#literally no reason for it to be country either other than the joke of the pigs wearing assless chaps.

[confused-and-dickless]

I have that fucking Blake Shelton song from angry birds movie stuck in my head. This isnt a complaint I fucking LOVE that song. I just feel that I should confess that here.

[spookwriter-xo]

Coppélia

Chapter 3 - The Figure Painter

Chapter Summary - Y/N visits a childhood friend to go over Seonghwa's odd invitation.

Series Masterlist

"And then he gave you a contract... Like from Fifty Shades of Gray?"

"I told you it's not a contract, he said it was an invitation."

"Honey, it literally gives you a place to sign at the bottom."

After Seonghwa had given me the envelope and left, I wasted no time in rushing over to my friend, Mia's, house to tell her everything. Mia and I had known each other since we were seven years old, hanging off of each other like leeches since. Her family was rich too, but unlike mine, they supported her artistic endeavors.

She was a painter, specializing in figure paintings and realism, and was also my voice of reason.

"I seriously don't know what to do," I whine, my head resting on her kitchen countertop.

"Well, what does it say? Like what does he want you to do?" She asks, her fingers twirling a teaspoon around her tea cup.

I glance down at the papers in front of me. So many rules were listed I struggled to even wrap my head around it.

"He wants me to move into their home," I say.

"Their home?" Mia clarifies. "As in other people?"

"I guess so?" I clear my throat as I continue. "I can remain as a dancer for the society as long as I don't practice for any longer than I need to be."

"Well, at least they're offering you some freedom." She mumbles sarcastically, taking a sip of her tea.

"Mia come on!" I cry out rather dramatically.

"I feel like there isn't much up for discussion here? Yes, it's weird and borderline controlling but when was the last time something exciting like this happened in your life?" She argues.

"I don't want to be controlled, Mia. This whole thing, it's just way above my pay grade. I had enough of it living with my parents, I don't need it in a romantic relationship too!" I point out. She lets out a sigh, nodding in understanding.

"You're right, I'm sorry." Mia runs a hand through her hair. "Okay, let's try a different approach. What things in there benefit you?"

"Uhm, I get to live in a big ass mansion free of charge," I say, my finger hovering over the bullet point. It sure would be better than the cheap studio apartment I live in now.

"You can never go wrong with a big ass mansion." She quips before I continue.

"It says... I have to be willing to, share myself?" I tilt my head with furrowed eyebrows.

"Oh, don't tell me they're the type to want a girl to homey hop." She seethes, leaning over the counter to read the paper. "Oh god, they are!" She exclaims.

"Just because you're monogamous doesn't mean you can judge!" I scold.

"I'm not judging, I'm cringing 'cause it's not for me." She says defensively. "If you're into that, I won't judge."

"Sure you won't."

"I might make fun of you a little, but you know I'll get over it!" She laughs. "Besides it's a bonus if they're all cute. I looked up Seonghwa and that Hongjoong guy and woo!" She whistles.

"Poor Mark." I tease, she gasps. "Listen, I don't know if I'm up for that either. I mean I don't even know who the others are, for all I know there could be a serial killer among them."

"Then call him." She states. "Call him and demand him to rewrite it on your terms."

"Would that work?" I ask, placing the papers back into a neat pile.

"He's a businessman, right? Of course, it would! Hell, you might even get to meet the others if you play your cards right." She says confidently. "You like this guy right?"

"Yeah, I do."

"Then fight for your own morals and boundaries, and if he doesn't accept that then move on." She says, moving over slightly to place her mug in the sink. "And if they try something, Mark and I will come over and beat them up for you."

"You and I both know Mark Lee is not going to beat anyone up." I laugh causing her to let out a snort.

"You're right, he could yap their ears off and give us time to escape the country though." She jokes, a wide grin spreading across her face.

I glance back down at the documents, genuinely contemplating for a moment. I hated the idea of being controlled by anyone again, let alone a bunch of men who, aside from 1, I have never had a conversation with in my life. But on top of that, it would be really nice to stay somewhere that didn't charge me almost my entire weekly pay for rent.

Plus Seonghwa was really good-looking, but was I really going to risk my freedom just because a cute guy gave me a second of his time? Mia was right, I needed to call him and set up some kind of meeting and get this document altered to my liking also, not just theirs.

"You're doing that thing again." Mia's voice cuts me out of my thoughts. "You know it's creepy when you stare off into space like that."

"Sorry, was just thinking about everything," I say softly, stuffing the document back into the envelope it came in.

"It's a lot, I know, but once you put your foot down like I know you can it'll all even out. You'll see." Mia was often right about these things, then again she was always the one to come up with the ideas that would get us into trouble growing up. I trusted her with things like this because I knew it would never leave the two of us, but trusting her to convince me to do something that could lead to me signing my life away? I was going to be a little more cautious of that.

"I should probably go, I got another show tonight," I say, hopping off of the seat I was perched on.

"Oh! I'm coming to the show next Monday! Don't mess up for me okay?" She says, skipping around the counter to give me a quick hug before I leave.

"Of course I won't, you're my lucky charm." I joke, pulling away and waving. She waves back, knowing I could find my way out.

I contemplated calling Seonghwa as I walked through the city streets. I let out an annoyed huff at the constant tug-of-war going on in my head. My finger hovered over the call button as I stared down at his contact. He'd probably show up tonight, but did I really want to decline his initial offer in person?

Without thinking I pressed call, holding my phone up to my ear as I chewed on my bottom lip nervously. I felt a sick feeling of nerves in my stomach, the same feeling I felt before I went out on stage.

It rings 4 times before he picks up.

"I thought you'd think about it a while longer." He states, his voice rough. I take a deep breath before I speak.

"I'm declining your 'invitation'," I stated, making sure my voice sounded defiant.

"What?" He asked, sounding genuinely surprised.

"You heard me. This... Contract is far too controlling for my liking and I refuse to subject myself to signing my life away for a man who only graced me with his presence last night." I say, earning some looks from passersby.

"Doll-"

"I'm not done! Look, I like you. But the only way this is happening is if we rewrite this to include my own terms. And I want whoever the hell you expect me to share myself with to be there also. No way in hell am I agreeing to something like that without even knowing what they look like." I say, rather rushed. Silence follows, and I look at my phone screen for a moment to make sure the phone call didn't end. As I placed the phone back to my ear I heard laughter.

"My, I really underestimated you didn't I?" Seonghwa chuckles. "A real firecracker you are, so unassuming up until now." I could feel his grin through the screen, and it made my blood boil.

"If you're going to waste my time-"

"Hold on a second, Doll." He says, his voice still laced with amusement. "I'll organize a dinner, how does that sound? You, me, and the others who helped write the original contract. That way you can meet everyone and get your boundaries heard."

I blinked in surprise at his offer. Was it really that easy? "You're serious?"

"Of course I am! Honestly, it's refreshing to talk to someone as pretty as you about business exchanges." He chuckles. "You have a show tonight, yes? Are you free Saturday night?"

I clear my throat. "Uhm, yeah?"

"Excellent, I'll send you the details tonight with your Gardenias." He says, hanging up before I can get another word in.

I gape at the phone, staring at it as I stand frozen in the middle of the street. I look around for a moment before continuing on my way.

I had a sinking feeling that this dinner was not going to be as easy as he made it seem. The others were most definitely businessmen also, co-owners of ATZ Corp. Me, a broke ballerina versus 8 businessmen on their own turf.

Pray for me.

[artemis32]

bnha, a hero reader with a yan who doesn’t think the reader should be a hero (world too dangerous etc etc). how would they stop reader from performing hero duties?

platonic (??) yandere All Might x reader

All Might, all the way. This man is anxious and the definition of a helicopter parent

Also, I'm getting to all my asks, so thank you so much to everyone who sent one in! <3 if you've literally ever sent me an ask or request, I promise, I see it, I'm getting to it (I don't hate you, promise)

bnha masterlist

This man is such a hypocrite. He shouldn't care this much about one person - one student.

You're old enough to make your own decisions, old enough to decide to be a hero. You're a good hero. He just-

He can't handle it.

This isn't a situation he's faced before, and he has no idea why it's different with you. Usually, he doesn't care. Hell, usually he's the one encouraging kids like you. Mirio and Izuku are prime examples of that, and Izuku was even younger than you are now when he was pushed down that path, so there's no good or even logical reason to excuse the way he's feeling now.

At first he tries to distance himself, tries to completely ignore you, convinced that will pull him out of whatever funky headspace he's in.

