#god they are so hot i can't take it

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

[rocketbirdie]

taking matters into my own hands and giving us the gongaga we deserved

[juney-blues]

meat roxy is so funny because that whole thing is indicative of how homestuck is such a deeply transfem story that if you try picking a random character out of a hat to make transmasculine it's basically a coin flip as to whether you're overwriting a transfem narrative of some kind (and it's extra funny because the writers just so happened to roll Snake Eyes, Two Ones, critical failure, and did it to the character with perhaps the most blatant transfem coding of all time that just so happens to beautifully enhance her entire arc)

[yesmissnyx]

Trying to think of a funny and charming way to say, "I'm still alive but my chronic illness is still kicking my ass in turbo mode, so looking at a screen for more than an hour at a time really hurts! I also had the worst gender dysphoria I've had in YEARS for a few months, so it made playing a woman on the internet pretty impossible, but that seems to have calmed down and I'm comfortable with myself again. I miss you guys. I want to come back. I want to feel better enough to come back. I will try to be around here and there, because I like doing this, but I'm very tired and sick. Thank you for understanding."

But I can't, so I'll just give everyone kisses and invite you all to a nice nap in my comfy bed 😤

[prozac-shaped-urn]

OH. OH GOD NO. OH FU-- JESUS NO

guys im losing it im fucking losing it jean is wearing richard's ring in this scene

GUYS I'M LOSING MY GODDAMN MIND I CANNOT TAKE THIS IT HURTS TOO MUCH

[yuurikatsukienthusiast]

Let's talk about episode 11

I have SO many feelings about this episode for so many different reasons. So much happens, and it's hard to encompass everything into words, but I'll be damned if I don't try.

Starting off strong, let's talk about Yuuri's short program and the score he received on it.

I may have been the only one to notice this, but Yuuri's short program at the GPF in Barcelona was not given the usual amount of attention that it was at previous competitions. In regards to both animation and the commentary we usually get during the performances. A lot of it seemed rushed, almost like there was not as much time spent on it. Most of the focus was on Yuuri's second attempted quad flip, which he touched down for.

Yuuri received a score of 97.83 on this performance.

Now, I'm not a genius at figure skating. I only know what I know from Yuri on Ice, but doesn't the inclusion of a quad flip, especially in the second half of the program, boost the score?

Not to mention that Yuuri, as far as we know, skated a very clean program with very few to no mistakes other than when he touched down on the quad flip (which, as mentioned before, already boosts his score for even being included at all). When there are mistakes in a performance, they're typically addressed, and they're mentioned by the commentators or the performers inner monologue.

But there was no indication of anything actually being wrong with Yuuri's short program.

If anything, Oda and Morooka were all but singing Yuuri's praise during his performance, and seemed almost surprised to see that Yuuri hadn't scored higher.

So let's back track for a moment.

Yuuri skated a clean program.

There were no mistakes mentioned in any of the commentary made throughout his performance.

He added a freaking quad flip into the second half of the program, despite touching down.

When taking all of this into consideration, Yuuri's score makes absolutely no sense.

Previously, at other competitions, Yuuri's short program had received a personal best of 106, and that was without the quad flip. He had been consistently beating his PB every time he skated On Love: Eros. So for his score to jump so far backwards after skating a nearly perfect performance makes absolutely no sense.

They completely underscored him.

And I understand why they did it, but that doesn't mean I can't be pissed about it. Especially because of the way they underscored him.

They underscored Yuuri's short program to give Yurio the chance to break Victor's world record. And then they tried to make up for it by having Yuuri break Victor's world record during his free skate, only for him to lose because of how high Yurio's SP score was.

If Yuuri had scored just half a point higher on his SP, he would've won.

Now, I am very aware of why Yurio was the one who won. And I'm glad he did.

(well...sort of. Maybe I'd feel better about it if we had actually gotten a season 2...)

But if they were going to have Yuuri lose, they could've at least made it make sense as to why he lost. They could've easily had Yuuri make a few more mistakes because of his nerves, or even addressed the fact that he got screwed over, and it would've made much more sense. But leaving it completely unacknowledged makes it seem like he was underscored without any good reason.

I really hope I'm making sense here, because if I'm not, I'll cry.

Anyway, I digress. Moving on!

Now, let's address the events that followed Yuuri's SP score. More specifically, Victor's behavior for the rest of the night.

This has been a detail about the show that has bothered me since my first watch through. Let me explain.

