#it has some real gross implications to me

[bardic-inspo]

I think one of the (many) reasons I feel justified in being a bit of a hater about DA:TV is that not only did I spend the $70 for the game, I shelled out $500 for a new console just to be able to play it. Yes, I would have eventually upgraded, but probably not for another year or more. Mr. Megh and I made it our anniversary present to ourselves, but we've got a lot of house project stuff we could've spent that money on instead. My old Xbox ran just fine and I had plenty more games to play and revisit with it.

And yeah, it's not DA's fault that consoles are being upgraded/made obsolete at a stupid pace. But for the price of $570 yes I am entitled to be a bit bitter about an experience that disappointed me (and also roll my eyes at anyone who decries that entitlement).

[starcurtain]

A Very Rambling Rant about Alhaitham and Aranara

Sigh. Everyone on twitter is all excited over this idea that Alhaitham can see aranara, and I don't mean to be downer but like... I kind of hate this. Not the idea of Alhaitham seeing aranara, which is very cute, very nice, yes, but more the way this kind of thing unfolds.

It's a classic example of unconfirmed material, extraneous to the actual game, getting put out on social media like it's canon: Someone tweets "ALHAITHAM CAN SEE ARANARA!!" and suddenly it's running rampant in the fandom and people are completely convinced it's canonically true, without the actual game or any confirmed story-relevant materials genuinely supporting the idea. This is exactly how misinformation gets spread. (I'm looking at you, "Jade enslaved Aventurine" Star Rail fandom brainrot.)

And it's this "bandwagon canon" that leads to constant issues in the fandom when people point out that even some widely accepted stuff is actually fanon. People are literally vicious over defending things that don't actually have any evidence in the game itself.

I really wish this fandom was better at distinguishing "This thing is factually true" and "This is a really cool idea and there might be a few hints for it! I'm going to make this my headcanon!" Watching stuff in fandom go un-fact-checked genuinely makes me terrified for people's ability to fact check real world issues sometimes!

Not to mention the way this conversation is happening is just really unpleasant too?

I saw multiple tweets with thousands of likes going around saying things like "Of course Alhaitham can still see the aranara; he has child-like wonder while Kaveh is traumatized and had to grow up too fast, so it makes sense he can't see them."

Which like... This is so gross to me? Are these people just missing the massive unfortunate implications of their own words--the idea that traumatized people can't experience wonder for the world anymore? That they're somehow broken and can't experience any child-like joy??? It's a deeply unpleasant take to me.

And not only that, it directly contradicts actual canon, because Yoimiya's entire second story quest was about a girl going through a traumatic illness that confined her to a wheelchair and led to her experiencing guilt and depression--and about helping her to see that everything that made life worth living was still there for her, and that she had never lost her wonder or will to live in the first place.

And the whole thing just smacks of a fundamental misunderstanding of why adults can't see the aranara in the first place. It's not because there's some sort of magical "You must be 18 or younger to see aranara" rule. It's because the aranara themselves choose not to be seen by adults. They protect themselves by making themselves invisible. They're not invisible by nature! Everyone can see them--when the aranara want to be seen. Conversely, this means that adults with "childlike wonder" are not just automatically seeing aranara left and right. No matter how happy and childish at heart an adult is, they will only see an aranara if the aranara personally trust them and want to be seen.

The aranara trust children because children are generally good-hearted (and also probably easy to escape from), so there is usually no need to keep themselves invisible to children, but even among children, they are invisible until they choose to be seen. (I think everyone forgot the quest where you find the child who was kidnapped by the Fatui in the forest, saved by an aranara who chose to reveal itself to her, but then she refuses to go back to the village, so you leave her at the aranara nursery--only the aranara there at the nursery choose not to reveal themselves to her because they don't know her yet.) Even with children, aranara don't just go running up on them--they're incredibly cautious creatures who only show themselves after they're sure they'll be safe. They distrust adults because adults deliberately use "growing up" as an excuse to abandon simplicity, kindness, and gentleness in order to embrace concepts that include getting ahead of others and seeking profit--two things which could be particularly dangerous for a vulnerable forest fairy population.

There's also an extremely complicated intersection between the aranara and memory, as they represent and upon "death" return to being the forest's living memory itself. Avin, the girl in Yoimiya's story quest, is a child--but still loses the ability to visit her aranara companion because her illness keeps her away from the forest so long that she simply forgets her aranara buddy ever existed. Even aranara who would love to continue playing with their human companions find themselves forgotten over and over again, because they simply don't linger in human memory well. It's a giant metaphor for how fleeting and temporary human existence is in comparison to the natural world! It's a metaphorrrrrrr.

(There's also the fact that aranara freely move between reality and dreaming--something which Sumeru's adult population only recently regained the ability to even do.)

And like... does no one remember that Yoimiya could only see the aranara because Traveler was there to introduce her to them? She doesn't just automatically see them even though she has all the childish wonder possible in her heart.

I even saw tweets saying that anyone who thinks Alhaitham doesn't have child-like wonder in his heart and wouldn't automatically be able to see aranara fundamentally misunderstands his character and I just... First, see the point above--this is already a misunderstanding of how aranara work.

Second, am I just crazy, or is there absolutely nothing about having wonder and curiosity and passion for the world around you that is confined to children? Are we really going with "Having an imagination is for kids" as our takeaway from all this?

Alhaitham absolutely is passionate! He loves Sumeru as much as Nahida does! The mysteries of the world fascinate him, and he wants to be doing nothing more than ravenously learning and taking in new information at every opportunity!

But finding wonder and joy in life's mysteries is absolutely not restricted to children!

There's nothing inherently "childish" about loving fiction and the fantastical world of books, having a vivid imagination, being passionate about learning new things, and just plain out enjoying life. I'm sorry everyone else has apparently become such miserable adults that the only way they can believe Alhaitham finds joy in the world is by assuming he must have maintained a "child-like" inner nature. Please go read more books and touch more grass and maybe you too will experience adult wonder and joy???

Alhaitham's vivid curiosity about the world isn't remotely "child-like." It's based on the same sort of philosophical obsessions that drove Plato and Aristotle to redefine human thinking. To Alhaitham, Sumeru is likely much more vivid and beautiful and full of intrigue because he is now an adult who has the ability to freely think, formulate deeper questions, and the means to pursue research into his personal passions. His teaser trailer is literally about how he took the job of the Scribe because the Scribe records truth--not child-like faith in the magic of the world, but a constant unfilled yearning to get closer and closer to what is real.

If Alhaitham can see aranara, it's because he's earned the trust of the aranara by his deeds, not because he's secretly still an innocent, sweet baby boy deep down who has chosen not to grow up. (And like, if "traumatized people don't see aranara" is really what we're going with, are we actually arguing Kaveh is the only traumatized, "grew up too soon" one here? Did everyone just forget Alhaitham is an orphan with zero surviving family members left in the world and that he spent his entire childhood friendless, at least as far as we've been shown?)

Winning the trust of the aranara is something anyone could do if they show strong enough positive traits--just basic kindness, gentleness, and patience, which I promise you, adults can have.

At the very least, if we're going to suggest Alhaitham is child-like, can't we at least point to his actual childish behaviors, such as constantly pulling Kaveh's pigtails like a schoolboy with his first crush? Throwing hands with anyone who pisses him off too much? Being a jokester who continually sends Paimon books because she picked on him for his choice of reading materials once? At least y'all could have started there... Come on, now.

Phew, this really was a whole rant, but I just needed to get that off my chest. The Hoyo fandoms on twitter are so, so bad. Like man, don't claim people are mischaracterizing someone while not even knowing the lore yourself... Sorry if that sounds harsh, but...

[velvetvexations]

as an autistic trans man, sometimes I feel less safe in public presenting as a man than as a woman, because, especially in certain places, man + visibly autistic tends to be more often falsely read as "dangerous and predatory" than when people read me as a woman.

Yeah, as an autistic trans woman who doesn't pass, I feel that. <3

Honestly thank you so much for what you do on this app. I'm so glad there's people who are actually willing to stand with trans men instead of pulling the "um well I have it worse so do NOT talk about your own oppression EVER or else you're a transmisogynist!" I'm so happy I found your blog and I hope you have a great week <3

I hope you have a great week as well!

Eh a long while ago Chris Fleming made a video making fun of polyamorous people which used a lot of the same hurtful stereotypes society already perpetuates against us and I’ve not paid attention since

Noted, as someone who is also poly.

i wish the queer community didnt put so much emphasis on sexuality labels like i just want to have sex why do i need to put a word to it

very valid

about the dropout “discourse”: hot take but real life people are not representation. theyre people. real people are not queerbaiting you and real people happening to not be transfem (and I have literally seen transfems in some dropout episodes theyre just not part of the main cast) is not a lack of representation. these are real people. stop* *not you, the people being shitty about it

the complaint is not in any way coming from a genuine place tbh

hey! i just wanted to let you know how much your blog means to me as a trans guy. you and your reblogs have given me hope at trans unity, and lets me know that i-- that we-- aren't alone. so thank you for everything you do, and i greatly appreciate your support and look up to you 💛

Thank you. <3

i redownloaded etsy recently and seeing all the trans stuff saved to my favorites is so sad. i used to feel happy and proud and i wanted to be open about being transmasc. but since all the discourse got worse i just. cant bring myself to feel like it matters. it makes me feel like im trans and yet i will never matter the way other trans people do.

You do matter anon, I promise. I love you, you matter, and I'm glad you're here.

