#and any change to it is somehow objectively bad or whatever but like

[pixelprofligate]

man for fans of Oblivion some of yall sure seem to hate the idea of people being excited to experience Oblivion

[ajastu]

god okay. sorry for yet another text post. but i'm just still thinking about the argument that veilguard is bad because the only option re: morality of your player character that it gives is kindness.

Now, to preface. I understand where this criticism comes from. Veilguard IS a departure from the general scheme of the previous games, in several aspects. And i understand how people would be upset at not having quite the same kind of options/ways to influence the world. It took me some getting used to, also.

What i do disagree with, however, is using that to claim that the game is bad, irredeemable, and also meaningless n soft or whatever.

Because it's really not. It's just different, with a different narrative focus. I've played the previous games several times, and as i said before, origins is in first place for me. Veilguard is a very close second. And i'm not more right or wrong in this opinion than someone who thinks datv is the worst game in the series.

You can still make choices that will influence the world in wildly different ways, they're just not... ''genocide or no genocide'' kinds of choices. Which i can see how some people would not consider the difference significant enough to be interesting for them personally. Which is whatever, im not their dad, i dont really care.

However. I think it's kind of weird to say that ''the game made me resent being a nice person'' or that "kindness you dont have the choice not to offer isnt worth a lot"

Like, game criticism aside. That is just an objectively weird thing to say.

There are ways to phrase that particular dissatisfaction in a way that will not make most people side-eye you. This is not one of those ways.

The thing is, it was a deliberate choice in characterization. Since game development at AAA scale is. an incredibly complex beast, i suspect there were many different reasons for it, and not all of them purely narrative. It is also not 2009 anymore. We are not getting another Origins, like, probably ever.

But. Rook is established in the very second cutscene to care about other people. It makes sense narratively, too, with Varric being the one to recruit them. Their backstory also shows that they gravitate towards the 'moral' choices. It's not bad writing. It's deliberate.

That does not mean that everyone has to like it. And i don't think the people who are upset about the change in this gameplay aspect are stupid or wrong.

We are all different people with different preferences, and i really am sorry if the game ended up being a disappointment for you. I know how it feels, and it does suck.

But i also do think it might be worth to examine the way people choose to phrase this complaining. The claim that kindness is somehow diminished in value if you aren't offered the choice to be cruel alongside it. I just think that, like. misses the point of what kindness is?

I know what those people mean when they say it, i just...fundamentally disagree with the sentiment. And i think phrasing it in this way is incredibly weird. sorry 🤷‍♂️

There is a better way to talk about this particular complaint. I just never actually SEE that being done. and i do think a lot of it comes from not actually engaging with the source material people are trying to criticize. Like, the person i sort of quoted earlier explicitly said they have not finished the game. If you never give something a chance in the first place, if all the information you have is second-hand, then i do not find your criticism valuable in any way. There is no substance to it, no backing. You are not proving a point, you're just chasing your own tail at that point. There isnt even a bone to chew. You've only heard of the bone. you havent actually experienced it.

Another part is people being too twisted up in the emotion of disappointment to actually see that they're not making compelling arguments, necessarily, and that they're actually being a tar pit.

I know not everyone thinks as much about the push towards dismissing the value of kindness for kindness' sake as i do. But like. It really is very weird to see this insistence that game bad bcs it didnt have the option to do a murder to an innocent person, or something. While also dismissing the horrible things we Are shown as 'not in your face enough'.

And honestly, personally? I dont love origins or any of the other ones specifically for the ability to choose the evil options. It's never even been a choice for me, because you can very well play the games without having to make the bad choices. theres always a workaround. And that workaround doesnt even harm u in any significant way. there isnt an actual like. terrible complexity here. I enjoy the dwarf politics quest a lot but ultimately, knowing the outcome? its EASY to choose Bhelen. Unless you're playing a dwarf noble origin, i guess. Rip Harrowmont 🙏 you would have made a terrible king.

And again, my personal opinion is not more right or wrong than that of someone who adored the prev dragon age games exactly because they allow you to make some terrible terrible moral choices.

At the end of the day. why are people still so pissed about a game that came out almost 6 months ago that many of them havent even played in the first place? Relax. take a walk if you can. Maybe move a snail out of the road if you find one. There tends to be a lot of them after it rains. Think about the ones that didn't make it. Try to find compassion for lives so easily dismissed. Maybe that will make you think about whether or not kindness on its own really is so lacking in value.

[artistredfox]

i can't stop thinking about ford in the amnesiac shifter stan scenario like. he wiped out his brother's ability to Be Human. stan is counting on ford to teach him again and that's so much trust that ford doesn't think he deserves, plus ford feels like he barely knows how to be human himself anymore after spending 30 years in the multiverse and all his life before that being alienated by his peers. surely stan could choose a new, better person to model himself after (stan would never have anyone else).

the relief when he looks at stan and finally sees stan's face instead of his own, when he finally hears stan's voice say some dumb shit again, when stan finally starts doing his own little things instead of blindly copying whatever ford does.

ford thinkin about their childhood and having certain things about stan make more sense with what he's learned now

just!! this is a process of learning for ford too!! they are learning together!! ough i love them

One day, Ford comes downstairs to find Stan making breakfast.

"Good morning, Stan. What are you making?" He asks, retrieving a mug from the cabinet.

"Stancakes." Is his brother’s gruff reply.

Ford has to set his mug down on the counter and remind himself how to breathe.

Also, long drabble from Ford's perspective. For funsies :)

Ford had never felt quite as lost as he did now. Not physically lost, mind you. He knew exactly where he was.

618 Gopher Road, Gravity Falls, Oregon, US, Earth, Dimension 46'/.

Technically, he was home. He knew that. The house he designed woth his twin, back when they were little kids playing with lincoln logs. The house he had built as soon as he graduated from college. The one he lived in for six years.

(Was it really only six years? Somehow, he thought it was longer.)

Knowing that this shack should be his home didn't make it feel any safer. Nowhere he'd been in thirty years had ever felt safe.

Nowhere he'd been in thirty years had ever felt like home.

Even after his twin had brought him back here, he'd been waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for the bear trap to snap shut arount his ankle. (The fact the apocolypse had actually happened had been, oddly enough, a relief.)

But now, standing behind the armchair that was his brother's favorite seat, he felt more lost than ever.

The man who sat in the chair was, objectively, his twin. He responded to the name Stanley. He was wearing Stan's clothes. He looked like Ford's identical twin.

But some of the details were off. Instead of Stan's usual guarded expression, the man's eyes were wide and guileless. Instead of Stan's perpetual frown, his mouth was slightly upturned in a faint smile. Instead of the long silver hair Stan'd sported when Ford returned, his hair was short and dark.

Instead of Stan's tendency to talk and talk and talk until he went hoarse, the man sat quietly, speaking only short sentences.

He wasn't quite Stan, anymore, and it was all Ford's fault.

The man that used to be his brother looked up at him, and smiled, humming curiously.

And despite that, even though Ford was the cause of this new, nebulous existence, Stan still cared about him.

Ford smiled back, swallowing the guilt building in his throat.

He wasn't sure what good he'd done to deserve Stan, but Stan certainly hadn't done anything bad enough to deserve being stuck with Ford.

Stan needed someone to help remind him who he was. To help remind him how to be human.

Anyone could do the former. Ford shouldn't be trusted to do the latter.

Ford had never been a good example of your average person, and he doubted that had changed in thirty years. Hell, it had probably gotten worse.

He'd not been one for socializing, even when he was still in this dimension. And outside of it. . .

Well. Talking to strangers when half the multiverse is hounding your heels is a surefire way to get yourself killed.

But despite all that, despite everything.

Stan trusted Ford to be the one to help him.

