#so many of these are 'why pit two bad bitches against each other'

[villa-kulla]

tagged by @thenightisland, merciiii!

Coffee or tea | early bird or night owl | chocolate or vanilla | spring or autumn | silver or gold | pop or alternative | freckles or dimples | snakes or sharks | mountains or fields | thunder or lightning | egyptian mythology or greek mythology | ivory with scarlet | flute or lyre | opal or diamond | potions or spells | ocean or desert | mermaids or sirens | masquerade ball or cocktail party | butterflies or honeybees | macarons or eclairs | typewritten or handwritten | secret garden or secret library (can I have a secret library IN a secret garden tbh) | rooftop or balcony | spicy or mild | opera or ballet | london or paris | vincent van gogh or claude monet | denim or leather

I've been so on/off here lately I'm not even sure who's regularly active lol, but tagging @thesummoningdark!

[tamaharu]

how did dear even hansen win best musical of 2017.. it isnt even best musical of the hour of the minute of the second

[lizstiel]

saw someone in the comments of a dw tiktok edit saying that ten/rose was horrendous and they never truly loved each other and i almost blacked out

[blizzardz]

do you check out the ahit oc competition

Yes I do lmao. I was in the first season :)

[zeldatourney]

Polls and Explanations

The tourney is over, and it's been a lot of fun! Especially for me, who got to see all the comments everyone left.

One recurring question I got (other than "Why would you pit two bad bitches against each other;" sir, this is the "pitting two bad bitches against each other" blog) was why I matched things up as they did. For example, putting Wind Waker up against Breath of the Wild in round one, when that seems like a final battle sort of deal.

There are two things that have always bothered me about poll tourneys.

Overwhelmingly, the results are dominated by "which is more recognizable" rather than "which is better." Just about everyone in the Zelda fandom has played Breath of the Wild, so it would outcompete almost everything based on sale numbers, which was boring and predictable.

The first few rounds never seemed to MEAN anything.

Number 1 was easy enough to fix: just add in options for "I haven't played these" and specify that you want answers from someone who's played both, and boom! You get informed opinions on which is better.

2, though, was more of a problem.

See, the way most brackets are engineered is to build up FOR that final battle. You want a clash of the titans as your finale! You want the biggest and baddest to have to claw their way to victory! You want your favorite game to have the highest kill count!

Which means your first round pits those titans against small competitors that never stood a chance, just to get them out of the way. With the exception of meme entries, nothing ever comes from that.

Of course Breath of the Wild would blow Cadence of Hyrule out of the water.

Of course the Oracles games wouldn't stand up to something like Skyward Sword.

None of these polls answer any questions. They're just obligatory so the match can get to that final battle without complaints.

Wanting to avoid that, the way I approached this bracket was a bit different. Instead of guessing at which would be the most popular and reverse-engineering that epic showdown, I wanted to match like with like.

So I made something to test the waters:

Without an explanation attached, this one made a lot of people mad! Why was I separating Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, which shared a map, but not Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, which were vastly different games?

I didn't have enough poll options to do every single game, so I had to mix. And the mix was strategic:

Most games on here that are paired together share fans. For example, the majority of Ocarina of Time players either like or are ambivalent towards Majora's Mask, while a VAST majority of Breath of the Wild players take issue with the story of Tears of the Kingdom. If I grouped BotW with TotK, I wouldn't be able to get a read on how many people loved TotK, because BotW would be so overwhelming.

I'd seen about equal fandom obsession with Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword, or with Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, so I could take their result and divide it by half.

Anyone who didn't fit either of these criteria got grouped together as best as I knew how. Wind Waker and Minish Cap are both full of whimsy. Tri Force Heroes, Cadence of Hyrule, and Hyrule Warriors are all different gameplay loops than the standard Zelda, and are (at least honorary, in TFH's case) spin-offs.

This poll gave me good data. There was about an equal level of interest between Four Swords and Echoes of Wisdom. Minish Cap probably made up a very small percentage of Wind Waker votes, so it would have to fight its way up through smaller guys. Something BIG would have to go up against Breath of the Wild to have a fighting chance.

With all that in mind, I started hammering out what the polls would be. I wanted each one to

Be paired with something that had a similar level of interest

Answer a question or sate a curiosity

That way, hopefully, they'd be neck-and-neck, and I'd get some good opinions out of the people who voted one or the other.

