#only fans coming soon!

[littlethunderclouds]

Fishnets 🖤🖤

[mellonyheart]

They still have to pay for new chat stickers like the rest of us. Also:

New chat stickers!

[cowlisthenics]

While arcane season two is trending can we talk about how they fridged Sky so hard when she's in art pieces with Viktor she's not even tagged. Can we talk about how I've seen like five or six pieces showing the accident in the past month or so and in some cases even showing Sky's ghost and she's not fucking tagged because no one remembers her name. Because they only said it like two times and made her entire motivation Viktor. I had to google it to make sure it was actually sky. And when I typed "arcane Viktors assistant name" she was the third fucking result. The first was Heimerdinger, the second was just Viktor's wiki page. Shes discussed so little google put her in third for the only identity she has in the entire show. Arcane had a lot of well written women, but they fucked up so hard on that and I'm still seething about it three years later.

[front-facing-pokemon]

[housewifebuck]

I AM going to write again. One day. I swear to god

[paris-geller-was-straightwashed]

okay so, having now seen furiosa: a mad max saga opening night and having Ruminated on my thoughts, I am going to give my two-pence on the movie even though nobody asked or wanted it - you're getting it anyway!

but before going into the full thing, I actually re-watched fury road today, bc I just wanted to contrast it now that we know furiosa's full story that lead her to her trek in fury road, and I just had mad max on the brain (and also I love that movie).

spoilers under the cut below!!

first, I already knew before seeing the prequel, that that scene in fury road where furiosa breaks down after learning about what happened to 'the green place,' was going to now hit 2x as hard once we learn what really happened the moment she was ripped away, and...yeah, it's super painful to watch. it was already a very emotional scene, but now having known how much pain and struggle it costed her, how many times furiosa desperately made her bet to get back home and fell short - you can really feel her grief

funnily enough though, I was shocked to find myself tearing up not during that scene, but when furiosa was reunited with the last of the many mothers. having just watched her ripped away so unfairly as a defenseless child, her whole world destroyed and clinging onto this dream of one day, getting to embrace her family - you can't help it!! I started tearing up when the other woman rushed to furiosa, embracing her with the gentle touch of their foreheads, 'this is our furiosa' 😭 like..she did it!! she made it home!!! - also, I learned in the credits - that woman was actually the same little girl, valkyrie, in furiosa who was her friend!!! that girl saw her friend get snatched and pulled away from their home, and then finally, both grown, they reuinite! I just thought that was sweet

what max says to her about hope in the scene after they find the mothers, 'if you can't fix what's broken..you'll go insane.' - my mind immediately jumped to dementus. we get this glimpse that he once had a wife and child(ren) he loved, that were either taken from him or killed, and he tells furiosa in their stand-off more or less how that destroyed him mentally, further plunging him into this hateful madman who acts so cruelly to others. he couldn't 'fix' it by getting them back ('I want them back!!' 'I can't!!'), the one thing he loved that kept him sane, and so he lost his humanity.

I saw a post of someone saying how ricktus's death (immortan joe's son) is 10x more satisfying after having seen what he (nearly) did to child furiosa...abso-fucking-lutely (though, I think with that in mind, furiosa should've gotten a part in it..)

also, max & and furiosa's dynamic after knowing about her & jack...the parallels! the parallels!! their gradual bond of trust, how fluidly they work together to kill/fight the enemies of the citadel akin to her and jack vs. dementus and gang, etc.

this saga, of course, is about hope and redemption, alluded to in both fury road and the prequel. in fury road, max says (I think in his opening monologue) how he was once strived to be a 'righteous warrior', who could do good and help others. later, when one of the wives finds the warboy nux, he's distraught bc he thinks his chances for greatness are gone, but then she tells him that maybe, he's destined for something greater - and that would be, of course, later sacrificing himself to save her and the rest by crashing the rig into the war party. in furiosa, jack says how his parents were valiant warriors, and how he hopes one day, he could be the same - also, later, fulfilling that by sacrificing himself so that furiosa might escape dementus and the destroyed gastown. it's just such an amazing string of parallels - all three men, looking to do something great, and then, through furiosa, they're given that chance and achieve something good even amongst the destruction!! but it's only bc of furiosa, this harbinger of hope, that they do so - she's the tie between them all, the embodiment of that goodness!!! it's! just! so! good!!!

honestly there's probably way more parallels out there I'm sure ppl will bring up, but those were the things that struck me. now, onto my actual thoughts on the prequel.

--I'll start by saying I was unbelievably excited to see this movie. I'm annoyed though, bc despite knowing about it and wanting to see it once it was released, I literally only learned it was coming out a week before the release date. straight up, the press for it was so poor, not once did I hear about it before the trailer randomly crossed my feed one day - and considering how popular fury road is, I find that bizarre (but, I'll bet you a good couple bucks, that the press/hype was deliberately poor bc of the movie company execs, due to this being a female lead film 😠) - but it did mean I didn't have to wait too long, and that I did watch the trailer about 13 times on my own accord until then..

