#MY POOR BASTARD

[gkdmts]

chess is fun until the pieces start running around and flipping you off right Leona finished the cloudcalling event yesterday! the best one for me so far, i haven't laughed so much at any other.

da bonus scribble! the chess pieces in question. not gonna finish this one but look at these sillies

[ravencromwell]

Rereading Dickens Christmas Carol for the first time in a long time. And the more I reread, the more it strikes me how seamlessly a queer reading could slip within these pages. Not an especially twee reading, wherein all Scrooge's troubles start and end with grief over Jacob Marley's death. For we know that Scrooge was a "Tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!" And we know that he and Marley were "two kindred spirits"

And perhaps that very fact makes the similarities to queer life, unintended as they most likely were by Mr. Dickens, achingly poignant to me. Scrooge is, we're told, "secret and self-contained and solitary as an oyster." How much that resonates, for so many of us who shield our innermost selves but from a select group of friends. And we know that Scrooge and Marley were, at the very least, certainly that for one another. Scrooge is Marley's sole mourner; his sole executor and beneficiary; and even Dickens notes, "friend." How reminiscent is that of queer couples across history, estranged from their families?

Scrooge lives in a set of chambers that once belonged to Marley—clearly Dickens wanted us to believe Scrooge gave up his own dwellings after Marley's death to economize. But with only a flicker of change, those chambers become _their chambers, rented by Marley as the senior member of the couple. The place is so desolate Dickens notes "one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses, and have forgotten the way out again." The perfect abode for two queer misers who wanted no one prying into their business.

Marley's name is still above the door of Scrooge's counting-house: a mark by which, no doubt, Dickens meant to convey Scrooge such a penny-pincher he couldn't bother to have it changed. But a thing can be both! mark of frugality to ludicrous excess and! mark of mourning. "sometimes," Dickens opines, "People new to the

business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names. It was all the same to him."

This is why "death of the author" matters so much, in expanding our interpretations of texts. It is vastly far from the lens Dickens would have intended. But, the idea of a ghost of queerness, so taboo in the society it could barely be glanced at sidewise in this tale that is all about the inexplicable and yet that lingers over everything becomes an astonishing lens through which to read this book. Thinking of Scrooge as a queer man, his "melancholy dinner at his usual melancholy tavern" becomes a eerie prefiguring of the hollowness of days spent by Isherwood's A Single Man. In this universe, little wonder Scrooge doubly hates mention of time with family, marriage, etc. when the precise nature of his grief is both unacknowledged and unacknowledgable.

And readings like this are vital, because the uncomfortable truth is, discrimination doesn't "discriminate between sinners and saints", to borrow a Miranda phrase. It is easy, in my liberal circles, to fight for queer people who hold "the good sorts of politics". But what about men like Michael Hess, culpable for supporting Reagan even as his contemptuous homophobia let the aids epidemic run rampant? How much harder is it to remember Michael had a partner? That he deserves empathy and compassion for being practically tarred and feathered out of the party upon his own aids diagnosis?

Expanding our imaginative universes to include queerness, not as redemptive panacea, but merely as one aspect of identity, personality, often in vicious conflict with others. Even! as we consider those stories equally worthy of being told feels vital if we're ever to truly express the complexity of what queer humanity looks like.

[hoarder-of-dragons]

[Season 2 summed up]

Aziraphale's thoughts: Oh I shall team up with Crowley and make Nina and Maggie fall in love and make them confess. Oh what if I also confess then. I need to prepare everything to set the scene.

Still Aziraphale's thoughts: Ooohh a ball with dancing and tiny snacks to make it fancy and it will be like a Jane Austen novel coming to life and then I will ask Crowley to dance and all our problems will go away as I stare into his eyes....

Crowley's thoughts: Keep Aziraphale safe Keep Aziraphale safe Keep Aziraphale safe Keep Aziraphale safe FUCK YOU GABRIEL Keep Aziraphale safe Keep Aziraphale safe Keep Aziraphale safe PLEASE HOLD MY HAND AZIRAPHALE Keep Aziraphale safe JANE AUSTEN WAS AN AUTHOUR?!?! Keep Aziraphale safe-

[elsecrytt]

curse technique concept:

your technique can make anyone fall in love with you. it's not permanent, but the emotions are extremely real, and powerful, wearing off over time unless refreshed.

the technique is activated by eye contact.

you've also taken a binding vow - you cannot activate your technique at will, it's always on. this makes your technique much stronger than it should be.

so you run around with a blindfold, much like gojo, just to prevent making random people fall in love with you.

it's not so bad, really!

growing up, your parents would wear eyepatches - with only one eye making contact, the technique was half as effective!

except... if the effectiveness of the technique increases proportionally with the number of eyes... well...

