#while fully knowing they are a team

[thevulturesquadron]

I don’t know how to explain this but I think the most endearing aspect of the rook/lucanis romance is the fact that that tiny king keeps going ‘all I have to do is kill a couple of gods to keep you safe’ and ‘I would kill gods for you’ when in actuality he wouldn’t be able to get within an arm’s length of them if not for Rook.

I like to imagine they both know that but it’s sweet to pretend otherwise and Rook never gets enough of hearing it.

[kelocitta]

Perhaps a more literal "Clerk Lover" than most abnormalities playfully given the title; Rat King shows significant variance in hostility when faced with high level employees vs. low rank ones. Teams otherwise completely decimated by its rampages may find themselves with stragglers who were merely forced out of the way in favor of more enticing prey, at least in the moment.

Naturally, Managers should take care to discourage any dangerous ideas about 'mercy' 'favoritism' or "kindness" lest they find abnormality containment units suddenly prone to failure.

[cookiekitkat8484]

dream blunt rotation

[zivaninja]

the thing that hit me the hardest on ted lasso this week is colin's reaction from when isaac walks in at half-time to when he stands up and says isaac isn't gay.

the shifty eyes, the breathing, not saying anything when Sam asks if he knows whats up because he can't speak. Billy Harris fucking nailed it

[57sfinest]

something i’ve been thinking about is the intersection of racism & fascism with conspiracy theories/pseudoscience and the supernatural in disco elysium. it’s a well-documented phenomenon irl and i think the game is very good at easing you into the “levels” of how these things are inherently related.

on the surface you have the racist lorry driver, who literally has “racist” in his epithet and is the most out-and-proud racist-fascist you could possibly meet, and measurehead, another open racist and fascist whose nickname is given to him by his belief in phrenology. here we see these people as pretty much cartoonishly racist and very vocal about *why* they believe these things: it all comes down to pseudoscience. these are people who have been convinced that racism is just a fact, justified by science that others are just too “soft” to recognize. we all know about measurehead and his phrenology and such but the RLD also espouses pseudoscience to justify his racism:

and, in addition to this “supporting” his racist beliefs, on top of this he believes in conspiracy theories like an immigrant *Invasion* and an anti-Occidental (anti-white) “cultural victory”, which sounds suspiciously like real-life “white eradication” conspiracy theories:

okay, this is some obviously deeply racist and fascist shit. but it’s not just this. measurehead goes beyond this and believes in other conspiracy theories unrelated to race supremacy, like his thing with semen retention, which is also a real-life conspiracy thing:

i’ll tie this all up at the end, so let’s move on to the next layer. gary is explicitly identified as a cryptofascist by his epithet. a cryptofascist, for those unfamiliar, is someone whose beliefs and ideals align with fascism but who doesn’t openly identify as such because they’re aware of the social unacceptability of it. if you play the fascist route, you’ll have to play as a cryptofascist in order to maintain positive relationships with NPCs and not take constant morale damage from saying fascist things. gary also says blatantly racist things, and here’s where it gets a little deeper than RLD and measurehead: the very basics of what he says are factually true-- that seol exports microtechnology, for example, which ties them to a lot of global governments-- but these actual facts have been spun by fear and *conspiracy theory* into a load of racist bullshit:

and you can actually see in that half light line at the bottom how the fear leverages belief in this stuff! you can argue against gary this whole time and still, an appeal to *fear* can start to slip in through the cracks. gary opens with facts and logic, devolves into fear and conspiracy spinning, and we get another layer of how racist rhetoric and belief spreads. then, to add another layer to the fear angle, you have plaisance. it’s not fear of immigrants with her, though. she’s afraid of this curse-- the supernatural-- that she thinks will be responsible for ending her business, and in her fear she turned to racist caricature and stereotypes:

it’s not the same as the direct “you’re seolite, fuck you” that RLD directs at kim or the “non-occidentals are inferior” he and measurehead parrot or “immigrants are trying to take over the world” that they and gary all buy into. it’s a far more insidious thing: this is something she takes as fact, so deeply that she doesn’t even *question* it. these nonwhite people are special mystical people with magic and that’s just how it is! while it’s not quite conspiracy theory, it’s supernatural, which functions the same as conspiracy when you talk about how racism is rooted in some fundamental disconnect from reality. and this brings us to our final subject, lena. lena comes in from the same angle, a belief in the supernatural (cryptozoology) that ultimately results in racism. (the juxtaposition of cryptozoology/cryptofascism with morell and gary was not an accident!) she seems like a regular sweet old lady who likes cryptids, until you’re randomly slapped across the face with this:

