#recency effect or whatever

[colonelmajorkepler]

i mostly ship chapyard bc i’m a sucker for those rival to lovers tropes but sometimes i’ll get reminded of “i wish we had gone out for coffee, the two of us together” and “i loved you from the first syllable” and chapgone’s overall development in canon and i feel my heart clench bc WHAT

[butchhamlet]

do you have any good shakespeare retelling book recs?

what a beautiful time to ask this, says guy who has left this ask collecting cobwebs in his inbox for months! because guess who has two thumbs and just finished queen goneril by erin shields! WHAT a fucking play, holy SHIT, this is some of the best characterization of the lear sisters that i've ever read and the exploration of womanhood as filtered through class + race + shitty families + political maneuvering is so so so good. also the things shields does with the og playtext... chef's fucking KISS

anyway, recency bias aside, i've been meaning to make a post about my favorite shakespeare retellings for a while, and i think i never actually did it because i wanted to make a lear retelling ranking list and then i never read some of the ones on my TBR. so whatever. the learlist will happen someday. here are my favorites in general. (here is my goodreads shelf for the retellings i've read, good and bad, and here is the shelf for the ones i have yet to read.)

in no particular order:

a thousand acres by jane smiley: outsold. epitome of what makes an effective retelling--a book that clearly has something to say about and to the original text, but that also isn't afraid to diverge, to exclude here and zoom in there. ungraciously, this is "lear on a farm" and it starts a little slow, but holy fucking shit, i can't do justice in a paragraph to the way this book unraveled me. one of the best books of all time mayhaps. also, introduced the edmund character by describing his ass. 10/10

the last true poets of the sea by julia drake: i don't read that much YA anymore but jesus fucking christ. books tailored for me specifically. twelfth night retelling about siblings + mental illness + being bisexual + love triangles that actually make sense (emotions are confusing!) instead of being contrived + beautiful description + excellent dialogue + THE MENTAL ILLNESS. books that made me start crying in zoom class in 2020

rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead by tom stoppard: kind of a cop-out answer because we all know this one. but that does not detract from how good it is. this is one of those plays, at least for me, that makes me think, "ohhhhhh, THIS is what theater can do. this is using its medium to the absolute utmost." it is so clever and it makes me want to cry. i think about "i don't know. it's the same sky" more often than i can say

american moor by keith hamilton cobb: not exactly a retelling, but a one-man play about a Black man auditioning for the lead role in Othello, tangling as he does with his relationship with shakespeare's work and cultural dominance. suuuuuch a good fucking play even beyond the analysis of othello (which is excellent); the language is so fucking incredible. everyone who likes shakespeare should read this.

teenage dick by mike lew: modern teenage richard iii; this one's more reimagining than retelling, because it diverges pretty sharply from the plot of richard iii, but god, it's so fucking fun. and upsetting! really upsetting also.

foul is fair by hannah capin: i will be so real. i read this in high school and some of the YA books i've revisited since did not hold up for me. so idk if i can tell you this is "good" with my full chest. but the pitch is "lady macbeth gets sexually assaulted at a party and decides to fucking kill the boys who did it" and i stayed up until like 1am to finish it because it was such a vicious gleaming wild ride

the stars undying by emery robin: does this count? hard to say, because it's just as much a retelling of roman history than shakespeare's antony and cleopatra (honestly, more, since it focuses on the era where caesar and cleopatra were lovers, which is before shakespeare's play). but i'm counting it anyway because it's bisexual space opera cleopatra and it's the best book i've read so far in 2024 and it's making me crazy and i'm writing a thesis on it < genuinely

peerless by jihae park: macbeth, but college applications, featuring asian macbeths (they're twin sisters >:3) who think their classmate has taken their place in their dream school because of affirmative action/DEI. this play is absolutely VICIOUS. it's macbeth x heathers. think it mirrors macbeth in faltering a little in its final stretch, but it still fucks hard

the wednesday wars by gary d. schmidt: okay, not a retelling; this is about a preteen boy in the 60s. but it's one of the best most genuine and heartwarming books i've ever read and it manages to be hilarious while also foregoing cheap slapstick punching-low humor for a hell of a lot of warmth and passion. and the main character interacts with shakespeare a lot as a running theme so i can justify putting it on this list. #evangelizing

of course, i would be remiss not to mention that @suits-of-woe / @mjulianwrites has written the best take on Two Gentlemen of Verona to ever exist, and i mean that quite seriously. unfortunately it hasn't been published yet so we'll all just have to prayer-circle about it. i would also be remiss not to take the opportunity to. uh. coughs. do a bit of casual self-promo. if you 1. have ocd 2. have gender or 3. think about malvolio a lot. boy do i have the novella for you

will definitely add to this when i read more retellings; feel free to drop recs in the tags/replies/reblogs/my askbox!

[hrodvitnon]

Just got out of my first viewing (spoilers so tag accordingly)

Yeah that was the most ridiculous shit ive ever seen and i had a blast lmfao.

--

To get the few negatives out of the way: Syclla and Tiamat got COOKED. That's crazy. Especially Tiamat. I had no idea she was in the movie and like choked on popcorn when they said her name. First onscreen appearance and she dies in like 3 seconds... sucks to be her. But honestly... this is probably one of those moments where Fan Content messes with the perception of a canon thing, at least for me. It hurts a lot more because of the emotional attachment from stuff like Ozymandias's story, Shamhat, and other adjacent stuff. If I had never seen those and watched her die I'd probably think "oh she had a cool design, but whatever". But yeah, my only serious complaint is her being shafted and I don't even really think I can call it objective because there was definitely an attachment there.

Ok besides that this might be my new personal favorite Monsterverse. Could be recency bias but I don't think so. Every human is at the very least entertaining. Everything Trapper did in this movie made me crack up, hearing Bernie say the words 'Discord chat' and 'Ghidorahstan64' (i stg this was a callout of some kind) onscreen gave me terminal whiplash, and although Jia and Andrew's story was sorta surface level, it was still endearing. I'd rather have a good human storyline, sure, but if we can't have that I'll settle for entertaining.

Here I thought Suko was gonna be an annoying marketing ploy to sell toys... I physically snorted in the theatre when Kong slammed him into that one ape. MVP of the film lmao. Mothra was... also there. Yeah, it really shows that she was a last minute addition. But DAMN she sent Godzilla ROLLING with a single attack. Speaking of, I don't think the Tia-Zilla form was as underutilized as I've heard people say it was. Especially that new Atomic Breath effect. Holy eargasm.

Oh man though, Shimo and Skar are fantastic. Skar hits the same beat as like a Celestial Dragon or Vladimir Harkonnen with way more grace than I would've expected from a big monkey. They go shockingly dark with his treatment of the ape-slaves and Shimo... especially with that female ape insinuation.

Holy shit poor Shimo, man. I honestly thought the Skar controlling her aspect would be kinda downplayed and just regular mind control, not genuine torture of some kind. I love that they let her have characterization by resisting him at every chance she gets, and that the pain control isn't always active (i'm assuming that's the insinuation of keeping her all chained and behind magma, it depowers and restrains her when Skar's not actively using her), further insinuating she gets merciful breaks from hellish enslavement only to be yanked back into it whenever Skar needs something turned into a popsicle. I think my favorite moment in the film is right after Suko shatters the crystal and the light blue luminescence fades to reveal her actual eyes for the first time. Eyes are used throughout the film to show subtle humanizing features, like Godzilla falling asleep in Rome, Kong's wide eyes when he sees his kin, and shock when Shimo realizes she's free. Having her eyes glowing the whole film makes her seem way more monstrous and inhuman, so when that suddenly goes away she starts getting framed as just an animal. Also her eyes are pretty. Also, I lied, that wasn't my favorite part of the film. My favorite part was Kong giving her chin scratches and that cute half-hug. This needs to be normalized. He needs to hug Godzilla next film. I will pay someone a king's ransom for this to happen. Final little detail, I like that Kong doesn't do his final roar from on her back but standing next to her, on the same level as all the other apes. He doesn't look to elevate himself over her or everyone else like Skar did, which is a great touch.