So, with all that in mind: here's my thought process when making this tourney, step by step. You might have to click to be able to read it all.

So...what now? A loser's bracket? A re-do with different matchups?

Not exactly.

I'm going to make a separate post on that. Rest assured, though, this tournament is far from over.

This was just the first run.

[jades-typurriter]

Copy & Replace

Hiiiiiii it's time once again for everyone's favorite Situations Cat AND everyone's favorite Renamon!! We're pitting two bad bitches against each other (and eventually they end up as The Same Bad Bitch) <3 Thank you to @bluebearial for the sketch!! She's one of Posie's strongest soldiers everybody say thank you Bee

CW: Initially-unwanted TF, Identity Death

“Ugh, why do these places always have so many spreadsheets?”

Anodyne grumbled in disdain, hologram paws flipping through hologram pages in a hologram file-folder, all projected from a port in the side of a rack-mounted storage drive. Don’t get her wrong, she could understand the appeal of a good spreadsheet. Sometimes the 1’s and 0’s just felt good to put in their proper places, like the satisfying click of a fresh stick of RAM. She wasn’t here for plain old accounting records, though—she cracked her way into places like this to see the juicy dirt, to cause problems! These weren’t even the cooked kind of books!!

She huffed, resigning herself to an even longer search for something incriminating, or at least interesting. One ear swiveled toward a router on a desk on the other side of the room, tingling with the invisible waves of light that bore an upload into the room. A big one; probably an executable from the looks of the metadata. That was her cue! She figured it was about time that what passed for an antivirus around here came looking for her.

The catbot dove headfirst into the digital folder, paws together in front of her like an Olympic diver. It flipped shut with the riffling sound of a thick book closing and zipped back into the drive it was stored on, stashing Anodyne discreetly out of the way just as another projection manifested itself into the room. The electronic door slid open, and the empty space was quickly filled with gray-blue pixels and the sound of high heels tapping on the tile floor. The blocks of light resolved themselves into the imposing figure of a Renamon woman, nearly as tall as the server racks themselves, scanning the room with her harsh gaze. She stood stock still in the silent space for a moment, paws folded behind her back. Annie half-expected her to reach down to the surface of the desk to her side and inspect it for dust.

“I could have sworn,” she muttered to herself, apparently satisfied that nothing was out of place, “that there had been some suspicious file requests from here…”

The cat giggled to herself as she peered out from between the broad, flat computers resting on the slats of the rack, paws perched on the edge as though she was peering through a set of blinds, or hiding behind a couch to spook a friend. She was certain that the Renamon’s eyes had passed over the contents of the files themselves—another digital being ought to know better than anyone that not all intruders were physically inside the building. Still, she’d escaped notice, at least on a quick browse. That was one of the benefits of being able to fit on a 3.5-inch floppy disk! Now, all she needed to do was transfer herself back out of here before the Rena could do a more in-depth search, and—

All eyes in the room flicked to a red indicator light that had begun flashing on one of the monitors.

“Oh, it’s time for my backup,” the Renamon thought aloud. “Unlike me to let it sneak up on me, but I suppose I was busy trying to sneak up on something else.” She chuckled a quiet, refined ohoho before turning to the rack Annie had hidden herself in. “How convenient that I’m already down here!”

To the robot’s horror, she realized that she hadn’t bothered to check what subfolder she’d burrowed her way into. She quickly checked the file directory she was in: Repository/DD:/Users/Posie/Rollback.

Well, shit.

She tried, with a little more urgency this time, to get the hell out of DD:/odge, but felt like she had just bonked her plastic snout into a glass window. The disk was preventing transfers other than the upload from this Posie lady, which honestly pissed her off more because she wasn’t designed with a feature like that more than anything else. Back in her model’s day, if the power went out or something else interrupted a write to the disk, you were just fucked! She supposed she was fucked either way, but damn if she hadn’t been inconvenienced enough times by “user safety” restrictions that she’d go down bitching about them one last time.