As a trans guy a lot of the self-ID'd TME transmascs weird me out so much. Like why do they all sound like "I am so strong and my power to Harm Women is immense. I could do it so much and I feel the pull to the Transmisogynist Dark Side but *unsheaths sword* I will protect them instead with my big strong testosterone arms from my fellow men" like what even is that. Who is into this.

it's so incredibly obviously bad but it reinforces some people's victim complexes so it's praxis now

a trans person will joke about their experience and a trf will jump in to assume theyre a white transmasc who has never ever faced any real difficulties for being trans

every time

Out of the many, many stupid ideas in this dumb discourse, I've finally decided the one I hate the most is that underlying implication that transmascs just aren't trans enough. It's so gross seeing people imply that we aren't really trans. Our dysphoria is minimal discomfort at most, apparently. I've seen people post about and imply that transmascs will never understand not feeling like a person or being unable to live a life pre transition and that's why we have privilege, i guess - are you kidding me? It's like our experiences are a joke to these people who are clearly so wrapped up in their online discourse bubble that they're just detached from what it's like for trans people as a whole. Sorry for the vent (would rather not post this on main and I don't have anyone to talk to) but it's just the most grating part. Also it's like. Low-key transmed shit. Thought we left that behind, c'mon.

transmeds are like ants they come back every summer

i wish TRFs had a label they proudly called themselves so i could jsut go through their tags and block them, but noooooo they HAVE to frame their transphobic bullshit as Brilliant Transfeminist Theory. like atleast radfems are fucking honest about being radfems

That's part of why I made antigonism a label for anti-TRFs to call themselves~!

[paradoxbeta]

WHO IS EOC? i am very curious now!!!

>:) okay SO

tumblr picture formatting is utter garbage and i dont want these to take up too much space so im cramming these drawings into one row (or not if this crapsite breaks on me, because it seems to be REALLY fighting me on this, so if it ends up not making a nice little picture row know that i tried my best). but this is effigy of composure!

he has a couple problems, but the big one is that his superstructure has a terrible parasite situation. the parasites are flat, thin, and able to make it into grooves and pipes the inspectors cant reach. flushing out doesnt do much to dislodge them and they breed faster than they can be killed, so theyve happily made their homes in this sheltered, food-rich haven (to the obvious distress and horror of the host iterator). originally the concept for these parasites were much closer to centipedes and had the placeholder name "synapcipedes," but ive since started leaning more towards an obvious tapeworm motif for them because its gross and i enjoy it morbidly. it also has some pretty cursed implications if you think about it for too long which i have decided are funny/really disgusting/so stupid that they have to stay. i still flipflop between considering them centipedes vs tapeworms though and i dont think thatll ever be rigidly defined. the ambiguity is nice to toy with

on the top 10 list of "things that are not fun" having turbo worms has to be somewhere up there, so eoc has it *rough,* and kind of sort of eventually barrels off into the deep end because of it. his futile attempts to clean his own structure are frustrating enough, and the constant feeling of bugs crawling all over the inside of his body (which only gets progressively worse with time) does no favors either. however, the real big reason why he mentally declines is just because there's a ton of centi-worm things eating like fire through his neurons and other what-have-yous that iterators need to think and function. i think if he only got hit with one of these 3 things then he might have been able to hang onto his sanity, but with the triple combo he doesn't really stand a chance of doing much except stalling his functional death. which is good on him because if i was an iterator and my overseers told me i had a structure infestation, my mental health would have just preemptively swan dived off a bridge before anything even happened

anyhow, exponential parasite population growth meant exponential increase in all this other fun stuff, which means the time from the beginning of the infection to the time eoc is considered officially gone is startlingly short (for iterators, at least). it still took quite the while because losing your marbles is a loonnnng process, but still, yikes. its unfortunate because eoc was a real jokester pre-everything, and a cool guy to talk to. he was one of those people who could come up witty comments for anything like hed been ripped from the script of a sitcom. oh yeah, also, should have mentioned this earlier, but he ends up accidentally amassing a scavenger cult mid-insanity which goes hilariously bad because he's barely aware it's happening. nothing really works out for this poor iterator.

tldr: eoc gets parasites, they erode his brain, he goes nuts about it, (accidentally amasses a cult,) dies

[picturejasper20]

A lot of people in the phandom talk about how Season 3 was when Danny Phantom went downfall, and while i agree with the idea, i believe that the series was starting to show some of these cracks in Season 2 that later collapsed on Season 3.

For starters, we have the Season 2 first episode ¨Memory Blank¨, whose main purpose was to give Danny a logo in his suit so they had to make the portal explode on him again. It is an episode that doesn't much sense in the timeline and it is very confusing. It doesn't change much aside from Danny having a logo.

Later we have episodes like ¨Reign Storm¨ and ¨The Ultimate Enemy¨, considered to be the peak episodes from the series by many for a reason. The issue with these episodes is that they were setting up for pretty interesting things- but they never had a proper paid off. I have talked before about how the Ring of Rage and Crown of Fire never appear again after Reign Storm in spite of how important they were. There isn't any mention of them in the episodes that followed. The same goes to The Ultimate Enemy, a mutual of mine, @pedanticat, pointed out how the special was setting up for Clockwork to be a mentor figure for Danny, which didn't get much followed except for a later episode.

While "The Fright Before Christmas" has some good moments, it is frustrating how Danny has to put up with Jack and Maddie's childish argument that ruins for him and Jazz what should be a special time of the year. It is quite gross that a 14 year old teenager has to deal with something like this and the adults are never called out for it.

I do enjoy "Secret Weapons" a lot but one main issue it has is that it semi rewrites Jazz's character, making her be incompetent at ghost hunting when in previous episodes (My Brother's Keeper and Maternal Instincs) and later ones she isn't seen having this same kind of issue with using fenton gadgets. I believe it was written like this so the status quo wouldn't change much in the show.

From here is where things start to get more messy, with "Beauty Marked" having very cool things but giving a mixed message regarding gender (potraying all girls who like fashion and buy clothes as brainless and Sam being the only girl who is clever). Not terrible since it still fun to watch but questionable in message.

"Masters of All Time": Another dumb alternative plotline episode that doesn't add much to the series and was a whole wasted of opportunity of showing how Jack and Maddie's relationship with Vlad used to be before the proto-portal accident. Pretty insulting to previous characterization established for Vlad as antagonist among of a lot other weird messages and implications. Not much else to add that hasn't been said before in my blog or by some of my DP mutuals.

"Double Cross My Heart": I don't remember a lot of this one but i do know i didn't like the whole idea of Danny stalking Sam + ¨If someone else that isn't Danny likes Sam, it means that they are faking it¨. I do know that as whole this appears to be one of the most disliked episodes from the series.

"Reality Trip": Looking back this episode has a lot of really cool things, specially some exploration of Freakshow's characterization and Jack and Maddie as parents. The GIW being main antagonists is great too. The whole problem that brings this whole special down is that the events that take place don't have any real impact and most of the characters, including Jack and Maddie, lost their memories of learning about Danny's identity as Phantom. This has to be one of the most insulting moves the series did, all because for the sake of keeping the main status quo. It makes me wonder why Kindred Spirits couldn't have been the double part episode instead, since it is related to one of main plotlines (Why Vlad gave Valerie all that gear) and is about one of the main antagonists (Vlad Masters), something that was a lot more important that Freakshow.

As you can see, Season 2 was already starting to show problems that later defined the writing of Season 3. You have things like inconsistent characterization (From Secret Weapons to Masters of All Time), lack of proper continuity ( What i already said of Reign Storm ending and also Valerie not having a major role after Flirting With Disaster) and episodes with weird timeline plotlines that go nowhere and don't have a real impact. (Memory Blank, Masters of All Time and Reality Trip) It is a season that, aside from the first episode, it stays pretty well until the first half, then in the second half it kinda falls apart, with having some episodes that are pretty solid and others that are a mess for different reasons.

[nightcolorz]

so funny that people are only simping this hard for Louis because he tells us every single episode he's the saddest most tragic serial killer in the land. Literally seeing people with my own eyes say Louis has experienced trauma and loss Armand can never imagine under gifs of Louis making fun of human trafficking and the palazzo attack.

Like obviously Armand is a deranged bbgirl torturing and manipulating those men for love!! But people treat it like it's a 1v1 pvp whoever has the weakest finishing move is the Objective Innocent Victim, like abusive relationships between two mass murderers aren't more complex than numerically tallying who you think has the most strength points at any given moment. like louis has barely been concealing his disdain for armand since they met. He gives armand NOTHING. all he does is recreate every shitty abusive act he's ever complained about other people doing to him and doing them to armand.

swear the only thing that man thinks about when armand shares his tragic backstory is embarrassment at finding out that the entire time he was bragging about how everyone in the avant-garde movement tooootally like his art more than Picasso, Armand had paintings in the louvre.

Cw iwtv typical sexual abuse talk and spoilers for iwtv s2

ur so right literally say that shit 🙏‼️ I love Louis and I honestly find it so gross ?? How some people act like Louis is only capable of being objectively the exclusive victim in any given situation or relationship. like it’s fucking weird that someone would reduce him so exclusively to victimhood bcus he was in an abusive relationship to point where theyd insist Louis is not capable of causing harm or being a complex flawed person beyond his victim hood. It takes away his agency and reduces everything that is interesting about his character to one dimensional victim which like, why would u die on that hill as someone who loves Louis’s character?? It’s once again, fucking weird. Louis has been presented to us from the beginning as capable of violence cruelty and selfishness, and him being abused by lestat doesn’t take away his capability of being cruel to Armand 💀 I think that some people were so attached to their assumption pre s2 that Armand would be lestat part 2 who is even more abusive that they refuse to accept or embrace the much more complex reality. Loumand is toxic but very much mutually so, there has been thus far nothing to suggest that Armand is forcing Louis to be with him or abusing him in anyway akin to how lestat abused Louis. Jacob Anderson has even spoken about how louis and Armand are mutually toxic and louis mistreats Armand 😭and louis being a fucked up person is like, smth I wouldn’t understand why anybody would want to deny, it’s very overt. And dying on the hill of “Louis is never ever bad” is like, very weird to me especially since Louis is like canonically capable of being sexually exploitative (literally a pimp) and violent and selfish. Like I love Louis!! In all his horribleness 🙏 and you can too believe me 😭

it’s also fucking weird to insist that Armand is always 100% being manipulative and abusive in everything he does towards Louis bcus, especially in the case of him talking about his trauma, it makes some rlly uncomfortable and gross implications?! Like, I’m not here to say that Armand is the most ideal partner of all time who does no wrong 💀 obviously, he’s pretty mf gaslighty and horrible and violent, but suggesting that what is presented non ambiguously as Armand being vulnerable with Louis about his sexual abuse trauma because louis wanted to know the real him is definitely abuse and manipulation is…like fucked up? 😭 like?? The jump to “oh this character I don’t like is talking about being sexually abused to his partner after having a conversation about how they aren’t vulnerable enough with each other, yes this is Manipulative” is genuinely kind of fucking insane I’m sorry 😭🙏 what Armand has been through is incredibly horrific and noticeably difficult for him to talk about and the assumption that since everything is black and white and Armand is bad he must be talking about this with evil intent is dumb and it’s ignorant. Like yes abuse victim talking about his abuse to his partner who explicitly asked for him to share that, wow that is so emotionally manipulative of him. What a hill to die on 🙏I hope u guys who think like this don’t think this way about ur friends when they vent to u cuz omg 😭