Also also also: Think it's time for a Doug solo film where he tries to steal all the Titans' food. Make it happen Legendary.

Much agreement here! I'd love for a solo Mothra MonsterVerse film to really capitalize on her lore and give her stuff to do (without dying at the end preferably); maybe establish some connection between the Chen family and Jia. Also, I need a little shot of Mothra going to visit Godzilla while he's sleeping in the Colosseum and just cuddle up to the big lug.

Andrews and Jia were a welcome breath of fresh air after GvK reversed Mark's characterization and Madison became... that. There was still some slight tension between Jia not feeling like she belongs and Andrews wanting to do right by her, even if it means possibly giving her up, only for Jia to go "you're my mom, you're my home, stop being dramatic". You love to see it.

Adding to the Doug solo film idea... Shimo adopts him because he's cute and she thinks his shenanigans are hilarious. Let us have fun wholesome times!

[rincewitch]

controversial dragon age hot take

anyway after i finished veilguard for the first time i lost my mind and started playing the entire series from origins onward. due to dragon age madness i guess? anyway having now completed that odyssey, i think i actually like veilguard the best? it feels hard to compare dragon age games since they're all thematically, tonally, mechanically, and aesthetically different from one another, since it's not like the mass effect trilogy or whatever-- it's four separate stories that share a setting and history. the things origins does well are different from the things dragon age ii does well, and both are different from the things inquisition does well. the same applies to all of their shortcomings-- dragon age ii being rushed out the door before it was done cooking left the game feeling limited in scope; inquisition over-corrected for this by being like twenty billion hours long and sending you all around the map to collect weird skulls and constellations on a horse that adds speed-lines to create the illusion you are actually moving faster. i like all of the dragon age games, but i like each one for mostly different reasons than i like any of the others (beyond the broadest of broad strokes like 'i like dialogue-heavy CRPGs as a genre' or 'i like to be a gay elf' or whatever)

but, with all of those caveats-- i still think veilguard is my favorite? maybe it's just recency bias, maybe it's because i'm a fake dragon age fan who secretly just yearns for another mass effect game (because this was certainly the most mass effect-like of the DA games), maybe i'm just gay for neve and her low cut shirts, idk.

[batsplat]

I know you have said that you don’t think Marc-Pecco will happen but what are your thoughts on the chances for Jorge-Marco drama? I remember Jorge said that Marco was his least favourite rider in the grid at some point or something similar to that effect.

don't want to sound like a downer by constantly talking down beef-likelihood, but this one is very much in the 'I'll believe it when I see it' camp. ik they're not historically best buds but also... bez is out on his own for the first time, he's left the nest at a time where his confidence is at a pretty low point... he wants to make this work and he understands he's been signed as the support act for the reigning world champion. and my sense with bez in general is that he's more bark than bite... I just don't think he's built for a full-on intra-team feud. that stuff is exhausting!! if the vibes ever deteriorate within the garage, he'll probably just be miserable

the other factor is... look, in the nicest way possible, while it is possible to have beef with a teammate you're not competitive against, it's way less likely. competitors fight when they regularly compete... it helps when there's stakes, both in the short-term on the track and more big picture in terms of who the team is geared towards. bez has some convincing to do on that front. jorge's kinda earned a base level of trust from me where I feel reasonably happy to predict he won't stink it up at aprilia (I'm hopeful, anyway). (caveat that you can never really predict whether a rider will click with a specific bike - though at least the post-season test didn't look offensively bad for either of them, for whatever that's worth.) whereas with bez... well, we'll see if last year was the outlier. I'll accept casey's judgement that in his theoretical vision for motogp, bez would be very fast, I think that's very nice for theoretical!bez (though I also think casey is once again paying a little too little attention to the importance of mentality) - but we don't live in that version of the sport. I'm aware I'm maybe falling prey to recency bias here but like... jorge's 2022 and bez's 2023 were bigger surprises to me than their respective 2024's were

we'll see! definitely think the most LIKELY path to beef is bez challenging jorge more than jorge was expecting and jorge feeling a bit threatened by that. the honeymoon period from your first title can survive a lot, but also this stuff fades faster than you'd think - if jorge has a proper tough transition to aprilia, if he's feeling very frustrated and he gets into a bit of a crash doom spiral, if bez has a string of positive results and THEN maybe they have a bit of a run-in on the track... sure, I can vaguely see the path. idk if you get anything particularly lasting from that but I can see how you get some friction

in conclusion I do think it's possible but a) it requires bez to get his act together, and b) it's more likely to come from martin than vice versa. it might not be the warmest teammate relationship but, if that's the case, bez might just kind of sadly wilt. though as ever I encourage him to prove me wrong

[rafent]

[ AWKWARD ]: after a particularly rough first encounter, the sender meets the receiver again, and awkwardly greets them with more than a touch of embarrassment.

Though they had not really met previously, that scarcely changed the awkward tint to the greeting Alfonse offered. In truth, he partially expected Rafal to just keep walking and ignore him entirely. He was aware of the Fell Dragon, but that was essentially the extent of his knowledge. He couldn't be satisfied with that. Alfonse needed to know more, especially when Rafal seemed such a pivotal figure in the history of his world.

So Alfonse reached out with a small greeting, but his voice wavered as he did. Confidence fled him as soon as he gazed upon the Fell Dragon's visage. Rafal's dour expression was cause enough for hesitation already, making it feel as though any attempt to speak to him would be bothersome more than anything else. Nel had only spoken of Rafal on occasion, but she made him sound far kinder than the man Alfonse saw before him now.

"Ah... h-hey," Alfonse finally managed to repeat, swallowing his concerns as best he could. "You wouldn't happen to enjoy pastries, would you? I fear I made a few too many of them..."

...They were probably a bit cold by now, actually. He'd planned this little ploy well in advance, but he'd spent too much time waffling over whether or not he ought to go through with it. That made the gesture all the more transparent, he feared.

"Who is asking."

Who the hell are you—where such an uncouth phrase shirked the dragon's tongue in its entirety, its emphatic effect resounded the same. Rafal turned to eye the source of a quivering voice; sharp distrust inhospitable as winter storm, bluntness dry as desert gale, and natural barrier both which deterred the approach of others. Whatever force had possessed this young man to make his greetings then might as well have been a buster against all sense of life preservation.

Fortunately, he was in a patient mood.

"I do in fact—oddly well-informed though your wager. I cannot say that my first meeting with anyone has ever involved them making such a convenient offering." Far too aptly tailored an opportunity between strangers. The Rafal of yesterday may have thought slightly better of such convenience. The better versed - and more wizened - Rafal of today held his reasonable reservations.

He was not especially keen to accept someone's first time offering, to say the least. A shiver coursed down the knobs of his spine in recollection of the last occasion. . .and its recency. Ghost pepper did not belong on a cake. Who knew what other forms of edible ambush lie in wait by the hands of those least known and expected? Snowy locks swayed on shaking head. Ahem, back to present.

"The impression of me as a means of waste disposal for your excess sweets is offensive. But if the alternative is throwing them away, then I might agree to taking them." The caveat all too hasty: "Provided there are no spicy cakes involved."

[rozaceous]

For the 'AO3 Wrapped' asks:

17. Your favorite character to write this year?

and

18. The character that gave you the most trouble writing this year?

(all the gory details you're willing to give, please!)

17) ahhaha part of this might be the effect of recency, but i've loved writing sasuke. you know how you read other people writing a character and in your head it's like 'well, that's good but i'd do it like this--'

that's been writing sasuke. he's a complex character, not least because of the narrative framing of canon, and i've so very much wanted to give him the catharsis i wish he'd had. he's also just so fucking funny.