--having read the reviews, I do agree, it is a bit slower then fury road - but, that's really only bc it's a character story instead. fury road takes places in the current time of the film and the actions that follow, whereas the prequel is specifically about furiosa, so it's honed less to the action and more about a certain character, in my opinion. but it's just as good for a character story! it does an excellent job of unfolding furiosa's journey, and really, if you're gunna compare everything in the franchise to fury road, it's never gunna live up. that said, there's still excellent action and real nail-biting moments.

--I will say though, that I found it almost...darker, then fury road? fury road is definitely intense and there's of course violence, but it never openly tips into anything past pg-13; the darkness that is there, is more or less touched upon by the narrative (like, we can get a sense of what must've happened to the wives (ie assault) and why they escaped once we see how immortan joe regards them as property, the suffering furiosa must've went through by the pure vitriol look she gives him when their cars are side-by-side and later, 'remember me?' before killing him (my favourite scene)). but it's never explicit - furiosa is. from the torture of her mother, to that scene right after the max cameo when he drops furiosa off at the citedel's underground where I literally had to cover my eyes and ask my friend to say when it was done..there's an overtone of darkness that gives to the tragedy of furiosa, this child molded from pain (not to mention, again, that scene of ricktus and her as a child which to me, was the most nerve-wracking moment). fury road gives you a glimpse, but furiosa doesn't hold back.

--chris hemsworth, meanwhile, made an excellent villain. not just as an actor, but dementus as a character was fantastic. he's got lots of great lines and brings in a lot of humor - he's both deranged and erratic, while also clever and simultaneously childish, and mostly, cruel. he's wonderfully dynamic. bringing in a backstory of losing his wife/child was a great added piece to his story (I love a good backstory), and the way he takes the loss of his kid and tried to mold it around furiosa, tries to fill that empty piece inside, was a great choice in terms of their dynamic. it made him more then just a mad-man who stole a child for yuks - he had a deeper desire to tote furiosa around, almost as a security blanket in the same way the teddy bear also acts as one. his final monologue was great - the ramblings of a hateful man, but it was, in the end, what got furiosa to see past vengeance, and become better - to choose hope, and not destruction.

--anya taylor-joy did a great job I thought - while I wish furiosa had more lines, she made up for it in just the facial expressions and how full they were, really giving us a glimpse of what furiosa was feeling. even still, it would've been nice to have known what was going on in her head, or even hear her talk about her past - the green place, and then dementus, are the pure driving force of her character, yet she doesn't ever mention or grapple with her grief around these things, simply stays silent (except for the final confrontation with dementus). I would've loved maybe, if she had confided in jack, or maybe even one of the wives, to give more depth to her feelings.

--I also wish furiosa could've bonded with someone else besides jack, or at least before him. it would've been nice for to have had at least one ally, or, I dunno, a friend? like that war boy who had dwarfism - she seemed almost sad, when realizing after the battle that he was dead. instead, she's alone, but a fellow misfit friend could've been nice.

--speaking of jack, loved him! thought he was great! it's unfortunate his part was so short, would've loved delve into his background (also, I'm as gay as they come, but he's like..an objectively Good Looking Man, so well done all around).

--I was really nervous, for how they were gunna do the romance. I was against it initially, bc the great thing about fury road, was that romance was not at all forced into the narrative - you can read that between max & furiosa if you want, but for one of the very, very few times when a woman and man team up, romance wasn't forcefully wedged in, and instead they could be respected allies. so I was skeptical - and then I totally fell for them. they were so sweet! the two actors had great chemistry - their bond was just so soft. the way, after they crash and are caught by dementus, furiosa, who can barely stand, gently leans herself into jack's shoulder, sweetly muttering to each other as he leans his forehead back against hers, like 😩😩 it was so lovely, and so tragic. you could really feel the respect and care they had for each other; it was so organic, bc jack genuinely wanted to help furiosa. he respected her and asked nothing of her - he was a purely good man, and through that, furiosa was able to open up to him and trust him. it's the great curse of the mad max universe though - no romance can escape it's claws, same with how nux and one of the wives were torn apart. in my heart of hearts though, there lives a little AU fic where dementus doesn't catch them, and they make their way back to the green place and live happily ever after with a kid perhaps, and maybe, furiosa and him go back to later rescue the wives (they say, like they're not thinking of already writing that very fic...).

