#there are also Sad elements to this bc of course

[faunandfloraas]

The Nobleman or 양반 (yangban): The smiling face represents the bluff and composure that an aristocrat is often known to have. The chin is a separate piece from the top of the mask, and the actors can lean forward and back to make the mask smile or frown as needed.

This monk who abandons his doctrines, or 취발이 (chwibari): Chwibari was originally a monk, but he had no intention of joining the monastic order, so he came down to the world and wanders. Represented with a forehead full of wrinkles and spots.

The widow or, 부네 (Punae/bune): represented to be a widow, or a kisaeng ( a woman who sang, danced, or played an instrument to provide entertainment for company at a drinking party), or a mistress of the Yangban. She has a very small mouth, round cheeks and forehead- giving a general look of happiness good-humor.

[daveyfvckingjacobs]

[materialising physically in your home already sat cross-legged on the floor] say more about the mechanics au please

ok ok ok so

I’m thinking something like it’s a garage owned either by weasel or oscar and morris’ father that they all work at (to varying levels of willingness) and were raised around

they tend to get left to their own devices in the workshop on jobs, after long enough doing admin/paperwork for at least someone to realise morris isn’t good at it, oscar hates it and otto used to charge way too much just for fun until he got in trouble with the police for someone to realise it’s best they don’t do that anymore

morris is sort of neutral about the work. he finds the noises of the types of cars they get in often overwhelming, and a lot of the messy jobs (changing oil, greasing, even the gritty hand wash) quite a lot sensory wise. he knows them all inside out though, and could list off part numbers for any number of makes and years off the top of his head far better than the others. usually he’ll be found on a stool somewhere cleaning out parts with spirit or doing the mot checks and cleanings instead of big repair jobs. the easy, repetitive tasks where he can use his hands without gloves that oscar sets him too. he’s much better at identifying problems than oscar or otto, more attuned to the small noises/signs oscar misses and otto doesn’t have the patience to look for

oscar is pretty much the complete opposite of his brother; he loves working in the garage. he loves the physical nature of it, lugging around wheels and tools, all the bolts and screws and dirt. he’s very careless and thus covered in nicks and scrapes and burns from fiddling in too hot engine bays or refusing to lie on the foam mats. most of the time he’s the one underneath the cars, reckless with jacks and axle stands to the point it makes morris nervous. he’s similar to morris in that all of his tools wherever he’s working will be laid out all in arms reach, neat but filthy as he usually takes on big repair jobs and the messier servicing work morris avoids. he’s gets frustrated easily but doesn’t mind, because if he kicks a wheel of hits a spark plug with a spanner they won’t kick or hit back, so it’s a good form of anger relief

otto is equally reckless and also - said with such affection - an idiot when it comes to the work, but a smart idiot. he deals with customers most when they’re working because oscar can’t kept a civil tongue (‘it’s smoking cause the water pipe is just loose it’s literally just fucking steam I swear to fuck-‘). he’s a master at ‘fuck around and see what happens’, offering the most bizarre solutions to issues (specific tools made of cut up other tools, zip ties everywhere or just shake it till it works sort of thing) and more accident prone that oscar, and ten times more messy.

he loves fixing and servicing his own car thats technically all three of theirs because they can’t afford one each - a 1970 dodge challenger because it wouldn’t be me if it wasn’t a classic. it’s scrappy thing, full of haphazard fixes and additions that are totally not road worthy or legal but he does them anyway. oscar works on it too but only when something is broken, while otto takes it apart just for fun and morris is happy to watch him and give ideas

I have a lot of ideas for smaller scenarios based on my experiences I can add but this is v long so I’ll do that later :]

bonus: the image of oscar in a tank top and gloves with overalls tied around his waist covered in oil and dirt and a little bit of sweat. yeah

[bestbouy]

i think i just love the idea of the different universes with their like, styles???

like how Gwen's is totally watercolor and Hobie's is all scrapbookish punk n newspaper, y'know???? and, of course, Miles and Pavitr's are both more "normal" but they still have that... you know... v i b e... they're both normal but they have elements that make it their own. Like how Pavitr's universe is mainly super warm colors?

anyways this got me thinking y'know how it's super obvious Hobie has a different universe style?? not so much for Gwen because hers is a little different, but with the whole. changing skin, the OUTLINE, it's very obvious

I think it'd be super cool if in Hobie's universe, it's kind of like the opposite for anybody who's not from it? They have their own like, radius of... their own dimension???

I'm only comparing this to Hobie's dimension, it's very obvious none of this would happen in CANON so I'm literally just spitballing. Also because Hobie is the only one with the outline and funny overlay thing, and it'd be fun to play around with the other three's possible like,,, vibe!!

Gwen would leave like, imprints of watercolor? like dabbing it on a piece of paper, leaving color that dries out back to normal over time?? it would bleed into the world around her, it might even mimic her emotions with the color!

If she was upset it would be harsh, spread more, it would come out in spiked reds and blacks?

happy would seep in a lot more subtly, and cover a lot more space, but you wouldn't realize how much room it's taking up just because it's so slow to take it up and really is only at about.. idk, 20% opacity, slowly builds up the happier she gets? it would be more visible in puddles, just like with normal watercolor (Compared to anger, which would be very in-your-face and obvious)

It would rely a lot on her emotions, methinks, the stronger they are, the more visible the color!

Miles would have a sketchy, drawing-like atmosphere to him, kind of like what you can see on the spot y'know? and, since the spot came from Miles' dimension, I think it makes sense!

It would be less noticeable, but the things he interacts with would probably turn into a slightly stylized version of itself? A cup he holds or drinks from wouldn't change DRAMATICALLY, but it might copy his look and have sketch-like lines around it. Nothing huge, but enough that you can tell what he's touched in the past few minutes/hours

Pavitr would have a similar vibe to Gwen's, but with warm colors instead! His effect wouldn't change with emotions like hers, but it would probably bleed in the same way as hers. He would leave behind trails of warm oranges and yellows wherever he goes and leaving it behind on what he touches. He wouldn't notice this, but it would be veeery obvious to Hobie or anybody from his dimension.

Actually, I think the way that we can spot Hobie because of his differences in outline/radius effect would highly apply to them in his dimension! Everybody in Hobie's world can CLEARLY tell that Gwen, Miles and Pav aren't from there, and while the common person might not recognize they're from another universe, they might get the same feeling as if you were seeing like.. a skinwalker, or something. They're human, but it doesn't feel like it.

ANYWAYS back to Pavitr

He has a warm, cozy vibe, I think unlike the others his can seep more into emotions, I think he's an empathetic person and that melts into his little area effect. if he's super happy or excited about something the people around him get a tiny bit happier too!! when he's sad (and it's rly hard to make him sad bc this boy is POSITIVE THINKER #1) his colors get a bit colder, but I don't think they would affect other people like his happy ones do, honestly just SEEING such a normally happy guy so sad would do enough to ur mood than some radius effect lol

ANYWAYS that's just a lil thought. they are silly. and this is going into my ideas folder. have a good one n remember to drink water

(I would go on but this is super long already XD)

[modkatisbacc]

Saw some folks point out that Lilly was most likely like the youngest in the Alliance, since her dad fought alongside Libby, Ray, and Maya in the War.

Consider, Even if this is more of me throwing a little bit of AU out there: Her father dies when she's twelve, and wanting to keep all the elemental masters together, Wu and Garmadon bring her into the Elemental Alliance, knowing that she already had the powers of Earth.

The other elemental masters freak out because,,, *points* that is a CHILD.

But they also understand that if she was left to her own devices (her mother passed when she was really little) then she could put herself or others in grave danger with her powers.

They absolutely deck little Lilly out in impressive weapons and battle armor.

Now here we go into heavy headcanons/au territory.

With Libby being the second youngest EM in the group, her and Lilly form a close bond.

Like her parents, Ed and Edna, Libby is great at creating things. She LOVES building- mechs, especially. With Libbys help, Lilly's first mech (the one donated to TOS I've decided) was created.

Yes they may have gone all out on safety features on the mech, but would you completely trust a twelve year old with a very large elemental mech?

One day she brings over a boy. Wu and Garmadon are WORRIED because the boy is NOT an elemental master, he doesn't even know anything about fighting. She is sixteen and could punch the head clean off someone's shoulders with her powers...

These two are worried the most because they personally made it their mission to make sure the EMs were ot being hunted or used for their powers. So, bringing in a non EM into the fold was deemed risky.

They of course warm up to Lou, who thinks Lilly is the coolest person in the world and he learns basic self defense from her.

The EM Alliance falls apart when she is only 20 . *I say that bc everyone looks like they may be in their 50's, mid-late 50's after the Merge With Lilly being a decade younger well .. she would've been a decade younger at least :/*

She gets sick after she defeats Grief-Bringer. It wasn't bad at first, she honestly just thought she may have caught a cold. Also yes, in my headcanons and AUs Cole has been born when she goes to Shintaro. I have another post going into an au-headcanon mashup (I say headcanons because it isn't necessarily disproved by canon) that I kinda want to write about some day.

Knowing she was going to get worse, she started working on making sure Cole was prepared to become the next Master of Earth. When she was feeling well enough she would leave the house (unfortunately she also didn't tell Lou where she was going most of the time fidjxjsjshd)

Refused to pass on afterwards and instead keeps an eye on her family. Is the reason SOMEONE survives stuff that he shouldn't have.

Fun Facts about Lilly!!! That are canon in my stories!!!

- She is a realm hopper. Yes this is based on the fact that she apparently spied on Garmadon while he was in the Underworld in that one comic. I haven't read it but you know. I want to do something with that knowledge.

- she isn't in the Departed Realm especially after the Merge. She's trying to keep an eye on Cole while trying to find her husband and her friends. She found Wu first, of course. And with Wu, she found Garmadon. Before the Merge she would switch between watching over Lou and Cole.

- She is the only Previous EM of Ninjago to participate in the TOS, which may or may not be canon. I say this bc of that outfit and you know... The mech....

