#holy fuck the backstory section got long as hell

[akirenhell]

Devilman OC: Azrael, the angel of death

SO AFTER AN UNGODLY AMOUNT OF TIME, I've finally decided to make a post about one of my most developed OCs I've had. (who is also related to Devilman. How surprising.)

Before starting, however, I wanna give a huge shout-out to @missn11 and @amyfartsart for the wonderful drawings they did of my boy. Seriously, go check out their art if you're also a Devilman fan. They're both a joy to talk to. ^w^

As the title suggests, Azrael is the angel of death in the Devilman world, with his main job being appeasing dying souls and then guide them to the afterlife; be it Heaven, Purgatory or Hell. It should be worth noticing that the angel is the "unnoficial" ruler of Hell as well (since he's related to Ryo/Satan), so he also makes sure to keep everything under control in the land of the damned. At least, as much as he can help it.

Despite his gloomy appearance and quiet nature, Azrael is a kind and sweet person. He’s always willing to help people, and he’s quite friendly as well. So much so he's even able to befriend demons of all beings, besides just humans, which makes sense considering everyone is equal in death’s eyes. He’s also incredibly curious, to the point that almost becomes a fatal flaw for him considering it can get him into danger.

However, Azrael isn’t as innocent as he seems. He can be quite cocky when he wants to, and despite being a silent dude, he’s a surprisingly strong angel in battle. So much to the point he became a rather feared fighter for demonkind. He’s overall a rather lovable dork, so long as you don’t get on his bad side.

While his main job as an angel of death is to appease dying souls, he doesn't always gives the same treatment to the souls of rotten, corrupted people. In fact, they might get something worse and more terrifying coming from Azrael before he drags them to Hell with him.

On the same topic, Azrael has a bit of a dislike for “unnecessary death”, especially when it comes to wars or politics that bring more bad than good when it comes to humanity or demons. Even more so if it is something that can be easily avoidable. He also has a strong dislike towards injustice, and will call out those who genuinely oppress someone with their ignorance. He’s not even afraid to be brutally honest with them.

~~Little bit of backstory and fun facts about Azrael in readmore~~

Powers and abilities:

-Being able to fly

-Superhuman strength

-Incredibly quick healing/regenerative abilities

-Can teleport himself

-Invisibility

-Can lend some of his powers to anyone by just handing them a feather

-Cannot die

-Facial distortion

-Shapeshifting

-Telepathy

-Merging with a living being and allowing them to use his powers

Trivia:

-Azrael got most of his fighting abilities thanks to the demon champion Amon taking him under his care.

-While Azrael can fight bare hands, he tends to use his whips most of the time, with one made out of leather and the other made out of silver. (Think of it like something from Castlevania). He also has a scythe, but oddly enough, he doesn’t use it in battles that often.

-Azrael actually has a castle in Hell, which is located in the first circle of Hell known as Limbo. It’s called Pandemonium, and a few demons live there with him.

-He has three demon familiars. A goblin, a pixie and an imp. They're his most trusted allies and they're based on the horsemen of the apocalypse. (Besides death).

-Since Azrael can shapeshift, he can turn into a crow or a black cat.

-Azrael’s bodily temperature is incredibly cold, which not only allows him to travel around the hottest spots in Hell with very little problem, but it also allows him to eat the spiciest of foods you could ever think of.

-Huge video game nerd.

-While Azrael genuinely cares about humans and thinks they’re interesting, there is some stuff about them that he can’t help but find weird. An example would be why they are so obsessed with the meaning of life, why some of them need to follow a religion, things like that.

-He’s a surprisingly decent cook, and has occasionally cooked demon meat before.

-He sometimes uses his whips to fish.

-Azrael possesses the terrifying ability of being able to distort his own face, which he can use to make the most scary of expressions that look like something straight out of the Mandela Catalogue. Some demons are genuinely horrified by this ability of his.

-Azrael keeps a journal where he writes down information about demons. It also has a few silly doodles of demons as well, as some sort of reference picture for each one.

-While Azrael cannot die by any means, the only way that he could be killed would be if it was done by his own hand.

Backstory:

While living in Heaven, Azrael was a bit of an outcast amongst the angels due to his gloomy appearence and quiet nature, with Satan being one of the few who he talked to. The two angels developed a brotherly bond between each other as time went on.

After getting the job of angel of death, it didn't take too long for Azrael to discover the existence of the demons, which was a frightening discovery as he ended up losing an arm during an ambush. Thankfully, it grew back thanks to his healing abilities, and despite the horror that shook him to his very core and the pain inflicted on his body, Azrael's morbid curiosity desired to know more about the demons.

With only his heart and instinct to guide him through, Azrael would continue with his job of reaping souls while living in the brutal world of the demons, gaining allies and enemies along the way. He even encounters Satan once more, who's now the main ruler of the demons, and the two decide to keep in contact with each other.

However, thanks to the violent and raunchy nature of the demons, Heaven's ruler, God, decides to destroy them by sending several angels to Earth in an attempt to hunt them down, with the attacks becoming more and more frequent as time goes by. It gets so intense to the point Satan has to request Azrael if he would join the demons’ side so that he could aid them in the war.

Unfortunately, due to a mix of fear and hesitation of wanting to hurt his divine siblings, Azrael has to decline the offer; and while it pains Satan, he somewhat understands his decision. However, the three-headed demon Zennon (one of Satan’s second in command) isn’t pleased at all by this and angrily declares Azrael a traitor of demonkind, something a lot of demons end up believing as well. Considering he isn’t longer welcome there, the angel ultimately ends up leaving in exile.

While Azrael still doesn’t end up joining the battle and remains neutral to both the forces of Heaven and the demons, he still tries to aid the demons in any way he can by building shelters where the weaker or smaller demons can hide from the war. All while he focuses on collecting the souls of the dead demons, and witnessing just how brutal his siblings have become by mindlessly destroying what was once a chaotic yet beautiful world.

Eventually, Azrael is taken back to Heaven after he has been found out helping the demons, and after a rather heated argument with God, the angel of death ends up being trapped in a void of darkness that leads him to Hell; the afterlife of the demons and the enemies of Heaven.

Once the war is over, and with the demons (alongside Satan) buried bunder the ice to gather strength, Azrael gets free again; still quite affected over what happened. In fact, he barely talks to God and his other angelic siblings at this point, spending more time on Earth collecting souls and even in Hell or the void, for he no longer feels safe in the realm of Heaven.

