#idk why i never thought about it this way
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vampyrevolution · 3 days ago
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Saying Mel falls into the "Disposable Black Girlfriend trope" just because of jayvik completely disregards the writing of her character and how her relationship with Jayce is an echo of her problems with her mother and city.
Now I'm not saying the dbg trope is not a GENUINE problem in media, because it is, but usually this trope consists of a black woman with lousy writing who's tossed away for two (usually white and gay but that is a totally different long story that deals with a long history of racism and erasure of black women in queer spaces for the sake of gay men) characters who get with each other.
This is not that and I need to explain why. Jayce and Mel UNDOUBTEDLY loved each other at SOME point, but their relationship did not have solid ground hence them breaking up. Mel wanted to be with Jayce because it symbolized rebellion, a unique way of looking at life and helping people. It symbolized something she was willing to risk everything for to see it prosper because this was the city she was building for her family in Noxus, to show her family she WAS the wolf and could handle be a leader, and a peaceful one at that. But to Jayce, she symbolized high society, a seat at the very table that tried to get rid of him, a part of the power he thought he deserved and a place where he knew he could MAKE A DIFFERENCE FOR THE PEOPLE.
The two of them loved the idea of one another, but never independently, the other. To say Mel is the disposable black girlfriend is to also ignore everything she went through in the season finale and everything that she's becoming, especially with the information that Noxus (where Mel is and will most likely be a lead character again) will be another series location. Mel is a complex lead whose story revolves around her at home life and familial relationship. Yes she's used as a mirror to parallel Viktor but that literally doesn't mean she's disposable, breaking up just means two characters were not meant to be and they recognized that.
Also in what world would Jayce be able to consciously even want to get back with Mel knowing she had magic and he was on a mini solo-war against the arcane? Where he thinks she's been able to control her magic this whole time and would constantly wonder why she didn't save Viktor because if she had, none of this would be happening?
That man does not wanna be with her 😭 he has literally always thought about Viktor.
And Mel has always thought about her family
They've both always seen each other as a way out their problems and a gateway/mirror to the ones they love. You could even say they're two sides of the same coin.
Also, Mel, Ekko and JayVik literally saved everyone in the end so idk how you could think this when Mel literally helped save the whole world as an imperative character to the plot.
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carlyraejepsans · 2 days ago
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would you be okay pitching ghost trick to someone who doesn’t rly know anything about it? i’ve heard of it before and that it’s good but idk why, and i don’t really get a lot out of advertisements or game descriptions
you know the toby-typical campiness in how he writes his characters in UTDR? over the top, extremely iconic, clearly working from preestablished tropes but doing his own special spin on them? put toby fox on acid and you've got shu takumi's writing style.
ghost trick isn't "just" good. ghost trick is the type of good that invents a whole new categorization for itself. ghost trick invented a situation to put little fictional bitches in that is so good, the most popular works in the tag are people from other fandoms being like "oh shit, let me put MY fictional bitches through in this situation as well"
it is one of the most hooking, satisfyingly delivered mysteries I've ever seen in a videogame. there is not a single second of the game that feels unutilised, everything pushes you forward in the mystery, and still it never feels choking. the way it handles tension and delivers its information is phenomenal. if this were a normal recommendation i would start talking about the gameplay and how fun and good it feels to play and how genuinely clever it is but you're not here for that, are you, so let me tell you the real selling point: every single character in this game is fucking insane. not a single one of them is normal. it's a noir. it's a parody. it's an animator's wet dream. my friend is playing the game on stream and they said his fiancée can tell when we're streaming because she can hear him doing his pathetic man voice on call.
listen to me. you will fall in love with sissel. i played One Shot earlier this year. i thought i was never going to find a game with a protagonist that crawled into my heart as much as niko. i was wrong. jesus christ i was wrong. you need to understand, this is a puzzle game. once you know the answers that's it for the gameplay. the replay value is extremely low. I have replayed it 5 times in three weeks just to make the wrong choices and watch what sissel says and quips about it. he's my guy. i need to hold his face in my hands. you will see his fuckass red suit, you will see his fuckass banana hair, you willl see his goofy little smile and his dirk strider ass sunglasses and you will whimper like a DOG because you miss him so much. i am missing him right now as we speak. fuck.
play ghost trick.
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caffeinatedvigilantewriter · 11 hours ago
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So Danny is older, and lives in Gotham as a mechanic (he could be a We mechanic, a JLA mechanic, whatever) and eventually, he starts dating Bruce Wayne.
Now, Danny knows the Wayne at the bats, it’s kinda hard to hide your vigilantism from a former vigilante. But Danny doesn’t mention it, he knows the dangerous of telling your loved ones.
Jazz is alive and a therapist is Coast City (Jazz x Hal? Could that work? Idk too much about the green lanterns). Dan is undercover to investigate pools of corrupted ectoplasm that’s guarded by an assassin cult, and Dani is still traveling the world, not for pleasure, but for the Realms.
Dani doesn’t age. It’s a side effect of being a clone. She destabilized one to many times and now her ghost half won’t let her age so she won’t die.
Dani can’t exactly settle down in a city likes the others. She looks 12. And while her siblings would take care of her in a heartbeat, she needs to fill her obsession of history and adventure.
So, she starts hunting for old artifacts, especially the magic ones. It’s a great way to learn about history and get a sense of adventure.
She’s been doing this for a couple years, building a name for herself and she gotten very good. (Keep in mind she only looks 12, but she’s actually like 33 mentally and intellectually)
Eventually, she crosses paths with a bat while searching for an artifact. (Even better if its Duke. We need more Duke. Probably won’t work with Cass, we’ll use Duke for the prompt, but can be switched out)
Obviously, Duke is kinda confused as to why a 12 yo is going after a dangerous magic artifact in the middle of but-fuck nowhere and offers to take her to Gotham and drops her off there after taking the artifact.
Dani knows better, she was going to refuse, but the realized she could take this as a free ride. So she agrees.
The reach Githam and go their separate ways, and Dike goes joke immediately, didn’t even take the time to tell anyone about the girl. but when Duke is at home hanging with their civilian stepdad, Danny gets a call and says he’s inviting his younger sister over
Bruce: Jazz? Jazz is older that you
Danny: nope! I have another sister!
Everyone: ???
Bruce: how comes we never meet her?
Danny: you have! She was at the wedding! But you’ll see her again don’t worry! She doesn’t visit often so I’m excited!
They arrives, the bat opens the door and Dani walks in.
Danny: Dani!!
Dani: Danny!!
So people are confused, Duke is like omg my aunt is an artifact hunter?? while everyone else is like omg my aunt is younger than me??
Eventually, Danny opens her backpack and goes:
Dani: so I was in *insert random place in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere* and found this! *pulls out artifact* I thought you would like so I brought it for you!
Danny: aww, thanks Dani, you shouldn’t have
Duke, who put that artifact in the cave for study: 👁️👄👁️
And Dani gives them a wink.
Duke isn’t going to take that lying down and attempts to find out Dani’s secrets while shes thwarting him at every turn.
Dani stays at the manor for a while, but nobody believe Duke when he tries warning them of Dani, because Duke didn’t tell anyone about the artifact
Things become even more alarming when Danny also start thwarting him, despite not know the family secret. (Danny thinks that Duke is onto the family secret.)
Cue crack, angst, fluff, whatever your heart desires.
