#just a few thoughts

[skimmoons]

I was thinking about the Percy Jackson TV show and it just occurred to me that a few of the changes they made in season one, even though didn’t exactly please me, will allow the following seasons to be more book-accurate and in depth.

One example is the fact that we already have Luke’s background. We know why he left home, so now the show can actually SHOW us Luke and Thalia’s life on the road by flashbacks, instead of Annabeth telling the short version (how it is in the books). They can actually dive into Luke’s character and make him more three-dimensional, something that the series lacked up until the very last book when Rick had a “oh my gods I’m about to kill this character and I didn’t even give him a last name” sort of moment.

By fleshing out Luke’s character so thoroughly they can also give Thalia a greater importance than she had in the books. I was never particularly sold to her and Annabeth’s relationship because Annabeth never actually TALKS about her except for very few and brief moments during SoM. They now have the perfect excuse to show more of her (again, in those flashbacks about their time on the road) to build up her character so people will actually like her and understand why she is the way she is during book three. I’ve known plenty of people, including myself, that didn’t vibe with her during TTC for this exact reason: we were never given context about her. We don’t even know what made HER leave home until Heroes of Olympus.

Sally’s relationship with Poseidon being explored will make Paul even more important than he already is. For Sally to finally open up to a man again, to finally be able to love and trust someone other than Percy, is a HUGE deal now. Because we know she carried those unresolved feelings for Poseidon for the longest time and meeting Paul is what finally makes her let go of him.

I also think the show is building up the gods little by little. At first it would seem like they’re all bastards that hate mortals and should be guillotined, but then we get Hephaestus helping them because he wants to be different. Then we have Poseidon helping out Percy even though he wasn’t asked (in the books, Percy prayed before jumping from the arch) AND even helping out Sally by giving him an extra pearl. We will probably have, through flashbacks, Athena guiding Annabeth when she left home, and Hermes wanting to help Luke escape his fate is already a big deal. Instead of first seeing the gods as perfect creatures and later finding out they’re just as flawed as mortals, we’re doing the opposite: at first we think they’re trash and understand Luke, but little by little we are shown that, flawed as they are, most of the gods still try to do their best for their children. Except Ares, the little fucker.

All this long ass post to say: maybe we shouldn’t criticize the show so harshly before being able to see the bigger picture. Maybe we should give them some grace and time to cook.

Also: I know some people think they're being too forward with Percabeth, and to those I say: reread the books and use your critical thinking skills. But that's a subject for another post.

[yjhariani]

Now imagine Muslim!Simon forgetting that you are on your period and woke you up for fajr, he felt soooo bad.

Or

Muslim!Simon forgetting that you were married and avoided touching you post-wudhu so he didn't accidentally cancel your ablution.

Maybe

Having Muslim!Simon away, him calling you every dawn to wake you up for fajr regardless where he was at.

Or

Secretly standing against a wall, listening to Muslim!Simon reciting the Quran until he stopped and when you turned to check on him, he was already standing next to you.

Maybe

Having a pet cat that adored the prayer mat and would be around every time Muslim!Simon was praying, which ended up in him having to pivot every now and again during sujood to avoid squishing the cat (the cat clawed him multiple times during these instances).

And if the reader decided

Having a kid with Muslim!Simon, watching him teach the kids how to pray which ended up in the kid climbing onto his back during sujood.

[eldritch-flower]

Been thinking a lot lately about how many of the characters I write are 30+ years old. They say 'write what you know', but something about using OCs my own age in stories like Zenith & TAOD just feels wrong.

Give me mature people in mature situations. Life doesn't end after 25, you know?

It's just as interesting to upend a person's life who has a stable job & pays taxes as it is to throw teens and baby-faced 20 year olds into the mix. Sure, the lack of life experience can make for an entertaining read, but think about the guy who has life experience and realises it's useless when faced with [insert plot point here].

The suburbs and office-life can only prepare you so much for the horrors of unreality. The aches in your knees certainly don't help, either.

