#some have literally nothing in them they're just placeholders

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

IOTA Reviews: Emotion

Hey, remember Felix? You know, that minor character who is the entire reason Gabriel has all of Ladybug's other Miraculous? The writers remembered he existed more than halfway through the season.

Let's get into the eighteenth episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fifth season: Emotion

We start off with Marinette and Adrien getting ice cream, and just like last episode, right when they're about to kiss, Adrien stops at the last second. While we don't see it, it's heavily implied that Gabriel is behind this. It turns out that Adrien has to get ready for some dance for rich people. While it has a name and I think it was mentioned in a few earlier episodes this season, it's really just some dance for rich people, so I don't care enough to remember it. Of course, all of the rich characters we know are invited, like Kagami, Chloe, Zoe, and Prince Ali. Lila, on the other hand, wasn't invited. This might sound important, but nothing happens with her until the end.

Zoe isn't going because of the “character development” she's gotten, so she offers to let Marinette wear her dress to the dance, which just so happens to be a masquerade ball. Tikki asks why Marinette even wants to go to this party she wasn't invited to, but all Marinette says is that it's so she can tell Adrien that she didn't have to keep the dance a secret from her. Why didn't Marinette just call Adrien? Because then we wouldn't have a story.

At the ball, Adrien and Kagami are the king and queen or whatever because their parents are really determined to make their ship sail even though the two show no real interest in each other (insert your own joke about the writers here), but they're interrupted by Amelie, Emilie's twin sister and Felix's mom. She's worried because her son has been missing for weeks, but Gabriel couldn't care less about the little twerp.

At the party, we get a somewhat amusing joke where Chloe fails to recognize Marinette under her mask, where Marinette not only says her name is Zoe, but her “underling” is named Chloe too. But speaking of...

Chloe: How rich are your parents? Rich? Very rich? Immensely rich? Of course, otherwise you wouldn't be here! It's too bad we can't bring out underlings with us. I'm sure these tin cans can serve properly but we can't make fun of them! (grabs a drink from a butler robot before kicking it) So lame!

Okay, did the writers just stop caring about writing convincing dialogue for Chloe? This is a problem I've noticed a lot this season. Yeah, Chloe was bad in the last four seasons, but here, she constantly talks about how Sabrina is her “underling” (Passion), or how she finds Marinete's suffering to be amusing (Derision). It's not really out of character, but it's weird how she's so much more blunt when it comes to boasting about how full of herself she is. It feels like a lot of her lines this season were meant to be placeholders for stuff the writers thought they'd change later, but then they decided to keep it in anyway. And of course to show how stuck up the other rich kids saying the same kind of stuff Chloe normally says, which is somehow less subtle social commentary than Hop Pop shouting “EAT THE RICH!”.

Adrien and Kagami talk about how they're expected to follow orders, while pretty much saying that Kagami is a Sentimonster since the camera really wants to show off her ring.

Oh wow. what does this mean? Wow, this is such a compelling mystery with so many twists and turns. I am so very invested right now.

However, as the two talk, it's clear that Adrien isn't himself, literally.

“Adrien”: Let's leave, I dare you.

Kagami: Are you insane? We can't do that.

“Adrien”: Of course, we can. I can.

Kagami: (gasps) You'd do that?

“Adrien”: Wanna bet?

Kagami: No, we can't.

“Adrien”: See? You're not as free as you claim. Don't you think we should be able to decide our future?

I'll get back to this later.

Marinette tells “Adrien” that she loves her, but Chloe figures out that Marinette crashed a party she wasn't invited to. Of course, because this is Chloe, we're supposed to ignore how unnecessary this plan was for Marinette. Seriously, Marinette crashing the party in “Gabriel Agreste”, as illogical as it was, made sense, because they needed to stop Chloe from showing Gabriel incriminating footage of Marinette. Here, Marinette had no real reason to crash this party when all she had to do was call Adrien, and Chloe, like her or hate her, makes a good point in that she wasn't invited. But again, since this is Season 5 Chloe, she could say she opposes human trafficking, and the writers would still find a way to make her look like the bad guy.

Chloe tells the other rich kids to help her expose Marinette, but because they're so stuck up and entitled, they refuse to touch her. I'll give you all a moment to groan from that unfunny joke. Then we get this conversation between Marinette and “Adrien”.

“Adrien”: All eyes are on you.

Marinette: They're looking at me like I'm a monster.

“Adrien”: Look closer, Marinette. (whispers into her ear) They're the monsters.

I officially take back everything bad I ever said about the Canto Bight scenes from The Last Jedi.

While I get what the episode's going for, we really haven't seen a lot of the 1% doing things that would actually warrant this level of scorn from the audience. Yeah, most of them were egotistical snobs, especially Chloe, but you can't really see this as a shot at the elite when it's aimed at their children instead of their parents. All we've seen in this episode is the rich kids being jerks (and even then, it's played for laughs), Chloe rightfully trying to get Marinette thrown out of a party she had no reason to crash, and Gabriel and Tomoe trying to pair their children together. If you want to show the audience how bad rich people are, you need to show them actually abusing their power and mistreating others. As bad as the aforementioned Canto Bight scenes were, they still worked because it managed to back up the point it was trying to make.

Compare this to characters like the Ferengi from Star Trek or the World Nobles from One Piece. These are allegories for the 1% that work because they do a better job at exaggerating aspects of them that can translate to how we see the elite in our world. With the Ferengi, they represent everything wrong with cutthroat businessmen who base their entire society over financial gains, and with the World Nobles, they represent the disconnect with the common people by being so arrogant, they wear helmets that prevent them from breathing the same air as the commoners. If you wanted to show how bad the rich were, especially considering what's going to happen in a few minutes, you needed to do more to make the audience not like them so we'd be more happy to see them get their comeuppance.

Marinette figures out that Felix impersonated Adrien once again (it honestly stops being impressive when he's done it during literally every episode he appears in), and he decides to transform using the Peacock Miraculous in public for some reason, calling himself Argos.

Argos' design is okay. The suit and coattails look pretty nice, and the coloring on his face works a lot better than Gabriel's. The only problem I have is the way the hood looks. It looks too goofy to go with the rest of the suit. It kind of reminds me of that salmon suit Squidward wore in that one episode of SpongeBob SquarePants.

Before anyone else at the party can do anything, Argos reveals a Sentimonster he created, Red Moon.

Red Moon is... a red moon. It's just a red moon that floats above the city, and it gives Argos the ability to make anyone bathed in its light disappear with a snap of his fingers. If anything, this shows how overpowered the Peacock Miraculous is, and that Gabriel was a real idiot for not trying anything like this while he was Shadowmoth.

Anyway, after making everyone think his cousin is a supervillain as part of his brilliant plan, Argos decides to tell everyone in the room about what his Sentimonster can do. He demonstrates this by, of course, choosing to snap away Chloe before targeting Gabriel and Tomoe. You really have your priorities straight, buddy. Argos then carries Marinette outside before throwing her in a dumpster, because if he snapped her away, than Ladybug couldn't fight him.

But then Argos decides to go to the streets, and decides to snap away a bunch of innocent civilians... while singing a jazz song. To anyone curious as to what it sounds like, I must warn you, it isn't for the feint of heart.

I take back everything bad I ever said about the Hawkmoth rap.

First off, I'm just going to say it, Bryce Papenbrook cannot sing. Argos is clearly trying to sound like a suave and confident villain like Doctor Facilier from The Princess and the Frog, but his delivery is terrible. It either ranges from flat monotone to trying to shout while dealing with a sore throat. The point I'm trying to make is that there was a good reason someone else did the singing voice for Adrien in the recent movie.

Second, this doesn't do anything to make us root for Argos as a character, because there's no reason for him to be doing this. I can understand why he'd use his power to get rid of Gabriel and Tomoe (even Chloe, given we know how much she's done), but why is he suddenly going nuts snapping a bunch of random people who haven't even met him before? The episode tries to make him a character who only does bad things because he has no choice to, so him doing this to a bunch of innocent civilians makes no sense.

Finally, WHY THE HELL IS THIS SCENE A MUSICAL NUMBER?! It's hard enough to see Argos callously wipe out a bunch of bystanders, essentially committing genocide, but the tone of the song is all upbeat and cheery, while the lyrics are about how Argos should get whatever he wants. What is the purpose of adding a song here? Are we supposed to find this funny? Is it meant to establish Felix as a wild card? Is the song supposed to make us like him more because of how catchy it is? What was the writers' endgame here? Like I mentioned earlier, this flies in the face of the characterization the episode is trying to establish for him.

Marinette transforms into Ladybug and arrives on the scene, confronting Argos over what he did last season.

Ladybug: You're the reason why I lost the other Miraculous in the first place! And why he took them! You gave them to him without any regard for the consequences it might have with the people of Paris!

Argos: True, except I work for no one. I only helped Monarch cause it served my plans! I needed the Peacock Miraculous and today I need yours and Cat Noir's so I can make my wish!

Ladybug: Your wish?! What do you want?! What are you trying to do?! You're destroying the world and we don't even know why!

Argos: When I merge your Miraculous together, I'll make a wish to create a better world! A free world, where no one will be under anyone's control anymore, where no one will be excluded like I was! A world without people like you to decide what's right or wrong! Who gets powers and who doesn't!

Dude, you're literally playing God right now by snapping away people who did nothing wrong, while singing a song at that. You have no right to lecture Ladybug on how to use power responsibly. And once again, even though we just saw him happily snapping people out of existence like the kid from that one Twilight Zone episode, the episode is going back to portraying him as someone who's only doing this because he has nothing to lose.

Ladybug tries to use her Lucky Charm, but gets nothing in response. This is because her plan is to get Argos to give up, but even in episodes where her plan was to get Akumas to give up, she still got her Lucky Charm (Rocketear, Qilin, Penalteam, Reunion, Perfection, Intuition), so this doesn't really make any sense. Ladybug calls Argos' bluff, so he wipes out everyone from existence. After running into Kagami and snapping Adrien back into existence, Argos is surprised that they aren't thanking him for wiping out all of humanity, and in fact, see him as a complete psychopath.

We then learn Felix's true plan. Earlier that day, Argos capitalized on a opening he had been hoping he would get for weeks, and then created Red Moon. Right after Adrien's date with Marinette, Argos ambushed Adrien, and snapped him out of existence with Red Moon's power. He then decided to impersonate Adrien so he could infiltrate the dance and snap Gabriel, Tomoe, and everyone else out of existence.

I think my feelings on this plan can be perfectly summarized by Tony Stark.

First off, why did he need to sneak into the dance? All Felix had to do was transform into Argos, and nobody would know who he really was.

Second, why did he need to impersonate Adrien? Felix claims he's doing this for him, yet all he did was steal his girlfriend and ruin his public reputation. As a matter of fact, why did he even snap Adrien away? You're already wiping out all of humanity, so I don't think temporarily doing the same to Adrien will earn you any goodwill.

