#i didn't have a point to this rant

[brainrotcharacters]

A Zonami Post

I'm just realizing

Episode 7

When Nami saw that the boys were there and she told them to fuck off

It was long after this

This

And this

Now.

this shot where zoro was watching nami. someone explain to me why did my brain interpret this shot as Zoro guarding his emotions now, after nami already betrayed them. now, as opposed to nami guarding her emotions the entire time she sailed with the boys. Zoro could tell she was hiding something, but never knew it was a Luffy betrayal of this caliber.

why did i read this scene as Zoro internally ignoring every memory where he felt "Hey she's OK. Maybe I can work with her." why did it feel like he's compartmentalizing their teamwork and the strange dream he had that she left them. Zoro can see that Luffy is entirely involved in persuading her back and possibly decided he's in charge of being emotional. As his first mate, I need to keep a level head.

this scorpio son of a bitch (affectionately) put his emotional walls up.

She's the same person who betrayed Luffy. She stole Luffy's map, which Luffy needs to fulfill his dream. If that gets compromised, Zoro's own promise with Luffy is as good as gone too. He's guarding his emotions now; don't look me in the eye and tell me he wasn't upset with himself for taking his guard down and learning to trust Nami (Luffy as mediator or not).

Listen. Listen. *uses jingly keys*

It's the same expression. It's the 'my feelings are now guarded from you' expression.

With that said,

I didn't watch the anime. I learned second hand that any zoro + nami content is few and far between. and even I felt catharsis at seeing her hug him + usopp sorry sanji you'll get that hug at season 2

[blackbirdffxiv]

Listen, I'm just gonna offer the best gpose tip anyone has ever told me...

If the clipping is happening out of view

Then clipping doesn't exist.

This is the same for crunchy limbs, crunchy elbows, weirdly posed cloth, etc.

Clipping happens. Clipping in gpose is an unavoidable thing. The sooner you accept clipping happens, the happier you will be trying to gpose.

Yes I know it's not easy to accept. Esp if you're very hard-wired to correct any errors, or if you're a perfectionist (like me).

But I promise you, eventually you just stop caring about it.

And if you point it out, or any flaws on someone's gpose when you were not explicitly asked for constructive critique, on someone's gpose I hope both sides of your pillow are warm and that you stub your toe on something different every time you get up so you can never avoid it.

[wonder-worker]

Wild how we know that Elizabeth Woodville was officially appointed to royal councils in her own right during her husband’s reign and fortified the Tower of London in preparation of a siege while 8-months pregnant and had forces gathering at Westminster “in the queen’s name” in 1483 – only for NONE of these things to be even included, let alone explored, in the vast majority of scholarship and historical novels involving her.

[sacchiri]

Hellsing 2002 calendar illustration.

Ein wunderliche und erschröckliche Hystori von einem großen Wüttrich genant Dracole wayda Der do so ganz unkristenliche marrter hat angelegt die mensche, als mit spissen als auch die leut zu Tod geslyffen

A wondrous and frightening story about a great berserk called Dracula the voivode who inflicted such unchristian tortures such as with stakes and also dragged people to death

[harunefrog]

I drew a thing!!! You know this one!!!

[natasha-in-space]

So I'm replaying Ray's After ending rn, and it got me thinking that what I adore so much about Rika as an antagonist is just how damn scary she can be. I always found those who cause harm with good intentions (at least in their point of view) much scarier than those who hurt you with pure intention on hurting you. I think the best example of it is this CG in particular:

Look at that. Such a loving, gentle expression on her face. Probably kissing his forehead. Because she loves him. Heck, without any context, this CG looks even sweet, if you think about it. And yet, all that is while Saeyoung is forcefully sedated on a powerful concoction of drugs even a trained agent like him can't do anything about (and Saeyoung WAS definitely trained to deal with this sort of thing, hence it's mentioned that this is a 'special' kind of drugs). He looks miserable. Bags under his eyes, his expression pained and troubled, even his hair is paler than usual. All that as a direct result of her actions. But she's utterly blind to it. What's scarier, is that she knowingly shuts off her understanding of what's really happening. She's not oblivious to it at all. She just chooses not to see it that way. Simply because she doesn't want to.

