#it makes me a nerd

[gayofthefae]

If Mike were scared of telling El he loves her he would have delivered "care" as if it were a replacement, not as smoothly and second hand omission as he did. Closer "blank makes you crazy" - an obvious substitute for something he is forbidding himself from saying

Very different from a natural inclination to avoid it.

He said "I care for you SO MUCH". If he were telling the truth about his reason it would have more likely been (a subtle version of) "I- CARE for you so much".

[tldr:

But this is all to say, I'm still noticing details I didn't not because they were hidden, but because they were SO obvious I didn't think I needed to remember them.]

All these little details that - before the ily speech caught me so off guard and my prediction was vol 2 Byler - came second nature to me as obvious support. Before I realized it was a prediction I needed to defend, I was highly confident based on his behavior. Now I break down why that is, but I was always highly confident based on his behavior and words.

Because I had a belief and I held it passively. And all you need for a passive belief is to never be contradicted, and he never contradicted me. And when a passive belief is supported, you don't note it because it's obvious and that list would get pretty long, don't you think.

I didn't track Byler details much at all on my first watch because once I realized in their fight that Mike had feelings for him, I just sat back to see how it unfolded. I only analyze it retrospect after he contradicted himself, but it was very consistent up until that point. So much so that I didn't even need to track it. Mike is acting like he can't say it because he doesn't love her and nearly says as much, Joyce wants to follow Hopper to Russia, what else is new?

I had no doubt that Mike nodding when Will said "don't like the truth" was because it applied to Mike not loving El too. Because I didn't know anything did.

There's no reason to track details when you think every idiot and their mother knows what's going on. The ily speech was mostly an out of the blue because of the wake up call of "you weren't supposed to know yet and everybody else was being tricked into thinking that this made sense". But originally, it was all these subliminal messages aka just...consistent plot points and behavior. I notice them now but I didn't then because they were inconsequential. Mike not being able to say he loves El while he's defensive about his relationship with Will means he loves Will. The sky is blue. I thought we knew this so why record and prove it?

But this is all to say, I'm still noticing details I didn't not because they were hidden, but because they were SO obvious I didn't think I needed to remember them.

[megatronusprimedecal]

"Always got your back." "No matter what."

Transformers One (2024)

[tossawary]

I just know in my heart of hearts that in "Star Trek" at one point, there was some moral panic somewhere on Vulcan (among the uppity sorts) because Human culture was "infecting" the local youth with their overly emotional, destructive, unproductive, frivolous, and uneducational ways.

And what was actually happening was that a bunch of Vulcan kids got really into 23rd-century "Minecraft" or something.

Small Vulcan child @ another Vulcan child: (in a tone that sounds flat to Humans but angry as hell to Vulcans) "You have compromised the optimization of my fortress. I am having an emotional urge to blow up your house... in Minecraft."

[parrish-the-thot]

A continuation of this post I made

I imagine Steve genuinely doesn’t think about Eddie, like at all. Besides the occasional “what is he yelling about in that table” or “ Munson actually showed up to class” or once in sophomore year he thinks “how much does Munson charge for an ounce of weed? Would he take a $50 for an ounce” which causes Eddie to wait around all day at the picnic table wishing for some shmuck to offer $50 for just an ounce, but no one shows up (Steve had to go pick up Dustin after school and didn’t want him to find weed the weed when he inevitably starts going through Steve’s car)

The lack of soulmate thoughts really irks Eddie, because he knows his soulmate is in Hawkins, but he never thinks about Eddie, like at all??? Positively or negatively?? Eddie jumps on more tables, he blares loud music from his van, he is in a band, he is the drug dealer for all the teens in Hawkins and all his soulmate thinks is “why the fuck did Munson double park his van, I’m going to be late looking for a parking spot now” it absolutely drives him crazy.

He eventually figures out his soulmate must be a jock of some kind because one day he hears “what is Munson doing under the bleachers?” when some sports team is let out of playing with balls practice. He is briefly heartbroken his soulmate isn’t a nerd like him, but then spends the night thinking about how a certain fluffy haired jock could play with his balls anytime.