Third, why did he waste so much time screwing around with Marinette and Kagami? I sort of get why he would try to get in Kagami's good graces (keyword being “try”) by trying to convince her to rebel against her mother more, but why did he dance around with Marinette while pretending to be Adrien? Felix later says he wanted to spare Marinette for Adrien's sake, but he barely knows her, and whether she finds out Felix impersonated her boyfriend or not, she's going to be pissed at either you or Adrien because of your galavanting. In fact, I don't think he ever told Adrien that he danced with Marinette while at the dance in the first place.

Finally, he really needed to wait for this for weeks? If your goal was to get rid of Gabriel and Tomoe, why didn't you just ambush them yourself instead of waiting for a public function? This isn't like has last few appearances where he needed to rely on his intellect. He has superpowers now. All he has to do is create another Sentibug or some kind of assassin Sentimonster and he can be rid of them easily. Instead, he waited weeks for a chance to steal his cousin's identity, dance with his girlfriend, talk trash about Kagami for listening to her mother when he's supposed to be helping her and Adrien, blow his cover in a crowded area by transforming, and use his killer moon to erase all of humanity from existence while singing. Remember, this is the show that usually makes jokes about Marinette's obsession with unnecessarily complicated plans.

Anyway, Argos tries to use his powers to bring Marinette back, but for some reason, they won't work. My best guess is that it's because Marinette transformed into Ladybug, but that shouldn't chance the fact that Argos snapped her with Red Moon's power. After trying to justify his genocide by saying he never wanted to hurt Adrien and Kagami, Argos remembers how his powers work and brings everyone back. After Ladybug lets him go scot-free, Argos goes to a private place realizes that he may have made a few mistakes for almost wiping out all of humanity, tearfully snapping Red Moon out of existence, calling it “his sister”. Because I guess we were supposed to emotionally connect to the giant moon that showed little to no signs of sentience this entire episode? Argos transforms back to Felix, and we learn that Amelie knew where he was the whole time, and she was apparently testing Gabriel for some reason.

After Adrien explains to Marinette that his father ordered him to not tell her about the dance, Adrien goes to talk to Gabriel about it. Gabriel, being Gabriel uses his control over Adrien to force him to never talk about Marinette again. Gabriel then gets a call from Lila, and even though she's been nothing but helpful to him since Season 3, he's apparently tired with her. Why is he suddenly rejecting the help of his most competent (by comparison) ally?

Also, the episode ends with the revelation that Lila somehow knows Gabriel is Monarch. Why? How? I DON'T CARE, BECAUSE THIS EPISODE SUCKS!

Oh my God, this episode was just terrible! “Derision” and “Adoration” definitely got to me with the way their stories were handled, but this was the first episode in a while to really piss me off. The plot was contrived as hell, basically being a repeat of “Gabriel Agreste”, and you all know how I wasn't exactly a fan of that episode. Think about it: Marinette sneaks into a party, Felix tries to scheme against Gabriel, and Marinette and Adrien end up getting caught in one of his schemes.

The social commentary about how bad the rich were just felt more pretensions than anything else. I get that it's meant to teach children a lesson about the real world, but the episode feels so confident in what its trying to say when it's not that deep, even by kids' show standards. Rich people are bad? Yeah, I think someone like me who lives in the same country as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg knows that. Will you actually teach kids about the financial conditions that allow the wealthy to abuse their power or the cutthroat methods they'll resort to in order to turn a profit? No? You're just going to tell kids that rich people are jerks without giving any actual evidence in the same episode you're using to try and to teach them? Man, these writers just keep hitting it out of the park here!

This whole “Rich people suck” message also falls flat because Felix is the one pushing it. You know, someone who already comes from a rich family? It's not like Bruce Wayne where he uses his money to help the people of Gotham, as Batman or not. Felix just whines about how “tHeY'rE tHe MoNsTeRs.” when he's just as well-off as they are. The episode tries to do a subtle discrimination message as evidenced by his rant as Argos earlier, but it doesn't work because we have never seen anyone discriminate against Felix for who he is. Yeah, the episode once again tries to hint at him being a Sentimonster, but because the show hasn't just pulled the trigger and confirmed it, it's hard to really sympathize with him being “excluded” when we've never seen him being treated differently by others in earlier episodes, and even if he was a Sentimonster, nobody would know or be able to discriminate against him in the first place.

I don't know why the show keeps trying to excuse Felix's actions when once again, he pretty much committed fucking genocide yet the episode still wanted us to feel bad for him realizing his actions had consequences. If he actually wanted to own up to his mistakes, he'd either hand over the Peacock Miraculous to Ladybug or help Ladybug stop Monarch. For someone who claims he hates when people abuse power to make others suffer, he's no better, judging from how both times he's gotten to use a Miraculous, he's either screwed over Ladybug (Strikeback) or endangered a lot of innocent people. And if you're wondering why I didn't point out any double standards between the treatment of Felix compared to Chloe, that doesn't really matter. No matter how you feel about Chloe, whether you feel like she got screwed over or not, it doesn't really make how the writers are glorifying Felix any better or worse, as his potential “redemption arc” isn't off to a good start.

The plot was stupid, Felix was an idiot, and it felt like more effort was put into the musical number than the writing. In my opinion, this is easily the worst episode of the season so far.

Although at the very least, now that we have even more evidence that Adrien, Felix, and even Kagami are all Sentimonsters, I think I know what clip I can start using to describe my feelings on this plotline.

THE BIGGEST IDIOT OF THE EPISODE IS... FELIX

For someone who managed to outsmart Gabriel on multiple occasions with no superpowers, Felix's intelligence really took a nosedive the second he got the Peacock Miraculous. He came up with a completely unnecessary plan that involved impersonating his cousin's identity and mocking his friend when he's supposed to try and win their favor, he danced with his cousin's girlfriend without his consent, transformed in public, smearing his reputation even further, and proceeded to gleefully wipe out humanity through a musical number, and needed other people to point out how immoral his actions were. Of course, Marinette gets second place thanks to her plan to break into the party and later letting Argos get away.

[buddiesmutslut]

Okay, so I want Buddie to get together before Chris comes home, right? So, they get Chris, spend a few days getting everyone settled back into the swing of things, and then either 1) they don't get a chance to tell him, or 2) they do, and it doesn't go great (which I feel like is something that's going to happen regardless, I need Christopher to be an angsty teen with abandonment issues in 4k)

BUT

Before they can sit down again and figure everything out, they get a call for another wildfire or a crossover or whatever that requires them to leave town for a little bit.

Obviously, Eddie can't go, because he just got Christopher back home and he really doesn't want to leave him again, even temporarily, but Buck has to go because people need help.

Cue Buck & Eddie spending time apart for the first time since they got together, sleeping in different beds hundreds of miles away from the other, and both spiraling a little bit. Eddie because he's worried that Buck is finally getting some time away from him and the mess that he was in Chris' absence and is worried that he doesn't want to keep wading through Eddie's problems,

And Buck because Chris is back now, and what if Eddie doesn't need him anymore? What if he was just a stand-in or a placeholder for Chris, but now his son is back and Eddie is on his own two feet again and what if he doesn't need Buck anymore, and if he doesn't need him, then why would he keep him around?

Extra points if telling Chris doesn't go well so they're trying to figure that out and cell service is spotty and they don't know what the other is thinking because they're so far away and if they were closer, they would just be together and solve the problem, but they're not so they're relying on delayed messages and downed phone lines and a game of phone tag.

And then, obviously, Buck gets home, and they realize they were spiraling over nothing because they've been building a life together for far longer than the few months they've been kissing, and Buck sits and talks with Christopher, and everything is fine.

AND THEN I NEED TIM TO LEAVE THEIR RELATIONSHIP ALONE. No breakups like in a lot of other main couples (Chenford, Booth & Brennan, I'm looking at you guys.) no! None of that! They've suffered enough, give them plot lines without breaking them up.

Give them better arcs with their parents, BRING US EDDIE'S GODDAMN SISTERS and the drama I K N O W is hiding there. Give us Buck focusing on his career (and also maybe slip in an official ADHD diagnosis, what, who said that?) Give us them talking about raising another kid, kill off an obscure family member and a stroll down memory lane (I absolutely do not mean Isabel Diaz, you keep your filthy paws OFF Eddie's abuela, bitches. I love her so so so so much lol).

Give them character arcs that have nothing to do with them possibly breaking up. They deserve storyline's that are more than just about their love interest. Literally, Buck's coming out wasn't even about him, it was all about Tommy and I'm so sick of it. Buck and Eddie are interesting characters! They are M A I N characters, give them better storylines. (Esp Eddie bc genuinely, wtf have you all done to my boy??)

[bittersweetbonbon]

rushed thesis on a sburbian reading of on guard 43/admonition

okay. so. my theorem is that each of the seven "main characters" of on guard 43 can be mapped to a homestuck aspect, and ill describe (messily) the reasons why below. im not gonna go over all of them, since i only have a decent grasp on a few on them, so if anyone wants to chime in with their thoughts, PLEASE feel free!

placeholder mcdoctorate? time player. 100%. he is doing time player shit all fucking day. its weird and abstracted time player shit, but that's because the foundation isn't playing by sburb rules. anyways, the REISNO cannon is literally a time travel device, just like dave's turntables and aradia's quartz music boxes. he has to kill alternate versions of his friends, and time players are heavily associated with death. the REISNO cannon created a doomed timeline that was brought to end by outside forces. he's even in contact with versions of himself from the future. he's a goddamn sburb time player, i swear to fucking fuck. if it wasn't intentional on the author's part, then hussian brain programming must be installed very, very deep indeed.

lillian lillihammer? mind player. shes very concerned with her self, and meddles with other people's states of mind (thats what memetics are for, after all) as well as her own. her eidetic memory? memories are how the brain creates the mind. hers can't be tampered with that easily, even with timeline shifts. mind player trait. also, she ran off while transitioning so nobody she knew would perceive her transition, which feels very mind player to me for reasons i can't articulate since i'm very tired while writing this.

doctor william wallace wettle? light player. either fully inverted light player, or just a class that starts with an absolute fuckton of negative aspect relation. light isn't just about information, it's about luck, and wettle is incredibly lacking in both departments, to an absolute comical degree. he even degrades the luck of those around him! and while some people would argue "oh thats just void aspect-" i have to disagree. void is about concealment of information, not just a lacking of it, and also void has nothing to do with luckiness whatsoever? and also....

harold blank? void player. i think. this one im not too sure on, actually, but for one, i couldnt resist the pun of blank void, but also, it seems to me that wettle and blank are both inverted of their aspects. wettle is incredibly unlucky, and blank's informational exposition is scattered throughout various tales - always just enough information to provide context, but nothing more. honestly, it might be that they're absorbing each other's aspects, in some fucked up way, or something. anyways, his whole deal of pouring over the past to find things that might happen in the future reads as void to me, and also as seer class. determining what isn't yet from what already is or isn't and then using that to prevent (or void out) an event entirely.

karen elstrom? heart player. an inversion of the mind aspect, karen is both incredibly gullible and difficult to influence. she can't see the trees for the forest, so to speak. honestly she seems concerned with how people view her, but in the opposite way to lillian. she wants people to dislike her, to hate her, as it makes her job of managing the relationships of others easier. and the heart aspect is all about relationships. better to take herself out of the equation, or keep herself as a static variable, right?

anyways, yeah, that's my rushed and honestly incomplete thesis on what aspects the on guard 43 characters would be. hope you enjoyed!!

