#this is lame but I really??? needed to get this out

[burr-ell]

“That battle was quite fun,” he continues. “A distraction I really needed - and appreciate. But I realize that my Pokémon are a bit too powerful to be battling here.”  A distraction? Too powerful? He almost lost! She doesn’t stop him, or take the money, so he finishes a little lamely: “So. By all rights, this should be yours.” Vex frowns - for real, this time. Sure, she would have loved to get out of paying him a cent. But this… this isn’t how things go. You lock eyes; battle; loser walks back to the Pokémon Center with pockets a smidge lighter. Avarice and ego duel somewhere in the pit of her stomach, and the collateral damage makes her a little sick. And she can’t exactly say no. “What a gentleman,” she teases, to keep the venom from burning her tongue. When she opens her palm he delicately plops the coins in the center, gloves warm. “Thank you, darling.” If she keeps talking, she’ll avoid visibly seething: “Can I count on you for a rematch, if we run into you again?” His lips purse into a reflexive no, but what comes out is, “Perhaps.” Which is excellent, because Vex intends on thoroughly kicking his ass on their next meeting. And she can’t do that if he keeps staring at his stupid fancy shoes. —"feather dance" by @blorbologist

↠ perc'ahlia week day 3: glasses/feathers

[deathvalleyqueen]

listen no matter how convinced in my bones it was Illario that betrayed our beautiful mullet man, it could be someone else. Maybe but really logically think about this. Who within the Crows would gain the most with Lucanis gone? Not emotionally - I am talking about position and power. Illario. Viago and/or Teia potentially but from what we have seen them already through the expanded media - they are so much lower on my suspect list. Honestly, Viago ain't even on it - if he really wants to bruh could become King of Antiva but that's whole different theory I have. Teia could, but she has never given me vibes of someone with a level of ambition for power that you would need to betray someone close to you like this and she calls Catarina 'Nona' so I am guessing she was close with the whole Dellamorte family. Illario though - from the wigmakers job to the scenes we have seen with him - he reeks of ambition. For all we know a rivalry could have been ingrained him by his parents when he was small - maybe Illario's parent and Lucanis's parent who were siblings were bitter rivals both grasping at the positon of their mother's heir - maybe there is more for us to find out why Catarina ended up raising both boys... I even think I remember one of the Devs mention we will learn more about Lucanis's parents in later parts of the game.

This isn't a new thought of mine. Honestly since the Wigmakers Job -I didn't trust Illario. The whole heir talk never sat right with me. Lucanis is either named heir or would be named Catarina's very shortly. While Lucanis doesn't want the position (and my guess the neon target on his back that comes with it) of First Talon, he would take it if that's what his grandmother wants (Wigmakers Job) even though Lucanis thinks Illario maybe is better suited for the position. But like the good Antivan Boy Lucanis is - if his Nona asks him - he will. Illario on the other hand seems to want this more than anything else. To me the whole 'who is heir' thing reads sooooo a Game of Thrones in my mind - it just gives me such strong Targaryen infighting energy.

Also Illario while he has a very handsome face - it just gives me "don't fucking trust him" energy. Also from the recruitment mission video (maybe mild spoilers here) but that man is putting on act - he sounds way more upset than I think would be called for given the fact Lucanis is very likely alive now, there is this anger in his voice that feels out of place. Would you not be excited to find out your beloved cousin who was more brother to you - is in fact - not fucking dead? I also think the fact he doesn't go with Rook on the rescue - is so telling. The excuse made - super lame and I don't think it's bad writing. I think it's breadcrumbs and foreshadowing. And what has honestly been said about the Crow related questline - we are going to see the politics of it all...

Lastly - Why Spite? Wynn was a Spirit of Faith and she in fact had been a woman who believed in what the Circle was doing - Faith makes sense. Justice with Anders - makes so much sense because of who he is and what he experienced. Compassion for Cole also makes sense if you read Asunder. So why was Spite of all things able to be bound to Lucanis? They had tried others but Spite is what took. I think it's connected to the person who betrayed him, put him in the position that he was in for year... that whatever Love he may have had for that person turned into Spite... get what I am throwing down.

IDK this is living in my head in a nice 4 bedroom condo rent free right now.

[lukolabrainrot]

I think L’s obligation that he has with A via a possible NDA may have come to an end or coming to an end soon based on A’s recent sm activities.

1. She seems to have started posting again on TT where at least 3 dance videos were uploaded in the last 2 days.

2. There is a TT account dedicated to A that has been posting old videos of her. For some reason I think it is a burner account for A. She gets plausible deniability in case something is posted to that account that violates her NDA. There is a similar fan account on Instagram that I believe belongs to her as well. This girl is really sneaky so I am not putting anything pass her.

