#but it is genuinely baffling to me that ppl will see

[femmefaggot]

dear god kaladin is so sad. it is painful. (is not even reading his pov rn)

[winteriron-trash]

rdj the (whitewashed) electric boogaloo

This is a reminder to everyone who's excited about RDJ's casting as Doctor Doom that this casting is whitewashing. Victor Von Doom is a Romani character and has been a Romani character since his introduction in the 1960s. (Fantastic Four Annual #2 [1964]) Not only that, but his Roma identity and the persecution he and his family faced due to it is integral to his character, it is what forms his identity. (Books of Doom by Ed Brubaker) Even if on the off chance this casting is meant to not be Victor but instead be some variant of Tony or whomever else becoming Doctor Doom, it is damaging to the character to rob him of that important cultural background. Doctor Doom does not exist without that history. Fans have been pushing hard to cast Doom as a Romani actor for years, especially since the MCU has whitewashed other Romani characters. (Wanda, Pietro, etc) This casting is not a celebration moment, it's fucking heartbreaking that the MCU repeatedly ignores the important and nuanced cultural backstories of characters.

I know I can't change anybody's mind on whether or not you want to be excited about RDJ's return to the MCU. But I do think at the very least you should be mad that the MCU is baiting us all and destroying nuanced and interesting characters for the sake of self-referential easter eggs and nostalgia bait. Because that's what it is. Feel how you'd like to feel about RDJ's return, but personally, this is soul-sucking. I had such a deep love for the MCU as a teenager, it was obviously something incredibly formative to me, especially Tony Stark. This isn't recreating what I fell in love with the MCU for. This is turning a well-planned and artistic storyline of adaptations into cheap cash grabs and fan service. Because, I think we're past the point of being able to call the MCU an adaptation of anything. They can use existing characters' names and powers, but to say they're being properly adapted is laughable.

This is not an adaptation of Doctor Doom. This is RDJ the Electric Boogaloo because Marvel's fear of losing the interest of dedicated MCU fans overrides their willingness to tell stories that are genuine to the characters. I don't know what there is to be excited about that. The MCU has lost its authenticity and aside from a few projects, feels heartless. Every movie is a copy of a copy. This announcement isn't something celebratory, it feels like a death knell of a cinematic universe that's so desperate to cling to relevancy it's resorting to nostalgia for a character/actor who hasn't even been dead for a decade. We're not getting anything new, we're just rinsing and repeating the same song and dance.

I get it. I love Tony Stark, his death destroyed me and I to this day, rue the ending he got in Endgame. It misunderstood his arc and it robbed him of a satisfying conclusion. But the solution to that isn't dragging the corpse out of the grave five years later to whitewash an existing character with rich and interesting nuance, just to forcibly tie his existence in the MCU to Tony. Whether he is a variant or not. Why would you want someone else's fave's legacy to be destroyed simply so your fave's legacy can go on? Hell, if we were really all so hellbent on the return of RDJ and/or Tony to the MCU, we have the multiverse for a reason. There were other ways to do it that didn't whitewash and ruin someone else. This just. Isn't something to be happy about.

[teddybeartoji]

i hate whining on here abt my fear of being annoying sm bc it feels like i'm dismissing all of you hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh i really really promise that i am not and godddd i'm so fucking happy to have you all here with me but sometimes just sometimes the feeling just creeps up on me and i hate it so fucking bad

[leonardalphachurch]

sometimes i remember that most north fans don’t write him as an absolute insane person ethical manipulative girlfriend style and i’m like. what is he even then… just a pleasant white man? you know what. more power to you if you need a pleasant white man for a blorbo but god that could not be me

[tariah23]

I rly don’t see how ppl be 20+ shipping kids anymore tbh… like, it’s so rampant and I don’t see the appeal to it anymore being as tho I’m in my late 20’s.

[renamamiya]

I think it would behoove a lot of people to read this quote irt Astarion's character made by Neil Newbon himself.

https://www.pcgamer.com/baldurs-gate-3s-astarion-neil-newbon-on-acting-the-truth-of-trauma-as-a-survivor-theres-a-lot-of-stuff-that-came-very-close-to-home/?utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com

"You have to play every reality, you have to play every side of him."

