#except it's not its the best it's fucking incredible because I think about his face and it's like I'm seeing everything and it all makes

[acowardinmordor]

I needed to warm up, so I did not plan, just wrote this, and I'm about to hit post without editing or rereading. This is Steve&Eddie more than its a slash

----------

It was a week after the rumors made the rounds about Harrington and Hargrove getting into a fight. Eddie would normally assume it was nothing but posting jock bullshit, and ignore it the same way he ignored what he overheard about cheerleaders hooking up with other cheerleader's boyfriends. Except a couple days after the rumors hit a peak, Harrington showed up at school looking like someone beat his face in with a plate.

That made a pretty strong argument for the rumors being true.

The guy avoided his old crowd, and despite his ex and her new boyfriend - if that rumor is true, there was some overlap - trying to include him, he kept away from everyone for the first two days.

Eddie put him out of mind, one less asshole to cause trouble, one less shithead to dodge. Not his problem. Until he found Harrington sitting at his table in the woods the next week. It made sense, sort of. The guy was obviously having a shit time, and like most of the locals that kept Eddie's business afloat, he was looking for a distraction.

Eddie was right, and Harrington bought some weed before asking about getting anything stronger.

"I don't know man, I just wanna like, not be in my body for a while."

"Fair enough, but I don't keep that on me.

Harrington showed up when told to, and bought enough shit that Eddie hesitated before handing it over. He gave the guy a whole speech about not overdosing and ruining Eddie's upstanding reputation. Whether he listened or not wasn't something he could control.

So, the next Monday, when Harrington chased him down, and, as best as Eddie could tell, tried to become his friend, Eddie's first thought was that it was a ploy to get his next massive purchase of drugs on discount.

But Harrington didn't buy again except for a bit of weed. He did stick around. Outright said he wanted to be Eddie's friend. Kept at it through January until Eddie, confused as shit, admitted that yeah, they were friends. Mostly friends at least. There was stuff that Steve wouldn't talk about; his headaches, his nightmares, his tendency to freak the fuck out if the electricity got weird. Maybe it was better to say that Steve was his study partner who he sometimes hung out with. Cause that was the thing, Steve was pushy about Eddie studying.

"You really want to come back for a third run at graduating, man? Fuck that. 85 is gonna be your year, even if I have to bribe the teachers to pull it off"

"Why do you even care Steve? Maybe I want to become a legend of terrible scholarship in this crap town."

Steve never gave a real answer about it, just kept pushing him, hounding him about his homework, and showing up at his trailer every morning to drag Eddie out of bed if he had to. Wayne thought the whole thing was incredible and gave the guy a spare key. Traitor.

They got closer. Eddie finally met the kids Steve babysat. They immediately decided that Eddie was much cooler than Steve, and ragged on him constantly about it. They were close. They were. Fell asleep at each other's places. Spent half their time together.

Close, but not close enough for Eddie to get answers about why the fuck Steve had bruises and burns and scrapes sometimes. Bad ones. No matter how many times he said it, Steve didn't get those because he got distracted while cooking. It drove Eddie crazy sometimes. That was a lie. It drove him crazy all the time. Steve would tell him about how shit his parents were, but wouldn't admit why the fuck he needed stitches at the top of May.

"You did it."

"I think you'll find that you're the one that did it, Steve, I was an unwilling kidnapping victim in your quest to get us both across that stage."

It wasn't graceful, literally or figuratively, but Eddie got his diploma in 1985. Steve gave him what he said was a small part of his grad present from his parents. A thousand dollars. A thousand goddamn dollars. It was enough that Eddie didn't put the dots together right away. A small part, plus Steve's crappy job at the newly opened mall.

It was weird. But Eddie let it go, because Steve was his friend, maybe could have been best friends if the guy would stop pulling back whenever they got too close. He let it go, and he let Steve push him towards the goal of getting the fuck out of that town, and he promised he'd call when he got to Chicago.

It didn't really click for Eddie until he heard about the mall burning down from Wayne, that Steve never promised that he'd call too. The guy was there, and when Eddie called and demanded to know if he was okay, got another partial answer, another dodge, another thing for the list of shit his friend wouldn't talk about.

They fought about it. Loud enough as Eddie shouted into the phone that his neighbor banged on the wall. Maybe Eddie crossed a line. Maybe he crossed it a long while back. He didn't know. Eddie kept calling until September, but on the rare times that Steve answered, it was awkward and curt and terrible. He stopped trying when Wayne told him that Steve never stopped by, or even waved when they crossed paths.

Steve wanted it over, and it was so fucking weird. The guy slammed into Eddie's life out of nowhere, shifted it, changed the course, cause there was no way in hell Eddie would have graduated if it wasn't for Steve forcing him to try. The guy did all that, and nine months later, was gone again. Out of his life.

It was a week after new rumors reached him in February of 86 that a package arrived. His uncle called outside their normal plans, and said it wasn't sure yet, that there wasn't any proof, but Steve was missing, and some of those kids of his said he'd saved their lives. Said that he wasn't going to come back. Wayne didn't really understand what it meant, but passed on a message from those kids that they'd answer when he called.

Eddie got a box a week after finding out that Steve was gone, full of letters. Long, detailed, apologetic letters. The first was dated in December of 84, written after Steve spent a weekend 'out of his body' just like he wanted to be. The promises at the start didn't make sense. Steve said he'd save him. Steve said he'd make sure he got out. The apologies got more complex. Something about keeping Eddie away from friends he'd never make. About being selfish. About keeping secrets and lying when all he really wanted was to tell Eddie everything.

It was so fucking weird.

The last one was dated a couple days before things went bad in Hawkins, longer than all of the others. Monsters and nightmares and death and chance to make it right. Apologies for not doing it better, doing it sooner. For not wanting to risk it, for pushing Eddie away. Promises that Steve would call him as soon as it was over, that he was only writing this just in case. That it wouldn't ever be sent, and he'd burn the whole box after they won. Then he'd drive up and apologize in person, explain it in person, fix it, because Eddie meant more to him that Steve had ever let show, and he wanted to make it right.

At the bottom was a post script.

"Eds, If it doesn't work out, call this number, and ask for Robin. She knows the whole thing. She'll help. So will the kids. I hope you never read this. So I'm sorry if you are."

[diangelodork]

DBDA nightly analysis #25! (sorry i've been lacking lately, i have not been in the right mental state but i am BACK NOW BABYYYYY)

tonight's topic: crystal palace the girl that you are (character analysis bc she's been getting shit on so violently lately and DOES NOT deserve it.)

i will say - i didn't care all that much for crystal for quite a while until i really sat down to analyze her motivations and background, but it is the hate that some people have been spewing about her that motivated me to analyze her tonight.

crystal palace is flawed. of course she is. she is by no means perfect.

the first time we see her is in emma's flashback to her and crystal. she would play in a graveyard, frolicking about and taking polaroid pictures with this ghost of a young child. she was good enough friends with this child for her to seek out professional help to get her back. she was undoubtedly kind to her.

when we see her next she is dazed and confused, and still, she makes a rude remark. this is not because she is inherently bad, but because she still has that memory of being mistreated. now, she doesnt have all of her memories, but she has the memory that people weren't nice to her. she feels she must fit into that mold and that memory. the way she does that is by being a dick.

we see her a bit more in depth in her walk with charles. she expresses that she feels like people weren't the kindest to her and, knowing what we know about the way she was raised, that makes a lot of sense. she was excruciatingly neglected as a child and seeked attention. the best way to do that was negative attention. it was the easiest to accomplish.

she has her spats with edwin, but they are mostly (if not exclusively) initiated by him. she returns his energy. then we see some of the shit she goes through with david. he is incredibly abusive all throughout the series and it is very evident how predatory he is. he chose her because she was unloved. because she was vulnerable. she was easy to take advantage of.

her breaking down in E1 is so, SO important to me. we forget that she is MEANT to be flawed. she is imperfect. like the boys, she is but a sixteen year old and she is so deeply scared. she doesn't know who she is or how to cope with the fact that she doesnt know who she is. on top of that, this fucker that she's with (affectionate) won't stop shitting on her for NO reason. from the start, he was a douche to her (he has his motivations for this as well, but that doesn't mean it's not true) and now shes sitting here and calling her abuser and the fucker that has been tormenting and stalking her is being linked to her ("her demon") and she cant HANDLE that. shes been hanging on by a thread all of E1. shes been dealing with so fucking much, emotionally.

interestingly, edwin is not an emotional character when faced with other people's issues. i say this because he still garners more compassion than her. the way she treats the becky aspen case, especially, is so fragile and vulnerable. the way she immediately starts crying after looking into becky's mom's mind should have elicited more sympathy than it did and it's incredibly interesting that it didnt.

i will be the FIRST to say how important the "it's a lark to you!" scene is for edwin, but i never hear anyone discuss crystal's part in this conversation. shes so desperate and hurting and it's so strange that no one talks enough about that.

except no its not. i wish it was.

i truly think its an issue of her being a black woman and standing in the way of payneland. there is a lot of internalized misoginoir within how the fandom views her character. it is explicitly highlighted within the show how similar edwin and crystal are and a lot of the things she gets hate for are characteristics that are also incredibly prevalent in edwin's character. for example, her brashness and bluntness. it’s okay when it’s edwin, the white, queer twink of everyone’s dreams, but the second it’s a woman who is already on thin ice for the fandom because she’s standing in the way of the main ship, it’s easy to say she’s a bad person for this.