From here on, the events of Devilman take place. Something Azrael ends up witnessing on every detail, including how the human Akira Fudo became a devilman thanks to his friend Ryo Asuka (who Azrael quickly assumes is actually Satan taking the form of a human), his battles with several demons…And the tragic end of the world by the demons revealing themselves to humanity, driving them insane with paranoia, and with the demons and devilmen going through a war with no winner.

Things would get worse as not only Akira ends up dying, but Azrael eventually finds out about the timeloop God has put Satan through as punishment for what he did thousands of years ago.

Obviously, due to his fear, Azrael at first tries to stay out of this; thinking Satan deserved such a fate upon him. However, the longer the time loop continues, and the more suffering he sees, the angel starts to realize just how utterly cruel this punishment is. It doesn’t help that, loop after loop, Satan starts to become more jaded and emotionally exhausted, to the point Azrael is worried his brother could become an empty shell of his past self.

Once he realizes just how utterly despicable this is, Azrael finally makes his choice: to finally stop God from putting his creation under such a vicious cycle of self destruction, even if it means he has to kill the being he once called “father” to free Satan, Akira, the demons and all of humanity.

[insanepoll]

[ID: white slide with a picture of goro akechi with a transparent background taking up almost all of the page. behind him, there is a submission that can’t be completely seen bc of the picture of goro, but reads:

hes literally so insane and so so stupid omg, like this guy has dedicated so much of his life to getting revenge on his dad, and his whole plan was to fucking work for him and help him achieve his goal of being prime minister and then tell him "oh yeah btw im your illegitimate son that you abandoned how does it feel to know that you only got here bc of me loser" like dude????? thats a shit plan what are you on????? and like he was so focused in on this stupid ass plan that when his dad started ordering him to kill people for political reasons he was just like "welp no turning back now" like dude??????? (to be fair his dad wouldve probs killed him he disobeyed but uhhhh yeah my point still stands this teenager is not mentally stable AT ALL)

he hides behind masks like CONSTANTLY too like obvi he pretends to be a good little lackey for his dad, but like he's also a celebrity (he's a highschool detective, girls think he's hot i guess)(and i guess he is actually kinda smart cuz hes a good detective but like my point still stands that hes so fucking stupid at the same time like. my god.) he like puts on this whole goody-two-shoes shtick that the media and all his fangirls are SO in love with but like hes not like that at all hes so fucking unhinged deep down like holy shit

when you get confront him in the second to last palace he tries to fucking kill akira(the main character) and his friends but like its mostly abt akira specifically??? and like dude calm the fuck down WHY are you so bloodthirsty man, i know you wanna kill akira and rip him apart, i know you despise him because you're jealous of him, i knowwwwww dude god and when you get him as a party member in the secret third semester section of the game he is just so fucking unhinged

in the battle segments just goes on and on about how the shadows are weaklings and hes gonna have so much fun ripping them to shreds hes so bloodthirst and unhinged you dont understand

OH OH AND HES GAY AS HELL DID I MENTION THAT his whole relationship with the mc is so homoerotic my god dude and the only thing stopping them from getting together is the sheer force of goro's emotional contipation ohhhhhh my god dude your just jealous of him!!!! thats not what hatred is dude!!! you fully enjoy akira's company and cherish his companionship! you showed him your favorite place to go, somewhere youve never shown to anyone! you went to a cafe together! you shared your tragic backstory with him while you two BATHED TOGETHER ALONE! you couldve killed him or arrested him for being a phantom thief a long time ago but you kept hanging out with him!!!!!! he kept your glove! he almost surrendered to a fabricated reality just so you could live!!!!! the only reason he didnt is because he knew you wouldnt want to live under someone else's control!!!!!

sorry this became a shuake rant at the end in conclusion, he may be every good at hiding it but he is in fact incredibly unhinged anyway if you wanna see him being unhinged in action here's some videos for you viewing pleasure: (the cutscenes are the important parts, timestamps are 0:00, 8:43, 10:50, 21:30(ok this cutscene doesnt show him being unhinged but it is important to me that you see it)) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tVAekUc-lg (most of the quotes after 7:02 are unhinged but feel free to listen to the whole thing if you wanna see the difference between the real him and the good boy facade) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IygJD2Et74E&t=4s

/End ID.]

[shipskicksandgiggles]

What’s your favorite book?

it’s called Fan Art by Sarah Tregay

I just finished rereading it less than 12 hours ago but the story of how I found this book is equal parts hilarious and improbable okay?

when I was 12 or 13, I was new to a few things: 1. having an iPod touch, 2. Instagram, and 3. stumbling headlong into being gay. these three things culminated into the strangest thing you wouldn’t think of, but at the time, anyone who wanted queer rep read Rainbow Rowell’s books (it’s fucked, I know, but that’s how it was for me back then), and Fangirl had come out right around this time, so I went to my local library on my bicycle to pick up a copy

long story short: I grabbed the wrong book

the long story: I go over to the r-s-t isle of the YA section and start looking by title (stupid, but it was the largest print on the spines and therefore easier for my blind ass). my gaze lands on the word “fan” and I pick up with book without another thought

right away, I realize that this was not the right book, but the title is intriguing and I flip open the cover to read the summary. it’s a love story, but I resisted the urge to slam it shut and put it on the return cart. turns out, it’s a gay love story. a closeted graphic designer in love with his straight, straight-A best friend. it literally shaped who I am as a person now, and honestly considering it was written in 2014, it holds up decently enough that I’d recommend it to anyone who asks

I carried that book around my Christian school like it was contraband holy hell the way I thought I was gonna burst into flames was insane. I was giddy when I got away with it

the backstory is probably unnecessary, but I think it’s so funny that I had to share

ask anything you want to know about me

[botslayer]

Octodad: Not-so-dark theory

From top to bottom, Octodad looks like a fairly innocent game, A simple story about an Octopus trying to survive in suburbia. But, through subtle hints and references, and inconsistencies with that premise, it is revealed that Octodad is no mere cephalopod. He is, in fact, something far more horrifying, on paper at least... What do I mean?

Octodad is not, in truth, an Octopus, He's a Cthulhi. For those not familiar with the works of H.P. Lovecraft, Cthulhi are also called "The Starspawn of Cthulhu" and "Xothians," and are a race that looks like Cthulhu who's true origins, as with everything in the Cthulhu mythos, are debatable and vague as sin, the only things known for a fact are that they look like Cthulhu (Or, in their first appearance, like Octopi), worship him, followed him from their home dimension/universe into ours, and then perished en masse while what remained of them went into a death-like sleep, same as Cthulhu.