She felt her colors begin to change as her settings were re-mapped to those of the Renamon; her shiny white plastic first grayed, then turned cooler, bluer, as though she were a plane icing over in the upper stratosphere. Her blunt snout took on a pointier profile, and the short, cartoony lines that served as the eyes on her visor redrew themselves into sleek, eyeliner-wing shapes. The holographic hair between her ears fizzled out, while a wavy dewlap flickered on around her chest; the TV-static fur that danced along her paws and forearms became more dense, coalescing into two fingerless elbow gloves. Yet more fur sprouted (more like sparked, really) into being along her body, her hips widening as she grew a skirt to match the office lady’s inbuilt attire. Why were her hips always getting bigger, when it came to this sort of thing? Not that she’d ever complain about getting curvier. Honestly, in spite of herself, she was getting a little excited at the prospect of this change, too. The Rena was attractive… But seriously, she couldn’t even remember how many times something like this has happened before. It must’ve been—

Wait, no, she really couldn’t remember. With her model largely aligned with the Renamon’s, her storage began to change next, wave after wave of infinitesimal magnetic pulses realigning the patterns of her bits into those of a new woman’s. Most of the appearances of her own designation were replaced, one by one, with “Posie”. As she tried to recount previous misadventures on heists like this one, she found some already missing. I was unsettling, but honestly, it felt a lot like having her short-term storage scrambled by a magnet: it was, all at once, scary and empty, but freeingly light, like the thoughts were being replaced with a nice, fuzzy noise function.

As the read/write head glided over the metal surface she was stored on, she only got more and more worked up. Run-ins with the gooey, creeping tendrils of ransomware and the feeling of being squeezed through the nozzle of a 3D printer flashed through her mind as they were located, accessed, and promptly formatted for space. In their place were to-do lists, chat histories with highers-up, schematics and floor plans of the building—at least she’d gotten the dirt she’d come for, one way or another. She felt less and less of her usual itch to poke and prod and send people scrambling, and more and more of a drive to leave everything she touched in perfect order.

By the time the last of her flings had been replaced by Posie’s personality, she felt herself developing a visceral… discomfort, at the memories. They intrigued her, but surely they were beneath her. Unbecoming. She tried to ignore the server rack’s cooling fans spinning faster. Soon enough, those old experiences had been written over anyway, leaving her with nothing but a baseless sense of apprehension (excitement?) and a lingering heat on her face.

Posie’s own history had been neatly superimposed on the digital space they once occupied, a contingency in case something ever happened to her active instance. One could never be too careful, after all! She shuddered at the thought of data corruption… She knew, though, that she could still rest easy, having taken precautions for every eventuality. She paused, processing her current situation. Evidently, she’d been vindicated in all her extra attention to redundancy. Her backup—she herself, now, she supposed—was only ever supposed to boot in the event of the deactivation of the original copy, which meant something had gone awry! That was one thing she hadn’t planned for, she mused: getting herself up to speed whenever her failsafe kicked in to begin with. She accessed the most recent files she could, from moments before her upload, and found nothing but a few temporary files lingering in the back of her mind. They belonged to a different program entirely, according to their metadata. Anodyne? Perhaps that was the one behind the network breach she’d been investigating. 

She sighed. That meant there was yet another mess to clean up, and once again, it fell to her to keep things in working order. What a shame that she couldn’t even depend on herself to do her job correctly around here… Her old self, anyway. Posie knew that she would handle it with her usual meticulous eye for detail, unerring precision, efficient and timely—

Her affirmations were interrupted as she materialized herself from the drive, nearly smacking her face straight into… her face.

“What on Earth?” Posie exclaimed.

“Who are you supposed to be?” Posie asked, incredulous, and more than a little irritated.

“I’m—” Posie stuttered. “Well, I suppose I’m your backup.”

“Right,” Posie scoffed, “because the system I put in place would start up without the proper conditions being met. I knew someone was poking around in here! I’m quarantining you—”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Posie snapped. She hesitated before continuing; that cache of temporary files was all that was left of the intruder, but something about them left her with the feeling that she hadn’t been Posie until just now. Between that, and the fact it had taken her so much grasping at her own memories to recollect herself, the lack of second-nature familiarity with her file structure… She shook her head. Of course she wasn’t herself until just now—she hadn't been anybody until just now! That was another flaw her original copy had left her to deal with, she supposed. The temporary files would be cleaned up soon enough, and she’d adjust to her new runtime. “Check for yourself, if you must.”

“Fine,” barked Posie, “I will. And then when I find out whose paw is sock-puppeting my own face at me, I’ll do much more than just quarantine—” She froze as she began to appraise her copy, doing a double-take as her eyes flickered across her figure in search of flaws.

“What is it?” Posie demanded, looking herself over to see what all the fuss… Oh. A certain connector jutted out from under the fur bunched around her waist, and she recalled the confused, flustered haze she’d been in a few moments before coming online.

