#I'M INSANE DO YOU UNDERSTAND!!!!!!!

[starbornsoulrider]

some more new story quest ramblings + ideas for how Halo's character is gonna progress from here

so. Halo gets transported to Cape Sorrow, collapses into the sand and immediately has a panic attack about Darko returning, about Elissa, about Maya, everything. they relive the visions they've been having about the soul riders failing to stop Garnok and losing all their friends, and slowly but surely Buddy pulls them out of it.

then they kinda... pace around cape sorrow aimlessly for a bit. Buddy and Timber just watch them as they mutter to themself, unsure of what to do or how to comfort them. eventually, Halo comes to a stop and just stands at the shore. Buddy awkwardly comes up, and tries to offer reassurance. Halo just kinda halfheartedly accepts it, but their mind is on other things right now. that's when this moment happens:

they consider everything's that happened so far. Fripp and the druids are gone, leaving Valedale unattended. Maya is injured, Erissa and Darko are back, the soul riders are on their own aside from a few straggling druids who stayed behind like Rhiannon probably. Dark Core is on the brink of executing their plan, and their chances? not looking good.

Halo keeps thinking back to the vision they had. of their friends meeting the same fate as Elizabeth. of getting sealed away in endless darkness by Garnok before he breaks free and tears Jorvik apart.

they think of Darko. the one they keep seeing in those visions, the one who causes the demise of their friends. and they realize- they don't have time to go warn the others. friendship, unity, and teamwork isn't going to save Jorvik now. in the visions they get, it's the soul riders working together that gets all of them killed. it's Halo choosing to keep fighting beside them that gets them all killed.

i've thought about a Halo officially breaking off from the druids/soul riders scenario before, and this seems like a perfect opportunity for that. i jokingly call it "Halo's revenge arc" but its more than that. it's abandoning everything and going to extreme lengths in order to prevent this tragedy. in order to keep their friends safe. they don't care if they have to kill Darko or Mr. Sands with their bare hands. heck, I headcanon that this is the point in the story where they've formed a mutual respect with the Dark Riders, (Katja, Jay, and especially Sabine at least), but even they aren't exempt from Halo's wrath if they choose to get in the way. at this point, Halo's lost hope that they'd be able to defeat Garnok, that they'll get the Light Ceremony book in time or whatever, right now all they can think to do is to stop Dark Core first.

and they have to do it alone.

morning comes, and the Hightowers see them stranded on Cape Sorrow, cold and starving. they help get Halo to shore, give them a warm meal, and try to ask them what happened. (reminder that Halo worked at the rescue ranch for a time, so the Hightowers are like family to them! they know a tiny amount about Halo's soul rider life, but not all the details.) Halo just says some druid stuff happened, and that they need to get back to their friends. Erik and Holly use their phone to call the Soul Riders, and say they've found Halo and that they'll be back in Valedale soon.

back in Valedale, Alex and the others are trying to heal Maya with what little they have. they were pretty stressed about Halo's whereabouts after they chased Erissa, so they're at least relieved to hear they're alright. and hey, maybe with Halo's powers combining with Lisa's, they'll be able to heal Maya!

so they wait, and they wait. and wait. but Halo and Buddy never arrive.

a day passes. they think something must've happened to Halo, and they're still resting up back over at South Hoof. they call the Hightowers again, but they assure Halo left soon after they'd called last time. the realization starts to sink in that fuck, they don't know where Halo is. they start calling around, Moorland, Silverglade, fuck even places like Epona, the Harvest Counties, and Mistfall- but nothing comes up. no one's seen them. they're just... gone.

hours turn into days. days turn into weeks. Halo and Buddy don't come back. because they're doing exactly what they'd promised they would do. they're going to stop Mr. Sands.