18) it's not a secret, writing itachi was like pulling teeth for me. i love me a freak, but he's not my preferred brand of freak. also, trying to nail his narrative style for the pov ch, where he's super formal and almost flowery in his internal dialogue versus abrupt and sort of stilted in his speech, was really challenging. (big kudos to @vermillioncrown bc they were my vibe-check that whole ch for him.) he's also a genius or whatever but SOOOOOOO stupid in basically every way that counts, especially in understanding people, that i was just making 'WARRRRGHHHH' noises at my laptop half the time bc he's so fucking dumb and so fucking cruel.

i honestly prefer the kinds of characters who are either purposefully cruel and sort of relish it, or the ones who are knowingly cruel and regretful about it because it's a necessary side-effect of their actions. itachi is utterly oblivious to just how/what flavor of cruel he is, it's nearly an accident, and it really grinds my gears. like, if you're going to be evil, at least be more self-aware??????

i wanna strangle the dude, tbh.

[cinematicnomad]

4-7, 17, and 18

004. a film you could watch on repeat for the rest of your life? answered :) but some others i could def rewatch forever: apollo 13, spotlight, a few good men, catch me if you can, almost famous, jaws...

005. what’s the very first film you remember watching? ooooh. difficult! it's hard bc my family are big movie watchers, so i've been watching movies for longer than i can remember. it's kind of hard to pinpoint a specific "ONE"? like, i know for a fact that apparently as a toddler i drove my aunt insane by making her rewind and replay 101 dalmatians over and over again (in her words: 101 times, until she lied and told me the VHS was broken lol). it's a cop out, but i'm gonna say i don't remember.

006. a film you wish you hadn’t watched? this might be mean, i'm sure i've watched worse and more problematic films, but spielberg's the BFG (2016) made me want to gouge my own eyes out. my brother got us free tickets bc he was working at a theatre at the time, and it's the only time i ever remember repeatedly checking the time as the movie dragged on and literally begging for it to be over. i missed out on reading roald dahl as a kid, so i really had like. NO nostalgia for the story and i could not stand the effects that were used in the movie.

on a similar note: oh my god, the polar express (2004) is a literal uncanny valley hellscape?? another movie i saw in theatres and was baffled by.

007. a film you wish had a sequel? there aren't a lot of movies that i wish would get sequels tbh. if anything, i wish there were fewer sequels in the world.

not quite on the same level, but i wish sam raimi had gotten to do spiderman 4. he had a whole plan for 6 spiderman movies and from what he's said about them, i was honestly very intrigued (mainly bc he always approached it as peter and mary jane's story and then figured out what was going on with spiderman to fit in with those arcs, which is just more character driven and compelling to me). it's a bummer the series had to end on a down note like spiderman 3 which really got taken over by the studio who demanded elements be added to the story that raimi wasn't interested in telling and it's v evident. if he'd been given free reign to take back the series, i'd like to have seen where things went.

017. which cinematic universe would you like to live in? none, this universe is hard enough to navigate without magic or supervillains or aliens or whatever.

018. what’s your favourite biopic? recency bias makes me want to say oppenheimer (2024) which i saw in theatres three times. maybe catch me if you can (2002) in terms of which i've rewatched the most.

🎬 film ask game 🎬

[probskay]

This is also a room that is bizarre on first brush but begins to make sense when you understand the context behind it.

I live in Utah, and I used to live in a house where my bedroom would have been designed similarly and, had a photo been taken of it at the time, very well may have ended up on this blog.

See, Utah has a quirk in a lot of its older housing of having been built in the 1900's, with many homes being built between 1920 and 1970. The older the house is, the worse the architectural decisions being made become. Utah is known for its high Mormon population, but what most outsiders to the state don't think about is the recency of its population boom compared to other states. The city of Ogden, Utah, around 30 miles north of Salt Lake City (the state capital) is one of the stops that an old transcontinental railroad used to run through. The place got a lot of immigrant foot traffic as a result.

Prior to that population boom, Utah was a rather insular state consisting primarily of Mormon Settlers and whatever native populations hadn't been genocided yet. In southern Utah, indigenous tribes were often partially nomadic or entirely stationary, meanwhile northern Utah tribes were primarily nomadic. As well, the Mormons were a persecuted group in the rest of the United States, meaning that the people who chose to go to Utah typically could not have effective contact with other states and their expert laborers. This isolation meant that the Mormon colonists were forced to become almost entirely self reliant in nearly every aspect of life. Traders would stop by, sure, but it wouldn't be until closer to Utah acquiring proper statehood that they would be more open to engaging in outside, non-Mormon populations.

(side note, the Mormons actually tried to create a new language that could have been used by them, Mexicans, Utes, Paiutes, and other indigenous tribes in order to both make converting those groups who didn't speak English easier alongside creating a further rift between them and the rest of the English speaking united states in their efforts to become an independent nation. that didn't pan out)

This means the Mormons were building their own houses, and by god were they mediocre at it. This also meant the entire state had set a precedent that people would just build their own houses, so when those population booms I mentioned earlier started happening, other immigrants and laborers would show up and build their own houses, too, and their expertise was often just as questionable.

Another very important fact about Mormonism is that having large families is seen as a moral good. While not nearly as openly praises today as it once was, the long abandoned institution of polygamy ensured that having a lot of kids with your spouse(s) would remain a staple of many Mormon families for a long time. In other places in the u.s., hearing about a family with 8 kids is a rare oddity. In Utah, 8 kids is on the higher end of things but doesn't turn too many heads when people talk about having that many siblings.

This creates a scenario. You are a Mormon family colonising Utah. You've got 4-8 children with you. Perhaps there is even more than one wife in the family. You're building a house with little oversight from a real architect and no oversight from OSHA. You are going to maximize your space. You need many bedrooms in order to house yourself, your spouse, and your children. You also need a basement where the temperature remains colder and you can keep food. You build this tall house, and you have all this attic room where an adult can't stand very comfortably, but children? They're practically built for such a small space!

This, you get a room like this. There is an obvious slant on the edge of the room where the ceiling is, and if you cut through that you would remove a few inches of wood and be greeted with open sky.

This example in particular is especially funny because of how obvious the modern renovations on this old style of home are. That weird blue wall on the right was likely added at some point in order to clean up the space a little, make is seem more uniform. Unfortunately it also removes precious square footage, enough square footage to fit an entire queen sized mattress, where with the wall you would be lucky to fit a full.

The kind of teal patterning on the left side of the photo? Absolutely baffling. I couldn't explain that without talking to whoever installed it to ask why it's there. Clearly the wall jutting out of that empty space is hiding necessary support beams that keep the house standing, but what's with the texture? Why is it different from the paint on the wall around it as well as this bright baby blue wall mere feet away as well? Is that what all of the walls look like, but the rest of them have been painted over? Without speaking to whoever built the home and whoever made the renovations later, we could never possibly know.

S Jones Road, Monroe, Utah.

[lunarsilkscreen]

Alternate Search Algorithms

In order for a context appropriate search engine that returns results that people actually want, Google invented their current page rank system.

Which, because of monetization, has been kind of corrupted. But whatever... It's still useful.

There's a reason (Bing!) gets a lot of crap, despite actually being useful in ways Google is not. It's because it's not as useful as Google in the specific way Google operates. Despite you know; monetized results corrupting the business model.

So this is the obvious example of how different search engines can be useful.

Page Rank require that "useful pages" or "prestigious pages" get the most attention, because they have clout. And this clout comes from people referencing their page.

But suppose you're trying to get information on Presidential Candidate Donald Trump; but keep getting SNL videos starring Alec Baldwin dressed as trump because of that *popularity*.

And you can see why certain advertising agents have been using bots and AI generated content that create references online towards their products. Artificially inflating popularity and clout rankings.