-Cole is 9, she is 29 when she dies. Also it's freaking sad because ain't no way Ray and Maya knew this until almost a decade later. Wu keeps a close eye on him and Lou afterwards. You know since he was canonically there for his birth hello??? *According to the comic*

- fun fact about me it literally took me 6 hours to write all this in one setting bc I was at work. Lilly did this to me.

Also, if there are any timeline problems that aren't just me pushing it for the AU tell me about it so I can fix it please I don't want it to be too off the course!!!

I think that's it for now,,,

[super-paper]

What was the point of Chapter 419 with AFO giving Tomura decay and being involved in his life since he was born, besides generating AFO is behind everything and Kotaro gay affair memes?

I still believe Hori could have pulled this off if he hadn't veered completely off course after 419 because a LOT of Tenko's (and AFO's) arc revolves around the concepts of "identity" and fantasy vs reality (Like, just scratching the surface: AFO attempting to escape from his reality through fantasy, Tenko angrily attempting to pull away the curtain of fantasy and expose the cruel reality of their world. AFO using "reality" as his source of power by claiming its victims for himself, Tenko using "fantasy" as his power by offering those same victims a dream and the promise of an "escape" from their painful reality. "Shigaraki Tomura" as the fictional construct that both AFO and Tenko are attempting to insert themselves into, for both different and similar reasons-- Tenko because he decides to embrace the fact that he killed his family and uses it as evidence that he was "born evil" and "wanted them to die" as a way of explaining his existence. AFO because he wants to escape from the reality that he murdered his brother, while also escaping from the reality of his origin as a helpless infant who no one would look at no matter how much he cried. Blah blah blah etc etc when I say u have to read AFO and Tenko's arcs as a set instead of getting angry at AFO for "inserting himself into Tenko's story," I really do mean it lmao).

Like, MVA aside, Chapter 115 in particular set the tone for Act 2 and HEAVILY foreshadowed what Tenko's arc would end up being about:

(lmao ya'll there is so much evidence in Act 2 that points to the idea that Hori really did want to write a deconstruction of your typical hero story. like, the framing of this panel with Jin angrily turning the TV off when they start talking about "focusing on the positives"????😭I get so sad when I think about the mha we coulda had)

(Side note: Jin was just so so so good as both a character and as a device meant to introduce the reader to MHA's concepts of identity + how a "hero/villain" identities are frequently used as crutches to stop a person from breaking apart under the weight of their trauma

..... which of course makes the fact that Hori rendered his death pointless in the end all the more upsetting :/)

(Pictured: AFO and Tenko fighting over the role of Shigaraki Tomura)

(this scene where Jin talks about the importance of knowing "who u really are" immediately transitions to a scene with AFO, btw. lmao)

((As an aside: 115 is another shining example of how Hori is definitely a competent writer, bc it manages to set up pretty much the entirety of Act 2 + its themes up in just 15-17 pages-- which is all the more reason why the extremely poor quality of MHA's conclusion is so hard to swallow. I definitely don't believe in blaming the editors/publishers alone for how things turned out, but all the same, I do think there was some executive meddling from behind the scenes bc of how rushed and disjointed the epilogue ended up being. It's not the quality we're used to, not by a long shot, and you can tell as much by reading pretty much any chapter before 423.)) /tangent over

ANYWAY. To me, it ways always pretty obvious that AFO was more or less grooming Tenko to be his perfect ~Demon Lord~ OC-- the idea of treating a real person like a fictional character is something I find pretty terrifying + it's something that further emphasizes MHA's metafiction elements, with Tenko being trapped in a role that was written for someone else. I feel that there was adequate build up to AFO being "the author" behind Shigaraki Tomura, specifically-- and it all seemed to be leading up to a point where Tenko would be encouraged to break free & finally take control of his own story ("I needed to hear those words" -> "Those guys (the villains) need a hero, too" -> "You CAN be a hero" "Uh, whoopsie??" 🥲🥲🥲)

Sadly it ends up amounting to nothing because..... Tenko isn't even allowed to fully process the implications of his birth/life and how this has influenced his actions/beliefs/"dream" before exploding, a core scene between him and Nana gets offscreened, and our MC never even bothers to react to the revelation that Tenko's life was scripted. It renders a HUGE part of Tenko's character arc almost completely pointless because we get no actual resolution/pay off for everything that was set up. Like, so much of the finale + epilogue just feels like Hori was going down a check list of plot points/parallels he wanted to include before putting MHA out of its misery, rather than building up to them naturally-- and it's just sad it had to end this way, bc, well. It didn't HAVE to end this way. Hori had all the ingredients necessary to make something truly wonderful, but he didn't use them.

[mildmayfoxe]

big fan of your romance novel complaint posts (love to see a fellow hater living it up) but i’m also curious if there are any you would recommend? not looking for anything in particular, just would love to hear your thoughts as someone else with nitpicky reading habits and a taste for trash

ok hello. i left you hanging for a FULL week and for that i am sorry but i wanted to be able to have some time to sit down and type out a real answer to which the short version is YES of course there are several that i have enjoyed!! my disclaimer is that i almost solely read gay romance so if you are looking for lesbian or even straight reccs i don't have much for you (although i will put a couple at the end anyway). hopefully something in this list is interesting to you or at least interesting to someone else! links are mostly to goodreads. break bc i'm gonna write too much

-kj charles is one of my fave authors in this genre bc they're all pretty reliable and there's a ton of them. they're all historical fiction and usually there's at least one murder- she's good at keeping a plot going while developing a romance. often supernatural or magical elements. sometimes cults! i've read almost all of the books she's written and have enjoyed them all

-charlie adhara wrote a really incredible werewolf series that i loved, the first of which is the wolf at the door. this is one of the only series i've read which keeps the emotional stakes up through the whole thing & kept me interested in a relationship after it was established bc sooo many series get boring the second the leads get together. i actually read the first book of the spin-off series (a pack of lies) first which is technically possible but i don't recommend bc i was like "wow they're really throwing me in here. i love it" and then i read the first series and i was like "oh i was supposed to know all this stuff." but i actually liked the dynamic between that couple better and i'm suffering every day because the next one still doesn't come out til 2025 and i read it in 2022. also worth noting that this (the original series) is cops-ajacent (~federal special agents~) and one of the characters is really prejudiced at the beginning & imo doesn't have enough character growth before it's waved away but if you can ignore that it's really good. mysteries! werewolves!

-speaking of werewolves (i could suggest several but i'll keep it to two) tj klune's wolfsong ends up at the top of a lot of gay werewolf novel lists (i'm keeping tabs) and there's a good reason. i enjoyed it a lot. made me kind of sad which is always a good sign to me. the writing voice was very fresh and novel at first but i did find it a little grating by the end so i've put off starting the second book in the series (it's also about a different couple which was disappointing) but i will get around to it. i enjoy tj klune in general although his recent stuff has a very different vibe than this and lightning struck heart is very 2015 in a bad way imo

-bone rider by j fally is a standalone that really delighted me. the russian mob? aliens? vaguely western? possession? throuple? it's got it all. very fun

-ok speaking of westerns there's this other series called magic & steam (yes it's steampunk. sorry. it's very silly) that starts with the engineer. a federal agent is sent to a town to apprehend a ~madman engineer~ except he runs into an infamous outlaw in the process. and the outlaw is really sexy. and probably why i enjoyed the series so much. the series also keeps them apart a lot in a way that i enjoy- i love when things take a long time. it's ongoing so this is another one that i keep checking for updates on

-i've read a lot of stuff by nr walker and they tend to be VERY hit or miss for me but one of my faves is evolved which is almost pure smut. it's about a sex robot that gains sentience. what more do i need to say. she also wrote a three-book series about an amnesiac that made me cry cry cry. and her cowboy (australian rancher) series is pretty ok. i could go through a list and tell you which novels of hers aren't worth it and which ones are good; i've read most of them

-salt magic skin magic by lee welch was a big surprise to me. cool magic, good folklore, fairies in there too. historical. big kj charles vibes which makes sense bc she edited it. welch also wrote a book called seducing the sorcerer which i had more mixed feelings about but had magic in it that i think about OFTEN (the horses)- that one's about an imposing sorcerer and a rundown groom cum handyman. and they're in their FORTIES!!! 🥳🥳🥳 (i love when books are not about 23 year olds)

-another one with a magic system i enjoyed was magician by kl noone. this was the first book i read by this author and i liked it but generally i find their books are too "nice" for me. i'm in the middle of one right now that i started months and months ago that i keep trying to go back to and it's sooo rough for me. but this one and the twelfth enchantment are pretty ok

-emily tesh wrote a duology of silver in the wood and drowned country that i loved because i am suuuuch a sucker for a wild man/green man story. really good. haunting! evocative! kj charles has a green man story too which was actually the first thing i read of hers (spectred isle)

-i complained about the monsterfucker book i was reading a while back but despite that i will also recommend the series it's from: lily mayne's monstrous, which starts with soul eater. are they messy? yes. are they repetitive? yes. are the monsters usually disappointingly humanoid? yes. are a lot of them about the military? also yes. so we're starting off on a bad foot. but the world building is interesting and there's LOTS of kinds of monsters and most of them were pretty fun. the one i just read (#7) was the worst one of the bunch though imo. and i have problems with #6. but 1 2 and 5 were good

-ok i should do a quickfire round. honeytrap: about two enemy agents during the cold war. put it off for a long time bc i didn't love that but it takes place over a VERY long period of time which is always interesting to me. zero at the bone: about a hitman who needs to protect a witness to a mob hit. really strong start but fell off a bit in the middle to the end imo.