[cyber-neptune]

Legalize being able to mess around with characters WHILE BEING AWARE that they're ooc.

Sometimes you just wanna share stuff you made up as an inside joke or just wanna try projecting some stuff as a way to cope or to try and express yourself without someone screaming at you for "Making them OOC".

I'm honestly so tired of this shit and I know Im no better for giving this dog shit situation more attention but for fuck sake.

I am AWARE my goofy headcanons/shitpost/whatever ARENT CANON / ARE OOC. You literally don't need to harass me over it.

"He wouldn't act like that"

I KNOW!! I FUCKING KNOW!!! I just wanna make up stuff and have fun with shitty parallel universe is it that fucking hard to understand or did you have a stick shoved up your ass since day one?!

I've been giving multiple explanations as to why I like making shitty things for fun yet no one seems to understand. So ill go ahead and say it here and hope people will get off my back about it.

Hi, my name is Zero and I make cringy fem Megatron content. I am well aware it isn't canon and aligns with next to nothing. I'm only making content for fun. This whole girl-Megs thing started as a joke and soon became something I enjoyed experimenting with. While you have the normal "everything is the same except Megatron is a girl lol" I decided to post my headcanons I made up for fun while being AWARE that they're fanon and ooc.

Like I mentioned, it's just for fun.

However, people decided to go ahead and harass me instead of doing the mature thing. Which is either

A) scroll past it

Or

B) block me

This has been putting a lot of stress on my mental and emotional health. It's been messing with my self esteem because I'm a people pleaser who always tries to make things right even if it's something I don't enjoy.

Megatron is a comfort character for me and some sort of muse. I like drawing tfp Megs because he's one of the first tf character I learned to draw. I use him as a placeholder for a fan continuity/personal design.

This is one of the main reasons why a lot of headcanons/shitty takes dont make sense. Because im tailoring them to my own continuity.

I will now repeat myself;

I know my headcanons/shitposts aren't Canon.

'TFP Megatron' is a placeholder for my Megatron design im still working on.

I am aware what I write is insanely OOC.

Megatron is a comfort character and a muse for me.

This has done nothing but mentally fuck me up. I'm sincerely hoping this is the last time I have to speak up on this.

[fictionfixations]

playful land (part 2)

contains spoiler for the movie pinocchio so and like book 7 spoilers (its literally just 2 words relating to lilia and its a card that exists)

😭 as a glasses wearer i can relate. when i didnt have my glasses id squint a lot but the people around me just thought i had my eyes closed so they thought i wasnt paying attention D:

its even crazier to think that lilia, a war veteran and everything was legitimately stressed over this 💀 but to be fair if grim was in danger of getting out of like the seats that lilia had to hold him back id be panicking too cause who knows what could happen

heres your reminder that vil was kinda baby (well child but thats still baby to me) when being in the industry and considered good at playing the villain even though children (and teenagers) are literally known for changing, are in the prime time of their life to change and experiment and try different things theyve never done before and so typecast him is literally to stunt his growth and potential !!! and remember there were those kids who thought vil was an actual villain and like tried to attack him or some shit so he did play villains when he was younger. and it probably really hit him hard because kids dont (and shouldnt) be hit with the reality that not everyone is nice and that people can be out to get you for no reason other than 'you exist' and will run with any reason they can to hate on you even if its entirely fake and they dont even know you but they just think youre a bad person despite the truth and theres nothing you can do to change that because they dont want to be wrong. if you cant tell i have a lot of things against it. like. like child prodigies n celebrities are great good for you for being good at something and being recognized for it, but ohh my god its like suddenly they're an adult and cant make mistakes without people condemning them even though literally everyone has made mistakes before and children dont know any better until they do it and mess up and thats okay and i just. i just want vil to be ok cause hes still really young.

the text being like pLAcehOldeR TExT PLaCeHoLDer TeXt is so fucking creepy for the puppets 😭 why cant it just be normal like when like AIs or like the systems of shit talk (like like the navi system that was normal?? and i thought the voices for the rollercoaster was normal too but i mightve just not noticed considering im playing it right as the update came out and i havent slept yet so yippee)

JIMINY CRICKET IS THAT YOU 💀

the way i missed all these references the first time but now im actually getting them cause i saw the movie

heres where i say i already forgot like a part of the middle of the movie and what happened and why. i was watching it with friends so i got distracted trying to talk to them and im really bad at multitasking when trying to watch something (like reallly pay attention) and talk to someone at the same time so i forget one or the other and i forgot the movie so i dont remember what the apple core was about but i doubt it was good intentioned

i know that leona's older than them but i still like that he calls them kids like d'aww

flashbacks to kalim mentioning he didnt know how to pay for things or how cash registers worked and stuff like that cause usually merchants came to him also him mentioning he got like lint rollers for the carpet but he just kept buying new ones when he ran out instead of buying a new roll, and when being informed that he could buy a new roll instead of an entirely new roller he just called whoever thought of that a genius 😭 his obliviousness is genuinely harmful to him no matter how good intentioned someone may be to try to spoil him and make him live the most comfortable life ever because theres so much life experiences hes lacking. and theres so much i could say about this but ive yapped enough about this in other posts and ive also already yapped about vil so um

HES LICKING THEM BECAUSE OF THE OVERBLOT STONES ISNT HE? ???? ????? GRim PLEASE

…hes got a tail because he went to pleasure island and was slowly turning into a donkey like i mean i guess i can understand because in twst the stories were twisted so both the hero and the villain got a happy ending technically? like remember i think jasmine married like 'a street rat' or something (I cant remember exactly? maybe he was like a thief but changed his ways?), while jafar caught someone who was pretending to be a prince to marry her (described as two different people btw)

THIS. THIS IS WHAT I MEAN. he is so unaware that hes going to make dumb and insensitive comments that could definitely offend someone but he doesnt understand what the problem with it is this boy is like the heir right?? someone please teach him politics and like diplomacy shit ???? like ok you want him to have the best life. his best life is not making mistakes in front of important people that can fuck things up without him realizing and ruining relationships because HE DOESNT KNOW BETTER. like theres only so long you can baby someone and i know hes baby and still young but stop coddling him. like i mean i want to coddle him i want to wrap him in bubble wrap but like come on. and i know hes smart, he knows people arent the best because people have tried to poison him and tried to kill him (even some of his family have tried) but come on. like what if he comes off as insincere? as a person who couldnt possibly understand? HE ALREADY DOES COME OFF AS THAT HAVE YOU SEEN JAMIL?? and you know what thats gonna breed? RESENTMENT. aAAAAAAa AND PEOPLE ARE GONNA TAKE ADVANTAGE OF HIM BECAUSE HE WANTS TO SEE THE GOOD IN EVERYONE EVEN THE PEOPLE WHO DO BAD SHIT TO HIM AND ITS JUST. i dont want him to be hurt and hes gonna get hurt and he already has been hurt and hes still managing and i feel so bad for him and i just. ..you can tell i have a lot of feelings over thsi fhaidwsuiahfd

d'aww hes hugging him 🥺

yknow kalim probably has the funds to get like a water breathing potion and explore underwater like i mean tbh it kinda scares me. wasnt there that story during like one of the halloween events one of the leech twins mentioning how they saw like one of them?? except it wasnt them. and that like people went missing or some shit??? the coral sea (..that might not be the name i forgor) has its own dangers i hope he stays safe during so

wouldnt it be the coolest for a hometown event with the leech twins and azul and kalim is there actually i wonder what kinda outfits they'd wear. also in caters birthday bloom vignette floyd mentioned that he could take cater to the coral sea and show him places land people dont really get to see (then warns him to watch out for shark attacks) to which cater replies that he'll pass. …still i think itd be really cool for him to go too. maybe we could make it a pop music club trip! has lilia been to the coral sea? i cant remember 🤔 i dont think caters phone is waterproof though (hes also mentioned it in that vignette) and hes mentioned it in this event where he was scared his phone would get waterlogged during the whale rollercoaster cause they were getting drenched in water and he didnt get time to prepare

leona. you get me.

kalim just automatically being worried about poison makes me feel really bad for him cause he always has to be cautious like i know he doesnt say it but its implied and it makes me sad

FIGARO MY BELOVED I LOVE YOU SO MUCH YOU PRECIOUS BABY AHFDASUDIHAIUDHW i love cats so much the moment he showed up on screen i just couldnt pay attention to anything that was happening in the movie and i just love the way he was animated he looked so fluffy and cute and i just wanted to pet him so fucking much aGHHHH

leona: I REFUSE to ride the carousel no matter what right after leona: on the carousel

so confirmed kalim does have a magicam acc huh

[spanishskulduggery]

Hello:

This is a nuance question. What are the minor differences between tan, tanto, cuán, and lo (adjetivo)poder ser a (sustantivo) when modifying "to an extent" something is?

There's a pattern to these words that can help

Typically the question words have a QU or C sound; and the descriptors here have the T

The question words can sometimes be used as other parts of speech, but the questions or implied unknowns will have accent marks

This will make more sense below

-

First, tal and cual - used to describe nouns, or sometimes become nouns themselves:

tal = such, such as / "one such" [noun] tales = such, such as / "some such" [plural noun]

cuál = which? / which one cuáles = which (ones)? / which ones? [plural]

(el/la) cual = the one (in particular), the one that/which, one such cual = as [in poetry; synonymous with como, very unusual]

If you're seeing tal and cual you're seeing nouns for the most part; tal is "such" or "like that" and cuál is more common with the accent mark or in a relative clause

De tal manera... = In that way... / In such a way... De tal palo, tal astilla. = "Chip off the old block" / "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree" [lit. "from such a (wooden) stick, such a splinter"] Escribe sobre la vida tal y cómo es. = "He/She writes about life exactly how it is." [tal y cómo is literally "such and how" but often means "exactly so/as"] Tal leyenda no me interesa. = A legend like that doesn't interest me. / Such a legend doesn't interest me.

There's also an expression Fulanito/a de Tal which is very idiomatic but it's a made up placeholder name like "Mr/Mrs Whoever from Wherever"... fulano/a is basically "someone you don't know their actual name", and de Tal is "from Such" so it comes out as "What's-their-name from Wherever"

...You see this in contexts where someone knows nothing about the person, or they mean so little to them that they can't be bothered to learn their name

You will also see this expression:

(son) tal para cual = "they were made for each other" / "a match made in heaven"

You say this about people who are very much alike

...

Now as for cual you get into questioning words; an unknown noun but specific

If tal is "such", cuál with the accent mark is qué + tal meaning "what such"... aka "which one"

¿Cuál es? = Which one is it? ¿Cuáles son? = Which one are they?