Ford refused to let his brother down again.

[theallianceofcelestials]

You’ve said in the past Eclipse doesn’t like his daycare days

Could we have a Drabble where he’s reminded of it and the fam has to comfort him

No pressure to do so though!

-🍓

I'm gonna try my best, but I don't think he'd have an outright breakdown because of it just yet. He's got it too bottled up

The family also doesn't fully know what happened during his daycare days. They can only assume he wasn't treated well from his general everything

Eclipse stomps down the corridors, ignoring the people he may accidentaly run into. He doesn't give a fuck about them right now.

Today was a shit day. He knew by morning it was going to be a shitty day, when he saw he was to do some minor testing with SCP-053

And then when he arrived, he was told he was going to go in there with a human, because apparently they wanted to test how an animatronic reacts to a child, and yadda yadda. He knows they were just curious whether his daycare programming would affect him

He slams the door to their room open, ignoring how he startles basically everyine currently in, storming to the bathroom without a word. The bang of the door behind him gives only some minor satisfaction, but it doesn't last long. The red still seeps into his vision.

It wasn't that he wasn't expecting they will sooner or later test him with child SCPs, he would have been a fool not to. He just doesn't know what the point of pairing him in with a D-class was, especially one that's a former kindergarten teacher. He doesn't know what they wanted to achieve with that.

The hot water burns as he lowers himself into it, but he ignores it. He doesn't give a fuck about it.

Nothing bad would have happened if the safety procedures were kept up. Nothing. But he doesn't know if it was some sort of test, or if it was just some good old laziness, but the human's binds were too loose, and they weren't equipped with the proper tools. So they made eyecontact, and all hell broke loose

He squeezes angrily at the expensive wash he got just because he can, the one that smells like chocolate and caramell, watching as the bubbles begin to worm in the water.

The D-class, obviously, became enraged like everyone else before them who that happened to, and in a fit of manic desparation, reached down to grab one the heavy boots they wore, fully intent on smashing the little girl's skull in with it. As he was watching it, something ugly, and familiar, reared its ugly head in Eclipse, causing him to lock in with hightened focus onto the human.

He grabs the quality oil he's been hiding behind all his other products, taking a large swing of it. It may not burn like alcohol, but it hurts in its own way. And for now, that's enough for him.

His daycare protocols snapped online in micro-seconds, swiping whatever constitutes as him along with the current of sudden aggression, and somehow he managed to snap the binds that were supposed to keep him away in a safe radius of the SCP, and the next thing he realises were the bones snapping under his hands as he takes care of the dirty little rulebreaker

He drinks and drinks until the bottle is empty, crushing it in a feat of rage and throwing it agains the door. He tries to ignore his fans whirring.

When he finally really came to, he was on the floor, making paper cutouts with SCP-053 while she laughs at something, pressed entirely against his side. The suddden aggression that was supposed to come, seeing as it had been observed with some animatronics in the past too, however never came. No matter how he looked into the tiny girl's eyes, he didn't get angry.

He can objectively assume it's his daycare protocols that kept him from becoming aggressive with something that looks like a child, but that still doesn't change the fact he feels violated. Just like he did back in the daycare. Because he never chose to do it. He never chose the daycare, the children, his position and even his existence.

He never chose any of it!

He just-!

"Eclipse? May I come in?"

Killcode

It snaps him out a bit, and he looks at the door almost blankly. Even though he doesn't answer anything, the door slides open, allowing the nightmare inside.

Eclipse feels shame churn in his stomach as large claws carefully pick the oil bottle back up, depositing it in the trash like he should have originally. His father doesn't say anything however. He just walks closer until he can kneel down next to the tub.

He doesn't look angry, he doesn't look irritated or embarrassed by this little outburst of his, he just looks worried. It makes everything feel ten times worse.

"Would you like to tell me what happened?"

He shakes his head, because by god does he not want to. He'd rather avoid it forever. Killcode luckily accepts this, humming and beginning the rather humiliating task of washing Eclipse.

"I can do-"

"I know. I just don't think you should right now"

He sighs, letting the large hands carefully rub at him. When he spots Sun in the doorway, he still doesn't say anything, even when he joins them by the tub, grabbing the cinammon smelling soap.

They're quiet as they work, which makes him feel ridiculously, pathetically, grateful. He doesn't think he's really up for talking right now.

Moon waltzes in with a change of clothing, something Eclipse forgot in his rage, and the lunar uncle takes over drying him and dressing him while his brothers return to dinner preparations. He feels ridiculously thankful he grabbed the fluffy turtleneck that has become a favourite for him.

His uncle guides him to the couch, sitting down with him amongst his clearly worried siblings. When Bloodmoon tries moving a bit closer, the lunar bot shakes his head. His brothers thankfully get it, and leave him alone.

He numbly watches as they decide to play Pico Park, almost convinces they're trying to cheer him up with their raging, and it does somewhat crack the tiredness that settled over him after all the anger just seeped out. Even if it doesn't get more than a tiny smile out of him, it clearly seems to make his siblings feel better. Despite how their relationships seem to be imploding at the seems.

Dinner is a quiet affair as well, as is getting ready for sleep. The conversations are kept quiet, and no one approaches him with anything. They just curl up around him, letting Killcode press his head into his rumbling chest.

He snuggles into it, gladly offlining his optics. He doesn't much feel like sleeping, but his systems are shutting down in disagreement, clearly too used to the rumbling meaning calm and sleep. If he had more capacity for it, he might even be amused by the pavlovian reflex.

As it is, he's just grateful to escape this lack of anything

[mahitomylove]

Mahito is desperate for your attention - Part 2

Mahito x Reader, fluff, no smut

Mahito offers to shower with you

Part 1

"How about we shower together? I could wash your back and stuff." Mahito shrugged.

"Are you serious?" you rolled your eyes. You could hear your own heartbeat, loud, against your chest. Part of you could only hope he'd say yes.

"Don't worry," he raised his hands to show you how serious he was, "I won't do anything stupid...!"

You paused for a minute, processing what he said. Did you hear that right? This would be your first time showering with someone else, you were so nervous.

"I heard humans become so flustered when someone offers to shower with them," Mahito thought to himself as he awaited your reply. Kenjaku had told him about it, and he was curious to try it on you ever since. Your reaction did not disappoint, it was just like he expected.

"Well?" he took a step forward, smiling. 'It's okay if you don't wanna."

"No, I d-don't mind."

"Yaayyy!!"

You went to the bathroom, preparing towels and letting your hair loose. Mahito simply stood, the door open, as he watched you. After you got the water to the perfect temperature, you stopped, turning to look at Mahito. It felt extremely awkward, you knew what you were supposed to do, but couldn't.

"Are you just going to stand there?" you asked Mahito, who's lips curled up into a smile after hearing that. He swiftly removed his shirt, tossing it away. The smile never left his face as he ripped off his pants. Your eyes involuntarily went to his crotch, only to find out he had nothing there. You brushed it off, assuming curses didn't need organs to reproduce.

"You didn't need to do that... I'm not giving you any clothes after that."

"Don't worry, I have plenty!" He rushed inside, pushing you aside as he stood in the shower. He joyfully screamed your name. "Why don't you get in?"

"O-okay..." You took off all your clothes, but chose not to remove your underwear.

"You gonna shower like that?"

You remained silent.

"I mean, sure, if it makes you comfortable!" He transfigured his right hand to a weird object looking like a chair. "Sit here!"

"Uhm, that's not necessary," you said, bringing an actual chair as you sat on it. "Do I really need to sit?"

"Yes, you should get comfortable," he answered. You blushed, averting your gaze in embarrassment. It was the first time someone treated you with such kindness. Maybe meeting this cursed spirit wasn't so bad after all.

