#ask ur questions and LEAVE

[nohkalikai]

a person i was not friends w in undergrad (and in fact later tried to avoid bcs of how manipulative n flaky they were) is acting all chummy w me and overly friendly when all they wanna do is ask questions about my MSc. stfu and stick to talking shop i don't need this 'only if you have space!!! 🥺' bullshit in every single message of yours.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

ORV is about enduring the horrors in real time.

(for @everyonesfavoritebastard)

[iamnmbr3]

not enough crossdressing in harry potter

-- Draco in 6th year about to put Crabbe & Goyle into the crossdressing au they never asked for.

[elysiumcalled]

Next time somebody at work asks if I can help I’m just saying no idfc anymore

[archersartcorner]

Wanted to play with Ibis Paints animation tool, so I made a lil Skip with Sloomies (slug zoomies) animation :)

[Video ID: A digitally drawn, short animation of Skip, from Dimension 20: A Starstruck Odyssey. Skip is a little green cerebroslug, and the simple animation shows him crawling around, leaving behind a trail of light green mucus. End ID.]

[in-tua-deep]

asleep me has just decided to start world building i guess

Imagine: you are a misfit teenage boy, a con artist. You have a best friend - or maybe a brother? You two are as close as family regardless. You're in a refugee camp when you pull a con - you pass your best friend off as the newly orphaned son of a noble or something. It's just a ploy - to give him an in with the other wealthy kids so you can steal.

Except… he doesn't really give it up? You ask a couple of times when you're leaving, but Will, your best friend, keeps putting it off. He's fallen in with a new crowd. One that respects him, elevates him. And those new friends? Well, they don't exactly like you.

Will starts sending you off on errands when he's with his friends. You go easily, because you want to be helpful, and you ignore the hushed laughter of his shiny new friends. You go on your fake little missions designed to get rid of you.

That's how you meet the Goddess.

Imagine a clearing, golden light, and a beautiful woman who calls you a trickster and says you are destined to be enemies. Imagine freeing the three chained sun gods by accident. (By fate?) Except you tell the goddess that you don’t believe in fate, and what if you become friends instead?

(You offer to steal her, and she agrees - a fine trick indeed, wouldn't you say?)

After this instance you find something out. You can use magic now? But also it seems like you have been cursed as well - you can’t die. Fate rearranges itself every time. A shield moves to a position it wasn’t in before. A sword misses its mark. You are Loved By Fate and it is an Issue.

Time passes and your best friend grows - and you have to use magic to grow with him. He’s a king now. You love him - he’s still your brother - but his smile is more and more strained every time he sees you.

Your goddess takes many forms travelling with you. Sometimes she is a woman, sometimes she is golden magic inside of a pouch. Sometimes she is a child and travels with you, and somehow you get separated with her like that. The king finds her, and immediately is taken with her. He decides to try and find a family for this child who is shy of everyone, and offers for any individual to come and try their luck to see if the child will take to them

You are the last person to try, not because you don't think your goddess will choose you, but because you are worried even if she does the king will not let her go

The king's friends stop you. You know their faces - they are the same bullies they have always been. They accuse you of being cursed because you never die no matter how many dangerous missions the king sends you on. The suicide missions.

They attack you, and they might be cruel but they aren’t stupid. Their ringleader realizes that it must be magic shifting his shield to protect you from the lethal blows.

(You can see every lethal blow that doesn’t land play through your head. The worlds that did not come to pass. You don’t tell them the number of times they murdered you in this fight. It wouldn’t change anything.)

You manage to escape and run up to the king’s room. Using fate’s magic so much has stripped you away of other magics - you look young again. Awkward and gangly with no facial hair (the way you always have since meeting a goddess and becoming something more than human)

He’s in there with an elven woman, a noble of some kind who is wise and anyone with eyes can see the king is in love with her. (You can see in her eyes that she does not love him back, not in that way.)

