#at least a mock up of it

[tadc-harlequin-au]

I was cooking a slight bit with the new reveal pieces before my desk GAVE UP ON ME (ik the preview is REALLY bad but bear with it for now)

Trying to make em look like a combination of loading splash screens and the artworks you get when you roll on a gacha game

and yes, all the main cast are getting one of these cuz they are ✨ special ✨

[xxplastic-cubexx]

walk with me on this alright

[nenehyuuchiha]

"why do you hate Tim"

Cause I'm fucking tired of him

[secriden]

So I was pondering just why I like Style so much and why his specific "failings" and imperfections are so compelling to me - and I think it's because all the other main characters are flawed in ways that are obvious but not very relatable.

Fadel and Bison are murders. Regardless of their motivations and how much they buy into Mama Lilly's propaganda, they still have taken lives and do so with little remorse. Kant is actively lying to, manipulating and taking advantage of Bison and Style (his supposed best friend) for his own ends with seemingly very little compunction. Yes, he's got his reasons; but still.

And then you have Style. His major flaw is that he is thoughtless and selfish and he doesn't seem to understand how to leash in his impulsive desires. This means he constantly ignores or crosses Fadel's boundaries to the point that, by the end of episode 3, is genuinely hurtful. All the same, compared to the things Fadel, Bison, and Kant have done and are still doing (reminder: ep 3 opened with another murder/assassination), this is relatively tame.

But that's precisely why I think people are being so harsh to him vs the other characters. Many of us have felt like the victim of someone like this because it's so common and so we relate to Fadel's frustration and then hurt and anger, and that makes Style actions feel painful in a way that’s personal. Few of us have been victims of the level of violence or manipulation that Fadel and Bison and Kant are dishing out.

Yet that's precisely why I like Style - he's imperfect in ways that add realistic complexity to his character. Why would we expect a character who is bold, brash, and impulsive to also be thoughtful and considerate?? He acts before he can think about things: that's the whole point of his character. He juxtaposes Fadel perfectly because Fadel "plans everything down from years, months, weeks to days" and Style hasn't acted with more than 8 seconds of forethought in his life. It’s part of what makes him perfect for Kant's plan in the first place.

But then, but THEN once Style begins interacting with Fadel, we start to get moments when Style seems to still and become intensely focused - most notably:

Right after the confrontation in the locker rooms (sadly I don't think anyone's gif'ed this yet, so screenshots it is!)...

…after his conversation with Bison about Fadel…

…and when he watches Fadel beat 3 guys up with ease.

We are watching Style find reasons to grow. We are seeing moments when he’s catching himself, slowing down, thinking, wondering. And while it initially starts with curiosity, he so quickly falls into fascination and obsession, and by the end of episode 3 it’s clear he wants more. It's not just about understanding Fadel anymore, Style wants to have him for himself. And if he's going to be something meaningful to Fadel he’s going to have to mature.

This is why I find Style so interesting and so fun to watch. He’s loud, in your face, and obnoxious so the layers aren’t as obvious. We think there’s nothing more there, but his complexity is deceptively hidden while they’re ironically much clearer in the quiet characters like Fadel and Kant.

And I don't think it's unreasonable to expect this growth. Style is written TO HAVE ROOM TO GROW. And, yes, I do think Style is going to rise gloriously to the challenge. We already have hints that this is precisely where the narrative means to take him:

(Fuck, look at how soft and earnest Style's expression is in the left screenshot. ;A;)

He’s by no means perfect but that gives him space to have a hell of a character arc and I, for one, can’t wait for it. 🙌

[starry-bi-sky]

Sometimes in cfau, the song lyric chapters are meant to reflect the chapter in terms of the mental state of the character the pov is from, what might happen in the chapter, or the feelings of the chapter itself.

Sometimes though, the chapter lyrics and the summary are meant to be me/the narrator mocking the character directly.

If I ever make a chapter to the song “Time Will Change You” by the Crane Wives, trust me it WILL be the latter. And it will also be a Jason POV chapter.

[sage-nebula]

It is objectively hilarious that of all the people in the world that Hamber could have chosen to be an Explorer admin, he chose Sango.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that she's not strong, or anything like that. But when you look at the other candidates that Hamber chose, she is absolutely the odd one out:

Amethio: A teenager like Sango, but also Gibeon's grandson, so he was a shoo-in. Strong, driven, and focused. Has strong emotional regulation.

