#and NO this doesn't mean i was expecting zero changes i'm not stupid

[professorhayforbreath]

i think my philosophy on adaptations is different from most people's tbh. if i have to see one more take that's like "if you wanted the same story just read the book" i stg.... if they wanted to write a different story why did they choose to adapt a beloved book? like yeah i did want the same story lol my bad for assuming a "faithful adaptation" would be the same story??

[felixdragonheartofficial]

TFA TEAM PRIME HUMAN REDESIGNS FINALLY

FUCK

+headcannons

Optimus: gotta stay focused

looks too old compared to his bot form.

I find it impossible for Optimus to be more than a million years old in this canon. In the least, he's older than 1000 years and since we have mfs that are canonically over 70 million years old(fagatron iykyk) compared to that, he feels like a dude in his early-to-mid-30's being the group parent.

---

-I made him more youthful, gave him curly hair, and tailored his clothing to actually look like his bot form.

-workaholic

-on the cusp of barley being able to hold his liquor

-doesn't own a pair of pajamas until Sari gets some for him

-usually forgets to put them on, but appreciates the gesture

-stays active for like, 3 days until he can't fight off sleep with work brain anymore, and unceremoniously passes out on the couch to sleep for a full 24 hours

-ratchet sighs and puts a blanket over him as per routine

-frequently checks security feed

-elf on the shelf despiser

-early morning talks with jazz and ratchet over coffee (they all wake up at 6 am)

-half thrives on caffeine and a vigorous training protocol

-is a dog person, loves German shepherds to death

David sama, pls forgive me ily very much

Ratchet: to old for this nonsense

doesn't match his body type in the slightest.

Ratchet is really old, he's got a sallow face and a gramp gut, how dare they square him. He's wayyy too angular and peachy looking.

-I gave him his luscious curves back, adding all the equipment id expect a field medic to have because he is a field medic, not a regular doctor. I changed his facial proportions, and also made his face gaunt, for that dead inside PTSD look.

---

-drinks his coffee black with brown sugar, literally drinks it piping hot

-is one of those old people who complains about noise

-confiscates bumblebee and Sari's toy cars, and puts them in a high up cabinet

-neither of them know how to bypass the child safety lock lmao

-casual clothes includes a lot- a l o t of plaid shirts, and 10 pairs of the same blue jeans

-tunes out bulkhead and prowls convos about birdwatching

-big fan of political satire dramas

-Sentinel doesn't approve

-Ratchet doesn't give a rats ass about what he thinks of course

Bumblebee: professional smart-ass

doesn't match his body type/age.

Bumblebees holoform is presented as a 10-12 year old child specifically for the fact that he's short, and the comedic relief. Total ass

I set his human age as 19-20 years old, making him more of a big brother to sari because that og model is disappointingly lackluster

---

-Bumblebee is a scrappy wisecracking punk, like an adhd kid who just got roller skates for Christmas.

-since he doesn't have wheels, I feel like he'd wear skates instead to emulate the feeling

-terrible at watching where he's going cuz he's too busy trying to show off, so ratchet makes him wear all that padding + training wheels

-legit despises the padding and training wheels

-Jealous of Blurr for mastering roller blades lmao.

-his favorite games are choose your fighter and fps

-saw ONE ancient ass assassins creed playthrough and begged ratchet to install hidden tasers in his arm bands (was denied)

-Sari used her key to do it instead

-self appointed "rizzler"

-Optimus has zero idea of what that means and thinks it's code for something dubious

-Ratchet knows what it means and thinks it's silly

-"I' was something of a rizzler myself back in my day, kid"

-bumblebee cringes

-loves summer and swimming

-wants to be the fastest thing in the sea because y'know, it's bumblebee

-is spooked from the beach for awhile cuz he saw sharks in Prowls nature documentary

-there are infact, no sharks in lake Erie

Bulkhead: big guy, bigger heart

doesn't match his body type/aspirations.

Jesus fuck he's so wide?? And his belly migrated to his shoulders?? I'm gonna be honest, I really hate this design. I feel like it contributed to the "brute strength = stupid" take that most in the fandom associates with him.

---

-Bulkhead is a SWEET. CARING. NERD YOU FOOLS. He's like the male version of a tall goth gf-

-a tall-nerdy-farm hand-physics bf, You got me fucked up.

-Its already shown that bulkhead really likes art in Addition to creating it. He hates being only seen as the "muscle" so it wouldn't make sense for him to lean into that.

-bunny slippers that him and sari made together(she provided the buttons)

-the slippers go missing sometimes (basically considered community property unless he's wearing them)

(ratchet and prowl are the main offenders)

-frequent art museum goer

-really likes watching cooking shows, but is too shy to make food himself

-Owns a ton of star maps

-Really wants a treehouse that he, bumblebee and sari can hang out in

-pillowfort enjoyer

-casually reads quantum physics at the beach

Prowl: draft dodger

Doesn't look like him at all.

Prowls holoform being a mustachioed,white, police officer was an actual jumpscare for 7 y/o me, I kid you not

---

- I know this bitch would not wear a helmet (you can't force him to) que windswept hair

-Not as much as starscreams, for obvious reasons but yk

-prowl is like one of those "shoes are a prison for your feet"

-emo hipster

-has a pet cactus named "planty"

-bumblebee heckles him for it

-can and has brought his cactus with him on early evening motorcycle rides

-the helmet is reserved for his cactus, bring your own >:(

-salad consumer

-him and jazz share custody of the cactus

-repeat victim of the cat distribution system

-ratchet has probably spent hours telling him they can't keep any animals at base

-frequent midnight picnics with jazz

-and beachcombing

-and roaming around antique stores cuz jazz wants to know what vinyl records are

-got a mug with an attempted pink chibi cat with big round shiny eyes painted onto it, courtesy of bulkhead trying to find an artsyle

-cherishes this mug to death

-has a shrine dedicated to it

[thedragonsfate]

FHJY thoughts under the cut bc I gotta sort my brain and can't be succinct to save my life

I think there's something interesting in acknowledge like

of COURSE Kipperlily underestimated the bad kids.

She's hated these kids from day 1. I know a lot of people want to acknowledge that it's not unreasonable for Kipperlily and the rat grinders to think the school is run unfairly (and you're right! it's a fair conclusion)

-- but we also gotta consider that this is something that took root in her VERY EARLY. Before the bad kids got really very good. Two bad kids die on the first day of school, they spend a significant amount of their second semester freshman year just. In Prison.

Of course what follows I'm sure spurs that hatred, but she all but declared Riz to be her nemesis with Jawbone freshman year.

She's probably got some good ideas of how stuff should change, but also she saw this random Goblin boy with a briefcase in rogue class and decided she Hates Him, for a reason none of us can fathom when several of the other bad kids give off worst first impressiona

She's a teenager, a kid, with anger issues. As much as their can be important nuggets at the core of her motives, she's a teenager without emotional regulation skills. That combination is BUILT to breed resentment and feelings of entitlement. and it's built to actively ignore any evidence of a different perspective.

We talk about how she doesn't understand them, takes Kristen as entirely uncaring, doesn't expect the bad kids to do so well in the Last Stand

and OF COURSE she doesn't. some of this because she of course is not privy to all of the bad kids interactions that we are as an audience. but a lot of it is probably because she's a teenager who's decided she's being slighted and as a result is never going to take the bad kids actions on good faith. she's doubled down and while I have a feeling she's extremely perceptive, she's also in an emotional place that means she probably is ACTIVELY ignoring any evidence to the fact that maybe the bad kids are just ALSO working very hard, and that the school itself may also work against them sometimes.

Add to that a god corrupted into rage (negative in this case) and conquest, and a nefarious faculty member as a potentially directly manipulative adult in her life trying to make something big and destructive happen. Kipperlily strikes me as the kind of person who knows she's smart, and knows she's clever, but is so blinded by her emotion that she is probably missing some of whats clearly in front of her as far as all the Jace business goes. She certainly is about the bad kids.