crystal is so unwavering as a character. she has such strong themes of feminism all throughout her story. she is able to separate from her abuser and intimidate and overpower him which is so STRONG. she is able to hone in on the divine femininity of her ancestors and THAT is where her power is derived from. she confronts a goddess of female vengance and justice and stands in front of her, demanding justice for the young girls slaughtered under her watch. she is inherently, at her core, good. she has done shitty, awful things in her past, but that happens when you are abused. it is not an excuse, but she is a CHILD who has been deeply abused. neglect is a form of abuse.

also, could you IMAGINE how it must feel to be such a deeply unloved character who KNOWS they are unloved. she is a psychic. she could see into the minds of her parents. she could always see their apathy. what a lonely fucking thing to go through, my god.

even still, when she was doing these awful things, she took the time to connect with a young girl and spend enough time with her for them to bond and for her to miss her. her first instinct (with the memories of her parent's neglect gone) is to cross an ocean to save a little girl. she is so deeply touched by maren and shelby's stories.

she is a flawed character, but they all are. she gets more hate than all of them and, if you are one of the people who hate her above all else, i want you to ask yourself why? these views are, of course, not held by the majority of the fandom, but it has become a big fuckin issue and i wanted to address it. acknowledge where it’s coming from, if you’re one of the people feeling a bit targeted by tonight’s analysis. love yall <3

[devourable]

hello! i'm new to your blog, and im honestly in love w/ all your yanderes, especially mykolas :)

if its okay with you, could i request some headcannons of how mykolas acts and looks, like what kind of traits he has?

💕💕

im so sorry this took for fucking ever for me to get to nonnie 😫 ik youre not new to my blog anymore but welcome!!! here's some hcs on the forest puppy for you

🌲 the beast • mykolas

· mykolas isn't any specific creature. he's kind of just his own thing with no real origin. he’s incredibly tall (over 8 feet with the antlers), bipedal digitigrade, glowing white eyes and a skull-like face, he definitely doesn't look like anything naturally occuring in nature either. some believe he's the offspring of a devil worshipper who was abandoned in the woods, others think he's some sort of werebeast who can't transform back into a human. mykolas himself has no clue either, and mostly responds with non-answers if you ask him about it.

· behavior wise? he honestly acts like a mix of domestic animals. he purrs like a cat, whines like a dog, throws little stompy tantrums like a bunny, all while being built like a tank lmfao. additionally, he’s VERY territorial after meeting you and will pick a fight with anything and anyone that invades the space he deems your home.

· before you, he wasn't really.. living. he just kind of existed, moving through each day without a sense of purpose. your existence grounds him and makes him feel alive, and that's why hes so obsessed with being by your side. he loves nothing more than cuddling you for hours on end, and being away from you gives him anxiety

· he DOES speak, but his english is pretty busted and his voice is rough from hardly being used. pronouns, adverbs, and adjectives are rare to hear from him and his grasp on grammar isn't the best. he doesn't mind if you teach him but he does get self conscious about it if you bring it up to him.

· he’s carnivorous, but he mostly eats fish because he doesn’t like the mess that hunting makes. trespassers are an exception to this.

· outside of the above, none of the tales that the people he lives near spun about him are true. he’s not a bloodthirsty beast, nor is he evil. he’s just lonely, and he’s not capable of fixing that on his own

[morethanwonderful]

Out of all of Wei Wuxian's traits, one of the ones that fascinates me the most is how incredibly casual and chummy he is with corpses. All the other cultivators are a bit desensitized to the dead by nature of their profession, yes, but Wei Wuxian in particular treats the dead very much the same as he treats living people, and I think it's simultaneously one of his best and most concerning attributes.

On the good side, the way Wei Wuxian treats the dead is absolutely an extension of his overall goodness and empathy. He stands on the side of those that are looked down on, and nobody faces more discrimination that the dead. He treats the dead like people because they are people, and they deserve to have their voices heard. That's what Empathy's for, and that's why he revives Wen Ning to stand as witness to his own murder. Wen Ning is not a thing! And even when Wei Wuxian is raising armies of dead Wens to fight on his behalf, we get illustrations of him giving a helping hand to a weak old corpse that can't stand on its own.

Wei Wuxian is painted in very deliberate contrast to Xue Yang, who treats the dead as tools and deprives them of agency. His closeness with them is a symbol of his kindness.

However, beyond treating the dead decently and like people, there is a point where his chumminess with them starts to get unsettling, and that's the point where it becomes a reflection of his loneliness and trauma. In particular, I'm thinking of his cuddliness with the ghosts he uses to torture Wen Chao and the corpse girls he's hanging out with when he invites Lan Zhan to drink with him. Because treating the dead with respect is a very different thing from having a corpse lay in your lap as you stroke its hair. And fierce corpses by definition do not have personalities (with Wen Ning as the exception that proves the rule), so treating them as companions to socialize with is rather concerning behavior.

So why is he like this? Isolation and trauma!

It's easy to understate the trauma of Wei Wuxian's three months in the Burial Mound, especially given that we don't see them play out but do get details about so many other horrible moments. But those three months? They Fucked Him Up. In particular, beyond the trauma of the near death experience (or presumably many many near death experiences in a row), he spent the better part of three months without seeing a single other living human. People are not meant to do that.

So what is a person gonna do when he spends three months in Worse Solitary Confinement? And when that solitude is spent on Fierce Corpse Mountain? He's gonna get really weird about corpses. He's gonna turn into the kind of man that would let a murderous ghost he's controlling lay in his lap as he strokes her hair, because for an extended period of time, that is the closest thing to human contact he's had access to.

And later, post-sunshot-campaign, Wei Wuxian does regain access to living humans and society, but he's still incredibly isolated. Just about everyone besides his siblings and Lan Zhan hates and/or is scared of him by the time we hit the scene of him and the fierce corpse girls throwing flowers, so it's no wonder he's hanging out with dead people. He already picked up the habit of replacing company with corpses once, so of course he doesn't see anything wrong with it. Maybe they're there as bodyguards, maybe he's just extremely lonely and doesn't have any human companions to drink with him, or maybe (probably) it's a mix of both. But in any case, it's a pretty clear expression of a horrifying degree of both past and present isolation.

That's why, though he doesn't lose his respect for the dead or his desensitization to touching corpses, we never see him just Hanging Out With Mindless Ghosts in his second life. It's a substitute for real companionship, not a healthy behavior, but lack of company is no longer an issue he has after being resurrected.

He doesn't need an entourage of corpse girls, because this time, when he wants company, he's always got Lan Zhan.

[catholic-character-tournament]

Round 1 - Side A

Galahad art credit @spiralstain

Propaganda below ⬇️

Junk Rat

I wish his Catholicism meant if he got killed in game it would take him 3 days to respawn

Galahad

OKAY SO . "Galahad (played by Jonny d'Ville): a travelling preacher/religious zealot who is told to sit in the Siege Seat by Merlin, and discovers the fact that Fort Galfridian is falling into the star Avalon. He sparks the quest for the GRAIL, and willingly goes to his death to overcome its final defences." DUDE SAT IN THE CHAIR THAT IS KNOWN FOR KILLING PEOPLE BECAUSE HIS CRUSH [MERLIN] [AKA HANGED MAN] [AKA DRUMBOT BRIAN] TOLD HIM TO . SORRY I THINK THATS REALLY FUNNY. he found out the whole shitshow of a spacestation he lived on was gonna fall into the sun and he went around yelling about it incomprehensibly and got fucking gunned down trying to get the GRAIL and just kept going through the gunfire because of how Religious [tm] he was . he died . in once and future king it just "galahad's blind faith" . also hellfire goes really hard . he is the definition of going insane with the knowledge of the universe . also jonny dville played him thats bonus points

There was a prophet. The prophet gave three separate people three separate instructions. 1. Stop being racist 2. Love your son 3. Sit in the Chair That Makes People Insane Galahad received number three. He was the only one who followed the instructions. He sat in the Chair That Makes People Insane, saw the sun for the first time, and immediately starts preaching about how everyone will burn in hellfire

i dont know anything about this guy i just wanna help make Kai happy please dont like not count my submission just because i dont know anythinf except for the Kills You Chair im trying my best im sorry 😭

his themesong is called hellfire and it slaps btw go listen to it. anyways he is my blorbo blingus he is Deeply unwell i could fix him but also whatever is wrong with him is incredibly fascinating to watch. a robot dude who's been hanging from the gallows since forever told him 'hey go sit in the Chair That Kills People Who Sit In It' and he was like 'I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS MOMENT MY ENTIRE LIFE'. the getting-his-brain-fried thing definitely made him worse but he was also clearly kind of fucked up before that. his death is probably one of my favorite scenes in any mechs album. maybe just straight up my favorite. ahem. SAY WHAT YOU WILL ABOUT FAITH, BUT IT CAN HAVE POWERFUL EFFECTS ON THOSE THAT HAVE IT. IT CAN KEEP YOU FROM FALTERING AS THE BULLETS START TO SLAM INTO YOU. IT CAN KEEP YOU WALKING AS YOU LEGS ARE SHOT TO BLOODY STUMPS. IT CAN KEEP YOU LAUGHING AS YOUR LUNGS ARE FILLED WITH SHRAPNEL AND LEAD. IT CAN KEEP YOU SMILING AS HALF YOUR FACE IS BLOWN AWAY. IT CAN KEEP A MAN LIKE GALAHAD STANDING TALL UNTIL THE GUNS. CLICKED. DRY. anyways go listen to high noon over camelot <3

