#or if we were given more time

[porcelain-animatronic]

i love school because i inevitably end up with too many tasks and don't complete any of them!

[egophiliac]

A-anime?

you know, sometimes I forget that Twst is actually an isekai that starts with the protagonist getting run over by an inexplicable horse-drawn carriage. and every time I'm reminded is a delight because that's AMAZING.

also. look. okay. there's a lot of very fun stuff in the trailer but I am obsessed with that Crowley surprised pikachu face. me when I spend all my keys and gems literally hours before they announce overblot SSRs and drop the anime trailer:

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Another year has passed, and with it the opportunity to reflect back on all that has happened. While my growth was not as dramatic as last year, I can still see lots of positive change.

I'll never have enough ways to say thank you for all the love and support you have given me this year. On to 2025!

(2023 summary here!)

[firelxdykatara]

sorry not sorry but i'm actually completely fine with getting a version of katara where she wasn't parentified at eight years old (something that was lampshaded but never actually unpacked or presented as something she shouldn't have gone through, it was in fact not part of her arc to work through this in the original show and the proof of that is in the fact that she was shoved into an endgame 'romance' with someone for whom she'd expressed no romantic interest, even when prompted, and whom she spent a large portion of the show mothering). a katara who still had to deal with the trauma of her mother's death, but without having to become her own mother and her brother's mother on top of it in her place. katara whose struggle with waterbending is rooted in trauma, because her power is what her mother was killed for, her mother who died protecting her. katara who struggles to be taken seriously not because she's a silly girl with magic water but because her brother still sees her as his baby sister who needs him to be strong and she desperately wants him to lean on and trust her because that's what she needs to be able to grow.

and i like getting to see sokka actually behaving like a big brother! sokka whose responsibilities to his people and to his sister are treated seriously, rather than as fodder for jokes. sokka who is still a dork and a goofball and a pragmatist but underneath it all is that fear that he isn't actually good enough--that his family and his village don't actually need him, and who is he if his own sister is grown and doesn't need him anymore either? (sokka who is terrified of katara learning to bend not because he doesn't take her power seriously but because that's exactly what got their mother killed, and it's so, so obvious they've had that fight many times before.)

are they the exact same characters we got in the original cartoon? no, but i never expected them to be and frankly i didn't want them to be. something that every fanfic writer doing an AU or canon divergence has to grapple with is how would having these different experiences change the way this character behaves and interacts with and perceives the world. do i think the live action did it perfectly? no, but then the original show was far from perfect to begin with and i never expected perfection in this adaptation.

what i do think, though, is that i can see where certain creative decisions were made and the resulting ripple effect, i can understand the logic behind them--and i can enjoy the end result, because a lot of it is stuff i've rolled around in my brain in the past anyway. and what i really want to see is where things are headed in the future.

[lunarin64art]

That feeling when he can't stand to see you that way, no matter what you do, no matter what you say😩😭💔

[prideprejudce]

the more i think about Oppenheimer the more disappointed i get because at its core it’s such an interesting story to tell. like the whole manhattan project catapulted the entire world into a new atomic era that we could never go back from whether we were ready for it or not. and the fallout from the project not only changed and devastated the lives of hundreds of thousands of people (including of course the victims in hiroshima and nagasaki + the people living in new mexico where they tested the bomb) and the continued generational trauma of the bombs. also just the general mass panic and fear that the Cold War instilled into every citizen in the states who were literally waiting to one day be just annihilated by a nuclear attack. the whole creation of the atomic bomb had so much impact on the world. so doing a deep character study of both oppenheimer and his colleagues on the moral ambiguity of their work in the project and the outcome of it is such a great movie concept. but the film didn’t feel like that at all. instead Nolan gave us the watered down story that he’s best at and spent almost three hours forcing us to watch whether oppenheimer had to lose his disneyland government fast-pass due to his communist ties or not (spoiler: he does) and how strauss doesn’t like him because he got his feewlings hurt once. all the other scientists and physicists were given one or two minutes of screen time and were really just names to a face. the actual bombs creation was given a sidelong glance and trivial explanation at best. and of course to tie it all off the main female side characters were either naked/having sex for 80% of their screen time or was given the character depth of a piece of tissue paper

[literallyjusttoa]

I’m in my feels about Leto rn.

She a mom!!!! You don’t understand she’s a MOM!!!! And she was left all alone after the titan war (most titans were banished to Tartarus) and then she fell in love with this guy with all these red flags but they were genuinely in love!!! They sang songs and talked about deep things and Leto and Zeus LOVED EACH OTHER!!!!! And then she was made to suffer so much for it but she never took any of it out on her kids, and then they were basically taken away from her by Olympus!!!! And she was alone again!!!! But she loves her kids so so much so she built a safe place for them on Delos to come home to!!!! And she knows she can’t protect her kids from the monster the man she loves has become but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t try!!!! Leto tries so hard!!!!! And both of her kids fucking love her with all they have!!!!!!! Family is so important to all of them despite the fact that one member has become a horrible dickwad!!!!! They love each other!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

[maroonmused]

i still can’t believe they used the instrumental to cigarette daydreams for this mission like that was honest to god attempted murder by insomniac. the song, the nostalgia for the kids they were before emily and ben died and harry got sick, the warm autumn colors, the reunion patching together a pivotal part of peter’s life at a time he literally needs it most after getting fired from brooklyn visions. and in the scene before this, peter’s remembering may’s lesson about maintaining balance in his life then boom the return of one of the people who keep him rooted in life outside the mask when it’s so easy to breeze by it. first act of sm2 i love you.