The king, after some debate, decides to let you try

(He doesn’t comment on your appearance - maybe he just thinks you have a baby face without your beard. Maybe the way he avoids looking you in the eyes means he doesn’t even notice.)

You reunite, and it is beautiful - your goddess surges forward into your arms and kisses you, and you feel fates magic coursing through you and soothing over the exhaustion from the fight.

But the king doesn’t see a goddess and he doesn’t see the magic - he sees a child and he draws his sword. He says many things - that he didn’t expect you to stoop this low. That he once called you his friend.

(How long has it been since that felt genuine?)

Something goes cold in you and enough is enough. Your goddess’s magic courses through you, and you will not be separated again. You use magic to blast them back, use magic to stun them, and use magic to make you and your goddess into a rat that scurries away into the walls

The magic is powerful enough that a cascade of golden chains has manifested down the wall of the room, branching downward like a geometric tree and each one tipped with an amulet with a large inset ruby

The king and the noble awaken, and the king is furious. But the elven woman looks like all her questions have been answered

She talks about how there haven’t been terrible fires throughout the lands, despite all signs pointing to the fact that the sun gods have been unchained

She names you - trickster, calamity

In mythology apparently you are symbolized by a massive golden peacock, each "feather" in your tail with ruby-gem eyes like the chains on the wall

You are named such because you are the only creature capable of going against fate and changing it

(your train of feathers is instead a train of chains - all the fates that you have broken)

(It should make you enemies with your goddess, but you decided in that clearing twenty years ago that you were friends instead)

Apparently on your suicide missions, you have been helping. Wherever you could, you changed the fate of entire cities and towns and prevented the wildfires of the Sun gods from ravaging the kingdom

The elven woman opens a portrait that has a nook behind it. You are sitting there - well, not you exactly. But a copy of you. You are a trickster and love mischief, and you love secret spaces and those who choose to look in them. That’s enough for a part of you to be present, looking sixteen and glowing with golden light

She speaks in the ancient language to you - and you speak it back without thinking. You tell her she’s just as hot as Will with a wink and it makes her laugh. Will cannot understand what you are saying, but you don’t care right now. He’s your best friend, but you aren’t his, and it hurts

He calls you immature, and the elven woman says you’re only sixteen. He snaps back that you are a thirty-six year old man. She shakes her head, and says that you haven’t been since you Awakened. Gods are different, after all

(Maybe it was the differences that drove you apart? Maybe it’s your fault? But if that is the truth then why was there already so much distance between you? You do not ask your goddess if there was a path where you still would have been close.)

You don’t feel like a god, you feel like a person who is just trying their best. You feel tired. You feel sad. Maybe that’s why you are the one who bends fate - you’re the only one that cares enough to try.

Anyway that’s when I woke up but I like my trickster - important to note that he is a redhead with a bit of a baby face

[time-is-restored]

more whinging bc i got negative hours of sleep last night and i need to stay awake somehow lol

cw: discussions of misogyny + abuse

god the more i think abt it the more exhausted i get by the gender politics of ted lasso.

like god i do genuinely think that rebecca's arc in s1 is one of the best depictions of a mean + cruel woman ive ever seen on TV specifically bc it manages to thread the needle so well? like they never tilt her balance too much and doom her to being either totally fucked up + evil OR totally soft and sweet and harmless. and ted's 'divorce makes u crazy' response to her apology STILL makes me crazy wrt the sheer. understanding and empathy there, and she's just. given so much more depth than ive come to expect, especially for an ensemble cast sitcom w a (then) p short run time.

but my fucking god. we literally don't learn a fucking thing about michelle. im pretty sure the one (1) concrete thing we know about her comes in the fucking finale, and it's that she's a teacher for... something. the two most important people in ted's life and we don't know anything abt them! they're literally just empty symbols representing the importance of Family™, and that vacancy does nothing but weigh ted's storyline down!

