#or what the fuck ever. there's no compassion.

[cryptidotter]

I know it's always "being sad about these kids" time in The Locked Tomb but, uh, I just put all these Harrow quotes together and need to share the sadness with everyone else:

So the Reverends told Harrow about the child genocide when she was THREE? jfc

Tamsyn why do you give us distressing facts like this?

And as I sit here with this, it makes me think of how many times I've seen people be frustrated or confused by Gideon being kind to Harrow in the pool scene after this revelation. Where for me, also a religious cult survivor, I would have expected nothing else.

Because it's not that Gideon thinks this new backstory EXCUSES what Harrow did. That's not the kind of forgiveness happening here. It's the realization that neither of them deserved to have their childhood stolen like that. Neither of them deserved to be so dehumanized, treated as nothing more than tools who should feel guilty for never being good enough.

But before that moment, Gideon clearly hadn't realized how fucked up Harrow's life had been, so she hadn't ever seen them on a similar level of victimhood.

Harrow lived an exaggerated form of the standard religious trauma that kids like me and Gideon experienced while growing up. The whole, "you, yes you, toddler, are sinful and deserving of eternal torment unless God shows you undeserved grace" experience.

I think it's easy for a fellow victim of that to sympathize like Gideon does, knowing so intimately how that kind of trauma fucks up a person. Even when a person turns their trauma into a weapon against others like Harrow did for so many years. It doesn't make the bullying acceptable, obviously, but it does make it worthy of sympathy instead of pure condemnation. Gideon finally realized that Harrow didn't act out of personal sadism, and that meant a lot for Gideon and how she sees Harrow.

Anyway there's just something inherently relatable to me when one victim sees another one, even and especially an imperfect victim, and still chooses to humanize them. Because that act of compassion is a rejection of the system that broke them both.

[lovemyromance]

your posts are literally the elriel bible, I don't think i've disagreed with a single one.

In general, elriels agree on a lot of things which is why it's so odd to find EL/GAs fighting with themselves over "elriels say elains gonna be a warrior" and "elriels say elain's gonna save illyria" because I have never EVER seen a single elriel say such a thing. I saw a long post from some elucien about how elriels self-insert and then they listed a long list of things about what canon elain is - except i don't think elriels would even disagree with what they were saying?

It got kind of muddy when they started trying to claim that "canonically azriel only lusts after elain" but whatever - you get the point. Why are they putting words in our mouths?

Thank you :) I know I always excessively post about elriel (because I'm pretty sure I have the attention span of a squirrel), but some days these petty arguments really make my eye twitch.

Idk why antis seem to think Elriels want Elain to be some warrior, savior of Illyria, High Queen type character. I thought we've all been pretty vocal in wanting to keep her femininity and her kindness and finding strength in her compassion.

If it's because the fanarts....well I think we've all established that nobody is really claiming fanarts to be canon. I think that goes without saying when we have fanart of an Elriel family with Illyrian offspring - or when Eluciens have fanart of Elain looking happy around Lucien lmao. Both are not canon. Who cares - it's fanart? It's not like we really going to pretend that all their fanart is canon either?

Because canonically - Elain can't stand Lucien. Canonically, Azriel has literally never touched Gwyn.

There are basic traits to these characters that nobody can deny. But the antis always have a way of adding additional, personal bias into things. They say Elain's not a warrior - cool, that's true, that's canon – but then they take it a step too far and try to claim its canon that she abhors all violence and she would never touch a dagger and she would hate Azriel because he's a warrior.

Canonically, Elain killed the fucking King of Hybern. She might not crave violence (oh- also what an odd thing to claim - that ANY character loves violence, btw), but she has already proven to be violent when needed.

Canonically, Elain does use a dagger. Not just any dagger - Truthteller.

Nobody's saying she out here training as a Valkyrie at the HOW - but she's not just sitting here in frolicking in a meadow while the rest of her friends and family go to war. She was literally taken AWAY from the main battle in ACOWAR and she still showed back up to pull the most badass move in the books, saving everyone.

Idk what about that is so hard to understand. No Elriel has said she's gonna save Illyria (lol), no one has claimed she's going to be Enalius the Second, nobody is out here waiting for her to take part in the BR and also become a Carthyian.