It's just.... baffling to act like people who get ANY of the 'bad' endings are like bad people for doing so. These endings aren't added just to be some "teehee isn't this so messed up *wink wink*" kind of thing. They were put in with reason, they were included with intention. All the endings a character can get are explorations Of that character. Both how these characters can make a better life for themselves, or how they can fall to the worst outcome. All of these endings are "realities" the character can end up at depending on how their life goes. Astarion's ascension, Gale either dying or becoming power hungry, Shadowheart becoming a Dark Justiciar. ALL of these were added with the reason to let you play the game and see how vastly different their lives can turn out.

Ultimately, Baldur's Gate 3 is an *RPG*. A Role-playing game, one that's based on DND. Having "good" and "evil" choices is literally one of the largest aspects of DND and the Baldur’s Gate series. DND literally CREATED the Good/Neutral/Evil - Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic axis, all with the intention of both characters in universe, and player's own created characters to be able to explore ANY of the four corners. All of these choices, routes, and endings exist both as a result of the exploration of how their life could be affected by support/lack of it, as well as how they could potentially shift across the alignment chart due to their development. Because ultimately development doesn't automatically mean "person becomes a better person and achieves the ending they deserve", both in real life and in the game it can just as easily come to "person ends up arriving to the worst possible outcome they could have possibly had."

Ultimately I have to say as well, if people are bad for even exploring these routes to see how the development takes place, then by this logic you must know that you're also essentially stating that the developers are also horrible for ever including these options into the game from the first place, right?

[britneyshakespeare]

when i was younger i used to be a big compulsive flirt a lot of the time simply bc i wanted ppl to like me and i wanted to feel charming and i do kind of have this kind of natural on-my-feet wit about me, with a side of kindness and genuine interest in people, that gets interpreted as flirtation whether or not it's really intended as such. i was more or less leaning into my natural talents but i never necessarily felt truly appreciated for who i was. and when i was a teenager this was really not a problem for me bc i was i suppose, for lack of a better word, a loser, or for some reason just unapproachable. and i'm sure ppl must've had crushes on me in high school, where among theater kids i developed this habit, but i was quite oblivious to it in my low-self-esteem way, and nobody ever asked me out or confronted me with any direct indications that they had feelings for me (i'm the type of person ppl usually tell that they USED to have a crush on).

but once i was like actually an adult and i retained this instinct it sorta got me into some sticky and regrettable social situations. honestly a lot of it stemmed from comphet as an aroace woman. like it's not easy to be an aroace woman in real life at all i can't stress that enough. men are so much more attracted to me than i ever am to them and it is always uncomfortable to handle their feelings and it's very shameful to feel like i have led someone on (whether or not that is the case). i would be just trying to form friendships w ppl i really liked but then it would be like... yeah no maybe this is not the way to go about that lol. so in more recent years, which have been much less sociable years for me anyway (i don't try and go out and meet people so often and am quite happy w the friends i have), i have just tried to be a lot more earnest and sincere with how i embrace people. that and i think i just kind of have mellowed out in social situations in general; i feel no need to impress people like i used to. i wouldn't consider myself much of a flirt at all anymore, not that i don't still get the instinct to be one sometimes. like i will still think of things to say that could be interpreted as such, and then just choose not to say them because i'm like no that's not my intention.

so sometimes when i find that someone is just seemingly straight up hitting on me i'm like what. blink blink. do people still do this?

[infizero]

the way gaster's presence permeates every inch of deltarune without him appearing or even being mentioned by name genuinely drives me fucking bonkers like its perhaps one of the most in-depth cases of haunting the narrative i've ever seen

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[emypony]

.

[winxys]

genuinely sad that i'm so uninterested in ooo's cb like these r my guys but there's zero fun for me rn

[milky-rose]

this is a show for preschoolers 😭 yall take this way too seriously

dear precure fans

i have someting special to say to you guys

if you ship iroha and komugi and/or mayu and yuki do NOT interact with me!

those are owners and their pets shiping them even if their humans is gross

that's not the relationship they have

but yuki and mayu - NO! NO! AND NO! DONT YOU DARE!

