#again very out of order

[imjustavenuxwithaboomerang]

finished episodes 7 and 8 with my sister:

she called the show scary a couple times before starting episode 7

"fuck the council" "well he is"

she was very happy when ekko was revealed, "FINALLY FUCKING FINALLY"

^but also went "i got him back and at what cost, HIS LIFE?" after marcus shot him

"i know that her tattoo says vi but i would like to think it says six for the five kids and vander"

she apparently never noticed how high mel's dress slits were until we got to episode 8

"i can't leave her again" "girl, we got in the boat, we paddled in the water, we got up here and now you want to make that decision? you could've told us before we packed up the boat"

"that looks like a nice hug" and "the bickering is insane" (about caitvi)

"i don't think you had to do that, madam" (about the opening scene with ambessa killing the girl)

when it cut to jayce's shirtless scene in the forge, she went "why does it look like he's having a sex dream about him, like "jayce will understand" then it cuts to this" ('he' being viktor)

^speaking of that scene she did in fact need a second after the "don't lose your nuts" bit

"is caitlyn still tied up while we're seeing the sights, taking a trip down memory lane?"

"caitlyn's like 'another bitch you know, another fucking bitch you know? do all you pests know each other?' is that not the face she's giving? look at her!"

"if y'all are just gonna chit-chat, y'all can leave. there's the door" (talking for viktor about jayce and mel)

"tell my daughter that i-" "that her father was a bad guy? sure"

"are you trying to take your daughter's man?" (about ambessa)

all she had to say about sky's death was "that's wild" (okay i'm kinda burying the lead, she was shocked and had her hand over her mouth the whole time but those were the only words said)

"she's such a self-saboteur but i understand" (about vi)

every time heimerdinger appeared on the screen in his cloak, she laughed at him, "he turned around like a thief in the night but he's this little thing"

"jayce, have you checked on your homie?" (no the answer is no)

"the way she walked was like 'there's a new sheriff in town'" (about ambessa's entrance at the port)

^she was also just like me and was disturbed by her interactions with the boytoy (no shade to them tho, to each their own)

"he killed a kid, that's gonna mess with him...i hope it does" (about jayce, also the "i hope it does" is meant to be read like she hopes he doesn't just move on)

"could this bitch die already, she's been close to dying a lot of times" (about sevika)

"MISS FRIZZLE?" (during the scene when we were in viktor's bloodstream)

when episode 7 ended, she did in fact think that jinx had killed herself and ekko (i also explained the whole thing about ekko hitting the bomb away from them, i also explained the thing about him having a crush on her when they were kids)

"i don't like mel's mother, i don't think you're supposed to but i don't"

"enforcer 3 is booo *thumbs down*" (because he was using a lot of force on the kid that jayce killed)

"it's giving zuko alone" (about heimerdinger going into the undercity)

"these hairs are fucking insane like on everybody in this world. like vi's looked like a sideways chicken"

her thoughts on episodes 1 and 2

her thoughts on episode 3

her thoughts on episode 4

her thoughts on episodes 5 and 6

her thoughts on the finale

[fee-phy-fo-fum]

A primrose. A four-petaled flower said to symbolise youth and young love. Giving it to someone sends a message saying "I cannot live without you".

replaying isat to appreciate some conversations id previously overlooked because theres so many little things here and there to appreciate. this was one of them.

(made minor edits to make euphrasie glitchy + clean up mira's hair)

on four petaled flowers:

[demonir]

New Doctor Who fan in 2025? Geez man talk about being late to the party, somebody give this guy a recap of the past 60 years please

Lmao jokes aside hi I drew these like a month ago, you can have them now. They started out as simple doodles and then I got too in the zone so I went back to sorta color all of them, it was a really fun exercise! I should try that again.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

yeah the skins neat i guess idk

[random-cockroach]

My brain malfunctioned and I was digging in MTMTE the whole day, forgot to blink, kicked pillow 8 times and was talking with my reflection 6 times

Ended up with 60+ screenshots of nerds being socially awkward/abnormal/straightforward because we use books to talk, not people, silly, cool or sweet, or just facts ahah

[claraoswalds]