[deathsbestgirl]

i'm actually watching agua mala and scully is so mad at mulder but she still goes with him and is trying so hard to get through to him, and he's trying so hard to convince her this is worth their time. and the thing is, it was completely crazy for them to go to florida in the middle of a hurricane. and they're both right about what's happening, it is essentially a parasite but it is also very sea monster like. but scully absolutely figures out that fresh water / not salt water kills it. and mulder claims he figured it out because of the cat, but she 100% tells him before he's attacked and sees the cat in rain. if he hadn't been listening to her, he wouldn't have made the connection with the cat, and he could have died!

literally i love this episode. he wants to prove himself to her, and she still wants to talk sense into him. they both want the other to believe them & trust them & listen to them and they're both so caught up in what happened in two fathers/one son, they don't understand how much they do trust each other & believe each other & listen to each other.

two precious idiots. this is such a married episode too.

[thenixkat]

Mundane AU!Laios thoughts

Note:

Probably contains spoilers

Mundane au= no magic and no fantasy 'races' (like... little people are a thing, they exist in reality, some people just have dwarfism. The elves are just skinny racist and xenophobic Europeans like? And there's already parralells made with the demi humans so if I do anything the orcs are Afro Native and Kobolds are somewhere African or Arab. And for the ogres... gigantism is a thing that exists in real like and totally a teen girl would just wear some horns.)

Thoughts:

The Toudens are European-born. From somewhere cold as hell, really isolated and conservative, that's close to some mountains, that's racist towards the local indigenous people.

(The sibs, but especially Laios got chewed out about some shit and has been trying to be better, slips up every now and then but takes criticism well so long as folks tell him what he did/said wrong).

Local weird kids put off vibes that the rest of the village didn't like, Laios and Falin grew up bullied and ostracized. Falin got sent off to schooling in the big city and later to a university in Italy where she met Marcille.

Laios dropped out of high school and joined the military as soon as he was able to b/c he wanted to get the hell out of dodge. Served for a few shitty years b4 just... deserting and backpacking across Europe just straight up homeless and working whatever odd jobs he could find. Man was going through it. Wound up in the same city where Falin was studying at a university in and decided to visit her. She took one look at him and refused to let him just go back to what he was doing, so Laios started couch surfing with her (very much against dorm rules but he looked terrible and Falin wasn't about to let anyone stop her from making sure her brother has a roof over his head and food).

Eventually, she takes him with her when she does a work-study in the USA for her ecology degree and they ended up staying/Falin kinda maybe sorta dropped out and got a job with a vet near where she was doing her work-study.

Laios and Falin are technically illegal immigrants but they're white so no one really questions their citizenship (their working on getting citizenship/papers)

Laios gets a GED. Does some self-study from Falin's textbooks and online stuff but that's about it for his schooling.

Laios definitely, like, lives in Falin's basement. Falin is the primary breadwinner in this household, Laios is aware of this and has learned to accept it even tho he would like to take care of his baby sister and sometimes feels bad about not being able to. They used to share a room in a cheap apartment but after building up enough savings they managed to buy a suspiciously cheap house in a rural town bordering a reservation and not far from a national park.

Laios still works odd jobs, mostly physical labor and stuff where they won't ask for a degree. Has worked retail, where his customer service was trash but he's darn good at just stocking and shelving shit.

Met Chilchuck while working retail, Chilchuck introduced him to the concept of a union which Laios thinks is really neat.

The town where the Touden's moved has a sizable population of people with dwarfism, Chilchuck is a notable member of the little person community in the area. The Touden's go to Chilchuck for help with paperwork (they pay him a small fee) and he doesn't ask too many questions about why they don't have this or that piece of documentation.

Laios enjoys doing citizen science and bird watching. During the tourist season, he runs a small wilderness guide giving campers and hikers tours in the local national park.

There's a hermit that lives in the national park illegally (Senshi) that Laios and Falin made friends with. They love his cooking.

Laios is active in the online furry community. He does commissions, mostly of digital and physical art or people's fursonas and vore stuff. He does great ferals, and decent anthros, but his human art is not good (he's working on it).

Laios is decidedly chubby in this, his weight goes up and down depending on the season and how much physical activity he's doing. But ever since he reunited with Falin, she's been making sure he doesn't skip meals if they can afford to eat. And ever since he met Senshi he's gotten heftier since he loves that man's cooking.

