#era: let's play

[welcometogrouchland]

my Stephanie Brown hot take is that she should get mad bitches now that she's single in comics. Yes yes shipping BUT the one time she had sex she was punished by the narrative via teen pregnancy. I think she should be allowed to have as much sex as she wants with zero consequences. Could be a lot of sex, could be a little. Point is she should get to do it without getting narratively baby trapped this time. she should get them pregnant, actually.

[autism-swagger]

Non exhaustive list of religious themes/motifs that are present in Hive/Hive and Daisy's relationship because I'm obsessed with them:

The fact that Hive is already borderline/full on revered as a god by members of Hydra in the know, not to mention that, while the Inhumans under his sway are technically chemically altered, they're also like. An actual cult.

Hive's weird pose that he does (that I swear he does more than once but I could only find screenshots of one example) ⬇️

Crosses being repeatedly associated with Daisy thinking she has to die for her sins ⬇️

(Yes this makes Lincoln Jesus in this scenario. Go with it.)

This scene ⬇️ is like. Jesus-on-the-cross adjacent to me. It's just such a specific pose to do, y'know? Plus the whole. Giving blood. Thing. "Drain me" this "This is my blood. It is poured out to forgive the sins of many" that. Yadayada et cetera et cetera.

And last but CERTAINLY not least

Daisy literally getting down on her knees to plead with Hive?? Girl you might as well clasp your hands, close your eyes, and full on pray at this point.

Do I think they should've gone farther with this aspect? HELL YES I DO!!!! But what we did get is so catered to me specifically. It's amazing I love it.

[woe-is-tuli]

ATEEZ(에이티즈) - 'Ice On My Teeth': Jongho

[vanillacoke25]

if you know what this is, let's be friends

[morsmortish]

i think we as a fandom need to stop villainising barty crouch senior. that man was put through HELL and back. imagine doing nothing wrong your whole life and then getting everything blown up by your sociopathic son. you lose your family, your career, then your life! poor, poor man.

it’s a common consensus within the fandom that barty senior was some sort of monster, controlling and abusing his son to the point of insanity, and whilst i acknowledge this is a compelling and accessible way of constructing barty as a morally good character who did Bad Things because of this traumatic childhood, i personally find it so much more interesting if bcj is just. a bad guy. there is equal amounts of canon evidence to the idea that that barty had a good childhood and that he had a bad one (none). sure, it’s easier to gravitate towards the latter, but for me, the idea of barty being raised in a loving??? environment makes his character so much more interesting. imagine these two well-to-do, respectable members of wizarding society who have followed all the rules, done everything ‘right’ their whole lives (including the way they raised their son), and yet. and yet they end up with this morally drained, completely unredeemable sociopath of a son. and it’s no one’s fault, he’s just Born That Way.

reducing a character down to their Trauma is such a limited way of thinking about it. saying that every evil character is actually inherently good, just desolated by circumstance, is not that interesting! humans are all flawed, and some more than others. thinking of barty as someone who is just a Bad Person, for me, makes him so much more powerful. and therefore, thinking of barty senior as less of the villain, and more of a victim, also makes him, and the father-son relationship, much more interesting. we know barty senior isn’t perfect- absent father is probably the most reasonable read of his parenting skills- but in my opinion, if there is any character in this dynamic who IS the inherently good one corrupted by circumstance, it’s not bcj, but his father. to me, it’s not plausible that the man who went against his entire belief system out of love for his wife (and to some extent, his son) is the same man who abused his kid. barty’s trial scene becomes so much less interesting if he had been harmed by his father prior- to give him a ‘reason’ for his actions, to say he was lashing out or rebelling against his abusive father, is changing the core of his character! he did it because he felt like it! he’s simply just Not A Good Guy!! and whilst barty senior might also not be a good guy, it makes much less narrative sense for him to be the one assigned the role of ‘villain’.

yeah, he kept his son under imperio control for years, but who can really blame him? the dude was an absolute menace. and even if we do acknowledge his actions as morally wrong, surely the logic that barty joined the death eaters and committed horrible crimes because of things that happened to him in childhood, surely that logic can also be applied to barty senior? let’s say he controlled his son BECAUSE of the things that happened to him- barty betrayed him, turned out to be a monster, destroyed absolutely everything in his life. the trauma of that is surely enough to justify imperio.

i’m rambling on now, and so. to conclude. barty crouch junior as a much more two dimensional Bad Guy, and his father as the unsuspecting victim of his son’s betrayal, reprehensible actions, and complete heartlessness, makes BOTH of them more interesting. argue with the wall!!

