goodbye. I'm stretching mine and not letting Henry go until he can't follow the train. Our fingers slide over each other to feel each other's skin until the last moment. He smiles at me and stays motionless on the dock until he can no longer see me. I put my head back inside and sit in my place.

Pushed into my seat, I gradually realized what had just happened. Henry. Henry was there, in front of me. I haven't seen him in three years. He disappeared overnight shortly before his 18th birthday. We used to see each other every day since we were 11 years old. Janet, come and spend time with us from time to time, but she never lingered. She didn't like Henry too much, she always thought he was hiding something. While I... I found him hypnotizing. Maybe I should have been suspicious like Janet... I come back to reality and realize that I have already arrived at my station. In a hurry, I get my things back and hurry out of the car before the train leaves. I barely have time to put my first foot on the platform when the train resumes its journey. I breathe relief and giggle alone at my clumsiness.

The station is not very far from my home even if it takes twenty minutes to walk. Fortunately, everyone knows each other in this small village, there is always one with a cart to take me home when I need it. This time, it's a friend of my parents' who offers to help me. I accept without hesitation and put my suitcase in the back before sitting next to him. We have a bit of discussion on the way to avoid embarrassing silences. A few minutes later, he stops in front of my house and takes my suitcase out of the cart. I thank him by promising to say hello to my parents. I painfully drag my suitcase inside and close the door exhaling a breath of fatigue.

Two days have passed since I got back. I can't help but think of Henry... I may try to get him out of my thoughts, but it doesn't matter: I tidied up my house, did the shopping, fixed the hole in one of my shirts, went for a bike ride, even revised my already acquired annual classes for my first day in the hospital next week! Nothing helped me to stop thinking about him. It's 7am, I can't sleep anymore because of him... I get up suddenly, determined to find the thing that will get my full attention. Gardening. I did everything but gardening. These are the last beautiful days before the cold of autumn and winter, so I take this opportunity to arrange the small garden in front of my house. I pick, dig, fill with flowers, pull, cut, arrange,... I'm so focused that I can't hear the postman screaming my name for the fourth time.

"Oi, Y/N !" I jump up and straighten up.

"Oh, sorry..." I said embarrassed

"It's nothing," he snickers, "I have a package in your name."

"Oh, yeah?" I replied confusedly. I never receive a package. I take off my gloves, undo my apron and move towards him. He hands me the package wrapped in brown paper with a string. "Who is it from?" I asked him.

"Oh, Miss Y/N I can't tell you that. I'm just the postman." He gets back on his bike.

"Okay... Thank you, have a good day."

"Good day, miss" and he went back on the road.

I turn the package around to see if there is a note, a name or an address, but apart from my contact details there is nothing. I'm going back inside without further delay to open it. I cut the string with a pair of chisels and tear off the paper. I discover a white box closed with a pale pink ribbon. I make sure my hands are clean by wiping them on my apron. I gently undo the knot of the ribbon and open the box. A note on a paper is placed on the translucent paper.

"Dear Y/N,

This is a little gift to make up for dropping them in the mud. I hope you'll enjoy them.

Come back to me soon,

- Henry"

[antiloreolympus]

4 Anti LO Asks

1. Does anyone honestly think Minthe is going to come back? She’s a star witness against them and Persephone just physically disfigured her. I doubt she’s ever going to change her out of her plant form, tbh. Rachel seems cruel enough to have Persephone either destroy the plant all together, or plant her in a tiny garden to be stuck in forever than actually let Minthe be free of the torture Persephone is putting her through. Rachel clearly hated the Minthe centric episodes too (which going off her editor was probably their idea anyway), so the more they just torture and/or ignore Minthe the happier Rachel will be. The only case of Minthe coming back is for some more petty drama, but it’s more likely they’ll just forget about it after all of an hour of being concerned.

2. you know what sucks? apollo was having upward momentum in the past few years of people discovering his queer romances and people begging for apollo/hyacinth retellings and then rachel came in and killed all of it by her nasty, lied about r*pe plot to make persephone's actual r*pist look better and her fans infesting any greek myth tag/group so no one can talk about apollo positively without LO fans ruining it. Thanks for killing growing hope around LGBT+ greek myth content, rachel! thanks a lot!

3. What I don’t get is Rachel claims LO is all about “reclaiming” female sexuality and it’s like ok, where though? Because she shamed women for choosing not to have sex and had them ousted as liars anyway who were totally having sex the whole time and they’re stupid for even thinking they could lie without it (Athena and Hestia, maybe Artemis too), she shamed women for having consensual sex but (gasp) they weren’t married to the man in question! (Aphrodite, Minthe, etc), and though she maybe could have had a point about how cheating is bad, she only condemns Minthe, Thetis, and Leto, but Hera can happy cheat on Zeus all she wants with his brother (who also shows no qualms about it and cheating on Minthe as well) and still frame her as good in it, but everyone else is bad? What?!