--one more thing about furiosa I wanted to mention, if I can call back to earlier saying how she becomes a beacon of hope for the various men that enter her life (and the women too, when you think of the wives..) - that, despite all this horror handed to her, at the very end of the rope, she gives into her hero's heart. time over, we see, even as the destruction of the wasteland chips away at her, furiosa can never quite betray her heart. she runs back to her mother even after being pushed to leave, she goes back for jack despite having the perfect escape to finally make it back home, and in the end, takes all her hurt and anger wrapped up in dementus, and turns it and him into something that can bring good into the world. it's about choosing good, above all!! a hero's heart, even in the darkest of worlds!!!

--the trailer really emphases the green place, but we only see it for like...a couple minutes? I was looking forward to more lore about it, maybe seeing some of it's inhabitants like the mothers. but furiosa is taken immediately and then her mother starts her hunt after her, and that's it. kinda a bummer.

--there's a couple inconsistencies here and there - like, when furiosa is first brought to where the wives are kept, there's gotta be about 20 women in there, roughly. but then, as she becomes a young adult, we see at the very end her approach the 5 wives from fury road (I was expecting a call-back, so loved that) and it looks like there's only them there - what happened to the rest of the women??? did they all die in childbirth?? also, when furiosa runs away and hides herself as a warboy/mechanic, how did no one know she was gone?? it seems odd, since immortan joe specifically picked her out and probably has a mental line-up of all his 'treasures', you'd think he'd notice. or how, later on, the new 'imperior' with jack looks oddly similar to that young girl ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

--also, I wanna know how furiosa got away with being the only female imperior - you'd think immortan joe might snag her away instead to be a wife bc she's young and viable, or that she'd be either dismissed or preyed upon by his sons/the other men. maybe because she was partnered with jack it was easier, but that was kinda confusing.

--final thing, bc this post is already too long - my last gripe is mainly about furiosa's dynamic with immortan joe. in furiosa, her revenge is purely motivated towards dementus, but then, switching to fury road, she now holds contempt and anger towards the warlord. part of what I wanted to see in the film, was her past with immortan joe; we didn't know initially how furiosa got to the citadel, but my interpretation, was always that possibly (because she was branded with the logo on her neck) she was brought on as a wife, inevitably abused by him, and then something happened where she was no longer useful as a wife (maybe an accident that cost her her arm) but was still useful as a tool. but, immortan joe isn't really looked at in the prequel; he's here and there, but doesn't show any particular cruelty or act towards furiosa that I was expecting. that vitriol she shows in fury road, and of course, 'remember me?', makes you think there was something there to fuel furiosa's revenge. instead, nothing really occurs between them - of course, furiosa is brought on to breed him children and then is expected to do his every bidding in getting supplies, so, I think we're supposte to assume that she has seen how cruel he is up close, and so acts against him. still, I was expecting something deeper there.

all in all, I loved it and had a great time. fury road will always be one of my favourites, but this is a great addition. fury road is great on all fronts; a fascinating world, great characters, amazing action, a well-made and clearly cared for story, but the thing I love most - is that it's about hope. it's about choosing, every day, despite the horrors around you, to get up and hope for something better. to do something better, even at your own cost. it's about hope and what we mean to each other when we extend it. and I just love that so much

go see furiosa! support it! it's a great time!

[calendar-krewe]

Soon it will be time for a brand new calendar!

Made with love by artists of the community: The Profession Calendar of 1337 AE (2024)!

Start the new year like a professional with this new calendar featuring professions and elite specialisations!

Coming soon!

[grand-theft-carbohydrates]

the hardest part of writing is cutting very good passages simply because they don't fit the narrative in a cohesive way. ok remember this part?

He expected Gao Jianli to appreciate the story in the same way. But the look on the musician's face made him stop short. He had taken off his blindfold, there was no awe in his eyes, only pity.  "It must have been very painful," Gao Jianli whispered. "What's a little pain in the grand scheme of things?" the king replied with a laugh, amused by this girlish sentiment. "One suffers for a brief moment and earns a lifetime of benefits from it. Besides, I hardly remember it now."  The musician did not answer. He plucked a few notes on the zhu, and they sounded like raindrops falling on a hot terracotta roof. A gentle pitter-patter followed by the hiss of rising steam, like a tiny, sorrowful sigh.