Jawbone can only do so much to help her in her sessions if he's being actively worked against. Emotional regulation is hard to learn from zero AS AN ADULT and she's probably coming from the negatives if my impression is correct, and is doing so as a teenager.

I guess what I'm trying to say is like

In a vacuum? Sure augeforts comment about trying being stupid or whatever does seem like another slap in the face for Kipperlily, one that justifies some of her feelings.

But not about the bad kids. and not to the extent she has taken them.

And to take that at its word feels weird to me because. To anybody paying attention? The bad kids are and have been trying SO SO hard in class. Them having to take the last stand in the FIRST place is specifically because the school system is treating Kristen unfairly DESPITE her best, GOOD efforts. I'm certain the rat grinders are on some level aware of Gorgugs EXTREMELY uphill battle with schoolwork this season, even if it's just Maryann catching part of a convo with Porter or Ruben hearing about it from his uncle. I HIGHLY doubt that Oisin was oblivious to the way that Adaines academics were affected by her not having the money for the correct materials - she still was able to excel mostly but the effects of that roll being at disadvantage for so long are still THERE. Jawbone pinned down and mentioned to Riz his similarities to Kipperlily within maybe 2 seconds - there is 0% chance he hasn't brought something similar up in Kipperlilys sessions. She may not like it, she may not have the emotional intelligence to see it this way, but his efforts almost certainly mirror hers in a way that makes them equally hard workers, absolutely determined to keep themselves afloat despite it being an uphill battle. Something that she feels she deserves to be rewarded for, and to an extent implies that if just a few circumstances were different she would be able to see equal value in his work.

And sure you can say she may be able to see that and be angry that their work is rewarded and hers isn't, but we see time and time again that she and her party don't always put that same level of work in? Mary Ann at blood rush, absolutely uncaring but doing well specifically because she's got some magical enhancements. The suspicious circumstances of Kipperlily finding the Rogue teacher. Even just the natural advantage of Oisin having more than the funds he needs to excel in wizard class.

But even regardless of that, she seems to refuse to see that any scenario in which others are praised for the same thing she's done, while she is ignored etc, is the sole responsibility of the school here. the bad kids are not her enemies in that fight - augefort is. The bad kids are not going around being consistently given advantages from the school, they're earning the things they get and hitting their own academic road blocks, and they aren't acting better than other people in a way that goes beyond like. Teen stuff. And yet her sights are trained so unblinking on them.

I can see Fabian and Kristen's popularity and personalities coming off like it supports that they're being treated better or feel some superiority. And it's teen stuff to quietly hate those ppl at your school! it's p normal!

But it always brings me back to her SPECIFICALLY hating Riz. Bc Riz isn't a rich kid throwing parties that everyone loves. Hes not sniping out comebacks the way Kristen does, sometimes without even thinking. In a lot of ways he's the/one of the least abrasive of the group to an outsider. Which makes me SO much more inclined to call bullshit that this is truly, honestly rooted in an acknowledgement of any of the REAL problems that come up with their school system.

It's complex, but I feel like we can't exalt their perspective as a Truth of the world like it seems some folks do when these characters themselves do not play fairly. What is fair about the way they interfered with the exam. What is fair about what she did so easily to Buddy Dawn. What is fair about the murder of the couple that owned that farm. Depending on what happened - what is fair from them about Lucy's murder. Certainly what is fair about their hand in Yolandas.

This idea that things are unfair isn't untrue. But not in the ways she thinks, and shes moved so far beyond that notion at this point. Kipperlily probably DOES believe that she's uniquely a victim of this system, or at least that everyone but the bad kids is. But she's moved so far beyond that. Whatever divine rage magic is involved has ensured that, as well as probably some Adult manipulation, and severely underdeveloped emotional regulation skills. and for me that means like. obviously she is unjustified in her actions.

Augefort is absolutely unhinged. his school has never been run in a manner that rewards buckling down in the classroom and the classroom only. It's an adventuring school in truly the most chaotic and violence rewarding sense, and that information is given freely by Arthur augefort at maybe any turn

Saw something about the theoretical being just as important as the practical. and yes! absolutely! a very good point that I'm glad was brought up - going to the classes is important and I think this season has really emphasized the ways in which that's true at least in terms of Staying in School and Honing your Skills

I do think, in the same breath, that that STILL means that the practical is ALSO just as important as the theoretical. It CAN'T be one or the other, it HAS to be both.

and the bad kids are DOING both. regardless of what it may count for, the rat grinders xp leveling by continuing to do freshman level combat in order to excel more on paper ISN'T them really doing the practical part of what theyre learning in their higher level classes. And the bad kids do not get credit for their saving of the world REGARDLESS. Not on its own merit, and to get the credit they'd have to jump a hefty academic bar that sort of invalidates the point of practical efforts in the first place, not to mention works against students like Fig and Kristen.

The school is actively rewarding Kipperlily and her party's cheat code practical use of their skills, over the bad kids putting just as much if not more effort into their LITERALLY WORLD SAVING missions. whatever favoritism shes seeing, or that there may be occasionally, Kipperlily fundamentally takes the bad kids in bad faith. It's not ABOUT what is ACTUALLY unfair to her at this point.

from her perspective every accolade or accomplishment from them HAS to come from favoritism in order to fit how her view of whats actually unfair has been warped. for her it doesn't MATTER that they've been trying because they MUST not be trying as hard as she is. it doesn't matter that they visibly saved the world three times, one of which was livestreamed and included several party members dropping, successfully because surely it's a fluke, or they were given better opportunities than others for no reason, or they're being falsely worshipped for what MUST be a less dangerous quest than it seems (despite us seeing clearly on the first day of school that nobody is putting a pedestal up for their night yorb win)

What could have been a justified spark of frustration with a system has shifted into a vengeful sense of entitlement that to me? fully abandons the good of wanting to change a school system actively working against some (/all?) students.

idk maybe this all sounds like jibberish I just

Kipperlily in her current state is INCAPABLE of not underestimating the bad kids bc that would require some acknowledgement that they have worked and bled and died to reach the level they're at.

You cannot separate the girl who sneaks in to the Last Stand to sabotage another party's chances of passing, of staying at school, of continuing school, of one of them from potentially keeping their god alive, and of being brought back from what she assumes is certain death - from the slighted teenager running for class president to make things "more fair"

you cannot separate the girl who easily slits her own party clerics throat without second thought from the girl who thinks she's been slighted by an unjust system

What she means by unfair is inherently colored by her being that same person

Augefort can say whatever nonsense he wants, and it doesn't really justify her current frustrations at this point because her version of fair is fundamentally unfair now.

Shes a child who's become corrupted, just like Buddy. but unlike him - she's become genuinely nefarious and vengeful. Unlike buddy she is actively plotting. Harming others with full knowledge of it. We don't know how much of it comes from her on her own, or the rage baking underground, or Stardiamonds direct involvement - but I think this most recent episode should make it clear that like

Whatever truth there is to the school being run in a way that is unfair to its students, and regardless of what she says or thinks

Kipperlily Copperkettle is not operating from that grounded perspective. and I don't think she has been for a long time

[bunnakit]

much ado about shin

so i wanted to put my thoughts and feelings down on the trajectory of Bake Me Please yesterday but i had a splitting migraine and couldn't thoughts well, so here it is today.

i've said it in the past but Shin doesn't know how to give affection, he doesn't know what it means to love, because he's never had proper examples of what that looks like. we're modeled by our environment and Shin has grown up very isolated from everything, so he's wildly out of his depth when it comes to more tender feelings. i said last week i believed we would see Shin try and use food, the only instance where he does understand love, to try and apologize to Peach and i was delighted when it turned out i was right.

this doesn't mean i'm not still infuriated with Shin, though. his constant ego is tiring, the fact he thinks he invented the fucking torta caprese (i don't think you were around in 1920 Shin, sorry,) the way he called Peach's dream stupid, the fact he doesn't understand why Guy would leave to pursue his own dreams (again, i wonder if Shin has ever had a dream,) and the way he just doesn't. fucking. listen.

we did see a glimpse this week, a little nod that Shin has changed. he grows defensive around Peach because that's the source of his hurt right now but when he was alone in the kitchen with Atom he didn't lash out, wasn't rude to him, he was soft and kind and even vulnerable as he hid his tears. Shin is changing, he's keeping good habits for the most part, which is good to see. now if only he could be that way around Peach.

while i don't understand why we're supposed to keep giving Shin our patience and understanding (the narrative really hasn't done much to redeem him in my eyes) i do appreciate from a narrative standpoint that we're being shown that impulsively falling into bed with someone with little communication or understanding does not a good relationship make.

