#but still a group effort

[fisheito]

(3) remaining

[silver-horse]

if we are talking about the lost dream lover/daisy scenes from act 1 then we should talk about why those scenes were so good and why the loss of that storyline is so disappointing. because it's not just "oh those scenes looked better or whatever" it was a completely different character and storyline.

even though the companions pushed back way more and the whole narrative was telling you to resist the dream lover, it was somehow far more tempting. you were constantly tempted in dialogues to use your powers and if you did, you slowly started to lose yourself, the narrator said you could feel something slipping away, something you will never get back. You were giving yourself over to the fantasy, a mindflayer illusion

the game asked you during character creation "who do you dream of at night?" obviously meaning "what are you attracted to?" rather than just "you need a guardian. choose one." there is already a different implication there. I wonder how people interpret "guardian" if they don't know about the original dream lover. they might not even create someone they find tempting. a guardian sounds more like a mentor figure, rather than your ideal fantasy partner.

During early access the dream lover not only offered us power, they also showed us a tempting future where we are powerful and important and beloved and we are ruling the world. such universal temptations and desires. and we were resting on a peaceful field with the person of our dreams. it was peace in the dream world vs the real life struggle.

In the end it seemed obvious where this was leading... if you use the tadpole too much, you would have turned into a mindflayer. and whatever is left of your individuality and consciousness would have stayed in that fantasy world with your perfect fantasy partner. the mindflayer illusion forever trapped you. the song "Down by the River" was written about this fantasy dream lover. and what a banger and creative storyline this could have been. what a tragic ending! to just give up, lose yourself in the fantasy, the easy way out. choose this beautiful fantasy over the imperfect real world. and choose your perfect imaginary partner over the flawed real people, your companions. truly I mourn what an incredible storyline this could have been. It would have resonated with basically everyone.

and you would have been constantly tempted. to avoid this fate you would need to struggle constantly while the easy fantasy is dangling in front of your face with a zero difficulty ability check.

turning into a mindflayer wouldn't have been something you have the option to choose. and you can get cured no matter how much you indulged in the tadpole powers. lmao I kinda hate that there is no consequence for any of that now

[gonkaccino]

Season 4 hope/prediction: Deb's show is solid, zero issues, runs flawlessly with great ratings, but her personal life is completely eroding. We start with her discovering Marcus is leaving, and it culminates in DJ going into labor right before a taping. Deb chooses the show. When it's over, and she finally flies to Vegas, it's too late -- Aiden's not letting her in because he loves his wife too much to let DJ get into a shouting match with her mom right after giving birth, and instead takes the brunt of Deb's wrath, with her making excuses and talking about how they used her money for IVF, and anyway, DJ's fine, so who cares if she wasn't there? Kathy's in the room with DJ and the baby (DJ's the closest she has to a daughter, after all) and Deb leaves too furious to think about how badly she's hurt her family.

She heads back to her Vegas mansion -- empty, obviously, Josefina and the dogs would be in LA -- and pops open a bottle of wine. Alone. Completely alone. Can't call Marty, she has no friends, the closest she's got would be Kiki and wouldn't that be embarrassing, calling your poker dealer to talk about your feelings --

and then Ava's there. She got the news about DJ's labor, she got the story from Aiden (who was distraught, by the way, man's too much of a sweetheart for Vance drama), a spare key from Damian (happy to pawn that off on her, though if it isn't returned promptly he's taking legal action) and has arrived just in time to see the Deborah Vance having a breakdown the likes of which no one thought physically possible. Crying gives you wrinkles, you know. But Ava has to be here. She's the physical embodiment of a lesson Deb never truly learned: you don't have to like someone to love them.

In my imaginary fantasy land that I am concocting this would then subsequently lead into them fucking nasty but I understand that this may be a step too far for the surprisingly large number of very normal people who watch this show and would forgive JPL for not taking it that far. However I do believe they should fuck about it and let Ava take the reigns in their relationship while they see how many of Deb's bridges they can un-burn.