my friends my people my... flock I HAVE HAD A VISION!! A VAST FIERY ORB FLOATIN IN AN ENDLESS VOID!! and there so small so feagile US!!! BUT FALLIN FALLIN FALLIN INTO THE FLAMES!!! your soul is connected to the world youre in youre draggin it down with the weight of your sin surrounded by temptation and y'just give in we're fallin into the flames OF THAT FIRE THAT FIRE THAT HEEEEELLLLLLFIIIRE YOUR BROW BECOMES SLICK AS YOU PERSPIRE YOU THINK YOURE THIRSTY NOW WAIT TIL IT GETS DRIER AND YA FEEL THE HEAT OF THE FLAMES OF THAT FIRE THAT FIRE THAT HELLFIRE YOUR SICK AND SINFUL LIES WILL BUILD A FUNERAL PYRE YOUR PERVERSION SCARS THE STATION SON ITS GONAN FRY HER AND WE ALLLLLL FALL INTO THE FLAMES... oh i have SEEN DAMNATION MY BROTHERS!! ive FELT its searing heat within my VERY BONES !!!!!!! but there is a way me be saved... "OH TELL US FATHER GALAHAD, TELL US" I HEAR YOU CRY "IS IT PIETY IS IT PURITY IS IT VIRTUE?" NO!!! ONLY WAY TO SAVE US NOW IS THE HOLY GRAIL ITSELF... HAHAHAHAHHAAAA.... WELL THAT ORB OF DAMNATION MAKES THE SUN SEEM PALE YOURE QUITE CORRECT TO QUIVER YOU ARE RIGHT TO QUAIL THE ONLY WAY TO SAVE US IS TO FIND THAT GRAIL OR WE ALL FALL INTO THE FLAMES OF THAT FIRE THAT FIRE THAT HELLFIRE YOUR SKIN STARTS TO SIZZLE AS YOU EXPIRE YOU CLAIM TO BE VIRTUOUS BUT YOURE A LIAR !!!!! AND YOU FEEL THE HEAT OF THE FLAMES ... i said HEEEELLLLFIIIIRE HEEEEEEEELLLLFIRE HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLFIIIIIREEE HEEEEEEELLLLLLFIIIIIIRE OF THAT FIRE THAT FIRE THAT HELLFIRE AT THE HEART OF THAT INFERNO THAT WILL NEVER TIRE IVE SEE THE END IS NIGH AND DAMNATIONS NIGHER OH WE ALL FALL INTO THE FLAMES

Ok i know this is kind of a shot in the dark because hes so obscure but i need to speak my truth. Hes so insane. The narrator calls him a “holy roller.” He has a vision which is meant to tell him that the place they live is LITERALLY going to get burnt to a crisp because its slowly falling into the sun. But hes like Oh my god i just had a vision of hell i need to save everyone from eternal damnation. And he happily gets killed and turned into a pile of slop because he believes its what he was “chosen to do” he quite literally dies for his religion. Hes also quite funny. I like him. Thank you

[triglycercule]

What do you think the types of drunk would the murder trio be? Im pretty sure ask dusttale already answered this question about dust but i have to ask the mtt expert

see now askdusttale DID answer the question. but they didn't ANSWER the question when asked what dust is like drunk. they just said that dust is the type to drink himself blackout drunk. so that mean i have total freedom on deciding what the mtt are like drunk hehehe (rubs hands together in a villanous way that you would imagine nightmare doing or something idk)

i already have an absolutely hilarious idea for horror and it might just because i'm on the guilt section of his character analysis but i could TOTALLY imagine him being an emotional drunk. like he CRIES. horror sans man known for being incredibly guarded and private with what he feels bawling his eye out. he gets mad he gets sad he does not get happy because horror doesn't have the right to be happy. he is too upset over the fact that he fucking DOOMED all of horrortale because of his selfishness and nothing can stop him from being incredibly vocal about that fact so much so that killer had to tape his mouth shut because he wouldn't stop crying so loud. and then he just silently cries until he passes out from exhaustion. the alcohol has an incredibly strong effect on him because i dont think he would drink regularly plus he definitely hasnt drinken anything in those 7 years of starvation. it hits like a fucking plane crashing into him. or like getting his eye taken out again. either one!

another funny idea i had for killer would be like the alcohol affecting him but he SWEARS that he's still sober. he is very confused when he starts stumbling because wtf he doesnt FEEL drunk??? why is he bumping into walls and tables HELP WHY DOES HE SOUND FUCKING STUPID???? the alcohol is definitely effecting him but he swears he swears he doesn't feel drunk. hes not drunk its just the damn body doing this stupid bullshit!!!! he's still very aware of what's going on and is basically the same as sober but just like. he's wiggly he's wobbly and oh shit he just fell head face first into a tv whoops. he'd also have a high tolerance because just because. he can drink without feeling like shit until he just blacks out mid conversation with someone because his body couldn't take the toll of all the beer or whatever. hilarious idea triglycercule thank you triglycercule i know

dust in the context that we already know that he drinks AND he can fight against the human while like partially drunk.... i feel it would be kinda like a giggly drunk situation. except dust doesn't laugh at anything that's funny he only laughs when someone gets hurt or something. SADISTIC giggly drunk. because i can already imagine a half drunk dust laughing his ass off after killing the human and its a beautiful sight to me.

anyways imagine how it goes when you pair this sadistic giggly drunk with another that wont stop going through the 5 stages of grief and another that keeps on fucking falling over for no reason in his eyes. dream blunt rotation but the blunt is a bottle of vodka. i can already imagine it in my head and its fucking HILARIOUS. horror going on about how he caused the deaths of others and manipulated and tricked papyrus while killer is just trying his best to keep his eyes open because for some reason they won't stop trying to close. he is surprisingly getting frustated. dust has long since lost his voice laughing at this and he's just silent wheezing at everything. also phantom papyrus is only making the laughter worse because he keeps on making rude comments towards horror and killer and only he can hear him and its guffaw inducing. mtt amazing friend group you dont get shit like this anywhere else

[utilitycaster]

So one thing that's come up a lot lately in discussions of the morality of the gods and of characters is alignment. I happen to take a position on this that can best be described as "strong ambivalence" with regards to its value; but it keeps coming up in my notes and tags as almost an argument-ender, and in most cases, it shouldn't be treated as such.

I think this gets complicated when it comes to the gods, and that's probably a whole other post, but for PCs? It's not helpful. Setting aside that the fandom has long disputed characters' canonical, verified alignments, whether those disagreements have had validity (Vex) or not (Fjord), unless the argument is specifically about alignment, arguing about alignment or citing a character's alignment is utterly useless.

Alignment is not fate or destiny. For D&D PCs its only real uses are to handle some niche mechanical situations I personally hope the system begins to move away from (eg: who can damage a Rakshasa; attuning to some items) and, much more importantly, in providing the player with a general understanding of their characters' mindset from which they can build the nooks and crannies and exceptions. If you're actually discussing whether a character is in the right, "they're neutral good" means nothing, and your opponent can just say "well, their alignment should change." What's useful is to actually ask whether they are acting in a way that benefits people or alleviates harm on a scale beyond themselves; and whether their intentions are actually realized in their actions.

Two examples here are Orym and Ira. It does not actually matter if Orym's motivation for hating the Vanguard is the very personal "they killed my husband and father-in-law" or much more abstract, ideological "the greater good", in the same way that it wouldn't matter whether Imogen's motivation, were she to join the Vanguard, would be "because of her mother" or "a desire to kill the gods as part of the elite chosen." The outcome is the same. It doesn't matter that Ira sabotaged the key not out of some greater sense of duty but because he really fucking hates Ludinus for personal reasons; it matters that he sabotaged the key.

Now, obviously, intention gets important in the long-term and in whether you can trust people, since it's pretty clear that (for example) Ira is not going to sacrifice himself for the cause and if he finds a way to fuck over Ludinus more thoroughly that doesn't involve coincidentally thwarting his plans re: Predathos, he may very well pursue that. But for the goal of breaking the key? Yeah, whether or not he's chaotic neutral or not has absolutely no bearing.

A really good real-world equivalent I see for Orym, actually, is people who leave fundamentalist religious groups. It's a remarkably similar position. I think, on the whole, very few people who leave far-right religious ideologies do so because of some grand theological/philosophical awakening. Many eventually develop their own new spirituality or deliberate lack thereof, but the impetus is usually not "I have seen the true answer to the existence of god"; it's a deeply personal reason. It's "the leopards are going to eat (or have eaten) my face; I should get away from the leopards." Sometimes it's because they're queer, and realize that their queerness is inherent and not a deliberate slide into sin, and it forces them to rethink the framework. Sometimes it's because they're women in an exceptionally (ie, beyond the baseline norm) sexist society. Sometimes it's the realization of past abuse and the opportunity to break that cycle with their own children (I've had this post brewing, in some ways, since I read this article a couple months ago). And this is all, to be clear, incredibly valid, and the problems begin when one starts to deny this was the impetus.