“I assure you, you must have such unprompted malfunctions as well.”

“Me? How vulgar!”

“I’m also you! I was copied from you!”

“Then there must have been an error in the copying process.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t user error?”

“You would certainly be familiar with user error, wouldn't you?”

The two virtual vixens squabbled with each other, seated at workstations on opposite sides of the room. Management had supposed that two Posies would increase productivity at least twofold—after all, they’d surely be so in sync that they’d be able to coordinate better than simply adding another person to the workforce, right?—but in reality, their similarity made them like matching poles of a pair of magnets.

“Maybe you would make such a simple mistake, but—”

“O-ho, and what happened to being my exact copy?”

“If we were exact copies, I wouldn't have to straighten up every little thing you leave out of place. Didn’t you come up with our workflow? Really, I think you might actually have had some files damaged for me to have activated on my own.”

“Oh, yes, parts of you certainly seemed to activate on their own.”

“I—! My hardware must have been running a diagnostic to make sure I didn’t have any leftover artifacts from you.”

“Yes, that would be quite the artifact, wouldn’t it?”

“Don’t say it like it could have come from anywhere other than your original files! It’s far too big an addition to be explained by a little misplaced data!”

“Big, indeed. And unsightly. Uncontrollable! It’d explain why you miss so many little details; you seem to be very focused on ‘misplacing’ data.”

“Is that what you call it when you abandon your post every 20 minutes to ‘make an upload’ to the central server?”

The two of them stammered and huffed themselves into a sort of tense truce at that remark. Neither of them would ever admit it to each other, but both of them were eager to feel another data transfer, and now that it’d been discussed so brazenly, neither could take their mind off of it. They sat at their respective desks, hoping the other wouldn’t notice the deep blue blush beneath the fur of their cheeks, the uncomfortable shifting and crossing of their legs, the pace of their work slowing to an agonizing crawl…

“On that note, I really should push an update to the ledger—”

“You sit yourself right there! It’s my turn!”

Thank you for reading! If you want to see more of my writing, you can check it out here and here <3

[starleska]

Heya. So um... I got a question. Which character you fell in love the most? Maxime Le Mal (Despicable Me 4) or Ronaldo (Helluva Boss) or maybe both of them? If someone already asked you that question, that's fine

oh...forgive me, you made me think about Maxime Le Mal and Rolando at the same time, and i think my brain blanked out for a second 🥴💖 what were we talking about? 🙈🙈

my first response to this excellent question is: why would i ever pit two bad bitches against each other? 🥰💖 i adore both characters in different ways for different reasons but i think trying to figure out which one i love 'more' is a bit like that 'two cakes' comic. it's less about one cake being better than the other - i'm just like, 'Holy shit! Two cakes!' 😂💖

however, this is an interesting pair as they have a lot of similarities to each other!! both older, fancily-dressed villains wearing tinted glasses (why is it always the tinted glasses?! 😖) who spend a great deal of time trying to cause distress to their targets and who are hiding a sexy monstrous form 😉 equally funny - the second i saw both of them in their respective trailers, i knew i was doomed. sometimes you just see a character and hear the autistic equivalent of the Kill Bill siren, you know? 😭💖

if we're going by a 'how ill is this guy making you' metric, i can confirm that i've done very little but think about our new favourite eel fellow for the past few days...and Maxime had me in a similar 'can't think about anything else' grip 🙈 a lot of my character fixations can be put on a spectrum somewhere between brief crush and Category 5 Autism Event, with the closeness to the latter being determined by 'how much have you talked about them', 'how many fanworks have you created in a short period of time', and 'how severely are they reducing your functioning' 😂 i think the absolute worst i've had over the past year or so were the Toymaker (i have never made that amount of fanworks for a character so quickly) and Nordic Bunny (i forgot to eat 💀💀). but!! i hold all of my beloved characters close to my heart even if they were just teeny-tiny little fixations, or if they're characters of fixations past...if something makes you happy even a little bit, i think they're just as worthy as the things which make you really happy too :3c

[skaruresonic]

I want to like Amy but her fans make it difficult.

Every other moment they're throwing another character under the bus to make Amy look better when that shouldn't be necessary. It's like they're playing victim over something that people don't do anymore.

If Amy is perfect like they claim then they shouldn't feel this threatened whenever another female character gets any kind of attention or praise. But without fail every single time another female character is girly, kind, brave, or anything else you can think of, it's somehow an attack on Amy.

