#idk if any of that is coherent

[silverraes]

Okay but may I just say that I LOVE what Pit Babe is doing rn. It is rare to see a show have the balls to just completely neglect both of the main characters for an episode or two straight only to flesh out the side characters and Pit Babe is doing the side characters so well.

Babe and Charlie were barely even there this episode but I also didn't miss them bc I was just so invested in whatever Kenta had going on. I was absolutely overjoyed at the handful of scenes where we see Kim just being a part of the X-Hunter family. I am ecstatic every time North and Sonic are literally just on screen, chilling in Alan's house like they actually live there. I was in shambles about Pete and Kenta because of one single flashback scene. Hell, I even cared about Way genuinely being sorry for all the bullshit he pulled.

This isn't just a show about racing or omegaverse or human trafficking rings or even the main couple's love story, it's a show about all of the characters and their stories and their personal growth and their relationships with each other, both romantic and platonic, and I am so here for it.

[thecryptidbard]

ALSO can we talk about Hetty’s reaction after Flower tells her “You’re a good friend”???

Think about where she was at this point last year—having also just revealed a massive secret, one that almost irrevocably ruined one of her oldest friendships. She’d admitted in Ghost Court that friends were not something she’d ever had in life—something she hasalso just reiterated moments ago to Sam and Isaac, that one of the reasons she felt so trapped and alone and without options at the end of her life was because she had no friends.

Think about how far we’ve seen her come; in season one, it’s huge growth for her that after Jay’s possession, she admits to the other ghosts that she missed them. Or season two, how in a very un-Hetty move she’s willing to swallow her pride and apologize to Nigel (even though she’s sure she isn’t in the wrong!) for the sake of saving her friendship with Isaac. Or even earlier this season, how closely she’s clinging to Alberta in so many of the episodes, because she’s so grateful she got her friend back after being so close to losing her that she doesn’t even want to be physically separated from her.

And then now, she’s just once again revealed a secret she’s kept for well over a hundred years, in order to save Flower. She’s kept this part of herself from everyone for so long, and the very second she sees that Flower is securely out of the hole, she turns her back to everyone to gather herself and then bolts.

Isaac and Sam make her see that, yes objectively she has people here for her now like she never had in life, but Flower coming in and thanking her is when she actually gets to see and experience the reality of how different her existence is now. “You’re a good friend,” she says, and it might be the first time someone has ever said that to her. And Hetty just looks up at Flower so surprised in that moment, and so heartbreakingly hopeful, because I genuinely think that until right then, she really hadn’t considered it like that before; she just knew that Flower was in trouble and that she had to help her whatever the personal cost, because not saving her wasn’t even an option.

So much of the ghosts’ relationships, especially early on, were transactional, and, especially in Hetty’s case, built around enforcing particular power dynamics: accruing a wealth of back rubs, extorting Pete’s TV time before signing Elias’s contract, or any of the countless occasions she brought up her status as ‘lady of the house’. So the fact that she makes this sacrifice that feels like a loss of power to her is in and of itself big; but Flower acknowledging that, and making sure Hetty herself sees it too, by calling her a good friend—it’s a whole different level of meaningful.

She doesn’t just thank Hetty. She makes sure that she sees what her actions mean to her. And Hetty is so taken aback by it, because Flower saying this to her and meaning it is a gift she was absolutely unprepared for; a “good friend” is not something Hetty has ever known herself to be, up until now. But she very badly wants for it to be true.

[iam-tryingmybest]

In the majority of the Httyd franchise Snotlout is trying so hard to be what he thinks people want from him. Which is why I love his development in rtte so much because he is always so scared of being unimportant to people but then he has to actually confront his deep fears and anxieties and reconcile with parts of himself he pretends doesn’t exist. And then he is able to see that he desires his own approval over the approval of others even if the two goals overlap occasionally. Then he is able to become the best version of himself and the best version of him is the one that is kindest to himself

[spinjitsuburst]

okay but listen when you sit down and think about Skybound it is genuinely such a batshit funny season I just

- Kai fucks everyone over by posting selfies in a hospital while visiting a sick child

- this is the only season the ninja are regarded as popular celebrities and it’s immediately dropped and never relevant again