Shin and Peach had no discussion of their feelings for each other before or after sleeping together and it became very clear very quickly that they still don't even really know each other. Shin had no idea about Peach's dream, barely knows anything about how he grew up, and has shared very little of himself with Peach - and even asks Peach to keep their relationship a secret with zero explanation. (i don't know what you expected him to think Shin you fucking doorknob.) they're good at flirting, at falling into bed together, at being playful, but they're absolutely dog shit at talking.

you know who isn't bad at talking?

here i go again. but honestly, Guy has always talked to Peach about what bothers him, what he likes, what he wants to do with his life. this is the number one reason i won't classify Guy as an incel "nice guy" character (Oab) because he does genuinely care about Peach and what goes on in Peach's life. he's listened to Peach complain about Shin, watched them get together, and has comforted Peach numerous times. he knows Peach better than his own boyfriend, fling, whatever does and i think that's probably what is fueling so much of his frustration and petty actions.

i also think this relationship between Peach and Guy is why so many of us would rather see those two get together. they communicate, recent events not withstanding, they have fun together and have genuinely really liked each other (platonically) since episode 1. your partner should be your best friend and aside from Atom i believe Guy is the best friend Peach has. they would probably work so well together, support each other, and make the most amazing bakery of Peach's dreams together - if only Peach could stop giving a shit about Shin.

and like, the heart wants what the heart wants or whatever. sure. but i'm genuinely very concerned we're going to see Peach apologizing to Shin in the finale and Shin taking no accountability or it being brushed off as "that's just how Shin is." i need to see Shin apologize, whether with words, actions, or something, for calling Peach's dream stupid. above everything else that absolutely needs to be addressed because that's something Peach will remember forever. our brain has a funny way of latching on to the worst things people have said to us and rotating them in a microwave.

i would respect the show so fucking much if Shin and Peach didn't get back together, if they went their separate ways. is it a cute ending to a love story? absolutely not, but it would be so realistic and even healthy. sometimes you meet someone and it's fun and the sex is good but it's just never going to work and you can't change people (they can only change themselves.) i would even appreciate if they went a 'right person, wrong time' approach; maybe a time skip where Peach has his dream shop, Shin walks in, and they can try again.

all i know is i REALLY don't want to see this all put on Peach's shoulders, and i don't really want Guy to be pigeon holed into being a villain either. Shin's being fucking goofy and i think Guy's antics are the wake up call he needs (when he wakes up from his.. heart attack? embolism? stroke?) to get his shit together and treat Peach right.

but if he shoves Peach one more time i'm ripping his arms off and beating him with them, that's for sure.

[talisidekick]

My life is on Tumblr. Not all of it, but enough. Why? Because I finally broke out of the illusion I made for myself growing up. I felt like a monster because thats how I was told to feel for feeling what I felt, and so I lied to myself until I believed I didn't feel the things I did. It was a self-made, bunker thick, mysoginistic and misandristic shell of toxicity that made me miserable for the purposes of others convenience in upholding a fantasy world of simplicity. Upon rediscovering truth and having to face all I'd lost in making unappreciated sacrifices, I started to learn how to reclaim and rebuild myself. I want to show people it's okay to be yourself. That being transgender doesn't make you inherently evil. That I, at the end of today, am human, a person, like any of you.

I've shared my thoughts, my frustrations, some of my joys, my hardships. I've made statement pieces, analysis, and even science posts. I've, on occasion, written papers on here with citations/links to my sources. I've put a sizeable amount of time and energy into letting everyone on this site into my life in some small way to combat the idolization and demonization political actors on the local, provinicial/state/territorial, national, and global stage are doing to transgender people. Because the term "transgender" is not synonymous, a thesaurical equivalent, or a replacement for the words "predator", "pedophile", "rapist", "adulterer", "monster", "assaulter", "victim", or "survivor" to name a few. It means "to identify as any gender other than the one assigned at birth". Thats it. Someone could literally decide "I'm just not the gender the doctor said I was" or "I'm not just what the doctor said I was" or " I'm just me" and that's enough. Those are people you know, love, talked to, interact with, laughed with, but maybe also argued with, had a heated discussion with, fought with, or got mad at in traffic for not using a turn signal to change lanes (we've all done it by mistake). Transgender people are just people. Capable of making mistakes, helping others, needing help, and fucking up like everyone else. We all make bad calls, and stupid decisions. We learn, we correct, we hold eachother accountable.

Logging in today to see a long-standing transgender persons blog getting nuked for the either the stupidest idle threat ever made (or so thats the official reason by the Tumblr CEO) or for simply being transgender (as other and numerous members of the public claim) has made me personally a bit wary. The way I see it, it's both. An idle threat was made to a Tumblr executive and because of the prejudice thats become common place world wide, Tumblrs CEO felt vindicated in going to the excessive lengths of full account deactivation on a transgender persons blog. It's absolutely expected to have a zero-tolerance policy on issuing threats, especially to staff. It's not okay in an online forum of supposed neutrality to utterly silence a person completely without fair warning of a Terms of Service failure and a chance to remove, redact, or re-edit a response. We ALL get heated, even myself, and do stupid things in a reactionary moment of passion. What the issue here is, is the disproportionate response. Given I and numerous other transgender people have recieved threats, those on our very lives in fact, which have gone completely ignored, why is there suddenly a zero-tolerance immediate ban policy on a threat that was, in comparison, the kind of insult you'd expect from a grumpy five-year-old?

I see why this is blowing up, because it's a clear display of power privilege. And rather than going through the established review path, as far as anyone can tell, this was a direct response. This sends, whether intentional or not, a clear message: if you're transgender, you're on thin ice here. And it's not just transgender people and queer and cisgender allies who are getting the message. The transphobes, the so called 'gender critical' crowd, the terfs, are seeing it too. That is why I'm calling for Predesterone's account, all associate blogs, be reinstantiated.

The constant misgendering, libel, misinformation, verbal violence, abuse, and conjecture transgender people of all identities face on this site without any reprocussion to those responsible has, for a long while, helped set a clear standard that users of this platform are afforded the privilege of a degree of disrespect towards marginalized groups and minorities. Ableists attack the disabled and neurodivergent, Nazi's attack Jews, Transphobes attack Transgender people, homophobes attack the gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, and racists attack people of colour with -very- little the victims of such hate can do to make it stop. The bigots know this. And this ... this is going to make it worse. Bigots are going to try and instigate harsh responses from minority groups with the intent of forcing queer people and other minority groups off Tumblr. It has already begun in the reblogs of several posts like this one directed at transgender people. Predestrogen is already getting misgendered and disrespected outside the scope of the issue. Conjecture is already being made enmasse.

I'm on Tumblr because Reddit and Twitter were too unsafe. I'm not on any other blogging sites because Tumblr has, for the moment, a supportive queer community. That can change, given this whole situation has been done in such a way that it's being interpreted on all sides as an attack on transgender people.