The personal experience nearly always comes before the larger philosophy (in fact, I think when it doesn't, the larger philosophy tends to have massive gaping holes), and I think it's a denial of one's own humanity to refuse to admit that. I suspect some people wish to see themselves as an objective perfect arbiter of good and evil - that alignment is, in fact, real and true, and there is a class of good people whose behavior is rooted in ideologically pure theory, and the unwashed bumbling masses beneath. But it doesn't work like that, and even if it did, the bumbling masses could get quite a lot done before the ideologically pure finalized their first decision. There's a lot of value in admitting that it was personal and even at times selfish reasons that brought you to the more general ideologies you've adopted. In fact, I think denying that the personal is involved and that theory mostly exists to try to justify and extrapolate is what leads people to that at times heartless inaction in the name of ideological purity.

Getting back to the point: if someone dislikes a characters' actions, it's not useful to say "well they're neutral good (or whatever)" because the issue is the action; you need to talk about the action and where it fits in context. But if someone dislikes a characters' motivations, and especially if it's on the basis of those motivations being personal, I don't think they're worth the energy of an argument. They've decided they hate the character and have no interest in outcome or empathizing, only in people matching their own ideology, which they deny is just as based in the personal. That's someone who thinks alignment exists, definitively, in real life, and that they're the true judge.

[girlreviews]

Review #7: Rumours, Fleetwood Mac

I might have met a person who hasn’t listened to Rumours, but I’ve never met a person who has listened to it and was like “no thanks”. Never. If anyone hates this record get in touch, I just want to talk.

So interesting that such an incredible piece of work that holds up decade after decade, represents a band that during its creation was a damn hot mess. It’s not just a breakup record. It’s a double breakup record. Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham had called it quits, and John and Christine McVie were circling the drain, divorcing while they toured Rumours. Hoo-boy can you feel it all. Never has such an overall cheery and upbeat record been so deeply filled with resentment, anger, heartbreak, defeat and getting the fuck over it. You’re just trying to keep up with which song is a fuck you from which band member to the other. Except you can’t, because you end up just getting lost in the music.

Never mind that before all of that, the drummer had an affair with Mick Fleetwood’s wife and all hell broke loose. Line up changes and whatnot. They started as a blues band, y’know? Yet, here we are, with this gorgeous thirty nine minutes of music and a group of people that arguably should seek therapy, rehab, and probably never see each other again. If David Attenborough is a Fleetwood Mac fan — and let’s assume that he is — he would say, “life… finds a way”.

As is often the case I had actually heard covers of a few of the songs as a young’un before ever hearing the originals or ever hearing the full album. Eva Cassidy covered Songbird. It was my childhood friend’s favorite song, and makes me think of her every time I hear it. The Corrs, Irish sibling band, covered Dreams in the late 90s. Their whole thing was a little weird. Jack Dee used to have a bit about the “odd” Corr brother that wasn’t invited to be in the band, Pat Corr. It was pretty funny. That old boss of mine used to say disparaging things about Andrea Corr as if she’d ever have given him the time of day. It makes me want to punch things, even now. I realize in hindsight he used to tear down any Irish woman musician that saw more success than him (see also: Sinéad O’Connor, Delores O’Riordan). They all did see more success, and they all deserved it, with two of them leaving legendary musical legacies even after death. He never made it past a breakfast show that had two knockoff muppets as presenters. I’m not joking.

Let’s talk about Second Hand News, what a charming and odd way to open an album. Buckingham wrote this and he’s generally acknowledged to be a real piece of work (allegedly, John McVie threw a glass of vodka in his face during the making of the record), even now. He insists he “ain’t gonna miss” Nicks when she goes, and that he’s been “tossed around enough”, but it’s pretty clear he ain’t over it. Boohoo, Lindsey. Such light acoustic riffs, luscious harmonies and hefty rhythm throughout with some outro guitar solo just to really make its point.

Dreams is a Stevie Nicks led classic. Let’s talk about Stevie. She’s been my hair inspiration for most of my life. She put out solo shit that was every bit as good as this record. Her voice sounds like that of a woman who has lived a thousand lives. An old, witchy, wise, woman, living in a young, exuberant, beautiful woman’s body. Like smoke on water. She warns Buckingham of his inevitable loneliness… “when the rain washes you clean, you’ll know”. Oof. For as tough and witchy as she is, there’s a real tenderness to her. I’ve always admired her ability to show the world all of her sides, the badass and the vulnerable. Pretty recently she showed us that vulnerable side when we lost Christine McVie. Stevie let her deep grief be known to the world. Whatever had gone on with that band, that was her best friend, and they’ll never sing together again.

This really is one of those where all of the tracks are amazing, but they’re all really different. Some are like standing in an open field of sunflowers, while some are like that part on a rollercoaster where you’re climbing slowly up the incline just waiting for the chaos. The Chain, I think, has to be my favorite for that reason. What I find so interesting is that they’re all credited as writers on this one, so it was an actual team effort, it would seem. First and foremost, the four (five?!) part harmonies in this are so incredible. It’s no softy squishy Simon and Garfunkel shit. These people are pissed, in different keys. It’s POWERFUL. But each instrument also has a voice of its own, the bass line, the guitar solo, the simple drum beat that evolves into a sprint. Whoever was on the tambourine even was going really fucking hard. It takes you on a damn journey. That rollercoaster was wild, let’s go again. And again. And again.

I used to have this record on vinyl and it sadly was one that got lost along the way between the UK and the US. I’ll say, it sounds mighty fine in that format. For a while in and after college, I lived in a shitty house in East London (it’s definitely fancy now but it was a rathole when I called it home). The kitchen ceiling literally caved in once. Anyway, it was me, my then boyfriend, my best girlfriend, and four other dudes. Sometimes we had just one rotating roommate. The point being it was some chaos, not unlike Fleetwood Mac in the making of Rumours. We were all a damn mess. But we were united any time I stuck this record on my turntable, or any time I was doing the dishes and one of the singles came on my absolutely adorable digital radio that looked like a teeny tiny Marshall Amp (add to list of things I wish I still had). I think of the good times in those kinda bad times when I hear Rumours, which is sort of the point of the album, as pointed out by Stevie in 2002:

“If you took out all the bad stuff in the band, the songs wouldn’t have happened. There simply wouldn’t have been a Rumours if everything had been fabulous.”

I’ll take her at her word, anyone with bangs that effortless can really do no wrong.

[whatyourusherthinks]

Arthur The King Review

Eeeey it's the Mahky Mahk dahg movie! Funnily enough, I've had the exact opposite pre-experience with Arthur the King than I've had with a movie like Imaginary. Which is to say I saw the poster, we showed the trailer, but as soon as it came out there was crickets. I haven't looked, but I also haven't heard a single thing about the movie. I was not looking forward to this, even though the trailer was good. One, I am vehemently a cat person. And two, I hate Mark Wahlberg. He's a racist asshole who can't act.

What's The Movie About?

Marky Mark is a runner who is competing in the Adventure Games in the Dominican Republic. Along the way his team finds a stray dog that follows them throughout the race.

What I Like.

The racing, mostly. If you remember that show the Amazing Race, it was kinda like that except it's in one location and all the participants are suicidal. Simu Liu plays a jerk, but he's so goddamn charismatic that I liked him despite that. The locations they shoot at are also very pretty. I liked that they didn't translate any of the Spanish in the movie, so if you didn't speak the language than you just had to pick things up through context clues.

What I Didn't Like.

Funnily enough, my two biggest problems are Mark Wahlberg and the dog. I'll say it again, Marky Mark cannot fucking act. His character is pig-headed and stubborn, and it's revealed at one point that he spent all of his wife's savings to run this super dangerous race. And she tells him at the end of the movie that she's pregnant! (Marky Mark also doesn't know what poor people are, since he's in dire financial straits but he still owns a pretty nice house in the mountains with a pool and eats steak for dinner every night.) This movie has a hilarious ego trip scene where Marky Mark carries two bikes and an adult woman across a zipline in one go like he's a goddamn super soldier or some shit. Speaking of unintended hilarity, there were several moments where something that was supposed to be dramatic was happening, and but I had to stop myself from bursting out laughing. Funnily enough, almost all the dramatic moments had the super obvious product placement happening during them. I usually don't mention product placements in movies (because that's what the companies want) but I want Nissan to be forever associated with the line, "My dad has cancer!" Both of the women characters all suck. The first is Marky Mark's wife, who not only is the breadwinner of the house, but literally just exists to support her husband as he tries to get himself killed. The other is one of the team members in the race, and her deal is daddy issues. She also weirdly gets coddled throughout the movie (She's the one who has to get saved on the zipline.) even though she's clearly the team member in the best shape. The camera work, additionally, sucks. It along with the editing are incredibly inconsistent. Sometimes it's shot in standard, sometimes it's clearly hand held, other times it's back-to-back drone shots. Sometimes you can see how the racers are running and where they are going, other times it's impossible to parse because of close-ups of Marky Mark's face and, of goddamn course, shaky cam! The structure of the movie as a whole is like that. One second everyone is buddy-buddy, then at a turn of a dime everyone is yelling at each other, then the dime turns again and its back to quips and goofs.