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lara4eclipze · 2 days ago
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Hey so this is a very quick response but I’ve kinda had this idea sitting for a fat minute lol.. ANYWAY could you do like a slight angst fic where Yoonchae has a crush on the reader but the reader has a crush on a boy??
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›› c'est la vie
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sypnosis -» yoonchae has the hardest time confessing to you — with the kats by her side she finally takes the first step
beware -» fluff , slight angst , confession , very short fic , swearing , loser yooonchae ,
talks -» combined this two asks , I'm writing this instead of writing my marz fic since erm idk how the story is going, hope y'all like it mwa
taglist (open): @nyssalvr @ohmyhaely @vrtualstar @jellaaa @c-yerim
yoonchae was whipped the minute she saw you , the way your hair frames your face , how your lips were perfect and every time you smiled her day would've been made in an instant
yet there was one problem — you were "straight" , I mean everyone in the friend group knows you like arkin but no one really approved of it , you were top of your classes and arkin was the complete opposite
yoonchae was obviously very heartbroken to know you like someone like that , I mean cant you just look at her for a minute instead of falling in love with a man who can't even study even if his life depends on it?
"we should go here" megan exclaims showing a newly opened café — the café wasn't that far but it had the amazing view of the scenery of the city
"oh my gosh it's so cute!!" sophia says excitedly , you took a peek and it was amazing , plus you all needed a break from school anyways
"let's go later?" lara asks already checking if the place is open at night on her phone
"sure!!"
"I'm down"
ᯓ ᡣ𐭩
it was actually a plan by the girls , no the café wasn't new , they knew that they had to help out yoonchae , the girl was actually a loser — I mean everytime you talked about arkin it was obvious that yoonchae was disinterested the way her eye suddenly look hurt and upset
"you got this, calm down your sweating" megan teases the youngest , as yoonchae was getting the flowers and bracelet ready
"what if I mess up in front of her , what if she rejects me?!" yoonchae stammers her mind racing with thoughts , "hey listen to me , that wouldn't happen okay?" megan pipes up
their conversation got cut short when you , lara and sophia were finally in the café , you scan the place and went to the table you saw megan, yoonchae , manon and dani sit in
"hi , sorry we're late , LA traffic y'know" you apologize, sitting down you were a tad bit confused on why the girls were exchanging looks , you wanted to know what that meant why yoonchae seemed off , why megan kept looking at you and yoonchae
"what's wrong? — did I miss something?" you ask , sophia bumps yoonchae , "oh- uh can we maybe talk outside?" yoonchae asks which you nod to
you two walked outside, the view was wonderful, city lights and a cold breeze in the air
"why ,what did you want to tell me yoonie?" you ask curiously , the younger looks at you with sparkles in her eyes she looked amazing
"y/n i-i- I like you" yoonchae finally says handing you the flowers and the bracelet , for a moment you were frozen in spot , you didn't know what to say neither if you even can say anything
"I'm sorry, I know you like arkin I should've just not done this" the younger says , she turns to walk back in , but you stop her , you felt the same way yet you never knew that yoonchae liked you
"I like you too , and no I don't like arkin I don't know where you got that from but he's my cousin" you chuckle
"you do?! — oh my gosh this is so embarrassing!" yoonchae exclaims , you laugh at how the younger seemed to panic
"I knew the plan — you're not slick yoonie the minute I walked in here i already saw the bracelet and flowers, I'm just surprised it took you this long to confess" you admit to her , she was flushed god she so adorable
"now lets go back in — I love you yoonie" you say to her as you held her hand and walked back in the café earning you giggles and teasing from the rest
ᯓ ᡣ𐭩
"what now?" yoonchae asks as you both stand outside her house
"we'll figure it out , that's life right?" you replied smiling at her
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copperbadge · 13 hours ago
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Sam, how on earth did you get permabanned from tinder and okcupid? That seems like such a random thing!
I'm still not entirely sure; I have a theory, and Tinder gave me an indication, but by policy they don't tell people why they've been banned. Which I can understand, if someone reported you for bad behavior they don't want you to know or suspect who.
For me it was very weird. I'd had accounts with both before but had deleted them so I needed to reregister. When I registered for Tinder they kept making me verify I was real in different ways, like some weird escalating scale of identity. At last they had me take a real specific picture, and then I got an email saying I could not prove I was real to their satisfaction, and that I was permabanned. I never even interacted with anyone on the app.
But there are plenty of apps, so I went to okcupid a few days later and while they didn't SAY Tinder tattled to them, they immediately denied and permabanned me when I put in my phone number. I can only suppose they talked. They're both owned by the same company, so it tracks.
Most dating apps are owned by one or two companies, they're just formulated differently for different tastes/wants. What's funny is that I'm on at least one other app owned by Match Group and that one, Hinge, is totally fine with me. So idk.
The post office also didn't believe my address was real for the first few years I tried to register for their postal Letters to Santa giving program. I still can't get delivery meals that don't go badly awry. It's enough to give a guy a complex, but honestly I never felt good or comfortable on those two apps anyway so it might be for my own good. Having been on different ones now, I genuinely think OKCupid is one of the more toxic apps in this sphere, purely because it markets itself so specifically to people looking for authenticity but doesn't really foster it. A lot of other apps at least don't pretend they aren't meat markets.
I've had to approach dating apps in general as hostile places, simply because the level of harm they inflict for someone with RSD is so high. I don't blame the other users, but the apps themselves are structured so that you can, for example, see all the people who didn't think you were date material, but have to pay to see people who thought you were. Being radically honest about who I am and what I want has been helpful because I expect a much higher rejection rate from that, so I'm braced for it, but it's still not fun. On the other hand, this is the first try where I've made meaningful connections that have resulted in real dates. Breakfast Date, who I met on Hinge, has been really hot and fun, and Museum Date, who I met on eHarmony, is an ongoing exercise in hilarity (sexy hilarity) so for the first time it's worth it. And I don't think that would have been the case on OKCupid.
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demon-country · 7 hours ago
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#wiggles hands #i personally think that stolas had it wrong because even before blitzø started yelling #stolas thought blitzø didnt feel the same and immediately ditched as opposed to like?? giving him a fucking minute to process?? not cool??? #like yes the trauma response about being yelled at and setting boundaries and all that. thats fine #but Why stolas did you Immediately leave it wasnt even a rejection he just didnt Understand #give him a Fucking SECOND!!?? #which is smth blitzø also yells abt in full moon iirc! bc like DUH!!??? #and there IS power imbalance in the way stolas just tosses blitzø outside via teleportation. #it DOES imply he thinks little of blitzø In That Moment bc hes 'seeing his abuser' #but like... he would not teleport stella outside like that. even when he asserted his boundaries w her he NEVER did that shit #it WAS disrespectful to blitzø. it was. and the immediate dismissiveness the next morning obv didnt fuckin help #cuz blitzø immediately went on the defensive and like yeah he said horrible shit but FUCK DUDE he didnt instigate it! #like yeah stolas doesnt have to sit there and take it EXCEPT HES THE ONE WHO FUCKING INITIATED THE ISSUE? SO YES HE KIND OF DOES HAVE TO#HEAR BLITZØ OUT AND SIT THERE?? #puts my head in my hands. #and all the ppl talking abt ou well its stolas' house so he gets to portal blitzø out! #you are a fucking dick? you cant spring a huge relationship change on somebody and then run off and act the hurt party when they havent even #processed it yet! and then KICK THEM OUT when they understandably get ANGRY at you dismissing them? and HELLO. STOLAS DISMISSES BLITZØ.#HES NOT ONE OF YOUR SERVANT IMPS DUDE! HELLOOOO?????? #idk idk idk like stolas was definitely going through it but HOLY SHIT you guys cant be serious when you say it was equal on both sides #when theres a very obvious clear systemic power imbalance. like youre FUCKING WITH ME?? you cant be serious rn.
