#fortune fails

[fake-married-my-dead-fiance]

The boys are doing a gay little sword dance while the girls hug and get drunk? This is the least heterosexual drama I've ever watched

[beatcroc]

pest control TWO!!!!! heres the first one

adn heres the obligatory bonus bc i can't help myself :')

[witchofthesouls]

Hello, I don't usually ask questions on social networks, but I wanted to know what you think of a story where our human friend suffers an accident aboard the lost light in the Brainstrom laboratory and now the bots are able to see his thoughts. Bonus points if it's weird stuff (most of our minds are very weird), (sorry if something is poorly translated, I'm writing this with the translator) ^^)

One, I absolutely adore this concept.

Two, did you know there are people that think in pictures rather than use an internal voice?

And to top it off, people go around referencing pop culture, iconic scenes, memes, and their favorite media as well as the weird, intrusive thoughts and extreme, nonsensical daydreams...

I like to think there would be a media war between the Cybertronians that never went to Earth and only know beloved cartoons and shows and memes from the weird reenactment from the resident human's mind but with the Lost Light crew getting morphed into it versus the Cybertronians that actually had direct experience and personally downloaded those shows and movies.

As the "I Ship It" song goes, canon ground versus crack ship space.

Does anyone else remember those Naruto animation videos where the Akatsuki are drawn drunk or doing hilarious dances? The human looked up the Decepticon Justice Division, cross referenced on what they do, and immediately thought of a full sequence of the D.J.D. doing the Gang Torture Dance from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.

The human thinks of sequences, including but not limited to:

Ultra Magnus as Steve Harvey from Family Feud with Rodimus with the "Nekkid Grandma!" bit

Rodimus doing "Goofy Goober Rock" because Roddy would love to be suspended in the air and dressed in wizard swag with a killer rip on a peanut-themed guitar. Drift has the legs to fulfill Patrick's fishnet-and-heels dance.

Megatron and Ratchet in The Office because he would stare deep into the camera at whatever new trouble has plagued the ship

Getaway and Rodimus doing the "Tony and Ezekiel" bit

So many fire-related memes: Elmo and the "This is fine." Dog.

The overlap of Rodimus in Gurren Lagen and Bang Brave Bang Bravern

The continuously weirder and weirder thoughts on how Cybertronian strip club would look like based on Futurama, Cyberpunk, and Night runner's Magnum Bullets. "Snu-snu" bit included. It's both highly ridiculous, strangely erotic, and absolutely terrifying at the same time to the Lost Light crew.

Whenever a mech does something stupid, the human immediately reimagines the mech in Wheel of Fortune fails, or a shoving potatoes in the exhaust

Nightbeat in a noir setting or as Sherlock Holmes

Rung is "Mister Cellophane" from Chicago

Assigned character theme songs

The last bullet causes so much drama because mechs want to have really cool or badass themes, but no! The human assigns them sex or porn songs like "Life is a Highway" and "Shut Up and Drive" and "Two Trucks," or something silly like "Barbie Girl" or the opening theme to Mega XLR or the sad song on the world's smallest violin to the poor bastard that gets stuck with the engex bill at the end of the night.

[zhuoyichenpretty]

Ep 22-23 Commentary

Ha...I was inexplicably nervous for eps 22-23 and it looks like I was right to be (-: What a rollercoaster. Spoilers below!

I've just come out of ep 23 and uh????? holy shit????? ZYC????

Ok ok but to backtrack, let's do my comments semi-chronologically:

Ep 22:

A carry-over from ep 21 that I have to mention—heck yeah PSJ give WZY hell. She doesn't have all that many lines but she sure knows how to make them count. Also seeing PSJ and WX get screen time just the two of them makes my brain go "yay <3"

Back to ep 22, loved the fake-out sundial ayeee that was a nice Chekhov's gun that also brings the real sundial back into relevance for later. Also me eating up the PSJ and ZYC crumb of an interaction has brought to my attention how starved I am of their screen time together.

