#tagging just in case i do commit to it :)

[inkedberries]

i have a headcanon that Yoichi trims AFO's hair because i can't help but compare AFO's nicely trimmed hair to Yoichi's and i thought someone had to have cut AFO's hair for him and it is only logical for me to assume it was Yoichi who did. I think AFO would only trust Yoichi to be so close to him with a sharp object like a pair of scissors lol

I think Yoichi would have also liked cutting his brother's hair at first, because it would make him feel helpful in a way? And I just think even when AFO put him in the vault, AFO would still go there to get his hair trimmed by Yoichi.

and once Yoichi joins the resistance, he offers to do this for Kudo as well.

[constehlla]

this is more of a last minute silly for free day than anything else, but recently I have been enamored with everyone during Freight where poor Rusty is desperately trying to get his bickering ducks in a row. and they are not having it <3

[hanzajesthanza]

if witcher 4 is set in the past, but in the recent past… in other words, the heyday of witchers… that would actually be way more interesting than setting it in the distant past, because we have so much more developed, canon context already for that period. there’s already a skeleton to hang a story on.

in addition to being able to bring back some already known characters. imagine meeting like, hen gedymdeith. what if we can know of tissaia training philippa as her pupil. meet eithné… uh… just the same as she ever was i guess, but with her daughter alive this time. encounter future scoia’tael agents as kids. i want to see falka on the stake

[iridescentoracle]

i know canon more or less says this can't be true but based on what we're told about him and his attitude in 4-1 i think apollo should be an absolute fount of knowledge of phoenix's past cases. he's a law nerd who actively looked up to phoenix, he might not have known about the gramarye trial and its aftermath but he has to have known about phoenix's previous cases bc otherwise it makes no sense for him to be SO insistent that phoenix has to be innocent—if he doesn't know anything about him why would he be so sure? if it weren't for the constraints of the medium i think he would know about the gramarye trial but it does get awkward for the writers when the characters know things the players don't so like i get it. i just think based on what we know of apollo, especially with his AA6 backstory factored in but frankly even without it just from his behavior in 4-1 alone, it would be more in keeping with apollo's personality for him to have gotten hold of every scrap of publicly available information about phoenix's trials in general and the gramarye trial in particular. in my heart he's written multiple papers on the gramarye trial and why phoenix was probably framed

[turnaboutstar]

WHAT THE FUCK I WAS JUST GUESSING I DIDN'T WANT TO BE RIGHT 😭

[crispyjenkins]

*whacking you all with paper tubes* tag *whack* your *whack* fucking *whack* moden *whack* aus

[w1ld-wr1t3r]

Carlando 26 ❤️🧡

Hmm . . . okay. This is an interesting one! This song is from the soundtrack for "The Creator" (great sci-fi movie, highly recommend it) and I have, admittedly, lightly toyed with the idea of an AU based on it. I've never done anything with it because I've never been able to decide which people should fill which roles and what kind of story arc I want for everyone, but every now and then I think about it again. I'll consider this a little trial run of sorts. :)

All referenced lore comes from the movie. The only term I throw around that might not make sense without context is "simulant," which is a term in the movie for an AI individual who has a human appearance and human emotions. This scene also directly mirrors a scene from the movie.

26. A Place In The Sky by Hans Zimmer

Carlos never thought he'd be here, stuck in the middle of pro-AI territory all on his own and with probably half the military after him. He also never thought he'd willingly share company with another AI, not after the last time he was here. He had worked for the anti-AI movement his whole life. He thought he'd left this godforsaken place behind a long time ago.

But he'd just had to let himself get talked into this mission, hadn't he?

And now here he was, stuck with some simulant that for some reason was the most important bot in the whole world, tasked with getting them out of the country so that his bosses or his bosses' bosses could pick it apart and learn what kind of advantage it was supposed to have.

This bot was some sort of kid . . . somehow. It was a simulant but a kid. That wasn't supposed to be possible. And what was a kid supposed to do to turn the tide of the war? Drive the enemy crazy with incessant questions? It was already doing that to him.

Well. Okay. Maybe it was more innocent than incessant.

But he wasn't going to admit that out loud.

"If people aren't made like robots are," the child - man, he really should give it a name already - asked softly, "then how are they made?"

Carlos didn't look at the kid, watching the trees pass by outside the bus instead. But he did answer. "They're made by two people who are in love."

The kid absorbed that before asking another question. "What's it like to be in love?"

"It's like . . ." Carlos started, trying to find words that a nonhuman kid could understand. "It's finding happiness in someone else. Like finding a missing piece of yourself."

The kid looked at him innocently. "Do you love someone?"

Carlos paused, shifting his jaw. He didn't know why he was entertaining this topic. But . . . "Yes. I do. I did."

Lando. The one he'd been tasked to follow and study, all those years ago. His target. A person of interest. Connected to a key pro-AI figure. Supposed to be the enemy.