[kierreras]

jj & kie in their boyfriend & girlfriend era 

[realtapiocafan]

hiiiiiii i was reading your tags from the fic snippet and learned something new in that i did not Know ja’marr moved to dallas omgg 😀 can u provide some more info on this ✍🏿✍🏿✍🏿

Ofc! (This is long)

So from what I gather, after opting out, Ja'Marr went back home (Harvey, Louisiana - close to NOLA) until about November, when he moved to Dallas to get ready for the draft. In the Najee-Jaylen-Ja'Marr house thing they did (which includes what Pro Day was like post-COVID and has some other videos about the draft itself), Ja'Marr says himself that he hasn't actually been at the LSU campus ever since he opted out. (Also if you look at his twitter, he was live-tweeting LSU games lol).

Everything else below are articles mentioning Ja'Marr going to Dallas, as well as some other information regarding COVID-era Ja'Marr, sprinkled with my own little comments in between 🙂

So first off, the Dallas thing is specifically mentioned in this article by the Advocate (I'm going to include the necessary paragraphs bc some of these are paywalled smh)

There were more uncertain times, too. Chase opted out of the 2020 season during preseason camp last year, a time in which the pandemic was surging and there was tension in the football operations building after a mishandled team meeting regarding the team's player-led march amid national protests against police brutality. Chase told reporters at LSU's Pro Day that his decision to leave was because "I had a lot of stuff going on with my family at the time." Chase dedicated his time toward becoming a professional. From November until March, he lived and worked out at the EXOS training facility in Dallas. After almost a year out of public sight, he coolly ran a 4.38-second 40-yard dash at pro day — an impressive enough time that Jimmy said coaches and trainers told Ja'Marr he could shut it down. "I came here to put on a show," Ja'Marr told them, then proceeded to run routes and individual drills.

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The Athletic (which i honestly trust more) goes more into detail into Ja'Marr's exact location. Apparently, Ja'Marr moved from Baton Rouge back home (it sounds like it was about September). Then in November, he went to Dallas. This article also includes some more information on Ja'Marr's experience in quarantine. That quote by Ja'Marr's dad really opened my eyes, because Ja'Marr was never really alone before this. He was always part of a team, always surrounded by people until... well, he wasn't. (Also now that I think about it, Ja'Marr did say he started watching tape because of Joe and apparently spent most of this year -which was away from Joe- watching tape... maybe it reminded him of Joe 👀)

Ja’Marr stayed in Baton Rouge initially after opting out in August. He remained close with his teammates, especially the receiving corps at first. But once the season cranked up, Ja’Marr moved back home, feeling a sense of isolation without football... “We kept him close to home. We noticed that he was struggling a little bit. Life without football. Life without a team. His whole life changed. It was his first time not playing sports since he was a young kid. Gamedays were the hardest day.” One thing jumped out to Jimmy as they watched games together, though. He never fully grasped his son’s football IQ. “We watched the games with him,” Jimmy said. “He would call the plays before the snap was gone.  And he would say how Terrace (Marshall) needs to do this because the defense is about to do this. And Racey (McMath) needs to do this so he needs to watch out for this. He’d call the play and I was like, ‘Damn!’ It would happen just like he said. So sitting out actually helped in that sense. He never really watched football. He was always playing. Now all he could do was watch it. He told me and I saw how much it helped him.” Watching games with Ja’Marr, his parents sensed his pent-up energy. He was healthy, but he wasn’t playing. The energy fed right into Ja’Marr’s passion for working out. He’d run to the gym often after games to let that energy free. The regimented workout routine really kicked up about six months ago. “He’s been at EXOS (A Dallas-based training facility) since November,” Jimmy said. “They had an opt-out session group that started out where they would work out three days a week. So he started out there at the end of October or early November. That lasted until the end of December. Then in January, he started getting into the more combine workouts. He’s been working hard and getting stronger. That’s really the only thing that’s been keeping him sane is working. That’s all he could do.”

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This Sports Illustrated article further confirms he was in Dallas for at least part of 2020-2021. It also adds that Ja'Marr was so pent-up that he apparently wanted to opt back in (probably bothered by LSU being kinda shit that year -that third game, LSU lost 45-41 💀).

He spent the off-year training in Dallas, studying film and watching his former college teammates struggle through to a 5-5 COVID-impacted 2020 season. What many don’t know, his dad says, is Chase nearly returned to LSU midseason. “People don’t realize how close he was to coming back,” Jimmy says. “After the third game, he was watching and jumped off the sofa after they lost. He said ‘I’m about to opt back in!’ It was killing him.” The family seriously explored whether Chase would have been eligible to return (Jimmy says Ja’Marr would have) and spoke to coaches at length about his reinstatement. In the end, Ja’Marr remained on the sidelines. 

