#I'M UPSETTI

[bakudekublogblog]

bkdk can't hold hands and they can't hug so hori is going to have no choice but to give us eight panels of sloppy tongue kissing

[thiefscant]

are you good or are you thinking about anais getting kidnapped by her childhood abuser at some point after the party returns to baldur's gate and how she's still somehow genuinely surprised if she's rescued by her companions?

[nectaric]

@ichoric asked:  this is all my fault. Zag n hades

zagreus’ cry would ring inside of hades’ head for the rest of his existence.

hecate’s spells and searching had worked, though not in the way they had anticipated.  when hecate came bursting through his door, announcing she had found the creature, hades had momentarily been elated.  only, they had not found the creature.  it had found them.

no, not them.

zagreus.

the moments that followed were an absolute blur, drowned out by the kind of terror hades had known few times in his life.  the kind of gut-wrenching, mind-numbing, life-altering fear that one could never truly wash away.  how could one ever recover from reliving their worst nightmare?  

he did not know how he got there, only that he was now standing in a clearing, his son forty yards away.  sure enough, the beast, the giant, the monster who had taken his son away from him was there, but-- he was ensnared, tangled in the trees, no, ropes?  hades could hardly make out the details, sprinting across the clearing.  though trapped, the monster lunged out with his arm to strike at his son.  zagreus cried out.  he wasn’t going to make it, he wasn’t close enough, he--

hades lunged between them, taking the brunt of one of the giant’s flailing legs.  he grunted in pain, stumbling backwards, but did not fall.  what came next, hades knew he would never be proud of -- but every single horrific emotion he had ever felt, the anguish of losing his son, the years of misery that followed, the fear he had felt since his return -- all of it exploded in a torrent of unbridled rage.

the ground cracked and shifted, skeletal hands rising from the earth to claw at the snared giant, dragging him down.  obelisks of obsidian burst through the dirt, impaling him, black monster blood coating the ground as the giant wailed.  where stone pierced his flesh, crystals began to form rapidly across his body, encasing him, trapped behind a wall of stone.

his screams went silent as the last of his skin was covered -- and then the skeletal hands, the souls of the dead, dragged his still corpse beneath the earth, swallowing him up.  the clearing went silent, and there was not a trace left of the giant but the blood that stained the ground.

hades whirled, staggering towards his son.  the moment he reached zagreus, the king collapsed, clutching him so tightly he feared he might crush the boy.  zagreus was the first to speak.  this is all my fault.  a low, guttural sob, something broken and horrible burst from hades’ mouth in response.  “no.  no this isn’t your fault.  this could never be your fault.  are you okay?  you’re okay.  you have to be okay.”

[through-the-shattered-glass]

Just watched Bloodlines 2's new extended gameplay trailer and I hate it. It's very clear that the devs didn't do enough research and don't understand the world and lore of the game they're trying to make. Unless they go back to the drawing board, I'm not gonna buy it :|

[wcvensouls-archive]

smol psa that i'm going back to work tomorrow sadly so my activity here will be a little slower ): someone save me!

[dollypopup]

just gonna say that Colin's exclusion from all things release date announcement (and the lack of pushback about it) is just another instance in a long line of actions that demonstrate that no one gives a fuck about his character. he is constantly sidelined, constantly denied scenes, constantly denied perspective, talked down on, denied characterization and complexity in writing, basically only ever existing as Penelope's prize. The show began this trend, foisted it to the fandom, but the fandom has exacerbated Colin's mistreatment as a character beyond even the show's lack of care toward him

EVERYONE has just. . idk, decided it's better for Colin to exist as Penelope's HEA reward for her shitty family / being ignored or some shit when he's supposed to be HALF THE FUCKING PAIRING. Where is HIS depth? HIS motives? HIS struggles and celebrations? Where are all the meta analysis of his character? The character study stories that don't just make his entire existence Penelope? Where are the stories where his family defends him, where he can demonstrate and forge strong bonds with people who love him? Where are the explorations of his past and motives?

Nowhere.

This fandom has proven time and time again he's secondary to us. Colin isn't a character, Colin is a punching bag. Or a projection of the guy who rejected us. Or an empty minded sexy lamp. Or a flat cardboard cutout for people to dump whatever they want on him. BUT HE'S MEANT TO BE A CHARACTER. A character with desires and experiences and connections that deserve the fucking spotlight for ONCE

when is someone other than Luke Newton (and like 5 of my fellow Colin peeps) going to give Colin the credit he deserves? like who is in his corner? when is he finally going to get to be a character? when will he finally get explored? when will he get the time to shine? no one seems to think it needs a priority

not the showrunners, not Shonda (who once said she didn't even think he was 'clever enough' for Penelope, fuck you very much for that one), not the Bton fandom, certainly not Polin, not anyone

forget the two parter and the date release and the wait or whatever. my favorite fucking character is being sidelined in his own season and no one gives a damn

[jamiesfootball]

After careful consideration and a lot of angry tags, I think I have pinpointed for me where Ted Lasso, especially season three, fails to succeed all the way at the themes it explores.

