#idk it's just really good narratively

[bitchthefuck1]

One of the things that stands out the most to me about succession on the rewatch is how many hugely significant plot points only happen because at some point someone was feeling petty.

[dmclemblems]

“Claude in Hopes is exactly the same way he is in Houses! He’s always been like that and has the same feelings/morals!”

Claude in GW/Hopes:

Claude, literally, in Houses:

Let that speak for the fact that Claude was written with a 180 characterization in Hopes.

Claude wants peace and to bring everyone together; not to tear them further apart. That is his character.

[scoliosisgoblin]

Which version of Rick is your fav?

it's so hard for me to choose tbh. HOWEVER, I'd say Evil Rick

then I'd say it's C-137 and Memory Rick

I love how pathetic™ Evil Rick really is tbh. love that he's being controlled by his Morty. can you guess who my favorite Morty is?

[xejune]

a happier ending

[imminent-danger-came]

While I do like the Eldritch MK theory, someone suggested that instead of being the reincarnation of a past enemy, MK is instead a sacrificial lamb for an enemy to come back (with him being referred to as harbinger).

Which raises a whole other question of who he is meant to be a sacrifice for.

Baby MK overall gives off the kind of vibes where he was created to be destroyed, doesn't he? I mean, why else create a "simple creature, with no past, no family, and no name". If something was just born (from a stone or not) of course it doesn't have any of those things—why specify it? You would only specify a detail like that if it was significant to why MK was created in the first place.

Which, this thought is not exclusive to Eldritch Abomination MK or to Harbinger MK, overall that feels like the implication. MK was made to be sacrificed in one way or another, whether that's to stop a past enemy, a returning one, or some other thing.

So, with MK being a sacrifice to chaos, I'm wondering why he would be given so much power. *throws dart at my idea board* Maybe he was made as some sort of ticking time bomb, created to destroy himself plus whatever threat he was meant to be a sacrifice for. *throws another dart* Or, perhaps he was created to be able to go toe to toe with whatever ends up being the embodiment of chaos!

Just to throw another dart at the wall: maybe MK was made as a counter measure to chaos itself! "There's a reason you were at the center of all these stories", that reason being to maintain balance and prevent the end of the world (of which he's done like, 4 times over now). "You don't use a weapon...you ARE a weapon!" aka MK is the ultimate weapon against literally any big bad.

Of course I'm partial to my own theory, but this is definitely a neat idea!

[arsenicflame]

ran out of time to finish my full feelings write up before s2 but i wanted to put something out there before we start getting content so this might be a bit incomplete

ive been thinking about what i really want to see in s2, and in general im happy to trust the crew with whatever they do but there is one thing id like to see

id like to see izzy not forgive ed

ive already talked about how serious i find the act of severing his toe & surrounding details in general and i think, given we KNOW its going to get worse (at some point izzy loses his leg, so) i dont think the amputation can be brushed off as just a pinky.

what i want to see is their relationship worsen and worsen and get to a breaking point and just. when everything starts to goes back to how it was before, ed tries to treat izzy like he used to (not during the kraken era, but before that, before the revenge, back when they knew each other, when they were friends) and izzy doesn't take it. he flinches, or walks away, or does anything to brush ed off. ed hasn't apologised yet, of course, its izzy, its his izzy, they understand each other! or he thought they did but now hes realising that mayyyyybe he should give him a proper apology.

so he does. and:

"i dont forgive you"

and if course. ed doesn't know what to do with this izzy always forgives him, has since they were kids! why not now?

from izzys perspective, he simply cant take it any more. he will take the consequences of his actions, but he cant lie anymore and pretend he wasn't destroyed by what ed did. and maybe hes learning its not just ed and izzy against the world anymore. there are people who will stand beside him- they might not always like him, he might spit and hiss at calling them his friends, but he knows, deep down, he is not alone anymore. and that its time to take a stand. to put himself first for once.

