#Oof that is very long

[swiftlymurmurs]

I've seen a lot of people voice disappointment over this Game Changer season finale and while I personally wasn't really bothered by a lot of the criticisms (I thought the Ratfish was an interesting added game mechanic and I never really care who wins or loses so his judgements not aligning with mine made no difference to me) I do think it's very interesting and I've spent some time thinking about why it doesn't work for so many. Some thoughts: Why is this Eric guy even here?

Tim & Eric were a popular tv comedy duo in the late aughts alt comedy scene. Sam and many of the writers at Dropout are sketch comedy nerds who, in 2007, were freshly at the start of their comedy careers, and probably see them and the larger [Adult Swim] environment they were a part of as a huge influence.

Why has it maybe aged poorly?

As far as I know, their popularity came in the early stages of about a decade of quite cynical, surreal comedy that also spawned the "lolrandom" era. While huge and fresh at the time, I think my generation (gen Z, the main viewerbase of Dropout) has grown pretty tired of this style and favours sketch comedy that's more clever, witty, and emotionally open or wholesome. At least, that's a movement Dropout has very much steered into with their roster of comedians and it's what the viewers expect.

The parasocial thing

It's no secret that Dropout actively promotes itself as a tight group of friendly comedians who you are invited to get to know, expect, and love when they show up. They don't abuse parasociality in the way you see, for example, younger audience oriented youtubers shoveling merch do it, but they absolutely make use of it. Most of the moments from this episode I've seen people gush over or post positively about are those where the cast recognize each other's styles, reference their relationships, and just generally make it known how well they know one another. When a total stranger enters the picture in an episode where the cast already have a barrier to their regular banter AND is given so much power over the game, they may look like an outsider or even an enemy to the happy little family people have gotten so attached to. Especially because his role is explicitly that of an antagonist, and the cast are never given a chance to see him and maybe out their love and respect for him as a comedian. In the minds of viewers, he just stays some guy who made mean jokes about their blorbo and then left.

Conclusion

I'm always glad to see this show making big swings, and while most of them have landed, some of them are bound to miss. It's a show that prides itself on trying things the viewers may not yet know they wanted and the second it stops trying, I think it'll be all the worse for it. It's a shame to end the season on such a note, but it's been hit after hit so far, and before we know it we'll be right back into it. I love this show, I love this cast, and I'm excited to see what's next!

[ferngle]

im soooo normal guys

[turtleblogatlast]

Leo getting hit with a truth curse but instead of forcing him to admit to super sad or worrying things it’s things like “it was me who broke the remote” “I saw Mikey prank Donnie and helped hide it because it’s way funnier if he didn’t know who it was” “I rip my clothes to look more like Raph’s because he’s really cool” “my stripes aren’t even red they’re pink!”

[topherwrites]

ELIZABETH & CALVIN

s1e2 / "in the kitchen" - renee rapp / s1e3 / "in the kitchen" - renee rapp / s1e3 / quote by unknown / s1e3 / quote by @/metamorphesque / s1e3 / great expectations, charles dickens

[seaquestions]

more canucks as furries, enjoy 👍 im having a lot of fun haha can u tell (ids in alt)

[crazymecjc]

the world is very beautiful indeed.

[down-with-the-mafia]

Chasing It Down

[beaulesbian]

wano spoilers

feeling some kind of emotional about rayleigh and roger flashbacks in wano, with smol shanks and buggy. and later oden and toki and their kids :'(

rayleigh has so much patience for them lmao

just few of my favorite panels:

(their captain is an idiot; a shared sentiment by whoever's captain wears the strawhat, probably)

(this is so cute and sad especially knowing this playfulness and love from roger never reached ace ;-; sorry)

"reminds me of the old days." - i wonder if rayleigh means by this shanks or buggy (or both? im not that far yet, if we know more of their backstories, but they were already very young on the roger's ship, so it would make sense if they found one of them as a baby and basically were raising him together ;-; *cries again*)

no really, these flashbacks said rogerray with kids rights, and rayleigh was the only one with a parenting braincell

and this last thing reminds me how often it's one of the strawhats (cough. zoro) reading luffy the news, mostly about their new bounties

smth smth captain and his first mate

and then this angst.... with the goodbyes, and rayleigh possibly keeping roger's pirate hat after he left.

these flashbacks were so emotional! so good and informative how roger's pirates worked, how oden went with them and their journey to the places we've seen luffy and strawhats travel from beginning of one piece - skypiea and the poneglyph text that oden wrote there for roger. water 7 and meeting young franky!, fishman island and roger and oden hearing that voice but rayleigh not hearing it. that was all so interesting.

it was both so fun and joyful, but also sad and devastating, what it must have been to part in the end, for the rest of the crew (and rayleigh especially.)

[ghost-bxrd]

Prompt:

Bruce keeps accidentally calling Tim by Jason’s name.

And it’s fine. Really. This was— not exactly Tim’s plan, but it seems to help keep Batman stable. So— so it’s fine. He can be Jason. For Bruce. For Batman.

[trensu]

do you think you'll put "Stasis in darkness" on AO3 eventually?

see, when the idea first came to me, I hadn't really planned on doing anything with it because I wasn't sure if I could make it work. there's a level of gravitas in the relationship between a god and their devoted servant that I didn't think would translate well to steddie because, let's be real, those boys are goofy dorks. but the idea wouldn't leave me alone so I typed up the original post in an attempt to work it out of my system and move on.

(the post kind of blew up, which I was not expecting at all!! like, not even a little bit! i post all sorts of rough little ideas for my own amusement and I've been able to do that without drawing much attention until that point.)