Elriels like Elain as she is. And even though she's not a warrior, even though she doesn't enjoy violence, even though she isn't a Cartyhian – Azriel still adores her. Azriel still wants her enough to question his religion. That's literally in the books. I can give you the exact page number and quote. I don't need to do any "extra analysis"

You want to talk about canon? Let's talk about how Elain is so perfect that she has even the most brooding warrior falling for her. Let's talk about how Azriel was willing to fight in a blood duel for her. Let's talk about how she was so ready to have a tryst with the Spymaster under everyone's watchful eyes.

We don't need to change anything about Elain, certainly not to have her end up with Azriel. Elriel having feelings for each other is already canon. Elriels did not have to change a single thing about them for them to find each other. That was SJM, so take it up with her.

I mean - she kind of ate when she summed up their relationship in ACOWAR with that scene in the garden...they might not make sense on paper but there's something poetic about them

[ghostorbz]

Let's talk about the flipside

Something I actually,,, really don't wanna do!! But I will anyway. This game turned out so fucking bad its actually ridiculous. First off,, what went wrong?

For me, it was:

-The stories

-The endings

-The characterizations

-All the feet?????

Spoilers for basically the whole game, by the way. Not that you should subject yourself to this. Trigger warning for like,, everything???

Let's start off with the stories and endings

OD ending:

Jecka has a major panic attack because of her,,, "job" and Nicole and ends up over dosing. Voluntarily.

Human trafficking ending

Jecka gets put into human trafficking by the police when all she wanted was her paycheck, her manager and somewhat friend Kelly dies.

Jeffery murder ending

Nicole murders Jeffery and she forces Jecka to not call the police by threatening her.

Ari dies ending

While drunk driving Jecka crashes into Ari while she's delivering food and she dies. Ari does, not Jecka.

Nicole's suicide ending

A tie in with the first game. Nicole gets stuck in hostage friendships while Jecka is forced to date her teacher for a good grade. She goes to in school therapy for it. Her heavily abusive dad finds out and Jecka runs to Nicole's house to find her dead.

First off, what does EVERY ending have? Jecka suffering. Suffering horribly. Rather from someone/herself dying, being abused, or just straight up depression.

Let's compare these endings with some of Nicole's endings

Nicole dies, Nicole sabotages a relationship, Nicole gets people to die, Nicole causes a girl's house to get burnt down, Nicole wins a court case, Nicole gets her house back, Nicole gets valedictorian. Of course this is only a small portion out of the two games. But notice how good things happen to Nicole in some endings? In some cases the bad endings feel justified because of how Nicole treats people, but not all of them are bad. Sure, some of them aren't deserved. My point is Nicole has good things happen to her along with the bad things.

Flipside has none of that. Jecka suffers nonstop despite doing nothing in every single ending. She isn't happy in any ending. Nothing turns out for her!!! We see time and time again how Nicole gets things to work for her whether she manipulates it or not. Nicole can have happiness. But Jecka can only suffer. A teenage punching bag. This girl has done nothing wrong to deserve anything she gets put through.

Why is this??? Literally, what was the reason for this

All of the endings fucking suck. I hate all of them. But enough about that, let's move on to the characters

Characterization

Jeckas dad

On the surface he's a kind guy who donates to charity. But he consistently verbally (possibly physically?) abuses Jecka for no reason. Literally nothing can set him off. A flip of the switch type of abuser. We haven't seen Jeckas dad prior to this game, but it's evident he sucks. I'd say he's way worse than Nicole's mom, at least she is sometimes nice and tries to help out. Jeckas dad blows all his money on Emily (a teenager who went to Jeckas school), forces Jecka to get a job and verbally belittles her if she ever says anything to him. Everytime he speaks to Jecka her first response is "don't hit me." Is this supposed to be fnnuy? We see Jecka have full blown sob sessions and panic attacks because of him. If it is supposed to be fnnuy it isn't. It's just sad and scary. There is nothing comedic about the abuse Jecka goes though in these scenes.