[feyascorner]

until I come back alive

summary. in which you come back injured from a particularly unlucky battle, and Astarion realizes his feigned affections for you are not feigned at all.

warnings. angst, fluff, Astarion being bad at feelings

pairing. Astarion x GN!reader

a/n. this is super long omg ALSO TYSM for the love on my previous fic! It was my first post so I didn’t realize more than like two ppl would see it!! Kind of scary but also I can write more astarion so oh well 🙏

“The way they look at you is different from the way they look at us.”

Astarion raises a brow at this, glancing at Karlach who adjusts a log in the campfire paying no heed to the flickering flames brushing against her skin. She smiles to herself, genuinely, and he questions if she’s finally gone mad.

“So have you said the big ‘L’ word yet?” she asks excitedly, turning to him with a big grin. He shifts away from her, the increasing heat radiating off her body but she doesn’t seem to care, too busy staring at him expectantly.

“The what?”

“You know! The ‘L’ word,” she says the last part in a hushed whisper, as if it’d be a sin for anyone else to hear. Occasionally it baffles him how childish she can be, though he’d never voice these concerns out loud considering she could snap his poor body in half if she really wanted.

He also knows that she’s more emotionally capable in how she approaches these relationships (though one could argue it’s just innocence)—in ways he’s lost over the past 200 years. Though, he makes an effort to shove these thoughts to the deepest corners of his brain for the sake of his own sanity.

“If you’re speaking of ‘love,’” He emphasizes it with a strange accent. “No. I have not. Nor have they.”

She appears puzzled. “Why not?”

He sighs irritably, bringing a hand to adjust the cuffs on his hand. “Must everything be put bluntly? So glaringly obvious?”

“You love each other, don’t you?”

At this, he falters, just the slightest before plastering his usual grin that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Love is a wide spectrum, dear. Tav and I are whatever they want us to be.”

A late night partner would be the most positive thing he could refer you to. A fling, an amusement, or whatever words people described the arrangement between the two of you as, he didn’t care for it. He’d given himself to you, and you to him—-physically, at least, and you’d seem more than content with it. In return, he received protection, which was a sufficient payment in return for his hushed words of affection and kisses. A fair trade, he deemed.

Sure, he could’ve chosen anyone else in the camp. But he’d seen the way your eyes lit up at the sight of him, surely dazed at his flirtatious tendencies. You’d been an easy target. A survival tool.

And yes, maybe he’d played with your innocent feelings, but could you really blame him? He’d given you the nights of your life, for something so simple in return. It was a transaction.

Karlach waves a dismissive hand which brings him back to the present, propping herself on her arm behind her. “Life’s too short for that bullshit. Either you love someone or you don’t.”

“Fortunately for me, I have all of eternity,” he snorts. “Unless I were to suddenly lose the unwanted visitor inside my head and step into the sunlight, I’ll be here to watch the world fall and rise a dozen times over I’m afraid.”

“But they don’t,” Karlach frowns. “Tav doesn’t have eternity.”

He ignores the way his jaw clenches. He’s afraid, he thinks, of losing the freedom he’s just gained.

“Did you call me?”

Both the vampire and tiefling turn to your voice, where you stand blankly with an armful of logs clutched to your waist. Karlach opens her mouth to respond, but Astarion is faster.

“Nothing, darling. Just answering a few curious questions from Karlach here.”

“Oh,” you blink at him, shrugging before setting the logs beside the fireplace. “Well, Gale, Shadowheart, and I are going to the village across the forest tomorrow morning to check on the goblins appearing there recently. Won’t be back till noon so don’t wait up.”

“Don’t worry,” Karlach laughs. “I’ll keep the camp in order while you’re gone. If Astarion tries to bite Lae’zel, though, his fate’s inevitable.”

He rolls his eyes, opting to stand from his spot and take your hand. “Come along, darling. Any longer near this damned fireplace and my skin may melt.”

You nod with a smile, waving at Karlach before you follow him into his tent without a word of protest.

Easy, he thinks. Too easy.

He soon finds himself staring up at you from his place, laying his head on your lap as you read through a few scrolls you found throughout the day. He clicks his tongue and you look down, offering that sickeningly sweet smile again. “What’s wrong?”

“You have the most handsome person in this camp on your bloody lap and you want to read?”

You snicker at this, setting the scroll down beside you. “What do you suggest I do? Worship the very eyelashes on your face?”

