#so I went on a bit of a tangent

[yoyo-s-coffee]

AY YO WHO THAT GUY

[starrynightsxo]

at this point suzanne collins should just take my money. writing the hunger games trilogy is one thing but a prequel with the main villain of the original as the main character? I was SAT. then, to rob me even more, she writes a book about the mentor of the original games who, most of us, if not all, end up feeling some sort of, if not a certain, likeness towards him which is developed in that book, of course. I'm basically throwing money at her at this point. there's so much scope here and I will be SEATED each and every time I kid you not.

so what's next? because I sure as hell am waiting for it. finnick's games? certified banger. mags' games? forecasted success. annie's games? absoloutely yes. even wiress who has more mention in sotr?? the way suzanne collins gives us a trickle of someone's games, leaving room for her to create a whole new book (or more!) if she pleases is just incredible.

take notes everyone, take notes. I know I am.

"thank you suzanne" we all say in unison 🙂‍↕️

[batsplat]

It's a thing I already knew but all your beautiful analysis really made obvious (to me) how much of a grudge holder vale is. That man is never letting it go he's gonna hold his grudges into his grave

you know, I do think this is an interesting issue, because I'm not sure this is true of all his grudges. just sticking here with the grudges he accumulated in his capacity as a competitor, rather than just his general approach to life or whatever... how you judge this will kinda depend on how you feel about the 'reconciliation' he's experienced with some of his rivals - and whether you read the whole thing as sincere or not. now, personally I reckon he still dislikes biaggi, but also you are allowed to just dislike people so I'll give him a pass for that. some of the others, I'm a little more convinced by the whole reconciliation schtick

let's get valentino's take:

interesting that he mentions those three together, isn't it? and like, he's still not messaging biaggi or inviting him to his home - "even with max" kind of tells you all you need to know - but the other two? they said some proper nasty things to each other over the years!! I mean, the casey rivalry, there's some remarks from both sides where quite frankly I think I would struggle just a touch to get over it

I don't know, obviously this could all be pr stuff, but I kind of feel like... y'know, why bother? it's 2022, you're retired, who gives a fuck? sure it's a good look to be all magnanimous, sure it can be a bit of a way of twisting in the knife to the guys left in the cold, but also, who would care if you don't play nice? I think especially with jorge, you surely don't need to do all that, inviting him to your home and dancing with him... (which, again, some of the spats those two had...) and with the casey rivalry, if there's one guy who's still hung up about what happened between the pair of them, it's obviously casey (speaking of blokes who can hold a grudge). maybe this is giving valentino too much credit, but personally I buy it's more or less sincere. there's nothing to really indicate he's still particularly bothered by any of their past disagreements - he's basically going for the 'all's fair in love and motorcycle racing' approach. he knows he was an asshole, he accepts they were assholes too, whatever, that's how these things work. he's generally a fan of drama in rivalries, unsurprisingly, and he was happy enough to contribute his fair share - but he does see it as fundamentally being part of the game

to point out the obvious, check out who he's left out: sete and marc. that's where he can't let go of the grudges... because it's not about the offence itself as much as it is about the betrayal. this is the thing with valentino, right, it's about what kind of bond you had with him. if you weren't his friend in the first place and then piss him off as a rival then, y'know, whatever. obviously he's going to be vicious in trying to get back at you, but also he's really not going to waste his time feeling too aggrieved by it. I mean, think about how all the bullshit between him and casey dropped off sharply post-2012... from valentino's end anyway. think about how jorge and valentino pretty quickly got on again whenever they weren't fighting for supremacy within yamaha. they weren't friends in the first place, then they were enemies for competitive reasons for a while there, then it's over and valentino is basically happy enough to call it bygones

but... if it's a certain kind of bond you had with him and then you wrong him... that little mental list of all his past grievances, all your past transgressions, that's where it comes in. that's where he ices you out. denies you any emotional warmth. ensures that any interaction going forward is conducted entirely on his terms. where even any public 'reconciliation' won't truly be sincere.... or, certainly he's not going to forget what happened. if something else happens... it's like you've always got the potential of triggering this lingering resentment, in a way, where all that past stuff is still primed and ready to be called upon. he certainly doesn't just let it go

or, as he puts it in his autobiography:

Biaggi and I never talk to each other. I mean, we've never had a real conversation, anything that's lasted more than the requisite time to insult each other or put each other down, in the nastiest way possible. In any case, I don't hate him. It's true, we've never been friends, but hatred is something different, and that's too serious a word to describe our relationship. Far too serious. No, we have a reciprocal antipathy. No doubt this is a result of what we do for a living and the fact that we both want to win every single time. And perhaps it's also a function of the fact that we have very different personalities and very different ways of seeing things. Still, I don't think this means we hate each other, as some journalists have written. I think I could feel hatred for someone, but only for someone far worse than anything Biaggi has done. For example, if I were betrayed by a friend, then, yes, I could hate him. But Biaggi will never betray my friendship for the simple reason that we are not, and never have been, friends. Our relationship is very clear: we compete on the track - outside the track, each goes his own way. You could say we detest each other cordially.

... I mean. he said it, not me. and given this book was first published in '05... biaggi can't betray his friendship because they were never friends... I'm not saying he's thinking about sete, but it has to at least be a possibility, right? he's talking about one rivalry here and refusing to even mention the other... and the one he's refusing to mention is the one where he was friends with the other bloke. I don't know, maybe that's reading too much into it! and anyway, even if this passage wasn't really about sete, it's obviously still revealing. "detest each other cordially" is essentially what he was doing with casey and jorge (or from his point of view in any case, not entirely sure they'd agree with that). the grudge comes when he feels let down by you... and then, yes, he'll never let it go

of course, he's willing to set aside his grievances for a while if there's sufficient motivation for him to do so. in 2009, when he had so definitively won that rivalry with sete, why bother kicking up a fuss? in 2016, quite frankly it was just too much, and it was getting to the point where it was obviously hurting him too. on the one hand there was the media furore that had been going on non-stop since sepang, on the other hand it was also hurting his own approach to racing. there's reports from the time how visibly aggrieved he still was in the first few races of the season, and it took until they got back to europe for him to... y'know, have fun again. it's not sustainable to be walking around with a constant dark cloud over your head and broadcasting burning resentment towards your two main rivals. certainly not for someone like valentino - he needs to be having fun! the slight rapprochement needed to happen, in a way, because otherwise those years would have been even worse for everyone involved. but that doesn't actually translate to forgetting any of those grudges. this is about convenience more than anything else

goes to show, really... most of the time he doesn't take these things personally. I talked about it a bit in this post, how maybe it's also something that changed over time for him: the question of whether he was willing to develop these kinds of bonds in the first place with competitors... because he does possess a certain level of self-awareness in terms of what these kinds of rivalries are like and what they do to interpersonal relationships. ideally, you don't want to be hurt by a friend like that, right? better not to have that kind of emotional attachment with your competitors in the first place. how unfortunate it'd be if all those years after sete the circumstances aligned for him to see a competitor as something like a friend again... because, after all, those are the only people who could betray him. those are the only people where he thinks he could truly hate them

[magentagalaxies]

finally downloading the footage from my interview with the kids in the hall at the rivoli and long story short get someone who looks at you the way mark looks at scott here

[butter-the-spark]

Shout out to Barry the Quokka from The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog, it's technically their birthday so happy birthday to them (I don't care if they're not real I WILL be wishing them a happy birthday by posting about it online)

I do not have a better picture of them, I would have drawn them but my motivation to draw recently has been zero and I also don't know how to draw sonic characters yet😓

[turtleblogatlast]

People sleep on Leo’s ability to predict his family’s behaviors so in light of this consider him betting Donnie that Donnie can’t do something knowing full well that he could, simply because he’s bored and knows Donnie will get it done immediately out of pure spite and a need to prove Leo wrong.