Now, Star Spawn aren't often seen in the works of Lovecraft, but they do have a sliver of popularity in the fandom. Not as big (in the popularity sense) as Deep Ones, but not as unknown as the humble Penguins of Leng. Now, again, it's worth noting that common interpretations of Star Spawn are basically baby Cthulhus, just tiny versions of their dark and malevolent master, but to start with, they were described as "a land race of beings shaped like octopi and probably corresponding to the fabulous pre-human spawn of Cthulhu," in the story "At the Mountains of Madness." 

Octodad highly RESEMBLES an octopus, but with some interesting tweaks. Namely: His eyes, two of his Tentacles, and something we'll talk about in just a minute. But let's talk about Octodad's anatomy when compared to another octopus, namely, the one in the "Wold of kelp" at the Aquarium.

Now, this is Octopus is a giant, climbable sculpture one might see at a water park, so in a technical sense, some liberties could have been taken with its anatomy, but it looks semi-accurate to real octopi, down to the slit-like pupils and the tentacles all being at roughly the same spot despite them spreading out for kids to climb on. Now, if you pay attention, a patron of the Aquarium will note that the "World of kelp" was something else before it was the world of kelp, though they THINK it was "Squids or something" before. Based on how the section played out, I have to believe the whole affair was either cephalopods in general given how many bases of just kelp they went over, or just Octopi because HOLY CRAP there are lots of octopi out there. Failing that, I don't think the statue was a squid to begin with, the eyes are far too forward on the head, what can be seen of the tentacles makes them all look the same, and most species of squid have circular pupils and irises, not slits/rectangles. 

Octodad, in contrast to the sculpture, has vertically ovular pupils, far rounder than the slits on the larger statue, on top of that, his eyes take up a slightly larger portion of his head. Then we take a look at Octodad's tentacles, namely the two that form his mustache. These two tentacles are set away from the other six in a way that makes no real anatomical sense for an octopus. Not to mention that the two are preposterously shorter than the others, it's less like another pair of tendrils and more like a strange growth coming out of the middle of his head. Moving on from that, there's also a certain disparity with his other limbs, his "arms" are shorter than his "legs" when he stands, however, when he enters water, his limbs, save for his mustache, are all of equal length, this strange effect carries over to when he's buck-ass naked, so no, he isn't just scrunching two up while he's in the suit... Speaking of naked octodad:

What the hell is that THING in the midst of his tentacles? It's a lighter color than the others, he's still using two tentacles per leg, one per arm, and his mustache is basically vestigial. Octodad's anatomy makes no fucking sense unless you consider the idea that he has some level of shapeshifting power... and wouldn't you know it, Cthulhi have just that. To what end is a little shakey, as with most things in the Lovecraft universe, but still.

Also worth noting is the church Octodad got married at, a Church dedicated, at least partly, to Cthulhu himself. Now, we only see one window with any kind of figure on it, Cthulhu, wereas the others are all decked out with a strange symbol, as are a few paintings lining the walls of it. These paintings may be of religious significance to the practitioners of this particular faith, but a lot of it looks like some minimalist "If you get it you get it" kind of stuff, and then one is literally a crayon drawing of a child with a smiling balloon. The last vaguely Lovecraftian thing in the church is the treasure chest Octodad gets his wife's ring from, all the coins within have a squid/cuttlefish-like creature printed on them, In the story "Shadow over Innsmouth," the people of a town called "Innsmouth" start breeding with fish people. They did it specifically for the undersea gold the fish people (called Deep Ones) give out for the service. Deep Ones worship multiple gods, cheif among them are their great parents, Mother Hydra and Father Dagon, though worship of Cthulhu isn't against their laws or anything. 

The game takes a break from the hints of Eldrich horror while the family is at home, though it is worth noting that we don't REALLY know where Octodad's children came from. Hell, the game makes a joke about it at the end, Tommy asks, plain as day, "If dad's an octopus... Then where did me and Stacy come from?" While his parents laugh the question off, it has a few possible answers: The two of them (Or just Tommy) are leftover from a failed relationship/marriage Scarlet was a part of before Octodad came in, the two (Or just Tommy) are adopted, or, in a manner not dissimilar to deep ones, Cthulhi may just be able to breed with humans in this universe. 

Now, I say Tommy may be adopted/Not Octodad's specifically because Stacy says something concerning in the "Deep sea" exhibit at the Aquarium. She apparently has dreams wherein a deep, dark spot in the ocean seems to call to her. This turns out to be a sea horse ranch. Cute as that is, dreams are a recurrent theme in Lovecraft's work, sometimes compelling people into the service of Great old ones like Gla'aki, for example. Or there was that one story when a guy met Yog-Sothoth, the omniscient and omnipresent god of the universe just because he dreamed that deeply. Also "The Dreamlands" are a place in Lovecraft's fiction. I could keep going down that rabbit hole, but I'm lazy and I think that point is made.

There is also another reference (Possibly) to "Shadow over Innsmouth" and "Dagon" with the character of Chef Fujimoto. Now, Fujimoto himself is not a reference to anything in particular, but his backstory has some Lovecrafty bits. Namely, Fujimoto was once a soldier (Dagon) who cut open a combatant. Instead of human guts, "Piles of fish" were inside. (Shadow over Innsmouth.) This one might be a little more of a stretch but remember that Fujimoto is OBSESSED with Octodad and believes very firmly that there are fish people everywhere. ("Why is everyone fish!?") There are several Lovecraftian stories where the character feels he is being pursued or is surrounded in some way. Call of Cthulhu ends with one of the characters feeling that the cult is gunning for him, partly because some dude looked at him funny, and Dagon ended with the main character fearing that a servent of Dagon was coming up his stairs after him, so he threw himself out a window. The crippling paranoia experienced by Fujimoto is another hint that SOMETHING Eldrich is happening in the universe of Octodad. 

Also worth noting is that a magazine entitled "Inquisitor" can be found at Gervason's, Octodad is on the cover, and they think he's an alien. Which begs the question: Why is it that most humans will let an obviously strange man do things without much concern at all? Hell, there are three lines present in both the main game and one of the extra shorts that imply EVERYONE sees something is wrong with Octodad. And I quote/paraphrase:

"I thought he was a lawyer?" "He's slimy enough to be one."

"Is it just me or did the captain look jigglier than usual?"

"Hmmm, I don't see a blurblerulb on the list." 

