#but like plot wise it's so good

[eventually--darling]

moving was carefully handcrafted for me specifically btw

[lord-squiggletits]

I think the key component to my personal reading of post-Delphi Pharma is that he's trying to be a horrible person on purpose. Not "on purpose" in the way that people have free will to exercise their own choices, but in that Pharma's "mad doctor" persona is a performance he puts on to deliberately embrace how much everyone else hates him. Basically, if people already think you're a "bad Autobot" and a horrible doctor who just kills his patients for fun, why try to prove otherwise to people who have already made up their minds about you? Just fully embrace the fact that people see you as an asshole. Don't try to change their minds. Don't plead for their forgiveness or understanding. Just stop caring. If you're going to be remembered as a monster, you might as well be a memorable monster, and eke as much pleasure and hedonism as you can out of it before karma catches up to you and you inevitably crash and burn.

I mean, I guess you could just go the route of "Oh, Pharma was always a fucked up creepy guy and Delphi was just him taking the mask off," but I really don't like that interpretation because, for one, it feels really wrong to take a character like Pharma becoming evil under duress and going, "Oh well clearly he did the things he did because he was evil all along," as if somehow Pharma breaking under blackmail/torture/threat of horrible death was a sign of him having poor moral character. As opposed to, you know, suffering under the very real threat of horrible death for himself and everyone he cares about while being manipulated by a guy who specializes in psychological torture.

The second reason is that it just doesn't make sense to write Pharma as having been evil all along. I mean...

Occam's Razor says that the best argument is the one with the simplest explanation. Doesn't it make way more sense to take Pharma's appearances in flashbacks, his friendship with Ratchet, his stunning medical accomplishments, and the few we see of him speaking kindly/sympathetically (or in the least charitable interpretation, at least professionally) towards his patients and conclude "This guy was just a normal person, if exceptionally talented." Taking all of these flashback appearances at face value and assuming Pharma was being genuine/honest is a way simpler and more logical explanation than trying to argue that Pharma for the past 4 million years was just faking being a good doctor/person. I mean, it's possible within the realm of headcanon, but the fact is Pharma's appearances in the story are so brief that there simply wasn't room in the story for there to be some sort of secret conspiracy/hidden manipulation behind why Pharma acted the way he did in the past.

I just can't help but look at things like Pharma's friendship with Ratchet (himself a good person and usually a fine judge of character) and the fact that even post-Delphi, pretty much every single mention of Pharma comes with some mention of "He was a good doctor for most of his life" or "He was making major headways in research [before he started killing patients]" which implies that even the Autobots themselves see Pharma's villainy as a recent turn in his life compared to how for "most of his life" he "used to be" a good doctor.

And although Pharma doesn't know this, we as the readers (and even other characters like Rung) know about Aequitas technology and the fact that it actually works, so... if Pharma really was an unrepentant murderer, why couldn't he get through the forcefield too? The Aequitas forcefield doesn't require that a person be completely morally pure and free of wrongdoing or else how could Tyrest get through, just that they feel a sense of inner peace and lack feelings of guilt. Pharma has murdered and tortured people by this point, and put on quite a campy and theatrical show of how much he sees it as a fun game, so why then can he not get through?

It circles back to my headcanon at the start of this post that the "mad doctor" persona is just that-- a persona. Delphi/post-Delphi Pharma's laughing madman personality is just so far removed from every flashback we saw of him and everything we can infer based on how other people see/saw him before that, to me, the mad doctor act is (at least in large part, if not fully) a persona that Pharma puts on to put his villainy in the forefront.

To avoid an overly simplistic/ableist take, I don't think Tarn tortured Pharma into turning crazy. To me, it's more like the constant pressure of death by horrific torture, the feeling of martyrdom as Pharma kept secret that he was the only one standing between Delphi and annihilation, the physical isolation of Messatine as well as the emotional separation from Ratchet, being forced to violate his medical oaths (pretty much the only thing Pharma's entire life has been about), etc. All of that combined traumatized Pharma to the point that the only way he could avoid cracking was to just stop caring about all of it. Because at least then, even if he's still murdering patients to save Delphi from a group of sadistic freaks, Pharma doesn't have to feel guilty and sick about doing it. As opposed to the alternatives, which were probably either going off the deep end and killing himself to escape, or confessing to what he did and getting jailed for it.