-you'll notice a lot of these have subgenres of like fantasy historical supernatural etc but here's some regular contemporaries. a lot of these are about sad guys bc those are my favorite. best laid plans: hardware store owner helps a guy fix his house. in the middle of somewhere: same author actually. guy moves to small town to work at a college. mr jingle bells: this is a christmas one. bad title. fake dating. part of the reason i think i liked it so much is because i expected it to be awful but it was actually pretty good. good emotional stakes. published 2021 but feels very 2014. ignore that part. work for it: i rated this five stars but actually don't remember much what it was like. i think they were both really sad which i love. give me big emotions and i eat them right up with a spoon. i should read it again

-OK now i've got some straight & lesbian options. talia hibbert's brown sisters series is good and cute. she also wrote work for it, above. the unhoneymooners is the first real Romance Novel that i read and it really surprised me because i had fun! previously i had kind of written off romance novels as not for me but this kicked off a reading habit that is still going strong (primarily reading romance novels). i read this in 2020 so it might not be as good as i remember. as for lesbian options olivia waite has a series that i enjoyed that's also historical, and a friend of mine really enjoyed delilah green doesn't care (but i haven't read that one myself). and while not really romances i will always be a sarah waters fan: you may recognize her as the author of fingersmith, which is the novel park chan-wook's movie the handmaiden is based on. if you haven't seen the movie or read the book i recommend both. her books are very dramatic lesbian historical fiction; they don't always have happy endings but they're all very good

ok i think that's the end! regular disclaimer that romance is generally not a genre notable for Good Writing so a lot of these are just things i had fun with or just stuck out in my memory for having fun conceits etc. i can't guarantee that any of these are actually good, especially because this is a list solely based on my own taste and bad memory. would love to hear anybody's thoughts and/or if anybody has recommendations for ME!!! this post took me over three hours to write! crazy!

[thepringlesofblood]

bonus content for those who read the taz: the 11th hour graphic novel and haven’t listened to the podcast arc

disclaimer: so. I lost my book about 1/4 of the way into this post. so the rest of it is just from memory (I did finish reading it several times, I just no longer have it to refer to). I wanted to post this before the next one comes out though, so here we are. If I find my book, I will attempt to finish up the details for the rest of the book. I cover some basic big things from memory, but nowhere near as detailed as the stuff I wrote down when I had the book to refer to. but in the meantime...let’s go!

by god they’ve done it again. 11th hr is a Lot and definitely the most plot-heavy book so far, PLUS they had to include the first lunar interlude where the boys had individual scenes. the result is frankly beautiful. we’re really hitting critical mass now.

as a result a lot more stuff got compressed, cut, changed, or skipped. i’m going to try to at least point out each difference, though there’s no way I could summarize EVERYTHING that got cut in one post. I’m going to be linking relevant episodes (& transcripts thank u tazscripts) instead, for things that are Just Too Much to include.

as always, this post is intended to be Fun and Cool Bonus Content for people who haven’t listened to the podcast, not a manifesto of stuff they “should have” included or a list of flaws. they had 11+ hours of content to squish into one graphic novel, that happened over a period of months. of course stuff got cut. and it’s stuff that was recorded in 2016. that’s eight years ago. of course some things are going to change.

tl;dr - I liked the dang book. you can be sad something wasn’t in the novel while still understanding why it isn’t. here is a list of the stuff that was changed, skipped, compressed, or cut, presented as cool facts & extra info for gn fans who haven’t listened to the podcast.

spoilers ahoy for the 11th hour, but I’ll try to keep spoilers for the rest of the series to a minimum or at least mark them clearly. At the very end I’m going to put a section of series-spoiler theories and observations, very clearly marked

Before getting into the nitty-gritty, there are a few MAJOR changes from the podcast I want to get out of the way first. This list also includes “stuff I remember but don’t have the book to refer back to on”

Several characters and a whole section of the map were cut.

I think this is the first time that any named, plot-relevant characters have been completely cut. The closest we’ve come so far was the bugbears, but they at least had a cameo in the photo in Lucas’ quarters. Luca, Redmond, and Stonefruit Farms fully don’t exist in the GN series.

the boys meet Redmond in ep 46, pt 6 of the 11th hr arc, having met his brother Luca at the end of the previous episode.

long story short, Redmond was the leader of the purple-kerchiefed ruffians and the brains behind the bank robbery, which The Boys had to go through with so that Redmond would help his lowkey-estranged brother Luca raise the temple of Istus from its decrepit state, as they were both devout priests of Istus. The whole key being in the vault thing is GN-only.

Also, Luca is a skeleton bc he was in the temple when it got rapidly old-ified, but dw he’s fine he’s just a skeleton. he gets better.

Redmond’s motivation for robbing the bank is that as a priest of Istus, lady of fate, he follows his gut feelings and intuition, and he had a strong feeling that whatever was in the vault would be the key to taking down the bubble.

they basically took all of the plot-necessary elements from Luca & Redmond and gave them to Ren. In the podcast, Ren actually blasts some of the purple-kerchiefed ruffians out of her bar after they get too rowdy. She isn’t involved with the robbery in the slightest.

Merle’s Temporal Chalice scene

in the podcast, it’s his arm being chopped off. or more specifically, grabbing a crystal that exploded and made him have to get his arm chopped off. 

Him running out on his kids is played kind of for laughs at first in the podcast. Merle is a heel for a lot longer there, bc the funniest improv is usually not the most ethical improv. They do talk about his life and the fact that he has a family, but the offer made by the chalice is for him to have his arm back

frankly, I think they made the right move in the GN. We get very little of Hecuba in the podcast, and I really liked seeing more of that conflict.

Roswell, my beloved

so, in 2016 when they did the podcast, the McElroys were at, let’s say a different place in their journey of learning about the queer community. which is to say that in the podcast Roswell’s pronouns were wildly inconsistent, in part due to them being a clay construct, in part due to them not being introduced with any pronoun in particular [though Griffin clarifies that he intends for Roswell to use they/them a little later on in the arc], and in part bc the boys just weren’t really familiar with the singular they. they tended vacillate between they/them, it/its, and he/him. we all learn and grow. 

in the book, thankfully, Roswell is 100% they/them. fuck yeah. related. The Boys are significantly worse people to Roswell in the podcast. like, significantly. we’ll get into it as it comes up more, I just want to signpost it here. 

e.g. Taako giving Roswell control of themselves and their command word is a GN original, in the podcast The Boys kind of “junebug” them around for large swaths of the last few episodes. also, a significant number of earlier loops involve them basically negging Roswell into believing that Isaak hired outside help (The Boys) with security bc they weren’t cutting it anymore (rude). I much prefer the geologists gambit they go with in the GN.

Diamonds

Paloma’s prophecies cost money in the podcast, so a lot of The Boys’ shenanigans (and a significant number of loops) are in pursuit of getting cash. which, in Refuge, is diamonds. Some examples: 

Before figuring out that you can’t take objects with you, the boys do straight up take some diamonds from the bank post-robbery. 

Taako gets Ren and a patron of her bar, Ash, to sign up and pay for a seminar/magic lesson he’ll be giving tomorrow (one of my all-time fav scenes). This leads to a touching scene at the end when the bubble finally comes down where Taako gives Ren a little certificate that says “first graduate of Taako’s Amazing School of Magic.”

Magnus tries to armwrestle a guy for cash (Merle’s idea), and though he rolls a 27 Strength check, the Goliath barbarian he’s rolling against gets a 28.

Paloma offers 1 diamond for a small prophecy, 10 for a big one. in the GN they aren’t differentiated, and one small prophecy just doesn’t show up as it’s not needed.

the taz fandom wiki has a handy list of all the prophecies she gives in the podcast

ok! let’s go!

Prologue (the bit before ch 1)

this isn’t in the 11th hour podcast.

the information we get about The Visitor in the 11th hour (from The Boys asking various Refuge residents) is that

Jack and June brought them to Refuge

or, they brought Jack and June to Refuge. We hear both things at different times.

they’re depicted in the statue as having a Red Robe and being kinda broad-shouldered.

Roswell never met them. At first they refer to The Visitor with he/him pronouns, but then mention “I say ‘he’, I didn’t know them”

they tended to keep their face hidden (maybe?)

that’s pretty much it

we learn about this interaction much much much much much later in the podcast, not as a scene that is played out, but abstractly as an event that happened, after we find out who The Visitor is. 

that said, I LOVE this scene’s inclusion and expansion. it makes total sense to me.

Jack is never described as having a sketchbook or being an artist. this will come back later. 

the final scene of the arc in the podcast is instead June giving Magnus some previous designs for the statue of Jack, June, & a Red Robe/The Visitor in the middle of town, with a version where the hood of the robe is down and the face of the Red Robe/The Visitor is visible.

Ch. 1

this is where the podcast starts at episode 1 of the 11th hr. 

boyland’s funeral is very accurate. his comically large family of 400 sons (mentioned in CK podcast) is why the Voidfish lights up like that.

the only real differences I could find were:

in the podcast what is erased is basically boyland’s personnel file. like, a report or write-up of who he is and his work for the BoB. johann writing songs about boyland’s life is new.

the only pronouns ever used for the voidfish in the podcast are they/them, it/its, and occasionally he/him. past taz graphic novels have used they/them. on pg 13 of 11th hr, both Johann and Merle use she/her for the voidfish.

I do not like this, but I have a suspicion as to why, and I don’t like that either. see spoiler-y observations at the end for more.

they merged this scene with a scene from the skipped lunar interlude before CK, where The Boys take cpt. cpt. bane’s “file” to the voidfish to be eaten.

 I described this in my other posts, but the two things relevant here are Magnus putting his hand up on the glass and vibing w the voidfish, and this exhange b/w Johann and The Boys:

Johann: When I, um, can I ask you guys a question?

Magnus: Sure.

Taako: Of course, Johann.

Johann: Are you guys really okay with, with this part of the deal?

Magnus: That we get forgot?

Taako: Which part?

Johann: Yeah, are you cool with like, if you beef it down there, the world just forgets about you?