Here's what was suppose to come after it:

The king frowned, not knowing if he liked this strange sound. It made something ache deep within his chest, a totally alien sensation. Like he was a bronze chime being rung with a mallet. Like the feet of one thousand ants marching across his skin. Like a cool, soft hand slipping under his clothes, tracing his fever-hot skin, and slotting itself between the bones of his ribs, worming around the fragile, blood-red membranes of his spleen and liver, so wrong and so, so gentle, higher and higher, until it reached his chest and laid itself softly over a bruise--  "That's enough!" King Ying Zheng's voice rang out harshly in the large, austere room. He had stepped backwards impulsively and almost tripped over the long train of his coat. It was a jerky, undignified movement, like he had been burned. Gao Jianli flinched at the king's voice and silenced the strings with press of his hands. His head was bowed like he was expecting a blow, yet his small, bright eyes were still focused intently on Ying Zheng.  The king stood there glaring at the musician, his chest heaving like he had run a mile, his mind all mist and jagged rocks. There was a gnawing at the back of his throat, the ghost of a memory of a boy who had been screaming for a long time, the wound torn afresh by the sight of a door opening twenty-three years too late, which was worse than never opening at all.  "Did that not please you, My King?" Gao Jianli's voice was rough. His tongue, small and pink, darted out and licked a bead of sweat from his upper lip. Ying Zheng itched to strike him, but could not force himself to get close enough to do so. The alchemy of Gao Jianli's music had not yet dissipated, the trembling coward was transfigured, in that moment he was half a sage and half venomous snake.  With great effort, the King of Qin collected the scattered pieces of himself with an imperious thrust of his chin. Qin men never show fear. In the bare light of day, the king could clearly see that the musician's hands were in fact very calloused. The tips of his fingers were armored in a thick yellow carapace, forged by decades of constant practice. Of course they're rough. The king reminded himself uneasily. Why had he assumed those hands would be soft? 

cutting this was the hardest decision in my life, but it just didn't fit. i cranked up the emotion too high without enough build-up, or any way to balance it out on the other end. (to put it frankly, there's not enough foreplay.) also gao jianli is suppose to be passively suicidal right now, and they've only just met. it would be a 180 for his character.

[daily-whistlepaw]

daily whistlebreeze until fae becomes PoV day 1411

Whistlebreeze talking to Whisperbreeze requested by @pinestripe37

[torgawl]

this is absolutely killing me *bombastic side eye, criminal offensive side eye playing in the background*

[whiskeyswifty]

it's nice to have a friend has gotta be my favorite of taylor's love songs because it's just so beautiful and so simple, and to me that's what real, true, long lasting love is! the minimal instrumental with the deep echo, making every note sound small and airy in this big wide world. such a simple little ditty, only one trumpet, even the church bell is just one gong. the story in the song doesn't start as a romantic pursuit. just two kids meeting by happenstance and finding kinship, enjoying each other's company in everyday life, confiding in each other, grateful for the mere existence of the other person alongside them day to day. even the song title doesn't anticipate anything more than companionship. and yet that's how it happens, slowly over time, arriving unannounced and with little fanfare like a quiet hum that you only just noticed for the first time. love grows from the little things, the light pink skies in the summer and two pairs of footprints in the snow and the kindness of shared gloves and tents and fears and hopes and the promise of warm sundays in bed. real, enduring, true love is quiet and small, like her vocals. soft, whispering as if only meant for someone right next to her, unforced and relaxed. musing in wonderment almost at the simplicity of it all, after all the misguided expectations of grandeur. love is simple! love is simple! love is simple!!!

[nofacednerd]

I think it would be so silly and cool to do like. a Lower Decks Reanimated project as a kind of goodbye to the show but idk if people would be interested lol

[quorras]

every time i see someone call tron 'cyberpunk', i lose ten years off my lifespan

[front-facing-pokemon]

[seventh-district]

again and again i find myself lamenting that audio roleplay isn't taken more seriously by some people. like yeah, they often have a romantic element, and by nature they usually directly involve/address the listener- and i totally get that those things aren't to everyone's taste. no art or entertainment is universally appealing, and that's okay! but.. it still makes me a lil sad that the "cringe" reputation of asmr/audio rp precedes it. there's a whole lot of talent and creativity being poured into these audios by so many people that i feel goes unrecognized and/or disrespected simply due to the medium that the stories are being told through.

[applejongho]

dunno how to articulate my thoughts without sounding mean but i'll try my best; it's so exciting when jh tries a new color and it's also exciting when he also seems to be enjoying it, but i think a problem in fandom culture in general is that need to have ownership over your [thing you like], in this case, jh, a real person. like you can be sad that jh is losing or toning down his purple hair because it was a good color and he looks good, but also at the end of the day it's his hair on his head and what he wants to do w his hair is his business only.

i say this because jh said in the latest radio station that he is going to tone down his purple hair in a few days, not because he doesnt like the color, but because his hair grows outward, a common thing that happens with your hair when you are of asian or hispanic descent. he needs down perms to literally "put down" the hair instead of it sticking straight out of his head. and down perms can fuck with the color if it's dyed.

so with this in mind, jh keeps his hair "boring" and black because he would rather his hair not be sticking straight out of his head and he doesnt want to sacrifice more time at the salon for color correction when it can just be his natural color. and thats really valid of him, just as it's valid of any other member or kpop idol to constantly dye their hair. it's his choice just like theirs and fans should respect his choice more.