[royalarchivist]

Mike: I'm gonna show this picture to Bad, I'm gonna show him you're really a thief and you were stealing from him! [Laughs]

YD: You're– Ah, what's that word I learned? What was it?

Mike: What, what?

YD: The insult you told me. The Brazilian slang.

Mike: Ahh, filho da puta!

YD: One more time! Ah– Filho da puta, filho da puta!!! 🤬

Mike: [Laughs and hits YD]

YD: [Laughing] Filho da puta! What the fudge, filho da puta! 😄

Mike: [Still laughing] What the fudge, filho da puta!

[tenshi-agerasia]

in-universe alien stage mechanisms and the use of colors in round 7 (a luka & till rant ft. mizi & hyuna)

it's generally agreed that alien stage can be interpreted as a metaphor for the kpop industry, and as someone who did tons of studying (because of my 3d fav) on how performances work in c-ent, i noticed some things on my nth rewatch of blink gone

meta-wise, the colors in the mv are green (to represent till) and purple (to represent luka). this combo works really well for the song, but is there an in-universe explanation to the lighting? yep:

take a look at the scoreboard. even in-universe, green represents till and purple represents luka. taking the idol theme more literally, we can also assume that these are their official colors. i went back to the TOP 3 video and well well well guess what appears during luka's part

the lightsticks, the projected neon signs, the same kind of mask (?), the stadium lights. we can reasonably assume that this purple is luka's official fan color and represents support for him.

and guess what color almost all of the crowd is repping during round 7 through lightsticks and masks?

that's right, overwhelmingly purple. don't forget that the winners of each round of alien stage are decided by live in-house voting, and audience members will always be biased towards who they're a fan of. remember that luka is insanely popular and already won a season, so his fanbase would be larger, more developed, and more devoted.

till was, for a lack of better words, cooked. he was doomed to lose from the start, because how can a few of his fans outvote the majority?

i've seen some people theorize that the result was rigged, and i completely disagree: you cannot fake support on this large of a scale. "oh, but the color of the lightsticks are controlled by the organizers" then explain the masks, a clear fandom symbol

also, from my experience in survival shows, vote counts in the final round are usually hidden until the results are announced, which explains the wobbliness of the scoreboard bars like they're inflatable tube men in front of a car or mattress dealership.

an alternative explanation to the lightsticks is that it represents the current vote, but i'm not inclined to believe this theory because, again, the masks. like real-life idol performances, i think that this is just a show of support from the audience.

back to the meta: mizi's appearance in the crowd is a reinvigoration of determination in till, and in terms of color, she is a break of bright green among the sea of purple. she not only stands out because she's someone he loves, she is visually a breath of fresh air for him.

do you think, in those last moments, he was not only happy to see her alive in front of him but to also see her wearing his color?

in this part where they're reaching out to each other, the pink-purple light that seems to be shining from mizi is representative of how she's a beacon of hope for till. in-universe, however, till is just moving towards the audience, the close proximity of the lightsticks illuminating his face with color.

mizi and till are surrounded by this vibrant purple, a symbol for luka. even with mizi's more pink-ish radiance, they are literally in his territory, at the mercy of the system that he has been through and learned to play along with.

the same can't be said about luka when he sees hyuna again:

the warmth of his fan color disappears, replaced by a colder indigo. the audience, his fans, the aliens that he knows how to use to keep himself alive mean nothing to him right now. it's this cold feeling of shock that makes him so unsure of how to react.

in this moment, he is no longer luka the performer, luka the idol, luka the twice winner of alien stage—he's just luka. he's vulnerable to emotion, an unfamiliar thing, and he's so painfully human.

luka: (sees hyuna) holy shit it's you... mizi: till is literally dying behind you luka: this ain't about him

another detail: these shots were never shown in the mv so i'm assuming they're taken by in-universe cameras (see the red flashes in the audience), especially because of the angle (downwards pointing perspective)

[iambecomeahamburger]

[ninjakitty6252]

I originally typed this out as a comment but thought it could stand on its own as well.