So now we already have several variations of search that I've told you about.

Page Rank, when used by professionals for work related issues

Monetization Rank, Which artificial inflates Page Rank by paying somebody. Not always the Search Providers themselves, but quite often these days.

Clout Rank, by artificially creating links and references to boost pages to the top of the search engine.

And here's one more I'm going to introduce; Rankless search. Or rather, kind of the original search that simply used keywords or author written meta-data. This system was highly abused in a similar way Clout Rankers abuse today's system. By putting a lot of hidden text on a page for popular keywords, or overloading meta-data with all the keywords in order to increase bait clicking and get that sweet ad revenue.

Today; Social Media platforms are having issues with the exact same mechanism. With Hashtags, and search meta-data and relevance and #foryoupage

All in attempts to play the system instead of making good content.

And because good content creators developed these methods of "playing the system", bad content creators, who believe their content is good; it just doesn't have enough visibility *must* play the system in order to get ahead.

Thanks Bread Tube!"I was

All this does is reveal the same things we've already known about. People need search tools that reveal what they're looking for, and not what others want them to see.

And bad content gets ahead by playing the system.

Bad as in the negative bad. Like, "I wasted my life by watching this 10 second clip bad". Like "I was searching for relevant historical information about the silk trade and wound up binge watching Breaking Bad instead" bad.

There are a few ways to improve these keyword searches, and search engines in general.

As Social Media figured out, Meta-Data (hashtags) are a perfectly viable approach.

What they don't seem to understand is that they should probably limit the search to like... A self-imposed ranking order.

As in the first 2 or 3 tags are the main page information, and each subsequent tag creates a more niche view of the first few tags.

Or different search engines like Wikipedia. Which features curated content about a specific subject.

It's effectively all the same search tech online, they just give it different words because they're either dumb, think it's an improvement instead of reinventing the wheel, bamboozling the copyright offices, or because of non-disclosure agreements

Anyway here's a list of different search types we need online;

YellowPages for businesses, both local and online.

Rankless sorted by recency.

Split types between "Academic and Research", "Commerical", "Non-profit Organizations", "Social media", "News Reports" which is simply vetted news sources releasing articles about current events, "Opinion Pieces" obviously because without those they'd clump them in with news, "R&D" which showcases niche and fringe articles usually related to business and exemplified by tech, gaming, and speciality magazines.

And they need to somehow be free to utilize, because if not; Businesses AND their readers will simply be priced out of the market.

They can price themselves out through their own monetization efforts, they don't need the assistance.

And so what I've described is an inherently unprofitable type of business, that would also *somehow* need to be funded through various means and donations...

Like some sort of... Non-profit utility that helps small business remain competitive against big business.

Simultaneously, it needs a form of protection that prevents abuse and misuse of the system. But I provided a potential solution in the guise of "limited hashtags and meta-data".

Speaking of which.... Wouldn't requiring metadata to be stripped from online files reduce costs and bandwidth requirements? Elon Musk counting every individual byte that goes through his servers, but this one slipped his radar? Hmmmm.

One last question I haven't answered is; how would content platforms be able to share content that their users actually want to view ? I don't know, the algorithms suck.

I'm pretty sure there's only three episodes of the "Lex Freedman Podcast" because YouTube only recommends and auto plays those three episodes whenever I'm finished watching one of the six latenight videos that actually wanted to watch back to back.

Well, at least not stuck with the same three "Last week tonight's" anymore.

[littleeyesofpallas]

So like Ive complained frequently of the weird direction DC has allowed multiple authors to take lore surrounding the Lazarus Pit in the past couple of years... (I hate the weird shit with Mother Soul and the literal pit demon. I hate the shit with the Orgham/Arkham family and the nonsense Romeo&Juliet ass drama. I hate the shit with Vandal Savage and the meteorite and the pit being the same thing.) And I will generally stand by my argument that adding more hard answers to questions no one asked can and will only ever serve to shrink the scope of the world and lore by tethering things better left to the imagination down to uninteresting "facts" of the matter. However....

If I had to proffer my own headcanon, it's not like I don't have my own ideas... But more importantly there are parameters I'd personally follow that I expect any other writer to follow regardless of the actually details of the lore. Chief among them being that any explanation of the pit's logistics needs first and foremost to address why the pit shouldn't be used, and what the consequences of abusing it are.

These two answers go hand in hand as they both help to draw lines around why as a plot device the pit should not be abused AND help to define the actions and motives of characters who have already interacted with the pit.

Personally I have a few versions of how the pit could theoretically operate and what it's origins could be, but shared among them are certain effects that I find critical to it. Mainly, I think every use of the pit should involve the person using it effectively reliving their entire life including their death. This in turn can account for the poorly defined "pit madness" that only selectively seems to affect the resurrected depending on who's writing any given story. It would mean to bring the dead back to life would force them to reexperience their death, powerfully reinforcing a kind of trauma and PTSD, where as using it on the still living would create a sort of distorted perspective on their life, floating all their strongest memories to the surface and suppressing less emotionally extreme experiences, effectively funneling them towards more extreme biases. AND it would meaning cramming all that emotional intensity into whatever condensed space it takes to revive them, which no matter the case, would obviously have to be significantly denser than a 1:1 rate of experience. And in the obviously unique case of pit abuse in Ra's it would manifest in an almost Alzheimer's-like chronic delirium where his ability to recall memory would become muddled by the redundant and recursive memories being replayed across multiple still living "resurrections." Basically meaning Ra's has such vivid and reinforced memory of his life that he slips into PTSD like flashbacks without warning where he can't distinguish the vivacity of his supernaturally manipulated memory from his current lived reality. At some point the dozens of times he's relived his life become more "real" in his mind than the living present before him.

And this would have interesting unique consequences for certain characters. In Damian's case the reliving his life would be shorter and marginally less traumatic, by virtue of magnitude, but also would provide him a unique perspective in being able to reassess his own upbringing while still developing his perspective on life as a whole. In ways this would be beneficial, as it would allow him to see his cult-like upbringing within the league with fresh clear perspective, but also provoke strong reactions from his only partially developed emotion regulatory ability.

Where as someone like Jason would relive his extreme trauma, even outside the realm of his death itself, and it would account for the extremity of his vengeful return. In a way his clarity of vision about his life with Batman and death and torture at the hands of the Joker would be more accurate than Bruce's by way of clarity and recency, but his reactionary emotional responses would be equally prone to bias.

As a funky side effect it would sort of make a consequence of the pit be a partial photographic memory. The memories of their past life not being relived the once but forever enhanced in clarity and recallable. Again to a degree in which those lost lives and their inability to fade in clarity make them feel more real than the post resurrection life.

As an added nugget of juicy drama it would be interesting of Ra's thus held a kind of bitter chokehold on a toxic nostalgia, in which is futile attempts to return to League of Assassins to some long lost golden age, either of their reign or his own personal exploits, he finds himself addicted to the pit, not just for longevity's sake but because of the sensation of being taken back to those phantom halcyon days.

[mpatriciaann]

Limitless by Jim Kwik

Everyone's goals don't revolve around just to solve all the world's problems, invent a new technology, or start a billion-dollar company, but sometimes to see how applying exponential thinking might make a real difference to work, school, business, or just your personal growth.

This book is good for speed reading and for someone who finds it difficult to focus and remember names and events. For me, it's also important to note the various ways people use their intelligence and their variety of perspectives, as we all have our own kinds of superpowers we can harness by thinking differently. You may also follow him on Instagram, just like I did for a lot of his success stories from different people. He even makes it a point to reassure his students that they are not aiming for perfection but for progress. 🤍

I raise a glass to the limitless version of myself, the version who has an unbounded perspective. I no longer hold the belief that there are many different things that I am incapable of being or doing. It's possible that there are a lot of things I haven't done yet, and it's also possible that there are a lot of things that I've had difficulties doing in the past, but the boundless me understands that my past does not equal my future.