Steve isn’t not thinking about Eddie on purpose, but they just don’t run in the same circles, so he doesn’t really think about him too much, just in a genuine, “I don’t know them, don’t interact with them, so I don’t really think about them” sort of way. Especially after befriending the kids, Steve’s focus goes to keeping them safe and being a babysitter instead of finding his soulmate.

Steve’s experience with his soulmates thoughts is completely different. Starting in middle school he heard his soulmate think he was cute which he thought was nice. As he got older his soulmate would still think he was cute, but also handsome or pretty which, he doesn’t know any girls who call their boyfriends pretty but ya know, he can roll with that. He thinks he will have to roll with a lot of stuff, since hai soulmate seems to into a…a lot of interesting things, to say the least. Steve has dated a lot of girls but none of them seemed to want to rub their face in his chest hair like his soulmate did, who also wonder is Steve was that hairy everywhere which- he was but he didn’t think a girl would want to know about that.

He would be in the middle of a basket ball game and he hit with a 15 minute monologue about how wonderful his ass looked in “thise little green shirts that ride up his ass in the best way” and how his soulmate “wanted to be those shorts” causing Steve to miss three different shots. Also with all this wildly kinky stuff and even general sex things Steve has never heard of or thought about he figures he should become more knowledgeable to better be prepared for his soulmate.

One day when Steve is cleaning up a drink he spilled in the cafeteria and heard “god Harrington looks good on his knees, bet he would look even better with my cock in his mouth” figures chances are his soulmate isn’t a girl at all.

With not much else to loose and a new door opened up to him, Steve starts spending time thinking equally horny thinvs about different guys he sees in class, just to see if they will react to what he is thinking. This is how he figures out Eddie is his soulmate.

Steve notices eddies table is getting a little rowdy, as is always does before Eddie gets up on someone’s table and he rants about jocks and preppy girls while stepping on people’s lunches, Steve thinks “what if comes over here, spits in my stretched out hole, and fucks me right next to Heathers Halloways tuna sandwich”

Eddie, whose soulmate didn’t even think about Eddie that one time his car got spray painted a fit was all the school talked about for a week, was NOT expecting that at 12:30 on a Tuesday and promptly trips on a chair and slams face first into the lunch table, breaking his nose.

Eddies friends rush him to the nurse and Steve is torn between this being a sign Eddie is soulmate or Eddie just clumsy, Steve has seen him walk into a door twice, so he don’t 100% sure. Steve decided to test this anytime he has a clear viewpoint of Eddie and starts thinking the most horny, kinky things possibly about Eddie to see if Eddie reacts proves he is Steve’s soulmate (also revenge because Steve had to go through years of Eddie horny pondering interrupting Steve during important tasks games or tests so Steve figures he should pay that forward during eddies dungeons and dorks games)

[itzmellooo]

Lumity week day 7: Free day!!

SAVE ME PIRATE X MERMAID AU SAVE ME

[rooniearts]

hi you're like, the first person ive seen who also headcanons Silver as having hearing loss. as somebody with otosclerosis, it's really meaningful to see someone else share this and even create art for it! thank you so so so much!!!

WAHHHHHH i'm gonna cry that's so sweet ;;;; i'm so glad you get joy out of my projecting onto the silly lil hedgehog guy <3

[hotbabesusa]

Perfect Sunday picture

[onionninjasstuff]

carrying each other :з

[deecotan]

anyway here's wavewave

[reverie-starlight]

i think if you ask atsumu if he’d still love you if you were a worm one night before bed, he’d get all excited and turn to face you with this huge smile and be like “I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR YA TO ASK ME! I’VE THOUGHT ABOUT IT A LOT!” and go on to explain his plan for two different scenarios- one where you get turned into a worm in front of him via wizard/warlock/witch/spell user/some curse, and one where you turn into a worm overnight and he’s not sure where tf you are in the morning bc he wasn’t there to see it happen.

