The thing about Tech's fall is that I've seen about 3 dozen polls over the past year on if people think he's Alive or not and the absolute highest I have ever seen the "dead" option get was a straight 50/50 on a site where the majority of people actively wanted him to be dead for Stakes. Most of them though only range from 20-30% thinking he's gone.

So the elephant in the room is that if he is dead then it's bad writing. Not because you can't kill characters but because if you do kill one and cannot convince more than half your audience that he's actually dead then however sad and well executed the scene might be in isolation, you wrote a bad character death. Whether it didn't follow from the plot or it wasn't written in a believable way, or any other reason that people might not believe it, you cannot have a well written character death that can't convince a majority of the audience that it's real.

And I just don't think they're that bad at writing! I don't think they'd be so lazy with the first major character death that they fail to make it feel final and believable! Tech is as beloved by the writers as he is by us, that much is clear, and I think that if he was dead his death would get the attention it deserved rather than happening and then never getting properly addressed for the rest of the episode because too much is happening at once. And I think that if he was dead, they'd have made it completely clear from the jump that he was.

i often really do feel like an .. unwanted part of the fandom, i dont draw beautiful landscapes, i have unpopular but strong opinions im constantly annoying about and rarely change, dont like/dont draw the pretty young popular twinks and hot gurls to fanboi over nor do i turn characters into one, the opposite moreso, draw only one ship no ones heard of really, got little energy to interact with the few people that are nice to me and send me asks so it probably looks like im ignoring everyone and unfortunately but still rarely get so stressed i get overwhelmed and emotional about pehaps seemingly minor things and spiral almost into a breakdown feeling super embarrassed about it afterwards but the damage is already done and i look like a freak or agressive weirdo

[guy who just watched john wick vc] zosan hitman au could potentially be very funny. they're married but they don't know their better half is In The Business (a la mr and mrs smith style). both of them simultaneously do 'one last job' to get out of their hitman life so they can enjoy being married but the jobs they both get are each other (they don't find out each other's identities until the very end). they probably met each other in ways that in retrospect, were Very Suspicious for a normal civilian i.e. if they met at a gym and zoro falling in love w sanji the moment he won their first spar, which he brushed off as particularly dedicated kickboxing classes

beatrice pulls what experts in the industry call a "silly one" and thoroughly derails the internal logic of her own schemes

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SANDSTAR!!! What are you most excited about for her? How will this change her character arc vs canon? IIRC her only family left rn is her aunt Willowpelt, right? How do you think her relationships with the other leaders will be different vs Bluestar and the canon Fireheart, and how might that impact things down the line?

Ex: I can't see Windclan being pissed at their leader being buddy buddy with Thunderclan because Sand and One aren't exactly. Bros KNTRKJNTN

what even is Sandstorm's character arc in canon other then "stop being mean to the new guy" fhfjf

im excited about the ways it'll affect that side of her personality that is her arrogance, because she's still young, inexperienced, and trying to handle Thunderclan crisis mode. when she was younger, she would've thought she'd be a fantastic leader, but actually being thrust into that position tests every aspect of pride or confidence she's ever had in herself.

Also,,the way her and Fireheart's relationship progresses...mwah

Willowpelt is her aunt, and I think Halftail is still alive? Her grandfather on Swiftstep's side. She has a closer relationship with him than Willowpelt, and goes to him for advice a bunch

I mean compared to canon Firestar, Sandstar is just. Meaner fjfjf. She's more willing to remain guarded with the other leaders, but she's not as cold or purposefully cruel as Bluestar could be at times. She's also more open to cooperation that Bluestar.

I like to think her and Breezestar would have a good rapport! She wouldn't like Blackstar (nobody does) but she does respect him. Her and Leopardstar I feel can be cordial, but Sandstar is 110% ready to throw down at all times. Leopardstar prefers cordial, though, so it wouldn't be like they're at each other's throats at every Gathering.

Ultimately, I think one of the worst things Hopes does wrt its writing of Claude is take out all of the complexities and contradictions that had made him so interesting to begin with.