I pray that the limitless version of myself will realize that my brain is a far more powerful tool than I may have previously realized, and that if I apply my mind to learning whatever it is that I want to study, I will eventually be able to master just about any ability.

To my greatest hope, every single one of me also possesses the limitless capacity to be motivated. In the past, I may have been able to imagine living a more ambitious life, but I was never able to motivate myself to really make those aspirations a reality. Now, though, I am aware of how to coordinate my routines with my goals; I am able to commit to ongoing education and growth throughout my life, and doing so comes as easily to me as putting on clothes in the morning.

Here are some additional reading tips from him:

1. Hold your book upright. If the book is flat on your desk, you may be doing one of two things, either

2. you will be slouched over in order to see the print clearly, and this (as you know) disrupts the flow of oxygen through your body and makes you feel tired.

3. Read for only 20 to 25 minutes at a time. Remember the primacy and recency effect. Also, if your eyes ever get tired or feel strained, take a break. Close your eyes and let them rest.

4. Make reading a habit. Those who have reached a high degree of success in life are almost always avid readers.

I find this cute btw:

ANTs - Automatic Negative Thoughts

LIEs - Limiting Ideas Entertained

I hope imma visualize my celebratory champagne moment!

Thank you brain coach, Jim Kwik!

[sepublic]

Eda’s Requiem!

         Ukla! Derwin! Amber!

         KATYA! DARIUS! EBERWOLF!!!

         We got NAMES y’all… And Scooter Crane, the previous head of the Bard Coven, who has retired! No relation to Raine Whispers… Wonder how Belos felt about Crane retiring, or if he preferred a younger replacement for whatever role the Coven Heads are playing?

         Because… Well, firstly- WE FINALLY see Kikimora’s other eye, and it’s red! And she’s able to activate the coven binding (so confirmation that Coven Heads are bound) to restrict and potentially mind-control Raine… Well, at least Raine is alive and not a traitor to Eda! BUT DANG IT RAINE WWWHHHYYYYY!!!!!

         Also, needing a group of people to activate a powerful spell, and being unable to kill them for it?! This is just like the sacrifices from Fullmetal Alchemist… Though if it’s anything like the ‘Sacrifices’, then the Coven Heads MIGHT be okay! If Raine doesn’t know, it’s probable that the others like Darius and Eberwolf are unaware… But who knows, Belos may have left out Raine due to their obvious recency! I could definitely see OG coven heads knowing the specifics of the plan…

         And all nine coven heads, to represent all nine forms of magic, united to form magic as a whole- And likely to draw power from each of the nine forms of coven binding! Because this episode confirmed what a lot of us suspected, that the coven bindings form a dual purpose- Not JUST to restrict magic, but to even DRAIN IT for whatever spell Belos will use to merge the realms! The question I gotta ask is- Will witches still have magic leftover?

         Or will Belos COMPLETELY drain witches of their bile-based magic through the coven bindings?! With what I said about Belos controlling all of bile-magic… Does he plan to hold all of magic in his grasp, for him to hand out in the form of those magitech staffs that he can control! Just like with Hunter… He’s creating multiple ‘Hunter’s… Witches without bile magic, and with the Demon Realm fused with our world, glyphs and wild magic beyond that are gone as well!

         This dude is NUTS… He’s planning to destroy most of magic, and then keep it all to himself, that parasite! All magic comes and goes through him, HE is the source of magic… And I bet Belos wants to use that magic to heal his curse! Or not, because…

         We see how Eda’s curse can mess with magic, and how she can low-key transmit the effects to her surroundings through Bard Magic, endangering even herself, Raine, Darius, and Eberwolf in the process! If Belos has a similar curse, will HE use his curse and transmit it through the coven bindings to drain and/or destroy the magic of others?! And he accepted his curse for that precise reason?!

         If so, Eda having her own curse could come into play here, but I’m not sure how…

         …ALSO KING’S FATHER IS ALIVE?!?! And looking REALLY small… Well, I guess that kills off the theory that he’s about the size of the Titan, right? Unless he shrank… Yeah, the Shrinking Demon theory makes a lot of sense, OR he’s used his powerful magic to make himself small! The latter seems probable, and if so…

         HE KNOWS KING IS ALIVE I did NOT expect this to work out so quickly! Okay but then this probably means that King’s father wasn’t forced to abandon his son like, thousands of years as some of us speculated… It maybe, probably, WAS that recent, after all- Which means that King’s father must’ve been the leader of a generally remote and hidden society, if Lilith doesn’t know about it, even though it existed when she was member of the Emperor’s Coven!

         Oh dang… Did Belos ransack the island and capture/kill off everyone? Or was everyone a bunch of Jean-Luc’s…? And he absorbed the Jean-Luc’s, maybe converted them into the fleshy magic HE uses now?! And what is this fleshy magic… Did it lead to his own curse, or just make Belos more powerful? Is it related to the idea of reviving the Titan, or the Day of Unity, or whatever!?

         And if he’s been operating… Why did he abandon his son, after all?! Maybe Lilith was right… Or, he managed to escape Belos’ capture (because now I think it WAS Belos he fought after all), just in time to find Jean-Luc and his son missing? If so, he might’ve escaped VERY recently, like right after Echoes of the Past!

         Are we going to see him in Knock, Knock, Knocking on Hooty’s Door? Will it take him a while to travel? Is he going to leave King now that he’s with Eda, while he focuses on other things? That’s kinda harsh, but maybe he plans to come back… Still, it shouldn’t hurt too much to pay him a visit! Unless that’s not King’s father but some other relative, or a subject of the same species.

         Not gonna lie, when King announced his plan, I was legit concerned… Because if King brought up his ‘father’, what if Belos found out and realized who King really was- Leading to him being targeted?! And it’s not out of the question, either… Eberwolf sure was interested in that video, huh? And they’re a beastkeeper, so they’d know a lot about demons, including a potential king… Oh boy.

         On another note, we got to see the other Coven Heads outside of their Emperor’s regalia- As I suspected, they have normal outfits, like Lilith! And they look GOOD… I have to wonder, do we see Darius and Eberwolf together because like Raine, they’re also second-generation Coven Heads? They seem relatively young, though I guess you can’t really tell in Eberwolf’s case. With how we see a student who resembles Darius in Eda’s flashback, and how Darius has a specific message for Alador…

         That might’ve been him after all, as Al’s classmate and potential rival! If so, Darius and Alador having a petty dispute and rivalry is HILARIOUS to me… Darius is probably some sort of Abomination Purist, and thinks that magic should be restricted to the witch themselves, while Alador prefers to externalize and ‘taint’ it with machines, the way Belos would! I love this, two artistic geniuses who are both valid, but despise the other’s style for some inane, pretentious ‘art’ reason! First Mutran and Chirox, now Darius and Alador…!

         It also makes Alador’s suggestion that Amity could replace Darius all the more hilarious, because this rivalry could very well be mutual! Or, Alador legit doesn’t care, he’s just in it for power… Who knows, maybe he lowkey always wanted to get that leg up on Darius, for personal and/or pragmatic reasons, but he went with Odalia because she insisted on the Emperor’s Coven! But then he saw his opportunity to get what HE wanted, and is now encouraging Odalia to go along since it makes more sense anyway?

         It’s not just Odalia who’s using her kid to outdo a rival, it’s Alador too! With poor Amity as proxy… This reminds me of that time I suggested Darius adopting Amity. Looking at his personality now, I kind of doubt it- But that’d be such HILARIOUS karma for Al, wouldn’t it?! Also, a lot of those wild witches that Eda and the BATTs freed… They looked like some of the witches in that crowd for Odalia and Alador’s presentation!

