Not to be that person, but if Stranger Things ends up with Steve and Nancy getting back together, either Will or Robin dead, no ronance, no steddie, no byler, nothing beyond ‘up to interpretation’ of Will’s sexuality, Mike and El happy together... I don’t know, as a queer person, I will be upset. 

guys I'm part of the crew that believes Ciel would be an all time serious gamer boy in the modern Era; monopolizing minecraft and what not. we all love it. but I couldn't help myself with the thought of how our favorite dry Victorian leaf would feel if being dropped into one of these modern settings.

inspired

this is something i talked about on twitter but. thoughts on chuuya's happiness or lack of in the mafia after the stageplay madness ?

i don't think chuuya is unhappy in the pm but do i think he is happy ? no. he's probably not even considering his own happiness tbh.

he shackled himself to the organisation bc of the dead bodies he carries on his back and bc he's desperately searching for a meaning/purpose.

he has not changed since he was 15, in contrast to dazai who's evolved and is somewhat seeking a healthier way of life. chuuya hasn't. he's someone who was very similar to dazai and who stayed that way as a 22 y old. he has a ton of issues he hasn't solved bc he doesn't face them.

and this is literally what this scene means - chuuya was opposed to dazai in that scene and only one of them changed. he literally stayed stuck as the teenager in search of a place to feel useful, clinging onto anything that'll give him a purpose.

and another very interesting thing we have is chuuya's character emo song Darkness My Sorrow :

"The world is a bird cage, faded in colour

Even if I lament, I can't get out of this prison

Even if I get tired of the night and tear off my shackles

That eye who sees eye to eye with Kierkegaard is also here"

the whole theme of it is chuuya saying he's trapped in a cage, but fuck everyone and the world bc you know what ? he'll persevere out of spite.

but in contrast to this way of thinking, he mentions Kierkegaard, who's a philosopher known for his theory on how choice gives humans profound anguish. which i think can be related to chuuya bc choosing probably gives him that anxiety - all the choices he has to make in regards to the sheep or the pm certainly are not easy ones and they take a toll on him. one that he'll never acknowledge bc it isn't the time to hesitate or talk about feelings, it's time to act, as he says in DA or below in his song :

"Even though it feels like I might be trapped, there is no room for sentiments

I'll push myself to the limit and dye everything jet-black"

and there's also this bit :

"I'd rather just fall than go back to being alone

Staring at the destroyed cage of this self, (GRAVITY)

Slowly, I sing, "Not bad at all.""

so while yes, he did choose to be part of the pm (and won't let anyone take this act of choosing away from him), imo we have enough material to consider that chuuya is a very self-sacrificial character, with suicidal tendencies to boot. i just don't see him as a happy person ? despite doing what he wants most (protecting the city and the ppl he cares about) and living life with his very chuuya-ish moral compass, i think that he's mostly on survival and work mode.

tldr; chuuya needs to leave the mafia and do his own thing after he gets his character development

here's my problem since some people want to ignore genuine criticism and act like anyone who is criticizing the writing or the pacing is "not accepting things we accepted in s1" by comparing this to doomcoming

doomcoming is. i cannot stress it enough. an episode where the characters are drugged and high on shrooms. when they chase travis and when they nearly kill him we are SHOWN they see a stag

now yes you can compare their doomcoming hallucinations to the hallucinations of it chooses but even the framing isn't really on your side here is it? when the show wants you to doubt to what extent they're really even aware of what they're doing or the level of.. delusion present it has absolutely no problem showing you that! we saw them having an ancient greek feast while ripping apart jackie's body and we saw too many near death hallucinations and other hallucinations to even COUNT on one hand

so they're aware of what they're doing when they draw the cards. while they were shown to NOT BE during doomcoming at least while it happened. and now the question is do you think we have reached that point? if you do i'm happy for you genuinely. i wish i agreed. but i just do not. when they agreed to do this they agreed to not only potentially get themselves killed they also agreed to the death of their loved ones if they draw the card. why was van shown doubting everything she believed in (including lottie that goes without saying) in the previous ep and now willing to get herself or taissa killed for a ritual meant to save lottie? and don't Tell me what you think. i am capable of making up an explanation. i can come up with a bunch of theories. but there is No exploration of that in the actual show. why was taissa fine with this? why was nat? do i think those characters are all such lottie believers they'd go to those lengths? no not really cause all they were really doing before was having dbt group therapy with lottie and then lottie proceeded to fail in all her predictions about the baby