[royaltea000]

Guys here’s a link list of that old Hetalia Nordics cosplay series that I was reminiscing about a while back ago - a classic from my time… 🚬_(TwT ) original cosplays by FabrorEstersPojkar - we salute our soldiers o7

It’s my favorite cosplay series ever and you can really feel the passion and care put into this project - they got translators so every country spoke their own language throughout and everythin dude, that’s effort! If you do check it out lemme know how you liked it! :)

Intro/world meeting parody- 【[APH] [COS] Hetalia 北 區欠 1-哔哩哔哩】 https://b23.tv/jkOFrN3

Starts getting into history- 【 [APH][COS]Hetalia的北區欠2維/京/海/盜時代 part 1-哔哩哔哩】 https://b23.tv/jpuNeTR

【[APH][COS]Hetalia的北區欠維/京/海/盜時代2-part 2-哔哩哔哩】 https://b23.tv/Yc1CDMd

【 [APH][COS] Hetalia北區欠3 -卡/爾/馬/聯/盟part 1-哔哩哔哩】 https://b23.tv/IBytvwu

【[APH][COS] Hetalia北區欠3 -卡/爾/馬/聯/盟part 2-哔哩哔哩】 https://b23.tv/TgREPxM

【 [APH][COS]Hetalia北區欠4波/羅/的/海/戰/役part 1-哔哩哔哩】 https://b23.tv/5F5EK3n

【[APH][COS]Hetalia北區欠4波/羅/的/海/戰/役part 2-哔哩哔哩】 https://b23.tv/wU84HYl

Bloopers/BTS:

【 [APH][COS] Hetalia北區欠系列作品的花絮-哔哩哔哩】 https://b23.tv/Ie1HBr4

(Bloopers 1,2,3 included in a row in description)

[nattikay]

so I started playing the new Frontiers of Pandora game last night, and was pleasantly surprised that not only did the opening cutscene feature a few lines of spoken Na'vi dialogue, but said dialogue was actually pretty accurate!! Good job game!!

Here’s the lines transcribed as far as I can tell:

Aha'ri: Plltxe po nìtsleng! He speaks falsely/he lies! Player: Ma tsmuke, ftang! Sister, stop!

-

Aha'ri: Ma Nor? Ma Nor, tìtxen si. Awnga ngahu, tam. Nor? Nor, wake up. We [are] with you, it’s ok. Nor: Tsat oel uniltsola nìmun…tsatxon a fol awngat kämolunge. I dreamed about it again…that night they took us.

-

Aha'ri: Awnga kä ne kelku! We go home! Player: Za'u, ma Teylan. Oeng kivä ne kelku. Come, Teylan. We [may] go home.

[givehimthemedicine]

ANGST AU: I'm so, so sorry, El.

[manny-jacinto]

unfriendly reminder that ryan reynolds got married in a plantation

[lizardlicks]

I've been having this thought that I haven't been able to really articulate? And I still don't think I'm going to do it right, but here goes my attempt anyway:

BROADLY SPEAKING, yes, the trope of everyone gets hetero married and has lots of kids at the end of the story is over done, and YES we absolutely badly need other versions of happily ever after because there is no one path to life fulfillment, and no one true way to find or build a family, or even one definition of family!

HOWEVER: it rings a bit hollow to me when I see other people taking this bit of generallized story crafting advise and applying that to katara and sokka specifically. Because they're not the ethnically dominant race or culture in the AtLA setting, not even close. They're based off circumpolar native populations. Their people have survived a century of genocide. Their story repeatedly echos themes of family, community, tradition, being forcefully stripped of it by imperialist colonizers, and the trauma there in. There's pieces of themselves they lost before they were even born, and both siblings are acutely aware of that, though they choose to deal with it in different ways.

I'm not saying that they DEFINITELY ABSOLUTELY must get hetero married and have a million babies to have a fulfilling ending, I hope no one reads this that way. I'm only saying that I think there has been a gap in the critical analysis responses of the broader fandom when they start reflectively sneering at stories that do have them content to stay home and raise the next generation, or whenever anyone laments about post show canon/LoK seems to neglect mentioning sokka having any family at some point it gets push back on with that exact argument.

Consider that it might be better applied to people for whom getting to raise the next generation in some way isn't itself an entire victory fanfare.

