Remember a long time ago, when you'd go to websites and they'd do all this weird design shit going on, like make you walk through a black and white haunted duplex before watching a movie trailer for Spike Lee's Bamboozled or whatever the hell. Like... Flash websites? Or just weird promo websites with "Easter Eggs"-- I want to say the Matrix had one for the sequels...

I just googled Cool Websites and it recommended Reddit (no!) and the Oatmeal (double no!) and Giphy (????).

I don't know how to find that kind of website anymore. Even artist sites-- why do artists sites all look the same??? They're supposed to be artists. White background, the word "Works" in a tasteful font off to the side or in some kind of menu up top, that thing when you scroll down where the word "rutabaga" scrolls up onto the middle of the screen in a sort of misery-grey box. Everything seems so off the shelf now.

There must still be people mucking about out there, right? What do you google to find those people... I googled "how to find gnarly websites" and it tried to sell me ski caps. I get that the people who made those sites are in their 40's and 50's now-- I get being tired; I'm having the worst two weeks I've had all year, hahaha! But ... do young people just not find the internet that interesting, I guess...?

I thought it was interesting. A bunch of people connecting through wires and whatever the hell a "wifi" is. I don't know. I kinda thought it was interesting.

genuinely i think it's important for adults, especially in the plague times, to play pretend in our day-to-day lives. when i rub my back down with tiger balm so i can sleep without pain, i imagine i am a valiant knight tending to an old injury i received from a dragon. when i go to the store to pick up eggs and milk, i am a lone cowboy riding into town on a mission. when i turn my collar up against the wind i am a femme fatale who's killed 4 husbands and is scoping out a 5th. when i stomp around in the snow i am a doomed polar explorer. if being a little bit silly about my walk to the pharmacy helps me remember that life can be full of joy and whimsy, then so be it.

Jin Guangyao Is In Desperate Need Of Human Contact And Is Constantly Trying To Find Ways To Make Himself Feel Safe: Therefore He Would Definitely Be A Little Spoon, In This Essay I Will

“this is lame but—” actually nothing important/noteworthy to you is lame. because it matters to you and there is meaning in that. but go on.

Coriolanus Snow and Anakin Skywalker are perfect examples of really interesting characters who had every chance to do the right thing but repeatedly chose wrong even though they were surrounded by good people, all because they had one person whispering in their ear and convincing them to be selfish and to hurt people instead. There is no point where they have to do what they do, it’s their choices that make them compelling.

They’re also both incredibly controlling over the women they claim to love but are quick to try and physically harm them when they realise that they’re actually human beings who will not blindly follow them. It’s very clear they were possessive, not actually in love. To sincerely love is to respect someone’s agency and neither of them were capable of that.

Another trait they both share is that, despite being layered and well written but fundamentally flawed characters who turn to evil by their own free will, if you cast an attractive actor to play them, there are always going to be people who blindly ignore the entire plot just to defend them and justify their actions. Being a victim of abuse or oppression does not excuse you from being a perpetrator.

once again thinking about Hey Melissa because this story lives in my brain like a little worm that wants to slowly kill me. anyway I've thought of exactly what changes I think would've made the story work better in my opinion so uhh here's my Hey Melissa script doctor I guess djskfjdsk

cut Paul's dog story. I get what the intention was, it's meant to be a full-circle thing at the end, but I just don't think it works the way it was meant to. it muddies the story too much and makes Melissa's motivation more complicated than it needs to be. if in every timeline she's trying to kidnap Paul to keep him as a dog (and she hates and kills dogs), why is this framed as her breaking point? why does she like him at all? and why does him just meowing convince her? cut all that, simplify it. Paul's a cat from the start. give her little club a bit of a clearer and simpler base logic: men they hate are kept as dogs, men they like are kept as cats. Melissa's been wanting a cat for so long, and she's had her eyes on Paul, and she's finally got him where she wants him.

Paul still denies that he's as good of a person as Melissa thinks he is, but instead of telling the dog story, have him just. lose his temper and be kind of a dick to her. he wanted to let her down easy, but she just keeps pushing. goddammit Melissa, he'd like you more if you'd drop this. he's made it clear he's not interested. she's not his type, he doesn't like the things she does. they're not compatible. and he's dating Emma right now anyway. can she please just let this go and stop pestering him so they can at least stay friends? Melissa's clearly upset, barely holding back tears, but says she understands. Paul now feels guilty, asks if there's anything he can do. Melissa asks him to feed her dog. the dog is Ted, and Melissa knocks Paul out. Paul wakes in the cage, afraid he's going to be defingered like Ted, but Melissa assures him no, she would never declaw a cat. Ted's a dog, see, he's a nasty, filthy dog pretending to be a man, he needed to be taken off the streets to keep everyone else safe. but Paul? Paul's a sweet kitty who's just confused and thinks he's a man, thinks he knows what he wants, thinks he's happy. thinks he doesn't like her back. he broke her heart, but that's okay, he's just a feral cat who doesn't understand that he's safe with her. he bit and scratched her because he doesn't know what love really is. he just needs to be trained and socialized. in time he'll understand that all Melissa wants is to love him, and he'll come to love her, too.

