#maybe I'm just being cynical

[tearsonmarz]

Not going to lie, whenever I watched Smalletho in their double life series, it very much was just a "this is the circumstance" for Etho. And Joel would play into the joke of I love my soulmate, so much that I made a t-shirt with his face on it. But to me it was never a great life series ship, especially in comparison to Ethubs angst and Bdubs pining. (when it first came out ofc)

But through Limited life and Secret Life, and now Hermitcraft s10, the ship has thrived. What once was a pairing through circumstance, turned into a true ship, and now a mockery of what once was as seen through rose coloured glasses. Where Joel who once was "obsessed with Etho", turned into Etho "obsessed with Joel."

Honestly, this post has no other purpose than to put these thoughts into words. Especially since Etho is being such a silly lil guy these days, and only he truly knows what goes on in his brain. The stark contrast just keeps me thinking about them.

[the-badger-mole]

ngl I do think kataang would be a lot more popular if Aang was conventionally “hot” and didn’t appear so young, because his toxic traits like possessive + selfish + sexist behavior is something that people excuse and even fetishize in attractive men. i can think of some zutara shippers (but not the majority) who would ship kataang instead if that were the case. zutara may have the “edgy” exterior but if you actually pay attention it is by far less toxic than kataang and not at all what some people think it is. that was long but my point is that sometimes i do wish aang was conventionally hot so that the comparison of his behavior and zuko’s would be more apparent and so aang stans couldn’t use his apparent young-ness to excuse his actions, but i also concede that it would make kataang more popular too

I think if it came down to Aang being "conventionally attractive", he'd actually lose even more ground to Zuko. Aang would just be a typical handsome jerk. Sure, the type of love he'd get would change, but without the excuse of his age, a lot of the people who feel like they're smarter or deeper for preferring Aang to Zuko because he's not "conventionally attractive" would probably prefer Zuko for the same reason

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

will you shut the fuck up? what if the shit doesn't hit the fan? what if we do make it? what if you don't die? can you have a little hope? just have a little hope

[setnet]

thinking about... walking back from mordor. this is a personal shorthand for a lot of things, but it mainly relates to the question of what comes after. so the dark lord is defeated, so the war is won, what now?

In a literal sense, sam and frodo don't walk back from mordor. They're rescued and airlifted to safety and healing. they don't have to do the whole ugly slog across the polluted lands in reverse. the eagles are deux ex machina in that sense, but it doesn't feel unearned after frodo and sam have gone to the brink of their own destruction in destroying the ring.

but in a more psychological sense, frodo and sam spend the rest of their lives walking back from mordor, where mordor is the shadow of the ring and the wounds they experienced from their journey and from carrying it.

the scouring of the shire is about walking back from mordor, when the shadow of mordor comes to your door. it's about undoing the pointless and cruel rules imposed by sharkey-saruman and frodo keeping the hobbits from killing surrendered enemies.

I'm fascinated by the after. maybe it comes of reading history, I don't know. few of the sff books I read seem to be similarly fascinated. authors don't seem to be so keen on the hard slog of rebuilding as they are on the revolution.

[pxme-granate]

has anyone else watched camp camp? bc Jupiter and Jack are giving me slightly older David and Max vibes (you know. after the adoption)

[trashmammal-7]

Passing tips for trans guys will be like:

No sitting with your legs crossed

No dying your hair/ having any fun hairstyles

Dress in the most boring outfits you can think of

No makeup EXCEPT if you're using it to look more masculine

No jewelery

No having fun

No self expression whatsoever

Like shut the fuck up I'm gonna dye my hair, do my makeup and put on jewelry while wearing the silliest little outfit AND be a trans guy at the same time.

[gh-0-stcup]

My thing is that I just do not trust a single person who was involved in the show. It just seems like a lot of PR to fix their image and foster sympathy/goodwill/interest.

[void-botanist]

19, 20, 21, 22 for the polycule of your choice? :0

whoops we're doing it for two of them :3 and I'll include Heith too

19 - Summarize your character's goals in one sentence.