I guess my point with this is that I’ve noticed a lot of people in their refusal to interpret Louis as anything but unambiguously in the right all the time r being like unintentionally offensive and ignorant in a way that’s wild to me 😭 Like guuuys, you can love Louis and talk about how his relationship with Armand is bad for him and Armand harms him without insisting that Louis mockingly telling Armand that the man who groomed and raped him as a child “made him into a little bitch” was justified 😭. Also, friendly reminder that Louis’s daughter was raped and abused in a similar way that Armand was, which rlly goes to show imo how fucked up the way he treats Armand’s sexual abuse is. Like if he is so willing to say shit like that to Armand the moment they have an argument I imagine that his empathy for Claudia does not extend so far. He still was a pimp lol 🙏 and it’s been pretty overtly portrayed time and time again that living a good portion of his life having a position of power where he sexually exploits women for money has limited Louis’s perspective and capabilities for empathy for the people who have been sexually abused in his life 🙏 and guess what!! 😋 this is the horrible abusive murderer show, u can still love Louis (I do) while knowing he is horrible 🙏

thanks sm for the ask ‼️

[cemeteryspider]

Oh No!

Warnings: Heavy Sibling x Sibling implications. HL is gross and has an odd obsession with himself which will be a part of the story a little bit going forward. There will be nothing explicit but for reference Reader-Insert is of age and I'm thinking mid-twenties and Homelander is a little bit older since I'm pretty sure his age is never stated in the show. If you are looking for a Homelander x Reader THIS IS NOT IT!!!

Summary: You attend and event and try your best to sabotage yourself, Homelander, and Vought in the process.

Trigger Warnings: Abuse, Violence, Mental Health Issues, Controlling Relationships, Gross Sibling Relationship

Word Count: 785

Weeks passed and slowly you started recognizing yourself in the mirror again. You started with the small things at first like the old lipstick you pushed to the back of your cosmetics drawer because John said it made you look like a cheap hooker. Or the perfume he said invaded his nostrils and made him want to laser his own brain.

Still it wasn't enough to satisfy your insatiable need to piss off your brother and Vought International. So, you went all out. 

For the premiere of some stupid movie or other you wore a sheer dress with black lace swirls that left little to the imagination. Tall golden heels and had your makeup done by someone who did professional pornstars makeup. It made your back straighten and a real smile across your face for what felt like the first time in an eternity. You felt nothing like yourself, but at the same time you looked nothing like the mannequin Vought often used you as.

You loved it and hated it at the sametime. Nothing was going to get in the way of your night of crossing the line out from under Homelander and Vought’s shadow. Vought would later call this "little stunt", "unbecoming of America's number 2 supe", but you didn't care anymore. So you kept going above and beyond the outfit and makeup, you played the part of a ditzy beautiful drunk. 

More importantly you were showing the world you weren't John's little toy to play with nor were Vought's puppet they could make dance. You were someone with thoughts and feelings, and you were going to make sure the world did not forget this.

That night you were all over the big wigs in Hollywood, constantly drinking different drinks from dirty martinis to fruity pink cocktails to Miller Lite to get a buzz that your powers constantly wanted to stamp out. Walking around the party wondering who you would walk up to next, the man in the burgundy suit or the woman with diamond studded earrings. You felt intrigued by these regular people only here because of their lined pockets, and wanted to be able to know them and what their normal lives were like.

Still you went on, laughing too loudly at jokes made by people who didn't like you because they didn't know you. Drinking anything offered by anyone with a tray and casually avoiding your brother who seemed to be tailing you waiting for the right time to stop you from ruining the empire he and Vought had delicately built.

"You know," You slurred to an attractive woman on the red carpet, "We could make out higher than Vought Tower after this. You'd just need to hold on tight."

Her face flushed and you giggled at her sweet tomato red face. Then you felt a rough hand grip your upper arm tightly, "I think it's time to go."

You tried to wrench your arm out of his grip but nothing was working. Short of an all out fight you were not going to be able to free yourself, so you let him drag you out, grabbing a delicate glass of champagne on the way out the back, and waving to the pretty girl you had been flirting with for the past few minutes. 

"What the fuck do you think your doing. You're slobbering over our stockholders," He whisper-shouted at you once he dragged you out outside of the event by the dumpsters, but you just let a grin split your face in two.

"This is me John! You're just upset because I know exactly what I want and exactly who I want to be and you're not a part of either of those things. How does that feel, John? Not even your own genetic equal wants anything to do with you!" You full on shouted at him. Part of you hoped that a journalist was on the other side of the door recording the whole thing but you couldn't hear a heartbeat.

"You're drunk, Y/n. I'm not having this conversation with you. You're never going to get anything better than this," He scoffed and gestured to himself and the door. At this point the strong drinks were wearing off and leaving your system to deal with reality as it was and the puny flute of champagne was not cutting it anymore.

"No, John, I'm not. I'm done with this and I'm not going to be Vought's machine pumping out propaganda and fake saves anymore," He laughed in your face.

"Good luck with that. You're nothing without me." He took the door back to the event and you started to walk away.

"Yeah I guess we'll see about that."

[mitochondriaandbunnies]

Miami Vice S1E21: No One Lives Forever

Sonny's new girlfriend distracts him from his work; Rico hates her.

Where do I fucking start with this one

Okay. Crime. Let's start there.

The actual crime in this episode is so inconsequential that the criminals literally have no motive but "do crime," because that's not what the episode is about. The crime is mere set-dressing for the actual thematic core of the episode, which is "Sonny's Relationships." There will be a number of Sonny's Girlfriends episodes, especially in S3 when they were trying to Heterosexual It Up, but that's not what this one is (and Brenda gets to leave the storyline relatively unharmed, too, whereas the girlfriends in the Sonny's Girlfriends episodes... uhh... don't)

I'm really serious about how stupid the crime part of it is though

Death - the ULtiMat HiGH!

These dudes just drive around Miami jacking cars and shooting up hotdog stands, there is no nuance to it at all. I think this is the least nuanced portrayal of criminals in the entire series.

That's because the nuance is all stored in Tubbs' Roiling Jealousy Over Sonny's New Girlfriend. After we watch the crime idiots jack some cars, we cut to Sonny and Rico talking, and Rico spends about ten sentences complaining about how Sonny has been unavailable recently because of ~Brenda.~ He is so obviously uncool with Brenda that Sonny calls him out on it, asking if he's jealous (the implication being Sonny has misinterpreted the obvious jealousy as Tubbs wanting a Brenda of his own), and Rico, with absolutely not an ounce of sincerity in his voice, backtracks and is like PFFT. No. Falling in love is GREAT

Which like. Is not actually a response to Sonny's question

We meet Brenda canoodling with Sonny, and she asks him why his marriage ended. He dances around the question and asks her in return "who the ugliest guy she ever dated" was. They are very much not on the same page in terms of the seriousness of their relationship. Brenda is asking hard-hitting, "I'm thinking about our future together" questions, and Sonny is asking like... two girls giggling at a sleepover questions.

(I find this super interesting also from a "Sonny is heavily queercoded throughout the series" standpoint-- the "morning after" scene also has Sonny framed very much like women often are in media, waking up in someone else's bed and finding them already up and working out downstairs. Brenda is also significantly wealthier and more successful than he is, and a lot of their love scenes are filmed in a very soft, delicate way that positions them very equally. There's something especially about the scene where they're kissing in the pool, and we see both of their bare backs floating in the sun, that feels almost like we're watching two women. Considering Sonny has another dalliance with a short-haired blonde woman where he's very feminized at the beginning of S2, this feels very purposeful?)

Brenda is played by Kim Griest, who I know best as Kay Gallagher from Wiseguy. This is not what anyone else knows her best as.

Brenda is working out in Sonny's shirt, which she gives back to him all sweaty and gross, and that is the worst crime she commits (but let's be clear: it is a crime. Why would you put on someone else's clothes to work out??)

At the precinct, Gina asks Rico if he thinks the relationship "must be real." She is also clearly jealous, but sad instead of angry, and definitely not remotely aware that Tubbs is jealous. He is uncomfortable talking with her on the subject, makes a somewhat unkind joke at Sonny's expense ("Whatever that means"), and slithers out and away so he doesn't have to keep having this conversation.

"Eye contact is for losers"

Also, Rico and Gina have the theoretical potential to be really wonderful friends and allies as the senior members of the "Sonny uses me as an emotional crutch" club, but the writers never decide to go for that, and instead you get the sense that they just can't ever really be honest with each other and that's a bummer

Sonny and Rico go to make a bust and Sonny calls Brenda mid-mission, which is foolish and supposed to demonstrate how his mind isn't on his work. However, what I'm more interested in is how this phone call with Brenda mirrors two other Important Phone Calls With Women: when Sonny calls Brenda, he's not saying anything of consequence. He's cute and flirty, but that's about it. Then, when he realizes a shooting is going down, he doesn't hang up-- he runs out of the phone booth and quite literally leaves Brenda hanging. She hears gunshots and gets no explanation or closure on what is happening until much later. This is in direct contrast to the pilot, where Sonny's call to Caroline in the middle of the mission is completely vital. utterly heartfelt, and provides extremely needed closure. It is also in contrast to the last phone call he has with Caitlin in Deliver Us From Evil near the end of season four, where Caitlin calls him, tries to tell him something important, and he brushes her off and tells her he'll talk to her later. In all three cases, there's an intersection (and conflict) between his love life and work life: with Caroline he's confirming that even though ultimately he chose work over love, that their love was always real; with Brenda he's briefly choosing her over work and then realizing that's a mistake and ignoring her feelings completely; with Caitlin he seems to have given up on the idea of romance ever being successful and chooses work over her because that's just what he does. Vice states time and time again that there's no fixing the broken justice system from the inside, and that any so-called "good cop" will eventually destroy himself and/or all those around him; Sonny's inability to balance the case and Brenda foreshadows all his other relationships failing as well. Caroline only gets out unscathed because she chooses to divest herself completely from Sonny's world, and Sonny won't find peace until he does the same.