He makes the bets with money he already won from Donnie previously but he’ll never admit to it, it’s too funny to.

[enjoyvoidblack]

our big post was getting long and it won't let me message so I thought I'd just come bother you here asldkfjsad I am like. so 1000% certain there is mention in the text that the initial purpose and efforts of Jonah and the Institute were to research the fears and prevent their many catastrophes, and that somewhere along the line he came to the conclusion that this wasn't viable, that the world and the fears simply didn't function in a way that was conducive to meaningfully stopping them from doing anything. which was how he settled into the position of 'well then I am going to use the instruments of power to save ME and build a ladder to free myself personally from their clutches forever' I def don't know when he started to turn from that, but i'll have to go back through the transcripts and find it again.

I do get that the narrative is written with Jon as the focal point, and that doesn't leave a lot of room for Elias to be sympathetic--he certainly doesn't make himself sympathetic TO Jon, or any of the Archives crew (beyond what I find to be an interesting amount of patience, understanding, and restraint he shows for them), but I still think like. Part of the beauty of Jonny's storytelling is that there is a kernel of completely understandable humanity to most everyone that's presented with any depth in the series, even the people we DON'T like. The "people here don't have excuses, they have causes" is again really excellent wording. There isn't really a lot of the usual karmic style reasoning or justice in this series; it isn't about Good People doing Good Things or Bad People doing Bad Things, it's just. People Doing Things, while under the influence of powers that are at once cosmic and beyond us, and inherently OF us.

adsfkjas this is getting long too I'm so sorry you activated a trap card here but idk. He absolutely is both manipulator and victim. He did all that shit, and all the while it's being done TO him, and he's walking this incredibly razor thin line between feeding his god/being empowered by it, and bc of it's nature knowing in intimate detail every nasty thing that awaits him should he fail (and I think being deathly afraid of it). That gif from Knives Out lmfao, compels me.

(apologies this probably isn't hugely coherent but there we are)

Thank you I am chewing on this ask violently. You Get It.

Unfortunate that tumblr killed your paragraph breaks, because I now can't find the section easily, but that thing about Jonny's character work in this series entirely consisting of aspects of "completely understandable humanity" is SO deeply how I feel about it. This is part of why I love horror of this kind so much. The horror being the fact that no one can really do anything to stop it opens up a space where the characters don't need to be presented along clear lines of good and evil, or even helping a cause or hurting it. It's a lot closer to how real people react in a natural disaster, if anything. There is love and selfishness and incredible acts of violence and cruelty and understandable failings and greed and fear, and pretty much all of it has a root that you can see, if you know enough about the people doing it and the circumstances to really feel where their mindset must be. I'd say Elias is functionally the closest thing TMA has to a narrative scapegoat, but that doesn't mean he is one. I almost feel like he's there as a pressure valve for the story, to be a villain if people need one to make sense of what's going on without having to constantly confront head-on the horror of the way the setting traps everyone in it. He can be made that kind of scapegoat, but only really by ignoring the parallels to Jon and the letters sent to him in older statements, and the way both show how the Fears drive the people who learn about them into more and more desperate straits.

It's kind of like that with all the older avatars. Simon Fairchild throws people off of stuff for a joke, because he's had more than 400 years of being steeped in the knowledge that humanity is both insignificant in the span of the universe, as well as utterly incapable of stopping the course of the Fears as they exert whatever influence they will by the force of sheer bulk. Peter Lukas never had a chance - he was born into this, isolation was his family and religion and paradoxically from childhood his only possible road to belonging. Adelard Dekker thought he was helping, as did Gertrude, even as they both fed the things that claimed them alongside those efforts. Nikola Orsinov was so far away from having an identity anymore that she couldn't go back if she wanted to, if she had even had enough left to want. Her world would have just been a home that was more like herself, and who hasn't wanted that? They're easier to vilify because their outlooks are harder to understand until the very end of the series, but looking back it's so clear that they were also just people once, and the writing never really lets you forget that.