he then goes on to proudly explain that in the first scenario he’d build you this little portable terrarium and carry you around while he finds a cure for you. and he’d take such good care of you.

in the second scenario he freaks out about you being gone, but comes to the conclusion that he’d somehow eventually realize that you were the worm he found on your pillow that morning and take good care of you and work tirelessly to find a cure as well. he tells you about the terrarium he’d build you in extreme detail. you’d apparently be living a luxury life worms could only dream of, according to him. no birds are getting you while you’re under his care. (<- his exact words.) he’ll get you the premium dirt and a huge fish tank.

so short answer is yes, he would absolutely still love you if you were a worm and he would go above and beyond for you.

you’re touched of course, and also very tempted to find a worm to put on your pillow before he wakes up and hide in the bathroom tomorrow morning to scare him a bit.

[rillils]

but you know what really gets to me? how deeply and instinctively steve associates bucky with solace. with love. with mutual devotion.

he sees bucky again for the first time since 1945, standing on the business end of a gun, and through the pain and shock of this earth-shattering revelation, what does he say? what is the only thought he keeps coming back to? "even when i had nothing, i had bucky." which is such a powerful and, and intimate line, it knocks the breath out of you.

he has a moment to himself to gather his thoughts, and where does his mind travel to? to the lowest point of his life. the day he had to bury the only parent he had ever known, and found himself entirely alone in the world. yet the focus of that memory isn't so much on steve's grief, as you would expect; it's rather on bucky's comforting presence, his support, his unconditional affection. it's bucky offering to be steve's home, both literally and figuratively, and reminding steve that this, this thing between them, it's forever, no matter what.

there's just, this unspoken but very palpable tenderness between them, that steve keeps calling back to throughout the movie.

even when bucky's actively shooting at him, stabbing him, punching him with all the superhuman strength in his arm, steve doesn't see a heartless killing machine that must be stopped. even beaten to a pulp and on his way to bleeding to death, when steve looks up at bucky, he only ever sees the boy who loved him. the boy he has loved his whole life.

and now, now bucky's the one who has nothing. bucky's been stripped of everything: his name, his humanity, his sense of self, his freedom, his past. his entire life. for the past 70 years, he has been nothing but a weapon passed from hand to hand, used and brutalized without remorse.

and steve walks into that helicarrier determined to show him that what bucky told him that day, all those years ago? it goes both ways. that even now that bucky's got nothing, he still has steve, even if bucky doesn't remember that yet.

steve takes his helmet off, and lets go of his shield, and lays himself bare to bucky's rage - makes himself vulnerable in every way he possibly can - to show bucky that no matter what, there is one person in this world who loves him, and always will. that he's not alone, not anymore. steve will never let that happen again, even if it costs him his own life.

like god, if that isn't tenderness, i don't know what is.

[starry-bi-sky]

bruce and danny being fuckign nerds together,,,, they are being the BIGGEST nerds. geeks. if you will

these losers are color-coding the most inane bullshit. they are making diagrams for things you've never even thought of. they are having the time of their lives

"what are you two doing?"

Danny, sitting criss-cross on a table, hunched over a spread of papers and a bunch of different jello cups, his back is gonna hurt SO much: color-coding jello

Bruce, sitting in a nearby chair, also criss-cross, scribbling on a graph paper: hm [agreeing]

Alfred, already exasperated and SO fond: may i ask why? and on what parameters?

Danny: we're basing it off which flavors are the most mentally stimulating and for which subjects :}

Alfred, SO fond: ah. i see.

Danny, snapping his head over to Bruce and leaning over: wh- no-- no. Buzz, I told you: lemon-flavored jello stays strictly in the 'smelling salts' category--

Bruce, still writing on the graph paper: mn. no.

Danny, nearly sprawled across his back, faux-outraged: strawberry is NOT good for math-- you fucken HEATHEN--! Give me that pen!

Bruce, did that solely to rile up Danny, now trying not to smile: hnm.

[bennetsbonnet]

I know I turned this scene into a joke about how gorgeous Colin Firth is... but the pineapple that lurks in the background of the Netherfield ball when Mr Collins is yapping to Mr Darcy is such a subtle detail that I really appreciate!