Wow. This... sure is a lot of extremely bad faith misinterpretations of those scenes. I'm going to address all of this step by step, I guess, because my dude, you are wildly off the mark on basically everything you accused Stolas of. So I hope you're ready, because this reply is going to be very long.
"#i personally think that stolas had it wrong because even before blitzø started yelling #stolas thought blitzø didnt feel the same and immediately ditched as opposed to like?? giving him a fucking minute to process?? not cool??? #like yes the trauma response about being yelled at and setting boundaries and all that. thats fine #but Why stolas did you Immediately leave it wasnt even a rejection he just didnt Understand #give him a Fucking SECOND!!?? #which is smth blitzø also yells abt in full moon iirc! bc like DUH!!???"
Yeah no, Stolas had every right to walk away, and was 100% justified in doing so. Maybe it wasn't entirely fair to Blitz, because on his end of things it looked totally different, but you already seem to understand what it looked like from Blitz's pov, so since we're talking about whether they equally fucked up or not, then I want you to step back from that and think about how it looked to Stolas, too.
Blitz did not respond to Stolas' confession with "hold the fuck on" or "what the fuck?" or "what do you mean?", nor did he do literally anything at all to suggest that he was confused or needed a moment to process what Stolas was saying. Blitz's immediate, snap reaction was to go "ohhh, okay you're fucking with me! This is an interesting roleplay, never done this one before but I can get into it. 'Ohhh, Stolas, I'll stay with you~! I love you sooo much~!'"
Perhaps you've never experienced this, but let me assure you that it is soul-crushingly awful to confess something important to you to someone you trust, only for them to completely write it off as a joke and/or make fun of you for it. It's extremely humiliating and feels like a deep betrayal, because you trusted them and were vulnerable with them, and in return all you got was mockery.
I've asked a number of real life actual people who have all, without fail, said that if that happened to them they'd end the conversation right there and walk away. Most of them, including me, said they'd leave just so they could go cry in private, and one said that they'd basically say "fuck you" and leave because they were pissed off. Stolas was the former. Take a moment to really, genuinely think about what your own reaction would be to having someone you love and trust make fun of you after you confess something important and vulnerable. It doesn't have to be a love confession, mine certainly wasn't, but do you honestly think you'd want to stick around after that?
So Stolas would have been justified in walking away just from that. He was very kind as he took his leave too and tried to bow out as gracefully as he could without causing a fuss, which is made all the more impressive because Blitz unintentionally triggered Stolas' trauma with the roleplay bit. Stolas has lived with Stella for 18 years at this point in the timeline, and part of how she abused him was humiliating him and mocking his feelings. He hides it decently well with Stella, because he's had decades of practice at this point, but we see in Ozzie's that being humiliated, especially in public, is a trauma landmine that Blitz tripped right onto. Yeah, he's going to leave, and it's not a fault that he does.
Moreover, you'll notice that Stolas doesn't kick Blitz out here or tell him to leave. He walks away further into the house, and yes he's probably expecting that Blitz will take it as an opportunity to bounce, but he does not tell him to go. Blitz could have waited as he took the moment he needed and thought things over, and then talked and asked whatever questions he needed to after Stolas came back. It was his bedroom and it was midnight, it's not like Stolas wasn't going to come back within the next couple of hours. Or Blitz could have left, thought things over, and come back. Instead, he followed after Stolas, which wasn't a great feeling for either of them, because Stolas was only barely staving off a breakdown and Blitz was getting hit in that abandonment trauma all over again, but Stolas walking off scared him so he acted on the impulse to not let Stolas get away. 
And he started off fine! Even though he was basically chasing Stolas, he wasn't angry or anything. He asked "wait, you were serious?! Hold on now, Stolas. What the fuck?" and Stolas did his best to answer even as he kept walking, rather than telling him to go away or kicking him out. His answer was poorly worded though and it set Blitz off, which is when we get to your next point.
#and there IS power imbalance in the way stolas just tosses blitzø outside via teleportation. #it DOES imply he thinks little of blitzø In That Moment bc hes 'seeing his abuser' #but like... he would not teleport stella outside like that. even when he asserted his boundaries w her he NEVER did that shit #it WAS disrespectful to blitzø. it was.
???? How on earth did you reach this conclusion?? Of course Stolas would never teleport Stella outside like that. That's not respect, that's fear. It took everything he had to stand up to Stella the way he did, which we know because he collapsed as soon as she was gone. He was terrified of her; he was backing away while she approached and knew she was about to hit him. He was fighting back, yes, but you can tell from her reaction that he almost never has in the past. It had nothing to do with respecting her, because his normal response seems to be either standing there silently taking the abuse or shrinking in on himself while trying to placate her.
As for what happened in the ballroom, Stolas was triggered for the second time in just a handful of minutes, this time by Blitz slamming open the door and yelling. It says absolutely nothing about how much Stolas does or does not respect him that these actions triggered a trauma response in Stolas. Trauma doesn't work like that. Anyone doing that to Stolas would have made him panic, because when you're experiencing a traumatic reaction, even if you're somewhere safe with someone you implicitly trust, your brain freaks the fuck out.
It was in no way disrespectful to kick Blitz out, it was just Stolas going into extreme Flight mode. Blitz wasn't letting him leave and at the end even ran towards him (to apologize, but Stolas had no way of knowing that and Blitz was already half out the portal before he started to say sorry and didn't even finish it. Also, you hear Stolas very faintly saying he's sorry before the portal closes), of course he's going to force Blitz out! He didn't want a fight with Blitz like he had with Stella, because he wasn't angry, he just wanted to be alone.
"and the immediate dismissiveness the next morning obv didnt fuckin help #cuz blitzø immediately went on the defensive and like yeah he said horrible shit but FUCK DUDE he didnt instigate it! #like yeah stolas doesnt have to sit there and take it EXCEPT HES THE ONE WHO FUCKING INITIATED THE ISSUE? SO YES HE KIND OF DOES HAVE TO#HEAR BLITZØ OUT AND SIT THERE??"
No, he really, really does not have to sit there and hear Blitz out. Stolas made it very clear in actual words that he did not want to see Blitz right then, because he was feeling too raw so soon after everything and Blitz was not giving him any space to breathe. And Blitz, once again, did not leave. He also, you'll notice, didn't force Blitz to leave, he just asked him to go, because this time he wasn't outright panicking. And even then, he kept giving Blitz chances to talk things out with him, showing that he wasn't dismissing Blitz.
