Just watched the new trailer in german to prepare myself for the episodes airing early and noticed two things

visually the trailer is exactly the same, but the dialogue has a few differences

The forbidden five are referred to as the banished five (die verbannten fünf) not that different, but interesting nontheless

Ras specifically calls Shatterspin a „highly evolved version lf your beloved fighting technique“(eine hochentwickelte Form eurer geliebten Kampftechnik). So there is definitely a connection between shatterspin and Spinjitzu, other than the similar names and looks

Nothing really new here, just some interesting differences

anyone else have multiple traumatic memories associated specifically with holidays/family vacations? because that is a topic I never see discussed in all the So You Had A Shitty Childhood, Now What? self-help books i've been reading. but for me, it was a significant thing. and the more i think about it the more it seems like this would be an (unfortunately) common experience. would be grateful to hear if this matches other peoples' experiences...

Ok ok hear me out: it could end in tragedy,, AND have a happy ending. The attempt(s) on Machete’s life force him to flee, he doesn’t even have the chance to find Vasco. Cue gay longing for at least a few years while Machete despairs over the loss of his love, his life, his status. He and Vasco only reunite (again) in their later years. Their relationship is forever flavored with loss and loneliness, but that only means they savor every moment that much more

I also I would like to see them as old men. Vasco would be so droopy :)

You gave me such old dog brainworms.

The disproportionate hate show!Criston gets is so bizarre. No argument I’ve seen his haters make sofar has made any sense to me.

He is outside of Mysaria the only siginficant lowborn character we meet. He rises up from the son of a steward of a minor house to the position of King‘s Guard thanks to Rhaenyra, who then pressures him into having sex with her, sth that could get him executed. Afterwards she not just rejects his proposal, but laughs in his face.

And when as a result of this experience Criston is shown to be emotional distraught and bitter, people call him an incel? (I assume that they refer to his ideology and not his actual status as a celibate, because not being celibate is literally what started this mess)

It really rubs me the wrong way, when people remove all context from this situation. A lower class person getting a well-off position from a person with authority, who they then end up having sex with is ALWAYS a relationship with a power imbalance (Obviously there are irl relationships like this, who work out and manage to be relatively healthy, but that doesn‘t remove the imbalance of power and the increased likelyhood of abuse).

We see Criston‘s reluctance when Rhaenyra makes her move. It does not matter if Criston was attracted to her or not. The simple fact that he is in a vunerable position makes him denying her a risk. It also does not matter that Rhaenyra had no malicious intentions, the simple fact that she ignores Criston‘s refusal and continues pressuring make this whole scene super uncomfortable. Her ignorance and naivety does not erase the impact of her actions.

Criston growing to hate her afterwards is perfectly justified.

As a man who grew up in Westerosi society, he inevitably holds misogynist beliefs, which is reflected in the insults he uses after this. But compared to the acts of every single character on this show, singling out his character is pretty ludicrous, when we have plenty of male (and female) characters who have done worse:

Like commiting SA (Viserys, Aegon), grooming young girls (Viserys again! I really hate this man, Daemon, Otto, Corlys and Rhaenys because telling your daughter she has to sleep with a grown man when she is 14 is pretty much the same thing Otto does to Alicent) and the only major crime Criston is guilty of sofar: murder (Daemon killed his wife and the servant in Driftmark, also he did large scale police violence which people love to forget about, Rhaenys killed potentially hundreds of smallfolk at the coronation)

Obviously, anybody is allowed to dislike whatever character they want, but a lot of people flatten Criston into just a misogynistic bitter incel who is just mad that Rhaenyra has sex, ignoring every bit of context we get for his behaviour.

This becomes escpecially weird, when those same people have no problem stanning Daemon, who calls his 1st wife a „bitch“, „uglier than sheep“ and then murders her, because he sees her as inferior as a none-valyrian. But Criston calling Rhaenyra, a person he feels personally wronged by, a „spoiled cunt“ is apparently a too far.

It is just really frustating when the character with the canonically lowest social standing gets afforded the least amount of nuance by the fandom (the writers are obvs not excempt from this criticism either).