[eosofspades]

okay i meant to make this post forever ago but my personal opinion on why so many people were so dissatisfied with lightfalll (disclaimer: i am not one of these people, i love lightfall SO much), is that lightfall was kind of subjected to a really aggressive marketing campaign.

like, stick with me here, i feel like almost all the lightfall release content (the trailers especially) were so focused on battling the witness, how this battle has been centuries in the making and this is the Second Collapse Finally Finding Us, only for there to be,,, no real resolution. the end was left on such a severe cliffhanger, but not only that, there was NO battle with the witness. the witness didn't even seem to be having a hard time at all with what we WERE throwing at it.

and for narrative reasons *i* am obsessed with this ending; in terms of storytelling i adore practically every creative decision that was made in lightfall, but i think the reason that so many people were so upset about it is because lightfall had such intense marketing and was rooted in the implication that this was the End of Days, only for us to get almost no closure, and instead so many more questions.

(there's also something to be said, i think, about the fact that the people who ARE most upset about this are like, the youtube gamer dudebros who's content is very very often rooted in the aggressive, violence-and-warfare, pvp-centric, no-interest-in-lore approach to destiny, and that the people i've seen primarily ENJOYING the narrative decisions (or at least being understanding about it) are the artists and writers and loremasters of the fandom, but i'm not quite sure,,, how to expand on that point.)

[penguinkyun]

finally got to read onk 136 and wow. okay.

love the understanding we're slowly getting of just how bad things were in first gen b-komachi! that fight is incredibly real and heartbreaking to witness

nino, in her own way is trying out of sheer desperation and a whole emotional cocktail to reach out to ai, to find something, letting loose all her bottled up feelings in one go but all she's getting back are practised perfected smiles and deflecting answers in response to the emotion shes pouring out because ai has no idea how to handle this because shes never had friends nor any major fight before so she's falling back on the "smile and please everyone" tactic but it isnt working here because that isnt what nino wants to hear so she gets even more hurtful but ai doesn't know that so all she can do, all she can try right now is smile and its a slow suffocation of everything that could've been because they were friends but now the cracks go too deep and can't be patched up at all because ai is now dead and nino is left with a bunch unresolved feelings that still affects her more than a decade later

its just so heartbreaking and frustrating to witness just exactly how everything culminated into what it is now because no one who could have did anything about it either, not even their manager which pushed the singular star - everyone else is just a side actor narrative even more

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

continuing on, kana's detachment yet empathy with nino as she observes from a distance while ruby is very much embodying ai, being her instead of keeping herself separate. kana knows herself and now she's able to sort out her hidden feelings easier now that she has an outlet in form of nino (she uses her own emotions for acting after all) but ruby with her years of grief and the sudden understanding of ai...yeah she is Not handling this well at all someone please get her out of there

this movie in terms of Ai Potrayal is getting worse and worse by the second oof

[the-final-sif]

I'll be honest, having seen a lot of the boil over, I think the thing that keeps catching a particular subgroup up about the finale is that the finale unequivocally says two things:

c!Dream was not always this way, he was at one point, just a 20 something year old running around in fields with his friends.

c!Dream was, and still is, unmistakably and indisputably human.

I feel like these two facts, being presented in such a way that there's no way for it to be misunderstood, are sticking points for that group because it forces an understanding that they have been actively been working against.

c!Dream did horrible things, but he was still human. He was human the entire time. He wasn't born evil, he wasn't a one-dimensional purely malicious villain that existed only to fill a role. He was human. He was human, and he did horrible things, and those horrible things did not negate his humanity. c!Dream was a human, and he was hurt, and he handled that hurt poorly, and he hurt people as a result. He wasn't always this way, he ended up this way because of how he was hurt and the poor choices he made to handle that hurt.

It's vicious towards people who've been stuck on this idea that c!Dream is inhuman, that's he's a monster, that he was always selfish, evil, "the problem". Because they need that simplicity in a narrative and can't handle the implication that anyone can end up being horrible. That there isn't a neat little line between good people and bad people, and that anyone can both be hurt and hurt others.

c!Dream is an ugly, vicious reflection of what someone can become when they believe their goal is worthwhile and they don't care if what they're doing is wrong. He is though, above all else, a human. Just a person. Who was hurt, and made bad choices. Nothing more, nothing less. Familiar and terrifying.

I feel like there's a certain group out there that absolutely cannot stand this idea that anyone can do horrible, irreparable damage, for much the same reason that some people don't like mirrors.

[svtskneecaps]

you know what i'll say it MIKE AND ROIER ARE THE ONLY ONES I RESPECT these fuckers will rock up and say FUCK english all my homies HATE english they are the only ones i trust and respect these fuckers are like you will hear me speak my language and you will LEARN IT OR DIE and i respect the HELL OUT OF IT dude THANK YOU FOR BEING ENGLISH HATERS brothers THANK YOU FOR NOT SPEAKING ONLY ENGLISH WHEN AMONG ANYONE NOT OF YOUR LANGUAGE GROUP!!!!!!!!