[an-orange-twilight]

The song "Little Dark Age" by MGMT has a sentence that resonates with me and my experience with theriantrophy a lot: "Just know that if you hide, it doesn't go away."

Behaviors that I would try to suppress unless behind closed doors, feelings that nobody else seemed to relate to so I would just try to not talk about them, hoping they would go away sooner or later.

All this time I just thought I was weird because that's what everyone used to call me while I was just being myself.

But hiding doesn't lead anywhere, because if these feelings are real, they won't just go away.

What if I Am weird? As I make my way into adulthood, I'm trying to be myself as often as I can, and perhaps one day I'll tell my friends and boyfriend about this blog. For now I'm just testing out things in the community. It took me a lot of courage to even come out as a Therian to them but I'm glad I did.

One last thing for the younger Therians/Alterhumans; school sucks for everybody but especially for us, and for whoever doesn't fit into the norm.

I'm glad I'm well out of it now and I can dedicate my time to being kinder to myself, as kind as I wish everyone else had been in class.

So if it it's too painful to express yourself during school because of the bullying and the mocking, just wait a few more years, and you'll be free.

[rudikawhy]

Just some thoughts after watching Mission:Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part 1 tonight...

***SPOILERS***

Okay, first of all: I absolutely LOVED it! Like the whole movie and I know that I will watch it multiple times in the cinema. I mean, yes, it was exciting, of course, it's M:I, but also really funny. My friend and I had to try so hard sometimes not to laugh out too loud. The car race? Amazing. Probably because I love car races in movies in general (even though I am always sorry for all the innocent cars and other things that get destroyed), there are always many funny one-liners, this time no exception.

But let me come to the point that is the reason why I'm writing this. Ilsa. My beloved. I have so many questions (Why the eye patch in the beginning?, for example) but first: No, you can't tell me you're really FUCKING dead!! There were a lot of reasons why I wasn't really, really sad when she "died". One was because so many things were happening immediately after that, there was no time to be sad, even for the audience. Another is; I don't really believe she's dead. I was always half expecting she'd appear in the next second. Like Paris. Apparently, she's not really dead either. And now I have one year, in which I can keep on believing she's still alive.

I mean, I finally get a few (very few) beautiful Ilsa/Ethan moments (this hug, when she realised it's Ethan in the dessert!! was my favorite because unexpected, because not in the trailer, iirc; but also the little looks they give each other), and then this happens!! AHHH. I'm sorry, I just can't handle this Ilsa-loss

Even though it meant less Ilsa, I was positively surprised by Grace. When the movie was promoted and Hayley Atwell seemed more important than Rebecca Ferguson, I was seriously disappointed, partly upset. But Ilsa aside, was Grace actually a really good character. She made me laugh, I didn't want her to die (nor Ilsa), and I the end in the train I wasn't just concerned about Ethan but also about her.

What I did realize was that Grace is kind of like Ilsa was in the beginning. Or at least similar. I realized it when Grace wanted to leave the party, was attacked by two men, and Ethan came to help her. The moment she was free and the men fought with Ethan, she left the scene instead of now helping Ethan. I feel like this is something Rogue-Nation-Ilsa would have done too.

I'm glad that Benji had his bomb defusing scene. When he's under pressure he often has funny lines, and while I know that Benji isn't just there for the funny lines, I appreciate and love them. Also I love that we had multiple (at least two??) times when Benji gave Ethan directions while Ethan ran/drove. My immediate comparison was "like in MI3", one of Benjis first actions, but then I realized that he also does it in Fallout, and it's even more iconic there.

I was seriously confused by Paris. It's probably due to something I missed at one point, but like, what does she even do (aside from having too much fun when driving a car that is too big through streets that are too small, with the intention of apparently killing two people in a yellow Fiat 500, while looking like a maniac)?? I really didn't get it.

Okay, I would love to say more about Ilsa but also about everyone and everything else, maybe another time, I need to sleep...