Nicole

They did Nicole's character horribly in this. We see Nicole share compassion for Jecka, she doesn't have that at all in this. Her betrayal was the worst for me. It just,,, seemed so out of character for her to do something like that. Nicole literally sacrificed her free school hours by getting in trouble with the predatory school councilor just for Jecka to be able to smoke in peace again. Nicole cares for her, calls her cool and pretty multiple times. She spends all her time with her, and even when she dies in the first game she says "I didn't know Jecka that well, but tell her she's cool for me." The betrayal ruined her character, hell it isn't even her character!! I don't like how she threatened Jecka when Nicole was the one who killed Jeffery. Speaking of, the way she acted with him seemed weird to. She can barely stand sitting near him in the first two games, and she did,, all,,,, THAT with him??? Bullshit. I see so many people say "but Nicole is a sociopath, she doesn't care about Jecka!" Um,,, yes she does? I mean it's pretty clear she does. Jecka is the only person Nicole really cares about. They wouldn't meet in every single route if Jecka wasn't important to Nicole in some way.

Jeffery

Jeffery is weirdly obsessed with Jecka in this game. Yes, we've seen him like and do weird things but not to this extent. He has never acted like this before?? Its like they reduced his good qualities and doubled up his weird ones. Which isn't a bad problem, but it makes his behavior visibly different in flipside.

Mr. Katz

Introduced in the Re up, this game turns him into the worse person ever. Last time all he did was drugs, now he's sexually harassing Jecka and verbally abusing her if she doesn't comply. Then threatening her with her grades. Since he was a minor character at best this could just be a different side of him we haven't seen but knowing how many pedos there already are in this game I don't get why they wouldn't introduce this or foreshadow it in the first two games.

Everyone else,,,

Everyone else seems to be fine, Emily, Ari, Kelly, Kylar, and Crispin to name a few. Thing is these are all side characters, sure they can be important in a few endings but for the most part they don't play a massive role in here besides Kelly and Emily.

This game was advertised as "same comedy, different girl." But there's no comedy in this game, only torture. Maybe Nicole was right when she said life was a sick hopeless game.

Okay, lets talk about the feet.

So,,, what the fuck? What was all that about? This literally took up half of the game, not a fucking exaggeration. Was it really necessary? The devs couldn't think of anything else? They were all really dragged out, it felt like it would never end no matter how badly I wanted them to. I guess you could say this line in the first game was some sort of foreshadowing

This feels like a very poorly disguised fetish. Like blanket ghost costume type poorly disguised. In fact, all of the endings feel unnecessary. Most of these have even more twisted endings than the first two games. What's up with that? It feels like they're trying to filter their audience to people who would actually enjoy doing that type of shit to people.

No, fuck I don't wanna talk about feet.

Here's some random things I want to critic but couldn't fit anywhere.

-The jeckari scene felt weirdly out of place. I could've been cut out and nothing would've changed. It wasn't necessary. Sorry jeckari fans

-What was up with the councilor? I don't mean his voice acting (it was definitely different though, right?) But he was kind of out of character. Like, he had a whole "I'm so important and mysterious (but not actually)" vibe going on. The fuck was up with the riddle? And having a whole fucking warehouse of illegal videos? Yes he's a predatory creep but I don't think he would go that far. Also pulling out a gun and shooting Kelly and almost Jecka felt so,,, what??? He wouldn't

I swear fandoms understand characters more than the creators

-Jeffery is just randomly rich? Out of nowhere? Okay. Whatevers convenient for the plot, I get it

-Why is EVERY single man attracted to kids in this game, it's overkill. Sure people like that exist but they aren't every single person you meet

-Super short, only 3 hours of gameplay. Not worth the $15. The first two games are way better, just get those. Not like this game is worth anyones time. The first game is only $10 for an hour or 2 of gameplay. The re up is $15 for 4 hours

-Nothing felt quotable. Maybe I just haven't seen it enough to memorize half the script but there weren't any lines where I was like "oh haha that's silly to say as a reference." The first two games were filled with quotable lines. Most of flipside is either something about feet or Jecka being abused

-The "thank you" note at the end of the game was kind of immature, I don't really want a thank you for this? Ummmm,, okaaayyyyy??

-You barely even get to play, it's mainly you just watching. The first two games have you actively choosing what to do. Flipside only makes you choose maybe twice

-The whole "They're 18 now!! Look at all the fucked up things we can do to them now!!" is really showing. Stop it. It's still weird

-This game is supposed to be post-graduation, but we still see Nicole and Jecka at school, multiple times. Jecka even says they aren't even in school anymore and yet you can still go back to high school? Yea, who gives a fuck about a timeline anyway,,,

Okay, but was there anything good?

