#I know this is going to be an unpopular take

[aceingonthecake]

Unpopular Opinion

(At least from what I've seen in the fandom)

Okay. It's time for me to confess. I kind of hate the idea of Aziraphale having a beard in s3. There, I said it. But I have reasons.

So, first of all, I don't really think it suits the character. Don't get me wrong, I love how Michael Sheen looks with a beard, but Aziraphale? I don't know, I don't see it going very well with their style. But this could also be related to my personal taste. I have more intricate reasons.

The thing is, every time I've read about people hoping Aziraphale will have a beard in s3, they were also connecting it to Aziraphale being badass in Heaven, taking the lead, showing their protective streak in a stronger way, having a more...masculine behaviour? Maybe? That's what I got from those posts most of the time.

And hey, I'm all for Aziraphale fighting to make a change in Heaven, but I don't really like the implication that, in order to show their protective side more, they also need to change their looks to appear stronger/bossier and all that jazz.

It would actually be kind of a comfort to me to see them act that way and still be themself, as we've always known them. Especially considering that this part of them is not new. It's true that, until now, we've always seen Aziraphale protect what (and who) they love in a more subtle way, but it's still protection and it's always been there.

That's why I think they don't necessarily need a new look. But, if we do get one, I actually hope it will be something more similar to how we saw them in the Bastille episode, or giving the same vibes they were giving in the changing room with that feathered boa. I mean, they were playing like that one second and delivered that "Aziraphale" to Furfur the next! They can act tough AND look all pretty and silly (in a good way).

With all that being said, I won't be mad, disappointed, or anything like that if Aziraphale ends up with a beard. It's not something that bothers me at such a level. What I've never really liked were the implications some people were writing around the concept of the beard. If it makes any sense.

So, that's my end-of-the-year confession. Don't hate me, please.

[canichangemyblogname]

Not sure how I feel about the deleted scene drop. I understand 100% why they originally cut it— it’s kinda a useless scene (they would cover or already had covered the same narrative bases in other scenes) that would have thrown the pacing of the episode in a very short season already not renowned for it’s fantastic pacing (y’know… because it’s so short). Plus, imho, the dialogue (writing) comes across as… out of place (if that’s the right word). It’s a bit of an awkward scene. But maybe that’s because I think “shovel talk” (as other fans have called it) over a 34 y/o man is a bit cheugy and I’m also not enjoying the “mother of the 118” role that ABC seems to want to box Hen into (I’m also begging y’all fans to stop calling black women and queer people “sassy”).

I also couldn’t figure out if Tommy was playing dumb or actually that dense, so, at first, the scene seemed— at least to me— like a 180 for a character that has otherwise been portrayed as competent and perceptive. (EDIT: I’ve been leaning toward “he was playing dumb” over “he’s really that dense.” Also, Tommy *does not* strike me as the type to “play dumb” to avoid a question, especially from someone he has a good rapport with, as some fans are suggesting; he strikes me as the type to approach a goofy situation with an old friend with some dry humor. Doesn’t mean my first reaction wasn’t, “🙄 Don’t play dumb, now.”) However, his dialogue did provide some comedy and levity 🤷‍♂️, and I do agree with analyses that paint the whole interaction as a back ‘n forth teasing.

I just personally find the whole “What are your intentions” thing kinda passé and cliche.

So, I’m a bit torn because the scene did also give us:

a second confirmation that Tommy is not pressuring Buck into anything Buck doesn’t want, like a certain subset of fans insist.

confirmation that they’re “taking things slow,” something we know Buck does enjoy. Buck wants his romantic partners to show that they’re also serious about him. He has gone out of his way with previous partners to slow things down or choose people who seem serious about dating. He didn’t have to ask Tommy to slow down like he did Abby or Taylor.

