#so i guess i'm biased

[church-of-crayak]

What was an alien species mentioned in the Animorphs that you wanted to see explored more?

i honestly wanted to know more about the garatron, since basically all we get is "yeah they're like andalites but faster and pointier. and also the yeerks have one of them" like okay, man, whatever, what's their society like? how convergent with andalites is their evolution, yk? are they bugs? are they ungulates? are they herbivores, even? how do they eat? what do they eat??? whats the garatron-controller like when he's not infested? you can't just drop this description on my head and then NEVER MENTION THEM AGAIN

pulled taffy, dude? like, what's going on with their physiology? partially it has to do with rachel being the narrator, and she's one of the least objective writers of the main six, next to marco, who is responsible for calling andalites "horses with arms sticking out of their necks", where every other character describes them as centaurs.

i went through the weakness again to see if there was much else to work with, and no, all we get is "they're fast enough to run on water", "they're not as fast as a striking snake", and "the yeerks may or may not continue infesting them" GET real. i wanna know if they run on water regularly on their home planet. is their planet's surface made out of quicksand or goo or something that you can't stand still on for fear of becoming Eaten By It? get goofy! get weird! but no

i have other gripes with this book but i would have to actually do a reread to put them to words

[uncanny-tranny]

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is planning on changing their regulations for telehealth prescriptions of controlled substances. However, they have opened comments up for people to voice their opinions. You can submit a formal anonymous comment HERE. The comment period ends on March 31st, 2023.

This is an important issue for those who are prescribed controlled substances (e.g., testosterone or ADHD medication) through telehealth, which means it can and will impact trans people on testosterone and a ton of others if this goes through.

[tokutaiseichan]

You guys ever think about how the prophecy was talking about a "new moon" and how MC's almost-canon-name is "Luna"?

By the way, you guys know what happened on September 3rd? MC got cursed and sent to Darkwick as a result. Incidentally, (assuming Tokyo Debunker's story took place in 2024...) September 3rd would also be a night of new moon. 🌑

Coincidence? Perhaps it is... but!

I know this is a reach but what if the prophecy wasn't only talking about the ghouls but also MC?

There's also how MC got placed in / associated with the old Clementia dorm and Clementia is supposedly the Roman goddess of salvation and mercy.

Ringing any bells?

[inkdoe]

The other day I was talking to my friend about how women in fandoms are often placed as the mom of the group even when it doesn't make sense and I said something like "Well shout out to the kotor fandom then cause if there's someone who is the group mom, it's Carth"

[eddiezpaghetti]

Okay, so my experience with Stranger Things is a weird one.

I didn't care when it first came out, started to watch it out of "might as well" in 2020, wasn't interested in it enough to make it past S2, forgot about it outside of going "oh, hey, cool, there's a lesbian in it now, I guess," in S3, got really annoyed when "Running Up That Hill" got popular from it because it was a song I listened to on fucking loop after one of my best friends died in high school and I fully expected its appearance in the show to ignore the whole survivor's guilt theme of the song (and was very happy to learn later that it did the exact opposite of ignoring the lyrics), saw people drawing Eddie, suddenly got a lot more interested, watched just the fourth season like a fucking psychopath because I was seriously only there for Eddie, then got interested enough to start the show over properly, having mostly forgotten what I did watch of the show before.

And let me tell you something from the perspective of someone who started with the complete fourth season, who wasn't there from the start, who wasn't tainted by ship goggles or this internal battle of hope and despair, who wasn't theorizing about what the painting could be or expecting Mike and Will to kiss when Volume 2 happened or rooting for Mike and Eleven's relationship to go down in flames or whatever the fuck. Just someone who went blind into Season 4.

It's really fucking obvious that Will and Mike are gonna be endgame.

Like holy fuck. It's so fucking blatant I don't even know why people are nervous.

No sane fucking person would shoot this scene this way if they wanted the audience to care about El and Mike as a couple. Despite being all blurry in the background, Will's reaction to what's happening here is smackdab in the fucking middle, clearly showing that the important part is what's going through his head here. What he's feeling. It's like the opposite of that scene from Kingdom Hearts II where Sora and Riku reunite and Kairi just fucking vanishes into the aether while it's happening because, despite the fact that she was standing between them when the scene began, she doesn't matter to the scene, so she's just kind of gone when the camera angle changes. Will could have been behind one of their heads, or so far in the distance he blends in with the background, but he's not. He's so obvious that despite being massively blurred out, he's still the first goddamn thing you look at. What, you think that's an accident? You think he's in the middle of this dramatic fucking scene because of a mistake? He basically has a big flashing neon arrow pointing at him with "THIS IS THE POINT" being screamed through a megaphone.

And then this?