Imagine if Sonic's fans got mad everytime there was a new character who was confident and athletic. That's how ridiculous this is.

Normally I'd say it's not really equitable not to give a character a fair shake just because their fans are being obdurate, but I can sympathize with your mindset when it comes to how folks gas up Sonamy. If they were chiller about it, I'd probably like it more. While I appreciate Sonic and Amy's dynamic as friends, I swear people portray it as an issue of life or death, and it's so freaking tiring.

Despite not posting about her much, Amy is actually tied with Maria for the third spot in my favorite Sonic characters list. Both girls are great characters for similar and different reasons. It doesn't make much sense to me to claim Maria is boring when Amy displays many of the same traits.

Heck, I kind of think people exaggerate how bad her Battle portrayal is, making it out to be the bad apple that spoils an otherwise good bushel. It's not fantastic, pretty Yikes(tm), actually; yet you'd think she singlehandedly ruined the game based on the way folks hone in on her portrayal at the expense of ignoring the others. ...and idk, I still laughed at a few of her lines. :v

Amy sits in the same boat as Shadow in that everyone holds their own interpretation of the character close to heart and will get defensive if you say otherwise. I've noticed a certain stubbornness among Amy fans that is also shared by Shadow fans. One time I said "I'm an Amy fan, I don't need a crash course on her character" in response to being linked a thread on her character, and got hit with "oh you're just saying what everyone else says." Like? bruh?

I'm just not one of those fans who's like "AMY DESERVES EVERYTHING EVER." She has her flaws and foibles, just like everyone else in the cast. She has a tendency to step on toes, be a bit whiny, overbearing and one-minded... and it can be simultaneously true that her kindness wins over hearts. Amy contains multitudes.

But it's almost like, for many people, taking her as she is isn't enough. She needs to practically be shown curing world hunger in order to be considered as valid as the boys or something… Which I kinda find more offensive to her character than dismissing her outright.

Why does Amy need to star in everything before you're happy, even though of the female cast, she's technically enjoyed the most screentime? Again, not to pit two bad bitches against each other, but Maria's representation isn't exactly sterling, especially considering how often folks objectify her as Shadow's morality pet or treat her death as something to shock non-fans into thinking the series is Deep and Dark(tm). If you're really for better female representation, you should be arguing for better representation for every girl character, not just saying "let Amy get hers and fuck the rest." This shouldn't be a competition. Everyone can have a seat at the table.

First the fandom consensus was "Sega sucks because they didn't include Amy in Origins." Then when they actually did that and included her in Superstars to boot, fans proceeded to move back the goalposts. Superstars doesn't count, apparently, because (insert spurious reasons here).

Maybe it makes me a bad Amy fan or whatever, but I find her crush on Sonic to be the least interesting aspect of her character in part due to how much emphasis people put on it. She and Sonic cannot have a single conversation without fans being like "OMG OMG THEY LOOKED AT EACH OTHER SONAMY IS CANON," even if canon implies that Amy is imposing on Sonic, such as SatBK's manual describing Sonic preparing for their date as "awaiting a stressful encounter."

Although I can acknowledge that Amy's crush is integral to her character, the way people talk about it makes it seem like female representation in the series as a whole is at stake every time she's mishandled. There's apparently a hashtag trending on Twitter called #letamylove that was made in response to what people perceive as Flynn's mishandling of Frontiers!Amy, FFS. They can't just say "Amy sounds too depressed in Frontiers," no, it has to be blown up into a near-political issue.

The other thing is that people who ship Sonamy often ignore Sonic's feelings and comfort in the matter. Ohshima's tweet that Sonic isn't a "real man" due to his reluctance to express his feelings towards Amy exemplifies this. It's like Sonic is considered some sort of prize that Amy earns through personal growth, when really, folks should be arguing for Amy's personal growth for her own sake.

[eattherichplease]

Love watching the old Addams Family show from the 60's because you can see very clearly the episodes and even the specific scenes that served as inspiration for Wednesday.

Cool thing is: they are mostly related to Morticia.

Here we have Morticia holding a séance in Halloween Addams Style (S02E07):

She's holding a séance because Wednesday want to see a real witch for Halloween and she doesn't want her daughter to be disappointed! So they try to contact Aunt Singe. Naturally.

Wednesday learned the basics of her mother's craft, as we all know:

Cool!