#mrs flood who are you: time lord edition

[vurelly]

how am i meant to ha wahoo yippee through life in these conditions

[vivitalks]

we don't talk about it enough but duck and billy's relationship in amnesty is truly a tragic one.

imagine: you rescue a mindless drone. you save his life, you give him autonomy, you give him language. you teach him trust. you protect him at your own expense. you name him billy. he knows three words in your language, and one is your name. you promise to keep him safe, and he betrays his programming to help you in return. he defies everything he was designed to do in order to aid you.

you save him from being a drone, but in doing so, you kill him. he was never supposed to be here this long. you gave him freedom at the cost of rapid decay, and now he's dying. and if he could just go back to his home planet, he would live, but he doesn't want to. because you're here. duck newton, his first friend, his savior, his guardian. you showed him that there is a better way to live - with free will, with pizza and playstations.

he's damned if he stays and damned if he goes. but you can't watch him suffer. that's not who you are. you're duck newton, local beefcake, defender of the disadvantaged. so you wait until he's engrossed in his video game - in humanity, in freedom of choice - and you strike him down out of mercy.

billy reverts to his original form: a four-armed being of light, once a drone, now a friend. he's beginning to disintegrate, but he has unfinished business here. he never finished his video game. and you give him one last gift of mercy: you lie to him. don't worry, you tell him - that character you're worried about? she's fine in the end. no, i know it seems bleak now, but she turns out okay.

you can't give him anything else, so you give him hope. it's the same thing he gave to you, all those months ago when you saved him.

[drenched-in-sunlight]

probably a weird read of all the mending rune endings but I feel like Marika guided a Tarnished of no renown to become the next Elden Lord because, should the new Age still has her as a God, at least the new Lord would not prioritize their feelings for her over the world anymore (like Godfrey & Radagon did).

as Ansbach said “a Lord not for Gods, but for men”.

She’s already a really flawed God with too much love and hatred and humanity even after her ascension, a God who is willing to break rules for her loved ones (at least from my interpretation), and 2 previous Lords are…too involved with her. No matter if one interprets that as love or duty, you can’t deny those two guys act in accordance with their interest in her. Look how well that turned out.

So I feel like the reason a random Tarnished got the chance to become the next Lord is because Marika wanted them to know the Lands Between first, to love this land & the life within on their own term, with their own journey separate from her.

We don’t need to love or to know her at all.

And so she can trust us to always choose the greater good over her.

(But joke is on her I’ll suck af as a Lord I love her too much I’ll literally just be Godfrey Radagon 2.0 😭😭)

[ricky-mortis]

Hatchetfield @femslashfortnight Day 6: Protect

[aspiringwarriorlibrarian]

Honestly we should be making more comparisons between the Sith claiming that the Jedi were infringing on their religious liberty (to murder and enslave people) and the Lost Cause people who insist the Civil War was about state’s rights (to own slaves).

The Stranger: The Jedi War was about Sith’s rights.

Vernestra: Oh really? Sith’s rights to do what?

Stranger: Well, we didn’t want to be oppressed by the Jedi…

Vernestra: Really? How were they oppressing you? What were they preventing you from doing?

Stranger: Uhh…….it was more complicated than that…

Vernestra: Oh really, cause *very long list of Sith quotes about how they’re all about murder*

[charlesemersonwinchesteriii]

The Terror x Maya Angelou

Created for @theterrorbingo prompt: "Wherever thou goest."

[moeblob]

Terrified by this customer I helped today holy moly why would you say that while reading my name tag and saying my name please don't REPORT me for any behavior, good or bad. Just don't.

[phoenixwithapencil]

Ya ever find it weird that Bahamut barely has his role talked about in game? How strange his role really is?