Also, you're really telling me that you think a victim of domestic violence should be forced to stick around when someone is yelling at them? It doesn't matter if he "initiated things", that doesn't mean he's going to okay when someone starts grabbing and yelling at him. If Blitz was being calmer about it, and wasn't continually intentionally mocking Stolas and his feelings throughout that conversation (which, again, big trigger for Stolas, he's just hiding it better now because he was braced for it. Note that he's reacting a lot like he did when Stella was mocking him at the party) then I might agree with you. If Stolas had actually instigated the garden scene by telling Blitz to come over and then refused to listen while Blitz tried to explain, that'd be super fucked up. But Stolas didn't ask Blitz to come over, explicitly told him to leave because it hurt to much to talk to him right then, and Blitz was not being calm. Blitz was self-destructing and was being both clingy and aggressive, because he was scared of losing Stolas but was even more terrified of being vulnerable, and he habitually masks his fear with anger.
"#puts my head in my hands. #and all the ppl talking abt ou well its stolas' house so he gets to portal blitzø out! #you are a fucking dick? you cant spring a huge relationship change on somebody and then run off and act the hurt party when they havent even #processed it yet! and then KICK THEM OUT when they understandably get ANGRY at you dismissing them? and HELLO. STOLAS DISMISSES BLITZØ."
Buddy. Dude. Stolas didn't actually spring this on Blitz. Blitz literally says at the beginning of the episode that he's been avoiding Stolas because he knows Stolas wants to talk, and he doesn't want things to become complicated. He knows things will change as soon as he actually talks to Stolas and that freaks him out, because in his mind it can't possibly be something good, and this fear is exacerbated by what Loona told him. He literally tells Fizz that Stolas does things to show he likes him, and multiple people have flat out told Blitz that he does, and Blitz can't believe that for multiple reasons, but this entire thing has been building up for months and he knows it. 
Stolas also did not spring his "feelings bullshit" on Blitz either, despite what Blitz claimed. It might have felt like it, because up until then he was in complete denial of those feelings being genuine, but Stolas has not been subtle, by any means. He has, in his and everyone else's minds, been showing Blitz that he cares about him at the very least as a friend, since this whole thing started. Even in fucking Loo Loo Land, despite him awkwardly trying to flirt with Blitz a couple of times, he doesn't actually try to start anything while they're there. He doesn't even seem to expect something sexual to happen between them at all, because he says he wants Blitz and his employees to come and immediately offers to pay Blitz with money, rather than sexual favors like Blitz anticipated. He's using it as an excuse to hang out with Blitz - because he's an idiot who didn't think about how uncomfortable it'd be for literally everyone involved, especially Octavia - and Blitz even knows that because he knows Stolas doesn't actually need one bodyguard, let alone three.
He invited all of them to the harvest moon festival because he thought it'd be fun, again with no expectation of anything sexy happening. He came to rescue I.M.P. with no ulterior motive, he just wanted to help them. He didn't ask for or suggest that he wanted sex in return for the save either, he just asked for a thank you in a very pouty voice because none of them thanked him, and Blitz turned things sexual, which he was happy to follow the lead on. He was super excited for the date, dressed up super fancy, proudly walked into Ozzie's holding Blitz's hand, tried over and over to talk to Blitz because he thought it was a real date, stood up to defend Blitz from Verosika (which Blitz didn't see and which he didn't get to follow through on, because Ozzie took that chance to go on the attack and publicly humiliate him), and even after that disaster he still invited Blitz in solely to hang out and maybe cuddle a bit.
He would ask Blitz to stay the night after they were done having sex instead of just kicking him out, which we see in the memory fragments. He called Blitz on the regular just to talk about his day and was frequently interacting with him on social media, both for approximately a year and a half. He was oblivious to how condescending his attempts at flirting were and had no idea how demeaning it was for Blitz until Blitz finally showed him how much all that hurt him (after Ozzie's), but he only was acting like that and talking that way because he genuinely believed that it was what Blitz wanted and was into, based on their first night together (doesn't excuse it, of course, but it was another way he was desperately trying to show how much he wanted Blitz).
For close to two years by the time The Full Moon rolled around, Stolas has been trying very hard and kind of ineptly to show Blitz he likes him, and at the very least wants to be real friends with him (that also have sex). Literally everyone who has seen them together knows how much Stolas likes Blitz, including Blitz despite him being in denial of it. He has tried again and again and again for nearly two years to show Blitz he cares about him and wants him around, and Blitz - for understandable reasons given his own trauma, history, biases, and hangups - has rejected him time and again. That's why Stolas was expecting Blitz to reject him following his confession. He expected Blitz to tell him to fuck off or to just take the crystal and run without looking back, but he didn't expect to be (unintentionally) mocked. He didn't expect Blitz, who he trusted, to humiliate him. Even without the trauma he has surrounding that, after all the other rejections of course Stolas is going to take Blitz mocking him as another rejection. He didn't think Blitz was confused, because he thinks he's made his feelings pretty damn clear for ages now, and that's why he said he had his answer and was trying to leave before he started crying - which most people hate to do, because crying in front of other people is often a mortifying experience.
"STOLAS DISMISSES BLITZØ.#HES NOT ONE OF YOUR SERVANT IMPS DUDE! HELLOOOO?????? #idk idk idk like stolas was definitely going through it but HOLY SHIT you guys cant be serious when you say it was equal on both sides #when theres a very obvious clear systemic power imbalance. like youre FUCKING WITH ME?? you cant be serious rn"
He wasn't dismissing Blitz. He super fucking did not. He wanted to be alone so he could go cry his guts out, and Blitz was scaring him by getting angry and slamming open doors. That's not dismissing someone, that's going into panic mode. He wasn't treating him like a servant, if he was he would have been bored and unaffected and told him to go. He. Was. Scared. He was hurt and humiliated and scared and Blitz was chasing him down and yelling at him. It's not playing the victim to be scared and it's not playing the victim when your feelings get mocked and you want to get away from the person who just stomped all over your heart.
Blitz's reactions make sense from his end, and absolutely he was being triggered too - he was in fact the one triggered first, though that too was by accident. Yes, his anger was justified and he had every right to express it when he felt he wasn't being listened to. Yes, he wasn't intending to scare Stolas. Yes, Stolas has messed up and hurt Blitz in numerous ways over the course of the series. But my god, that does not mean that Stolas' feelings and reactions are any less justified and reasonable.
It was equal on both sides. They both equally fucked up. They both accidentally hurt and triggered each other. They both were scared. Stolas sending Blitz away was the only thing he could think of to de-escalate the situation, because Blitz was actively trying to pick a fight and Stolas had no idea that Blitz would stop just because he started crying (you think anyone else has ever stopped just because he cried? We literally see both Stella and Paimon mock him for it, and Stolas isn't exactly in a rational sort of mindset here).
Are you really, honestly, truly telling me that you would be fine just standing there and letting someone who just hurt you scream at you in a way that reminded you of both your domestic abuser and the person who recently tried to murder and mutilate you? Are you kidding me? You have completely misinterpreted everything Stolas has said and done in those two episodes by refusing to look at it with any amount of sympathy or compassion and immediately jumping to the worst possible scenario.
"Stolas shouldn't have portalled out Blitz during Full Moon" this and "Stolas should have stuck around and listened to Blitz in the garden during Apology Tour" that. Do y'all not realize how it sounds to demand that a domestic abuse victim stick around when someone is yelling at and insulting them? And on the flip side of that, do the other half of y'all not realize how it sounds to demand that someone, particularly someone from an oppressed group, never get loud or demonstrably angry just because it might scare someone?