When that inevitably doesn't work, he ends up hovering like some damn helicopter parent, playing it off as a concerned teacher, eager to guide an impressionable youth.

It works for a while. Sort of.

People pick up on it eventually - fellow faculty, other students, you. He doesn't notice, or care, honestly. His methods, crude as they are, work, and if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Except, his methods aren't exactly as full proof as he thought, and that becomes glaringly obvious when you're away on an internship and word gets out a few days in that you were hospitalised after a particularly gruesome fight.

He blames himself more than anything else - probably more than he blames whatever low level villain hurt you either - something he might've discussed in therapy, if he ever actually went.

Once you return to classes, he only becomes worse. Days pass, then weeks, and he feels like he can hardly breathe when you're not within his direct line of sight. There were far too many what-ifs when he wasn't around, and, in an admittedly spur-of-the-moment decision, he snatches you off the street.

Well, snatch probably wasn't the right word. He, truthfully, just asked you to accompany him to... somewhere. Not that he remembers. He was a mess of anxiety, thinly veiled by terrible jokes and loud laughs, and none of that really even mattered anymore since you were safe now. Safe, and here, with him.

Of course, when he ran out of things to say, ways to stall, you quickly realised that dear old All Might did not, in fact, want heart-to-heart. And damn him if the fading trust and slight sliver of fear in your eyes didn't wring his heart out in his chest.

But he was doing what was best for you! You'd see that, eventually. He was doing his job, as a hero and as your mentor. He was number one for so long for a reason. He was older than you, wiser than you, and he knew what was best.

So what if you were scared for a little while? A little fear was healthy every now and then. It kept the youth respectful.

He was a hero. What good was a hero if he couldn't protect people? Especially the people he felt odd, warm, protective feelings for?

And, yeah, okay, maybe he hasn't exactly worked out all the semantics of your stay yet, but that was irrelevant! You were safe, and he'd cross those bridges when he got to them ('those bridges' being the fact that he was the top pro hero who regularly left the city, the country, for days, sometimes weeks on end - or the fact that, sooner or later, people would realise you'd disappeared off the face of the earth).

Yeah. Semantics.

The point, young one, was that you were safe! There was nothing safe about hero work. And, okay, maybe he might tell you small white lies to keep you complacent - 'this is part of the course', 'yes, of course you'll get to go home soon', 'mhm, yes, your parents know you're here, who do you think approved this?'

Lying to you is easier than telling the truth. It may make him a coward, but it makes you a fool too. You obviously don't believe him, but what would you do? How were you, a random teenage girl with an alright quirk, going to beat the number one hero? You weren't.

He handles you with the utmost care, like a puppy, or a piece of fine china. But God forbid you bring up the topic of hero work, never mind trying to escape. Sometimes he forgets his strength. And after the first time, hurting you doesn't weigh as heavily on his conscience as it used to. When he said he'd do whatever he had to, to keep you safe and by his side, he meant it. And if that means hurting you? So be it.

[britishraptor]

Gonna kick the hornets nest here, but the file from the most recent episode of The Magnus Protocol was incredibly underwhelming. It didn’t take into account at all anything that actually makes snakes scary, little to no foreshadowing, and basically attempted to jumpscare the audience with a reveal that reads more like a parody of a horror story than an actual one.

I might look like an idiot or a fool when everything all strings together later than the line, but I’m questioning so much about this episode.

Parasites are scary. Worms, and insects and mold and rot. Decay, possession. Spiders are scary because they’re hard to see, hard to pinpoint and they move fast, plus the connections with webs related to control, and manipulation. So yeah, a worm lady, sure, a person filled with spiderwebs, also sure. But the only connection between snakes and parasitism could be a joke about ‘shedding your skin’ or how disturbing that one scene in Harry Potter was.

Snakes are scary for two reasons:

1) the same reason bears and tigers all that are scary. Hunt style being hurt, and killed, and eaten. Simple.

B) uncanny valley reasons. Snakes don’t blink. They don’t have facial expressions. The way they move and eat and exist is totally different from humans and mammals. They’re often described as alien and cold.

My questions:

a) why rodent control? why was he even actually brought in? His walls are FULL OF SNAKES. It wouldn’t have lasted five minutes. It doesn’t make any sense even if you know he was concerned about parasites. Snakes don’t give a shit about other snakes. To call someone a snake is to literally call them callous and prone to betrayal. A snake eats the rodent, so you kill the snake. Plus a snake store would have access to medications to kill mites and deal with snake illness? Why call the guy at all?

b) the foreshadowing on the owner is terrible. You could have mentioned his skin needed moisturising. That it seemed dry, flaky. Scaly. But just. A red rash? A rash? Are you saying being full of snakes is an infectious disease? That’s what he said at the end, right? That his throat itches. It was swelling. You can just?? Grow your own snakes?? Is that the implication?

No uncanny valley mention on the owner either at all. He didn’t move weird, being full of snakes? Didn’t sway or limp as he walked, didn’t move sluggishly? Bad hearing, didn’t know what to do with his hands? No? Just a short tempered customer. Okay.

c) You lost me at the thousands of snakes. THOUSANDS? What is this, a clown car? A snake clown car in some random guys skin, who explodes because he was mad a customer walked out.

Look, I’m Australian. And when I ask my friends ‘hey, how big do you normally picture a snake being?’ we picture snakes about 1.5m long. Dinner table length is pretty common for all of our common brown, tiger snakes, red bellies, and even longer for our common carpet pythons. But even if I adjust to like, other countries’ grass snakes, thousands?

The throwaway line at the end was plot relevant I’m sure, but I’m all around confused, and totally not even a little bit scared.

The only praise I have is that the description of the crickets was very creepy, and I loved the visual of them moving around like a shuddering wave of pixels on a screen, only really perceived by their screaming.

But yeah. The setup, the foreshadowing, the coherent theming and consistency all just fell totally flat for me. The only thing I learnt was that this guy applied to the institute and was rejected, and that snakes can’t do dishes.

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

Kirima vs Gyatso: The tale of the Hot(wo)man

As cute and as much as I like Gyatso making up Flameo Hotman and it looping back to ATLA (cause hey! makes sense!):

Kirima technically did it first. TT0TT (the hotman/woman part at least).

So it begs the question........... Was Hotman/woman a term before? (and just fell out of fashion 200 years later?) Was it just another annoying nickname that Kirima chose? (most likely) or BOTH? (aka it IS a term, it means "ma'am/miss/madam" but she's using it a mocking tone/not using it right).

We don't get to see Rangi's reaction so hard to say if she's as annoyed by it than the hair related ones.

Anyway. While it COULD just be another nickname, because they called Rangi "Hairpin" before they seemed to settle on "Topknot". They only use this (once), and it's AFTER they've established Topknot for a good bit. So it's a big weird (not really but eh) for them to fling out a new possible nickname when they finally established one, AND it's one they know they can get a rise out of Rangi with (literally just happened).....

So like....what if it's NOT a nickname, but she's just insulting Rangi with a word from her country and using it in a mocking manner. Like what if it translates to:

Kirima: You're not setting a very good example for the baby Avatar, Topknot. Too much rage will stunt her growth. Rangi: Stop calling me that! Kirima, bows: As you wish, madam.

Which, if read like that would make sense. But it'd mean it's not a nickname made up by Kirima with the sole purpose to piss off Rangi. It means that there is a cultural/linguistical significance to Rangi and her Nation. Which means it's a word that DID exist.

BUT....then again.... "Hotwoman" is capitalized like how Rangi's other nicknames are.....so maybe it IS a nickname? Or maybe it's just a writing stylization choice that differs between Yee and RR?

"Ok what's the post about then?" Other than demanding we give Kirima her due😤 And reminding people they already made this joke before Roku's novel 😤

Ok ok, but for real, here are my theories:

Theory 1:

It was a nickname made by Kirima just to piss Rangi off. Maybe Kirima got reincarnated as an Air Nomad named Gyatso (that'd be so fucking funny) and decided to bring that oldie but a goodie back to annoy Roku with. OR, maybe Gyatso read a diary of Kirima's and that's how he got the hotman/hotwoman idea. And made the flameo thing up himself.

Theory 2:

Hotman/woman WAS a normal word back in Kyoshi's era, but had since fallen out of use by Roku's (maybe Rangi/Kyoshi had a hand in that? jfkdlasjfd). So far out of use, Roku is just ????? confused???? (that or the Flameo part is what's confusing him, not the hotman/woman). Gyatso found some old scrolls/history books that mention the hotman/woman part and decided to bring it back (with his own spin).