like, i liked michelle's episode/storyline in s1, bc the blinding novelty of a woman instigating a divorce not being the Actual Devil, as well as a just. generally very empathetic + nuanced take on how divorce shakes out between two ppl who really care for each other, was so 'WAIT TV CAN DO THIS??' that i felt satisfied with that being Her Arc™. divorce happens, life happens, people fall out of love, and it hurts but its ultimately okay. the show, at the time, was ultimately abt a football club and how caring abt that football club helped everyone around it.

but then the show sticks around, and her continued absence just... raises a lot of questions? how did the conversation abt ted going overseas happen? what conversations did they have abt henry? how long term was it intended to be? did money really not factor into it all? like it's one thing for a character's backstory to be vague when it's not really the focus of attention (s1 was ultimately rebecca's story before anyone else's), but when it's the load bearing stone of their '''''''arc''''''' in s3...????

like. god. and then it fucking infects every other woman on the show!

sassy + nora? well sure we'll give you a softball - you can have one (1) scene where a woman is able to resolutely and firmly reject a man asking her out without immediately being seen as cruel or gameplayey (not that the audience will see it that way! she's already a lecherous temptress for them!), but neither of them will ever be able to speak to rebecca onscreen again, even after the heart-wrenching scenes in s1 CLEARLY establishing them as a beating heart of rebecca's arc.

shandy? nope, don't even think abt her motivations/drives, just forget her. simi? LMAOOO imagine a black woman getting a personality beyond righteous anger. jack? three-four episodes, and we learn so little abt her that her conflict with keeley - which SHOULD'VE have been a huge emotional beat - just feels like a kick in the teeth (and while, yes, i absolutely agree that in a real world context, jack's rejection of keeley would be largely motivated by class, in Ted Lasso Land™ rebecca is just as rich - if not richer? - and we're never once encouraged to interrogate her priorities).

barbara's the one that really makes me miserable, bc i feel like on a show with less run time, she could've played REALLY well. she's a great contrast to keeley, has an amazing delivery, and the scene where keeley + her first discuss the snowglobes shows that she has the potential for some really moving vulnerability + pathos. but instead they give SO many of keeley's scenes to characters who ultimately get written out, so when barbara stays it's like... okay? sure? like, i was so stoked that barbara survived the Mass Exodus of side characters that i didn't wanna look the gift horse in the mouth but... wasn't the last thing we saw of her and keeley's relationship like. general resentment + distrust abt the shandy debacle? when did that improve? how???

i don't think i'll ever have enough mental real estate to explain how disappointed keeley + rebecca's 'arcs' in s3 made me, and at least there's the saving grace that. virtually no one other than jamie got a coherent arc this season, so at least it was on some levels an egalitarian screw up. but fuck dude. keeley was just forced to react to bad things that were happening to her, and we got to see her do her job (which, unbelievably, does actually involve things other than being an awkward manager!) precisely one (1) time.

i even like rebecca's arc on paper - i think it's really cool to see a character backslide so intensely in terms of obsessing over and struggling to come to terms w a past relationship, especially an abusive one, bc like. yeah! that shit sticks with you for longer than a season! and beyond that, seeing her regain her sense of self and what SHE actually gives a shit about was oftentimes just as sweet as s1. but her scenes were poorly connected, and she had to carry WAY too much of a burden as the Resident Speech Giver for any of her internal characterisation to make sense. like, sorry, but it's kind of hard to believe a character's Going Through It™ when they have to spent near 100% of their screen time giving Take It From Me, Kid, speeches. and then she's not even given a real opportunity TO fuck up + sabotage her relationships, even when she starts getting really weird w ted! it's all just so meaningless and like nothing that she does is ever going to matter. she never speaks to zava again, we don't get to see her interact w bex or kate, her pleas to ted get COMPLETELY shut down...

