#I was amazed

[artdonalldson]

This scene. That's it. That's the post.

[lumilumimi]

playin the miku game and my bf half out of his mind with Sickness says “if she was a mouse she’d be called Squeaku”

[feynavaley]

You know what? I take it back, Matthew isn't actually a nerd. Better yet, only people who have only a nebulous idea of what a nerd truly is could consider him one.

Because the thing is, true nerds are very visible and utterly unapologetic of their weirdness and interests in general. Like Alfred certainly is with the stuff he likes, there's no doubt about it. But Matthew... Matthew can be like that with people he knows, as his interactions with Japan and Cuba in canon show. However, I really don't see him behaving in such a way with the general public or people he doesn't know well, unless pushed by the circumstances. More than a nerd, Matthew is a shy, awkward wallflower who also happens to have many nerdy interests.

Even so, I still can't fully agree that he would be "classified" as a jock, so to speak. It's for the very same reason, actually – being as loud and visible as a jock would be, even if it's considered more socially acceptable, doesn't fit his personality. Matthew certainly is athletic as sportive, but not a jock.

[domesticwaffles77]

Me having the same opinion about security breach as Scott Cawthon makes mine the valid one.

[madamemimic]

Just finished Octopath Traveler II mere minutes ago. Thoughts under the cut, as always.

Holy fuck was this an improvement on the first game in every single way.

The classes feel a lot more unique and fleshed out. Some were buffed, some were nerfed, but they all felt like key parts of my toolkit throughout the whole game. The hidden jobs were very unique, and while I didn’t ever double (or triple) up on jobs I liked that it was an option. I loved the changes to Apothecary and Scholar especially, though I can see why people are iffy about the changes.

A lot of people think the first game has a stronger soundtrack, but I honesty liked this one more. The battle themes go harder, the area themes are gorgeous as always, and the character themes are absolutely fantastic (especially when they get remixed into the boss themes at the end of each path!)

The characters were so, SO much better this time around. The first game’s felt a little boring and one-note at times (H’aanit and Cyrus especially, good God they bored me), but each character in the second felt super unique and interesting. They also interacted a lot more thanks to the crossed paths and final story, and their travel banter was way more interesting to me. My personal favorite is Partitio. Good God, I love that man.

The game as a whole was also paced a whole lot better thanks to a variation in structure throughout everyone’s stories. Some had no combat, some had combat but no bosses, some were long, some were short… the first game’s all felt very same-y - go to a town, find a plot hook, do a dungeon, fight a boss. The variety here is a whole lot better.

The overarching story feels a lot tighter and is led up to better than the first game, too. While some party members don’t super fit in with it (Agnea especially), they all felt connected in some interesting ways. My jaw was on the floor when I started uncovering the identities of the members of the Moonshade Order. It all felt a lot less tacked-on than the first game’s, but to be fair the first game’s final quest was more post-game than endgame. The boss with Vide was also fantastic, I loved how the party-swapping was integrated into his second phase.

Some stories were better than others - Osvald’s felt a little barebones, and Ochette’s was kinda… well, I don’t really know how to feel about the Beastlings - but they were all still fun and engaging.

Overall, Octopath Traveler II was such a massive improvement on the first that I’m already excited for whatever comes next for the series.

Also, holy shit this game is gay as hell.

[ishipwaytoomuch]

I’m late to the party, but that last episode of Loki…

*chef’s kiss 💋 *

[astral-herald]

jayce enduring a symbolic rendition of viktor's trauma is so painful and so, so clever.

being stricken down and immobilized through sheer accident or, in viktor's case, a cruelly random quirk that caused his disability.

then physically dragging himself from the lowest level of zaun to piltover, much like how viktor spent his youth reaching toward the promise piltover offered, but only if he could "pull himself up by the boot straps" and get there on his own. socioeconomic forces working against him be damned.

i appreciate arcane reminding us of viktor's origins - the reason he is so called to help people and, eventually, save himself - and putting jayce through the ringer - the contrast between he and viktor's lived experiences is front and center throughout season 1. the writers send jayce, and the audience, on a grueling journey to contemplate those experiences and how they've manifested in these intertwined characters.