[kateis-cakeis]

The fact there's more tracks missing from the Merlin Soundtrack than just the S5 ones is incredibly frustrating.

There's so much good music in the show that isn't on the playlists and arghhh it's soo frustrating because it would be so good to listen to!!! Especially for writing, sobs.

[the-nation-of-today]

And in the end we found our stage We gave these words of strength

[moon932]

within the context of the natlan archon quest, i think capitano was one of the best written characters.

i figured out what my problem with mavuika is, and it clicked for me in the scene where capitano takes mavuika’s place for the death. mavuika is too ‘perfect’. the whole entire archon quest she is presented as this ideal archon, the best of the best, in the last act it’s said that she never puts her own needs above her people- and while it’s not really presented as a good thing, she’s also never truly challenged on that way of thinking. not in any meaningful way at least.

capitano could also fall into this category, if it weren’t for the very central part of his character- spite and selfishness. he is a warrior who had to suffer the consequences of the actions of his nation that he didn’t even know about. and at the end of the day, the reason why he wanted to take mavuika’s place is because he wanted to rest. to shed the consequences of sins that shouldn’t have been his to bear.

do i think that capitano is the best character ever? no. his character was introduced in a really weird way that confused me a lot but that’s a personal opinion. and the whole ‘warrior code’ archetype can be kinda bland if not utilized correctly (ie: hoyoverse writing). but yeah, mavuika is supposed to be this ‘perfect’ leader, and if imma be honest perfect is a very boring direction for a character.

one day i’ll go back to talking about the positives lmao

[christiangeistdorfer]

future teammates JOHN WATSON & NIKI LAUDA at the 1977 SWEDISH GRAND PRIX

[problemswithbooks]

Onyx Storm and LGBT+ Rep

How does everyone feel about the LGBT+ rep in the series post Onyx Storm? Personally, I'm not very impressed.

Now, the LGBT+ rep was never the best. Frankly it was always a blink, and you'll miss it type deal, but I have to say after reading Onyx Storm I'm seeing some worrying signs.

One thing I noticed in particular was that the two main LGBT+ characters we have are the only ones without clear love interests/ they're the characters pointed out as sleeping around and unattached. This is in comparison to the straight side characters, who almost all have clear end game love interests or close relationships with one person. The straight characters also have their love interests as part of the side cast, who have at least some lines, as opposed to the LGBT+ characters whose lovers are barely mentioned by name, let alone are a part of the group.

Take Dain. He's one the main side characters. This book it appears his love interest and end game (because no one simply has a crush in a romance novel, or breaks up) is Sloane. Sloane didn't have many scenes in this book, but she's still around, she still has moments. She's apart of their Wing. She has multiple interactions with Dain on page. Also she was a pretty big character last book, who has family ties with an important character from the first book.

In contrast, Ridoc. He was a major character in this book, getting far more scene time than he did in previous installments. He's gay and the only thing we know about his love life, something that's been brought up multiple times, is that he loves sleeping around. In the book where he gets upped scene time, his only romantic interaction is flirting with a new Flier who never shows up again. The only other thing he does romance related (if you can even call it that) is to jokingly mock his straight friends for having steady partners, instead of living it up by sleeping around.

Rhiannon gets similar treatment, though she's not as much of a player. Rhi is an incredibly important character in the first two books and Violet's bff. Her romantic partner is a woman called Tara. They have an off and on again relationship, that is implied to simply be sexual, not romantic. Tara maybe gets a line in one of the books, but I can't recall it at all. Tara is in First Wing.

Unlike the straight characters (or at least those pursuing opposite sex relationships) these two prominent LGBT+ characters are not allowed to have romantic interests, only sexual hook-ups, none of which who are other important side characters, therefore get zero character interactions.

Also, the only LGBT+ character that had a romantic partner (who again is not part of the main friend group) died in this book, so that's not great.

I'm not saying that Yarros has to write an epic LGBT+ romance, but it'd be nice if she at least gave one of these characters as much care as her straight side characters get in the romance department. I mean, would it have killed her to have Ridoc or Rhi have crushes on someone in the main friend group and have cute interactions with them, similar to Dain and Sloane, or Sawyer and Jesinia, or Imogen and Garrick? Why can't Ridoc be interested in Bodhi and get some cute moment during the sparing matches?

I doubt it was intentional, but Yarros is playing into the trope (especially with Ridoc) that LGBT+ people are very promiscuous and rarely have meaningful relationships based on love, rather than sex. Past that, it really feels like they aren't treated the same as the 'straight' characters (because they could be bi) who get at least some dialog with their love interests, who in turn have scenes independent of that relationship, because unlike the LGBT+ characters' love interests, their crushes are important to the story.

[wow-an-unfunny-joke]

I think we should talk more about how no teenager should have the amount of power that Dazai had at 16.

I think it’s worth mentioning that being given that much power over others that young might’ve fucked him up a little.

[nami-moittli]

I think you like Leah

…A little

[fabuloustrash05]

“Raph and Mona rushed into a relationship!!”

OR MAYBE they are both warriors with a mindset of “I might die tomorrow” so they might as well let their crush know how they feel just in case they never have that chance again and die in battle with regrets.