         So do the two of them know who they’re selling to, and do they care? Or have they been considering a stake in the rebellion for their own benefit- Which would put Darius and Alador at odds with one another, with Amity between! Speaking of which, love that Amity, Emira, and Edric cameo, and WILLOW WITH CLOVER!!! We need more Willow and Clover, I’m really hoping we get at least a solid B-plot focusing on her…

         We also got to see palismen for other kids, AND that Glandus Grudgby athlete I always liked, the dragon one- Not just here, but after appearing in the previous episode too! Ukla, I love her name and I love her mom! And amazingly enough, we see GAVIN, and he managed to win! I wonder what his interview was like, if he did it to get his dad’s attention, etc. With Darius showing up in this same episode, and King talking about getting his father’s attention through the interview… Are they preparing for the revelation that Darius really IS Gavin’s father?! I was skeptical, but now…!

         And again, I love Darius, and his rather ‘cleanly’ attitude for a dude who can literally turn into sludge. It fits the general look, outfit, and pristine vibes he has- He very much looked like some yoga instructor or skincare routine expert, so now I headcanon he very much uses his goop for that purpose. I’m glad to see more of Abomination Magic, it seems that Darius can turn himself into that stuff- Did he convert his ENTIRE body, or is just a temporary type of change that can be done, back and forth? Kinda reminds me of Belos…

         And Eberwolf! They summoned a pretty vicious-looking Rat Worm, are a bit of a werewolf, and it seems Beastkeeping Magic allows them to access the abilities of other animals… Or unlock/enhance their own, as a potential demon? I’M SO HAPPY we got names for these two, and ACTUAL appearances and voices and dialogue and interaction! Well mostly with Darius, Eberwolf didn’t say much, whatever!

         AND KATYA! NOT KATYA! I was wondering where she was and if there was a specific reason we never saw her again after the first episode, and there is! She’s contributing to an undercover resistance, and now her, Amber, and Derwin are back at the Conformatorium! My heart broke for her… Hope we see the BATTs escape again! AND DAMN, Belos… You worked quick and hard on rebellion, huh- You barely gave Raine time to breathe and exist, basically a day or so, before you caught them!

         I mean, arguably it was Darius, Eberwolf, and Kikimora… But the plan could’ve gone through him, so I dunno. Regardless, Raine… DANG IT of course we’d have to lose Raine, but I was hoping they’d escape and go into hiding as a public outlaw! Kikimora, going after our faves that are introduced each episode since now… First Hunter, and now Raine! Let Raine adopt Hunter or at least bond over their mutual hatred of Kikimora… Also, does Kikimora have a personal connection to coven bindings and their creation, or is she just able to activate them as Belos’ right hand? I sense something coming up with her, something major…

         RAINE! They were inspired by Eda, and… DANG IT NO SINGING, but I guess actual music works! Also, we understand the title now… Eda’s Requiem is a cursed distortion of Raine’s Rhapsody! Will we see Eda use it again in Raine’s honor? Again, I’m concerned… And Raine, RAEDA IS REAL YOU GUYS! Sure there’s the, um, complication of Raine’s capture and potential brainwashing… Which Lilith thankfully avoided because SHE isn’t coven-bound;

         But like!!! They’re an ITEM! And I guess Raine and Eda sort of split up because Raine wanted to do good in the Bard Coven, only to realize it’s all baloney? Dang it Raine… But yes Raine PLEASE come back ASAP! And I adore how them and Eda were fully prepared to take down Belos, though I have to wonder- If Belos needs everyone, why didn’t Raine just insist on being absent for the Day of Unity? Did they feel the need to be more proactive than that anyway –because stopping the merging wouldn’t stop the coven-bound witches and the actual dictatorship itself- and/or would Belos just find any replacement? Maybe drag in Crane from retirement if need be?

         Dang… Also, yeah- Their induction was VERY recent if we’re getting the official announcement! I wonder if Darius, Raine, and Eberwolf are second-generation, and that’s why we see them grouped together- They look younger, compared to the rest of the coven heads, who resemble their banners! Obviously the Illusion Head looks young too, but y’know… Illusions can hide his age, probably. I wonder if Darius and Eberwolf had any involvement in Raine’s rise as second-generation coven heads, and if there was any betrayal felt? Probably not.

         I wonder how Belos will cover this up, assuming Raine isn’t just straight-up brainwashed… They had to go on a secret mission? Maybe even claim that they DIED, while Raine is kept alive for the ceremony- While Belos chooses literally any schmuck to replace them? Would Eda know or find out, what does she think…?

         ALSO YES this episode is discussing and acknowledging Eda’s Empty Nest syndrome! And how she doesn’t feel worthy as Luz and King’s mother! And how she’s hopeful for a moment that Luz will stick around, how she says it outright that she can’t replace Camila nor King’s father… BUT THEN KING CLAWTHRONE IT’S LITERALLY THAT ADOPTION PAPER MEME!!!

         I was willing to leave out the King Clawthorne tag for my own sanity, but NOW I must! To respect them, and KING… Kudos on you for wanting to start off! And the fact that he accepts her as his mom, especially in the wake of realizing his true past as a little kid adopted by Eda… Now he’s embracing it! Oh my god… That was so SWEET, and how King says he still loves his father but also has Eda too! Luz, take that into account…

         I love how Eda has a similar dilemma to Luz in that she thinks the others don’t really need her as much… She thinks she’s not good enough and recent setbacks, having Lilith leave, the curse- Maybe they impacted her more than we thought! And Raine is like NO Eda that’s nuts, you have kids… THEY CALLED THEM HER KIDS!!! We speculated with Lilith and Gwen but finally RAINE calls out Luz and King as Eda’s kids, and how Eda tries to deflect but can’t!

         And Raine is like SCREW SACRIFICE, you have kids to look after! I wish we could see them meet Luz and King… And I hope Eda tells them about Raine! But maybe not, she wouldn’t want Luz to feel any guiltier… Though this DID save Eda’s life, so maybe she does say it? I just hope Luz doesn’t blame herself for Raine… And Rainstorm! Of course… What else could we have expected, they’re a real storm! Seems meek to us… But remember, in the Isles, rainstorms are DEADLY!

         Silly at first glance, but Raine IS potent… It’s just too bad their tenure is so brief! But Raeda is basically canon, so…! But god these two were ready to DIE TOGETHER, and I love how Raine calls out Eda on her self-sacrificial nonsense, that even if they have their own parents, Luz and King value her too! It’s a BIG family, thank you Raine! I’m glad to see someone give advice to Eda for once, and it’s Raine, who took to heart what she said as a peer, and is echoing it back!

         With Luz and King as kids, it makes sense that Eda wouldn’t use them as guidance… And Lilith is a huge mess- But RAINE! Raine actually loves Eda and cares for her, they’re a fellow adult! They can be someone she can vent to, or could’ve been… WILL be! I wish we got more Raine… But yeah, this episode basically confirms that Raine’s friendship helped keep Eda sane throughout the curse, when she couldn’t count on Gwen or Lilith, and presumably not her dad, for help!

         King… GOD, the pain and panic when Eda thinks she’s being left behind, but she doesn’t make it anyone else’s problem! But then King ends up affirming that he loves and appreciates her and is sticking around, KING…! Also dang King really is the reverse of that ‘Adoption Papers’ meme actually… Where he’s like I’m being adopted! And Eda is holding back tears and asks by who? And King hands her the papers and tells her to sign there.

         All in all a HUGE episode with many pivotal character introductions, connections hinted at, confirmations, etc.! We got major development and acknowledgement of Eda missing Luz and King, and how they still value her… We got SO MANY NAMES and Palismen it’s unreal, we even got to see an unexpected return! Perry, Gavin… And the Glandus and St. Epiderm principals, I’m side-eyeing the Glandus Principal!