but the thing that REALLY makes me sick is this complete lack of interiority absolutely butchers the characters of jade + jane, who are otherwise RIFE with potential. like, jade is a completely unflinching, unapologetic asshole to nate + his family, and that's never interrogated. even in Sitcom Land™, it's more than reasonable to view jade's actions as racist, especially when she doesn't give the same treatment to others (at least not as i recall? honestly i usually watch the taste of athens scenes while peeking out behind my hands, so i could 100% be wrong here). and yet, suddenly, and completely inexplicably, she's charmed by nate. she wants to give him the time of day. she finds him attractive, and wants to date him, and generally take control of his life and force him into a decision that is literally the exact opposite of what he expressed wanting to do. except even that LAST thing isn't allowed to be interrogated, bc god FORBID a woman is enough of a fully realised creation to actually be culpable of the terrible shit they do!

and fucking jane??? beard's so head-over-heels for this woman that the emotional abuse + extremely controlling tendencies don't even make him bat an eye, and we don't get to know anything about her? she's literally just the suggestion of an alluring woman! good at sex! good at chess! fuck you if you wanna know more, even though the show ENDLESSLY hits you over the head with how painful their relationship is for beard - beard who is given virtually no other storyline. like, i literally can't read brendan's refusal to label jane as abusive as anything other than like. that bio-essentialism shit where ppl 'women are better than men <3' so hard that they end up genuinely and wholeheartedly arguing that someone's sex defines their morals - or worse, that their sex is a deciding factor in determining whether someone's actions are good or bad. not context, but a legitimate 'add points if woman, take away points if man' variable.

like that's so feminism 101 it's legitimately almost worse than nothing. that's like getting as far as 'hey so you know how we're all inundated with both implicit + explicit messaging abt what is Valued and Good for women vs men to-' before shoving ur earplugs in and going 'if you are oppressed by society we'll automatically stamp a 'good person' label on ur head and now we don't have to think abt any of our biases + internalised beliefs ever again <333'. the most useless and fucking pointless stand against the patriarchy ever, especially coming from the same show that ENDLESSLY slots characters into the 'loving gf/wife' archetype and then give them Literally Nothing Else. my comrades you have literally just done madonna/whore 2: oops all madonnas! this is not liberation!!!! this is a miserable cage!!!!!!!!!

im just. higgins' wife. mae. trent's daughter and anonymous 'her'. the women at the hotel and the restaurants and the firm and the fucking physios, fuck - dani's gfs! who are they? what do they want? where do they go when the camera stops rolling? can anyone hear me?? hello??? hello???? brendan hunt i am OUTSIDE YOUR HOUUUUUUSE

[voidcat]

once again at my wits end bc of men

[curiosity-killed]

It is! Possible! That I may be being too hard on myself! Again!!!

[pcktknife]

I need to figure out what it is that makes ppl think I like guys in the 'i want to have a legitimate committed relationship' way like am I just not loud enough about women or ...

[qvackjack]

why is ancestry so confusing like. my mexican father tells me "oh yeah everyone always said i looked huichol but im not our family according to my mother was descended from the aztecs but we arent nahua" like dad you gotta explain this to me clearer because apparently no one identifies with the term aztec anymore because it was a name given by spaniards also you and your family are from an area where apparently lots of indigenous people lived which would Make Sense for your mother to then say you were indigenous but like. are you??? does it not make you curious?? idk maybe im just overthinking because i grew up with my white american family and we have no like...cultural traditions. except i guess christmas if you count that.

[possum-tooth]

not even horny anymore just tired

[suguru-getos]

Going to fucking destroy my workplace because my new manager is a fucking cunt.

[moonlitfool]

i think my biggest complaint in bg3 is that there is no slowburn in the romances except like maybe astarion like all these idiots think i have so much rizz but im just nice to them

[ao3gingerswag]

Hey this is just a pro tip for anyone going into childcare or teaching. If u get ur certification for birth to grade 2 students with disabilities. Everyone wants u carnally.

[look-at-the-stars-tonight]

All this hate for show Annabeth is getting really fucking annoying