In that light, Pharma becoming a mad doctor makes sense. It avoids the bad writing tropes of "oh this character who was good his entire life was actually just evil and really good at hiding it" as well as "oh he got tortured and went crazy that's why he's so random and silly and killing people, he's crazy" and instead frames Pharma's evil as something he was forced into, to the point where in order to avoid a full psychological breakdown and keep defending Delphi, he just had to stop caring about the sanctity of life or about what other people might think of him.

Then, of course, the actual Delphi episode happens, and Pharma's own lifelong best friend Ratchet basically spits in his face and sees him as nothing more than a crazy murderer who went rogue from being a good Autobot. Then Pharma gets his hands cut off and left to die on Messatine. At that point, Pharma has not only been mentally/emotionally broken into losing his feelings of compassion, he's received the message loud and clear: He is alone. Everyone hates him. Not even his own best friend likes him any more. No one even cared enough about him to check if he actually died or not. He will only ever be remembered as a doctor who went insane and killed his patients.

So in the light of 1. Having all of your redeeming qualities be squeezed out of you one by one for the sake of survival and 2. Having your reputation and all of your positive relationships be destroyed and 3. People only know/care about you as "that doctor who became evil and killed his patients" rather than the millions of years of good service that came before.

What else is there to do but internalize the fact that you'll forever be seen as a monster and a freak, and embrace it? People already see you as a murderer for that blackmail deal you did, so why not become an actual murderer and just start killing people on a whim? People already see you as an irredeemable monster who puts a stain on the Autobot name, so why beg for their forgiveness when you could just shun them back? You've already become a murderer, a traitor, and a horrible doctor, so what's a few more evil acts added to the pile? It's not like anyone will ever forgive you or love you ever again.

Why care? Why try to hold on to your principles of compassion, kindness, medical ethics, when an entire lifetime of being a good person did nothing to save you from blackmail and then abandonment? Why put yourself through the emotional agony of feeling lonely, guilty, miserable, when you could just... stop caring, and not hurt any more?

[hell0mega]

wait. if season 3 is about the second coming. are we gonna have a first Christmas flashback.

were they there?? were they in disguise? was Crowley one of the wisemen? was aziraphale??? are we gonna see Gabriel tell Mary in the most awkward way possible that she's pregnant? what miracles is aziraphale going to cast in secret to give them a better time? is Mary gonna be the funniest bitch in the club? is Joseph gonna be so confused? are we gonna get bildad-esque quips from Crowley? is the star they all follow gonna be significant???? Y'ALL.

[ottosbigtop]

Thinking abt trolls 3 and why it picked up so much traction compared 2 the other 2 movies. Like technological advancements aside I think the main thing is just the character lineup.

Movie one was mostly branch and poppy. All the kidnapped trolls operated as One entity really so it’s not like u could particularly??? Care about them too much. Bridget and Gristle were really really fun but the villain wasn’t anything particularly special or noteworthy judging by just how little people. Talk about her. OH and also creek was there (literally forgor im rereading this for typos and adding this now) but like. Oh no the guy who showed up for like 5 minutes is a Bad guy and im supposed to care about the quest to save him mostly just because theyre telling the audience they should care because Poppy cares . But theres just not a lot of setup (and Creeks just not that. Interesting?)

Second movie had considerably More bangers and was definitely going in the right direction character wise. But it had the Opposite problem with wayyy too many guys that were really interesting and not a lot of time to do anything with them. You get King Trollex’s intro, Biggie, Cooper and Prince D and their parents, Delta Dawn, and Allll the bounty hunter trolls, PLUS Barb and the rock trolls. Barb was definitely a prime example of a major upgrade from the movies, having a villain that the audience actually vibed with and u could Tell by fan reactions I think. (Parb sweep) But there was just. Sooo so much, on top of the lore dump and a plot that you really had to get cool with really quick to get invested in. theres a bunch of new trolls and these strings that are definitely super important promise (lie)

The third one feels like they finally like. Know what theyre doing. With their own universe. No big lore dumps, theres not even any Explanation for what Mount Rageous is, they just introduce you to it and the Rageons with confidence thru Velvet and Veneer and expect you to get it. Plus, theres still a lot of characters, but theyre much more tangibly connected now. All the brozone brothers are well established and have preestablished relationships with each Other so even if we dont get much time with them it doesn’t feel like theyre that out of place. It still requires some suspension of disbelief vis a vis “Branch had Four super secret brothers hes Never mentioned,” but they make it work and frankly, the set-up is a lot more easier to get invested in than “secret magical strings that Invented Magic I Guess.”

