#but idk man

[getvalentined]

Vincent Valentine of the Elite Four from Pokémon Holy/Meteor, releasing never on the N!ntendo Switch.

I put way too much effort into this for a dorky one-off, but here we are! I have a whole backstory for this AU but I will not bore you all with the details.

[ynbabe]

Everyone talks about how Lewis and Nico are soulmates or the ones that got away but they arent just soulmates because soulmates complete eachother, soulmates are fire and ice. They don't complete eachother in the way opposites do, they complete eachother in the way two pieces of cloth cut from the same fabric do, two sides of the same coin, forged to be connected for eternity but unable to see eye to eye.

Nico glows the way fire does, unapologetically beautiful and draws you in but the closer you the more it hurts, it sparks and flashes but in the end it's ephemeral, it vanishes and leaves only ashes and burns in its memories. Burns that may very well never heal, etched in skin and brain like a warning so dire that you stop wanting to feel warm ever again, burns so painful that you never want to feel the cosy warmth of comfort or blazing heat of love again, so you leave.

Lewis glows in the way the Sun does, making others flush in his presence, ever-living and glorious, a flame that never dies or flickers, a name bigger than the planet it gives life to, bigger than the very thing that gave him importance in the first place. He burns inside out because he can no longer feel warmth from anywhere else. He burns inside out to reach out to give life to a bridge that was burnt by his very own rays of light. Bound to be alone forever, bright and burning, even if it slowly kills him, so he keeps burning anyways, because the pain reminds him of the bliss he once had.

They were never soulmates they weren't the ones that got away, they were so close because they were the only ones that could live so close without burning up, they're so far now because someone did turn to ash.

[michaeljoncarter]

it really is starting to feel like every single person at dc has somehow just completely forgotten how storytelling works on a fundamental level. like i genuinely believe 99% of the problems they’re having could be solved if all the writers and the entire editorial staff was forced to take a middle school reading class

[ashwii]

I just think he has a lot of feelings

[jelly-as-in-grape-concord]

i keep thinkin about this post where people are all like “well not everywhere snows. shout out to snow-less christmas places” or something. then i think of another post saying this was not the point, and people were still saying that people were pushin a eurocentric view and NOT talkin about climate change.

i’ve lived in the south of the US my entire life. my family is from a hot and tropical country. i’ve never once even seen a single snowflake; neither had mother or my father or my aunties and uncles or my brothers ever felt “true cold.” white christmas was never a thing for me (even tho my chorus teacher in elementary always used to make us sing classic carols anyways lol)

when i was 5, i used do those little breathe frost things and pretend i was dragon. i couldn’t do by the time i was 7. in october my mom tells me how she used to be shivering so bad by that time of year but this october, i would break out into a sweat within the first few minutes of stepping outside. this time of year, just last year, i could bundle up in my dad’s decade old jacket for the whole day. i wore a long sleeve, thin shirt yesterday and i felt way too warm by 10 am.

it’s hot here and back in my parents home country. always has been. but do you guys not feel climate change like i do?

[harrowedsoup]

I am now thinking of a AU where Wake is able to fully communicate with Gideon from the sword and doesn’t become a vengeance spirit or whatever (maybe because Gideon has weird abilities because she’s pretty much a demigod. Idk not the point)

When the murders happen she’s still in her bones but she hears about it and because she dead she just knows. A sickness doesn’t kill everyone at once and it’s exactly the type of thing that Eden would use as propaganda so that’s what she jumps too. Maybe she assumes that Bomb died too and maybe she’s even thankful that John Gaius’s spawn didn’t live to become a necromancer.

But then- a single child lived. The one that no one wanted or knew where she came from. And how can’t she be a little proud of that? That her child survived some necromancer’s plot?

Then a few years later Bomb comes wondering through the tombs. Barely more than a toddler but looks so much like Wake that it’s like seeing her baby pictures come to life. The only thing that doesn’t match are her eyes and she’s healthy in a way that doesn’t match any necromancer she’s ever seen.