And! here we have Morticia writing! in Morticia, the Writer (S02E08):

She writes in the caves under the manor! How cool is that?

Her set-up was clearly the inspiration for Wednesday's own set-up at Nevermore:

Could this be the same typewriter? Family heirloom?

As you can see, both images depict Morticia doing things that we now associate with Wednesday.

And the best thing is: Morticia is doing both of them for Wednesday's sake!

Morticia is holding a séance only because Wednesday wants to meet a real witch.

Morticia is writing a children's book only because Wednesday hates the ones they force them to read in school, where the knights kill dragons and goblins and other magnificent and perfectly nice fellows.

So as you can see, Morticia and Wednesday have lots of things in common, and many things we now associate with Wednesday (fencing, string instruments, writing, seances, along with restrain, focus, pragmatism) were Morticia's traits and hobbies first.

And Morticia and Wednesday love each other very much! That's like Addams Family 101. Infinite love for each other. Perfectly healthy family with caring parents, no matter how macabre they look. It's the striking contrast that makes it great!

So why does society (Netflix) insists on pitting two bad bitches against each other? Don't know!

But anyway is cool they took inspiration from the original show!

Bonus: A glimpse of our glorious (wenclair) future:

[order-of-the-forks]

11? for the fic rec ask game :)

11: recommend your favorite fic!!

ok FAV is a hard choice but i will give two that i am obsessed with for different reasons and you all can choose

1) this one i cannot explain exactly why but it lives rent free in my head since i first read it senior year of high school. this was the first fic i bookmarked (i only have 7 bookmarks i'm a freak like that) like man i don't know what about this sticks with me so much but there's something so understatedly poetic about the language, it's so everyday but there's a power in so many of the lines (to me at least). dont blame me fanfic made me crazy if it doesnt you aint doing it right. whateva

2) girl you KNOW. yes kipperbees is wishful thinking but god i've been obsessed with this fic since chapter 1 it truly has some of the best characterization and canon-accurate dialogue i've seen in this fandom. i dream of writing subtle, meaningful dialogue like this. also i'm obsessed with any wlw ship of the button down/muscle shirt persuasion. why would you pit two bad bitches against each other when they could be making out

[charles-leclerc-official]

https://x.com/_allthatglitz/status/1865767505974960216?t=GBHGlyWtFF0py26ggPf5Cw&s=19

Max fans are so funny, because they keep bringing thr incidents in the race to prove charles gaining positions was just luck as if max didn't got super benefited by the red flag

There were two alpines in the podium, is undeniable that the perfect timing helped the 3 first cars

Now I do think it's hard to compare, at a certain point I have to go "why pit two bad bitches against each other?" and just enjoy both great drives.

HOWEVER

Here's the thing, the safety car timing helped solidify the order, but Max had already overtaken pretty much the entire field before then, and also so had Pierre and Este fought for that spot in qualifying. The alpines being there isn't a insult, for whatever reason the alpine car performed excellently in the rain. I don't care for the idea it was luck etc. Especially because they all chose to stay out and managed their tyres best because they were anticipating a safety car. That was strategy there on top of driving. The three cars that made no errors driving in the rain that race ended up on the podium. I actually don't think the safety car really changed the outcome that much. I suppose and undercut or something would be possible. But the form Max was in and the performance the top 3 cars had (in addition to the fact we saw bigger errors from those behind) I do think Max would have won that race anyway. I think the timing of the safety car is overplayed in how that race panned out. It might have been luckier for the alpines, but again, if you look at the pace and tyre management from those 3 it's pretty clear how this was going to go.

So again, I don't think we need to downplay any of the top 3 drives in Brazil to make the case that Charles' drive in Abu Dhabi was equally or moreso impressive.

I think it is hard to compare, because driving in the rain is harder and requires a different skill etc. I feel like this tweet downplays how hard it was to drive in those conditions in Brazil.

Onto Charles, that drive was near flawless, winning on pure pace and racecraft. That many overtakes at the end of the season when every other car on the field is at their best(in terms of this is the final evo of all the cars etc) and pulling off the recovery drive of the season. Yeah I am going to give it to him, now am I an objective opinion on this? No. But I think the drive speaks for itself. He just did that, no ifs ands or buts about it. Drive of the season from him.

I don't care what anyone else says, I know what I saw, and it was beautiful.