OG Claude lies and manipulates people and closes himself off while still searching for the truth and wanting people to come together and be open with each other, because of how his traumas meld together with his dreams. He says that he'll do whatever it takes to get what he wants and shows off opportunistic tendencies and then buckles at the first sight of innocents getting hurt, because no matter how much he wants what he wants he still prioritizes the lives of the people around him over anything else. He knows of people's capacity to hurt others for petty or illogical reasons - was raised with that knowledge beating its existence into him - and yet still dreams of a world where people of different lands and cultures can still be friends, because that is how tightly he holds onto his dreams. He's a kind person with the capacity for being a dick, and his contradictions add on so much to his character; they in large part are his character.

Hopes Claude? He lies and manipulates people and closes himself off... and that's it. He says he'll do whatever it takes to get what he wants... and he does. He knows of people's capacity to hurt others for petty or illogical reasons... and has no real dreams of stopping it (or dreams of anything in the future really, by his own admission) and he indulges in that very behavior himself, seemingly without any awareness. He is untrustworthy, and manipulative, and opportunist... and that's it. What you see is what you get. And if this were a character unto themselves, if we're kind and we ignore all of the other issues with Hopes!Claude's writing, that would be a fun enough villain to follow around.

But it's not; this is supposed to be Claude. This is a character who has so much of his foundations be built on the idea that what he presents on the surface isn't all that he seems. That he's more than a character who is just "tee hee I'm only pretending to be nice but I'm actually eeeeevil evil evil evil evil evil evil," but someone who both uses kindness as a means to an end and embodies it genuinely. Warm yet calculated, a good man with real flaws - THAT is who Claude is. Hopes Claude is who Claude is if you strip him of any complexity - He Is Only Pretending To Be Good, But Actually He Is Bad.

He's just... easier to swallow, in a sense. Claude is a good person who is willing and able to do bad things, but only up to a very specific, very clear point, all for a good dream he's held onto for years and plans extensively to make a reality in the future; Clyde is a shit person who's willing to do everything short of bombing specifically whatever land he himself is ruling, all for what essentially amounts to no concrete purpose. There's no need to think about Clyde as hard, since he just does what he does because he's doing it and that's enough.

It's why I'm glad I am Dev-Approved to just fuckin' ignore Hopes entirely as a horrific fever dream, because Hopes does not understand what made Claude so lovable at all

I GENUINELY wish I understood the appeal of Taylor Swift I really really do. many of my friends do. but it's just. I don't think a single one of her songs has ever landed above 'ok' or 'nostalgically cheesy' for me and every time I think that I feel so incredibly like I'm trying to be snobby but I'm not? it's not about not liking pop or not liking the cool thing I love pop I love cheese I just also like music that has some...I guess energy and danceability or specific and meaningful rage and I have found nothing to hook into in anything she's made. Antihero nearly works for me. Blank Space works conceptually but not in practise. but other than that the last thing she made that did anything for me even as a throwaway pop song was. god it actually might be We Are Never Ever Ever Getting Back Together or 22 which at least are catchy but I can't say ever made it to my playlists.

I want to get it, I genuinely do. I have listened to most of her releases at least once because I keep thinking if I try hard enough something will open up for me but nah however hard I try it's just extremely mid. like yes that certainly is music. I can immediately recognise it as Taylor Swift, it's not like it's utterly generic, but it absolutely just registers to me as background music. I want so much to understand what it is about her that makes her the biggest person in music for like 15 years now.

(I could say the same about Beyoncé who if anything lands worse for me. Break My Soul owns, but other than that I have landed everything I've heard of hers since like 2008 firmly in the Do Not Relisten pile it just lands like a ton of loose sand for me. and this is not mentioning the actual crime against music that was Jolene bc I don't think that worked for most people tbf. and again it's not that I don't like pop or r&b or rap cause that's like. between those genres about a third of the music I listen to. but her work is just so unengaging to me personally and I don't know why and I wish I got it)

Some of you are acting like Brazil never had concerts before

I think one thing I will say about the finale was that the most problematic aspect of the concept of the show was how it feels like they had to use the Fionna and Cake plot to Trojan horse a resolution to a swathe of loose ends Simon and Betty's arcs had. They pulled it off even better than I ever wanted to let myself hope for for the most part but I would say my main issue if anything was how cramped the finale felt when I think they could have left a lot more up to season 2 speculations (especially with the resolutions for the alt universes, they didn't really feel necessary when they basically just had to egg Scarab).