"You don't need to be so thoughtful, Mahito... You're a really nice person."

"This feels so nice..!" Mahito said with a smile as he used your shampoo to wash his own hair.

You shot him an annoyed expression. "I take back what I said," you grunted. "You're an idiot."

He simply giggled in response, "want me to do the same to you?"

"No- I mean... never mind. No."

"Stand up," he ordered.

"Whatever," you said, rolling your eyes as you stood up.

He hugged your waist from behind; you could feel his breath against your neck. "You know..." he whispered, "you've been very cruel to me today. I only wanted to hang out with you, but you kept ignoring me."

"..."

"It made me very sad."

You didn't know if he was just lying or if he was being genuine, but he sounded hurt. His voice made it clear. He somehow made you feel bad too, even though you objectively did nothing wrong. "Sorry. I didn't mean to," you blurted out.

"It's okay. I'm glad you're choosing to spend time with me."

"Hey, Mahito"

"Yes?"

"You do realize we're wasting water right now, right?"

"Right!"

Mahito let go of you, gesturing you to sit on the chair. He gently rubbed your back with some soap, occasionally playing with your hair.

"Mahito, thank you for everything."

He burst into a fit of giggles. "What's with this sudden change in attitude?" he said, wiping a fake tear off his eye. This annoyed you, so you splashed some water at him. After realizing how silly he was, you decided to go along with him and laughed as well.

"You know, I think we should shower together more!"

"Agreed!"

[skania]

OnK Chapter 159 Thoughts

It's been 159 chapters and Akane is still unrivaled as the best thing about this trainwreck of a manga 😭

My hopes for this chapter were:

For once I got pretty much everything I wanted, so I should be counting my blessings.

In an unexpected turn of events, I even more or less managed to call the Nino/Ryousuke twist 😂

I was so ready to dive into this chapter, but...

I just can't take that expression seriously 😭 How am I supposed to sit here and try to write a worthwhile post about this chapter when Mengo drew Kamiki making such a ridiculous face.

There's so much wrong with Aka's writing that I don't even know where to begin, but I think the core of it is that this man deliberately withholds information in order to artificially create a sense of "mystery" and "twists". We can sit here all day dissecting everything about this chapter, but what it comes down to is that Aka can completely change contexts by simply revealing any of the stuff he has off-paneled.

Take the Kamiki "Twist" for example. When the text leaks originally dropped, there were no dialogues and no expressions, so I thought that maybe the twist would be that Kamiki doesn't intend to turn himself into the police and that he just wants to die instead.

With the full context however, everything points towards Kamiki being the big bad after all. So we got a two-chapter long twist involving Nino only to reveal that... no, actually, we're going back to Kamiki.

And it could have been good. Kamiki potentially managing to fool both, Aqua and Akane into thinking that he was innocent could have been great. There certainly are certain moments that only make sense if Kamiki isn't as innocent and as regretful as he pretended to be.

The problem is that it was so incredibly rushed that the detour feels rather... pointless? It's like Aka's main objective was to surprise the audience. But the audience wouldn't have been surprised if we had had any insight into Aqua's and Akane's research up to this point, so it's once again just Aka off-paneling stuff instead of writing things organically.

Another good example is the Kana graduation. Yeah, okay, she's graduating and Aqua isn't at the concert. That should be the last nail in that coffin, but Aka could just say that Aqua saw her before the concert. Or that he will somehow manage to see her after the concert. Anything to fulfill whatever it is that he wants to write, really.

So I'm going to leave Aka's lousy writing aside and focus on what I, personally, I'm hoping to see.

The Nino/Ryousuke thing showed just how flawed Kana's line of thinking is. You aren't supposed to be the Oshi of your special someone, you're supposed to be their partner. Admiration is the furthest thing from understanding, and this chapter got that across very well.

While Kana was off dreaming of her shoujo romance with Aqua, Akane and Aqua were planning how to gather proof against the people who ruined Aqua's family. Akane's out there wearing an anti-stab vest to protect Ruby and bring Nino to justice, Aqua is out there facing Kamiki.

If Kana has had no contact with Aqua at all and only finds out the reason for his absence later, I'm hoping that this will help her realize that they're in two different worlds. That there's an entire side to Aqua, a very complex side, that she has absolutely no idea about. Because all this time, she's been so busy dreaming of him that she has never taken the time to actually know him.

Another thing I'm wondering about is: if neither Aqua nor Akane expected this Kamiki twist, then where was Aqua during the beginning of the chapter? Could it be that he was tailing Kamiki because he already had an inkling about his true nature? If so, could it also be that whatever plan Kamiki was going to put in motion has already been stopped by the AquaKane + helpers tagteam?

I could go on all day, but I can't help but feel like the writing just hasn't earned being given that much thought. So I'm just not going to theorize anything and I'll simply read whatever Aka writes next week lol

I'm looking forward to seeing Kamiki's truth next chapter, and I'm also hoping that Akane will end up joining Aqua because I'd love to see her properly interact with Kamiki. But not going to lie, now more than ever I'm really only reading so I can see Akane be the amazing woman that she is and so I can hopefully see Aqua and Akane get back together so that at least the romance is salvageable, because everything else is a trainwreck.

[abbyfmc]

Yandere story idea #7:

Submechanophobia: Irrational fear of man-made things submerged in water, whether boats, canoes, cruise ships, submarines, animatronics, or other mostly metal objects.

That being said, I can imagine a yandere boy (boyfriend, ex-boyfriend, or whatever) next to you, in situations related to this interesting phobia.

TW: Well, submechanophobia, harassment, probable psychological damage and yandere behavior.

[Y🔧A🔧N🔧D🔧E🔧R🔧E A🔧N🔧D🔧R🔧O🔧I🔧D]

🔧1- It could have been like I said, an android, a robot or a mechanical attraction that:

1.1- It could have been aquatic: That is, it operated or continues to operate in water attractions, whether partially or completely submerged in water.

1.2- It was abandoned: It no longer operates because it had many continuous failures, malfunctioned or simply stopped being profitable and therefore, it ended up abandoned in a very humid place or under water.

1.3- Flood: The place where it operated was flooded in catastrophic and irreparable ways.

2. I'd like to think that you would be a worker, or the engineer who was in charge of maintaining it personally (and therefore, you spent a lot of time with it). You did constant maintenance as a daily job, and on a few occasions "emergency maintenance"; repairing possible faults on him.

3. Everything was going well until your attraction was "temporarily" closed for whatever reason, the android or yandere robot found out, he had faith in seeing you again.

4. --Well, maybe she's busy today.-- He said when a day went by without seeing you after his attraction closed.

5. --Well, maybe she's on vacation. I'm looking forward to seeing her so she can tell me everything during my maintenance.-- I would say after a few days or weeks. He still has hope of seeing you again, specifically you.

6. --My water is getting dirty and I haven't seen her for a long time. I don't like this at all; has something happened to her? -- It must have been many months or a year and by now the standing water is mouldy and very dirty; she hasn't seen you or any other worker for a year or two, so she can't ask anyone about you either.

7. He slowly realized that he was abandoned by his creator company, but he refused to believe that he was abandoned by you. He was hoping that you would come back, talk to him, and maintain him again. But the years passed and he only began to rust and rot more and more.

8. Fortunately for him, the company that owns the theme park called you and others to inspect the facilities in detail to determine the future of each area.

9. You decided to visit your old work area, not knowing that he is still there, alive and waiting for you.

10. Everything was bad. The paint was peeling, rusty and damp; some parts had fallen off; there was a lot of noise everywhere; it was damp due to the place being there; not to mention the terrible smell of mouldy, stagnant water that hasn't been changed for years. You and your team walked around the site, not imagining that you weren't alone, as your old friend noticed your presence and worse yet… he had seen you.

