#but the evidence is still pretty fucking hilarious

[purrincess-chat]

Okay, listen, I find the distribution of LS sides data to be interesting, and major major props to the OP for spending the time doing it. I mentioned back when the OP did s1 that I understand the metric they used in measuring bc it's unarguable screentime, even if I personally consider a lot of moments where the two aren't together to be for one ship or another (particularly for Adrinette when a majority of the time in earlier seasons Marinette spends probably more time plotting schemes to get with him than actually interacting with him, which would have added to their screentime, in my opinion), but I respect the OP's decision on doing it the way they did. That being said, I'm not going to lie, I laughed pretty hard after the s5 measurements. You're telling me that LN stans lost their absolute damn minds and screamed from the rooftops about how Adrinette stans were "gaslighting" (🙄) them when we said that LN wasn't being shafted that season and "buhh LN is dead where's LN??? I miss them" All of that over a 14% drop in screentime? And they still had THE MOST screentime out of all sides that season?????

I don't know that I can ever take a LN stan seriously again, I'm sorry. I already don't take people who fight about the sides like they're 4 different ships seriously bc as I have said numerous times and will say numerous times again, they are the same damn people. But so long as there are clowns dressing up and showing off for the fandom, I will be here shaking my head at how absolutely absurd they are.

Anyway, all of the respect in the world for the person who did that, you mad lad, you legend, you absolute beast. Please take a damn nap, you've earned it 🤣

[homunculus-argument]

I found a collection of clipped images of vintage ads, and let me tell you these are hilarious with no context.

Dude on the left doesn't give a shit about what you think of him. "Whatever, I'm still going to drink my coffee with my breakfast ass-pastries." Dude on the right is offended. "Really? Right in front of my heroin?"

All your mental health troubles can be cured by having a talk with the drunk girl sitting on the floor of a dive bar bathroom. Like the modern oracle, she dispels wisdom.

Do not cut off your nose to spite your face! Let us do it for you! Experience the highest end quality of plastic surgery that the 1930s technology can offer! If the war didn't blow your nose off, we can make it look like it sure did!

Are you too refined, sophisticated and dapper? Would you rather have the rough and manly, beastly airs of the salt trade sailor you sucked off behind the town market three days ago while he called you his pretty little slut? Our doctors can help you.

This is also a good way to get not only your nose, but your entire face professionally fucked up.

Trust me bro this is a different strain. It won't happen again this time bro trust me I swear.

Dude if she gives you that look you better zip it back up before she figures out how to politely tell you how disappointed she is. She came here for the thrill of her life and that's not it.

Nevermind, she was too polite to break it to you.

Live footage of the last coherent thought escaping my brain when my meds wear off.

Have you lived your entire life woefully lacking of dandruff? Fear not, for relief is here! Finally, you can have the same alluring scalp snow as the heinous bitch your husband left you for.

FALSE! I literally never shut the fuck up.

The money-eating giraffe will fuck you. That is a promise.

Successfully fucked by the giraffe, evidently.

Another satisfied customer. He won't even mind that the beast ate all his money.

This poor guy just missed the giraffe. By a thread. He was out of town already when this poor man got the news. His entire year is ruined.

Do you crave the chaotic rush of a manic outburst, but do not have the inherent mechanisms of naturally mania-inducing mental illness? Try AMPHETAMINE! You will be full of ideas, and know for sure what you're going to be doing for the next three months! Disclaimer: The ideas you will have on amphetamine are not guaranteed to be good ideas. And you're probably spending the next three months in jail.

You know you're sick you dirty little bowlcut slut.

"Fuck. This. Shit."

This one came in-built with a weirder fucking caption than I could come up with. Nothing can top this. Not even the giraffe.

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

since i've talked a lot about how i dislike Catra, here are some of the other fictional characters that i dislike:

(warning: long post ahead, also spoilers for steven universe, the dragon prince, ocean waves, the legend of korra, and kipo and the age of wonderbeasts)

1. Lapis Lazuli (Steven Universe)

i think this one is pretty obvious. there were a bunch of characters in SU who were let off the hook after doing terrible things, but Lapis is the one i disliked the most.

she started off as an interesting character, her trauma after getting caught in a war and stuck in a mirror for ages was sympathetic and pretty well-written but like Catra, i think the writers coddled Lapis too much.

this is evident with her relationship with Peridot, where she starts off blaming Peridot for something that wasn't her fault and destroying her prized possession when she tries to make amends. but Lapis expresses concern for Peridot ONCE and now they're besties.

and after that, Lapis becomes toxic and demanding, causing Peridot to constantly walk on eggshells around Lapis so as not to hurt her feelings. and finally, Lapis just takes the barn, Peridot's HOME, off into space because she couldn't agree with Peridot's decision to stay and fight the Diamonds?? i'm not mad that Lapis didn't want to fight the Diamonds, i fully understand her trauma, but did she have to take the barn with her? what part of that was necessary??

i think all of this would have been fine if Lapis was held accountable for her actions, but she wasn't. she doesn't even do the bare minimum and Peridot immediately forgives her. sigh. at least they didn't make Lapidot canon.

2. King Harrow (The Dragon Prince)

i don't hate this character as much as I hate some of the others on the list but i do think that he was kind of a shitty king. he literally decides to starve his own kingdom in order to help out another kingdom. and this is framed as the right thing to do?

it's a tough choice but Harrow's people were depending on him, and he decides that his own people should sacrifice their winter rations for another kingdom. scummy move, i do not like him. Viren may have been self-serving and manipulative, but he was right to try and stop Harrow from doing this.

3. Rikako Muto (Ocean Waves)

god, i fucking hate this bitch. worst ghibli movie ever honestly. the thing is, like Catra and many of the other characters here, Rikako would have been an interesting character if the writers just made her an antagonist.

but no, she's supposed to be the love interest while being a selfish and manipulative brat. she is rude to everyone unless she wants a favor from them. she uses people to her advantage and screams at them when they try to resist. Rikako is the most interesting character in this movie, which sucks because she is also the most insufferable character.

the singular most hilarious scene in this movie has to be when Taku is fondly reminiscing about the interactions he had with Rikako, and since she was nothing but a little bitch throughout the entire movie, we get a super emotional flashback, accompanied by a soft score, of all the times she was manipulating and verbally abusing him. would have been funnier if it was not unironic. i do not know what the creators were thinking.

there was no chemistry between these two characters, their relationship was unhealthy as fuck, but they still get together by the end because.. amatonormativity. and because Taku had too much chemistry with his male best friend and they didn't want the viewers to think that he might be queer.

4. Bolin (The Legend of Korra)

it's crazy how everyone and their mothers hate Mako for cheating on Korra and Asami, but absolutely adore Bolin who sexually harassed his coworker. Bolin forced a kiss on Ginger while she was tied down on set, after she had already rejected him multiple times and said that she was her doing her job.

i see so many people saying that Bolin was a green flag and a better choice than Mako, and i seriously wonder if we watched the same show. i don't condone cheating either obviously but how do you call out cheating but completely gloss over sexual harrasment? Bolin legit acts like a manchild who doesn't understand consent and because the show frames this as "comedy", the audience thinks it's cute and funny.

at least Mako faced the consequences of his actions. he got dumped by both Korra and Asami, some of the other characters called him out on his actions, and he actually turns into a much better person by the end of the series.

oh, don't forget that Bolin started working for the literal fascist in s4. and he acts all dumb about it and argues that Kuvira was like Korra which,, what the fuck? he literally sees Kuvira torturing people and it still takes him a long time to stop working for her. he was a bit like Entrapta in that case, the writers made him too oblivious and stupid in order to justify him aiding a fascist.

