#like super sucks at his job

[cluescorner]

Arlecchino's whole deal is unbelievable

Arlecchino: Huh I wonder what's causing my weird powers? I can't really worry about that right now tho, I've gotta become King and then kill my "Mother".

*Kills Clervie and "Mother"*

Arlecchino: Huh I wonder why I was able to defeat a Fatui Harbinger when I'm like 17 or so? I can't really worry about that right now tho, I've gotta be in jail and become a Harbinger.

*Is in jail for a while and becomes a Harbinger*

Arlecchino: Huh I wonder why I am-

Pierro: Hey what's up hello, anyways you're descended from the Crimson Moon Dynasty of Khaenri'ah. I'm sure that this is a lot for you to take in so-

Arlecchino: Ok.

Pierro: ...You're just cool with that?

Arlecchino: IDK maybe? I can't really worry about that at the moment, I'm a father now. This orphanage full of children I love (who also are child soldiers and are not allowed to leave or else I'll execute them except maybe now I'm just gonna wipe their memories IDK I'm morally complex) isn't gonna run itself.

*Runs the orphanage/spy recruitment initiative*

Me, the fucking player: WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU ARE KHAENRI'AN? WHY WASN'T THIS BROUGHT UP IN YOUR FUCKING QUEST?? OR ANYTHING ELSE????

Arlecchino, talking to me through my phone: I honestly don't know why you care, I'm too busy to give a shit. Anyways, I'm gonna go fight fate itself I guess. I'm sure that I don't share any thematic parallels with any other Khaenri'an characters (particularly as it relates to acting and family angst) and that I haven't made the idea of 'curses' on Khaenri'ans and what they entail even more complicated than they already were. See ya.

[moeblob]

Karen: LMAO every guy I meet reminds me of my big brothers that's so funny except if Paul is already my brother and you're also a brother that's a bit awkward, huh Hot bartender: THATS MOVING REALLY FAST AND I LIKE YOU AS A PERSON BUT - Karen: having my brothers date would be SO WEIRD Hot bartender: Well on the bright side I literally cannot speak more than five words to him so we aren't dating because he's so cute

(Everyone else: that is somehow the most depressing bright side we never want to hear)

[purplerakath]

Cobra Kai S4 - How it all Came Undone

Alright, so I was thinking about holding off on this until S6 was done done, but I think that I have enough to really... say the thing. With the caveat the final five episodes could be a mathematical outlier and fix everything wrong with S4-6.

But I have my doubts.

So this is about how the show changed from Season 3 to Season 4 and how that change snowballed out of control and unmade what worked about the series, but didn't replace it with anything better.

Spoilers for... a bunch of the show.

How Johnny got his Groove Back

So Season 1-3 has a very tight narrative focus on it. It's about Johnny. Our loser protagonist, trying to be better, is Johnny. Every character with a focus is either directly connected to Johnny, or connected to Miguel (Johnny's star pupil).

Daniel is his former nemesis.

Kreese is his former teacher.

The only exception in these first three seasons is Daniel's little trip to Okinawa having the characters from the second movie. They have nothing to do with Johnny, but in Season 3 they were a brief stop to show Daniel he did not know everything.

This story was still about Johnny. And his slow, often backslid, progress to make himself better. He learned from his mistakes (slowly), and when he hit a setback... he got drunk and banned from a nearby applebees.

Johnny is a hot mess, and bad at things.

But he was working, more or less, forward. The only one of his lingering plots to not really work forward was Robby. The writers either were saving it for later, or just had no idea how to fix it so they... didn't. He got close in Season 2, but that finale happened to derail everything.

But, it's fine, Season 4 will push the narratives forward. Right?

Enter the Best/Worst part of the Show

I need to be clear on this: I love Terry Silver.

He's an amazing antagonist, Thomas Ian Griffith is having the time of his life. He steals basically every scene he's on camera for. This absolute cartoon of a man is great.

What does he have to do with Johnny Lawrence? Yes, Terry is Daniel's personal Lucifer. He's a part of the franchise. But what does he have to do with Johnny? So far, until this season, the narrative was very squarely on moving Johnny forward as a character. Ignoring forward momentum for Daniel (which is fine, he's not the main character) to try to push just a little bit more energy into Johnny as a believable flawed protagonist.