“My body deserves much more praise than just the eyelashes.”

“Hm…” you pretend to be in thought. “That mole on your face is very obvious too.”

He gasps, immediately shooting upward as he grabs at his own face. “Tell me you’re lying.”

Your laughter rings throughout the tent, airy as you pull his hand away from his face. “I’m kidding, mostly.”

He stares at you as you recollect yourself, finding himself gazing at you far longer than he’d like to admit. Quickly, he adjusts, fiddling with the hand mirror he always keeps under his pillow as he watches you through it. “Karlach spoke of something ridiculous today. She said you were in love with me.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really,” he rolls his eyes. “That woman lives in a fairy tale I tell you. How she went through 10 years in Avernus is beyond me.”

There’s slight hesitance in your voice, and if he’d not learned your body language early on in your arrangement, he wouldn’t have even noticed it. “Astarion, have you ever been in love?”

He pauses at this, meeting your eyes head on now. There’s a heavier thickness in the air between the short distance between the two of you, and he immediately gauges what you want him to say. A lie readies itself at the tip of his tongue, his gaze searching yours for whatever fantasy that lives behind them.

Instead, your expression is blank. He finds nothing.

“No.” He’s not sure why he responded honestly, but it’s too late to take it back. “Have you?”

You look to the side. “I’m not sure anymore.”

“Anymore?” He shifts his head when you turn your chin further away, avoiding confrontation. “Has someone captured your impenetrable heart as of late? How intriguing—do tell.”

His teasing tone drops when you don’t smile at his usual antics. He’s not stupid—far from it. He knows you’ve begun to fall for him. It’s an obvious result from the 200 years of instinctive flirting he has tucked away in what remains of his soul, and it’s what he intended. What he needed.

The more enraptured you are, the longer he has protection.

He gently tilts your chin toward him, his fang visible through the grin that stretches across his face. “Tell me, pet, do you love me?”

Your eyes drop to his lips. “Do you want me to?”

A bunny caught in the fangs of a fox. It would be so easy to indulge—to go as far as to make you nothing but a puppet he toys with for his own personal gains. He can sense the way your finger twitches, itching to lace them with his own, and the crueler side of him forces his hand to stay put.

He wordlessly leans toward you, his lips grazing against the side of your neck. You shiver at the touch and he smiles wickedly to himself, drinking in the gasp that escapes you when he tilts your neck to the other side, where he usually drinks.

He doesn’t even have to ask. “Just—be gentle. Please.”

“Of course.” He unhinges his jaw, ready to plunge the knives of his teeth into where the sweet liquid gold rushes to your face, his shoulders finally relaxing when—

“I love you,” you whisper under your breath.

He stops.

Though unsure why, he freezes. Completely and utterly freezes.

“Astarion?”

He pulls away slowly, staring at you for a long moment before offering another smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

“You look exhausted, my dear. I think that’s enough for tonight.”

“But you didn’t even feed?”

“I can handle myself, darling, as much as I appreciate your worries,” he stands and holds the flap of the tent open, practically a silent demand for you to leave.

He should be ecstatic. Gleaming with joy from being offered a drop of your blood, but instead, he feels knots forming in his stomach. And the longer he watches you, the worst they seem the get.

Hurt flashes across your face and he ignores the sudden tightness in his chest.

“Okay, well,” you say, stepping out hesitantly. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, my dear.”

And as he lies wide awake in the middle of the night with nothing to accompany him but his own thoughts, he finds that all of them are overruled by his endless need for warmth. Not just anyone’s but the one he’s become accustomed to the past few months. No matter how much he curls up in his bedroll, all he can feel is the chill of his own body.

And he hates it more than he expected.

——

By the time he awakens, you’re long gone.

He’s rather productive. Taking walks, gathering supplies, catching up on his reading, he refuses to sit and lie around as the others await for you and your companions to return from the goblin village.

He even entertains sitting through one of Karlach’s dances, which somehow ends up being more entertaining than he’d imagined. While she didn’t fall flat on her face (which he admittedly looked forward to), it burnt through time regardless.

The peace is broken when he hears footsteps rushing toward the camp. He’s memorized everyone’s intervals when sprinting or pacing, so he’s quick to identify Gale and Shadowheart. He listens keenly for your own footsteps.