This whole ep was a great lament towards the feared inevitable. Every sad downcast look from ZYC, every complicated glance WX gives him. A wonderful, terrible crossroads for these characters. I love that for ZYC especially, it's such an incredible mess of emotion coming to a head. Bad enough that he's come to care about the demon who killed his family and ruined his life, bad enough that he's sworn a blood oath he regrets and tied himself to punishing someone he no longer finds culpable, bad enough that ZYZ's life or death depends solely on his choice and ZYZ is constantly practically begging for death when ZYC wants him to live. How much immensely worse it makes the whole situation that WX is literally ZYZ's soulmate. And obviously the whole team has only grown more and more attached to ZYZ, too. ZYC's personal turmoil aside, how heavy must that responsibility and guilt be? For the finishing blow that only he can deliver to also deeply threaten every other person he cares about? Everyone understands in the abstract what must happen and why, but just like seeing ZYZ lose control firsthand, the gulf between understanding and experiencing is so unimaginably wide. If he kills ZYZ, can there really be no resentment from his friends? From WX?

Also it seems ZYC only wears cloaks so that he can give them to other people lmao

Ah fuck, the farewell drinks. I didn't even factor in how ZYC might not survive the encounter (''': The drama truly was like hm can we possibly give ZYC a worse day than that night his whole fam died? Maybe give him a bunch of new family members and also the blade and the fate and the sole responsibility to potentially irrevocably scar said family members with? And he might die in the process too? (-: haha maybe? (((-:

Oh. Oh. Addendum. I forgot this til I saw it mentioned in another post—ZYC recounting his oath as he watched WX smile when they discussed reviving the tree...I could feel him weighing those words against his own life, against ZYZ's life, against WX's happiness. One way out of this impossible situation is indeed to doom himself. I'm in pieces.

Damn if WX isn't dedicated heart and soul, going into the sundial like that. I'm sad no one could keep her company for those 300 years but also I guess that's kind of an impossible ask (and maybe not survivable for the other non-goddess mortals? I'm admittedly very unclear on sundial time loophole logistics). It would have been nice to see someone offer though, even just to be turned down.

Ooh I like the soul needle fake-out, given this show's penchant for retroactive "actually we had a plan all along" moments. A good subversion of the narrative's own style.

Also I saved this for the end because it doesn't really fit the linearity of my comments but what the fuuuuuuuck oh my god I absolutely flipped out at this scene:

I am at once rabidly intrigued and at the same time not sure if I'll be satisfied with whatever payoff will come for this so I don't want to overindulge in theorizing and setting my own expectations too high. Maybe this is just a fevered hallucination, maybe it means nothing (I hope it means something). But damn!!! What a gorgeous man crazy scene.

In conclusion, ep 22 had some good stuff for me. Plot development and reflection and tension enough that I may have been satisfied with just that one episode. But they gave us two, so onward to ep 23 comments!

Ep 23:

I like how many solid reasons the team has to suspect ZYC being possessed. Even though I withheld judgment during my watch given how quickly the show usually confirms that kind of stuff with a possession mark, just simply casting that doubt made the whole build up that much more intense.

ZYC slowly walking down the corridor with the whole grounds lit a somber and haunting gold—*chef's kiss*

ZYC's monologue to a catatonic ZYZ is so important to me. The closest we'll get to his internal monologue about this whole situation. The kinds of things said when we think there's no conscious listener.

Okay so, having finished this episode and looking back, Li Lun's hands coming up from behind ZYC was not to denote possession (at least in this episode), potentially is a visual from ZYZ's POV, and seems related to the above screencap. I am so, so curious. Once again, I'm stopping myself from further speculation because I want to be surprised but ahhhhhhhhh

PSJ shooting at Ao Yin is so gorgeous. Her action scenes seriously never disappoint—the creativity of her fight choreos!! Also very cool that the whole team is getting to take part in the action, not just the two male leads.

Bai Jiu possession was not on my bingo card but I sure do love that we literally saw the possession take place and I still didn't connect the dots. Good shitttt. Also oh no ): ZYC was telling the truth about the soul needle, he was just tricked ):

Seriously from the Ao Yin case to getting PSJ released to reviving the Divine Wood to getting tricked by possessed!Bai Jiu to making pear soup to fighting ZYZ to fighting Li Lun—when will ZYC get a single goddamn vacation day holy shit.

Also when will WX tear up that contract so ZYZ can stop having a mild heart attack every time he wants to kiss her ): &I love that they saved the 300-year montage for this moment. While their ship doesn't give me brainrot personally, who could be unmoved by that incredible and undisclosed sacrifice? That's soulmatism.