Tumblr has no obligation to listen to me or others, but Tumblr has always struggled to get by, and I have to ask: is one persons dumb 'threat' really the spark you want to make to get people to leave. Is becoming a truly unprofitable cesspit and hate-haven like Twitter what's desired? Because this is the exact kind of rallying cry to make if you do.

I'm adding my voice to this. Bring back predesterone, this response is out of proportion. No, the CEO does not deserve to be threatened to have hammers thrown at his car until it explodes, or whatever. The point has been made: DO NOT THREATEN TUMBLR STAFF. But neither does a long-standing account deserve to be wiped off the face of Tumblr permanently for a blog post that is so benign compared to what the average transgender site user has to deal with on a regular basis with no recourse. Someone threatened to actually shoot me, kill me, if I was walking down the sidewalk and they saw me, and that post is still up and so is the account despite being reported. It's been 2-3 months or more. If I'm expected to stomach that, you can stomach someone saying they'll throw hammers at your car from a person who in all likelyhood is paying so much into transition she can't afford to buy one tiny kids-sized hammer. The person who threatened me actually openly admits to already owning guns.

[enarei]

the levelling experience in retail WOW is so mind numbingly dull. like I understand that they have a complex problem in their hands and leaving it unchanged wouldn't work. I understand the game has literally two decades worth of content, and just forcing new players to go through all of it as close as it was on release would not only be extremely technically challenging to balance, but also an insurmountable task to anyone with a job. but their solution to it shows such an utter disregard for the very core of what makes MMORPGs fun, and all the work they put into previous expansions.

it's actually sad to me to go Outland and see that everything scales to my level. that the bonechewer orcs on the cliffs to Hellfire Ramparts are the same level as the ones that patrol the road proper. that the handcrafted experience of surmounting each tier of orc progressively through questing, until you are powerful enough to climb the Hellfire Ramparts and take on a dungeon with a group of friends, and so on for each new area of TBC, all that has been sacrificed in the name of "current content". all of it has been homogenized such that it doesn't matter which area you do first, which class of enemies you choose to pick fights with, what quests you prioritize with each new level, it's all rendered equally (un)challenging so that players can speed through all of it to get to current expansion without a care in the world. there's zero incentive to care about the world besides the promise that once you're close to the end of your levelling journey, it'll get really good.

people might say that's always been the case since expansions became a thing, once new gear comes out, the old world is irrelevant. and I don't have a reason to disagree, except that I'm still presented with meaningful choices when levelling in classic WOW. the level 65 quest rewards might not be remotely relevant to {current max level content} Ice Crown Citadel in that game, but just being in the overworld itself is fun because the journey feels authentic instead of merely being there as "legacy" content to fulfill the requirement of some levelling experience in an RPG.

it's quite ironic that in an attempt to 'free' the player of the burden of being forced to level through every expansion linearly, so they can Have Their Own Adventure, they completely ruined the sense of autonomy that encourages you to actually do that. you wanna do a really hard quest 6 levels higher than you so you can skip the boring gathering ones appropriate to your level? or maybe you'd rather go to this other place that is full of beasts that you can skin and ore you can mine, so you can train your professions at the same time. have a friend close by? try to do this insanely stupid escort quest and get suckered into world pvp for half an hour when the Alliance shows up to ruin your day. like you get this very organic interaction between game and social systems by virtue of level ranges providing irregular bumps to perceived difficulty and thus how seriously you need to engage with your class's mechanics, how efficiency you need to use your cooldowns to survive an encounter — you get to pick the difficulty, and it turns out it's incredibly fun to challenge yourself.

In retail that barely ever happens, because every single enemy you'll fight in the overworld will be scaled to the same level as you, its health and damage output will never allow them to be exceptionally trivial or meaningfully challenging, which means you barely have to change your tactics.

I know the carrot is real. I know the class design has considerably more depth and the gameplay has the potential to be much more fun just by virtue of dungeons actually having interesting mechanics when they never did in classic. But it baffles me how much of a slog they expect you to push through to get to it as a new player. I find it very hard to believe I'd have gotten into WOW if this was my first experience with it and I didn't have friends telling me how awesome Dragonflight is.

[idiealotdontworry]

i really hate this trend on here of assuming any queer person with exclusionary or reactionary beliefs is just a Young And Stupid Teen Who Doesn't Know History. sorry to say, but I've been harassed by more late-20s-early-30-somethings on here than any other age group. it's not usually teenagers telling me to die because im aroace or a trans guy or because i think mspec lesbians are fine actually. Way more "young people" are decent about it than you think. (I put young people in quotations cuz, yknow, your 30s is still pretty damn young actually, but nobody treats it like it is.)

that's not to say these people don't exist or aren't especially prone to absorbing misinformation through no real fault of their own. (let's not pretend any of us were better when we were teenagers, and let's especially not pretend that they're coming up with these ideas on their own. Exclusionism and bigotry far predate any 16 year old.) But I think it's really shitty to chalk it up to being young instead of addressing the actual root of the problem, which is isolation.

Reactionary mindsets of any kind thrive when the person in question is isolated and alone, feels like its them against the world, etc. And no amount of "you're too young to Get It, go read a history book" is going to remedy that. You can't be mad that people aren't learning Queer History ™ (specifically American Queer History ™ bc that's all anyone on this website seems to care about) when the only people telling them to are condescending as fuck about it, denying their struggles, and dismissing their concerns. (Even if those concerns are stupid. which, yeah, the concerns of exclusionists usually are. But people who just have genuine questions deserve genuine answers.)

You wanna know why I've mostly been harassed by people older than me? Because those people went unchecked for that long*. Because the people older than them didn't teach them shit. If you don't want that to keep happening, you need to do better. If you actually want kids and teens and early-20-somethings to be better, you can't condescend to them about it. You can't pretend like being older actually means you Know Better, because it really doesn't, certainly not Inherently, if all the prominent terfs on this site and in academia are proof of anything.

What I'm saying is this: You seriously can't expect that giving the queer equivalent of the "Kids These Days" speech is ever going to get through to anyone. Did it ever get through to YOU when you were a kid? No! And for good reason! Most people who have that attitude about kids and teens are complaining about things that aren't a real problem. If you want to bring actual issues to light, you can't talk about it the same way that your dad talks about millennial's supposed lack of work ethic. Change tactics.

I'm also really tired of people pretending that exclusionism and bigotry and in-fighting doesn't happen IRL, or that it wasn't a problem until recently. As united as the queer community at large has always been, there's also always been people inside the community who have felt the need to tear each other down. That shit is not new, especially not when you remember that white queer people have always been shitty to queer poc. "Kids these days" are not inventing this shit. They learned it from the seeds set by people decades older than them.

It's just exhausting. Post over.

*Also because they grew up on Wild West Internet where you could literally do and say nearly anything with zero consequences. I also grew up on that kind of internet, but at the tail end of that era, so it phased out pretty much as soon as I'd grown accustomed to it.

[homemade-ghosts]

thoughts on this? i see people freaking out over it but to me i think it’s fine because even if it’s true this just makes them even less endgame in my eyes and will make anymore that ships them (if they’re still together by the end of s3 and he takes that offer) weirdos. if they’re not broken up by the end of s3 bc they think him being a student teacher who can stay around will fix their relationship then they’re imo definitely done by 4a bc there is absolutely no way.