he cant forgive him, not for this

its at this point ed realises that he might have fucked up. really fucked up. its not that he doesn't care about how the crew feels, hadnt already realised what he had done but. again, its izzy. there was a time he thought there was nothing he could do that izzy wouldn't forgive.

the way i see it this is the point that ed starts to properly rebuild. oh he thought he was doing it before but it was more masks and layers, but now he has to truly confront his actions and the consequences they have on his relationships and that maybe. he is like his dad. but at the same time, he has the space to learn that even if he is, thats not all he can be. he can be better, choose to do better, and it's hard and doesn't always work but he has to try, has to keep trying because if he fails? he has no one to fall back on any more

so izzy doesn't forgive ed.

and ed learns to forgive himself, in time. and maybe he will apologise again, and izzy still doesn't forgive him. and maybe ed learns to be ok with that. and maybe in the wreckage of decades of blackbeard and first mate hands, they can build something new. it won't be the same, and maybe there will always be a distance between them, but in time, with work, they can be friends again.

[anotherpapercut]

I know several people who like LOVE seasons 5-7 (11th doctors run) and think the storylines and moffats writing are brilliant and I don't get it!!! what am I missing??? why does literally every single episode have the exact same stakes: Rory/Amy/the doctor is dead. forever. so dead. but wait!!! what if they aren't!!! why do so many of the explanations for why they're not actually dead feel so rushed like they were added at the last minute!! why does every single queer character act kind of weird and awkward about being queer!! why does the doctor casually say that women are inferior when no one's around!!! what the fuck!! hello!!!

[novantinuum]

self care is unfollowing people who spread negativity on ur dash!! like Damn! yeah i theoretically Agree with your crit but i really Don't wanna see it either bc i want to Celebrate content instead of hyperfixating on the stuff i didn't like about it! yeet!!!

[demisexualnathanvuornos]

I support O's asexual wrongs.

[elftwink]

been learning to play ironsworn (gritty fantasy ttrpg which you can play with a gm but is mostly suited for solo or small group co-op gmless play) after having the rulebook pdf for several years (stars finally aligned to remove invisible thing blocking me from reading it idk) because i'm on another solo ttrpg kick & i don't know what took me so long to get around to this game because it genuinely is exactly what i was looking for. years ago when i was playing through solo 5e modules i should have just been playing ironsworn (believe it or not, 5e isn't very suited to solo play and is extremely clunky when you try lol).

also though i have dabbled in some other solo ttrpgs, a considerable amount of them are journaling games which is fun but imo considerably more work (usually by the time i'm a quarter of the way through the journal entry, i know how to entire scene played out and i want to move on to the next gameplay thing, so i get frustrated and bored quickly. it feels like when you solve a level in a video game but don't have the coordination to pull off the necessary move so you have to spend 20 extra minutes doing something you already figured out), so i really appreciate like not needing to write something for the game to progress (ive been taking notes for my own record since im playing solo and thus am not really out loud roleplaying the way you do in a group, but i definitely could do that instead and not take notes and the game would still function perfectly)

& ive been playing by myself but also in the past ive played a lot of ttrpgs in very small groups which has been other games but is mostly dnd and like. we also should have been playing ironsworn so that having a gm was not necessary. have definitely played games where we had to adapt the rules soooo much to do something that is just base game included in ironsworn. plus it's rules-light enough to do pretty complex moves that pose difficulties in bulkier games (ever introduced someone to dnd and they tell you they want to do a sick backflip and catch something and then attack and you have to tell them that will require several different consecutive rolls and some creative liberties with how the rules are 'supposed' to let you move? you can just Do That in ironsworn. use the strike move and describe it. done!)

