#theres too many characters and potential and iconicness to all of them to just do one killer

[puhpandas]

fnaf x dbd has soo much potential bc IMAGINE theres a vanny cosmetic on top of springtrap and Vanessa is the female survivor. in the Dracula chapter Dracula and the survivor from his chapter have unique voicelines if they're in a game together going against eachother, like Dracula will regard him specifically when with anyone else it'll just be his normal lines

IMAGINE if vanny and vanessa had something similar where vanny is taunting vanessa in a way, trying to tell her that she'll get her in the end and she'll be trapped and she cant escape her. it would be generic cool "I'm evil and chasing you" lines but have a meaningful double meaning bc of vanessa BEING vanny and her having to work to 'make up' for what she did as vanny. like the very embodiment of her trauma and past coming back to get her and it's her worst nightmare

[voltrixz]

hey I’ve been meaning to ask this… as a fellow Shocker enjoyer who couldn’t get through all off TSSM and therefore missed out on some Sinister Six dynamics — what is the appeal of electroshocker to you? Why do you ship them? Like, I mean this as a genuine and positive question!! Please rant about your guys I really want to be in on the excitement/fun :3c <33

/pos /nf

GRINS RLLY WIDE AT YOU. Thank you for this opportunity, wipes away a tear...

Also woops this got rlly fuckin long, lemme just toss a read more here

Ok so I always like to play with relationship dynamics and tbh. I think electro and shocker have some rlly interesting potential. I always like putting my fave characters in a metaphorical chamber and watch and experiment.

For electro and shocker obv they're my faves and from what we seen in the first s6 ep, they do actually temporarily work together, their powers work similarly and shocker takes the lead and electro follows. So first off it is about their powers/names, I've seen people mix the two up and such and it made me giggle, like hm yeah, despite their personalities being very different.

Also there is one scene where a couple of the s6 memebers are walking through thr sewers and shocker asks doc how they're gonna find spiderman but electro pipes up to respond, say8ng here's how and shooting off a bolt of lightning. (The fact he immediately gets scolded and sent off is so funny)

^iconic moment to me. Was he like. Trying to show off?? If he was its rlly funny because yeah I think he kinda was??? Like this cool experienced guy shows up (and also heh. Hehe. He kinda bad? WHO SAID THAT)

But yeah def think theres a sliver of an admiration thing, funny as shocker just sees him as an amateur but willing to help him later. Would have been interesting to see shocker help electro get better with his powers (like that one fanart i reblogged) AND SPEAKING OF SAID FANART

Clutches my head and falls to the ground. About that fanart I very much do think electro would get jittery/flustered from how close shocker is becuase well. Being made out of literal electricity means not a lot of people can be that close to you AND SRGH. You know that guy is starved for physical contact. And while I don't think it's actually like. ? Canon or whatever, or just a popular hc but I like to think shocker's suit is immune to Electro’s electricity or at least he doesn't get hurt by it (would make sense his suit was made to handle his gauntlets which obv are powered by electricity) and idk. That closeness in training slowly developing into subtle touches and just being physically close with each other ARGH . Makes me crazy.

Also now leaning more into hc stuff. DRINKING BUDDIES ELECTRO SHOCKER AGEGRH. Then getting closer through drinks at shocker's bar argh. Electro becoming more of a regular argh argh, shocker warming up to electro and even the rest of the sinister six argh argh. (Forever crazy over the idea of shocker warming up to the s6 arghh)

But also hrm. Hrmmm. Stares off into the distance. I also do think like they are gonna be in situationship hell or something undefined like they're def friends it's def smt more but it's just so??? Too many things in the way I would say. Shocker is loyal to tombstone, Electro is loyal to doc. Shocker will clearly prioritize his job, that's his way of living. Electro was just tossed in here and trying to deal with it. They both have pretty bad tempers, one just has way more of a handle on it. It's like ARGHH. This shit gets messy!!!!!!!

[soapsinthebox]

character ask um sona thouughffs perhappps 😁do soba. Sona :)

Greets Gekko!! and of course, im always happy to talk about my cancelled aunt, she is my pfp after all

Favorite thing about them

Oooh this one is hard... "Favorite" is a little too wide of a definition for this, so ill narrow it down to what hits the hardest for me, and that is most definitely, the "flawed mother" angle they were going for her.

Sona isnt perfect, as much as she wants to claim otherwise, she believes in ideologies that actively put Frisks friends in danger time and time again, and as shown, is even willing to act on them in the imperfect routes, but they still love and see the good in her, because thats what theyve grown up with their whole life, and for someone who has a mom in a pretty similar situation, that hit so fucking hard for me.

Sona... they could never make me hate you Sona...

Least favorite thing about them

I dont really understand the hair motif they were going for, it feels unnecessary, out of place, and compared to all the other powers she could have had in the concept art (Doll powers, omega form, ect) just feels... idk, boring to me? i just feel there was so much more potential for her.

Favorite line

"If you dont have determination, you have to fake it!" lives rent free in my mind. its the perfect way to show off one of her main ideologies, In Sonas mind, theres just simply no thing called weakness or imperfections, and anything that is lacking can be fixed right up like a doll, who cares if itll never be as genuine as the flawed and complex human being that they used to be?

Theres also the iconic "I only take the souls of children if they disobey me!" line, which i like for a lot less complex reasons. just, out of context funny lmao.

BrOTP

The possible relationships she can have with Dalv, and her relations to integrity are both very intriguing to me.

Like, for Dalv theres this whole thing with them that they are both flawed individuals who ran away from their problems in the past, but ended up with completely different outcomes (Dalv was ripped away from society, while Sona actively got herself involved in it) but also like?? for something fluffier, i like to imagine that Dalv is good with kids, and the idea of him running an orphanage with Sona is really cute to me.

And integrity... oughh, its seen both in the no romance endings and the perfect sans route of kc that Sona really cared for integrity (their ending having the most lore, only second to Justice because...well, uty reference, her giving them flowers in that one cg), So the idea of her in a uty scenario (cough cough kcy cough cough) finding out about what they did and their fate is a REALLY interesting angle to consider for me. so many thoughts, oh so many of them.

And then last but certainly not least, theres her and Chara which i feel like i dont talk about NEARLY enough but since this section is getting long, ill just end this off on that kc shouldve had more Sona and Chara interactions.

OTP

... Its Sonaroba, is anyone surprised.

Theyre so interesting and mentally ill and evil i need to put them in a snowglobe and shake them as hard as i can. Like, you have two woman who were both wronged by the world in some capacity, and when proven wrong, are so tunnel visioned that they basically just beg for death. only that one is past that arc and has learned to grow, while the other, despite having the chance time and time again, hasnt. They're two sides of the same coin, they're two different outcomes of the same person they're they're they're-

My incoherent ramblings aside, i also really enjoy Sonanny, they're the doomed old woman yuri ever and i refuse to take any criticism /j like, theres a reason Nanny is the only adult not controlled by Sona right? IM GOING INSANE-

nOTP

... Im actually at a loss for what to put here lol. I mean, i guess theres Sona and Sans, but its just so stupidly evil and toxic that i kinda just, thrive in it now

I guess her and Starlo?? but theyre not compatible anyway so i dont really get why people would even ship it to begin with.

Random headcanon

The hat she has in the concept art right?? i imagine she actually still has that hat somewhere, and wears it on special occasions like anniversaries and birthdays. its just so cute i cant help myself rahhh-

Unpopular opinion

Im actually not that familiar with what the major idea around Sona is since i only really hang out in niche spaces, maybe i should hang around Andrews community more-

But since "Sona isnt just some random racist mom and her character goes so much deeper than that" isn't really a fun answer, im gonna say that i think we (and by we i mean like, the twelve people in the kissy cutie community) Really dont explore her Mexican origins enough. theres so many fun things you can do with it like the original game does-

Song i associate with them

The main two songs i associate with her are Suburbia by Will wood and the tape worms, and ruler of everything by tally hall.

Suburbia in particular feels like her trying to fit herself and eveyone into a "generic" standard, and the ar-15 part in particular feels like Chara speaking to her like "cultures not your friend" and "Culture is more afraid of you then you are of itself", making it a duet between the Siblings?? ouggh can you see the vision.

And ruler of everything... oh ruler of everything my beloved, everything about it fits Sona so well for me, especially the chorus?? Ayaygdgyduhhuh

I actually was story boarding a ruler of everything Sona animatic, i lost interest since school started, so heres the rough beatboards

Favorite picture of them

The little full body Xan cut out lives in my mind rent free, like look at her guys shes so full of bliss and whimsy

Thanks for the ask!! sorry this got a little long lol, i am a yapper at heart

[gayspock]

okay nother tng thoughts dump

- i think just in general. checking now, i realise im halfway through s7 of tng... and im kinda? indifferent?? i feel- I FEEL SO BAD for saying that. but i remember being so torn up abt being so close to the end of tos and with tng im just like. okay! onto the next show!

- i jsut dont think its been quite IT for me. like its deffo someone elses fave and it is written well and i can see why its iconic but theres still always just something missing.... that i can never quite grasp. im not even sure if it sjust one big thing, but just lots of little pieces that it just misses for me.

- and like i said its still rlly good. i think i feel abt tng the same way i feel abt s5 of nuwho. like yeah this is done well for what it is but this just doesnt totally mesh with my vibe but i see why ppl respect it yah?

- anyway specific eps: descent was perhaps one of the better lore episodes, i think? like- here's the thing with lore... again not to liken it to doctor who. im such a guy whos only seen doctor who and no other tv shows but in my defence i am thinking abt dw right now. soooo. anyways. lore is like simms!master and i dont mean in terms of them both balancing the #girlboss and #malewife act perfectly but i mean with respects to like. kind of a campy character concept thats hard to take serious but the actor is doing it well, and the character is enjoyable - however, they end up in some... naff episodes... and when theyre not theyre not always utilised to their potential which makes it a little harder to deal with which is a shame bc i do LIKE the thought of them both as my wretched little meow meows but yah yah yah . none of those were words were they babe. hmmm.

- i liked gambit, interface and i really liked phantasms but thats because anything data or geordi focussed has me, easy. their eps are always my favourites - i mean, i also like beverly eps, but i feel like she hasnt had a solid one for a while. :( wahhh boohoo.

- gambit was also one of my more . favourite two parters i think it was done well. i think tng two part episodes have been very hit or miss in the past- esp the mid season ones.

- ATTACHED. that was an ep i had a lot ofthoguths about

- because well this is also sort of a beverly ep actually so i take it back i liked this one too !! and also whilst being lukewarm on picard- here's the thing?? i usually quite like... picard focussed eps. i just find him annoying when he kinda ends up as, like, the resolution for someone else's story which happens a lot (or it feels like it). and the parts of picard that i do like generally are looking deeper into him as a guy ya know

- HOWEVER. i think this also... is one thing that i dont personally like abt tng? its- i guess its mroe of a personal thing, but i jsut... i WISH there were more developments, like acrosss the whole 7 seasons. i know with tos, there werent that many- and i found that okay? because it was only 3 seasons long. but i just kinda wish there'd been more... progression than there was? im not asking for, like, huge changes here; nor am i saying that there was none whatsoever.. i just wish thered been a bit more than there was.

- like im sayin this bc we finally confront the whole beverly and picard thing that was fully established... inthe pilot ep. and idk man. im not saying i wanted them to have some sort of thing going on- god no. but if im gonna be actually honest? i sometimes would genuinely forget abt it. bc its been so long and honestly.. i dont get much chemistry from them. the only indication i ever get from them ever having any connection is when they just. openly state something and im like oh uh i guess fine. like vibes wise they just.. dont have anything there when they actually interact.

- and my thing is like. i just wish tng kind of... had done this episode earlier is all. its season 7 and stuff and i guess theyre wrapping up. but you know. or maybe not earlier- but if they wanted to wait until now, i just wish it would have felt... still relevant? because it did not feel still relevant honestly. and its like. im finding it so hard to describe but again it just feels like....

- i could watch an ep from anywhere in tng and i wouldnt be able to tell u what season it was. i mean okay: im disregarding s1&s2 being badly written... but other than that, like, in terms of character dynamics and stuff and one or two ppl being present (alexander, ro, pulaski or wesley) i could give u no ballpark. and thats good in many ways bc u can drop in wherever and im sure tht a lot of ppl like that but it does seem so stagnant to me. like after seven whole seasons. and like i said i dont think there should be big changes or anything but i would have liked to see... a little bit more? im not sure what exactly. just more of something.