Like Blitz had every right to air his grievances in Full Moon, and being angry when you're treated poorly is a perfectly normal, reasonable response. It's not inherently abusive to yell and stomp when you get mad, and it's completely unreasonable to say that Blitz is just because he did. But at the same time, Stolas does not have to sit there and take being yelled at when he's already had to suffer though someone doing it to him maliciously for at least 17 years. He does not have to take being grabbed, being screamed at, or having his clearly stated boundaries ignored either, like at the beginning of Apology Tour. Him getting upset when someone does that to him, when he's only just gotten away from his abuser and was almost murdered for it, is not some failing on his part or him playing the victim.
Blitz's trauma doesn't care that Stolas wasn't actually going to abandon Blitz, and it doesn't care that that the hurtful things Stolas has said and done have come largely from a place of ignorance rather than a lack of care. He's protecting himself the only way he knows how and is blinded by the sheer intensity and longevity of his self-loathing, but frankly it was a good thing for him to finally speak up about how some of the things Stolas does makes him feel, and it's a very good thing that he's actually trying to fight to keep Stolas rather than just booking it and throwing a grenade behind him on the way out.
Just like Stolas' trauma doesn't care if he knows Blitz is different than Stella and wouldn't actually hurt him, and it doesn't care that Blitz's anger comes from a hurt, scared, and traumatized place as opposed to the pleasure Stella took in hurting and scaring him. Stolas hasn't had any time to even begin to heal from the damage she did to him, and frankly if he's scared and breaking down like in Full Moon it's actually a step up if he's removing himself from whoever is triggering him, even if it wasn't fair to Blitz who was, in his own way, attempting to work things out.
Neither of them is the bad guy here, they're just very reasonably upset and having clashing trauma responses. You can be compassionate and understanding of both sides without saying that either of them should have to just sit there and take it when someone is greatly upsetting them. It's normal to get angry when you're scared and upset, and it's normal to cry and run away when you're scared and upset, and neither are wrong or bad just because in the moment when emotions were running high they each did several things that accidently set the other off, especially when they had no way of knowing it was a trigger beforehand.
None of this is say that the way things shook out was great or productive, and they definitely need to work on healing so that they're not letting their fear and trauma control them. If they're going to get to place of real understanding, then at some point these two need to sit down with the intent to talk things out and have an honest and open conversation with each other, without Blitz yelling or Stolas running or either of them letting their preconceived assumptions and biases get in the way of actually listening. Blitz needs to not self-sabotage and Stolas needs to not shut down, and that's going to be really fucking hard for both of them, because that's how they've been coping with their trauma for literal decades.
And to his major credit, Blitz got it right at the end of Apology Tour, the only thing he got wrong was the timing because Stolas was so drunk that I'll be honestly surprised if he remembers most of it in the morning. He wasn't in any state of mind to listen or pay attention, but at the same time, to his credit he's already been reflecting on what Blitz has been saying to him and trying to figure out where and how he fucked up and hurt Blitz. And also, he kept saying things like "right now", which means he will be ready to talk things out eventually if he's just given a little bit of space to put himself back together and think about things.
And guys, please. Just because some people will start crying to try to manipulate and guilt trip those around them whenever someone gets upset at something they did, doesn't make that what Stolas did. He was trying to get away so Blitz wouldn't see him cry. And just because some people like to fly off the handle and rage at every perceived infraction, doesn't make that what Blitz did. He had justifiable cause to be angry and in Full Moon he didn't think Stolas was listening, so he tried to make himself louder and bigger in an attempt to make himself be heard and his hurt be acknowledged. If one of their reactions made you uncomfortable, that's fine, there's nothing wrong with that. But the story isn't about those kinds of people, it's about two fictional demons who aren't trying to hurt or manipulate each other, they're just struggling to juggle trauma, ignorance, and the desire to be together. They're not able to yet, but that's what character arcs are for.
And just to head off any comments on it: no, the narrative is not villifying Blitz and it's not babying Stolas or trying to sweep any of the shit he's done under the rug. Blitz being angry and self-destructive doesn't make him a villain, and Stolas crying a few times and still being pretty ignorant of how he's come across doesn't mean they're trying to say he's done nothing wrong.
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eerna · 2 days ago
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Woah never thought caitvi would be the way i learn “uñas y mugre” doesn’t have a direct or colloquial translation in English. It’s kinda interesting how different language backgrounds could have an impact on interpreting media. Maybe that’s why the last scene felt natural and sweet to me as it felt like a rough translation of a common term of endearment from my childhood. Being told that my friends and i “somos como uñas y mugre” which kinda roughly translates to “they are like dirt and nails.” Has a similar meaning to “two peas in a pod.” It has me really interested in the writers’ process for that last scene seeing the different ways people have been approaching/feeling about it.
Idk if anyone else has pointed this out before or if this makes any sense. It’s just super interesting to me how much language impacts each person’s point of view. :))
Ooooh interesting indeed! "We're like dirt and nails" does sound much sweeter, as it doesn't really denote anyone specific as the dirt part, so yeah I personally wouldn't have been as pissed at that version if that was what was said in the show lol. I would still have disliked the rest of their arc 2-3 story as it is still pretty classist even without that, but yknow, baby steps
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altcvnningham · 8 hours ago
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idk why i thought ab this but imo adler isn’t huge on pda BUTTT he is serious about silent gestures of care + affection. being cia means his head is perpetually on a swivel buttt when it comes to the mundane he is constantly in tune with what you want and need, from the superficial to the serious.
dress you did a double take at past a boutique? it’s mysteriously hanging in your closet the next time you get dressed. he hears you sigh to yourself about the leaky faucet? it’s fixed, though you never recall touching it. you start waking up every day with a crick in your neck? hm, suddenly you swear these pillows somehow feel more plush, more comfortable, different. obsessing over a certain song you keep hearing on the radio? somehow you find the whole album in your record collection.
foot rubs without question after you take off your heels you’ve worn all day; dishes washed and house cleaned even though you’re sure you’ve both been busy at work; quietly doing up a button on the back of your dress without even telling you that you’ve missed it.
he’d spoil you to heaven and back in the tiniest ways and you won’t even notice it enough to insist that you don’t deserve it. somehow, you just think life got strangely easier when adler walked into it.
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outrunningthedark · 10 hours ago
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When it’s all over and Eddie is still straight and likely in a relationship with a woman…. And probably Buck too… O will say something in an interview about how he was playing Buck as in love with Eddie the whole time, so 911twt feels sorry for him and says nice things. Meanwhile R will be full “I would like to be excluded from this narrative.”
LITERALLY THO. Ever since he opened his mouth about Bi Buck in s4** and then claimed he was going to test how far he could tease the fandom via... facial expressions? if Buck was never confirmed queer...I don't put it past this man to be pulling the same shit now (because he knows what fandom uses as "proof" of Buck's attraction, he watches the clips!) while still having the luxury of saying "I understand why you thought that! But I don't write the scripts!" 🙄 He cannot be trusted to tell the story authentically when his main concern is telling it in a way that makes him look like "the good guy". [**Idk how many people were around for s4 in real time, but knowing that Oliver was privy to info about a potential Bi Buck arc puts a whole new spin on the way he engaged with the media back then, particularly after the shooting. This article is a good example - he spoke highly of the will scene, and his and Ryan's chemistry, and said he was looking forward to how things would progress next season for their characters. All these answers were based on his assumption that Buck would discover his bisexuality and thus a possible attraction to Eddie. Something he should have never been told without the proper approval first!]