There are no third pair of footsteps at all.

Shadowheart stumbles into the camp, in a panic compared to her usual self, as she points toward a spot on the ground and snaps at Gale to put something down.

He only sees when she moves out of the way that this something, is rather someone.

You’re writhing in pain, eyes shut in an unconsciousness that’s surely preferable to what you’re feeling. You’re sweating, groaning in your sleep and everyone is immediately rushing to you.

His face would’ve gone pale, if it weren’t for the fact that he was already as ghostly as a sheet.

“What happened,” Lae’zel demands in place of him, and he opts to mindlessly push Gale to the side, who doesn’t say a word from the expression on Astarion’s face. He doesn’t know what he looks like, but from Gale’s reaction, it’s better he never know.

“Damned poison arrows,” Shadowheart hisses. “I’m completely out of magic for today. I need to make an antidote by hand before their condition gets any worse than it already is.”

Astarion brushes the back of his knuckles against your cheek. The creases between your brows soften for the slightest moment before they’re back again.

Lae’zel and Shadowheart are arguing again—something about how one thing would’ve happened if another thing hadn’t. He’s not even sure what they’re arguing about, but in an instant, rage flickers in his chest.

“Do something!” He snaps, suddenly making the camp go quiet. “Or are you just going to stand there and watch them die?”

He suddenly feels a hand grab his, and his eyes shoot down to see your own. Even in your sleep, you reach out to him. Even in the deepest part of slumber, you search for him. It makes him feel like the shittiest and luckiest person alive, especially as the your hurt expression from last night flashes in his mind.

“Help them,” the words spill out against his will, his tone breaking down into something more desperate. “Do something. For God’s sake, anything.”

In the moment, he doesn’t care about protection. He doesn’t give a shit about any of that because the second he’d seen you in genuine pain, it was all he needed to completely forget about the stupid reasons why he approached you in the first place.

All he cared about was your life.

Everyone glances at one another knowingly, but even Lae’zel doesn’t break the silence. Shadowheart spares him a furrowed glare before rushing to gather the antidote.

You only awake hours later. Certainly during the middle of the night, to the ceiling of a tent that’s certainly not your own. You slowly urge yourself to sit up, a pounding headache ringing in your skull, but your worries about it vanish when you hear his voice.

“Quite the nap, darling.”

You snap around to see him on the other side of the tent, albeit only a few feet away from how crunched it is. Fascinating, he thinks, that even with your disheveled hair and bloodshot eyes, he finds you more beautiful than before. “What happened?”

“You nearly died.”

“…how?”

“Poison,” he’s fiddling with his dagger, refusing to look at you. He can’t. In fear of what he might say. “Caused a reasonable panic too. Seems like our companions have grown more attached to you than anyone’s expected.”

You purse your lips, and he quickly mortifies at the exceeding need to part them with his own. You don’t seem to notice. “You too?”

“I was certainly worried our esteemed leader may kick the bucket earlier than anticipated, yes.”

“No, I mean,” you scrunch your eyes sheepishly, and he thinks it’s adorable. Gods he must be going insane. “Have you…grown attached?”

He raises a brow. “You just woke up from a life threatening experience and that’s what piques your interest?”

Your cheeks turn a shade darker. He wants to touch them. “I just…I was worried all day. About us. I got too distracted and of course, that’s on me, but one of the goblins took advantage and—“

He wants to climb into a coffin, guilt eating away at what remains of his organs. But when you fidget with the ends of his bedroll blanket, he can’t tell if his stomach is churning from shame or something else.

You stop, close your mouth, then open it again. “When I passed out, I was just thinking about how I would hate for us to part like that. I didn’t want last night to be our last moment.”

“No,” he says firmly. “While you’d been asleep, I’ve had quite some time to think, darling. And more time to wallow in my self pity for being stuck with an actual weirdo. I mean, do you hear yourself? Worrying about such a stupid encounter while on your deathbed? You should’ve been cursing me with all the strength you had left if you were going to think about me of all people!”

You smile a bit, and he grits his teeth at the way his throat goes dry. “I’m just glad.”

“For getting poisoned?”