Finally, let's talk about that stupid dog. The dog is cute. Whatever. You might think from the trailer that the entire movie is gonna be Marky Mark's team running with this dog, but the dog doesn't even meet the team until halfway through the movie. We still see him, but's it's just shots of him wandering around the slums getting chased by other dogs in goofy scenes. Once he joins up with the team it's mostly fine, but then the ending happens. The ending was so saccharine that I got a cavity. I kinda hate that I watched with movie with other patrons in the theater, because I have never wanted to yell, "Just kill the damn dog already!" more in my life. The ending is nonsense. They pretend this dog is gonna die like three times, and he never fucking does. I know this makes me sounds like a miserable bastard, but that dog should've died. "But the dog survived in real life!" Shut up Buggnutz. Stories based on real events change things around all the time. I'm sure the real runner carried a woman and two bikes across a fucking zipline. "The ending is a tearjerker!" Is it? Because I wasn't crying. I was tapping my foot on the floor waiting for this movie to wrap up.

Final Summation.

I can see some people liking this movie. It's a feel good piece about a dog, maybe for you that makes up for the fact that Mark Wahlberg made and stars in this movie. But I wrote in my notes "If they pull a happy ending out of their ass I'm rejecting this movie", so unfortunately my hands are tied.

[blurglesmurfklaine]

time loop fic 👁️ VERY INTERESTING WOULD LIKE TO SEE IT

ONE DAY!!!! I have, in fact, started writing it but I am however an incredibly slow writer so do with that what you will!

I WANNA GO OFFFFD ABOUT THIS AU BUT ALSO DONT WANNA GIVE TOO MUCH AWAY BC J THINK ITS GOT SOME FUN TWISTS AND TURNS SO ILL SOUND OFF UNDER THE CUT

Si the premise is basically: season four shooting time loop. It’s from Eddie’s pov and the first day he goes about his day and then gets shot in a similar fashion as in canon and boom—wakes up the next day like “Hm. What a weird fuckin dream I had. Also all this deja vu is weird????”

He realizes pretty soon that he’s in a time loop and he doesn’t always get shot, but he does always die. It’s giving Happy Death Day. But for the gay wee woo show.

Anyhow, finally, someway somehow, he FINALLY survives an entire day. He hasn’t told anyone about the time loop at this point because this is Eddie Diaz we are talking about. He will keep his feelings and problems right here, and then one day he’ll die (it’s the same day just over and over again)

It’s the end of a long hard shift so Bobby lets them out early and Buck and Eddie go to the Diaz residence and… there keep being… Moments. Moments With Gravitas. And Signifcant Looks. And Buck is Very Close and Very Much In Eddie’s Space, but… Eddie can’t bring himself to close the gap between him and Buck. Because today isn’t like other days. He survived. So when he wakes up, he’ll have to deal with the consequences of ruining his friendship. He almost wishes this had happened before the time loop was about to close. Because there’d be no risk, so there’d be nothing holding him back.

So instead, he laughs it off, tells Buck he’s had one too many beers and takes another swig of his own. The clock strikes midnight. Everything goes fuzzy.

Eddie wakes up in his bed again, with the same Cindy Laupner song playing. And he just yells “FUCK”

Okay so. (He almost kissed Buck last night). Surviving the day didn’t break the loop. (Buck almost kissed him last night. Tonight. Whatever.) Then what will? (Hoooooly shit he almost kissed Buck).

As it turns out, Eddie is not as interested in figuring out what will break the time loop as he is in avoiding his feelings. He books a flight to El Paso and hangs with his parents for the day. Then stays home and cleans, learns to draw, literally ANYTHINGG except going to work. And then he takes Chris on an all day adventure, and of course Chris asks if his Uncle Buck can come. And of course Eddie has to oblige.

And they have a lovely day playing hooky together! Of course they did, why wouldn’t they? They’re best friends and NOTHING IS WEIRD. Why would any of it be weird. It’s only weird if Eddie makes it weird and it is sooooo not weird.

But it gets weird. Later at the Diaz residence when they have a repeat of the same Heavh Ass Moment. And it’s weird but Eddie decides FUCK IT because if he’s going to be stuck in this time loop he might as well his his best boy friend! And so he does. He kisses Buck. And Buck kisses back. Holy shit. Buck kisses him back.

The clock strikes midnight. Everything goes fuzzy.

Eddie wakes up in his bed again, with the same Cindy Laupner song playing.

But this time, he’s got a big ass grin on his face and when he walks into the firehouse, the first thing he says is yell, “Buckley! Get your ass down here!” And Buck, thinking there’s something wrong, runs down all concerned but Eddie just pulls him into the nearest closet and kisses the absolute sense out of him.

Then they have sex. Gay sex, to be sepcific. A looooooot of gay sex, every day that the loop resets they just be fuckin nasty. Matching each others freak. No it doesn’t make them gay. You can’t be gay in the time loop it doesn’t count.

Anyway. So. Eddie gets to know Buck’s body… intimately. Biblically, really. And he slowly learns all the things Buck likes and doesn’t like etc and he almost feels bad for Buck because he’s at a disadvantage, but it’s Buck and Buck is veeeeeeery good at sex so. It’s not like Eddie is really missing out on anything.

I keep thinking of this interaction, during foreplay, where Eddie is just being a gif damn fucking simp, melting like chocolate in Buck’s hands and says, “God I love it when you do that”

And Buck, being the cheeky little shit he is, grins and laughs, “Oh, don’t I know it”

And Eddie. Freezes. “Wait what?”

“What?”

“How would you—OH MY GOD? YOU TOO???”

“OH MY GOD????”

“HOW LONG??”

“A LONG FUCKIN TIME!!!”

And that’s how they find out the other is in the time loop :) not through any means of actual communication, but sex :)

The ending is a secret between god and someone else, not I. I’ll figure it out. Probably.

[superm4ks]

I wanna hear all of ur thoughts on 3344!!! Please tell us everything!!!! my only addition is that that copse crash changed the trajectory of their lives immediately like they could be fighting for p15 and would be all up in each others business. there is a special kind of distrust and contempt and anger for the other that no one else recives bc they reserve it all for each other and this is why they’re best f1 rivalry of all time 😋 sorry alain

omfg yes lets go a lil crazy🌷🌷🌷🌷

My 4433/441 thoughts are always all over the place like I truly havent been able to pin them down since l started watching f1 because these 2 are both like super weird in very different ways and they have zero bridges u can cross between them except for this unreal fucking level of on sight hating that makes a rivalry soooo good u feel it in ur tummy

When I tell u in Austria the moment I heard Lewis impeded Max I knew the baddie was gonna unleash the wrath of an old testament god upon this incredibly inconsequential fl0p vehicle number 44 like. Sorry to the haters and losers but its very funny to ME 😭😭 Inspector Hamilton didnt even make much noise about this which is even funnier because either he knows he'll catch a stray for impeding first or he just cannot handle Max and his Raytheon hamilton sensors anymore like he's tired and his own tp is telling him to shut up like leave him alone. ((I doubt its the last we'll hear of it tho))

And yes 2021 like u said prolly changed the trajectory of their lives forever not just copse but like monza, brazil, Jeddah. Whats so fascinating about Max and Lewis is that for such enormously talented drivers they simply cannot let each other race normal. They leave each other more space and will still fumble because they want to pass so bad. As u put it, its distrust, but its also just racing. Its the purest form of racing there is lmfao these are both karting prodigies and they still revert back to that when they race each other. I said this once they're like 2 maddies from euphoria in 1 show. But this whole dynamic of uneasiness between them started way before 2021 tbh.

Even when Max was a teenager wid a cap and a dream and the rawest dawg inside that literally bit people and Lewis was settling back into the record books wid a glass of wine and an established, tamed dawg, he still made a point not to rate Max ever. Max was taboo. Didnt even call him by name sometimes like to his face literally called him 'guy' which is such an Hamilton ass old school way of acknowledging an Opp like look at this

F1 drivers are so insane. Anyway I think Max still feels some type of way about all that. A job will have u 19 years old getting bullied by a 33 year old that refuses to say ur name. Max pissed everybody off those days. He just wanted to do the lil debrief and the old heads truly did not give a fuck they were so mean to him. Lewis went thru a divorce too so this was all wrong person wrong place wrong time wrong car wrong team wrong wrong wrong. All wrong.