“He’s in ketosis” << literally laughed my ass off, but justice for my man, Buck; he loves carbs. (Joking aside— this is totally in character for Evan “fitness nut” Buckley, who casually talks to men with tape worms in their ass about the best low carb pasta options.)

another confirmation that they’re fucking, and fucking nasty. “I’m letting him set the pace, and I’m just trying to keep up,” is a fantastic precursor to the “God I hope so.” Tommy Kinard— your jokes about keeping up with a younger man are truly unmatched. (EDIT: Yes, I know the line wasn’t inherently about sex, you dorks, and that it can also be a reference to how Buck has seemingly sped run the “pre-dating” phase of his and Tommy’s relationship.)

more confirmation that Buck is into Tommy, and that he shows Tommy this, too.

Edit: I’m also torn about having a less than enthusiastic reaction to the scene because at this point, Tommy is like the Star Wars sequels. There are valid critiques of his characterization, his past, and how he’s been written, but because there is a large chunk of the fandom that cannot argue in good faith and has the most ass-backwards things to say about queer men, I spend more time defending the character from terrible takes than engaging with the source material the way I’d like to. I’d really like to just say what I think without having to fight through bad faith arguments.

[butteredfrogs]

im just gonna say whats on my mind feel free to ignore this post its kinda petty but i just have to let it out

[the-hypocrisy]

"This character is queer, obviously he's gay" - say the people, referring to the hot male character who's seen banging girls hard from episode one, and known to be a womanizer.

You can ship whatever you want, but I tought it was bad to assume someone's sexuality based on your opinion and forcing it on them...

Like, boo, ship it, but don't pretend it's canon or act like the writers did something wrong there. They showed you who was in the character's bed during enough screen time, respect it.

Love is love, there's nothing wrong anyway.

[artemismatchalatte]

What if my booktok was just a front to get people to read Anne Bronte? :)

[neyafromfrance95]

i'm so sorry to see that you're being vagueposted about for your sylki takes. it may be true that how you see sylki is a bit different than a certain section of the fandom, but that doesn't at ALL mean that you shouldn't be allowed to have your own takes! fwiw, i followed you bc i actually agree with and really enjoy ur perspective on sylki. i was getting frustrated with how many people seem to view this ship in a super heteronormative way and want sylvie to basically become a housewife, and i was so glad to find a blog that felt the same way. this fandom has become tiring tbh with how many people are now freaking out that sylvie hasn't immediately started having lokis babies in s2, and i really wish that people would at least leave room for others to have their own opinions!

this! that section of sylki shippers do not leave any room for you to have your opinions! they act like a fanon police controlling what you say in your posts on your blog!

and god forbid that what you say opposes their own hcs and takes, if you commit this unforgivable sin of having a take that is different from theirs, you better be ready for some good old online group harassment! they will make you feel like you are not welcome in this fandom, they will make sure that you are hurt, they will alienate you and force you out!

but no, you are the bad guy for jokingly calling a fandom in general "vanilla" and saying (after several disclaimers that it's your personal opinion) that when it comes to canon, you don't think that sylvie should be all about being loki's housewife.

at this point i honestly hate this fandom. there are some decent sylkis out there and i love the ship itself, but a big portion of the fandom has simply sucked all the joy for the series out of me. i wonder if they realize what the consequences of their behavior could be? back when i said (in my blog) that i don't think sylvie having babies is a compelling completion of her story in canon, and this bunch came to my blog to harass me for my takes, i was in a very *very* bad place already, and the space that was supposed to be my escape pretty much turned on me and added up to an already depressing state i was in.

and bfr anyone says that it's just a fandom wank, let me tell you that these people know how to be really cruel, whether they realize it or not, their behavior is simply cruel. they don't just argue in favor of their opinion, they shit on you personally, get aggressive towards you personally, make you feel like you "can't sit with them", ect. it gets really creepy and ugly.