Magnus: Well, I’m not planning on ever dying.

in the podcast, bc Avi isn’t there, Angus operates the cannons (Avi showed him how before he left). he is extremely nervous about it and about killing them on accident. once they’re in the orb taako casts stoneskin on himself “just in case”, but everything works out totally fine, though avi mentions when The Boys land that the stoneskin should’ve thrown off the trajectory.

the gn keeps the spirit of taako trusting no one without the angus psychological damage by having him just cast a better version of the spell angus cast, and I am a fan.

the leveling up stats aren’t right in the book, as I’m sure every dnd 5e nerd has already tweeted about.

they’re all level 10, so magnus should be a level 8 fighter and a level 2 rogue bc 2+8=10, while the other two boys are still just a level 10 cleric and a level 10 wizard bc they didn’t multiclass.

fantasy costco-wise: aside from the stuff they have in the book (all things they do own in the podcast, though hole-thrower and the feather-weight cuirass were from the fantasy gachapon), merle picks up matthias the living grimoire, magnus gets the magnetic charge and the tarantula bracelet, and taako gets the arcane trickster’s glove (no wiki page rip it just gives you some arcane trickster powers) and mockingbird gum.

they beat up the baby worms more before letting them go, it’s a full battle

Ch. 2

in the podcast, when they go through the barrier, they find themselves in an empty white space where they see an old woman holding the cup. she says “It’s you!” with recognition upon seeing them, and then says “find me” before they wake up.

important: every time the boys die in the podcast, they go back to this space briefly before waking up.

sometimes the woman gives a cryptic message, sometimes not, and in their later loops, the woman collapses, breathing heavily.

we find out in the end that this woman is June - she has a whole extended de-aging sequence later that they probably cut so poor Carey didn’t have to do a bajillion character models for June at different ages just for a few panels of dramatic effect.

pg 36 - to head off any dnd 5e nitpickers, Magnus does not have proficiency in rustic hospitality, since that’s not a skill. Magnus does have a character feat called “Rustic Hospitality” that he chose at level 1.

claiming to have proficiency in things you can’t possibly have proficiency in is a longstanding goof both in taz and among people who play dnd 5e in general, because it’s funny.

in the book, they intercut each loop with a scene from lunar interlude 3, and it works really really well. we’ll get to those scenes as they come up.

Is this the first time someone uses he/him for The Red Robe in the gn series? (Roswell says ‘his’)

in the podcast Roswell mentions having never met the visitor, and comments “I say “he”, but I don’t know.”

in the GN, when The Boys tell the director about The Red Robe in CK they use they/them pronouns and so does the director, but after this, even @ the end of the book after Taako guesses that The Red Robe they’ve been talking to isn’t the same Red Robe from Refuge, he and the other boys continue to use he/him for The Red Robe.

“Mystic Analysis”

he just did an arcana check in the podcast, I don’t think Taako had Identify as a spell, which is what the DND equivalent would be. 

they also don’t figure out that Roswell has a command word until much later, during the Diary Of Sheriff Isaak scene.

Griffin basically says “[they’re] an earth elemental, with a bird on [them], and earth elementals don’t generally have birds on them, so maybe it was just nearby when the spell was cast and got caught up in it”

Cassidy

in the podcast, she’s in jail for blowing up the temple of Istus, which she didn’t do.

GN Ren mentions later on that the temple got “un-built” which references how in the podcast the temple suddenly aged a matter of centuries in seconds, so from the outside it looked kind of explode-y. and cassidy is known for blowing shit up, so she was blamed. she also theorizes that it might be racism due to her half-orc heritage.

in the GN, cassidy’s arrested for trespassing on the closed mines, which she absolutely has done. it makes more sense, and eliminates a major plot point they cut from the book

she is otherwise pretty much the same, I love her very much

Paloma pretty much stays in her cottage in the podcast rather than sneaking around.

the fantastic exchange of “you guys have been here 45 minutes, what the fuck did you bring with you?!” “you should see what we can do in an hour!” is 100% verbatim from the podcast.

in the podcast, Ren is dead the first bank fire (and in most subsequent bank fires). she also wasn’t one of the bandits, or involved with the bank robbery at all

in fact, in the loop where The Boys were doing the bank robbery, she unexpectedly came in, recognized Taako, and almost blew their cover.

With so little time left on the clock, Taako cast Banishment on her to keep her safe and out of the way, but she made her saving throw - so it didn’t work, but she knew Taako tried to cast some spell on her, and there was a somber moment of her falling backwards trying to get away from him, tears in her eyes.

look it’s a good lil character moment

I can’t emphasize enough how brutal the first description of the bank fire and subsequent world-ending is. Griffin pulled 0 punches.

Magnus rushes in and he describes the scene like “you see a guy, who looks like this. they’re dead. you see two guards. they’re dead. you see a woman holding a tray of diamonds. she’s dead. you see this person, also dead. you see a dwarven bank teller. she might be alive, but it’s hard to tell, and if she was she is on the brink of death”

I think the boys, brogden, and maybe one of the purple-kerchief ruffians (which is how they are described in the podcast) survived the first one, and everyone else died in that bank. it felt so brutal listening to it the first time because you (and the boys) didn’t know about the loop yet, so it was just. horrifying.

I love how they pulled in off in the GN!!! the clock hands are just *chef kiss*

just before Griffin describes the destruction of Refuge, Travis interjects, “Ditto, did you base this on Majora’s Mask?”

while Griffin does not respond in the moment, he later confirms that Travis is correct.

Griffin’s description of the fiery deaths of The Boys: “And you’re being crushed by the shattered earth as it compresses down into the ground. And you hear an anguished scream come from something massive and furious, and all three of you have died…And there’s something about the dying that feels familiar.”

“and then you wake up.” hardcut to end of episode music. v epic.

Ch. 3 (i s2g they’re not all going to be this detailed the major plot differences are mostly out of the way now)

as mentioned, the scenes between each loop in the gn happen in Lunar Interlude III (transcript) (episode) - each of The Boys got to choose a scene to have in between arcs and Justin chose to have Taako give Angus magic lessons.

they’re all more abstract in the eps (Taako establishes a recurring time and place to give Angus lessons, and we get scenes from earlier vs later lessons, various shenanigans, etc.) but the major points are actually pretty much the same, just condensed into one scene in the book.

also taako giving magic lessons in his quarters makes 100% sense, but in the podcast they did it in the cafeteria, and that’s where the LUP is burned into the wall. significant? potentially.

in the podcast angus had made some macarons for taako but forgot to flavor them (he nailed the texture though which is hard to do in a macaron) so he asked taako to prestidigitate them better and then scorching ray happened and blasted em to shreds.

LUP. dude. I thought it was an acronym when I first heard it, bc in the podcast, Griffin says “So your staff, you lost control of it and you blasted the letters “L-U-P” into the wall.” Seeing it in cursive, all gorgeous and capitalized like a proper noun? knocked me the fuck out.

another dnd 5e tiny detail: in the gn, the description for Angus’ first wand says “wonderful stocking stuffer for the young sorcerer in your life”

i could have a whole conspiracy board about this.

skip this if you’re not super into dnd 5e mechanics

the difference (in dnd 5e) b/w a wizard, a warlock, and a sorcerer is:

wizard: gets magic from study and practice - taako is a wizard bc he studied spellcraft and learned how to do it.

warlock: gets magic from making a deal with something/someone far more magical than themselves - garfield is a warlock, so his magic stems from a deal he made with something (the devil??)

sorcerer: has innate magic within them.

this could come from a myriad of places, but usually from heritage or bloodline - maybe your great-grandfather was a god or a dragon or a demon or a djinn or something, or maybe your mom touched a weird rock as a kid and got magic powers that she passed onto you when she had you.

in the podcast, angus is only ever referred to as a wizard. makes sense - regular boy + magic training from taako = wizard boy.

but if he’s a sorcerer, the magic really was in him all along. is taako teaching him to channel it? does he know?

this also fits with a weirdly popular headcanon the taz community had for a while about angus secretly being a silver dragon (in dnd, color = different abilities, diff personality, etc, and silver ones like to shapeshift and pretend to be humans sometimes).

“draconic bloodline” is one of the most common sorcerer backgrounds - it basically just means ‘a dragon got involved at some point in this family tree, so now you can cast ray of frost’.

hmmmmmmm

end conspiracy theory

It is at this point that I lost my damn book. so. I’m just gonna post this bc the next graphic novel is coming out soon and I want to post it before then. If i find my book I’ll finish it up. If you have post-chapter 3 differences you noticed that aren’t already covered, feel free to reply/reblog with them!

Spoiler-y Observations Below!

CAUTION: contains spoilers for the rest of taz balance!

*voidfish speculation: my suspicion is that they’re using ‘she’ for the voidfish to foreshadow that they have a baby, so that makes them a “mother”? i call bullshit, but i’ve heard it used before as a justification for misgendering an enby who gives birth. obvs the voidfish is not a human being, people can have multiple pronouns, it’s not a 1:1 comparison, but i for one (as an enby myself) really liked the voidfish using they/them and feel oddly betrayed at them suddenly changing the pronouns. fingers crossed that there’s a different reason.

"what am statue” is low-key foreshadowing since magnus says it

merle knowing what relativistic time dilation is

LUP was burnt into the wall in the cafeteria in the podcast - lucretia would’ve seen it for sure. so they put it in taako’s room this time...

aw no ‘sorry about the cookies little man’

In 5 or however many years when gn series ends, someone should do a poll of people who only read the graphic novels and see if any of them pronounce “Lup” weird since they’ve only ever seen it written down.

hero wreathed in flames 0.0 I hope Joaquin is still there in the finale but I like the duality here

BATTLEAXEPROFICIENCYEASTEREGG

SNEAK PEEK AT THE HUNGER SNEAK PEEK AT THE STARBLASTER AAAAAAAA

257 - ‘I know him better than you could ever imagine’ because he created you? Oof ouch ow my bones. also....the magnus that made the cup was a very different person from magnus now. it’s not what Julia would want - the cup never met julia, obvs, and does not know the ways she changed him for the better.

Bottom of 327 - sweet Angus boy are you drawing something on that orb?

Istus is like you’ve been serving me your whole lives without knowing it in the podcast - maybe a bit too much foreshadowing for the GN

[spiderlilyforlife]

Here some random as info's cuz ı fr love writing!

