#best dunks

[basketbeatusa]

Crazy Dunk Compilation 2024: Best Slams of the Year

[laughingcatwrites]

As a reminder that good exists out there, a coworker recently confessed to me that he found out his child is questioning their identity (kid's gender redacted for this post). The kid is keeping it from him, so he can't say anything to them or show that he knows, but he's doing his best to get mentally prepared and educated so that he'll be ready whenever his kid does feel comfortable enough come to him.

For context, this guy is a big, bulky middle aged dude who loves sports and typical outdoor "manly" activities. As his coworker and friend, I know he's a kind and sweet teddy bear of a person, but his kid probably views him as a stern, authoritarian figure, the way most teenagers view their parents. His family lives in a conservative area, so I'm sure between that, their dad's looks and interests, and the fact that their dad is a Figure of Authority, the kid is worried that they won't be accepted.

But you know what? When he found out about his kid, the first thing he did was reach out to his closest queer friend and ask for resources for parents of questioning children. His biggest fears are that his kid will be bullied or discriminated against and won't feel comfortable enough to be themself. His second action was to find himself a mentor in another parent who went the same situation (kid coming out in a conservative town). The other person is preparing him for some of the struggles his kid may face and the fights he may need to take on as a parent to make sure his kid is safe and treated well.

Something I want to emphasize for people focused on language as the primary method of allyship is that when we spoke, he used some outdated terms and thoughts about gender and sexuality. That does not make him bad. These were the terms and thinking used about questioning teenagers when he was growing up and he never needed to learn more current ones. But now that he does have that need, he's throwing himself in head first because that's his kid and he's darn well going to make sure that his kid feels welcomed and has a safe place to be themselves even if they never come out to him.

[sherrymagic]

You're allowed to look. I know I'm kinda irresistible.

Dunk Natachai as STYLE SATTAWAT THE HEART KILLERS (2024-2025)

— for @psychdiarys

[savagebeautyqueen]

[orpheuslament]

alt-right zionist detrans grifter who looks like she is heavily involved in steven universe proship discourse sounds like a person a tumblr user made up to be mad at. unfortunately for all of us she is very real & tweets incoherent transphobic garbage around every 20 minutes

[itagakimizuki]

I could have made a headline: "Handsome man killed in the woods."

THE HEART KILLERS (2024) ep. 4

[prismatiger]

Tell me your opinions on the stuff. Any stuff.

Grins. Smiles, even

I'm using you as an excuse to infodump my theory about the Island because I've had no in to do that, and my theory is pure opinion. Anyways:

THE ISLAND IS STUCK IN THE FUCKING FUTURE

(SCARE CHORD)

Hi so you might ask me. What the fuck do you mean by that. Well. Let's start with what we know about the Island, the King, and Wish Craft. (long ass post under cut. sorry)

The Island was redacted from the perception of outside world, via Wish Craft.

Wish Craft has the power to enable Time Craft. We see this primarily through Siffrin's timeloops, but also through the King's powers.

One of the King's powers is to show the saviors a "vision of the future."

...And this same attack is deflected back at the King by Mirabelle in ACT 5, in which the King is able to see the Island before being frozen in time.

...So. The King's "vision of the future." We're never told explicitly what this vision is. All we know is that it's apparently powerful enough to wipe the party in one hit, hearing it from a distance hurts your head, and that whatever Siffrin (and Loop) saw, they don't seem to actually be able to describe it. Even the King himself doesn't know what his vision entails.

We don't know whether the party all sees the same thing when struck by the vision, and Adrienne's answer to the question about it in the Reddit AMA is. vague? It's not a "no," and the specific wording makes me think the answer might be yes. But that's me reading into it.

Now. What do we know about the Island's redaction? The Island was affected by the wish recently, as in "like a decade ago" recently. We know that nobody in Vaugarde or the rest of the world is capable of thinking about the Island, anything closely tied to the Island's culture, or people on the Island for very long. When they do recall these things, they slip right out of reach. Particularly, the consequence for trying to think about the Island (or, more specifically, break the wish that forces the Island out of perception) is significant pain, localized in the head.

And that said pain is enough to become lethal, if pressed hard enough.

From here forward I'm running with the assumption that the King's "vision of the future" is not personalized to any individual, and is unchanging throughout the course of the whole story. Now. Remember the end of ACT 5, where the King gets hit with the deflected "vision of the future", and instead of dying, he recalls the Island and gets frozen in time? Very odd, yeah? Why wouldn't the King just die like everyone else does? He even does take 9999 damage when trying to say its name, like Siffrin does, and like the party does when they're hit by the attack.