- and i guess thats also just more of an issue of me watching it as a modern day viewer who is bingeing and seeing this all as one long continuous thing. i think thats also definitely to its detriment and accounting for that i dont find it so bad- since i know television culture was different, even just for purely practical reasons.

- also with attached i just. RAMBLED THERE but i really did like this ep. again im a sucker for beverly honestly and i did like them talking abt their shit ultimately.

- force of nature. dont have much to say abt this ep - like i think its one of those, where im like i like the thought you're going with but the execution kinda made it miss and im like eh but that one quote. where is it: "You know, Geordi, I spent the better part of my life exploring space. I've charted new worlds, I've met dozens of new species, and I believe that these were all valuable ends in themselves. Now it seems that… all this while, I was… helping to damage the thing that I hold most dear." <- yeah that shit gets ya doesnt it just babe

- AND INHERITANCE. MY GOODNESS ME. i actually really rated this ep - again, data focus gets me easy. but i liked data's mam honestly.... i mean she did you know. leave him and stuff and ... yeah. im not totally mad abt that and the complexity with android stuff. i think i have more to say but its not coming to me right now so later xxxx

- i also liked parallels but i found worf/deanna. weird. i mean the thing is i dont hate it conceptually actually but i just feel like we dont get enough one on one with them. i think its just... i like how she helped him with alexander but that always did kind of feel like a ships counselor relationship between her and worf which i guess thats the vibe thats putting me off?? bc thats like. her job. not saying she obviously doesnt care but with regards to her advising him and stuff. idk maybe im just being strange

- BUT I LIKED THIS. AS A WORF EP. ITS THE FIRST WORF EP IVE LIKED IN A WHILE- which i feel bad abt bc i do like worf but as i said in the last one of these ramlbes, his eps dont usally work for me and i wont re-ramble about that but yah it was nice bc this one didnt have the issues i usually have with his :3 i liked it. THAT PART WHERE THEY KILL THE FUCKED UP UNIVERSE ENTERPRISE WAS BONKERS THOUGH LIKE HELLO MY GOODNESS ME.

- anyways yehs i think thats all i have to say so far. love and light kiss kiss kis. im onto the pegasus which im kind of interested in . also i had more to say abt specific eps this time, omg... i think its just. s7 so far i kinda like i think :3

[mousehole5000]

Yukina and hiei!

twins!!! ty!! this got long so under the cut it goes!

hiei

favorite thing about them: he has that Code and sticks to it and he is extremely loyal and does care deep down but not in a way where hes like actually a really soft person. like hes still a demon and a bandit and he shows how he cares in different ways. i just think hes neat

least favorite thing about them: still could stand to not just constantly insult everyone like i know its his thing but come on. also that attitude gets him into trouble more than once so ya he could use a slice of humble pie

favorite line: "he’s so neck deep in repression even i feel sorry for him” from the dub

brOTP: i want him and kuwabara to hang out more its so funny when hiei doesnt understand things/is wrong and kuwa’s not afraid to call him on that which is good for him i think

OTP: with yusuke they speak the same language and yusuke just decides to give him a second chance and trust him immediately and openly and i just. i need a minute. hiei is literally ready to die for yusuke during chapter black after previously saying that dying for someone else is a waste when yusuke sacrificed himself for keiko and i just. i need another minute

nOTP: i dont really care for him with kurama i know its the most popular ship in the fandom and i dont think its bad or anything just think theres better ships for both of them. ultimately kurama loves his human family and life while hiei barely tolerates humans and idk they just seem like their values are too different to work out imo

random headcanon: bad at all kinds of human games. board games, party games, video games etc. tries to get yusuke or kurama to teach him how to be better but they give him a lot of bogus advice instead bc they think its funny. which it is <3

unpopular opinion: idk how unpopular this is but i dont believe he will ever get taller and i hope he never does. manlet forever

song i associate with them: okay sorry for emo blogging on main but i think of yusuhi whenever i hear / fall out boy - last of the real ones

favorite picture of them: this iconic moment

yukina

favorite thing about them: cute and sweet and so KIND even after her first experience with humans is completely appalling but also her coldness (nice) for the ice maidens.... chilling (nice)

least favorite thing about them: never gets to do anything other than sit around and be a healer she doesnt get enough development :/ but its not her fault. togashi just isnt very generous with female characters

favorite line: kuwabara (definitely crying): “sorry i just got some dirt stuck in my contact lens" yukina: “you dont wear contacts” - from the dub


brOTP: literally any and all of the girls. shizuru would be good she just keeps collecting these blue haired demon/spirit girls. she would be protective of yukina but also teach her what she needs to know about the world

OTP: hmmmm.... keiko..... ive literally never seen i dont even think theres a ship name it its unexplored territory and i want to chart it and someday maybe when i get all the sangcheng out of my system i will. i just idk theyve both got a lot of conviction and both brave going to the dark tournament to follow someone they care about and in yukina’s case didnt even know for sure was there and i like the potential for their worlds to crossover. i have many thoughts
....

nOTP: hmmm dont really have one? her relationship with kuwabara is cute although i do think he idealizes her a lot but he could learn a lot through that imo

random headcanon: she would continue say a lot of weird demon things to humans even after she knows its weird just to mess with them. i think she would like messing with humans and find them funny


unpopular opinion: not sure how unpopular it is but shes very strong and is actively choosing to be kind and peaceful like i know her power doesnt get showcased in the show or manga much but in that video game touga tells us that shes uhhhhh very fucking strong and i love that

song i associate with them: hmmm just bc its a bop / eurythmics - here comes the rain again

favorite picture of them: BONK

[zanguntsu]

what are ur thoughts on each bleach arc o: like quality wise!

oh boy this got longer than expected. Whoops.

substitute arc: i rlly like this arc! its short but i love how it sets up the characters and i adore the integration between ichigos human life vs shinigami life And i like the monster of the week set up its a fun and its a lot more character focused in the beginning. the fights were very character driven, like with grand fisher, sora, the hollow that went to hell. all the fights felt like they had a meaning that had a strong impact on a character, like ichigo having closure after defeating (he should have killed him tbh) grand fisher.

soul society: one of the best if not the best arcs imo. theres a good amount of development, the fights are good and have emotional weight (ichigo v byakuya, uryu v mayuri, chad v shunsui, yoruichi v soi fon) and the newly introduced characters are interesting! very iconic and cool! there was a lot of character arc conclusions? Closure? like with uryu and yoruichi as well as rukia. the characters are a strong point here too and the introduction of soul society brought in world building and it was something we really needed to see. soul society as the villains was pretty good and it did show them as a threat. its a good arc and had a good cliffhanger ending to the next arc

arrancar arc: its a pretty good arc but this is where i feel like bleach was starting to fall off in quality since kubo didnt plan for the series to go past ss. like the plot was a little repetitive with the rescue arc the placing was pretty bad and its where the kubos problem of having too many characters started forming. there are some pretty good moments though, i really love the ichigo vs grimmjow and ichigo vs ulquiorra fights along with rukia vs aaroniero (rukia development time,,). the arc just felt pretty slow at times ig? But there are some very good moments

fake karakura arc/deicide: i like this arc even though i know half of it was bullshit. there are some good fights, soi fon vs barragan is one of my faves bc her bankai and it was just interesting to see the captains more involved even though i wish they didnt just stand there. like cmon the fate of the world is at stake gang up on ppl u have numbers. i do think its bullshit to have aizen be That powerful (i will excuse the hogyoku use bc thats his trump card and was set up) but having him take down everyone like that was eh. like i know it was meant to show how powerful aizen was but honestly i wish there was a better way. maybe make them all fight amongst each other like with momo but its all mind games and shit i feel like that was a better way of showing how strong aizen was. also speaking of aizen i wish there was more character to him like take away his manipulative badass thing and its just nothing. what drives him to kill the soul king and why? was it loneliness (which is a poor motive tbh), injustice? what brought him on this path? i feel like tousens goals had more to it then aizen tbh

the deicide arc was pretty okay i love mugetsu but im sorry there was absolutely no lead up to him. i love that form but its pretty bullshit that it didnt get as much as a mention in the past and i wish it did bc that would have made mugetsu have a lot more impact. i remember how ppl theorized that it was how isshin lost his powers even though it was proven otherwise but i wish they went with that. but i did like seeing zangetsu again and that touching moment with him and ichigo was good also the rukia and ichigo goodbye was very emotional. was it a good arc? maybe not plot wise but its pretty beloved

fullbringer: oh this is where the quality definitely dropped which sucks because i feel like this arc had a very interesting premise and plot set up. i know that i havent watched/read all of the fb arc but i do know enough of it just not much in between the beginning and end. i wish that the fullbringers had more focus bc they were all forgettable except maybe riruka and they should have had more screentime and the concept of fullbringers is genuinely interesting?? humans with hollow powers is a good concept and its a shame kubo didnt expand upon this more

oh and i have some beef with the villains bc its a fucking tragedy of wasted potential. ginjo is like. almost there to be considered a good villain. hes the previous substitute shinigami and u only bring it up at the end?? thats such a huge chunk of information and it sets up a connection between ichigo and ginjo. idc about tsukishima he can be whatever but i do think ginjo could have been a pretty good villain if he wasnt as blatantly evil. like i know the betrayal schtick is getting old but i would have preferred him as a villain with good intentions, like having him against soul society is a good motive bc ss commits war crimes but it was never clear in this arc (aside from ss monitering the substitutes) but it just didnt feel as strong as a motive to make him do what he did.

one good thing i do have to say about this arc was i do like ichigo in this arc and how much conflict he experiences and we get to see him commit murder although i do wish this had repercussions on him. i feel like soul society’s intervention was unnecessary but thats just me. the fullbringer arc being centered around humans was a good idea, bringing the series back to its roots and i just wish we spent more developmemt with the humans before jumping back to soul society, like more time on the aftermath of the last arc. also this arc should have been the chad arc im dying on this hill.

tybw: wow! this was a trainwreck of an arc! i have. So Many issues with tybw and its where kubos writing weaknesses truly shine. the biggest issues are its pacing which is absolutely abhorrent and it takes up at least a third of the entire series (literally. tybw had 206 chapters out of 686 since tybw officially starts on 480). we had periods where the main cast dont show up for like. 50 chapters. the other biggest problem were the characters. why did kubo think it was a good idea to introduce 26+ characters. why. there is absolutely no time to develop them and while some may receive screentime the majority have no impact to the plot beyond their fights with the characters we actually care about. there is no reason for people to give a shit about them. i can barely remember their names, much less their backstories

and one of the bigger problems was the antagonists themselves. they have a motive and while i understand hatred towards soul society. yhwach’s motives were the worst out of all the villains. i cannot fathom what motivates him because it went fucking everywhere. did he have beef with ss? was he waging war out of self preservation? did he want to end death? like the narrative hints at all of these but it just feels like a mess of a character! i never liked yhwach to begin with since his very concept is awful (seriously? giving a previously thought group of people who experienced genocide a nazi motif? what the fuck kubo). hes a villain but theres no substance. his powers could have been cool but it was on the point of needing a deus ex machina to take him down.

and the fights are forgettable with the occasional good ones (shunsui v that one fuck, rukia v that other fuck) but there are some bad fights (askin v yoruichi, the quincy thor guy). there are some good moments, like all the bankai reveals, it adds more to the characters but it also causes so much jumping around in the plot and this is what happens when u have this many characters and some will be forgotten (so sorry chad). it sucks. some of the fights dragged on longer than necessary and it was just. so much. all of these issues really downgraded the arc and thats what made it the mess it was.

and a lot of the ideas brought in to tybw are criminally underused. ichigo being a quincy may have been wack but i did like the idea but it really only had some sparse moments like masaki and zangetsu development, creating a connection between ichigo and yhwach but that was really it. it was not like his hollow powers which coexisted with the plot and had huge moments and was just a constant presence. you could forget that ichigo was a quincy tbh and we needed more quincy moments. and the soul king was horribly underused because it did have set up from the arrancar arc, it was aizens entire goal! but kubo never really explores the ideas of the soul king and only in cfyow do we really get more info about it and thats no good because the soul king is a vital piece of bleach lore and worldbuilding.

anyways thats my two cents sorry this was rlly long

[edge-lorde]

hp update: what time is it? its VALENTIMES! thats right, i am in the midst of the new gildaroy lockhart themed valentines special event! 