Gina shoots one last shot and Sonny turns her down pretty definitively, and the scene feels frankly like character assassination for Gina. The last time we saw them be at all "couple-y" was way back in episode 8, and even that was already after they'd had more than one "this is a bad idea and we shouldn't be doing it" conversation. Gina asks Sonny if he's "just keeping her around for a pitstop," but the show has not indicated they've been dating for what likely accounts for at least six months (and possibly up to a year) of in-universe time. As a result, her jealousy seems not like it's based in the solid and thoughtful characterization of Gina Calabrese, Vice Detective, but rather in hoary old gender stereotypes: she's a hysterical woman who somehow hasn't realized her relationship (if it ever even was a relationship) has been over for half a year. So when Sonny quietly and sadly responds with "that's not fair" (because if they haven't been dating for 12+ episodes, it's really not fair for her to say that-- she has no control or ownership over his love life at this point), he seems like he's in the right. I am certain this conversation was written by a heterosexual man, and I hate how much Gina's characterization gets worse every time the show decides to create romantic tension between her and Sonny. Gina deserves better, in-universe and out.

Then we cut immediately to Brenda asking Sonny if he and Tubbs have "been partners long." This scene alone deserves an essay; the long story short version is that Brenda asks Sonny if being cop partners is like a marriage, whether your partner always comes first (off the job and on), and whether or not he'd ever think of her as "his partner in crime." Sonny, notably, does not answer a single one of these questions directly. He deflects and jokes, hearkening back to her serious question about the dissolution of his marriage and his jokey response about "ugly guys."

This is his face before she asks if "his partner always comes first:"

Aaand this is his face after he processes what she's just asked him:

When he responds to that question with the ambiguous "Well, on the job...," Brenda looks like this:

And then Sonny follows up with saying he doesn't remember the last time he wasn't on the job, which is to say that he implies that yes, Rico does always come first. Like. Damn, Sonny. Maybe... try lying a little?

Izzy claims to be selling "Richard Gere's shoes" and wooden clogs, because why not

Tubbs tells Crockett his mind is elsewhere, and that he should "take a few days" to "get over whatever it is you need to get over," which is among the bitchiest things he says in the entire course of the show. Rico is usually very patient, cool-headed, and compassionate, but every once and a while he says something downright cruel, and when he does it's often with a smile. He strikes me as the sort of person who has learned and chosen to be good to people rather than someone who's nature is to be kind by default. When Sonny, who is a curmudgeon on the surface but fairly soft and naive on the inside, gets mad, he lashes out; when Rico, who is thoughtful and easy-going on the surface but surprisingly unsentimental inside, gets mad, he gets mean.

On the Dance, Brenda tells Sonny she thinks being there with him is paradise; he deflects and talks about smoking. Brenda asks about Sonny's "closeness" with his coworkers again, and he's weird about it; when she clarifies she's talking about "the woman cop" (Gina), Sonny ceases entirely to mince words like he had with Tubbs. The difference is stark; he's willing to explain to Brenda that yes, at once point he and Gina had sex. He's not willing to explain anything about his partnership with Tubbs-- and yet, Brenda talks like she knows Tubbs, and isn't entirely sure who Gina is, so we know he's talked lot more about Rico than Gina.

When Rico and Brenda do meet, Rico immediately tries to tank their relationship by throwing Sonny under the bus. He implies Sonny is an idiot and bad at his job, and basically tells Brenda she'll eventually leave him.

Okay. Brenda committed one more crime. It's this table:

Izzy continues wearing clogs

Tubbs continues being an enormous bitch, telling Sonny Brenda's not his type, and that his type is "the bearded lady at the circus." Jealousy looks really bad on you, Rico my broski. You are being so so mean to the guy you have a super obvious crush on.

He then asks Sonny to go to dinner with him; Sonny says no because he's got a date with Brenda, but they agree to meet at 6am for a stakeout. On their date, Brenda asks Sonny about marriage and he gets extremely uncomfortable and goes to bed alone when she asks about who their friends would be.

Either because a) he did not set an alarm and was relying on Brenda to wake him up on time, in which case he's a fucking idiot, or b) because he did set an alarm and Brenda turned it off, in which case she has no respect for Sonny at all, Sonny misses his 6am meeting with Rico and Rico gets the shit beat out of him.

Castillo puts Sonny on desk duty because Sonny is a fuck-up. He goes on a sad boat ride over which Red 7's Heartbeat plays to a montage of Brenda, beat up Rico, and disapproving Castillo.

On stakeout, Tubbs plays the saxophone (do we ever see him do that again?) and Gina is reading A Man for All Seasons, which I suppose is doing something as a parallel with regards to the moral repercussions of the dissolution of a relationship but I don't frankly feel enlightened enough on the Tudors to expound on that

Sonny breaks up with Brenda; his line is "you're a very special person and you mean a great deal to me," which is about as unromantic as you can get. Brenda calls what they had a "wonderful fantasy;" Sonny says he can't afford fantasies. They leave it vaguely open but absolutely do not continue dating-- we don't ever see Brenda again. (Good for her.)

Returning to the actual crime, the three Death is the Ultimat High idiots roll around in bed with their guns smashing radios, declare themselves out of money, and go off for another hot dog stand murder. They come upon the stakeout with Tubbs and Gina, and Tubbs is chased down and about to be killed when Sonny swoops in heroically at the last minute and saves him. They end the episode walking away with their arms around each other. Because, you know. Partnership marriage something something something.

Hear me out: I am not convinced Sonny is talking about Brenda when he says "he can't afford a fantasy." The one romantic relationship Sonny has in the series that involves grounded, real-life issues, and actually talking through things like an adult is his relationship with Caroline, which he chooses to have healthy closure regarding. Every other romantic relationship Sonny has is, to some extent a fantasy-- he dates a pop star, a surgeon, a madame-- even Gina is a kind of fantasy to Sonny, as a sweet and understanding always-available fallback. He actually can only afford a fantasy-- he's aware, to some extent, that a normal relationship with a normal woman is likely to end the same way it did with Caroline. Considering all of the very pointed parallels between Rico and Brenda, between "partnership" and "relationship," and knowing that we'll learn in the next episode that Sonny watched one of his best friends die because of his sexuality, I don't think it's wildly out there to think that maybe the fantasy Sonny truly can't afford is one where he can make his partner his number one priority, on and off the job, and be happy about it and accept himself for it. He knows he can't afford that particular fantasy because he's literally seen someone pay for it with his life.

Oh god this was so long

And I didn't even talk about the "department softball games" scene or the lyrics to Heartbeat

Help me

[bennie-jerry]

Supernatural Romances make NO sense - A Random Opinion

Here's the thing: As much as I enjoy these concepts or tropes, they don't make sense when you take the time to think about it. Don't believe me? Let's go down the list then.

Vampire romances: The concept of a vampire romance really doesn't make sense when you take just five minutes to add all the aspects together.

Sure, it can be intriguing or whatever (especially if there’s a unique way in which the premise is handled), but let's really boil down the contents of its true implications here.

A vampire is a creature that feeds on human blood. Vampire romances USUALLY (not all the time, but usually) involve a vampire falling for a human rather than a vampire falling for another vampire.

Let me say this again. Vampire, which eats humans---then has stories where they then fall for humans.

That's like a chupacabra hooking up with a goat. What sense does it make for a creature to fall in love with something it usually tends to eat?

Even if the said predator of this relationship has no intention of eating their mate or harming them---would you, as a rational person, feel comfortable knowing that your partner has to harm YOUR species and eat them for their own survival? I highly doubt it.

"Oh, I know you kill people and drink their blood, but I know you won't kill ME! I'm just DIFFERENT--"

It literally makes no sense.

Zombie romances: Zombie romances make even less sense to me. Because now instead of a creature that simply wants your blood, it’s a creature that quite literally wants to rip your stomach open and eat your intestines like Twizzlers.

At least with a vampire, you could just have IV blood bags for them to drink to put off their thirst for a WHILE. But when it comes to zombies, they literally rely on eating the WHOLE entirety of the human.

Once again, it’s like a chupacabra dating a goat. Oh, but what if the zombie doesn’t want to eat or harm their partner?

Well, then we get into even more ethically concerning details on the human’s part. Because aren’t zombies walking corpses that eat people? And if a human is willing to date or become uh…'entangled’ with a zombie, isn’t that a form of necrophilia since the zombie is literally just a man-eating corpse? 

Sure, we could argue whether or not zombies are living or non-living. But let's be honest here: the majority of the time, zombies do not look cute. They are rotting parts of their bodies, they look dead, they smell horrible, they’re covered in blood, and sometimes missing a limb or two. If you’re unironically attracted to that in real life or something (not including those who JUST like the stories for the stories), you are mentally ill—there’s no way around it for me. You are attracted to something that looks like a corpse. That in itself is necrophilia and it’s honestly gross from an incredibly literal standpoint.

Even if the zombie were to look like some cutesy/idealistic anime character or something, it still doesn't change the fact that this thing's practically DEAD.

Sure, like vampire romances, it could be interesting depending on the intricacies of the story. But it still makes no sense when you write it down on paper. Wow, you’re dating a creature that looks dead and has to fight off the urge to eat people every single second they're on this planet. How quirky. 

Ghost romances: Ghost romances also don’t make sense on paper. Now, this one is a bit more loose in my opinion since ghost archetypes are often experimented with in terms of what they can do or not do. It’s just one of those things where it really depends on the story world and the premise it's placed in. However, from the very cultural and general stance of how ghosts work, they can’t touch anything (except when it's to conveniently scare people, so even then, their intangibility is transient) and they can’t age. 