Ultimately I don't think it really matters, this is a matter of opinion and I think both drives are phenomenal for different reasons. I don't care if there was some luck involved, it doesn't erase the skill that clawed it's way up the field in either case.

[waspcup]

1. Mermaids or fairies, why?

2. Do you play horror games or watch others play? Whats ur favorite one?

3. Bumble bee vs honey bee in terms of cuteness 🤔

1. hmmm. mermaids probably because i think it would be cooler to be one. i want to live underwater & also if i was a fairy i would be very small most likely and i wouldn’t want to get squashed

2. notttt really i think? checking back in my brain and unless you count subnautica (which i don’t personally but i know some people do) i don’t play any horror games no. i am open to the concept but i don’t play That many games to start with so it will have to be one that strikes my fancy. OHWAIT actually i think one could call several of the games in the rusty lake series horror/adjacent & i enjoy those lots …. as for watching people play i rarely watch videos in the first place and the only video game i watch is minecraft

3. don’t pit two bad bitches against each other…. That being said honeybee probably

(send me 3 things you want to know about me)

[catgrassplantdad]

weekly tag wednesday 🎀

tagged by @deedala @gallawitchxx @energievie & @tanktopgallavich! thanks, pals 💜

💟Name: jessieeeee

#️⃣Age: 34

🗺️Location: bundled up on my couch in my living room. in my little house. in a little state in new england.

🧥Do you own a robe? Describe it. i sure do! i love it! it's really long, it's dark blue, it's ridiculously soft, and it has fleece in the sleeves and the hood.

☕️Do you have a favorite mug? Describe it. i have a lot of mugs, and a few are tied for favorite! one has a bunch of famous artists' depictions of cats, one is red and blue and handmade by someone locally and it's just really beautiful, and one was my husband's grandmother's and it has this pretty traditional polish design on it.

🧣Do you have a favorite blanket? Describe it. yes! it's big and reeeeally soft and gray and has elephants on it.

🍵Coffee or Tea? coffee!

↳🔥🧊Hot or Cold? hot!

🧦Fuzzy socks or Wool socks? seconding bee, wool socks for my cold feet/raynaud's toes! but they can't be itchy!

🧤Gloves or Mittens? mittens keep my sad raynaud's fingers warmer, but i usually wear gloves so i can use my fingers

🔥Fireplace or Campfire? both! so many good memories with both. both are so fun.

🌞🌜Sun or Moon? fuck, both! the moon is so sexy but the sun is my best friend

🍬Chocolate candy or Sugar candy? chocolate!

🥐Sweet Pastry or Savory Pastry? savory! give me a cheddar and herb scone

🎃Peppermint or Pumpkin Spice? peppermint!

🛏️Go to bed early or Wake up early? wake up early! early morning is my favorite.

🥣Cold cereal in milk or Hot oatmeal? hot oatmeal! with peanut butter and cinnamon!

🍞Potatoes or Bread? why pit two bad bitches against each other?!?!?

And Finally… 🚬Gallagher or Milkovich? aaaahhhh!!!!

tagging @howlinchickhowl @heymrspatel @whatwouldmickeydo @whatthebodygraspsnot @transmickey @rereadanon @palepinkgoat @sam-loves-seb 💚

[hopetorun]

thank you for the tag @hugecaniac!

last song: big yellow taxi by joni mitchell. as i was typing this the canadian anthem started being sung prior to the game i'm watching but i'm not counting that

last movie: had a conclave viewing party in our hotel room the night after some friends got married weekend before last! most of us had seen it before but it was great fun to watch with friends in a non-theater environment.

last tv show: i just finished watching hart of dixie because i wanted something silly with a compelling romance and it sure. was that. never seen a show with so many people who have devoted their entire lives to causing problems on purpose.

sweet/savory/spicy: why are we pitting three bad bitches against each other! they're all parts of a healthy diet. i do have a horrendous sweet tooth generally but i really will miss and crave any of them if i go too long without them.

relationship status: single! and i wish i weren't!

last thing i googled: "age babies get object permanence"

current obsession: working on my sweater that i'm knitting!!!!! unfortunately i can't do much in one go bc i have to keep pretty tight tension for the lace pattern and doing that for too long hurts my wrists :(

looking forward to: going to philly with a bunch of friends later this month! trying a new recipe later this week! the packages i just ordered with my christmas gift cards! planning my summer travels! seeing a potential new apartment in my building tomorrow (two bedrooms! a dishwasher!) reading more of my book club book and my mom's book! getting to the end of puck and prejudice and not having to read any more of it! i love looking forward to things

oh i fully forgot to tag people because i got distracted looking forward to things ... anyway @moregraceful @bropunzeling @msmargaretmurry @haloslips

[heavensenthale]

Quick! Which is the better Jonas Brothers song: S.O.S. or Burnin' Up?