And especially with Persephone. She shows some exceedingly conservative, christian views that Persephone can’t even look at any other man other the man she will marry, and any sex she had outside of him must be made into SA because again, why would a story about “reclaiming” female sexuality actually let women actually control their sexuality? Such as having consensual sex outside of the designated love interest? Don’t be silly. She cannot be a young woman who has had experience and a life outside of hades, it just can’t be! More so, as she is now in therapy, Persephone’a main concern is not trying to work through her genuine trauma, it’s only making sure she’s sexually available at all times for him as a wife (a requirement hades quite literally told her! And Persephone felt shame and doubt about!) and that’s it, you know, like a tradwife is concerned about. Persephone doesn’t care about her body as her own nor even considering that she as a woman with autonomy has the right to say NO, she only cares if hades can get off sexually with her and that she doesn’t disappoint HIM. Rachel doesn’t even let her think “hey, maybe Hades, my perfect grandpa of a boyfriend, will understand my boundaries and respect my choices to not have sex when I’m not comfortable”. No, Rachel drills home that Persephone MUST ALWAYS be open to sex with him, and she better get over her very real sexual trauma now or else Persephone will be replaced! Being sexually available is her main purpose as a wife, doesn’t she know? Hades said so! She can’t work out her issues for herself, she has to do it so Hades can have sex with her and Persephone doesn’t fight back or reject it! It’s all incredibly nasty, and frankly a right wing reactionary’s dream of a comic. It’s basically an unintentional psych-op of claiming to be this progressive, feminist piece being given to millions of impressionable young girls to shape their views of relationships and sex when really it’s more conservative and regressive than any conservative school or church gathering they could ever go to.

4. What I find very frustrating about LO is Rachel wrote it that everyone looks down on Persephone for being a “stupid village girl” (which doesn’t make sense given she’s a daughter of a big six traitor and literally an olympus champion in a bunch of competitions as well as the face of her mothers company) but? Rachel made that their society? She’s the one who purposely made ALL of olympus and the underworld (and likely Poseidon’s kingdom too) into modern metropolises with huge emphasis how much better and advanced they are over mortals and Demeter who still rely on the land and are thus “behind”. Even in Persephone “growing up” is not her doing anything she’s comfortable with or bringing nature back to their lives, it’s becoming as minimalist and “modern” as Hades and everyone else. Minus the one tree she grew, she has to entirely forgo who she is and her nature (quite literally) to be “accepted” by everyone else. She cannot be herself, she has to be what she’s expected to be. You can’t frame it theyre bad for judging her for being more nature based, then make a point that she should leave it all behind and she’s better off forgetting it to be modern and devoid of nature entirely? Why even make it a this or that battle anyway? Why can’t they live in harmony? It’s clear she has a positive bias towards modern everything and a negative one towards nature, but this is just ridiculous. Rachel, you’re going to seriously shame farmers and nature itself? Really?? Even hades is myth was a lowkey farmer! He has chickens! Cmon!

[stormyoceansmain]

This might be asking too much, but I would love to see your full thoughts on each little part of the new trailer. Predictions on what you think is happening in each scene and whatnot. If you don’t have the time, I completely understand.

ngl i feel pretty honored that you want to hear my thoughts about the trailer, anon, so im definitely gonna try my best to do it!!! let's see..

so, the trailer opens up with each of our main characters getting a different kind of alert message on their phones about the main disasters that happened in the past seasons, which kinda makes me wonder if what they're getting is gonna foreshadow how things will go for them in the first 3 episodes, or just.. what they're gonna have to deal with, at least emotionally. idk if i can explain myself, but while buck's alert is pretty much self explanatory, bobby's and eddie's feel kinda weird to me, because bobby didn't have a big focus during the earthquake, while that was the moment we learned about christopher and we saw eddie being worried for him, and similarly eddie didn't have much focus during the mudslide, while at the end of it bobby learned that athena was in danger and went looking for her. it could be that they're using the mudslide to bring up eddie's trauma about being buried under ground, or maybe there isn't a big reason behind any of it, but i still find those choices kinda curious, so i wonder if maybe this time around we're gonna see bobby being worried about one of the kids (may? harry? or maybe he's just.. gonna be worried about his family in general?) and eddie being worried about his partner (or being the one in danger, with his partner looking for him, which either way would tie up nicely with buck and the tsunami, and it would be the perfect chance to show once again that eddie's partner is buck and not ana). eddie getting the mudslide also makes me really hope for a RECOVERY ARC!!!!!!! and idk what hen's and chim's alerts say, but the fact that we didn't get them read theirs out loud makes me think bobby, buck, and eddie are gonna be the ones with more focus in these episodes

we then see josh saying 'the whole city has been hacked', which is another very interesting part to me because all the previous disasters were natural ones, with no control over them, but this has someone responsible behind it, so i wonder how targeted the attack is gonna be (im not saying someone is out to get the 118, but it is kinda weird that chimney said 'it's like all of our greatest hits')