When you think about it, Vex and Pixal are parallels. Both were with Zane at a time where Zane had lost his memory. Pixal guided him to discovering the truth and accepting his new titanium form, as well as continuing to aid him for many years both inside and outside of his head. We see that in Dragons Raising that Zane finds that talking to Pixal (or in this case a picture of Pixal) helps him solve problems. Zane looks up to her and the guidance and comfort she brings. Vex on the other hand used Zane’s lack of memory to manipulate him, to shape him, and mold him into the Ice Emperor something that Zane still is haunted by and regrets (quest for the lost powers book) He was used as a pawn. Both Pixal and Vex advised and guided Zane, but Pixal did it out of love and respect for Zane, while Vex did it out of spite and a longing for revenge. It’s really interesting when you think about it.

[fyoht]

oh my god. look at him. what a little bitch.

[dizzybizz]

the little chipper

[feverdreamsandlucidnightmares]

So how badly do we think it fucks with Andrew that he agreed to stop protecting Neil a few hours before Neil was kidnapped and tortured?

[theallianceofcelestials]

The Barbie meme is now complete

[taddymason]

Imagine how sad it is that Jay doesn't even remember his parents, he doesn't know his own age, or his birthday. He's been all alone for years since he can't trust anyone enough with his secret and no one cares about anything but work. He's stuck in a job he hates but knows nothing else.

yeah, I have many thoughts about him…

Also go watch this video please it's literally Amnesiac Jay

[d1sc01nf3rn0]

Everybody has the theory that Armand turns Daniel out of anger; but my theory is that Daniel gets injured, or has like a heart attack or something (the guy is old and has parkinson's, and Louis was trashing his house okay?) and Armand is SCARED AF and ends up turning him out of fear of Daniel dying, like in the books.

And then Armand immediately regrets it, and nopes the fuck out of there; and instead of the Devil's Minion where we had Armand following Daniel, we will have Daniel searching for Armand.

Just think of it, it would be a nice comparison to the book.

[animentality]

you guys think sex feels good???

try fixing a coding error and having the program do what you fucking designed it to do.

that's a real fucking orgasm.

[daenerystargarycn]

“He’s always angry, but we haven’t done anything.”

“…but I have a crooked finger, just like Mama!”

“We were born here. Mama is our mother.”

“I do not wish to be different.” “Nor do I.”

“So let us be good sons and please those who love us, so they may forget what we lack.”

I’m never going to recover from this. Once again scenes were removed that would add to both boys characterizations, and we all know why. The scenes would make the audience realize how Aemond’s ‘I’m being bullied for not having a dragon :( I��m the real victim!’ storyline so fallible and easy to shatter in universe because it’s a completely normal occurrence for Targaryen’s. Aemond is not the first child to not have a dragon by the age of ten, the original conqueror’s, Baelon, Alyssa, Rhaenys, Laena, Viserys, Daemon, Aegon II, Helaena, etc. all claimed young or fully grown dragons somewhere between the ages of 11-18.

The only character that had the potential to be marketed as his biggest bully is his brother. They’re never going to convince me (and many others) that it was Rhaenyra’s sons who would ever go after another child for their lack of a dragon, especially given that they were almost surely taught that hatching a cradle egg is but one way for a Targaryen to have a dragon. Aemond felt lesser than his nephews due to the way Alicent was parenting him. She led him to believe that his nephews were bastards, that due to their blood they were beneath him, and this is what led to his inferiority complex. It makes more sense than the crock of shit the show runners decided to include in the show.

Rhaenyra and her sons were subjected to actual abuse and bigotry over the timeskip due to their gender and their blood, respectively. It very much makes me sick how they’re being treated by not only the show runners, but a decent portion of the audience as well. Bastardphobia is not cool or edgy. Looking down on someone because their parents weren’t married is vile. It falls into the same category as believing in blood supremacy. It’s 2024. Do better.

Jace and Luke will forever be Mama’s boys and are never beating the best brothers/sons allegations.

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