I agree 100% with everything they said in their response. I'm not sure where that anon got the idea that Miss Jenn was going to offer EJ an Assistant Theatre Director-type job in ep 6 since, as we can see now that the episode is out, she doesn't. Maybe they meant that, even though she doesn't literally offer him the job this ep, the fact that she gives EJ directorial advice could allude to them possibly working together next season? Or they were just lying lol

Regardless, I'm not the least bit concerned. Before season 3 started, I was pretty convinced that EJ was going to get off of the waitlist at some college outside of Utah (funny, because I pictured it going down almost exactly like the whole "Caswell Success School letter from EJ's dad" situation happened, expect I thought he would be telling Val about his college acceptance letter) and, after a lot of agonizing, EJ would ultimately decide to go & the group would turn the cast party after opening night into a going away party for him. He'd leave for college at the end of summer and be effectively written off of the show, in a way that still left it open for Matt to come back in a guest-starring capacity, for holidays/school breaks/to come see the opening nights of future musicals...but, when we were a few episodes into this (short) season and still hadn't gotten a single mention of EJ's post-grad plans, I figured from then on that he was staying in SLC and would be in season 4.

Right now, EJ's character exists to be a road block and plot device for Rina and, once pw break up next episode, he'll have served his purpose and will no longer be relevant to the story. I think Tim knows that. I've heard him talk about how integral certain characters are to the series, but when he gets to EJ, it's never about that. It's always, "Matt's such a good guy." "He's great to work with!" "I couldn't imagine doing the show without him because he's just so nice." (not direct quotes because I'm too lazy to go looking for the articles right now lol, so I paraphrased). Tim's reason for keeping EJ around, IMO, has nothing to do with the character and everything to do with him liking Matt as a person. So, truthfully, I could see Miss Jenn offering EJ a job in the finale, simply because Tim wants to keep Matt on the show as regular (or semi-regular) cast member and that's really the only way to do it. It's dumb and kind of weird (you should not be hanging around your old high school after you graduate) but not surprising.

As for what this means for EJ & Gina? Honestly, I don't think it makes a difference as far as their likelihood of getting back together after they breakup (either before or during Camp Prom). It'd be zero if EJ was written off the show and it's still zero if he stays. They are fundamentally incompatible and at two completely different, conflicting places in their lives. The show has gone out of its way to tell us that and that's not something that's going to change, no matter where EJ is physically.

As much as I just don't think the show needs EJ after this season (sorry to Matt) at least if he stays, he'd be put in a position of authority (it's both laughable and really concerning that pws think this would help their relationship, as if a Disney+ show would ever encourage any kind of romantic relationship between a student and someone who is, like, a half step down from a teacher and a legal adult. Yikes on yikes on yikes). + it would mean that they won't be able to use the same stupid/nonsensical argument for why pw isn't together that they're using for why Rini isn't together. I constantly hear people say things like, "if Olivia was on the show, they'd get back together..." or "The only reason Ricky & Gina are getting together is because Olivia left and they had to rewrite the whole show" and it annoys me to no end because it's just fundamentally untrue. So, if/when Matt comes back for season 4, at least they can't say EJ & Gina aren't together because he left.

[tuiyla]

hope you don't mind my (way, way too long) input as a Klaine Fan™️ - you don't have to post/answer if it's too much for you, I just wanted to share my thoughts - but I feel like Klaine was one of the few things that Matthew Hodgson didn't completely fuck up. in almost the eps he's written, the Klaine parts have been relatively okay and even good in some cases.

I know Glee, Actually is a dud for the most part but I really enjoyed the Blaine/Burt/Kurt family dynamic in their portion of the episode. it could've been better, since our fandom was expecting the mature conversation about Blaine's cheating that we were promised in 4x08 instead of that being overshadowed by Burt's cancer diagnosis, but I blame that on Ryan Murphy (since he admitted to including Burt's cancer storyline as a way to cope w/ his own father's death from cancer) and not on Matt Hodgson. for what he was given to work with, the man did a pretty decent job with the Klaine storyline in that ep and I was more or less satisfied with it.

I'd say that Transitioning was even better. IMO it was by far Klaine's best episode in season 6, because it completely did away with so much of what bothered me about their storyline in S6 (namely Sue's interference in their relationship + the way that she was used to mock fans) and instead it went back to the roots of why they loved (and liked) each other in the first place. plus it included a bunch of fun callbacks to the episode in which they had their first kiss, which I really appreciated. somehow it even made me feel okay with Blainofsky, and that breakup scene in 6x07 was what cemented to me that Karofsky really had grown and changed into a better person and that there were zero malicious intentions in his relationship with Blaine. I'm honestly impressed that the same clown who wrote IKAG managed to pull off an episode like that.

it's kind of odd that Matt did such a good job with Klaine in his eps while completely fucking over everyone else in the same episode (see Glee Actually and the Bram wedding 🤮 compared to Klaine's sweet family storyline), and even in IKAG Klaine got a whole-ass duet while Brittany stayed mute and wasn't allowed to talk to her girlfriend. he gave Kurt and Blaine the best in his eps and didn't give that care to anyone else on the show. hmmm...y'know what, I've solved the mystery - maybe Matt is the evil Klaine anon 🤪

(but then again, Puppet Master exists, so maybe everything I've just said is completely invalid and Matt Hodgson is just the worst as a whole...two decent Klaine eps are not enough to make up for all the atrocities he's committed 🥴)

This is much appreciated!

Klaine (+ Burt) are the saving grace of Glee, Actually for sure, and I think Transitioning is okay for what it is. Haven't watched it in a long while but like, it was alright, and I agree that the Klaine parts were good, even. I'm not sure if there's a reason he did a surprisingly good job with Klaine - I forgot to make this point earlier, but I genuinely believe he's just a bad writer. That doesn't mean he doesn't have good moments, but by putting together his portfolio we can see that there's a theme of completely butchering, well, theme lol and characters for the sake of stupid punchlines or just some random ass plotpoint. I think he's the type of writer who's annoying because they think they're being sooo clever and funny.

Anyway, so whatever the reason may be, I agree with you and I appreciate this perspective. I think he can tap into some good stuff, like the NY stuff in Glee, Actually, while also getting carried away with his own BS. I think it could be fun - well, cathartic at least to properly go through his stories and examine why exactly he's a flop. Except for IKAG because, ugh, shuddering at the thought. And you know I do feel like disclaiming that this is all just about his work 😂 He's probably a decent dude, whatever, I've just had anons trying to make things personal with him and I don't believe in that. I'll leave the man's character alone but I will maintain that he's a shit writer with occasional good moments, and credit where credit is due his handling of Klaine was okay and even good in places. Maybe that's because he is EKA 😌

But yeah, Flopson is still a flop but he gets a "not as much of a jerk bad writer as he could have been" badge. Nothing will ever fully redeem him but he didn't completely suck in his handling of Glee lol. And hey, an actual Klaine discussion instead of whatever EKA is, yay 😂

[i--antimony]

back to your regularly scheduled tuesdayposts

book review edition

listening: im on episode 52 of twilight mirage now! final stretch!!

reading: hooo boy. so. i read 'every heart a doorway' yesterday. not gonna lie! i'm bummed! i thought it was bad! i've been marinating on it overnight and i want to put some thoughts down about it. i saw some folks on goodreads changing their reviews after a few days to be a higher rating because they'd "judged it as a novel, not a novella" and no offense but i think that is stupid. yes, a novella can be approached with different expectations than a novel, but i still expect it to have, like...character arcs?? a Beginning Middle and End???

it felt like it was trying very hard to have Representation and Feminism, yet fell into the trap of "only a certain amount of pretty is ok, if you're Too Pretty you must have a bad personality to make up for it or be otherwise evil" (seraphina) and had a character (angela i think) say "i'm transphobic" and there is zero resolution with that! it is never brought up again! she goes "i think you're a fake man" kade goes "fuck you" and that's it!! then the climax of the book happens! it's totally irrelevant and served no purpose! we don't even know who angela is!!!! it means nothing!!! really bizarre! this isn't even touching the Quirky Token Asian who gets murdered almost immediately. 