5. Kipo (Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts)

okay, so Kipo is a little different from the other characters mentioned here because she's not problematic by any means. quite the opposite actually, her main personality trait seems to be that she's kind to everyone.

and that's fine, it's on par for most kids show protagonists, but Kipo is such a deeply unflawed character that she just becomes so boring. she has no character growth throughout the series, except for developing her fighting skills as her wildcat form. and even that comes easy to her, she masters it in one episode. her "flaws" are very surface level, like being clumsy or kinda awkward.

she is unbothered by almost everything, which is the most baffling in that episode where she discovers that she was the result of a science experiment done by her parents. you would expect some sort of mixed emotions there - confusion, hesitation, resentment even? nope. she's just excited and happy that her parents put her life at risk by experimenting on her.

and the show insists on reminding us every five seconds that "hey! Kipo is a GOOD person, she's the KINDEST human being ever and the ONLY person who doesn't love her is the EVIL VILLAIN". shit like this just turns me off so much. just SHOW me how nice Kipo is, instead of making every character gush about her niceness. SHOW, don't tell, for god's sake. besides, even if a person is kind and wholesome, it's unrealistic for EVERYONE to like them.

and the funny thing is that this show has other interesting characters! Wolf, for example, was a really complex and flawed character who is still fundamentally a good person. Hugo was a sympathetic villain who got a pretty decent redemption arc. so it's not like the writers didn't know how to write interesting characters, they just wanted to make their protagonist a Mary Sue.

[fuck-customers]

I've had grown adult customers on two seperate occasions throw tantrums and walk out of the restaurant I work at because I couldn't serve them alcohol if they didn't have any ID on them.

Like dude listen I get it. You're 50 years old you should be able to get a beer. But this is a legal requirement in our country and if I serve you without you having proper ID, then I could get fined several thousand dollars and I do not give enough of a fuck about you to risk that.

Also, how do you have no ID?? Where's your driver's license? Your health care card?? Did you drive here without your wallet??? Did you walk here without your wallet???? Like the laws genuinely aren't picky, I just need one piece of photo ID and anything else that's got your name on it. People are always prepared with ID if they want a birthday discount, but evidently not if they want alcohol.

I will say though, I do get a lot of customers who're super chill with the ID requirement. I had to ID a guy born in the 1940's and he found it hilarious. Most people that're well over fourty think it's really funny. I just still can't get over those who make a whole scene because I can't serve them alcohol without identification on them.

I don't know if the laws are different in the US, but I'm in Canada, and I'm pretty sure the the last time it happened the guy was american. As a side note, he was stunned we didn't have beer on tap. We're a family breakfast restaurant buddy, you're lucky we have alcohol at all.

[vidavalor]

Ok fine, I brought milk and chocolate chip cookies this time 🥛 🍪 and also some eggs from my lovely chickens! 🐓 🥚

I hope you accept this apology, and I’ll try my best to behave 😜

So, I wonder how you interpret 1.03 where, just before the flood, one of the unicorns makes a run for it and Crawley says ‘you still got one of them’? Some people seem to believe this means she didn’t understand the process of procreation (at the time). Do you have any thoughts on that?

Please don't behave. Why would you want to do that? Would make this all very boring lol. 😂 Thank you for the very fun ask. I love this question.💕

I think the scene you're talking about is more than a funny aside about whether or not Crowley had finished reading Demon's Guide to Reproduction of Beings on Earth yet... and that might not be the question the scene is really asking. I think it also has a ton to do with the Final Fifteen of 2.06, too, so *slices pie* let's get into the unicorns and the professional midwife/cobbler and what, imo, these two moments have to do with one another:

In S1, in the scene set just before the beginning of The Flood, we have two questions emerge from Crowley's dialogue, both of which are then picked up again in S2. One is what Crowley meant by "kids" when he said "you can't kill kids" after looking at a group containing both small goats and children. The second question is the one you're talking about, which is whether or not he understood at the time how human reproduction works. The question is born out of the fact that, on the surface, he might appear to not exactly be grasping the concept of Noah's Ark when he says that Shem's "still got one of them" after one of the pair of unicorns takes off and doesn't get on the boat. Both things show back up together again in S2 in the Job minisode and that sort of continuation of story, in a way, might suggest that there's going to be a third layer to this that emerges in S3 as well. I think, though, that we might have enough to look at some potential answers already.

While the "kids" bit is, essentially, answered and was always more of a language joke anyway-- Crowley wishes to kill no kids, be them goats or humans-- the fact that this question returned in S2 and was tied once again with a plot centered around sex and reproduction shows that the questions raised in The Flood scene in S1 are interrelated and pretty important overall. The entire Job plot ultimately comes down to who knows what about human reproduction. Saving the kids comes down to fooling Gabriel and fooling Gabriel can only be done because Gabriel, at least at the time, did not have the first clue how human reproduction normally works. He had only seen this one, initial, very atypical version of it that has basically never happened since and because he didn't spend time on Earth at that point in the story, he didn't know he had it all wrong. This whole story is built around what someone's understanding of reproduction of another species is and it isn't Crowley who doesn't know how it all works by 2500 B.C., it's Gabriel. But what does this have to do with The Flood and Crowley and the unicorns?

In the Job minisode, we are told that Gabriel was in The Garden at the start of it and witnessed Eve's birth from Adam's rib. We find this hilarious because we know that this isn't how sex works and this time, in this scene, Crowley is more than in on the joke with us. What makes the scene funny is actually Crowley's knowledge in it of how human sex and reproduction work. Unlike Gabriel, he wasn't there for Eve's super-weird birth and so he's visibly trying not to be like what the actual fuck? this is how Eve was made? at Aziraphale as Aziraphale's gestures lead Crowley to telling Sitis to pull out one of Job's ribs-- absolutely not a feature of any sex Crowley has ever had or seen. Aziraphale then is flirting with a Crowley who totally gets the joke when Sitis pulls the ox ribs "out" of Job. It's very evident between this scene and the prior night in the cellar that, circa 2500 B.C. at least, Crowley absolutely knew how human sex and reproduction worked.

The key bit here to understanding what Crowley was saying about the unicorns back during The Flood is actually in the reminder in the Job minisode about The Garden that the minisode gives us through making the plot equally about what Gabriel saw in The Garden-- Eve's weird conception and birth-- but also about what Gabriel didn't see-- Adam and Eve have more human-typical sex-- which is something that Crowley set into motion and then something that he and Aziraphale both witnessed.

By bringing up how Gabriel doesn't know what human sex and reproduction normally look like because of what he saw (and missed) in The Garden of Eden, the show is also reminding us that, after Gabriel left, Crowley was sent up into The Garden and tempted Eve into eating the apple. Eve then shared the apple with Adam. Adam and Eve figured out sex not long after that, during a period of time in which both Aziraphale and Crowley were also in The Garden and Eve's pregnancy was one of Aziraphale's motivations for giving them his flaming sword.

Mah point is that Crowley absolutely knew about sex and sexual reproduction during The Flood because Crowley and Aziraphale essentially watched the first humans have sex on Earth in The Garden of Eden.