Can’t wait to visit Iraq and just live blog from there. That will be so fun

the greatest form of life in the observable universe is going to raze your stupid civilisation to the ground

nothing stays hidden from me . nothing 👁‍🗨

fisher grian fanart is beautiful because 1. i love grians whole fishing thing in hc10, 2. sometimes people really dont know how to draw fishing rods

i mean this in the best way possible. its hilarious and just makes it even better because HOW THE FUCK IS HE FISHING LIKE THAT??? WITH THAT FISHING ROD?? cryptid shit...

Serious Hellfire gala spoilers incoming those who care avert your eyes. But I have something to say

It seems extra heinous to me that after prodigy’s last significant appearance (the first hellfire gala) was widely criticized for portraying his death and remains in such a way, this happened. Just the most brutal, horrible death imaginable at the worst possible time. Not that the other deaths weren’t horrible, but David’s felt particularly vindictive given his history. And since the team was ALL “voted” members, they kind of put some the responsibility on fans who voted for their favorite x men to get literally slaughtered. It’s not just sad or even gross, it’s cruel.

I feel like David was only on the ballot at all to get back at people who were (rightly!) upset with how horrible his earlier death was. And as others have said, presenting one of the most diverse x-teams of all time only to brutally murder them seconds later feels like a bigoted decision.

Not to mention the fact that Juggernaut seemed to survive by virtue of being invulnerable, but Joanna did get killed by it. Same plot armor that saved a white man didn’t help the black woman.

laura (1944) / laura by vera caspary -- waldo and laura meet

bonus deleted scene from the movie script, with a third interpretation of their meeting --

How do I say, without coming across as a jaded miserable little bitch who likes raining on everybody's parade, that the PJO Disney plus adaption is nostalgia bait, in the same way that their live action remakes are

What?? Why on Earth would they bloodlet Machete when he's already anemic?

Anemia wasn't discovered until 1852, so his physicians have no idea. He's just moody and achy and visibly unwell and bloodletting happens to be the cure-for-all fix at the time.

I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say it was one of the most used treatments in western medicine from ancient Greece to 19th century (and even earlier than that in Egypt, for example). There weren't many ailments that a little bit of breathing a vein wouldn't alleviate, supposedly. This whole concept is based on humoral theory which is a fascinating cornerstone of medical history and also completely unfounded nonsense, look it up if you haven't, it's interesting. People believed that blood didn't circulate through the body, it was created, used up and then the bad blood would stagnate in the extremities. Having too much blood would disturb your humoral balance and create illnesses so removing it was beneficial to your wellbeing. Even completely healthy people would sometimes go get themselves bled a bit just to be sure.

You kind of need blood for your body to function so this treatment was completely pointless at best and life threatening at worst. If you were sick to begin with it would only weaken you further (and expose you to potential infections, which in the absence of antibiotics, wasn't great). The only viable use for it would have to be rare blood disorders where your body produces too many red blood cells, like polycythemia vera, essentially the polar opposite of anemia.

"When did you have your last abortion? Until you know everything that goes with it, don't you dare lecture me or anybody about–" "I know what goes with it! Obviously I haven't experienced the physical part, but I know the overwhelming emotion that goes with it. I know the sense of loss, I know the doubt, the guilt, so please, don't–" BOSTON LEGAL 5.08 "Roe"

I like to think that Draco had intended to name Scorpius after Snape in honour of his sacrifice and everything the man had done for him but a few months before his son was born he saw in the Daily Prophet the birth announcement of one Albus Severus Potter and he was like 

hiatus notice!

It's been a long time!! We are both well, but life has been collectively kicking both our asses a little bit, and the prospect of picking up and running the blog as consistently as we used to is feeling kind of daunting as a result. So we're going to step back for a little while and work on some other stuff while we clear our heads, and come back later ready to continue.

(how much later? unsure! But hopefully not long, we still both care a lot about the blog and its story. This isn't the last you'll see of it by a long shot :))

Additionally, both mods have both moved main blogs over the past few months- you can now find us instead at @alien-shmalien and @creaturelytracker.

Take care!!