Well. We know that he has a "true wish" that the ability to freeze Vaugarde in time grants. I don't think it's at all a stretch to guess that the King's "true wish" is to be able to remember the Island. My personal guess is that the King (and Siffrin) brought this "true wish" into effect via the "SAY ITS NAME" sequence- he even tries three times, a significant number in wishing.

The King (and Siffrin's) wish breaks, because it can't be fulfilled in this moment without breaking the wish to prevent the Island from being thought about. However. Consider the conditions at the end of ACT 5- the King sees the vision of the future reflected back to him, and what he sees is the Island. He remembers the Island, fulfilling his own wish, and is frozen in time. I consider this a compromise between his wish and the one binding the Island- the King gets to remember the Island, but nobody alive is able to think about it, because he's frozen in time; it's like the Universe is correcting itself (I WILL GET BACK TO THIS). The wish of all of Vaugarde to defeat the King is fulfilled, since he is no longer a threat, and Siffrin's wish wraps itself up soon after.

MY POINT BEING. The King's attack is a vision of the future. This "future" is of the Island, in some uncorrupted state. The saviors see it when he attacks them, and he sees it when it is deflected back to him.

The logical next question is "okay, so the Island exists in the future, but how do you know time shenanigans are even related to the Island?"

Recall a very odd series of interactions throughout the game, in which you try to interact with a piece of equipment that you already own.

The game rewinds slightly, before the item disappears, as the Universe corrects itself.

This is awfully similar to two particular events: looping back without seeing the death screen, and talking to the Daydreaming One about her sister. The latter is more interesting to me for the purposes of this theory.

In both instances, something is misaligned within the Universe (an item existing in two places, someone remembering something they're not supposed to) and it is corrected through some sort of rewind. Also compare the dialogue above to when you try to give Mirabelle the Stylish Bow when you already own it.

The world glitches, but Siffrin defuses the situation before the Universe has to intervene. Omitted from the screenshot is the fact that Mirabelle's portraits switch to happy from "catastrophically anxious" with no transition after Siffrin shows her where the bow is. Important to note is that when Mirabelle tries to recall receiving the bow, her head hurts, much like how trying to break the Island wish causes a headache.

The Universe leads you away from perception, and you can only follow.

My theory that I keep circling around is that through Wish Craft, the Island has been displaced temporally. The denizens of the Island, as well as the Island itself, still exist, but they are in the future. The Island is still loaded into the world, like how equipment is before you try to interact with it, and the Island cannot leave this quantum state, because it never actually went anywhere. The magnitude of the redaction event is so severe with the Island, because it is so much larger as an entity than a sword or a bow. There are of course things I don't really have pieced together, like why somebody would wish the Island into the future, how far into the future it is, or why equipment behaves this way. But it's the only Island theory I've seen that I have some level of confidence in, so I might as well lay out my cards for it.

[lovesicktrash]

the look of a best friend when he's afraid he knows exactly how you're going to describe your horny and romantic thoughts to the practical stranger in front of you with no fear of embarrassment whatsoever😇

[maybe-boys-do-love]

The last scene of The Heart Killers, ep. 7

Fadel's pov:

Style's pov:

[khaoala]

what do you do in your free time?

[secriden]

Style says, while everything about his tone and expression and demeanour and the anticipatory delight in his eyes says I hope you're exactly the same jealous type like your brother is.

[sherrymagic]

Is there anything you want? I'll leave it with the warden. I don't want anything.

Joong Archen as FADEL and Dunk Natachai as STYLE THE HEART KILLERS | EP. 12

[wawawawawawawawawawawawawa]

forreal tho the whole Point of durarara as a work of art is thhat nobody is wholly good (obviously) OR wholly bad, people are complicated and their relationships with each other and the world are complicated as well