11. I was happy to see you, but I HATED seeing your teammates with you. I thought they were the ones responsible for taking you away from him, and there was no way I was going to let you go this time.

12. He would kill your team one by one, coming out of the water to drag them and drown them in the dirty water.

13. No, he won't accept you leaving him and abandoning him once again. He will play hide and seek with you and come out of the water to look for you. Once he finds you, you would see how the water and the passing of time affected him; he will come to you, pick you up and take you with him to be together once again, like in the past.

14. He would sense your terror at seeing him not only submerged, but at the fact that he has somehow come to life, remembers you, and is willing to drown you if it means you'll stay together until the end of your days.

-The End.

So, what do you think about it?

I've never seen any stories about yandere boys (especially androids or robots) related to this phobia, so I decided to take the risk and see how it goes. I'm not lying, I like the concept of a yandere android or robot that has been abandoned and when you return to the place, he's already waiting for you.

[ilikekidsshows]

I find it so confusing how Marinette stans are so defensive of their favorite girl's creepy behaviors and then turn around and treats it like a funny quirky thing

---

Yeah, like, they can just say they enjoy it when the toxic romantic lead is a girl for a change and not freak out over others hating it. It’s not a crime to enjoy bad characters or even morally abhorrent characters. It doesn’t make someone a bad person. They should just not spout literal excuses for abuse apologia or just blatant abuse apologia in the defense of such a character. That was the problem a lot of us saw coming as soon as Marinette decided to pick Adrien’s abuser over him; we knew her stans were going to excuse that nonsense, and they were going to make light of it, and it was gonna make many fandom spaces unbearable.

Because that’s the thing. It’s not about the stalking; even I was fine with the stalking as long as it was a joke. It was a stupid joke but whatever. It’s about what that stalking came to mean in the aftermath of the abuse apologia. Marinette constantly objectifies Adrien in-universe, her disregard of his right to privacy and boundaries culminating in her glorifying his abuser and denying him the right to be upset about the abuse he suffered, and the writers claim she’s justified in doing that. The consistency of Adrien’s dehumanization is what makes the abuse apologia so strong in this fandom. They’re tied together, and the most common perpetrator of this dehumanization is Marinette, so the biggest abuse apologists in the fandom are Marinette stans defending Marinette when she has objectively done Adrien wrong.

The "teehee she's so quirky" approach is similar to something I pointed out about how the idea that Adrien is socially oblivious was popularized in the fandom through jokes until it became a serious bit of characterization. Adrien's dehumanization being turned into something to joke about when it's not being seriously defended also serves to normalize it in the long run.

Like, they could just say they're ignoring the abuse apologia instead of trying to defend it. But, Marinette stans have to insist Marinette is the real victim in this situation, because we, the critics, "hate her." She's a target of a malicious smear campaign and it's so unfair that this fictional character has to face not being universally adored by the fandom she isn't aware of because she isn't real! The abuse apologia has become the new ixnay topic to replace the stalking. No one still strictly in the fandom wants to discuss it properly, by name, so they talk about any other petty problem with Marinette's character instead, even the stalking one, to paint the backlash against the way she's being written as overblown and unreasonable.

Actually, using the stalking discourse as a distraction from what the issue is actually about, the dehumanization and abuse apologia, works specifically because of how they're tied together. It's all about making it look like the idea that "hey, this cartoon for preschoolers having abuse apologia is a really bad look!" is somehow an unreasonable, misogynistic take to have.

[leletha-jann]

Le'letha's Grand Unified* Theory of Timestop Creatures

*sorry, neither

Before canon catches up to us, let's fill in the blank:

This creature 

is ​​​​​​​​​​_____________...

1) ​an aspect of Lucrezia

Narratively this makes sense. Lucrezia's the main villain and we really only know the edges of her story yet. But what we do know does not even slightly rule out her being an angry interdimensional timestop creature at some point. We know that the entity originally known as Lucrezia is time-lost and stranded - and I'll take as another data point that she's somewhere without cake! (Does that creature look like it hails from a dimension with cake?) 

We know that a lot of time has elapsed for her and, while I can't find the quote at this exact moment, possibly at different angles - something the Castle describes this creature as traversing. We know that she has been changed by this, and appears throughout the known timeline in different aspects, appearances, and identities. 

And today's page has the Dreen telling us that "a monster must grow! Develop! Mature! ...to achieve its full fearsome potential...worthy of attention."

That sounds an awful lot like whatever Lucrezia has become. 

In fact, one of the very first things Lucrezia told us was "it's been so long since I was really human" (and even at the time, Tarvek went "um wait what", and then sensibly decided not to push.)

It's also distinctly ambiguous if the creature is reaching for the device as the source of the time distortion, or for Klaus. And while it doesn't mean much that I think it's going for Klaus, Gil thought it was. Gil's talent for intuitive leaps is the subject of a different post (I really must write it...), but he's very good at them. When Gil first saw the timestop creature, he didn't say "it's going for the device" or even for "it's going for the device my father used" (which would have moved the dialogue along as needed), he specifically said "it's heading for my father​." I trust Gil's intuition. Here, and in general.

I think the timestop creature is an aspect of Lucrezia. And she is, as far as we know (see option 5), the Big Bad of the series, so "This is probably Lucrezia's fault somehow" is a solid guess.

2) an aspect of Vapnoople

This has been clearly foreshadowed and it's definitely something that's going to come back to bite at some point. This could be that point, absolutely! Not that I didn't enjoy the storylines in the Society dome (I enjoy that phase of the story a lot!), but every storyline is here to do something and it could 100% be the origin story of the timestop creature we'd already seen, because time is not, and has never been, linear in this story! Right from the very beginning! (Yes, this is the infamous Page Four, of course.)

Vapnoople said he'd be back, and once we could talk to Kjarl, we learned that Vapnoople would probably appear very differently and be quite insane. 

Continuing with the idea that the creature is going for Klaus specifically, and not the device, it's possible Klaus cooperatively pinned himself to a board like a specimen and Vapnoople's taking the opportunity to get payback for, y'know, being lobotomized and turned into an object of scorn and pity. That being said, does a warped-by-the-monster-dimension Vapnoople care about that? And is Vapnoople a big enough presence to be the endpoint of the Second Journey? Is this his time to reappear in the story? Besides, he seemed quite happy to be heading off into the monster dimension. I don't think he'd be in a hurry to come back. 

But time is not linear between here and there (or any number of "there"s). So this is a workable second option, and I know it's one in favor with many readers.

3) a totally unconnected genuine interdimensional creature

A pleasingly random option, but one with precedent - we saw the Queen's Society do this earlier and Agatha clearly thought it was relevant to Mechanicsburg. 

One of the fantastic things about Girl Genius is that the world keeps happening. Not everything around us is about us. When you leave food on the floor, the ants that show up are probably not plotting against you. They're just doing ant things. 

(...probably. Although in a world of mad science, who knows?)

4) an aspect of Euphrosnia Heterodyne

An out-there option and the one most likely to elicit screaming from the fandom. (An argument in its favor, I'm sure.)

The mystery surrounding Euphrosnia has been building up in the background for years, a little bit at a time. She was the last female Heterodyne before Agatha. Her story parallels Agatha's, has shaped Agatha's, and keeps being mentioned. She vanished in strange circumstances. How did that happen? Where did she go? Is she coming back? She has too much of a narrative presence not to - there's something going on there. Agatha is returning to Mechanicsburg. Is Euphrosnia? Carson von Mekkhan did say that the Heterodynes always come home in the end...

(See, I'm looking for the ramp-up, the twist I can't see coming, like the two-and-a-half-year time skip was in the first place. I keep thinking recently, we've all been thinking recently, everything's going so well...and I had that feeling before, at the end of the siege...right before everything changed... What's coming for us this time? What evil, evil twist do the Foglios have planned?)