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This Washington Post article also goes more into depth about the impact COVID had on Ja'Marr's family and what went into the decision to opt-out (Ja'Marr apparently has a hole in his heart which SHOCKED me the first time I read it) (It also goes the most in depth into Ja'Marr's aghast reaction at Les Miles saying he should be a DB and why Ja'Marr didn't want to commit to LSU at first)

But that March, Jimmy Chase says, their family began suffering from flu-like symptoms, and older son Jimmy Jr. and Toleah would be hospitalized with what they later learned was covid-19. “I was like: Shake it off, man,” Jimmy Chase Sr. says. “I can’t die now.” During a most unpredictable spring, when the coronavirus pandemic paused sports and shut down the world, the Chase family survived but eventually learned about “long covid” and the heart and respiratory problems some patients reported. Jimmy Chase says his son’s heart problem has healed, but it remained a frightening preexisting condition and again placed the father and son on opposite sides of a tense debate.

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Last thing, if you were wondering about the team meeting in the first article, here's what information i found. Again, I don't know how reliable The Advocate actually is and unlike the article above, this is literally the only source I found that mentions this. I don't recall Ja'Marr or any other LSU players saying anything remotely negative about Orgeron - most of them say he was a great coach!

(At the same time, an old white guy giving ... maybe not racist, but tone-deaf advice to a bunch of college-aged black men, in the height of Black Lives Matter -it's not out of the question.)

Multiple sources told The Advocate that team morale turned south before the season even began, when a large group of players felt Orgeron mishandled a team meeting regarding the team's player-led march in August amid national protests against police brutality. The players skipped practice that day, met outside Tiger Stadium and marched to the university president's office without Orgeron, who later told reporters he didn't know about the protest before it happened. Orgeron met up with the players at the president's office and took part in a meeting that lasted about an hour. He later told reporters he and the players talked "about the things they're going through and how we can be a part of the solution." Privately, the meeting did not come off as productive as described. Orgeron and some players were upset during the meeting, multiple sources said, and while some players said the situation could've been handled better by all sides, other players left feeling Orgeron wasn't supportive. Three days after the meeting, star wide receiver Ja'Marr Chase announced he was opting out of the season, joining starting nickel safety Kary Vincent in preparing for the NFL draft. By the end of the week, starting nose tackle Tyler Shelvin opted out as well.

[strwbryfeels]

[statementlou]

https://www.tumblr.com/louisupdates/754934426217152513/goodbye-faith-in-the-future-world-tour-272024?source=share

did he or did he not lose fans then?

I will answer this because this anon actually brings a concrete question to the table rather than just "hurhur but you're a larrie??" (tell me you can't actually refute any of our points…). Anyway this post shows the decrease in Louis instagram followers between the screenshots taken directly after the release of Faith in the Future in Nov '22, when he changed his bio to promote that album and the tour tickets, and now, when he changed it again to mention the current release. But I'm putting that response under a cut because I'm tired of the actual POINT of all this nonsense getting lost in a sea of made up things people insist are important:

There is no rational argument you can make to say that Louis has less fans now than he did 2, 4, or 6 years ago. You don't need a spreadsheet of details you need to USE YOUR EYES! He has gone from filling theaters to filling arenas and stadiums. His second album made a higher chart position than his first album. His festival has doubled in size EVERY year of its existence. And for that matter: his insta post engagement numbers remain about the same (despite the fact that older posts should have way MORE likes due to having been there longer, even aside from follower counts.) SO WHO FUCKING CARES ABOUT HIS INSTA FOLLOWER NUMBER???? Serious question: what does the word "fans" mean if these things aren't what matters? ALL of this quibbling about what he should do to make things better and people can't even see that THINGS AREN'T BAD.

Anyway to address the specific question- (con't......)