Theory 3:

Either part of Theory 1/2 are right (it's either made up, or just such old slang). BUT....Gyatso didn't know about it, and thought he was inventing the wheel. Great minds think alike kinda mentality going on here.

(of course maybe they do still say hotman/woman, or even flameo hotman/woman......but they don't say it as a greeting fjksldjf)

I dunno I had some thoughts on the matter and the implications. Maybe RR and the ATLA team forgot Yee already made the joke. Maybe they remembered and didn't care/have a reasoning behind it that I don't know about jfklsajfdl I just thought it was an interesting thing to chew on.

[doueverwonder]

Ramble About The Statehouse Itself

anyway: the statehouse they're currently in is actually the second one. The first one was for Research Purposes, it was the first attempt of getting all the states in one building long term and they just needed to see how it went. It was chaos, but controlled chaos where Gov could see it so they went ahead with The Permanent Statehouse(TM)

Location wise the first one was in Florida, but the current statehouse is in Missouri, right outside St. Louis and I will die on this hill. It's pretty central in the country, somewhere between Midwest and South and is literally nicknamed "the gateway to the West", the weather is decent enough no one is freezing or melting, hell Missouri is the 24th state! Gov said "we need it to be central" saw Missouri and went "... perfect".

Gov's main observation in the original statehouse was how regions can tend to agree on things when it comes to communal rules, stuff like how to organize the kitchen, shoes in the house rules, how late is too late, and how early is too early to be up and about. That's how he decided on the floors being split by region, each floor having it's own kitchen, dining room, and living room; then came the hardest part who's on what floor?

Ground Floor

The South got this one for a few reasons, one of the main ones being a 'Southern Hospitality' joke, when non-states visit Gov needs them to walk into a supposedly normal house and the South are the best at maintaining 'normalcy' when there are guests around. They're also one of the louder regions, and it's easier to sound proof a ceiling than it is to floors. They also have to have a front porch to sit on, it's part of the their habitat :\ Lastly they're the South so of course they're on the bottom floor smh.

2nd Floor

The Northeast got this one because they're used to the South being right below them and Loud. About half of them lived in apartments before the statehouse and need to be sandwhiched between floors to feel safe. They also have the most heavy sleepers, so the South below being up until 1, and the Midwest above getting up at 4:30 won't bother them.

3rd Floor

The Midwest are right in the middle on the map and Gov thought why fix what's not broken? As the resident Early Birds they of course got the floor above the region with the most heavy sleepers. Actually the only floor unhappy with their placement (it's too far from the basement and the front porch (tornadoes)) but bc y'know passive aggressive they'll never actually tell him that. Also at least the other states aren't accidentally throwing away their tupperware anymore (used coolwhip & butter containers).

4th Floor

The West have the top floor; it's because they're used to the altitude. half of them might as well be lizards and the other half are always cold: either way heat rises. and 90% of the other regions pulled the "they're the youngest make them climb stairs >:|" (the first parts are a joke and there's an elevator). They also have the top because while there's a decent amount of night owls, unlike the South who stay up til 1 am talking, at 10 pm they all say goodnight and then sit in their rooms enjoying Quiet Alone Time(TM) until 3 am so the Midwest won't be kept up by them.

5th floor (top floor)

This one is split into two spaces, a little less than half is split into 4 bedrooms (and for the first 3 offices) for Gov, IDC, DC, and Maryland. The other half is an absolutely huge rec room. There is no kitchen on the floor as IDC is never around, Gov and DC are so busy they either eat out/order in or eat with one of the regions. and if Maryland wants to cook he just crashes the Souths kitchen.

when it comes to bedrooms each state got to decorate their own, but communal areas tend to have a theme of sorts. The Northeast is very old money, the decor screams "Well our main residence is in Connecticut, but we have the cabin in Vermont, the brownstone in Boston, the penthouse in NYC, and a sailboat stored in Delaware." The Midwest and South are similar at a glance but the Midwest is more cozy thrifted thrown together, while the South is more genuinely antique. Blankets thrown over a floral patterned couch & mismatch recliners vs matching furniture that a century ago would've belonged in some shit like a parlor or drawing room. But unless they're next to each other it all just looks Old. The West is an odd mix of boho and Spanish colonial; patterned tiles, brightly painted cabinets and doors, it's bright, and overly colorful, and there are potted plants on any available surface.

uhhhh anyway yeah.

[winterisol]

"tenho medo da minha cabeça"

inspired of "Medo do Medo" by O Terno Rosquez AU (BIG ANGST) Warnings death, depression

So this is a really dark idea I've been playing around with for a while involving the whole 2015 divorce.

So the title of this fic literally means "I'm scared of my head" and I would like a fic where it applies to both Vale and Marc in 2015.

I would say by the beginning of 2014 these two are fucking, maybe even dating. Its like those shallow high school relationships, and probably with an unhealthy power dynamic. But over time its clear that those power dynamics are in place, not because Marc is any less than Vale, but is willing to give Vale that power because Marc loves and trust Valentino that much. And maybe that is part of the reason the divorce happens.

Young and emotional Marc giving his heart a little bit too easily V. Valentino Rossi, a man famous for his commitment issues.

Starting with Assen, Valentino begins to doubt Marc, aka being delulu, starting to believe maybe they aren't as buddy buddy as Marc acts in front of the camera. (Though he is really looking for more of an excuse to put distance between them)

Typical 2015 and then bam the Philip Island conference. I think Marc searches Valentino out after the conference, hoping it was all some joke, only for Valentino to be cruel and cutting, maybe poking at some of Marc's biggest insecurities. Perhaps Valentino says Marc is "dangerous" that he's "reckless" but the words that hurt the most is that Marc was "dumb" to "fall in love" and that Valentino "never loved him." (This is categorically untrue but so is a lot of the other BS vale says, so yeah). If I really want to go darker, maybe Valentino even says, that he knew Marc was dangerous the day he crashed out in 2011, you know the crash. The crash that almost killed and ended Marc's whole career.

Anyway, Marc is definitely in his head, but tries to use Sepang as a way to get back at Vale. Just like in IRL, this backfires, Valentino kicking Marc off his bike and the divorce is finalized.

Marc is now completely lost in thoughts, perhaps second guessing every aspect of his relationship with Valentino. I think there are a few incidents leading up to the finale. There is of course journalists trying to break into Marc's family home. People yelling things at him on track, at the paddock even at the airport. He has security to following him constantly, and everything is a lot. But I think Valencia is where shit truly hits the fan.

It's suppose to be a home race for Marc, a race in his country, Spain. But even here, he's jeered, people abuse him and it feels like no matter where he goes, no on likes him, because no one is greater than Valentino Rossi.

Following the end of the season Marc falls into a depressive rut not even his mother or brother can drag him out of. He feels lost and not in control, which only panics and depresses him more (another control freak). It's like a negative feedback loop, and he just wallows for weeks.

Then finally, for some reason, maybe it's after Alex cries begging his brother to be happy again, Marc tries to go about life again. But he's an empty husk, just going through the motions of a person who no longer exists.

Perhaps its at the beginning year test in Sepang. Marc is riding, and even while riding the thoughts seem to not go away. Perhaps he loses focus because of the biting feelings of depression, or even worse he's silently wishing to just die already. Either way, he crashes, letting the front slide and the rear lift, throwing him head first into the tarmac.

I think Marc passes away basically on impact (idk how realistic it is with these types of crashes). Perhaps there is a mistake with the medic team, pre-season testing and everything leading to the correct safety measure not being taken. He's basically lying there on circuit, slowly dying, brain turning fog, but his last thought is that he's thankful for the reprise (ouch).

His death is obviously a shock to the whole motorsport world. A young talent, the youngest motoGP world champion, the baby alien, a kid with so much more to live for. gone.

Then in Marc's motorhome as Alex's goes to sob on his brother's bed, he sees a series of papers. Marc wrote notes to him, his parents, his friends but also Jorge, Dani and Valentino. (These notes are NOT suicide notes, more like Marc trying to collect his thoughts, and doing it as letters to people he cares/cared about bcuz its easier that way. These notes were never intended to see the light of day)

Alex is obviously inconsolable, reading through it, realizing its less of a note to him, but a confession. Marc venting all his dark thoughts through a message to his younger brother, thinking that Alex would never find or hear these thoughts.