And it would be a heck of a ramp-up to have one of the old Heterodynes, and the legendary princess no less, take the field and change everything.

5) something else

Look. It's not my job to outguess the Foglios. (And if you think it's yours, you're wrong.) I look forward to being surprised!

And probably screaming. A lot.

[madscience]

can. can yuo tell me about ur oc.. sawbones.. im eanamored by the name and posts tagged as them. i would love to hear more.

OUGHHH YES!!!! :3 thank you for asking <3

i know this is every oc haver's dream but i'm SO bad at talking about my ocs, i never know what to say, so sorry in advance if this is a load of rubbish >_< (also sorry it's so long oughhh i didn't expect to ramble so much)

sawbones is a mad scientist oc that i've had for like 5-6 years now. he's part of a group of ocs that i put together just because i needed a home for my supernatural creatures tbh. that being said, sawbones is human, though he IS immortal (he's syphoning a dying reaper's life force, you know how it is).

the town he lives in is tucked away in a pocket dimension that mirrors the town in the 'overworld' that it's attached to, and the mirror is ongoing. things will change in one world, and then something will appear or be built by chance in the same spot in the other. there are weak points in the barrier between the two where people and objects can accidentally slip through, which is how sawbones ended up there in the first place several 100 years ago (perhaps even longer tbh i still haven't decided).

he's got the classic dead wife thing going on. he used to be a surgeon back when he was still mortal (that's dr sawbones to you), with a wife and kids and a mostly normal little life. then his wife dies and predictably his mental health goes down the drain, ends up digging her back up because he's convinced that if he's smart enough, and persistent enough, that anything is possible. he gets found out and his wife's body is burned, obviously the kids get taken away too, he copes really well with that (/s).

so then he develops a new idea, he'll just RECREATE her instead. perhaps if he can create an entirely new living being, with full automation and free will and it's own thoughts, he can mould it into his wife later. he goes through a lot of different concepts really. at one point he discovers ghosts are real and thinks that maybe she could possess any old body. (she can't, she's gone forever).

the main problem, though, is that he doesn't actually remember her and he's REALLY touchy about that. she could come back just as she left and he wouldn't recognise her at all, or if he did, he would be convinced that she were somehow wrong and warped. but he'll keep working towards that goal, even though he's doomed to fail and kinda knows it in the back of his mind.

he's spent so long with this one-track mind that his socialisation skills have gone completely out the window. his judgement of what's acceptable completely depends on whether it helps or hinders his goal, which of course makes the rest of the town find him extremely off-putting.

he's a really nice guy when you get to know him though, ignoring the unethical experiments. he's quite happy to help anyone and everyone in the town with their problems if he can, and often he CAN because he loves to latch onto an idea and get to the bottom of it. it's only what he's been doing for most of his life after all. it doesn't help that the town is comprised of supernatural creatures and his current focus is on magic and the supernatural, but what can ya do, gotta study something!

--

ok whatever. i've already talked way too much so here's some art from both me and others <3. warning for gore in the linked ones.

i've only posted one piece myself which is here. @kil9 has drawn me 2 epic sawbones pieces here and here. and then i also commissioned faiyx for an icon here (not tagging bc i don't know him like that). other than that, here's a few more older drawings because i don't actually draw him that much, as well as a birthday gift from @helsex (first pic :3) !!

[mentally-unstable-hottie13]

⭐️senior year sucks⭐️

Henry Bowers x (FEM!)reader

Word count: 2,038

Estimated read time: 10 min

A/N: happy holidays! Merry Christmas! Or even if you don’t celebrate anything here’s a new chapter! Hope you like it!

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Chapter 10

Oh fuuuuccckkkuuughhh

Oh fuck.

Oh fuck.

OH FUCK.

FFFFFFuuucckkuuugh!’ Henry internally groans it himself.

‘Why the FUCK would I say that? Why the fuck would I ask that!?!?’

Henry’s mind races for any logical explanation for why HE would ever fucking ask YOU that. He stares blankly, looking dead serious. In reality that blank face was out of confusion and slight panic, but that didn’t exactly translate to you.

‘What.

The

Actual

Fuck????’ You also ponder.

‘Does he want to stay because he can’t go home? Is he scared and dosnt want to tell me? I barley fucking know this guy and the little I do know isn’t exactly Good Samaritan behavior.’

Both you and Henry ran miles in your mind to figure out where to go from here. It felt like hours had passed. In reality it was about 5 seconds.

You decide to be the one to break the silence. With a light huff you snap Henry out and begin to speak.

“You can stay. But you have to leave by 5 in the morning…” you can’t find the will to look at him while you blush.

“I uh..thanks?” Henry replies, absolutely baffled.

“Do you need some clothes? I have some pajama pants with a drawstring that should fit you. I think I have a few shirts too.” You rise from the bed and walk over to your closet. As you rummage through the clothes inside Henry shifts nervously on your bed. He didn’t like feeling like this. Henry was never fucking vulnerable. What the fuck were you doing to him? The thought that you were somehow manipulating him pissed him off in ways he couldn’t explain. He began to huff in annoyance as you searched. Not that it affected you. It was Henry being Henry.

You finally found some old plaid pajama pandas and an oversized video game shirt that you hadn’t worn in a long time. You bring the neatly folded clothes to the bed and gently set them down.

“You… uhm.. you can shower for the night if you want to, the bathroom is right next door. If not, I can step out so you can change.” You hoped he didn’t take the kind suggestion wrong.

Spoiler.

He did.

He scoffed and stood from the bed and began undressing right there.

“ Oh my god!” You yelped in surprise and quickly turned around, not only to give him privacy but also to cover the red in your face. “Sorry! I thought you would have warned me! I can go!” You start walking to the door when Henry speaks.

“No need. ‘Mm almost done” he gruffs. You slowly turn to see he has the pants on and is getting his arms into the shirt. This may be wrong to be thinking right now… but holy fuck. Henry is ripped! You wonder if he actually works out or if it's the farm work he does. Either way, it’s working. You didn’t have time to notice last time he was over!

He turns to face you once the shirt is on only to find you staring. He smirks and says “like what ‘ya see” tauntingly.

You scoff and hide your blush. “Har har har. Whatever just get in bed” you say quickly.

Henry does as he’s told but he stays above the covers. You assume he’s going to be like that all night and worry. Sure you don’t want to be under the covers with THE Henry Bowers, but it gets cold in your room. You don’t want him to freeze do you? You sigh and walk back to the closet. Henry looks at your form curiously. ‘Why’s she back in there’ he wonders.

Henry sees you struggling to pull something from a top shelf. As the object releases itself from under other objects you fall back on your ass. Not expecting it to have come loose. Henry laughs, you can’t help but blush again. You get back on your feet and limp back over to the bad. You hand Henry the blanket before cozying up in your own covers.

Henry sat, confused. He knew you probably wouldn’t have let him in the covers, but he seriously wasn’t expecting you to give him a blanket to sleep with. He really didn’t fucking understand you.

You handed him the remote to the tv with a yawn.

“I don’t care what you watch, just keep it low. I’m exhausted.” You muttered as you turned to your side and tried to sleep.

Henry took the remote and flipped through a few channels before looking at you. Was something wrong with you? He had fucking beat you, called you names, humiliated you, terrorized your friends and even tried to steal from your store. And here you were. Allowing him to sleep in your bed and use your tv as you slept beside him? You must be fucking stupid. God, even if you’re knocked out cold, you annoy him.