Seeing cual without the accent mark is most commonly used in what they call relative clauses - it's a clause within a sentence that gives more specific information "related" to what noun you just brought up:

Esa torre es la Torre Eiffel, la cual es el edificio más conocido de Francia. = That tower is the Eiffel Tower, which is the most well-known building in France. El amor, el cual es un tema muy importante para muchísimos autores y poetas, sigue siendo expresado y discutido en el arte de todas formas. = Love, which is a very important theme for MANY authors and poets, continues to be expressed and discussed/debated in art of all kinds.

Relative clause just means you decide to add a comma and talk about a specific noun (which could be a person, place, or thing) almost in an aside

You can also do relative clauses with el que and la que they're just more informal than el/la cual ...it's like saying "the one that" vs "the one which"

....

Also I should say cual can also be used as como in some poetry. It's really uncommon today but every so often in poetry you'll see it.

Like rojos labios cual carmín is the way they translated "lips that shame the red red rose" but it literally means "(VERY) red lips like carmine/vermillion" - it reads like very flowery writing, usually reserved for older things or fairy tales or something that feels antiquated

-

Next we move on to tan/cuán and tanto and cuánto/a and again there's a pattern

tan/cuán work with adjectives and adverbs as "so much" and "how much"

And tanto/a and cuánto/a work with nouns as "so many" and "how much/many?"

...

But actually first let me say you will NEVER have to use cuán for "how much + adjective/adverb"; it is considered very archaic and only appears in lyrics and poetry. The only time I've ever seen it was in the translation for Pocahontas in Colors of the Wind:

¿Cuán alto el árbol crecerá? = "How high does the sycamore grow?" [lit. "how high will the tree grow?"]

But from that you can say it's "how much" in terms of "to what extent" - if you're using adjectives you use them agreeing with the gender/plurality

More to the point though, what you actually use depends on region and thankfully it's pretty evenly between Spain and Latin America, and reasonably understandable what you're saying/hearing regardless so no one's really confused it's just a difference in region:

Latin America will use qué tan (which is a deconstructed cuán), and Spain prefers cómo de which is more like "to what extent"

¿Qué tan alto es el árbol? = How tall is the tree? ¿Qué tan alta es la montaña? = How high is the mountain? ¿Cómo de alto es el árbol? = How tall is the tree? ¿Cómo de alta es la montaña? = How high is the mountain? ¿Qué tan lejos? = How far (away)? [adv] ¿Cómo de lejos? = How far (away)? [adv]

And again adverbs won't need to agree; ¿qué tan rápido/a? is "how fast" for example as an adjective, but ¿qué tan rápido? by itself could be "how quickly?"; same with cómo de - only difference is that's for Spain

And cuánto is used for amounts, "how much/many?"

¿Cuánto cuesta? = How much does it cost? ¿Cuánta comida hay? = How much food is there? ¿Cuántos hombres? = How many men? ¿Cuántas mujeres? = How many women? No sabes cuánto te quiero. = You don't know how much I love you. [cuánto here as a noun is like "the (unknown) amount"]

PS en cuanto + subjunctive is "as soon as + subjunctive"; don't worry about it for right now, but every so often you see a cuanto with no accent mark

...

So on to tan and tanto/a, same general distinction

tan is "so/quite/very" used with adjectives and adverbs, and tanto/a is often done with nouns and countable things

Eres tan listo. = You're so smart. Eres tan lista. = You're so smart. Son tan listos. = They're so smart. Son tan listas. = They're so smart. Hay tanta ropa. = There's so much clothing. / There's so many clothes. Hay tanto peligro. = There's so much danger. Tenemos tantos problemas. = We have so many problems. Tenemos tantas personas. = We have so many people.

It's really the same difference between mucho/a and muy

With comparisons, you use tan or tanto with como. The important thing here is that these are expressions of equality or equivalence, rather than "more/better" or "less/worse" that you'd see with más/mejor and menos/peor.

Es tan listo como ella. = He's as smart as she is. Es tan lista como él. = She's as smart as he is. Son tan listos como ellas. = They're as smart as they [f+f] are. Son tan listas como ellos. = They're as smart as they are. Sus libros no son tan famosos como sus poemas. = Their books aren't as famous as their poems. Sus películas no son tan famosas como sus obras de teatro. = Their movies aren't as famous as their theatrical works.

tanto como is more used as "(someone) as well as (someone else)" or "(something) as much as (something else)"... usually in the context of something pertaining to or affecting something/someone, or just overall "involvement"

Tanto yo como mis colegas... = Myself as well as my colleagues... Tanto tú como tus amigos... = (Both) You as well as your friends...

And you use it to compare equal amounts of things with others:

Tienen tanto dinero como yo. = They have as much money as I do. Tienen tanta influencia como nosotros. = They have as much influence as we do. Tengo tantos amigos como amigas. = I have as many (male) friends as (female) friends. Tengo tantas amigas como amigos. = I have as many (female) friends as (male) friends.

You can also see tanto as an amount like "as much" or "so much" just a plain noun, or an adverb like saying no tanto "not so much" or "not really"

And then there's mientras tanto which is "meanwhile" [lit. "while as/so much"]

-

And I'm not entirely sure what you mean by lo in context with comparisons so I'd probably need more context

I'm used to seeing things like lo más antes posible "as soon as possible" or "the soonest possible", or lo más imporante "the most important thing"

Also lo máximo/mínimo que as like "the most/least that (+ something else)"

[beesmygod]

Bloodborne questions rattling in my head -

Why does the shaman bone blade have shaman in its name? That's such a specific, almost regional term. Just a translation quirk?

How seriously do you take cut content in studying lore? I just learned about the Great One Beast, and there's a hell of a lot going on in that name alone. A Great One that became a beast? A beast that became a great one? Maybe just a placeholder name since file names refer to it as a silverbeast? Or, as it never made it in, should it be essentially ignored entirely?

ok business as usual, pure speculation is in italics.

this first answer is going to suck so bad: i basically don't have a single clue. the japanese word they chose to translate as "shaman" (祭祀者) doesnt appear on jisho or literally anywhere else in the game. like i just did a ctrl-f on the re-translation text dumps and found nothing. they seem equally baffled but one of the two translators notes that it's used to describe people involved in ancestor worship. the full word is "祭祀者の骨の刃". so like literally "_____'s bone knife".

there's no surprise ambiguity in the description. it doesn't resemble anything else in the game. the green goo (not blood, notably) oozing from it is not seen elsewhere. that emerald green color is unique to the blade.

what the fuck! they are also extraordinarily rare: the only place you can find them are in the nightmare of mensis in the "nightmare apostles" (big spider) room, where you can pick up six from the corpse of a healing church doctor in front of a little vestibule containing nothing. the only remarkable thing about this room is that it once contained a cut version of the giant nightmare apostle with the head still on. this is interesting only because it suggests that they're not just giant spiders, they are giant HEADLESS spiders. the connection the player was supposed to draw, perhaps, is that the headless nightmare apostles seen throughout the game have already been harvested for their goods.

this is uninteresting because there's 7 headless spiders in the room, not 6. maybe one broke?

the only other places you can find them are in the pthumerian labyrinth root dungeons in, specifically, treasure coffins. only after obtaining the lower pthumeru chalice will the item be added to the insight shop, so whatever those shamans were doing, it was very secret and very ancient. they are a 5% drop from brainsuckers...except for the ones in the cathedral ward and the orphanage, which are 2%. hey i never noticed that before. so that's where those brainsuckers running around yharnam came from.

the creation of this item is apparently linked to augurs/phantasms.

the spider guys are their own. thing. i haven't even touched them yet because, segueing into your next question, so much surrounding them was cut. there's a bunch of stuff in the game, especially relating to byrgenwerth, about reflections and symmetry that kind of hangs in the air awkwardly unless you start poking around under the hood and start looking at how much spider-related shit there is. and like. isn't a spider an invertebrate. isn't "apostle" another word for "messenger". anyone else seeing this. aren't these things augurs?

not for nothing, but amygdala is referred to as the "lost apostle" in the alpha.

when it comes to cut content, i take a very liberal approach and inhale all of it into my brain where i can sort it and determine what bits are even useful. i think this kind of thing comes entirely down to personal taste; some people think the completed project in its retail form is what should be analyzed on the reasonable basis that it's the story we were intended to experience. i don't disagree with this approach; my approach is like if i wanted to read "pride and prejudice" and decided after reading it to analyze all of jane austen's letters and biographies. like it's absolutely not required to enjoy or understand the story and themes of bloodborne; it's just a good example of how much a reading of a text can differ depending on how you approach it.

i wish we knew why the great one beast was cut because it was basically finished outside the textures being low-res. people have hacked a working version into the game and it looks like a hell of a fight. and you're right, it raises a lot of questions about what the hell a great one is. prior to this it was assumed that beasts were the opposite of great ones. but...maybe beasts are ONLY intended be compared and contrasted with kin. and a kin is not a great one. very mysterious.

[kradogsrats]

Okay so sadly there's not all that much to say about Kpp'Ar's cane right now other than what we can literally see:

There are at least two sections of rotating combination lock, of the kind familiar to anyone who saw The Da Vinci Code or has played too many video games. I would guess they either split the cane into sections or release the central internal piece and allow the handle to be removed. Two 3-character codes is not a lot of security but whatever.

I looked literally everywhere I could think of for matches to those runes, by the way, and came up with nothing. I really wanted them to be from the mirror, which is what they have the most resemblance to, but it's basically impossible to get a shot that's not blurry and I couldn't find any distinct matches. It could at least be the same language?

It's unclear if the top couple sections have a purpose or are just fancy. Those stones could be buttons, or they could be shiny. Probably one of the triangles indicates where the code is meant to be lined up.

Canes with T-shaped handles like that seem to be very unusual but not completely unheard of, my guess is that they're... not very ergonomic? Like look at that, that'll definitely wreck your hand, if not your wrist, with any sort of mid- to long-term use. He's probably not putting a ton of weight on it just because it looks like he's using it more to compensate for balance issues related to his stooped posture, rather than weakness or injury in one or both of his legs, but still.

(Speaking of, sit up straight! Pull your shoulders back! When's the last time you stood up and walked around? Go do it! Drink a glass of water and take your meds, while you're at it! And put your wet laundry in the dryer!)

Also, when using a cane that way (as in not compensating for weakness or pain on a specific side) you're supposed to use your off-hand so your dominant hand is free to do all the other shit that has to get done. Therefore, Kpp'Ar: tentatively left-handed.

Anyway, that handle almost definitely comes out. That kind of T-shape is best suited for twisting, so best bet right now is it's a key of some kind.

Also probably worth noting that this was not in his reveal two years ago, in terms of the final design—he had a very plain stick that did always seem kinda disappointing and placeholder-y, so him having this thing was definitely decided, they just either didn't know 100% what it looked like yet or felt the need to conceal it.

[demetriandelibinaryboyfriends]

Pride Month Character Sexuality Headcanon Moodboards 1. Yasmine - Lesbian 2. Demetri Alexopoulos - Gay 3. Moon - Bisexual 4. Eli "Hawk" Moskowitz - Bisexual

Next up is my favorite little gayboy in the whole world!!! Why am I so dead convinced he's a little gayboy and not a little biboy??? I'm so glad you asked!!!