she believes that seolites are a different *species*, and that’s just a fact to her. you point out the racism and she just doubles down-- no, she’s not trying to be offensive, it can be a good thing actually! that’s just nature, just like the cryptids she loves! it’s just fact! and we see this echoed by plaisance and even gary, where they’ll say something deeply racist and follow it up with “but [x group] is very intelligent/crafty/etc as well!” as though saying this somehow cancels out the racism (when in actuality, these “good traits” are part of what they use to fearmonger about these “other” groups they’re so afraid of).

in general this group of characters serves really well to demonstrate how people who are out of touch with reality in other ways (conspiracy, magic, the supernatural, and some extreme forms of spiritualism) are frequently deeply racist as well, and some of them aren’t even aware or doing it intentionally. it really just comes with the territory, and some people choose to lean into it while others aren’t even aware of it, which is why the process of recognition and unlearning is so important when considering the latter population.

[buttercup-barf]

Under the cut are mostly self-insert doodles of decreasing quality. Again, not much directly tied to Team Fortress 2. Might as well toss these out while I have no access to my puter. Much yapping under the cut and in the tags incoming.

Another self-insert, this time less of a "here's me as a tenth class" and more of a "here's my game experiences translated into the class I would take the place of". The Cleaner. Although I guess they could still be wearing either suit. It doesn't matter that much.

That one Convict's Case taunt with Backup would be extremely funny, because the man would be on the verge of a breakdown (he does not want to go to jail so bad you have no idea). The second image- I owe no explanation. You know what I am. You see the pattern with my favourites.

The duality of the man. Resting face versus "just heard you express interest in religion/Russian folklore" face. He's not that hard to make friends with, when you pull him away from all the explosions.

Some doodles of trying to figure his face out. Unfortunately, the more I stare at him, the more I worry that he looks like A Certain Guy With The Last Name "Kazarin", and the fear of never being original in my life caught up to me.

Don't look at me, don't perceive me, I refuse to explain any of my actions to you.

[tarn-ati0n]

Your pokemon's therapist after this playthrough:

Made this.

[avalonships]

Do they match eachothers freak

[quirkyfries]

ooo ruin fans up in arms about today’s episode (it’s me. I’m ruin fans)

spoilers for today’s episode (Ruin’s wither shard) in tags

[raelyn-dreams]

Engstars giving me a Kuro five-star from the free pulls like it'll make me forget about the four-paragraph support ticket I just sent them about avoiding Arashi gender mentions so severely they took her being mentioned out of the translation of a voiced line twice.

[fuchsea]

.

[midnight197]

Used Skytemple for the first time to impliment a Phantump and a Hisuian Zorua into the Game :D After some trouble, I got Team Soulgem up and runnin!

The Phantump bases on my OC Reia btw!

I also created a Design for Rui today!

[phantastragoria]

Not sure if it's okay to send you this ask but I actually feel the same way you do about the end of vol 3 and I've been feeling pretty alone about it. I haven't said much because I don't want to seem like I'm being mean about the movie. I think my issue is the team hasn't spent years and years together. Most of them were snapped for 5 years. When they came back Gamora was dead and then Peter was clearly left suffering and dealing with the trauma for a while. I can live with the idea of "we've all grown to need time apart and want to do our own things" but I don't think the build up and execution was there. Not just for those on the team but also 2014 Gamora who was literally just coming back to the story and finally getting to see who these people were and what her life was once about. Then it's over and it doesn't feel like enough of a resolution. I also don't love how Gamora was treated which is a whole other topic but I disliked how it seems like there hasn't been any issue with her death for anyone but Peter. There doesn't even seem to be any memories of her lingering with the team. I have so many thoughts around this that I'll be thinking about it for a while but man, she was murdered by her abuser and most of her family are victims of abuse and I dont think the aftermath has been handled very well at all. Mostly I think there needed to be another movie In between Endgame and vol 3 to hash out what happened in Infinity War/Endgame and to progress some of the characters more and build up to the more Rocket focused ending where they all part ways. Or vol 3 needed to not be quite as focused on Rocket. Not saying he shouldn't have the most focus, just scale it back a little because other things desperately needed attention.