I’m sorry, but aren’t the driving points of a romance being able to see the characters display affection and/or get old together? And if a ghost can’t touch anything, what’s the point in being romantically involved with someone you can’t kiss? I get there’s long distance relationships, but if they’re in the same room with you—why would you want that? 

Even if the subject of physical intimacy wasn’t an issue, there’s still the prospect of aging. Because if your boo (pun intended) died young and is a ghost, that means they’re physically stuck at that age forever. Even if they were to be centuries older than you, wouldn’t it be weird to see some elderly person smooching on a young looking supernatural?

Let me put it like this. A human woman at 25 years old is in a relationship with a male ghost. The said male ghost died at 30. Sure, she could get away with dating him for another five or ten years, but eventually, the human woman ages in appearance physically and looks older than her ghost partner. And if she lives long enough, she’s gonna be 80 while her boo still looks 30. You’re seriously telling me that DOESN’T look weird from the outside? Wouldn't you be weirded out if some super old person was smooching up with someone decades younger than them?

At that point, to avoid any oddities, you’d be better off killing yourself in whatever spot they’re stuck to so you wouldn’t have to worry about aging out of proportion in the relationship (and if not aging, then to touch them). That sounds like a lot more work than it’s worth.

Werewolf romances: Werewolf romances are the only sort of supernatural romance I could possibly get behind—and even then, it’s still highly dependent on how the said story chooses to handle the workings of lycanthropy. 

At least with this partner, they most likely can turn humans who won’t HAVE to kill you out of survival. You don’t have to be sorry about some super weird complex age gap. And you can touch them. Sounds like a pretty decent basis so far. BUT there’s always a catch.

A werewolf is (duh) a person who can turn into a wolf (or wolf-like monster). When it comes to these beings, it really is a roll of the dice. Because some versions will make them seem they have no thought process or control at all—whereas others give them complete control. So to call a werewolf automatically dangerous to the well being of their human partner is rather tough to say off the bat. Though, I do know that all of that fur that sheds off of them will be annoying to deal with (and that’s not even counting all of the things they might chew up---like your shoes).

And while I would be inclined to agree that being in a relationship with a werewolf could most definitely be a form of beastiality, at the very LEAST a werewolf can revert back into a human the majority of the time. So as long as you’re only doing stuff with them as a human, you should technically be fine, right?

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I still don’t find much appeal in becoming romantically involved with someone who can become some giant creepy wolf abomination, but at least there’s SOME things in there you COULD manipulate depending on which universe you land into.

Overall, while I do think supernatural romances are indeed a fun concept (and I DO tend to enjoy some of these stories), there’s no way in HECK I think they’re ACTUALLY plausible (unless you add some major--MAJOR--plot armor).

[felixcloud6288]

Dungeon Meshi Chapter 44

Izutsumi acts like a total brat and this chapter actually addresses something I mentioned previously.

Farewell braided hair band. We hardly knew ye.

It's not just Izutsumi. The whole party has a new winter attire now.

Laios is wearing a coat under his armor that stretches down to his knees and he has gloves on. Marcille is wearing a dress with fur trimmings and proper boots now. Senshi has pants and a coat on, but he's still using the makeshift boots from earlier. Chilchuck is wearing a jacket over his normal attire.

Is that a candy-coated mandrake?

This is an accurate depiction of how a cat scratch bleeds.

Marcille is saying what I brought up in chapter 27. People think of monsters as "unclean" and don't want to eat them for fear of catching some horrible disease. I mean that's fair, but properly cooking food takes care of most of it. The only time anyone got sick was when Laios decided to eat a raw parasite.

The biggest instance where you should be hyper wary of a wild animal is when it is behaving very different from normal. If a deer is really docile and casually approaches you, you should stay away from it because it may be in the early stages of rabies.

And I should point out that the water in the dungeon is probably the most likely thing to give you a disease. I don't know if the water is conjured from nothing or recycled, but the various fountains of standing water could be potential disease vectors, especially if they are used by the monsters as well. There's a reason why survival and camping guides emphasize boiling water before drinking it.

Izutsumi looks cute with longer hair.

Tade knows Izutsumi's real name, implying a special level of trust between them.

Another food-related outburst from Izutsumi that lets me glean a bit of her past. She's accusing Laios of hoarding the good food for himself, so she likely had caretakers who did exactly that. Maybe she thinks eating monsters is a sign of desperation. Like, the logic in her head is "Monsters are gross" -> "No one would eat monsters if they didn't have to" -> "Only desperate people would eat monsters" -> "If I eat monsters, that means I'm desperate" -> "I'm not desperate" -> "I won't eat monsters".

The barometz had the worst timing, almost on par with when Senshi tried to explain that kissing doesn't make babies only for Laios to mention that dryads pollinate by kissing.

This reminds me of my favorite bestiary entry in Vampire Survivors, the Lammuga. It's description implies it's a descendant of the barometz. And when the loremaster, James Stephanie Sterling, described what the barometz is, they ended the description by saying they are not making this up and concluded with "Go home, folklore, you're drunk."

Marcille has always been the least physcially capable of the group by a long-shot and she doesn't fail to disappoint.

I think this direwolf got spooked when Chilchuck shot one of them.

Laios is using both his sword and scabbard to fight the direwolves.

I still don't know what the point of a staff is. Marcille has demonstrated she can cast explosions without one. Is it just a better focal point?

I can't find when anyone told Izutsumi about companions compensating for each other, but Izutsumi really misunderstood what that meant. She thinks it means they do what you don't want to do rather than what you cannot do.

Last chapter, she was forced to fight the ice golem solo because Laios got badly injured, Marcille had to heal him, and Senshi was stuck under the snow. Izutsumi seems to think they were making her do things they didn't want to.

Again, going back to what her upbringing seems to be like, it sounds like she's been the bottom of the hierarchy and forced to do anything others don't like. The flashback with Hien gives the implication that they will only allow her to be with them if she does what they tell her to. So with this new group, Izutsumi is trying to be the big tough one that gets to bully and boss everyone around.

Literal example to the whole "If you avoid everything you don't like, you'll end up further from your goal" lesson Marcille gave. Izutsumi knowingly chose the wrong path because it looked easier and is literally getting further from her objective.

That bow on Izutsumi is totally Marcille's handiwork.

Izutsumi taking out the direwolf is extra impressive since all her actions imply she's right-handed. She's also holding that dagger the same way she holds her utensils.

Laios scaring off the direwolves with his dog impression probably had less to do with the wolves being intimidated and more to do with them being weirded out.

It was at this moment, Izutsumi realized that she was not going to enjoy getting her arm fixed.

Like a cat back from the vet.

Kui took the joke a bit too far.

I think Izutsumi is still kind of missing the point here. She remembered how Tade does chores for the others because she wants Maizuru to think she's useful and because she sometimes gets treats. So it's still a bit of "help because you're afraid of being punished or you might get a reward" rather than "help because you want to". Whatever, baby steps.

With these last two Izutsumi-focused chapters, I've gotten a general idea of where she fits in the group dynamic, and she does add something new that shows the party's growth. Earlier, the party was discovering monster cuisine for themselves and learning how to cook, having a conservation mindset, etc. This primarily revolved around Laios being enthusiastic to learn, Marcille having to unlearn her prejudices, Senshi getting to experiment with new discoveries, and Chilchuck reigning in their more extreme antics.

With Izutsumi mixed in now, she gives the others the chance to show what they've learned and how they've grown by being able to pass along their knowledge, approaches, and opinions. Of course, they're still learning and growing as we can see with Marcille once again trying to get around eating a monster.

back

[pinazee]

Zero to murder in sixty seconds

I think it says so much that despite constantly being compared to Gus as a kid, and, in fact, his dad praises Gus and we’ve yet to see him praise Shawn, that young Shawn still remained friends with him. I mean, young me would have been jealous and ditched him, or at the very least had a spat, but Shawn’s just like why can’t i be like you? (As seen in weekend warriors) I guess at that point shawn and gus had known each other for so long that he was more like a brother. It probably never even occurred to him that he could haha it cut me deep when Henry called his bike ridiculous cause i could feel it through the tv screen that little Shawn took that as his dad calling him ridiculous. Ugh henry’s criticisms hurt more this time. Probably because im an adult (technically) and i understand better how wrong he is to tell a child this shit. Shawn just wants to have fun damnit!

I will say though, at least Henry spends time with him. He’s not a great dad, but he wasn’t a deadbeat, even if that time was spent trying to sculpt his son into his own image, and someone he wasn’t.

Burton “i have two jobs” Guster over here twiddling his thumbs lol

Listen, if some guy comes up to me claiming to be psychic and then says anything personal about me, im going to assume hes a stalker. At no point does he make me believe they’re psychic.

(From the hip grossed over $9mil and Blue City grossed around $6mil so Shawn is right. This is the type of detailed research you get from a quality blog such as myself haha)

I loved Wally (Michael Barrett)! Psych’s one off characters are always so original and real. They have so much personality. Doesn’t matter if they’re the murderers either. They’ll make anyone likable.

I gotta talk about Buzz profiling Gus. This is another instance where it doesn’t settle right in our current climate, but, if im honest, the way it was handled wasn’t that bad. Because the show isn’t saying Buzz was right to profile, if anything it highlights how wrong he was to do so. And Buzz had no legitimate reason to stop them, so he was just being a bad cop. However, i do wish the show had called it out more. Like you can have the profiling (because that happens) but then make it a learning experience for Buzz and have someone point out to him how wrong it was. Like Shawn knows the law, and he knows Buzz isn’t a bad person, he could easily explain to him what he did was wrong. OR, they could even have had a small moment where we see Buzz contemplating his actions and the moral implications of such practice. Anything to show that he learned, because we as audience members want to root for him. I hate to say I’ll let it pass because of the time (because jesus fuck i was alive in that time and it doesn’t feel right to consider my past like it was part of some ancient society), so I’ll just say, it was bad for Buzz to do it and leave it at that.

This ep gave me further evidence that Gus has a secret spy life, because, why did he have to write “in the middle of a field” on a post it??? I thought for a second it had something to do with the drugged alien abduction guys from season 1 but why would he have to write that down?

Who is he selling these drugs to, the FBI??

P.S I LOVE HIS EXCITED LITTLE HOPS!