3. I am surprised she did not post her latest Italian Rivera photo shoot to her Instagram. The photos are only posted to the photographer’s Instagram page. There could be a few reasons why she has not uploaded. The first being the photographer owns the pictures and will not allow it. Secondly, she may be a bit embarrassed from the last round of photos where it took Luke over 10 hours to like even after the story. I believe it was strategic on his part to hold off on liking it for as long as possible to be petty. That was not a good look for her because she is aware that she is no longer able to trick the fans into believing they are still together. Think about her last trick which was to post that manipulated Spain pic to her story with all that flash in background.

4. Her last story she posted to instagram was really lame and was not worthy of a conversation. She has run out of content as it relates to the L and N saga. This shows she has no substance and needs to go back and reevaluate how she wants to present herself on sm. The lesson for her is that taking shortcuts and piggybacking off other people’s hard work may get you there fast but it will not keep you there.

5. Based on all the noise on sm, L and N may be launching sooner than expected. I would not be surprised if is October 1st to coincide with L’s obligation to A under the NDA.

All of the above is speculative but one can be hopeful and delulu.

Eager to hear your thoughts.

Interesting theories... don't agree with all of them BUT I definitely think that NDAs are at play. I just don't know enough about NDAs to have a good enough idea if it seems like A's NDA is coming to an end soon.

I also think L/N are going to be going public sooner than later. My current theory is sometime in October.

[waterwindow]

Does anybody know any good adult oriented tf2 discord servers

[waitmyturtles]

Emotionally, 23.5 (episode 10) is like a cheaply made puzzle, where like, the edges are cut roughly, so like, you THINK that you have the right pieces next to each other, but when you smush them in, and they don't fit QUITE smoothly enough, you're like, oh maybe there's another piece, but like, you CAN'T find another piece that works, because like, the piece you have in your hand IS the piece that is the right one for the picture you're making, or like, you THINK it is, so like, you keep smushing the pieces together, and you THINK the puzzle makes sense, but you kinda feel like you have the wrong piece, or worse, you're MISSING A BETTER PIECE, because everything's NOT QUITE JIVING.

I hope this post made as much sense as the emotional journey we attempted to take with the script in this last episode. What the FUCK is this script doing to Ongsa? A little more context, some smoother edges, would be really helpful here!

[poppytuft]

the bear s3 spoilers

below the cut! thinking about claire and stuff we saw this season re: carmy/syd/the restaurant/donna, just finished the season so itll be a mess and also im comin in way too hot on this so my bad

sometimes...... sometimes i believe you guys are all watching different tv. im not sure how this season didnt feel like a direct through line from s2?? and im not sure WHY everyone is SO MAD about claire LITERALLY "haunting" this season. girl. come on. we need to have a sit down talk about how the berzatto generational trauma is the real meat of this show (this will make sense, just trust me). thats the MAIN EMOTIONAL POINT. syd's relationship with her dad, marcus and his mom, richie and evie, even tina and louie are all examples of parental relationships that are tender, sweet, supportive, etc. these are INTENTIONAL!! by creating these relationships we see PLAINLY how fucked donna is and how much she fucked up all of these kids. thats why "ice chips" was such a FANTASTIC episode. there was SO MUCH unpacked, so much revealed, so much worked through with sugar and her but at the end of the day she's still learning how to unlearn all of this horrific narcissistic bullshit. SHES STILL UNLEARNING THOUGH. thats where fucking DONNA of all people sits right now——somehow, she's learning how to heal. EVERYONE IS LEARNING. that's also what is so important about that episode.

now lets look at carmy. in "ice chips" we are LITERALLY told about how each berzatto is born: mikey fighting against the idea of being alive at all, nat into a quiet, soothing room, and CARMY is fucking born into EVERYONE SCREAMING and ARGUING and FIGHTING. we are BLATANTLY told that all carmy has ever known is HELL and all he's ever known how to communicate is through exploding. this is so violently against what we also know about his personality from childhood in "fishes" (anxious growing up, arts-oriented, had a hard time making friends). now, he works a violently stressful job, processing the trauma from both his mother (and chef fields [joel mchale], realistically) through the high-stress environment.

NOW. ENTER CLAIRE.