“No,” you roll your eyes. “I’m glad I didn’t scare you off by telling you I loved you. I was afraid we wouldn’t talk like this anymore.”

His body wills him to freeze up again. To push you away, and to force the fantasy that his feelings towards you were nothing but manipulative. That you were nothing but a way to survive to him. But no, he couldn’t stand such cowardice any longer. Not after nearly losing you.

You offer him a pathetic laugh. “I don’t expect you to say it back, nor for you to feel the same way. I just—felt like you needed to know. It doesn’t change anything between us I hope. It just felt wrong to keep it to myself any longer and the way you reacted just made me regret it so much-“

He wraps his palm in front of your mouth, his other hand pulling you closer to his side in an instant. With your faces inches apart, he sighs irritably. “As much as I’d like to keep hearing your voice, I can’t stand its contents any longer I’m afraid.”

He lowers his hand, staring straight at your wide eyes as he narrows his own. “I do. Like you, I mean. A lot more than I’d like to admit, quite frankly.”

You blink as if you’re staring at a miracle.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he mumbles with a scoff. “I’ve had these feelings for a while now, I just didn’t wish to face them. When you said that to me yesterday, I just didn’t know how to respond, and for that, I am sorry. But losing you—I’m not sure what I would have done, but it’s certainly not a pretty sight.”

Your eyes soften and he’s certain he can lose himself within them for years. “I’ve never heard you sound so—sincere.”

He raises your knuckles to his lips, keeping them close even as he speaks. “I approached you out of necessity, I’ll admit. But it seems you’ve grown on me in a way I haven’t experienced since I’ve turned into a spawn. What you are to me—it’s difficult to describe.” He pauses. “Sometimes, I can still feel my heart beating with you.”

As your fingers brush against the side of his face, he swears he can feel it again. He almost feels warm, maybe even safe. And he’s sick and tired of denying himself of your embrace when death is around every corner.

You’re soon curled up into his chest, with his chin atop of your head. He’s not sure how much time passes—maybe hours, or even days as he continues to observe your face, committing each and every detail to his memory. And when your breathing steadies, falling into deep slumber, he finally has the courage to whisper the words against your hair.

“I love you.”

[rorah]

The mentally stable Dimitri Fire emblem 3 hopes.

It surprises me that there's still ppl claiming so, but then I remember we're talking about 3h interpretations and I have to make peace with it.

But that doesn't stop me from venting a little bit in this little space I have lol. Actually, it dries me and makes me feel bad to bring this up because I will have to talk bad about Dedue, and I don't want to talk Bad about Dedue. He's a genuinely good boy. But "Human" nonetheless, which means Flaws. I like Felix too but he's become some sort of a clown that doesn't make me feel too bad. I like Felix tho, In a different way.

Mostly talking about these two because the take that "Dimitri has better support system" baffles me because, technically, these two are his support system in HopesVerse. The persons who Dimitri relays on and seek solace/advice/support. The rest doesn't really tackle any of his personal struggles (aside from the Mage!Mitri frustrated dream, but that's out of the bad equation in our 'mentally unwell' set of pixels, and Shez only has a glimpse). Contrary, to Houses verse where the whole blue lions cast knew about his shit, didn't know what to do, but didn't leave either.

I tackled this topic with other person on Twitter who was (or still is) on board with this take and the phrase they used was They contained him better, which of course I agree and remarked that was exactly the problem. Contain him is gonna be contra productive. I used a water dam analogy, where the structure of such dam is damaged, and the pressure of water keeps accumulating. Causing a foreseeable damage for the dam itself and the surroundings. You don't need to be a genius to understand it, you need experience or knowledge for mental ill topics tho.

I really don't want to extend so much on here because it's mostly just, rant format more than a proper analysis so I just want to point out these two things in their support conversations.

First, Dedue. Encourage him to keep on the vengeful path. Which we know was the final goal of Azure Moon and if you payed attention to 3 houses message. The whole Vengeful argument was something Bad, to keep it simple. Despite Dimitri actively looking for answers/guidance for something that, in a rational state he can see clearly like vengeance will consume his life (also Shez and Felix called out this behavior). Dedue answer only encourage him to keep on that path, because he would do that 💔. Presenting 2 oposite views is a great formula for confusion and disorientation. Now, Dedue's role is primary SUPPORT, not guidance nor orientation. He will support his shit no matter what, and we are quite aware of that if played Houses.