its valemtimes time in the magical phone game-iverse, and lockhart is on tour with his new book voyages with vampires and as part of that tour hes coming to his former boarding school. we get a level where we all gather in the cafeteria for an assembly before he talks to us. get a cute scene with all the different house kids sitting together at their tables talking about their opinions of valentines day. i dont remember all of them but heres the ones i do:

penny: its good and i love it.

tonks: of course you love it penny.

penny: i love that you know that about me!

diego: one of my character traits is that im inherently flirty. i have both hit on the mc and a centaur before but im not dateable so dueling or whatever. 

jae: anybody want to buy some love potion? i swear im not a cop.

charlie: this holiday has no dragons in it = charlie no carey.

bill: im not here so i guess i graduated already

ismelda: i hate valentines day cause im goth

merula: i hate valentines day performatively because im merula and full of angst. 

liz: aminals 

barnaby: i get valentines sent to me in the mail all year round :) doesnt everyone? i have heard someone call me a heartthrob before :))

andre: gildaroy lockhart is a fashion icon i hope this lockhart themed event doesnt disappoint me. 

tulip: prankintines anyone?? hmm??? 

talbott: i prefer................. flying solo (looks into the middle distance as themesong plays)

we get fun valentines themed class levels after this, in potions, transfiguration, charms, and herbology. each of these classes is implied to be made up of kids from your house plus one other house, so every player will have at least one class with each of the other characters. the potions class was notable because snape had a cauldron of love potion pre-made to show us and lecture about, but hes not about to teach us how to make it. 

snape: this causes very potent infatuation only. using this potion is comparable to coercion. children conceived under its effects will be doomed to be unable to love*.

liz (!!!! who is IN THE CLASS!!): gross. why is it here?

snape: so i can teach you how to recognize and avoid it. this is the closest thing to sex ed you will ever get so pay attention. 

we then get a bit where we can say what we think it will smell like, because love potion smells like what you love. your options are merula, barnaby, and nothing here. i picked nothing here.

barnaby: but... we went to the dance together... we went on that date too... why dont you want to smell me?

because i thought that would be a really weird thing to say in front of someone... barnaby or merula....

transfig class has a lovebirds to lovenotes lab. you get to pick how much of urself you want to put into the lovenote. i chose to keep my feelings private and so my note only said “be my valentine.” lovenotes work like howlers in this world, meaning they open themselves up and read themselves out loud. this implies the existence of many more emotion-based talking mail species but that is a thought for another day. 

then we have lockharts talk. all lockhart levels so far have it so that the only thing you can click on is him and this is done intentionally. hes got some good new character specific animations. he says hes having a book signing in diagon alley and hes inviting a few randomly selected students to attend because he doesnt want the whole dang school there. seems like if this is a book tour, he should be having this signing somewhere in hogsmeade, you know the town close by. diagon alley is in london i thought and hogwarts is in scotland. granted, there are many forms of fast travel that make a move like that feasible but it just seems unorganized. i suppose the game devs cant make up a bookstore in hogsmeade that wasnt in the original text though im sure there would be one. 

the event skips over the selection process but the mc is chosen along with the 5 dateable characters: merula, penny, andre, barnaby, and talbott. mama weasley is also there just cause she likes lockhart and wanted the book and hoped one of her kids would be chosen for the trip, the statistical odds being in her favor. this is post the latest christmas special because she greets both the mc and merula. 

later lockhart names us his new valentines party planners and makes me captain, but he refuses to specify whether this party should be focused on his new book, himself, or valentines day. he then tells us to just plan it and leaves. we get down to business and decide that my captain name should be captain valentine. then we have a slow pan across all of my potential suitors faces as we ready for the next leg of the event, one-on-one levels with each of them. thats where i am now, but i just wanted to highlight andres animation in this shot. the game creators have really been killing it lately, giving some characters their own signature animations and therefore mannerisms. andre gives a nice little fingerwave here and it adds a lot of character. 

so far ive done one-on-one levels with barnaby and penny. barnabys was first and i thought it fit with the story pretty well. i meet him in the herbology classroom and hes like i have an idea for decorating! we can use the roses we grew during out valentines herbology special class (which i didnt mention earlier because nothing else happened.) 

we are given the option to say no barnaby thats stealing but im not percy so i didnt pick that. then at the end hes like

barnaby: so... remember how we went to that dance together...

mc: ye

barnaby: and then we went on both of ours first real date together...

mc: uh-huh. romantic, totally. 

barnaby: well.... i dont have a valentine yet....................

he of course doesnt come right out and make you say yes or no right there because theres 4 more suitor levels i have to do but it actually makes sense for him to beat around the bush like this if it were that i really did shake his confidence by saying that i didnt smell him in the potion before. i am gonna pick him at the end, all these other levels are just filler. i would feel bad if i didnt pick him for everything date-worthy now both because not doing so leaves him up to the mercy of ismelda and just cause im boring like that. i picked him and ill see it through to the end of the game, which likely will end with us going to different colleges and loosing touch but still. 

next level was penny. she wants my help with a charm rather than a potion this time. shes out of her depth. she comes right out and asks me to be her valentine even though ive never chosen romance options with her before at all. i was flabbergasted in a good way when it turned out that the game did in fact allow the mc to be gay by not locking any date choices by gender, but so far this was only in the mcs hands, this is the first time a character has confessed romance for the mc without the mc choosing it first. meaning, all of the datable characters could be canonically queer. i think thats pretty cool. penny is gay to me now.

the next level in my docket is with andre. lockhart has told him he wants the color scheme to be lurid pink. andre is distressed. never meet your heros kid U__U next hp update we find out why.

[where-theres-smoak-2]

Weddings or Coronations?

Hey there so this is part 2 of my analysis of some dresses that were posted online. As I explained in part 1 (which you can read here) I think that the dresses hold clues as to what might become of some of our key characters. So if you are curious continue on but be warned there are potential spoilers. 

So take a look at this beauty.

So with this one during my analysis I was able to connect three different characters with it. The first is Dany. If you look at her outfits for recent seasons

you can see that the pleats and v shape of the neck line are very similar. Also there are several outfits where she wears this style with a high neck shirt underneath very much like how the white dress has a higher necked shirt. There is also the chain around the middle that looks very much like the chain that dany wears around her chest. There is also the shape of the shoulders. The shoulders on the white dress are very similar to the image in the middle and on the right above. Again its a shape that Dany has in alot of her dresses. But there are some differences, the fact that the chain on the dress is around the waist not diagonal across her chest. Also the much fuller skirt which we haven’t really seen Dany wear. Also the neckline is a much deeper v than what Dany typically wears. However if this is her dress I’m not convinced it is her wedding dress. Don’t get me wrong it could be, maybe she does marry Jon and this is the dress. But again I posted a theory saying that I thought that Dany would kill cersei in episode 5 and take the throne before being dethroned by Jon in episode 6 after she’s gone a bit Mad Queen and acts too ruthless for Jon’s comfort. So I actually think this might be her coronation dress, this might explain the fuller skirt, to make it look grander for a grand event.

But like I said I can fit two other people to this dress and the second is our Dragon Queen’s archrival Cersei. Now its not typical of Cersei’s more recent costumes of black dresses that wear almost like armour but if you look at Cersei’s past dresses you can see quite alot of similarities.

The most obvious similarity is the deep v neckline that is secured by a belt around the middle which is the same neckline as the white dress. Of course again there are differences the belts Cersei wear are alot thicker and are usally made of metal. But then we have these two dresses

Now you may be looking at these images going um love those look nothing like the white dress. But my friend I would ask you to look a little closer with me. So the black one is actually very close to the White dress in style. First off you once again have the v neckline with the highnecked shirt. Now yes the neckline on this dress is over the top of the main part of the dress but it gives the illusion of a highnecked shirt under a deep v neckline like the White dress has. There is also the fur shrug around her shoulders which is very similar to the one on the white dress. And yes I know Dany also wears furs like that but the reason why I think the fur part is more in line with Cersei is because the one on the white dress does remind me of a Lion’s mane in the texture of it. In fact I’d even go so far to say that if you took Cersei’s black dress and dyed it white it would pretty much be the same dress as the White one in regards to style and shape. Now the red one she wore in the latest episode hasn’t got as many similarities but it once again shows that deep v that goes down to her waist. Although she’s not wearing a belt with that dress the gem detailing at the waist does give an illusion of one. And once again you’ve got that higher neckline underneath. Now in this case if it is Cersei’s dress I do think its a wedding dress. I suspect it will be Euron she’s marrying. I also think if it is she’ll be wearing it next episode. It’s possible that after Tyrion’s comments about protect your child Euron will question Cersei and express doubt that the child is his. In response she may marry him in an effort to keep him on side and placate him. Also that would be soo Cersei, Dany and Jon’s combined forces are at her gate preparing to destroy her and what’s she doing? Throwing a Wedding, most likely feasting without a care in the world.

Ok so the final person who I think may be the owner of this dress is Sansa. Now this one isn’t immediately obvious its another one where you have to pay attention to smaller details. But take a look at these dresses of Sansa’s

Like the white dress they also once again have the low v-neck and yes these dresses are very similar to the ones Cersei wears because that is the style of the South where they both were during these seasons. But the thing I’d like to draw particular attention to which is different from Cersei but has in common with the White dress are the buttons.

As you can see unlike Cersei, Sansa’s dresses have the v-neck line secured with butttons as opposed to a belt. The White dress also has similar looking buttons. But again there are some differences. The style of the buttons themselves is different. On the two coloured dresses they have the circle with the wings on either side but the White dress is a knot and loop. Also there’s no higher neckline like the White dress which is obviously to do with the weather. Also the belt being missing and the shape of the sleeves. But there are other dresses of Sansa’s that have more similarities.

You all remember this dress right. Any Sanrion fans out there definitely will because its the dress she wore when she married him. Now again looking at them on the surface very different dresses but once again there are subtle details that they share. Now the image on the far right is her dress before she puts on that crossed over belt addition that we see in the image on the left. I included the one on the left because it shows the actual neckline of the dress which we once again see in a v shape. But the most similar thing about these dresses are the shape of the shoulders. Above I mentioned that Dany has the same kind of shape in the shoulders of her dresses and the same can be said here. Also unlike Dany’s dresses the overall shape of these two dresses is pretty much the same with the wider shoulders, ciinched in waist and the fuller skirt. However out of all the dresses I looked at the one I think is the most like the White one is this one.

Again another of Sansa’s dresses that alot of you will recognise. This is Sansa’s second wedding dress that she wears while marrying Ramsey. Now like I said out of all of the dresses this is the one that most closely resembles the white one. So lets get into details. Again same neckline and this time it does have the highnecked shirt underneath. Then there’s the buttons I mentioned above that the buttons on her previous dresses were different but here there are much more alike. The shape of the shoulders aren’t just alike but are exactly the same, The shrug around the shoulders again very very similar. Again the overall shape of the dress is the same. But there are also much smaller details. You can’t see it very well on the image above but if you are looking at this on your phone zoom in on the two dresses. The White one its fabric has a patterned texture to it. Diagonal lines that form v’s. Now if you zoom in on Sansa’s wedding dress she has a similar texture. The lines are thicker and more pronounced but the pattern is undeniable similar. In fact the only obvious difference between these two dresses is that belt. But the thing is Sansa has worn dresses with belts in the past, not often but she has.

Now these belts look nothing like the belt on the White dress. But I think the costume designers are being more subtle here. Everytime she wears a belt she has that chain around her neck that is tucked into the belt. So its possible that the designers are using that as an influence. And yes bit of a stretch there but there’s one detail that I’m going to use as evidence for why I may be right here.

Sansa has a pendant at the end of both the chain necklaces she wears. It is a tapered pendant. The White dress also has a pendant that is tapered at the end of the chain belt. Now the one on the White dress isn’t exactly the same as Sansa’s one. It isn’t as long or as triangular but I can’t find anything else in Dany’s, Cersei’s or Sansa’s or anyone’s costumes that fits. There isn’t anything else that compare’s. Also the difference in shape can be explained by the fact that Sansa’s chain is made of metal but the belt is fabric, obviously its going to be much harder to get a defined triangular pendant out of knotted fabric.