The show also has about a half-dozen jokes about Anthony J. "Can I watchchch?" Crowley's voyeuristic tendencies and roots some of it to the fact that he's the Serpent of Eden and gets off on watching his temptation labors bear fruit. (It's been a long day. I have earned that joke😂). Ya know, such as:

This whole unicorn and sex thing is also part of the Job minisode by way of the ox ribs, further making it all kind of part of the same story. The inclusion of unicorns in ancient history in GO feels like a nod to the re'em, an animal mentioned a few times in The Bible (including in The Book of Job), which has been frequently translated as "unicorn" and is part of the origin for from where our idea of unicorns comes in the first place. The same word has been translated as meaning other animals-- among them? The wild ox.

Making things even more interesting is unicorn lore. The unicorn was said to be a wild, secretive creature who lived in the forest and who could only ever be captured and tamed by a virgin maiden. Aziraphale, in 2500 B.C., is shown to not eat or drink before the night in the cellar began so odds are also good on the food-and-alcohol = sex show that Aziraphale definitely qualified as a virgin maiden when he went to absolute town on those ox ribs. Anyway...

...what I'm saying here is that it feels extremely unlikely that, by the time of The Flood in 3,004 B.C., that Crowley didn't know how human sex and reproduction worked when he saw it play out in The Garden. Other than Eve's speedy stages of pregnancy meant to get the ball rolling on humanity, Adam and Eve's sex was typical of humans. So, Crowley knew about sex and sexual reproduction when he made the comment about the unicorns... but then how does that make sense, right?

In order to think that Crowley didn't know how reproduction works during The Flood scene we've seen, you would have to assume two things are true: 1) that unicorns reproduce via sexual reproduction and 2) that unicorns went extinct as a result of one of them making a run for it and not making it onto Noah's Ark, right?

The thing is... the show might be subtly trying to show that unicorns do still exist in GO. But before you say 'but, Vida, seriously?! We've never seen an unicorn after The Flood!', I'm going to argue that maybe we actually have one as a major supporting character and this S2 scene might be hinting in that direction:

The parallel to the "Oi, Shem!" scene is Nina-as-Crowley telling Aziraphale-as-Shem that that unicorn (The Bentley) is running of its own accord. Unicorns are magical beings. How magical beings present, as God pointed out in S1, is up to them. Human forms are just one option, right? I don't know exactly where this is going but this bit in S2 was a direct tie to The Flood's unicorn moment and it would explain a thing or two about Chitty Chitty Bang Bang if it were somehow tied to the unicorns. Can Crowley actually make them, the way Beez can make flies? Can Aziraphale? We really have no idea how the unicorn thing works in GO so we can't really use it as an example that Crowley didn't know about sex when it's more that we don't know about unicorns...

The unicorn that we saw during The Flood tracked with what we think of as the mythical being of an unicorn in our real world so we could make the assumption that some of the same aspects of them are/were true in GO. Unicorns are magical horse/donkey-like beings (which couldn't possibly be more Crowley and Aziraphale if it tried.) They are few and far between, are hard to spot and mostly keep to themselves. Human beings have no real actual proof that they ever existed in the first place and generally consider them mythical beings but Good Omens shows us that they at least did exist in GO ancient times-- and might still. In modern times, unicorns have become a LGBTQIA+ symbol and, for that reason and that reason alone, it seems unlikely that they actually went extinct in the world of *Good Omens*...

So, let's presume that Crowley said the existence of unicorns would continue even if Shem only had one of them on Noah's Ark because he knows that unicorns are not like other beings on Earth. Think about what else Crowley is then saying here with this line to Shem:

Noah's Ark, to us, is a story about continuing the existence of life for beings on Earth, right? It's about pairs, about mates, for the purpose of continuing species on earth via sexual reproduction. That's why we consider what Crowley's saying in this moment of this scene through the lens of it being entirely about sexual reproduction. When it comes to the unicorns, though, you could argue that Crowley is not actually talking about reproduction but about romance. We don't actually know how unicorns work-- but Crowley does.

What Crowley is actually telling us in this scene is that paired unicorns can survive the death of one of them because they're a part of each other. What Crowley is actually saying is that the pair of mated unicorns in the scene are two beings who share a single existence.

You couldn't permanently kill one of a pair of unicorns without killing both of them. So long as one of them still exists, they both do.

One unicorn could make a run for it for any reason and bolt away from his mate and die in the storm but Crowley knew the bolting unicorn was a part of the one that Shem got on the boat and so could be brought back.

In S2, we see something like this with other magical beings-- Ineffable Bureaucracy.

Oi, Shem, that purple-eyed unicorn's gonna make a run for it...

It's too late, too late...

Oh, well, you've still got one of them...

The Fly is Gabriel and Beez together; it's their shared existence. Without it, Gabriel would not have survived. The one of them still left-- Beez-- is the one who can put it together and bring Gabriel back into a full existence.

Ineffable Bureaucracy are unicorns who parallel our main two, though, and Oi, Shem...

...that bow-tied unicorn's gonna make a run for it...

Oh, well, you've still got one of them...

[ladykakata]

I saw this post whilst looking through my activity (thank you @wrinkly-fucking-qtip) and it made me muse on a point that was brought up in a Youtube comment;

Does Mickey get along better with women than men?

Sounds absurd at first, considering this man uses misogynistic language as freely as a curse word, but he does the same for homophobic slurs so a large percentage of it will be habit and upbringing with the vile Terry Milkovich informing his language.

There was a line in the debate between Ian and Mickey talking about friends, in which Ian makes the point they have relatively no friends that aren't family (the latter is my point, as Mickey had to explicitly discount Lip the elder brother from the friend count to make a point). Ian asks if Mickey would be happy with Ian hanging around with gay men talking about sex, and Mickey immediately counters with 'fuck you, make friends with chicks!'.

So, does Mickey even subtly get along with women better than with men?

We are going to have to discount Svetlana right out the gate, because his relationship with her is heavily tainted by the fact she was part of his sexual assault and blackmailed him with his relationship with Ian against his father. Even then, it's notable he only threatens her instead of brushes her off once she brings up Ian. His stance and demeanour NOTABLY change when she does that, and he suddenly becomes cold and vicious. She isn't scared, sure, but it's clearly his berserk button and she has to be careful about when to press it for maximum leverage.

Mickey is all about bluff and bluster. In the above friends dialogue, he points out friends are just someone else he might have to murder if they turn State's evidence. Whenever he talks to other men, it's the same aggressive tone he uses with ... anyone who isn't Ian, really. With other men, he has to maintain that front of being tough, to not let them discover he has feelings or can be hurt, and certainly not let them see that he's gay. Even when surrounded by other gay men, where he is within his rights to be comfortable or just slightly less hostile, he's still just as defensive. He isn't slow to punch pretty much any man that even remotely annoys him, even targets that weren't going to fight him (the club owner) or in no position to threaten him (Cole, and it's hysterical he clearly holds back his punch and looks disappointed that Cole dropped so sharply with no fight back).

His attitude with women differs. The hyper-masculine front is still somewhat there, but since he's got a different bar to work with, it's not as forced. A deleted scene has him adement you don't hit women, which is an oddly noble stance coming from someone who escaped the bowels of Terry Milkovich's Hellhole but maybe that was his mother's influence. And bearing in mind, he comes from a family where the women can or would kick as his ass (he tells Sandy to attack his brothers when they try to assault her and he points out to Ian that Mandy is no slouch in the fighting department either)

[Side note: I haven't had the courage to watch all of Mandy's DA storyline, but when Mickey walks in on Mandy tending to her shockingly beaten face, he seemed not only shocked but scared. Not just at seeing his loved one hurt, but I think also stunned his tough-as-nails sister had had something like this happen to her]

His scenes with Debbie, probably the most hated Gallagher left apart from Frank, was littered with fraternal jabs that were honestly sweet and hilarious, and she responded back to him like she would any other family member. She was quick to back up Ian's counter that Mickey was family to Lip, and CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW MUCH HE TAKES TO FRANNY?