Marcus: be okay and go home, but also never have to tell Heith about all of his lies by omission

Heith: figure out if she's actually for real serious about Marcus (she thinks she might be actually for real serious about Marcus) and one way or another move out of her hotel room on Aephar

Yera: be a mom and try to make peace with the fact that Marcus is not here to be a part of the family

Hossan: be a dad and help Umedes figure themself out

Gren: see Marcus again and hopefully find out that there was no need to be jealous about his girlfriend, and make sure everyone's okay, especially the baby

Pali: prevent Kiatcarmen from finding Marcus (though that isn't a very active job), make sure the shifter coalition in the court doesn't budge, and get somewhere with her studies of shifter magic

Umedes: figure out whether they want to have a kid or not help

Kiatcarmen: find Marcus, because Minaya must not ascend, and do whatever else she can to preserve her accomplishments in the kingdom

Pirianus: broaden Kiatcarmen's vision beyond legacy, or, failing that, as he has for some 30+ years, get her to open up to him

Caladea: see Marcus again, and for his polycule's sake believe with all her heart the lies they tell Kiatcarmen

Thade: continue completing the political project du jour and end up in a happily ever after with Pirianus, which might also make him more welcome in the palace

Orvi: complete the one thing he was installed in the palace to accomplish

20 - Who's in the way of those goals?

Marcus: his mother. Always his mother. And honestly a little bit himself

Heith: herself, mostly. This is so not like her - well, specifically the part where she's still here when there have been plenty of times to go home

Yera: realistically, Kiatcarmen. But she still sometimes feels like she's lost some of her verve

Hossan: Umedes is the big challenge here. They're just so indecisive

Gren: Kiatcarmen, but sometimes it's easier to focus on the fact that Marcus has an interstellar girlfriend that none of them have ever met and that's so frustrating

Pali: herself. There aren't enough hours in the day for everything, and she has to sleep ugh

Umedes: themself, because they were the one who said this would be a great idea for when Marcus comes back. Who 100% believed Pali and Minaya and her ferasca spouses that this would go great. And who also took one look at Yera & Hossan's baby and thought that maybe they were signing up for more than they realized

Kiatcarmen: Marcus. Always Marcus. But she also blames Minaya and Yera and Pali for his disappearance, and she needs Pirianus to just shut up. This would have been so much easier with Jimmy

Pirianus: Kiatcarmen because he put his eggs all in one basket. But he mostly blames himself

Caladea: Kiatcarmen, but she tries to focus on what she can do better, and how she's getting in her own way

Thade: he's beginning to suspect he's been in his own way this entire time but it can't be understated how much Pirianus is constantly hot and cold

Orvi: it changes frequently, but always some contingent of the court

21 - What is your character's relationship with their emotions?

Marcus: he can't control his bad emotions, so he suppresses them. This has never caused any problems

Heith: she's just as cynical about her emotions as she is about everything else, but sometimes she just can't not feel something completely unironically

Yera: she's gonna feel them whatever they are so [grits teeth] negative emotions are part of the fullness of experience (she will be screaming into this pillow later)

Hossan: left to his own devices, he would feel his emotions, and then let them cast away upon the wind. Being with Yera and Gren has made him learn how to interrogate them more

Gren: he feels everything. A lot. He also conceptualizes things in terms of feelings a lot

Pali: she would like to believe she doesn't have them, but then she lays awake at night deconstructing them

Umedes: they tend to put intense feelings away for later, but don't ever get to later unless later comes for them first

Kiatcarmen: her emotions are so rich and nuanced and nobody understands that, so all of her emotions collapse into some flavor of annoyance

Pirianus: don't like that feeling? Repress it! This will never result in it returning in continually more warped and incomprehensible forms

Caladea: being in the palace seems to have stunted her emotions - they're flatter, duller, and way more anxious no matter what they are

Thade: don't like that feeling? Deflect it! The more mirrors there are between you and your emotions the less you will ever know what they are and the less you can ever be responsible for them

Orvi: he has a mental Tupperware for emotions that allows him to keep control of himself. He is the only person on this list who will actually open that Tupperware on purpose later

22 - What regrets do they have, if any? (From any part of the story, not just exposition.)

