#if they refuse to see and think clearly

[songmingisthighs]

atinytwt is so stupid and toxic oh my god i just saw someone "shading" kq for jongho ???? like okay let me put down my points

a. we don't actually know how they decide to let or allow jongho to only receive injections and medication. jongho's condition was explained by an indonesian orthopedic surgeon who said that NORMALLY injection and medication COULD aid and alleviate the pain but considering jongho's occupation and activity (i.e. dancing), recurrence is expected and it needed a more permanent solution. also, jongho is a grown ass adult, let's not baby him too much (despite me wanna go goochie goochie goo and tuck him into bed with warm milk and cookies) and think that jongho is incapable of making a huge decision for his own health no matter the consequence

b. "kq put them in crazy schedules" it's literally the pitfalls of being idols my ghawd do you want them to not tour and expand their reach and just sit pretty with one comeback a year ??? sure, they could do that but they'll need money to get better production quality like you buying one album per comeback or one album per version is not enough to even cover the shoe budget, do you think those things are cheap ??? considering album sales are not pure as it's separated as distributor and company and from the company's cuts, it's further broken down and ateez will only get a sliver if any, they have to depend on miscelaneous schedules like radio, tv shows, joint concerts, festivals, etc. And no it's not unfair because there are calculations put in place and no matter what you do, the cuts will never be enough but at least from what we see, ateez is living rather well

c. compared to the big 4 (ion even wanna get into TS, cube, mld, mbk, etc. bc yuck) kq is a far better situation for ateez and xikers. like we haven't heard much from xikers, but we know that ateez praises kq. hongjoong even said that kq's ceo goes everywhere with them on tour (hj said this on the singapore concert) except for the show in manila bc he had a prior engagement. and dude, the gifts the ceo gave ateez and the fact that kq didn't put ateez on diets they don't want and how the staff interacts with ateez and ateez with the staff. idk, i've only been seeing green flags so far. ofc no one is perfect but again, compared to jyp who made momo eat only ice cubes to achieve her target weight so she can debut, or shoving all of seventeen in one tiny ass dorm that didn't seem like there were any blankets around during pre-debut, or putting the members on a leash and treating them like dogs like infinite, i actually love kq. I've liked kpop for over a decade now, since i was like in 5th grade and i've truly never seen a happier group than ateez.

is there a way to not read stupid ass posts on twt or x or wtv and just save pictures from there ??? really i have low tolerance in stupidity bc i have to deal with my own on a daily basis

[deliriousblue]

THE HEART KILLERS (2024) episode nine

[i-dreamed-i-had-a-son]

I cannot emphasize enough how much everything In-ho did during his time in the games was in service of breaking down Gi-hun. Every glance, every story, every comment was incredibly and deliberately calculated.

His first interaction with Gi-hun immediately places the blame on Gi-hun for the games continuing: "I pressed the O because of you." He also explicitly asks for Gi-hun's help on behalf of the group. This sucks Gi-hun into being a mechanism of the games themselves (not just a player, but one telling others how to play) while robbing him of his agency to do so: whereas he was confident in helping during the first game, because it was his choice, In-ho's request forces him to share about the Dalgona prematurely, and he then has a nightmare about misleading the players. This also leads to many players becoming hostile when the game is not Dalgona, which--who could have guessed?--In-ho jumps in to stop. He orchestrated the situation so that Gi-hun would feel maximum pressure and guilt, before In-ho himself relieves it to build trust between them.

Then there are the introductions. In-ho uses Gi-hun's name before they are introduced, which may have been a genuine slip, but was very likely intentional given his response. In-ho's method throughout the games is to parallel and associate himself with Jung-bae, Gi-hun's only actual friend (he saves him during the merry-go-round games; he eavesdrops on Jung-bae's conversation with Gi-hun and directly uses the "get me a soju" line from that conversation to subconsciously build Gi-hun's trust in him during the firefight). So when he uses Gi-hun's name, he says he does so because he heard Jung-bae doing it, and Gi-hun allows him to continue--this creates the first of the links between them. But then, when they are properly introduced, In-ho laughs that "Seong" just means "last name;" in doing so, he implies to those who don't know him that Gi-hun may not be telling the truth, and in context of their conversation (focused on the significance of their names) highlights how Seong Gi-hun is "no one special." He's just an everyman.