Yes obviously he's in love with Eli, a boy, but I firmly believe Demetri has never once genuinely yearned for the touch of a woman akidjsilufhk

MF literally spends his first scene of the show limp-wristing. I am not kidding in the least.

Like even Eli is sus in the first pic akajsldibhodfku

"But that's circumstantial evidence, tumblr user demetriandelibinaryboyfriends!!!" you say. "He starts simping for Yasmine immediately after, so doesn't that cancel it out?"

Well, see, that's exactly what he wants you to think.

The reason he does this imo is actually kind of sad. Miguel comes to the table (Demetri's first potential new friend in like 10 years!!!) and immediately shows an interest in girls, establishing that he's probably a Regular Straight Guy. Miguel has seen Demetri talk in a slight gay lisp (he does!!! Don't @ me!!! Like maybe they were going for "nasally nerd voice" but it just sounds like the stereotypical gay guy voice???), have Some Kinda Fruity Vibe going with Eli, and limp-wrist all over the place, and Demetri knows this. He's also just met Miguel, and has every reason to believe this straight dude will ditch him immediately if he suspects Demetri's gay (high school kids really ARE that cruel sometimes), so...he tries to cover his ass and pretend to be straight so Miguel will stay :(

Speaking of Yasmine, though!!! Basically every time throughout the series that he shows an interest in her, it feels extremely performative. Like he's just saying what Miguel (or whoever else) would expect him to. And it's only ever about looks and social status in a way that suggests he sees Yasmine as a kind of placeholder/cover-up--"the conventionally attractive girl I act obsessed with so no one suspects I'm gay."

On that topic, the irt S1 Demetri, the fact that he picks a very unattainable girl to show blatant interest in is huge. Like what better cover than "pining" for a girl who you believe there is 0% chance you could ever actually date??? Indefinitely permanent beard without once having to fake a straight relationship!

I also think this is why Demetri is so gloriously unbothered when he botches hitting on Yasmine in 1x09. Like sure, he's socially inept, but he's not unintelligent; anyone with two brain cells could tell Yasmine wasn't interested (and he doesn't have the Eli-esque ego-driven delusion to think he's doing better with girls than he actually is). So why does he happily say "I think that went well!" when Yasmine walks away??? Because he's filled the Expected Straight Guy Quota beautifully by shooting his shot with a hot girl, and now that that failed he's off the hook!

Another funny thing is that he ONLY goes and hits on Yasmine after he's seen Eli making out with a random girl. I think it's both a mimicking kind of thing ("well, shit, if this is what Eli's doing I'd better do it too!" they're like cats I love them) and an "I guess if Eli's gonna start kissing girls and be unavailable now, I have nothing to lose so I might as well" kinda thing.

Generally speaking, S1 Demetri, um...sure does procrastinate getting romantically involved with girls. We're meant to believe it's solely a lack of confidence and his general defeatist nature, but like. Every chance he gets, he puts off making a move on girls. He straight up tells Miguel he's going to wait until he gets a well-paying, respectable job before asking any hot girls out. Homeboy literally putting off dating girls for like 5 decades. Not to mention the Halloween dance, where he tells Miguel to "slow his roll" asking girls to dance and says it "could've been worse" when they in fact don't end up dancing with any girls. Both rather flippantly and cheerfully, too! Like Demetri only ever seems to care about girls when Miguel is around, which goes back to my theory that he's worried Miguel would abandon him and Eli if he figured out Demetri was gay.

Tbh I don't think Demetri's lack of initiative with girls is because he's a defeatist because...he seems indifferent (sometimes even chipper) about his lack of luck with women. But when it comes to Eli being bullied??? He is ACTIVELY bothered. Like he's clutching the back of a chair in a silent rage during the library scene. He looks heartbroken when the cafeteria kids start snickering about Eli's mom calling the school. He goes off at Johnny when he makes fun of Eli's lip! Clearly Demetri doesn't like being at the bottom of the school food chain, even though he's also a defeatist about getting bullied. But when it comes to girls??? Every time the loser trio fails with women, Miguel tends to take it 5000% harder than Demetri, who legit barely bats an eye!

I feel like I don't need to convince you of the Demetri-Eli subtext, because otherwise you wouldn't be on my page, but...it's worth mentioning that Demetri spends all of S2 being a sad little simp for Newly Evil Eli and completely forgetting Yasmine's existence while she's in France. Moon is the only one who acknowledges Yasmine's existence all season, but that gay subtext is a conversation for another day XD In any case, Demetri quickly 100% forgets the girl he was supposedly "so into" during S1. Wack! Speaking as an ex-high schooler, btw, you don't just forget your crush over the summer if you really liked them that much. You yearn and talk wistfully to your friends about what they might be up to XD

Also worth noting that as soon as Demetri does drop the Aggressively Straight facade and forms genuine relationships with women, platonic bonds with girls seem to come second-nature to him! He very easily befriends Moon and Sam, despite being scared to so much as interact with girls for years. But as soon as he does, connecting and being amicable with girls seems effortless as long as it isn't romantic. It brings to mind how gay men often have a lot of close female friends and tend to be more at ease around them because there's no concern of underlying sexual/romantic tension.

Tbh you could argue the only time Demetri's relationships with women suffer is when he Tries Too Hard To Be Straight. He has healthy and solid friendships with Sam and Moon, and he has never once tried to flirt with either. Among all the girls in the cast Demetri regularly interacts with, Yasmine is actually the one he has the most contentious relationship with. And why's that? I would argue it's because he feels obligated to hit on her whenever they're together, lest his hard-earned new friends suspect something is abnormal about him. Not Moon as much, but Sam and Miguel for sure--as far as he can tell, they are both 100% straight and it's very possible he's worried about them abandoning him for being a "weird freak" the same way Eli did. In any case, him hitting on Yas makes the atmosphere between them tense and uncomfortable, making his relationship with her feel more stilted than his more organic-feeling interactions with Moon and Sam.

Worth noting that he only really brings up Yasmine/waxes poetic about how "into Yasmine" he is around the people he MOST wants to think he's straight--Sam, Miguel, and Eli. Sam and Miguel are his best friends sans Eli, and Eli, well...of course he would constantly bring up his Girlfriend He Totally Likes So Much around the dude he absolutely does not want to suspect he's into!!! In S4 especially he just got Eli back, and shies away from anything that might open a rift between them again, especially a big fat gay crush he's been harboring since the jump!

The whole Demetri-Yasmine relationship is super shallow and performative--in my opinion, from both sides, but Demetri's side especially. He seems to see Yasmine as more of a concept than a person, calling her the "girl of his dreams" and saying he's "101% in love" while...not appearing to know anything of substance about her. He literally never alludes to knowing anything about her personality except that she's hot and mean. And sure, you could chock this up to him being a shallow, horny teenage boy, but...we know he's anything but shallow, given how he loves his childhood best friend so much and so deeply that he forgives him for all number of horrible things in 3 seconds flat because he is that certain that Eli means his apology and is a good person deep down. Given that he has absolutely undying loyalty to his other best friend Miguel Diaz, despite Miguel being (indirectly) part of the reason that he and Eli got estranged in the first place. Given that he also has so much undying loyalty to Sam LaRusso that he backed her up in a dangerous gang fight and got his arm broken for it. Demetri clearly sees and understands the nuance and complexity in people. So why does he talk about his own girlfriend as if she has none???

Something else to note is how in S5, Demetri reveals that he and Yasmine fight so frequently that her arm is literally weighed down with all the make-up bracelets he buys her. This is just supposed to be a Funny Bit, but...I can't help but notice that this is a stark contrast to S4, where they seemed to be all over each other every time we saw them together. Maybe because when they're alone together, the facade falls away and their "relationship" doesn't really have any leg to stand on? Also one has to wonder why anyone would stay in a relationship that dysfunctional. Makes a lot more sense looking at it from the perspective that Demetri feels like he needs a beard, and isn't sure he'd be able to find another girl willing to date him. Besides, as far as fake-girlfriends-to-make-people-think-you're-straight go...well, you're really not going to do much better than Yasmine.

Mentioned in many other posts, but I firmly believe that Yasmine is a closet lesbian and she and Demetri are a case of "gay and lesbian date in high school because they subconsciously detect the gayness in each other and mistake that sense of kinship for romantic attraction."

I also think it's very possible that a little ways into dating, one or both of them realized they were gay, and they made a mutual agreement to "stay together for appearances." Yasmine's social status plummeted after the end of S1, and it's possible she had homophobic family in the picture who would make publicly coming out impractical. And Demetri, while definitely more popular than he used to be, likely thought he could stand to lose all that if it got out he was gay.

Tbh maybe it was a mutual fake dating situation from the jump!!! Point is that this relationship is WAY too stilted and awkward for me to believe one or both of them ISN'T hamming it up a little. It just does not feel genuine or natural at all :/ Although they DO actually have a lot of platonic potential (especially taking the mlm/wlw solidarity aspect into account, or even just the trope of a popular alpha bitch having a sassy gay best friend aidpsiufhodly), which leads me to believe there's more going on than just Demetri using Yasmine as a beard. I do think he likes her and admires her a lot, just not romantically or sexually!

I've actually heard from my mlm friends that it's relatively common for gay guys to be drawn to powerful and outspoken women, and mistake that admiration for a romantic crush! This is probably what happened with Yasmine, if Demetri did believe he had genuine feelings for her and wasn't faking a crush to actively hide his sexuality. I'd also imagine this is where the "bitchy queen bee girly-girl with a gay best friend" stereotype comes from!

A big part of my gay Demetri/bi Eli belief comes from how different their relationships with women are. Demetri is more comfortable with women from the jump, befriending Aisha, Moon, and Sam fairly easily in a way that could indicate a lack of attraction (so, once again, less pressure and more freedom to be his authentic self). Eli, on the other hand, seems to have more trouble with girls in a way that leads me to believe he IS attracted to (and intimidated by) them to some extent. Although he does form a close friendship with Aisha, his other relationships with girls seem to consist of him awkwardly flirting with/trying to impress them, antagonizing them (e.g. Sam in S3), or not really interacting with them at all. In S2, Eli doesn't even seem at ease around his own girlfriend! He's quick to jump to snapping the MOMENT Demetri says something that might make him look bad, like he doesn't trust Moon to like anything other than his "coolness" (which, to be fair, she...doesn't really lmao). He does befriend Tory, but it's more of a casual "work friendship" and it's nowhere near the kind of easy, close-knit friendship Sam and Demetri have. Even Dem's relationship with Yasmine is amicable enough when he's not trying too hard to hit on her. Point being that Eli struggling with girls more than Demetri kinda gives me the impression Demetri doesn't get (romantically) nervous around girls much at all. Not to say someone like Tory wouldn't make him nervous about getting punched in the face or knifed in the gut XD But nervous about dating girls??? Nah. He's only nervous about keeping up the appearance of wanting to date girls!