Then there are the letters to Dani, Jorge and Valentino.

These letters are apologies, Marc overthinking every mistake, trying to rationalize the reason for his loneliness.

Dani reads it and feels like a failure. Not being a good enough teammate, a good enough mentor, a good enough friend for Marc, who's only goal in life was to win and enjoy winning.

Jorge is furious at first, storming towards Valentino and yelling bloody murder, before throwing Vale's note at him. Jorge feeling guilty that he secondhandly caused the divorce.

And then Vale, is a mess. In every sense of the word, he almost withdraws from the first race of the season because of how messed up everything is. He feels, guilt, loss, despair but also an indescrible amount of regret. Not only is Marc dead, but they ended on such horrible terms. Valentino not only lost the love of his life, but let the love of his life believe that he was unlovable.

I think it takes the combined effort of Vale's friends (yes even Uccio) as well as a reconciliation with the Marquez family to make Valentino feel even remotely human again.

It's slow, and perhaps it ends with Valentino creating a small monument for Marc in his Ranch, which every February 17 at 12:00 AM he leaves a bouquet of forgetmenots and daisies.

[the-martyrfication-of-the-matron]

I know the post was mostly focusing on Gilf Garroth but I also just love the idea of an older Aph, one I'm her 40's or 50's because it makes the plot make sense and can be used to explain so much.

1. If an older woman lord adopts a bunch of children no one would bat an eye, as she is ensuring an heir. Also makes Alinas birth entirely more surprising as the likelihood of pregnancy can dimish as one hits their 40's.

2. Makes her entire identity of being a lord a whole lot more plausible. Simply put, if a random woman in her 20's became the lord of my village I would be deeply confused and mistrustful but if a woman in her 40's came in and took over I wouldn't think twice.

3. MILF JOKES

4. Realistically, all of the cast would be older than their early 20s, given the amount of experience each person has, and it can expand the timeline to actually make sense.

5. She is literally the Matron! There is no reason she should be a 20-year old but absolutely should be a middle aged woman who has a loving aura.

I am all for it, and even more for it if Garroth is also older because it could make Garte searching for his son be a lot more desperate. Garte is on his death bed and he knows that while Zane is amazing at politics, he cannot be trusted to lead a country. Garte is a senile old man searching for power fueled by his son who is giving very much evil brother to the dead king vibes. Giving Hamlet.

Seriously, I would love more information or ideas about it if you have them

Literally rambling about the implications of an older cast on the disc. lol. Crazy in my corner about this.

We were conversing on the concept of like if Garroth and Nicole were older. Because they would preferably both be older… considering the marriage thing.

And it could either go: they both ran away in recent years, the marriage was one done because neither agreed to marriage pacts on their own and the families had to intervene and decided this was for the best.

Or,: they’ve been gone this whole time, the marriage was decided when they were young, and they’ve both been away from their respective cities for so long that Garroth not really understanding much about Zane or his motivations makes sense, since it’s been probably a few decades since they last saw eachother. They’ve both grown into people separate from their pasts, but they can never be truly free of it. The reason they can hide so well so many years later is simply because people have just stopped looking. Until recently.

Like this whole idea of Garte being old and one sneeze from an embalming and yet without any viable heirs is a big deal. Because Zane is his only choice anymore. He’s too old to create new heirs. And it can’t be Zane. Even Garte can see that. Garte, who in his final years wants to conquer the region because it’s the last grapple he has of power before his bloodline inevitably dies out, can see in Zane something that not even he would risk giving that power. Zane cannot be his legacy. His legacy needs to be the other one.

And I’m just repeating what you’re saying but RAHH

As for older Aph. Oh my god. I love her.

I keep thinking of the Maiden/Mother/Crone thing in relation to her for some reason? Idk. I might do something with that. But either way, I’m kissing her on the mouth. You’re telling me some hot 40 year old woman comes to your village yapping on about ‘swag’ and being honestly probably clinically insane and you’re not going to ask for her hand in marriage? Bro.

I think some characters do benefit from the idea of being younger in relation to the rest of the cast. Like Dante. Just because he is meant to be very much the over-eager, super-skilled, but lacking experience type of character. Like he has the motivation and the ability, but he just doesn’t know enough. He’s gotta get knocked around by the other characters a bit before he gets his footing. He’s a blabber mouth who has technical ability but against someone like Garroth will always fail because he hasn’t really learned what real fights are like.

But again that’s just in relation to the cast. And he does end up older later on and it suits him later on. When he has that experience and has grown. And he’s wonderful.

I have more ideas I just keep thinking of older Zane in his little catholic priest fit and I can’t concentrate. I’ll say more stuff later if you have any ideas or want to know my thoughts on aging other characters particularly older or younger (in relation to the rest of the cast)

[possessesnightshift]

i'm not an eloquent political speech person so im just gonna be direct about this

americans, please please fucking register to vote and vote for joe biden in november

and before you jump to whatever policy thing or weakness of his to counter this plea, just stop. it doesn't actually matter. trump is worse. trump is fucking so much worse

our job from here on out is not only to hold our noses and vote for biden, but also to convince all of our friends family and whoever else to also vote for him in spite of all of his flaws. yes all of them

we need to make the fucking argument that trump is so dangerous, the country would be better off with a drooling old genocide lover whose mental faculties are drying up faster than the sahara desert. we need biden voters to be keenly aware of his shortcomings and refuse to back down. there's no use in pretending biden is still sharp as ever or has this mass grassroots support (he does not). he sucks. he is probably the worst democratic candidate in the party's history.

don't care. trump is worse. he needs to be stopped from taking power by any means necessary. he needs to be STOPPED.

from a non-republican pov, democrats constantly leaning on the "but the other guy is worse" argument is frustrating as all hell. i certainly hate it myself. but what gets lost in the conversation is that the republicans are essentially so beholden to this principle nobody even notices.

i know plenty of small town midwestern republicans who were embarrassed to admit they voted for trump. they voted for him in spite of his nastiness and blatant buffoonery (not in spite of his racism bc they're likely ok with that) because he was on the republican ticket, and to them any republican is better than a woke liberal who wants to take away our gas stoves and force drag queens to read us stories at bedtime

so yeah i kinda don't fucking care at this point

biden is a laughably bad candidate for the election of 2024. any other time he could've run (including 2020) is completely different than now, when he's just too fucking old. so should we just roll over and let him lose? just for trump to finish his term, be biden's current age, and either run for a third term or just stay in power bc the supreme court is on his side and they've been preparing for this for decades? fuck that

actually i think a rotting, pulpy corpse would make a fine president compared to dumbass donald "reality gameshow host" trump. literally if biden dies the day of the election he's still got my vote because it is not for him

the left has to learn to have the tenacity that republicans have. we emulate the right in the worst fucking ways (e.g. closing the southern border for no reason) but we never emulate their pettiness. we never say 'i hate the republicans so much i will willingly vote for someone i kinda hate to spite their smug asses'

remember when trump used to be a joke? remember when he was a giant embarrassment? remember the memes about his illiteracy and his lack of awareness? (see 'covfefe' for more info) trump may have the means to become a brutal dictator, but he relies on people smarter than he is to pull it off

if trump continues to hype up his project 2025 and his fascist ambitions with the swagger and confidence of fdr running against herbert hoover, what does it signal to the rest of the world for that man to LOSE to a corpse with the stamina of a wet flounder? it could stop the fascist momentum in its tracks by associating it with weakness and incompetence (you talk up all this hype and you lose to THAT man?? i guess you must be full of shit huh)

these are fraught times. there's no way to get out of this without letting go of our ideals of a perfect candidate who responds to the political desires of the people. that candidate does not exist and never will

right now we have not just an opportunity to preserve our rotting democracy for a little longer, but something much more special. we can fucking put an end to the trump experiment once and for all. we can make trump wannabes like ron desantis scramble to dissociate their image from the toxicity of the trump administration. we can turn him back into a joke.

at this point im screaming into the wind. no person who isn't already voting for biden is gonna read this far. but i want these words to be here anyway because i think they have value. 2024, 2028, and 2032 are all going to be pivotal election years. we can't wait around. we have to act NOW.

vote rotting fish 2024. i will plug your nose with a clothes pin if you refuse to do so yourself...