And now our main power on the villain side doesn't give a fuck about Johnny and wants to play Hannibal Lecter with Daniel. This pivoted the focus on the narrative. Away from what directly impacted Johnny, to a more nebulous 'the fate of Karate in the valley.' Which is where are problems start.

How this Falls Apart

The focused Johnny-ness of Seasons 1-3 meant that the climax of each season (even if about other people) fed into Johnny's narrative, being either a push forward, or a kick down the stairs. But Johnny's plot beat was tied to the finale cleanly, and that bond went both ways, it fed into Johnny's continued narrative.

The problem is it meant they didn't establish a narrative through line for Daniel. He kind of existed to be a problem (S1-2) and a begrudging ally (S3). So when Season 4 put a villain that really called for focus on Daniel, they hadn't set-up a groundwork for how that narrative would shape or grow Daniel into something new.

More on that later.

And with the new focus on Daniel, the lingering Johnny plot threads just- didn't get resolved effectively. Robby and Johnny was resolved in the most lackluster way at the start of Season 5, because they didn't establish much of anything for it in Season 4, and had to put too much time into the 'fate of the Valley.'

But Daniel didn't have a momentum, so he's just- fighting the good fight without it impacting him other than annoying his wife. So the pair of them just kinda- cycle through their usual 'good notes' without it being a good tune. Johnny gets the good moments of character growth (undermind by keeping his behavior more or less the same), Daniel continues to be ungiving and mule-headedly set in his ways (without any introspection at all).

Daniel during the first three seasons is, generally, an antagonist. He doesn't have to grow and learn lessons, he is not the hero of the story. But once he becomes the defacto protagonist because of Terry, he kind of needs to evaluate his life choices a bit more and not just- repeat the same mistakes over and over without thinking it through.

Are the Kids Alright?

The teenager plots do a little better, sorta. For the sake of sanity the 'important' ones are Miguel, Sam, Robby, Tory, Hawk, and Kenny. And of them I'd only give Miguel, Sam, Tory, and Kenny the label of 'primary protagonist.' (Miguel in S1-2, Sam in S3-4, Tory in S5-6, and Kenny in S4-5.)

The issue is that most of the kid narratives resolve rather nicely and then... you have to keep the character around but also give them nothing to do? Which is a lot of the issues here. Except Robby who I will pay special attention to (also the worst resolution of their problems of the bunch).

Robby doesn't have a coherent narrative push, he ends up on whatever side lets him fight the people he needs to fight. Does it make sense for him to join Cobra Kai in S3? No but we need him in the story, and the alternative is Kyler. And Kyler sucks. Did we give a compelling reason for him to build a relationship with his dad? No, but we needed to spend plot time on Terry's McKarate School Master Plan.

Often the plot we get is good, but it always seems to be at the expense of Robby getting anything.

Can this be Fixed?

Not really. Nothing the final five eps of S6 can do will change how poorly focused 4-5 were. Going back in time we can try to keep the focus on Johnny. Chozen and Mike are good reminders, for Daniel, in spite of everything wrong with Johnny. Johnny never tried to kill him. That if Daniel can move past things with them, it should be easier with Johnny.

Or in the other direction, you can loop early season Daniel into current Daniel's plot. Bringing in Terry, the actual reason Daniel has PTSD over Cobra Kai, might give him the tools to understand why he reacted so badly to Johnny reopening the Dojo. So he can account for his behavior and try to find a way out of this cycle. If Daniel is the season focus (S4), you can actually give Johnny a plotline where he makes amends with Robby (provided Robby isn't- you know, drinking the Kreese and Silver kool-aid).

You could also not- repeatedly have Daniel and Johnny break-up over and over only to immediately remind them that Terry and Kreese are around. You could have Johnny's behavior obviously shift across the six seasons. You can have Daniel take responsibility for anything he's been wrong about over the six seasons. There's a lot of could have here.

I'm not saying the first three seasons were perfect- but they all were walking in the same direction, no matter how slowly they were going.