Another reason that "slip" was almost certainly intentional is that In-ho is very deliberate about showing moments of weakness. His breakdown during the Six-Legged Race was designed to both further stress Gi-hun (and if Gi-hun had failed, they were in the very last groups present, so they could have been selectively spared as needed) and to strengthen their bond, as Gi-hun got to "encourage" In-ho; then In-ho helped Gi-hun and the team win by kicking with him the final time. Even cheering along with Gi-hun while the other teams went was in service of cementing their connection; and, any time a team failed, In-ho got to observe Gi-hun's reactions under the guise of empathy. In-ho may have felt some genuine emotions while cheering or comforting Gi-hun, but they aren't to be trusted.

That's particularly true because of his biggest "weak" moment: telling Gi-hun why he is in the games. The show confirms, when Jun-ho finds the winner file, that In-ho actually did join the games years before (from his family we know that it was because of his wife's illness), and that he won them himself. So he isn't lying about the details of his personal story--and he even gets emotional--but it is, once again, all in service of ensnaring Gi-hun and earning his trust. In-ho is not faking all of his emotions, but he is controlling and weaponizing them, which is why none of his apparent fondness for Gi-hun can be trusted. He uses his emotions as a tool, rather than being affected by them.

The ultimate result of this manipulation is that Gi-hun is made to feel that everything that happens is his choice (even the things he didn't choose). From the beginning, In-ho has ascribed his choices to Gi-hun. Throughout the games, there are several moments where In-ho explicitly has Gi-hun choose for him; other times, In-ho suggests an approach and Gi-hun shoots it down, and In-ho always coalesces. Gi-hun gets to have "his way." But "his way" doesn't seem to work, and he, like the rest of the players, is changed by the games. His final plan, as In-ho forces him to face, involves a sacrifice of some for the good of the many. Only after he admits this (through his silence) does In-ho agree to help. Then, during the firefight, when Gi-hun tries to give In-ho the ammunition he risked his life to get, In-ho asks, "Are you sure?" Gi-hun's choice to trust In-ho leads to him running out of ammunition earlier, forcing his surrender; meanwhile, In-ho still "dies," and Jung-bae is shot in front of Gi-hun's eyes. None of Gi-hun's choices made things better--they made it all his fault. He is left with the blame, as the Frontman (who is In-ho! And always has been!) tells him point blank.

But none of Gi-hun's choices have really been choices. They have all been based on lies, within a system that uses the information they have to actively orchestrate events against him. The same is true of the players in the game; their choices are not free, because their circumstances (largely caused by unfairness in the world) have trapped them. The baseness they resort to is not what they would do if they really had the choice, and some are even able to choose virtue within the hellscape, but over and over, the system facilitates the dominance of cruelty. And In-ho, the personification of that system, targets Seong Gi-hun, the "Everyman," to make him submit to it--to make him choose to believe that there is no other way.

[wazzi2ya]

Octavia sees Blitzø as her replacement in Stolas' life. Blitzø sees Octavia as an addition to his own.

[cantgetworsethanthistbh]

dumping more of my stancest feels here because i cannot NOT think of them. i read journal 3 for the first time this week and its great because Ford acts like stanley's biggest hater which is pretty fking funny (if not absolutely infuriating at times because omfg stfu you smug prick)

but the moments like this get to me

Ford being blinded by his quest of grandeur, accolades and praise for world changing discoveries, so obsessed with greatness, being the first name people remember, and all the other things his npd-isms tells him he wants.

And then there's "reminds me of camping with my brother. i wonder what he's up to..."

i mentioned in my previous post that stan acts quite a lot like the anchor to ford's boat, keeping him grounded and most importantly, safe from both the bitter and the sweet kinds of evils. but he also represents something so much simpler to ford too: the simple desires he represses so much because its not "good enough" for someone special like him.

he resents stan so much because he represents a "block" against that percieved good enough success he wants, the obstacle that made it impossible to get in a fancy college, become the world renowed researcher, the one who wanted to destroy his journal's and lifes work (even though it was the better, safer option if Bill really WAS that dangerous, which he was) that could still make him famous. because if ford's not "praised and weird" then he's just "weird" and being "weird" was nothing but a pain his whole life that kept him rejected and isolated from the masses. and stan prevented him from that.