AFTER THIS THERE'S LIKE.. HALF A FRAME OF THE HOSPITAL LOSING POWER SO IM SITTING HERE HOPING AND PRAYING IT'S GONNA MEAN MORE DAVID

the yearly tradition of athena having to deal with car accidents continues (she had to do that during the earthquake and the tsunami too), but since we know that apparently she will have to face the serial r*pist that beat her up, it makes me think that the first episode/first half of the second one will have athena dealing with streets mayhem and the 118 dealing with the animals, and then things will progressively get more serious

possibly the airplane we see going down is gonna be the thing the 118 will have to deal with after the animals?? the last time they had to deal with an airplane crash it was all the way back in season 1 and it made bobby break down so???? maybe there will be some sort of parallel????

EDDIE LOOKS BOTH NERVOUS AND READY TO FIGHT EVERY SINGLE ANIMAL AND IM HERE FOR IT (though i hope no one is gonna actually hurt the animals)

i think this is pretty much it, even if i feel like i could have done a better job at going scene by scene, but it’s still all i have to say for now, so i hope it's okay anyway!!!

[pinkcloudsnightlightbell-remade]

[This post really doesn’t make sense but you should deffo have some experience with the game Resident Evil 2 : Biohazard (2019) -- here’s a short livestream of the 30-minute demo by some cool video journalists and a H U G E L Y Y influential horror gamer’s video of the demo, as well. (And here’s a favourite artist who is probably the very one you can blame for me wasting your time/gushing sm lol...) ]

Input/commentary is sincerely, absolutely, and aggressively, encouraged! ! 

Leon Scott Kennedy is nooooooooooot supposed to be any heterosexual woman`s fantasy because he is bisexual let me get into it

👉 First like the whole thing with Ada manipulating him? 

GOLD

but it’s unfair to Leon who’s actually incredibly...human?

And the other thing is that (and I probably have made it really clear) Resident Evil and the fandom are so ... weird and racist but I like seeing all the changes from the remake as well as (to a lesser degree) backtracking through the games where Leon’s appeared

I love seeing him in 2019 being completely off-the-bat friendly towards Claire and then flirting -- and it being okay with me???? I went ahead and looked up tags on here and @/mikaeled had a drawing of the RE 2 protagonists 

The first protagonist, Claire, is drawn with the bi flag colours

The second protagonist, Leon, got the ace flag

THAT made me want to tap into fandom a little bit more and I went on Twitter and Pixiv and got to see some weird fantasies of being a really controlling Leon but on the other hand saw amazing depictions of Claire being in a loving relationship with a Leon whose kindness lined up with my first exposure of him. (The other day I had a similar experience looking up lesbian/bi claire redfield on this hellsite and someone wrote that Claire is a lesbian -- big big yes -- but added in the tags that “Leon is a trans bi guy!”)

So.

Why not get into it a bit while I’m overcaffeinated?

👉 Leon and Ada is ... weird and people can read weird, bad things into it especialllllllllly if you consider “yellow fever” but it can also be smth super cute where a bi guy and a really cool girl he meets allows him to survive the events of RE 2 (1998) because she is literally mourning the death of her boyfriend in Umbrella. I think that Capcom unbeknownst to their demonic loudmouth staff have created some really thoughtful chances for representation and that helped them get so big--so Ada and Leon are good

But like...

Claire is right there! Leon and Claire become friends like that and tbh they make my bisexual heart melt as individuals. As a couple I feel hope imagining the ways they’d buck the trend of alienation and the threat of abuse...I feel like I care nothing for the fandoms, the creators, and even a majority of the games’ plot points, but here Leon and Claire are, making me feel so much pride because they show that there’s a way for men and women to be ... healthy while in love. They’re the couple that’d be great peer parents (Shirley is a big part of their game they’re protagonists of, and I love how she is written both in 1998 and 2019 which parallels how Moira Burton is written--and completely diverges from the tragedy of the pigeonholey writing of Ashley Graham) and then while they’re wonderful supports to Shirley and are intimately “””together””” in many aspects of life I believe that they’re the type to not even date because the intimate devotion and protection or sticktoitiveness of a friendship ends up building first, because it matters more. Which is not to say that when they do get into a relationship it’s anything but one that is rare.