Rika is the type of antagonist that will cup your cheek into her warm hand with the most loving of smiles on her face, all while you are getting elixir poured down your throat. Even whispering to you that you're doing great, that the pain will soon pass, and that she can't wait to see you reach the happiness she knows you deserve. I won't be surprised if she even cried genuine tears of compassion during some ceremonies for her believers. All while being the sole reason behind their suffering.

And that's... God, that's terrifying to me. I love that about her.

Rika Kim, they could never make me hate you

[dirty-droid]

So I played through some more dbh last night and woke up thinking, God, there is a good reason Markus and Kara, and their respective companions never got as popular as Connor and Hank. Literally The Bridge is surrounded by the most *do everything for absolutely no reason* chapters, and there's no comparison.

First the Kara chapter wastes your time, she barely gets any small talk in with Luther, then the car breaks down, then you're just doing tiny tasks, doing a shitty sum up of her story so far when Alice asks you to make one up- they could have done something interesting with that story but they chose not to, literally anything specific anything that would function as a parallel to their journey would have actually had some value. Then you barely start a conversation with Luther, where are you maybe get a hint of his personality before we're back to just talking about the plot and Alice, but then it's over again and you meet the Jerries and you learn almost nothing about them.

It is a chapter where you do nothing interesting, and you learn almost nothing about the main characters, for a downtime chapter, I expect character development and get barely a sneeze of it. There is so much room and so much time for you to really push and question your main characters but it just doesn't get used.

Honestly I think the protagonists all could have probably really benefited from the audience getting to hear their internal monologues if they weren't actually going to talk to their companion characters, but even that would just be a substitute for decent writing.

Either way, after that, we come back to Connor and Hank, who do almost no tasks in this chapter, *but spend the entire time TALKING.* They talk to each other in a constant volley back and forth for the entire length of the chapter and it's probably one of the best chapters in the game, it's certainly one of the most important in their story. You spend the entire bridge scene learning more about Hank and Connor's inner worlds, and how they think, and how they feel, you spend the whole chapter learning so much about their perspectives, this chapter is all about asking the hard questions about both of their individual characters, and the tension is high, it's a straightforward chapter to play, and it really fucking feels like your choices matter here, there will be immediate consequences, not just walking through your environment trying to find the right answer, or being dragged through an interaction. It's just plain good.

And then Markus infiltrates the Stratford Tower, and you get the most boring and useless and frustrating chapter in the game that doesn't seem to serve any purpose beyond looking cool. If Kara's last chapter was only to gain sympathy and create some soft and fuzzy feelings, this chapter is only about looking cinematic. This is probably my least favorite chapter in the game, honestly I've just gotten lost on that yellow ass office floor building too many times, even though I'm very familiar with the game now I still managed to get lost again last night.

I will admit that eventually it does become an opportunity to decide between pacifism and violence but that seems to be the only real development for Markus, and it wouldn't have been hard to make that kind of opportunity in another setting. Because we get next to nothing watching him get past the front desk, or from walking around that floor, just some outfit changes and pretending to be a machine and a little more Android hate in the background, Markus is almost completely silent yet again, there is almost no talking with North once she appears. We actually get more about North's personality here than Markus', she just feels like she has more lines somehow, because sometimes she just talks without it being connected to the plot and Markus never does.

This bit is more speculative, but my fiance and I were going off last night about whyyyy did they have to break into the tower? We're never given any reason for what the steps are and why they are important, just usually pretty important in these mission impossible type scenes, they're usually explaining in a voice-over why they are taking the steps that they are taking. But we get no explanation for why he needs to go to the 47th floor or whatever, No explanation for why he needs to change into a maintenance Android uniform, why North was in the stairwell, how Josh and Simon got in, it's all just handwaved, and whyyyyyy they couldn't have just?? Made a recording and then hacked the station's broadcast remotely and basically just posted the speech? I don't know, it's just a particularly frustrating chapter to play, personally, but it isn't strong.

Either way, you've got two chapters with next to no character development, that just have a lot of empty space and time where the characters could have been talking or could have been doing something else, but didn't because the vibes were more important, sandwiching a simple scene with ten pounds of character development and it just feels weird. And once I noticed it, it just made the Kara and Markus chapters look incredibly weak and poorly written... And conversely, make the Connor and Hank chapter look much, much stronger in comparison.