Bahamut, the bladekeeper

Bahamut, the draconian

Bahamut, the keeper of prophecies and creator of the crystal

Bahamut, the god of war

Bahamut, the god who never provided a real reason for why so much blood had to be spilled for his prophecy to come true

Bahamut, who misled Ardyn and Somnus both into petty violence

Bahamut, who told Ardyn to spread the scourge upon the world for decades

Bahamut, who let Ardyn go on a vengeful killing spree just long enough to really hate Lucis- but not get his revenge- and then let him go back on his merry way to Nifilheim and Verstael Besithia who had ambitions of war and tin soldiers powered by scourge

Bahamut, who enabled a war that killed nearly everyone on both sides not to mention those who were caught in the crossfire- a war that would not have been so bloody had Ardyn not had such a hand in it

Bahamut, who demanded a blood price 2,000 years in the making- who really demanded two sacrifices- Ardyn and Noctis- who did not need both for there is a world where Noctis at least lives and the sun rises and no one else needed to die for it.

Bahamut, the god of war, the creator of the crystal

It’s a strange pairing when taken with the story of ff15. That’s all.

[hellohoihey]

Sara & Felice - s1e1

(just trying out making gifs - may or may not be doing more of these in the future 😅)

[jemmo]

Making sense of love for love's sake: the game

Despite all the things i absolutely adore about how the plot unravels and expands in love by love's sake, upon first watch, there's some things i couldn't piece together, which @lurkingshan echoes in their post:

'The way the author was messing with Myungha and forcing cruel choices on him really does not track with a desire to help him find happiness.'

And to preface, this is not something i fully get yet either. I think i'll need a good month and a sizeable reading list of relevant resources to understand just what/who this author/sunbae is and what his role is and how he is associated with myungha. But as always with the best shows for meta (aka bad buddy), as a plot unfolds, you can always find a better understanding by looking backwards and re-contextualising what you've already seen. so i watched ep 1, specifically the scene between myungha and his sunbae at the bar. And i will talk about how everything said in this scene has a whole new meaning now we know the full story, but for now i wanna focus on that question that they keep coming back to; "Then... will you change it for him?".

When you watch the show for the first time, your brain follows the simplest, most obvious version of the story you're being told, one where myungha has been pulled into the world of his sunbae's novel that's being turned into a game and given the opportunity to fix the thing he didn't like about it; making yeowoon happy, and thus you just think the rules of the game are imposed by the author, and so when these cruel choices first come up, you see them as the difficult roadblocks that are nevertheless necessary to any kind of game, forcing the player to make an impossible choice so that the game can continue in a certain direction and its only after that you learn whether it was the right choice or not, or there is no right choice, it simply changes the game you are playing.

And when its revealed what this game actually is, at first i tried to interpret these cruel choices, namely the choice between yeonwoon and myungha's grandma, and at best i could come up with the concept of this being a choice between staying stuck to the past aka choosing his grandma, even though he knows that choice doesn't mean she's safe bc he knows the future where he loses here, its an inevitability, but thats the small happiness he knew before it was taken away and thus that happiness is known and safe, theres no risk, versus choosing to pursue a new happiness, a love of yeowoon and thus himself, which he doesn't know, he hasn't experienced yet, and could be risky. Its a happiness that isn't guaranteed like his grandma, but its a happiness that looks to the future and has hope in it that he can find a new happiness to pursue despite what has happened in his past.

And that fits nice, okayish. But then i watched ep 1 and heard that question "Then... will you change it for him?" And watching through the rest of the eps, we come back to this scene at the bar and each time we get a new run up to the author asking this question, either new dialogue is added or we hear a different piece of the conversation entirely. It starts at the beginning of ep 1 as:

"Because Cha Yeowoon is the only one who's miserable." "It can't be helped that some people's lives are like that" "The fact that some people are destined to live that kind of life is what's vile."

Then a bit later in ep 1 we go back and its expanded.

"It can't be helped that some people's lives are like that" "The fact that some people are destined to live that kind of life is what's vile." "Why? Do you think you'd write it differently?" "Yes, definately. Someone like Cha Yeowoon, or someone like me with an awful life, can also be happy."

And then all the way on in ep 6, we get this new dialogue.

"I don't like talking about destiny." "Why?" "Because it means everything is predestined." "Then do you not believe in fate?" "Fate and destiny are the same. My grandma likes to say that. She said life is like a written book, and how you'll live and die are written in it. (...)I don't like things like this. Even if fate is already destined, I think it can still be changed. Otherwise, there's no point in trying." "Really? Then Myungha..."