Oh it's absolutely fine to send an ask about this!!! I'm always up for a discussion, and honestly, it makes me feel better that I'm not the only person not completely happy with the ending, solidarity my friend.

I want to preface this all with I DON'T hate the film, and I thought it was way better on a 2nd viewing, but I really don't think it's a crime to criticize it because nothing is perfect (Vol. 1 + 2 aren't either) But Vol. 3 really has some deeply ingrained issues that should've been dealt with, or at the very least acknowledged, because as it is they really stand out, especially on a second viewing or if you've marathoned all the films together, and they literally drag the film down.

Gunn said on Twitter in response to something that he wanted Vol. 3 to be able to stand on its own without the viewer needing to have seen the other films (and by extension IW+EG) but that is so unhinged when it's literally titled as the third in the series at this point lol. Like it's extremely weird to have let IW+EG affect the Guardians as much as they did and then not even try and deal with the aftermath of it all in the last film featuring (almost) everyone together... ???

He's made it clear Rocket is his favorite and that he only came back to do Vol. 3 because he wanted to finish his story, I don't doubt that's true even if I think having a single character be more important than the others is the wrong choice and leaves the whole story as a trilogy a bit lopsided. But even so, if that's the case then it's crazy to not even have Rocket's thoughts on all of these things that've happened in the last decade as if it wouldn't be traumatic to lose your loved ones for years, and how hard it would be to readjust to life after it all. I kind of can't see him letting everyone leave so easily at the very end, especially after he almost died, so I'm just left feeling confused at the choice at best and vaguely unsatisfied at worst.

Maybe Gunn didn't have as much control over their appearances in IW+EG as he says he did. Maybe they really did completely derail the road to Vol. 3 and he just won't admit it, but the film as it is doesn't help in any way by pretending nothing there happened at all. I don't see any logical reason for the audience to just go along with "For some reason Gamora left, she might've died but also maybe not, who knows. Peter is sad and the rest of the team want to move onto something else. " and then the only hint at that last part is... Mantis telling Peter to go see his grandpa, so that leads to everyone else having a change in goals too, huh. I know it's not meant to be forever, and we're to assume everyone keeps in contact with each other, but the ending really makes it feel like no, we'll never all be together again, so bah.

And concerning Gamora, I agree with what you've said. I could write an entire book with my issues of her overall treatment in the narrative and the implications of her character from the comics getting adapted like this, but I'll spare you the speech and just say the TLDR is everything starting from IW onwards concerning her (the specific framing around her murder and then time travel bringing in 2014-Gamora, and the complete lack of acknowledgement about either version of her from the rest of the team) never should've happened. It's all such a mind-boggling choice, I can't get over how much of an afterthought Gunn made her at the very last minute.

It's funny you mention the need for another film to deal with the emotional fallout of everything post-Vol. 2, because absolutely, but they kind of had the chance??? I realize the Holiday Special isn't film length and is meant to be the calm before the storm of everything that's to come, but in a post-Vol. 3 world I can't stop thinking about how it was SUCH a missed opportunity to not have that be the sobering moment for the characters to talk about everything that happened in the years everyone was snapped. It could've even been the perfect time to plant the metaphorical plot seeds of everyone wanting to go and do their own things after what happened because they just can't make life feel the exact same as it was before, and understanding things can never be the same after something like that.

Even the last lines of the song used in the Holiday Special feels more appropriate for the Guardians as a family struggling to keep it all together (and trying to deal with the sudden loss of Gamora) than it relates to Peter and Yondu, in my opinion.

I would have preferred a more out-there story in general, something to give everyone equal stakes in the plot, but I do think Vol. 3 could have stayed overall the same if any of this was addressed or even mentioned in one or two lines of dialogue somewhere. Because as it is, it really feels like we missed something important between it all, but we didn't from what we we've been shown. I don't think it would have killed Gunn to include a quick moment where someone just says to Peter "I miss her too and I get everything's been way harder lately, but you can't let it grind your life to a complete halt like this." or something!! ANYTHING!!!