This man declares himself 'her favourite uncle' whilst flipping off her BLOOD Uncle Ian, and Franny herself names a game she plays with him. He does playful jabs at her like he would any other family member ("*Laughs* Kids are idiots -pause- No offence, Franny") but certainly plays into her more rough-and-tumble Gallagher nature instead of the sweet pink princess role Debbie wants for her.

With the other Russian/Eastern European prostitutes, while he still uses casually misogynistic language ("Don't worry! We'll get a dick in you as soon as we can!"), he certainly doesn't threaten them nearly as much as he would if they were male.

TL;DR I think Mickey DOES get along with women slightly better than men, if only because he doesn't need to be so nearly on-guard with them.

[bestworstcase]

any thoughts on team strq that you haven’t already touched on? like their relationships with each other and oz? you talked about how they’ll play a role in volume 10 but im wondering if you have any other insight into their characters

gestures vaguely in gretchen was the spring maiden and all things must die is about how raven feels abt summers betrayal <- related to whatever’s going to happen wrt team strq in v10 and onward because imo "what exactly happened to the last spring maiden?" and "what exactly happened to gretchen rainart?" are central narrative questions on the same level of importance as "what happened to summer rose?" just less obvious because gretchen/spring isn’t connected to any of the main characters the way summer is…

…but gretchen is hazel’s whole motivation, the last spring maiden’s death is what shattered raven, and in v8 the narrative specifically 1. informs us that salem herself personally tracked down hazel and let him kill her over and over again for HOURS before he tired himself out, and then started talking about his sister, and 2. asks why? why did she do that? why did she choose hazel, specifically? (the answer oz suggests is that hazel is just easy to manipulate, which isn’t really an answer at all. how did she even know about gretchen?)

and then like. the spring maiden vanished “over a decade ago” (so within the last 10-20 years). summer disappeared about 12 years prior to the start of v1. gretchen’s death is less concrete but 1. she and hazel were twins, 2. she died between 17-21 at the oldest, and 3. character ages are really hard to gauge but hazel seems to be in between cinder (mid 20s) and team strq (who must be at least 38 if yang was not born while they were attending beacon) which would make hazel… probably in his early thirties. if he’s 33 at the top of v4, then he and gretchen would have been beacon student age… 12-16 years ago.

interesting how summer’s disappearance, the last spring maiden’s disappearance, and gretchen rainart’s mysterious death on a training mission all happened right around the same time, isn’t it. 🤔

shrug. neither raven nor hazel are prominent enough characters for their respective "what happened?" bereavements to be so narratively important… but if gretchen was spring and she died in connection to summer’s last mission? all three big questions turn out to be really the same question. it clicks together suspiciously well.

assorted miscellanea:

i think both the ‘poly STR’ and infidelity angles wrt the tai/raven -> tai/summer drama are both a) pretty boring ways to interpret the known facts and b) working against the text itself. i also (with apologies to the rosebirds) remain unconvinced that summer/raven was ever… a thing, ravens doomed unspoken little crush on summer notwithstanding.

what DOES interest me abt that whole . mess is the turnover. i think its very unlikely that raven and tai dated through most of beacon (because of the whole "learning how to kill huntsmen" thing) and i would bet yang happened at most a year or two after the team left school. depending how long raven tried to stay that’s like, at most a 5-6 year long relationship that ended evidently because raven felt inadequate as a wife/mother. summer being the rebound, ruby being two years younger than yang, and summer leaving when ruby was about three would similarly suggest a relationship of at most 4-5ish years, by the end of which, as we saw, summer seems to have been very well-practiced emotionally masking around tai.

taking that into consideration with… everything we know about yang’s childhood after summer left, the very quick rebound from raven to summer, and tai’s… at best, insensitivity and emotional immaturity in v4 its kinda. well ok. he acts like this NOW, in his late thirties or early forties, and still thinks the really quite mean prank he pulled on his new roommate on day 1 at seventeen is fucking hilarious, he presumably was like this in his twenties too. raven left her relationship with him feeling deeply insecure and inadequate, summer did not feel able to emotionally confide in him before she also left him, and neither woman’s relationship with him lasted more than five years. interesting.

there’s a lot of speculation out there (mostly: summer/qrow and summer/raven secret parentage nonsense) that takes the very fast rebound and (since v9) the emotional disconnect between summer and tai in 9.10 as textual evidence for summer never having been romantically involved with tai at all, which to be blunt is an unserious and countertextual way to interpret the story, but like. gestures at raven. this happened TWICE with the same guy, back to back.

or there’s the somehow even more off the wall take that wah poor tai got strung along in loveless relationships by these cold-hearted women :( which. hello???

anyway i want to know how summer rose feels about him with fourteen years of hindsight because from where i’m sitting, with the facts we have available, it sure does look like tai is perhaps the common denominator. shot in the dark based on his characterization in the present and the way he talks about raven now? i’d guess charming, bit of a hopeless romantic, fairweather partner who deals with conflict by blaming the other party. tbh.

as for. qrow. his relationships with tai and summer are harder to get a read on than raven (with whom he has a fairly straightforward "siblings who both feel rejected by the other and deal with it by being prickly and jabby at each other" situation going on) ’cause like on the one hand qrow clearly admired summer a lot and he and tai have some… unspoken resentment under the surface but on the other i really don’t get the impression that summer and qrow were especially close and while tai seems to have a problem with him, the opposite doesn’t seem to be true.

qrow’s the one who stuck around and kept trying and wanted raven to come back, and his dedication is specifically because he felt like ozpin (not his team) gave him a place to belong. it’s. hm. between his semblance-related social aloofness and the romantic entanglements of the other three i get the impression that qrow tended to be sort of the odd one out but also the one who most wanted them all to be a real team. which i imagine fueled his devotion to ozpin.

what else…

oh the hero/monster complex with regard to summer and raven is SUPER interesting. the silver-eyed warrior and the bandit training to kill huntsmen. i think—this is very tentative speculation bc it’s based mostly on fractals and why i think summer joined salem—but i don’t think summer ever particularly bought into the black and white fairytale way of looking at the world except insofar as she felt the pressure herself. we know qrow stayed because ozpin gave him a place to belong; i think raven stayed because summer treated her like a person instead of a weapon.