Thone doesn't need to related to any au those just my headcanons;

1. Durple is a mixed dragon(land/Sea dragon) that why he has Wings and can breathe longer than other Sea dragons at Land(I swear ı have my whole plot/canons/lores for dragons and ı can't wait to punch Durple with those)

2. In my canon dragons has their own elements which you can guess by their fire color!So Durple's element is Sea/Nature which is mixed Green+blue cuz he mixed/hybrid dragon.

3. Another of my canon for Dragons is their soul is fire!So they won't burn by any kind of fire :) of course there is some fires can hurt them(opposite elements) and since their soul is fire this is where their fire came from! This also means if their fire from their soul Dissapear/fire goes out they died:( (they can die by other stuffs but it's hard and they all can heal themself so it's easy to kill them but if fire goes of there no way to save them)

5. I love share dragon facts so here last one(for now); Dragons get their fire when they turn 5(human age) because that the time their soul get it fire if they don't get it before they turn 7 they die:( sad but true😔 but some also can get their fire age of 3-4 which doesn't make much but stronger than most dragons!

6. Okey okey this one last the elements dragons have give them different powers! Since Durple(WHEEZE SORRY I WRITE SIMON HERE-) has two elements here his powers👇

Green(nature):Control the nature/life,healing(it's 4. time stronger than other elements),Size change(can be bigger or tiny)

Blue(Water/ocean):Can control anythibg that has water,cold blooded(ice water does not affect it),Since water is the raw material, it can automatically control the air and ice elements (this is an advantage if there were only ice or air elements, this would be the only thing he could control about water)

7. You think it's gonna be about Durple huh?Haha you fool🫵.I head canon Jevin could be a falling angel or Bunny(thanks to @krislgfox for give me that idea :)) depend on au!(if he bunny he also be Pinki's big bro bc i love this headcanon so much lol)

-fan fact he is a bunny in Double tricked au :)!

8. I like to headcanon Sky as Jevin's son(adopted) more than being a sibling but can be sibling depend on au!

9. Gray in my headcanon is half demon(father) and half cat(mother).He can't trust easily to people.Has makes anxiety and depression but actually getting better(not in Doule tricked au too.That baby suffering.)

10. Tunner is actually very much like a cool uncle to everyone than a father like.He may look like he won't hurt a Fly But he would Kill if necessary 😟,,

11. don't make Tunner Angry.Trust me you don't want that..

12. Simon might have Adhd(not bc ı have) and Oren might be have autism (ı have no idea why but ı feel like it,,,)

-Not in Double tricked au!!

13. Physical touch and Receiving Gifts and Acts of Service are Simon's Love Language. Words of Affirmation,Acts of Service, Receiving Gifts and Quality Time are Oren's Love language.

-This canon in Double tricked au but not important

14. Back to Durple?Back to Durple. Durple can understand animals/creatures but not the langues he don't speak.He also can understand dragon language(like every of them) since he is a dragon!He can speak/breath under sea!

15. Simon's and Oren's tail/antennae are sensitive if you rub it hard enough!

This is all ı can think of cuz my mind gona blank now-

[sheikahwarriork]

SOOOO i just binge-watched this silly tv show called "for all mankind" that is about when usa and urss were fighting over being the best™ at conquering space (but historic "what if" bc urss gets on the moon first) and it's cool bc astronomy and nasa and astronauts and etc and. suddenly the weirdest thing happened. i fell so fREAKING HARD for these two dorks desperately in love: austitic and lonely american woman x charming and blonde russian man (better known as margo and sergei). and i didnt think i would fall so hard for a ship about two middle-aged people in a kinda sci-fi serie?? but man i did. and of course then Things Happened That Made Me Sad. very Sad. but this is where my story gets funny: i tried to look for fics on ao3 about this tv show (bc that's what everybody does when something in the canon material goes wrong ofc). i was expecting something like, 30 fics in total, if i was lucky some about margo/sergei. but NOPE.

301 WORKS!!!!!

OF WHICH

MORE THAN A THIRD ABOUT MY BELOVEDS, ALSO FIRST PAIRING THAT COMES UP!!!!!!!

this whole thing made my day and almost made me forget about Sad Things. i cant believe i get to read stories about my babies being happy 🥺👉👈 people on ao3 really are the saviors of us sad folks. i love every author on this planet. thank u 4 existing

(p.s. "autistic lonely girl x blonde charming guy" yes i do see the dimileth elements here. yes i'm aware i see dimileth in everything. what did you expect, me to be normal for ONCE? >:D )

[beatriceportinari]

I’m new to fanfic and fandom, and I wanted to know how fanfic writers were/are conservative and misogynistic 👀

Gonna limit my answer to naruto ones bc these are the ones i've read the most of but i've seen other ones to know the phenomenon is widespread. This is also not even a problem unique to fandom, you're gonna bring more or less conscious biases to any way you interact with media with

What's unfortunate in fandom is that most author will see themselves as pretty progrressive, showing fics as by and for minorities, etc. so the disconnect is like. sadder or funnier to see depending i guess.

in naruto stuff this is influenced obviously by how conservative the original media is. kishimoto's politics themselves are conservative and everything from women's treatment in the show to the keeping of the political status quo as thr ultimate goal of the show is evidence of this. again this is not a problem unique to naruto.

most people in fandom are more or less aware of this and go abt treating it in various ways in fics. of course not everyone can or want or even should write 300k words on what new policies konoha need. but the way people "fix" things in naruto is usually just by adding more gay people, and not even written well often.

i get it sometimes you're just here to jack off, love to see the ninja presidents filled with eggs and what not. but this means that

1. it doesnt really 'fix' anything else. if the gang is going to rain country and go well it's sad that konoha blew up the country during a war with someone else but they shouldnt be mean in return : ( I dont care that they're sucking and fucking afterwards. See also most mission fics where the 'ennemy' is some rando who got fucked over by konoha and is given no interiority and killed immediately. Glad the mc's boyfriend was saved from his evil.kidnappers i guess but come on. bonus points if the author adds in some racist element that wasnt even in naruto. watch your physical descriptions guys !

2. the fact that most fics are focused on shipping guys together (tale as old as time) means that there are a set of trops reused from forever that never get questionned. from the nagging wife being cheated on to the vapid lady trying to get the mc's man to just. embarassing and surface level writing of gay people. again usually the author adds in some misoginy that wasnt even in naruto ! which is crazy.

Again i dont expect every author or poster to fix everything (i'm not reading naruto fics for moral edification) but some. awareness of what mefia they're playing in anf what trop.le they're using would 1. not make your fics less progressive than kishimoto 2.make the story more interesting.

[treemaidengeek]

Hey, fellow spoonies! Got a min for a bit of writing that has absolutely transformed my relationship to my chronic illness?

This is from Mindfulness Meditation for Pain Relief by Jon Kabat-Zinn, based on his experiences co-running (?) a clinic specifically for people with severe unmanageable chronic illness & chronic pain. Part of the book is exercises, which weren't hugely impactful for me. But this section I've listened to over and over. It's been a game changer for me. Maybe it'll help you too.

Below the cut bc it's long.

"First, a working definition of mindfulness so we know what we're talking about when we use that word. You can think of mindfulness as pure awareness. In particular, the awareness that arises from paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, without judgment or reaction, to whatever appears in the field of your experience.

You already have awareness. It’s as much a part of being human as our capacity for thinking or for breathing. So you can always ask yourself in any moment: is my awareness of pain, in pain? and then take a look and see. You can also expand this line of investigation to ask yourself, is my awareness of fear afraid? Is my awareness of anger, angry? Is my awareness of sadness, sad? Very revealing and liberating exploration, as we shall experience firsthand.

Of course being non-judgmental and non-reactive sounds like an ideal. But it isn't, really, not in the way we’re talking about it. It's a way of being in relationship to experience, a commitment to--as best we can–suspend our judging for a time, and suspend believing in our judgements as being true.

Of course, we judge everything, and tend to react automatically whenever things are not to our liking. And we can be very emotionally reactive, especially when we're hurting. So as we shall see further on, and in the practices themselves, we just observe the judging and reacting when they arise, and–as best we can–refrain from judging our judging, or reacting to our reactions.

A number of principles, attitudes, and perspectives are important to keep in mind when cultivating a mindful approach to working with chronic pain conditions or any other distressing elements in your life.

Here are seven that are fundamental and bear revisiting and keeping in mind, and listening to again and again, just as with the meditation practices. We will be making use of them every day, and even moment by moment throughout the day.

1. As we said, as long as you’re breathing there is really more right with you than wrong, no matter what is wrong. And our work will involve mobilizing those interior resources of your own inner landscape, of your body and mind, to work for you to improve the quality of your day-to-day and moment-to-moment life.

2. One of those interior resources is the power of the present moment. The power of “now” is enormous, yet mostly we persist in living in the past or in the future, in memory or in constant anticipation, worry, and planning, most of the time. And we never realize and never recognize how powerful and healing it can be to inhabit this moment, the only one we are ever alive in.

So strange as it may sound, it turns out it is very challenging to actually live in the present moment, even though it's the only time we ever really have to do anything: for learning, for growing, for coming to terms with things as they are, for expressing our affection and appreciation for others, for loving. All this takes ongoing practice.

3. Of course we are happy to show up more in the present moment as long as it's exactly to our liking. But it usually isn't anywhere near as good or as pleasant as we would wish it to be. That is true even if we don't have a chronic pain condition that we could see as the cause of all our troubles.

Have you noticed how easy it is to always want things to be different from how they actually are?

We certainly don't want to inhabit the present moment if we don't like it, and we certainly don't like it if we are in significant pain. So we can easily get caught up in trying to distract ourselves and escape from the present moment because it's not to our liking.

4. Our usual options when faced with situations we don't like and wouldn't want anyone to suffer from, are twofold. As we just saw, we can turn away from them and try to ignore them or escape from them as best we can. Or alternatively, we can get caught up in obsessing about our troubles endlessly and feel victimized.