I feel I liked the understated melancholies of seeing Simon recontextualized and kinda infantilized in that temporary form hosting his mind, and some people have said the Casper and Nova thing felt hamfisted but I thought the vibes were too cute to care that it wasn't particularly "efficient" as far as metaphors go, but that does slow down the pace which probably crunched the ending a little harder :'). But it also worked in further showing the sad side-effect of the crown on Simon's relationships, including that of stunting his ability to have ever matured in his understandings of love and his relationship with Betty. I also think their last scene in the memory worked because it was Simon reconsidering how he viewed their relationship for the first time, even if his attempt to do for Betty what she did for him would have just been an inversion of their original flaw, the scene rests on them understanding it's unchangeable anyway, so that decision doesn't matter so much and it's not something for Simon to dwell on.

I also feel I liked the scene a lot in spite of how scarce it felt in the finale was because of what was most conspicuously unaddressed, which was just the sheer logistical impossibility of any different choices they made having possibly been any "better." It sticks out because Betty says they could have made better choices, which kinda seems to situate their relationship in a vacuum as if there wasn't a very high likelihood had they done anything different at that crossroads, they would have just been literally nuked into orbit regardless. Sure, it seems like enough time had passed for them to have worked out their relationship better at least and then died, but that kinda seems better by an arbitrarily less tragic amount, and really it seems the least tragic possibilities ever were either that they conceive their relationship more healthily, Simon finds the crown and protects Betty from exploding somehow and also doesn't warp her to the future, and they live some terrible survival life but at least they get a chance to live something kinda fulfilling and Betty probably would have taken care of Ice King decently for the remainder of her life once Simon was gone while also having a better understanding of what had happened to him. The only other hand would be that she also was still warped to the future he finds the crown but Simon had not enabled her self-sacrificial tendencies and so she becomes less undividedly obsessed with saving him and instead integrates into Ooo more properly and also accepts what had become of him (I find it hard to think she would have just let him die either way though lmao).

That all said, they had been around a long time to have reflected over everything. I think it is a bit of an issue that they don't really allude to that, but I find it easy to believe that they did recognize how thwarted a happy ending would ever be for them by all angles of their reality, yet they still had that tender ache of that simple and small tragedy just between them two that still exists within the torrent of catastrophe that engulfed them and the breadth of their fate. So much horror in their lives but they reconnect and find themselves primarily concerned with that last regret of not having been able to make the ideal relationship they quite thought they had.

pros of living in a region with a tumultuous past: has a political framework through which to comprehend international crises and the reaction of the international community to the aforementioned

cons of living in a region w a tumultuous past: constantly reminded of the hypocrisy of the international community AND the hypocrisy of your own country

i am honestly so exhausted right now. like between following the new blowup over somerton today, a friend of mine having some personal drama they needed to talk through, and like all of the stuff about tumblr opening the door for ai scraping, its like. too much drama for one day. too many things. i am so emotionally drained

i put off watching the muna tiny desk for months bc i knew it would change me as a person and i was 100% correct. stayaway tiny desk version IS that bitch

the opla got me properly into op.. I like it as its own show but the two nami's are so different... they're not the same character to me

I respect you, anon. and agree with you that nami is the most obviously mischaracterized. i think its the fact that emily rudds acting is so bad, complete nosedive levels of not even trying. im sure she is though and i 100% blame the director for it coming off like that as zoro has a similarly grittier and darker direction (its just that version of zoro exists post ts and this version of nami doesnt)

it's that in combination with the fact namis writing seemingly is convinced it can make namis narrative "more feminist" but it's only heard about what feminism is in passing. the kaya and nami scene screams i want to pass the becdel test to me. namis narrative didnt need to be retooled like this shes the second most memorable woman in shonen for a reason and has so many female fans who relate to her. she didnt need to be retooled into this cishets mans idea of a female character (there was NO female writers on staff which is a major fuck up imo especially when retackling arlong park)

classmate mentions sth that leaves you surprisingly touched and yr instinctive response is to say dry as hell oh profusely weeping etc. well FAILED grade in basic social interaction girl you keep forgetting your saving grace is you can never invite ppl in your head !!!