#reddit would kill me

[hikarinokusari]

WIP. I will surely never finish this one because backgrounds are difficult, and outside backgrounds even more. I made myself sad, so I drew my idea of Patrina and Strahd (still human) sharing a moment of peace before Barovia and its future Darklord went apeshit.

At some point, I'll polish this one too, once I figured out how to background nature correctly.

[tategaminu]

It doesn't matter that Viren had his heart in the right place ASSAULT is not okay and Lissa had all the rights to leave. Viren and Callum have parallels but they are different in a lot of ways one being that he would never do something like that to Rayla and in a similar situation they would have talked about it. The narrative and Viren himself knows what he did wasn't okay you don't need to justify abuse. You can love a character and aknowledge they aren't a good person in canon.

[pinketine]

Actually

Toxic yaoi: Lil Uzi Vert and Playboi Carti

Doomed yaoi: Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole

Toxic Doomed yaoi: Tupac and Biggie

[doubledyke]

it doesn't really make sense in the logic (lol) of the show but part of me loves the idea that edd is being raised by his grandparents.... kids who are raised by grandparents tend to be overly mature and a little uhhhhh off-beat. i feel like it could explain a lot.

[running-in-the-dark]

can't sleep (despite new meds + melatonin, boo), so I'm thinking about random shit. like: it's insane to me that I'm totally fine living on the ground floor now. it used to really freak me out. I hated being downstairs when we lived in a house. I always felt watched when I had my room on the ground floor. and every time I visited my dad at his ground floor apartment - where I was on my own except for maybe an hour a day - I had what I now know were panic attacks several times a day. so like, that's pretty crazy.

[roodllle]

half the people in the subreddit for eldenringloretalk make me want to throw up

[kosmicsandshoes]

If I ever cease to make a vanoss thirst pic once a month, assume I’ve been killed

[sophies-junkyard]

On the topic of languages, did I ever tell y’all about my 6th craziest roommate?

So a few years ago I was scrambling because someone backed out of my lease right before the semester started. This girl (I’ll call her “Ella”) responded to my roommate ad. She said she was 25, she was from Guatemala, and she had the same major as me. She seemed legit, so I passed her info to my other roommates. They vetted her and she signed on.

From there, things got…. Interesting.

Our rooms shared a wall, and this girl would talk on the phone for HOURS. She didn’t know this, but I was getting my minor in Spanish. I had 8 years of formal education and a lifetime of practice with the Peruvian dialect. But listening to Ella on the phone made me realize my Spanish was TERRIBLE! I couldn’t understand a WORD she was saying. I really buckled down in my classes that semester. Kept getting straight A’s, but I knew I could never be truly fluent.

Meanwhile things were getting tense between Ella and my roommate “Jess”. Ella and Jess shared a bathroom, and Ella insisted on showering 4 times a day. She also box-dyed her hair RED Every. Single. Weekend and never cleaned the tub or counters. She destroyed Jess’ non-stick pans, stole blankets from her room, and kept her up late by talking on the phone. While I was on Jess’ side, I refused to get involved. I had been in enough roommate drama for one lifetime (6 long stories), so I said nothing.

Over winter break, Ella secretly invited a boyfriend to the house while we were at home. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal (what we didn’t know etc etc), but Jess stopped by the house and found them using HER FURNITURE for a… love nest… in the living room. This mystery man was also using Jess’ toiletries. Ella didn’t even know his last name. There was a big fight, but I was hours away so it wasn’t my problem.

Spring semester rolled around. I’m looking over my class schedule, and who is listed as one of my TAs? Ella. Now that was SERIOUSLY against university policy. I mentioned it to her at home and she acknowledged that she would need to recuse herself. I waited and waited but the first day came around and there we were. In lab together as student and teacher.

And on her introductory PowerPoint, it said she was… Venezuelan? And a grad student? “Damn” I thought “I have a terrible memory.”

The ethics of her position stressed me out, but I realized if I got her fired she wouldn’t be able to pay rent. And if she could, I would be in the middle of more roommate drama. But things with Jess and Ella were worse than ever. Her shower habits tripled our utilities bill. We would never get our deposits back because of the dye. Ella broke an heirloom from Jess’ grandmother. She also shattered their toilet seat? She lied about both. Did Ella know I was a Jess sympathizer? Did she know we were pissed about the pans? What would that mean for my grades?? So I stayed silent. She was…. A terrible teacher.

At night, her tone in phone calls changed. I could tell she was NOT talking to relatives. But I still couldn’t gather any context. I kept my Spanish practice very, VERY quiet out of embarrassment. The walls were thin. I sorta wanted to ask her for fun slang, though.

One day in the kitchen I asked her what part of Venezuela she was from. Her accent was so unique! And did she use “vos” or “tu”? She told me it was a very small town, and abruptly left to make a phone call. Oh well.