the one thing is that although it's rules-light enough to theoretically play any setting or genre (some with more difficulty than others), ive found so far that like... the grittiness and sense of threat is very built into the mechanics so that would be sort of difficult to work around or change (but i think it's great from a game design perspective). what i mean is like, okay: you start with 5 max hp. there isn't really a way to raise this max hp, you just slowly gain abilities (assets) that make you less likely to have to lose the hp in the first place, or that make it easier to recover. when you encounter foes, you rank them on a scale of 1 -5, and enemies on the lowest side of this scale do one harm to you, while enemies on the highest side do five harm to you. so even though encountering an epic enemy won't always be deadly due to the assets you have, they are ALWAYS capable of taking you down to 0 hp with one good hit. so the feeling of threat is much more present compared to games where your character starts to be able to just tank and push through a failure or huge threat.

admittedly also i'm playing solo, im still learning how to balance combat, and also i built a character who has NO combat talents and iron (the close quarters fighting stat) is one of my lowest stats so i personally am under much more threat than if you built a character who knew how to fight or who could do deadly harm. but also the other thing about combat is it's extremely difficult to maintain control of the fight; you have to score a strong hit to do it on basically all moves, and there's a really limited pool of moves available when you don't have the initiative, and obviously none of them really favour you. i don't know that this makes combat genuinely more difficult, but it does make you feel like the fight is always about to spiral out of your control. every second you let it drag without decisive action feels like it brings you closer to dying. like i said, this is a feature of the game design and not a problem in any way. just thinking about it because when i was initially learning i was going to try to supplant it into a homebrew fantasy world of my own but the tone just wouldn't be right. and that it is somewhat difficult to replicate the kind of worlds that i typically play or run for dnd, which tend to lean somewhat sillier and definitely much higher fantasy

but i like to try new things and tbh especially in dnd i find that i very rarely feel that sense of threat and when i do feel it, it has nothing at all to do with the actual mechanics and reality of the combat and everything to do with how well the dm sells it to me and makes it sound and feel scary and dangerous. which is a testament to what a good gm can do for you but i do appreciate the threat feeling more built-in and also being actually real.

[lunarharp]

some illustrations/vibes from my uhh 29k memory trauma/disability focus orufrey fic, into the deep end.

[danmeichael]

both ad lib lovers and the summer hikaru died to something really interesting wherein they take typical genre conventions and set-ups of BL and place them into a genre other than romance, while still portraying the romantic undertones. where the summer hikaru died does this with horror, ad lib lovers does this with comedy.

as opposed to hikaru's focus on horror, in ad lib lovers, jealousy, desire, and a fear of inadequacy and loving someone more than they love you is portrayed through the lens of improv. this accurately depicts that having a crush on someone as an adult is humiliating.

[yourqueenb]

Also quick focus on Mal… If I ignore some of the things that happened in this chapter, I still like his “reunion” scene from last week. It was fun and felt kind of like old times. But when you factor those things in — mainly the fact that he said he thought we were dead — the way he acted last chapter is so upsetting and doesn’t even make sense now. If he really thought MC was dead, why wasn’t he more shocked to see her? If he couldn’t express that during/after the heist, why couldn’t he express that on the dock or at camp or literally anywhere else? Why has everything been so rushed? What are the writers doing??

[weaselishmcdiesel]

I think karkat and nepeta should FIGHT

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

The Saint of Bright Doors

a surreal Sri Lankan fantasy about colonialism, revolution, mixing fantasy with the modern world

follows a man raised by his mother to kill his father, a god-like cult leader

but as an adult he puts aside his life of violence and moves to the city for a quiet life

he becomes fascinated with ‘bright doors’ around the city that never open and have no other side, and joins a group studying them to find out more

and a support group for those with divine heritage that becomes increasingly revolutionary, until the task he was made for reemerges and his life upends

[gothmods]

I do really enjoy that every character in dunmeshi has things they need to work on in terms of like socially and emotionally and that how that impacts their relationships with each other is such a central part of the story

Like ultimately to me its such a character driven story in a way that feels very applicable i guess to me at this point in life