Second, Felix. Felix is a special case. He is smart but also an idiot lacks A LOT of soft skills to actually be of help. He's the only one who knows in this verse about Dimitri having a mental issue. In their A support to say the least, so they don't close or solve anything. What makes it more worrisome is the fact that Felix conceals the issue as a secret.

"So try to keep that whole "removing their heads" thing in check, yeah? We can just call it our little secret."

this extract here makes me feel so unwell 😭help

The whole burden falls over him and his lack of skills and wisdom on the matter will be too much for him later on. He at least, will be able to recognize that the problem is beyond of his capabilities and will look for help. Felix himself has his own issues and journey where he needs to learn. He's forced to get pass beyond some of his angry teen behavior but hasn't completely get over it.

There is a lot more to tackle, but that requires more work and time. What are the topics some of you think is important to cover around understanding the Hopes verse resolution? Dimitri's route? something? Do you think the route without Byleth is better? With that being said, I would like to delve deeper into character analysis, and the role each played for the Lords too. That also requires to talk about the Byleth and needs a whole analysis on their own, which requires time (which i don't have much lol) To end this vent, I would like to encourage people to do a little research for the terminology they're using like "Support System". Who makes it up and how it operates successfully. The fact that ppl saying "he has better support system" only because he didn't go feral on the run alone is not entirely valid. A reminder that people can feel alone with or without people around them. And containing the issue within doesn't solve any problem. At best, it's presented later. At worse, it gets worse.

[mecachrome]

hi! @ anon here is my lando accent infodump lmao:

so like landos accent is an ancient secret scientists worldwide have been spending centuries trying to analyse... but im gonna try to sum it up to the best of my abilities

his accent definitely changed with both private school AND international karting / single seaters but what complicates the matter is that his accent was weird to begin with

so using the reference clips k already picked out bc theyre actually rly good:

lando starts off (as far as we know, obvs by the time we have interviews of him he was already heavily involved in karting) with a weird accent

the main building blocks are definitely standard southern / londony working class. but there's also a distinct bristolian twang: notice the "foinal" and "mah mayn competition" and "jamie caroloine" lol (beloved). that bristolian twang is the first thing that goes away once he goes to secondary & is pretty much imperceptible today which is incredibly tragic to me

aside from all that is the weird foreign quality which has stayed in his accent to varying degrees over the years: these sort of flat, almost south african sounding vowels

part of it is 100% his mum & flemish roots. like, the reason i mention south africa specifically is bc i rmbr multiple ppl throwing it out as a guess, & it makes a lot of sense to me considering the dutch influence on the ZA accent. theres also his dyslexia, which often makes him trip over sounds / unsure of some pronounciations / simplify words in his head, and im almost certain that also contributes to his vague 'foreign' tinges

BUT if it was just those things it rly wouldnt explain why it fluctuated sm over the years. like we leave 11 year lando off sounding slightly european, but by the time we return to him at his formula 1 debut in 2019 i see ppl in the comments genuinely unconvinced that hes even british. he pronounces small 'i' sounds as long (think "a-nee-thing") and 'a' sounds flattened almost into 'e's (think "beck" instead of "back"). my reference for plotting where landos accent is at has always been how he says the name max (convenient that hes had by now 2 championship rivals and a best friend with that name) because at its most exagerrated it almost sounds like "mex"

i think what happened to get him to that point was like. as soon as private school flattened the regional twang his accent became even more absorbent than it had been before, and hanging out with so many international people brought out the european aspects of his own accent as well as had him borrow a few of their pronounciations

in 2019-2020 he was either living with sacha fenestraz (french-argentinian, has subtle and imo very charming argentinian accent) or alone & struggled to reconnect with old friends, bc of first the pressures of his rookie year and then the pandemic. this all changed massively in 2021 - at work he got an EFL teammate, at home he had max move in with him, in his social life he started hanging out more with tom bale and connor hughes and british youtube circles. 2021 is also when his accent solidified way more as 'standard southern' & i think it makes sense considering everything

nowadays his accent still varies & still carries some shades of his unique foreign pronounciations but it rests pretty consistently at 'standard southern'. what pushes it into different directions a bit is probably hanging out w garrix & other dutch ppl, as well as him adopting maxf's horrible little habit of mimicry which has him either pulling out the bankai bulgarian even out of context or, on the opposite side, placing the completely incongruous 'bunda' and 'man' into his vocabulary. OH and the even more baffling occasional brummie touches, also from maxf

tldr lando does have the ambiguous euro accent but its a bit more complicated than just spending time in international circles bc i think he is predisposed to speaking like that

as an addendum bc the english class police will come for me: by working class i just mean not posh