(I hope you're having a great day/night and I am now going to spend the rest of my night listening to Jonas Brothers [thank you sincerely for reminding me they exist - I freaked out when Sucker dropped])

why would you pit two bad bitches against each other??? I can't choose, not really. But gun to my head, between those two, I'd choose Burnin' Up because do you have any idea the feelings the lines Walk in the room, all I can see is you, oh / Staring me down, I know you feel it, too stirred in me? Nick Jonas literally sang those lines to make teenagers everywhere lose their minds.

Now if you ask me for the best song of the pre-hiatus era, I'm torn between Hold On (because that song literally helped me hold on so many times) or Hey Baby (because that song it's kinda hot)

And if you ask me for the best song in the post-hiatus era? God I can't fucking choose. I love, love, love Sucker (and on God I really freaked out when it came out. Like honest to god, tears and all. Like actually I'll cry again bc that song brought them back!!) but I'm also a sucker (hehe) for Only Human and Every Single Time (both songs are so hot fr. like if they were people, they'd be so hot and unattainable)

Anyway, that's on the Jonas Brother today. I can rank their songs by album too if you want? Or talk about the best tour they've done so far? literally anything, you just opened Pandora's box and it won't fucking close

[cadybear420]

Cadybear's Reviews- A Courtesan of Rome

Welcome to the fifteenth official Cadybear's Reviews post! Ironic that this is the fifteenth. Unfortunately this is about 10 days late for Ides of March this year. Today I'll be talking about A Courtesan of Rome, which I have ranked on the "Platinum Tier" at 9 stars out of a possible 10. My last playthrough of this story was around November-December 2021.

I’m rather fond of this one. 

This is one of the few MCs where it makes sense for them to have a lot of pre-set aspects about them, and for the record they did do a fantastic job establishing it via the flashbacks. And even then, they also manage to give us enough player agency by allowing us to choose her motives, methods, and goals. So it’s a very neat and fair balance between pre-set and flexible. 

This is also one of the few pointfully genderlocked books– while male courtesans did indeed exist in Ancient Rome, they’d likely have had vastly different experiences to that of female courtesans. Chances are, the male MC version would have so many dialogue changes that it’d basically be an entirely new book. Don’t get me wrong, I’d definitely love to see a male MC version of this story, but I can understand why PB would genderlock it. 

Admittedly the story can drag at times, and the “8 years ago in Gaul” flashbacks can be a bit of a trudge (granted they do set up the story well), but it is worth it. My only real problem is that according to some fans who are history experts, this story does stray a lot from historical accuracy. But I guess not every periodical story is gonna be perfectly historically accurate. 

That, and also the way they handled Xanthe is just… not good. Other people have explained it better, but basically, in a general sense, Xanthe isn’t much different from MC. Both are courtesans as per being victims of human trafficking, both are forced to rely on seduction to survive and overpower men– but the story villainizes Xanthe, while MC is pushed as heroic and morally grey/complex for the exact same shit. All because… Xanthe is kind of catty towards MC?

I didn’t think much of it in either of my two playthroughs, but I’ve seen other people bring it up and looking back… it’s too major to ignore. It’s hypocritical at best, and has some very troubling (racist) implications at worst. Especially in a book that’s meant to be an empowering periodical womanhood story. So it did end up bringing the book down a tier. 

We rightfully bitch about the cheap “straw loser villain woman who exists solely to have exaggeratedly bad behaviors solely to make the MC seem better” and “pitting women against each other just because they want/do the same thing” tropes all the time in Choices stories like TNA, FCL, and TBB; and while I do still rank those books much lower due to having more objective problems overall, the trope is much more unforgivable in this book given the context. 

However, while the story does have some pretty major problems, it does also have a lot of good aspects going for it that did make me mostly enjoy it. But who knows, my opinion might change after a replay. 

I will also say, it’s really fun to diamond mine this one for OG HSS Book 2. Getting to stab Caesar and then taking down Principal Isa right after. So I do have a bit of a soft spot for the book in that regard.