- Nadakhan’s entire plot and character arc is the wildest Shakespearean tragedy. He loses his wife and his friends and get stuck in a teapot for so long and when he gets out he finds his friends frames some random people he’s NEVER MET for crimes and then his father dies in front of his eyes

- let me reiterate HE HAS NEVER MET THE NINJA HE HAS NO REASON TO HATE THE NINJA WHEN HE FRAMES THEM AND GETS THEM ARRESTED HE JUST DID IT FOR FUN

- he’s surrounded by the biggest idiots known to man he looks so confused the entire season

- “Cap’n lets pillage and plunder” “I’m afraid we can’t :(“ “oh why not” “piracy isn’t a thing anymore :(((“

- NADAKHAN HUN YOU CAN RESTART PIRACY???? JUST START STEALING?????

- the fact that he’s like “father I can save you” and his dad’s like “nah I’m good take this sick ass sword tho”

- this is such a funny image he looks SO UNHAPPY:

- during the final fight Jay says something along the lines of “blah blah you’ll be French toast”????? Why does he say this

- Nya. Nya. Why would you suggest this. What

- Lloyd is so bad at acting they tell him to pretend he’s mute

- Squiffy is the BEST name for a background character I’ve ever heard

- Echo

- “I WISH FOR A SWOOOOOORD”

[i-love-your-light]

too many thoughts on the new hbomberguy video not to put them anywhere so:

with every app trying to turn into the clock app these days by feeding you endless short form content, *how many* pieces of misinformation does the average person consume day to day?? thinking a lot about how tons of people on social media go largely unquestioned about the information they provide just because they speak confidently into the camera. if you're scrolling through hundreds of pieces of content a day, how many are you realistically going to have the time and will to check? i think there's an unfortunate subconscious bias in liberal and leftist spaces that misinformation is something that is done only by the right, but it's a bipartisan issue babey. everybody's got their own agendas, even if they're on "your side". *insert you are not immune to propaganda garfield meme*

and speaking of fact checking, can't help but think about how much the current state of search engines Sucks So Bad right now. not that this excuses ANY of the misinformation at all, but i think it provides further context as to why these things become so prevalent in creators who become quick-turnaround-content-farms and cut corners when it comes to researching. when i was in high school and learning how to research and cite sources, google was a whole different landscape that was relatively easy to navigate. nowadays a search might give you an ad, a fake news article, somebody's random blog, a quora question, and another ad before actually giving you a relevant verifiable source. i was googling a question about 1920s technology the other day (for a fanfiction im writing lmao) and the VERY FIRST RESULT google gave me was some random fifth grader's school assignment on the topic???? like?????? WHAT????? it just makes it even harder for people to fact-check misinformation too.

going off the point of cutting corners when it comes to creating content, i can't help but think about capitalism's looming influence over all of this too. again, not as an excuse at all but just as further environmental context (because i really believe the takeaway shouldn't be "wow look how bad this one individual guy is" but rather "wow this is one specific example of a much larger systemic issue that is more pervasive than we realize"). a natural consequence of the inhumanity of capitalism is that people feel as if they have to step on or over eachother to get to 'the top'. if everybody is on this individualistic american dream race to success, everyone else around you just looks like collateral. of course then you're going to take shortcuts, and you're going to swindle labor and intellectual property from others, because your primary motivation is accruing capital (financial or social) over ethics or actual labor.

i've been thinking about this in relation to AI as well, and the notion that some people want to Be Artists without Doing Art. they want to Have Done Art but not labor through the process. to present something shiny to the world and benefit off of it. they don't want to go through the actual process of creating, they just want a product. Easy money. Winning the game of capitalism.

i can't even fully fault this mentality- as someone who has been struggling making barely minimum wage from art in one of the most expensive cities in america for the past two years, i can't say that i haven't been tempted on really difficult occasions to act in ways that would be morally bad but would give me a reprieve from the constant stress cycle of "how am i going to pay for my own survival for another month". the difference is i don't give in to those impulses.

tl;dr i hope that people realize that instead of this just being a time to dogpile on one guy (or a few people), that it's actually about a larger systemic problem, and the perfect breeding grounds society has created for this kind of behavior to largely go unchecked!!!