Okay, I'd seen clips of them filming the ZYC and Li Lun fight but damn I did not expect it'd be happening right now!! Right after already taking damage from ZYZ? And my god is Li Lun brutal. The two actors did such an impressive job on this entire fight, what with Li Lun's ease and ZYC's suffering. I really appreciated the extensive hand-to-hand combat after Li Lun literally obliterated ZYC's sword. (Also though, given the origin of that sword, I kept hoping for a flashback to ZYC's brother once it broke, but alas, no dice.) Anyway, the show does not play around about ZYC whump it seems. I was very very shook by that throat punch; that shit legitimately looked like it hurt.

Honestly, I had a hard time with the extended ZYZ and Li Lun conversation at the very end because oh my god someone please heal ZYC lmao. But of course, that's the end of the episode~~

Y'all...check on your local ZYC stans because I was not okay after all that (': I need a heaping dose of comfort after all that hurt, but as always I'm cautious of hoping for much from canon itself. So yeah! Ep 23 was solid, but I would probably be in better shape if today's release just ended on ep 22 ((':

Time to go wait for the cast's Hi6 episode to drop so I can heal my battered heart ;-;

[caliburn-the-sword]

welcome to the secret shanghai hunger games!! may the odds be ever in your favour

The bloodbath:

Biblically accurate romajuliette

secret shanghai tumblr pre-fhh would've been cheering her name. i think we still will because we support womens wrongs

!! the inlaws are fighting!!

WHAT DID I TELL YOU??? ENEMIES TO LOVERS FTW

things not looking so good for the benmars stans (me)

cousins alliance ig??

GUYSSS TELL ME THIS DIDN'T HAPPEN IN FLF. but also. rip to rosalind's and silas' headaches from celia and orion arguing the entire time

take the L. no one press F to pay respects

TAKE THE FUCKING L DIMITRI. THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR BEING A BITCH

this hurts even more when you read it as tvd/ove alisa

PLEASE GUYS SILAS ABANDONED THEM FOR PHOEBE HONG THAT'S SO ICONIC. also literally both of these groups are "i can't believe that it's finally me and you and you and me just us and your friend STEVE" except fuck paul he's no one's friend

Literally only the montagovs have kills by the end of day 1. that's actually so iconic of them

Day 2:

THE GASP I JUST GUSPED. FUCKING TRAITORRRRR

Did you mean: the OVE epilogue?

the inlaws are getting along again~ <3

GIRL YOU'RE SUCH A BACKSTABBER. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE ALLIANCE???

Did you mean: Rosalind Lang for the duration of flf and fhh?

Day 3:

sibling behaviour honestly

Did you mean: Orion's brainwashing arc?

LVC couple are dead </3 also what an oregon trail type death lmao what

NOOOOOO

w- what happened to their alliance in between day 2 and night 3

Day 4:

NOOOOOOO COME ON SILAS YOU'RE BETTER THAN THAT

what i'm hearing is that the tvd duology would've been over in 5 chapters if they just gave phoebe a gun (she would've been 12 years old)

that one scene in the flf duology

NOOOOO. that resurrection button is looking highly clickable rn

Day 5:

and what if i said that rosalind would actually do this if roma posed a threat to orion's life-

i suddenly really don't like our last two contestants

Day 6:

hot girl shit

Day 7:

was it the sprained ankle orion???

CONGRATULATIONS TO ROSALIND

[chiisana-sukima]

Oh when you used to sing it to sleep

@jinkieswouldyoulookatthis and @blue-chimera - thank you both for your kind and thoughtful replies to my reblog of this post. The og post is getting quite long and also I don't want to put too much writing effort into a reblog that's susceptible to disappearance, so I'm continuing here instead.

I agree with you both that Dean's parentification and Sam's continued acceptance of vs rebellion against it as an adult are an important part of their dynamic. Dean's dying words in the finale attest to this beautifully (as well as many other things throughout the course of the show); I love you so much, my baby brother. To a certain extent Sam is Dean's baby and always will be.

I think though to a large extent, the framing by both Sam and Dean of Dean as Sam's parentified elder sibling is a mutually employed, mostly cooperative sanitization of the central and most damaging aspect of the roles they internalized through their upbringing: Sam is a monster and Dean is the tool to "take care of" it (double reading of "take care of" 100% intentional on my part). Because of this, while readings of spn through the lens of Dean's parentification are definitely valid, I do think they sometimes risk distorting or leaving out important aspects of the characters' personalities, motivations, and relationship.