[jeneseoquoi]

saw this thing on twitter saying 127 are all the type to get in a fight for u but who do u think actually would fight??? like i cant see alllllll of them fighting lol

LMAO i'm laughing bc i saw this exact same thing on twitter too. it was hilarious seeing everyone's opinions. here's mine:

nct 127 | reacting to you in a fight

taeil: he is absolutely not jumping in at any point in time. will make sure nobody tries to sneak you though. snatches anybody's phone who tries to record it. tells you you won even if you both know they two pieced you up. laughs every time when it randomly pops into his head weeks/months/years later.

johnny: his big ass. he will definitely laugh while recording if you're really tossing that ho like a salad. if you start losing or the other person's friends try to jump you, he's immediately intervening to stop the fight. lines everyone who witnessed it up and makes them delete any incriminating evidence off their phones.

taeyong: is BEGGING you to stop fighting. once he realizes it's dead serious and you're not going down without a fight, he just steps back to watch and make sure nobody around is being sneaky. (saw someone on twitter say he would post the other person's weave that he snatched up the next day and i absolutely stand by the person who said this lmaooooo.)

yuta: MY DAWG IS 100% IN THE MIDDLE WRECKING HOS FOR YOU. like the minute he senses you're about to get in a fight, he's already there throwing bows left and right. let a trifling bitch pull your hair, he's immediately got them in a chokehold talking about some "i'll let go when you let go." lays out anybody who ever tries to step to you again. this is my rider frfr.

doyoung: is so embarrassed omg. yelling at you to remember his image in hopes of getting you to come to your senses and stop fighting. actively running around the crowd taking peoples' phones so they can't record. soooo mad at you after the fight is over, but still makes sure to take care of you and any wounds you suffered.

jaehyun: anyone who decides to be with this man has to have hands like. he is genuinely confused as to what's happening, but trusts that you can handle your own so he just watches in amusement. lies and tells you it's just a little scratch & that you still look pretty afterwards, even though your shit is BUSTED. at least you won though.

jungwoo: is screaming, crying, and throwing up. like normally you're his soft, sweet baby, so who the fuck is this?!?!? in tears the entire time it's happening, like he can't even comprehend what led up to the fight in the first place. on his knees, BEGS you to never ever get into another fight ever again. he is genuinely traumatized, like he never sees you the same way again lmao.

mark: cursing everybody in that mf out. "the fuck is your problem bro"-ing everyone involved. only hops in when he sees you starting to lose. in turn starts getting his ass beat, which gives you the advantage to start molly whopping hos so you can save your man. will forever remind you of the time he got his shit rocked just so you wouldn't lose a fight. don't ever let him go hahaha.

haechan: honestly, probably the reason you're in a fight in the first place. like he was the one talking mad shit in the first place, but you know he don't got hands at all, so now here you are fighting his battle. keeps taunting the other person & the people on their side like "yeah that's right, mess with me and my girl will smack you up." you promise yourself that when you're done whooping their ass, that he's next.

[shizukateal]

Grimm Variations - Episode Three Review: Hansel and Gretel

(Buckle up, everyone, this is the call-back episode.)

Hansel and Gretel live a pretty routine, gray life at their orphanage/boarding school, with their fellow classmates and their mama and papa- wait a fucking second, that's Sakura's great-grandfather from Card Captor Sakura!

Jesus Christ, CLAMP, I know designing old men isn't your wheelhouse, but that's no excuse to be lazy! Anyways, their life is pretty boring and restricted, so Gretel usually acts out and Hansel gets swept up until they're both grounded. Finally, one time after too many antics, their "parents" decide to spice up the punishment by leaving them to sleep outside in the forest. They're warned that they can sleep near the fence if they want to, but of course that's too boring for Gretel, so they go on a walk until they find a small wooden cottage, although it does have two ca- Yuuko.

...

I never really finished XxxHolic. I only watched the two seasons of the anime, so I didn't really experience Yuuko's death, I just spoiled myself. Still, it gets me unexpectedly emotional. To see a version of her blessed with the ability to age.

So the Dimensional Witch and the kids get to talking around some cocoa, and Yuuko incites the kids to find out about The End of the World. Her words, not mine. That's silly! reply Hansel and Gretel, the world doesn't have an end, it's spherical! They would know, they've been taught a lot of suspiciously advanced scientific stuff in school. So Yuuko proposes them to do a little empirical research to settle the debate. Next time someone loses a ball during a game they should go pick it up themselves, instead of letting their "parents" get to it first. Hansel does that at the first opportunity he gets and indeed, he finds a forcefield, proving Yuuko correct.

This discovery sparks a fire in Hansel, so he gets himself deliberately sent out to the forest again and Gretel does the same to accompany him. He reaches a bargain with Yuuko: she'll help him discover what's real and in return he will help her grant her own unspoken wish. She tells him to look for unusual things in his school and gifts him a tube filled with what could be candies or gems, saying that they'll help guide the way, but to not eat them or they'll run out of it.

Hansel and Gretel start paying attention to their surroundings and finally the weirdness of their situation starts to stand out to them, like how their classmates keep disappearing out of nowhere and nobody bats an eye, especially when there's photographic evidence about their numbers dwindling in the school group pictu- Syaoran.

And 2/3 of the Clamp School Detectives!

I find it hilarious that Nokoru and Akira are here, but Suoh had to be deleted from existence because his blue hair would've stood out too much. RIP, lmao.

Anyways, Hansel decides to try to see if he can find a way out through the forest and obviously his sister goes along with him. Before they can properly set out, however, one of the candies acts up and opens up a portal. The siblings go through it and they find themselves in a mysterious space station of all things, with data of all of their classmates. Soon enough their "mother" finds them sneaking around and they run away from her, using up the candies to open doors. But when Hansel almost gets squished by a closing door, Mother sacrifices herself to save him, confirming to everyone that she is, in fact, a robot.

Naturally, this leaves Hansel with more questions than answers, so after coming back to the school he and his sister straight to Yuuko, who gives him the Matrix choice of taking a pill to forget everything or learning the truth. Hansel chooses the latter and Yuuko takes them back to the space station, explaining that the earth has long since become inhabitable and that the school is teaching the children how to restore it until they deem them fit to go there. Her previously mentioned "wish" is to send them all safely there. Hansel is apparently fit to travel already, but he starts dithering about the choice, especially because the space shuttle only has one seat, so where is Gretel to fit?

That's when the curtain is lifted: Gretel doesn't exist. She's a mental projection for cowardly, dithering Hansel to act out decisively on his own impulses while mentally excusing himself for following along, but now that he has come this far on his own accord he doesn't need her anymore. Hansel, with Gretel's encouragement, chooses to leave, but he still cries tears of bitter regret at loosing his "sister" to the truth instead of taking Yuuko's offer to forget.

Alas, however, he arrives at earth, where his lost classmates have grown up and welcome him with open arms. Yuuko eulogizes the mom-bot, congratulating her for raising the kids and then welcomes Syaoran to her hut...

Oh boy, ok, this one's a doozy, let's see where to start.

Ok, I'm gonna start with the blatant Revolutionary Girl Utena references and work up from there, because if I don't it's gonna drive me insane. Here's the thing people, it's not a sin to reference RGU; in fact I'd encourage it, but if you're gonna pull iconography from there of all places, then you'd better be really fucking conscientious about The Themes™️ and what you say with them.

So this episode presents us with a school in which time is apparently bubbled, constricted by The End of The World it represents, supervised by two figures emulating the heteronormative family structure, contrasted by a witch who at first seems like an outcast but is actually essentially powering the whole thing (maybe), and where students disappear without anyone properly remembering them because if they dare to figure out what lies behind the curtain of the system, just like Ohtori Academy. So far so good... kind of.

The implication is that the school is deliberately set up as this secret test of character thing so, like Hansel, the students learn to be independent. There's even some clever hints that disobedience and figuring out the mystery gives them the passing mark before we watch our protagonist. But then like... why do the students forget whenever one of them leaves? In Utena that's implied to be the magic of whatever time bubble Ohtori is in keeping everyone ignorant to perpetuate itself without objections, but more important that the explanation itself is the metaphor it's in service of. Ohtori students forget because the system wants to present a narrative about itself without any blemishes, so tragedies get trivialized into gossip, victims swept under the rug. Even if you assume that this schools timeloop or whatever is also passively mindfucking with the children, why is there so much focus on the dadbot and especially the mombot keeping things like the forcefield hidden? What is the purpose of that? What commentary is it making? What does breaking the cycle of apathy and blind obedience mean in this setting?