The wealthy at this time in Britain were a little bit obsessed with pineapples. Depictions of them featured as decoration in country homes, in political cartoons, paintings and crockery (warning: Margaret Thatcher jumpscare🥴 but you can read more about that here and here).

But to have an actual pineapple on display during a large social gathering such as a ball? That was really showing off.

Especially when you consider it cost £150 (or approx. £28,000 today) to buy the initial plant, build a hothouse to grow them in and run it... with no guarantees they'd grow given the climate was not exactly suited for growing pineapples! It was a huge risk.

All this meant that pineapples were so scarce that they became incredibly sought after. Naturally, rich people did silly rich people things to acquire them and show them off... perhaps they were the NFTs of their day?

A single pineapple was valued at £60 (approx. £11,000 today). Given the cost and effort of acquiring one, you'd think people would be keen to tuck in and sample this exotic fruit? Nope. Pineapples were not eaten! Of course not! They were displayed on plates surrounded by other less prestigious fruit during dinner parties and other social occasions, usually until they rotted. They could be rented for special occasions too. Such was their value that naturally they became the target of thieves and some pineapples even had their own security guards!

In the end, colonialism (because all British history eventually returns to that) meant that pineapples could be imported cheaply and their status was devalued when the working classes could afford to buy them.

But next time you watch Pride and Prejudice (1995), pay attention the scenes in the dining room at the Netherfield ball and look out for the pineapple... which is the second prickliest thing in shot (behind Mr Darcy). 🍍

Also... just to throw in a little etymological rant... as a treat: I know most of the rest of the world calls them ananas... but in English (and other languages) all fruit used to be called an apple of some sort. We just never got around to changing pineapple.

The humble potato has some peculiar names in other languages... looking at you, French and Dutch with your pommes de terre (apples of the earth) and aardappels (earth apples)... and then there is also the Italian for tomato... pomodoro... (golden apple) when most the rest of the world call them some version of the Nahuatl 'tomatl'.

Languages are just funny like that and that's why I find them fascinating!

[risibledeer]

happy christmas or merry holidays <3

i threw symbolism on this thing like glitter on a school diorama.

[mefjeff]

NNNNEEEEEEERRRRRRDDDDDD

[acquired-elfroot]

The annoying thing is that reducing Solas to a dislikable two dimensional caricature in Veilguard didn't even come close to fixing the problem they set out to fix in doing so, and it was never going to.

I can’t pull up the exact quote, but I believe one of the writing team said something along the lines that they needed to make Solas less sympathetic because at the end of Trespasser too many people agreed with him and wanted to end the world. Which is why they chose to have him kill Varric, among other things. 

While I will say that I agree with the choice to have him kill Varric(I like the idea of him making Rook hallucinate him too, that could have been sweet if it had been well executed rather than a bland set up for a M. Night Shyamalan level twist) to raise the stakes and set Solas up as a serious antagonist for a new audience, or an audience that hadn’t been paying particularly close attention to him - but there is no way it could have ever suddenly made his goal to tear down the veil unsympathetic for those who found it to be so.

The writers seem to have been under the impression that members of the audience sympathised with Solas’ plan to tear down the veil not on its own merits, but for the draw of his sparkling personality alone. Not for well established lore related reasons, or for extra-narrative reasons rooted in a desire for emotional catharsis and narrative satisfaction (which a fictional body count has even less bearing on besides) but because he’s a sad pretty elf boi and we want to kiss it all better.

I’m going to be real with you, if they had surgically transplanted Ogrehn’s personality onto Solas and had him stone cold murder every other beloved character in the series, I would still want the  Veil to come down, or at the very least a better solution than leaving it just as it is. How likeable he is or isn’t has fuck all to do with it? 