It's like Detroit become human almost needs it's own type of Bechdel Test, just to show how much they fail Markus and Kara. "Do they talk about something that isn't the plot?"

"Do Kara and Luther talk about something that isn't Alice or getting to Canada?" "Does Markus talk about anything besides his speech for this chapter?" "Does Alice talk at all beyond basic communication with Kara?" "Does Markus or his buddies talk about anything that's not the revolution or just Markus himself?"

... They don't pass a lot.

It's just hard to take these characters above simply *likeable* when they just, don't, ever, talk. There's little to no development for Markus or Kara, and because they've just become deviants, there's hardly any character establishment in the first place, they barely even get the chance to just be flat, because if they don't really know who they are, we don't really know who they are.

Connor and Hank's friendship is more functionally the main plot, more so than the deviant investigation, and for Markus and the team, and Kara with Alice, that's simply just not the case, there is hardly any relationship, they're just in the same boat. This is why Connor got astronomically more popular, and why he and Hank have the staying power that they do.

Markus and Kara just don't ever talk, and Connor does. And I'm fucking mad about it. The amount of time that was just wasted in their stories, I could probably take a damn stopwatch to all the moments where there could have been a little something-something, and nothing was put there. It's not to say Connor doesn't get some quiet moments too but he always gets the chance to make up for it.

Even at the beginning of the Stratford Tower chapter, I noticed that they could have had Simon and North talking about something maybe unrelated when Markus walks up, but there's nothing, only silence until Markus comes in with a plan. And of course we know about every time Luther tries to bring up the fact that Alice is an android, only to be shut down and walked away from. It fucking kills me how much time Mark is has the focus of the camera but it's only so he could look cool for a minute, and share no thoughts of his own, none of his new feelings, everything is only implied and then followed by the action where he is only allowed to be the leader of the revolution and never just Markus. There's a tragedy in that, but they could have driven it home harder by *pointing that out.*

[anghraine]

I got a comment that was like ... people are only mad about film Faramir because he doesn't act exactly the way they personally imagined him, and tbh I'm torn between being annoyed at how deeply disingenuous that argument is and slightly impressed at the sheer audacity of pinning the Faramir Controversy on difference from random people's headcanons rather than the book itself.

...then I got to thinking about how the whole time-consuming and wildly out of character handling of the temptation of the Ring is one thing, and justifiably gets a lot of attention, but Faramir allowing his soldiers to beat Gollum for information is quite comparable in my mind. They're his men! Gollum is an unarmed prisoner! I guess it's meant to show the exigencies of war or something and I'm just like ... hahaha no.

In a way it reminds me of film Aragorn just straight up killing the Mouth of Sauron in a way that seems meant to show their desperation in a badass cathartic way, and meanwhile, I'm thinking ... oh, our heroes murder ambassadors now. I feel like it's the same underlying kind of rationale, and quite far from not matching people's headcanons.

[yume-fanfare]

good old-fashioned lover boy

[yusuke-of-valla]

The thing about mean rivals is that like there's kinda a reason we stop having them the second the plots started getting world-ending in scope and that's because you do not have time to deal with some whiny asshole who you've beaten over and over again's shit when a space chinchilla is about to suffocate everyone in the region

Like if they're a dick to you the entire way through they quickly become all bark and no bite because narratively they're going to keep losing to you, and again progressively destroying the ego of a small child is second to whatever this year's eldritch abomination is (and if they went so far as to help the eldritch abomination it raises questions about why they're friendly enough to battle you in the post game).

So like. It's simpler if they're just nice? And have arcs where the fact that they keep losing to you is the point? Your rival isn't the final boss anymore you don't have to build up to finally being able to defeat them for good (except not really) (I guess Hau in USUM arguably but LBR the final boss is Ultra Necrozma)

Like I guess I get annoyed when people don't acknowledge there's a point to how the rivals have been handled since gen 3. You don't have to like it per se but there's a reason the rivals are like this and it's not just the devs don't want to upset little kids.

The fact that the adults care about your safety on the other hand...

[cromulentreader]

I wish the deleted ending for TQoN was the real ending and not what we got in the mortal world.

[blackkatmagic]

Once again screaming wailing gnashing my teeth over the lost and ignored themes of distrust, worthlessness, ambition, and loyalty in Son Jin Woo.