Marcus: missing out on eight years of his "real" life, and especially not being there when Gren's grandmother died. If only he'd been stronger, he could have stayed

Heith: before finding out about Marcus, that she's kind of a flake to her band, but they don't seem to mind that much. After finding out about Marcus, that she ever thought there was some kind of "magic" between them and maybe she could feel naïve about love for two seconds

Yera: she regretted drifting away from her father and sister, so she's fixing that now

Hossan: most of his regrets are from the now-distant past and don't make much sense - even he will say so - but he always finds himself regretting that he can't seem to do more for people

Gren: not going home even more before his grandmother died, even though he was practically splitting his time between his home city and the palace. He also regrets letting Marcus leave, even though he had to, and there was no other real choice

Pali: after getting married, she got more distant from her professor mentor, and the regret hit her hard when they died

Umedes: most immediately, thinking that having a kid was a good idea (they are beginning to think that this is a pregnancy kink that got out of hand). But more than anything they regret not going with Marcus, even though they couldn't

Kiatcarmen: Ashmalo was a liability, but she still regrets that he died (despite her image she does not think that assassination is the right way to deal with most problems, including Ashmalo). Conversely, she regrets that she couldn't save Jimmy, even though medical science itself could not have saved Jimmy. She also regrets letting Minaya slip out from under her thumb, because if she hadn't, she wouldn't be stuck looking for her runaway son

Pirianus: that he can't seem to permanently extract himself from Thade. If he stops and thinks about it (read: gets drunk and sad) he regrets spending so many years of his life trying to get through to a woman who would just as soon throw him to the dogs

Caladea: that she couldn't do more for Marcus or Minaya or Ashmalo, and that she still can't. And that being stuck in the palace has left her struggling to try and pick up the pieces of her creativity and her passion even though it should have given her unlimited resources to pursue them

Thade: things he's said to people. Most of them used to be seared in his brain because he thought they were funny, and eventually he figured out that oh, maybe they weren't. But some of them seemed bad from the moment they came out of his mouth (not before that, unfortunately, because he wasn't thinking about it) and he wishes he could take them back for real, especially the things he's said to Pirianus

Orvi: that he's still here. He had one thing to accomplish, and even though it was complex, it's taking SO. LONG. He knew that marrying into the royal family meant that he probably wasn't going to permanently go home again, but the longer this drags on the less he even wants to show his face there, and he wonders if it was worth it at all

[maddy-ferguson]

i think bylers are so close to getting the 'mlm shippers hate the female character getting in the way of their ship' title if they try a little bit harder. the amount of bs takes i have seen here is really just... something else. trying to portray el as an abuser and saying she forced herself on mike when mike didnt want it, and then blaming her for everything that exist in mlvn's relationship as if mike wasn't a participant in it, blaming el for lying even though mike has also been lying to her and is still lying (which is a popular take in byler community so make it make sense)? and this on top of it ppl wanting mike to have never loved her at all and wanting him to break up with her. the whole thing is just not great, lol, it is sounding like steve or billy fans who shit on nancy and the thing is el didn't even do anything actually, whereas you could maybe argue nancy didnt handle the breakup and relationship with steve or problems with jonathan that well.

well we already all have that title but i think you mean bylers are so close to earning it and i don't exactly disagree lmao.

i think it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. people are afraid of being called misogynists so they preface everything they say about el with "i love el. because i love women. i'm not a misogynistic mlm shipper." or something to that effect and then everyone gets sick of having to say this (even though no one forced anyone like the people who have decided that we all collectively hate el are not reading these posts and if they are saying that will not change their minds) and think that everyone in this part of the fandom worships el like mlvns and redditors do when there was actually always el criticism like when was there ever anti-el sentiment censorship. i don't remember it. people were making i love el BUT posts 35 times a day. so yeah everyone gets sick of having to do that even though they didn't really...have to and then they go um since no one wants to say this i will. el is not a good girlfriend to mike. no one wants to say this because she was raised in a lab for the first twelve years of her life and doesn't know anything about social norms. like YEAH thank you for pointing that out we really hadn't noticed. that's why she shouldn't be in that relationship in the first place lmao.

people who think mike should never expect to have a relationship of equals with her because she still needs to be taught things he learned in the first twelve years of his life so expecting her to give him a big speech about how she loves him back or to give him a gift like he did at the airport isn't fair (redditors. they've said that) are missing the point that if the relationship can't be good because el is learning how to navigate the real world in real time as she's dating mike...then she shouldn't have been in a relationship in the first place because it's literally bad for her too. and when bylers make posts about how mike should get to break up with her because he's had no agency in the relationship...are you implying that mike has had less agency than the girl he introduced the concept of a relationship to who thought he was gonna be her brother and who didn't know how to tell what she liked for their first six months of dating. it's not a competition but if it was el would be winning it.