[sqlmn]

Ananza and Ymber just don't really interact much because she thinks he's boring. And she doesn't know WHY he's bothering to visit because Ohiwe thought it would be funnier if Ananza didn't know about Deacon.

Deacon just in absolute awe of her - that's her! That's the wind deity !!!!!! THAT'S THE DEITY HIS MOM PRAYED TO! ! !!!!!

Ananza then decides she adores Deacon because he's fun to talk to and that is the most important thing for her - fun conversations. And the adoration helps but it's clear that he adores Ymber, too, and that really makes her opinion of Ymber go up. He's got such a good follower who adores him so he must be doing SOMETHING right.

[iheartbookbran]

I feel like with this whole Liam Payne situation and the resurgence of 1D content (which I’ll be lying if I said I haven’t been enjoying) it’s easy to forget what a real tragedy this is—because obviously I don’t know any of these men personally nor will I ever, but the 5 of them where still incredibly important to me in a very dark and yet very formative period of my life, and they deserve that recognition on my part at least. Growing up I very rarely thought about how the 1D members were very close in age with me, only a couple of years older, yet while I was living the last years of my childhood protected by my parents, they were literally plucked from their homes, overworked to the bone and thrown to the wolves.

Liam became an abuser and an addict, there’s no denying that, but it’s very hard for me to think that the boy I used to eagerly watch videos of everyday when I was a teen started off that way—and this isn’t me trying to put my nostalgia above the pain of his victims at all, I’m just pointing out how the cycle of abuse perpetuated by the industry can only end up ruining lives. Liam’s life absolutely did not have to end the way it did. Ultimately Maya Henry and the rest of his victims don’t deserve to be blamed for this, they should receive nothing but compassion and empathy from us, and so should Liam’s family, especially his son.

I think I will, bearing that in mind, allow myself to mourn Liam, and the girl I used to be and that he was such a huge part of. I can never be that girl again, I’ve lost and gained too much over the years to ever be her again.

I will also allow myself to mourn the rest of the 1D boys too, because while I don’t want anything bad to ever happen to them, they aren’t those boys anymore, the pedestal they used to occupy no longer exists in my heart, but a part of my love for them will always be there.

[vanillabat99]

Our freezer is broken, but thankfully the fridge portion is fine. Most of the things got moved to the fridge (gonna be eating lots of lasagna for a little while ._.) or down to the freezer box in the basement. We definitely don't have the money to get it fixed anytime soon. I've definitely noticed appliances breaking more and more frequently in the past few years.

On top of that, a couple of our light fixtures are also on the fritz and will flicker and flash even if the bulb gets changed. The dining room floor is still peeling up. There's water damage in the ceiling. The washing machine is going to shake itself apart any day now, and it makes horrible loud slamming noises every time it's run.

Everything is so expensive.

[selamat-linting]

unblocking several ppl because they admit the ending to wrestledream was ass

[monty-glasses-roxy]

Ah fuck it whatever

There's something I love about the new Consequences AU and how it compares to the AUs and music it's come from.

Where things like Roxy's old kingdom being destroyed and her being almost drowned as a baby are metaphorical, there's a lot of things that strangely aren't. Roxy specifically denying the gods and the powers that be is something she does in most of my interpretations of her. The gods in most situations, isn't a spooky green rabbit, it's the people in the Fazbear boardroom making the world's worst decisions ever. To the animatronics, they are the gods. There's no higher authority than them, and they can have them destroyed without ever having met them, at just a moment's notice, for seemingly no reason.

Bonnie once believing in the gods and turning against them works like it does for most of the animatronics too. Even just questioning Fazbear isn't something many of them have been able to do, but all of them will eventually learn to. The more they learn through Roxy, despite what they might have known before, the more they realise what kind of company they've been forced to be a part of.

And Roxy's attitude towards these gods is always the same. She won't pretend to be nice to people she knows don't care about her. She won't put any extra effort into maintaining social etiquette if there's no point, if there's nothing for her to gain from it. Fazbear CEOs and board members have hurt her so much already, she doesn't give a flying shit about them, she's not wasting her time on them unless she absolutely has to. In this universe, the same can be said about the gods. She doesn't care for them and they don't care about her, so why bother? They've told like six people to assassinate her already, why would she choose to listen to them?