After Yuuri's short program, when they receive his score at the kiss and cry, Victor asks himself what Yuuri needs from him, and wonders what he can do for him right then and there. It's a sweet moment of Victor being the concerned fiance we all know and love. It's obvious here that hes grown from his mistakes at the Cup of China, and has learned to be more mindful of Yuuri's emotions.

However, given this context, Victor's behavior throughout the rest of the performances completely backtracks all of that progress.

We all know that Victor isn't the most emotionally intelligent. He can be pretty tone deaf when it comes to emotions, and he tends to be a bit insensitive. But when he and Yuuri have their moment together in the parking garage at the Cup of China, he quickly learns that in order to truly be there for Yuuri, he has to learn how to support him through his anxiety, even if it means dealing with the discomfort that may come with seeing his lover so distraught.

Since then, Victor had done everything in his power to make sure he was supporting Yuuri as much as possible. An example of this is in episode 10, when it's shown to us that Victor has truly started understanding what Yuuri needs from him when he's dealing with anxiety by inner monologuing about watching over him.

And as mentioned before, he has a similar moment to this at the kiss and cry after Yuuri's gpf sp performance. This, again, being a major show of progress when it comes to Victor's character development.

But as mentioned before (again...), as soon as that progress is made, it's immediately reversed again just minutes later.

When Yurio kicks them out of the kiss and cry and takes the ice, there's a brief moment of tension between Victor and Yuuri when they find each other again after being separated for a brief period of time between performances.

Victor is shown intensely watching Yurio skate from a balcony (?) up in the stands. When Yuuri walks up the stairs and calls out to him, he freezes upon seeing Victor's expression.

This is a tense moment for a reason, and it holds a lot more weight to it than a lot of the fandom acknowledges.

This brief, but almost intimidating interaction between the two is over within seconds, but it sends Yuuri into a silent spiral of anxiety.

After Yuuri makes his presence known to Victor, and Victor urges them to find some seats to watch the rest of the programs, it's now Chris's time to take the ice.

The commentators mention Victor and Chris's friendly rivalry, and question how Victor must be feeling to watch Chris from the stands as a coach rather than a competitor. This sparks Yuuri's concern once more.

He begins to connect Victor's behavior from before, when he caught him watching Yurio skate, and right then, as he watches Chris skate. Whatever connection he silently drew between the two moments only seemed to cause him more stress.

So as Yuuri is silently spiraling next to him due to being outscored by both Chris and Otabek, Victor is completely ignoring him in favor of rubbing salt into the wound further by encouraging the other skaters more than his own.

It is obvious that Victor's complete lack of awareness of Yuuri's growing anxiety in these moments is having a significant negative impact on Yuuri's self confidence.

There is a clear conclusion we can draw here based on these interactions.

Seeing Victor react the way he did to Yurio's, Chris's, and Otabek's performances, led him to believe that Victor was disappointed in him and his score.

And while we know this isn't true, what other conclusion could Yuuri have come up with?

And it is probably because of this that Yuuri decided to bring up his retirement to Victor that night. He probably assumed that because of Victor's supposed disappointment, and his obvious longing to be back out on the ice himself, that he'd want to quit anyway.

At least, that's how I personally interpreted these moments. But regardless of how they're interpreted, there's a much bigger message behind them that's much less ambiguous.

And that message is that Victor still has a lot of work to do with his emotional and self awareness issues.

I love Victor to death, but he's not flawless. And episode 11 is a perfect example of that. He loves Yuuri so much, and he would never do anything to intentionally hurt him or tear him down. But he lacks self awareness, and it often leads to his true intentions being misinterpreted.

There's a lot more to say about what Victor's obviously unfinished character development says about what the plans for the show were, and how they connect and contrast the plans for Yuuri's character, but I'll save that for a different post.

All in all, this episode was incredibly frustrating to watch

Between Yuuri being underscored on his short program, and Victor being Victor, it was hard for me to not talk about it.

And let me know if you agree or disagree with any of this. I'm genuinely curious to know what other's thoughts and feelings on this episode were. Because I know that there's still much more about this episode that I could ramble about.

[korn-maze]

Oh My Fuck-

[ilovemesomevincentprice]

Vincent Price circa 1938

*I have more from this set, I'll dig them out and post them when I can.*

[sanasanakun]

Jimithon Mouthwashing is such a good representation of untreated, enabled NPD like it makes me want to squeeze the life out of him. I'm endlessly fascinated when watching him interact with his crew, surroundings, and himself because he's so fucking lost in his own sauce. It's insane. If I'm being real, it makes him my favorite character in the game.