add like. one scene or moment to ground the tone and force the viewer to sit in how horrific this would actually be. one mention of Ted's wounds being infected, or the guys being cold and malnourished. just like, a single line, or a brief exchange between Ted and Paul would be enough. keep it light and absurd the whole rest of the time, but one moment that takes the situation more seriously would add a lot, I think.

have Emma bitch Melissa out after their exchange. do not have her just walk away crying, let her get MAD. let her rip into this freak who's boasting about having stolen her guy. who does Melissa think she is?? someone who deserves a cup of milk to the face, Emma thinks. it's full of spit, by the way. fuck you. and fuck Paul. you assholes deserve each other. and Emma starts crying then, at the end if her rant, and realizes she's. a lot more hurt than mad, actually. more hurt than she'd expect to be about Paul. fuck, she'd thought there was something special about him. but he's just another asshole. and then she storms out crying.

foreshadow Paul's decision to stay with Melissa. one moment of him starting to kind of like being here. she's scratching his chin, or petting his hair or something, and he's enjoying it a little. has to snap himself out of it, like he forgot for a moment that this is a waking nightmare. would give the ending more of an ambiguous terror, that maybe it's not just the bump on his head, and there was something in him that was being won over, because we saw it.

at the end Paul apologizes to Melissa for breaking her heart, thanks her for being patient with him. he always wanted to be a good man, but he never believed he was. but Melissa believed he was a good cat, and now he is. she made him what he could never be on his own. and to make up for hurting her, he'll be hers until he dies.

unfortunately I have opinions about the ascendant astarion ending and I have been holding back from saying it. but it's a problem that applies to the whole game and it's been annoying me

what's actually weird about the ascendant "romance" scene is that the writer considers it a tempting option for the player. They wrote it to be bad, but they also think it's a fun and sexy option. Same goes for the haarlep scene which they also wrote that way because they find it sexy. Except finding this sexually appealing entirely hinges on the idea that the player is a submissive. So RIP to a scene that the rest of us could have found sexy because the lead narrative designer was a submissive. lmao

In this game you can have a scene where you have to kneel for a male character. But you can never have a male character do the same for you. (Halsin doesn't count. It's a vanilla scene, he is not submissive there and we are not even asking/telling him to kneel down) You don't get such options, not even if you play a drow female! RIP the number one reason for playing drow female to be honest. lol You can kneel and fully submit to ascendant astarion or fully submit to mizora or fully submit to haarlep or submit to lae'zel or submit to minthara. you can get whipped by abdirak or you can tell him "touch me and lose a hand" he even responds positively to this remark and yet the possibility to flip the dynamic doesn't exist. There is never an option where a male character truly submits to the player. RIP to a scene that would have been the opposite of the traditional dynamic. the potential that existed but they never used the opportunity

By the way, how interesting that Lae'zel is dominant but she is a woman so ofc you get the option to tell her “no you will submit to me”. You never get such switch options with any of the male characters... Obviously it's not ascendant where they could have made that an option. My point is that it's NEVER an option among so many male characters.

It's a cool idea that the bad ending in a romance means "I saw this character as a sex object" except it falls apart when the scene is very sexually unappealing to anyone who is more dominant leaning. If I see a character as a sex object then I would place them in sexual situations which are appealing to me. so the message doesn't quite work. because there isn't anything that I can selfishly choose for myself just because I like it and I find it sexy.

Long day/week/month/etc. at work, so I don't know if this is a coherent thought, but I'm sitting here reading and finding out about the new owners gutting Bandcamp news. Anytime there's news like this, or lots of "why has everything fun about the internet been killed off" sentiments out there, I always have this weird loop where...

(1) I'm old enough where I remember the internet being built, and we didn't have these sites-- people went and built them because we needed them, on some level, so I say to myself "what happened to people who wanted to build things for the internet, where did they all go, why aren't they around anymore"-- because of how everyone takes it as a given that once these places are gone, they can't exist anymore, for some reason, even though these are just webpages and not the Pyramids of Giza-- but then (2) more importantly, I then have to say "I guess i have no idea how anything good on the internet happened to begin with because I don't understand who gave who money or why or for what."

Because I never really paid attention to (2) back when it was being built, I never really followed the money because money's just some confusing shit, when you dig into it, so now I don't have the tools to understand (1). But you always just have to understand the money, I guess is the lesson. I was just a pretty dumb kid, I guess is my point. Surprise!!!

Y’know. Anakin was a real asshole in Ahsoka’s hallucination.

Like. She mentions something about what she’ll be able to teach her padawan one day, since all she’s being taught is how to be a soldier, and Anakin’s like “teaching’s not all it’s cracked up to be”

And like. Asshole move. And Ahsoka rightfully calls him out on it. And he goes on the whole “uuuh I was joking. Lighten up.” Literally a complete jackass.

But beyond how he answered the question, it’s a valid complaint Ahsoka is bringing up! Anakin’s teaching her how to live or die. But Ahsoka wants to be taught how to be a jedi.