It’d be r.a.r.e.!!

look at this ... fucked me up 

👉 In regards to this rare kind of love, the key isn’t sympathy or understanding and cooperation even through struggles ranging from PTSD to personality clashes through the years, nor is it chemistry and attractiveness (yeah I will go on record that they’re for better or worse based off of Caucasian models who are paid to be taken pictures of in real life and it fucking shows like I’d be a dishonest bisexual if not just a bad bisexual if I said I didn’t wanna ram both of them into a mattress shut up).To me it’s how Claire is as much of a hero as a typical Die Hard movie hero and YET no more of a hero compared to Leon who is, very clearly, atypical. That’s the biggest part. I love the atypicality. Leon’s seen as hot but approachable and even “a little baby who’s an incompetent rookie cop” but he isn’t... the usual cop, a.k.a. a batt*rer and a **pist and a vio*ent threat and a pig... He’s known to be a soft kind person in the remake.... so to me... 

I love him for Claire but I love the possibility that Leon Scott Kennedy’s bi and gender-nonconforming, and asexual (being demisexual) and not-cisgender and completely proud. I love that he could be this and he IS as good as this ...and he supports lesbians and bi women and alll trans and gnc and nb people unequivocally, maybe,,? Yes? Sbshshdjdjd 

Granted this is all a LOT. Let me defend myself and say that perhaps this is a hyperfixation for me but I’m the type that likes to mix into some of the emotions a tiny nugget of logic so let me make the disclaimer that, ya boi isn't an easy 'n convenient character that's hot into which I as a reader can insert myself... For me I’ve pieced something together that brings comfort and makes some sense. I like to think that he is a survivor of gay-bashing, ostracization, financial abuse, emotional abuse, ****, humiliation, public threats, familial bullshit such as custody battles and gaslighting and is transgender but he’s proud... he’s proudly trans and perhaps he is touchaverse and in terms of sexuality is bi/pansexual while in terms of who he has dated before it’s very messy as he is very aggressively misandrist and hates men and perhaps he’s very stone when he is in a mewd -- and perhaps transphobia makes him go into a rage and he has actually gotten in lots of trouble before as a kid which came back to bite him and he’s lost family and found family and best friends and the loss really hurt and made his choice to go to police academy ring hollow by the end of his training and made him a big believe in social justice and in defending people who society left behind and in therapy and self-change and in accountability (he ISN’T a selfinsert prOMISE!!) but he’s been through a lot aaaaaaaa lotttttt like idk hes just a dude sure

he’s just a dude.b,ut theres a reason zombies don;t faze him!

LOVE THAT. That part.

👉 to sum up: i support the remake fans not being uncritical and loving on the cast of characters and leon specifically! there’s a reason he recently bucked the trend of masculinity and (21 years of fandom and 21 years of problematic annoying fans, perhaps also writers, aside) has always been objectifiable, that is, seen as hot/a sidepiece/specifically desirable for women--but just /: not /: women /: as in /: Women slash str8s /: . . . .RETCH lmao he’s a gun toting hero that is very atypical but not in a disempowering manner -- rather, in an empathetic and emotional one and I want to see the RE2 protagonists heal through a life changing care and tender friendship rather than bonding through liferuining catastrophes 💓💓💓but what I am trying to say in the end is that they are so inspiring both together and as individual protegonists due to their abiliy to weather thru struggles that I as a qtwoc immigrant in America can identify with🤧 

[📍]  tl;dr   -- - 💓cute pan pew pew man is loving and cute ! :> also claire is 💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓 so cute...........................pls support/refute my theory

[kangseluigi]

Unpopular opinions post bc I wanna

I hate B* B*rnh*m. I just…didn’t actively like him at first, bordering on dislike but everyone loooooveeeeddddd him so I watched his netflix special and the first half was meh, didn’t laugh but ok I guess, then he kept making awful bigotted jokes and I hate him OH WELL

I don’t like  qu**r eye. tbh I only know 4 of them guys, and:

I know nothing about K…what’s his name? Y’all don’t even talk about him lbr 

but I know Tan, he seems…okay?

But I don’t trust the cooking guy very much

and least of all I trust the guy everyone is obsessed with with the long hair, he looks like a mix of r*pist ass J*red L*to and J*mes Fr*nco and they both can go to hell so maybe it’s projection but I also know that like 98% of the time my hatred is justified so I’ll hold on to this he has something buried prove me wrong

I like One day at a Time but not more. I don’t think it’s particularly funny tbh and one of the few shows that try so hard to focus on doing everything right and being progressive, which is a good thing, that they kind of…forget how to write jokes? the jokes are few and very niche, and some are funny, but not hilarious? Still a good show tho, just wish it’d make me laugh a little more, but also, I guess individual taste + tumblr’s “THIS IS THE BEST AND PERFECT” pandering raises expectations into the impossible which brings me to:

I…really don’t think b99 is remotely funny. And I attribute that largely to not having picked it up when only 1 person was watching it because when the big tumblr rush for it came it did the usual “this is perfect, it has [number of PoC] actors, [number of gay characters], AND tackles [2 social issues it mentioned briefly in 3 seasons]. IT’S SO GOOD AND PROGRESSIVE and hilarious and soooo aware, every character is GOLD and every.single.episode addresses an issue in society but TOTALLY FUNNY it’s amazing!!” which…is not true, ever, for any show, but also doesn’t tell me much about the show itself. Like I’m gonna see a diverse cast if you show me a pic or two, but that doesn’t tell me anything about the quality itself. But after every post like that you think it’s gonna be sooo good, while it’s just…a show. It’s funny, it doesn’t tackle things as much as they said, it doesn’t have you laughing tears every 5 sentences, and yknow what? if you had just said that I would totally have liked it, but once my expectations are too high, it can only let me down. Y’all gotta stop exaggerating shows and let people find their own way in. Also, I’ll never love a show tumblr guilt trips me into.

I loathe the Office. Maybe because I only saw bits and pieces, but all I have ever seen is people being awful to each other, bullying a dude for no reason, and that dude killing a woman’s cat. All just gross people being terrible, which…may just be the american way but wow shit no

Y*ri on ice sucks ass. Started out boring, had only 1 twist you could hope for and that got spoiled for me by a lil bitch so all in all hate, deep, deep hate.

But like people can like what they like I just…wish I never had to hear about them again, especially at the rate I have to on here crol

[bishreview]

Top 50 Singles of 2017

My final article of 2017! There have been a lot of good music this year. Trying to cut down to 50 songs was a hard task, having over 70 songs by different artists before cutting them down. This means I’ve missed a lot of songs that I really wanted to add. I have finally got it down to 50 though and I have made a Spotify playlist which I will link to this if you want to check out the tracks that made it. I’ll only list from 50-21 (like I did last year) but will talk about the top 20 tracks. For statistics, I have one Canadian, four from the UK, eight from the states and a whopping 37 from Australia.

50. Never Let Me Go - Green Buzzard (AUS)

49. 911/Call Me - Tyler the Creator ft. Frank Ocean and Steve Lacy (US)

48. call the police - LCD Soundsystem (US)

47. Birthdays - The Smith Street Band (AUS)

46. Yanada - The Preatures (AUS)

45. Love Can Be. . . - Vince Staples ft. Ray J, Kilo Kish and Damon Albarn (US)

44. Pure Luck - Ninajirachi ft. Freya Staer (AUS)

43. Crushing Hard - Urthboy (AUS)

42. Murder to the Mind - Tash Sultana (AUS)

41. Dawning - DMAs (AUS)

40. Diamonds - A$AP Twelvyy ft. A$AP Rocky (US)

39. Second Hand Car - Kim Churchill (AUS)

38. Golden - Kingswood (AUS)

37. The Remedy - Polaris (AUS)

36. P Plates - Ruby Fields (AUS)

35. These Kicks - Citizen Kay ft. Georgia B. (AUS)

34. Shred for Summer - DZ Deathrays (AUS)

33. Feel It Still - Portugal. The Man (US)

32. Science Fiction - The Belligerents (AUS)

31. Cigarette - Ali Barter (AUS)

30. Got On My Skateboard - Skeggs (AUS)

29. I Haven’t Been Taking Care of Myself - Alex Lahey (AUS)

28. Andromeda - Gorillaz ft. DRAM (UK)

27. Man You Want Me To Be - WHARVES (AUS)

26. Afterthought - Dear Seattle (AUS)

25. True Lovers - Holy Holy (AUS)

24. Homely Feeling - Hockey Dad (AUS)

23. Low Blows - Meg Mac (AUS)

22. One More Love Song - Mac DeMarco (CAN)

21. The Evil Has Landed - Queens of the Stone Age (US)

20. Not Worth Hiding - Alex the Astronaut (AUS)

Alex the Astronaut has had a huge year. She released her debut album and has seen a growing fanbase to make her one of Australia’s most popular solo female artists. Her lead single Not Worth Hiding is a gorgeous song, reflecting her humble, gentle, kind attitude whilst having a relevant political point about accepting LGBTI communities

19. Night of the Long Knives - Everything Everything (UK)

Night of the Long Knives is a huge song. From the first time the chorus drops, it brings you into a darker, experimental world, shaping what is to come on most of their album A Fever Dream. Jonathan Higgen’s voice is again flexed, his falsetto being a brilliant feature in the verses.

18. Deadcrush - Alt-J (UK)

There are many highlights on Relaxer and I had a hard time picking between this, In Cold Blood¸ and Adeline. Deadcrush has become my favourite off the album though, the weird vocal in the chorus and thumping bass heavy beat making it both an intriguing listen and a danceable track.