         We also finally got a better look at Bard Magic, how it can effect things through sound- But if you can’t hear, it won’t effect someone! So it seems to transmit itself through noise that goes into objects, and then ‘echoes’ off of them to increase its power and take hold… But if the sound doesn’t travel through a witch, it’s useless! Interesting… Bard Magic would be great in combination with others- Opponents have to keep their ears muffled, which means they’re functionally deaf and can’t hear other attacks from behind!

         We got the reveal of ‘captains’, and presumably other ranks in the Emperor’s Coven- So that might be who that unique covenscout from Latissa who mourned Hunter is. And the covenscout with the blue plume from the trailer, are they a captain? A higher rank? I dunno… BUT YES, so much to this episode, and I love it! We got Coven Head lore, and I hope to get a better screenshot of the other Coven Heads in their regular attire… Wonder what happened to Eberwolf’s leech, or if it’s just a casual ride, with the Rat Worm as their main battle steed? Either way I love them!

         Eda lost Raine, King might mope because it seems his father hasn’t responded… And Luz, she has a lot in general to be concerned about- Hence why Hooty is picking them up next episode! The episode we know LEAST about, I feel… So it feels the most blind and has the potential to blindside us because of its innocuous name! 

        Will we see the curse manifest? Will Eda’s grief over Raine give it strength, or will she try another requiem in honor of Raine, only for the curse to seep into something, maybe SOMEONE, such as Hooty- And take hold! Also dang we finally got that gag of Hooty trying to eat the poor Echo Mouse… GIVE US THE WITTEBANE LORE, you! And also the Owls of Ga’hoole reference, I thought he hated them, hence his alliance with the Duolingo Owl? Or is he trying to claim their name for himself in victory and spite?

        So much to look back for and repeat… And I liked Raine’s coven banner, too! Damn, they really played us by having Raine briefly escape at the end, didn’t they?

[phoinexboi]

Evolution:

This is gonna be different from the Illusion post I made. Why:

1. I made the first part of this MONTHS ago for a freind therefore there's a whole introductory paragraph waiting for ya'll (It's definitely edited and refined like A LOT)

2. I need to explain things before I analyze it this time because this episode was... confusing.

Okay one of the things we have to address is the time travel rules this show follows. Now the show is attempting at a loop theory (although they are failing miserably. Why do I say they're doing this? Because this episode basically sets off the events of the show!

For those of you who don't know, the loop theory is a theory in time travel in which whenever someone goes back in time, NOTHING WILL CHANGE. This theory can be done well of horribly. For example, a positive example of this could be "Secrets of Sulphur Springs". It's a fairly underrated mini-series and should deserve more love. ANYWAYS, this show does the loop theory well because... you don't know how things go down in the end. And even if you do it will be written off in a satisfactory way. The show's main element is time travel and it does well with it. A bad example is the episode Timetagger. Now the Bunny/Rabbit miraculous has a fair amount of inconsistencies from the power function to the actual power itself. The main one I wanna focus on is the loop effect that kinda but isn't there....

Lemme explain. Earlier in the episode Bunnyx REMEMBERS that mini-her was waving. Meaning that this event had been planned and happened before looping.

However, later in the episode when the civillians were transported to the past they changed many paintings. If the show was a loop that never would've happened.

Now my problem with this episodes loop...

Master Fu chose teenagers because he MET teenagers. So he KNEW to give it to TEENAGERS!

A lot of people have illogically complained about how this doesn't make sense and how he couldn't see through the Quantum masking. BUT HE DIDN'T HAVE TO!

He knew they were teens... that's all.

My problem is that this is a LOOP situation which is shown throughout the episode but the "time travel is dangerous" exuse. Is still used when it either won't matter in the end or will just be inconsistenly used throughout the episode!

They practically ruined the show with this one scene...

Anyways, that isn't the whole point I just had to get the time issues out the way so you can get back to your irregularly scheduled content.

Now onto my actual thoughts regarding the episode...

Look I originally liked the episode when it came out but I think that was just recency bias...

Was the episode bad? No. Just boring...

Not super boring but slightly repetitive

The show has trouble doing something outside of the format they usually follow and you can tell!

Let's start at the beginning. We pick up right after the Season 4 finalie. The crowd chants Ladybugs name.

I didn't like that they did this... Why? Because they killed all momentum they set up in Season 4! I mean, first off, look what happened in this episode. BARELY ANYTHING! I liked this episode because of the ending. That's it...

So now it's time to continue this epic roast.

Now time for the real JUICE! Me breaking down random and somewhat opinionated thoughts I had about the episode and writing them for the public ^^

Note time!

• Can we just mention the Synopsis though... "Ladybug and Chat Noir face an opponent who is in possession of the rabbit miraculous in a race against time" how cringe...

• The intro still bops-

• The hand holding!

• The Parisians completely ignore Chaton as usual 🙄

• Why do they always respect Monarchs name change in canon? Like I get why we do it but like in canon why can't we just choose whatever name we want at whatever time.... oh right this is a kids show that has no logic and wants to keep things as simple as possible-

• Gabriel is pure evil

• The animation downgraded but it's still good

• Nadja's hair color is so inconsistent in this show across the studios XD

• I thought LB stuck out the middle finger for a second...

• Was it ever confirmed it was called a message retriever? Because that's what the wiki calls it

• Thomas confirmed that Monarch's symbol was a work of the butterfly, Turtle and fox miraculous'. If so... why didn't I see any smoke when Ladybug breaks the akuma signal?

• HOW DID CHAT NOIR BREAK THE SHEILD WITH HIS STAFF ALONE IF HE HAS TO USE HIS CATACLYSM LATER ON?!

• How weak is the shell cast by "Shell-ter"?

• "It's you and me" that's quite important

• LMBO! The scene with Gabriel and the kwamis while LB and CN talk to the Parisians is so funny because it's so poorly chopped together!

• I love how Sass is the father figure. I mean he is the concept of "Intution"!

• Gabriel didn't do anything can he please stop taking credit

• Nathalie is the adult and Gabriel is the child in like 90% of their scenes together...

• Gabriel's camouflage miraculous designs suck

• Gabriel is so quick to do and so late to think

• The LB and Rabbit Noir scene still proves the loop theory

• BUNNYX IS A LIAR! Time Travel won't change anything 🙄

• The faces have definitely changed since previous seasons. You can tell with all the flashbacks this ep!

• BURROW BRAWL!!!!!

• What would Gabriel do with his second rabbit miraculous if he got it?

• Why couldn't Chat Noir extend his staff this time? Is the burrow too small?

• RABBIT NOIR!

• "It's you and me remember?"

• Ladybug is falling in love with Chaton by this point and we all know it

• They chase after Monarch for a bit... very old school...

• "Impressive..."

• No Marinette or Adrien this episode just heros

• The Master Fu scene was cool

• WHY COULDN'T HE JUST EXTEND HIS STAFF AGAIN

• I'm not going in order because this episode is all over the place...

• Bunnyx comes back LITTERALY Teo seconds later to return the Miraculous to Wang Fu

• Alix and her father have such a cute relationship 🤧

• Canigirl is cool. I don't like how they pronounced it in the English dub "Cane-I-girl"?

• Ready for action!

• The resolution for getting the rabbit back was cool but kinda odd because it wasn't much of a fight-

• But then again fighting doesn't solve every problem even in a superhero show ^^

• Bunnyx leaves for a while... it's undetermined for how long though...

• Chat Noir supports Ladybug again even though she doesn't deserve him!

• Nathalie goes off on Gabriel and leaves him for dead

• "LAAAADYBUUUUG"

"And they all screamed into the sunset"

Some inconsistencies but an 8/10 would recommend. I was a bit hard on it but despite a few "boring" scenes it was a really fun episode!

P.S. Sorry for comming out with this so late... school has been very demanding as of late...