It might sound like I'm doing a pointless nitpick here, but trust me when I say that the viewing experience is already too confusing because of the tone and its use of the imagery. The school really is portrayed like if Othori met the orphanage from The Promised Neverland met an oscarbait period flick about world war II. Like, you genuinely expect that the twist is that the school is farming the children for their brains or something. It took me until I was writing this review to actually put the pieces together as to what the robo-parents motivations are, because their secrecy and strictness is completely antithetical to them wanting the children to grow independent!!!

The truth of the matter is just too soft for the themes its exploring and the imagery is presenting. Hansel created Gretel because he's afraid of taking responsibility for his actions, the same way a character in Utena projected a Rose Bride to not acknowledge the fact that he killed like a 100 people in a fire on purpose. So one would assume, based on how fucking creepy the school and the parents are, that he has some real good fucking reason to reach that extreme of cognitive dissonance, but no!!!!! Even the parents sending them out to sleep in the forest lands like mere chiding!!!!

But going back to Gretel, the usual initial portion of the episode is about how Charlotte doesn't seem to like her character in the original fairytale. How she thinks Gretel should be punished for getting Hansel into trouble which... istg I have NO idea how this show is trying to engage with its source material at all, because that is NOT a conclusion anyone would reach after reading the fucking fairytale, but whatever. It's fine. Or rather it WOULD be fine if there was a smidge of actual feminist commentary in this script which goes OUT OF ITS WAY TO REFERENCE ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL FEMINIST PIECES IN ANIME, but noooooooooooo it's all so bittersweet. On the one hand I'm glad he chose to grow up, and since I don't believe in punitive justice I don't think he needs to be punished to get there, but I'm still upset the character of Gretel gets reduced to this when she was an active heroine in her own story. Guess Charlotte succeeded in her purpose then, although it is curious that she casts herself as the twins.

Like, am I evil for expecting Hansel to straight up die in that oven-shuttle? In her original universe, Yuuko was an agent of karma. If she was scary it wasn't because she was evil, but because she would give you exactly what you want and not shield you from the consequences. It would feel weird to me if she were to endanger children the way she does some of her customers, but it would not have been completely out of place in this "grimm variation" that is about our protagonist literally deluding himself to avoid taking responsibility for his choices to end up with those consequences catching up to him in a terrible fashion.

Guess I shouldn't have expected all that much better. Although I am surprised that they didn't just straight up turn Subaru and Hokuto from Tokyo Babylon into Hansel and Gretel. Alas, to be a CLAMP fan is to suffer, and it seems that these past 20 years have not taught them much about theming. This is why I'm still terrified of reading Clear Card Arc, even though I should.

[bomberqueen17]

i just got a slightly incoherent comment berating me for rating Fit For Pearls f/f and not calling it gen, but like, my guy, if you were looking for a gen fic you'd be disappointed with this too. It's a slowburn but it's uhh not gen. i guess this only applies if you read to the end! but given this commenter's evident reading comprehension issues, given all the tags and author's notes and whatnot on that fic right at the beginning, i don't think changing the tags would help. there's nothing wrong with the tags on that fic. it's not the story you wanted it to be but it's clearly fucking labeled. it's probably no consolation that i was also hoping for a different story than it wound up being. but there's really no way to get past all the tags and author's notes and the fucking wordcount of this fic and still honestly be surprised by what you find there, so I have absolutely no sympathy for the small handful now of entitled commenters who are mad that it's not a different story than it is.

I also wanted it to be a lot shorter and more direct and just a simple f/f story, but the draft I wrote that was just that sucked out loud, so I don't really have any regrets.

Also, it's not hard to peer through the bad faith bit of these comments and notice the screaming biphobia. Sorry, I do feel there's pretty good textual evidence in the books anyway for Ciri being bi and that's a thing I, also a bi, wanted to explore, so I've tagged for that and if it upsets you, you can fuck right along and read something with less bi cooties I guess. I never got my cootie shot and it's too late for me. Save yourselves.

Hilariously, the very first shitty comment I got on FFP when I started publishing it was a pair of bad-faith jerks who wanted me to reassure them that I wasn't going to overlook Ciri's "canon relationships with men" or somesuch phrasing, all of which in the books are hilariously noncon and gross, so if my spite meter were better-calibrated I would have made the story purely f/f. But unfortunately I must obey the inscrutable exhortations of my bi little soul, and I'm not saying it's anything deep. (But I was struck by book!Ciri's wild curiosity-mixed-with-revulsion about sex with men, which like, I also was a bi who had my first sexual relationship with another girl and thought it was great but also was like But What Is In His Pants Tho, Is It Gross Or Do I Want To Touch It I Really Don't Know, so I super related to that and wanted to explore it.) And beyond that, for fic purposes, I have the same disappointing-to-some tendency very common in fandom where I see a vaguely man-shaped blorbo and want to chew him and shake him like a dog toy, so i've indulged myself in that here and that's just what it is.

Anyway. I'm not like, apologizing or whatever, I just am venting because I'm stuck on a train and have nothing better to do.

[ryttu3k]

Thoughts on Doctor Who - Rogue, which is largely theorising on who the character is! (Yes, yes, I'm a truther for that theory.)

So we got: 1) Kylie and Lady Gaga (and Billie Eilish which I didn't recognise), 2) Dungeons and Dragons (roll for initiative), 3) Libertango!, 4) Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, 5) cosplay, 6) Bridgerton (which, not my thing but pretty important overall), 7) a Shalka reference?? and 8) gay longing.

Oh yeah we're back.

Shades of the Family of Blood with the Doctor wanting revenge for Ruby's apparent death. Dude trapping someone for centuries in an empty barren dimension is worse. That's worse, right? Doctor, babe, you see how this is worse, right?

Love the foreshadowing with Ruby's earrings.

Rogue mentions a new boss and paperwork. I wonder if this is the same new boss that Beep the Meep mentions?

Spent the entire episode trying to work out why the Duchess looked familiar. Took me until the credits to see it was Indira Varma. Welcome back, Suzie Costello!

Who is Rogue?

Fuck it I'm a Master!Rogue truther. The evidence, as I see it:

The name. The Rogue seems quite appropriate for a notorious renegade!

lbr setting up an intrigue involving cosplaying bird aliens for Doctor Enrichment 100% feels like a Master thing to do.

The Kylie. The Master is a Known Pop Music Enjoyer (see: Rogue Traders, Scissor Sisters). Also 'Can't Get You Out Of My Head' is hilariously on the nose for the Master's… everything.

The ship, complete with TARDIS-esque central column and also being a mess.

He lost someone. The ship was made for more than one, and he lost someone.

The Master, gaming, and crit fails.

The TARDIS got grumbly. She, of course, has a history with the Master.

Rogue has to be a time traveller instead of just a human-looking alien from the same time period because. D&D and Kylie weren't around in 1813.

The ring! The ring! Come on!

Arguing across the stars.

So apparently it wasn't just Libertango they were dancing to. At least one site makes mention of the fact that given the rest of the contemporary music in the episode, it was most likely the 1981 Grace Jones song that heavily makes use of Libertango - called I've Seen That Face Before.