[elfdragon12]

So I got a message in my inbox that tumblr somehow gobbled up relating to my post about the "IDW1 Megatron hating organics, but some fans were in denial because James Roberts brushed his xenophobia off too easily and/or they hadn't revisited it in a long time" thing. (It's not even the first time this has happened where I see a message, read it, click away for a moment, and then it's gone.)

This person commented how it seems to be more of a trend in modern sci-fi and fantasy stories that humans tend to be seen as the bad guys, whether or not that's actually true. Their charitable view was that this is because humans in these more fantastical stories are considered "boring". The less charitable view was that fans/writers are more misanthropic.

I think both are right.

A Transformers example is how humans are written in the G1 cartoon versus how they're written in Earthspark. To be honest... Humanity in Earthspark... Does legitimately have reason to be resentful of the Cybertronians. Two different human members of the main cast are amputees due to the Cybertronian war. (And the season 2 writers pretty much legitimized the season 1 antagonists.) Though Megatron has turned Autobot/good guy, the only humans he seems to be genuinely interested in are still just Dot and her family. He shows very little regard or sympathy towards any other humans. Meanwhile, we know that Optimus does try to maintain good relationships with other humans besides the main family. The big reasons that humanity's resentment of Cybertronians seems so bad is that we spend all our time with the Cybertronians, this is said to children who had nothing to do with it, the audience has very little context for how the war even happened, and older fans are much more resentful towards human characters thanks to the Michael Bay movies.

Another example is "War of the Worlds" by HG Wells versus "Gundog" by Gary Whitta. Both of these stories are alien invasion stories that turn pretty sour for humanity. Now, for total transparency, Gundog audio episodes came up as a guest episode on a podcast I really like, but I didn't enjoy Gundog so I never went to finish. The big reason why I didn't like it, however, relates to this topic. The narrator suggests that humanity deserved to be slaughtered and enslaved because they didn't share resources with the aliens and attacked them... Yikes(tm). This has a lot of gross implications when you sit and think about it for a few minutes. On the other hand, War of the Worlds is explicitly a criticism of British imperialism/colonialism. There are at least two lines, one towards the beginning and one towards the end, that make this very clear. HG Wells writes a variety of reactions towards this invasion (the artillery man actually made me think of Andrew Tate, all these big plans but little actual skill to pull them off), yet, despite this being a criticism of colonialism, never really implies that humanity deserved the attack (the closest being that this perhaps taught the British some empathy towards their colonies).

Now, part of this is more awareness of civil rights movements, but a criticism I've seen of using these themes of prejudice as metaphors for real life is that... Humanity often has perfectly legitimate reasons to fear some of these groups. In the 2005 IDW Transformers run, there were around 700,000 casualties on Earth alone, so yeah! Humanity, and organics in general, are not going to have a lot of charitable feelings towards these giant robots who only bring war and fighting! However, the POV characters are from these other groups, so the audience is not encouraged to actually think about the situation much beyond "wow! Humans are so prejudiced! They're being so mean to this not-human character I'm reading about!" when that's not really the case. Or at least, not the whole case.

Just something to think about. A lot of thought and nuance can be put into this topic.

[living-animal]

I have some gripes with Film Cooper on YT due to a video he made. If you wanna hear about it, here it is

First off, title- “this man lives in a dog suit” factually incorrect, he does not live in a dog suit, he wears it on occasion

Next, he’s tweaking over the fact that a German tv host is treating the man in a dog costume like a dog- isn’t that how you’re meant to treat all costumes?? Like they’re real?? Isn’t that the whole point of Disney? It’s the same way you treat cosplayers as the character. It’s fun to pretend.

Barely over a minute in, Film Cooper accuses Toco (the man in the suit) of being sexually aroused by the tv host calling him a “good boy” and claims that Toco must have a fetish for being treated like an animal. I feel like I don’t need to explain why that’s bad.

“Theres no way this isn’t a [fetish]. There’s no way that him dressing up as a border collie and walking around being called a good boy isn’t a [fetish].” (He was using a code word as to not get demonetized)

I can easily combat this claim just from he simple fact that this is likely not an often occurrence for Toco. He does not walk around all day in public being called a “good boy” by “hot German women” as Film Cooper puts it.

He then shows the first ever recorded instance of this suit on the internet, posted by a Japanese artist on their Twitter, showing off the suit they had made, and Film Cooper has an audibly and visually disguised reaction. “They made this for a human” yes Cooper, they did. I’m scared to see what would happen if Film Cooper ever accidentally stumbled upon a furry convention. I’m sure he would have a heart attack and die immediately.

He claims that this is “not furry” which is factually incorrect. In fursuit terms, this is just a hyper realistic quad suit. “Furry might be the closest thing” is true for the suit itself, but Toco is not a furry, Toco is likely some form of alterhuman/therian, which, from this video, I can safely assume Film Cooper doesn’t know shit about. “Furry is anthropomorphic” anthropomorphic doesn’t just mean walking on two legs, that’s bipedal. “A furry stands on two legs” a furry can be on four legs. It’s called a quad suit. Anthropomorphic means human-like, whether that be in physical form, intelligence, or emotions.

He also adds that furries “fuck”?? Which to me implies that furries/fursuits are sexual in nature, which is a whole other can of worms.

“He wants to be a border collie that licks his own BB hole” that’s a big claim. Wanting to be an animal doesn’t automatically mean you want to lick yourself?? And it’s frankly disgusting to me that that is what Film Cooper imagines when told that someone wants to be an animal. “In my opinion that’s gross. Haha. I think it’s disgusting. You like to dress up as a dog, walk on all fours all day and lick your BB hole?” When did he say that Cooper. Stop making freaky and perverse assumptions about people you’ve never met.

He then shows a video from Toco’s account of him in the costume outside a window, but edits it, turning it black and white and adding scary music. This was entirely unnecessary, and just feels like fear mongering to me. He proceeds to compare the video to the horror movie Tusk, and more terrified ramblings of there “being a guy in there”. Yes, Cooper, that is how costumes work.

“What is wrong with this man” I don’t know, he has a hobby that makes him happy? Why the fuck do you care so much, Cooper? Because his suit is uncanny? Because you think it’s “weird”? Well I think your constant queerbaiting is weird, and you don’t hear me accusing you of being an animal fetishist. And then he has the audacity to make his motto “what’s up weirdos” and call his audience “weirdo nation” while actively making content harassing and attacking ACTUAL weirdos. Don’t call yourself a weirdo if you have a visceral reaction to someone actually being weird.

“I guess the implication is that he wants to be a dog so bad because he’s in love with dogs?” OH MY FUCKING GOD?? What the actual literal fuck. The fact that Cooper just accused this man of being a literal ZOOPHILE for no other reason than the fact that he dresses up in a realistic dog costume is actually so fucking sick. Shit like this is the reason alterhumans/therians receive so much hatred on a daily basis. This makes me so fucking sick. Cooper has the fucking audacity to accuse a stranger on the internet of being a zoophilic animal fetishist because he wears a costume. It’s so fucking baffling to me. And he says it so casually. “The implication here” WHEN was that EVER implied ANYWHERE in Toco’s content.

(He then proceeds to go on some random unnecessary spiel about sexism ((in a very performative way I might add)) or whatever)

He talked about age regression and pet regression a bit, and said those were fine (although he’s clearly uneducated about those things), but he says that Toco buying an expensive suit to “be a border collie everyday” is different. (Although I would like to add, WHERE TF ARE YOU GETTING THE IMPLICATION THAT HE DOES THIS ALL DAY EVERY DAY.)

“This, it’s safe to say, we can make fun of.” No, Cooper, you can’t. Because if you educated yourself beyond literally just watching this guys videos and having a baseline knowledge of furries, you would know about a little thing called alterhumanity/therianthropy, which it’s safe to say, you can’t make fun of. Asshole.

“I’m defending this against nobody. Nobody is looking at this being like “no, come on, man, he’s just chilling.” It’s like, no, this is fucked.” No, actually, Film Cooper, it’s not, and a lot of people are actually normal, and don’t fucking care about a guy in a dog suit having fun, unlike you, on your little queer-baity white savior complex high horse, who likes to call yourself a weirdo for wearing rings and having long hair, while also bashing ACTUAL weirdos. You’re the only one making up incorrect statements about this guy’s life to cry over as if it were real. No, this man does not LIVE in a dog suit, and no, he is not attracted to animals, you sick fuck.

He then shows the second video Toco ever uploaded on his YT channel, and proceeds to make fun of Toco’s poorly translated attempts at being polite and introducing himself, because Toco is a Japanese man that doesn’t speak any English. He had to translate this, presumably using some sort of translator app. Japanese is a very difficult language to translate into English, and vice versa. He also makes his tone out to be far more aggressive than necessary, and calls his narcissistic (???) for making an intro video (which a think a lot of people who have YouTube channels do) the phrase I’m specifically referring to was “I’m going to start uploading videos at my own pace” which was very clearly translated from Japanese, as the original Japanese text was on top of the English, but FC went on a whole ramble about some “GUYS EVERYONE CALM DOWN IM SO BURNT OUT” my brother that is a whole new sentence. Where are you getting all this from?? Are you seeing something that I’m not??

He then commented on said video, clearly in a cruel and bullying way, asking Toco to “put on the dog suit and twerk” which I would most definitely classify as sexual harassment. Wow Cooper, I love your humor! It’s so funny to sexually harass people on the internet, and it’s definitely not super wrong and disgusting because Toco is a man and has a weird hobby!

Next, there’s a Q&A from Toco. In the beginning of the video, Toco literally has a disclaimer that he may have some translation errors in the video (because he doesn’t speak English and had to translate from Japanese) we know Cooper saw this because he literally read it out loud. Next thing he does, is after Toco answers the first question; “Q: why did you want to become a dog?”

“A: I’ve had a vague dream of becoming an animal since I was a child” and Film Cooper compared this to FELIX CIPHER, the person notorious for believing he is the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler. I don’t think I need to explain why this is absolutely abhorrent behavior. Not only is it making light of some extremely offensive and antisemitic behavior, but also further demonizes furries and alterhumans/therians. And also it’s just incredibly distasteful, and not at all an accurate comparison. Sure he says that Felix Cipher is worse, but he still made the comparison. He also says to Toco “let dreams be dreams. Just don’t do it.” I’m glad to see we’re encouraging people to repress themselves and what makes them happy just because YOU personally don’t like it, Mr. Film.