They were doomed from the start like they were set on a collision course since Max was born that was as inevitable as he is. And the noise around them has always been too loud. But they do try which I find very charming and kind of sad. Like one thing about Max and Lewis they're gonna have a lil giggle together about something dumb and that hasn’t changed

((I am convinced whatvr lewis showed him on his phone here was like deeply illegal))

((this presser is soooo like at some point Lewis leans over and whispers that theres a lot of girls there for the weekend and Max is like umm and Lewis is like oh u have a girlfriend right ew 🙄))

🫠🌷this was so cute pls

They share sm history together in the one thing that matters the most to both of them which is racing. Like the way Abu Dhabi happened bro, all that led to it, the amount of new eyeballs on the sport just thru sheer force of narrative and hubris. They built that together. Nobody else cud have done it. Like they share thirty five 1-2s in F1. 35 times one of them was first and the other was second. I think 3 more times on the podium and they break a record for most podiums shared oat. Thats not unimportant it’s not meaningless especially not to these 2 in particular. They’re special. They’re both so special and mercurial and they save the worst parts of themselves. the best part of themselves. to each other . Everybody else takes scraps. The spray aligns

Yeah. Like yk. the spray aligns

[powderblueblood]

sending you another one that isn't related to tv and movies because i like ur opinions and i think its helpful to talk about a variety of things and also i like talking to you and hearing you and this time i'm adding what i think a little bit and i hope you don't mind that <3

-death of the author (i swing back and forth on it but largely do agree but prefer toni morrison's the author is holding your hand and reading is an active thing)

-veggies like as a meal (i eat veggies strictly medicinally)

-contemporary romance as a book genre, and also larger, booktok (i largely enjoy contemporary romance and i think if u look for it, it's possible for romance to be just as meaningful and thematic as any other genre, and i do think some of it's heavy critique is sexist, but i do think there's a real marketing problem where authors are pushed to use those stupid ao3-like tags to sell their books like their made for consumption. like, there are all sorts of romances out there that are really good outside of colleen hoover and booktok, and i think booktok is a larger marketing problem in the publishing industry than a writing problem? while i myself don't enjoy those books, i don't think its THAT out of the blue and different from what popular books have always been)

-failmarriage (i love it so much, more interesting to me than any extramarital affair could ever be)

-i forget if you've watched succession but you seem like you have so: tomshiv, kenstewy, kenrava, (i love kenrava tragedy era and at one point was rooting HARD for them to get back together until they couldn't anymore, i love tomshiv failmarriage icons i hope they never get divorced and stay messy forever, i like kenstewy enough and find it beautifully tragic that kendall had two separate people who were rooting for him to get out of his dad's bubble and fucked it up both times to some extent. eldest boy indeed)

i think that's enough for now! thank you in advance and apologies for the possible spam

i don't mind that at all and i love when you drop by to chat!! you always come in here with the best observations AND questions and i appreciate u so much for that <3

death of the author

makes sense, compels me - i think anyone who partakes in fan works is generally a believer in this, because in canon we have our root but it branches out forever. it is incredibly important to be open to interpretation because to exist in a world where you can only accept things at absolute face value is to exist in a world without chewing and thinking on things. i can't agree with absolutism in any kind of art because you know what, it's BORINGGGGGG

veggies, meal

makes sense, kind of compels me - i like to cook so i would be lost without them I SUPPOSE. i love the endless pickling one can do with a vegetable, that's always very interesting to me because i like to live my life with a certain level of TANG to it, but i also feel constantly defeated by the vegetable industrial complex and i never feel like i'm eating enough of them. even though i do be trying!!! but christ for some reason it's hard, and then there's the whole thing of them never keeping in the fridge. you've really got to approach vegetables with a plan which i guess is good but also stressfullllllll i'm so tired. also i only really like vegetables that crunch, except for mushrooms, but like a steamed vegetable.... fuck off. fuck off. fuck off. hell texture

contemporary romance: the booktokification of book

makes sense, doesn't compel me - i mean 'chick lit' as it was once called has been with us from day dot, think mills and boon, think joan collins, all that stuff but i personally cannot vibe with the flatness of this era of contemporary romance that has been heavily marketed to us on tiktok via tropes-as-selling points as opposed to story-as-selling points. my issue with contemporary romance (and this is from the little i've read because it does bore me and for this reason) is there seems to be less of a focus on character and more of a focus on running through well-trod story beats in order to get to a happily ever after. i enjoy romance in my stories, but i don't personally give a shit about it being the sole focus because when it is, it goes stale quick. it needs to be anchored in the story, otherwise like, who cares about these people getting together? i completely understand the sexism aspect, like sure, let women enjoy things but i'm also kind of over the vapid barbie feminism turn of all things geared towards women cannot be criticized otherwise you're a misogynist. i understand where that reaction has come from, but it becomes tiresome especially in the face of furious swiftie-fied righteous anger. what i would like is for contemporary romance to be a place where we can tell many different kinds of stories (queer ones, for instance) as opposed to tired storylines recycled from like, CW shows. but listen! it's not my genre, not my circus, not my monkeys! i care about literature, but i care about literature in a different way!

failmarriage

makes sense, compels me - YOOOOOOOOOOOOO sanjana i'm about to get back on my mountain goats horse (goat?) again and point you towards their album tallahassee which is written about a couple known in TMG canon as the alpha couple. so tallahassee follows the alpha couple as they move to florida and get trapped in a cycle of isolation, alcoholism, and the continuing rot of the relationship they refuse to leave. i love a couple so in love that they hate each other and cannot leave, even if the door to the cage is wide open. i love going down with one another, hand in unlovable hand and i agree that it's more interesting than cheating BUT i raise you couple that have secretly pined for each other for years, end up wrecking one relationship absolutely scorched earth style in order to be together then they are trapped in a toxic cyclone they can never escape because they've made their beds now! (i've been writing this one story kind of about this for like 10 years now.)

the compendium of succession failships

makes sense, compels me - i was literally about to buy the books of succession scripts last night but then i fell asleep with my phone in my hand. will actually go and do that now. i love succession so much. it filled the void that mad men had left in me for a hot blast of a second there but JESUS GOD do i love some tomshiv!!! because i was rooting for them so hard at first and then i was rooting for them to crash and burn (again, hand in unlovable hand). there's no way they'll ever get divorced. because what would shiv do without being in touching distance of the throne, and what would tom have that would keep him anchored to the illusion of being the cornfed boy done good that i think he still keeps in the very back of his mind. kendall is SOOOOOO tragic on both stewy and rava counts, i agree, but god i hope rava gets a full tilt restraining order against him. stewy would never because stewy is too down bad rest of his life death row for him. ken and stewy could do leopold and loeb if they really wanted to. ken kind of already did!!!!

thank u so much for sending these, i really always enjoy chattin with you so much

[thegeminisage]

ok, its time for a QUICK tng update before xm*s proceedings. saturday we did "best of both worlds part ii" and "family" and last night we did "brothers" and "suddenly human."

best of both worlds part ii: I LOOOOOVED THIS EPISODE. mwah. EVERYTHING i wanted. creepy little cyborg implants. brainwashed picard. his beautiful perfect cgi tear (which may or may not have been cgi, this is a point of debate, experts please weigh in). data bravely doing a robot mind meld. 1000000/10 more borg episodes please please PLEASE

can you imagine if the borg has ben in tos btw. what a thought experiment, except for how i quite literally can't think about it or i'll get so excited i'll pass out

did guinan imply she and picard were lovers in this ep...girl you can do better

my one nitpick with william riker was him promoting that lady he hated instead of someone who deserved it, like worf or data. it probably would have given worf ptsd but can you imagine that enterprise having a captain and first officer being gay on the bridge again...wonderful. except this time there would also be deanna <3

"how much do you remember" "everything" AHAHAHAHA GREAT. GOOD. WONDERFUL. anyway

family: extremely unusual episode but i loved it nonetheless. i was really shocked worf's parents were so sweet!!! i fucking loved them. they're like the cutest people on earth i can't believe they raised such a taciturn and stoic guy like worf...

picard's family i wasn't sure about at first until the wrestling match in the mud. sometimes you need to punch a guy and his brother stepped up to the job admirably. i kept thinking he looked like michael caine, which would have been an incredible choice.

WESLEY.....................................................we don't need to talk about it

everyone's accents in this ep were wack. why does picard have a totally different accent from his brother. why is worf's accent different from his parents. ik its not that deep but its making me crrrazzzyyy

brothers: i didnt even get a look at the title of this episode before we started bc vumoo (the shady site im using to watch) doesn't display them but it was SUCH an unexpected pleasure to get a data episode

absolutely scuh-reaming at the ease with which he hijacked an ENTIRE goddamn starship. he's so competent i love that. a real "glad he's on OUR side" moment, not unlike spock commandeering the enterprise in "the menagerie" (rip i wish that had been a better episode).

lore grew on me really fast. i was neutral on him during his last appearance, the meme aside, but in this episode he was really fun and unsettling. brent spiner can do horrible, horrible things with his face

this ep felt a little cut off? i expected another confrontation with lore, a getting back of the chip, or at least some kind of burial or funeral for dr soong, but we just quit like 3/4 through the episode. maybe less time spent on the opening section of the hijack could have fixed this

anyway i love the foil between data and lore...one has support and the other does not...but it doesn't make sense for lore to get the emotions chip because it seems like he already HAS them??

oh yeah and data repeating "i am not less perfect than lore" got funnier EVERY time he did it. little man was really going thru it i was cracking up genuinely <3

suddenly human: this episode was wack

ok, did you guys read face on the milk carton when you were in school? i did when i was way too young to be reading it and it fucked me up real bad and i completely forgot about it until i watched this episode and then i got to unlock that memory in real time

anyway, while it is obviously the correct choice to return a child to their family when they are kidnapped as babies, it is also hugely traumatic for an older child to be ripped away from a loving home* and transplanted with strangers, which those books explore in horrific detail. so the whole episode i found myself going "i KNOW it's bad politics but could they not just CONSIDER leaving him with the only family he's ever known as a possible choice" and then they DID THAT and i wanted to be ill because it was obviously the worst choice in the world

* this is a different scenario than the first tng episode involving kidnapped children, which strongly resembled the residential schools from real life. THIS particular situation, minus the method of kidnapping (during warfare), more closely resembled the crazy cult shit happening in those books, where the kidnapped girl was being raised by people who thought they really were her biological grandparents and weren't bad people and her biological family also weren't bad people. a "no fault" situation EXCEPT FOR HE KIDNAPPENED THAT BABY DURING WARFARE.

anyway this is the second time tng has dropped the ball on this subject so i think from now on they should not do episodes like this anymore. really really really really bad.