[thatdebaterguy]

Forcing Beliefs

I saw this post here, and clearly they think what they're doing is spreading a good cause, but god they've done it so wrongly. The entire reason of wars stems from different opinions. Hamas believes Israel is some hellish creation that should be wiped off the face of the Earth, Israel thinks it has a right to exist. Saying that's a debate that actually exists genuinely blows my mind, that a country's right to be sovereign and exist peacefully is debated, because barely any Israel supporters say Palestine should be wiped out, but a scary amount of Palestine supporters call for the death of the state of Israel.

It's a debate. I believe strongly that my stance is correct based on morals, facts and evidence, but I don't deny people their right to oppose me or believe Hamas is in the right. Even if Hamas are literally terrorists, I'll let anyone debate that. Also using the 'silence is complicit' argument has never worked in history, when German's just wanting to get through their lives under the Nazi regime weren't out protesting, it doesn't mean they wanted the death of all Jews, they just didn't want to die a horrible death for voicing it. In fact, the way people push supporting Palestine is very similar to the way the nazis were, since many people who speak up and say Israel is in the right, could lose their jobs, their social status, friends, family, get told to kill themselves, just for a difference in opinion. If I was part of a certain fanbase, or even better, if I was queer, and started voicing my opinions for Israel, I'd be called a fake member of the community, a traitor, an oppressor, told to kill myself, and be isolated from that community entirely.

I can't speak for all Israel supporters, many of whom think differently to me, but if you support Palestine, I'll watch movies with you, joke with you, play games with you, go on walks with you, go to restaurants, as long as you aren't some brainwashed incredibly headstrong supporter who refuses to acknowledge any difference in opinion. If you can even just tolerate that one difference, I'll happily get along with you.

One thing they're doing though, they're linking things like supporting Palestine with supporting human rights. I had a teacher who ran the debating club I was part of who taught us the basis of logical argument. An argument can be logical without being true, and the structure went like this; IF you support human rights, AND supporting human rights makes you Pro-Palestine, therefore you MUST support Palestine. I'm a literal example of why that framework is logical, but untrue. I support human rights, innocent victims of war, victims of genocide, but not Palestine. It's a way to rope in more people to their cause, by trying to play on peoples emotions rather than logic, to make the idea of refusing to support Palestine, an alienating, racist, bigoted thing to do, which just isn't true. Don't let people bully you into having certain beliefs. Form your own logical argument that IS true and contains evidence, to base your opinions on. For example, IF genocide is defined by the purposeful extermination of people based on race, ethnicity or other categorical factors, AND you accept that definition of genocide, as it is in the dictionary, therefore you MUST accept that Israel is not committing genocide, because based on the very definition you said you believe, it simply isn't happening, and if you agreed with that definition, then still believe that Israel is committing genocide, then your opinion is illogical and factually wrong, so either you believe they aren't committing genocide or you change the definition of the word, OR try debate that Israel is attempting to wipe out all Palestinians, to which all I have to say is, IF Israel has a weapons arsenal that could wipe out Gaza in minutes, AND Israel is attempting the extermination of all Palestinians, therefore Gaza MUST currently be flattened to the ground. Which it isn't. It really isn't that hard to debunk. Don't get brainwashed.

[memelordotherblog]

Villain povs in Mickey comics are so funny sometimes, like imagine, you are Duke Varlott, cousin to King Michael XIVl, and next in line to throne if any 'accident' befalls on him.

Now , there are a couple of reasons you want Michel dead. One, he been taxing you to hell and back to fund his parties and two you want obviously want to king instead of Michael because you so much smarter than him and would use the taxes to empower yourself instead throwing these goddamm parties , and actually you been sending assassins for good while now to get the job done, though none had come out success

But then, one day, something weird happens. You are informed by one of your loyal guards that your cousin pardoned a commoer from his taxes. Of course, you're a bit confused by this since Michael had never dome anything of the sort, but you figured that maybe Michael is trying to get people on his side due to all the assassins you been sending. So you tell your boys to go slander Michael name and gather as many commoners and soldiers as possible to overthrow Michael . Should be easy, right?

Nope, when your mob gets the castle, not only does your cousin save those lowlife commners from gun fire, he promised to cut taxes in half!

Of course, you are both confused and engaged by this newfound kindess from your cousin, but nonetheless, keep a cool head as you wait for another opportunity to strike.

But then, by some miracle while reading the newspaper, see someone that looks exactly like your cousin, and you quickly realize you can temporarily put him on the throne while you kill Michael without anyone rising an eyebrow.

So, you sent your best man to go get him for you, and when he arrives, you explain to him your plan to overthrow the king, only for him to tell you that he's your cousin the king! And person currently on the throne is literally some random guy named Mickey who isn't even from Medioka! What the hell!

And you're just like, what the hell is even going on anymore- why is a foreigner running the country while Michel is out without any guards??

But somehow, you managed to keep your calm and called your guards to lock Michel away while you confront this Mickey because there is no way foreigner gets to king before you. So, tell this random ass guy to make you king and get out of your country, or else you will expose him as fraud, and he tries to argue with you! The audacity!

Still, you tell him rather bluntly he has no choice in this situation since it is literally legal to kill any commoners who sit on the throne. So he can either leave in two days or lose his life to the mod or the law. And with that, you make your way home, trying to wrap your head around how this even happened in the frist place and how two people can look so much alike, then as if the universe is playing a massive joke on you, you see another person who looks like your cousin!

Turns, however, she's just a tourist, and you quickly apologize for brothering her because you still have freaking manners for ladies despite your dislike for commoners.

But still, at this point, you feel like you're losing your goddam mind! Why are there three people who like your cousin!

But maybe you just need to get some sleep, It is late after all, and usually shit gets weird at night, so you go home and try to have good night sleep. Surely, nothing weirder can happen now, right? You got everything unde3 control, with Micheal locked away and Mickey is under your blackmail, nothing could possibly happen to ruin your plan......

One of your men wakes you up to tell that Michael’s other cousin is here to talk to him. What the actual fuck. Of course, you think this is a trick, and gather tell your men to gather every guard so you can talk to her yourself because you are just so done with everything falling apart around you with no fault of your own.

And she tells you thar she knows about your plan! How! You only told that Mickey guy, and he would be a fool to go tell anyone else if he didn't want to be exposed !

Still, you are sick and tired of everything that is happening, and you decide to try to kill this lady since rather or not she's a real cousin doesn't really matter if she knows your plan, but you end up chasing her as she try to jump on a donkey the second you order you can man to grab her. Shit, she can't get anyway, so you get in your car and begin chasing after her throughout the night.

Only for the universe to fuxk you over again, as a commoner blocks the way with his broken cart, causing you to crash into a tree

And this done it, you are tried, confused, and now hurt by this foolishly idoit! So you fully snapped, ready to murder this guy in broad daylight, only for him to realize that he is, in fact, your cousin.

How. How the fuck did he get out your castle and has enough time to dressed himself as a commoner. But whatever there's nobody here, it time to finally kill hi-

Only for the Michael guards to pop out from the forest and surrounded you and your men..

And with that, you are tossed in jail more confused than ever before and wondering whether or not you should see a therapist for having illusions of your cousin everywhere.

[newspropaganda]

My Thoughts On MangaKamen and his YGO videos

When Literacy and Mainstream Media are not low enough

Here’s my opinion on MangaKamen and why he’s wrong about Yu-Gi-Oh!. He’s just another American fan blinded by idiocy.

MangaKamen is either lazy, doesn’t understand Yu-Gi-Oh!, or just pretends to. He comes off with this fake comedy gimmick that doesn’t appeal to me. His videos on Yu-Gi-Oh! girls are mostly biased and off-topic, giving us zero meaningful details. Instead, he just ruins the representation of the female characters. News flash: Yu-Gi-Oh! girls are great, but they’re rarely handled well by good creators like myself.

He mostly praises DM and GX, but when it comes to 5D’s, he goes off-topic, tearing down Crow and Jack. His so-called "essays" on why 5D’s failed are ridiculous—he’s just too stubborn to admit that 5D’s is far superior to DM and GX. He simply can’t accept that fact. Yet when he makes videos on Persona or Metal Gear, people get critical, but his Yu-Gi-Oh! content is a mess.

He sticks to mainstream garbage like your typical American, obsessed with his country's degeneracy. This is just another reason why he can’t be trusted with Yu-Gi-Oh! videos. He’s all about quantity over quality, more focused on literacy than being an actual critic.For example, in his 5D’s videos about the girls and the two main male characters, MangaKamen keeps doing the same thing—showing how incompetent he is at his job. He doesn’t understand Yu-Gi-Oh! at all. 5D's only had production issues during Season 1 when Tomioka was in charge, but he refuses to acknowledge that because he can’t be logical. The issues with Yu-Gi-Oh! girls stem from Japanese societal rules about women in anime and real life.