Bomb stops right in front of Wakes bones. There is no way she should be able to tell whose bones sit in front of her- she has no name here. That’s been stripped from her in death. But Bomb sits there in front of her and starts babbling. And Wake can’t not listen because she’s dead.

It’s only after it’s been hours that a care taker comes and she learns what they’ve named her. She laughs, as much as a ghost can laugh, and Bomb - Gideon turns around in the caretaker’s arms and laughs right along with her.

Gideon keeps coming back. Over and over, for hours at a time. She sits in front of her mother’s bones in silence while she reads, she babbles about her days, she plays games with only rocks and sticks. And it takes her weeks but Wake realizes that Gideon can hear her.

And what can she do, other than talk to this tiny little version of herself? There is no one else. She’s stuck in this hole of a prison and if nothing else Gideon is so very much her more than she is John Gaius.

Maybe she tells Gideon stories passed down through the ages. Tales of life outside the Houses. Gives her Eden name that only Wake and Gideon know.

[deripmaver]

Did Kentaro Miura Confirm Casca "Enjoyed It"?!?!?!

LOL another day another weird google translate from kojion causing a stir in the Berserk fandom. Explicit discussion of rape and feeling physical pleasure during rape to follow, be careful if that's not something you can read!

While at first everyone was furious and demanding a source, and rightly so, someone posted the magazine this interview came from:

I have absolutely no japanese language skills at all, so I have no idea how much this translation matches up with kojion's post. I did a bit more digging and found a second English translation, which I've helpfully flipped horizontal so you don't have to crane your necks like I did LOL:

To be clear, the specific phrasing of Casca experiencing pleasure, and reaching "ecstasy" (I'm assuming that means orgasm) are FROM THE FEMALE ARTICLE WRITER. She is saying that to HER it's clear that Casca is experiencing pleasure and reaching orgasm.

The response from Miura is a lot harder to parse, in my opinion. Per the writer, he responds, "Even without the God Hand, Casca thought she would feel pleasure if the person being raped was Griffith" (kojion, I think this is supposed to say something like "she would feel pleasure if the person she was being raped by was Griffith") or "Even if we didn't mention the God Hand, I thought Casca would feel that way (ie from the previous paragraph, that the rape would feel good) if the other person was Griffith."

I suppose I have two sets of thoughts about this, the first set being that I really don't think this is the smoking gun of "Miura says Casca liked being raped!" that people are interpreting it as. It's very possible that Miura is only referring to physical feelings of pleasure and orgasm during rape and not actually enjoying it in like... a NTR hentai kind of way LOL. The question really is whether Kentaro Miura in 1996 had the nuanced perspective on sexual violence to say that sometimes during rape the victim feels an unwanted pleasure response, but that doesn't negate the traumatic psychological effects of it, and in some ways that unwanted arousal can create its own host of traumatic psychological effects. It's possible imo, but I can't say for sure. Either way, simply having your main character experience orgasm during rape isn't in and of itself a bad thing to do (Diana Gabaldon did it too, in Outlander), it's more about the intention behind it.

What I CAN say for sure is that everything about Casca's character during and after the eclipse is meant to indicate that the rape was mind-breakingly traumatic for her. From how she tells Guts not to watch, to of course how she completely regresses into this infantile state, to her reaction to seeing Griffith on the Hill of Swords being panic and terror, I really don't see any argument within canon for the idea that she "enjoyed" the rape beyond possibly being physically aroused, which I've already discussed.