Roxy's relationship with the Minis and DJ? That's the same as it is across the board with most of the AUs I have. The attempt on Roxy's life when she's barely been born is shown differently in the new AU, but is still the same concept. Some things have been shifted around, such as the specific motivations, but not by a lot. I suppose Bonnie's dad in this fills the roll of Vanessa if Vanessa was also actually Mimic? He doesn't have an exact match here in terms of scale, but the comparisons are there.

The whole kingdom being destroyed, Roxy finding out that that's where she originally came from, that she was the newborn prince with a wholeass family she's never known, all lines up so well with everything else too. The pizzeria, scrapped storage, the old attractions there before her racetrack, it's all gone and she knew nothing about it. She's once again found out the truth in possibly the worst way imagineable, and she doesn't know what to do with this information, but honestly, who would?

The biggest difference there is that in this new AU, Roxy has the choice of what to do. In what's basically canon to the game, Roxy doesn't have that choice and likely never will. Where she's had to sacrifice her Raceway and Salon, sacrifice the vast majority of her life and her purpose for the safety of everyone around her, in this universe, she can choose not to. She sacrifices certainty this time, something she can regain as time goes on but in any other universe, there is never any certainty to get back. There will always be a Mimic threat and she can't get any of her old life back until it's dead and gone. She has to pay a price to keep Mimic contained, and while the Afton/Glitchtrap gods scramble to convince her otherwise, the Roxy in this new AU does have the choice whether she pays it or not.

But she will always still have to deal with the consequences of those with power. Every single time. And every single time so far, her entire existence is the consequence for them. Her life overall has not been the result of her own choices, but rather, the choices of people that never cared about her to begin with...

At least in this new universe she has a good childhood to fall back on and a cool ass horsie. And can actually do something about this shit. She can't normally do that :(

[lyriumsings]

evan peters quick silver wig is so bad and i hate it so much and i just generally hate the xmen reboot like it has good moments but jfc idk what they were thinking with a lot of these castings and costume designs

[ultfreakme]

frankly, get rid of all the nepo babies of the trinity as successors. I love Jon but I’m including him too he can get a new name because frankly he needs a bit of a break from Superman and if DC weren’t cowards and hired Chinese and EA writers, Kenan would be far along his story and would work as a perfect, unique take on Superman. We already HAVE a Batman for the future; Jace Fox. We also already have Yara for Wonder Woman. And ik Nubia doesn’t want to use the title of wonder woman but she could function in the same role as diana while being known as Queen Nubia. Literally there is no point arguing about who gets to be the new trinity when we have a rock solid foundation of characters already.

The whole new trinity bs is annoying especially when it’s all just the kids of the old ones. Sorry but I don’t want to see the same damn story thrice.

[carmarriage]

finiched rewatching transformers animated this fine afternoon 👍 tfa shockwave is sooooo good. i love how compared to autobots he's this huge scary monsterdude but when he's with the other decepticons he's a skinny little nerd getting his shit kicked in constantly. truly impeccable

[gobbluthbutagirl]

honestly i know it sounds sleazy but if employers ask why there's a gap you can totally pull the "family emergency" card. they're not supposed to ask for specifics so they don't need to know the emergency is Seeing Hounds

hounds AND my nephew!!

[mangled-by-disuse]

also to be clear that doesn't mean this doesn't suck

as someone probably said while floating on the Thames in 1666: man I'm so fucking tired of everything being on fire all the time

I don’t know how to explain this well…but I’m 30 years old and I feel like I’ve had to ‘sacrifice’ my entire adult life to unprecedented times, the pandemic and daily anxiety over hateful politicians and whatever rights they want to take away on any given day and I’m just so fucking tired

[vivalasthedas]

main takeaway from house rewatch so far is that cameron and foreman had much more interesting dynamic and interactions than cameron and chase ever did.

[arolesbianism]

Doodle I did of my girl Juliet earlier

[wink-wonk]

why tf would dayquil give me fucking heart burn