and the thing is, i never addressed anyone specific in my posts, i never said *this* person and *that* person have shitty hcs/takes, i never even vaguely hinted at a distaste towards the hcs/takes of someone specific, but they accuse me of pointing fingers. when i said that i didn't think canon sylvie having babies would work, i never said anything about sylki babies in fanfiction, yet people accused me of pointing fingers at the fic writers. and they would come to my blog, harass me in the replies and asks, and talk about how despicable i am in their own blogs, and it went on and on for a while.

thanks for your nice words, anon, they are uplifting. and to those who can't stand me so much, don't worry, i'm going to leave this fandom once the series is finished. i hope you are satisfied that being a shitty, gatekeeping, narrow-minded, egocentric person worked for you! but don't ever feel entitled to complain about how lokius shippers treat you.

[neverendingford]

.

[iero]

Unpopular horror movie opinion probably, but I would take a psychological horror movie where that subtle dread sticks with you even after the movie is over over any horror movies that rely on "jumpscares" to spook it's audience any day of the week.

[kyouka-supremacy]

Hey! I was summoned by the tags you put under my post bc I also very much enjoy discussing ethics. I might make this into its own post so I'll try to not elaborate too much...

I think that I can't just decide for everyone if the difference between doing good for the sake of goodness or in order to save oneself matters, but for me, in most cases, including Dazai's case, it doesn't.

I like to believe that morality is a choice one can decide to make, and I don't think it's fair to take that away from them, regardless on how they might feel on the inside. It's a wonderful thing to act morally because it's your "natural" tendency, but I think people also have the right to do so deliberately, for a reason that they choose, without their choice being minimised. They're two different processes for sure, but if the outcome is good, then the action is a good action, and, if being moral is a choice, then I don't think I have the right to decide that only one intention or emotion that will lead there is good enough.

Also, doing good for your own sake and for the sake of others are mutually exclusive at all. One feeds the other, and if we were to put every person's actions under such scrutiny, we would ultimately run in circles.

So, for people outside the story, I would say that the debate does matter, but for the sake of the people involved, it doesn't, because the outcome is the same, especially since Dazai is so opaque as a character, and what he really feels about the things he does is so hard to read, so at the end of the day all most of them experience is his actions.

[Post this is referring to] Thank you for your elaboration, I loved hearing your opinion on the matter!!! That's close to consequentialism, isn't it? The consequences of one's actions, how much good they produced, are telling of it being morally right or wrong. I don't necessarily agree, but that's definitely a valid way to see it!!! I personally believe one's intentions are the most relevant aspect to take into account when judging whether and action is ethically rightful or not. Note that that is judging the moral of the action itself, and not giving a judgement on the person; people can have a million reasons to act selfishly, and in my very “humans are always inherently good” worldview more often than not it's caused by society rather than an actual preference to not be altruistic. But that doesn't change the fact that even a good action, if it isn't moved by good intentions, won't ever be passable of being morally right to me. Besides, then, wouldn't the other way round work to? Someone well intentioned, who's however incompetent, and ends up with their actions putting more bad in the world– as long as they're acting with a true desire to help others for the sake of it, their actions can't be considered morally wrong for me.

To clarify, with reference to your ask; I don't think people who do something for selfish reasons, and end up doing good, are morally rightful; but if they decide to do good, well, isn't that a well-intentioned aim itself? Then I think they stop being selfish to the extension that they consciously decide they're going to do good. That's not morally reprinandable at all.

Now, regarding Dazai... Honestly, I don't think Dazai is a good person. Because he never meant to do good for the sake of it. But now, the thing is, I don't think anyone in bsd is meant to be interpreted as good or evil– nobody, not Atsushi, not Mori, no one. When it comes to bsd– I do think bsd expresses a more or less nihilist worldview. And I know pretty much everyone else disagrees with me on this, I know, I'm sorry. But I do think there lies an undergoing message that good and bad are ultimately the same, and equally meaningless– it's there in Oda saying “Neither good nor evil mean much to you”, it's there in the way it makes you root for mafiosi like they were the good guys, it's there in the way Dazai never even considered to make amends for the bad things he's done (because they were never bad to begin with, because good and bad mean nothing anyway), it's there in the way it constantly shows good people doing bad and bad people doing good in a way that basically equalises them. To me there's really no point in discussing whether Dazai is good, because he is most evidently not, but that's only because he was never meant to be interpreted as such to begin with. Please refer to this post for further details; it's not surprising at all that Dazai switching over to the “good side” didn't come with a radical change of heart, and that he basically stayed the same, because how could he become good when that's no different than being evil, and those both mean nothing anyway?