Okay so one major thing against him being the Master - more or less sacrificing himself to save Ruby. And that's where I keep coming back to the ring. What if it's something like a chameleon arch? It literally wouldn't be the first time an arched Master became generally more altruistic and caring, it happened in his first story back. Which was, needless to say, written by RTD! (I realise this one was not but he's still showrunner and lbr if he told me, "Hey, do you want to write a Doctor Who episode that references D&D, cosplay, and the return of the Master?" I'd be jumping up and down saying, "UM, YES?" at quite a volume.)

Not necessarily the Master specifically, but 'the one who waits' could be an apt description for someone whose last words to the Doctor were, "Find me."

Like yes there are 100% Jack vibes but also. Look. Look…

Continuity

Another Susan Twist appearance, this time in painting form. We'll be getting the payoff for that next week, looks like!

Ruby mentions some of her past, including the snow, which feels like a significant thing to mention.

Absolutely playing with the stories are real theme here, with cosplayers taking things entirely too seriously, and Rogue's entire Thing being based on D&D.

Season ranking

As of s40e06:

73 Yards

Rogue

The Devil's Chord

Dot and Bubble

The Church on Ruby Road

Space Babies

Boom

[cupboardgods]

Final thoughts on my DE fascism political vision quest run! Spoilers ahead.

Firstly, even if you avoid all racist dialogue (as I did), everyone will still consider you a racist. I think Titus and the Hardies were the first to make that accusation. Kim also mentioned it at the end to Jean (phrased it like "race-stuff...not good for a police officer"). Kim attributes the antiquated political views to Harry being a gym teacher (replaced the line about Harry's biceps, it seems).

The way I played, Kim still trusted me, and I'm sure the racist dialogue would have impacted that negatively. However, the game reminds you constantly that racism cannot be disentangled from fascism.

Furthermore, when you start the quest, the dialogue makes it clear that Harry's fascism stems from misogyny and his Dora-related pain. You can pick up the quest by talking about a sovereign Revachol, but based on the end of the quest, that seems to just be a mask for Harry's personal problems.

I think all 4 vision quests leave you, the player, with a feeling that nothing you did actually changed anything. Even if you go with Coalition Ship Archer during the Moralism quest, the end screen still implies that nothing has changed (things only got worse).

The fascism quest, unsurprisingly, has the least impact on Martinaise. You recruit no one to your cause. You look like a fool even to the other fascists. You end the quest by looking in the mirror and having a stroke. There's no change to the Horseback monument, unlike in the other quests. No evidence that Harry had done anything outside of destroying his own psyche and embarrassing himself.

The mirror scene check has a -1 modifier if you shave Harry first. I thought that was weird since Harry's facial hair seems at least a little bit tied to Mazov.

The stroke follows a bizarre fantasy where you can have Dora (and Kim) in your life in exchange for bombing Revachol. (It's actually really cute that Harry asks Endurance if "Kim can come too" during this fantasy.)

I chose to save Revachol over running off with Dora and Kim. As far as I know, your decision has no impact on the following dialogue, or Kim's reaction, or anything else. The heroism I imagined for my Harry meant nothing. I didn't save Revachol from destruction. I didn't create a free Revachol. Only Harry's face becomes paralyzed.

Following the mirror scene, Kim is quick to accept Harry as he is after just a moment of shock. He will yell at Harry if he talks about being an "icebreaker", but otherwise Kim just tells Harry to get back to work.

I think the most interesting part of this experience was actually internalizing the Revacholian Nationhood thought. I talked about that a few days ago. You can read my thoughts here. Being punished for having bad opinions was pretty fun actually.

Second most interesting part is talking to Measurehead/Jean-Luc. He still makes fun of Harry, but their dynamic is much more relaxed in this scene. Jean-Luc has some pretty strange and hilarious ideas about masculinity, sex, semen...but he tells Harry to stop dwelling on the past in order to heal.

He ALSO deduces that Harry was beaten and neglected as a child, although Harry's skills deny this.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to talk to Rene. I'm not sure I fully understand why the Royalists are lumped in with this quest, other than Harry being fixated on the past.

I'd recommend playing this quest even if you're not sure you can stomach it. Pick the dialogue options about Revacholian independence, skip the racist and misogynist ones, etc. You can still tell the Racist Lorry Driver to fuck off. You can still refuse to learn Measurehead's Advanced Race Theory (unless you're like me and it was the only way to get into the harbor). You can still tell Gary he's insane.

I ended the game with 24 points in fascism (and a handful of unintentional points in the other ideologies). I'm sure it could have been a lot higher had I been a bit more evil. You could do this quest without going all in, but it might be a little bit more difficult.

Edit: more on Jean-Luc! He actively excludes Harry from all of his beliefs. Tells Harry that he hasn't done the spiritual/mental/physical work yet. That Harry has to let go of the past (and stop masturbating and drinking) in order to achieve any of his goals. That, or live in the pale till he loses his mind.

[oodlyenough]

aa5 update while i'm thinking of it:

finished 5-3 turnabout academy the other week and honestly i enjoyed the hell out of that entire case, lol. i thought the npcs were all funny (robin is the MVP), a lot of the reveals were hilarious, i am dual destinies klavier's #1 fan apparently.

assigned prosecutor at birth

the lore of Law High School was something i'd seen mentioned in fandom sometimes and i always rolled my eyes at how stupid it was but in true ace attorney fashion it was in fact SO stupid it came all the way around to being hilarious. themis pumping out under-educated self-described prodigies who only know how to eat hot chip, forge evidence and lie. funny as hell. junie and apollo's weird oedipal moment right in front of klavier and athena's salads was hysterical.

i love the idea that japanifornia has stricter age limits for being a crane operator than for being a lawyer or a judge. hugh the 25 year old deciding to go to themis instead of ... regular law school.... so he could experience the triumphs and defeats, the epic highs and lows of high school mock trials is funny as all hell

athena's ptsd sprites are pretty haunting looking, i have to say.

have since started 5-4 turnabout cosmos and so far it's not quite as bonkers fun but i'm enjoying it ok. more under the cut:

it feels like we're finally going somewhere and building to something, with athena lore and apollo lore and blackquill lore, etc. i remain ambivalent to simon but i am thrilled to have finally met his hotter meaner gayer sister and i can't wait for more of her. truly what dual destinies has lacked to this point is a mean woman. deliver me, aura.

unfortunately all the clay-apollo lore is goofy as hell to me, but "goofy" is still more enjoyable than "boring" so i'll take it. the "i'm fine!!!!" thing is IMO a classic example of when a prequel tries to explain something that never needed explaining. it's just not that poignant of a phrase to make the crux of this relationship, and clay never being mentioned before is so mels pond/Jack Black in that one episode of Community-core.

ah yes, we all remember that classic scene from ace attorney 4: apollo justice where apollo talks to his best friend clay.

finally: this is the funniest thing they could possibly have written to follow up on a game that ended with apollo's long lost mother knowing exactly who he and trucy are ...and fucking off out of the country to sell albums without ever telling him.

why do we bash deadbeat moms for not being there for their kids and never question if the child has bad vibes or is unpleasant to be around

a lot of my earlier complaints about DD stand -- primarily and foremost that it's ridiculous how much this game doesn't want to be a game. we are skipping so many opportunities to investigate, to present, to connect the dots ourselves as a player, even fingerprint minigames and stuff like that just get auto-completed by athena. i like athena as a character, but i have to wonder if part of the "mary sue" criticism i've sometimes seen is just misguided frustration about how much she autonomously solves puzzles for the player instead of letting the player participate lol.