NO- HE DID NOT LOSE FANS. HE LOST SOME INSTA FOLLOWERS. THESE ARE NOT THE SAME THING. As I said above, literally what does it mean to lose fans if that number change coincides with him having higher sales, more audience members, and higher engagement than ever before? Whatever he lost ISN'T FANS. I wouldn't be surprised if a significant factor was something like a bot purge, but also yes: I'm sure a lot of casuals followed him around the time of his big album release and later unfollowed him. That's extremely normal because that's how casual engagement works, and why the definition of fan really matters. Louis and his team understand this and have referenced it repeatedly, talking about how lucky he is to have *us* specifically, to have the kind of dedicated fanbase he has, to have the KIND of fans he does who will allow him to do what HE wants. @dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram named the issue of depth vs breadth with regard to fans a long time ago, and pointed out why having DEPTH is so much more important. It's like this- artists who are on top 40 radio have more numbers on things like insta follows, and for a time on sales and tickets. But those aren't FANS- they're people with a casual interest. And as soon as that person isn't being forced in their ears 10x a day, those people lose interest and stop supporting them, stop buying stuff and unfollow, and those artists end up doing the 'opener on the jingle ball' circuit rather than their own tours. One Direction as a whole, and Louis maybe most of all or near to at this point, have something MUCH MORE VALUABLE than that- DEPTH FANS. Louis has fans who will support him even if he takes years to release music, or stops parading around with a pretend girlfriend to stay in the headlines at least once a month, or completely changes his image and genre, and that is UNHEARD OF. It's ASTONISHING and worth SO MUCH MORE. And they get that! THAT is why he always bragging about us, why industry people he works with are always so agog about us, why he will do anything for US- not for randos. He is also growing his breadth- and it's OBVIOUSLY WORKING whatever his follower counts are, but that is always going to be secondary to doing things for THE FANDOM because that is his sustainable business model. That is what keeps him onstage and reaching number one. And not coincidentally, the things they do are also working to grow that- much more valuable- commodity. So the fact that that's exactly what these chuckleheads complain about- that he does things that are just fandom facing or serving rather than everything being aimed at recruiting casual fans- does nothing but betray how completely they, unlike Louis and his team, misunderstand the actual drivers of his (actual, existing, happening) success. Luckily for Louis, he and his team rely on their own data harvesting (they do a LOT of it) and growth metrics (they're off the charts) rather than the smug assumptions of random (mostly quite new to this) fans and the few bitter people leading the complaining about everything Louis does.

[alicenpai]

2021 re2 and re4 doodles i unearthed, 2020-2021 were the years of art block for me - i drew a lot, but not too many of my drawings felt quite right. anyways... sherry finally got that puppy (big puppy...) and parrot she always wanted! im a big fan of taking a single obscure piece of dialogue/game mechanic/inventory item etc and then drawing it

[foreverfandom50-50]

[imagineaspen]

Can't wait for Rauru voice notes like "oh this is where I liked to fuck off and go hunting while leaving my wife in charge of everything", "this is where I thought it'd be a great place to build a strip mine", "this is where I used a light nuke in a fight against the Gerudo - no they weren't coerced into joining my kingdom, why do you ask?"

[florsial]

Bartylus is very much giving Bluebeard AU where Barty marries a mysterious noble who has had 7 previous spouses in the past, all mysteriously missing or found dead. Mrs. Crouch is very much against the marriage but Barty is just like, "Eh, what's the worst that can happen?"

The worst is finding the bodies of the previous spouses in the couple's basement.

[hellslayersomething]

Everyone in the Dragon Age tags being like "oh first Mary Kirby said Lucanis is a disaster bisexual, then she said he's demisexual, which is it?" as though those are in any way mutually exclusive owes me, personally, $100 each.

Having issues with Veilguard's writing is perfectly reasonable (like, big same), but A) Lucanis's asexuality is indicated in the text, and B) there is no excuse is get on Miku's internet to spread misinformation about demisexuality and bisexuality.

How are people still doing this in the year 2024? Embarrassing. Pathetic.

[zippyskyfalls]

I had a silly idea that I was wondering if you wanted me to add to the EPIC AU, so have this Bonus option!!

[Edit: No why the fuck? is no longer an option! Of you disagree with this you can just click "it doesn't make much sense so no". Mostly because for some reason my head's spinning when I see it

Actually, NO. I'm giving you guys a reason:

This was inspired by listening to Not Sorry for Loving You and hearing the line "I love you! ...But not in the way that you want me to...". I personally think Penelope (my version of her, who's been away from her child all of her life) would take pity on Calypso.

She doesn't see a lover when she sees Calypso, she sees a broken child who never learnt the differences between right and wrong. What Calypso did was still awful, and it still makes Penelope weary of her. But a part of her wished she could help.

So she'd ask Calypso if she wished to stay in the island, or if she wanted to come with Penelope. She could introduce her to her Husband, her Son, she could meet new people... she could meet PEOPLE.

Calypso would obviously say yes and I just think Calypso and Penelope would have a sort of Mother-Daughter relationship. Calypso may be an immortal goddess... but she'd finally have a home.

Keep in mind, in this AU Calypso only tried to persuade Penelope, no Rape was involved. However she was still manipulative and that's still very not good.

[crystallizsch]

while twst is in maintenance hell i feel like yapping jdjsn

this is also brought to you by me recently watching the minecraft movie which got me remembering how i started writing fanfic bc of telltale’s minecraft story mode -> then reminiscing about how i started drawing out of spite bc of an otome game by SOLMARE SHALL WE DATE -> realizing how i’ve had the same type in characters since i was A LOT younger bc i was also playing otome games even before i started drawing

anyways. say hi to the one of the first ever fictional characters that i fell for

i’m going to walk into the ocean i’ve always liked pretty-looking men with rbf and gap moe 🚶