[aroacespacerock]

look I don’t think the chib era was ALL bad…

BUT:

it’s just wild to me that we went from 12 punching out a racist and powerful speeches on capitalism (I’m ignoring kill the moon because wtf was that)

to 13 turning spymasters race against him when turning him into the literal n@£is, messaging that “the poor corps aren’t the issue, it’s the protesting workers that are the problem :((,” and the first ever woman doctor kneeling to the master.

I see some of the powerful political statements they tried to make in chibs era, but these contradictions bug me.

[accordionsrule]

A few thoughts about grinch behavior, now that Christmas is over and I won't bum anyone out by sharing them.

Contrary to popular belief, I enjoy Christmas. I enjoy spending time with family, exchanging gifts, and having a big meal. However, I tend to get cranky and misanthropic for the entire month of December these days, because I am just exhausted by Christmas-as-an-institution.

Obviously the biggest part is the utter stranglehold it has on our culture - the fact that Christmas music, ads, and decorations are utterly inescapable. There's also the ties that these all have to capitalism; that a big part of the pervasiveness is designed to make you buy stuff. There's also the fact that, as secular as it is possible to make the holiday, its inescapablity speaks to the Christian hegemony in this culture, and ooh boy am I fed up with Christian America at this point in history.

But most of all, and this is the part that I think a lot of people have trouble with: you're not allowed to not like it.

There are literally dozens of new films pumped out every year where either the antagonist doesn't enjoy or 'believe in' Christmas (and thats why they are clearly bad), or the protagonist needs to learn to love it. If you mention that you hate Christmas music (which I do, fervently), people are fully unable to accept this about you and will try to pitch you on songs or genres of it that you will like. There is an attitude of enforced cheer that not only can you not criticize (fair; don't yuck someone else's yum, that's not cool), but you are expected to actively participate in. The idea that you can dislike the holiday, or like the holiday but dislike the trappings around it, is not only unfathomable but marks you as 'someone broken who needs to be fixed'. And that's exhausting, fam.

So idk, merry belated Christmas to you all. I actually had a good one this year, and genuinely hope that you all enjoyed the holiday in whatever way you like doing. But please spare a thought, this year and the next, for the people who don't enjoy all the trappings; who hear the first ominous jingle and think darkly "so it begins". And if they tell you that they don't enjoy the holiday season, maybe instead of trying to find a spin on it in hopes that their heart will grow three sizes and they will carve the roast beast this year, listen to them instead and let them like and dislike the things they like and dislike. Just a thought.

[applepeye]

There was this really amazing demon slayer fanfic on wattpad a two / three years ago. So basically yn was from modern time on her way to school she helped a injured guy ,this guy was actually sabito who transported her to the demon slayer universe . There the ghosts of sabito , yoriichi and inosukes mom would possess her and temporarily give her their skills, she eventually meets the upper moons and rewrites the og plot ( yuichiro and kanae are still alive , Shinobu is a tsundere ,muichiro is still a gentle crybaby)

It was a really nice and well written story, but the author took it down.

[regaliasonata]

Saw a post and it made me wonder about a few thoughts about the RPM! Verse and their world overall because where did Gem and Gemma stay outside of Corinth all those years before returning?

Though this also brings up my headcanons with other teams and possibilities within their world, for instance Briarwood's mystic dimension most lilelmt housed the townspeople and kept them safe, Heck Marah and Kapri either went off world with the Ninja Storm team or found ways to survive with remnants of Lothor's ship.

A lot of possibilities, I don't believe everyone was killed off by Venjix, some going to Corinth while others had ways of surviving.

Might make more ideas for this if anyone is interestdd

[reposhillo]

If Zabuza and Kakashi don't hold my writing capabilities in a chokehold indefinitely, will eventually get back to that one dark ObiKaka fic I danced around so long ago.

[call-sign-foxtrot]

A Neo-liberalistic Nihilistic Manifesto

Economic Policy meets Existential Despair

In this grim guide, we'll delve into the depths of neoliberalistic nihilism and explore the realities of navigating the market-driven hellscape. In this journey through the corners of capitalism, where the only certainty is uncertainty, and the only currency is cold, hard cash. History? A meaningless series of market fluctuations. Morality? A subjective construct hindering your consumption choices. Truth? Fungible and for sale to the highest bidder.