(btw "maybe he can prove himself to me" is nasty work my god ford is a douche lmao)

a lot of his projections of something greater comes through with how he treated dipper in the show (his whole spiel in damvtf) and fiddleford in journal 3 where he looks down on the happy life that fiddleford had with his wife and child and saying he was "wasting his talents" making computers. and like, we all know by the way he takes them on high stakes adventures they're not as prepared for compared to him (and end up causing more trouble than not by doing so), he's trying to fill a gaping hole left by someone else. we all know this obviously, we all know what we ship here, but what i came to appreciate the most about it is how much that gaping hole exists in the low stakes

everytime ford is thinking during the "down time" moments, his thoughts always drift back to his childhood, and one person who represents it.

childhood memories, making fun of stans favorite snack, scribbling out a design of the stan o war, whenever Ford lets his mind wander it expresses such an intense yearning for the past before he became obsessed with wanting something more. these are his most utmost and most unfiltered thoughts, which is why he scribles them away or and writes in code. and the fact that he directly says they are about NOT getting married, followed with "wondering what he's doing right now", painting the picture of what his most ideal idylic life is. wanting a return of something lost. wanting Stan back more than anything.

he finally accepts that his dream never really changed, just the same as stan's and so they saild off together for the rest of their days, in ford's own words (which ironically sounds like a marriage to me either way so tough shit ford)

[too-many-rooks]

was giffing this for something else, but. he's so polite when he's kidnapping a teenager from the hospital room of her comatose father (who he put in a coma) to be used as a hostage/bait in a crazed billionaires wild schemes. Like yeah he's gonna do all that, but he'll open the door for her. He's not a monster.

[iguessitsjustme]

Something I find fascinating about Wandee Goodday is that no one has kissed yet (I know Ye and Cher have kissed but...) Like not a full on make out session despite having an established couple in the show that they could be using to show us kisses. But we get no kiss sex scenes from Yak and Dee and soft, somewhat chaste scenes from Ye and Cher. We all know both couples are fucking. But the lack of kisses where normally the show would have one couple more active in that department tells me how important kissing is to this story.

Dee has stated that it's silly but he doesn't want to kiss unless he loves that person and is serious with them. But the entire show is respecting the no kiss rule which tells me that it's not silly. The entire show is respecting Dee's boundary here. And yes, Yak and Dee have come so close to kissing so many times, but they haven't. Dee has always pushed him away and Yak has always respected it when he does.

It makes me wonder what's going to happen once the main couple does eventually lock lips. Will that open the floodgates? Will the audience get to see both couples kissing then? Or will it continue to withhold that specific moment of intimacy. There's something the show is saying about the expected parts of intimacy being taken for granted and also deserving of privacy and that's up to the people in the relationship.

Kissing can be an act of love and desire, but what the show is saying is that it is not a requirement for those things. I can be completely talking out of my ass here, but something about this is really sitting with me. Not only do we get Plakao as ace representation, someone who wants a partner to cherish and be cherished without sexual expectations, but we also get the show reinforcing the ideas that love comes in all forms with so many different acts and different people are comfortable with different things. And all of that is okay. And all of those boundaries are worthy of being respected. Regardless of societies expectations for what it means to be in a relationship and be physical, whatever is right for you is right and isn't that just beautiful?

[luvingsolace]

Yall still up with this “it didn’t make sense for Nico to start dating Will immediately” bullshit ijbol😭 just say you don’t want to see Nico healing and getting better!

[dykedvonte]

If I was in charge of casting voice actors to Mouthwashing, I would play around with how the game make the player believe that Curly is the one who crashed the ship by casting an actor know for constantly playing villains as him, while Jimmy would be cast with an actor who constantly play heroes.

While I think this is interesting I think a point of the game is that Curly looks and acts like a guy who you couldn’t imagine doing what he did initially.

You get the glimpse of him in the past and while it does give some reasons why he might of done it, you can tell he still wouldn’t. Inversely, while we chalk Jimmy’s behavior and its deterioration on the stress of the situation we learn he’s always been kinda “unpleasant”. I think having like actors that portray that would make sense as it’s the whole joke and deconstruction of the “untwist”. We begin to mistrust Jimmy but we don’t have proof he crashed the ship until near the end.

If anything I think it’s stands more to cast Curly with a typical hero and Jimmy as just some guy. A big part of Jimmy’s character is that he’s supposed to be completely average and sorta plain in comparison to everyone but especially Curly. Despite what people want to say he is designed to look average; a 5/10 mediocre and that’s his biggest issue rather than being a complete failure. He’s just moving along another part of the formation. His job a bit overshadowed even as he’s not even the main pilot. Casting an actor who plays those Everyman common roles only to turn out the reason everything is so bad fits with the theme rather than the typical good guy playing bad role and vice versa.

I think having a typical hero actor for Curly is also very important for the reason he’s incapacitated. These actors are the biggest billed, a reason people go to see the movie so having him basically be cut out of the picture and it forced to follow some joe shmoe is pretty on par for the game. If anything casting Swansea as a typical villain makes more sense as the game winds him up to be more unstable or violent when it’s just not the case, the same with the idea of casting an actress that place ditzy roles for Anya only for us to see how competent she actually is. Not to drag it on but even Daisuke as an actor in mostly silly roles only to be tragic.