Like!! This is a man who explicitly says he learned to never trust other people because they always turn on him and betray him eventually, and raises soldiers from the dead with the explicit feeling that they're desperately reaching out to him, specifically, to save them from death. He surrounds himself with an army of fanatically loyal undead, and it's mentioned a few times that he's just as fanatically loyal to them in return, that he mourns every single one, and it's purely his own willpower that lets him reanimate them, that how much he wants them to be his is what gives him the power to raise them.

He's quiet and ruthless and set up to be a remorseless killer who doesn't give a damn about anyone but those he decides to love, who follows and surveils his loved ones at all times so he knows they're safe, who uses people without pause and doesn't care what people think about him. He loves fighting and gets a thrill from every time he gains power, says explicitly that as he levels up he feels more and more divorced from humanity, and only relies on his shadow army! He's a villain-coded figure in the role of hero and it's!! so cool!!!

And yet the narrative takes all these interesting bits and just. never addresses them. There's no consequence of Jin Woo feeling any of this. The whole series devolves into bland power fantasy/Gary Stu ridiculousness where the whole world can be divided into Good Guys Who Love the Protagonist and Bad Guys Who Hate/Are Jealous of the Protagonist. What a waste. We could have had it aaaaaall.

[coffeebanana]

istg half of the post-s5 finale fics i see have some sort of disclaimer in the tags or summary (or i even just saw one in the title!!) saying the fic was written because the show sucks or the finale sucked or they just hated everything about it

and it's frustrating because i probably would have enjoyed a lot of these fics! but now i'm not even going to touch them because i don't want to engage with people shitting on the show

[lord-squiggletits]

Part of why I hate this fandom's take on Autobots vs Decepticons is ppl (mainly 'con fans honestly) who can't have any nuance of the situation whatsoever and love to write plots like "oh the humans are racist and abusive towards Cybertronians so this is how Megatron is right" no actually I don't think colonialism/imperialism and racism are justified so long as you can point the finger and say "they were the aggressors first" or "their hands are no cleaner than ours bc their society sucks too" sorry. Please come up with better sociopolitical narratives in your war story.

[ilikedetectives]

.

[tswwwit]

What are some ideas you have floating around that you don't have any plans on writing but like to entertain as a thought?

Many of them, in fact! Though they sort of vanish from my memory if I don't make a record of them, here's a few ones I jotted down when they came to mind.

For a domestic one: Bill thought he'd hate a lot of being married! Even though he loves Dipper, he thought he'd rebel against the chains of domesticity - and in some ways he still does - but one major benefit he's found is not having to be 'on' all the time.

No need to be perfectly performing all the time! No shoving around for social influence, no intimidation, or clever tricks. No commanding attention or taking up the room. Hell, there's surprisingly little upkeep! Bill can undo his tie and pick his nose and bitch about his day to someone who isn't bending over backwards to agree with him on everything. Someone who doesn't give him a weird look and sneer if he, god forbid, actually wants to sit down, read a book, drop the grin for an hour or two.

The concept in question is Bill's very first moment of great surprise. That when he isn't being the most charming, terrifying, and exciting guy in the universe, and just chilling out for like, five minutes, Dipper comes over and snuggles up to him on the couch, or wraps his arms around his shoulders and kisses the top of his head. And when Bill asks 'what was that for?', Dipper shrugs and goes 'eh, just felt like it'. It's both baffling and extremely compelling.

A short where Reincarnated Dip is Definitely Sure he's Not Gay!!! Especially not for this Hot Demon Man who is getting so close and touchy with him with his big smile and horrible wiles. Yep. Just keeping an eye on him to make sure he's not up to something Nefarious ™.

A discussion between Dipper and Bill where Dipper insists that Bill should understand this, or not do that, because, like. Y'know, Bill's a guy! There are guy things! Making Bill stare at Dipper like he's an idiot. He proceeds to informs Dipper how that's stupid for multiple reasons! First, that Bill's Not Human to begin with, his gender can't be put into a little box! And frankly, he never filled out the paperwork for his original one, come to think of it. Sure, he/him's fine, but c'mon, sapling, thinking of the whole shebang like a binary is dumb as hell. Now Dipper has to do some mental readjustment re: his own issues with masculinity/gender.