The second set of thoughts I have are basically: this article is from 1996. It was published twenty seven years ago. In a much more recent article from 2019, Miura had this to say on the topic of sexual assault in Berserk:

Though this again isn't the smoking gun of "Miura regrets the sexual violence in early Berserk" people make it out to be, it's very clear his perspective has grown and changed as he got older. I think, in order to understand Miura's thoughts about Casca's rape at the time of his death, it makes much more sense to look at his words about the corridor of dreams chapters, and the chapters themselves. At some point in between 1996 and 2019 he clearly came to the conclusion that specifically being raped by Griffith was what caused her to shatter mentally, so honestly... Even if you take the least charitable interpretation of the quote from 1996, I think you have to acknowledge that he clearly doesn't feel that way now. Or, didn't. Like, in ~2019, this is how wrote Casca having PTSD:

I also want to include this quote from kojion's account about how Miura reacted after the eclipse:

There are a bunch of other quotes of Miura feeling depressed after the eclipse, I was gonna find more but I forgot kojion has a habit of posting the most explicit eclipse panels uncensored on his twitter and I'm not gonna wade through those for them. Either way, I just don't think there's much to support the idea that the eclipse was supposed to be anything BUT horrible and traumatic.

Anyways, tl;dr, Miura doesn't ever say "Casca enjoyed being raped," that's from the interviewer. He could very well be referring to an unwanted arousal response. And even if he wasn't and did really mean she was kind of into it, though I don't think this is supported by canon, he clearly has grown a lot since this was published twenty seven years ago.

[veronicathegoddess]

breeding kink but i'm tied down, screaming with tears running down my face as i beg him not to cum inside me

[wynandcore]

I have thoughts about Able and Tron

Okay so. Able *cannot* be from the first grid, the ENCOM grid, right? Like, idk he just can’t be. Why would Flynn port over some random mechanic.

And yet. In the second episode Able reveals he has a FIRST GEN LIGHT BIKE. Y’KNOW. FROM THE ENCOM GRID.

(Interesting to note is that Mara distinctly says it’s “one of a kind” when she observes it)

And then notice how Tron *never* rides a first gen light bike in the show, even in the flashbacks, despite being the most likely to own one considering he comes from the ENCOM grid.

DID. DID TRON GIVE ABLE HIS “one of a kind” LIGHT BIKE??

Take into account that Able really likes that bike. Sure it’s an old thing so ofc he would, but still. Able calls it his favorite bike.

Remember that Tron isn’t one to show his affection through words, rather in actions (Beck has to be on the brink of losing his memories for him to finally call him his friend).

Able also has a Bit. Again, something from the ENCOM grid, and while it seems the Bit belongs to everyone in the garage, it’s often seen in Able’s office. It even has its own stand.

Where does he get these things? Is it another thing Tron gave him? There’s no currency to speak of in the Grid (I can only imagine the black market for stolen disks is to get in favor with the Occupation by providing the disks of wanted programs. Energy is simply a resource, not a currency), he couldn’t have ‘bought’ it anywhere.

Tangentially related, I know that people have noticed the Yori suit Easter egg, but I haven’t seen many think about the implications of Able having it in his office.

Why would he? Tron has enough space at his place to store the suit if he wanted to. Why put it in Able’s office? Does it imply Able had some sort of relationship with Yori? Does it imply he’s thinking about her at the start of episode 12? Why does Tron keep giving Able things and why does he trust him to such an immense degree to keep the suit of his former lover in his office? That seems like a huge thing to trust Able to keep, especially considering how Able and Tron’s relationship is shown to be strained at best.

Pair this with the fact they’re often portrayed as a bickering couple talking about a program who fills a surrogate son role, and you got me smelling queerness imma be real.

Either this is a kinda unusual way to imply a history between Tron and Able before the reveal, or they’re queer as fuck (maybe even both).

[socialprawn]

Hate to be a wet blanket but what were they literally thinking with that song choice in the new VTMB2 trailer :V

The 2004 music composition AND the licensed song choices were absolutely integral to the core of what VTMB is... They have perfection staring at them right in the eye and it seems like they can't even see it.

Even the cheesy 2004 trailer, which doesn't have in-game music keeps a (admittedly over the top, BUT) grimy essence of what we're to expect. And honestly it does a better job at hyping me up over a game.