Either way we might (as so many people do) turn to familiar resources at our disposal to dull the pain, such as alcohol or drugs, or food or TV, even if those coping strategies don't work, are addictive, or have terrible consequences that may make our lives worse in the long run.

We might also get into the habit of being irritable, gruff, and angry a good deal of the time, out of our own pain and frustration. Or emotionally withdrawn from others and from life, distant, cut off, in a state of perpetual contraction of both body and mind.

None of these coping strategies make for much happiness and ease of being. Grinning and bearing it isn't much fun. And blaming all our troubles on the pain doesn't actually make anything any better, as we usually come to see at some point or other. This can just further compound our frustration and even despair.

5. There is a third way of dealing with painful experiences, a way of being rather than perpetual doing and forcing. One that involves neither turning away from painful experiences, nor becoming overwhelmed by them. That third way is the way of mindfulness, the way of opening to and befriending our experience, however strange that may sound.

We do this by turning toward what we most fear to feel and opening gradually, over time, and only to the degree that you choose, to the full range of our experiences in any given moment, even when what we are experiencing is highly unpleasant, aversive, and unwanted.

You could think of it as putting out the welcome mat for what is happening. Because whatever it is, it is happening already. Any attempt to turn away is really a denying of your situation, which doesn't help much. And succumbing to resignation, a sense of being defeated, or to depression or perhaps even self-pity will clearly only make matters worse. If we take the turning-away route, we will be turning away from the opportunity to learn from what the pain has to teach us.

If we take the turning-away route, even though it may seem simpler when we are in a depressed mind-state, we may never find openings, new possibilities, new beginnings, new ways of being that are available to us right inside our own circumstances and our own mind and body. We might not discover that we can become stronger and more flexible in the face of whatever it is that we are dealing with, discover new options for relating to what we are carrying – which is the root meaning in Latin of the word “to suffer.” The approach of mindfulness, of turning-toward and opening to our experience – even when it is difficult – can readily lead to new ways of seeing including new possibilities for coming to terms with our situation in the moment, whether we like it or not, whether we want it or not.

This is called resilience, an interior strength we can cultivate through practice. A way to live, and live well, with what life offers up for us: “the full catastrophe,” as Zorba the Greek called it – the human condition itself.

6. This path of mindfulness involves learning to open to experience moment by moment with kindness and compassion towards oneself, whether what you are experiencing in any given moment is pleasant, unpleasant, or neither pleasant nor unpleasant. And without judging the experience as good if we like it, bad if we don't like it, and boring if we don't have any particular feeling one way or another.

As we said earlier, that doesn’t mean we won’t be judging plenty. But we can form the intention to suspend our hair-trigger tendency to judge everything according to whether we like it or not, and also our tendency to react emotionally and fairly automatically in a similar way : with acquisitiveness, even greediness, if we like it and therefore always want it to last or want more of it; and with rejection, anger, hatred, or disappointment if we don’t like it and want it to go away.

So non-judging and emotional balance in the face of challenging circumstances will be factors we can cultivate in working mindfully with our moment-to-moment experience–not as ideals we try to impose on ourselves or strive to grab hold of, but as potentials already within ourselves that we can learn to recognize and bring into greater awareness when they do arise.

Over time and with practice, we may find that being less emotionally reactive and less harshly judgemental, and kinder and more accepting of ourselves and our moments–however they may be–becomes more and more our default setting, rather than anger, resentment, fear, self-loathing, and contraction in both the mind and the body. And since these kinds of contractions of mind and body usually increase the intensity of our pain, they just compound our misery and suffering. This is one easy way we can exert significant positive influence over our pain.

7. None of this has to do with making anything go away. We’re not trying to suppress our pain or “control” it, or suppress our emotional state. We’re not trying to fix anything at all–even though we may want to, or feel helpless and resentful that medicine cannot fix what we feel is the matter. On the contrary, we are just looking for a place to sit or to stand, a momentary refuge within which we can contemplate the present moment, and perhaps discover some respite right in the middle of things as they are, however they are. Amazingly, this stance of what I often call non-doing or just being can very quickly lead to things changing–since things are always changing, even our pain and our relationship to it.

But sometimes if we are too stuck in our thought-habits, in the same old ruts regarding our condition, desperate to get somewhere else or fix something you think might be broken, or else make it go away, our very desire and fixation may lead to its just staying around longer, as if we were actually feeding those energies, as if we ourselves are locking ourselves in and preventing our world from changing. The world and our bodies are always changing. That is a natural law: the law of impermanence. Everything changes. Why would we be an exception? So sometimes patience and forbearance may be called for, and good strategies for allowing things to change and even heal on their own."

[marimbles]

I know this is super random and like a year late, but as the consummate marichat fan, what were your thoughts on Elation?

first of all, apparently there are two definitions of the word “consummate” and until now i only knew the first one. HDNSND

second, i have many thoughts about elation but they are honestly kind of mixed and jumbled!!! On one hand, WHAT AN EPISODE!!!!! it still feels like a fever dream lmao. marichat fell in love and went on a cute little date and he took her up way in the sky with his baton carrying her princess style and then they tango’d over to andre’s and wanted to get Love ice cream and then they had the CUTEST KISS EVER!!!!! nose kiss cheek kiss lip kiss combo are you kidding. Are you KIDDING me. then he was trying to be respectful and not take advantage??? 😭 and she got AKUMATIZED bc she wanted to keep kissing him so bad??? HDJDJD and then the angsty second kiss to break her free omfggggggg people died (im people). the little moment at the end too when they agree to go their separate ways but hug like good friends who are in love. Waaaaa my heart. It was all really really good. I loved it. When I first watched it I kept having to pause and pace around like a madman fhsndn

On the other hand, it was so different from my personal vision of marichat that I wasn’t totally sure how to feel! The essence Marichat to me has always been a friends-to-lovers slowburn, so “sin ship” stuff or fics where they very quickly fall into a relationship against their better judgment have never been my cup of tea. And this episode felt like sort of a tamer, canon-appropriate version of that? It came on so fast and was over just as quickly. marichat ended up being just a one-night fling, basically. which is fine because I i always figured it wouldn’t play a big role in the plot—we got wayyyy more marichat than I ever expected to get! So I’m grateful! I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth haha. But at the same time I couldn’t help but feel sort of disappointed in how it all played out. because while I’ve always been rooting for reverse crush development, I never truly wanted a “love square flip” in the sense of them completely switching love interests from ladrien to marichat. That idea never felt super authentic to the characters to me. I feel like OG crush is so baked in to the love square, you know? This probably sounds rich coming from such a loud annoying marichat stan lmao but I always think of them as still being partly in love with OG crush underneath it all, even if marichat are together.

Anyway, i guess I just had a hard time processing it at all because I had a very specific vision/preference for how I wanted the love square to play out—which was basically, reverse crush develops simultaneously with OG crush and they have to figure out how to deal with being in love with two people at once, and then at the reveal they get the relief of knowing it was always the same person all along, and of course they fell for them twice. Idk to me that would be the most satisfying culmination of the love square—one of the most interesting romantic plot elements I’ve ever seen! And that’s not how the show writers decided to go. Which is OK. We got so much good love square and there will be more to come. I really have been trying to let go of what was always just my personal preference for the LS. But at the time I couldn’t help but feel it was sort of wasting a lot of potential by going in this direction. And that did kind of sour my experience watching elation. marichat was set up and discarded so quickly, as if to both satisfy the fans and also shut them up lol. like “here, you got your marichat, you animals. and now that door is permanently closed bc we just proved how it would never work.” Hahaha. And tbh maybe that was a necessity! Like the closure of that possibility.

All in all elation was an amazing episode. It just made me sort of sad at the end, watching marichat die within minutes of becoming canon. also at the time there were a bunch of marichat stans being kind of obnoxious and salting on ladrien which also dampened the mood a lot for me. So I felt weirdly sad for a while after watching it, even tho it was such an exciting ride that I’d been looking forward to. I guess I just keep thinking “yes this is what I wanted!! …except not like this tbh”

lol I’m so entitled Im sorry….we ate SO good. Elation will always be iconic. Weredad is still my all-time favorite episode though! :)

[nickeverdeen]

Hii! Im requesting a matchup for Arcane and TLOU, only women please <3

My pronouns are she/her, I am Caribbean-American and have brown skin, my hair is naturally really really dark brown but I have reddish brown braids rn. When my hair is straightened (I’ve only straightened it once recently, I don’t like doing it cuz of heat), its like past my shoulders a bit in length. My eyes are really really dark brown as well.

I am 5’4 and on the curvier side, my thighs are on the bigger side with some muscle (I played soccer and danced all while I was younger), my stomach is on the flatter side but not completely flat and I’m a size 36D.

Its hard to explain my style but its like a mix of stockholm style, downtown girl, but also pretty simple and minimal. I like lace tops, dark colored jeans, colorful scarfs, linen pants, soft hoodies, low cut tops (I like showing the girls off every now and then :p). I’m a gold jewelry girl but love silver in shoes, clothing, and my bag.

I unfortunately have one of the worst resting faces. Sometimes I look sad (when I’m nott), sometimes I look upset/mad, and sometimes I just have a blank stare. I’ve been told many times from friends and family that they can’t tell what I’m thinking. In reality I have a very silly personality, I like making jokes and being sarcastic here and there but I think this part of me only comes out when I’m comfortable and close with the other person. In general I’m introverted but will usually be the first to start the conversation with another introvert. I’m pretty shy and have never really been approached or approached anyone in a sober setting. I’ve been compared to being most like a bunny or a cat in that sense.

I’m reserved but at the same time love going out with friends. Recently I was working in a group project and when I was in a group project last year, I naturally take on a leader role where I make sure ever is ok but I’m also a bit bossy bc I like getting work done. I admit I can be mean at times but I’m quick to apologize in a group setting. I can get quite annoyed easily but I never let it show unless I want it known I’m annoyed. I’m a big sister. My mbti is INTP.