The only man he'd ever loved.

It was unprecedented for them - an AI supporter, and an AI fighter - to fall in love. But they did. They'd found the keys to each other's hearts. They'd made a life for themselves. They were going to have a family.

But then it had all been ripped away.

Their home. Their unborn child. Lando himself.

All because of a goddamn botched raid.

He would never forgive himself for lying to Lando about who he really was. Seeing the betrayal in his eyes as he caught Carlos trying in vain to call off the raid, finding out he hadn't truly abandoned the side of anti-AI. It had made Carlos want to go back in time and slap himself, scream at himself for hiding it from Lando, for not just giving up everything for him. Because before he'd lost everything anyway, he was afraid he'd lost Lando's love, too.

He would never forgive himself for that.

"Off," he finally choked out, using a term that the kid could understand. "He's . . . off."

The child absorbed this solemnly. "Where do people go when they're off?"

Carlos tried not to get choked up as he watched the scenery pass by. "Heaven," he said. "It's a peaceful place in the sky."

"Are you going to heaven, too?" the child asked.

A tear finally rolled out of his eye. "No," he whispered. "You . . . you have to be a good person to get into heaven."

The child was silent for a long time. Then they finally spoke again. "Then . . . we're the same."

Carlos finally turned to look at them in confusion, meeting the eyes that had reminded him uncannily of Lando from the very start. It was part of the reason why he didn't look at the kid any more than he had to.

The kid looked at him serenely, yet sadly. "Neither of us can go to heaven," they explained simply. They looked down at their hands. "Because you're not good. And . . . I'm not a person."

Something about the way the child said it . . . the emotion in their voice . . . it stirred something in Carlos.

Maybe the kid wasn't so inhuman after all.

Gently, he lifted his arm so that the kid could lean against his side, snuggling closer and getting comfy for the long ride they still had ahead. As they finally lapsed into silence, Carlos returned his gaze to the window, thinking about bright laughs and whispered words of fondness in a home he had once shared with the person he loved.

He didn't dare hope that they might be reunited one day. But maybe . . . maybe, he could still make Lando proud somehow.

[liquidstar]

a friend who'd wait :)

[james-stark-the-writer]

just finished Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, and it is a game written by cowards for cowards.

the final twist genuinely ruins the game. it's so stupid as a narrative decision. i hate it so much. it almost makes me understand what the people yelling about The Last Jedi being too subservient to its themes were yelling about (OBVIOUSLY not the ones that were being bigoted and loud and wrong about it, but just the ones who had actual issues with its narrative directions/execution). genuinely, the twist takes what could have been an extremely solid 8.5, maybe a 9/10 game down to a 4/10 game with nothing of interest to say deluding itself into thinking it's saying anything of worth by thoughtlessly repeating patterns as if that's supposed to generate meaning without any real effort of actually committing to that meaning, or seeing the world as anything beyond its basic binary worldview of Good and Bad.

putting that twist in fundamentally cuts the legs out from any actual, interesting and substantive critique it could have leveled at the legal system and our feelings about people on trial and their perceived guilt or innocence, and it just ends up reinforcing it as a power of good that Will Ultimately Prevail In The Search For Truth, as if that is even remotely a thing any legal system is concerned with, especially the one in the game that mostly just stumbles into The Right Choices because it's a game controlled by the player. it's frankly ideologically incoherent to the point of saying nothing because its critique is unfocused and toothless. best it can muster is "maybe some people are corrupt and lying, but if You take Advantage of The System, you can beat them" as if malicious compliance is supposed to change the system. fuck off.

ran out of tags but. i'm serious about this lol, i really hate it as a narrative and ideological choice. the game threatens to say something bold and interesting and then just pulls the rug out from underneath you. it sucks. it's very much like 12 Angry Men in that way, i think, except at least that movie Knows what it's saying and that its basic premise is its ideological downfall, this just doesn't really feel like it says anything much interesting or coherent, ultimately, because the criticism either drowns in the length and comedic nature of it, or just ultimately isn't focused and pointed and nuanced enough to actually say something meaningful. like ik someone's gonna do a "kid's game" thing but hello, kid's shit has always been nuanced and just bc it's "for kids" doesn't mean it has to abide by some binary ass morality that flattens all its interesting critique, especially when you're constantly led, structurally, to the more interesting and nuanced narrative choice only to have a twist completely ruin it and making it all feel like a waste of your time. plenty of things are nuanced and interesting and "for kids" without deflating their themes and messages by writing a stupid twist that undercuts the interesting parts of its arguments.

[marshmellowtea]

need to rewatch carrie the musical so i can get serious about a carrie!chris au because i cannot emphasize enough how much most of that stuff would literally happen to him

[asitrita]

Some people are all "Doflamingo is pure evil from the start", "he never cared for anyone", "he never really loved his brother, he was only using him, it's not like he cared for him nor anything like that".