HLKSDFHLH kira this is such a dense text i don't even need to add anything!!! i've also seen people be like >WHY DOES HE SOUND SOUTH AFRICAN??? which mildly amuses me but yes all of this makes sense! and omg sacha's accent is sooo fun to me, i remember watching this interview where he talks about it (answering in spanish while his parents spoke to him in french 😭) and identifying as more argentinian than his sister etc. it was very charming. anw tl;dr as you put it i think a lot of it is just him and maxf possessing a natural inclination toward mimicry and a wide social circle LOL

[snapscube]

So you mentioned the Amazing Spider-man movies, what are your thoughts on them? For me; I was pleasantly surprised by 1 AND 2. Like 2 is bad, real bad, but the jokes were legit, Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone are just...an amazing on screen couple and until the transformation Harry is a really fun villain....just sucks that most of the movie is exposition about peoples relationships to one another or experiments done mostly off screen.

TASM1 is perfectly serviceable as a standalone project and was definitely not the worst jumping off point, but it struggles to really properly understand Spider-Man/Peter as a personality. Peter absolutely doesn't have to be a goody two-shoes loser, all of the best adaptations of Peter imo can have some serious attitude and grit to their persona, but TASM1 kinda over-corrects on the Tobey Maguire "shy nerd" angle by making Spidey a bit too much of a dick. I remember the movie getting a lot of praise for finally making Spider-Man funny and quippy, praise I similarly gave at the time, but it really... doesn't do that nearly as much as ppl gave it credit for??? There's like ONE scene where Spider-Man is kinda jokey with someone he suspects to be Ben's killer, but that scene kinda stinks because he's not quipping as much as he's like actively cruel lmao. Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone had great chemistry though and you can tell Marc Webb knew his stuff when it came to directing that kind of romantic tension, seeing as how his previous project was 500 Days of Summer. All-in-all, it's a Fine movie but it's not a fantastic adaptation of the things I personally like about Spider-Man.

TASM2 is so much more intriguing to me to watch and to talk about. It's genuinely baffling how that movie ended up like it did, but in a way that almost anyone could have predicted. That movie STINKS. It's really really bad. But it also has kind of the opposite problem to TASM1 in that... TASM1 is a good movie that doesn't properly showcase the character of Spider-Man, whereas TASM2 is a garbage movie that features some of the best live action Spider-Man scenes/setpieces we had seen and would ever see to this day. It's sincerely tragic how many great INDIVIDUAL MOMENTS are in that movie, and how loosely connected they are by some monumentally stupid studio meddling. That movie has everything going in its favor with Andrew Garfield in the lead, the best live action Spider-Man suit to this day, the most thrilling and well rendered swinging sequences put to film, and the occasional glimpse of a true Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man that is down on the ground connecting with and watching over not just the city itself but the people within it. There's a montage in the middle of the movie that features Spider-Man on his daily patrol and he comes across as just so PRESENT and on the same level as the people he protects, meanwhile in the audio track you hear newscasters and interviews fiercely debating whether or not what he does is actually worthwhile. And that shit HITS. But unfortunately that kind of stuff is still too rare and it far overshadowed by Sony desperately trying to make a Spidey Cinematic Universe without earning it. Ultimately they had all of the pieces to make a truly definitive adaptation of Spidey that I feel like almost anyone could get behind, but they just... couldn't. Even Spider-Man PS4, commonly lauded as one of the most definitive Spidey stories of all time, uses SO MUCH of the same DNA of the Amazing Spider-Man films, but the difference is that it had the space to be only exactly what it needed to be. Nothing more, nothing less. Anyway I could talk more about this for sure but I'm looking at the length of this write-up and wincing already LOL.