there were absolutely ways to make this more believable (like! maybe show nat and travis get injured while trying to hunt and they start thinking it's because lottie isn't blessing them before they leave anymore. show everyone lost without someone to look up to. put more focus on how hungry they are. maybe use some makeup to make them look more malnourished. show taissa's actual sleepwalking come back - and yes i know there was that one other taissa scene but it wasn't quite enough for me to buy that tai would be all for this. unless they're pulling another Other Tai Did This surprise but it's getting a little old imo) but they rushed through it in a way super jarring. and no it shouldn't be! yes it should still be shocking but we START the show with those murder cannibalism rituals. we watch the show to find out how it happened exactly. every single viewer should be watching this feeling overwhelming dread because it FEELS inevitable that they'll decide to do this. we should be quite horrified but we should also be 100% convinced that's the choice all those characters would make. this scene is what all those 18 episodes led to and regardless of whether someone liked it or not the overwhelming majority seemed to be shocked this happened already. which. quite literally means the build up wasn't there

I haven't made any secret of the fact that I don't think the 2000 LM miniseries is good like...at all...in any way....BUT I am extremely intrigued by their unaging Immortal Gavroche, which I'm pretty sure was unintentional and just another symptom of the really ruined timeline they have going BUT IT HAPPENS NONETHELESS

and ALSO intrigued by this bit where he walks into the barricade, sort of ambles around, and then absolutely zeroes in on Bahorel (yes, that's Bahorel! It's even verbally confirmed later! and he has a red waistcoat! One Actual Point to LM 2K from me XD) like that's who he was looking for in the first place

...the intrigue is not lessened by me being highly suspicious that Bahorel is also kinda immortal in this one (again: probably not on purpose, there's just. there's a lot of issues with the editing in this. Whoo boy this is not a good show.)

ANYWAY thanks for the 1.5 minutes of blorbo interaction , show, I'm taking this and the Immortal Gamin and nothing else

My cat just deleted a chunk of the next chapter of my fanfic

cannot BELIEVE I live with an Izzy anti smh

Discuss

I’m mostly joking but then again not really

I know Merlin’s magic remaining secret from everyone and him being left without a support system was integral to the eventual tragedy of the show and the self-fulfilling prophecy of it all, but I still really wish we got magic reveals with every character and magical shenanigans. Lancelot was one of my favorite characters and we only get him for a few episodes. And Gwaine would have been an excellent partner in crime. And lets be honest, if Gwen knew? Tragedy averted. All of camelot’s braincells travel towards her like ants seeking sugar and everyone else has to root around in the dirt and hope they find one that has yet to make the journey to their one true home. I would have even settled for a little time-loop episode where everything gets reversed. There are so many ways to do a magic reveal! There was so much untapped comedic potential! Those scenes in the og charmed where Daryll doesn’t understand any of the witchy nonsense that’s happening? Hilarious! That scene in smallville where Lana questions Clark about all the mysteriously solved villain-of-the-week incidents while they’re driving? Also hilarious! It’s not that hard. The knights needed to figure out Merlin was Dragoon. Gwen and Arthur needed to realize they almost lost Merlin dozens of times. Mordred and Merlin could have been partners in crime and absolutely terrorize the shit out of everyone with mindspeak. Morgana also could have been “the antagonist” without losing her core character traits, but that’s a rant for another day? Where was I going with this?

Talking a little bit about 'boycotting Eurovision' under Keep Reading, feel free to scroll down if is not what you want to see.

The most used argument on the matter of banning Israel from Eurovision is the fact that Russia got banned from Eurovision, which is the worst argument anyone could bring.

Kindly reminder that Russia didn't get banned because of the war with Ukraine. Russia got banned because many countries has threatened to withdraw from the competition. Sadly, that's a big difference.

Yes, the countries has threatened to withdraw because they support Ukraine and see Russia as the party in the wrong. That was their reason. EBU's reason for banning Russian was because those countries threatened to withdraw, not because the war was bad and Russia must be stopped.

This situation isn't the same. Why? Because many countries support Israel in their genocide. Because this time around Palestine is the party in the wrong. Because we're taught to believe that Israel isn't in the wrong here.**

Boycotting Eurovision won't work. There are people out there who don't know the truth and want to watch Eurovision. There are people out there who don't care and will watch Eurovision regardless of the situation. There are people out there who, despite having the facts, still don't see Israel as the bad guy in this situation and will watch Eurovision. Sadly, boycotting won't work unless everyone does it.

The only way Israel will get banned, in my opinion, is by going through the same thing as Russia. If other countries threatened to withdraw- and not any countries, but the ones investing the most in Eurovision, then yes. That will get Israel banned.

Otherwise? The only thing we do is hurt artists that don't deserve it. Artists who use Eurovision as a way to get more exposure and experience. Artists who deserve to be heard.