What really misses the mark with this guy is that he’s clueless. He should have said something like, “Even if 5D's is often the butt of production jokes, it’s not that bad compared to what people say. GX and DM had worse production issues than 5D’s or any of the later shows.” But no, he completely ignores that and acts like a jackass. He’s not insightful or literate—he’s just trying to be a smartass, mixing a Nostalgia Critic style with woke, feminist opinions.

He is clearly stupid and doesn’t understand logic or anything at all.

But here’s the deal! No one respects 5D's because of the fandom and its bullshit. If you offend the fandom or call out their garbage, you get blocked for being "nasty" and not politically correct. The hypocrisy is real—they get upset at anyone who doesn’t support DM or GX, but it’s perfectly fine for them to trash 5D's. The fandom just doesn’t give 5D’s a chance anymore. News flash: 5D’s was always the best of Yu-Gi-Oh!, not those first two shows!

But wait, why is 5D’s so underrated now compared to 13 years ago when it was a masterpiece of perfection and mainstream success? It’s because Konami went off the rails, promoting Duel Monsters Gen 1 support since 2015. And you all just obey Konami like typical Americans blinded by nostalgia!

And if he talks about OCG Stories, he’s just going to crap on it like he did with 5D’s during its tough times. We’re all sick of people like him—bastards who just repeat and copy other people’s thoughts, openly telling their fans something "failed." Failed? What?! OCG Stories is going strong, with its 4th volume just being released!

If he makes a video on it, he’ll just be feeding the beast. I’m not going to care since I’m not invested in this asshole’s opinions.

This is the same problem with YGO Everything, Noajenks, and other mainstream Yu-Gi-Oh! fans who only support GX and DM because their minds are stuck on the same old, tired topics. That’s exactly why I don’t support anyone in the Yu-Gi-Oh! fandom, including the people I just mentioned. It’s all about reused topics and a lack of originality.

Do you know why the Pokémon fandom is more popular than Yu-Gi-Oh!? It’s not because the card game is less complicated or because of the anime. It’s because Pokémon fans are passionate and more humanized than the Yu-Gi-Oh! fandom. The Yu-Gi-Oh! fandom is constantly divided by problems they refuse to accept, and it’s just stupid.

The Yu-Gi-Oh! fandom is split on multiple topics:

The anime being bad during DM because of the adaptation.

The manga being bad at times.

The card game and the Rush Era.

They go off-topic, get sensitive about everything they hate, and can’t handle even mentioning anything about Yu-Gi-Oh!.

MangaKamen should have existed 10 years ago—he would have been better back then because now his content is more off-topic than on-topic.

You really want to know what’s wrong with the Yu-Gi-Oh! community? It’s the internet—Twitter and YouTube—which makes it too complicated to deal with.

Does MangaKamen even have solid points anymore? No, he doesn’t. He’s clearly just doing it for clout and virtue-signaling. At least I respect his editor and his buddies—they’re more critical than he is.

But do you really want to know why the Yu-Gi-Oh! fandom in America is so bad? It’s because they’re all the same when it comes to nostalgia. 5D’s got no respect after 2011 and slowly became a problem for them to consume. You can blame the political chaos in America for that crap. The real-life card game is super complicated, and MangaKamen uses that to trash the show. He’s even admitted that he prefers the game over the anime.

He also keeps using the dub version to annoy people, even though most fans don’t care which version they watch.

Also I noticed that, despite his popularity, it seems that every person that I've asked so far either never heard of him or doesn't watch his videos. And for someone who sticked in your brain as much as MangaKamen, it would be pretty interesting to talk about him.

American Yu-Gi-Oh fans are both vocal and hypocritical on anything. They only respect DM because of nostalgia and not out of sheer love. And to be fair, Yu-Gi-Oh! fans are mostly upset for no real reason—just like people getting upset at Donald Trump for "reasons." It’s like they have Trump Derangement Syndrome or something. And to be fair, Yu-Gi-Oh! fans seem to suffer from something like Yu-Gi-Oh! Derangement Syndrome, or maybe Konami Derangement Syndrome or even 4Kids Derangement Syndrome—where they just get irrationally upset about anything related to the series, like people do with Trump like how Mark Ruffalo is aways woke on Trump since 2016.

To conclude this statement. MangaKamen is a woke american femminsit.

[moonshynecybin]

if you don’t mind my asking, what were the best/worst parts about living in ireland to you?

stuff i LOVED: everyone was the nicest person ive ever met im not even JOKING... wahh... my first day some lady paid my bus fair and was just so overwhelmingly kind about it... i loved living in dublin for the ability to go into a city (i am from a very rural area and it was LOVELY) and see big old buildings and museums and pubs and get to do all these things that i just never had the option to do... public transportation ruled.... and i got to TRAVEL for so much cheaper than we do in the USA and i made a lot of FRIENDS both international and irish and american.... went to irish oktoberfest with a bunch of germans and italians and taught them how to play FLIP CUP cuz they didnt know... went to scotland with my roommates and friends.... drank a lot of guinness and walked around all the parks... saw the bog bodies at the natural history museum... got drunk adn walked around temple bar... bahhh i REALLY did like it whenever i wasnt trapped inside the house...

Stuff i HATED under the cut it has truly nothing to do with the country it was my living situation. lol. well actually im gonna be honest the weather was ASS but i knew that goin in. got to see some rainbows who CARES:

um the BIGGEST THING. was that my living situation was five alarm bell insane. i had to pick a place before flying over so i only saw it over facetime(RUH ROH) and my landlords did not seem interested in providing me and my roommates (two other american girls in their mid twenties) with a liveable space like at all. they never turned the heat on (i was shivering literally constantly. the other girls showered at the university bc it was literally too cold to do it at home. AND they didnt let us buy any electronics without prior approval so we could not buy like. a space heater. it was CRAZY i could see my breath in my ROOM...). they didnt allow any visitors not even my MOM to let me move in. there was a curfew they didnt tell us about. we didnt have a sink in our kitchen (and we had to walk outside to a different part of the building to access it). there was mold EVERYWHERE.AND apparently the reason we were living there was to fund house renovations so they were constantly kicking us out of our rooms to let in builders/construction people (one of the final straws was my roommate coming back from xmas break to find that they had moved her and ALL her stuff out of her room to do a renovation literally without telling her lol. they moved a WALL and we didnt have a SINK STILL...). they tried to enter my room without my permission. and all of this was PROHIBITIVELY expensive like genuinely i could have gotten a studio with the fees i was paying (and they made us pay in cash so. ATM fees compounded all that lol) BUT. they had us trapped in this ILLEGAL lease that stipulated that if we moved out we would owe our ENTIRE remaining rent for the agreed lease period. we sent this to a lawyer later he was like these guys are buckshit insane. i firmly believe they chose american girls and didnt let our parents like. even see the exterior of the house because they knew our moms would call bullshit immediately but WHATEVERRR... anyways after i left i found out that they had a secret baby that they didnt tell us about either. CRAZY!!!!

my school program also was not the most rigorous AND my migraine symptoms started while i was over there soooooo in addition to literally being cold ALL the time, i had NO idea what was going on with my head/health + i didnt really have the resources to find a new place/fight with my landlords + i was rapidly running out of money bc of how expensive everything about my housing was + i wasnt even getting the education i wanted because my professors sucked ass. so when i went home for winter break i just didnt come back ! and i got my roommates to send my stuff to the states. it was like the most insane six months of my life i lost like ten pounds from stress lol

[princesscatherinemiddleton]

Hi, I don’t know if you’re comfortable answering this but I was wondering what your perspective is as a British person about all the non British people making so many crazy (even delusional) accusations about the UK, monarchy, and the royal family when they clearly have no idea what they’re talking about. I see the ridiculous things they say and the assumptions they make (particularly on TikTok) and even as an American it makes me mad because it’s so obvious they’re speaking without bothering to do any research. I’m curious how British people in general are feeling about this because social media is not always a great representation of the entire population. I know British people have their own opinions about the monarchy but it’s different when people from other countries are speaking about it and spreading outright lies about the UK.