17. Destiny’s - Arno Faraji (AUS)

Triple J’s Unearthed High winner, Arno Faraji, is the future of Australian Hip Hop. His beats are mellow, and his rapping style laid back, having a heavy influence on US rappers like Chance the Rapper and GoldLink. Definitely an artist to watch for the future, with Destiny’s being his best song so far

16. Dumb Days - Tired Lion (AUS)

Tired Lion’s debut album this year was a good listen. The title track though blows the rest of the album away. With a strong theme of growing up and missing the feeling of being younger, Sophie Hopes belts out the Smashing Pumpkins like track, with the outro chorus hitting right into the feels.

15. Friends - Kwame (AUS)

One of my best discoveries of the year was Sydney rapper Kwame. His EP Lesson Learned was a great listen from start to finish. Friends is a highlight from the EP, with a beautiful piano motif throughout, reminiscent of artists like Kanye. Another Australian rapper who will hopefully shape the future of the genre.

14. Fuck Off - Pist Idiots (AUS)

Another Triple J Unearthed find, Pist Idiots are a great punk band. On Fuck Off they don’t hold back, detailing a broken relationship where the partner doesn’t want anything to do with him anymore. The brutality of the lyrics combined with the distorted, messy instrumentation is brilliant, conveying a feel of desperation in the music.                 

13. Be About You - Winston Surfshirt (AUS)

From one of the year’s angriest tracks to one of the year’s sexiest tracks, Be About You is a smooth song. With Winston’s intimate delivery in both the rap verses and the falsetto chorus, it builds like an Anderson Paak or Justin Timberlake song. Definitely the most intimate song of the year.

12. Chateau - Angus and Julia Stone (AUS)

Brother and sister duo Angus and Julia Stone returned from a long hiatus this year with their album Snow. The highlight from this album was Chateau, their biggest song since 2010’s Big Jet Plane. With gorgeous production, beautiful harmonies and a relaxed vibe, their switch to a more pop direction was a good choice, producing one of their best songs yet.

11. Run for Cover - The Killers (US)

Just missing out on my top 10 was the comeback from Las Vegas rockers, The Killers. Although lead single The Man was good, I felt Run for Cover highlighted their sound better, being a strong rock song reminiscent of past hits such as When You Were Young and Read My Mind. The quartet came back into mainstream attention this year in a big way, and Run for Cover was the track that proved it.

10. Feel the Way I Do - The Jungle Giants (AUS)

If someone told me that Jungle Giants would be releasing fresh tunas like this I’d be shocked and appalled. But here we are. From the opening keyboard motif to the singalong choruses, this has everything a perfect indie pop song needs.

9. Humble - Kendrick Lamar (US)

Humble is the biggest track of the year. It will probably win the Hottest 100 (deservedly) and will continue to dominate most dancefloors around the world. It’s mix of a catchy hook, a strong beat and Kung Fu Kenny’s signature rapping style is brilliant and it’s obvious why this song has become such a megahit.

8. Nuclear Fusion - King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard (AUS)

Out the 50-something songs that King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have released this year, the early release Nuclear Fusion still stands tall as the best. Their exploration of microtonal tunings and riffs are at their best in this song, as they utilise microtones to create a catchy yet dissonant melodies, catching the listener off guard. The “nuclear fusion” voice is a winner as well.

7. You’re in Love with a Psycho - Kasabian (UK)

Writing a perfect pop rock song is pretty hard. It’s a risky move, balancing catchy hooks with enough experimentation to remain interesting. You’re in Love With a Psycho is one of those songs which master it though. A song which is impossible to remove from your brain once you listen to it, it’s a completely fun, silly song which you can’t stop playing on repeat. With lines like “you’re like the taste of macaroni on a seafood stick”, Kasabian might have written the most fun pop song of the year.

6. The Comedown - Ocean Alley (AUS)

Like The Jungle Giants, I wasn’t too big on Ocean Alley a couple of years back. They’ve completely converted me though with The Comedown. With crisp piano, a smooth baseline, some beautiful guitar effects and the amazing voice of Baden Donegal, Ocean Alley have filled up the hole that Sticky Fingers left behind.

5. Marryuna - Baker Boy ft. Yirrmal (AUS)

I don’t think I’ve ever heard a tradition Indigenous language rapped before, but Baker Boy’s unique style of mixing his Indigenous tongue with English is genius. He switches between languages with ease, whilst creating catchy hooks which will get you singing along, even if you don’t really know what the words mean (highly recommend looking them up though). Baker Boy is a huge talent for the next generation and hopefully we hear more Indigenous hip hop following his success.

4. Boys will be Boys - Stella Donnelly (AUS)

This song is a tough listen, and even harder to write about. Stella Donnelly’s song detailing the experience of her friend’s experience after being raped, including the victim blaming by friends and family of the rapist, is hard to hear, especially when it’s described in such an honest and detailed manner. It’s a song that needs to be written though, with it’s message as relevant as ever with protests like the ‘#metoo’ campaign bringing light to rape culture and victim blaming/shaming. It’s a beautiful song as well, with Donnelly’s voice perfectly blending with the gorgeous guitar accompaniment.