Ok so out of the three I would say it’s most likely to be Sansa’s dress. I can find a lot more comparasons with her than anyone else. There’s also the fact that it’s pretty much a replica of her wedding dress. So what is the dress. It could be a coronation dress. I know there are fans who think Sansa will end up on some kind of throne at the end, either the Iron throne or the Northern Throne. So yes theres a chance this could be the dress she wears to her coronation. But I don’t think it’s a coicidence that this dress looks so much like her wedding dress. I think this is going to be her third wedding dress. Now you might ask why would she wear a dress that looks so similar to the one she wore that awful night. Well the simple answer is just that it’s the style of wedding dress they wear in the north. But I also think there’s more to it. This dress marries together all the different elements of some of the most iconic costumes that Sansa wears. From the chain necklace to the texture of the dress, the shape of the shoulders that is similar to her wedding dress for Tyrion. It’s the accumalation of all those little details that represent Sansa’s journey. Now as to who I think she’s marrying well I think the dress itself has a clue there for us. I mentioned in Cersei’s section that the shrug at the shoulders looks like a Lion’s Mane. Well this could work for Sansa too if she was marrying or rather re-marrying Tyrion. It would also explain why unlike her other Northern style costumes this one seems to be made out of higher quality fabric that looks finer and more elegant. Lannister is the wealthiest house in Westeros and if the season goes how I think it will with Tyrion as the last surviving Lannister then he will inherit all that wealth. So it would make sense if she’s marrying a Lannister that her dress would be more elaborate and expensive looking this time around. The fact that it is in the Northern style makes me think they will be wed in the North obviously. Now as to why I am so sure they will get re-married its because we have had several instances this season where they remind us of the fact that Sansa and Tyrion were married. In ep 1 there’s Tyrion’s line about it being hard to explain why my wife left. Then all those amazing moments in episode 3 in the crypts, we should have stayed married and you were the best of them. But also in episode 4 there was another subtle drop in. When they are playing the drinking game Brienne says you were married before Sansa. The show is very determined to remind us at pretty much any chance it can that hey guys these two were married. The only reason I can think of for it is because they will be re-married.

So that’s it for today. Let me know what you guys think about the dress. Who do you think they belong to? And do you think they are wedding dresses or for some other occasion?  

[alicezan-ncgred]

Bleeding Red

Preface: I’ve been bitching around the bush of this long enough. So, I’ve been really silent on a bunch of stuff that’s been eating me alive which has made me both inactive and unproductive. I’m going to get straight to the point, starting off with the TL:DR from my post on my main blog. Context: An anon asked me if I was alright because I hadn’t updated in a while.

TL:DR You probably didn’t ask this to hear about all the bad shit of my life so here’s the short of it. No, I’m not doing fine. I will try get next weeks post out on time and I’ll work on making up on the lost posts. Updates will return regularly, ‘ite.

Time for the thick and thin of it.

Insecurity and being shafted: I’m stoic, even at my worst I won’t say anything. I’ll push through regardless of my current condition and since I’ve gone years like this, it’s not hard for me to do. In my real life situation, I’m currently in a place of social isolation. This has lead to a somewhat near reliance on Tumblr to be my social outlet. This present many issues.

The main one is that I’m quite the isolationist. This has only been reinforced by many interactions throughout the entirely of my life. Because of this, I can’t say I’ve ever had anything really more than two friends at a time. While in a way this has helped me express myself so well through writing, it’s come at the cost of social skill. I don’t talk to anyone.

With this kind of issue you could easily imagine that the THREE PEOPLE (four now, but very limited) to ever directly talk ended up in a way shafting me. The first blocked and disconnected with me without warning or reason. At this point we’ve been talking to each for about a month and we hit it off very well and then one day, silence. Never heard from them again. That fucked me up hard when I finally realized what happened.

The second person left during the Tumblr P**n Purge. We were talking about how to contact each other on other platforms and then they stopped responding. I had already given contact to other platforms of which they pinged me in any way. Another person that I trusted massively on here just abandoned me and I’m still hurting from that. Wasn’t fair at all.

Then the third person was someone that I been following for a while. This person is actually the reason that I’ve been putting this off for so long. I don’t want them to see this post but they will. I got an ask from them that ultimately turned out to be misinformation. I said I wasn’t mad but I was. I was so fucking angry about it and I’m still kinda mad, but I didn’t want problems. I still don’t. I just didn’t want them to worry about it. This will come back later.

I try my best to be as inoffensive as possible. The problem with that is that much of the things I believe or enjoy are highly divisive. Hell, even my own identity can be seen as offence. I’m bisexual, non-binary (I’m currently still questioning this. I might actually be gender fluid but in the overall scheme, that’s worse than being non-binary), and nonreligious. I’m in a very religious area so you I’m still “in the closet” about much of this IRL. I though it would better online but with how much people are saying bisexuality doesn’t exist, or that non-binary isn’t a valid gender (or that being gender fluid make you insane and you should be locked up) and all the hate people who say they are this are getting, the very community that’s supposed to accept me, HATES me. I had a bi pride flag icon last year during Pride Month. I never doing that ever again. It was terrible.

I’m trying my best to come out of my shell like I said I would when I made this blog but it seems I’m just crawling further into it. People I think I can trust keep setting me up to fall, people I know in real life won’t ever accept my existence if they knew who I really was, and my own mental health problem and self loathing are eating me alive. But that isn’t the total of it.

Crumbling Pillar: I’ve always ended up in the position where things were thrown onto me. In which no one wanted to do, I was stuck with. Because of this not only do I have a severe distaste being around my family (beyond everything mentioned before hand) but I grew to have a negative out look on everything. This effect is still quite obvious in my writings, especially my poems. Out of the 14 poems on my poem blog @washed-soul​, only one has a happy meaning.

The one happy poem was called dreams. Under a metaphor it talks about how a demon kept me trapped in a dark space. I start to get better and nearly break free before I have a negative relapse back to my old ways. The poems ends with the demon putting a end to itself leaving the nightmare in which it was keeping me in to slowly fade away, letting one crack of light peeking through to become a window to a door until one day I walk free. When writing this poem, I never thought I would find myself rebuilding the nightmare but that’s where I am.

I’m done with holding things together that other people have placed onto me. Because of this, issues have began showing in my private life. Issues that should’ve been solved decades ago are only now being addressed. This change in the status quo of my life has caused many issues in my productive and mood. Between everything else I’m too tired to do anything.

Is that a reason, is that an excuse. No it isn’t but it’s the best thing I got as a reason. I’m doing my damnedest to do the best I can but of course, when it comes to the thing that matter I just fall short. Big fucking whopha my intelligence and capability does me if I can’t use it for anything that means a damn.

Meaningless Triviality: I’m a very emotional person. I’m very strongly bound to my emotions and if everything above hasn’t given it away, my emotions are very negative prone. But it just doesn’t stop there, it goes back into my memories. I can only honestly place 3 happy memories for certain that aren’t either A) a dream or B) me escaping reality through my mind. Besides that, almost all my memories are negative. 

People like to throw around the word Nihilist to describe themselves because today's culture is very, god while I hate to use this word, edgy. For those who don’t know a Nihilist is someone who views the world as being completely  meaningless and reject all religious and moral principles. I very truly struggle with this outlook of life. It’s a daily for me to berate myself saying “just kill yourself” or “I want to die” or just shutting down and crumpling up while say “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry” over and over again. Hell, I did that while writing this. 

I take things very hard, even the slightest transgression. I’m so used to trying to make things perfect and because people have the image that I’m the smart one, the mature one, the capable one, I’m left with the over hanging expectation of excellence. Almost no room for margin of error or being human. Since I’m the silent type, I put up no challenge and work to meet it. Only time I get any praise for anything too. 

I guess as a little self promotion to my main blog, for those that have read the very first few updates of my main blog @the-truth-behind-redacted, or read Defiance’s character sheet, while The Machine and Defiance are separate character, they both share the name Machine. That in part is a reflect of said above expectation. How ravenous and inhuman it can be all under the guise of something human. Those characters are the two sides to the same coin. 

Remember how I said I try to be un-problematical and how I try to avoid any potential conflict. In the first segment I told on how I lied about my feelings just so another person didn’t have to worry over something that honestly, in hindsight, wasn’t even really a big deal. But I also said how it consumed me in anger. I just don’t want to bother anyone over anything. It’s part of the reason why I am writing this post, as some way of a self enforced rehab program to get better. 

This absolute consumption of negative emotion has pushed me into a non human state before. I hit a point of absolute mental exhaustion and in such a self enforced bubble of actual hatred I became completely apathetic. I felt numb to everything. I watched and heard of terrible things happening to people, and felt nothing. I watched people lives crumble before them leaving them nowhere to go and LAUGHED. “Just another worthless pathetic worm on this rotting carcass of a planet being hit with the hard reality that life doesn’t care for them. What whimsical pathetic bullshit they deluded themselves with to think otherwise.” This isn’t an exaggeration on how I thought, this is what I actually thought. Which brings me too.

The Mandatory Sob Story: Roll your eyes everyone and get the tiny violin. I guess in order for everyone to exactly understand the place I’m coming from when it comes to mental health I’ll have to detail my experiences. I have a long standing history with mental illness. I have professionally diagnosed OCD, Bipolarism, Anxiety, Chronic Depression, and visual and auditory hallucinations. I take 600 mg of Seroquel a day as well as Amitriptyline when needed. I’m also still currently in therapy to deal with said OCD, Bipolarism, Anxiety, Chronic Depression, the visual and auditory hallucinations, as well as Suicidal thoughts, and my Nihilism. There’s a reason to why I’m so god damn familiar with mental illness and treatment plans.  

OCD and Bipolarism run in my family on my fathers side. My Father’s Father had them, my Sister has them, my brother most likely has them (however he refuses to see a doctor because he uses said possible mental illnesses as a get out of jail free card. He doesn’t want to be treated and he has FUCKING ADMITTED IT), my father has them, and I have them. I, however, have the misfortune of having it real bad. I said yes to well over half of all the total symptoms when I was being tested (I don’t remember exact numbers but I remember there being three pages worth of common symptoms) which was very worrying to the doctor. I was currently in an inpatient hospitalization program at the time for both suicidal thoughts and actions, and severe depression. 

On that, my graze in with suicide. Before I went into my first inpatient program I was contemplating suicide. I was sat in front of a mirror with a bottle of over the counter medication. It was an unopened bottle of ibuprofen, 1000 200mg tables. What I planed to do was down the whole bottle with benadryl and die in my sleep. I had the small box of benadryl got from the Kroger pharmacy and a hand full of ibuprofen poured out looking directly into the mirror. My suicide note was sitting on the desk on my room with an online copy on my laptop open.

I sat there for an hour in the dead of midnight complicating my life. I had lost all hope in the world, filled with hatred, anger, pain, and despair. I had no god or after life to look forward too, part way hoping that a Hell existed for me to burn in. I hated myself that much. I was close to taking the first handful before before I caught a glimpse of my own eyes in the mirror. In what was in a weird sudden epiphany I realized that I truly did become what I hated but not for any reason I told myself. I became the very bastion of negativity I sought to fight and rid of in what little friends I did have. That was what set off my path to recovery in spite of the medical system. I guess if people care I’ll make a separate post on that. 

Before I move on, I feel I should explain my history with the visual and auditory hallucinations. It should be no surprise that with everything else above, I also had extreme paranoia that led to me having very bad insomnia. Insomnia is, just like most other medical disorders like Depression, Self-harm, Anxiety, OCD,  Bipolarism, is romanticized to hell. Insomnia isn’t having one nights bad sleep where you got 5 hours of sleep instead of 8.

You know what Insomnia is? insomnia is being physical incapable of sleeping despite not sleeping in 2 to 3 day while your body suffers massive agony brought on by this. Muscle spasms and seizing, difficulty breathing, your eyes feeling like fire ants are eating them, and of course visual and auditory hallucinations. Now I already had issues with visual and auditory hallucinations even when I could get sleep regularly but the combined effects of my OCD and Bipolarism made this perfect condition of Insomnia, Anxiety, Paranoia, with the already added in disposition to hallucinations and I felt like I was actually losing my mind. 

My hallucinations presented themselves in three forms. Disassociation of reality, night terrors, or alterations of reality. Disassociation of reality often were complete black out moments. I would lose any perceived connect to reality and enter an episode of my mind. I can’t remember what they actually were but I do remember what it felt like. Cold sweats, anxiety to point where if I didn’t lock up I would vomit, actual physical pain, mind numbing fear, and intense fatigue. 