Film Cooper claims that Toco is “avoiding questions” even after just a second ago he acknowledged the disclaimer about mistranslations and misrepresentations.

“I don’t want to spend 30k on a [dog] suit and walk around as [a dog]” okay, then don’t? Nobody is forcing you to do that. Nobody’s even forcing you to watch this content if it makes you so uncomfortable. If you were to see it and say “I’m uncomfortable with this, I don’t want to watch it” I wouldn’t care. But when I start to care is when you go out of your way to make a video harassing, attacking, and insulting an innocent man on the internet for money and clout.

He calls him “annoying” because of his sentence structure, and because FC felt as though he was avoiding questions, even though we know, and it has been stated three times now, that Toco does not speak any English, and this video is poorly translated. He’s mad at Toco for saying that he doesn’t know why the trigger for wanting to be an animal. But what do you want him to say? If he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know. Things like this are hard to place.

The next question, he once again makes up entirely new sentences from Toco’s answers. He makes Toco out to be angry and “indignant” with the questions he’s receiving, even though Toco has been nothing but polite, friendly, and respectful. And he also continues to misinterpret what Toco is saying, accusing him of “interrogating himself” because he was asking the viewers questions, and Film Cooper interpreted that as Toco asking himself questions?? For some reason. I think Film Cooper just lacks any form of literary comprehension.

Cooper continues to reinstate the fact that Toco is “an adult human man in a dog suit. He has a job, he goes to work..” but I think that just further humanizes Toco, doesn’t it? It makes me dislike him even less. I don’t care that he’s a grown man in a dog suit, I care that he’s a human being with feelings and a life beyond what we see online of him.

He accuses Toco of being defensive again. The question was if the costume was modeled after any specific border collie, and Toco said it wasn’t, though due to poor translation, it came out as “it’s not my collie or my friend’s collie” to which FC goes on another ramble acting out Toco being “defensive” about the origins of his suit design, making him once again appear like a creep.

Film Cooper, again, takes a clip of Toco moving around in his suit, and turns it black and white and adds horror music over it to make it look scarier. I don’t know why he insists on doing this so many times.

He also accuses Toco of not answering questions again, even though he did, and Film Cooper continues to misconstrue what Toco says “Q: are you tired of being human?” “A: sometimes it is reported that I am tired of being human. I never said that. […] Be aware of incorrect information.” Toco says he has never stated to be tired of being human, yet Film Cooper accuses him of not answering questions, AGAIN, due to his misinterpretation of Toco’s answers, not Toco’s own lack of answers.

He accuses Toco of not answering AGAIN; “Q; the topic is getting a lot of attention. How do you feel about it now?” “A; I am very surprised because I didn’t expect this to happen […]” The answer to the question was that Toco was surprised, but Cooper decided to focus on the rest of the answer, where Toco talks about how grateful he is for all the comments people have left, apologizing for not replying, and asking people about how their country is viewing him. Toco answers the questions every time, but Film Cooper chooses to focus on everything but Toco’s answer, just to keep calling him a freak. “You are a real life cosmic horror villain. Lovecraft would write a story about you.”

“A day in his life is him as a dog.” No it’s not, Toco wears the suit to make content, and the content he makes is specific to the dog suit and his desire to be a dog. So it makes no sense why Film Cooper is confused as to why Toco is making content about his dog suit “as if it’s normal”. Because in this context, it is. This is his channel where he posts about his suit, so obviously, the suit is a normal thing on his channel and it’s going to be treated as such.

Toco replied to a comment asking if he tells people he know about his suit, saying that he was too insecure about it, and only tells people he’s close with. Cooper had this to say;“He should be embarrassed to do this at work. Don’t do this at work.” He literally just said he didn’t!! The previous question was literally “have you ever gone outside [in the suit]” and Toco’s response was no. Obviously he’s never done it at work. Goofy.

That’s the end of the video. I have many, MANY smaller things about this video that upset me as well, but this is just the important things. And rewatching this video to make this post has filled me with a violent rage and hatred for Film Cooper like never before. We all clowned on his for the Marsha P. Johnson thing, I thought we all hated him now, why do we all still love him?? Anyways, dear Film Cooper, please do a MODICUM of research before you make tasteless videos like this, literally just look up therianthropy and alterhumanity on tumblr.com and that’ll clear some things up for you. And to Toco, I love your videos, never let jackasses like Film Cooper tell you that you’re a freak for doing what makes you happy. There’s a whole community of people just like you out there, and I hope you’re having fun and still making bigger bucks than Film Cooper ever will 🫶🫶

[1-800-local-slut]

With a Heavy Heart- Chapter 4

𝒲𝒶𝓇𝓃𝒾𝓃ℊ𝓈： 𝓈𝓉ℯ𝒶𝓁𝒾𝓃ℊ， 𝓋𝒾ℴ𝓁ℯ𝓃𝒸ℯ 𝒯𝒲： 𝒥*𝒽𝓃 𝒲𝒾𝓃𝒸****ℯ𝓇， 𝒸𝒽𝒾𝓁𝒹 𝒶𝒷𝓊𝓈ℯ （𝒸𝒽𝒾𝓁𝒹 𝓃ℯℊ𝓁ℯ𝒸𝓉， 𝒸𝒽𝒾𝓁𝒹 𝒶𝒷𝒶𝓃𝒹ℴ𝓃𝓂ℯ𝓃𝓉）, 𝒶𝓃ℊ𝓈𝓉，𝓈𝓂ℴ𝓀𝒾𝓃𝑔，𝓂ℴ𝓃𝓈𝓉ℯ𝓇𝓈，𝓁𝒾𝓉ℯ𝓇𝒶𝓁𝓁𝓎 𝓅𝓁𝒶𝓃𝓃𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓂𝓊𝓇𝒹ℯ𝓇 𝓁ℴ𝓁， 𝒥ℴ𝒽𝓃’𝓈 𝒶 𝒷𝒶𝒹 𝓅𝒶𝓇ℯ𝓃𝓉 𝒷𝓊𝓉 𝓌ℯ 𝒶𝓁𝓇ℯ𝒶𝒹𝓎 𝓀𝓃ℯ𝓌 𝓉𝒽𝒶𝓉，𝓂ℴ𝓂𝓂𝓎 𝒾𝓈𝓈𝓊ℯ𝓈

༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻

August 18th, 1997

Dear diary- I never thought I’d see the day when I loved my job. But the day has come. Dean and I wrapped up a pair of shapeshifters then a ghost in Baltimore. I wrapped up the guy in the Chinese shop, dragged his body out back and into the dumpster then lit it on fire. Dean’s put up a fight, she threw a rotisserie chicken at him and two hot dogs. She sprinted out the back and I tackled her before getting her back into the store. I was personally ready to just shoot her and go home. But Dean, ever the hero, asked about the pack. The thing got real angry, and she lunged at us, but I handcuffed her to some pipes in the break room. After some light interrogation (I gave it five seconds to talk then I kicked it in the mouth) she told us she and her man were on their own. Some sad love story between the two who ran away from their pack. I honestly would’ve let her go, but Dean didn’t appreciate getting bitten in his shin so I shot it in the face. That and we did find some shedded skin (gross). Then we went to Baltimore.

I never thought I’d call Baltimore the city of love, but it’s mine! So, picture this. Dean and I, get into this abandoned hospital and get locked inside a small closet. I only agreed to go in because he helped me out with the shapeshifters. It was just us, dark as all hell, and I don’t know if it was my heartbeat or his beating so loud. He tried beating down the door, then we heard someone else walking around. The next thing I know, his hand is over my mouth and I’m pressed up against him and the door. I peeked through a crack in that ghetto ass door. I didn’t see anyone, but I wasn’t really invested in that. I know, poor timing, but I didn’t ask to be a hunter in my life. So yes, I took great joy in feeling Dean’s body against mine.

I had to climb on top of him, and get on his shoulders. His hands were on me and I had to squeeze into a vent. He muttered something about a pipe. I was worried about that for a minute until I saw a dead rat and almost vomited in the vent. Sometimes nose plugs just aren’t enough. I eventually got out and to the other side of the closet, and was able to get Dean out. We found the ghost or whatever, I still don’t really know what happened. I wasn't super invested. I just kept thinking about Dean. Even though the hospital smelt like shit, I was fine with it because he was present. Gosh, I never thought I’d have such a massive crush on Dean. I always thought he was cute but I never thought him holding my waist up to shove me into a vent would make my heart race. I’m a little bit nervous though. What if he doesn’t feel the same way? Oh well, no time to worry about that. He’s with me now, and I think I heard the shower cut off. I’ll write more tomorrow.

P.S. I think Salem might be coming down with something, I may have to take him to the vet tomorrow.

༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻

“So tell me, am I the only guy you sneak into this castle?” Asked Dean while he put his necklace back on. Fresh out of the shower, and in soft clean clothing he sauntered into the kitchen. He saw Salem sitting with the gorgeous huntress who was tenderly petting him on the island.

“Why? You jealous of the others?” She shot back looking up at him. Yes. He was jealous at the thought of another man in here with her. After today, he especially was. His heart jumped in his chest at the implication of others and he had to stop himself from frowning.

“If I am, you gonna stop having them over?” He teased sliding next to her on the kitchen island. But he was hoping she would, if there were any other guys. With a laugh, she handed him Salem and wordlessly got up from the counter top, turning on the tea kettle. He watched her take out a green container with a man in a soccer jersey on it.

“Tea?” She asked while twirling around holding a mug with her first initial on it. With a raised eyebrow, Dean decided to just leave it be instead of asking a possibly stupid question.

“Sure.” He responded. It was 8:00 PM now, and the two were settled in for a cozy evening. Dean called John from a payphone when they stopped for gas, told him it would take a bit longer and mentioned dropping by her place for help. Now he can’t say he never told him where he was. Plopping down a recliner while Salem jumped down and ran free.