[marfian]

So act 3 huh

[pouletpourri]

"You just have to look closely."

[calamitys-child]

What's everyone's favourite flowers that aren't like. The normal ones. Like everyone's a fan of roses and sunflowers what's a more niche one. One you don't get in gift sets. Mine's sweet peas

[inbabylontheywept]

i did wrestling in middle school. on one hand, i was actually quite good at it, which was nice. being good at any sport was a new achievement for me. on the other hand, i was bi, and i was trying very hard not to notice that i was bi, and getting folded into knots by very kind, very muscular dorks made that task somewhat difficult.

adding fire to the problem was that my parents and my grandparents wanted to watch my matches, because they were very proud that their Gangly Nerd Son was actually Sporting, and they wanted to cheer me on. which would've been sweet and all, but if there are four people you do not want there during a key part of your Burgeoning Sexual Awakening, it is your mom and your dad and your grandma and your grandpa.

right? i mean, imagine some guy's got your head in his armpit, and you're going you know, old sweat smells bad, but fresh sweat has a sort of and then you make eye contact with your grandpa in the stands and you remember you're swearing spandex so if you pop a boner people aren't just going to be able to see the outline, they're going to be able to count the veins, and the only way you will be able to restore your family's honor after that would be by moving to siberia and renouncing joy, forever. that, or lift your entire body up by your kneck then twist 180 degrees without paralyzing yourself.

it’s a lot of pressure, is what i’m saying.

still it did motivate me to win my matches really fast. because i was so tall and skinny, i was stupidly good at the double leg takedown, and then once someone was knocked down, i'd just do the half nelson and kind of flip em over for the pin. then the ref would count to three and i’d win. EZPZ.

i had one match where that went great. won in the first ten seconds, sat back down, and prepared myself for a good hour or two of doing fuck all. didn't even feel bad the parents/grandparents were gonna be bored. the matches went up from me in 5 pound increments (i was in the 115 lbs division) and it was going great until we got to the 145 lbs division. the other school's wrestler stepped onto the mat, and she turned out to be a girl so our guy flipped, because for straight guys, wrestling a girl is not a pleasant experience.

i'm not entirely unsympathetic. my experience wrestling dudes was definitely a little traumatic. but also, i dealt. guy could've dealt too. instead, he refused to wrestle, and the coach went - fine. not even worth fighting over.

so he went to the 140 pounder, and that guy said, nosir, my mom said mormons can't wrestle girls. next guy down, 135 pounder, now he knew he could pull the same card and thus did. 130 pounder, 125, both tapped out. he got to the 120 guy, and that guy was catholic, but he said he was considering being mormon, and thus would have to pass. as a precaution.

coach blew up a little at that. he said "is there anyone - anyone - on this entire goddamn team that is willing to wrestle a girl?" and then he pointed at me and said "YOU. MAT. GO."

and i'll be real, if i'd been paying more attention, i'd have pulled the mormon card too, but i'd just been putting all that audio into a buffer file because i was reading, so i was halfway across the mat before i even processed what had been said and by then it was too late to turn back.

still i had a plan. and my plan - my beautiful, perfect plan - was to do what i'd always done. tackle, flip, pin, win. sit down. read. bore my family to death. move on.

i got the first part right. she was bigger than me, but she wasn't taller. just an incredibly stout woman. god built me like a snake with glasses, just as he built her like a combat cube. the problem was the half nelson. soon as she was down, i tried hooking my arm under hers from behind and for both genders, the defense for this move is just clamping your arms really fucking tight against your sides. if you're a guy, that's whatever, but if you're a girl - especially if you're god's chosen combat cube - that pins your opponents hand right against your boob.

so, i got the hook in, she clamped, my whole arm pressed against something soft, my coach was yelling THE HALF NELSON. BABYLON! JUST FINISH IT! FINISH THE HALF NELSON! and i was just trying to press hard enough to finish, when then my brain went

...oh.