If I said I'd tried to make all of these replies short, you probably wouldn't believe me. And Yet. I am not NORMAL about this show and the way Jonny writes people.

[pynkhues]

https://www.tumblr.com/pynkhues/769329551222472704/im-a-canon-vers-loustat-believer-but-sometimes

This is a great point you make. In Paris Louis really is in a similar position to Lestat when he came to New Orleans. Louis is grieving Lestat, Lestat grieving Nicki. Both are protecting secrets about their pasts and looking for a way to keep living. I would even say that both are putting forth a bit of a performance with their new partners, though for different reasons. To some extent I even think Claudia has some parallels to Lestat in that way too. In trying to leave and escape her restrictive family life she ends up finding a companion that she gets to choose for herself. The cyclical themes are so fascinating

Thank you, and yeah, it's a really interesting parallel to think about. This feels a bit of a tangent, so please bear with me, haha, but I remember going to a lit event many years ago that had selected readings based around the theme of home, and in the introductory speech, the curator had said that they'd expected a lot of variation from the submissions to the theme, and there was in a lot of ways, and yet a central throughline appeared that home is a place you leave. It's something I've thought about so much over the years, especially as I live in a different state from the one I grew up in now, and it was one I thought about a bit while watching s2.

It's really interesting to look at in that context of the unholy family because as you said, there is this drive to escape home for both Lestat and Claudia (and Gabrielle) that Louis just doesn't really have. I think you feel that in what they do to escape these places that they're from, but I think the show also underscores that really in what a homecoming means for the three of them.

Claudia experiences her home in Rue Royale as a place of powerlessness and volatilty that can lead to violence, and returning to it steps her straight back into that ten-fold, just as Lestat experiences his home in France as a place of abuse, loss, and violations of his agency and autonomy, which he experiences again, ten-fold, at the trial in Paris, and for Louis, New Orleans has always been, despite everything else, the place where he had a family who he loved, and so of course he goes back and finds the only family he has left - his husband and the ghost of his daughter - there waiting for him.

It's tragic in a lot of ways, because I think there's this sense thematically in the show that the place you're from can change, but it probably won't change for you, no matter how many years you're gone, or the circumstances in which you return to it. Home is a place you leave, and how it held you when it had you will always be the arms you find yourself in when you're back in reaching distance, for better or for worse.

[basketobread]

Has Lunara gotten the Wyll dance scene yet? It just happened to me and she was my first thought. I imagined her coming around the corner with some bread in her mouth or something and stumbling upon his little ballet routine, and hes just like "oh hey" like it wasn't super obviously intentional. But she's so overcome with social anxiety that she just starts staring at ants or something. Meanwhile, Wyll is just like 😑

SIAHAIDSUHDSIDA NOT YET!! she's still in act 1 so we're gonna have to get her to act 2 for that one. BUT YOU'RE SO RIGHT SHE WOULD JUST STARE AT HIM WITH THE BIG OL EYES... fun fact: even though lunara INSISTS on traveling with ONLY WOMEN!!! she likes to keep wyll around cuz she thinks hes just the sweetest dude ever and if i could, i wouldve added him to the team but the party limit is 4 </3

[pyro-madder]

wanting to show wholesome interactions between the hunter and various npcs vs wanting to stick to canon writing (nobody gives a shit about you)

Like... the Doll is "preset" to care for any dreaming hunter. Gehrman is introduced as your guide but after telling you the basics, only directs you towards optional stuff (the sheer betrayal i felt upon realizing that lmao) and fucks off to take a sad little nap for the rest of the game. I thought it'd be funny if, being part of your subconscious, you'd hear his voice in your thoughts sometimes à la Cruller in Psych0nauts - but also, you're just another hunter to him.