His eyes raked over her body while she shut off the stove and he admired her shorts that clung to her shape and the matching cami she wore. Since he was squished up against her in the closet earlier, he was really thinking about her. Not in the normal tender, loving way he usually thought about her. In a more…intimate way. She was now walking towards him, Dean’s eyes were glued to her thighs that rubbed together as she walked towards him.

He felt tension though, unsure if it was between the two of them or just him. Her voice broke through his thoughts.

“Here you go hon.” Her eyes raked over his chest, he felt like he was being undressed by her gaze. He took it, brushing two fingers over her smaller ones. She slowly (maybe it was just Dean’s horny brain slowing her motions) turned and sat down on the arm rest of the recliner like always. With hesitance, Dean slowly moved to wrap his arm around her waist and rest his hand on her thigh. He felt her breast smoosh against his head and he fought the urge to bury his head in them. For some reason, things felt different than other times. This time it was like someone put on mood lights and left rose petals out for the two. Like something else was going to happen and separate their friendship from longing stares he gave her, soft pecks on the cheek and forehead and into something else.

He felt her shift closer to his body and saw her place her mug down. Dean stared right ahead at the window, the rain pouring down outside. Soft music played from her radio, just regular jazz that she liked. She casually wrapped her arms around his neck, Dean’s blood pressure shot up incredibly fast. Now Dean doesn’t freak out over women touching him often, that’s a regular day for him. But this woman was different. This one he wanted so much it made his heart ache.

“You mind if I sit on you?” Oh God. Swallowing, Dean tried to remain charming. He flashed her his signature boyish grin and looked deeply into her mysterious eyes.

“Long as you don’t crush me, beautiful.” He shot her a wink and she laughed. What the hell was that line? As long as you don’t crush me? Dean couldn’t help but admonish himself for his awkwardness. He was broken from his thoughts though, from her slowly sliding down onto his lap. Her ass was directly over Dean’s crotch and he knew right there he was going to blow it. Forget playing it cool, forget all of that. He couldn’t hide himself from her.

“Hey what’s on the TV?” Taking a sip from her mug, Dean tightened his grip on his mug. Reaching down for the remote, Dean stifled a moan feeling her move. Was this a test from God? To see if he would ruin his friendship and make a move on her? In his head, Dean began to chant.

‘If she wanted me she would’ve told me, if she wanted me she would’ve told me, if she wanted me she would’ve told me, if she wanted me she would’ve told me, if she wanted me she would’ve told me.’ Right. He’s never known her not to say she wanted something. She was always super vocal, so if she wanted him he would kno-

“Dean.”

“Yeah sweetheart?”

“I want you to kiss me.”

༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻

Tag list:

@roseblue373

@titty-teetee

[piratefishmama]

Everything wrong with the liveaction Avatar and WHY.

in my own personal opinion that nobody need agree with me on.

Zuko fought back in the Agni Kai against his father.

Okay so, so far, there's been a lot of people trying to explain why this was wrong with the very limited space on twitter, i'm going to do it here, on tumblr, where i have unlimited space, whee. In the original show, Zuko, with pure terror in his heart, got down on his knees, begged, and pleaded for forgiveness that his father would not give, before being burned and banished for his weakness and disrespect. This gave the audience the impression that Ozai was fucking terrifying. His power was beyond comprehension, and he was so scary that his own son, his own progeny, would still be TOO AFRAID of him, to even dare cross him. Even at the cost of his honour. Ozai wouldn't even grant mercy to his own terrified son, scarring his face, a part of Zuko that he could never hide, so everyone would forever see the proof of Zuko's dishonour and shame. Ozai was awful. In every single way, but he was also terrifying. The Live Action version had Zuko fighting back. Not only did it have him fighting back, it also had him obtain an actual chance to win that fight. Now, an Agni Kai, is a fight between firebenders where the first person to be burned, loses. Undoubtedly, Ozai had many oppportunities to burn his son from the get go, but for a brief moment, Zuko has the upper hand, right here

It's right here, that Zuko could have won an Agni Kai against his father, the firelord, and big bad of the entire series, right out of the gate, before he'd even hit adulthood. Pathetic. Dont get me wrong, it's a cool scene, but it greatly diminishes how scary Ozai is supposed to be. Zuko has the strength to fight back, he's scared, but he's not paralyzed with fear, he's able to fight back, and damn near almost WIN. Shit's pathetic. Ozai almost got his shit rocked by a teenager. Who isnt even the avatar. Cartoon Ozai was a terrifying monster who had the actual avatar so scared he was having recurring nightmares about rocking up to the big fight without pants, this dude's just a terrible father with superpowers.

The Face Stealer Koh

In the original cartoon, Koh was introduced as a spirit old enough to know who and what the real world forms of the ocean and moon spirit were. A creepy stealer of faces who hunted by causing reactions in people. Stealing their faces wouldnt kill them, they just. Wouldnt have a face. In the live action, he appears in the 'Hei Bai' episode and hunts in the fog of lost souls, y'know, the place in Korra where lost souls get stuck in their worst memories? Then he cocoons them, and eats their faces. Like, full on eats them. And for some reason he was the one who grabbed the lost villagers in the Hei Bai episode, not Hei Bai. It's weird. Pretty sure one of them maybe got eaten, idk. Unclear. Gross and unclear.

Hei Bai plothole

Not so much a plothole as just... something missing. Hei Bai is seen in his 'distressed spirit' form, he's seen, his pain and distress is acknowledged multiple times, and the reason why he's distressed is seen, but he's never shown to be soothed. Aang buries an acorn in the ground near his damaged statue, but it never shows Hei Bai being soothed. In the cartoon he had to be handed the acorn to see it, to understand the implication and be calmed, if just burying an acorn in the ground would have worked, he'd have never been upset, because he'd have been able to see it himself in the ruins of the forest with there being acorns all over the place.

Wan Shi Tong cameo in Hei bai's foggy spirit forest

Dude why tf are you out of your library? Your foxes venture out into the world to find you things, get back to your library, what the hell r u doin out there?

WE DIDNT NEED TO SEE THE AIR NOMAD GENOCIDE

WE DIDN'T NEED TO SEE THE AIR NOMAD GENOCIDE

Gyatso's underwhelming skeletal remains.

In the cartoon they found him surrounded by dead firebender soldiers, having solo'd a ton of them by himself, an old man, a monk, all on his own. Giving the impression that either he fought them off until he fell, or he removed out the air in the room suffocating them all and himself. Both entirely badass ways to go. In the live action the firelord walks through his frankly impressive wall of airbending in a cool 'oo i'm on fire' trick, and burns him alive in front of a bunch of air nation children. The fucking dishonour on your whole goddamn family whoever decided upon that scene, jesus christ.

Azula wasn't scary

She was just... meh.

The Only Good Thing About the Avatar Live Action series.

Big spirit fish go brr.

[tomomiisasleep]

notes on the unwanted guest and Ianthe in general:

I did NOT expect that this is when they were fighting in the body!!! that's so awesome

Pal already asked more than five questions before scene 4. so Ianthe couldnt actually refuse his questions? or she doesnt care what they talk about, as long as it strays away from Babs?

and uhhhh, why the hooded figures? I mean I got spoiled that the setting is the Ninth House, but I mean why the Ninth House? she never really showed much interest on it, and the whole setting she conjured up herself if I have to guess

and the more I read about Ianthe the harder it is for me to remember that I have not gotten over her lying about the corpse under the bed but that she's so hot I am immune to bad bitches I support woman's wrongs

actually I don't see other people fussing about it. but IMO I think it's the shittiest thing she does in the plot (I mean she did eat someone but isn't that the whole point they were there? ok that's not an excuse but whatever I don't think she's terrible for doing it) and the only thing that makes me actually dislike her and not admire her for her intelligence and wit. but everything else about her is like, phoar

also the famous line

pal: nobody asked

so i guess it means that Harrow-related discussions are safe ground for Ianthe? or is this her manipulation again seeing as the inside of her head looks like the Ninth House is it because she still fantasizes about marrying Harrow?

How did Ianthe find out about Ortus? Gideon told her? How did Pal find out about Ortus???? Cam told him? how did Cam find out? or Dulcie told him? and I can't believe she actually died twice, just to tell Harrow about Gideon...

ok I've finished it, but still no insight as to how true Lyctorhood works. Pal said that the real truth is grafting, transplantation. I still don't get it. the only true Lyctor up to now is John and... wait...actually no, he changed before reviving the earth... I don't understand this.

but I do kinda get who Nona is now, it's Alecto's soul under the influence of not Harrow's soul but her body. Which sure has some interestimg implications...

and tbh I did not understand how Pal just wins because he figured something out that Ianthe did not. or is that exactly the point? and I can imagine Ianthe mmust be grossed out to find that her soul has been "rubbing" with Babs' this whole time and time later

something unrelated(that maybe has a little to do with Babs' soul rubbing off on Ianthe?): when Ianthe walked away from Harrow in the bathroom scene, I do think she knows the significance behind her choice, at least subconsciously. she wouldn't have enjoyed owning Harrow if she choose to approach her anyways. I actually think Harrow wasn't so desolate she might have gone in to check tje scene out of morbid curiousity and maybe to see her naked though I'm not sure if she prefers that over seeing her brain but that's not the point. the point is this is Not how Ianthe imagined that she would take possession of Harrow at all, not by picking up someone else's scraps.

So maybe it was for the best

I think they would both agree.

that after a pregnant pause

the weight of the situation is sinking in on Ianthe

the Princess of Ida said:

why refer to her as such at a time like this? she's putting on a facade

“Wow! Not how I imagined this happening, at all,” and you heard her hasty footsteps retreat,

hasty, maybe she had to tear herself away from the temptation, maybe she's afraid that she'll turn back.

away, back down the corridor whence she came. Then she was gone.

lastly, some stuff about the twins. they need each other. Ianthe needs Corona because she needs Corona's approval. she needs approval and she needs it from everyone and doesnt hide it, but Corona's is the most important. why else would she be happy to downplay her abilities her entire life? she gets off on Corona's worship, I bet her actually body had an orgasm when the remote-control body shuddered.

other stuff about goals and love, and sleeping together are all explicitly expressed in the books, so I'll say no more.

one last thing: I love Palamedes and the relationship between him and Camilla and Dulcinea