These lines imply on some level that people recognize SOMETHING is wrong or different with Octodad but they don't carry the thought far enough to do anything with it... Unless perhaps at a distance, hence that cover of “Inquisitor.” 

Another thing that tends to happen in Lovecraftian horror is the mind not making proper sense of things. For example: Canonically in the mythos, the image of Cthulhu mankind sees, humanoid body, octopus head, draconic wings, etc, is not what he really looks like, it's just our perception of Cthulhu because our minds aren't equipped to comprehend the real deal. Looking too long at just what we can see of Cthulhu will unravel your mind, causing both insanity and death if exposed even longer. I think that's part of Octodad's effect. When he's dressed, the humans around him perceive what their mind makes sense of. He's in a shirt and pants, therefore he is appropriately dressed as a human, therefore their minds SEE a human even if he's not QUITE right. We see, rather obviously, that he doesn't have human hands, he has tentacles with suckers, but Scarlet refers to it as a "Hand" still, this implies she and others see his appendages as hands or feet when he's disguised or doing something "Human enough." Only really undone if he's naked or does too many strange or seemingly malicious things like accidentally smack someone with a bag of doughnuts.

This is why you can get away with randomly dragging things across the floor, their minds are telling them something is a little off, but their ability to perceive might be telling them he's just got a medical condition or something. It's nothing to judge him for, he's just got a disability. 

So at the end of that trail, what are we left with? Octodad as a Xothian/Deep one hybrid? Does that fundamentally change the game's story? Does this mean Octodad is a dark horror from beyond? Does he secretly seek to kill and maim and destroy all the things we hold dear? Will he one day help awaken Cthulhu and usher in the new age of the great old ones? No. See, Octodad, despite his horrifying inspirations, is a benevolent creature. He "blubs with a love for all mankind" in the ending for Dadliest Catch. He still obviously loves and cares for his family, whether they know his secret or not. He's just an alien from another dimension... or at least he has ancestry from another dimension. 

Now, why is that? I've got two little ideas for that: It's an often found interpretation that most of the original writings of Lovecraft focus on the idea that "It is different, therefore it is bad." Xenophobia of an extremely high sort. Mind you, I often find this interpretation lacking, but we can probably discuss that later. I feel Octodad may be a natural extrapolation of the idea that it isn't bad because it's different, in fact, Octodad, despite keeping a secret, is an all-around "good" guy. Upstanding, moral, all that garbage, he just happens to be non-human.  Something supporting this being a running theme is the scene with the Snugglefish. For those who have yet to play Dadliest catch, a section of the game takes place when the power in part of the Aquarium goes partially out. During this event, Octodad and Stacy come upon a large sculpture of a creature called a “Snugglefish.” which is covered by the dark. We shine lights at the supposedly malevolent creature, complete with monstrous teeth and evil red eyes, partially with the intent to “Blind it” despite the fact that its obviously a statue. That whole section up to then is nothing but fumbling in the dark, looking at the strange and some might say “alien” life living in the deep ocean, you can also learn some stuff about them if you pay attention.  The whole thing ends when you fully light up the spots on the statue, revealing it to BE a Snuggle fish as opposed to some giant monster. As a result of revealing this, Stacy’s fears of it go right out and she feels she understands the creature better, as with most things, learning and understanding quiet one’s fears. when we learn what something is, we stop seeing it as an immediate threat is the take away from that section, I think, which is, again, I’d say, a call to Lovecraft's writings and his fear of that which was different and unknown and how it’s so easily thrown out with just a LITTLE understanding.

Another plausible explanation for Octodad’s kindness may be that Octodad is not a Star Spawn of Cthulhu, but of Kthanid. Kthanid is not an original creation of H.P. Lovecraft, but a bloke by the name of "Brian Lumley." Lumley's creation is the brother of Cthulhu, and is considered the main reason Cthulhu is sealed away these days. Kthanid is said to look almost exactly like Cthulhu but to have "Golden eyes that radiate peace." He's a loving, benevolent "Elder God" that wants the best for not just Humanity, but for all things. It would logically follow that if a creature dedicated itself to Kthanid, or was one of his spawn, it would be at least mostly as loving and kind. So, if Octodad, or "blurblerulb" if you prefer, was a purely hypothetical Kthani instead of Cthulhi, his disposition may well fit within the actual mythos.

So, what do y'all think? Does this theory hold water? Or does it sink harder than Cthulhu going back down for a nap?

[gotarcher94]

The Witcher

So I’ve watched the first season of the Witcher on Netflix and all I can say is holy motherfucking shit. That was a good season. 

I wanted to jot down a few things that I liked about the season, bearing in mind that I haven’t yet read the books and have only played the Witcher 2 and 3. I will be using spoilers so consider this a spoiler warning.

(Also this will be a long post)

OK? OK

Henry Cavill

When Henry was announced I gotta admit I had some doubts over the casting. Not because I don’t rate him as an actor but I just couldn't picture him as Geralt. My personal pick was Zach McGowan, known for playing Charles Vane in Black Sails. He had the gruff voice, he looked like the game version of Geralt, and he even had similar hair. Just dye it white and he was good. 

But having seen the show... I recant every syllable of my foolishness.  

Henry Cavill is perfect as Geralt. He perfectly embodies the White Wolf. From his sarcastic sense of humour, to the subtle emotion on his face to the conflict he has while making the decisions he does. Absolutely perfect casting.

Anya Chalotra

Speaking of perfect casting, Anya is an incredible Yennefer of Vengerberg. Like Henry she perfectly embodies Yennefer. Anya plays the evolution of Yen superbly, from her beaten down and almost broken early days to the immensely powerful and confident sorceress she becomes later, she performs both absolutely perfectly.

And to all those who say that Anya is wrong to play Yennefer because she doesn’t “look like her”.... I cannot say shut the hell up loud enough. She was incredible and deserves all the accolades that should be sent her way.

Freya Allan

And rounding out the three main characters, the show is three for three in terms of perfect casting. I loved her independent and driven nature, continuing to keep going on despite all the trouble going her way despite only been about 11 or 12 (i think, not 100%). Her strong bond with both Queen Calanthe and Mousesack is evident, despite the relative lack of screentime devoted to it. I can’t wait to see how both the character and actress evolves over the (hopefully) seasons to come.

Geralt and Ciri

I loved the “the girl in the woods will be with you always” transition in the first episode, that eventually came full circle in the finale with the two finally meeting (with the run and hug scene!). Having seen their bond fully established in the games (I know they aren’t canon) I cant wait to see it develop on screen

Queen Calanthe

Is a badass. End of story. Ruling a kingdom, fighting at the front of every battle, effectively flipping off destiny and law of Surprise and being an incredible role model for Ciri. Absolute awesome character and Jodhi May did such an incredible job playing her.