A few citizens are openly nice to you without ulterior motives, and most of them are outcasts like you ; Gilbert who's a fellow outsider, the Dweller ostracized for his disability (edit : his general appearance moreso and possibly his link to an abandoned place of worship as a whole), and Arianna who deals with the general stigma that comes with her profession (+ her link to Vilebloods, for those who Know). She and Adella are also grateful for you guiding them towards a safe place, nothing surprising.

Now for other hunters. I live for Gascoigne's friendly tag-along across Central Yharnam but agree with the hypothesis that it was cut to make the player feel more isolated and alone, and we know how it would end either way.

Then Djura. I raise an eyebrow whenever I see the term "befriend" for taking his deal ; yes, you'll pacify him and he'll give you cool stuff, but then will tell you to fuck off with no additional dialogue. I also wanna mention he doesn't sound the tiny bit surprised/betrayed if you break the deal, which says a lot ; to him too you are just another hunter and he knows how it usually goes with hunters. I could go on about Dju in particular but his detachment towards you is extremely understandable from his position in-game.

Eileen and Simon are recurrent encounters who are amiable by default, but even then running into them comes across as "oh hey you aren't dead yet, good for you lol" to me.

Alfred is... Alfred ? Also amiable by default, open to the point if feels out of place, and though he thanks you for getting him to the end of his questline he (supposedly) offs himself immediately afterwards, his obsession faith prevailing upon anything and anyone else. i'm at loss here sorry

This is non-exhaustive, we could speak of Valtr and Patches and Annalise and so on. but these were some characters I like to depict along the Hunter ; Gascoigne, Eileen and Djura as mentor figures, Alfred as a comrade, Simon as a companion in misery, and so on - stuff you can expect in my fanart basically - while still meeting the fate they meet in-game (except dju who's just chilling if you don't go out of your way to make it otherwise).

But in-game, you have no name that matters, and almost no ones gives you their name either, you only know them from item descriptions when it's not from a boss' health bar. You're all strangers to one another fighting and surviving from the same mess, and you - Good Hunter - are the latest wedge thrown in the gears, with no previous connection to anyone like the different members of the many factions you meet in the giant chessboard that is Yharnam and its surroundings. Still, you get those small moments of respite, and they're enough to hurt when they're taken away, sometimes by your own hand in a final act of mercy, no matter how predictable the end becomes.

[candyredappledragon]

Does Furret participate in Pokémon battles or are they moral support?

both actually! furret is a support pokemon! he has a moveset to help others and- ah sorry i got a "little" into competitive but you know for fun! florian inspired me to make a team that involves with pokemon i love and build it from there. though furret prefers to be my moral support. i grab him, hug him tight and i forget about my loss.

though some of my pokemon do enjoy the quiet and relaxing life so its a win-win for us! i leave some of them with my grandparents to help them around the house or do activities. i am very grateful for them!

[littlekingbergara]

Having some “Ryan & Shane aren’t really friends” demons which I know is stupid and parasocial and like not born out by the literally all the evidence that we have but I can’t help it sometimes. 😭 I just rly love their dynamic on screen, I hope it’s similar off screen.

oh those ARE demons!! they are Best Friends!!! a huge reason their onscreen dynamic is the way it is is Because they're Like That offscreen. you can fake a lot while making content but the kind of easy chemistry they have and the way they joke with and poke fun at and just talk to each other... you Cannot fake that. AND what we see is most often a Toned Down version of who they are off camera so i have to believe the bestieism is even more than we know.

also the first mystery files debrief when ryan legitimately could not think of Anyone he would be able trust on a bank heist Except For Shane. like yeah that was a jokey scenario but it means something that he believes shane is the Only person he can trust would not turn on him in a high stakes situation. like... ryan threatened to kill shane earlier in the episode he Did Not need to turn around and be that sincere. that's real.

ALSO also reading the interviews they did for ghost files and mystery files and seeing them in other people's content (shoutout my fav trypod episode) it's soo clear in the way they speak to and about each other that they really do love each other and working with each other and they make each other better creators.

and! shane was in ryan's wedding!!! his wedding that yes was published in a magazine but was not publicized in a way that matters for their brand. if they were just trying to push some fake friendship image they Absolutely would have taken advantage of that.