3. Exactly How You Are - Ball Park Music (AUS)

Ball Park Music were relatively quiet for most of 2017, but they released two great indie tunes in the second half, the best being Exactly How You Are. A gorgeous love song which is as beautiful as it is simple sounds like an early Beatles or Beach Boys song, as Jen and Sam’s voices harmonise perfectly together in the chorus. Be prepared for an album by the band in 2018, with second single The Perfect Life Does Not Exist also being a great song

2. Watch Me Ready You - Odette (Aus)

Some songs take a couple of listens to really sink in, but some hit you immediately. Watch Me Read You fits in that second category. I remember my first experience with this song, straight away being entranced by the lyrical work on display. Odette’s delivery is both beautiful and sinister, with a beat-poetry-like vocal performance in the verses bringing light to the stories within the lyrics. She also shows she can belt out a chorus, with the hook highlighting her impressive vocal range. This is one of those songs which stays with you but continues to surprise when you listen. Hopefully we hear more of this later on in Odette’s career.

1. What Can I Do if the Fire Goes Out - Gang of Youths (AUS)

My number one mid-year still hasn’t changed. Although released early in the year, Gang of Youth’s lead single off their acclaimed album Go Farther in Lightness still hits me hard with every listen. From the ferocious drumming, the beautiful guitar riffs and the powerful voice of David Le’aupepe, WCIDFTFGO is a massive song. With lyrics which question one’s beliefs and faith when things go wrong, it’s a deeply personal but relatable song. It’s quite ironic that this year’s number one is about the loss of faith, whilst last year’s number one (Kanye West’s Ultralight Beam) was celebrating faith. This is a powerful track though, with its highlight being the gorgeous yet intense guitar breakdown just before the final chorus. 2017 was Gang of Youth’s year, with many tracks off their album going close to taking out my number one. This single though still reigns as the strongest track though and will definitely be a Hottest 100 top 20 (and maybe 10) contender, along with other hits like Let Me Down Easy and The Deepest Sighs, The Frankest Shadows.

Well that’s 2017 done. I will definitely be doing a review of Gizzard’s last album of 2017 this week sometime (I promise) and will try to have a look at N.E.R.D’s latest album as well as hopefully seeing films like All the Money in the World and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and reviewing both of those, as they are highly anticipated films for myself. Have a good New Year and thanks for the support. It’s been hard to keep consistent with this blog this year but next year should be a lot easier and I will try to review both films and music on a weekly basis (might be harder some weeks but we will see). Thanks.

[sjworldtour]

31/01/20 Whizzing and bouncing in Whistler Blackcomb

We've skied for 9 days in Whistler, including some of the best skiing days of both our lives. Here are some of the highlights...

In the hostel

Played pool pretty much every day, Joey is rubbish at it except for one match when for some reason she was amazing. Sam is consistently good and best after two beers but loves potting the white for some reason.

There's a sauna! great after skiing and it's not too hot so Joey can lie on the low bench without roasting too much. 

Nice kitchen with resident chatty guy who seems to be there all the time. Made some good meals and always followed them up with fresh hot cookies from the ridiculously large tub of cookie dough we have been steadily working through. 

Joey may suck at pool but definitely has the edge at boggle.

Met a new strategy game - Terraforming Mars - which took us well over an hour to have any clue what was going on but turned out to be a really good game. Second time we played it went a lot more smoothly, Sam won 1 Joey won 1.

Early in our stay there was another English guy who was a guru on everything ski related. He delighted in telling people he skis double black diamond runs and says this in practically every sentence. He also said he's really good at boarding but just can't go on his heel edge. Once he's got that sorted he'll have it nailed though. 

One evening there was an incredibly argumentative man in the hostel. For the first few hours he was sat in the kitchen denouncing climate change and Joey tried really hard not to get involved but failed. Very hard to argue with someone who is stating that complete rubbish is scientific proof, and then questioning the sources of any actual science he is presented with. Throughout the evening we were pleased not to be too close to him, he obviously just loves a debate and kept slipping sentences into conversation like "Ï hate all young people and what they do and what they wear", and “I hate [something] as much as I hate liberals”.

On the slopes

Each day we have driven down the road and parked at Creekside to catch a gondola up the mountain. Nice long gondola followed by long, slow and usually cold chair called Big Red, but usually some nice snow under it to warm us up for the day. From there we have skied on the Whistler mountain and got the Peak 2 Peak gondola across to Blackcomb mountain. Both great areas.