The second were night terrors often in the form of horrific “things.” I do remember these and most of them were as best as I could describe, forms of things that were vaguely human and formations of industrial machinery. The most vivid one I remember was of a long lengthy apparition that was for the most part human but many locations of it’s impossible physiology were rebar beams and mechanical sockets. It began when I was about to fall asleep and it was next to my window. The thing was making week groaning and gasping sounds before it violently slammed against my window breaking it then letting out a horrific howl that I can’t describe as it tossed itself out followed shorty after with the sound of bones breaking against the dirt. 

Now that might not seem so bad, exspecally with everything that is in horror movies or games now, but keep in mind that was fucking real to me. It was as real as the clicking of the keys of my keyboard as I’m writing this. As real as the chair I’m sitting in and as real as the wall in front of me. As far as my mind was concerned that thing, what ever it was, actually existed. It took me physical touching my window to make sure it wasn’t actually broken and checking outside to see if there wasn’t a body there. This isn’t the type of thing I talk about lightly. 

Finally there is the alteration of reality. This is very simply but it’s something that fucked with me hard. For very little meaning or warning, I would have trouble interpreting the world around me. My hearing and sight would be warped and there wasn’t any real way to tell what I was hearing or seeing was real or not until the episode was over. The way I got through these was the ultimate fake it till you make it. Obviously, very often I failed and this created issue in my schooling. 

Ending Message: I’ve been in a very bad state for a while now and as it is now, no signs of getting better. I also strongly believe my medications are being to fail me which I’ve been telling my doctor and therapist for over a year now but nothing’s been done. Mainly it’s my Depression but insomnia episodes are beginning and my own paranoia been on the rise. It’s gotten to the point where I can’t even look at a creepy image or thumbnail without having a very bad episode. 

I’ve managed to eat something today which was nice but my body is cramping hard. And to possible stave of a possible comment, I’m biologically male. Like I said I’m not in the best head space, or living for that matter. If this gets better, only time will tell. 

[tumblunni]

OH FUCK I THINK I FINALLY CRACKED THE CODE OF WHY I ALWAYS LIKE THE VILLAINS BETTER

Like man it always makes me so confused cos i mean im a soft AF person and i always end up having sympathetic redemption headcanons for them so its not like i like VILLAINY ITSELF but what else do all these characters have in common?

Thats it. Thats it, ursula helped me crack it.

I just WANT THOSE TRAITS ON THE HEROES

I really want a nice confident sassy funny chubby trans auntie who promotes body positivity to our young hero and always gets to say the coolest lines and get the best moments and BE LOVED FOR WHO SHE IS

And like usually whenever you get anywhere close to seeing those "villain traits" on a hero they like.. Remove all the good parts. If you have a supportive hero aunt she's always boring and generically supportive instead, and has to look like the most stereotypical boring mess ans have a super small plot role and uuuugh thats IF SHES EVEN THERE i mean seriously aunties and grandmas are weirdly less represented as mentors than grandpas who are already REALLY HARD TO FIND and again OFTEN GENERIC AND UNFUN WHENEVER THEY GET TO APPEAR

And how damn often are we allowed to have a chubby gay aunt!! WHERE IS MY CHUBBY GAY AUNT!! ive met SO MANY chubby gay aunts in real life like 90% of all my psychologists have been either that or like.. The exact same but a straight lgbt ally instead. Sassy plus size aunties are THE BACKBONE OF OUR SOCIETY DAMMIT! I've had so much help thanks to sassy gay aunts!! And like even just looking at any damn crowd scene in a normal city centre youre gonna see so many chubby aunts and long nosed uncles and all those sorts of bullshit "ugly people" that mass media pretends are ugly and relegates to One Minor Role In The Entire Cast despite them being infinately more common than supermodels and NOT UGLY AT ALL GEEZ IT PISSES ME OFF SO MUCH

I cant believe im a fuckin disney villain fan cos of body positivity

Tfw u suck so bad at making hateable people that the fandom universally hugs all your villains and ignores your boring protagonists like fuckin TAKE THAT DIDNEY

God i wanna hug hades sooo bad he just needs a friend aaaaaa

And i mean its not just disney, every damn time ive obsessed over a villain its been because they have some trait thats supposed to be "bad" but its actually good and we dont get to see it on the heroes

Like my thing with science villains in particular is that when i first played ff7 i really liked the idea of an evil minion who's a bad sidekick not just because he's "dumb" or "bumbling" but because he's actually not interested in any of the evil stuff and he works against his own boss and is like.. Friendly to the heroes, i have no particular grudge against you and i wont stop you if im off duty and all. I liked the Turks for the same reason but in the origibal ff7 translation they were kind of stoic and serious and i didnt really become as much of a fan of them til i saw them being more goofy and comic relief in some optional sidequests and then their movie adaptation. But hojo was always being all "lol my boss's plan is so stupid amirite" and had that very memorable scene where he's just sunbathing and tells you everything you need to know to get to the next thing to ruin his boss's plan cos i mean fuck it who even cares im just here to soak up some sun while fully dressed in a turtleneck and labcoat. It sucked so much that he was such a reprehensible bastard with creepy sexual assault vibes and murder and child abuse and experimenting on people and basically just NOT A LOVEABLE VILLAIN but his CONCEPT held so much potential to be filled by a sympathetic character instead...

So yeah then cos of him i kept being obsessed with finding SOME CHARACTER SOMEWHERE that actually lived up tp that potential, and thats why i was instantly interested in charon from pokemon and totally on edge waiting for the slightest chance for him to become That Perfect Sass Gramps Of Legend. And then he was indeed sassy!! And had so little screenyime that there was potential for interpretation of him as potentially redeemable cos i mean the game never said he wasnt, the game barely said anything about him at all, lol. And he was so old and small and frail looking and i just wanted to protect him!! And then that one wifi event that actually hinted at synpatheticness!! Aaaa its a recipe for a Forever Fave~

And i guess maybe it all started with my grandma being awesome and me really missing her? Cos i had shitty abusive parents and she was my ONLY good family member who showed me what love was like. And she was also basically a supervillain. Like every damn supervillain trait except being evil! She was bombastic and confident and sassy and mischievious and loud and passionate about stuff and always had something funny to say and never gave up no matter how many times she failed. And she also used all that great power for the forces of good!

So yeh thats why i love sassy good guys and i hate that often even when a sassy villain gets redeemed they seem to lose all their edge and become more generic now theyre a good guy. Or they get totally sidelined with no screentime anymore, or they ONLY get to be comic relief and dont get the full and complex redemption they deserve. Or just a lot of bads!! Its never the simplest answer of just fuckin.. Keep the character the character. Thats kinda why i didnt feel too much for the maleficent movie even though the concept itself sounded like everything i ever wanted. The character in that movie is a very different person to origibal maleficent, she's more just a stoic tsundere mumsy figure than a hammy badass iconicness. Still a nice villain redemption but it felt like it would have been better as an original story instead of an attempted maleficent. Also i wish they handled it better with the whole "true love's kiss could be from your mum instead" thing cos i get sooooo grossed out whenever i see people shipping movie maleficent and aurora! Like yes sleeping beauty with lesbians would be great but not when one of them is old enough to be her mum and raised her like a mum and changed her goddamn diapers! Also why did they have to ruin the three good fairies just to make maleficent have the mum opportunity? Like just remove them from the story if you wanted maleficent to raise the kid instead. No need to rewrite them into incompetant assholes when they were everyone's fave part of the original! Dont sacrifice the rare and elusive Good Sassy Gay Aunts!! THEYRE LIKE THE ONLY ONES IN DIDNEY!!! (Incodentally merlin is the equivelant of this to hades as the fairies are to ursula)

Also also villains tend to have ACTUAL FLAWS in stories that have a more boring bland protagonist. I wanna see the story behind charon's neuroses and how he struggles with overcoming his temptation to be bad because of greed but ultimately manages to conquer his own negative side because power of friendship and such. Thats a great character arc that provides so much more than he does as a villain where they just wasted him entirely :(

SO BASICALLY IN SUMMARY

* villains are often more complex and well developed characters with flaws while the same wroter might make shitty heroes due to the illogical fear that nobody would root for them if they werent 100% perfect and successful at everything ever

* villains are also often made as negative stereotypes of minorities and other rarely seen traits, which means its easy to reach out to them and reclaim them as a more positive version when theres literally no other options for you to cling to

* the quite common accidental sympathy factor where a villain will seem to be hated more than they deserve for their actions, ir unjustly punished so much that they feel like an underdog, since the writer assumes you'll think theyre "more evil" for being a stereotype and if you dont agree that this thing is bad then it seems like they have way less sins than the story claims they do

* also sass. Sass is good.

But basically the whole root of it is that its stupid and cruel and doesnt goddamn work when you make villains bigoted stereotypes. It just makes me love them! The only person i hate when i see a stereotypical villain is the writer who thought that was a good idea, lol. Just imagine that meme of the samurai holding the cat but its me holding all disney villains!

Also even if a villain isnt outright intentionally meant to be "this minority is bad", it can still make me symoathetic to them if theyre still something thats rare amoung the hero side in the same series. Like charon being the "most unredeemable" villain despite being the most harmless and funny and his plan being so much less world destroying than cyrus, and also he's the only grandpa villain in like.. The whole of all. And he's drawn very much in that way thays supposed to be "ugly" i.e normal grandpa, vs that weird sort of younger than he looks grandpa that hero ones tend to be because blablabla beauty ewuals goodness anti body positivity whatever. Tho actually sinnoh was good with that, they had the best grandpa professor in my opinion cos he got to be sassy too! Rowan always reminds me of auron from ff10. Sinnoh was a good game where i liked a lot of both the heroes and villains even if i still had more villain faves cos i mean pokemon is always biased towards that for me since every game has a voiceless perosnalityless main character and often theyre the one doing most of the heroing with the supporting hero characters having surprisingly little proper screen time. Thats a big part of why i loved hau gladion and lillie in sun and moon! They felt more like a real friend group than any other ones before.

ANYWAY now im just going offtopic into more "i love lots of stuff about every pokemon game" so ill stop typing now

But just basically VILLAINS ARE GOOD COS THEYRE GOOD CHARACTERS and if those stories gavethe same character a good guy role then id still love them just as much, if not more. I dont specifically like villainy, its just that my definition of a good character is often considered a bad character by lazy writers, apparantly?

Also WHERE IS MY SUPPORTIVE GOOD GRAMPS CHARON GAME AND GAY AUNTIE URSULA GIVES YOU FASHION TIPS SMARTPHONE MMO

[edh-a-to-z]

Dominaria Predictions & Hopes

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So...Rivals of Ixalan is here. The analysis done. 9 creatures added to my to-do list. (I’m never gonna get them all, sweet heavens, theres still 700+ left).

ONTO THE FUTURE!!!

Future sight will be where I try to guess at what’s coming. Kinda new to this, so let’s try it out!

(1) A return of the Three cycle.

The “3″ cycle was one of the most iconic parts of Old Magic. I believe that we’ll get a reprinting of some of the old cards, with cards reminiscent (in name and function) to older cards.

Healing Salve. Weak enough to see as a common reprint. But it sucks. A lot.

Healing Salve 2.0 - have the option (choose one or both) to do both for W

Ancestral Recall - Okay, this one is actually OP as heck. And reserved

Ancestral Recall 2.0 - Maybe Draw 3, discard 2-3?, or reprint Ancestral Vision

Dark Ritual - Probably too powerful for standard. But if Bolt can come back, so can this. But really no.

Dark Ritual 2.0 - Sac a permanent, add BBB. Basically Culling the Weak changed for Standard and Limited

Lightning Bolt. The Red player’s favorite card. Powerful and fun. And if I see another Shock reprint, or a godforsaken Open Fire, I’m gonna cry. Kick it to uncommon and it’ll work in limited.

Giant Growth - a classic, way better than the 20 other variations of Instant G buff cards

An alternative is they make a completely new cycle that references them, as IMO only Bolt and Growth could be possible reprints. Or maybe they’ll save it for the Core Set that’s in the work.

Probability: Average.

Dominaria should be a powerful set, to shake off the dust that is Kaladesh’s energy. Every new set should start off new decks, not just offer “strictly better” cards for extant Standard decks.

However, given the sheer power on most of these (except the salve), It’d be hard to sell for 

(2) Surviving Characters

Amazingly, for a place known for being destroyed a dozen times, there are people living in Dominaria.

Key art from Dominaria, Unknown 

Shown here we have the fan favorites Jhoira, Teferi, and Karn. 

Of them Jhoira has a card (Jhoira of the Ghitu) and IS NOT a planeswalker whence last we saw her. Teferi has a creature card and a Planeswalker card, and was depowered (from being a ‘walker) whence we saw him last. WOTC could do a reprint of Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, but I’m hoping for something new.