in general i think the scale of characters was a little weird. there are about 40 students in this house but it felt very amorphous, especially for the type of story i thought it was trying to tell; i think i would have preferred a smaller cast where we got to learn everyone's names and general vibes at least instead of just "blue haired girl". this isn't a huge problem i just thought it made the setting feel a bit strange. the few characters we got to see named and have motivations were really two dimensional. i don't think this is a problem of it being a YA book, i think it was just too rushed to actually flesh out anyone beyond the most general strokes.

i think the most natural-feeling and fleshed out was kade, i liked him a lot. nancy felt...not like a character, she felt like a collection of Facts. it's nice to see asexual rep, don't get me wrong, but she basically felt like an empty shell of a character. not that any of the other characters felt especially fleshed out, but they all at least has allusions to Character Arcs In The Past, with whole adventures in each of their respective fairytale lands; nancy didn't even have an adventure it seems like!! like she just Stood There A Lot!

and apparently standing Very Still is a superpower, which leads me to my next complaint - why the hell do these kids have magic in the real world still? christopher taking out his little bone flute and reanimating lorelei's skeleton made me put the book down for a minute and take a lap. why! the stuff like standing very still, or lorelei's really good eyesight i could excuse; fully Reanimating The Dead is very silly. maybe i'm missing something but it doesn't seem to serve any purpose. the book would have been missing nothing if that whole skeleton scene was cut. similarly with the aging-backwards therapist, was clearly built entirely for the "oooooh how quirky she looks 8 but she acts like an adult!" factor. it served no purpose. she could have been a normal adult woman. her suspicion of nancy was really silly too. basically magic continuing to exist in the "real world" served no narrative purpose and felt out of place with the message i thought the book was trying to have. and speaking of message:

i think this book's biggest crime is not having a cohesive message. i started this book thinking it would be about loss, grief, and coming to terms with a life you didn't think you'd have. those are all really good messages for a YA book! not that there is a "correct" ending for a story like this but just sending nancy back to her fantasy land was completely antithetical to the book saying "sometimes you just need to move on a little, you can still keep your hope but you have to live your life as well". no offense to mcguire but that ending felt like her choosing an "unexpected" ending just for the sake of it, not to serve any narrative purpose. then again nancy was kinda not a character so it doesn't make the worst sense to just get her out of the way a little. i found myself feeling more bad for nancy's parents than anything else. yes they don't understand, and probably didn't understand her for a while even before she went through her door, but they clearly were so worried about her and nancy really didn't seem to have any good will towards them for it. all teenagers feel misunderstood! all i can think about is these two well-meaning parents grieving for literally the rest of their lives lol. like listen. i get it. i was That Kid. i wanted something like that so badly. but i would have at least hesitated. i know it's just a YA novel but it really rubbed me the wrong way.

in terms of narrative, i definitely saw the twist coming, basically from the point where jill vanished for a little bit following the first murder, which is fine! i'm a little confused on the logistics of it, like her and jack shared a room and the timeline makes it seem like jack would definitely have had to notice earlier. doesn't really matter either way. i would have loved a little more drama around the murders - maybe being suspicious of lundy or even eleanor? especially when lundy was weirdly in kade's room after the first murder. the main characters seemed strangely apathetic to it all, no drive to investigate or search for clues like you'd expect in a YA novel. it's fine. i did really like mcguire's prose, though, she has some nice sentences in there.

idk tl;dr i had high expectations because i saw a lot of people talking this book up a lot but it really did nothing for me except make me a little sad for nancy's parents which i don't think was the intended result. 2/5 stars for me :(

watching: a bunch of mina le mostly

making: i finished carving out my watch block, i haven't done a test print yet but i'm going to try and do that this week! i'm almost done with my tank top knitting project too, i'm on the last strap now.

misc: it's been like a month since i tuesdayposted! hello everyone! i got a really really bad stomach bug when i was in korea but other than that my travels went well! i had a minor breakdown last week when i was puppysitting by myself bc of how sleep deprived i was! but i'm better now! things feel like they're moving veerrrrrryyyy slowly with my research but that's just how it is with that i guess. being home for the summer has been really nice but i do miss having my own space and independence.

[chrysanthemumpink]

I talk about him with my cousins a lot and explained how he's like a completely different person than he was a couple of months ago. And one of them was like "let me tell you something about men."

I don't like to think of him as a "man." He's not the average cold hearted guy or maybe I don't like to believe he is. But what my cousin said made sense. It maybe it doesn't and I'm just stupid.

But she said "men don't want the girl of their dreams to see them at their lowest. in their mind, they know that a good woman would leave if they saw them for what they really are. so they push people away."

And what my cousin was saying is that he does like me. He may be overly friendly and self sabotage with other women but he's not like in the streets are anything. She believes he's not actually cheating. Or that he's entirely malicious when he gets mean. It's just that he believes that revealing himself would mean losing me. So when he's having a hard time, he disappears for a few days or weeks. And it's not like i won't be there when he gets back. It kind of makes sense bc he has an explanation every time.

and idk. I guess that logic makes sense. But we had really gotten stuck in this pattern where neither of us was going anywhere. And I think something changed when I said we were done having sex.

I hadn't heard from him in forever and when I did hear from him, it was like talking to the aglet on a shoe string. I'm not totally blameless. When I feel that someone is slipping away, I over compensate by pressing harder. Classic water sign / fire sign dynamic. He gets witholds communication and action, I talk more and do more. But he knows this. There were times when all he had to do was say okay and id back off. I'm only overbearing when I'm pushed into it.

Anyway, I finally did say I wanted a break from sleeping together and radio silence like not a word from him, no call later that night, no text. And I made it known I was mad, like very known. (Different story)

And despite how dramatic I am every time I leave him, this was really the first time when I was serious. He was actually confronted with the possibility and I was too. I don't think he's ever seen himself as the one in the wrong. Actually, no I know that despite every apology, he's never believed he was the one that actually did something wrong. I'm just extra and I'm the crazy one so he'll be the bigger person. 🙄 (different different story but pisces has a way of making you feel crazy for asking for the smallest things.) anyway, I think he actually admitted that he might have been a shitty person and actually meant it when he apologized

Fast forward because this post is long enough. But he's in the British isles right now. And he calls me...from a phone. A phone that wasn't his, it was a public phone? And he said "sorry, I don't think my messages are getting through," can you call me on Instagram.

And I did. And ??? That maybe proves how disillusioned I've become b/c when he doesn't answer, I just expect it to be a couple weeks with zero explanation. He went out of his way to find a different phone, pay for it, use a different app, and talk to me in a different time zone. The world isn't lying when they say heterosexual couples are moved by the bare minimum

And my cousin is like "see I told you." he's doing things that make him feel good, has an income, and looks forward to every day, even has a nice book and magically knows how the phone works and says good morning and good night. But I don't know what I should do. It's not like nothing is ever gonna go wrong again

[free-angelz]

not to be rude to me but the crazy is soo confirmed!

Last night while watching the ultimatum, I cried because I love Xander and Yoly's love, I love their relationship and their dynamics and I truly hope they choose each other in the end because they deserve each other. It's an easy, calm, supportive, and action oriented love that I think everyone could benefit from. It's something I want to do. And of course, I'm not exactly getting it from the physical relationship that I have with A. And I said something to myself that was typical in my idealistic, scared to love another man moments. I said "I don't want to give my heart to someone who doesn't give a f-ck about me". And then it clicked. I dont give a f-ck about him either. I'm over here applying all these things onto him, my fears, my faults, and even blame to a certain extent, yet I am quite literally doing the same thing back to him. I am giving back the same energy, even if I do yearn for more from this situation.

