#i feel. fine 👍

[naivety]

the thing about silver is that he does not give a shit about other people until flint and then madi convince him to first through the crew and then through a wider liberation movement. they convinced him there was some good to be found in connecting with people and something to fight for, and Then. And Then!!! they ask him to sacrifice this very same newfound connection to these people for the greater good!!! and it Kills him but he does it because more than they've convinced him to love People, they've convinced him to love Them, and that maybe even he, John Silver, who isn't even real btw, can be loved By them, so he does it, but it fractures him and he can't pick up the pieces as fast as they shatter and it all falls apart so so quickly in his hands because it was all built on conditional trust and he Could not commit to it in the end, a house of cards built on. sand.

[firstfullmoon]

LaTanya McQueen, “Before It All Came Tumbling Down”

[nebulaedaniel]

feeling fine about phil in glasses btw!!!!

[junotter]

All the jokes about Ken and horses are good but I just wanna say it's such a good parallel to how actual young men get swept into misogyny and the patriarchy.

Like they're told to believe it means men get to be cool and manly and have this power but with that comes extremely rigid commands of what they can be as a man and a cycle of self hatred for never matching those gender roles perfectly. Patriarchy tells men that if they just do exactly what is expected of them, then they get all the "cool stuff" that comes with. That doesn't work though when there's only a small group that actually gets that power, but men will keep trying to fit into those roles in hopes that they can.

In the end there are no horses or the myth men are told, it's just endless cycles of self hatred and ingroup fighting.

[rockwgooglyeyes]

It's This Moment (or Nothing)

One of the biggest things that I have run into over the past day with Blink, Gone is the way that it feels incomplete and that is something I still stand by. This could be something completely purposeful, meant to illustrate that the round wasn't ever going to be a legitimate competition anyways, intended from the beginning as a lure for Hyuna and Mizi, to add extra emotional effect to the cliffhanger, or perhaps it really is one half of a wider whole (in a more localized sense than it being one part of the whole series, anyways). I don't really know which I think is more likely, at this point, because I'm not sure enough about any of my theories on that front to make real predictions. I still believe that Mizi will end up on her own when this all finished, all of the people she ever loved dead and gone, the bodies littered at her feet.

With the "special guests" I presume that Hyuna and Mizi will be forced to go up against each other. My friend Zen, (@verdantlights) said that hy thinks that it'll end up being a Hyunaluka round where Hyuna is set to win and then a Hyunamizi round where Hyuna is set to lose (edited because i got the order wrong and zen corrected me lmao). I agree with the idea that, at this point, it's damage control. They successfully lured Mizi (and by extension, Hyuna) in with Till, killed Till and now they're going to make their hostages perform for their lives, as is their brand.

One of the most interesting parts of Blink Gone, for me, is how this was presumably all planned from the start. Zen mentioned something that made me realize this yesterday, that this is the 50th season of Alien Stage. There's no way they would let it get this rowdy with rebels and disrupted rounds unless they were letting it happen, because it was planned from the start, because they were trying to tie up loose ends (Hyuna). Not only that but this round in particular was undoubtedly planned from the beginning, with the amount of preparation that went into it (the giant billboards of Ivan, the chanting of the crowd, the song itself). Till was ranked 2, it was always going to end up this way, Luka's superiority reinforced and his opponent dead on the floor. (btw I'm coming back to Luka. There's gonna be another fucking post just you wait). The way that they used Till's triggers against him, they drugged both of the performers but only gave Till enough to last him halfway through, forced Till to perform against Luka right after Round 6, where he lost one of the people in his life that was most important to him, and then rubbing salt into his horrible fresh wounds.

This is also one of the only rounds where Mizi is one of the POV characters that we have no mentions of Sua, at all. Perhaps that's merely because Mizi wasn't the focus and by extension, neither was Sua, but in another way, you could argue that it's because someone else was busy haunting the narrative: Ivan.

It kinda fucking hurts that the only way we really got to see Ivan was two ways- a direct flashback to the kiss from CURE, a explicit representation of the trauma that Ivan left Till with, and the billboards/Luka manipulations where he mimics Ivan in order to get Till on the back foot. And the thing is, it works. Ivan, despite his every intention otherwise, has become a trauma for Till, the way he thought he never could. To a degree, I was happy about this, because it proved Ivan wrong, that he would just be forgotten in a blink, but it hurts as well, because him only being used as a weapon against Till only reinforces his beliefs about himself that he is a monster and a negative impact on others. He would view himself being used against Till as a bad thing, that he hurt Till when he never intended to, rather than seeing it for what it is- an explicit sign that he was far more important to Till than he previously thought.

(Also something driving me up a wall right now is the way that one of my friend's described the lyrics of Blink, Gone as being in reference to the way that one moment Ivan was there, and the next he was gone, because Till took advantage of Ivan's presence and didn't know how much he needed it until it was gone and I'm sorry I'm going to go scream some more now.)