[astrhae]

crowley used the metal tool in season 1 to start time, and we learn that he's used it first to start space. to create the stars -- he still remembers how. he still remembers all of heaven's passwords: in the book crowley is described as an optimist because he has the "utter surety... that the universe would look after him". not god, but the universe. and of course he does: he helped create it and he's looking after it, too.

think about it: aziraphale had a sword, but crowley is about to face satan who wants to destroy the world, and crowley's only weapon is a tool of creation

[batpersik-art]

how are we feeling fronnie nation

[mollysunder]

Sky and Viktor's relationship is such a horror movie to me. You've got a man who was frustrated by the limitations placed on his life that were out of his control, like his class, mobility, and general health. Despite everything, he manages to rise beyond his station and avoid being an assistant for the rest of his life.

Then you've got a woman from the same background who admires him and all that he's accomplished in spite of the similar class based prejudices they faced all the while she's his assistant. She works up the courage to take leap of faith and reach out to him with her own research to show what's possible if they worked together as equals. And then he gets her killed!

Sky's death isn't the end of it because while it affects Viktor it is in no way meaningful to Sky's life or value as a person whatsoever. Even the pendant he wears in her memory is based on the design of her notebook, but that was just her notebook's cover, she probably bought it from a store and the design itself is probably mass produced. Why not use Sky's signature that was in her letter and in the notebook, the thing part if the notebook with real value?

Then Sky's brought back in s2 and she really only exists to be Viktor's assistant again, who he kills, again! But this time it's different because this time Viktor's making a conscious decision to look Sky in the eye and kill her... to prove he's changed.

In the middle of all this, in no way has Sky's death been mourned by her family or anyone else who could have known her. Jayce wasn't affected by the reveal, he didn't think it was important to tell Heimerdinger, or anyone who knew her. Nothing about her life, death, or disappearance has spurred any emotional reaction or even curiosity about what happened to her.

Sky's new life was also extremely isolated because she became further tied to him (in some ways you could say she was defined by him). Viktor never mentioned Sky to anyone in the material plane during his commune arc, so she only exists to him and she has no way to communicate with others, she's just there for Viktor's sake.

Then in the finale we learn this all a part of a big time loop where Viktor actively set the wheels in motion to have him and Jayce create hextech together, but if everything follows as is, that means Sky is violently killed in those timelines too. That means Viktor weighed the costs and decided over and over and over again that Sky was expendable enough to let her die for his plan to work eventually. How is that not murder at this point?

What's worse is that post-finale Sky's humanity is a point of dispute amongst the fandom, the VAs, and the writers themselves. Sky's the hexcore manipulating Viktor. No, Sky's a manifestion of Viktor's guilt. No, she's actually supposed to represent his humanity/conscious made physical. And in none of these arguments do they discuss Sky as a person, she's just an object meant to serve Viktor both in the narrative sense and literal sense as his assistant.

The most absolutely maddening part is that with Viktor's new bio on the League site, not only have most traces of Viktor had been scrubbed by Piltover's archive, but Sky's life has been completely wiped. Her death was implied to have been swept under the rug, and only described as the "loss of life" consequence from his Hexcore experiment.

Viktor was afraid of dying a senseless death (created by the conditions Piltover condemned his birth to) in obscurity and then he turned it into Sky's destiny.

[muppetmoonraker]

Obsessive Ford makes my brain go BZZT! I love it, I need it, I want more of it. I saw a TikTok that reminded me of them, Ivan and Till from Alien Stage. I need Ford to be that crazy and obsessive over Stan. Anyway, in this case, I was thinking Stan steps in because Ford was gonna get beat up by Crampelter. Obviously Stan kicks the guys ass because duh, but doesn't come away unscathed, and they sneak back into their room. Stan tries to sleep away his aches and pains, and Ford crawls into his bunk next to him and thinks, 'Wow, Stan would take a beating for me. I wonder what else he would do for me.' And whoops, he's obsessed now. Anyway, the song I was listening to was 'No One Noticed' by The Maria's. That's the mood I was going for anyways.