Yennefer’s backstory

As a game only fan in terms of knowing much about the characters when I went into this season, my knowledge of Yen’s backstory was pretty much nonexistent, as I can’t remember it even being mentioned in the two games I played (of which Yen was only physically present for one). However, the show delved deep into it, and I’m glad they did. It simultaneously made us empathise fully with Yennefer but also established the basis for her desire to grow stronger and be in control of her own destiny and future, and why she was then so frustrated being in the mire of courtly intrigue, not able to grow higher.

The Yennefer and Tissaia dynamic

One of the most unexpected but welcome events of the show was the dynamic that they two shared. It was not the typical mentor and apprentice relationship and I appreciated the change from the norm. From Tissaia’s initial attempts to bring Yennefer to heel before eventually being the one to tell Yennefer to unleash her chaos during the battle at Sodden was great. 

The striga episode

I mean..... just wow. As soon as they mentioned Temeria I had a feeling that it would be the striga, as it was one of the few things that I knew about from the books. And holy shit they did not disappoint. From the investigation aspect, to the fight scene, to the music. It was incredible episode and one that I cannot wait to get back to when I re-watch the series

Battle of Sodden

The main focus of the incredible finale. I had heard of the Battle of Sodden during the games but to see it was something else. A great battle scene combined great fights, solid battle plans and incredibly cool magical skills. And also,during the night scenes, you could actually see what the fuck was happening. See GoT! It isn't hard!!

Vilgevortz

As soon as his name was revealed in the episode, I’m not gonna lie but i may have gone full fanboy. I know a little from what was mentioned in the books and have read a little from other sources about his story in the books and was immensely excited when he showed up. And I cannot wait to see his story unfold on the show and see him interact more with Yennefer and meet Geralt and Ciri.

Jaskier

From what I know, calling him Jaskier (his original name in the Polish stories) instead of the English name of Dandelion was one of the problems people had with the show. And I have to ask... does it really matter? He still acts like him, talks like him, annoys Geralt like him. He is the same character, the showrunners are just honouring his roots. 

And he brought some comic relief to the series in just the right ways, especially in the djinn and dragon hunt episodes. Joey Batey was great.

Music and Cinematography 

Both of them were absolutely fantastic. Every episode looked and sounded phenomenal. I’ve been listening to a few tracks from the soundtrack that have made it onto YouTube on repeat for a while, most notably “Toss a Coin to your Witcher”. However, one track that I really liked but haven't been able to find is the battle theme from the striga fight. If anyone could send me a link to it, I would be incredibly grateful

Fight choreography 

All of the fights this season were absolutely fantastic. Both the human fights and the monster battles. Geralt and Duny vs the Cintrian soldiers, Vilgevortz vs Cahir and (my personal favourites) Geralt vs Renfri and her gang from episode 1. All of them superb and I couldn't have asked for more from the fight scenes. 

Magic

I really like the magic system they set up in this series. Not only is it incredibly diverse (with the finale alone showing us Vilgevortz constantly creating swords, Triss making poison mushrooms grow beneath the feet of the army and Coral wiping out a whole section of the Nilgaardian army) but I really like the idea that it isn't just them tapping into a great power, that there can be a great cost to performing these spells. Not something that a lot of fantasy series do.

Cahir

He was a great antagonist throughout the season and again I know little in specifics about him but I know that he is important to Ciri’s story, so I am looking forward to seeing that develop further.

Geralt and Visenna

I loved the scene of the two of them in the finale, even if it proved to only be a dream/hallucination. The “How do you like my eyes?” line legit gave me chills. Incredible acting by Henry there

Geralt and Yennefer (Yenneralt?, I think certain parts of the fandom have settled upon)

Now, as a game only fan prior to this, my exposure to the relationship between the two of them was limited, as the games only touched upon it in the Witcher 3. Before then it was told that Geralt and Yennefer had an epic love but it was very much tell and don’t show, as Yennefer didn't appear in person until the Witcher 3 and by then CDPR had developed the Geralt and Triss romance story in the Witcher 2. And I’m not gonna lie, I was fully into their romance during my playthroughs. Not that I didn't like Yennefer but I just didn't have the same basis into their bond that the book fans did. 

After Season 1, however, I am fully onto the Geralt and Yennefer ship, having seen it develop as it did.

Methinks it may be time for another playthrough, as well as buying the books.

Things I’m looking forward to seeing on the show in the future 

1. Yennefer and Ciri meeting

2. Seeing Geralt and Ciri bonding more, with some time together at Kaer Morhen

3. Thanedd Island (eventually)

4. Zoltan! 

5. Regis!

6. Vesemir!

[rabbithaver]

im workin on a long post for my kin blog, getting out some of my earliest memories from my life as Astrid, on DS9. i havent paid enough attention to that blog anyway so. ya know.

this post also got long so uhhh here's a read more. kinnie shit below the cut ig

so.

given how vivid a lot of my memories are, im pretty positive this was a very recent incarnation. like goddamn, it mightve even been the last one. i dream about that life almost every other night and i constantly find myself just... randomly recalling the most random things?

i was a non-canon shapeshifter hybrid thing. it was complicated. and looking back, pretty much my entire backstory pre-DS9 is awful.

FUCK section 31, like holy shit. in Steven Universe, when Amethyst yelled "i didn't ask to be made," i fucking FELT that. i was made to serve a purpose. they created me to use me. fuck, i was a kid and they experimented on me like a fucking insect. i was a kid and they traumatized me repeatedly and called it 'testing' and 'combat training.' i was a kid and they wanted to send me to war. they wanted to use me as a weapon.

i didnt even have a name. they never gave me a name, they just referred to me as 'the subject' or 'the specimen.' i had to choose one for myself

when i escaped, i didnt know what it felt like to be truly wanted and accepted. i couldn't trust anybody. i was so certain that every stranger i saw could have been an agent for S-31

as shitty as that life was at first, i wish i could go back. DS9 was a hell of a place to live. i miss it

[astarsdarkheart]

So! About Solo!

- Han and his overconfident blustering are frequently a source of comedic relief in the OT, so going for a generally light-hearted tone without pretensions to Galaxy-Saving Endeavours probably did them good in terms of keeping the character intact without having it clash too badly with the story.