It's a little scary to say, but watching Jimmy is like seeing a mirrored version of myself two years ago before I truly committed to treatment for my NPD. He's like a shadow. The opening line "I hope this hurts," which I believe comes from Jimmy right before the crash, is such a poignant statement. It's a simple line, but I can tell you from experience that the desire to hurt others when in a narcissistic rage is overwhelming. It's such a good line to sum up Jimmy's character in that moment. Luckily, in the real world, I had my friends and family there to catch me when I hit my lowest, even though I'd hurt them so many times. Jimmy probably could've used friends to force him into therapy (cough cough Curly cough cough)

[babsbabbles]

what if I became violently anti-political

[batsplat]

from the stuff i’ve heard marc’s former honda teammates (dani jorge and pol in their media careers but joan also i guess) say about him now that they’re racing is generally quite positive, both on a professional/riding level but also seemingly on a personal level? i’m wondering what you make of that given that, yeah, marc doesn’t seem like a very good teammate (unless you’re alex who i’ve left off this list). like MARC wants to separate on and off track stuff and it seems like all of these guys are willing too at least in retrospect, so he can’t have truly burned bridges with them. do you have any thoughts on that

(x, x) most riders are quite good at not burning bridges with each other! it's not like marc's competitors don't know that this stuff is kinda part of the game. I mean, all of marc's past teammates were also trying to assert themselves within the internal hierarchy... you can say that certain teammates engage in 'worse' behaviour than others, but, like, these people do understand they're supposed to be fighting each other! a baseline degree of nastiness is factored in and will be accepted to a greater or lesser extent by your rivals - especially when it comes to asserting yourself in intra-team power struggles. you might hate the other guy in the moment, but generally speaking once the active part of the rivalry is done with... you will probably get over it. marc's fellow riders are aware of how ultra-competitive marc is - and to a certain point they do respect it, not least because they're aware that this is part of the reason why marc has ended up with all those titles. it's like dani said, right, it's marc's strong suit. and in general, you do have to say that there's relatively few teammate pairings that devolve to the level of toxicity that it completely destroys the interpersonal relationship. you might need some level of preexisting animosity... most of the purely competitive sins can be healed with a little time

on the 'separating on-track and off-track' thing... well. this is kind of a question of how you define these things, you can say that marc generally speaking isn't going to massively hold grudges over isolated on-track incidents or whatever... but he doesn't just leave his fighting to the track, and personally I've also never felt he can entirely separate these things out in his mind. can you really say his professional and private relationships with other riders are completely detached from one another? mostly, he's opted to be pretty disengaged from his fellow riders as a collective, and obviously that's a good way to not take things too personally... it's all part of the game, isn't it? sometimes it's good to go with the straightforward approach: marc tells you he will make your life hell, he does indeed make your life hell, and then you both move on with your lives and can maybe actually have a pretty amiable relationship with him in years to come. he's not really defying your expectations at any point here, is he now? it's still a question for each of them as individuals as to whether they think that kind of behaviour is above board and acceptable or not... but everyone by now knows that marc plays these games, so it's not like they're going in blind

and it's not like other former teammates are constantly badmouthing each other. I mean... look, let's just cut to the chase here and bring in valentino as our reference point (as he is for the sport as a whole, which by the way does also help create a certain baseline of acceptability for marc's antics - maybe goated riders are just supposed to be dicks who knows). vale's premier class teammates were 1) nobody (2000-01), 2) tohru ukawa (2002), 3) nicky hayden (2003; 2011-12), 4) carlos checa (2004), 5) colin edwards (2005-2007), 6) jorge lorenzo (2008-10; 2013-16), 7) maverick vinales (2017-20), 8) franco morbidelli (2021), and 9) andrea dovizioso (2021). of these eight men (let's just exclude 'nobody' for now), do you know how many had serious complaints at any point about valentino as a teammate? that's right, it's one guy. one. some of valentino's other teammates, like hayden, checa and edwards, were even quite actively positive about their whole experience. this is the thing - you do need some specific circumstances for teammate rivalries to escalate from 'being kinda bitchy every other month' to 'actively fantasising about stabbing each other'. not accounting for natural interpersonal animosity, let's list some circumstantial factors that you need to get a bridge-burning-worthy level of feud:

you need a competitive bike. it is possible to beef about development direction when you're in the trenches (cf late 2010's yamaha, 2020's honda)... but generally speaking this is going to be quite low-level petty stuff, not actual war

you also need something that approaches competitiveness between teammates. if one teammate is unquestionably stronger than the other one, then it is very unlikely that you are going to get any open hostilities. the tension comes when the two sides are close enough to each other for the internal hierarchy to actually be a contentious issue (this is also basic self preservation... if you're the far weaker teammate then you do not want to make the situation troublesome, because then you will be the one to be fired)

following on from those first two things... well, it doesn't hurt to have a title fight in the mix. there are also other ways you can generate competitive stakes, like, for instance, if you and your teammate know that one of you will be out of a job soon. basically, it helps to have something to squabble over

it is maybe easy to forget how rare it is this century for teammates to be fighting directly for a title, let alone over the course of multiple seasons. only two 1-2's since the year 2000 and they're both for the factory yamaha's (though 2006, 2011-13 and 2017 did all prominently feature two factory hondas). which means that for valentino, the prerequisites were met just the once in his premier class career... and yes, the results were pretty memorable, but (topic! for! another! post!) it's worth pointing out that even that relationship was pretty much 'fine' whenever there was a sizeable disparity between the two of them performance-wise (2008 and 2013 are the most clear cut examples). I think the way I'd frame it with marc is that he has a bunch of mildly dubious strategies up his sleeve to assert himself within the team, which don't really deviate that far from what you'd expect from a rider of marc's calibre and only need to be escalated under specific circumstances. that doesn't mean he doesn't have the potential to be ruthless, but up until now it's mostly been a fairly 'acceptable' level of ruthlessness on the intra-team level... and not something that is likely to make other riders actually hate him

taking marc's teammates one by one... dani was the closest to meeting the bridge-burning prerequisites, though he was only a title rival in marc's rookie season. and marc did go further with him than he did with anyone else, and dani has made some pointed comments about marc's style as a teammate... but yes, he is fonder of marc these days. partly I'd just emphasise again that this is a fairly natural progression when you've stopped directly competing for long enough, and partly it's also just a question of individual personality - dani's not massively into holding grudges. then there's jorge, who... I mean, they might as well not have been teammates, given that jorge was either too slow or too injured to even be sharing any track space with marc. you have to put that one down primarily to circumstance, seeing as jorge's own track record on the teammate front isn't exactly spotless. marc and jorge beefing in 2019 would have been pretty dumb and also a massive waste of everyone's time in a year in which marc singlehandedly won the team's championship. even those two needed more to get things going

moving on to the dark years, pol and marc had an extremely stop-and-start partnership on a honda that was generally pretty uncompetitive... so the only stuff they could get ever so mildly irritable about were riveting incidents like 'marc saying pol wasn't the biggest championship threat' (neither of them were) or 'pol saying he'd copy marc's set up' (which proved entirely useless). not exactly title decider territory, is it now, and marc very much had pol covered as a challenger throughout their partnership. also, those two do have a longer history! they've known each other since they were kids and hold a pretty significant place in each other's careers. now that pol's more or less retired, it's natural there'll be quite a lot of sentimentality there - which will paper over any small cracks that appeared during those two years. and joan was a one year teammate at a time in which the bike was consistently close to offing them both. they only managed to start a sunday race together as teammates on thirteen occasions. it would take some serious effort to engineer a feud with that little opportunity, and, really, why on earth would you bother. maybe if honda had gone for rinsy rather than joan for the factory seat, it could've been a bit more prickly, but it's unlikely that it would have escalated beyond that

this is the thing, right, the only one of these partnerships that would have been worth burning bridges over was dani, and even there marc pretty much had him handled after the first season. in general, marc has been pretty clear on how he's not interested in making friends with the other side of the garage while the teammate relationship is ongoing... which is fine! there's some prominent-ish teammate pairings that are actually good friends, some teammate pairings where one of them is actively helping out and advising the other one, but some riders prefer to just keep their distance. it would have been a little silly of marc to start a feud with a teammate who is galaxies away from being a competitive threat, let alone a title rival, but generally it is possible to toe the line between 'attempting to suppress your internal rivals enough to stop them from becoming a problem for you' and 'taking radical enough action to make your internal rivals despise you'

especially in the post-dani era, marc never really had any need to push things too far... and, let's face it, how many of your teammate relationships end up with burnt bridges is also quite frankly a question of luck and circumstance. do you want to guess which top rider on paper has the worst track record this century with premier class teammate feuds, in terms of a) how many they've had, and b) how little public reconciliation there has been since the end of the rivalry?