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skitskatdacat63 · 3 days ago
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"Ah I'm having trouble finding a specific source for my argument." "Have you tried chatgpt search?" Sure, let me try that after I go fucking jump off my roof first.
I hate when people offer up chatgpt to me as a solution, I would rather crawl into the depths of hell to find a proper source than ever use that devil technology(I am beginning to sound like a 19th century luddite)(I am not ashamed of this)
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tealmagicmoon · 2 days ago
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I think we should start a positive trend in the fandom
SPRED THE HASTAGE I LOVE TSBS WRITING
because (I’m guilty of this two) the positive side is quite compared to the bad side. I know moving forward I’m going to put disclaimers on all character rants or theory’s or ep reviews talking about how I love the writing I’m just taking about the characters and my opinions. I noticed that in my posts unless give consistently read my previous posts I come off a dick and I sound like I’m insulting the writing even if I’m not meaning two and that’s on me.
Let’s take my opinion on Earth’s character
I think Earth used to put her own need to feel like she’s helpful so she can be a good person onto other to the point where it was manipulative. I don’t know she did it on purpose but I do think she didn’t do enough to change.
But this is where I’m in the wrong. Because Earth changed and I saw and appreciated that but in my posts there are FAR more that express my negative views on Earth compared to the positive ones.
And that’s because I didn’t think I had much to say about it when I know I could have. It’s because wording positive things is harder then negative for me so when I would try I would get bored and give up mid way never posting my thoughts on them.
(For the people who will take this out of context:
No I’m not judging Earth because she’s a woman I’m critiquing my old opinion of Earth that was made based on her actions towards others.)
I’m aware that the main problem that is effecting the shows is not people like me however we don’t do enough to help.
So why am I making this post? Well self-reflection mainly but also-
Kat and Davis I know you leark (idk if that’s how u spell it) on tumbler so if any of my posts made you feel like this I’m so sorry I contributed to this negativity. I should have tagged and disclaimed my posts and made it clear to an unfamiliar person that I’m not just shitting on a character but I failed to do so. I love you and your writing I’ve been learking and watching you both since FTO S4 and TFF Security breach and your SCP series. I really love your stuff and I’ve always love your writing. I don’t think I’ve expressed that enough.
@queenkatluv
@theinvisibledavis
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pincushionx · 1 day ago
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Imagine an AU where Belos is imprisoned after Titan Luz defeats him rather than killed.
Then one day Hunter comes to visit him in his prison and he asks if Belos ever thought he could have been happy with him.
And (and I know this would be OOC for him) Belos can't bring himself to answer. He would gladly say no just to make Hunter feel bad, or maybe even say yes to manipulate him, but he actually finds himself lost for words.
Hmmm, this is outside of what you asked but I wonder if Belos did have any sort of love for Hunter.
It’s already stated that Belos created Hunter as a toddler. It’s still unconfirmed if he made any other baby grimwalkers. I’m also pretty sure it was confirmed that he experimented on grimwalkers too, so not every grimwalker was a Golden Guard. So I’m going to assume all the previous Golden Guards where older teens to adults. I wonder if he had any attachment to Hunter, I mean he was around since he was basically a baby. It’s hard to imagine not having some fondness for something like that but again this is Belos.
I see different thoughts on why Belos created the grimwalkers, some say it was Belos way of justifying himself and reliving the betrayal over and over, it was genuinely to get an ideal version of Caleb, to have a new brother to take care of him, ect. I genuinely wonder if Belos ever loved a grimwalker, maybe the early ones but that was hundreds of years ago and that’s still a maybe.
He hallucinates Caleb looking down on him, disappointed. He knows subconsciously that what he doing is wrong but he’s too far deep into his delusion that he’s saving mankind from these sinful witches.
In the end they are just tools, an uncanny replacement for the brother he murdered and never got over.
But at the same time he did express disappointment at Hunter not lasting, the collector also question why he didn’t kill Hunter when he had the chance to after eclipse lake which is odd if Hunter is so replaceable. That he genuinely believed that Hunter would stay in line and be his most loyal one.
Actually now that I think about it, Hunter never betrayed Belos explicitly. He only rebelled in small ways like studying wild magic, making friends and having a palismen which Lilith also had. Hunter only nearly got killed because he found out the truth but Belos never gave him the chance to plead for mercy or the option to come back. Who knows if Hunter would have gone back if he was given the chance, Belos could have at least attempted to manipulate him to believing what he saw was fake or something.
He says their betrayals hurt but never shows it. While I do think the grimwalkers are set for failure since the start, he might have had hope that Hunter would have lasted since this one he actually raised this one and the fact that Hunter was actually loyal and devoted to him. It hurts how much this kid loves him.
Idk if the other grimwalkers were tricked to believing Belos was their family or something but Hunter loved him like a father figure and wanted his approval so badly and Belos knew this.
To your hypothetical, imprisoned Belos Au are interesting but something you don’t see often. I think he would spend a lot of time pondering, praying and wondering what if’s. Considering there’s not much to do when you’re locked up. He allowed himself to live in ignorance and hate for so long, was it even worth it? Could have he been happy in a place like the boiling isles? What if he never killed Caleb? What if he never left the human realm? What if he never made a daring spell? Why did he make coven again? What if he gave which kind a chance…? What if he never abused his grimwalkers? It all too crazy and he’s spiraling.
Hunter visits one day despite being told it not a good idea. But how could he not? Despite being abused and hurt in unfathomable ways by him, he still loves him in sick way. He was his only family for so long, that man who kept him isolated. He still fantasizes about being fussed over and loved by Belos, still has ‘fond�� memories of him. So to Belos surprise, the Grimwalker he once killed and abused is now sitting in front of him, ready to chat.
They talk for a bit, Hunter tells him a bit about the outside word and the changes made. He isn’t aggressive or confrontational, he couldn’t be even if he wanted to. Belos stays silent, unsure of what to say. Most grimwalkers expressed hatred before death, yet this one who he actually once killed was chatting with him like it was a normal day. Hunter is terrified but he keeps chatting, pretending this is fine. Belos tries to make his own comments and redirect the conversations but can’t. He lost for words because he’s in a situation not even he foresaw. He expected rage, ridicule or even tears but not this. Hunter was talking to him like he was still family.
I imagine Hunter, in his ill mind, still thinking of Belos as family. Still someone he wants to love despite everything. That he often thinks of him even on good days.
Soon Hunter asks that question if Belos could have ever been happy with him, if he ever loved him. Hunter believes that answer is no, he was already marked for the slaughter with that sigil, a dead man walking. Even if he wants that answer so badly to be yes.
And Belos can’t answer because he’s already thought of this. Could he have been happy with Hunter? Was he fond of Hunter? Was Hunter just a replacement? Was he a good replacement? Could he have loved him outside of being a replacement? Was there any love for the child he raised?
He could say no and hurt Hunter, the ‘love’ was always conditional, he was just a tool, was meant to be dead, ect. (But that might drive Hunter away and Belos is lonely)
He could say yes and give Hunter false hope, manipulate him, make him take pity, revive that old loyalty, ect. (He could get caught in this monitored state and get his only loyal companion ripped away)
But he can’t answer because he doesn’t know. It’s been so long since he had loved. He hated for far too long, he got rid of any chance to love. Was it possible to be happy with Hunter? Just him being Hunter and not some tool or replacement?