And Karn.

We last saw him on New Phyrexia after being saved by Venser, and it looks like he’s back home. Hopefully we can have a Karn walker that’s not broken as all heck.

Jaya Ballard Art, Yongjae Choi

But let’s not forget everyone’s favorite Red Mage (bite me Chandra), Jaya.

Other Dominarian Characters I hope are around:

Sisay - STILL ALIVE!!! Orim - b/c every Star Trek style crew needs a doctor Cho-Manno - an unfortunate reminder of Mercadian Masques Oriss - Possible descendant of theirs who may be alive Squee - Basically immortal Tahngrath - Probably chilling with Sisay and Squee on the Victory

Other Dominarian Characters I hope aren’t around:

Liliana Vess - So much screentime elsewhere Nicol Bolas - As above

Probability: Basically Guaranteed. It’s in the art

(3) The Hive

Slivers

Slivers Slivers Slivers

SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS

So yea, we’re back on Dominaria. 

GIVE US THE QUEEN

Sliver Queen, by Ron Spencer

SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS SLIVERS

I’m guessing it’s not a return to the 1.0 slivers that say “All Slivers get X”, but more like the M14 & M15 slivers. A mix of new slivers and reprints.

Probability: Like 1 to 20 odds. Slivers and standard feels like a pipe dream for me, and a nightmare for everyone else.

(4) Classic Tribes

Not a big part, but will be nominally mentioned. Maybe (good ol’ Cabal), Soliders, Elves, classic looking Goblins, Zombies, and Wizards. Less printed tribe like Clerics, Kavu/Beast,  Tribal representation and some weak tribal support.

Tribal support can link up with other sets in standard, like Zombies or Merfolk, so there’s already some groundwork for potential tribal decks in standard.

Probability: Like 1 to 2 for weak mechanics, and 1 to 20 for some serious tribal support.

(5) Story Connections

How did we get here?

Well, after the Gatewatch was scattered to the wind, and we saw Jace on Ixalan (plus that Ugin had planted the location in his mind to check out), why do we -the audience -  end up on Dominaria?

Liliana, Heretical Healer, by Karla Ortiz

We know Liliana Vess hails from here, so perhaps this is where she ended up post-Amonkhet.

I also hope that the Gatewatch will take a backseat this round. I love ‘em, but for heck’s sake I can’t take 9 blocks of them being in the spotlight. Keep ‘em in the background. Those Story Spotlights should not be about the new characters, but instead reach back for more nostalgic characters.

I’m hoping we don’t get the view of locals. I like the Vamps, Merfolk and Pirates of Ixalan, but I don’t have to really care about them - only the Planeswalkers are important long term.

Probability: like 50/50. We need the story somehow. I’m just hoping the way we tell the story is with characters we know (unlike Ixalan’s non-Jace/Vraska character) but haven’t heard from in a while (the Gatewatch).

(6) Old Artists

Bitterblossom, by Rebecca Guay

Rebecca Guay. Phil Foglio. Melissa Benson, Ron Spencer. And so many more.

Bringing back artists famed for their work in older sets would be a great treat. We got to see John Avon and Rebecca Guay back for Commander 2017, maybe this is the start of bringing them back for more art.

Probability: 1 in a 100. While nice, it’s a lot harder to get older artists back than it is to do all of this stuff on Creative’s side.

 (7) Phyrexia

Slay, by Ben Thompson

So, after the Legacy was fired off, Urza, Gerrard, and Yawgmoth bit it. The Phyrexians on Dominaria folded after that. 

BUT!!! We can still have Phyrexian holdouts, lurking around Dominaria! Sure, most of them were killed after Yawgmoth died, but what if some survived? And are working with maybe the Cabal. You know, being villains and all.

Probability: 1 in a 100.

I don’t think that’ll Phyrexians will be a plot focus, as it seems we’re going to Dominaria to pick up the rest of the cast and fight Nicol Bolas on Ravnica.

(8) Masterpieces

Picture this, but with a fancy frame

Now that they’ve become “lets make the set special” after the thrashing of Amonkhet, I think Dominaria can have some really great masterpieces.

Masterpieces of stuff we associate with Masters sets, like Alpha powerhouses of Birds of Paradise, Sinkhole, Swords to Plowshares, all would be great choices to get as masterpieces. With new art or old art, new frames or old frames, I’d love me some masterwork of 

Probability: 1 in a 10. I don’t know when WOTC will bring the Masterpieces back, and they may consider Dominaria good enough on it’s own

Easy bets:

No Vehicles (for the love of god please no)

No artifact/equipment/enchantment block focus

No Bird of Paradise, or any Masters power-level reprints ( we don’t get to have nice things in Standard).

Reprint of old Painlands like Caves of Koilos as the set’s dual lands. Apocalypse had the first batch and we haven’t seen them since Origins. They made Blood Sun for a reason. Maybe reprint time?

Artwork that references older cards. Maybe showing updated locations, like Academy Ruins did for Tolarian Academy.

Well, that’s all I got campers.

What do y’all think? What are you hoping to see? Let me know what you think.

Wonder how accurate these’ll be. 

[abhordelano]

AS3 Hot Takes - episode 2

I’m going to be honest here: this episode was....pretty fucked up. For the record, I totally wish I could just do video reviews, but I have crappy editing skills and no time/resources to pull that all together so for now I’m probably not going to bother:

Let me just start with the things I did like about this episode: I think theres actually noticeable chemistry between the contestants. These are all queens who know each other pretty well but are not afraid to be catty and shady with each other(which...is unspeakably mandatory as a drag queen to be honest). Shangela giving us diva Mariah behavior during rehearsal was nothing short of iconic. Actually, every time Shangela is on screen feels like prime reality TV. Her performance skills are incredibly polished and I can tell she is here to play the reality tv game but also to serve #Talent while doing that.

The runway this episode was actually pretty good. Every single person’s runway  redemption looked very well-done and worthy of an All Stars season. Each look pretty accurately displays the individual queen’s growth since their season, and it’s refreshing to see the comparison to what they did vs what they’re serving now. Also, I LIVED for Kennedy’s explanation of her DBH look back on Season 7 so seeing it revamped and done well makes me love it even more!

I found that the editing was very heavy-handed and it became increasingly obvious that the production team is fixing the race for certain queens and sabotaging it for others. Lets go into some of the obvious cases:

The inconsistency with the choreography for each of the queens was very obvious. Why did Kennedy have to do intense choreography (which he probably only had 1-2 rehearsals to pull together) while Thorgy was told to just wing it? To be fair, I think Todrick wasn't given any specific instruction by the producers about what kind of finished product to go for, so thats why it looks like he’s basically half-assing it (just randomly assigning queens to be backup dancers was an obvious sign that this was a half-assed effort. Even if they also did that with every other lip-sync challenge, actually showing us that makes it painfully obvious that they didn't give a fuck about what what they were doing).

The musical material felt really tacky, forced, and thrown together. In AS2′s Herstory of the World, each queen’s bit was more open to unique interpretations by each of the queens and thats how we got so many amazing performances that episode (and yes I know they totally shafted Katya then but it was less obvious than what we got here). Also, DID ANYONE ELSE NOTICE THEY JUST RECYCLED THE MUSICAL MATERIAL FROM THE ENDING OF THE KARDASHIAN MUSICAL???! 

This challenge seemed cool in theory but it was executed so poorly. The thing is, we already have a celebrity impersonation challenge, its called Snatch Game and its something that RPDR fans like myself wait for with anticipation every season, and even if they aren't great its still exciting to see what each queen does because its IMPROVISATIONAL and unpredictable! This challenge leaves very little room for character interpretation, especially because each character was already assigned to them and then having to impersonate that character spot-on while doing one of RuPaul’s songs (another example of ego-stroking on his part but I won't get into that...yet). The whole thing ends up feeling very....uninspired.

Going into the deliberation, WHY WAS CHI CHI LOW THIS EPISODE!??! The only negative critique she got boiled down to “your outfit is kinda basic compared to everyone else’s and you dont need that jacket”. Like...its miles beyond the mediocre outfit she did on Season 8 so why is she called out on that? Moreoever, WHY WASN’T MILK IN THE BOTTOM 3? Her performance didn't really give off anything Celene Dion-like, and her runway redemption felt even more basic than Thorgy, Not to mention that its also a basic look for Milk...like, glamor does not have to equate to a bland slit gown with safety pins?

The lip sync was...decent. Shangela was giving everything thats expected of that kind of lip sync and DeLa...knew that she was losing so she just did her own comedic thing that displayed effort but not detracting too much attention from Shangela.

Elimination: Shangela made the right decision: Kennedy definitely had a lot more potential to go further in the season, and Thorgy was definitely getting into her head again this episode. Yes, BOTH of them were sabotaged to fail on this challenge, but I think that Kennedy put in more effort in her performance AND displayed a stronger sense of determination to stay during deliberation. 

Next episode: Looks like an improv-focused challenge based on The Bachelor, (a show which I have NO expertise on), but looks like its gonna be GREAT because improv usually makes for great TV. I think so many of these queens can excel super well with this type of challenge. Also, it’s usually better when the producers can just TRUST their contestants, who in this show are all entertaining and charismatic people, to generate hilarious moments. I’m almost actually willing to let this mediocre episode slide because the next episode has be very intrigued.

I’ll rate this episode a 3/10, nice idea but really half-assed in its execution...and even though everyone looked nice though its difficult to overlook the glaringly bad editing. I forgot to rate the first episode, which I’ll give a 6/10 because even though it was better structured and everything one needs in a first episode, it just felt like a lesser remake of the first episode of All Stars 2.

[saberghatz]

In which sense Angel helped you?

It took me awhile to answer this ask because every time I see it I just look at it like, “Well, my entire life changed. How am I supposed to sum that up.”

But I’ll try to do that now.

…UNDER THE CUT CAUSE THIS IS EXTREMELY LENGTHY.

Angel was my very first memory of X-Men. I remember being like 8 years old and seeing the beginning of it on TV, where baby Warren was cutting his wings away. To be totally honest, it freaked me out but I couldn’t look away and I ran into the other room after the scene was over LOLI NEVER FORGOT THAT SCENE.

Since then, I’d seen the other x-men movies on in the background, I watched Days of Future past in the theaters, I really enjoyed them but none of them really struck me. At the time, I was mostly into animated movies such as How to Train Your Dragon, Rise of the Guardians, etc;

FAST FORWARD TO 2016, X-Men Apocalypse comes out. I didn’t see as much as a TEASER trailer for that movie before going to the theater. I didn’t even know it was out until one day my dad was like “Let’s go see the new X-Men movie.” And I was like “Oh theres a new X-Men movie? Those are cool movies, okay lets go.”

When the Berlin scene came on, and The Blob fell down to reveal Angel, it was KIND OF A JAW-DROP MOMENT FOR ME TBH because the last thing I remembered 100% X-Men was that scene of kid Warren in the Last Stand, and suddenly he was just THERE all grown up, kicking ASS.

As an artist, I find myself analyzing special effects and such. I remember getting really attached to how they designed his wings, I loved the talon, and the way they were animated was so life-like, it just COMPLETELY HOOKED ME. And I was like DAYUMM I want to draw like that! 

I remember just being completely entranced throughout the whole Cage Fight. Between Angel and Nightcrawler, I was just overloaded. When they escaped, I was hoping they would escape and go to Xavier’s school together ((keep in mind I never saw a trailer, so I had no idea Archangel was going to happen LOL)) So I was disappointed when Warren just ran away on his own. I thought that was going to be the last we saw of him.

BUT SURPRISE, BITCH, CAUSE

Fast-forward again to the warehouse scene and I was like hOLY SHIT ITS HIM AGAIN, HE MADE IT OUT ALIVE. And he’s listening to Metallica???? I grew up pretty much purely on rock music, it was and is my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE, so the music in that scene took me way back again. 

I just left the theater of X-Men Apocalypse, completely buzzing with excitement. The main thing I loved about that movie as a whole is how all of the characters are teenagers. Because, being 18 myself, I just find them much easier to relate to and I got attached to them very easily.

So, BOUT TIME, I then completely fell in love with the X-Men franchise.

I think I saw the movie three times in theater, and each time it just got BETTER and I noticed more and more things, and got more attached to the franchise, exclusively to Angel.

I’m always drawn to what I’d classify as tragic villains, ones with very much potential to be a hero but just get hooked on the wrong path.