And I know most people see bsd's core theme as finding a reason to live, and maybe it is, but even then I think that wouldn't be by denying its nihilism, but rather accepting it and finding a reason to live in spite of it: to me all of bsd really sums up in “that, at least, is a little more beautiful”.

[morethanonepage]

In episode 10 of Constantine, John says to Zed the Achilles tendon that nullifies magic is Chas' favorite trick. So he is into magic cancelling ropes... something to chew on. Happens around 5min into the episode.

sorry to have taken so long to answer this (though this is NOT the oldest chastantine related message i'm responding to tonight 😬) but also it's partly bc it's driving me insane that this wasn't a bigger deal when the episode first aired, or since then, bc obviously i went to look it up and:

(from a transcript site that doesn't uh identify the speakers, which is unhelpful, but that's john & zed).

i have to admit i haven't re-watched quid pro quo in literal years despite it i guess being one of the most explicitly (lol) chastantine-y episode, between the kiss (i still remember the showrunners being like 'ooooh just wait for episode 10, john's actually going to KISS a MAN' and then it was. chas and it was a cheek kiss which tbh i do still love but also the camera refused to actually let anyone perceive it fully, SO) and the arthurian curse that's forever binding chas to john (or at least till the 47 lives run out) and the hug and the pride flag hanging directly above john, zed, and chas as john looks smugly on at chas threatening someone w a shotgun.

but from what i recall there's a lot of talk in that episode about how well john knows chas (or how well john thinks he knows chas, which is actually what gets him in trouble/punched in the face, ultimately). so that exchange is a nice little hint of that early on in the episode, of john knowing that chas has a favorite (magic related) thing john does. and bc it's chas OF COURSE it's a magic-negating magic related thing (like, bondage potential aside, my first thought was -- was that the first magic-related thing john did for/around chas, to help protect him from whatever queenie was doing to him?) anyways i'm emotional about it, it's fine.

tho obviously the bondage implications ARE NOT LOST ON ME but i think i'd have to do a refresh by watching the episode itself to get a firm grasp on how that would -- potentially work.

[ohgoditssnek]

It's this time of the month when snek complains about bungo stray dogs.

However, this time it is not entirely about bsd and more about general portrail of Lovecraft inspired characters in media. But since im too busy working on my diploma to write an actual paper about this topic, i will default to just being disappointed in bsd writing. And bsd Lovecraft is a good example.

So, anyways. Lovecraft is boring af as a character. I assume there is a piece of media that managed to make him fun that i missed, but bsd Lovecraft is nothing. So most of the others. And the reason is that they aren't based on the writer himself, but rather on one of his works. His nothing but a shallow Call of Cthulhu reference. Silly eldritch tentacle monster. In bsd his just a prop, standing there, being...tired. Yeah, yeah, Cthulhu sleeping in the depths of the ocean. I get it.

I assume Lovecraft as a person isn't very exciting. But the idea of making him into tentacle critter is even less exciting. That's the first thing that comes to mind and it's boring and unimaginative. That sort of interpretation just tells me that you don't know anything about the author really. It's the same thing as basing Lewis Carroll character ENTIRELY on Alice in wonderland.

If you want to make Lovecraft character based on his work at least choose less obvious one. Call of Cthulhu isn't even good. Lovecraft has much more interesting compelling works than this one. I know. I read all of them. I had a hypefixation moment, that's why I care about Lovecraft do much. I know too much information about him.