The narrative uses the deconstruction of toxic masculinity to paint their characters as being stronger for having let go of their preconceived notions of acceptable behavior - but the narrative also never lets their characters be weak or fragile without having toxic masculinity to blame. And there are a lot of situations in this show where you would expect someone to go ‘hey man, are you okay? Are you doing alright? because that was a shit thing that happened. it’s okay if you’re not okay.’

And it never does.

There’s an undercurrent in how scenes play out that suggests that the male characters should be strong enough to deal with hand they’ve been dealt. The narrative suggests that they’re the ones who need corrected. They can act better, but they can not be treated better themselves as a result. The male characters are allowed to express themselves, but they are not allowed to ask for anything back from the situation.

Which is why you can have a fight with your assistant coach, but when he comes back to apologize you don’t articulate how it made you feel. You don’t tell your friend how he hurt your feelings. You just accept it and move on.

The Diamond Dogs give advice on how to handle external problems with  emotional roots. They never discuss how they feel internally on its own merit.

The closest we got to a male character just having a bad one and expressing it without a clear source of external conflict? Jamie in the boot room. And that was played for laughs.

Which is why you could be in a deep depression over losing your career of twenty years and part of your mobility, I guess. But also maybe that’s a problem of you not being able to let go, and maybe you should apologize for not moving on sooner? We should pity Roy for getting so stuck in his own shit all the time. Not because the man has lived an incredibly stressful and emotionally isolated life in a high pressure environment for so long he doesn’t have the tools to deal with it, but because the narrative would like us to know if he just stopped getting in his own way all the time, this wouldn’t be a problem.

Is your ex-wife seeing someone else, who happens to also be the person who was your marriage counselor? I don’t know man, relationships are hard. Don’t worry about how hard that must have shaken your trust in a profession that already made you feel skittish. Maybe you should stop obsessing over her and move on.

Your girlfriend can tell all your friends and coworkers how you’re too smothering. Yes, this is the ‘learn how to communicate better’ show, but that was on you, really. Good on you for apologizing for smothering her.

The women may have worrying relationships with people who love bomb them or turn out to be controlling, but Jane and Beard are just a bit weird. Don’t worry about it, Higgins.

You can take accountability for your actions, but if it was your email who was hacked - who cares? You apologized, and everyone is very proud of you. We won’t ever bring up how incredibly mortifying that must have been for you to realize, because something more mortifying happened to someone else.

You can show your emotions, but not the angry ones, not the bad ones - those you should get a hold on, no matter how warranted they are. The stronger you are, the more divorced from toxic masculinity you are, the less those things should matter.

Struggling with your abusive dad and how his relationship with you has literally scared you so badly that you keep looking over your shoulder, afraid he’ll be there? That is clearly the anger talking. This is definitely not a situation that calls for your pseudo-father figure to put his hand on your shoulder, look you in the eye, and say, “i’m really sorry to hear that, son, but you know we got your back. Ain’t nothing bad gonna happen to you while we’re here.” 

No no, this is a you problem and you can correct it by forgiving that man who hurt you. In fact, you thank him for motivating you. It was the anger that got you this far. It wasn’t getting up at 4am every morning for extra training. It wasn’t your mentor, the one invested all his time in helping you. It wasn’t the coach who gave you a second chance when you blew your whole life up to get away from that man. It wasn’t your own drive and passion and love for the sport that pushed you towards succeeding in a career you only had a one-in-a-million chance of ever getting. No, it was the anger that carried you. You should let that go. And hey - what if hypothetically speaking, he might try to be better too one day? You can’t hold it against him. You should let that go too.

Breakdowns and displays of crying are fine, but expecting people to care or show concern afterwards? The narrative doesn’t know her. The narrative will not validate that. We don’t see what happened after Wembley. We don’t see what happened when Isaac came back to the locker room after blowing up. What the show will validate, however, is moving on. Just be a goldfish, or forgive and forget. 

And finally-

Embrace your feelings, but not too hard - you can’t be trusted with them, actually.

Can you imagine that we actually got a scene of Roy telling Jamie that he was worried if either of them pursued Keeley it might ruin their friendship? Can you imagine? From the beginning they have butted heads. From the beginning, Roy has struggled to actually articulate his feelings, especially to the people they involve. And here is Roy doing exactly what the narrative has been teaching him to do - he voiced a feeling that was bothering him to the person who was involved in the problem. Unprompted. He did that on his own. After three seasons of being told that is what he should do when he has a problem, that should have been the moment of narrative reward. That would have been the audience’s release of tension: they’re still at odds, they’re still the same bull-headed people they’ve always been, but they’ve learned to talk about it. No matter what happens next, at least, they’ve gotten this far.