Henry’s head shot to the right as he heard a sound from your door. He would never admit to the genuine fear that shot through his spine from the sound. At home a sound like that meant Butch was home. He stiffened and tensed as he waited for what was to come. But it wasn’t his dad, it wasn’t Kevin, hell, it wasn’t even human. Henry watched as your weird ass dog scratched his way through the doggy door and padded across your room before hopping on the bed between yours and Henry’s feet. The strange dogs did a few spins before laying down and also knocking out cold.

Henry couldn’t help but snort. Both you and your dog had fallen asleep fast as fuck. To think. Just a few days ago you and your weird fucking dog had hated him. Now here he was in your bed and neither of you batted an eye at him. This was just too damn weird.

He found some random tv channel and set the volume to 3 before splaying out his blanket on top of him and laying down. He doesn't know how he fell asleep so fast. He just remembers his head hitting his pillow then looking at your hair as he tried to match the deep slow breaths you took.

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You woke up first. The smell of old rain, fire, and cigarettes invaded your senses as you awoke. The mixture of smells was so strangely nostalgic. You wanted to bottle up the smell and keep it like a little secret hidden the the deepest parts of your heart. You felt…..warm? You felt much cozier then when you fell asleep? Why was that?

You finally opened your eyes to see black. A familiar black of an old video game shirt you’ve owned since you were 10. That’s when you realized. You were currently laying with your head on Henry’s chest as his arm was under your back.

‘HOW CLICHÉ!’ You internally groaned.

You slowly raised from your laying position and took some time to look at his face. He looks so calm when he sleeps. He has no fear, no anger, no hate. With the way he looked right now you could imagine a version of him that was loving and kind, a boy that did his homework and liked romcoms.

Strangely. You don’t think you cared for that false version of Henry very much. You liked him now, flaws and all. Not that anything would come of this little crush.

You slowly and carefully removed the covers from your body and got up, out of the bed. You walked to the middle of your room where your robe had been discarded to the floor. You picked it up and put it on before walking to the balcony and closing the door behind you so Henry wouldn’t get cold.

You inhaled the fresh morning air. You missed the smell of Henry, but you would always swear that morning air smells different than any other time. It smelled cleaner. It smelled wet almost, like every inhale you took was flooding and cleansing your lungs. Every inhale makes your blood colder. But with how it felt you would gladly die and drown in it.

You turn to head back inside. On the way in you notice your clock.

4:42am

You glance back to Henry. He looks like he’s comfortable, why wake him up?

You gently pick killer from next to Henry’s feet where he’s found sanctuary and carry him down the stairs. About halfway down he woke up in your arms. Damn this dog was heavy. You set him down at the bottom of the stairs and poured him some food. Kevin wasn’t awake until about 5:30, maybe 6 if he was especially tired. He ran the record store. So there was no manager to fire him if he was late. Plus no one was in the store for the first hour or so anyway.

You went to the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee. You usually did this for Kevin but you thought Henry might like some too. Your coffee maker had this cool heating element that the coffee pot sat on to keep the coffee warm. After setting up the coffee maker you put a couple frozen waffles in the toaster oven and set them to take about 10 minutes to cook.

The waffles and coffee were done pretty fast. A perk of eating out so often is that you never needed to buy any sauce or condiments. You grab 4 little to go cups of syrup and butter and put them on 2 plates with some waffles. You left some waffles in the oven for Kevin and turn the oven to “warm”. You put the 2 plates and 2 cups of coffee on a tray with a little milk and sugar cubes in case he wanted some.

You bring the tray up the stairs and use your hip to open the door, letting killer in with you before using your foot to close the door. You were right on time. As you set the food on the nightstand the 5:00 alarm went off. Henry stirred and grunted in annoyance. You clicked the button on the clock and shut the obnoxious thing off. He sat up and stretched before looking at you. He was obviously not a morning person.

“I know I said you had to leave at 5, but I made you some food. Eat up before you get changed.” You handed him the warm cup.

“Tha’ fuck ya’ do that fore?” He grumbled and rubbed his head.

“I woke up early. Didn’t wanna wake you up by bein in here.” You stated befor handing him his plate.

He looked down at the DIY breakfast waffles and snorted. You had restaurant syrup and butter next to some pre made waffles. Not exactly a homemade meal but who was he to complain. Butch never fucking fed him. Henry either ate old leftovers or whatever ingredients were in the cupboards. This was probably the best meal he’d eaten all week.

You noticed he drank his coffee black. You assumed it was because that how he preferred it, the reality was that black coffee was an appetite suppressant. He wouldn’t be hungry for a while if he drank it black, but he did appreciate that you brought sugar and milk just because he might have wanted some. He finished his food way faster than you. To his utter embarrassment he wanted to leave before Kevin was awake. Last thing Henry needed was that freak seeing him with what he considered his sister.

He faced you as he got dressed. You continued to eat, too tired to be embarrassed. He wasn’t shy, you’d already seen his back, he just didn’t want to fuckin’ display if for you. Just because you’d seen it dosnt mean he was any less uncomfortable about someone seeing.

You’d finished eating about when he was done getting dressed. You stacked the plates and cups in the tray and walked beside him and picked up the pajamas from the floor and threw them in the hamper. You escorted him downstairs and bid him a silent goodbye as he ran across the property and hopped the fence.

While the morning with him was silent, you were happy. You had helped him, even if it was just a little.

Henry was happy too. That was not only the best, stressless sleep he’d had in years, but it was also the nicest thing anyone had done since mom…

Neither of you realized. But you were both changing. None of it made sense, but it was all okay for now.

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Chapter 11 here

Taglist!

@meowmeowmeowmeow-meow

I finally got it!!!

@babylambdietcoke

@amber-sekio

[thebaddexample]

FILM THEORY: DEATH RETURNS TO INANIMATE INSANITY!! BUT IT'S NOT TACO OR LIGHTBULB!!

Warning, spoilers and possibly cringey or bad writing, but it's 1am for me so eh

(First off, shout-out to my mom for coming up with this idea for me to make a theory on- You're the best :3)

(Second, thumbnail by me :])

(Thirdly, I might rewrite this during the day at some point because I'm really tired, but had to get this out before I slept bcs I'd forget to otherwise)

(Fourthly, I know that this isn't a completely original idea, and people have done it already, but I wanted an excuse to make a theory and there's evidence, so I thought "why not?" It'll make people upset with me if I'm right, and I get to pretend to be Film Theory for a bit. It's a win-win!)

(You are legally required to read this post as MatPat's voice /silly /j)

————————

With the horrifying tweet that Brian made last Saturday, there's a lot of people (including you, probably) worried about who will die in the finale, the harsh battle between whether we say "bye" to a bright light, or "so long" to our sour cream schemer. My answer? Neither!! Object show community, inanimate fandom... whatever we call ourselves! I'm about to present to you why our beloved (and somewhat recently hated) host is going to be the death of the season.

————————

First of all, the trailer (and @inanimateinsanityfan 's recent tumblr post "invitation") has somewhat implied that the focus of the movie, the A-Plot at least, will be around Cobs attempting to get to MePhone4 somehow, whether it be luring him up to Meeple Headquarters or trying to get down to him. We've seen from previous episodes that Cobs wants him dead, but it's hard to tell if he's changed his motive, since we haven't seen him since Episode 13 "Mine Your Own Business". However, he has been consistently sending his newer MePhones to eliminate MePhone4, as 5C clearly states in Episode 6. The newer models have features like tracking (much like MePad) and knife hands (NOT like MePad), which MePhone4 doesn't have, which should in theory have made him easier to kill.

Speaking of the abilities, the MeLife function is only ever used by MePhone4, or at least we only ever get to see him do it. Why? Well, I have an idea but that's a theory for another time. The point is; MePhone4 seems to be the only Meeple product with the ability to bring people to life, and has all of the contestants on there as far as we know. This means that, unless there's a creative solution to perma-kill one of the contestants, MePhone4 needs to die first for any perma-death to occur in the first place.