And H. P. Lovecraft is an IDIOT. He's STUPID. He's such a prick not like other girls hikka that it's hilarious. This man roleplayed with his panpals, he was talking about food SO MUCH in his letters, he kinned every 18-19 century poet and writer, he was an Edgar Allan Poe fangirl. Lovecraft was such a mess, I'd like to talk to him really. He wouldn't like me probably, because I'm not American and not even western European. And we both have such horrible social anxiety, we'd just sit in awkward silence and then I'd infodump about bees and dsmp lore and break him like a victorian child, unless he'd actually find concept of Minecraft roleplay interesting... BUT ANYWAYS BACK TO THE TOPIC.

Bsd Lovecraft is nothing but a plot device. He's there to be big scary monster for soukoku to fight. Nothing wrong with big scary monster to fight it's just. He has no personality, there's nothing exciting about him, no interesting thoughts or interpretations. Just an eldritch monster.

But you can make him so much more than that. He could be so out of touch with reality because his only source of information about society were old literature book, just like real life Lovecraft grew up petty much in isolation with a company of century old stories. Make him complain about humans, make him obsessed fashion, because he wants to look like a real gentlemen, but then he misses the point entirely. Just like real Lovecraft did. You can make his reason for helping Fitzgerald not some shady contract, but his own will to do something for a noble cause. There's so much more that you can do with him, instead of making him into apathetic wall with do a scary button.

But why bother writing all that for a background character who's only on screen for half an hour?

Why bother including him at all? I'm sure there's a way to do a soukoku moment without him in the narrative. Bsd has do many characters it won't make a difference if you remove someone of them. What's the point of forcing in a character if you not interested in making them fun or exploring them.

It's the whole premise of bungo stray dogs, isn't it? You come to see cool autor interpretation. Bsd is borne out of love for literature and writers, but then some of the characters get so much less attention and care then others. And it's not even that hard to write a good character when you have a real person as a reference. How'd come so many bsd characters are nothing but blank pages and troupes? If not for literature, half of the people won't be interested in the story.

Bsd is very strange media to consume. You have to wach anime, read manga, read novells to understand the characters and setting, and then you have to read autors' works and biographies to understand the meta (and because people will bully you on the internet if you don't). But then. Then you look at it as a whole and. It feels like a fever dream. It rushes to tell you all the cool stuff, but then it's either not enough stuff or too much stuff and you have to go do homework to understand what that was about. It almost can't pick want it wants to be.

Bsd is just one big fanfiction that just wants to play with all those cool characters and doesn't want to do boring storytelling stuff.

And idk.

Slay?

What was i talking about by the way? Ah yes, Lovecraft. Please stop making him into Cthulhu. That's boring.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk, i will now proceed to write logistic strategy for a small game development studio in Poland.

[red-dyed-sarumane]

i dont have "liked it before it was cool" syndrome i have looking at a wiki and going "i know more than you" syndrome

[kunikidas-lost-glasses]

I will forever be mad about Matt and Mello dying.

Also just imagine how awesome it would have been if, when Light opens the door of the warehouse and wants to escape from the warehouse, Mello and Matt are standing there, outside of the warehouse and get shown/revealed the moment Light opens the door, aiming their guns at him, Mello wearing his leather coat with feathers as well as his sunglasses and taking a bite of his chocolate bar while Matt is calmly smoking a cigarette while also aiming at Light with his gun and then you hear Near in the background telling Light that it's over.

[nekoprankster218]

Pitch Honkai? Easy: there's 180 'resin' and costs 10 of them to open the xp/etc. flowers. Game of the year tbh

holy shit

[sinecosinewheel]

i finished reading the 489 page transformers essay just now and i watched the first three movies over the last couple days. cinematic garbage. but it compels me

[sunny-sol]

growing up is realizing that there is no best part of an oreo, and eating them whole