[artandbrimstone]

don't come looking for me when its my turn

don't come looking for me at the bottom

[shakingparadigm]

fav alnst round so far? (mines is round 6 because i love pain and sorry to break it to you but I literally had no reaction when best boy ivan died.hes dead guys accept it.)

Favorite ALNST round... I'd have to say ROUND 5. The concept of the whole thing is just so spectacular not only in set design but in character dynamics as well. The despair and mockery that lines the whole thing is fantastic.

I particularly adore the way this round further connects the concept of death with the color white. The stage which Luka and Mizi perform on is fully white in color because it's built from the bones of an ancient creature, something of a memorial site. In certain shots, the spine of this creature is very clear. The whole area is ethereal and invokes not only a sense of reverence, but unease, too. It's haunting, almost hollow, and just like its origin, lifeless.

The moon that shines behind Luka is almost as big and bright as a white dwarf, a dying star that has exhausted itself of life.

And of course, the association with death is further emphasized once images of Sua appear.

There's something to be said about the fact that this stage is from the bones of an ancient creature, one that was respected enough for its bones to be repurposed in its honor. A deep reverence, worship, even.

It's painfully fitting for Luka to dance upon the remains of a creature so revered while he toys with Sua's image. A form of mockery, of disrespect, especially to the one who worshipped her. In both the literal and metaphorical sense, he tramples over dead gods.

It's important to note that in this round there are two performers but three participants: Mizi, Luka, and Sua. The feeling of death is something that permeates throughout the entire round because everyone involved has been forced to face it. This shared trait manifests itself as their most striking visual aspect: their white attire.

With the insight gained from Luka's relationship with Heperu, it's safe to say that Luka has experienced the feeling of death firsthand. He has quite literally died and then come back to life.

There's the factor of his purple fingertips, a result of his weak physical condition that keeps him on the precipice of life and death. Combined with his extremely pale complexion, his imperturbable disposition and obssession with heartbeats, Luka seems like a body on its way to a corpse, desperately clinging onto his last hopes of life. Staving off the coldness of death for as long as possible and monitoring his own body so that demise is confined to just the tips of his fingers.

Sua's connection to death is obvious. She has died, she is death.

A point of interest, however, is the fact that while everyone is dressed in white, only Luka and Sua share the colors of white and black. They both have these colors in their design, but in opposite places. The black of Sua's design lies on top of her white, while vice-versa for Luka as his lies at the bottom. It works exceptionally well with their state of their characters. Sua as the dead that crosses into the living, and Luka as the living that toes the line of death.

As someone who watched her god die in front of her own eyes, Mizi dons a gown of pure white just like the others. The difference is her second color, a light pink layer resting atop her dress.

Pink has associations with innocence and childishness, and in its more washed out and subdued state (light pink = pink mixed with white, innocence tainted by death) it's a perfect fit for the circumstances.

It's only during her aggressive outburst, when Mizi has death directly pointed at her that the pink layer begins to rip. Completely shedding her innocence, giving way to complete white. Dressing her for death.

Luckily, Hyuna arrives just in time (clad in black, life) to save her.

ROUND 5 has always been a complete masterpiece to me, and the more I think about it the better it gets. A dying man trying to stay alive, a white-clad widow and the haunting apparition of her dead god all performing this sick dance of death upon the bones of a creature who was exploited for spectacle and performance.

[impishthing]

i'm not trying to be a dick here but idk how this person, and so many other people in the homestuck fandom, come to the conclusion that gamzee the fictional child is like. ontologically evil and not just that he was poorly written. like i don't think hussie is a bad writer but maybe deciding that the neglected drug addicted clown child is inherently a fucked up and evil timeline destroyer who needs to be locked away forever was a bad writing decision (and also somewhat racist, something hussie is known to be). homestuck on a whole is good and legitimately well written but sometimes it isn't.