Agate: An adult. Strong, serious, and focused on the Explorers' goals. Has strong emotional regulation.

Onyx: A young adult. Strong, serious, and focused on the Explorers' goals. Has strong emotional regulation.

And then . . .

Sango: A teenager. Strong, but extremely emotionally volatile. Easily bored and not focused on the Explorers' goals at all unless those goals allow her to eat tasty food and/or blow shit up.

One of these people is not like the others -- one of them just does not belong. If we had been told early on that, out of the five admins, four of them had been chosen and trained by Hamber with one having been brought in separately, the most logical answer would have been that Hamber chose and trained Amethio, Agate, Onyx, and Spinel, with Sango being the odd one out. But that's not the case! For some reason, Hamber looked at this food-driven, wild, rebellious teenage girl and thought, "Yes. She is perfect." And that is fucking hysterical.

[ifmagicexists]

i'm sure it's been said somewhere before but thinking very hard about "no man, however great, can know his destiny. like everyone he must live and learn, and so it must be for the young warlock.." like. the very first line of the entire series. explicitly said by kilgarrah to apply to merlin as well. and yet kilgarrah tried otherwise. he told merlin up front what his destiny was and tried to push him away from living through the bad things whenever possible.

and it feels like kilgarrah reflecting on everything after the fact because he thought he could change it!! he thought maybe by telling him the good stuff it could be happy this time. maybe merlin could become the greatest warlock and help arthur become a great leader and fulfil all of those prophecies and make all those great things happen but also he could kill mordred and destroy morgana and erase all his enemies and still be that great person.

except he couldn't, of course. and by telling him and trying to control the narrative kilgarrah sealed his fate; destiny doesn't allow for choices. it just doesn't work like that, and they all learned, and kilgarrah lived and learned and is left simply with that lesson: that no one can know their destiny.

[dykedvonte]

the code scanner just being a too bulky blacklight always gets me. if just one crew member sneaks a cheap one it renders it moot. PE made sure everything Important is hidden by the equivalent of a stop sign. like for them if it was violated they’d be detracted from collective pay but still

Truly.

P.E. is the epitome of cheap fixes and budget cuts. Nothing and I mean nothing they provide mixed with the way the expect it to be used is actually useful or good for the crew. Every policy is a warning label written in small text so they can obviously shirk responsibility if something goes awry.

They know they cant just leave weapons and potentially hazardous materials unlocked so they create a device that anyone can access but say only one person can use it. If someone else gets it and hurts someone well.... that's not their fault that's on the crew and Captain of course!

The code scanner, the auto pilot, the psych evals... They are all just smoke screens so P.E. can cover their asses and blame the crews and captains if something goes wrong they should of caught or done more to circumvent. There should be more standard and required ways to lock and unlock things. The auto pilot should not be so easily disabled especially if the ship can sense dangerous field. The evals are functionally useless since they go no where both being in space and the company clearly ignoring them/employees mental states.

It's the capitilsm of it all. It's the not actually caring if their employees are safe and secure. Imagine if they lost the damn thing? It'd fuck them over worse but then again they could just guess all the codes...

[rocketrouquine]

The way they gave us these 3 first episodes is actually so satisfying because I feel like I got a whole season already with all this shit happening (especially with this ending) and now I’ll have to wait several months (or a year or more) in a brain rot to know/see what’s next. But, wait ! Actually NO, that’s next week and I just SQUEEEEEEE !

[muse-write]

Oh shoot I feel the urge to suddenly work on my intimidating sewing project that I dropped last year.

[dafpork]

my master plan is i'm going to draw so much Dafpork that it makes everyone sick and then i'm going to post it on all accounts on all social media platforms and reblog it constantly and spam tags, and i'm going to keep doing this so much that any time you try to look up Daffy, anything at all, maybe even anything Looney Tunes related, it's all going to be Dafpork. google search will just be flooded with Dafpork. it's all going to be Dafpork. and then humanity will be saved.

[llycaons]

I want to make so many vagueposts but I'm choosing peace. I'm going home soon. love and light

[total-drama-brainrot]

Hello! About the fake dating!au, I was wondering how the episode Niagara brawls would play out if Alenoaheather was happening. Would Alejandro and heather still be paired up or would one of them be paired up with Noah?