And with Brozone and Viva theres a connection To the main characters rather than just being tag-alongs for tag-alongs sake. They’ve all got their own niches to make them individually compelling but theres a connecting thread here so they still feel like they’re a part of the story. And they’re all there to do something!! And then Velvet and Veneer of course continue the vibe that Barb had of being villains with enough screen time and personality that you like them As characters and arent just viewing them as The Plot Obstacle. Which is cool i think. Overall i just think the third movie felt a Lot more confident to do what the fuck ever and thats Really good.

[niyana-the-ambiguous-mobian]

Just saw Kung fu Panda 4.

Well, it was certainly a movie…..

Action was good, music was a banger as always, voice acting was top notch, no surprise there.

That’s all I got positive wise.

[m4ndysk4nkovich]

i really want people to realize that i don’t hate lip or fiona because i think people may be starting to think that. lip’s my third favorite gallagher, i don’t like his actions and i personally believe he’s a misogynist but he is also one of the best written characters on the show

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

TODOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

[oh-meow-swirls]

was looking through old posts and i'm surprised to see that i seemingly didn't have any commentary on anything in 3 in chapter 7, 8 or 9, the posts related to 3's story go from "my first reaction when i saw yopple-bot was 'i love you. but also you are definitely the boss for this chapter-'" to "i have been in hell all day. hell being bada-bing tower." funny to me cuz those chapters are like, the best ones sdfkljsdfjfsdkjlfsdjkl-

[luimagines]

Question!!!

Would you ever like to write something like a love triangle? Like maybe two or more of the boys like reader and they kinda sorta fight about it? Like maybe there’s a competition between them on who can get reader to like them back first? And it leads to things like Wild always cooking reader’s favorite meal, or Hyrule giving Reader the best medical care of the entire group, Legend sharing some of his items, just stuff like that. It can be as subtle as you want it, I’m just curious as to if that would be something you’d be interested in writing.

Also, this is NOT a request!!! I know those are closed and you have your hands full enough as is. I’m just curious as to if you would write something like this in the future.

Sure!

I don't personally mind the concept. I know that on Tumblr it's a hit or miss with many people as a whole, but I'd be willing to write it. :D

[redladydeath]

Five bucks says that Lucifer is going to be written out of large chunks of season two because the power imbalance that'd be created by pitting the Vees (three former humans, only one of which has displayed any particularly impressive powers) against a team that includes the literal Devil From The Bible would just be too big to overcome.

[hella1975]

no one is doing fanfic like me btw

[drzone]

dear followers. is maximum ride good? should i read it?

[twilightarcade]

menuMoment

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Hearts Still Beating

post-apocalyptic YA

a few years after a tick-borne zombie apocalypse destroyed most of the world, a treatment is developed that keeps the infected from going feral

an infected teen is in recovery and sent back in the world - to live with her former best friend’s family, since her sister hates her for killing their parents

the best friend now lives on an island community with her parents and adopted siblings, traumatised from what she’s had to do to survive

when the militant group that has control of the island becomes increasingly aggressive, they’re forced to reconnect and work together

f/f, bi MC

[batemanofficial]

since we're all gonna die i have something to share with you all. i did not care for the mandela catalogue

[kingdomoftyto]

If it feels like I halfway vanished off the face of the earth for a couple days there it’s because I had to read this Loustat fic in its entirety as soon as I finished QotD.

I have no desire to read any of the other VC books when this fic exists as the perfect resolution to the only remaining loose end of that first “trilogy”: Lestat and Louis talking through their difficult history and figuring out how to make their relationship work long-term.

Because that’s what this fic is. It’s 138k words of talking and negotiation and some vicious but ultimately necessary arguments, in which Lestat opens up about his trauma and abandonment issues, Louis works on his self-loathing and religious guilt, and both of them learn to show vulnerability and to treat each other a little more kindly.

It’s rough at times--the characterization of both of them is spot on, which means they both have some supremely bitchy moments and that Lestat in particular tends to react to stress by lashing out with cruelty. But in the aftermath of Akasha’s death, they have nothing but time to iron out the rough spots.

There’s apologies. There’s philosophical debates. There’s theater dates. There’s murder. There’s a dog. There’s dunking on Reagan-era politics. There’s a flower garden. There’s mourning for Claudia.

Do mind the tags, as there are heaping spoonfuls of difficult topics like internalized homophobia, depression, suicidal ideation, and more, many of which are confronted in-depth.

BUT, the most important tag of all on this fic is most definitely Angst with a Happy Ending, because boy do they have to work to get there, but they do get there

So yeah. Enjoy the weepy gay vampires, folks