[camellcat]

hii idk why but the thought of fresh-faced professional scully being so scared she burst into her new extremely flirty but otherwise dismissive partner's motel room in nothing but a bathrobe and undergarments asking him to check her for strange markings before collapsing into him when he laughed at her and said they're just mosquito bites. do you think it killed her? just a bit? just enough that he was It that she realized she could never ever do this again with anyone else and now that she'd done this with him that was it? and lord help her if she ever did it again with him, nevermind anyone else. mortifying introduction. what a way to start out her new career with the fbi

anyways. just thinking about how scully wishes to be perceived and who she really is

[shslskaterboy]

People who construe Ryuji as just a dumb golden retriever type will never not bug me bc I feel like that just defeats the whole purpose of his character. Characterizing him like that only serves to power wash all his edges and make him less abrasive, which is more palatable to people when he really shouldn’t be!! The whole point is that most people find him loud or hard to deal with, but Akira doesn’t and that matters more in the end than anything else, and he’s not going to sacrifice his own self expression to be a more generally acceptable person. If you dumb him down that sorta feels like it’s taking away some of his autonomy bc it implies that he’s not smart enough to be thinking about it, when I would argue that he is purposefully defiant of the expectations society has placed upon him. His whole arc is all about him letting go of those notions and be happy as what he is, and I just don’t think it’s fair to him to take away the thing that makes him him by removing his intelligence

[yea-baiyi]

xie lian really is living the ultimate grey-ace fantasy though, because imagine you’ve gone 800 years not being attracted to anyone and you’ve been totally fine keeping a vow of abstinence you have no obligation to keep —

and then one day you run into this guy and your brain goes “he’d be a great husband” and suddenly you’re thinking about how he’s so tall and fixating on his hairline and his bone structure and wow his hands are so big, sure wouldn’t wanna be choked by him, and you’re a huge embarrassing mess around him. but turns out he is equally as embarrassing towards you and you end up liking him a lot and you guys flirt and joke around when you’re together and it’s great except you have massive walls up because of all of your centuries of trauma —

and THEN you find out that this guy has known you nearly your whole life, was actually the person beside you at all your lowest points, someone who has already been tested and come out fighting. he’s not nice and he’s seen some shit but he has literally crawled his way out from hell and proven himself to be good, and most of all already proven that he will stand with you and be by your side in every way that matters. all that before you guys even started dating, before you guys even MET in this lifetime. just the perfect alignment of a) attractiveness, b) compatibility, c) resilience as a life partner — and he came over and started talking to YOU.

maybe it’s just me but i’m chewing on the walls????

[apassingbird]

another thing i can't stop thinking about is how nervous tommy looks just after they've kissed because yes he wasn't afraid to (gently) grab buck's chin and guide him into a kiss but there's still that moment of uncertainty directly afterwards where you can see the thought of did i read this correctly flashing through his mind so he asks and when buck doesn't react negatively he can't help the way his mouth twitches up into a smile before he asks again if it was okay that he did that and when buck once again says yes he becomes a little more sure and assertive and decides to ask him out but there's still a small hint of nerves lingering in his movements and facial expressions because he really likes buck right he likes him and he wants him to say yes again and i don't know i think that those different levels of yes i know what i want now but this is also a tiny bit nerve-wracking that are visible not only in buck but in tommy too are so so so important and beautifully done

[chaoticsorceress]

I'm still kind of sort of upset over the lack of dialogue/reactions from anyone nearing the end of act 2 and pretty much the whole of act 3.

Like after the Gith ambush you on the road to Baldur's gate I feel like I'm shaking Gale to just talk to me about what happened as well or say something ANYTHING. LIKE YOU CAN ALSO TALK TO LAE'ZEL ABOUT IT IN FRONT OF ME PLEASE?!??!

No one really has anything to say when the Emperor can reveal that he was behind Stelmane's death and failing health. WYLL?!? HELLO???? It just doesn't make sense to me. Even if the Emperor had only revealed it to your Tav WHY wouldn't you then go over and just tell everyone in camp about it??? I wanted an option to at least tell Wyll about it since he looked up to Stelmane as a kid.

Also WHY can't I confide in anyone about the Emperor or just talk about it. I feel like Gale and Halsin would both offer some good advice on if I should trust this mindflayer or not. Gale's talk about Raphael in Act 1 was so good and I expected more conversations with him about who we should put our trust in as the game progresses. It would have been interesting to see his opinions on the Emperor after the mindflayer reveal.