Jinkies, in my fruitless quest to process without reblogging a take I knew the OP wouldn't appreciate, I had listened to the interview before posting, and I think while Jensen is being flip, he's also getting at what he sees as a truth in the brothers' relationship. I think he's right from a Doylist/co-creator/actor's perspective--Sam is the protagonist who we see through Dean, the deuteragonist's, eyes. Dean, as a piece of the narrative artifact, Supernatural, is there to save Sammy in a way that Sam (up to that point anyway) is not a piece of the narrative artifact whose purpose is to save Dean. From a Watsonian/in-universe perspective though, I think he's mistaken, and that his mistake is the reason his take sounds uncharitable, even aside from the flippant part.

It's just not a very convincing analysis imo to frame a character who spends the first few seasons rejecting immoral power, the next few in an arc that ends with him willingly subjected himself to eternal torture for the good of the world, and the one after that intending to sacrifice himself dramatically to rid the world of one particular species of monster but doesn't because Dean asks him not to, as self-absorbed or not particularly concerned with his effect on others, including on his brother. Likewise, Dean holds up well as a parentified older sibling with no sense of internal self and abysmal self-esteem in some ways, but in others not so much. He does have interests and priorities and a sense of purpose outside Sam. They're all over spn every day, much more so in fact than Sam's are. They're just not enough to override his Sam prioritization.

The main place I think this analysis fails on Dean's side though is that he, as an adult, is just not a very good parent. Obviously as a child he couldn't be expected to be a good parent (or a parent at all) and as an adult he's already damaged and so it's understandable that if big brother-ing Sam is how he chooses to spend the rest of his life, he may still not be equipped to do it. But he fails on such a fundamental, obvious level at the the most basic aspects of parenting--providing safety, unconditional love, and preparing your child to go out into the world as an independent adult--in ways that once he's a grown up are absolutely within his power to at least attempt (for example: if he wants Sam to be safer, it would ultimately have failed because of Fate, but the logical thing to do first would be not hunt. Dean could've followed Sam to Palo Alto. He could've told him to go to Harvard Law if he can't tolerate Stanford after Jess dies. Could've refused to support him throwing his life away of a mission of revenge. Bought him his own car, encouraged him to have his own tastes. Told him convincingly that trusting Ruby was a bad decision but Lucifer is still not his fault).

None of that is meant to be insulting to Dean though, because I don't think that parenting Sam is Dean's real job--even from Dean's perspective--and I don't think his real job is palatable enough that it would be better for either of them if he admitted what it is head on. What his and Sam's real jobs both are imo is being a container for Sam. On Dean's side, this means holding Sam in his arms with love or if that's not enough, holding him in the panic room, which, from this perspective, is also an act of love. Substituting his judgement for Sam's is an act of love. Not encouraging Sam to hold his own interests first or to grow towards independence are acts of love. Given the nature of (what I believe to be) Dean's actual job, they are effective and competent acts of love undertaken under impossible circumstances, even if the results are sometimes pretty horrific. Because they're still better than the alternative.

Likewise on Sam's side, doing his job well means being a model monster--go to an Ivy, exercise, eat healthy, cultivate empathy, don't have desires of your own, hold yourself to an impossible standard, suppress your anger, kill other monsters when they get out of line. And in the moments he can't manage all that--because who can?-- submit to Dean. When he does those things, he's succeeding at his job, and while it would be nice if "let your brother hit you" or "jump in the Cage with Lucifer" wasn't his job, in the world of spn, it is. He is right to be contained by Dean and wrong to have opinions or priorities of his own unless Dean approves them first.

I do think this sometimes ends up looking like Sam has better self-regard, because Dean's job is to "take care of" Sam, and Sam's job is also to "take care of" Sam. But actually they both have absolutely abysmal shit self-esteem. "I should submit to eternal torture because it's my fault someone else is going to do terrible things he could choose not to do if he wanted" is not the thinking of a person with healthy self-regard. The reason neither of them could fill a thimble with their self-esteem or healthy boundaries imo is because neither "monster" nor "blunt instrument" is a person. Neither of these roles is better or more healthy than the other. Fundamentally, if you don't see yourself first and foremost as a human person, then your life is going to suck horribly. And neither of them see themselves that way.