Step 1: Embrace the Market Abyss

In this wild west of capitalism, the invisible hand of the market reigns supreme, guiding through the chaos of supply and demand like a blindfolded stumbling through a minefield. Forget about regulations or ethical dilemmas – profit is the only compass you need. The market will definitely reward your...gestures vaguely...audacity with untold riches (or bankruptcy, but hey, it's all meaningless anyway). But in this world, failure is but a temporary setback, a stepping stone on the path to greater success. After all, what does it matter if we lose it all, if the game is all that matters?

Step 2: Find Meaning in Materialism

In this world devoid of inherent meaning, material possessions become our gods. So go ahead, splurge on that designer handbag or the latest iPhone – they're the closest thing to existential fulfilment money can buy. With each purchase, we are not only filling the void within, but also contributing to the great capitalist machine that powers our world. And in doing so, we are becoming the ultimate consumers, the apex predators of the consumerist jungle. Just ignore the sense of emptiness that creeps in when you realize that no amount of consumerism can fill the void within. So why not treat yourself to that dopamine rush you get from scoring those limited-edition drops? It's basically the same feeling as finding true happiness, only slightly less sustainable and much more expensive.

Step 3: Exploit, Exploit, Exploit

In the pursuit of profit, nothing is off-limits. Exploit cheap labor in developing countries? Check. Dodge taxes like a like a ship vanishing into fog? Double check. Destroy the environment faster than you can say "climate change is real"? Triple check. In the grand scheme of things, morals are just roadblocks on the way to wealth. "This all sounds so...unethical." And you're right. It is. But in the world of business, morals are just a luxury that only the weak can afford. So, if you want to make it to the top, you'd better be prepared to leave your conscience at the door. Who needs a clear conscience when you have a yacht? Or a private jet? Or a mansion on a hill?

Step 4: Rinse and Repeat

Congratulations, you're now a card-carrying member of the neoliberalistic nihilist club! But remember, the journey is never truly over. As you navigate the waters of late-stage capitalism, always keep one eye on the bottom line and the other on the abyss. Who knows, maybe one day you'll achieve true enlightenment – or at least a slightly bigger offshore bank account. Perhaps we will find the freedom we so desperately crave – or perhaps, more likely, we will find nothing at all.

Step 5: Await the End

Now all that remains is to await the inevitable collapse – the final unraveling of civilization as we know it. Embrace the pain, the anguish, the existential despair – for in the depths of suffering lies the only semblance of truth we will ever know. Let it wash over you like a tidal wave, drowning out the hollow echoes of consumerism and capitalist excess. For in the end, it is our suffering that defines us – not our fleeting moments of happiness or success.

Disclaimer: This is Satire. Repeat: "There is only the market, and the market is good..." (except when it isn't, but hey, that's the thrill of the gamble, right?).

[serrybluesoul]

just wanna say how much more i prefer and love tumblr because twitter is so bad ,,, like. especially the sonic fandom oh my god. hence why i prefer to lurk most of the time. plus i'm too shy to talk to people.

here i can share my art in peace, even when it's not the best !! i'm really trying to improve as much as i can.

it makes me happy that people actually like my art and aaaa ,,, thank you !!

[sleepyorchidmonster]

Do you think Qiqi's family are still watching over her? Even after thousands of years since their deaths?

Do you think Hu tao can see them, and maybe sought to bury Qiqi so everyone could finally move on? And only changed her mind when Qiqi told her she actually WANTED to live?

[schreckensbleiches-nervenbuendel]

mich bringt normalerweise nichts so leicht aus der Bahn, aber ✨women✨ aaaah.

jedes verdammte Mal, wenn ich eine attraktive Frau sehe/mit ihr interagieren muss... damn, ich stottere so dämlich vor mich hin, bin schüchtern und hau dann fluchtartig ab. Aaah, es ist so frustrierend und nervig. 😩

und bei Männern? Pffff, fucking fight me. ich hab ständig das Bedürfnis mit Männern zu kämpfen, wenn ich sie attraktiv finde.