[polar-iced]

Just want you to know that I just read the first two chapters of your vampire fic and gaughh I'm loving it so much. God bless you for spreading the lieutcule agenda and the Jirving Shame Complex agenda at the same time and also having him be a vampire. Absolutely inspired. Can't wait to see where the fic ends up going :)))

AAAAAA thank you this means a lot to me 🥹🫶

TERROR LIEUTCULE FTW!!! they have taken over my brain. send help

also you wanna know what's funny. the Jirving Shame Complex™ is definitely the main motivator for the fic. the vampirism? entirely secondary lmao. when i first came up with the idea my brain went hah wouldn't it be funny if jirv turned into An Actual Literal Monster. wouldn't it be funny for that to happen to the guy with the HUGE shame and guilt complex? and then i thought about vampires being hurt by religious items and i was like 👀 whump jirving time!

[tortoise-teapot]

when i'm ill with migraines one of the only things that relieves it is a hot shower directly to the forehead. so i spend a lot of time in the shower when im ill, whether it's on or off. with the water off it's the darkest room in the apartment and nice and cool. i lay so my face is next to the drain so i can just hurl if i need to

what i never expected was for my cat to emulate that in his final hours. face right next to the drain for convenient puking and everything. i was assuming he would pick his favorite hiding spot in the closet. but no. he went Where You Go When You're Sick--The Shower.

my point is it's made my migraine shower reprieves oddly bittersweet. he was so smart and he loved me so much 😭 a CAT went in the coolest, wettest part of the apartment, instead of warmest and dryest, because it's what i do when i'm sick 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 my baby

[madaqueue]

hai quinn ^_^ i must rant about this since me and my friend have talked about this au since they’re writing it and I MUST rant about it (using the title reader for this since it’s easier) .. greys anatomy au w dazai + reader, dazai being derek shepherd and reader being meredith grey (we have no idea who will be addison and mark so if u have any ideas then tell hehe) ANYWAY reader as meredith and dazai as derek, basically following the greys anatomy timeline. they meet as a one night stand, reader finds out dazai is their boss later in the morning, and just following up the timeline..

oh my gosh and this au my friend was also talking about as a one for fun; college au except the bsd cast (+ reader) works at different popular fast food places or cafes maybe and like it’s practically rivalry between the places, but reader and dazai go through the slowest slow burn to ever slow burn of the slow burns 🙏 okay had to rant about these to someone else have a good day quinn :3 — 🪷

AAAAAAHHHH MY DEAR LOTUS I LOVE THESE IDEAS SO MUCH???????????!!!!???? OKAY ALSO YOU MUST FORGIVE ME ….. I HAVE NEVER SEEN GREYS :(((((( BUT !!!!!!!!! i do LOOOOVE a little medical au :3333 oooooh okay okay i DO have thoughts on the diff specialties they’d be though!!!!!!!!

to me i feel like i could see dazai as palliative care OR peds CKSKCKDKDK (like very comfortable with death, maybe even peds onc???? i think he would just get along well with dying people but also kids too idkidkidk :333)

chuuya hmmmmm ….. my initial gut reaction was cardiology for some reason like they just have a Complex about something CKDJCJDJD (sorry cards i love you i promise) but at the end of the day they are willing to sit down and do the work and save lives yknow??????

kunikida is EM i will not be taking notes at this time HAHAHAHAHAHA that man locks in during a crisis 🫡🫡🫡 OH and everyone thinks ranpo would do something like radiology where he doesn’t really have to talk to patients BUT i think i could see him as peds rads which actually involves a lot of talking to kids - i think they really like him too :333

[sargeantsarmy]

Crying because I saw someone(a h a ckearney shipper) say that Max seems manipulative towards Laura in the prologue and their relationship is toxic, but like, bro Laura getting with the guy that locked her up for two months and can brutally kill her with no hesitation ISN’T toxic????