What happens after the war is over (order 66 never happens) and she now has to navigate a galaxy without a war? The Jedi take teaching very seriously there’s no greater honor than teaching a padawan. And she’s not being accurately taught, so she will not be able to pass anything on to the next generation.

But Anakin brushes it aside because he simply does not respect her or her wishes. Like. He never wanted a padawan, despite teaching being foundational to the Jedi. And he only took ahsoka in because he started to like her and became attached to her. He doesn’t care about jedi legacy, not really. So he brushes her comment off with a joke.

But in the rest of the vision… idk it didn’t feel like we were supposed view Anakin as entirely wrong here. He wasn’t in the right, he was definitely channeling Vader and being an ass, but he was basically the reason Ahsoka survived the fall, right? Bc he was making her choose life? When Ahsoka wins against him it’s sort of like she’s both learned his lesson and moved beyond him. And then for the rest of the season he’s only talked about in positive ways.

And like. That one line ahsoka said was really powerful in relation to the entire point of the show. What does she have to pass onto her own padawan (Sabine) if she wasn’t properly trained herself? That is, perhaps, the only valid plot question asked in the entire show. And it doesn’t get an answer. It’s never even brought up again.

every single explanation for why mikey wasn't decrepit but was covered in blood is insane like

he's a vampire and is draining the other three of youth

it was for his own safety. if he went on stage in all his 2005 scene queen half of jersey all of warped tour glory the seismic shockwave of two dozen nostalgia bait emo bandman dissolving their marriages for a chance with that sopping wet twink would have levelled nevada

bad ending where instead of the band breaking up and mikey getting help they drag the band's shambling corpse around until mikey dies young. pulling back the curtains on how unhappy and unhealthy they all were during the era that wwwyf is trying to capitalize off. you want us to keeping going back to 2005 for the sake of your nostalgia? okay mikey's fucking dead now (makes me unbelievably upset to consider but exactly the kind of shit they'd pull)

he died in normandy

im soooo beyond excited. loving the setup of sisters fighting with and against each other, especially bc family/found family is such a big theme for fujimoto. really excited to meet death just in general cuz if theres one thing fujimoto can and will do it's create a fleshed-out, nuanced, sadistic female character that you hate to love and love to hate, but who knows, maybe she'll be different than i think. this does feel like setup for the final arc and we're not there yet, but they did say there was half a year until she showed up so hopefully there are some juicy arcs in between.

gen fic is a valuable type of fic with just as much capacity for sincere emotion and intimacy and exploration of interpersonal relationships as ship fic. it’s not just ‘fic with actual feelings in it (ship fic)’ and ‘fic with a concrete plot that focuses on physical events and is super serious but only about those physical events (gen fic)’ and I have no idea why even people trying to speak positively about gen fic tend to talk about it like this. like they can only compliment gen fic or find worth in it when there’s an excuse for it to exist and reason for romance not to be there (plot heavy, blah blah, super canon adherent, blah blah, specific type of fic trope that tends to make the inclusion of ships weird or difficult, blah blah, the stuff people say when they’re trying to be nice about gen fic).

that’s not the point and gen fic is so much more than that and i’ll happily die on that hill.

(edited to add: by ‘gen fic’ this post is NOT referring to rating. it is referring to fic that is not about and does not prominently feature romance, regardless of rating.)

LEONA, JAMIL, AND VIL IN THE LOUD CATAGORY?!?! 👀👀👀 pls,,,elaborate, you put them in a row too like the torture 🥵

I imagine Vil is going to be unabashed in his expressions. He sees no shame in being loud, and if your relationship with him isn't a secret of course he's going to want to flaunt it. He's proud of you and the relationship he has with you, so why should he limit that in bed? Also, I just think Vil can be dramatic and bratty in bed sometimes and so there are moments where he's louder than he usually is.

Jamil and Leona are within the same sub-category of fucks you so good that others nearby can hear the bed creaking and the headboard banging against the wall. Leona just doesn't care; he's shameless like that, so all of Savanaclaw is going to know he's getting laid. He growls a lot and if he really loses himself in sex those growl-moans of his can get quite loud. <3 but also when Leona's in the mood you're going to need help walking afterwards and everyone's going to know who rearranged your guts lol. That, and Savanaclaw's layout is open and many beastfolk have impeccable hearing, so if they don't hear the bed creaking or Leona's groans then they're definitely going to hear you.

Conversely, Jamil isn't one to make much noise verbally. He's more likely to be quiet, grunting or groaning softly in your ear. But he has a tendency to fuck you roughly when he's in the mood to do so (which is more often than you'd think because being Kalim's servant is both irritating and exhausting; and the bedroom is one of the few places Jamil has control), which often results in the bed making more noise than he does simply because the pace he sets is brutal and relentless. He often pushes your face into the sheets to muffle your sounds so that no one will hear either of you, but if anyone listens close enough they can put two and two together after hearing the creaking bed and the sinful slap and squelch of skin on skin.