Just LOOK at what this mf wears!!! Like he LITERALLY has the mlm flag on a hoodie!!! With fucken purple-ass skinny jeans, the fucken bottom stripe of the mlm flag and also the gayest color alive!!! Like all throughout the show this mf's color motifs are CONSISTENTLY blue and green. The blue we could say comes with the Miyagi Do color motifs, but what of the green??? Why he wearing so much green, though??? To match Eli??? His BOYFRIEND???

Yes, it COULD be a reach, but like. It's SO CONSISTENT throughout the show!!! So much blue!!! So much green!!! And when he's NOT wearing those colors, whatever colors he's wearing usually match with Eli's outfit!

Sorry but color-coordinating your outfit with your bestie shows the fashion sense and awareness of a gay man. Demetri Alexopoulos...

As always, pic credits available upon request!

[dude-iloveu]

parents of parents. uh. parents². fambly

under the cut because i like the drawings but not that much that i wanna put it out there just like that. i just wanna talk about them, mostly additional things that i would dive into less but they're on my mind anyway

1st version designs. agfgsj you can see it's an old drawing from the way i draw noct and ron

current version

-> aeron's family :]

Mom (White-tailed deer) - Zara

Dad (Yellow-winged bat) - Hariz

Zara is the co-founder of a nonprofit organization (nothing specific i've thought about. they provide services and help for struggling ppl, adolescents/young adults with no one to turn to). She started it with a friend, before they moved on to pursue other projects. Hariz is. now pensioned idk what he worked as. was a long time volunteer and contributor(?) and after being vice president(??) basically took the role as one of the directors along with Zara.

Later on they met a young lady who they helped with finding a home, and she would also sometimes do volunteering work with them. She became pretty good friends with the two, and Zara just cares for her a lot because she is "the most genuine and sweetest person she's met". Sometime later the lady had an unexpected pregnancy, tho while she did want the baby she was pretty much struggling to make ends meet. so her two friends have been most supportive for her and really just. made sure to take care of her. unfortunately she did not make it in labour. the couple, not wanting to leave the baby with complications, took it in as their own, the baby is now known as Aeron.

Sister (some type of feline) - To be named

Brother (Elephant) - to be named

they were both taken under care by the parents, the sister when she was young, who basically grew up in the streets, and the brother as a teenager who lost their family and didn't want to get caught up with their relatives' feud.

random - they're a pretty loving family but can be overbearing at times too. they kinda baby aeron alot which aeron tries to avoid. zara is intersex trans and hariz is cis het ally, they always do their best to be empathetic and understand their kids. technically aeron has more older siblings but he rarely if ever meets them. aeron is most involved with their parents' line of work, since he was raised with helping around in charity events and stuff. he would have a younger sibling but i havent thought of that

-> noctis' family

Mom (mix of California leaf nosed bat & brown long-eared bat) - it used to be Arielle but I'm thinking of changing to Cassiope.

Dad (CA leaf nosed bat) - placeholder name was Dell short for delaware (lie). still unsure what to name him.

The parents have some sort of high position in their jobs at different companies. The mom is strict on upholding a perfect family image and is very envious of others' success. The dad is more lenient, still upholds a 'sophisticated' persona but is a cheater. After it was found and fights happened, they separated with the mom taking the kids. she raised the twins to be perfectionists high achievers while neglecting their emotional and mental wellbeing.

some detail - Noctis likes to fold her ears down as a kid, and this would make the mom mad. it is because folding ears meant being vulnerable because lessened hearing ability (not attentive) which makes her look improper. ironic considering that trait/ability comes from her side. like noctis is literally just chillin lmao. punished for chill crimes.

- the dad bought noctis one of those tamagotchi type toys (virtual pet?) which she loves. he also brought them to various places on the weekends before the divorce.

Twin sister - was named Cielle. now maybe would be Cygnus? not sure yet

the beloved model student who excels in alomst anything she does. loves noctis dearly but is often unable to stand up against her mom to defend her sister.

[rappaccini]

toh finale thoughts

as before, the animation is stunning. the attention to detail is unmatched and the fight scenes were gorgeous.

damn vee literally did nothing in the end huh

and the caleb-evelyne thing sure never mattered.

the dreamworld was cool. wish they'd gone into more depth with luz and belos paralleling to make that hallucination feel much more impactful. as is, it just feels like luz is cosplaying him rather than we're learning some deep-seated fear in her psyche. the 'you've been the whole villain all along' thing really falls flat if we never receive any indications that it's possible for luz to become that.

bringing it back to luz eda and king was great. i missed this trio.

i find the collector clip show funny.

deeply appreciate them not asspulling a redemption for belos. yes, most people can be reached with kindness and forgiveness... but some can't. most people are doing the best they can. some are not.

i definitely think that the whole 'Luz is a Good Person, You Guys' thing that takes up the first half of the special is the writers trying to address the bullshit criticisms of her character and the badfaith flattening of amity in particular into a generic mean girl. which, well they're not assassinating the chars to appeal to those fans, but they also didn't need to address it either.

love the symbolism of luz getting killed and resurrected, getting to meet god and gain power from him

the gnarly entropy luz's body gets was a great design.

so's her titan form. it's so magical-girly but that's part of the charm. luz gets to not just dress up as her favorite character, but be something her own.

the animation in this fight sequence is stunning.

don't like hunter being demoted to support crew in the final showdown with His Abuser. no one deserves this confrontation more than him and he doesn't even get a chance to tell belos to fuck off and give luz the green card to beat his ass. she just goes lion turtle while he's stuck on the blimp. again, they wanted season 3b zuko so bad they skipped all the most important parts of that arc. in this case, zuko facing ozai during black sun, telling him he's wrong, and saying he'll leave his defeat to the avatar.

like. this is Luz's Fight, being that she's the protagonist and the emperor's foil. but hunter needed to participate too. the bare minimum would've been him and luz having a private moment where he gives her his blessing to pulp his uncle.

sure, give hunter something to do helping the folks at the archives, but he doesn't know them like the hexsquad do.

also again i wish they let luz keep her glyph magic instead of moving on to a palisman. toh spend three seasons building up luz's new unique magic style only to say 'sike! it was a placeholder until she could get the Exact Same Thing Everyone Else Has'. yes camila and the hexsquad get to use it in the climax, but it's luz's magic. it feels wrong that she dropped it as soon as she got a cooler replacement. there had to be some way for her to integrate it more prominently into her titan magic.

belos as final boss had to happen. relieved they didn't make it the collector at the last second. giving him no forgiveness and handing over his destruction to the people he hurt and the literal land he colonized was excellent. smart sidestep of the Kid Protag Can't Kill rule that feels thematically coherent (stares at atla). especially him being melted by water like a classic fairy tale witch

and making him the literal heart of the rot, to match the metaphorical one he was the whole time.

luz keeping her dorky self, but now having the confidence to call herself luz instead of luzura? wonderful.

archives. clever way to sidestep killing everyone bc kids cartoon.

love hunter being adopted by darius. it was properly built up and they seem like a great match personality wise. it caps off hunter's need for a new family (not to mention a new father figure who actually loves and cares for him), and darius's need to redeem himself for his complicity in letting belos abuse his nephew.

salty fandom side note: my controversial opinion is that Hunter Noceda the headcanon reeks to me of a group of people who earnestly wanted to see a pair of adopted male-female siblings being the main characters of a cartoon of this nature, projecting that dynamic onto two friends who aren't related or the same species, who definitely do have romantic tension that just never goes anywhere, who briefly live together as teens being cared for by the same adult after having never known each other as children, and whose parents aren't/will never be married, hallucinating it into Two Literal Siblings, having that interest whipped into an insistent fury that it's the Only Interpretation Allowed by lunter antis/the most rabid lumity stans who wanted an excuse to declare the ship problematic, and since it being abusive would mean blackwashing hunter's character and that was out of the question, they went with it being incest by the vaguest of technicalities, therefore literal 100% no-different-from-two-bio-siblings-fucking incest, therefore anyone who likes lunter becomes depraved, abusive, somehow also homophobic and therefore a 'valid' target for mobbing.

anytime i see art of luz and hunter in a pose that could be interpreted as romantic, and the word 'siblings' is slapped in the description i just think 'so you definitely know what you drew and that people would see it that way. you're just too insecure to let people interpret it as they please, huh'

anyway, hunter deamonne was the right choice. given how quickly hunlow got smashed together to Protect Lumity's Innocence, i'm relieved the writers didn't asspull hunter into the noceda family just to please the fans.

(.... to the people who want luz to have a sibling from the boiling isles who was adopted by camila to protect them from belos, THAT'S VEE)

speaking of ~hUnTeR nOcEdA~ who wants to bet the next ironclad luz-and-hunter-are-siblings pivot will be 'obviously darius and alador marry because they were onscreen together for one shot, and since lumity marry, and hunter is darius's adopted son, they are siblings-in-law and therefore the Exact Same Thing as literal full-on-related-siblings-who-were-raised-together.' fucking. idiots.

or maybe the even more elaborate mental gymnastics routine of 'obviously darius and camila will marry, making luz and hunter stepsiblings'.

either way, it's canon that these two characters who aren't related... aren't related. i feel like people need reminding of that.

i love ending on a time skip epilogue

i appreciate that rebuilding the isles is a work in progress that'll take years. no magical everything-is-fine-now-that-we-killed-the-bad-guy

their college designs are great

palisman carver hunter works. give him a quiet life surrounded by the wild magic he was denied, helping to create things

gus and willow's endings are solid. gus living his human world loving dream, willow getting to beat ass. good for them.

amity certainly was doing... something?

luz staying in the magical realm is great. this story is about not having to choose a category or group to ally yourself with, and finding your own path. it was never going to involve luz going back to the human world forever.

i do wonder if she finished hs in the human realm though. i think that's an important aspect of her character that's been overlooked-- she came to the isles to find the belonging she didn't find in the human world. she needed to go back to the human world, even if only temporarily, to show how her adventure changed her as a person. i'll give it a pass given how truncated this season was. her hs days were probably cut for the first special. still hope she got to have them to some extent.

love the nocedas buying the portal house. best of both worlds is the best ending.

pour one out for flapjack.

again i acknowledge that hunlow's buildup got totally wiped out because s3 had to be truncated. yes, it probably would've been much more developed if s3 got to be a whole twenty or even just ten episodes. sucks. still don't like them as a couple. still reeks of 'we need to pair up the biggest threats to lumity together so Nothing Can Touch Our Baby' and it's still annoying when they coulda just written all four characters better from day 1.

again amity is here to be The Girlfriend. it's wonderful and groundbreaking that a disney cartoon gets to have its main couple be two female characters who get to be a couple onscreen during the run of the show but it's still such an undersell of amity as a character. wish she got her own role in the story as an individual.

so in full review... yeah toh is a mostly-great show with some gaping weak points. even with all the issues i have with it, it's unquestionably beautiful to look at, full of fantastic ideas and characters, made by people who deeply loved what they were doing and mostly stuck to their guns. if this came out when i was a preteen, i'd have loved it.

but that being said, preteen me didn't watch it. adult me did.

adult me appreciates all those aspects and especially how the creatives chose to die falling on their queer sword instead of letting the mouse censor things and water down the message. but adult me does think there are some gaping holes in the writing that keep toh from being one of the All Time Greats. avatar come again, this is not. it's close, but not quite there. i'll recommend it to everyone forever, but i Will talk about the issues too.

yes, the romance is one of my big issues. lumity was just wlw kataang. it was cute and you saw it coming, and Yes I Sure Am Glad It Was Able To Exist... but it totally overpowers and consumes amity's individual character. not to mention that all luz and amity's individual character arc moments could have been better satisfied by pairings with hunter and willow respectively. it's just odd that a show this strongly written failed so hard in this regard, and either didn't at all realize that their two main couples should have swapped partners, or definitely knew and consciously chose to go with the worse option because they wanted wish fulfillment.

but more than that, the biggest problem with toh isn't actually that it was shot dead by disney before it could finish its story on its own terms. if anything these three supersized episodes showed that it was capable of efficient storytelling all along and just didn't do it. season 1's pacing was really fucking bad, and introducing hunter in s2 was a massive mistake. even if they did get two-and-a-half seasons, they still could've ended on such a stronger note if hunter was in s1, and if they actually let the plot get rolling before s1e18.

and on the fandom end of things i'm most happy that the worst people in the fandom will move on to find another children's cartoon to make unbearable for everyone else. ideally the lunter shippers can finally poke their heads out and have fun with the (disclaimer, in the event some nutjob reads this:) non-canon ship. including and especially multishippers.

in general, it's always fun to see how fandoms develop after the dust settled. which headcanons, aus, and theories gain prominence, which discourses are forgotten. which ships and characters aren't remembered fondly, which ones will get a retroactive groundswell. what aspects of the show will be loved, which will be critiqued.