Both areas have amazing alpine bowls to find powder in, usually with slightly terrifying entrances to the bowls. On the top of Blackcomb Glacier chair is "Spanky's Ladder", a short hike carrying skis up to a dramatic ridgeline with various bowls dropping off the other side. The first time we did this the visibility wasn't great and we accidentally ended up following a guided group for the first half - not fantastic etiquette but good for getting us down without falling down any cliffs. Joey had a panic when the guide was describing the entry to the bowl to his group. All you have to do is sideslip down the steep rocky bit, then point straight down avoiding the sharp rocks on the right, and hope the traverse will slow you down eventually. It's terrifying  but worth it, the skiing below that point was amazing and we managed to overtake the group and make our own way from there. 

Another time we went up Spanky's Ladder and skied along the ridge - luckily visibility was great that day (see the video). A completely beautiful start to a run, followed by one of the best bowls ever.

On the Whistler side, we found great powdery skiing both up the Peak Chairlift, and in the Harmony and Symphony chair area. One of the best days ever we timed Harmony really well, joining the queue just a few minutes before it opened, then skied down Sun Bowl and took a gamble heading towards Symphony lift which was not yet open. If it hadn't opened we'd have been looking at an hour or so to hike back out to Harmony. Thankfully we timed it perfectly and only 3 people went up the mountain before us. We had two runs in perfectly delicious fresh powder before anyone else really got there, hurray. 

A lot of the powdery bowls start with popping down the side of a cornice. This is terrifying because of both the association with avalanches and the enormous vertical drop. In reality the area is hugely closely managed, with more avalanche blasting than we've ever heard before, and these entry points are so well skied that they're solid. But the vertical drop thing is real, and Joey ended up on her bum a number of times before (sort of) getting the hang of it. 

We did some fun tree skiing, in the glissando glades towards the bottom of Symphony, and in various other places following mountain biking trails. Neither of us are great at it when the snow is scraped out, but we're getting better. 

We've had a couple of not great days on the mountain. One day early on was warm and raining, and we waited half an hour for the gondola to open so were soaked before we even got started. Could have handled the rain except that the warm weather turned the lovely fresh snowfall into gluey cement that was impossible to ski nicely. We struggled down an unpleasant ungroomed run, getting serious leg burn trying to turn in the deep heavy sludge. The only other technique was demonstrated by a group of lads who just bombed it in a straight line down the hill, limbs flying everywhere in a blitz of chaos. They regrouped at the bottom and one of them asked if any of the 7 or 8 of them had made it without falling over. They had not. But they got past it a lot quicker than we did.

Another early finish day was Saturday, when the mountain was super busy as all the Vancouver residents come to town, and none of the alpine skiing was open so we were all confined to a handful of lifts. We queued for ages a few times, then gave up safe in the knowledge we'd have the hill to ourselves again come Monday. 

We've got much better in the freestyle park, Sam progressing to 180 jumps and nailing it. We've both gone over a weird banana box type thing, and also a rainbow box. Joey's first attempt at that was so comically slow as to get an applause from the chairlift above, but she did it a bit more smoothly after that.

One day when the weather wasn't inspiring we took advantage of the free avalanche awareness session offered over at blackcomb. This was very informative for Joey and a good refresher for sam and we started getting super excited about our Wapta adventure. Also we got to hide in the avalanche hut for an hour while it was blowing a gale outside.

Out and about

Sunday was Joey's mum's birthday and Australia day, both perfect excuses to go out and celebrate. In the afternoon we went down to Function Junction to try flights of beers at two local breweries. The first place had a fluffy dog outside, tasty beer, and mountainy art on the walls, very pleasant. The second place wins the contest though as it had Yahtzee and, wait for it, TABLE ICE HOCKEY. This is literally the best and most Canadian thing we have ever seen, and even better it was free. We played for ages, it's so much more fun than table football. We went home to a creepily empty hostel and had a few more beers playing pool and heads up. Then caught the bus up to Whistler Village (our first time actually in the village itself) and had a drink surrounded by noisy Aussies. At 7pm there was a "fire and ice” show, with skiers and snowboarders doing impressive jumps through a hoop of fire on the piste just above the town plaza. Pretty awesome. There were also fire twirler people but Sam said we could do better than that after watching people learning it on the volleyball court at Noosa. Followed the show with live music, beer/cider and way too many nachos at an irish pub. Way too many nachos. Had to go home because of death by nachos. 

On Thursday we went back to Function Junction, one of the breweries had an event on with a DJ and a giveaway of a fridge full of beers. The DJ was fine but they wouldn't let us enter the competition as we're not locals (pah). Tasty beer and a super cute puppy though so yay. Then went back to play more table ice hockey in the other brewery. Went home and ate yummy pizza from a takeaway in Creekside. Sam witnessed a car sliding into a roadside barrier in the fresh snow while collecting pizza. Luckily our car, Sam, and the pizza were not involved. 

Our car is great, with heated seats and heated steering wheel making it "warm and toasty for a Saaaaaaaam”.

Everyone else here seems to have a snowmobile on the back of a truck.