izaya as the closest thing to an antagonist the series has, ALSO serves as mikado's foil- he's the bad end to mikado's story, explicitly becoming that way because he had no true friends- shinra only cared about celty and his parents were never around and thats kind of all he had. he was a young boy with clear mental problems, to the point where his father instilled that people love into him in order to prevent a worse outcome and help him be more normal. the way this is framed, as a young boy exhibiting a concerning disconnect from other people to a point where it scares a usually neglectful father into acting- is very reminiscent of media depictions (and real life examples) of parents worrying that their child is a sociopath. this could very well have been intentional, and narita EXPLICITLY makes a POINT to state that izaya is the way that he is because he has a fragile heart- any sort of genuine effection and a betrayal of it could shatter him. i really dont think the takeaway here was "lolllll hes suchhh a loser" OR "omggg hes so scary hes iredeemable." it's another piece of the central theme that humans are nuanced and messy and conplicated and oftentimes in very unglamorous ways that make them unsympathetic to most people. durarara AS A SHOW is about shining a light onto these people and inviting the viewer to sympathize with them, and if someone doesnt get that and is just disgusted by most of the characters then durarara is not the show for them

also vis a vis izaya and mikado being foils- the reason mikado got a happy ending was because of his friends- because of the connections he has with other people. izaya did not have those connections, hence his own instability drove him farther and farther down into a death spiral that culminated in his CRIPPLING, a major loss of freedom from someone who valued it so much, and i'm saying that as a disabled person

anyway yeah

[joongdunking]

JoongDunk THK ep 11

Excuse me? Look at the burgers not each other

Joong is hugging Dunk for real. Like he said before.. he hugs Dunk whenever he feels like it.

[jasper-unofficial]

pond... is not wrong 😭

[mozart-the-meerkitten]

Been rewatching the early Marvel movies and apparently this is the time of my life where I just get re-obsessed with characters I love so here's some random thoughts about Loki/Thor the Dark World:

Why. In the world. In the universe. Did Odin not ask Loki ANY questions when Loki was brought before him for judgement in Dark World? Like, at the BAREST MINIMUM he should have asked where Loki got an ARMY, the last time he'd seen Loki was when Loki fell off the Bifrost and then he vanished for a year and showed back up with the glowstick of destiny and an army that Thor says "are not of Asgard or any world known". ODIN. WHY ARE YOU NOT ASKING QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS?!

Like, we are aware that Odin is. partial to giving his kids harsh punishments. He obviously doesn't care about Loki's motives. Like, a good parent would look at their kid who disappeared for a year and then came back insane and be like "hey so what happened to you when you disappeared? you didn't get captured by a super powerful being and tortured into submission did you?" (Thanos tortured Loki I have SOURCES and I WILL cite them upon request) But even a bad parent who was a decent king would wonder how their kid suddenly got an ARMY out of NOWHERE and yet Odin never questions this at all. Even Thor in Avengers at least asks Loki "Who showed you this power? Who controls the would-be king?" (which just shows Thor would honestly be a better king than Odin tbh) but Odin is just like "nah this is not important. imprisoning my son for life and telling him how worthless I think he is is more important in this moment."

I wonder if she'd had more time if maybe Frigga would have been able to get Loki to tell her what happened and if maybe that was part of her goal of visiting him (beyond just, you know, actually being a decent parent who cares about her child and wanting to keep him company) because we know she's clever (she's smarter than Odin good gravy, is there like an age difference between them is he going senile or something) so PERHAPS she thought if she talked to Loki she could puzzle out what had happened to him and find out if there was, you know, a potential universal threat Asgard should be aware of. And like, if she had found out anything what was Odin going to say? He can't actually punish his wife in any meaningful way (lol imagine he tries and she just grabs her two grown sons and leaves, help xD) especially if she found out IMPORTANT INFORMATION that he SHOULD have discovered on his own.

This does kind of highlight an underlying problem with Odin, where he seems to think that Asgard is invincible and is, well, lazy about defending it. Like, I've seen posts about how Loki letting the Frost Giants into Asgard in the first movie is actually him not just showing that Thor is not ready to be king, but also demonstrating that Asgard has dangerous holes in its defenses. Because yeah, Loki can HIDE HIMSELF FROM HEIMDALL and sneak into Asgard. Heck, he can sneak OTHERS into Asgard while he's not even WITH them. That- that is a security threat, because if anyone BESIDES Loki could do that then Asgard could easily be invaded and- wait a second, that happens in The Dark World! The Dark Elves hide themselves from Heimdall and sneak an invasion force into Asgard! Destroying it's defenses and KILLING ITS QUEEN. Like, my goodness, do you think Loki is the only person with these abilities? Are you even trying Odin? At all?

TLDR; Odin is an idiot for not questioning Loki about the Chitauri/where he was for a year between Thor and Avengers, not to mention an awful father and an incompetent king.