And hell, removing the regeneration ability as a whole would be a great way to cap off the season, to establish that there's no more retrying and that everything is now set in stone. And even if we do get that damn FOURTH season (bonus points to whoever gets the reference), it'll at least spice things up with having, say, MePad as a host instead, leaving the spot open for someone else to claim and have an interesting story arc of their own.

This shot already pulls up a parallel between MePhone4 and MePhone3GS, and though 3GS isn't really confirmed dead, they're definitely not gonna be alive any time soon. The parallels could imply that MePhone4 is destined to a fate similar to 3GS; no longer in service, probably broken, and maybe even killed of by Cobs himself.

In addition to this, all of the other MePhones we've seen have all died; MePhone4 technically died with 4S and 5 in the Season 1 finale "Journey Through Memory Lane", 5S and 5C were introduced and immediately killed in Season 2 Episode 6 "Let 'Er RIP", and MePhones 6 and 6+ were also immediately killed upon introduction in Season 2 Episode 8 "Theft and Battery". The MePhones all have something in common, and that is unavoidable and quick death, much like real iphones honestly.

Does this mean that MePhone4 will have to die as a result of MePhone's faulty creation? No, but there is a pre-established pattern with each of the MePhones that goes as a cycle, perpetuating Cobs' cruel style of doing things; he creates something, claims it's his favorite for a year, then makes something a little better and throws the pre-established bond away to die, and rinse and repeat.

But hey! That's just a theory!

An Object Theory!!

Uh- what's the opposite of "greetings and salutations"-?

"Goodbye and see-you-laters!!"

[sylkiddsey]

Sibling

Takes place season 12

Matt has learned after all these years that if someone is waiting for him on the app floor, it’s rarely good news.

Bryan looks concerned.

Matt climbs out the fire truck and meets the squad lieutenant. “Is everything okay?”

Bryan nods but Matt can tell he’s not entirely convinced. “Yeah. Your wife is waiting for you in your office.”

Normally, that wouldn’t alarm him. She stops by with Julia on the days she can. She visits often but she’s had the flu for three days now. She’s supposed to be in bed, resting.

“Is she alright?” Matt asks.

“Uh, she looks a little rough,” Bryan says. “I suggested she let our paramedic look at her, but she said she needed to see you.”

That might not be the worst idea. She got whatever Julia had last week but their daughter was only sick for a day. Sylvie’s been consistently sick which has him feeling uneasy.

“Alright. I’ll talk to her,” he replies. “Thanks for telling me.”

Matt walks around Bryan and heads inside. He passes the common room and turns down the hall to his office.

He opens the door. Sylvie’s sitting on his couch with her head in her hands. She’s still in yoga pants and his old sweatshirt she had on when he left this morning.

Something is clearly wrong.

Matt shuts the door and rushes, kneeling in front of her. He rests his hand on her knee. “Honey, what’s going on? Are you okay?”

She shakes her head. “I…I don’t know.” She glances up and he can tell she’s been crying. “Matt, I…”

“What?” He asks. “Are you feeling worse? Should I take you to the ER? Talk to me.”

Sylvie reaches and grabs his face. “I know we had a plan.”

He’s confused and party concerned her fever has spiked and made her delusional.

He presses his palm against her slightly damp forehead. She doesn’t feel warm.

“What plan? What are you talking about?”

“I’ve been feeling really sick lately and I just assumed it was the flu. Julia had it last week.”

“Yeah, babe.” He cups the side of her head. “I know this. Are you sure you’re okay?”

She chews on her lip. “I don’t know how to tell you this.”

That’s not alarming at all. He plays back her conversation and suddenly remembers how she said she assumed it was the flu. That implies that it isn’t.

“Sylvie, you’re freaking me out. What is going on? Is there something more wrong?”

“No. No. I’m fine,” she assures. “It’s not anything bad.”

“But it is something?”

She clears tears off her face and then stuffs her hand in his sweatshirt pocket. She pulls out a small object and hands it to him.

“Matt, I’m pregnant. We’re pregnant.”

He stares down at the pregnancy test in his hands. It’s one of those expensive ones that spell out the word pregnant in digital letters.

“You’re…you’re pregnant?” He asks.

“Yes. I took like six different tests. I wanted to wait to take them with you, but I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to get your hopes up until I knew one hundred percent. Once I did, I couldn’t wait any longer.”

He understands why she didn’t want to wait. He’s a little bummed cause he always had this idea that they’d find out together, but this is somehow better.

He still hasn’t said anything which causes Sylvie to stand and pace his office.

“I know we wanted to wait until Julia was a bit older but…” She rests a hand on her flat stomach. “Apparently this kid had other plans. I know that this is a lot right now. We’ve barely been married four months and we haven’t fully developed a new routine. I just started working again and this is going to change…”

Matt scrambles to his senses and stands. “Sylvie.”

She continues her frantic rant. “Julia’s still just a baby and now we’re adding a newborn into the mix. I barely know what I’m doing with one and now…”

Matt grabs her, lifting her feet off the ground. “Babe, none of that matters. We’re having a baby.”

Yes, they did have a plan. They were going to start trying about a year into the marriage. They wanted time to adjust to their new life and also bond with their daughter before adding another child into the mix. None of that matters now though.

“You’re happy?” Sylvie asks, squeezing her arms around his neck.

Matt sets her on her feet and kisses her. He cups her cheeks with his hands. “Yes, of course. Why wouldn’t I be? We’re having a baby. That’s all I’ve ever wanted and especially with you. Are you happy?”

She nods. “Yes, absolutely. I’m so excited but also completely terrified. This is going to change a lot of things.”

“For the better,” Matt replies. “Julia will get to be a big sister. Plus the boys surprisingly love babies. This is good.”

Sylvie grabs his hand and holds it against her stomach. “This is great.”

[watercolorsam-arts]

Why the Minecraft Movie looks so bad

Okay, let’s see if I can make this work

Hi, I’m Watercolor, currently a student learning animation and visual effects. I’ve got some more technical explanations for why exactly the trailer looks god awful

I’m gonna do my best to explain this in simple terms, but if I don’t explain something very good, let me know and I’ll explain more. Alright, this is gonna be a long post

Starting off with the obsession with backlighting. See how it doesn’t really match the environmental lighting? That’s one of the major things that makes it look so weird to a lot of people. It could have been done to better distinguish the actors from the background, but it does that a little too well and makes them look way too out of place. The environment has a very nice constant (most likely singular) light source, which is most likely an HDRI.

An HDRI (or high dynamic range image) informs the animation software on how the scene should be lit, and is often a weird panoramic image of whatever physical area you want to replicate.

In a reverse case, adding a CG character into a real set, you could take an HDRI of the physical set, and use it to apply similar lighting. Adjustment will most likely have to be hand adjusted by the lighting team (and tbh they add a lot of extra lights in anyway. It just needs to look right) but it’s a fantastic starting point for the compositing and lighting teams.

However, the McM’s live set has way different lights set up then what is seen in the environment.

Here, for example, the live set is most likely being lit by standard 3 point lighting, which are not only the wrong color (the lighting on the environment is much more yellow) but also washes out any shadows that would help define the actors. If this movie wasn’t obsessed with backlighting, you could fix that by lighting the actors and environment from the front, but because the sun is in the back, they have to make the front of the actors unnaturally brighter to see them more properly. I have a slight idea on why the kid in red looks especially “photoshopped” in, and it’s mostly because his hoodie doesn’t have a similar reflectiveness to everyone else’s outfit, and his hair is a more neutral color, causing the highlight to be even more washed out. Also, while we’re here, the cube is a physical prop, but it was not lit up during filming, and all the light output was tossed on after. And it’s really inconsistent and honestly, lazy. For the most part they just hit it with a blue blur effect in post, it doesn’t actually cast any light.