Gale can also disprove of you agreeing to play along with Haarlep but the fact that he stays silent EVEN WHEN YOU'RE IN A ROMANCE WITH HIM??? He's not silent at all if you decide to cheat on him with Mizora.

[p4nishers]

random hc but. crowley being a plague doctor in the 16th/17th century bc he's supposedly "tempting people into death" but he can never, ever bring himself to actually do that so he ends up soothing their pain as best as he can and comforting them in their last moments. one night, after he held a little girl's hand as she passed away, he sits down at the banks of the river thames, with his plague mask discarded on the dirt, and he starts out over the water with tears in his eyes, wondering what the fuck is actually the point? it's not the first time he's asked himself the question nor the first plague he witnessed but, here, now after personally witnessing hundreds of deaths every day, he really wonders what actually is the point of him? why does he exist and why should he keep existing. why does he get to live when so many others don't? how is that fair? how is any of it fair? that's how aziraphale finds him, as he just got back from an assignment somewhere or other and hears crowley is in town, so he discreetly looks for him and finds him there, sitting in the dirt, now with his head in his hands, his shoulders silently shaking and is obviously immediately worried but doesn't know how to comfort him or what's allowed so he just sits beside crowley and watches him try to pull himself together. aziraphale's heart breaks, he put what happened together from the mask and the robes and he obviously knows about the bubonic plague but was convinced it was hell's doing and couldn't have even imagined crowley was out there everyday, helping people under the guise of hurting them. is he surprised? no, of course not but it still hurts to see crowley like this. but he's afraid to cross their unspoken rules so he quietly waits crowley out. he watches the water and doesn't dare look at crowley as he lifts his head and takes a few shaky breaths in. after a few minutes of breathing, crowley croaks out "her name was mary" and nothing else, and aziraphale understands, god he understands. it's one of the things they never speak about after it happens but aziraphale can't forget the night he sat with crowley for hours, till the sun came up, as he cried about a death of one little girl. he holds it close to his chest and never, ever forgets.

[yarnacle]

its too late at night im having too many gay thoughts about these idiots so. here we are i guess.

It's Ian. No one else is going to fucking caress him. For all the informality of the company's content and general atmosphere, with this video concept especially, he's still their boss. And no one is going to want to, or have the guts to just fucking stroke his face like that. Even as he laughs and asks 'What is this?' he knows what's happening, knows who those hands belong to.

Two fingers drag down the right side of his face, and he feels the chalk that's left behind. It's going to stay for the rest of the video, and there's something to be said about that, he thinks. Something symbolic, something romantic, or even something funny, the last thought being slapped into his head when Ian's hand collides with his face.

It doesn't hurt that much, and immediately after he cracks a joke.

"This person thinks they're hilarious."

And they are, he wants to add. They're ridiculously funny, with a dark, somewhat skewed sense of humour to match his own, and they're brilliant and kind and so many other things, but right now they're making it easy for him.

"Who would caress my face and slap me outta nowhere?"

He, and everyone else in the room, and everyone who's going to watch the video, knows.

"Feels like an Ian move to me- Did you just boop me?"

Ian's locking it in, making sure that it's clear that, yeah, in case you couldn't figure it out already, it's me motherfucker.

"That's the only one you truly needed to get right."

Anthony laughs. He's not wrong - It wouldn't matter if he got everyone else dead wrong [even Angela, after hearing her speak and feeling her entire cast]. So long as he got Ian right, then it would be fine. There's probably also something to be said about how sweet that would be, but after having all the fucking braincells knocked out of his skull from the second person, he's not very poetic.

All that matters is that he guessed Ian correctly, and can still feel the two stripes of chalk on his cheek. [All that matters is that now there's a phantom warmth ghosting across his face, a replication of the gentle, almost loving strokes a distraction from the slight sting from everyone else's hands.]

[dan-whoell]

idk im just thinking about the phrase we know you know and the more... interactive they've been with us recently. like they keep giving us chances to say things on the channel even though they know exactly what we're going to do.

also the way some people think they don't like us (feeling pressure to come out bc of shipping etc) or the 'you cant say that it makes them uncomfortable' kind of thing- and yet they keep giving us the mic, telling us how funny we are, how much they love us. they know we know and they are quite literally giving us a platform to say it.