Making Solas more dislikable does nothing to change the effect the Veil has on spirits and mages, it does nothing to address the question of the value of mortal lives weighted against immortal ones. It does not change the narrative role of a trickster in bringing enlivening chaos and upheaval to a stagnating world, in this case one that’s been forced to stagnate in service of the illusion of player choice; nor does it quiet our desire to see the rotten roots of Thedas’ corrupt institutions torn up and put to the torch ect. ect.

Most annoyingly, attempting to use Varric's death to accomplish this betrays the writer's assumption that players that did sympathise with Solas’ goals did so out of a naive misapprehension that he’s some sweet uwu softboy that could never do anything truly ruthless or cruel in order to accomplish his goals, and that once we had been disabused of that belief we would clutch our pearls in horror(you mean he’s willing to kill people? In a video game series with protagonists that each have kill counts numbering in the thousands? Quick, summon my fainting couch!) and tidily dismiss the notion that he might have ever had any worthwhile motivations at all. 

Look all you silly little girlies that want to kiss the fictional man, I feel like you don’t understand that he’s the *bad guy* here, glad we’ve cleared that up for you sweetheart. And isn’t he just sooo condescending?

It does not seem to have occurred to the writers that, to his fans, his stone cold ruthlessness is both one of the most well understood and deeply compelling features of the character.

I would happily give that writer a pass on a wicked case of foot in mouth, but the way Anaris & Cyran are written seems to very much enforce their the stance that an overabundance of sympathy for Solas as a person, as well as a desire to see him vindicated are the primary reasons any of the audience would ever agree with his goals. 

So to fix this issue, it stands to reason that the writers needed to de-emphasise everything that humanised(for lack of a better term) Solas and made him sympathetic as a person. Because apparently the problem is that their attempts to do so in the previous game worked a little too well on some people, right? 

As @mythalism pointed out, we cannot see him comfort his friends through their panic or grief or their crisis of faith, or have hushed philosophical conversations with them. We cannot see him flirt awkwardly, or try to pretend he didn’t just set his own coattails on fire.

We never see the god of liberation free so much as a wisp bound to a teaspoon.

And all of those compelling character motivations you thought he had about free will and self determination? Don’t worry kitten, we’ve sanitised all of the conflicts those might be applicable to right out of the setting anyway. Yay <3

At the same time, it feels like they’re too scared to upset the very same audience that they imagine has this woobified rose tinted view of the character, lest they scare them away. They’re too afraid of the audience to let him be truly unwaveringly ruthless, prejudiced, bitchy, vindictive, and even genuinely sadistic towards his enemies, because that might upset our fragile sensibilities too much! 

He can’t ever say anything mean to Rook - that might hurt our feelings!

He doesn’t really do anything bad, and if he does he doesn’t really mean it. He committed war crimes, but only because Mythal asked him nicely. He killed Varric, but it was an accident. He makes Rook hallucinate Varric, but he doesn’t use that to manipulate them; Varric just hangs out and vibes. He uses blood magic on you, but he doesn’t do any of the truly fucked up violating things that we know full well blood magic is capable of. He misleads you when he says “the Veil will not fall by my hand”, but it’s so transparent that it’s laughable. He’s never allowed the conviction to really follow through on any of his misdeeds, while still he’s bizarrely framed as outright villainous for them. 

So what we’re left with is a character divested of most of his admirable qualities, but with most of the rough edges filed off as well. Toothless. Boring.

It feels so much like they’re talking down to their audience? Like they don’t trust us to see a character with BOTH vices and virtues in spades come to our own conclusions about them? 

So we get this bland mealy-mouthed version of the character that we apparently need watered down further with ‘our team’s’ insipid commentary, much of which is blatantly based on bad takes people were spewing online almost a decade ago, and many of which have no bearing whatsoever on the actual story we’re being told because ohh my godd apparently we need to have our hands held while we’re walked though every opinion the audience might theoretically  have about the character and gently reassured by proxy that it’s a hashtag #valid opinion and why does this game insist on speaking to us like we’re morons??

For all that they incessantly bring up how condescending Solas is, I’m not sure if I've ever felt more spoken down to by a story I had been so invested in.

So Solas is boring now and I still l wanna tear down the veil lol