[rebekahgaveup]

Without a doubt the worst part of Taylor being at this level of popularity/fame again is all the people who want to be different and edgy and are claiming she's just an objectively evil man-hating eco-terrorist attention whore all while proudly proclaiming they also know nothing about her bc they don't like her

[average-hua-cheng-fan]

another reason i think that xie lian felt an instant connection on the ox cart is because he and hua cheng both grew up in xianle.

there are maybe 4 people still alive that grew up in that culture. based on my own experience, you can pick up on things like accent, cadence, references, and humor that suggest a person is from the same place as you without consciously noticing it. that sense of comfort and similarity probably played into their instant chemistry.

[lizhly-writes]

am i doing this? am i really doing this?

Qi Qingqi made for an incredibly handsome man, which Shang Qinghua would have expected if he had thought about it for more than five seconds. Like, of course she would be. All peak lords of Cang Qiong were incredibly attractive! No matter what kind of weird genderswapping plants you threw at them, the attractiveness quotient would remain constant! Shang Qinghua thanked god (him) everyday for surrounding him with peerless beauties!

Seriously, she had this cool and aloof young master thing going on. You know, tall, cold, a little mean. The sort of aura that belonged to a tyrant CEO in those boss x secretary novels. Shang Qinghua was into it.

Shang Qinghua would be more into it if it didn't look like she was going to kill him!

Why? What did he do? It wasn't like it was his fault they got hit with papapa pollen! That was just a hazard of being alive!

Maybe if he pretended the death glare was poorly disguised homoerotic tension? Shang Qinghua did this sometimes when Mobei-jun was really mad. It worked wonders for his confidence level!

[spicyvampire]

Hate /heɪt/ verb -> Enduring anger focused on a particular person or group of persons. Over time hatred may generate the personality trait of hostility. Surprise /sɚˈpraɪz/ noun -> The briefest emotion, surprise is triggered by the sudden occurrence of an unexpected event. It is often a way station that leads, after more appraisal, to any of the other emotions. Fondness  /ˈfɑnd·nəs/ noun -> A liking. Guilt /ɡɪlt/ noun -> Regret about a past action [...], a feeling of worry or unhappiness that you have because you have done something wrong, such as causing harm to another person.

Atlas of emotions + Cambridge dictionary

4MINUTES (2024) EP. 6

[freekymonstr]

i can't keep doing this i can't keep doing this i'm not strong enough holy mother of god i can't keep doing this

[unfortunatelyevent]

thinking about essek thelyss "my entire life goal is and has always been the search for knowledge, the uncovery of mysteries, and I'll do it before everyone one way or another, no matter what I have to do, no matter the cost, but meeting you turned my life around in such a way that I would turn away the opportunity to uncover the greatest time mystery of all that's right in front of me and fix every mistake I made, just by the mere possibility that changing any of the choices I made would take you from me, nothing would make me give away any of the moments I had and will have with you.... unless it's for you, then I would do it in a heart beat" and going just a little bit more insane

[smile-files]

not gonna go in depth on my feelings about the finale right now... i'm just so happy for cabby!! :)

[secriden]

*cracks knuckles* Okay lets talk about the elephant in the room: Style going to the support group for those who've suffered loss and telling what appears to be a fake story about losing his pet dog.

I'm going to point out a few things that I think provide a framework for Style's actions here. Not because I think it excuses what he did, but because I think a nuanced read is what the character deserves.

Point 1: An irresistible opportunity

The subs put the "Support Group for Loss" on the image in the notebook, but I'm not sure there's anything to suggest that Style would've known that was what this image represents until he showed up and saw the sign on top of the door.

In episode 2, Bison says, "He plans everything down from years, months, weeks to days" and then tells Kant:

So Style is literally just going to addresses/locations at given days and times, potentially not knowing what to expect. And as much as Fadel is certainly attending this meeting as a response to having that heartbreaking flashback (😭), this is also something he attends regularly and has planned to attend way in advance. So Style has no reason to think Fadel is attending this meeting because of a recent resurfacing of his pain.