We don't speak. We don't talk. We don't check in, or say hello. We don't really have any true substance, outside of a late night passion that ignites me from within. We have nothing but a physical connection. We haven't exactly gotten to know each other yet either. I don't even know his favorite color. So why am I attributing all this fucking pressure onto myself, to him unknowingly, it makes ZERO sense to me! It literally is crazy to be crying and feeling so down about him supposedly not caring, when we are literally showing each other the exact same energy, and if we want it to change, if I want it to change. I will have to speak up eventually, or this will fizzle out. I mean he most likely knows what this is, right? That we're just having sex, we're connecting physically, and I'm sure we will keep doing it from time to time. But I can't just expect him to open up to me, if I can't lead the way in some aspects. I think I'm just frustrated because I'm left to think about all these open ended things, possibilities, chances and dreams. It's a lot when you don't know where the other person stands. But it's also like, if I ask, I don't want him to run away. But I can't go into it expecting him not to at the same time? But that's just more open ended questions, I guess I want him to take the lead, but if he never does, then I will have to cut off the connection that we share.

Also maybe it's just me being nuts, but is it too early to ask what we are doing? Like oh my god I swear heterosexuality comes with all these stupid rules and cycles and unhealthy patterns when it doesn't have to be like that. I literally can and should be allowed to openly communicate with someone I'm sleeping with like hello? Why not? Why is it that within heterosexual dynamics it always feels like it's gotta be this grating, difficult, pry it apart with my fingernails kind of experience. And it really feels like I'm projecting this onto myself too and that's not fair at all. We haven't evolved past sleeping with each other, so it's kinda like why not enjoy this for what it is, instead of making it into something that it's not.

I want love. I deserve romance, I will not settle for less. I am affirming to myself that I deserve and know exactly what I want, and personally, I'm not sure it'll go anywhere, but S seems to be the best prospect! I love our dynamic because it is easy, because we understand each other, because we are good and equal and fair to one another.

Me and A really are just a fling, and I'm idealizing and romanticizing it all because it feels like that's what I'm supposed to do, because he's a boy, and I get reduced down to the girl in the song.

I feel like I'm mad at myself over this in a way, because it is something that I struggle with a lot mentally, and it just doesn't seem to work in the end because I'm so overwhelmed. So it's like why put all this mental energy and thought and self doubt into something that isn't even tangible? I am giving and receiving the same energy that he has given me. He has not shown me anything else, I haven't shown him anything else either, and I do not have to give any more of myself especially if that's not being given back. Do I hope that we do develop more? Sure. I just think that I shouldn't be putting all this pressure on us. Things can develop naturally if they're meant to.

[getmemymicroscope]

I do love a lot of the stuff The Rock is in (Central Intelligence, the Jumanji movies, etc.), especially because his brand of humor is pretty entertaining. Aldis Hodge is one of the best parts of Leverage, so was super excited for him too (he's even got a Leverage sort of set-up going!). Sarah Shahi was great in Person of Interest! Plus, a superhero movie - and while the DCEU hasn't really been anything to right home about, for the most part, there have been glimpses - including Shazam!, which is sort of a spiritual brother to this movie, right?

And yet, DC continues to just ... I don't know. I don't get their obsession with just giving us essentially invincible, "every power is theirs" superhero (Superman) after invincible superhero (Wonder Woman isn't invincible, per se, but is still stopping bullets left and right) after invincible superhero (fine, maybe Black Adam isn't a 'superhero,' but close enough), but it's frustrating as hell. Especially when they're also trying to introduce the "Justice Society" - a group that is entirely useless here, because Black Adam very easily could've taken care of the whole thing on his own. It's just ... annoying. They talk about "teamwork," but there's essentially no teamwork, or building up of teamwork, the entire time, and then suddenly in the last sequence it's like they've been working on it the whole time. Especially when it is entirely unnecessary, because he literally has the power of the gods (again, this seems to be every other character DC gives us), and because we literally just saw Pierce Brosnan's character decide to essentially say "fuck off" to the team and just go do his own thing - very Black Adam-esque of him.

Black Adam is no superhero - he's even proven that. He almost got the kid killed - no, he almost killed the kid. And yet, at the end, the kid and his mom (Sarah Shahi's character is unfortunately dense, as portrayed) immediately are like "fuck the Justice Society, this anti-hero is our hero." Which, fine, they have no reason to trust this 'Justic Society' group, fine. But to immediately give allegiance to the proven bad guy who literally almost just killed your son, and to do it without so much as a second thought or idea that maybe these guys are onto something ... stupid. And then, after that, he does his "I'm going to be your town's protector" ... and then immediately appears to reverse course when he has some sort of hologram-driven zoom meeting with Waller. I mean, admittedly, Waller might be the biggest pain in the ass/loser/pathetic person/asshat in the entire DCEU (bring back Lex Luthor instead!), but why does he suddenly go from 'protector' to 'Imma fight everyone'? It makes no sense with how the movie just ended. If you're going to make him turn good, and the entire last bit of the story seemed to be going that way, why the sudden change of heart? This is why the DCEU is such a mess - they're trying to set up future movies without thinking about what just happened in the movie we literally just saw.

Also unfortunately missing was a lot of The Rock's typical brand of humor and, actually, much humor altogether. They tried with the brother, but he only had a few scenes, and "using a wall instead of a door" was only funny the first couple of times. Noah Centineo having no control over his 'Ant-Man goes huge' thing was also not very funny, not to mention, it really doesn't explain the name 'Atom Smasher' at all.

The kid is sorta annoying - and when he's trying to escape all the bad guys in the building and decides the best way to stay hidden is by riding a skateboard - what? The chance it doesn't make any noise is like less than zero. I did like Hodge, and Brosnan, and Quintessa Swindell, but they all get limited scope (expected) - Hodge probably gets the most, but he's also just constantly being overmatched by Black Adam, to the point you really wonder why he's in the movie. All they're doing is just delaying the inevitable (as shown by the end credits scene) to make sure that this movie has a run-time of longer than 30 minutes.

The bad guy, when he gets the crown - and they explain this, sorta/vaguely afterwards - but he's stupid enough to let down the 'anti-Black Adam' shield before shooting a bullet. Which, like - talk about stupid! There was no sensible reason for that to happen as the movie was unfolding in front of us.

There was some review, I think that was mentioned during the movie trailers, calling this the "best superhero movie of the year." Which - no. Thor: Love & Thunder, The Batman, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Brahmastra (sure, hearing her say Shiva 600 times was stupid, but at least it had good songs; and he might not be an actual superhero, but he was given a gift by the gods, much like Black Adam) are all better (and yes, MoM was a mess). Oh, and also, the re-release of Spider-Man: No Way Home, also, obviously.

It's sad - because the DCEU needed a win (especially with all the nonsense going on around the Flash movie), and you would've figured after all the comedy that they got into Shazam!, they'd be able to do something similar here. The Rock could've run with that, no doubt. Instead, we just get a whole bunch of honestly pretty stupid characters (which is great injustice to a whole slew of awesome actors) in a movie that preaches one thing (teamwork) while essentially everyone does the exact opposite. The end-credit cameo is nice, but to get there, we first have to see asshat Waller twice, an antihero-turned-'protector'-immediately turned-antihero who kills left and right, and pointless/unnecessary idolization of this antihero (he's not wrong, he was reborn a 'god').

This was enjoyable, sure. But it could've been so much more.

And the DCEU really, really needs to stop giving us the same sort of characters over-and-over again. Yes, they finally give us someone from Earth, but then they give them the power of the gods and make him essentially invincible and just ruin that whole thing. He's essentially just another Superman, except that he has enough anger to turn him to the dark side. I really hope they can make this Flash movie work out.

I would've liked more backstory for Brosnan's character and that magical helmet that gives him Doctor Strange-like abilities. Or how Hodge's character is able to afford that Hawkcave-containing mansion. Or about Swindell's character. Yes, getting all that would definitely have been nice.

[indigoire]

Y'all I am going insane about season three episode eight of wwdits.