Meanwhile, Doffy before and after killing his own brother:

The whorification is real with this one, just saying u.u

Not saying he was sane before, we know he very much wasn't, but judging by the change in his fashion sense, commiting fratricide against his last surviving family member really took its toll on him. He pretty much just went batshit crazy after that. Just look at him. Like, yes, his trausers were ridiculous since the begining, but he got much worst afterwards? XD Plus, he seems way more unhinged now than he did in his youth, he really lost it.

[vigilskept]

as much as i love keeping my most doomed protagonists in isaac's worldstate (dinara fits right in) there is something deeply compelling to me about a worldstate where chaya tabris' youngest daughter is rook.

what if your uncle sacrificed himself to save your entire country from the blight and was sainted by the chantry? what if your mother left your family to join the wardens and was happier fighting the darkspawn than she ever was at home? what if you joined the wardens and both of their names dogged your steps wherever you went?

what if you tried so hard to live up to their legacies, but it only earned you the ire of the order? what if you tried to stop a ritual you thought would destroy the world and unleashed a double blight?

[batsplat]

#and i don't really ever like to touch this unless i absolutely have to but... early 2012 cannot have been an easy time in his life#cf his profile pic at the time

Just technical curiosity since i haven't seen the original, what was valentino's profile pic at the time?

Also, I don't know if you have talked about it or if you would like to talk about it, but I wanted to hear from you about Sic and his riding style. And if you have any opinion on grief and how it affected Vale. Of course its sensitive and if you have any qualms talking about it please feel no pressure!

and... idk man, idt I have anything particularly insightful to say about him either as a bloke or his riding style. obviously some tragic irony to the general opinion that he'd calmed down a fair bit by the time of his death... but I don't know what I could meaningfully say about him that isn't common knowledge anyway. when people say he was the highlight of the 2011 season - both in generating talking points but also just in terms of racing - they are right... just another element that makes the 2011 season not particularly enjoyable to me, for all my love for its champion

about the impact his death had on valentino, sure, I have my thoughts. I think valentino has tried to strike a delicate balance between honouring his dead friend and running away from that grief as best he can. I think riders have to become very good at compartmentalising those feelings. racing in welkom in 2003 a few days after daijiro kaito had passed, a bloke valentino had known for years and had gotten drunk at honda events - the work done after that to establish the safety commission. tragedy outside of racing, like the suicide of valentino's stepfather the day before the race where valentino quasi-sealed his last title at phillip island 2009 - a death he was asked to comment on after saturday practise. misano 2010 and standing in silence on the podium with jorge and dani in front of the jubilant crowd celebrating his podium, having just been told of the death of moto2 rider shoya tomizawa in parc fermé. valentino obviously wanted a good race at valencia 2011, but instead he was taken out in a multi-rider pile-up in the first corner - one that must have been particularly scary at the time. not long after he was involved in the accident that killed his friend. I think it won't have been easy during a period when he was struggling anyway, and I think it's telling how much the persistent rumours about his retirement after sic's death clearly bothered him. I think he tried to remove himself from the loss as much as possible, and I wouldn't be surprised if the stories of him keeping his distance from sic's father in the aftermath were true. I think that the experience of losing sic did hit him hard, did probably change some things permanently for him, will have continued to affect him going forwards. I think it will have made his relationship to fear, which he believes to be a non-negotiable element of his profession, no less complicated. I think it's very like valentino to integrate it into the story of forming the academy: a positive way of paying tribute to sic, a way of sharing his emotions in only the most restrained and narratively neat way - he missed sic, he'd been searching for meaning, this had given him something, sic was the first student of the academy - and I think it probably did help him process for himself what he had gone through

but above all I think that it is none of my business how he dealt with it. obviously, when I read this stuff, it's not like I can shut off my brain - and I do have my suspicions about the effects it had going forward. which is all well and good, but it's also where I personally draw the line. I don't want to do my usual process of playing cluedo and reading the tea leaves over two throwaway interview lines over the response to the death of a real human being. similarly to how I don't want to speculate about parental relations beyond what riders themselves have willingly told us, at the end of the day I am going to limit myself to what valentino has actually said on the matter. it was a painful loss, he wants to honour sic, it did not make him want to retire. valentino clearly doesn't want to pour out his soul to the public on this matter, and honestly I think that's probably the correct choice. he is entitled to dealing with his grief in his own way, he is entitled to the privacy of his emotions. this is one subject where I have no wish to pry

[yourubersawcrit]

@grandarcanist @apocalyptic-dancehall Would you?

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

....oh when i finish DRAGON i could watch sandman and knit, huh

[transthatfag]

they set up the non negotiables right? and I thought. ok over the course of the season the chefs will evolve the non negotiables and in turn they'll learn what does and doesn't work and the environment would be more productive and positive and would be a reflection of carmys improvement or at least the start of it. oh man. I was... wrong.......... ._.