Idk this concept is good, I genuinely wonder what would have happened if Belos did actually love Hunter. I don’t think he does or ever did, he was just upset that his tools broke faster than he thought it would but it’s an interesting thought. I think if Belos and Hunter did start to bond in this Au, everything would be bittersweet in the worse ways.
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chasedeys · 3 days ago
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https://www.tumblr.com/chasedeys/768170997377597440/httpswwwtumblrcomchasedeys768169507136159744
Omg you’re so right I’ve noticed that he’s very careful with his words when talking about Ja’Marr and I think that’s so telling like on one hand he is not playing into the media leading questions, and ok the other he wants to keep as much of their priceless relationship to himself
he doessss!!!! to be fair he always chooses his words carefully for all his interview questions that's why he usually takes notable pauses in between the words of all his answers. it always makes me laugh when the nfl/bleacherreport/bengals post clips of his interview they have to trim the dead silence in between his sentences 😭 incredibly precious of him btw
completely drained from the last ask so i can't be assed to actually link these sorry but i really want to list some moments out :') :
he always stutters (?) or like talks haltingly about ja'marr and their connection like he's choosing his words very carefully and deliberately. like think of that interview with ryan clark on his connection with ja'marr or that insane one with joe montana about finding that one special wr or smtg crazy like that or that podcast one where his hair was so fucking perfect and he talked about ja'marr being open etc etc god my brain is too fried for this sorry. oh and that panthers presser where joe laughed and said he likes watching ja'marr play!!! grauaghghhg.
ja'marr's rookie preseason drops, he said he knows the type of guy ja'marr is the kind of player he is despite all his drops. ja'marr gets his first touchdown and joe storms the field to get to him and hug his ass like they're in a romcom idk. the post game presser he makes it clear he remembers all the shit they said about ja'marr 'i thought he was dropping everything'.
this preseason getting constantly asked about ja'marr's contract and him not practicing at all. he gives pr answers sure but you can see he was 100% firm when he says ja'marr would be ready regardless and i think he also mentioned about throwing with him outside of practice?? cute! absolutely devastating for me but cute!!
the 'there’s a whole lot of ways a receiver can tell you hey get me the fucking ball' 😭 somebody wrote a headline like 'ja'marr chase question causes joe burrow to cuss for the first time during press' or something like that and i just about died 😭 kinda clickbaity but honestly it’s soooo funny of course ja’marr would be involved somehow. that presser he was off he was weirdly open?? and teasing??? and when he talked about ja'marr he still took his time to choose his words but he was a whole lot looser on the tongue than usual so boom he drops the f bomb to the shock of every single person who watches his shit.
i cant really think of anything else lmao and this isn't really in line with list sort of but i remember him getting asked about him and ja'marr or pat and travis LMAOOOOOOOO truly why would they ask him this but his voice got so?? fuck it was so????? he 100% tripped up never in my life have i seen him get so flustered and giggly and weirdly defensive. saying something along the lines of 'what do you want me to say? course I'm gonna say us (him and ja'marr) like they (travpat) would answer them' but he was soooo ???? blushy about it???? and like scrunching his entire body in that chair?????? insane man tbh. pr answer ofc but the way he answered it was giving new couple getting asked about how they got together idk. AND LIKE if you compare this with ja'marr getting asked about him and joe or josh allen and stefon diggs (😭😭 bless you all get to a point in your life that you get so close to a someone people know you as a duo instead of just a singular person that you get asked these type of questions) and he calmly without missing a beat rationally straight-faced-ly said that 'i like us more than anybody'........fuck them both so muchhhhh shut uppp 😭
ok bye :')
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not-xpr-art · 14 hours ago
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gonna go a lil bit into my ideas behind this one!
think I did already mention it somewhere, but I wanted this to feel like an old psychology illustration, especially with the way they both spend much of the episode studying each other... (also a reference to the wider outdated psychology things they talk about in the episode)
I think a lot of how Blake and Drew are written are as character foils in a way (hence why I made the former red and the latter blue alongside the main drawings of them here... also yes those colours again, sue me pfft), feeling for a lot of the episode like opposites... the Sadist and the Depressive, couldn't feel more different huh?
except, their actions (especially at the end) mark them as being so much more similar than you initially thought! through both of their selfish actions there are innocent people (their kids) who have suffered and died...
(also a detail probably no one noticed in this (not that I expected anyone to notice pfft) is that there are various letters across the piece, most are lower case but the few that are capitals spell out the name ELLIE... the person in both their lives that they both hurt and let down...)
so I wanted this piece to show that contradiction between those two characters, two sides of the same coin if you will... I also think the tear between the two drawings is like two pages that have been ripped apart and stuck together (in a way I think I could have made this more obvious with a line there? idk maybe not lol...)
the whole idea of the trolley problem (the way I see it in the episode, that is) is less about the victims themselves and more about the person standing at the lever making that decision! having that choice over who to kill or not... that's enough to make someone feel like a god... and a god is seemingly untouchable... unless they end up going up against another god, that is lol
idk... there's something so greek tragedy about everything in this episode (which I feel like I'd love to explore more in another artwork ngl lol...) and the fact that yes, Blake is an evil bastard, but Drew also has a lot to answer for makes everything in this story so SO compelling...
final thing I wanna say is I think it was on this piece that someone mentioned how they liked the certain things about the character's faces I chose to emphasise and honestly I LOVE that people notice things like this!!! I'm always super interested in trying to create a certain feeling from a singular expression within my portraits, trying to encompass everything you see within that character in one moment is tough and I'm never really sure I'm doing a good job so honestly hearing that made my day <3
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
a fragile state of mind...
(illustration based on the inside no 9 episode 'the trolley problem')
(09/2024)
forever just SO fascinated by this ep and these characters tbh!
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toasthaste · 2 days ago
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ok here are some In Stars and Time thoughts: (wow! that's a lot of thoughts actually! long post warning! also warning for like every possible spoiler, don't read this if you haven't engaged with the game to your satisfaction)
I'm obsessed with the fact that the loop that ends up being the final one is the one where EVERYTHING goes wrong. I spent the whole game subconsciously building up my Perfect Final Loop in my mind, how I'd get every item to make sure I didn't miss an opportunity to use em, do all the friendquests and such... I didn't even realize I'd been building up that ideal scenario until after credits rolled! Really really cool. The timeline where Siffrin does the worst stuff he does in any loop is the one that stays. And it's still a happy ending! it's a better ending because of that! His friends saw him at his worst and still loved him! He didn't have to do everything perfect to keep them around actually! Something about that feels so right, to me.
I keep using "ludonarrative resonance" to describe this game and yeah ok I'm huffing my own farts here whipping that out but whatever, it's REAL. The player and Siffrin are on the EXACT same emotional journey as each other, we're getting tired of seeing the exact same lines over and over again right alongside them, we're taking shortcuts because we've seen it all before and just want to grab key open door grab crest etc etc make the progress go. We're starting to find these previously-charming characters grating because we've just seem them repeat the SAME lines over and over and over and OVER again until they start feeling like caricatures of themselves who we can barely feel any real compassion for any more.... It's just so.... clean, it's so perfect, to me. It helps that Siffrin is also one of the more relatable characters I've encountered in, like, media. I don't usually relate to fictional characters much, but, man, the emotional constipation, the building scorn, the depression, the Being Weird About Touch... I mentioned in another post that it's really just Siffrin and Murderbot who I've ever found viscerally relatable, of all the characters ever in media. So like, it's a pretty rare position. (I do not relate to the pun-love though. I'm funny I'm good at goofs but bad puns are extremely tedious to me. Which perhaps goes to show how well-realized Siffrin is, given that I'm able to look the other way....)