Anyway, I wouldn't have done much with it but @acowardinmordor left some comments/tags/what have you that helped me nail down the setting in my head which really opened the door for me to explore how the story could progress. (apologies, strife, I'm not sure I ever properly thanked you for that burst of inspiration, so please accept this shoutout as an expression of gratitude). And the amazing @ent-is-indecisive allowed me to rant about it which really helped flesh out the story. Seriously, there are elements and lore coming up that would not have existed if it weren't for ent. (and thank you once again ent for the ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL fanart you made for the reveal scene, I'm still overcome with joy whenever I think about it!).

Once it got to that point, I knew I wanted it to be a self-contained story and I was afraid that if I did a multi-chapter fic I'd lose the thread and never make it to the ending I want the fic to have. (no, the end scene hasn't been written yet but I KNOW what it's going to be and I hope everyone will love it as much as i do). So I promised myself that I was not going to post it on ao3 until the whole thing was written out completely.

However, I occasionally need a confidence/motivation boost so I've been posting consecutive parts of the rough draft here. you have no idea how much the people who reblogged with tags or left comments have helped me fight off the discouragement my brain likes to bog me down with; off the top of my head, @godsweakestboy , @redfreckledwolf, @fuctacles , @spectrum-spectre , and @lawrencebshoggoth have given me lovely, enthusiastic words of encouragement. and they're only the ones I can think of at this moment. there's so many other people who've done this, so if you've ever left me nice tags or comments, please know that I've read every single one of them repeatedly whenever I need to get over a slump. I'm so grateful for all of you!

Anyway, all this is to say yes! It is going to be posted as a oneshot on ao3 once I've finished writing it. <3

[eremin0109]

The dinner meetings of Han Ki-wan, Do Hae-won and Lee Changjin must be really fucking entertaining from Changjin's point of view. It's just watching these two privileged fuckers silently lose their shit because their sons absolutely refuse to listen to them and the cheeky inspector that is the bane of their existence is unfortunately also the guy their sons want to fuck.

[daemon-is-perfectly-unhinged]

Chapter 25 Dad & Twins conversation adapted and captured in live action!

@syndrossi

[sinbinfamiliar]

So… hear me out.

I’m horrible at timelines so bear with me on this, I know as much as I know, and I couldn’t find anything that was super solidly concrete for timeline placement of events per say, so I’m making a bit of wiggle room for myself here.

But when Enver dies by the hands of Tav and you use speak to dead on him, you see that basically his soul has been yoinked by Bane, and is going to internally be tortured for failing.

And while I know that Enver is considered a chosen, much like Orin and Ketheric were, both of them had transformations. Both of them had another form to take on thanks to their deities/gods they were chosen by. Enver never truly does, he stays as himself.

And while I know that it’s outdated information, but since Bane was known in the past to grab someone as a vessel, a avatar, and puppet then around while the original resident of the body couldn’t only watch, what if this is either fully or partially the case?

What amazing context that could add to the events of the story for Enver, and added angst and sadness as well. What if not all the actions of his were his own by choice? Perhaps selling Karlach off wasn’t 100% his choice at the time if he was chosen by then, and being push to do what Bane wanted, maybe even controlled in a sense. How painful would that be to know he was there, watching when he did things that even he wouldn’t do?

Imagine the utter anguish it would cause, and the tragedy it makes. The moments he does have control of himself he is still trying to maintain a semblance of control over his life as always, in the same situation he was in the past. Wanting power sure, but at these costs? Even he may not have stooped so low. What if Karlach was right? That she didn’t know what happened and he just up and sold her, and it was actually out of character for him. Because it wasn’t him. What if most of what we see in the game isn’t fully him? Or him at all? How utterly intriguing would it be then to bring him back somehow, to see how much of a different person he could be when not controlled, and able to try again to make better choices.

To have the option your companions did.

How utterly fascinating would it be to relearn a character again that you thought you knew, but didn’t perhaps know as well as you thought? To know not all of those horrible i choices weren’t all his.

I dunno, maybe I’m woobifying a villain again, but the idea that maybe not every action and choice was all Enver’s seems so much more in depth to delve into then someone as easy as “evil cause evil” in a basic sense. Not that there’s anything wrong with that of course. But I’m a sad sap who likes tragedy in heaping layers of pain lol

The redemption arc that could come from somehow saving Enver’s soul, using true resurrection, and giving the actual true second chance he needed, just hits different ya know? Living with all the memories of the things he didn’t have control over perhaps as he was second passenger in his body, and now needing to live with them and face those consequences and perhaps get better(much like your companions, who aren’t perfect either even during happy ending style routes)

Bah! Just food for thought though!

Perhaps my own personal theory/headcanon I may work with though. Cause I just truly love the tragedy of it all. BUT I’m just rambling at this point!

Also here ya go! @houseofhopeofficial ^w^ tagged ya like you wanted!

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

At The Feet Of The Sun

book 2 in a slow paced high fantasy duology*

the right hand of the emperor (who is off searching for an heir) struggles with what to do after passing on his responsibilities and also discovering various pieces of information that are mindblowing to him, personally,

after adventure is thrust upon him, he travels to find His Radiancy and they go on some otherworldly adventures while growing closer and figuring out the nature of their friendship

(*there’s extra novellas & i think another book coming? duology adjacent, currently,)

[crazymecjc]

bloodied hands, bleeding heart.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

sometimes i like to imagine a future where i write that (y/a or adult targeted) dragon book series i desperately want to, but i know that i wouldn't be able to do it without including art in the book. every time a new important character is introduced the next page would have to be a reference / art of them to Show What They Look Like