End of spring was coming up. Everyone was moving out except me… and Ella? She wouldn’t give me a straight answer about her plans. My final grade was still in her hands so I didn’t press. And I was feeling pretty down about my classes. Were my Spanish lessons ever going to pay off? I studied extra hard to master pluscuamperfecto.

Lab ended. With 2 weeks remaining, she texted me: “My life plans have changed. I’m leaving. Goodbye.” She gave my group a 98% on our final project as soon as we turned it in.

I never saw her again.

Jess and I finally had time to catch up, and we swapped stories about our eclectic roommate. This is where shit hit the fan. Jess was working for the same professor as Ella, and had been privy to some pretty shocking information.

“I can’t believe a 34 year old woman would act like that” she said. HUH? I told her Ella was only 25!

But Jess saw her credentials in lab. She overheard everything she ever said. Ella was 34 years old. Maybe older. She was sugaring-no shame- BUT she was giving OUR ADDRESS to dozens of strangers online. She used different voices, different names, and different stories on every single one of them. She had an actual boyfriend who doted on her, but she had fallen in love with one of her sugar daddies. It ended when he refused to take her on his family vacation to the Caribbean. She was moving to Arkansas to start over. She took most of Jess’ cookware with her.

And that wasn’t all. A year earlier, Ella had told Jess that she was 23 years old and from HONDURAS. I don’t even remember what she told our 4th roommate (who should chime in if I forgot anything, btw). So what was the truth??? Guatemala, Venezuela, Honduras WHO WAS THIS WOMAN??? We dug and finally found Ella’s LinkedIn. There it was… she was 36 years old, had a different last name, had been a student of MANY different universities…

AND SHE WAS FROM BRAZIL.

SHE SPOKE PORTUGUESE. PORTUGUÊS. ALL THAT INSECURITY. THE SHAME. FUCKING HELL DUDE. I worked 5x as hard that semester to make up for my COMPLETE INEPTITUDE and she Wasn’t. Even. Speaking. Spanish. I am such a fucking idiot. Si hubiera sabido la verdad no habría sufrido. God damn.

So anyways, she followed me on Instagram and started posting from all over Europe. For 2 years she posted weekly. Germany, England, France and- yes- even Portugal. Good for her. The matter was closed.

…Until my final semester when I ran into Ella on campus. She had brown hair, had ditched her glasses, and ran away as soon as she saw me. I did some digging. Turns out she only went to Europe for A MONTH. She never set foot in Arkansas. She had immediately come back to school and enrolled in a new program with a new nickname. To this day she posts new European adventure photos every few weeks.

I don’t know what the fuck was going on in her life, or why she told so many elaborate lies… but I graduated with a 4.0 in Spanish. So… I guess the moral of the story is you should always have faith in your own abilities :D

(… and I would say “vet people before you live with them”, but honestly roommates 1-5 blow her out of the fucking water so. whatever.)

[socialbunny]

silent hill 2 fans piss me off so much

[ratsbanes]

throwback to the time i asked on reddit "what's wrong with first person fanfiction" because i justed wanted to weigh it and then proceeded to get bombarded with people either saying "it's just a matter of opinion" (not helpful) or even "well your being entitled so stfu" (how... did we get here?)

[kurokoros]

first of all, the duffers absolutely didn't have the full series planned out from the start because Stranger Things was originally pitched as a limited series with 1) the potential for a direct "sequel" that would follow the younger kids as adults (basically, they pitched "It") or 2) an outright sci-fi horror anthology. second of all, even if the duffers did have everything mapped out from the start that doesn't mean that plan isn't garbage.

[alkalische]

should start a discord server in which we have literary analysis about arknights blorbos and also won't be shamed for looking at a story through a queer lens that would be cool

[sixofravens-reads]

Finished The Decagon House Murders!

It was...okay. Like the mystery was all right (pretty sure it was an Agatha Christie ripoff tho), but I didn't really feel any connection with the characters. Van, Carr, and Leroux kept getting confused in my mind because we learn a couple small facts about them but other than that, they don't really behave distinctly (except Van at the end I guess). Poe was a doctor. Agatha and Orczy were total pretty girl/ugly girl stereotypes. Ellery was obnoxious. Literally NONE of them mentioned the girl they supposedly murdered* until near the end, except Orczy who dies first. It seems like "hey, that girl who died had the same last name as the people who owned this house, maybe this is some weird revenge since people think we were responsible" should have occurred to them earlier.

(*apparently she died after drinking too much even though she had a heart condition. which like, it seems a bit much for multiple characters to blame the people at the party with her because they egged her on. they're all dumb college kids but also they probably didn't know about her condition and if she didn't speak up for herself how can they be held accountable? anyway.)