I think the casting should play with the idea these are the characters under the lens of a person who fundamentally does not understand them and sees their most annoying aspects to himself vs anything else. Curly is the typically hero to him, Anya some dumb nurse chick, Swansea an untrustworthy grouch and Daisuke some kid. It’s a nice subversion to have them played by those types but not fit the role at all.

[splicejunction]

related but the lack of acknowledgement in fandom (specifically the type of fandom that is practiced on this website and similar communities) of how much interpretation of source material stems from individuals particular (psychosexual) preoccupations is like. understandable because its embarrassing to publicly admit that you're obsessed with X thing because you're a little bit of a freak about Y thing (trying to speak broadly here but maybe i'm just being vague) and i don't think people need to do that but it's also a little frustrating to me because i feel like it's more interesting to think about the things you enjoy while also analyzing why you enjoy them but there's this culture of like. projection is bad and wrong and if you let your own experiences and proclivities affect the way that you interpret fiction you're tainting somehow the pure and objective thing that is Canon. so everybody's always striving to achieve something that is impossible. like it's impossible not to interpret things through the lens of your own experiences and opinions and preoccupations. i'm not saying we should all be like posting about fictional characters with like footnotes about what specific fetishes inform our headcanons or whatever the fuck but it's just very clear to me when people just entirely avoid thinking about why they might interpret something a certain way and instead think they're doing some kind of Objective Analysis every time they say something about how a character would fuck

[pisshandkerchief]

the obvious double standard with which we as a society treat amab nonbinary people and trans women who don't fit the level of feminity that they're expected to is actually disgusting.

[swagging-back-to]

i do wholeheartedly believe gifting animals to elderly patients because they're lonely is the exact same thing as giving a kid an animal because they're bored.

both situations come at great cost to the animal due to neglect, abuse. in the case of the elder they have the very likely chance of being left unattended for a significant time after the person dies and having that trauma. many animals are placed in shelters after their owner dies, and then are euthanized.

[beartes22]

Constantly thinking about how WWX thinks about JC how he thinks JFM thought about YZY but mostly as how he denied and yet carelessly commented JFM thinks (disregards) about JC

It is so, so, so fucked up and one of the reasons why chengxian is so doomed by the narrative bc no matter what JC does or says, WWX already "knows" what is about. Bc JC is his shidi and WWX knows best. And still, pre masacre, pre core exchange, it could have work. It could have, because they love each other so much but JC lost his core. WWX thinks he chose his parents. He thinks Jc choose the dead bodies of his parents, a filial duty, over survival, over him. And he never forgave Jc for it.

Bc now is WWX turn to assume the consequences of his shidi actions, now it is his turn to bear the pain for him. And he does not do it with reluctance, he does not, he does it bc he loves Jc so so much, but still. Still. The hurt it caused it. The hell it send to him. The hopelessness.

And then to see his shidi thrive were he can’t no longer. To see him shine when he is but a shadow. To see him reach for the impossible time and time again as if it was not WWX who never gave up before, who rallied his shidi over his (small, imagined, greedy) woes. To see all that and know envy, envy he had denied his whole life and envy he will repress into resentment, into sth useful bc WWX is not like yzy or Jc he is not, he does not hurt the ones he lives with his jealousy and sense of inferiority. Bc how can he not envy, when one says his dad doesn’t love him but he still has a dad? When one says he is not enough for his sect when he has such a inheritance, such a clear path at life. And WWX never cared never ever ever, how could he? He loved his shidi best, in spite of all the bad things.

And somehow, Jc himself is a thing he has to be loved in spite of. And it’s heartbreaking.

[trekkiehood]

.

[fear-no-mort]

slams fists down on beautifully crafted oak desk

[laniidae-passerine]

decided that in my own personal canon, Santiago’s maker looked similar to Louis, simply because Ben Daniels stated that Santiago was very likely in love with his maker. and wouldn’t it be some kind of torture to fall in love with the man who murdered your first vampiric love? to then watch him fall in love with another, who bears an eerie resemblance to that first love? to be witness to something tender and affectionate blooming, every moment a memory of how none of those you’ve adored have ever wanted you back? it would be agony. it would be torture. god, you would just hate them to pieces, loathing even as you loved them. and you wouldn’t know peace - not until the whole pack of them learnt the horror of love, just as you have.