What we, the audience, and what the characters know are very different things.

Now, should Style have turned his cute ass right around once he realised what this meeting was? Of course he should. But that wouldn't have been true to Style's character. We've been told by his best friend that he is "crazy" and been shown repeatedly that he lives right up to that description.

Style is impulsive. He's all base instinct and he acts on his desires without thought or contemplation. And by this point he is desperate for a deeper connection with Fadel. He's fascinated, captivated by the mystery that is Fadel and this is an excellent opportunity to finally see behind the wall Fadel so carefully maintains.

When Style sees the sign above the door, Style looks at the notebook (which, again, shows nothing but people sitting in a circle with the words RISE UP) like he's just realising what it means. He then gets this amused, almost rueful look on his face (like he's thinking "am I really going to do this?") before it shifts to determination and he walks through the door.

(My soul for the ability to once again gif something because FUCK Dunk is doing SO MUCH in this show!!)

To Style, this is just too good of an opportunity to give up.

Because let's be real, Fadel is so clearly lying and hiding something:

Fadel is shady as FUCK. He is simultaneously actually a really good cook (Style finally tries his burger so he knows, now), and also has the skills to work at a strip host club, and also can take on 3 guys in a fight, and also can break a man's arm with his thighs. Can you honestly blame Style for losing his mind just a little bit about wanting to get his hands on something, anything, to figure this man out?

Style is being absolutely consistent in his persistence to understand Fadel. This isn't about the car or about finally 'winning' the fight (thank you @airenyah for giving such a detailed framework to understand what Style's been doing until this point) anymore. This is about Style wanting to know Fadel himself.

Point 2: The potential implications of the setting

Now, what might give us a bit of insight as to why Style is this way? I have a theory (albeit one that could prove to be very wrong, but hear me out). I think this whole entire show is set in what could potentially be quite a small town/suburb.

There's a few things that make this theory plausible:

(1) Fadel and Bison are in hiding after Bison blew their previous cover. They're probably on the run from some section of the authorities and so it makes sense to settle in a quiet/out of the way place.

(2) Style seems to be really familiar with the people in the area. Like he grew up there and its the kind of small town where everyone knows everyone and everyone is in everyone else's business.

(3) Style is clearly the darling of the market aunties and uncles.

Style just lost her a sale and potentially a loyal customer, and she's still rooting for him? In episode 2, when Style asks the uncle to let him borrow his cart, it takes nothing but his word for the uncle to give Style his entire cart of produce for his ridiculous scheme.

Style is so clearly someone they all know well and have great affection for, and a very plausible explanation for this is that they all watched him grow up and the entire market (town/village) is fond of him.

And honestly?? Yeah, we see the way Style is actually quite sweet in that careless, guileless, thoughtless way. He goes the extra mile to fix his mistake with Fadel by replacing his car parts for free in episode 1. He helps out by taking orders in episode 2 without being asked and takes it seriously. In episode 3, he tries to drive more business to Fadel's store (bless him, he so clearly does NOT understand how restaurants work, but he MEANS well!!), and can we all acknowledge that it works?? He understands how to appeal to potential customers in the area because he knows the people there. It's not (entirely) his fault that Fadel wasn't remotely prepared for an actual rush crowd and Bison was off getting kinky with Kant and not doing his (fake) job. He is so clear about not judging Fadel's host job and tries his hardest to help him (to absolutely NO effect, but still) when the 3 guys gang up on Fadel.

Style is so loved and more importantly so very loveable.

Point 3: What this could mean for Style's character

So, potentially, Style is someone who grew up in a small town, who has been well loved, potentially spoiled and coddled, but also very much kept within the confines of the narrow viewpoint that a quiet, country town places on you.