Like...Nandor finally said why he was reluctant to turn Guillermo into a vampire. He CARES about him too much! He didn't care about turning Gail because he was doing it out of his own selfish desire to have someone stay beside him forever. So this central conflict he has with Guillermo about keeping him human is NOT borne out of keeping him on the hook as his familiar but more so because he doesn't want to hurt Guillermo.

And then later in the episode we cut to Guillermo in a deep funk, cuddling his Nandor plushie and worrying about Nandor...I mean, we know how much Guillermo cares for Nandor, but even stripped of being his familiar or bodyguard, with zero responsibilities towards Nandor and zero expectations of being made into a vampire, Guillermo worries for Nandor and wants to protect him, even if it's just from himself.

It's just...we knew how much they loved each other, but this episode had them state it outright and show it as well.

Also, as a note, I love how much growth both these characters have gone through. Nandor may still be a himbo vampire but he's also changing how he thinks of himself and how he views being a vampire. Maybe not for the better, but he knows he's not the center of everything now, and he's looking for a purpose outside of "everything and everyone should cater to my needs specifically".

And Guillermo's growth is readily apparent. He's gone from the vampire household doormat to a confident slayer bodyguard, and he's more determined to speak up for himself and advocate for his needs. He still has his awkward moments, and he still hides behind the whole "oh I'm a totally innocent human oops how did those stakes get there" facade, but he's more willing to do what he needs to without asking. Guillermo of season one would NEVER have asked Nandor to turn him before he left, he would have been too cowed to speak up at the last moment. Guillermo has changed immensely, and it's so lovely to see.

But tying this all back to the episode, these changes in both Nandor and Guillermo are finally starting to affect how they see each other: Nandor doesn't see Guillermo as his property or extension of himself anymore, he sees him as a person who he truly cares for. And Guillermo doesn't just sit back and let his Master do as he wishes, he takes action to stop him and keep him from getting hurt. Honestly, Guillermo probably saved Nandor's life (again). Jan essentially enacted a mass suicide of her cult, even if Guillermo was the catalyst there's no telling if Nandor would have also been killed by her eventually.

Just. Even if the relationship doesn't go beyond this (which I definitely doubt at this point) we have this: two idiots who love each other and want what's best for the other.

Also my boy Guillermo deserves everything he wants in life and I am determined to see him get it, even if "it" is a stupid 700 year old vampire who got himself brainwashed.

[ley-med]

Hello! As a med student do you have any advice on how to deal with the sensation of shame/failure/overthinking when for example a senior asks a question and you answer and he tells you it's wrong in front on everyone (although the answer is partially right in a way but wasn't what he expected). As a very perfectionist person, I feel bad, ashamed, humiliated and imagine that they think i'm stupid (although I have top grades during exams). How to deal with excessive perfectionism and failure ?

Hey there! It's a tough question, and I will try my best to give you some sort of insight, but please note: while I have excessive experience overcoming failures, I have literally zero experience when it comes to being a perfectionist. Unfortunately, I usually pretty much settle on "eh, that's good enough for me"... Sorry in advance, the whole post will be about my experiences, simply because I cannot give advice any other way. And it's going to be long and rambling, probably.

What really helped me as a med student, and even now as a resident, the knowledge that I'm actively learning this stuff, and I'm there to learn this stuff, not to already know the answers. And my seniors will always be able to ask questions that I don't know the answer to. And that's fine, because that's how I learn. Plus you can always follow up with asking them to elaborate, why your answer was wrong/not what they wanted to hear.

That being said, I loathe these Q&A sessions, I never get anything right. Even if I know the answer, I manage to mess it up, usually. And in the beginning, it messed up my self confidence, and it became a circulus vitiosus where I got less and less answers right and I became even less confident and etc... Until one point I got the very well deserved criticism, that even if I know the answer no one will believe me, because I'm always phrasing it questioning myself. And that was the point where I changed my approach.

Now I utter the most ridiculously wrong answers with such confidence, that the examiner/tutor/whoever is asking, will have to stop and think if it's wrong at all. My new technique: crash full speed and burn, then say 'at least I tried'. And since it's a conscious decision, I don't feel stupid at all. And while not everyone appreciates it, my supervisor absolutely does, and he even told me he admires my commitment to stand by my ridiculous guesses. Anyway, back on topic.

There are some lectures/tutors who love to make you feel stupid and shame you in front of others. Remember, that doesn't say anything about you, but a whole lot about them. They are assholes.

The rest of them, they don't think you are stupid, they don't have an opinion on you at all. They don't care. They ask the question as a mean to teach you something, then move on. They teach too many students to think about you in particular. (I know, way to make someone feel small, but it's true. I've been in the role of the teacher. I don't remember any of my students, I never thought of them as stupid, and loved them all for paying attention). And even if they did think you are stupid, who cares? You won't see them ever again, their opinion is just that, an opinion that doesn't affect you.

And about your peers... No one thinks you are stupid when you don't know the answer. Just think about it. When someone else is being grilled by the teacher, do you think "oh god how can they be so stupid" or do you emphasize with how awful they might feel, and cheer for them in your head? (If the first... Try to be more sympathetic. You know how bad it feels to be questioned.) You med students, as in a group, are all in this together. They don't judge you, they are there to support you.

And remember. You get good grades on your exams. (You lucky one) And even if you didn't... Still doesn't mean you're stupid, or that anyone else would think so. You are there, you are getting trough med school, you are going to be a doctor. It takes a lot, and it will make you question yourself periodically, and if you think you know it all, you are doing it wrong, but you are not stupid. But feeling so is the most natural order of med life...

With all that being said, I honestly don't know how to overcome these feelings. Sorry. My ultimate advice, when you really feel down: see a therapist. (I just started doing so, and it's been one of the greatest decisions of my life)

If anyone else has any advice for anon, please add, because I just keep rambling

[phoenixyfriend]

You know that the "500 years of Ottoman oppression" line is more-than-slightly tinged with Serbian nationalism, right? It's been used to excuse a variety of sins, especially since the end of Communist rule in the Balkans.

Bro I don't know how to tell you this but the fact that other bullshit has happened in the Balkans doesn't magically erase the five hundred years of oppression. History is stupid and complicated and the fact that Serbs have made their own asshole moves in the region doesn't change that the Ottomans made a fuckton more first.

Do you think I don't know how ugly Balkan politics is? What is this message supposed to mean other than 'I'm going to assume you don't know your own history because you wouldn't be talking about the horrors your people went through if you were aware.'

I need you to look me in the eyes and tell me that you really think that oppression is a zero sum game and that your country doing something shitty means you can't ever talk about the shitty things that were done to them for centuries beforehand. I want you to look me in the eye and tell me the Ottomans were absolutely fine and normal and justified in taking children and brainwashing them in service to the Sultan because one day, centuries down the line, Serbs would also do something shitty.

Do you know the meaning of "forced assimilation," anon? Do you think all Serbs are a monolith? Do you think that any instance of talking about past cultural traumas is an implied attempt to excuse more recent horrors? Is your sense of morality seriously at the level of black and white that I'd expect of a child in the single digits?

History is a clusterfuck and talking about one of said fucks does not negate the rest, and just because you picked a villain and don't want to think about how the people you don't like have a legacy of suffering doesn't mean it didn't happen.

I cannot control how other people use this information, whether to justify things or not. I just know that nobody, nobody, that I talk to in the West takes the crimes of the Ottoman empire seriously, and I'd like for that to be changed.

You don't get to tell me that I can't talk about the things my people went through just because someone else used the information for bad reasons. You can't erase history because someone else used it poorly. You can't say 'that doesn't count as oppression anymore because people used it to justify bad things.' Lots of people use lots of things to justify their shit. That doesn't change that it happened.

Shit happened. I get to talk about it, and you don't get to tell me I can't.