We all get sucked into fandom because of that ONE character we just utterly attach to, and this is exactly what happened with me and Warren. I was drawn to him firstly because of his wings. To me, wings represent freedom, which freedom is the most important thing in my life. It’s why I hated school so much which tries to put us in a box, why I couldn’t stand growing up and being forced to work for someone else. I wanted to be free, and live by my own riles. When I was a kid, like 12 years old, I had SUCH a vivid dream that I was flying with these MASSIVE angel wings and I could just feel every stroke, the wind under my wings, the cool fresh air, and just that brief dream was just. The definition of freedom, and everything I strived to find in life. So ever since that, powerful characters with wings just take me right back to that wonderful night and give me so much joy.

After that movie, I started listening to rock music a lot more than I had been recently. Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Motley Crüe, Bon Jovi, etc etc, it was what I listened to through out my entire childhood, and getting back in touch with that music again lately has been amazing. Music can have very powerful effects on us, and rock music is what’s always made me feel alive.

X-Men Apocalypse is the first live-action movie that ever hooked me. Before then, I solely studied other artists’s work, and animated movies from Dreamworks/Disney, etc. I never used to study from life, which LOOKING BACK, was a HUGE set back on developing my art skills. X-Men Apoc inspired me so much, and last summer around July 2016, I would often grab screencaps and do speed-paints to try to capture the overall mood/motions present in the scene. 

Ex:

I was in love with how his wings moved, and just his character in general so I quickly just got ADDICTED to drawing him, I’d draw him all the time. And each time, I’d learn new things and my art skills would bump up.

I was blown away by Hardy’s acting, how the way he walked really sold the illusion of him carrying massive wings on his back. As I looked up references to draw Angel, I was steadily getting hooked on Ben as an actor, too. I found him really admirable, and started getting really interested in acting, health, and fitness because of it. Seeing for the first time how hard actors worked for their roles opened my eyes to perhaps working on films one day in the future, something I’d never even considered doing before.

Last summer, I started watching the episodes of Eastenders that Ben was in. It’s just one of those things I look back on with such a positive vibe. I hardly ever allow myself to sit down and just watch something for fun. I’m kinda a work-a-holic in a way that I always want to be working on something and not just lounging around. But I remember just relaxing with warm tea on cool summer nights and just watching Eastenders all night until I passed out.

It got me interested in London, and now it’s a huge dream of mine to go visit there. It sounds crazy, but in a way it sparked a long-lost childish sense of adventure back in my heart. Before, I just wanted to stay in one place and live out my life. Now, I want nothing more than to take my sketchbook, and travel the world to see everything our beautiful planet has to offer. The coolest thing about freelance is I’m quite literally FREE to travel wherever I want as long as I make enough money to support my travels, so that’s something I definitely plan to do in my future.

Back to Angel, I met so many amazing friends online through X-Men, people who I now couldn’t live without. @x-men-headcannons who I talk to all the time, and has impacted my life so much with her wonderful personality, support, and her artistry is just astounding! We now plan on moving in together in summer of 2019.

Warren also spared my interest in comics, which I now read and draw inspiration from all the time. I now aspire to make my own sometime, something I also had never considered doing before. I’m constantly being inspired by the iconic poses, the dynamics, and I feel that studying comic book artists have helped me expand my own library of knowledge.

In short, Angel helped me find myself. He helped me find friends, find happiness, find more dreams, and set me on track for the future I’ve always dreamed of. He may be fictional, but the effects that character has had on my life are very, very real.

[cheekbites-moved]

ok so i watched love simon for the first time last night & i was too tired to make a ‘final thoughts’ post then, so here it is now! lol

obviously this is gonna be long as hell so im putting it under a read more for ur convenience lmfao

im actually gonna start with what i didnt like bc it was just one thing.

obviously, if uve seen the movie (as many ppl hated this too), or read my liveblogging posts, u know what it is lol 

ill be honest, as a gay person, im incredibly biased towards simon. ill admit that. that being said, how his friends treated him after he got outed was fucking disgusting.

here’s the thing: the actions simon did that his friends got upset over were motivated by the threat of him being outed. now, if this movie was just some fluffy, fantastical movie, the threat would just be ppl knowing he’s gay and that’s it. no repercussions, just ppl gaining the knowledge that he’s not straight. not that big a deal.

however, since this movie tries its best to be accurate and realistic to things, it’s not that simple in the movie, and it’s not the simple in real life.

the risk of being outed is not just ‘ppl knowing ur gay’ and that’s it.

the risk of being outed involves the risk of getting bullied (which does happen in the movie, twice. once to ethan on screen, once to simon after he comes out.), getting abandoned by ur friends (which also does happen in the movie), getting expelled from school or fired from ur job if either of them find out & are lgbtphobic, getting kicked out of ur house if ur parents/whoever u live w find out & theyre lgbtphobic, and, at worst, it can come with the risk of getting beaten or even killed.

and no, this isnt me blowing this up to be more serious than it should be. bc unfortunately, in the world we live in, these things can happen as a result of someone being lgbt, whether they came out themselves or were outed by someone else. 

the worst thing simon did was hurt his friends’ feelings a bit. 

he didnt notice leah’s feelings for him (which. why would he? he’s not interested in her, or any girl for that matter, so obviously he’s not looking for the signs of interest. why would he notice that, and why was it his responsibility to know anyway??). he tried to set nick up with her because he genuinely thought she had feelings for nick, and that’s the main reason why he didn’t realize that she liked him.

yes, part of the motive was trying to get nick out the way so he could set abby up with martin, but ffs. let me reiterate that his life, and potential future, were on the line. having the possibility of all the aforementioned things potentially happening to him should make his actions at least understandable.

like falling for someone that doesnt like u back bc theyre not attracted to ur gender (which like.. hello. gay ppl fucking experience that shit all the time too & we have to learn to deal w it.), or being put in a game of matchmaker bc ur friend was trying to save their own fucking life is rly not that big a deal compared to said friend’s situation of trying to save their own fucking life. 

one situation hurts, but can eventually be healed from (which clearly they do in the movie since abby and nick got together anyway in spite of simon’s actions, and leah’s fine). the other situation has the chance of resulting in a fucking future/life being ruined or taken. i think that one is much more fucking important.

all in all, i just wish they wouldve fucking apologized. bc they screamed at him after he got outed. 

abby saw how fucking terrified he was when he came out to her, but she’s not gonna have a single ounce of sympathy when he was outed to the entire school against his will?? like what the fuck! 

also wish they wouldve stood up for him when he got bullied. they just sat there with guilty expressions, but none of them did anything. it was really rough to watch.

as much as all this seriously pissed me off, though, especially as a person who has been outed against my will so all of simon’s heartache as a result rly resonated with me.. 

i appreciate that they put that shit in. 

bc u know what unfortunately that is how cishet ppl react sometimes. guilting u for being lgbt, guilting u for not coming out to them despite knowing how scary it can be, etc etc etc. 

and getting apologizes from cishet ppl for that kinda shit is rare. so, as much as i was annoyed that they didnt apologize, that is unfortunately realistic. as much as i wish they wouldve stood up for him, that was also unfortunately realistic. so im still glad it’s in there even if it did piss me off. 

simon’s speech to martin was nice at least, and i hope that it taught some cishet ppl that have outed ppl, or threatened to out ppl, or wanted to out ppl, why u just dont fucking do that shit.

woo now that that’s outta my system lmfao onto all the good stuff! in bullet list form bc theres a l o t lmfao

the soundtrack ESP for the emotional moments wOw

‘i wanna dance with somebody’ gay musical addition

simon’s subtle annoyed looks whenever straight nonsense™  happens

simon’s terrible attempts at being straight

simon’s extremely subtle, but still noticeable if ur lgbt, panic whenever the potential chance of him being outed/discovered arises 

the dog

simon’s parents’ speeches to him after he comes out to them

seriously as gay, nb person w lgbtphobic parents that shit meant a lot to hear. 

the fact that this is not only a mainstream lgbt rom-com, but also a mainstream movie abt a gay kid learning to love himself and be confident with himself and his sexuality

simon’s journey to being able to proudly proclaim that he’s gay.

the speech he has near the end is so fucking powerful bc we see him struggle throughout the movie to say it. 

first he cant say it at all, then he can only say it quietly, but by the end of the movie, he’s proclaiming to the entire school, loud and proud, that yes. he is gay. and he’s not going to feel wrong for that anymore. 

i feel like that entire journey is one that can really resonate with a lot of ppl, including myself. so im so fucking happy that this movie included that progression, and ended it with him having such an exuberant amount of confidence. it was honestly really beautiful, and im glad i got to witness it.

simon practicing pickup lines in the mirror

“hey barack its me jacques”

abby trying to teach simon how to flirt

simon googling “how to dress like a gay guy”

simon not having martin’s bullshit and telling him off for how fucked up blackmailing him was from the start, but especially his speech about how important/personal coming out is to ppl and how shitty it was that he took that away from him

MRS ALBRIGHT IN GENERAL BUT ESPECIALLY HER ICONICALLY STICKING UP FOR SIMON IN THE CAFETERIA I STAN HER SO HARD!!

ethan in general, but especially his speech to simon in the office, and super especially the line “one gay’s a snnooze, two’s a hilarious hate crime”

like i seriously appreciate how real this movie is. and it doesnt have lines like this, or plots like the blackmailing/outing just for drama. 

it’s to show that this is how being lgbt can be sometimes, this shit rly happens. and i just rly appreciated seeing all that in a way that didnt even try to pull any punches. it was so clear they seriously cared abt making this an accurate movie, and that meant a lot

GETTING TO SEE TWO BOYS KISSING ON SCREEN MULTIPLE TIMES, AND NOT JUST THAT, BUT GETTING TO SEE THEM GET A HAPPY ENDING!!!!! 

i seriously cried for like 20 minutes starting from when bram showed up at the ferris wheel to well after the credits had ended. 

i cannot even begin to express how fucking incredible it was to get to see two boys kissing, getting cheered on, and getting to be happy.

especially in the scene where simon picks up everyone, and leah moves so bram can get in the front seat and he kisses simon when he gets in. IT WAS SO SWEET.. AND BEAUTIFUL I LOVED/APPRECIATED IT SO MUCH IT MEANT SOOOO FUCKING MUCH TO ME GOSH

my thoughts of the movie can be boiled down to this: im so fucking happy this movie exists. 

im so fucking happy that a movie abt a gay kid learning to be confident in his sexuality, falling in love and getting to have a happy ending with his boyfriend exists.

ive never cried more at a movie than i did at this movie, and ive especially never cried harder out of sheer happiness for a movie. 

knowing that this movie was in theaters, and that gay kids/teens have a movie that lets them know early on that not only is gonna be ok, but they do have a chance at a happy ending, and they deserve it, was so goddamn amazing.

this movie is so, so important. and im so happy that it, and the book its based off of, exist. 

and it’s a prime example of why representation matters so much. it was so fucking amazing to see myself, as a gay person, represented so well, so thoughtfully, so respectfully. 

i just... i love this movie so much. and im so glad it exists. and im so happy i finally got to see it.

i hope it inspires more movies/stories like it to be made. 

i hope that it results in lgbt stories being happy, uplifting stories. 

i hope that it results in lgbt characters getting to be the main characters. 

i hope it results in coming out stories being about the lgbt characters, and not how them coming out affects the cishet characters around them. 

and i hope it results in less tragic endings for lgbt characters, and more happy endings for lgbt characters.

for a long time, a future where we get the stories just mentioned has seemed bleak. but this movie changed that. and im excited for the road i hope it’s started us on.

[viralhottopics]

‘Ghost Recon: Wildlands’ review: Ambitious but poorly executed

Ghost Recon: Wildlands isnt just an open world game its a daunting expanse of unrealized potential.

SEE ALSO: 5 tips you’ll want to know before you start ‘Ghost Recon: Wildlands’

At first blush, Ghost Recon: Wildlands is a mesmerizing experience. The rocky hills in Itacua, the first province in the game, create a beautiful, treacherous landscape that is glorious to behold. But Wildlands quickly reveals itself as a husk, devoid of any life or meaningful story, with more veneer than actual substance.

A good start to the story breaks bad quickly

Wildlands narrative starts off compellingly enough. You play as a Ghost Recon operator, call-sign Nomad, in the wild lands of Bolivia, under the CIAs Operation Kingslayer. Your mission is to clear out the Santa Blanca cartel and rid Bolivia of its narco-state ties. But it isnt long before you discover the myriad flaws and plotholes that run rampant throughout the games latter half.