I think they could have stood to make Loop's Whole Deal a bit more obvious. I had no clue what their fucking deal was at any point. I totally missed the interaction that lets you learn about The Incident and thus get more Loop info at the end, and... it's valid to have different endings in a game of course, but... I felt like I really missed out tbh! And I had no way of knowing I had to keep interacting with the silver coin.... idk. It felt a bit like a gotcha I suppose. And Loop's deal is really cool! Holy hell! I'm doing a quick replay of the game to see more convos with them with this context, and to get the ending with them, and like--!!! There's so much here! Loop tellins Sif to use the royal We, they even tell Siffrin, like-- Loop asks Siffrin why he doesn't just tell his friends about the loops, maybe they can help, why keep it a secret? Meanwhile... Loop!Siffrin is stuck in their own helpless timefuckery world and refusing to let Siffrin know about it! The Siffrin from the Start Again timeline never learned those lessons, they're still trying to help someone else while refusing to ask for help themselves, refusing to even let on that there's a problem! And getting more and more emotionally fucked up about it! Man it's good. I guess it does make a replay more rewarding, not knowing this until the end, the first time, but so much of the game is already a replay that, idk, it does feel weird to replay it. I've already done so many repetitions y'all.... But I guess that's pretty meta, also...
Oh I'm under the impression this is not terribly uncommon but I absolutely did get got by the ?diary? that had the story of the person making a duplicate of themselves so they had someone to talk to. Like I fully thought that was describing the King and Siffrin, I spent a long time under the mistaken impression that Siffrin was a copy of the King in some capacity. Oops.... I might try to gently lead Beloved Roomie away from this interpretation when she plays it. Planning on being pretty hands-off overall but this is one area where I feel it might be justified to violate the prime directive.... But we'll see!
I wish I liked the music more..... This is a game that I think really begs for some real heartwrenching tunes to enhance all of the everything but instead none of it does it for me at all. I think that's a real shame, it's by far my biggest complaint. I'm not asking for Undertale-tier, but, at least something I'd want to put on my playlist for the emotional resonance, y'know?
THEY ACTUALLY KILLED THE KID !!!! LIKE!!!! I guess I have some biases I might should think about but I was not expecting a game that begins with so many explicit pronouns introductions (rather than just giving us context clues) and that has no real cursing to be willing to kill the kid, even impermanently? Let alone so gruesomely? I think I was expecting a much greater level of.... idk, tweeness, fanglessness, than we actually got. In spite of being a fan of insertdisc5's comics for YEARS and years! And like! Damn! Props to them!
God. God. So, like. All the ending fakeouts were fucking great. I genuinely thought the All Friendship Quests ending might be the Real One, I was prepared to be disappointed because it felt too soon and just not.... quite.... right? But I did think that was probably where it was heading! But it wasn't! I got got and it's so heartwrenching and also so satisfying, the mood whiplash from loop to loop is fucking sublime.
And-- AND! The real ending! So like. Some of the stuff I missed was just me not pursuing specific content correctly. But some of it is genuinely just, like, stuff that has no actual purpose besides flavor. Flavor, and.... The locked passphrase door in Dormont. The four-pointed leaf you can get (but not in the final loop!), the bell chime, etc etc. You can't actually really do anything with any of this stuff. But you don't know that! It feels like there's still all these loose ends! And!!! Those loose ends do their job SO WELL! The dev knows Gamer Instincts, knows people are gonna have that mental tally of boxes-yet-to-be-checked. Left some forever unchecked on purpose, which-- At the end, the real end, when Siffrin is about to talk to the Head Housemaiden and find out, for real, if this is the final loop or if it's all going to happen again, again, again. He's scared. He's traumatized! He's thought he Had It so many times! SO many times!!! Hope is terrifying! Hope is a poison! And the game has left these loose threads, and at least for me I really was not sure it was going to work. Like it seemed likely but the same metaknowledge of story structure that made me think it was likely also told me "but wait, there's all these loose threads, and the only way for them to trick us again WOULD BE to make the ending SO elaborate and epilogue-y....." I was nervous right along with Siffrin! I was uncertain! Fucking fantastic work, using my own gamer's instincts against me. Thrilled about it.
All the characters are so well realized. They all have specific relationships with each other, not just with Siffrin (Important!!!!! Huge complaint I had with BG3, they didn't put their whole pussies into this!!!!). And, and, I love how they all have different feelings about the time loops. I love that Mirabelle doesn't want "spoilers," and meanwhile Bonnie doesn't mind them and thinks of their alt-selves as like... them-but-not-them in a very cool way.
There's something about-- the way the game starts as a regular degular videogame and then graaaadually becomes, essentially, a visual novel as the actual gameplay becomes trivialized. Which itself is like, really really cool with the themes! And also, just.... I never would have picked up a straight up visual novel, I just, don't get into them, I'd rather read a book, but! I was already invested! It got its hooks into me when there was gameplay mixing things up and those hooks weren't about to let go just because the gameplay didn't super matter any more!
Straight up when we first see Red I didn't at all process that it was a Color in a game with No Colors, Canonically. They had to spell it out for me. It didn't occur to me to be surprised. I'm just too used to colors existing I guess idk. I think I wish the colors thing had gone somewhere a bit more...? I'm GUESSING it mostly originated as just a cute little explanation for why the game is all grayscale and then fit in with enough stuff to be given elevated importance (?) But it felt... hm. Underdeveloped, maybe. I think I really want more stories in this.... "Setting" and "Universe" and "Series" are not quite the right words but hopefully you get the idea. I want more so there can be one that develops that more. Not that leaving stones unturned is, like, illegal ofc. I just find the idea very compelling....
What is it with time loop stories and themes of loss that cannot be outsmarted. Man. I wondered, for so long, if Siffrin's country was going to be restored in people's minds, if that was one of the main big Plot Things we'd see. And it just didn't! Their memory is going to keep being bad, they're going to keep having all these huge tragic gaps and it's just. What can you do. At some point you have to either be permanently paralyzed by the horrific injustice you've suffered-- or you have to try to live a life. And. Man. I don't think I've actually ever encountered a story that was so much about that exact specific form of loss, the loss of one's culture, history, language! All of it. Gone from everywhere. It made me think of the obvious things and just. Man. What a howling void. The contrast with Odile's deal made it a lot more effective too I think. More of an expanded meditation upon these themes than just one toe dipping in, I guess? Hm.
Odile's battle profile pic when she's at low health is so fucking hot this cartoon character is so hot goddammit.
Game good. You're only reading this if you've already played it, I hope, so I can't use this space to recommend it in a meaningful way but. Heck. Game good.
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rekhaa · 10 months ago
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P.S. Whoops, one more thing — about that feeling that you’re “not good enough to work in a bakery” because they didn’t call you back. That’s not the right way to look at this. Most jobs have multiple applicants for one slot. When one person gets hired to fill that one slot, that doesn’t mean that everyone else who applied “wasn’t good enough.” It means that the employer had one slot, and they’re only hiring one person for it, so as a result, many qualified people will be rejected; that’s the case for every job opening. You can’t take it personally or as a reflection on you. It has nothing to do with you — it’s just math.
ask a manager
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