One thing I've talked about with friends a lot the past day is the way that, if Till is truly dead, then what was Ivan's character even for? And while narratively, it wouldn't make sense to kill TIll here with all of the potential he has and where his arc is going, one thing that @pwippy pointed out to me is how it makes a lot of sense thematically. Alien Stage is a universe full of suffering and pain for humans, forced to perform until they literally die on stage, all for the entertainment of the audience. It's not even meant as a way of exerting control or oppressing them, though it serves that purpose, because why would the seygein bother to oppress something that can't even fight back? Why go to the trouble of controlling something that is just a pet, whose cries are the fuel for a new age?

For Till to die now, reaching out for this glimmer of light when he is an animal caged, surrounded by enemies and bombarded with triggers of his suffering and pain, it would only be fitting. Another confirmation that life isn't fair, especially not in a system that is actively working against you and your attempts at happiness. Yet another sign that none of them were supposed to live very long, that even if they won, they wouldn't be around for much longer anyways. Now, it wouldn't necessarily be in character for Till, as he wants to live and he wants to fight, but he got to see one of the people he loved most in his dying moments, just like Sua and Ivan did. (Thank you this post for grabbing me by the throat and squeezing). In this world of pain and suffering, perhaps death is a mercy. If Till is truly dead, then he no longer a tool for his oppressors, he is free of their control. For Ivan and Sua both of their deaths were mercies to them- Ivan was able to die for the one he loved, as was Sua, and neither of them were forced to live in a world without their beloved.

So, while it might not be in character for Till to die, it makes sense within the themes and the established mechanisms of the universe, and it hammers home just how much more Mizi has to lose, even at this point where she thinks she's lost it all.

Mizi, who at the beginning, was the only one of these characters filled with innocence and hope, Mizi, the apparent protagonist of this story- at the end, she will be alone and she will know the true lengths of cruelty, with all that which she has ever loved destroyed.

[esmeraldablazingsky]

the only person in fontaine who i think should have visibly shredded abs is clorinde. look. listen. i have an essay

furina has maintained a performer’s figure for a long time but she’s more of an actress and singer than a dancer. she has the muscle tone of a macaroni noodle, and also her body composition is 80% pastry. but you know what we love her for that

navia is definitely deceptively strong for her hyper femme presentation. girlie puts in the work! shes not a gym rat tho. she has better things to do, and macarons to bake

wriothesley you could definitely make a case for more than the others, but also, consider this. he’s not a mangy half starved wolf anymore. he’s comfortable, he can get whatever he wants from the kitchen staff, he puts sugar in his tea. it’s not like he’s lost any of his combat edge but he doesn’t HAVE to be a lean mean fighting machine anymore, he has other strengths, and he likes it that way!

neuvillette is the world’s most pampered dragon. furina summoned him 400 years ago and proceeded to spend those 400 years ordering him premium water and making him do paperwork and try fancy foods with her. he does not want to go outside, except if it is to swim. you may not like it but this is the ideal sea-animal-guy body type (strong swimmer muscles smoothed over by a layer of squish, like a seal)

sigewinne is literally a marshmallow have you ever seen a ripped melusine I don’t think so. but that wasn’t in question, right?

clorinde though!! clorinde. duelist and bodyguard supreme, a well known figure whose athleticism is highly publicized. she doesn’t HAVE to have abs, but she’s definitely the fontaine character I would most readily believe does

[acekindaneat]

happy halloween

😈💚temporary rebrand teehee

[somegrumpynerd]

Bad day

[mrpenguinpants]

Hypothetical question but are we still into windbreaker (nii satoru)? Y'all cool if I put my hyper fixation on center stage?

[38across]

x

[tsuchinokoroyale]

Love my brown eyes and the way they look demonic possession black when they’re not well lit 🖤 They say eyes are the windows to the soul but mine got some thick blackout curtains 😍

[carnivalsong]

i think i’ve been possessed or something because yesterday i was struck with the inexplicable urge to draw art for a fic i wrote 3 years ago. so there’s an insight into how i’m doing right now

[bugeyedfreaks]

I bought the comic! 💖

I have a couple of my usual little minor nitpicks (as I am want to have), but I don’t even want to get into them because there were so few and they didn’t impact my enjoyment of the comic all that much. I thought it was super cute!

I won’t spoil anything in case anyone’s interested in buying it for themselves (which, I would say… yeah, buy it, totally!), but what I appreciated the most– especially since this is the first issue and it’s establishing who the girls are for anyone not super familiar with them– is that the girls end up saving the day together. It shows the importance of them not just being heroes, but also being a team (and also being supportive sisters, which… 🥹🫶) and that makes me feel like, even on a basic level, they get the characters. And that’s reassuring! Yay!

[bronzebluemind]

It’s been 0 weeks since the World Cup finale, 17 weeks to go until sgp and 34 weeks to go until next season.

[chromartnomaly]

Yearning <3 ...

[cuntyfishmcbites]

Y’all are excited to watch them pretend to fuck I’m excited to hear the commentary