It's in the way his dad scolds him as if he was still a child when he's at least in his mid to late 20s. It's in the way Style was so mad at Fadel for scolding him ("thanks for the lecture, dad"), like that hit a sore point for Style. It's in the way no one in the market takes him seriously; they're fond, but he's still a kid in their eyes. It's in the way he has an abundance of free time like he doesn't REALLY need to work at his dad's shop. It's in the way he sees Fadel beat 3 guys up with ease, starts wondering if Fadel is an assassin or a hitman, and is completely unfazed like he doesn't quite have a handle on reality.

It's in the way his best friend is a man who has no qualms about lying to him and putting his life in danger, and how Style seems to have no other friends or people (aside from his dad) in his life.

@wuxian-vs-wangji made a comment to me about Style being desperate for a meaningful connection, and I think she hit the nail on the head. Because along comes Fadel, a mysterious stranger with a suspiciously versatile set of skills who is also very hot and keeps giving Style these wonderfully complex reactions? Who sometimes wants nothing to do with Style, but at other times seems to be at war within himself about desperately wanting him? Who treats Style with anything but apathy?

This is catnip to Style; he never had any hope of resisting this.

Breaking news: Style is a complex and imperfect character...

Here's the thing, though: he was never going to try. The show has been incredibly upfront about who Style is as a person. Regardless of whether I'm correct about why he is this way (ie. that he is very much the product of the environment that didn't know how to handle a kid with Style's personality), episode 3 shouldn't have surprised anyone about Style. He's been incredibly consistent and true to himself.

He wants Fadel and he's "crazy" enough to go all in, no holds barred about it, and the Support Group was the biggest doorway to finally discovering something REAL about Fadel.

And its not just about sex or to prove his superiority anymore. Because if it was just that, then Style would have reacted very differently to their first time.

In this scene, Style is pleased and evidently enjoying himself, but he isn't exuberant. He isn't overcome with joy. If anything, he was more happy and excited when Fadel let him help out in the diner (I mentioned this in the tags in this post too) than he was when Fadel is literally fucking him. He lets Fadel set the pace; barely moves to touch Fadel except to hold him close. Almost like he doesn't want to accidentally mess this up, like he's worried he'll take too much, so he'll take what Fadel gives him and no more (please appreciate @braceletofteeth's amazing tags on this post). For a character that has been so aggressively on the offensive, this is shocking until you realise that sleeping with Fadel - while it's a step in the right direction - isn't Style's end goal anymore.

And he makes that abundantly clear in this episode:

Does Style even fully realise the weight of this desire? I doubt it. But I do believe that Style is in earnest. He doesn't fully understand his own feelings, but he also doesn't really care to either. All he knows is that he wants Fadel, wants his attention and his passion and his focus and his heart.

...but Style is also kind of, sort of, perfect.

Because he's exactly, precisely, breathtakingly exactly what Fadel needs.

Because Fadel is hurt and broken and bleeding inside. Because Fadel is barely holding it all together for Bison's sake, but has already given up hope for any true happiness for himself. Because Fadel can't trust anyone or anything in his life, when he's been used and used and used by the family who should've loved and cared and protected him.

Because it's going to take nothing short of this kind of unwavering, unshakable, uncomplicated determination to give Fadel even a chance of healing and opening his heart to love again.

[justsimplypanic]

nobody understands jaskier like joey batey does

we are so fucking lucky

[welivefast-dieyoung]

Do you know why, Kendrick is a fucking genius? Because either he put out ANOTHER scathing diss record super quick. Or he wasn't lying about there being rats in OVO and he had time to prep because he knew when Drake was dropping. He's an evil genius because we will never know which one of these is true, and neither will Drake.

[essektheylyss]

I am once again knitting which means I'm back to the Nein rewatch and happened to be on Midnight Espionage, and truly INSANE episode. The egg dick, both break-ins, the Zauber Spire attack, and the first time a beacon is on screen in like four hours flat. Trent Ikithon is there. The episode ends with Liam and Marisha yelling, "TRUST THE PORN."