i know societal pressure is a thing but was lucas forcing mike to win el back at like gunpoint? i know mike probably feels like he owes it to el to be a good boyfriend for whatever reason like he promised they'd go to the dance together in season one and he's a paladin and they don't break their promises and he's gay and it's the 80s but god. he didn't want to say i love you in el's bedroom and he didn't he's not staying in this relationship until he's 40 she's not forcing him to do anything. he tried to win her back and said he loved her and she later kissed him and said she loved him back. could he not have said damn that sucks el i don't know if i actually want to get back together now :/ lmao like he didn't because it's a story and again the gay thing and she'd just lost her dad and everything else you can say to explain why he wouldn't want to say damn el i actually don't want to get back together now. but how is her saying she wants to be with him again TOO and him not saying he doesn't want to ANYMORE him not having agency. the only time you could argue his agency was taken from him is when will said you're the heart because el was dying lol. and even then he could've said anything so like he still had agency. or he didn't because it's a story but you get my point. a lot of it is self-inflicted a lot a lot and him feeling pressured to be in a relationship with el doesn't come from her pressuring him lmao. so i get wanting him to get himself out of it to a degree but if we're saying the one who has the least agency should get to "break free"? it's not mike.

[butchsophiewalten]

iirc you said martin apologized for the edited alcala picture in the past. was it via the twf discord or something? i believe he'll likely retcon it but it still troubles me a lot. i know one could argue if he just replaced it in the reupload it would or wouldn't have "fixed" things but idk i really wish he did. keeping it in mind is far from a problem but it's frustrating. not something you can really help me with, i'd just like to hear another fan's opinion on the situation

I actually don't recall him ever directly apologizing for the Rodney Alcala thing, but when I was checking the discord server just to see if I could find anything for you, I did see a secondhand account mentioning Bravvy saying something about how Martin did not know who Rodney Alcala was when he created Jack's missing poster in TWF1. Which I obviously can't verify in any meaningful way, so make of that what you will. (But I don't think it's an unreasonable claim to make. Martin isn't even American, I don't expect him to have an encyclopedic knowledge of American serial killers, even though I don't think ignorance necessarily excuses him of any judgement here.)

That said, Martin has talked before about wanting to broach topics related to real-world tragedy sensitively in The Walten Files, so I don't think this is something he'd like, dismiss as not being a big deal, even if he's never gone out of his way to bring him up. But I absolutely agree with you about wishing he had replaced it in the Company Introductory Tape reupload. I was honestly really expecting him too? And it left a pretty bad taste in my mouth that he didn't

[emdotcom]

I changed my mind. Hater behavior is undeserved, when it comes to works, & idgaf about holding creators accountable when their games are mid, anymore.

[edge-oftheworld]

starting to have a way of processing my reaction for when i see what i call 'shallow hearts for shallow minds' takes on here like. do you not know how when you don't feel something at the time it catches up with you later? do we not understand the cumulative nature of nervous system stress and how. sometimes it gets worse before it gets better. sometimes getting better isn't about being happy, it's about feeling things as they come rather than trying to force yourself to be happy. making choices that will lead to the most happiness, even if they're painful at the time. i won't know exactly where an artist is at, neither do you, but I can trust that they're making the kind of decisions that are a step forward in self care in times where I see something that looks familiar and i'm like. i think i've been there. i know it doesn't make so much sense to everyone, but, that's what the fandom's for right?

[garr9988]

You cannot convince me that this video's high view count isn't at least half sourced from bots.

It's a good song and decent animation, which would usually have all the makings of a viral video. But I never saw this trending, haven't heard this (admittedly good) song anywhere. Neither it nor the movie it's connected to show up in Google results, and despite 51 Million views in 2 months, hardly anyone is talking about it on Tumblr or Twitter. And despite such a high view count, the promotional tweets and retweets have barely any attention.

Most of the Instagram & YouTube comments for an English song (with no closed captions, English or otherwise) for a movie with a British cast are in Spanish? And a lot of the Instagram posts are advertising the song over and over with nothing new to them. "Hey, we have a thing! Look at it! It exists! :D"

This movie's been in production for a while at least, since 2 years ago a guy named Trevor Wall posted a very similar animation for a band also called The Meeps comprised of nearly the same animals. It seems like a prototype animation to gauge interest (even if the final product is entirely different).

[crooked-rookie]

imagine being deteriorated in all aspects of your being because you're irrevocably in love with someone (couldn't be me)

[musical-chick-13]

.

[torchickentacos]