[supercantaloupe]

i’d love to hear more of your thoughts on the difference between chris and patrick as jud!

man talk about SUBTLETY! it's really hard to put a finger on exactly how they're alike or different, or how/why they both work so well. i genuinely love both performances and i don't think i can pick which one i prefer

i think patrick vaill's jud is more menacing/off putting just by sitting there (where was his tony nomination?? just because he doesn't have as many lines as curly doesn't mean he isn't onstage acting his heart out just as much nearly the entire time!). his enraged outbursts are so genuinely terrifying. i forget which review it was but back in 2019 some critic said he had "school shooter vibes" which is frighteningly apt. again, an amazing performance, especially knowing how much of a kind and sweet guy he is offstage. i think he's a more intimidating presence, always in the background with his eye on either curly or laurey, and you can't ever tell what he's thinking or what he's going to do next. there's something unpredictable about pat's jud. at the same time, he sounds so pathetic (in the sense of having pathos or sympathy, not being a sad little meow meow or whatever the kids say these days) in the smokehouse scene. he sounds like he really does get swept up in curly's fantasty in Pore Jud is Daid, and he sounds truly anguished in Lonely Room. his jud is deeply discomforting, but deeply compelling at the same time

chris bannow's jud. first of all WOW!!! Lonely Room is one of those songs on an album that tends to get skipped i feel (even the movie cut it from the soundtrack) but chris' Lonely Room was quite possibly my favorite performance of the tour. literally fucking incredible. the amount of space he gives each stanza makes you really feel every word and every strained desire he feels. i will forever bemoan what is lost in translation from in-the-round staging on broadway to proscenium staging on tour, but Lonely Room on tour makes REALLY effective use of its space; when the lights come up at the end and the rest of the characters file in, he's standing, surrounded but separated, and he just slowly turns and stares at all of them in turn without being truly seen back and he makes you wait for the last stanza and it's heart wrenching. overall i think chris' jud is more...unassuming. he is more pathetic and pitiable, i think. he seems more drawn in on himself, and the staging of the tour makes it so no matter where you sit you can ALWAYS see him onstage and how he watches and reacts to everyone else (which couldn't always be said of broadway, depending on where your seat was). and there's something so humanizing about seeing him sitting there, smiling and tapping his boot and singing along to Kansas City and Farmer and the Cowman. chris' jud smiles a lot more than i was expecting. i don't think it diminishes how scary he can be when he has his outbursts in the smokehouse, the auction, and the act ii scene with laurey. man can really yell when he needs to, and it feels like it comes more out of nowhere with his jud than with pat's.

i don't think i can say which one works better or worse; i think they're both effective. certainly i feel the way they play off their respective curlys influences how i feel about each of them; damon's curly being as charming as he is makes pat's jud feel more cold and unsettling by juxtaposition, just as sean's curly being more outwardly calculating and less likeable in turn makes chris' jud feel that much more sympathetic (without going so far as to be excusable or guiltless). i'm honestly really glad that the tour actors have been given the freedom to interpret the characters their own way instead of just rote copying the broadway actors' performances; it gives each performance and each cast its own breathing room and chance to shine, and makes the experience of seeing the show again exciting. i think out of pure recency bias i'm leaning towards preferring chris' jud right now, but it's been three years since i saw pat's and three days since i saw chris', so that is by no means a definitive opinion (and i'm eagerly looking forward to the london production to see pat's jud once more!). but hey, if you needed any more reason to see the tour, go see it for chris bannow's Lonely Room. for real blows me away every time

[duck-era-lexi]

mcc participants tier list! (Hot takes)

oh boy do i have lots to say. let’s go row by row.

intial notes for a long, time, i never made a tierlist because i believed it was unethical. but i found myself ranking ppl in my heads when i made team predictions so i was like, whatever. i definitely based some aspects not only on skill but on personality/leadership. in each individual level, left is highest and right is lowest. 

i didn’t rank inactive players and was considering not ranking the simmers but yk, idk. rankings are heavily swayed by recency bias, specifically mcc24 and mcc25 as those are the ones i remember the most.

DISCLAIMERS - **OPINION!!** i only looked briefly on stats will doing this. maybe i’ll do a stats comparison in the future but right now, i just want to explain my thoughts. PLEASE don’t look under the cut if you don’t want your feelings hurt

- these are people so obviously it’s not very fair to judge people like this, especially if they have a small sample size. and since i ordered every single participant. i may be very wrong with my tierlist by the time the next mcc occurs. 

top 3 ez (S+) widely considered as the greatest mcc s2 players, these guys are separated from the below categories as they consistently rank extremely high. they all lead teams and teams are centered around them, but it’s their individual performances that stand out.

i’m a firm believer that sapnap is the best mcc player. i think illumina used to be the best in the first half of s2, but recently he hasn’t been doing as well. 

can carry a team (S) ok this is the one that i probably have to say the most about. let’s go through it:

dream is the best mcc leader period. but he’s also extremely close to being in the S+ category. he also has the dnf buff 

purpled realistically could also join the S+ club because he’s more individual-based. but purpled has a small sample size in terms of team variety, so i don’t know. as of mcc25 i think purpled’s better than quig and pete.

for quig and pete i’m very biased towards their old performances. they’re still really really good players (quig winning mcc23 and pete’s crazy placements in the back half of 25) but they’re not as dominant as they used to be. 

i’m very confident that punz is the worst S-tier- sorry that’s kinda harsh but he’s more of an underdog? jojo has a small sample size of S-tier-ness so i didn’t know whether to put her above punz. teams are built around these two but they can team with really good players (A+) and still not make it to db. i am always rooting for punz

H/5 + players that teams are also built around  pretty well known player dynamic. i’d say it’s the hbomb effect that 5up has as well, just to a lesser extent. as u know i am a 5up anti

if you noticed that the top players in these three categories are the players with 5 wins, that’s not a coincidence. 

borderline S (A+) most of the community considers antfrost to be the best player that hasn’t gotten 1st. i agree w that. sb is also really good as well but he literally is never in the event so less ppl talk about him. 

i used to think cpk was held up by his consistency, but after mcc25 that’s not really the case. if this was before 25 i’d say cpk>sb but now i’d say they’re evenly matched. cpk is extremely charismatic and an amazing leader though. 

tapl was widely regarded as an almost-s-tier player for a long time, but i don’t think he really is anymore. he’s been benched for a while but he’s definitely still really good. better than krtzy, i’d say. krtzy had his moment recently in mcc24 but it didn’t work out, so. 

2nd frag consistently (A) not a very accurate title because not all mcc teams are SABC; AABB is common as well. i honestly considered putting tommy in the above tier just based on his leadership but decided against it.

zeuz is op as we know. i don’t know smallishbeans that well, but his stats are really good (even in 25 w/o skyb). i think hannah is very very good, so even though she has a small sample size i put her in here. also as someone who watched mcc24 purple ryguyrocky is criminally underrated.  sylvee’s been slaying so hard lately, grian doesn’t have that much of a recent sample size, and george’s skill is underrated in favor of his dnf buff.

upper mid! (B) WISP probably should be in A but he hasn’t played recently and also i don’t know that much about him. i also think foolish is underrated.

i think everyone in the top row of this in particular has massive popoff potential. for example, ranboo ace race mcc 25. falsesymmetry in 10 meters of build mart. skeppy if he played more than one mcc

loose cannon a category made for wilbur soot. but jimmy solidarity being able to get 1st and 40th deserves this category as well. i also put pearl in this because afaik she’s improving a lot recently.

lower mid (C) the category i’m the least confident about, at least in terms of individual ordering. take it with a cup of salt.

vibes (D) please, ik y’all are scared to say it but also this would 100% be me if i was in mcc so there is no shame in being shit at minecraft. aimsey did rly good in mcc25 so she is borderline. i also think eret and michael are borderline, though that’s mostly due to them playing mcc much more than anyone else in this category

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conclusion! i’m gonna do another tierlist ranking something else but anyways slay!