And while we don't hear the author ask the same question, I feel like him getting cut off like that insinuates that the conversation leads to that same ending point. All that is to say, every time we hear this question being asked, its like we learn more and more about what this whole thing is, what the game is, what myungha is saying he will do by agreeing to do what the author asks. And every time, we see myungha being more defiant against the idea of yeowoon being resigned to his miserable ending. He starts off thinking that kind of life is destined, and while it's miserable, its not something he can fight. Then he says he'd want to write the story differently, bc yeowoon, or even him, could be happy. He challenges the idea that yeowoon, and thus himself, is fated to be miserable, and opens up the possibility for happiness for them both, but doesn't yet have the means or resolve to do it, its like he knows its possible on a fundamental level, but doesn't see it as something he can actually achieve. But then we circle back to the idea of destiny and books, both of which came up in the previous quote, and seems incredibly pertinent seen as this whole thing is about a novel this author has written. Myungha talks about how he hates the idea that life is a book where everything written is predestined to happen, from the moment you live to the moment you die. He says "Even if fate is already destined, I think it can still be changed. Otherwise, there's no point in trying." That vile way of life he described before that he said was destined, he is now saying it can be changed, and that possibility is now something he's holding onto, its what he sees hope in so that he can keep trying, bc now he finally is trying, he has the resolve, he's trying to realise this thing, this impossibility of rewriting the life he thought was destined through the way he loves yeowoon.

And coming back to those cruel choices, given this fresh context, it made me think. bc this isn't actually a game that myungha has been put into where the rules are dictated by an author completely separate from him. He said himself, he'd rewrite it, he'd change things for yeowoon. And when you start to think of it less as him fighting against a rigid, removed system and more like him being a character in a story he is trying to rewrite himself, that has both the author and his own limitations, or just his own if you're in the school of thought that the author is some figment or part of myungha himself or his conciousness, then you can start to see where these cruel choices might come from. They could be myungha, the author making edits to this new story, imposing his own doubts and limitations on himself. When he says he has to pick between Yeowoon and his grandma, what if that's the new author myungha seeing this story unfold and thinking no this isn't right, he can't have it all, i'm not deserving of this much happiness.

And what makes me like this idea even more is that when we get that second choice between ending after 14 days or getting 100 days back at the cost of resetting Yeowoon's affection to 0, that whole conversation happens in what I think the bar actually is which is this frozen moment in time where myungha is in the water with this extension of a voice in his head that is talking through these things. That conversation in itself needs its own post, but when you look at it both as a decision to break up or not or a decision to hold onto life or not, you can see how the author is just this soundboard relaying the decisions myungha is going through in his head. The author's voice is his own, weighing up his decisions. And if he is the author here, it only reinforces that the person making the rules of this game is him. You can even extend it further to the idea of the debuffs, where he puts in place this thing that makes it so he causes harm to yeowoon when he's around, and its only by garnering affection that he can prevent it. He gives himself a reason from the get go to stay away from yeowoon and reason it as him doing it for yeowoon's safety, when in fact the only way to make yeowoon safe is to increase his affection, which he can only do by being near him. Its a system that at first gives myungha a reason to stay away aka not like himself, but ultimately says the only way you're going to make yeowoon like you, or the only way you can like yourself, is if you accept risk. And that in itself screams to me of a myungha writing in these game systems that are trying to encourage his own-self love while falling at the hurdle of his own lack of self-worth.

The idea is still messy in my head even for me, but i just really like the idea that myungha could be trying to fix this thing both as a character and game master, and that both these versions of him have these flaws that manifest in their different ways to cause the events we see. It kinda is the definition of being your own worst enemy, the idea that in order to work towards loving yourself, the biggest obstacle you have to encounter is yourself, bc we are the ones holding ourselves back, making all these rules that make it harder to like ourselves and pursue our own happiness. The voices in our head telling us that we aren't good enough and aren't deserving are our own, and while the things that happen to us can inform what they say, we're the one's reinforcing those words. And what this show teaches us is that, if we're the one holding that pen all along, we can choose to change what those words are. If we make the rules, you don't have to create a game with concrete ultimatums, you can create a game where rules don't control you. Instead, you make the decisions, and you can make the ones that make you happy.