The mainland scenes with Kawaminami were all right, and provided backstory and context, but I think some of that heavy lifting should've been done by the island crew. They basically do nothing except drink coffee and die, minus a couple walks to the ruins.

TLDR: decent mystery, but don't go into it expecting fully fleshed out characters or a particularly sensible plot. It did make me want to read And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie though. The only Christie I've experienced so far is seeing The Mousetrap last fall, but I found that much more engaging than this book.

Now, onto Sorcery of Thorns! Started that one in 2021 when I last rented it, but had to send it back half finished because I rented too many books at once and stressed out too much (alas, history repeats itself). Hoping to finish it this time, though!

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

Oh god I just finished Book 2 and it was so bad… I went into this with an open mind just like I did with Book 1 and god did I hate this. Clem just annoyed the hell out of me for the entire book. I liked everyone BUT her, Ricca and Morro. And I don’t even hate Morro she just showed up randomly to say weird ominous shit and then went to do her walker autopsies. Idk… it just sucked so hard. I miss Amos.

I've reread it and I'm working on my review so I won't go into a whole spiel but yeah. I mean, I still think I like Book Two over Book One... until we get to chapter 7. It has the same problem as Book One where the ending is just bad.

Clementine still feels out of character when you compare her to game Clementine, but she's consistent with Book One Clementine. I get what her character's supposed to be and why she's going through these things, why she approaches things the way she does but it makes it hard to enjoy when you have context from the games. I've already seen Clementine grow up and face hardships in the apocalypse, and the games have the advantage of showing all that across four games whereas this series only gets three books, so we don't have time to waste, y'know?

But Morro was the biggest wasted opportunity, like... what a disappointment. When I read it the first time, I was giving my first reactions in chat with Pi and we were both like, "So it's gonna be revealed that Morro's actually doing science experiments on walkers, right?" but no.... she's literally just doing autopsies like c'mon, walker science experiments and abominations would've been amazing!

And Ricca... honestly, I like the idea of Ricca because let's be real, a lot of us wear glasses or contacts or have some sort of vision impairment, myself included, and a zombie apocalypse would suck! If my glasses broke and I had no means of getting a new pair and it's the zombie apocalypse, I'm dead. And Book One set up this interesting story where Ricca's brother was an abuser who purposely broke her glasses so that she had no choice but to rely on him, then when she finally found pair that worked, she left him. But now her eyesight is worsening, and that's scary, that's something I could sympathize with...... but it's almost treated like an inconvenience? Because her and Clementine's relationship is the emotional drama that takes stage and frankly, I don't like clemricca. Not just because it's not clouis. I went into it with an open mind wanting to ship it but... meh.

I don't like how Ricca's like, "I'll wait for you," and then later she gets butthurt because Clementine won't get on the same level as her fast enough. Clementine doesn't owe Ricca anything, y'know? But Ricca is like "I love you, and I know you love me too, but I need you to love me always, not start and stop. It's not fair, you want me to wait for the impossible!?" Stop trying to guilt her when she's clearly not ready for a relationship? I get the frustration but c'mon.

And then there's chapter 9 which... I'm honestly this close to losing my shit with people. I don't think I've ever been as disappointed or disgusted of the fandom than I have seeing people send threats to Tillie on her instagram over chapter 9. She posted about how Book Two released AND she gave birth to her son on Oct 4th, and you go to the comments and there are just people calling her a pedophile and writing threats-

On a post. From Tillie. About the birth of her son. What the hell is wrong with you???

And then there are people just straight up LYING about shit.

I read a comment on reddit where someone compared Clementine Book Two to 50 Shades of Grey because there's an explicit sex scene and uhm NO??? There's absolutely nothing explicit, Ricca is not like Christian Grey like?? What the fuck is wrong with you? It's like these people read the summaries on the wiki- WHICH BY THE WAY if any of you happen to see this screenshot circulating anywhere-

^this is not a real quote, this is obviously fake.

Please don't mindlessly believe people on the internet about shit, especially when they themselves haven't actually read it.

Anyway, it's like people read the wiki summaries and decided to spread false and exaggerated information about the comic because they want to paint it in the worst light possible to trick people and it's working and I'm so...UGH.

Sorry to nosedive into this but it pisses me off. There's a lot to discuss about chapter 9- shit, there's a lot of criticism to be had with Book Two, and I will go over everything in my review, but for right now I'll just say yep, Book Two isn't very good.

I miss Amos, too.

[in-death-we-fall]

the ai upscaled slipknot music videos are so bad what the fuck

why would anyone do this

look how they massacred my boy (slipknot - left behind [official video])

"we want to watch it on our giant tv" congratulations you get to see Large Awfulness now instead of *checks notes* it looking a bit fuzzy