They're paired up like they're taking fucking prom pictures. Each one of these pairs is so fucking close to one another and so fucking far from everyone else. It's not, "Oh, they're standing vaguely near each other in a group shot," it's fucking Noah's Ark out here. Again, there's no way to take this as an accident. It's not just a framing issue. If they wanted to make the shot look balanced while still not hiding anyone else behind El, they would have scattered people around much more naturally. Even if they wanted to keep Nancy with Jonathan and Hopper with Joyce, there's so much room on that hill for three people to stand on El's left and three on her right. But they didn't do that. They put Mike and Will together on purpose in the most obvious way possible.

Like I get that coming up with crackpot theories is fun in and of itself and I'm not blaming anyone for having fun. I totally get the appeal of arguing a point and reaching for every stupid little thing to pull into it because it's like a game, okay? I've done that. But if you're trying to actually convince someone (whether it's someone who wants to believe or someone who's pissed at the very idea that Mike and Will could be in love), stay away from blue and yellow lights, stay away from costume design, stay away from the existence of closets in backgrounds. And don't worry about whether Mike's gay or bi when he's in love with Will either way. I'll give you a little tip about persuasion: You're only as strong as your weakest argument. Even if you've got strong stuff in there, too, the person you're trying to convince is going to dismiss anything you say as complete insanity the second you start going on an entire tangent about the shape of a character's fucking pocket.

Sometimes, clothes are just clothes. Sometimes, there's a closet in the background because it helps establish that a character is in a bedroom. Sometimes, blue and yellow are just a couple of colors that look nice together. And sure, it might be set designers and costume designers and cinematographers smirking and winking at the audience from behind the camera. But if the show was just those things, instead of those things in the context of everything else, they wouldn't be saying anything of note.

But this?

This tells a story all on its own. Someone with no context can look at this and automatically assume that each paired person is standing with someone they care about deeply, seeking comfort as they watch some sort of disaster unfold. And yeah, romantic couples usually come in twos, and we live in an amatonormative society, so that's going to be the first association anyone makes seeing a bunch of people paired off.

It's the same reason you look at this

And go, "Oh..."

"Those two are probably a couple."

And I genuinely don't understand how people could have watched S4 Vol. 2 and gotten scared. Because as someone who went in with no investment whatsoever, I just looked at these two--

--and went, "Oh, those two are a couple. Good for them." And I moved on. Shut up about the trees for five seconds and just see the forest for what it is.

Oh, and if you're still nervous? Little thing from a storyteller here: You don't leave a hanging thread like "Will confessed his romantic feelings for Mike by projecting them onto El, but Mike either didn't understand or at least didn't say he understood," without coming back to that later. That's Chekov's gun hanging on the wall, babes. It's gonna fire at some point. If Mike was going to reject Will's feelings, if they weren't relevant, they would have had that discussion in Argyle's van. There'd be no reason to leave you in suspense.

[valkerymillenia]

Is it weird that I hate Eric Frankenstein but I kinda love Dr Phosphorus?

They're both little murderous psychopaths but at least Phosphorus is funny and sarcastic and a self-absorbed willfully malicious stalker.

[front-facing-pokemon]

[awkwardrocker]

The funniest part about George's meltdown today is that it was wholly unnecessary.

All he had to do was come out today and go, "I said my side of the story in the stewards and obviously Max didn't take kindly to that but what's done is done and we'll move on."

But instead he tried to go scorched earth and it made him look so much worse.

[beneathsilverstars]

if i failed to protect my kid during the apocalypse and they almost died wandering on their own but got rescued by a team of four competent, battle-experienced adults who cared about them very much and made them feel less scared and useless but refused to let them fight, i think that would be a pretty decent outcome and i'd be pretty okay with it. sure i could dream up a better situation but there's a hell of a lot of worse ones too.

[xitsensunmoon]

Sun is much less assertive than Moon when feeding, right? That's why Moon gets the best scenes and moments with Y/N

I'm just so terribly biased 😭 his assertiveness is going to backfire on his ass soo bad tho

AND Sun is going to have his fair amount of scenes and moments :)

[fiona-fififi]

Okay, but do people not understand that some people love to spend time with the children of the people they care about?? That people can love kids who are not their own?? This whole weird fucking narrative that keeps getting spouted in this fandom about how Eddie is supposedly a bad friend because he "uses Buck as a babysitter" is so fucking obnoxious. First of all, Buck "babysitting" is not actually something we see all that often in canon at all.

But also, spending time with a kid you love while helping out a friend you love is not a fucking burden, and it is kind of infuriating that people treat it that way.