[whumpshaped]

thinking about whumpee who just wants to engage in freaky funtime. they've gone through the horrors and they never want to go through them ever again- but being afraid is so very fun and they're badgering caretaker for it endlessly. but whenever caretaker demonstrates any willingness, whumpee immediately goes "but it'd just be play, right? it'd be pretend?" making caretaker think that maybe it's just not a good idea. whumpee just seems so anxious. it's like they love the idea of it, but any talk of execution makes them recoil.

still, they eventually work out an arrangement. whumpee is jittery as ever, testing out the safeword a thousand times to see whether caretaker would really stop. they say it before and after caretaker is finished tying them to the chair, they ask "but it's all pretend, yeah? you're not mean for real? it's all bluffs?" another hundred times, then they follow it up with "no, i do want this, i do, i just wanna make sure it's not too scary, or real"

and then caretaker gets into the rhythm, and whumpee is immediately captivated. all that nervous energy that should absolutely be there during play like this just vanishes almost without a trace. whumpee looks the calmest they've looked in a long while, and caretaker can barely believe that someone can be this calm watching them play with a knife and throw out threats

[aparticularbandit]

Look, I know Junko is the Ultimate Fashionista, but in my head, she's really the Ultimate Influencer.

Like how Hiro is technically the Ultimate Clairvoyent, but in my head, he's really the Ultimate Con Man.

[kwyw]

I’m watching the new Fortune Feimster standup special where she’s talking about proposing to her girlfriend and, uh…

The amount of lesbians that choose Big Sur as a Very Special Destination is quite telling. 😏

[torgawl]

if wriothesley doesn't appear in any quest once we get to remuria, what even is the point?

the parallels between wrio and king remus are crystal clear. remus who descended upon meropis (a name very familiar to anyone who knows of the fortress of meropide) in his golden fortuna, the legendary ship of remus that is also called the bringer of civilization and glory (wrio who built a ship to deal with the misfortune upon fontaine) is an example of it.

wrio also has connections to hades with the cerberus motif as guardian of the underworld. it's curious that the tower in remuria is described not only as not built to receive heavenly oracles, serving as a guide to ships traveling between islands, but also as a border of reality and dreams. if this is not necessarily literal but a metaphor or allegory, it could fit very well with the idea of a portal between domains or realms, like life and death.

wriothesley also parallels another character in the genshin universe and that person is arlecchino. they were brought up as orphans, taken in by an institution with corrupted leaders, which they reformed and achieved a leading position of. and funnily enough, she has ties to purgatory (a place for punishment, much like the fortress). as i have said in another post, purgatory has been described by dante as a tower leading to heaven. but we also know that celestia in the genshin world is associated with the demon realm - archons being named after ars goetia, an anonymous grimoire on demonology. although the concepts aren't the same in theory, is it impossible that the game has used elements of both? wriothesley and arlecchino's themes are similar enough to overlap. even though i don't expect wriothesley to be lore revelant anymore, i do think his ties to remuria and his role as someone who punishes others for their sins, much like arlecchino, is very much purposeful.

[fictional-men-enthusiast]

Old Flesh + The Parliament is conservatism.

I said what I said and I’m not taking it back.

[fake-married-my-dead-fiance]

The girls walk off together arm in arm, the guys stand so close together, the general blocking shows two couples. And then Pei is like, "Don't thank me for looking after Wen I didn't do it for you."

Gotta love just having the core members of the ploycule together in this episode.

[deusvervewrites]

Failed Foresight X Turn of Fortune:

Midoriya saved Japan by accidentally trapping Nighteye in a bank vault, thereby preventing him from making shit any worse.

oh my god

[mercurialmalcontent]

Ah, it's spring. The birds are singing, the trees are budding, some kid is outdoors murdering a school-issued recorder...

[madnessofmen]

My friend sent me a picture of him with someone and I was like "who's that hot person next to you, their shirt is cool af. and their necklace—they're a bloodborne fan!" and then I realized it was me.

[fictional-worlds-are-exquisite]

my mum's Christmas present has just arrived into the country I might actually receive it before Christmas omg