and i flipped out. of course i flipped out. i like girls, and touching a boob is an elemental experience, and i was not ready. i was not prepared. i had not committed the sacred rites. i recoiled like i'd just brushed my arm against the surface of the sun, stood up, and backed away. nobody in the room knew why i'd given up. all they saw was me, right about to win, suddenly flailing around and scrambling. so everyone started screaming at me to just get the half nelson again, and i couldn't really yell back there's a fuckin' boob in the way and it was very distressing, and the only way i could think of to make them stop was just doing it over again the right way.

so i did.

i hunkered down and prepared myself for Wrasslin' Attempt #2: The Sequel.

i knocked her down again, EZPZ. i went for the half nelson again, but she knew what i was about to do so she super clamped, and i knew she was gonna super clamp, so i wound my arm back like a pop-eye cartoon punch before swinging my arm through the gap between her bicep and her side, but the amount of time i spent winding back super signalled what i was about to to do, which gave her time to clamp even harder, which somehow redirected the entire force of the popeye punch to the bottom of her bra.

it spat out a single boob the same way an action hero might spit out one single tooth after getting a solid crack across the jaw. as if to say:

*ptooie.* "that all you got?"

i did not actually see this. my experience was that first there was an arm, then there was a bit of boob, but i was braced, i was ready, forward at all costs, tatakae motherfuckers, and then the boob went away, and i didn't know where it went but my team, and the audience, and everyone who was in front of me, they all gasped like i just kicked them in the stomach. except for my coach. he was behind me, and thus one of the four people in the room who did not see the boob. now my mom, my dad, my grandma, and my grandpa, they all got flashed but nooooooo, coach thunderbutt was behind me, and he didn't see shit so he was still yelling NOOOOOO BABYLON WHAT ARE YOU DOING JUST FINISH THE NELSON! GO FOR THE KILL! BABYLON! BABYLON!

but i did not go for the kill. i stood up and she stuffed her boob back real fast, and we just kind of circled each other awkwardly until time ran out and i won on points. that's not technically allowed, but the ref had some mercy on me.

my coach did not.

i barely had time to sit down before he strode over to the bench to chew me out.

"babylon," he said, in that very calm way people get when they're too pissed to yell. "why didn't you pin?"

and i didn't know how to say well coach, i tried, but there was a boob, and it kept getting in the way, and my mom was watching, and so was my dad, and so was his dad, and his mom, and god (like bible god) and that's a can of worms because i'm pretty sure he was already mad at me, and i'm wearing spandex, and i think i might have to move to siberia, so instead i said

"i uh. i forgot how to do the half nelson."

which is actually impossible. forgetting how to do the half nelson is like forgetting how to swallow your spit.

and he looked at me, like i was the dumbest person in the entire world, and i looked through him like i'd just survived my 250th day in a trench at verdun, and he said: fine.

fine.

but we're all going to practice it for an hour tomorrow because you forgot.

and then he left.

and my buddies had the gall to be salty about it. i got so many comments saying "dude, why didn't you just tell him the truth?" and i said "you can if you care so damn much. you could've wrestled the girl too. maybe someone else should do the hard thing today."

but they didn't. so the next day, we did an hour of half nelson drills, and i spent a decent amount of time getting thrown around the mat, and it was pleasant in exactly the way that i hated and the year after that, to the surprise of everyone but myself, i quit wrestling and joined the trivia team.

and if you want more reasons to love my mom, my grandpa joked after the match that i might have to talk to my bishop about it, and my mom told him he would be allowed to make jokes after he stood in front of a crowd of 110 people in spandex underpants while wrestling a woman that was not his wife.

he paused for almost five seconds after that. then he said: aw. hell. sorry babylon.

and i'd have preferred my apology from god, but getting it from him was pretty good too.

[hunny-k]

This is the funniest way you could've put it

[attleboy]

TADC SPOILERS AHEAD!! //

don't forget

[fizzlewizard404]

i... i thought this would be funny... and somewhat fitting, idk...

inspired/based on this comic:

[bibbysstuff]

Girl dinner