Interests wise…I loveee the beach. Especially the beaches in California (I don’t live here, visited a few years ago) and the Caribbean for the clearer water. I love cats, my favorite domesticated animal. My favorite animal in general are penguins <3. I like music sm you will almost never find me without my airpods or headphones. I go to concerts as often as I can. I like anime, not into kpop in terms of the industry happenings but love the music. My career interest rn is data analysis and I actually did a data analysis on my Spotify. I listen mostly to dance pop, bedroom pop/indie, kpop, rap, grunge, and a lot more other genres.

I don’t like people with toooo much energy. I love my extroverts but they know when to be chill and serious. I don’t have a preference on whether my partner would be introvert or extrovert. I love someone that can catch my sarcasm and my jokes. I like it when ppl are honest and upfront with me, I don’t like dancing around topics. I am confrontational only when I notice something is seriously wrong in the other person. There are times or days even where I just need to be alone but I still like being checked on. My love language is definitely acts of service and quality time.

Your Arcane match is…

Caitlyn Kiramman

Caitlyn would be drawn to your reserved nature and would make it her personal mission to draw out your more playful side, finding every subtle smile or laugh you give absolutely enchanting

With your love of the beach, Caitlyn would plan a surprise trip to a lakeside spot near Piltover

The day would include a private picnic, quiet moments by the water, and, of course, an excuse for her to see you more relaxed and in your element

She’d be fascinated by your music taste, letting you introduce her to K-pop, indie, and grunge while she shares her own favorite classical or jazz pieces

She’d even bring you records from Piltover’s best music shops as little surprises

Caitlyn’s calm and observant demeanor would perfectly balance your preference for chill energy

She’d know when to give you space and would always be there to listen when you’re ready to talk

Caitlyn would be captivated by your mix of Stockholm style and simplicity, admiring your looks every time you dress up

She’d subtly hint at how stunning you look in lace and dark colors

She’d notice your love of gold jewelry and even gift you a bracelet or necklace that complements her own minimalistic style

Caitlyn’s sharp detective skills would help her interpret your resting face, making her one of the few people who can tell if you’re actually upset or just neutral

She’d pride herself on “reading” you correctly

Knowing you appreciate quality time and occasional alone time, Caitlyn would be the type to quietly sit with you while you work or read, respecting your need for space but keeping you company all the same

She’d match your sarcasm and dry humor easily, delivering sly comments right back at you

Together, you’d share a playful, teasing dynamic that brings out both your clever sides

Caitlyn would respect your natural tendency to take the lead, and in group settings, she’d subtly back you up or help you stay organized

Your TLOU match is…

Dina

Dina would understand your introverted side, loving quiet days in where you can both relax

She’d be the type to hang out at your place, listening to music or binging shows, while you both recharge

Dina would check in on you regularly without being too intrusive

She’d be aware of when you need your alone time and would respect that, but she’d leave little notes or send you a quick message, so you know she’s there

Dina’s wit and sense of humor would match yours perfectly

She’d find your sarcasm adorable and would keep the jokes going, bringing out your sillier side in the best way

As someone who’s been through intense situations, Dina would understand your reserved nature and be patient with you

Her empathy would make her both gentle and direct, knowing exactly how to approach tough subjects with honesty

Dina would take on a slightly protective role, understanding that you sometimes feel reserved around others

She’d casually keep an eye out for you in social settings, making sure you feel comfortable

She’d absolutely love your Stockholm/downtown girl aesthetic and would compliment you endlessly

Occasionally, she’d borrow one of your hoodies or scarves, adding a hint of her own rugged, effortless style to your closet

With your shared love for animals, she’d be over the moon to volunteer with you at the shelter or spend lazy days with your cats, adoring every moment of caring for animals together

Dina is straightforward, but she’d appreciate your approach to confrontation

You’d both have deep, honest conversations about anything on your minds, knowing that open communication is your foundation

She’d tease you gently about your “serious” resting face, finding it cute that you can look so intimidating while being such a warm person

You’d both laugh about how people misread you

Dina would pick up on your love language quickly, leaving little notes, cooking a simple meal for you, or organizing small surprises

[thekimspoblog]

I still think his greatest sin as Jimmy was how he got Irene ostracized by her elderly friend group 😭

How horrible is that? To be bullied and excluded in the last years of your life?

And even when he went back and “fixed” it by making himself the vilain, it was still too little too late. She still went through all that suffering. For his greed

Alright. I also got a lot of thoughts about that episode. But put a pin in that. Short answer: It's not Saul's fault that all of Irene's friends suck.

True, but…Jimmy still did her dirty :(

And it’s sad, because he clearly really liked her and his other elderly clients. He just put his hustle first over their best interests

Mostly what bothers me about that plot thread is that he lied for... literally no reason. There's nothing he said to Irene's friends that he couldn't have just said to Irene directly. If you're going to interfere with the case (however illegal that might be) JUST TELL IRENE YOU DON'T LIKE ERIN! She would have listened! Hell just tell her you need the payday. To me the cat cookies at the beginning of that episode - how Jimmy buys them from the store and then pretends he baked them - symbolizes this weird pointless pathological need to overcomplicate things.

Yeah, fair point on the overcomplicating for plot reasons regarding Jimmy & Irene. He *should* have just told her directly

I guess it ties into his pathological need to scam and wheel and deal? Bit of a stretch on the writers’/creators benefit there lol

Again, part of my brbabcs headcanon is that god isn't real but the devil is.

But Chuck wasn’t wrong when he compared Jimmy to an alcoholic. It is like an addiction for him

So, do you kind of conceptualize that some of McWexler’s bullshit is literal devilish temptation?

Not temptation exactly. More akin to a cruel determinism. I'm still working out exactly how this lore works. All I know is the POV camera seems to have a psychological effect on the characters. Makes them act erratic.

I think the underlying rule is that whatever entities are controlling these characters (yes it's an allegory for the writers but it goes deeper than that) will go to any lengths to be entertained. And it finds violence especially entertaining. Does it actively make the characters do bad things? Maybe maybe not. But if it gets bored it will make bad things happen, whether the characters are obliging it or not.

Don't know if you've seen "Hereditary" but I pull a lot of inspiration from that. That and Westworld, of course.

On a tangential note, I'm quite into ARGs and "dark video games lore explained" videos. I am currently watching a deep dive into "Inscryption" and it's quite interesting!

But in the broadest sense, I'll just say that because BCS is a prequel, obviously free will is not as simple as it would appear to Jimmy McGill. Certain things were simply ordained to happen. In fact Kim's death might have been ordained to happen too, and that is why her living to 2016 signifies something gone wrong.

That’s an interesting idea!

I do love both Hereditary and Westworld (especially S1. I was a little disappointed by S2 and didn’t finish S3). But that idea of not only “destiny” in the sense of inherited/intergenerational trauma and actual hereditary traits, and also actual Destiny in terms of Fate is very fun to contemplate; and how much of a character’s actions are actually free will and how much is pre-destined.

With Jimmy in particular, that idea of self-fulfilling prophecy and his (in)ability to change in spite of or because of constantly trying to run away from himself and the consequences of his actions is very compelling. But it’s there for Kim, too! She wants “more” and seems to be constantly running away from the instability and deprivation of her past and towards some idealized, self-actualized version of herself

So that idea of a godlike or demonic force manipulating and controlling that element of destiny for them is a cool idea!

I feel like Jimmy "avoided" consequences for his actions (at least in the context of Season 1) in the sense that sliding under a sixteen wheeler and getting dragged for ten miles is "avoiding" getting hit by it. lol! Like sure, he never did time for the Chicago Sunroof incident, but it still followed him for the rest of his life. Maybe some would say he deserved to have his life ruined way back then and that would have been the end of it. And I can't really argue with that reading given that less connected people have their lives ruined for a lot less all the time. But I would point out that after that he completely reorganized his life and at least TRIED to be a good boy for almost a decade, before giving up and reverting back to his true colors.

Even though the brothers both had a hand in each other's downfalls, I don't think either of them were really the cause. Yes, Jimmy made a fool of Chuck, but Chuck was a control freak with no humility. Even if Jimmy had stayed far away in Illinois, I suspect something else would have inevitably caused Chuck to implode. Hell, if you buy into my extended theories about the rivalry between Kim and Chuck, it kind of seems like Jimmy was just the middleman in the first place.

And on the opposite side of the coin, conformity just isn't in Jimmy's nature. It's not like he would have walked a straight path if only his brother had been supportive. Chuck was probably onto something that Jimmy simply didn't have the right disposition for this level of responsibility. The problem is this institution IS corrupt to a fascial degree, so the fact that Saul makes a mockery of it might ironically be a sign that he's the only one in the room taking this seriously.

I mean, I think I've mentioned this before, but I just cannot abide the notion that Saul was some bane on the justice system when THE PROVOCATION DEFENSE is still widely accepted precedent.

I think that actually gets at one of my biggest problems with the way the show handles characterization. There's so much overwhelming evidence that the legal profession itself and the general concept of ambition is at the heart of why these people have such severe mental health problems, and yet it's never directly addressed as such.

Chuck put all of his self-worth into his career and had no plan for retirement even though he NEEDED to be thinking about that.

Howard's good reputation wasn't wholly unearned, but he still was an emotionally stunted person who had never experienced real hardship as the result of his privileged life. Had he survived that encounter with Lalo, maybe he would have learned sometimes people hate you for no reason and you just have to be okay with that. Sometimes you do everything right and you still lose. He would have realized he was so caught up in preserving a legacy he was losing everything else.

Jimmy's mistake was not his crimes, but the times he tried to be something besides a criminal. That he rose above his benign state as a petty crook, got access to the knowledge usually gatekept by "responsible" people and predictably used that power in an irresponsible way.