- That said: holy hell I was not expecting trench scenes that could have been lifted out of a Great War documentary.

- The Crimson Dawn yacht reminds me of nothing so much as this concept art/visulation of a research sea vessel I read about in some science magazine years ago, and I didn’t figure that out until today, so I spent a fair amount of time last night going ‘so what other Star Wars ship is it that thing reminds me of so much?’

- My generalised irritation with the apparent necessity of Romantic Entanglement with backstory characters remains as strong as ever, and I really don’t think Qi’ra and Han needed to have had that kind of relationship for the sake of maintaining the underlying Thing of ‘betrayal and loss of childhood companion’, but it wasn’t any more offensive to my sensibilities than other plotlines of the sort are, at least.

- That said: ‘I hate you,’ ‘I know’ is one of my favourite exchanges in that film.

- Like, we all know people who don’t want to see queerness will go out of their way to dodge it and quite frankly I wouldn’t be surprised if the writers dodged the question too but that’s such a heavy parallel considering the Iconic Status of the line in ESB.

- ‘I’ve got a really good feeling about this’ Don’t get too used to it, buddy, there aren’t a lot of those in your future!

- ‘I created a distraction!’ She sounded so proud of herself, it’s quite adorable.

- The, uh... implied risquéness of certain other aspects of L3′s presence in the film was less appreciated.

- To be fair, though, Galaxy of Heroes would have me believe that L3 has a ‘penchant for self-modification’, and if we assume a human-like degree of arm mobility and a need for visual input from the sensors in her head to do any kind of modification, the mid-section is probably one of the easiest places to work on. So it’s not completely insensible, in that light.

- Without knowing a lot more than I do about writer intent regarding the way L3′s introduction is written, I’m not sure how to feel about that. I mean, it could be genuine on the part of the writers and not played for laughs as I’m somewhat concerned it is, but that’s not a conclusion I’m about to jump to. Especially given Lando’s little aside about how he would wipe her memory if not for her navigational database.

- And the combination of L3 being ‘part of the ship’ and Lando’s obvious emotional attachment to her makes Han winning the Falcon in the end a little... hrm.

- But the Sabacc back and forth was entertaining enough that I’m willing to overlook it.

- That last scene adds a whole new layer of hilarity to Han’s insulted ‘hey, I won her fair and square’ bit in ESB!

- The thing about how Han ‘doesn’t have people’ ties in quite nicely with his arc in the OT, all things considered - he ends the film shooting a mentor, knowing that a childhood sweetheart lied to him and left him behind (and consequently being rather aimless, given that finding Qi’ra was initially his major motive), and really only having himself and Chewie to turn to. And while he clearly wants to walk away from the war, he doesn’t exactly look to hate the Empire that much at that stage, so Enfys’ offer of a place with the building rebellion doesn’t do much for him at that stage. A fairly solitary existence for him, then, at that stage! And then eventually we get to the OT and him finding people to care about and actually standing up for the cause and all.

- There’s something very sad about Qi’ra’s ‘you’re a good guy’ line, in that respect, because it takes so long for Han to believe it himself. (And I mean, hell, I know a thing or two about telling yourself you’re the bad guy because it is, for whatever reason, easier, and considering where Han - and Qi’ra - came from, it makes sense that they would.)

- Unless there’s a lot more context to be found in the TV shows than the straight-up ‘hey, Maul didn’t actually die like you thought he did in TPM’, Qi’ra’s apparent history of doing all these unspecified horrible things could have done with a bit more substantiation, but given what we have to conclude about her thought process from Han’s decision to help Enfys onwards, one could argue that there’s plenty substantiation of that thing about her being a survivor before all else.

(Tangentially related: my conversation with my parents in the car ride home, none of us having seen either of the TV shows but me having read enough about them to understand Maul’s presence:

Me: So should I explain what Maul was doing there?

Mother: What? He was there? What needs explaining?

Me: ... I forget, you really don’t remember a damn thing about the prequels, do you?)

- And then there’s the thing about the objective being ‘to stay in it as long as possible’.

- Enfys Nest is a fucking child what the hell

- Like, I’m nineteen, there’s only so much I can or should be saying about this, but good lord she looks so young

- Tells us all we need to know about war, though, doesn’t it?

- And there’s definitely something to be said about the contrast between that youthful visage and the gruff ‘I need a drink’ immediately after, though I’ll be damned if I can figure out what.

- Also her entrance when it comes to fighting off the enforcers is cool as hell.

- Don’t know that Alden Ehrenreich particularly convinces me as Han Solo in terms of appearance, but he does the overconfident blustering pretty okay!

- Does this film add a huge amount to the Star Wars universe? Eh, maybe not. Does it do the scope and mythological stature that classic Star Wars delivered so well on? No, not really. Did I manage to have a good time watching it nonetheless? Yep!

- So, yeah, it’s a spin-off, and I think it’s best enjoyed that way. It’s a good time if you don’t set your expectations too high!

- Like, I don’t know that I’d enjoy trying to pick the film apart and get into the meta and the why and wherefore of everything the way I do with the OT and PT (and we’ll see how the ST shakes out once Ep IX is released), but I did really enjoy watching it, it was good fun, and that ought to be the end of that.

[elizas-writing]

Spoilers Galore: Avengers Infinity War

So I was going to delay this post for a while to allow enough time for most everyone to see it, but I also got swamped with midterms hence why it took so long to get to this.

Nevertheless, the spoilers are worth talking about given how much happens in this movie, and I really wanted to get this out before Deadpool 2 premiered, so Happy Birthday to me (seriously, I’m now 22) for putting my procrastination to an end.

If you haven’t seen my spoiler-free review, you can check it out here to get my general opinion of the film.

So that’s a hell of a body count, huh? I knew from the get-go of this story line that characters were going to die, but holy freaking shit! A lot of people, myself included, figured that at least one of the older heroes would be the first to go, so it was quite the shock when most of the side characters and newer heroes were offed after coming off the heels of their successful solo films.

And I know despite what the Russos and Marvel executives are saying, it is glaringly obvious that not everyone could be permanently dead since sequels are still in the talks and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 just got a confirmed release date (c’mon Marvel, you’re not that slick). On top of which, the Infinity Gauntlet is more or less a giant deus ex machina which can put everything right in a heartbeat. Regardless, these are still heartbreaking scenes to sit through with everyone being brought to their lowest points and losing their loved ones. Some deaths are little rushed, but the music, cinematography and performances sell on the tragedy, and the emotional weight carries throughout the rest of the film. I never recovered after Gamora’s death; that was just too much after she and Peter finally verbalized their love. Even characters like Scarlet Witch, Vision, and Doctor Strange, who I didn’t care too much for, really sell in their drama to show the high stakes, both to the universe and their psyches as they make the ultimate sacrifices to try to save everyone.