I can never answer anything normally so I have multiple strands to this answer:

I hate people talking about something like they know what they are talking about but they are blatantly wrong - I had to do an assembly at school on Guy Fawkes the week after we did our Bonfire Night podcast episode and the effort I put in to not correcting my partner teacher was indescribable

I think it is almost impossible to fully understand another culture, even if you've lived there a really long time, especially if you don't live there - living in the UK, I've been bombarded with US images, politics, TV, literature, sport, etc but I don't understand what it's like to be American. I would never explain to someone how the American legal system works or the American political system. I feel the same about Wales and Ireland as individual countries (rather than as part of the UK) and my parents are quite literally Welsh and Irish

The more completely out there stuff I can laugh off but the almost believable but not quite stuff gets to me more. Also, explicitly cruel things I struggle with - I'm thinking the person I saw on TikTok the other day who said that Kate is actually dead or the person on Tumblr who said that Meghan was abusing her children. I can't even think about it and I have to just block and log off

Part of the reason I love doing the podcast so much is because it is time to provide facts. We joke about doing research but we really do a lot of research and if we don't know something, we say that or just don't talk about it at all

As for the other part of your message, "I’m curious how British people in general are feeling about this because social media is not always a great representation of the entire population. I know British people have their own opinions about the monarchy but it’s different when people from other countries are speaking about it and spreading outright lies about the UK":

I've said this before but I cannot get across how much most people in Britain do not care about the royal family however people in Britain also don't like to be told something about them is weird or wrong - I'm thinking about things like how British people reacted when people said beans on toast was weird

Social media algorithms means lots of people in the UK haven't seen what people are saying about the BRF online (I am cultivating a lovely online experience where I very rarely come across the BRF by accident and I talk about them a lot!) and not everyone in the UK has social media either

I think the best thing to do is not engage with anything online that upsets you. That's not to say you should end up in a social media bubble - you should definitely expose yourself to thoughts, opinions and cultures you wouldn't normally come across - but if you are finding yourself getting upset or angry or frustrated with the same kind of content, just block, mute and move on.

[n7punk]

okay i finished da:v here's my full spoilers thoughts but the summary is: good game, recommend if you've liked any of the da or me games

first of all, games ranking because i think that tells you a lot:

without mods: dai > dav > dao > da2

with mods: dai > dao > dav > da2

(closer to 2 decades than not post-release, da:o feels unplayable without the increased walk speed/distance and faster animations/combat mod among over QOL tweaks. oh my god a single backstab takes so fucking long) nostalgia also definitely plays a factor so this might change in a few years or if i replay dao and realize either wow i do love it that much or wow this is Just Unplayable lmao

overall i liked it. gameplay was fun, the story was good, i love the companions, and the only glitches i ever ran into were graphical ones with stuff clipping into cutscenes that wasn't supposed to be there.

i don't like rook as a protagonist as much as i like any of the other bioware protags, but that fully could have been the fault of the way i played them, so when i eventually do a replay (probably after a few weeks/months to see if any dlc releases. and after it gets mods so i can unlock all appearances without needing to recollect them LMAO would new game+ fucking kill you bioware) i'll see if i like them better. it's not that i dislike them there were just multiple times where i was like. why are people looking to this rando to fight a god. like the warden makes sense, they're one of Two grey wardens left in the country. hawke no one looked to until they had stepped up in a lot of small ways. and they were also nobility, and only became the champion of kirkwall after they took it into their own hands to save the city because it's their city too! and the inquisitor people literally believe was appointed by god (and for understandable reasons). rook does have a somewhat heroic backstory written for them but i don't know... it felt like varric would have a thousand better connections that are proven to choose his rook and he chose. this random person who made a hard call once that had relatively small consequences versus. literally he could have chosen hawke like! whatever that's my largest gripe with the game so that shows you how good it is overall lmao

(purple rook does remind me a lot of hawke so im just going to make that my headcanon why varric chose them. hes a sentimental bastard)

also why does he call them rook. i felt like that was never explained. maybe it was a codex i didn't read, because i didnt read most of them lol, but it wasn't even clear to me if that was a nickname they had before or a title he gave them, and it never paid off in any way? like a "checkmate" joke would have been goofy but i don't get the significance of it at all.

i knew 100% going in varric was going to die. as soon as he got stabbed i texted meta like THERE IT IS. and then i woke up and he was there and i was like huh. i guess that was the fake out and itll happen later. well. lol. i didn't clock that exact twist but i kept forgetting he was even in the game and when he did show up i was always like. what is wrong with you. we have magic. you got stabbed by the dagger and now you're wah im not fit to fight after months but harding just Touches it and gets magic powers? what's going on? and then the reveal happened and it was like oh yeah that makes sense lmao. i know something was Wrong. that said im not taking it as rook hallucinating or whatever. they were literally in the fade, i do think his memory was there and it wasn't just solas fucking with their mind and speaking through him. replaying it i'll look for times when companions see rook talk to him. i know apparently a writer was saying stupid shit about rook talking to themself on bluesky but i haven't looked at what it is.

i love harding and taash and bellara so much. and neve and teia too (i fucking love teia). the boys are. there. lmao no i love them too (especially davrin and assan) but i dont LOVE them like i love the others. and evka and antione were cute together. i mean i really like a lot of the characters, it's part of what makes the game strong, because it's a very ME2/ME3 style type game that's about gathering allies versus inquisition where you're directly hunting corypheus yourself and just gathering what you can as you go peripherally, so all those allies NEED to be good to make it work.

i think locking in a companion death after you've done all that work with their factions and personal quests is Stupid but whatever, they're definitely going to come back next game even if i think it's as an enemy. overall the climax quest was cool, i did all the side quests but the fact you get to face off against hezenkoss and aelia and shit if you DONT is cool as hell

oh and i liked the map style. similar to DAO's larger areas, i think, but expanded because we have the tech and resources to do that now and it worked really well. i loved dock town especially. it felt like what da2 COULD have been if it had the development time. a lot of this game did, tbh. i love the story and character potential of da2 but it's at the bottom of my list of games just because it's not really that fun to replay. i've sunk hundreds of hours into dai and dao. i think i've played my canon inquisitor like 4 times with only mild variations in addition to my other inquisitors and half dozen wardens.

the lore drops in this game were GREAT and a couple things came up where i was shocked like oh. oh you PLANNED that huh. there were fucking hints to this 15 years ago. i am so curious at what point they "knew" this stuff. like before this game came out i would have sworn up and down that they had Not come up with the elves becoming mortal due to fen'harel locking the corrupt elven gods behind a veil stuff in DAO and i still think that's likely, but now i would believe otherwise too.

i think they maybe had more big-picture stuff with the elves' war with the titans - because they've been hinting at this titan storyline the whole time - planned, but like, solas certainly didn't exist yet you know lol. idk! maybe.

the elves = spirits reveal went so hard for me, specifically, because ive always been interested in untangling the lore so i Combed over trespasser and there's a codex in there where the inquisitor views a memory of two elven lovers, personified as light, dancing together and intertwining their souls in a dazzling display, and as soon as i heard i was like THATS WHAT THAT FUCKING WAS. they were spirits!! so that's why i say they had to 100% know all of this lore stuff by the time of inquisition and probably knew like half of it in dao.

(side note, if you hang around the shadow dragons merchant long enough, she says she came to tevinter as a slave from denerim. she! was part of that slavery sidequest for the city elves in dao!! that's so fucking cool the continuity in this game goes so hard!!! whatever things they didn't plan, they tied back to get little things like that and it's so cool. versus inquisition which is just like. oh knight enchanters exist. that ancient forgotten arcane warrior skill that only the warden knows and was lost to time? actually the humans in orlais developed something even stronger. fuuuuuu anyway)

i want to know what the fuck is going on with valta. okay here's my thing. i get why harding was upset about the titans because solas essentially stole her peoples ability to dream and do magic which is fucked up. but also. the titans mind-controlled them??? like. solas is anti-slavery honestly in his mind he was probably freeing them. idk having played the descent i was just like the titans are NOT a thing to be mourned but i guess we'll see. i have a feeling harding is also going to be a statue in the next game if she was your sacrifice and im VERY curious if that was something dalta actually chose or if it Happened to her as either a natural evolution (like a blighted creature always turns to a darkspawn) or the titan inflicting that on her as part of its plan/instinct. this game kind of solved all my lore questions about the elves and the blight and so all that's left for me is some aspects of the titans, whatever the fuck the devouring storm is, and maybe more clarity on the real story of andraste but i feel like i have that pretty on lock lmao. she was a human mage in contact with a powerful spirit/one of the evanuris and she died for it. case closed. mythal was up in there somewhere but probably not andraste herself.