And if we absolutely had to stick with the time displaced Gamora plot... When she was snooping around on the Bowie by herself i dont get why she didn't get to see some old photos or something of the team during happier times (including 2018-Gamora specifically) and realizing that they really are going so far to save Rocket because they genuinely love him, and once upon a time they loved her too. 2014-Gamora getting to see the life she very nearly COULD have had within mere hours in her own timeline (without the threat of Thanos ever taking that away, mind you) but having to come to terms with the life she's made with the Ravagers in the present day. That would've been a more appropriate arc for her, I think, then her presence in the story wouldn't have had to only center around what Peter lost and nothing else and we'd at least get the idea that the others still had her on their minds even if they outwardly "moved on."

But also? Another missed opportunity to not have a moment when 2014-Gamora is in a battle with the other Ravager leaders mirroring the hallway scene with the Guardians that could have been when Peter (and the audience) "get" who she's currently more comfortable with in a basic sense, but... you know... it is what it is or whatever.

[fadewalking]

I barely know who Jojo Siwa is, but ive also publicly defended her numerous times for all the "relationship drama" she seems to get cancelled for on twitter and tiktok, and i guess i still stand by that we need to be leaving ourselves out of the romantic affairs of celebrities. But now i also feel like having publicly defended her for anything is a bad look, given her stupid statement on Colleen Ballinger and her victims. And thankfully this situation is nowhere near on the scale of horrific as the Danny Masterson situation, but I can't help but draw some kind of parallel between Ashton & Friends defending Danny in their letters and Jojo defending Colleen. Like... why on earth would anyone make a decision to publicly support someone who has victims... is it money?? Just like being famous and having money??? That's the only thing jojo and Ashton seem to have in common, is that they're both famous and have money. So like when you're rich and famous do you automatically just not have a soul? I'm just floored at what could possibly cause this behavior of supporting people who do awful things. Unlike Ashton & Friends though, I think Jojo could recover from this if she just realized she's in the wrong and apologized. But i dont see her as the type to admit to being in the wrong, which is based off of nothing tbf, it's just a vibe and my own personal opinion. But yeah, horrible look. Not a girl's girl, i hope she grows up real quick and sees this situation for what it is.

[batfamfucker]

Tell the truth comic fans challenge. When's the last time you read a comic and how many have you actually read?

P.S. This isn't me being gatekeepy btw I'm being genuine because I'm gonna be honest I've probably only actually read about five series and every thing else I've gotten from movies/series, online, or fanon. I know all the important events. Have I actually read them? No because my ADHD just wouldn't. And I can't be assed having to read important events if it's in a shit run by a bad writer.

[dbphantom]

I had the funniest dream last night that there was a new episode specifically for s2 of H2O. It was just a revamp of season 1 episode 10 the camera never lies but Rikki and Zane teamed up to film something underwater at Mako Island. Rikki was the camerawoman and Zane was the actor (as you do when mermaids are involved).

Filming went well, there were no sharks, and Zane had the money to buy a bunch of cool stuff for filming underwater including breathing tubes and air pumps to explain how the camerawoman could stay underwater for so long (the show just used their actual versions of them because I mean. They had them. At the very least they had them for the scene where Zane sinks in the Lorelei. I don't see why they wouldn't still use them for some s2 shots).

But when they finally got back and were watching the footage they were like oh shit. They can't show this because Cleo Emma and Lewis are going to realize what they did, and they're going to realize they're dating and that Zane knows about Rikki.

So it ended up becoming a hot potato game of passing the footage between each other until Nate got his hands on it and entered it into the competition for himself. So that gave Zane and Rikki a bit of an out because Zane could just say Nate was filming him, but Rikki is upset because she put a lot of work into the film and now she's not getting credit for it. Especially since last year essentially the same thing happened where she made a film and couldn't use or get credit for her work.

Zane ended up forfeiting the submission because of it and shrugs it off when Rikki is like why would you do that, you totally would have won again, it was leagues better than everyone else's. And Zane was like. Yeah. Exactly. You wouldn't have gotten the credit for it, and I don't want to win if it isn't with you.

So, totally unrelated note, I think I just came up with a new filler episode for my H2O fic.