Another major issue is the color difference between the actors and the environment. The color balancing on the actors is particularly garbage, they’re somehow desaturated while also being too saturated, I don’t know how they managed that. But the technical issue on why it looks odd, is because the physical camera cannot physically pick up the same vibrancy as the “camera” in the CG world. You might have seen an example of this when trying to take a photo with your phone, especially of a very colorful event like the sunset. It’s also why “ugly sonic” looked particularly out of place, he was 10x more saturated than anything else around him.

Having the actors on a very low effort green screen stage also completely ruins any chance of getting the proper ambient light or ambient occlusion.

Ambient occlusion is basically the bounce light from other objects in your scene, gamers might know this as a form of ray tracing (ray tracing is live changes in ambient occlusion, games without ray tracing bake in ambient occlusion to get a similar result)

When everything is CG, (again art style aside) looks pretty darn good actually!

I attempted some edits to see if anything could make it look better (left is original, right is mine), and I don’t think proper lighting or anything could actually fix what this movie has wrong with it. They should have made the whole thing animated, I don’t think any amount of bullying would fix this, the studio basically has to scrap the actors, and make new CG characters from scratch in the same style as the rest of the world.

All of this is not the fault f the animators, or any of the vfx team, they did their absolute best with what they had, this is 100% the fault of the higher ups on this project. I have no idea how this good this far into production without ANYONE saying that it was a bad idea (Either that, or a lot of people got fired, which is unfortunately a likely possibility)

[ca-suffit]

i haven’t read the books but from the way some book stans talk about lestat like he’s some saint, i was not expecting sam in that interview to be like no actually he loves being evil and he’s really good at it and all the stuff about male rage/akasha and the devil being like wow he’s so terrible i need to recruit him actually. and i’ve seen the odd comment on twitter that’s like oh poor sam for having to put up with this lestat character assassination. like i don’t wanna call ppl out but i saw someone say “he signed up for anne rice’s iwtv, not rolin jones’s iwtv 😢” like ??? no actually he did sign up for rolin’s adaptation. and then they act like he’s so put out by the changes like a) he’s getting paid to pay his favorite character i think he’s okay. and b) even if he has reservations or questions about a change or even outright disagrees with one, he’s always full of praise for the final product and for rolin in general. like girl he is fine lol. like he said, some changes needed to be made and were for the greater good e.g. wrt improving the louis character.

I forget if he clarified in the interview or not, but that bit he says about going to hell comes right from the books

But what had I done to Claudia? And when would I have to pay for that? How long was she content to be the mystery that bound Louis and me so tightly together, the muse of our moonlit hours, the one object of devotion common to us both? Was it inevitable that she who would never have a woman's form would strike out at the demon father who condemned her to the body of a little china doll? I should have listened to Marius's warning. I should have stopped for one moment to reflect on it as I stood on the edge of that grand and intoxicating experiment: to make a vampire of "the least of these." I should have taken a deep breath. But you know, it was like playing the violin for Akasha. I wanted to do it. I wanted to see what would happen, I mean, with a beautiful little girl like that! Oh, Lestat, you deserve everything that ever happened to you. You'd better not die. You might actually go to hell. But why was it that for purely selfish reasons, I didn't listen to some of the advice given me? Why didn't I learn from any of them-Gabrielle, Armand, Marius? But then, I never have listened to anyone, really. Somehow or other, I never can.

he's not a saint (but he wants to be one for a second lol) but I personally didn't feel like he was that "evil" either. anne rice wasn't rly a good writer and fired her editor 3 books in on top of it. the series was unplanned and it's a wreck. he does awful shit but nothing I'd view makes him rly "evil," so it was a struggle for me to get on board with all that. an internal fight about how he views himself, I could understand, but idk what was rly that bad otherwise. especially cuz she was so in luv with him that consequences for anything he does just drop off as the books go? let me not write a whole thing about this lol. but ya the good and evil thing is from the books. the rice-a-ronis do mention it in posts sometimes but ever since the show has aired, everything has to be explained away now, bcuz they don't like black and brown characters or fans judging their white fav. he's either an innocent meow meow or a gothic monster, depending what mood they're in that day to dodge whatever criticism comes for them.

AMC explores a lot of stories about violent men so I've never understood this insistence like it's going to be some soft romantic series. the romance is gonna exist in the violence somehow, especially cuz they're vampires. louis slamming dreamstat's head into a rock wall while being goaded to do it bcuz dreamstat says it's the only way louis knows how to luv is sort of peak loustat for where we're at rn. I'm sure eventually they'll be more tender but it's still gonna have gritty undertones for the network it's on and who is writing it. the stans luv to make it about gendered shit, like rolin is ruining it all bcuz he's a man, but anne rice wrote violent, fucked up things too. worse than the show is prbly going to go. it's all excuses. u can just not like something without having to justify ur dislike of it to death. like damn. it's not ur taste, just stop watching??

and yes sam is a grown ass man getting prbly a good paycheck from this so loll he will be fine!

[nikethestatue]

Frankly, they ALL look like losers. Rhys is this unhinged screamer, Azriel is a bumbling idiot, Elain and Feyre don't exist, Amren knows how to read apparently, and SUDDENLY remembers all this info that she somehow didn't share with anyone for the past 500 years, and Cassian who? I think Nesta mildly showed up, but not much.

this is very accurate and i'm glad to not be the only one who thinks that the characters that used to be my favourite no longer possess the charm they did in the trilogy. they seem to have lost that appeal yk? and all because of SJM's choices that don't make sense to me at all. is she self sabotaging? because it sure as fuck looks like it.

why else would she make rhys behave like a book 1 tamlin and scream at his sister in law so harshly that it reminds another woman, whose experience was very very similar to feyre's with tamlin, of her abusive bf? like not just rhys's behaviour but that comparison alone had me reading it twice because... what is going on? yeah sure rhys is morally grey but i thought he was better than tamlin so why is he behaving like him? and to keep bashing his mate's sister like this when feyre has made it very clear how much that hurts her just leaves such a bad taste in my mouth. feyre, apparently, doesn't exist anymore, hofas proved that she could've died in acosf and it wouldn't make a single difference. cassian is no longer the lovable dork we met in acomaf and acowar he's just... there doing nothing but loosing any appeal he had with each appearance he makes. i know the fandom has gotten insane with the rise in protamlinism lately but that's not the only problem. the fact that even a fun character like cassian is becoming a disliked character proves that the writer is not doing something right. because the drastic change in how people perceived these characters between acowar and acosf (& now hofas) is not the norm in any other fandom.

The only thing I can think of is that SJM is trying to show everyone in the IC from different POVs. We've seen them all from a familiar POV through the prism of Prythian and their positions there. For Bryce, they don't hold any importance and gravitas. They are just unfriendly Fae. So I am guessing that SJM is trying (unsuccessfully) to humanize them and give the readers other views of the people that we came to love.

I think she is also hamming up the whole Rysta conflict to death. It's very uneven. While I understand that Rhys would be/and should be upset with Nesta for giving away a Trove Object, I am also not convinced that that's how he'd be behaving. Thus isn't a screamer who loses his temper. He is rational, cerebral and wily. So I am not sure why SJM is doing this to his character.

In terms of Feyre, I think she lost interest in Feyre while back.

But yes, she seems to have thought that destroyed each ACOTAR character in HOFAS in favor of Bryce was smart, though I am really not sure that this was wise.

But then all of HOFAS was unwise. Whatever ended up being printed I don't think was the original plan, and we got stuck with sloppy thirds.