And no Kim! Jimmy is not a bad influence on you, nor are you a bad influence on him! The entire romance is a red herring. You're "poisoned" because you're poisoning yourself - working yourself into an early grave, tearing your hair out trying to bail water on a sinking ship. I'm 100% confident that if she wasn't working a job which riled her up so much, she and Jimmy would be able to have a normal relationship. This is why the CFLA plot point niggles me so much - wanting to help people the oppressed, and not wanting to hurt people in positions of power are diametrically opposed goals - and whether or not Kim is still involved with Jimmy by the end of the story, she's set up to repeat her mistakes because she still hasn't dealt with that.

Humility means a peaceful if mundane life, but it also means accepting the world around you as it is. Ambition means pain - being the hero to some and the villain to others but never having the comfort of anonymity either way. Wielding power does weird things to the human brain, and that's a truth which goes far beyond individual case studies of whether any singular exercise of that power was subjectively good or bad.

Gus's story arc would probably be the closest the show comes to tackling this binary head-on. But still, it's muddied because I'm just left wondering how much further he could have gotten if he didn't waste his energy on a revenge quest against the Salamancas. To me, BCS is less about conventionally moral or immoral behavior. And more about questions of which stupid mistakes prevent the characters from becoming platonic ideals of themselves.

Haha, I love your comparison of Jimmy avoiding consequences to sliding under a truck only to be dragged by it! He avoids formal consequences and has a very difficult time truly admitting fault most of the time, but he does get bit in the ass bu the inevitable fallout of his schemes. So I guess he gets hit by natural consequences. I agree that he and Chuck were both instrumental in bringing each other down, but it likely would have happened either way for them. Chuck was clearly very triggered by his divorce (which happened for some reason) and his mental health was a ticking time bomb from the stress of his overwork, similar to Kim. The trouble with Jimmy was a chronic stressor that was constantly adding to everything else going on with Chuck.

I don’t personally see a rivalry between Chuck and Kim. I think he initially sort of patronizes her, but once she calls him out, he respects her and I think him trying to warn her away from Jimmy was a genuine attempt to “save” a promising young by-the-book attorney from Jimmy’s “corrupting influence”

I have so much empathy for Howard. Is he kind of a smug prick and unnecessarily punishes Kim with doc review? Yeah. But he is also the only character who really commits to trying to make positive changes in his life and his approach to other people. I understand Kim’s resentment of him, but her (and Jimmy’s) campaign against him was so vindictive and unnecessary.

With your point about the opposition between helping oppressed people versus propping up people/systems in power, I think that goes back to the larger flaw of both BrBa and BCS being so character-driven that they don’t even bother to interrogate the systemic problems causing the issues in characters’ lives. I don’t think either Jimmy or Kim have interest in being a revolutionary and overthrowing the system. But they do both genuinely seem interested in doing what good they can within the bounds (more or less) of the legal system

Jimmy as Saul has more of a stick-it-to-the-man attitude, which is why he’s often happy to bend or straight up break the legal procedures or break the law himself to benefit his clients or himself

I do wish BCS had given us more with Gus’s story line. I don’t think we really saw him change all that much between BCS and BrBa, and he’s such a fascinating character

[transsexualhamlet]

i saw a post ranking how much each of the Valar hates Melkor and I thought I would make a post with kinda the opposite side of that, so

Melkor's Ranked List of Most Hated to Least Hated Valar

Burning Scorching Undying Hatred

Yavanna- There is just a special #1 enmity Melkor has for her, as is very obvious. He fucking hates trees so fucking bad and it is very difficult to escape her Stuff all Over the fucking place. There is absolutely nothing about Yavanna that Melkor wants to interact with. She symbolizes life and happiness and flowers and junk and well. Clearly makes him want to puke. He is a fan of the Corpse Flower which she made specifically because she was angry at him but it failed bc he was like oh this is awesome. But clearly there is NO redemption between them

Ulmo- Also has to do with conflicting elements. Ulmo fucking ruins this man's life and then ruins Mairon's life AGAIN later. He gets ZERO points for this and the sea is really the only place Melkor could never manage to conquer. As the sea is a very thematic thing for the elves and their salvation from Melkor and his nonsense, Melkor hates water so fucking much not even just because it spies on him and Mairon certainly did not have better treatment by it in his day

Manwë- The only reason he's at #3 is because Melkor does appreciate how much of a forgiving sod the dude is. He has to admit it is very easy to get off scot free from his brother, though Varda is not so forgiving. But despite it, he just cannot get over the rage of his brother being god's favorite. It's really an issue

Varda- Varda would be above Manwë if not for the fact that Melkor doesn't even hate stars, in theory. He wouldn't mind them honestly if they weren't literally all named "star that hates Melkor" "star that hates melkor 2" "star that shows we all want to kill melkor with weapons" above his head 24/7. Varda hates Melkor more than Melkor hates him, but of course that adds up to a Lot. She is the goddess of light which just. Well they really truly do not like each other

Nienna- Imagine having a bitch designated specifically just to be sad about everything you do. Very annoying. Get over yourself. You can just not be sad about it. There's an upside in knowing his actions have caused so much suffering because you know, that's what he's going for, but the idea of Nienna still just disgusts him. He feels as if his domain has been invaded and inverted towards Eru's purpose, which has been. A major point of contention. Over the years

Vana- She obviously gets hated simply thru association with Yavanna. She has personally offended him less, but it bothers him a lot that he has had such little effect on her. He's made Yavanna cry a lot in canon but Vana just . Can get through anything, she's there no matter what, she's happy no matter what. It makes him Sad

Namo/Mandos- This is a really weird one for Melkor because for him it's like. Going to the mall in your most fucked up and insane outfit to piss people off on purpose and then you see someone who looks even cooler and goth-er but they have a lot of friends with them and seem mentally healthy and it's honestly really getting to you. There are things about the world that he knows that Melkor doesn't and that makes Melkor want to fucking eat himself. Also he kept Melkor in a cage for 3000 years and literally never even made conversation. Melkor cannot tell if he wants to be friends with this dude or wipe him off the face of Arda but neither of those are options in any world

Tulkas- You'd think this dude would be higher on the list, but Melkor rarely thinks about Tulkas and often forgets the dude exists. Obviously it pisses him off that some random guy jacked as hell came in and beat his ass more than once and he has zero other purpose in life. But as to being a nemesis of Melkor, Tulkas thinks himself much higher on the list than he really is. It's kind of funny

Oromë- Melkor's main beef with Oromë comes from the dude and his people constantly one-shotting his Beautifully Handcrafted Beasts, and to a lesser extent him telling the elves about the trees, but there would be a lot less fun in making increasingly Fucked Up Creatures if they didn't have someone to fight, and well. He didn't really like the elves anyway. Mairon hates him more, personally, because of Huan, but on principle Oromë doesn't bother Melkor too much.

Estë- Although it is rather frustrating to have someone who can heal trauma which you worked so tirelessly to inflict, Estë's power is rather limited and doesn't often come into play. It's like someone comforting your ex who you haven't thought about in years and going ohhh he sucked he was awful you're perfect like. Ok? Like you're Wrong but it's not like this matters very much after the fact

Aulë- Melkor has very little to say against Aulë other than those like two times he yelled at Mairon during the years of the lamps. Aesthetically a really great guy, great ideas with weapons and volcanos and machinery and giant stone halls and whatnot. But seriously not a fan of the big chain. Melkor even thinks big chains are super cool. Just not like. Around him. Without consent ofc

Vairë- Melkor says keep on making awesome tapestries of people fighting against me and losing. Go ahead give him bigger horns make him look really scary. No notes just didn't like the hundred years she spent making a weaving of him sitting in a jail cell.

Irmo/Lorien- As much as he doesn't really have anything in common with Irmo, there's nothing really to complain about. Melkor is rather good at invading dreams and enjoys fucking with people thru them, so rather glad they exist. It is a pretty decent art medium and can make torture interesting. Generally not a threat unless in the rare and vague case of prophetic dreams which are just not heeded very often. Irmo can send some elf a thousand dreams of Melkor's battle plans and they will forget 99% of it within a minute of waking up

Nessa- She's pretty solidly on the bottom despite being almost entirely irrelevant because well, Nessa has done nothing to ever bother Melkor. He likes deer and dancing as much as the next guy (especially the fucked up kind) and they would probably get along at a party provided she didn't recognize him lol. She probably doesn't even talk too much about her cringefail husband

Indifference to Don't Even Mind This One

[patrice-bergerons]

my american boomer 69 year old dad is one of those black sails normies....he liked the show a lot bc he loves naval battles, a decent fan of pirate stuff in general, grew up with treasure island the book and then the famous movie version that established the "pirate accent". he also loves history in general. to my utmost dismay he says he couldnt stand the scenes where they would "just talk" for ages. he still liked the show! but he only really watched it for the action and im not sure he ever even caught on to the meta fiction/story themes. this makes me so sad because i was on the edge of my seat in every scene by end of season 2. i dont understand how you couldnt be invested in everything by that point! i saw the show for the first time years after he did and talked a lot abt the deeper political or thematic elements afterwards and he would be like "oh yeah i kinda remember that" and seemed to enjoy the tumblr meta i regurgitated to him LOL. he does agree with me that its the most serious/best take on pirates yet. he also didnt really care about the gay stuff but didnt mind it either #ally. I think he appreciated it a bit more after i explained what it means to me (I'm out as gay to him). I don't think he understood the extent of flints rage at the time but specifically thought of the independence of Nassau as cool bc it was like they were trying to do the american revolution years before the actual american revolution. yeah. lol. a look inside the twisted mind of a black sails normie. other stuff he likes are: the expanse, everything star trek since TOS, everything tolkien. he cares more about plot/action than characters :(

Thank you so much for sharing his perspective to me anon, it was a delight to wake up to on a Monday morning. Not caring about all the gay stuff but not minding it either is truly such a Supportive Dad TM move — and to his point the naval battles and all the action are pretty cool (though of course to you and me, the scenes where they talk endlessly are just as much if not even more so the point). Though not English myself, as someone who lives in England, the American revolution parallel he drew made me chuckle also.

Overall it sounds to me like he is a great guy and it warms my heart that this is a show you can share, even if the two of you come at it from differing perspectives❣️