[konfizry]

no because you see actually the fact that zelos hates kratos' guts is by far my favorite aspect of zelos. like like the whole betrayal thing and whatnot, honestly, can't relate man, sorry about what happened to you i guess buddy but personally i dont care i just dont

but then back when i found out through finally playing his route + watching tof2 tls that the guy will diss kratos at any given occasion i was taken with renewed appreciation for him. its just too good. (and actually, there are signs of it even before that. like when you run into kratos in sybak and supposedly zelos doesnt know him at all but he still takes a moment to loudly go "omg fuck this guyyyyy" once kratos has left the scene and it's just ertghrteguhireg. zelos actually makes a couple more efforts to have lloyd trust kratos as little as possible. meanwhile theres that character skit in the flanoir area where kratos warns lloyd that there may be "someone in his group with ill intentions be careful no i won't elaborate bye" or whatever. all while k and z are presumably routinely in voice chat arguing over kratos' ridiculous grocery list. what a mess. both of them.) i unironically love it fr. i think it both makes perfect sense from a character perspective, and is hilarious. also it's nice to have one dude be openly hostile towards kratos. what can i say, i live for drama.

so anyway im glad we can all agree that the iselia ranch is a missed opportunity for an absolute train wreck of a skit that should have have happened but didnt.

[kafkaesquedyke]

The new Velma show seems to neatly fall into this trend of tv shows (paramount heathers, leaked powerpuff girls script) that want to seem progressive by having a diverse cast, while simultaneously wanting to preserve that same edgy, punch-down comedy style found in 'centrist' or conservative media. They want the praise for having female, queer, and characters of colour while still retaining an audience made up of mainly edgy white men laughing at how ridiculous ‘the minorities’ are behaving. It’s a punch-down comedy wolf in progressive sheep clothing.

The fundamental flaw in this logic is that show runners assume the audience that would enjoy this humour will see past that supposedly progressive façade… and that often doesn’t happen. A lot of these specific edgy types see diversity as a red flag and immediately presume some type of agenda. It’s almost like seeing a minority participate in the joke (even though they’re still very much the punchline) zaps all the humour out of it or they can’t understand that the joke is still for them if it isn’t said by someone that looks exactly like them. And because they (especially, but not only, cishet white men) recognise all the jokes from things they like, but don’t find them funny anymore, the only reasonable explanation they have is that diversity is bad and makes it unfunny, instead of realising their inherent inability to recognise and relate to any character that isn’t a white man.

Meanwhile, an audience that would appreciate a diverse cast does recognise the comedy for what it is: cheap jokes made at their expense. At most there are occasional jabs thrown in at the white and/or male characters which often don’t relate to these identities in any fundamental or even realistic way. So you have this show that constantly uses it’s minority characters as punchlines and only includes vaguely progressive, but ultimately pretty universally accepted, messaging hoping progressive audiences will be enamoured with the occasional ‘girlboss moment™️’, while not noticing that vast amounts of regressive ideals.

In the end neither audience feels appealed to and the show is a massive failure. While it might be satisfying to see that these conservative audiences are too blinded by, let’s be honest here, identity politics to recognise something that is clearly made for them, ultimately all that is remembered is that ‘the comedy show featuring a lot of diversity’ failed. And it becomes harder for people who actually want to make media with, and especially for, minorities have a harder time getting any funding. Shows like these are a lose lose situation when it comes to furthering diversity in the media landscape and it’s increasingly frustrating to see this happen again and again.

[menlove]

happy pride 🫶💖 @forthlin

[katsigian]

Part of me wanted to leave the cp/77 fandom permanently for Obvious Reasons but then I realized something 🌚

If some of the most toxic, manipulative people can still be active in the fandom (i mean as a whole, not just tumblr) then so can I <3 and everyone else who feels like they've been left out or feel like they don't belong, you've been tricked. You do belong. Anyone who's here to create because they love their OCs and the game, belong here far more than anyone else who's hurt others or created division

So I'll still be here. I'm returning with all of my silly little pretty boys hope you missed them because I'm about to be so unhinged about them stay safe out there

Peace and love on planet earth <3