the devouring storm tho. ive been wanting more on the qunari than anti-communist propaganda and we're finally starting to get it. the hints towards par vollen next game have me excited. i dont really want rook to be a multi-game protag (as you can probably guess) but i'll just do a second, stronger playthrough if that ends up being true to import the world-state of.

speaking of world states. ok. actually one sec.

i also want to know what's going on in kal-sharok. they say they're like the darkspawn but they can't be blighted/wardens because 1) then davrin or a grey warden rook would be able to sense them and i brought neither of those things to that quest but i feel like i would have seen it mentioned by now and 2) they can't be blighted because there's an expiration date on that (i think it's 20 years) and there are a ton of dwarves way older than 20 in there. it is possible only some of them are blighted or they stopped the practice, like maybe just the rock-knockers still do it, but the joining ceremony is also implied to be blood magic and dwarves cant DO magic anyway and i dont think enough of them would survive the first 20 years to sustain a population so like. i don't think thats the answer i think they would have died out. so what does "like the darkspawn" mean? the darkspawn are normal creatures that get blighted and end up serving it. the blight came from titans. i think kal-sharok is like the darkspawn in that they opened themselves up to their Local Titan and let it lowkey take over them (see: mind control) and it helped them fight off the darkspawn. maybe just by moving rock, maybe with red lyrium even exerting some influence over the blight. maybe just being somewhat connected to the titan let them sense where the darkspawn running around in it were and let them survive. they clearly dont know a lot about the titans but their armor is literally made to make them look like statues carved out of stone and theyre worshipping their oracle statue like COME ON.

anyway, world state

so again, i think another protag would have been stronger, but if they WERE determined to make a new one, i did like what they did with the inquisitor's role. the inquisitor, even post-disbandment, is a powerful figure. having them leading the armies fighting off the blight down south makes a lot of sense. i like that they came back at the end, it felt like they were doing the best they could with making them appropriately present without having them be on screen much to say wildly out of character things for your personal inquisitor lol. the lines they had written for them were perfect for my inquisitor, though.

i do think it's weird the inquisitor even considers talking solas down after they've made the choice to stop solas at any cost?? but whatever, overall i really liked it and seeing anerra again was yes 💖 it'll work well in the next game too because the inquisitor WOULD stay in thedas to help rebuild it post-blight while rook, who at least has proven themselves and is no longer a rando lmao, goes to face the devouring storm. they're getting old now they just want to fix their house so they can sit in it 😂

it did annoy me they had you pick the LI and then their NAME wasn't even spoken. especially since if you romanced certain companions - iron bull, blackwall - they're intimately tied to factions in this fight. im sure if they romanced solas it comes up a lot more but i dont care about that lmao. BUT that goes back to the "this is the inquisitor's fight" thing - i cannot imagine most solavellan inquisitors stepping back and letting someone else go after him.

morrigan is such a babe also i loved her coming back. pretty sure this makes "mythal" the only character who has appeared in every da game. having isabella back was SO GOOD tho she's living the best fucking life. the fact fenris never showed up is such a missed opportunity and im not accepting the "well he had so many possible endings it would be hard to account-" they didn't even let you choose if bull stayed with the inquisitor or left to join the qun they are MAKING decisions on what version of events they want to keep as the canon going forward and they could have - should have - made the call here. and i have no problem with them making those calls! just commit lmao. anyway

one thing this game did great: making your rook matter. the fact i was a shadow dragon and qunari came up a lot. i was able to pull on inside knowledge and translate stuff in qunlot. i like that a lot. it's something they fumbled in inquisition lmao.

one thing it did bad: which companions you pick for quests (aside from the final one) just doesn't matter. they don't even appear in cutscenes (which was weird & jarring), they barely have comments to make throughout or in the overworld, and i dont think it's even possible to gain disapproval outside of amin story quests. like in da2 i would literally plan shit out like okay, im going on quest involving slaves, ill bring fenris to gain approval when i free them. im going on something where i'll probably side with mages, time to bring anders. none of that here. and like im not saying i want there to be more options to lose affection, especially when it felt harder to earn in this game (i did every single quest in the game and only maxed like. two people. everyone else was nine), but i wanted them to have opinions, you know.

bonus: god they fixed companion dialogue in this. now whenever they get interrupted mid-banter they always pick it back up and you get the added banter convos around the lighthouse for pairings you normally wouldn't bring out with you! so that helped flesh the companions out. and god i cannot emphasize enough how much i love some of them. ASSAN. i did not expect it going into this game but every time he was on screen i was just like BABY thats my BABY that's my little BOY

anyway. good game. very interested where they're going with this. felt like a fitting conclusion to that story arc and im very attached to my inquisitor <3

[butmakeitgayblog]

What’s your opinion about the people making fun of the ones missing in the titanic submarine? I get it they’re billionaires, they did nothing to help anyone ever. But still they’re people and they’re gonna suffer an awful death if not already. And there’s a 19 year old there. I can’t find myself laughing at a lot of post making a joke out of it.

Well to preface this, I've always thought they were dead to begin with. Either because of a system failure or because they just plain got themselves lost. I think this whole "search and rescue" thing was a completely futile mission to begin with because it's not even trying to find a needle in a haystack, it's trying to find a needle 12,500ft below sea level in the dark. The whole oxygen countdown was nothing but hysteria inducing bullshit created by the media to sensationalize this shit. They're dead. They've been dead. Probably before Tuesday when this all was released to the public, even tho they went missing on Saturday. But even if it was from oxygen deprivation, the whole 'X amount of remaining hours' countdown thing was never real because that's not accounting for each person's oxygen use or increased breathing due to circumstances, etc. It was all media sensationalizing bullshit.

That being said.

I think the answer to as why so many people are finding humor at the prospect of this terrifying ordeal is a lot more of a nuanced answer than just oh they're callous and don't care about people's suffering. The truth is that this isn't something unlucky and devastating that just happened out of nowhere to unsuspecting people. These guys knew the dangers. They signed very detailed consent forms explaining the risks to all this. However, like what usually happens with the obscenely wealthy, they thought they were untouchable. Disasters don't happen to them. Right? The supreme level of privilege it takes to overlook how lucky in life you've had it (while the mass majority suffer at your indifference) and instead deliberately chasing down thrill seeking highs that put your life in danger because you actually have no idea what it means to be terrified for your life is mind boggling.

The fucking hubris that requires.

I mean these men, every last one of them, the 19 year old included, knew what they were getting into. They climbed into a tube with shitty communications, no homing devices, no flotation devices, no escape hatches, all to go down and look at a mass graveyard through a shitty tv screen for no other reason than to be able to say that they did it. And oho, can't forget, because it was a more ~convenient~ form of being able to achieve such a thrill.

That's literally the selling pitch from the CEO himself that every last one of them read.

The entitlement it takes to read this and all the other warnings about lack of safety contingencies WHICH WERE MADE CLEAR TO THEM and think, "yeah no that's for me😀" is insane because it truly shows that fundamentally these people think they're untouchable. They lack any survival skills because they've never had to cultivate any because they've lived their lives in total luxury and safety.

And they've done it while the rest of the world suffers as a direct result of their selfishness.

They each paid a quarter of a million dollars to do this. The things they could've done with that money instead and still be alive right now. I'd love to say they could've sponsored a refugee or used it to feed swathes of starving people in each of their home countries, but let's be real, they never would've done that. Because they didn't do that while they were alive. You're right, they helped no one. They hoarded their wealth and lived in opulence while the rest of the world suffered at their fingertips.

And now people should feel bad for finding humor in all this? I'm not saying it's ok to laugh at the death and suffering of anyone, but I can see quite plainly why people are reacting to this with humor. I can see that a lot of the humor comes from a place of anger and inequity and being fucking tired of living in a world where people who have more money than sense can do things like this for a thrill and a chance to flaunt their wealth, while the majority of the world is just struggling to stay alive.

I don't think those two mentalities have to be mutually exclusive. I think you can feel objectively bad and empathetic to what was probably a pretty miserable death, and also find the absurdity of the whole situation grimly humorous. I think those two things can and do exist, and I don't think it necessarily makes someone a bad OR good person for feeling one more than the other considering everything else at play.

And that's not even getting into the fact that we're having this conversation at all when refugees are dying all the time trying to escape the suffering of their countries and no one says shit about it. But when it comes to some wealthy men fucking up on a power trip? Well then everyone's suddenly got an opinion 🙄