but considering how much i really thought 5-2 monstrous turnabout was just. like. absolutely brutal. a devastating low point for the franchise ... at least 5-3 and, to this point, 5-4 are more interesting. thank god

[hollywoodsargeant]

Pretty random question, but what are your favourite things about Logan? Like some cute facts/things about him that you like and feel like people should know

I think a lot of people judge him too quickly, he deserves more love and appreciation :((

this is an excellent question anon... clearly i have a lot of things i like about logan. i really like logan. in case if this blog was not enough. BUT. i will yell about a few random things since you asked (+ i agree people are very quick to judge him. give my boy a chance. i cannot tell you how many times i've seen people say stuff like "i wrote him off at first but he actually seems sweet" STOP WRITING HIM OFF THEN!) anyways. Favorite Things

there's a lot of insanity going on here i love logan so much did you know

first and foremost. i love how much he loves his friends... and just how outwardly he loves in general... the "heart on his sleeve" thing does come from somewhere. given really any opportunity he Will talk about his friends and his family and every time it Kills me like :( whenever someone mentions how long he's been racing oscar he talks about it and there's one where it's mentioned he was teammates with oscar back in f4 and he's like "well actually before that too!" idk. surely you know how i feel about logan and oscar but logan has emphasized their friendship more than once and always stresses how they've gotten along so well forever and even being title rivals in f3 never came between them... my little loscar heart...

and still on that. him and kyle. i love kyle kirkwood (indycar driver + friend of logan) if you were not aware and he does the same thing where someone will bring him up and he's like "yeah kyle's my boy!" it makes me so...... put him in his indy 500 top 3 prediction bc he's his buddy and knows he's good was asked Just about key lime pie and had to say "well my friend kyle makes a really good key lime pie" even after he just said he never really eats pie? idk man. he just loves his friends <3

AND HE LOVES WHERE HE'S FROMMM like yes a bit in a patriotic american way and maybe i only like that because i'm american but he is such a hometown guy he clearly loves and misses florida and all the people he still knows who live there. have you seen his 10 things i can't live without interview that video is basically just 8 minutes of logan sargeant loving florida. and he's so cute in that video i love that video but he can and he will talk about being from florida at any given opportunity (+ very much harps on how much he enjoys being out on the water) and i'm sure some people think it's annoying but personally i find it very endearing... and putting the flag on his helmet he is just a proud guy. i care him. he's said he wants to race the indy 500 too which also gets the indycar fan in me but he wants to race it bc it's iconic and idk most f1 drivers don't want to do the 500 bc oval scary (real of them) but logan is like. no i'm Going to do it one day. it's the biggest motorsport event and i will do it. I WILL NOT REST UNTIL HE DOES.

this one is a bit more stupid but i am forever amused by just how much of a younger brother he is. maybe i just relate to him bc i'm also the youngest of two (and my sister and i have pretty much the same gap he has to dalton) but he is so little sibling energy, especially with alex. he's a little menace. particularly evident in the monaco road trip video where alex tells him to lie and he goes along with it while also trying to make alex do it for him (he's so me) and the sandwich challenge where he whines every time alex gets in his way. i know benny's kid calls him his older brother but he is so little brother it's unreal. on the brother note this fucking idiot cracked his rib karting with dalton and that's also hilarious

I DON'T KNOW MAN. i love listening to him talk. i love all his weird little quirks like how much shoulder he puts into his walk and how much he fiddles around and can't sit still and the way he almost seems to make himself smaller?? this guy is nearly six feet tall but he carries himself like a much shorter man i think it's endearing. i'm really endeared to his smile and his smiling habits (see my thesis it's a whole thing) and also all his other weird mouth ticks he has several i love that he always seems to want to be close to people (he's very touchy. if you pay attention) i love how weirdly shy he is (likes sunglasses bc you can hide behind them) i love his incessant need to have perfect hair all of the time like see the monaco video i linked earlier where he's riding in a convertible trying to fix his hair DUDE IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN i love. Him.

man. i just think. that i love logan. he is my favorite for a reason. and even if he is a bit of a rah rah american (i lit listed his americanisms as one of my favorite things i enjoy them) i am slightly tired of him getting written off as just being The American or not having a personality like he's definitely more private about certain parts of his life compared to other drivers but that doesn't mean he lacks personality. maybe he is a little more softspoken too which might not help but it is there!!! he is not a piece of cardboard you just aren't giving him the time of day!!! giving him enough time of day to say he's boring but not enough to actually realize he's not

[thekillpetition-if]

Oh god.

So i literally being the dumbass i am only noticed the character profiles now and i laughed so much at Luddys notes especially concerning herself and others.

Like calling hector a bastard but still hot lmao i must catch them making out in a closet or i will lose it. They are so perfect for each other. The antagonism is hilarious.

Also how can she call morgan not hot... seems pretty fucking hot to me... ngl... 😭🤣

And Roxx also seems absolutely hot and possibly a bit of a dark romance. 😭😭😭

Your ROs are gonna be problem for me 😩😩😩

LMAO 🤣🤣

Can see Luddy and Hector doing that except Luddy is Moslem so that is haram 🙏 So instead, you would probably find them fighting over a piece if evidence in the closet.

Morgan is Not Her Type. Too cocky and too bratty for her 😭😭

And Roxx is exactly that Noir love interest where you're the detective and they're the morally grey criminal of your dreams 😇

Good to know that my ROs are doing it for u 👌

[rarepears]

"I am going to find this pelt if it's the last thing I do. What? No, it's not because it'll make Qingqiu happy, do I look like zhangmen-shixong to you? No, it's not the right thing to do only Liu Qingge's dumb enough to make that argument. No I don't CARE how pretty Qingqiu is, he's still a jerk and that's the POINT. If he gets his otter skin back he'll leave and go do... Otter stuff, and then we don't have to deal with him anymore." ~ one of the other peak lords (presumably)

It would be hilarious if the peak lord who says that is Shang Qinghua. Why? He wants Shen Qingqiu out. The man is the only one who suspects the An Ding peak lord of being a traitor (and is really the only person smart enough to find evidence too), so the earlier that Shang Qinghua can chase the Qing Jing peak lord away, the better!

-o-o-o-

Insert scene of Shen Jiu getting piles upon piles of soft fuzzy warm furs from Yue Qingyuan who feels oh so guilty for not realizing Shen Jiu's "problem" earlier...

-o-o-o-

#the king of the demon realm holding up an otter'this is my future husband be nice to him or die'#he gets his own lil pool in the throne room to float around in (via @little-mx-cryptid)

There's no reason why demons can't find selkie flesh a delicacy. This is the true reason why Luo Binghe, in this AU at least, conquers the demon world. He needs to eliminate all threats to his Shen Yuan otter, and he starts by... conquering and banning otter hunting/eating.

Like, how dare Mobei Jun even say that Luo Binghe was keeping his otter as a "emergency ration"!

Course, Luo Binghe doesn't exactly think things through... and now his palace, with the little lazy river going the throne room next to the pool looks like a delicious noodle river restaurant with Shen Yuan the otter as the main course.

(Ooh, it would be so fucking delicious if Shang Qinghua, the jittery coward, is the real otter person out of all the Cang Qiong. And his prey instincts go wild whenever Mobei-Jun is around because he knows just how much demons like eating poor otters like him!)

[More in #Shen Yuan is an otter AU]