Don't vote for Israel's entry. Don't stream their song either. Heck, turn off the TV when is their turn to perform.

**This whole situation (the war, not Eurovision) isn't only black and white. Civilians die daily because of this, all of them from both sides. Innocent people who has no fault. Let's not forget that

Major spoilers for Bg3 Act 3 below

I really wish the mindflayer monster romance was better written. I feel like the Emperor — AKA fucking Balduran, the founder of Baldur’s Gate — was too much of a human, and a shitty human being at that. He lusts after power, willing to kill his closest friends and allies for it (Ansur etc). He claims to have had a relationship and friendship with Belynne Stelmane, but we later (if we reject his advances and call him a freak) find out that he has been pretty much mind controlling her. And he implies that we should’ve been grateful that he’s giving us a chance to love him out of our own free will rather than being mind controlled like Stelmane was. He’s incredibly nice towards us… until we say no to him. At which point, the masks drop and he hits us with this line:

"But since you insist on thwarting my craft, let us be blunt. You are my puppet. Make no mistake. Without me, you have no value. You will take me to the brain because you have no other choice. And once we are there, you will do exactly what I tell you to. And you would do well to reconsider unlocking your potential. Your puerile attachment to your material form jeopardises us all. If I must, I will force you."

His mindset feels less like an illithid/mindflayer who operates on this blue-and-orange morality, and more like just a manipulative, narcissistic, piece of shit human tyrant.

In DnD lore, illithids are vampiric creatures who simply could not comprehend human emotions like love and care and happiness. That is why things like resonance stones exist. That is why eating a brain is such a sensual experience for them, to the point where they’d hold eating performances to extract as much emotions and memories and feelings from the brain they are consuming as much as possible. Human emotions are an object of fascination for the mind flayers.

In other words, mind flayers are anything but human. They don’t think the way we do. They don’t feel the way we do.

Meanwhile, the Emperor keeps insisting that he is “just like you”, that he is human just like us. And frankly, the writing makes him a very power hungry and selfish human being… and I don’t want that.

I want a romance with something inhuman.

The whole point of a monster romance is that you’re falling in love with something inhuman— and inhuman doesn’t have to mean evil, just not human.

It would be so interesting to be able to romance a rogue or an outcast illithid like Sangalor (who feels a lot like the inspiration for Omeluum, another friendly mindflayer NPC). I’d rather date something inhuman that finds human beings fascinating and is curious about what it means to be human, even if it can never truly comprehend it. Or, just straight up give us something inscrutable and incomprehensible, something Lovecraftian to fall in love with.

Anything but this abusive boyfriend simulator.

There’s so much potential in the Emperor’s character, it’s frustrating. If the writers are going to make him Balduran, can’t they at least use that as one of his motivations for wanting to save Baldur’s Gate? The music also went hard in this game too. The Song of Balduran is the main musical motif for Act 3. A darker version of the OST plays when we first meet the Emperor in his illithid form. A dark instrumental version of it plays too if we have sex with him. The normal version of it plays when we camp in the Elfsong Tavern.

He clearly has a musical motif to foreshadow his identity as Balduran along with his fall from grace. There’s so much more depth we could’ve had with him but it all went away the moment he gave that monologue about how we’re nothing but puppets to him. I’m just a bit sad at how much potential there is to his character — as a hero, as a villain, as a lover — but frankly the writing falls flat In the end.

looking back in my archive (a hobby of mine) and I'd totally forgotten how many angry messages I got back in spring/summer 2020 for daring to be critical of taylor like I was fully prepared to leave the fandom in that time and in hindsight if I hadn't been lured back in by the excitement of folklore I probably would've been out of here years ago

Mild Spoilers for the 2 most recent Jade bday groovies (my 2 scents don't mind)

After the banger that bloom bday was I'm like really not feeling this these new ones

The art has been going through changes for a while now but idk I'm not too hyped for these. Like the expression is fine but overall they feel weird to me

Also a funny detail but they've changed his teeth?? Newest one has teeth similar to Floyd's when his are more pointy than chonky usually

me n my sister seriously n deeply discussing blitzbee longfics like

midnights could be folklore and evermore's third sister and she'd still never live up to expectations because she came after folklore and evermore and so she could never win :/

anyway i love midnights and i think the production is significantly better and more appealing TO ME PERSONALLY than folklore and evermore combined

idk I think someone who knows how to edit images should add Emily Dickinson’s ‘love is immortality’ over images of Ava and Beatrice

Unable are the Loved to die

For Love is Immortality,

Nay, it is Deity—

Unable they that love—to die

For Love reforms Vitality

Into Divinity.