This h&m alt rock genre song choice has really let me down. I remain suspicious of this game, I don't have faith in the devs' understanding of what they're working with :V

[archiveofrasa]

anyway i have Thoughts™ about how ramy is perceived to be just a mouthpiece for rf kuang's anti-colonialist views

at this point i'm genuinely gonna have to reread babel for a 3rd time to see what that means bc. huh?

of course disclaimer preface whatever you are allowed to have your own views you're allowed to feel what you feel you're allowed to not like a book

i just feel like – it's the way a queer character just exists in fiction and in the real world, where they happen to experience prejudice in regards to their identity, but cishets just perceive them to be making "queer" their entire personality

it's the same thing here? when you see a brown character talking about how he feels about britain settling in india (britain, who ends up murdering 100 MILLION indians during this settlement btw!!!) and therefore witness how that naturally results in his strong-willed anti-colonialist views – how is that just his personality? how is that just all that he is? is that all there is to pay attention to whenever ramy opens his mouth?

from what i recall, ramy loves reading and translating, loves cooking even though he's bad at it, loves his religion and okay maybe there is a reading on colonialism in those bits too but when you are literally living in a colonial world, i don't know how you expect none of it to link back. that's how writing works and that's what it means to be a poc in a white man's world

again, just some thoughts lol

[buddiesmutslut]

I need somebody to reassure me that Eddie isn't going to be killed off or something this season, because some of these hints are making me nervous.

First off, we have him last season, talking to his mom about how "they have time" to see each other, which is like, the #1 indicator that you are very quickly running out of time.

Secondly, everyone is speculating about Shannon's note, and then wanting them to talk about the will, but like, one of the first rules of writing is that you're not supposed to mention something unless you plan on using it in the story, which makes me think that, if they do mention it, it's going to be enacted.

Thirdly, about Bi!Buck, what better way to realize your feelings for your bff than when you finally come to terms with your sexuality & then nearly lose them?

Fourthly, I heard that ABC likes to kill off main characters...

Lastly, Buck was clinically dead for 3 minutes and 17 seconds last season, and it seems like they continuously up the seriousness when it comes to Buck & Eddie and their injuries. (The ladder truck, the well, the shooting, the lightening).

Idk that I'm fully convinced that it's going to happen, but it is something that I keep thinking about.

[fandom-hoarder-official]

I got a button press yesterday, so I made a DonnieSweep pin!

Vote >>> @autismswagsummit

[localcryptidinthewoods]

i feel like irene and menphia got casted as sapphic veronica & JD and it was definetly a show to remember.

[marstectomy]

back to class because if i have to miss it again I'll freak out

[pardi-real]

Omikuji Gacha

So this is the guaranteed SSR gacha that's accessible with free 🦋 gems (The guaranteed SSR is only on the first multi, it has the usual rate for second multi onwards. And super diluted pool of SSR, really unrecommended to pull more than once)

Unlike the 2nd anniv guaranteed SSR which is paid gems only (you can increase the rate of getting a specific SSR in that banner though a.k.a the Pick Up feature).

I only pulled on it today because I didn't have enough gems on Jan 1st, luckily they're giving free gems by logging in, enough to get 3000 gems. The omikuji banner is until Jan 16th. If you used the gems and now lacking maybe I'll make a getting gem guide(?)

I really recommend pulling on that banner if you have 3000 gems and prefer quantity over quality. Very unlikely to get the SSR you want, but in other banners, it's unlikely to get SSR. Pick your poison Ig.

That said, the doubled SSR rate banner is very good, ~4% means every 11 pulls, that's like 30-40% chance of getting SSR.

^ This banner is definitely the best to spend gem on after the omikuji one, on top of increased rate it also has the Pick Up feature, although it seems to be malfunctioning (I keep getting anything but that Lato)

You can always save your gems for butler's birthdays, those cards are sadly limited, like real limited and not even in these diluted banners.

Or you can also pull on the nekomimi banner. SR but still limited, every 11 pull guaranteed a cat ears and the cat ears are good.

Or the current event banner Tarot of Destiny, cheaper price for the event period, gorgeous outfits, but the SSR rate is devastating.