HOW is she not fascinating to you all. we don't see her whole story (because the bear, duh) but we are given just enough pieces here to put together that her story runs parallel to carmy's. how are you not getting this. walk with me.

claire. glasses, nerdy, quiet, sweet, girl next door. family friend! cute, but considered mid for a long time by everyone at school, but suddenly the berzatto men all badger carm, "oh she got a glow up, oh shes looking for you, she wants to see you," etc etc etc. what happened in between?

she finds herself. she finds the stressful thing she LOVES, which is the hospital. her job is objectively more stressful than carmy's (illustrated by that scene earlier in the season but i forgot the episode, where claire talks about the girl who got her shit wrecked by the glass table), and while we don't have an exact understanding of what her home life was like, we understand that her and carmy both have a level of internal anxiety that thrives on the stress of their careers. HOWEVER, claire does it because she loves it. carmy just doesn't know how to stop.

this is what makes claire feel like "peace" to carmy——because her high-stress job is a choice, an active choice she is making because it fulfills her. it's not to prove her dead brother wrong, or to honor his own legacy, or to prove that dickbag boss wrong, or to leave a mark on the world, or to make her own life worthwhile, or to prove that she doesn't need anyone else. she genuinely enjoys helping people even when the days are stressful, or scary. he's obsessed with this. he wants to know how she does this. every day she leaves that stress at home——and he wants to learn how to do that too.

claire is VITAL to this season and to understanding carmy's stress——and how far back he is in his healing process. it should only become more and more apparent, as we see characters like tina (the beef/the bear became vital to her success/development as a chef AND person, both for the people AND her love of food), marcus (not hiding his grief, but using it to help rationalize how much his mother loved him and wanted to be surrounded by people that love him), and richie (finding a purpose through service/expo and understanding he can start over again) push through their own traumas and struggles to become better people. if donna can be not only present at sugar's bedside during labor, but WELCOMED at this point in the show, it makes carmy's inability to heal all the more present. claire is an important part of this puzzle: she helps us see a window into a world where carmy is balanced emotionally, but unbalanced professionally, because he has no idea how to make the two coexist.

however, the idea that he can be balanced emotionally at all is so fucking enticing——with the help of someone who experiences stress in the same way as him (and who is familiar with his familial trauma), he has the opportunity to grow up and move on from his family trauma and wounds perpetuated by the industry he works in.

on the flip side of this....... his inability to process any of this is starting to impact syd. and frankly, that's some bullshit. his lack of communication, inability to community build/trust ANYONE, and his violent stubbornness is pushing her into the same space that he was in under chef fields, in a much slower, more subtle manner, and for slightly different reasons. her panic attack at the end of the season could read in two directions to me: her stress over the responsibility of changing so many people's lives has boiled over once she remembered that the beef once was truly great (hey five star review on the fridge!), OR, she realizes how much she isn't in it for the food. fuck a Michelin star: she wants to cook with her family. chef terry says at the end of "forever", in the garage with carmy, that she's so grateful she got to do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, where she wanted, with the people she wanted to do it with. sydney is so close to having those things at the bear——but carmy's dysfunction is keeping it just out of arms reach. the two of them are now on opposite sides of the approach from last season: syd dying for a star, and carmy dying to cook for the woman he loved. now, carmy is hungy for recognition again, desperate to prove something, and sydney is remembering (thanks to the conversation with other chefs during the ever funeral service) why she loved cooking in the first place. so this leaves us to wonder: should she stick it out? for the people? or make something of herself? is she carmy, or is she terry? i guess we will just have to see.

all this to say: every character is connected. the bear is a show about family, found and blood, and the choices we make for, with, and because of the people we love, for better or for worse. food is only the center of it, because it's the center of all of our lives. you can't hate claire without understanding where she sits in the web of the berzatto family. and really, you can't hate her if you understand what her presence means for carmy, for syd, and the restaurant as a whole.

[spacedlexi]

the way the ericson group were at the outbreak just a bunch of troubled kids who made various mistakes or committed crimes and were judged by a system that punished and abandoned them instead of giving them the support and love they needed, are then nearly a decade later put into a situation where now they must judge a troubled child for the mistakes and crimes hes committed against them. and 5 to 3 vote them out 😭

[ourhouseishaunted]

people acting as if laios can Do No Wrong and infantilizing him because he is autistic are annoying as hell. especially because laios belongs to my favorite genre of character: "person who desperately wants friends and deep relationships because they're lonely, and while part of their problems stem from people not wanting to understand them and refusing to meet them where they are, they also genuinely come across in a way where you Completely Understand why others can get turned off from them"

[moeblob]

Deacon loves two things: Ymber and digging himself a grave.

Fulj hates one thing: Deacon.