[jellydishes]

tagged by @illusivesoul, tagging @more-cardigan-than-woman, @notabloodmage, and @dismalzelenka

Rules: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it! And then tag as many people as you have wips. (You can make your own post or reblog this one!) This isn’t just for writing either. Sketch titles? Comics? DnD campaigns? If you have an unfinished project, it counts!!

wip: To Become Something Greater

wip: merrill and varric

wip: krem/cole

wip: i am selfish, i am broken, i am cruel

wip: next chapter of tbsg

wip: leliana/warden

wip: jongerry

wip: hf2

wip: michaelgerry

wip: brosca/aeducan

wip: jump and a twist

wip: silhouette

wip: heavy tools

wip: morrigan and zevran

wip: michael thing

wip: distortion michael meetcute

wip: female hawke/isabela

wip: varric/cadash

wip: end tim

wip: warden commander bethany au

wip: anders/malcolm hawke

wip: step on a crack

wip: bethany getting pissed

wip: all you have is your fire

wip: loghain and mahariel

wip: ludte

wip: leliana/carver/zevran sexytimes

wip: andraste/solas

wip: bethany journal story

wip: jonmartin

wip: in which arla rolls his eyes forever

wip: varric narrator thing

wip: morrigan/surana

wip: knight enchanter bethany

wip: varric/fenris fake dating

wip: stoke the flames

wip: jon/mike crackship

wip: gerry&eric bonding tiem

wip: statement of tim spooky~

wip: billy rocks

wip: fae gerry and vampire michael

wip: stuff with tim

wip: gerry gaem

wip: garrett and varric

wip: ds9

[givemewallywestorgivemedeath]

Zatanna just drove her house into the speedforce one time and I feel like we should talk about it.

Did they call it 'the speedforce'? No but I think it's important to remember that 'the speedforce' was a jokey placeholder name that the speedsters came up with and used so much that it accidentally stuck.

Zatanna and the rest of the cast of Justice League Dark travel to what they call 'the Heart of Chronos'. They describe this dimension as 'the source of all time for every universe'.

Now I ask of you, can there be two dimensions that are the source of all time for every universe? I'm going to go ahead and say no. My conclusion here is that there are just two very different names for the same place. There is the Star Wars joke name and there's the creepy magic name.

But hold on folks, that's not the only similarity.

See, people connected to the speedforce have to deal with the omnipresent threat of the Black Flash. This is an entity (or entities, plural, there's more than one) that seeks to usher speedsters to death. You could say that the Black Flash is a Speedster Grim Reaper. The Black Flash typically looks like a zombie Flash in an all black suit, has glowing red eyes, superspeed and if it touches a speedster the speedster will die (or sometimes turn into one). And not 'die' as in go into the speedforce, no, they will actually die. The Black Flash usually shows up to collect a speedster before they're supposed to die and, in some cases, goes after speedsters who have ripped the fabric of time one too many times. One notable way speedsters have escaped these so called Black Flashes is when Wally ran to the end of time and lured it outside of time itself. Death cannot exist without time and thus it stopped existing.

Now, Justice League Dark visited the Heart of Chronos (also called the center of time) because they'd accidentally ripped the fabric of time while time travelling and those rips were threatening to destroy the fabric of reality.

And what exactly was emerging from those rips in time? These guys:

Zatanna called them 'time gremlins'.

Now right away the similarities are stark. They are all black, they have glowing red eyes, they emerge from rips in time and go after the people who created those rips and they kill anyone they touch (but sometimes they corrupt people). But the really insane part? You wanna know how the magic guys briefly kept safe from them?? They stopped time. The 'time gremlins' couldn't operate without time.

The interesting part of this is that we don't have an origin story for the Black Flashes at all. We just know that sometimes the previous Black Flash infects a new speedster and corrupts them into the new Black Flash. But the Time Gremlins do have an origin story.

The are Pralaya's thoughts personified. Pralaya is the void basically. The opposite of everything and anything. "Call me the Darkness that proceeds the light of creation... Without the Nothing that I embody, the Everything that you so cherish, could never exist." Whenever time is ripped Pralaya is awoken and is able to access everything through the cracks in time. The time gremlins are sent out to usher everything back into darkness so that Pralaya can reset the cycle and begin creation anew.

And I honestly have got to say... this makes the Black Flash make a lot of sense. This makes everything make a lot of sense. Think about it, why would the speedforce send out a Grim Reaper to collect speedsters before they're supposed to die if they go into the speedforce when they die anyway? Doesn't it make more sense that the sentient entity that is the void is sending them out because her entire goal is to reset everything and having a bunch of immortal guys chilling within the speedforce kinda circumvents that. She's trying to get them before they get in there.

And why does the Black Flash look like a Flash and have superspeed? Because he's literally just a corrupted speedster being used to hunt down other speedsters.

The way that Pralaya calls the time gremlins 'thoughts' is just so similar to how the speedforce sometimes personifies 'thoughts'. If they are truly equals and opposites then it would make sense that they would be able to do vaguely similar things.

I've always wondered how the Gorillas in Gorilla City knew all about Barry becoming a Black Flash and how it'd affect everyone. And how the Cult of Cicada knew that the speedforce was the key to reversing death. Where did this lore even come from? But if the speedforce is actually codified into myth as 'the Heart of Chronos' then suddenly it makes a lot of sense why this is accessible information for cults.

Also look at how they show this corrupting black goop that turns people into the Black Flash in the Flash comics. It's the same thing. Wally calls it 'the death aspect of the speedforce', Thawne calls it 'the negative speedforce', but it really really just seems to be Pralaya's power.

[clavissionary-position]

Ikemen Villians Suitor Personalities Based On Their Silhouettes (speculation) (joke post)

❣❣❣ Please don't take this post seriously. AT ALL. I expect to be 400% wrong on all accounts. In fact I hope I'm 400% wrong just so I can have a laugh XD

❣❣❣❣ The silhouette file names have character names attached (got em on the official site). I don't know if they're official names or placeholders meant to throw off nosy people like me, so take them with a grain of salt?

❣❣❣❣❣ Also if their personalities and names have already been divulged, super-ignore this post. I'm writing this as of 11.03. You saw nothing here. I'm just a weird person prone to simple errors.

---

William. The villain-by-circumstance type. Started off as a hero before he became disillusioned. He's a bit of a hard-ass and the kind of man who will see his villainy through to the very end, even if it comes at a huge personal cost (and it already has). His first impression is that he's cold and uncaring, but he's also the same guy constantly saving your constantly-getting-kidnapped ass. Self-taught cook because he's had to feed himself all these years and doesn't trust other people not to poison him. Sleeps naked.

---

Liam. Fun, spunky, spontaneous. The life of the villain party. His jokes are the funniest, and often needed to offset how dark the storylines may get. He jokes about how he's William's "after-image" or "echo" on account of how his name is literally just the last half of William's :') It's hard to hate this guy even though he does some pretty fucked-up stuff if you stop and think about it. Or he's this game's haughty tsundere, idk.

---

Harrison. Playboy. Is constantly making "jokes" about bedding you. Turns out they really are only half-jokes, because he's very concerned about how much you let your guard down around the other guys. Does not want to admit to himself that this constant form of teasing, something that he considers a blip in his evil grand schemes, means anything more than what it is. Does not want to admit to himself that any room that you're not in feels emptier for it.

---

Alphonse. Kuudere. Elegant but deadly. Aloof but surprisingly warm. He's so quiet that half the time you're not even aware he's in the room before he says something sobering and logical to get the discussion back on track. He wants absolutely nothing to do with you. In fact, it irritates him that all the other guys give you so much attention. What's so special about you, he wonders. His stare is chilling and direct and uncomfortable. He will definitely use his coat to shield you at some point, whether it is from the elements or blood spray or the shock of a group of pigeons taking sudden flight. You've basically won the game if you can get him to smile.

---

Elbert. The wild-card. His fighting prowess is second-to-none. Flagging him for possible yandere. Flagging him for possible tsundere. His, uh, silhouette, makes me think of someone who's quiet and a bit of a loner. Maybe someone who doesn't want you to get too close to him lest you be tainted with the same evil that has corrupted him, forsooth? Or he's got bad ideas for days and a smile like a shark. I can't put my finger on this guy.

---

Roger. Big tol daddy. Reliable to a fault. Definitely gives me villain-by-circumstance vibes, as much as a silhouette with no other information can. If he wants the first thing you notice about him to be his gun, then his primary goal is for you to understand that he's not here to fuck around. He's got a serious personality and he's probably seen some shit. Definitely has/had a little sister. So while he's not above torturing you, he'll always stop short. Alternatively he's super easy-going to distract from the fact that he's doing some really evil stuff when you're not looking.

---

Victor. Yandere? A man with a dark memory for every year he spent growing out his hair? A smile that is at once devastating as it is... also devastating? Beautiful and dangerously charming in a way that makes you wonder if you're about to be kissed or about to be killed. There are sensual pros and rational cons to being locked in a room with him. His vulnerable side may be painfully precious. It would be hilarious if he was one of the younger characters, but I'm betting he's in the senpai series.

---

Ellis. This dude doesn't sleep and he lives off sugar and whatever else he can pawn off strangers. Half the time he just zombies onto the scene to make a passing comment that makes zero sense before grabbing your hand and taking you off on some equally nonsensical misadventure. That is all just an act, however, because he knows people will drop their guard around him and divulge critical information if they believe him to be a fool. Even then, all his "nonsense" has its own deeper meaning as well.