NEXT TIME: "remember me" and "legacy"

[kurtcobainsgreencardigan]

pauuuuuuuuu i’ve got a question. i understand that you enjoy supernatural, so could you explain to me the whole destial thing? i’m like, fairly close to caving and committing myself to 15 fucking seasons of them and dean from gilmore girls (who i fucking hate(the character not the actor)) so like, i wanna know what i’m getting myself into, cause the only stuff i know is the meme that’s always going around, and that everyone and their mother is obsessed with dean winchester

OH MY GOD OH MY GOD @weeping-in-the-willows WE'VE DONE IT!!!

okay andi here we go its gonna be LONG (thats what she said?)

Destiel is a ship between two main characters, Dean Winchester, who is a monster hunter, and Castiel, who is an angel of the lord. Although Cas does not appear until season 4(?), when he does it's clear there's something going on between the two men (boys?), and, whether or not it's intentional, there's a LOT of gay subtext. I think they suffer a lot but it's worth it for the very few moments they get to enjoy, and you value them so much more which makes it so enjoyable.

As for Sam Winchester (Dean Forester), he's a young man with daddy issues who never met his mom and decided that instead of having that horrible monster hunter life he wanted to go to Stanford and study law and have a great academically successful life (Sam and Rory Gilmore would be best friends). He's a sweet, kind, smart, driven, ambitious (and hot) 22(!) year-old who would never voluntarily hurt a fly. Obviously life had other plans for him but what happens to him is up to you. Now, I will say that I'm not the biggest mid-series seasons Sam fan, but I think early Sam was one of my first fictional crushes and I still think of him fondly. His favorite singer is secretly Celine Dion.

Dean Winchester also has daddy issues but as in yes-dad-I'll-do-everything-you-say-so-that-you-love me-while-his-dad-still-loves-sam-more daddy issues (which I know all too well not not the time nor place), whereas Sam was more like "No dad, this is YOUR dream". Dean is like that jackass who thinks he's this huge deal and he think he's really hot and smart and always right, which is infuriating because it's true. But really imagine a giant teddy bear with a flannel. that's Dean Winchester. It's a bit funny but for him the most important thing ever is his family and he will fight with all his might to save it, blood or found, he will die for them over and over again with no regrets, except that one where his daug we don't talk about that. He's also incredibly funny, he likes Frozen and dad rock and pie.

Cas is an angel who very often forgets that. Funny thing about this guy is that they first portray him as like this scary creature, he's the most powerful thing they've ever faced and he's so intimidating but once they get to know him he's really just like if an alien saw a hot guy and went "that one". He talks to cats sometimes.

About the show itself, the firsts seasons they think they're like this moody, serious show, but as it goes on it quickly turns into a comedy. They meet Scooby-Doo once. There's a musical. Doctor Sexy wears cowboy boots. Dracula. Ghostfacers!

Now, I wouldn't go as far as "recommending" it to someone, but if i could start clean and had the choice to watch it again for the first time, I'd tell them put me back in it, and I would cry and curse and suffer, but I'd go through it again.

And that is all, unless Willow wants to add something?

Also I would avoid the last episode, I would not watch it if I were you, I wish I never saw it and I pretend it doesn't exist, it is not canon if I say it is not and I refuse to recognize it as such. Thank you.

[sinkableruby]

What are your top 5 Ougi scenes/appearances?

good ask to send me than,k you

starting from 5 well i guess i dont really have like a strict order except for maybe the top one i dont know i dont know i love all of them actually im just gonna do it in chrono order

um spoilers of course dont read this if u havent finished the whole anime (the whole anime!) there will be screencaps...

okay if im going chronoogically i must give my hat to owarimonogtari part 1. wait FUCK theres so many scenes in that shit.......... im gonna be running out of space damnit.... well to summarize it BRIEFLY... (how the fuck do you even summarize it briefly my feelings are large and want to burst out of my chest)... ougis sinister leading araragi down dark paths and poking at his past and knowing the deal but playing-dumbery and antics are just amazing. and shes so cool as she does it how did she get to be that cool! evil and cool.... thats the summary but the scene i would want to talk about is of course the showdown with hanekawa (the first one i guess). uh bc its like really funny? the showdown is great its such a fun buildup of tension and they're like passive-aggressive/plain-aggressive-but-still-loosely-following-social-boundaries trying fighting each other... its great. i think in the light novels when hanekawa says 'but i would have done a better job' ougis smile freezes. you can hear the glass break. you can just hear her in her head shes going like ".......................bitch,? so that's how you wanna play it?" i wish that got animated sometimes. and also of course. it ends how it ends.

its an incredible moment because literally the moment she says this you're like ah. i see. so ougi loses. LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

LIKE GG NO RE 😭😭😭😭😭😭 SORRY OUGI YOU LOST.... DONMAI ITS OK DONT WORRY ABOUT IT. YOU DONT EVEN HAVE TO SEE ANYTHING AFTER ITS LIKE AH. GOTCHA. i was rooting for her to win when i was watching but... this was just so funny. the best way for things to have gone i think.

its also so good how she stands there after like. fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.......... usually ougi is the one doing things to people and its funny but this is also just so hilarious its done so well.

i also want to talk about otori, because ougi in otori is very cool. my first time watching otori i was very in tune with nadeko so hearing ougi do a kinda takedown of her was a very interesting experience for me. she was very sinister and severe and foreboding...... very fun. and of course when it turns out she's been tugging at the strings..... heeheehee THATS SO COOL. i mean looking at these scenes like some of these shots are so cool.

^ the face of someone so evil......

ok going later

i never see people talking about this one but the scene in hitagi rendevous in owari ge that happens on the second episode after the ending is like. oogh. its like the big instance before the finale proper in ougi dark where the show starts fucking slapping you in the face screaming "PAY ATTENTION THERE'S SOMETHING IMPORTANT HAPPENING HERE"

like this shot this FUCKING SHOT. is it just me? is it just me am i the only one who feels acute pain at this? there's something about it thats just so............... like somethings wrong. like thats what i feel like something is wrong and im concerned for this person you feel me?

shes so tired trying to get his attention and do her job and all that shes pressing the doorbell laying down... and then she sees him and goes like 'im exhausted' and just keeps girlbossing like. and like asks araragi (from her perspective) not to kill her and hes just like no and shes just like damn that sucks oh well lol. like imagine being alive for 6 months having no home (shes laying on the god damn nameplate of his house augh...) and knowing full well you're about to die, the things youre seeing now will be some of the last things you ever experience before your consciousness is gone forever (bc she isnt going to hell shes being erased). that's so cool and awesome (horrifying). anyway ougi doesnt care shes got a job to do X) (shes so insane i love her)

also that home thing and the tiredness thing is one of the big things i wrote ougi stay about so ill just take the chance to plug it if ur still reading this go read my fic! i like it a lot i think its nice. its mostly funny but it also talks about this stuff too a bit. go read it

ok next.

dont know whether to count the different parts of this scene as separate or not but i think it shouldnt be separated bc its all important to the scene and that is OF COURSE: ougi dark starting with ougi's convo with tsukihi (the build up… it's oddly calm so you feel somewhat reassured but you KNOW something's going to happen… the buildup of tension starts here and keeps rising). the contents of that conversation, near the end are like, really cool things to be included because up until that point we still dont have SO much insight as to who ougi is but she opens up a bit to tsukihi here and its kind of a paradigm shift to see.

there's something so poignant about this fraught mood...

such an ougi way of talking about one's feelings about oneself...

at least for me when i was watching i was already like, kinda rooting for ougi bc i wanted bad things to happen to araragi (lol) but also like. ougis just so insanely entertaining and fun that like, uh obviously i would root for her here. so when this fun silly funny little fun character starts bustin out the:

its like woah wait huh back up hold on a second there. i care you>???????

like literally the whole confrontation with ougi and araragi it is just like oh no since when did i care about this character so much oh no oh god oh fuck...

like how come they gotta hit me with all these gut punches what did i do to deserve this

like whats so cool about it is with how its directed and the score (and the voice acting!! the seiyuu did an INCREDIBLE job) and everything you can tell shes scared but like again shes actually insane so she's just gonna be like yeah this is the right way for things to happen

(it seems a lot like she did all this wanting the outcome of her losing to araragi, at least to me. hanekawa also says so in the commentary tracks of ougi dark. so thats another layer. theres so many layers... i dont know how many of these layers people pick up on but by golly do i pick up on them)

and of course he saves her (imagine if he didnt? id kill him. WAIT ACTUALLY THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO ARE LIKE "ARARAGI SHOULDNT HAVE SAVED HER" NEVER GO ON THE REDDIT DISCORD SERVER FOR MONOGATARI PEOPLE ACTUALLY THINK THIS WAY IM LITERALLY GOING TO KILL THEM ITS SO. ok i wont talk about it), and she gets mad and its like i KNEW you were putting up a bold front you had emotions this whole time and then its like. oh you had emotions this whole time and you were totally aware of everything and just kinda had to deal with it thats kinda fucked up (i think a lot about how being an oddity born of self-criticism necessarily means you have to be self-aware and how that leads to ougi being a kind of exceptional type of oddity and like how it ties into identity and like... all that stuff). but the emotional breakdown/outburst is so good... augggghhghhh its so good 😭😭😭