[tekkenenjoyerblue]

Thoughts about M. Bison and Echo in my head but in the most incomprehensible way I can’t put to words with any justice, send help please

Uhhhhhh something something “despite everything its still you” send post

[empty-blog-for-lurking]

If youre ok w sharing then i would love to hear your thoughts on lotor........ Hes such a weird guy. Dissecting him like a frog

If i get hate for this, i am blaming you/j but in all honesty i apologize if this kinda messy, as i have said it has beem awhile since i saw any of the episodes about him. Most of it is my personal interpretation and opinions of his character-

First of all i personally hate both "L0tor is evil rapist imperialist who did not have a single redeemable quality" and "L0tor is uwu poor baby who did nothing wrong", because yeah he had good intentions and he seemed to genuinely love Alura and care for Alteans but also he very much did do a lot of things Wrong. I am pretty sure a lot of his actions fall into category of Very Wrong

Lot0r to me is an absolute control freak, he has to be 10 steps ahead of everyone, he needs to be control of the situation no matter what. Whether it be through a silver tongue or by his blade (see N@rti's death, him vs White Lion). This is as much as a ruthless strategy as it is a trauma response. Being raised under Z@rkon, a father who only saw him as inferior half-bred, he had to learn survivor tactics. He will do anything to survive whether it be beg, lie, manipulate, and kill. He is a survivor of some genuinely godawful abuse he suffered for 10,000 years, combined with racism he suffered for being half altean

However this need to be in control extends to his allies and people he cares about. I am sure Lotor may have loved Alura, it doesnt change the fact that he very much abused her trust. Their entire relationship was based on a lie. He knew Alteans were still alive and not only did he not tell Alura about it he leaned into the "last survivors of Altea" for their relationship, which is why it was doomed since the beginning. And if it had not been this, then it would have been something else. Cause lying and manipulation are very much core of his character, that is how we are introduced to him

Like i see people going "Oh Lot0r could have been good if he had therapy and a hug", and i am not really not sure about it, cause like would he? Would he choose to be vulnerable and actually let his feelings out and be truthful in a an unbiased reliable way that will neither serve him in any way nor make him look better nor is a part of some machivilian scheme he cooked up because he doesnt trust the therapist he is paying? No

And thing is he does desire connection. He looks for connection in people who are similar to him. Half galran, altean survivors, Alura these are the people who he chose to get close to. He looks for similarities, people he can relate to, people who he sees as like him, people who he thinks can give him a sense of belonging. He is deeply lonely. However his desperation for control, absolute mistrust in anyone and everyone, and his inability to be actually honest dooms any relationship he'll ever have

Also this is probably just me, but for someone who is this morally complex character he has tendency to see things in black and white? Like it is His dad and empire= bad, alteans=good. He idolizes Altea to the point of seeing it as an Utopia, and this ideal was more important to him than any Alteans who are alive and with him. I also cant remember him ever caring about someone outside of the Dichotomy. Like at most i remember is after he became the emperor Lance pointing out how other planets need to be freed and he just brushed it off

Overall he gives me the "smart people dont always make good decisions, but they are good at justifying their bad ones" vibes. We dont know exactly why he decided to use alteans as batteries but i am choosing to go with my interpretation- "Lottor saw something fucked up in that future showing space whale thingy, decided the only way to solve was altean batteries except in true self fulfilling prophecy greek tragedy way it only made things worse and started a series of event that will cause the thing he saw causing real trouble a few years after his death.

Another thing! I think it should have been him being the focus of Evil Altean episode instead of A//ura. I hate that episode and everything it stands for but like if there Had to be an evil alteans episode then it should be around someone who is you know? Obsessed with Altean culture? Is big on control and manipulation? Is more geared towards big picture and "greater good" over individual? Is worried about turning into just like his galran father and so desperately wants to connect to his idealized version of his altean mother? Yeah

[muffindaydream]

way back when, sometime after I finished my first playthrough of pokemon scarlet, I brought back some of my old OCs and completely re-made them because the brainrot reached critical mass...

didn’t wanna take the student route so I made my OCs academy faculty members instead (librarians)!

Their names are Raine and Fatima. Raine is a Contest Coordinator hopeful and Fatima is a Dark-type specialist who wants to become a trainer again after previously retiring.

Raine is one of my oldest OCs ever, so I really wish I could have done her justice and made more art for her, especially by completing her full-body ref. My chronic pain won yet again..

You can read an even more detailed description of my Pokemon OCs here on a carrd I made just for them! bask in my self-indulgence.

[c0rpsedemon]

oh yeah. the reason why i decided to reread tbhk (and thus it was able to hit me like a truck this time around) was actually not bc of mitsukou going canon but actually bc i maybe accidentally started a tbhk book club w my kids at work and wanted to check the contents of it justttt in case before i put the books in their hands

[defness]

→ drawing the same pose over and over again and feels cringe

→ realizes that these drawings are simply pre-ref drawings to figure out one's design so I can Draw Them

→ no longer feels cringe

[zhinee]

looked at old pics of myself at the wrong time and now im crying.,

[bmpmp3]

the villainess flips the script is a really fun manhwa with gorgeous art and my wonderful son luca who is a little bitch who i love so much BUT i will say. the family tree situation as the story has gone on makes my head hurt