---

Jude. He's got the "daddy" trenchcoat, which I can only take to mean that he is a "daddy" type. I feel like he and Roger either super get-along or hate each other's guts. This guy's just everywhere. Positively everywhere, lounging like he owns the place. He's constantly offering to make you his partner so you can rule together as an evil power couple. May hide an earth-shattering secret.

Like I said, I fully expect to be suuuuper off on these guesses XD

[esc-is-holding-me-hostage]

 I'm finally done with writing my opinions on this year's songs! This post took way too much time and it's not even as funny as I hoped it would be :/

Anyway, enjoy.

Albania

When the revamp was announced, I was afraid that they'll have to get rid of some of the best parts of the song (like the opening chanting and that RRRRAAAAA), but not only they kept all of them, they even added a new drop, without removing the old one. And it works! Yeah, it's still a structural mess but it works!

Wish it was left fully in Albanian though. I also wish I had thighs like those...

 Armenia

Well, guess now we know the answer to "Will Armenia win ESC right after winning JESC". The answer is no, obviously.

But whatever, Snap is fine. It's pleasant and inoffensive. Which seems to be a recurring theme this year.

 Australia

He's a good singer, and there are genuine emotions put into the performance but I find the song really boring.

 Austria

It's alright, but I'm worried about how it'll gonna sound live, her voice sounds really processed.

Update: I originally wrote about Austria when only the studio version was available, but now the live vocals have been heard, and I was right. The girl can't keep up with the song at all.

 Azerbaijan

And once again, Azerbaijan gives us a song that could be sung by literally anyone. Are Azerbaijani artists forced to sign a contract specifying that they can't show any bit of their personality or their country's culture at Eurovision?

Belgium

Belgium has decided to shake up the formula a bit for the first time since 2017. Too bad that was a formula I really loved.

I genuinely don't have anything to say about Miss You, sorry. Pleasant and inoffensive once again.

 Bulgaria

A lot of people seem to genuinely dislike Intention but in my opinion it doesn't deserve any strong emotions. There is nothing to hate and nothing to love. Just some mediocre, toothless dad rock. Guitar solo is kinda cool tho.

 Croatia

Booooring. I'd call it pleasant and inoffensive too, but the lyrics rub me the wrong way. So, pleasant and a tiny bit offensive?

 Cyprus

Ela doesn't sound like it was written specifically for Eurovision and I mean it in a best way possible. It's still not really my thing, but at this point I'm just happy that Cyprus has given us something different from the usuual.

 Czech Republic

It's fine, just Czech Republic sending their trademark modern pop stuff.

 Denmark

The ballad part in the beginning does not need to take up a third of the runtime. Otherwise it's... cute?

 Estonia

Who would've thought that an Armenian guy from Estonia will give us a better country song than any of a dozen country artists at ASC?

 Finland

Ok, that guitar riff slaps. Then the lyrics start. Honestly, half of  them sound like placeholder lyrics someone put there just to keep the rhyme and then forgot to change them. "Killer shark in heels", my god. Also that tiger roar followed by a Johnny Test whip sound never fails to make me chuckle.

 France

You've heard of Slavic spring-worshiping rave in the woods.

Now get ready for Celtic devil-worshiping rave in the woods!

Fulenn slaps, I love it.

 Georgia

Gotta love how Georgia just keeps doing whatever the fuck they want, qualification chances be damned. That said, I respect what they're doing more than I like it.

 Germany

People weren't lying, it IS like Stressed Out but lame.

 Greece

Bittersweet love songs are just *chef's kiss*. Some people find Die Together creepy, but I think that it perfectly encapsulates young love in all of its overdramatization.

However, I like the lyrics more than the song as a whole. The first half is just a bit of a drag.

 Iceland

Oh, I love this one. It just feels so cosy and wintery, I can almost feel the cold wind on my face.

Ireland

Favourite "bop" of the year.

 Israel

This is probably the most flamboyant song I've ever seen at Eurovision, but there isn't anything else I can say about it.

 Italy

Okay, I know I've just said how much I love bittersweet love songs, but Brividi isn't really making it for me. Maybe it's because we have so many sad boy songs this year, maybe because I don't like falsettos, maybe because I had a clear favorite at Sanremo and still salty they didn't win, dunno. It's just alright for me.

 Latvia

I'm convinced that people who unironically love this song only do so because they're vegetarians/surface level environmentalists.

That said, I don't hate Eat Your Salad. Yeah, the chorus is repeated waaay to many times, but the song is fun, it has a sax solo, which is always a good thing and yes, it has that goddamn gutpunch of an opening line.

I BET they came up with the pussy line first and then based the whole song around it. And the way it's pronounced, jeez. The smugness is fucking palpable, you KNOW the guy is saying it with the biggest shit-eating grin on his face without even seeing him.

 Lithuania

I didn't get the hype around this one during PiN, but it grew on me.

 Malta

So instead of revamping a decent-ish song they had, they just threw the whole song out and replaced it with the blandest self-empowerment song they could find in the dumpster behind Melfest's HQ, huh? Ingenious plan, what could go wrong?

 Moldova

Is it the weakest out of Zdob si Zdub's entries? Yes. Does it still make me wanna dance? Yes.

Look, I'm from Eastern Europe, I'm basically genetically programmed to like this kind of music.

 Montenegro

Hey, Montenegro, glad to have you back, love the outfit in the music video. Oh, the song? It's also there, I guess.

 Netherlands

Okay, if I'm not gonna get my yearly fix of dark and moody™ pop from Belgium this year, I'll get it from their neighbors! I like it, but I  wish they went with Dans Mij Naar Huis instead.

 North Macedonia

It's very bland and mediocre, but I have to give Circles a pass, because at least it's not Superman.

 Norway

It wants to be a joke song but it misses a certain je ne sais quoi, the DIY charm of the best ESC joke songs. It's basically a prep cosplaying as a nerd. It's way to polished and professionally-produced to the point that the only thing that separates it from "normal" songs is the costume gimmick.

 Poland

I guess I like it slightly more that the rest of the sad boy ballads we're plagued by this year. Slightly.

 Portugal

I fucking love the instrumentation on this one.

 Romania

It's a song.

 San Marino

Is San Marino just gonna send horny Italians from now on? I mean, I'm not complaining.

P.S. if I see one more "Achille is just a Måneskin copycat" post, I'm gonna fucking scream.

 Serbia

Watching Konstrakta's performance with subtitles is an experience. But same as with Georgia. I respect it more than like it.

 Slovenia

It sounds surprisingly... Japanese. To the point that having lyrics in Slovenian almost feels wrong. I wish the guy had a bit more emotion in his voice though.

 Spain

I've said it before and I'll say it again. THIS is the true successor to Fuego, this is what Cyprus has been desperately trying to recreate.

 Sweden

Me? Liking Sweden? It's more likely than you think.

It's not groundbreaking for Sweden or anything, it's still a well-produced, professionally made Swedish pop, but I like it way more than any of the Sweden's previous entries from the past 10 years. Probably because it is, again, a bittersweet love song, and I have a soft spot for those.

 Switzerland

The pauses between words in this one really test the limits of my attention span.

 Ukraine

A song in Ukrainian for the third year in a row, thank God! (Not because I'm particularly patriotic, but because our singers apparently aren't allowed to have good English pronunciation)

 United Kingdom

It's better than what UK usually sends but not "Top 5 in the odds" better.

[megatraven]

@levitatinghaunt HI!!! i would love this opportunity :)

SO for context, Alex Cyprin is a nonbinary demigod (child of Aphrodite) within the visual novel app Lovestruck. They're one of the seven love interests in their series. They're a supervisor at HERA- the Hell and Earth Relations Agency- which is essentially an agency full of humans and demigods that work to keep the balance and peace between humans, gods, and monsters, while at the same time keeping humans out of the know. They work in the Artifacts department, meaning they hunt down powerful artifacts belonging to the gods that have been stolen or lost and, in the wrong hands, could cause a lot of harm, especially if a human gets their hands on it.

this is they

WITH ALL THAT OUT OF THE WAY!!!

Alex is very wonderful and cool and great!!!!! Their placeholder name when someone doesn't know them is Dashing Demigod which is perfect for them because they really are that charming.

Like. Literally. They have the ability to charm people; they canonically have charmed their way out of getting speeding tickets. They can even charm a person out of their memories; they don't like to do it, but when it comes to keeping humans safe from the supernatural, they'll go on with it.

Their golden heart necklace (pictured below) is their artifact, and the object that lets them summon their Aura- a magical, tangible force that acts in accordance to its owner's will. Their aura is two deer (a stag and a doe) and it's powerful enough to catch a literal bus and set it back down

They're in love with their human best friend from childhood- MC, or the main character- who works in their department. They've known her all her life and they're always there for her. In their route or not, they always break and bend the rules if it will benefit of help her in some way. They trust her above anyone else and it's one of my favorite things in the entire universe.

Just as well- they love her in any timeline, any other route. She's their best friend, and they just want her to be happy above all else. One of their biggest reasons for doing... well, anything, is to keep her safe. It's beyond sweet. Even if she can't or doesn't love them back, they can deal with it as long as she's happy and being treated well.

AND ANOTHER THING!!!!!!!!

They have. One of the biggest Atlas Complexes i've ever seen. They take on so much just to do what's right. They face a half-titan with the power of multiple gods in the name of saving their family, their home, their mother- and keeping MC safe, of course.

They face down the gods themself, , specifically Ares, Zeus, Eros, Phobos, and Deimos. All in the name of love- for themself and for MC! They literally say that they'll topple Zeus' throne for her if that's what it takes for her to be safe. There's no one more iconic than that.

Even knowing that she's human for most of the series, they love her anyways. Knowing that they're immortal when their love isn't- they never let that get in the way. If anything, they love her even more, knowing that they have to get as much time to love her as they can. Eventually she becomes a demigod (she's the reincarnation of the goddess Hera, which the agency was actually made to find) and one of their sweetest lines is said in response to it.

"Immortality meant nothing to me until I was given the chance to share it with you."

So impossibly sweet. They get their forever with her, and she gets hers with them, and they don't have to worry about losing each other anymore.

Alex also takes on as much as they can at work- they're a workaholic too, by the way, it ties into their atlas complex- and shoulder everything they can. They just take and take and take until they're run ragged and exhausted, but they never break or stop until things are solved and better.

They're kind and sweet. They like lemon cookies, and pretty much anything sweet at all. They drink ungodly amounts of coffee. They have a beautiful singing voice and like to unwind with karaoke, and they especially like serenading MC.

Sometimes they do things wrong, but their heart is always in the right place, and they do their best to correct their mistakes and make amends with those they've wronged.

Gosh i just. There's so much to say about them??? I love every single aspect of their character

genuinely, i consider their route to be the "true ending" of the series, even though there's no such thing in terms of the app's canon. but alex's and mc's history together, and the way their route just comes together so seamlessly...... i can't imagine a better ending for either of them than to be together, forever, falling more in love with one another every day for the rest of their immortal lives

thanks for letting me rant about them for a bit! :) gonna end this post with a picture of them and mc together vuv