Instead the narrative rewarded him, and us, by having them fight it out in a back alley. Because they’re idiots, and they can’t be trusted to handle their feelings without someone else in the narrative (Keeley) setting them straight.

Yes, people backslide in real life all the time. But when the narrative backslides at the very end of the story - that’s just nihilism. That’s what this felt like - all that progress and promise that you can be better, and two of the people who struggled the most tripped at the finish line. The audience don’t even get to see them pick back up. I mean they’re fine now, I guess. They went for kebabs. I have to assume it worked out. I guess after that they found a way to be happy, but I would have preferred to see them find a way to be happy by way of their own actions. Not in a fanfic. Not by way of imagining how it went afterwards. Not by what’s implied in a montage. By the story actually showing me they could get there on their own.

And the worst part about all of this is that when the show gets it right? It fucking sings. The team coming together to repair Ola’s? That sings. Ted’s ‘ain’t nobody in this room alone’ speech? Wonderful. Trent telling Colin that ‘some people need time to adjust; it’s not fair, but they do’? So delicately wielded, so painful. Beard’s speech to Nate about stealing a loaf of meth? Chef’s kiss. Ted forgiving Rebecca when he learns why she brought him to coach Richmond? The tears in his eyes when he tells her ‘divorce is hard’?

The hug at Wembley.

That’s what I wanted, from start to finale. When the show knew how to wield its empathy, it wielded it like a knife, cutting into the deepest parts of your heart.

Which is why when it does mess up, it hurts so much worse. Because by season three, the show has sunk so far into the deconstruction of things that it’s forgotten that what it fixed were not the only problems those characters ever faced. The show zoomed in too close on the themes. It forgot that at its roots, the its biggest strength has been its empathy. And that to me is where the show failed.

[witchytechart]

The Final Night

-----

I started playing ff14 last month and I sketched this when I just started Heavensward. Last night I did The Vault. My friend said it was fun. It was not.

[neinism]

Day 7: Tiny

[pharawee]

I love how City of Stars gave us a lovely scene with two people openly talking about their preferences and what they enjoy in terms of sex...

... only for people to argue that "it didn't go far enough" and somehow the show "chickened out" because in the end Krom wasn't vers and stated that he enjoys bottoming.

Just ?? ???

First of all, Fueang did explicitly say (several times btw) that he enjoys both topping and bottoming so there's your vers.

But mainly:

Do people actually realise how amazing it is that someone in a cute and lighthearted BL like City of Stars openly talks about enjoying being the bottom? Because this is almost never talked about. Everyone (in BL fandom spaces) always just seems to assume that the top is the active and fun and dominating part and the bottom is passively indulging and enduring - which leads to this weird and unhealthy implication that bottoming is somehow lesser and unappealing and "not queer enough".

Yes, pushing for a more diverse showcase of (sexual) preferences in BL is a good thing, but not if it comes at the expense of dismissing or belittling other preferences. Hell, according to reddit the most vocal group of bottoms are straight men getting pegged by their female partners, while a lot of queer people don't even enjoy anal at all. Their preferences say exactly NOTHING about who they are as a person.

It's not a hierarchy with verses at the top (lol) somehow magically transcending all the evil tropes and stereotypes in BL. Sexual preferences aren't a character trait, and there's nothing wrong with wanting to bottom exclusively.

[dylanconrique]

yeah chenford breakup era is sad but the sheer amount of sexual tension brewing between them still is absolutely fucking. hilarious!!! and i'm so living for it. 😂😂

[sentryvt]

I've kept all of these since Into The Light, it was just a blast to have some Lord Shaxx for a while c:

I miss being able to just dwell in Midtown Onslaught 24/7

[sadbeautifutragic]

NAP TIME!!!!

[unitcd]

My Kara is N O T canon compliant. She DID NOT come out to the world as Supergirl, for one. Secondly? Fuck it, she went to the future and she and Mon-El are happy.

THIRDLY?!?! Mon-El is not married to his work and he is not working himself to death, he and Kara make time to have fun and actually see their friends, etc instead of working themselves to death. This is my happy place and what I say is law. Because I said so, because I'm the mom of this blog, thanks :).

[tinylilvalery]

I guess what also pisses me off sm about Tomgreg being so sidelined this season after being built up since the fucking first episode is that official HBO social media were also hyping them up before the release of this season. And it's just been a fucking desert for them and I'm genuinely scared that they're also going to be minimised in the finale to like maybe one scene. This pairing that was literally built up from the start. Wow.

[plumadot]

all i want in life is for my mc server to load its resource pack properly is that too much to ask