Yuri and Polito, the first provinces buchones (minibosses), were a fascinating pair to track down. Their cringe-inducing talk of necrophilia was enough to motivate me along the missions that would lead to their inevitable execution. Unfortunately, Yuri and Politos end was one of the only satisfying story conclusions in the game.

Everything in Wildlands takes place in an open world, which means that the buchones can be taken down in any particular order. Which sounds great until youre stuck in choice paralysis. I got so overwhelmed by the sheer volume of provinces to explore and buchones to execute that I began to resent the cartel map and its execution targets. Ten hours after starting the game, its repetitive nature and tone deaf narrative caught up with me.

The deeper Wildlands thready narrative gets, the more stale the ideas feel. Its flaws start with inconsistencies in the story but completely unravels when yet another cinematic rewrites a major plot point. But it was the ending both of them that was the worst offense. Not only is Wildlands narrative conclusion a massive letdown in terms of tension and story resolution, its treatment of drug trafficking and cartels is appallingly ignorant and still somehow heavy-handed.

Theres a way to handle those themes that doesnt rely on stereotypes or tired tropes. The Mafia games, especially the most recent installment in the series, provides a far more nuanced perspective of what it means to run a large drug operation. Lincoln Clay, Mafia 3s protagonist, and his gang leaders feel tangible, believable. Wildlands couldnt decide whether to be serious or satirical, evident by its bombastic characters that felt too ridiculous to be taken seriously, even if that was the purpose. Wildlands is a poignant reminder that painting broad strokes on top of existing real world issues is not the way to tell a compelling story.

Sniping is everything and your drone is your only friend

Story isnt always necessary to enjoying a game but, sadly in this case, Wildlands misses the mark almostall the way across the board. Thankfully, between decent gunplay, enjoyable long-range combat, and a drone that has more personality than anyone else on your squad, it manages to claw its way back to mediocrity.

The gunplay is mediocre in comparison to any number of third person shooters, including Ubisofts own The Division, mostly because the contextual cover system is twelve ways to ridiculous. The cover system is unreliable, accounting for at least a third of my deaths it was hard to stay fully protected because there was little indication as to what was considered true cover and what was only a cosmetic hiding spot. The latter obscured my line of sight but didnt give me any protection from enemy fire. But in spite of the unintuitive cover system and the shrug-worthy gunplay, there were a handful of moments that made the game worth playing.

The long-range snipe is where Wildlands really shines. There isnt much to shooting from the hip, even after youve put points into that particular skill. But the shots I made with my eye down the barrel or through a high-powered rifle scope were often the most exhilarating they challenged me to think tactically, rather than just react to the environment. The quick audible feedback, followed by the target dropping out of his sniper tower when the shot struck true from 300 meters away (regardless of whether or not it alerted the enemy to my position) was often the best part of beginning an encounter.

The majority of the game is played at long range, so moments like this are fairly frequent, which means theres a lot of fist-pumping along the way.

Sadly, the only things that your AI squad is good for are fist-bumping one another in background chatter and soaking up sicario bullets. The background information on Holt, Midas, and Weaver indicates that they have special roles within the team. Unfortunately, those roles arent realized within gameplay. Youre still the one laying C4 charges and blowing up trucks full of coke, even though you have a demolitions expert in the squad. So, while its easier to play stealth-heavy missions with the AI (as their presence doesnt alert enemies), theyre little more than meat shields in the heat of battle.

Your drone, however, is your constant companion. In most altercations with either UNIDAD, the military police, or the cartel, the drone was the only way I stayed alive. Flying it (while safely in cover, of course) allowed me to mark targets, blow up a group of enemies, distract another group, and even revive a teammate remotely. My drone was my in-game bestie the only thing that kept us apart was a drone jammer and I always, always dealt with those first.

Vast spaces too empty for their own good

From breathtaking vistas to lush jungle rivers all the way to desolate salt flats, Wildlands has constructed a collection of incredible landscapes to explore. While Bolivias existence as a narco-state is a work of fiction, the environment is as close to real life as you can get without hopping on a plane (or three). Its a joy to ride a dirt bike around the early provinces, capturing shots of sunrises and twinkling stars, but the world is otherwise empty.

Strangely, the more you explore, the more overwhelming the world feels, in spite of the desolation in the environment. It takes a long time to travel from mission to mission the roads and mountains are unforgiving and expansive. As you uncover more intelligence within each province, the TACMAP becomes the most unsavory place in the game. Without a way to filter, it devolves into a lumbering beast with a plethora of icons obscuring the map and making navigation a chore.

Open world games shouldnt be daunting. Rockstar and 2K Games both managed to create open worlds that dont feel like youre drowning in them. So why didnt Ubisofts land?

Outside of the cartel hit list, Wildlands does very little to acknowledge progression. Theres the odd soundbite from DJ Perico, Santa Blancas propaganda-spouting mouthpiece, but there is nothing in the cinematics or the gameplay that recognizes the cartels destabilization. The videos from El Suenos perspective feel disjointed enough that its hard to believe that any part of the cartels operations are aware of one another. Story progression felt like a checklist of requirements rather than the interwoven narrative that it could have been.

Crackdown tackled a similar structure to Wildlands, but integrated the gang leaders executions into both the story and the gameplay. Each gang leader that you took out led to the decreased effectiveness of the gang itself. Taking out a particular leader could mean that enemies began to carry pistols instead of assault rifles; or typically well-defended hideouts would see their numbers drastically decreased. Sometimes, you had to fight certain leaders first before you could even think about tackling some of the games bigger fights.

Wildlands gives the player full reign of what to do and where to go next a true open world experience. But as I progressed through the game, it didnt feel like my actions impacted the game. It was a matter of finishing out a set of missions in order to get to the next set of missions, in order to maybe get the hint of a story. Crackdown, on the other hand, demonstrated through both gameplay and narrative how important it was to be tactical and strategic about the order of execution.

Huge, open world games need diverse soundscapes

Wildlands requires a lot of point A to point B travel but doesnt offer much in the way of companionship. Your options are either to listen to your squad mates drone on, or to endure the same two songs that play on the radio over and over again until youre fairly certain that you are, in fact, in hell. The combination of the two work to create an aggravating experience in between the major story beats.

Theres some satisfaction in looping through the terrain in order to pick up the plethora of meaningful collectibles, but even that wears thin.

Theres a hollowness to how your Ghost, call-sign Nomad, interacts with their squad mates. While Nomad perks up with comments about the mission every once in awhile, Midas, Weaver, and Holt are usually silent. The intermittent broisms including various musings about sex with twenty-two-year-olds and snorting coke to cope with altitude sickness cement how vacuous the game presents its operators. Granted, its a Tom Clancy game and exaggeration is usually the order of the day, but the dialogue writing feels downright lazy after more than a couple of hours with the squad.

There are only so many times a person can hear this medal has a coca leaf on it, thats kinda cool before they are driven to summoning an Elder God in order to end all existence.

Despite its best efforts, Wildlands can still be fun (with friends)

Somehow, out of the cocktail of mediocrity that the game serves up, Wildlands still manages to be kind of fun in partnered co-op. Hopping into a party, bantering with friends and taking down sicarios is pretty much the only way to enjoy playing the game.

With the exception of the day/night cycle, the entire multiplayer experience was disjointed. Weather conditions, radio audio, and incidental chatter was delivered locally, rather than synced across all players in a session. It could be a torrential downpour in my instance of the game while the sun was shining brightly in yours. But in spite of that, the multiplayer experience is what initially sold me on the game.

Cooperative play set a tactical atmosphere that solo play missed. While AI squad mates wandered around of their own accord, getting in the way of my tactical plans, real-life companions and I were able to coordinate our efforts more explicitly.

Everything except stealth missions were easier with human players because we had specialized our Ghosts skill trees. My co-op partners skillset was best suited for vehicle combat, so he often drove. My Ghost was far better at reconnaissance, so I would scout ahead with my drone, marking targets and blowing up small groups of sicarios along the way.

Were not booking a return trip to Bolivia anytime soon

Ghost Recon: Wildlands is an enormous departure from what makes Ghost Recon a reputable tactical squad-based shooter franchise. Beyond narrative fluff, the three AI Ghosts are indistinguishable from one another. Gone are the series staple of individual commands for squad members and the teams specialized skills in favor of a trite story with an empty, repetitive world. The mish-mash of ambitious, poorly executed ideas detract from what could have made the game truly great.

Sniping is a lot of fun. And roaming the gorgeous Bolivian landscape is absolutely breathtaking, no matter which province you find yourself in. But Wildlands myriad missteps are experiential landmines that blow up in your face in almost every province, with immersion and enjoyment suffering as collateral damage.

Amanda Farough has been writing about video and tabletop games for a number of years. Her tastes are eclectic and varied, with a love for strategy and action. You can find her on Twitter at @amandafarough, where she is likely shipping her Overwatch main, D. Va, and Lucio. You can also find her previous work at her personal site.

Read more: http://on.mash.to/2oysKUY

from ‘Ghost Recon: Wildlands’ review: Ambitious but poorly executed

[timefought]

   rules.

   i.

     my name is kitty. i am 24 years old, and am wiradjuri & ashkenazi/sephardi. i live in australia ( gmt+10 ). i studied palaeobiology, evolutionary biology & animal behaviour, but dropped out to be terminally ill instead. i’ve been roleplaying since neopets days. i grew up watching dr who ( & my middle name is a very obscure dr who reference ), and am a life-long classic/eu fan. my pronouns are they/them exclusively.

    ii.

   as you might have twigged from the above, i’m very sick. replies sometimes take a long time. i try to work on them as fast as possible but sometimes life aint like that. i DO miss replies relatively often, so you’re always welcome to pop into my IMs to let me know if you’ve posted or just to chat, but i’m sorry in advance if you like very prompt replies. i’m not that bitch. i wish i was. please just dont badger me. i’m doing my best, my best just sucks.

   iii.

     PLEASE read my about thoroughly. i know it’s dense, i’ve tried to break it up as much as possible for ease of reading & locating specific information. it’s also a continuous wip;; i am adding more and more to it as i go to make things easier on partners and potential partners to find what they need. i really will know if you haven’t read it.

   iv.

     i tend to write long replies, with icons if my partner uses them. i don’t necessarily expect it to be returned, but i do require a proper response i can reply to. charlie wont chase after your muse, under pretty much any circumstances, and i need some substance to a reply to be able to write something. generally, i don't really enjoy chat type things. i like something to be happening.

   v.

     i cant believe have to say this but: racism is bad. nazis are bad. fascism is bad. conservatism is bad. transphobia, homophobia, misogyny, ableism, anti-semitism —- theyre all bad. don’t do them. yes, i will call out users who act like fuckwits. if that’s ‘causing drama’ to you, you’re free to hop on your bike and idk grow some ethics i guess. if you couldn’t tell from the content of my blog, i don’t allow that bullshit & if you do, even by just ignoring it and avoiding the topic entirely, you’re not welcome either. i get that’s a hardline stance to take. if that scares you, i cant say im sorry. this goes for people who ship incest/paedophilia/rape etc, too.

   vi.

     smut, shipping, etc: obviously, i’m an adult. i’m 24. i will not write anything even vaguely sexual with anyone under 18. i won’t write anything more than platonic/mildly vaguely romantic with anyone under 18. i am open to ships. a brief note, though;; charlie mostly prefers women in both her platonic and romantic life. men are, mostly, simply a means to a financial end. yes, she’s likely in many context to vaguely proposition men. this isnt an attempt to force anything, it’s just the character, & to be honest she's probably just gonna mug em anyway. i am open to shipping otherwise generally, you’re free to come into my inbox at any time or send a meme or anything if you’d like to. chances are i’ll be open to it.

   vii.

     triggers will be tagged on request, but any issue you have can be brought to me directly. i’m happy to chat about anything, so dont be worried about approaching me. it’s all good.

   viii.

     i don’t send in rule passwords. i do read rules, but i just hate doing that. sorry.

   ix.

     please if you’re following from a personal for a rp sideblog, i need you to tell me ( personally or somewhere on your blog that is easy to find ) what blog its for. if you don’t i might block you, just because ive had personals cause me problems before. ( longtime personals-of-people-i-know are obviously fine lol )

   x.

     i have discord available on request for plotting/chats, and my IMs are always open. im usually around if i’m awake.

     theres probably more to come.