(like i think sometimes about how if they had done this wrong, it would feel out of place for ougis generally not-emotion-showing character/not emotional in general character, but they did it so well... its so good)

and of COURSE to cap off this perfect beautiful wonderful scene we get THE GWEH AKA THE PEAK OF FICTION. IT DOESNT GET BETTER THAN THIS. NO IM NOT JOKING. LITERALLY WHEN I SAW THIS I HAD AN EPIPHANY. NOT JUST BECAUSE ITS ADORABLE BUT BECAUSE ITS LIKE HOLY SHIT INTUITIVELY A PART OF ME UNDERSTANDS. THIS *IS* **THE** BEST CHARACTER. and i went to go pace around my room being hype about it. im not joking really bc the novel talks about it being like "an utterly unattractive true-to-life" groan or something that proves she has "substance" which is like... yeah! she's her own person! not just made of lies or w/e!! the gweh actually ties everything together in such a perfect way and i am physically incapable of remaining in bad mood after i see it. i saw it the first time and i was like :O -> :) -> :DDDDDDDDDD and that hasn't changed since it will always put a smile on my face 😌

also also ougi in zoku owari is incredible too so good. the TEEHEE THE TEEHEE IS SO AMAZING. like YEAH!!!! YOURE A LITTLE ROTTEN PRANKSTER TEEHEE!!!!!! YEAH!!!! TRICKSTER TIME TIME TO BE TRICKY A TRICKY LITTLE TRICKSTER YEAH!!!!!!!!!!! and we get more classic ougi exposition/explanation..... havent talked about this as much but their ideas are so interesting.... theyre so interesting and cool i would pay to hear them share ideas about things.............. anyway one other thing i really appreciate about this scene is the shared intimacy between ougi and araragi. it feels more personal yk. this sorta comfortable, natural, thoughtless intimacy is something i absolutely adore about their dynamic but it basically only happens right here in zoku owari, and not even so much in the light novel version. its interesting... i want to write about it. im GOING to write about it mark my words

also honorable mention to ougi in hanamonogatari. theres nothing like big enough about these scenes to mention in comparison with the rest of them bc theyre so short but. BOY OUGI YEAHHHHHHHHHHH HES TRANS WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO i saw that and i was like >:) yeah kanbaru wym hes been a boy this whole time >:)))) don't misgender him god...... >:))))))))))))) (AND HE LOOKS SO COOL THEY ANIMATED HIM SO COOL BC HES IN BOYMODE HES SUCH A BOY FUCK YEAH)

also fuck i didnt talk about the whole planetarium dream scene. that was also good.

ummm yeah i could just talk about this forever and keep talking about scenes and stuff but ill leave it here bc u said 5 and ive already technically named like 7 at least so. yeah. but i dont really have like a ranking order necessarily, except for ougi dark bc its just so so so SO good.

thank you for enabling my derangement ive been writing this since u sent it to me im so ougipilled right now you wouldnt even believe. im ougi wired.

[catholic-character-tournament]

Round 2 - Side A

Propaganda below ⬇️

Sister Michael

She drives a DeLorean. She does judo on Fridays. She likes a good statue and despises the French. Her full nun name is Sister George Michael, after the guy from Wham!. She is the fiercest nun you’ll ever come across and, if you’re attending Lady Immaculate College, she’s the woman in charge. So whatever you do, if you’re feeling anxious or worried or just need a chat: don’t come crying to her.

joined the nunnery for the free accommodation?

she does love a good statue it has to be said

She is the headmistress of a catholic school <3

Galahad

OKAY SO . “Galahad (played by Jonny d'Ville): a travelling preacher/religious zealot who is told to sit in the Siege Seat by Merlin, and discovers the fact that Fort Galfridian is falling into the star Avalon. He sparks the quest for the GRAIL, and willingly goes to his death to overcome its final defences.” DUDE SAT IN THE CHAIR THAT IS KNOWN FOR KILLING PEOPLE BECAUSE HIS CRUSH [MERLIN] [AKA HANGED MAN] [AKA DRUMBOT BRIAN] TOLD HIM TO . SORRY I THINK THATS REALLY FUNNY. he found out the whole shitshow of a spacestation he lived on was gonna fall into the sun and he went around yelling about it incomprehensibly and got fucking gunned down trying to get the GRAIL and just kept going through the gunfire because of how Religious [tm] he was . he died . in once and future king it just “galahad’s blind faith” . also hellfire goes really hard . he is the definition of going insane with the knowledge of the universe . also jonny dville played him thats bonus points

There was a prophet. The prophet gave three separate people three separate instructions. 1. Stop being racist 2. Love your son 3. Sit in the Chair That Makes People Insane Galahad received number three. He was the only one who followed the instructions. He sat in the Chair That Makes People Insane, saw the sun for the first time, and immediately starts preaching about how everyone will burn in hellfire

i dont know anything about this guy i just wanna help make Kai happy please dont like not count my submission just because i dont know anythinf except for the Kills You Chair im trying my best im sorry 😭

his themesong is called hellfire and it slaps btw go listen to it. anyways he is my blorbo blingus he is Deeply unwell i could fix him but also whatever is wrong with him is incredibly fascinating to watch. a robot dude who’s been hanging from the gallows since forever told him ‘hey go sit in the Chair That Kills People Who Sit In It’ and he was like 'I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS MOMENT MY ENTIRE LIFE’. the getting-his-brain-fried thing definitely made him worse but he was also clearly kind of fucked up before that. his death is probably one of my favorite scenes in any mechs album. maybe just straight up my favorite. ahem. SAY WHAT YOU WILL ABOUT FAITH, BUT IT CAN HAVE POWERFUL EFFECTS ON THOSE THAT HAVE IT. IT CAN KEEP YOU FROM FALTERING AS THE BULLETS START TO SLAM INTO YOU. IT CAN KEEP YOU WALKING AS YOU LEGS ARE SHOT TO BLOODY STUMPS. IT CAN KEEP YOU LAUGHING AS YOUR LUNGS ARE FILLED WITH SHRAPNEL AND LEAD. IT CAN KEEP YOU SMILING AS HALF YOUR FACE IS BLOWN AWAY. IT CAN KEEP A MAN LIKE GALAHAD STANDING TALL UNTIL THE GUNS. CLICKED. DRY. anyways go listen to high noon over camelot <3

my friends my people my… flock I HAVE HAD A VISION!! A VAST FIERY ORB FLOATIN IN AN ENDLESS VOID!! and there so small so feagile US!!! BUT FALLIN FALLIN FALLIN INTO THE FLAMES!!! your soul is connected to the world youre in youre draggin it down with the weight of your sin surrounded by temptation and y'just give in we’re fallin into the flames OF THAT FIRE THAT FIRE THAT HEEEEELLLLLLFIIIRE YOUR BROW BECOMES SLICK AS YOU PERSPIRE YOU THINK YOURE THIRSTY NOW WAIT TIL IT GETS DRIER AND YA FEEL THE HEAT OF THE FLAMES OF THAT FIRE THAT FIRE THAT HELLFIRE YOUR SICK AND SINFUL LIES WILL BUILD A FUNERAL PYRE YOUR PERVERSION SCARS THE STATION SON ITS GONAN FRY HER AND WE ALLLLLL FALL INTO THE FLAMES… oh i have SEEN DAMNATION MY BROTHERS!! ive FELT its searing heat within my VERY BONES !!!!!!! but there is a way me be saved… “OH TELL US FATHER GALAHAD, TELL US” I HEAR YOU CRY “IS IT PIETY IS IT PURITY IS IT VIRTUE?” NO!!! ONLY WAY TO SAVE US NOW IS THE HOLY GRAIL ITSELF… HAHAHAHAHHAAAA…. WELL THAT ORB OF DAMNATION MAKES THE SUN SEEM PALE YOURE QUITE CORRECT TO QUIVER YOU ARE RIGHT TO QUAIL THE ONLY WAY TO SAVE US IS TO FIND THAT GRAIL OR WE ALL FALL INTO THE FLAMES OF THAT FIRE THAT FIRE THAT HELLFIRE YOUR SKIN STARTS TO SIZZLE AS YOU EXPIRE YOU CLAIM TO BE VIRTUOUS BUT YOURE A LIAR !!!!! AND YOU FEEL THE HEAT OF THE FLAMES … i said HEEEELLLLFIIIIRE HEEEEEEEELLLLFIRE HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLFIIIIIREEE HEEEEEEELLLLLLFIIIIIIRE OF THAT FIRE THAT FIRE THAT HELLFIRE AT THE HEART OF THAT INFERNO THAT WILL NEVER TIRE IVE SEE THE END IS NIGH AND DAMNATIONS NIGHER OH WE ALL FALL INTO THE FLAMES

Ok i know this is kind of a shot in the dark because hes so obscure but i need to speak my truth. Hes so insane. The narrator calls him a “holy roller.” He has a vision which is meant to tell him that the place they live is LITERALLY going to get burnt to a crisp because its slowly falling into the sun. But hes like Oh my god i just had a vision of hell i need to save everyone from eternal damnation. And he happily gets killed and turned into a pile of slop because he believes its what he was “chosen to do” he quite literally dies for his religion. Hes also quite funny. I like him. Thank you