[solmarillion]

i know there's some people out there who think that silvergifting, specifically sauron falling in love with celebrimbor, is out of character for him. i'm gonna rant about that a little and talk about why it's not true.

we are told sauron didn't start out as evil. tolkien doesn't believe in inherent evil. and there is something human about sauron, in how much of a perfectionist he is, the way that he grew frustrated with all of the disorder in the world. these were things that he couldn't control, supposedly- but what if he could? he never would've been satisfied just working for aulë, not when all of the imperfections he saw became an obsession for him. and here comes melkor, giving him all of the power he wants to make that dream a reality for him. sauron is said to have "adored" melkor.

these are actual human feelings that real people experience. i have autism, ADHD, OCD, bipolar disorder and multiple anxiety disorders and a lot of the feelings sauron experiences about perfectionism, wanting to have control over things you just can't- these are feelings i deal with every single day!! it's just that sauron, being 1.) one of the ainur and 2.) a villain, takes these feelings to such an extreme that it warps him, and it shows how damaging you can be to yourself if you don't have a good support system, if you don't have people in place who genuinely want to help you and understand you. it's pretty clear to me that sauron is capable of experiencing human emotions, so by extension he is absolutely capable of love.

with these things in mind, it is PERFECTLY in-character for sauron to not only fall in love with celebrimbor but also to feel guilty about torturing and killing him. because celebrimbor is just another one of those things that he can't control, but he loves him. even if he wanted to just be annatar, he couldn't- celebrimbor would find out the truth eventually, and most likely reject him. and he couldn't just abandon all of those plans he sacrificed everything for. he left aulë and betrayed him, left melkor behind after so many years serving him, everything was building up to this moment. sauron was too transformed by all of his experiences and to just give up on everything would be giving up on who he had become. melkor became a part of him. but celebrimbor did too, and that's why it hurts so much. sauron is literally killing off a part of himself when he kills celebrimbor- the part of him that could've become annatar. it's fascinating to think about, what could drive someone to kill the person they love, and even more interesting when it's someone with as much potential for character exploration as sauron.

the rings of power would not have been made without celebrimbor. annatar and celebrimbor worked together in close partnership for 300 years, and the act of subcreation is said to be intimate. celebrimbor is part of the story of the one ring, and there's something special about celebrimbor and sauron's relationship, so much potential to be explored, even if you don't ship them romantically. i'm so tired of people shutting down the possibility of sauron experiencing love and being emotionally vulnerable just because "he's evil". tolkien didn't write a whole essay on sauron's motivations and complexities only for them to be dismissed like that. let's embrace the nuances in tolkien's villains instead of ignoring them.

[reneesbooks]

febuwhump main victim character

so for a few of the prompts i've already got plans/have written something but for some of the ones that i'm stuck on i have an idea. i'm going to make a random picker wheel with the names of the characters in the cycle and spin it and then i have to write a scene with that character for whatever prompt i'm feeling stuck on. i've done something like this before but i have also decided to spice things up and get y'all involved! vote for who you think should be the main victim of my febuwhump pieces below, and i'll make a picker wheel out of the results. # of votes = # of extra times their name is on the wheel. let's have a little fun with this. please reblog for more chaos <3

who the hell are these people?

raedoran cycle taglist: @k--havok @oh-no-another-idea @space-writes @lyssa-ink

picker wheel i use

[annatateson]

Disco Elysium Gothic and Lolita Tea Party Part 1: Klaasje and The Smoker LET'S GO BABYYYY!!!

I saw people doing EXCELLENT drawings of Harry Du Bois in lolita dresses and I'm obsessed! But why should he be the only one who partakes? What if EVERYONE gets a makeover and they have a big TEA PARTY!

My desk is now COVERED in Gothic and Lolita Bibles. No one is safe. Things are about to get FRILLY and FABULOUS. I did Klassje and The Smoker first at a request from my friend but I have sketched out many more already 3:)

More closeup pictures underneath...

[asofterepilogue]

I've seen people criticise triangle strategy's golden route as too convenient, too naïve, and one time as "the centrist choice", and I couldn't disagree more.

sure, it's annoying that you can only get the perfect option if you make some very specific choices earlier, some of which really don't fit together (I can't imagine why someone who would otherwise so consistently choose the (feasible) moral option would so easily choose to help smuggle salt with no knowledge of who's buying it or why). and it's extra annoying that roland's and benedict's absolutely disgusting takes are just swept under the rug like that.

but the fact that serenoa refuses to pick one of three questionable options because they're the ones presented to him, comes up with a way to deal with every issue at hand, and then convinces everyone else it can't not be attempted simply because it seems hard? I really, really loved that. I don't think there's anything centrist about it, I don't think it's so convenient if feels like a reach, and I don't think it's too naïve for a video game. maybe things would never work out like that in reality, but I don't subscribe to the idea that stories have to be as bleak as reality is or might seem, and if anything I think it's better when they aren't.

TLDR my smart kind and brave video game blorbo isn't a dirty centrist and there's nothing wrong with a happy ending 😤

[summergoodwife]

Gonna say it again, "Just stop consuming the genre" is THE WORST POSSIBLE RESPONSE to someone complaining about the lack of representation in their preferred genre!! And "Consume other stuff too" is not much better!!! I don't care how much you think varying media consumption is a Good and Holy lifestyle, not everyone wants to do that! There is no obligation to do that and there should not be! Because it's fucking entertainment. It's not a college major.

And! And and and. I would be remiss to not point out that when you tell someone, "If you want well written (minority) just get out of (genre fandom)" you are, regardless of your motivations, rhetorically aligning yourself with the exact same bigots who just want the pro-representation crowd to shut up and go away.