Well, to be entirely honest, I haven't really thought too much on it yet. Mostly because it's still kind of up-in-the-air as to when Noah's elimination would take place in this AU. I think we've sort of settled on post-merge, so he would be present in the Niagara Falls challenges, but the timeline's still really vague so I personally haven't really invested any time in figuring out the semantics of how each episode would play out.

But since you asked, I might as well toss my hat into the ring! I'll just type out my thoughts as they come, so please excuse this response if it's a little all-over-the-place or formatted weirdly.

Off the bat, it's been fairly well established that the canon final four remains unchanged, so at the very least both Sierra and Cody are still present in this challenge; this is important, since in canon the only reason Heather ends up partnered with Alejandro is because Sierra is the one who rejects him as a husband first. I don't really see a reason to change the canonical play of events here, unless a brainstorming session later on down the line necessitates Noah being paired with either Heather or Alejandro for whatever reason. Mostly just because keeping as many "pre-written" plot points as possible lessens the workload on our shoulders (us, of course, being me and @perpetualexistence, and occasionally @ur-local-brown-multifandomist).

But that does leave the question of who Noah would be paired with.

And again, this would be super dependant on who's left in the competition at this point; since Noah's made it to the merge, we know someone has to have taken his place in the London elimination- just that small change could have potential consequences on all of the subsequent eliminations afterwards, so the merge cast might look almost completely different to World Tour's "official" line-up.

And this is also super dependant on whether or not it's Blaineley who wins the Aftermayhem challenge- I'm not sure if any of the others intend to swap her out for a more interesting/plot relevant contestant (which, as much as I do love Blaineley, she's just find of there with no real relevance to the story) like perhaps Lindsay, Leshawna or maybe even Beth- I assume it'd have to be a girl, since the show itself works to even out it's gender ratios, but it could hypothetically be anyone.

So Noah's partner could be... literally anyone, save for the Final Four (Alejandro, Heather, Sierra and Cody).

...Unless?

Now, don't judge me here, but I do kind of like the idea of Noah ending up with Heather as his partner. Maybe it's the vast potential of how their (entirely self-constructed, and self-indulgent) character dynamic could play out in this scenario, or maybe I just want the opportunity to write Noah trying and failing to pick up Heather, eventually leading to her being the one to carry him across the Falls tightrope like a pathetic, soggy kitten. Or maybe I'm just getting my Noaheather on- who knows?

All I'm saying is, they'd be giving a lot of Connecticut Clark and Malfina vibes and I'm so here for it.

And maybe I just want to see something new; there's so many explorations of how an Alenoah Niagara Brawls challenge would play out (and they're all wonderful, don't get me wrong!) so it's time to give some other pairings the spotlight!

Plus, this particular scenario would not only allow the contestants to see Heather and Noah acting like the "fake" couple they're supposed to be, but Alejandro could also play it as either a double-breach of his trust (since he's also supposed to be "fake" dating Noah, at least, and he has his whole romantic rivalry with Heather) or take advantage of his position and try to charm whoever he's partnered up with and either secure a valuable ally for later on down the road, or beguile his next elimination target into a false sense of security- since a huge part of Alejandro's character is his conniving flirtatiousness, and I don't want to completely negate that.

Now that I'm thinking about it, Alejandro's flirty nature could be a conflict point between himself and his partners. That's a thought for another time, though.

But, again, it's still very up-in-the-air and I don't really think I can give a definitive answer until a proper elimination order has been established- or, at the very least, the elimination order pre-merge. So, uh, sorry for the lack of a definitive answer!

[quaranmine]

unintended consequence of introducing my mom to reddit in 2019 is that 5 years later she is 10x more of a redditor than anyone i know now, and also has zero concept of the general reputation of reddit among normal people. everybody stares blankly when this woman in her 60s starts talking about this post she saw on reddit. she brings it up CONSTANTLY. like nearly every conversation. i'm like mom please. these people only know reddit as the incel site, if they know what it is at all

[romeowho]

Look, I was shocked by the big reveal, but it wasn't as shocking as the end of the episode because we'd all already been talking about how porter might be evil, but none of us suspected oisin was only flirting with adaine as a means to an end

[thatrandombystander]

Oh hohohohoho OOH HOHOHO someone has made and put up what looks like a decent sewing pattern for a CLASSIC Vash coat since I last looked for one. A hundred Stampede Vash coat patterns and ONE classic coat pattern

Fantastic. I won't have to pick some random coat pattern and try to adapt it with my minimal sewing experience. Watch out coat pattern, I'm coming for you soon enough.