It seemed really weird at first that most of the new characters were killed off, but I figured that most of the older stars like Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr are probably getting one last hurrah in Avengers 4 before their contracts are up and make way for the next phase/generation of heroes for MCU. And I imagine when these guys have to bid the franchise goodbye, it’s going to wrench our hearts out even more.

As I said in my spoiler-free review, the most fun interactions are with the Guardians of the Galaxy. I like seeing Rocket and Groot help Thor to create Stormbreaker while the rest of the gang runs into Tony Stark, Doctor Strange and Peter Parker, and Gamora... well... see two paragraphs before. I think her coming back is going to be more tricky since she didn’t disintegrate like most of the rest of the characters, but part of me is really hoping we’ll get something because she’s a great Guardian and one half of the only stable power couple in the entire MCU. But still, it’s fun to see the Guardians, who were mostly off doing their own thing, finally get involved with a much grander battle. And hey, we finally got Rocket asking Bucky for his arm, and it made me giggle like an idiot.

I know a lot of fans will give me backlash for this, but Loki is one of the few characters who I hope stays dead. Yes, him pulling a knife against Thanos of all people makes no sense, but you can see the panic in his face as he’s pulling every trick he can to distract Thanos as long as he can. It’s a well-deserved redemption after years of not knowing what he wants and the extremes he went to, and after all this time, he still can’t bear to see Thor perish and makes the ultimate sacrifice to ensure his survival. It’s a genuinely heartbreaking moment which leaves Thor visibly shaking. It’d feel like cheating now to cop out his death again after the strong reaction Thor had.

I love seeing Tony Stark being heroic again with impressive updates to the Iron Man suit with continuous 3D printing for repairs. Doctor Strange, although I’m still annoyed they never gave him a complete character arc in the first place, has a lot of fun banter with Tony with some visually wonderful sorcery and fighting. Peter Parker, as usual, is fun and naive and still wanting to prove himself, and he’s best when he gets to be a team player in these ensemble films to form strategy. But what Tom Holland does best as Peter is reminding us of his young age and emotional vulnerability, which is why his death is the most gut-wrenching as he’s clinging to Tony for dear life and pleading to not go.

The rest of the characters are more hit-and-miss in their development, especially as most of them haven’t been seen since Civil War. And they try to bring up the Sokovia Accords again, but that gets cast aside quickly to get the Mind Stone out of Vision. Steve Rogers and T’Challa shine as leaders as the battle comes to Wakanda, and I can watch that scene where all the warriors chant “yibambe” over and over again. It’s relieving to see Rhodey and Bucky back in action after the physical and mental turmoil they went through, and Sam still has plenty of fun one-liners. Black Widow, Okoye and Scarlet Witch make a fun girl power team. And when Thor, Rocket and Groot come in, words just escape me in how intensely fun that battle gets.

I think the weakest part of this section is probably the romance between Scarlet Witch and Vision. It is one of the few parts where not much is explained what happened to them in between movies and how Vision was able to deceive Tony for so long. They were kinda just thrown into the mix in Age of Ultron, and I don’t think they ever figured out what to do with them aside from finding a way to work in an Infinity Stone. But once again, what pulls them through is the performances by Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany to bring the weight of the unavoidable situation these two are in where only Scarlet Witch can kill Vision via destroying the Mind Stone.

Part of what makes the heavy-handed tone work is how inconsequential everything feels. Even for all the gritty and depressing moments, MCU always finds a way to end it on a hopeful or even funny note to keep spirits up. This time, they’re not fucking around. Think about it-- every film from Doctor Strange to Black Panther in the grand scheme leading up to Infinity War doesn’t matter anymore. Stephen learning to be humble, the Guardians learning to trust each other and move past trauma, Peter Parker learning responsibility, Thor becoming a great hero without his hammer, and T’Challa opening up Wakanda to the world? Yup, none of it fucking mattered cause most of them were either killed by Thanos or disintegrated anyway. And the worst part is that they were playing by the book and most of their plans worked out, but Thanos still found a way to one-up them anyway and win.

A lot of people mentioned this already, but what makes Thanos fascinating as a villain is that the film almost frames him as the hero to his own self-deluded ideas. He has a backstory, a goal, an arc, the whole nine yards. He doesn’t hesitate to kill whoever to get the next stone, he’s incredibly manipulative towards his own children (which is best depicted in how he “adopted” Gamora), and he’s so far gone beyond reason to believe genocide is what is right to fix and over-populated universe. Even more wild is the fact he doesn’t want the glory or credit, and he’s perfectly content to retire on some remote planet to watch the sun rise-- as seen at the end of the film. However, I do question why the Soul Stone regarded him killing Gamora as an act of love when it was always, always manipulation, but hopefully we’ll get to see that explained in the next film cause, c’mon folks, that ain’t love.

There’s also some things left unclear like what exactly happened on Xandar, and why Bruce can no longer bring out the Hulk, but we still got a couple more movies to look forward to in the year until Avengers 4. And I guarantee the Russo brothers had a shit ton more scenes they wanted to add in but couldn’t due to time constraints, and if they were to release an extended cut, I would not mind at all.

Like I said before, this film had so much going against it, but paid off tremendously well with a consistent dramatic tone, bringing together characters for the first time and reuniting others, and always keeping the audience guessing on what to expect next. And it succeeded in emotionally screwing us over with an always brilliant cast who know how to wrench our hearts out.

One of the best of the MCU without a doubt.

If you liked this and enjoy what I do, buy me a Ko-fi to say “Job well done!”