yes, that's right, it's the first name that comes to mind when you're thinking of toxic and conflict-prone riders: andrea dovizioso. that old devil, constantly causing trouble. just couldn't stop undermining his poor, innocent teammates. can somebody please stop this ruthless bully before it's too late

I think you get the point. I would personally suggest that dovi is not in fact the worst teammate it is possible to have in a motogp top team. he just happened to find himself in a situation where he was teammates with two separate guys he did not click with at all, in situations that involved a pairing of riders who were (or had the potential to be) competitive with each other, as well as some proper stakes attached to the rivalry. in general, situational factors are going to determine this stuff more than anything else... and marc more often than not does have a reasonably good feel for picking his battles. he's flirted with the line, but he's mostly avoided crossing it. he hasn't had to

[girl-drink-drunk]

dr. mordrid fucks tho

[beastsovrevelation]

I recently found out people ship Cassandra with Apollo.

My initial reaction was...

Just tan their hides. You know what happened to her because the the bastard, don't you?..

Then, I was overwhelmed by morbid curiosity, and checked AO3. People are writing rape fics about them. ...Why?..

Could I ever see Cassandra x Apollo?.. I don't know, maybe. But, definitely not the nonsense I mentioned. Dubcon at most. I guess, he might somehow coerce her into sleeping with him, and later rescue her from the fall of Troy, because she's pregnant with his child, or something (Zeus would be pissed, I'm fine with that).

Sounds like an intriguing story, with a lot of morally questionable elements. I can imagine Apollo confiding in Artemis, wondering why his wife is so upset. She'd just go "are you serious rn?.. -_-".

...What, you're surprised I'm among those I wish to hide with a broom? Don't be. It happens quite often, actually.

[girlthativealwaysbeen]

just found out that instead of my mom my fucking shitass dad is coming home FOR A WEEK

[tlgtw]

MGSV really is *so* misogynistic it is honestly hard to believe. It has ONE named female character, just one. And holy shit, the things they make that single woman do.

I don't know what happened. Or how Kojima thought what we was doing was defensible.

I could just link to the introduction of the SKULL snipers from Mission 28 Code Talker but even that I feel is so unbelievable to see with your own eyes that it would exit the mind as soon as it stopped playing.

Literally every criticism made during that era toward's this game is accurate. Every single one.

It might legit be the WORST example of "male gaze," literally literally ever. Out of everything.

If MGSV had outright no women in it whatsoever it would be better than what this is.

The cutscene for when Big Boss comes to Mother Base after not showering was what sealed it for me.

And the fact that there were people back then who thought they could defend this perhaps makes it even more deranged.

[greyias]

So I’ve reached a point where I’m seriously considering going back to an earlier save file to revert a choice I made. Because the further I go on, the more I realize my previous decision is just not working for me. (It’s not the mushroom — the mushroom is just gone, there’s no going back. My stupid paladin ate it mid-battle and choices or misclicks in this case have consequences).

No. This is bigger than all of that. I’ve tried to move on, gone through several cutscenes and battles and can confidently say.

This adamantine armor.

is ugly af.

And I miss my girl having this somewhat iconic (in my mind) look that I’ve associated her with. Are the stats better on the adamantine armor? SURE. Does it make my AC higher? YEAH. Can no one score a critical on me while I’m wearing it. DOT DOT DOT YES.

But it’s also way too shiny and bright and reflective. It washes out her face in cutscenes. YOU CAN’T SEE HER FRECKLES. Those freckles are important! The neck on it is too tall. The silhouette is all wonky and square and bulky. It glows in weird spots. It dyes horribly and is just distractingly shiny in every cutscene. I even tried to give it a cape to make it look all fancy and it just didn’t matter.

And she just looks like some generic MMO character now.

Where is my crest of devotion? My lovely blue tabard? The loving and intiricate golden embroidery? Where is the fashion my dears? Is it smart to wear my starting armor to end or even mid game content? NO. Maybe I'll live through a fight but at what cost???? Look at that face! How can I make her wear something ugly?

She deserves the best.

So either I give it to another party member who could use a boost in AC and the ability to resist crits… or I roll back (thankfully not too far, just the Arcane Tower bits) and create an adamantine shield. Thankfully, I had enough foresight to create a save file called “second forge item”, so I don’t have to go through that boss fight again. But like… DECISIONS MAN.