[hyperionwitch]

holy fucking shit I have never felt more like I’m COMPLETELY OUT OF MY MIND AT WORK

let me tell you a goddamn tale of insanity.  UNDER THE CUT because it’s enormous and full of webpage shit.

for a quick backstory, I work at a news station and I handle a lot of our web stuff--creating sub-pages on our site, redirecting stories to pages, etc etc.  one of the things we have to do frequently is create a webpage that has a list of links to other pages on it.  the easiest way to do this is to create a module that is fed by a list of tagged stories, and then you make each of those stories just redirect to the webpage you want.

so, let’s say you wanted to make a page that’s a hub for pet stores (and you’ve made a separate page on your site for each pet store as an advertisement).  you could make a story for each pet store and then have that story redirect to the page you made for the store, then that list of stories could be placed on the hub page.  it’s super simple stuff, and all it required FOR MONTHS was flipping a story setting link to “external” and then putting in the link for the redirect page.  REAL EASY.

so a while back I noticed that something wonky was happening where when you made a story to redirect to the page, sometimes it would override the page url and when you clicked it, instead of going to the page, it would go to an empty story.  this is obviously not ideal and it was causing our pages to no longer show up, so I contacted a fellow web person at the company and he advised that instead of putting THE WHOLE URL in the external link box, we should be putting JUST THE END OF THE URL (the part that differs from page to page).  to be extra clear, instead of putting “www.thiswebpage.com/petstore”, we should be putting “/petstore”, because that way the final URL will...work better somehow.  I always assumed it was a wonky thing with the coding of our website management system, but it worked just fine.  so I resumed my work, redirecting stories to pages by putting THE END OF URLS in the external link box.

well, one day I had to change a redirected story to be under a different tag.  long story as to why, but when I tried to do so I got an error I’d never seen before about this story having the same url as a page.  I thought to myself ‘well...yes, it’s redirecting to that page, why WOULDN’T it have the same url?”  so I asked the web guy from the previous question and he couldn’t get it to work either, so he shrugged and suggested I put in a ticket with our management system’s support staff.  I did so right away, explaining the issue in detail and asking what I needed to do.

the support guy who responded told me that, because the story had the same url as another page, it wouldn’t work right.  so he changed the name of the page...so that the story wouldn’t match it anymore.  and somehow this worked?  I literally had no idea why this would work.  it no longer even looked like it redirected, based on the settings of the story, but when I clicked the story link...it went to the right place.  so...problem solved, I guess.  I figured it was a weird bug and shrugged it off.

shortly thereafter, I needed to make a story that redirected to a new page.  let’s call this page “animal hospital”.  I created the story, flipped the external link switch, put in the “/animal-hospital” portion of the url and...got the same goddamn error as before about the url matching something already existing.  what the hell, I thought, that’s fucking bizarre since I’ve ALWAYS DONE IT THIS WAY.

frustrated, I tried to ask why this would happen in the support ticket I had already filed, but they closed it without answer my question, so I opened a new ticket and asked my question.  the guy responded to tell me that, oh, sorry, you CAN’T redirect stories to pages, you have to send those requests to support so THEY can make your stories redirect to pages.  this is so unbelievably silly and unwieldy that I was sure I was misreading it, so I repeated it back to him in roughly that language and provided the “animal hospital” link to make sure he was aware of what I wanted to redirect to.  he confirmed that I was understanding him.  so, fine, I said, I’ll send a redirect request.

I opened a third fucking ticket on this problem to ask for a redirect, listing both the story URL and our page URL, all the while thinking how much of a pain in the ass it’s going to be if we have to wait for support to redirect all our stories for us.  the lady who responded was very polite and said she’d let me know when it was handled.

FOUR FUCKING DAYS LATER, I get a response informing me that WE CAN STILL HANDLE REDIRECTING PAGES.  I was bewildered.  I had now been told two entirely different things by two people.  I told her I had contacted support previously and been told we COULDN’T redirect pages.  I even included the entire thread of support exchanges, just to make sure she saw what they had told me.  she responded to say nope, you can definitely do it yourself, here’s an image of where to do it in the settings page on the story.

she had circled a small section BENEATH the external link switch, a spot that allowed you to input a redirect URL.  I had never used this in the past, because as I understood it, it was supposed to be used to list URLs that will redirect TO THE STORY ITSELF, not from the story to other pages.  so it’d be backwards.  but hey, support said I could do it, so I tried.

NOPE.  big fucking surprise, I got the same error from earlier.  so I got back in the goddamn support thread and said ‘well I tried what you said, but I got the same error I mentioned in the last ticket.  here’s a screenshot of what I did and the error involved”.  she tells me that’s odd and she’ll talk to the tech staff about it.

aaand wouldn’t you goddamn know it, she comes back and tells me “oh hey, my tech staff says you can’t redirect a page that way.  if you want to make a story redirect to a webpage on your site, you have to FLIP THE SWITCH TO EXTERNAL AND PASTE IN THE ENTIRE URL”

YOU KNOW.  LIKE I HAD BEEN DOING FOR MONTHS.  AND MORE THAN THAT, SHE SAID THE WHOLE FUCKING URL, NOT JUST THE END OF IT, LIKE WE’D HAD TO DO.

I said “OKAY WELL I’LL TRY IT” and I gave it a shot.  and here’s where I feel like somewhere I fell into a goddamn nightmare, because it WORKED.  with the whole URL!  not even just the end of it!  what the fucking fuck?

to make sure I wasn’t out of my goddamn mind, I made ANOTHER story and had it redirect to ANOTHER page, this time just using the end of the URL, JUST TO TRY IT OUT.  AND THAT WORKED TOO?????????

so I responded to say (in a much more polite fashion) “huh that’s goddamn weird because that’s how I’ve literally always redirected stories to pages, and that’s how I got the error last time.  it seems to have worked this time, I WONDER WHAT THE FUCKING PROBLEM WAS”

so for some reason I just spent like two fucking weeks getting the goddamn runaround from support about some fucking error I’ve never fucking seen, just to find out that I JUST HAD TO GO BACK AND DO IT THE WAY I ALWAYS HAVE.  what was happening???  why didn’t it work the last time??????

the ONLY thing I can think that might have happened is that occasionally I would change the file name on the story to make sure it didn’t match the URL I was redirecting to, but that never once made a difference when I made a story, and in fact I had been advised to do it when we were having the problem with URLs being overwritten.  IF THERE’S GONNA BE A CODE CHANGE TO MAKE EVERYTHING ALL FUCKED UP, IT’D BE GOOD TO LET US KNOW SO THAT WE DON’T FEEL LIKE WE’RE COMPLETELY OUT OF OUR MINDS.

holy shit.  if anybody actually read that, then thanks for listening to an INCREDIBLY CATHARTIC RANT.  I swear to god I can’t deal with this goddamn company that handles our page management.  thank god I’m starting a new job in a week and a half, lmao.

EDIT: HOLY SHIT I TRIED TO EDIT ONE OF THE STORIES THAT WORKED AND NOW WE’RE BACK TO GETTING THE ERROR

WHY CAN’T I EDIT A FUCKING STORY THIS IS GODDAMNED LUNACY

????????????????????????? ????????????