Ehh,, I don't really know. I only laughed at one scene and that's saying a whole fucking lot for a comedy game. The first two games had me dying from laughter, but every single scene in the flipside just felt upsetting. Nothing was fnnuy.

I did enjoy very few things.

-The art has heavily improved. The visuals were nice when they weren't about feet or Jecka being abused

-The hatman scene was the only thing I laughed at, I liked it

-I got pretty excited when I saw that Jecka had an MSI poster in her room. I like MSI so it was a nice little surprise to see

-I liked the tie in with the first game ending. I wish we got to see more of Jeckas reaction after Nicoles death though

-I thought the whole "if god isn't watching, who is?" thing was kinda interesting. But having me listen to a whole monologue kinda killed it for me

-Class of 09 always had super good voice acting, and this doesn't change. All of Jeckas panic attacks sound super real

Overall, would I recommend this game? Absolutely not. I wouldn't even recommend this to an already fan of the series, much less tell someone to start out with flipside. Flipside isn't worth your time or money, it isn't even worth this whole post! That's why it's over

[grimforks]

thinking about the way i was experiencing real, honest to god genuine psychosis all through middle and high school and up until idk a couple of years ago. what the fuck.

[hamartia-grander]

No but Astarion wanting to be valued for more than sex and seen for something that's not just sex regardless of who romances him and Wyll wanting a chaste and genuine romance with sincere and committed courtship with no sex regardless of who romances him is insaneeeeee. I know everyone's talked about this before but everytime I stop to think about it I lose my mind. They couldn't be more narratively bound I'm clawing at the bars of my cage

[shima-draws]

For anyone doubting whether or not to watch the MLB movie: I do have lots of positive things to say about it, but most importantly. Fucking. Daddy Gabriel. HE IS SO!!! He is so.

If you’re gonna do it do it for him

[djevelbl]

Do you perchance have or want to yap about cup head... (Totally not desperate for cup content trust) :3

Random thought, but I wholeheartedly believe that if the stars aligned, he was in a rage-induced blackout & he had his younger self in front of him, Inky Mystery Cuphead would in fact kill him on sight and without hesitation.

Like think about it: he has absolutely NO forgiveness for himself, and even in the latest chapters he STILL doesn't understand that he was a CHILD and thus not even mature enough for a decision like BETTING HIS SOUL??? so much so that back in the Labyrinth (sigh. one day we'll stop talking about this one I swear) & in his dream-prison-thingie the past decade hadn't even happened — if it was up to him, who he is today would be long dead, buried on the Isles probably

So. He'd probably kill his younger self if he could — out of jealousy? Out of anger? idk, I just really really think he would

[cockyroaches]

Hey Pikmin fandom. Fetch

[stellerssong]

ok sorry the OTHER thing about lucienne is like. as previously stated she is dream's handpicked emissary from the waking world to the dreaming she's the diplomat in chief she's the translator she's the bridge. because the dreaming is, in a very real way, dream's own psyche, this is tantamount to giving lucienne a tremendous degree of access to his interiority and by transitive property also tantamount to entering into a deeply emotionally intimate relationship with her (unimportant for the purposes of this post whether that relationship is platonic or romantic).

now, in general, looking at the pattern of dream's close emotional relationships—dream doesn't share himself with people as a rule (beyond the access that all things that live have to the dreaming; but i'm talking about his self here, the one he doesn't like to acknowledge he even has), but when he does share with people, it's with people who have some shadow on the soul, so to speak. just looking at attested relationships in show canon, his deepest emotional connection seems to be with death, who embodies the duality of light and dark even better than he does himself. calliope is the muse of epic poetry—heroism and tragedy—and also bears the sort of divine pride that led her to cut dream off for hundreds or thousands of years when he wronged her. the less said about that other guy, the better, but he's no sunshine-rainbows-unicorns type—he's a soldier of fortune, a bandit and a killer, a man who profits from the sale of human life. even best bird matthew, in comix canon, had a sordid past that will maybe be partially retconned for the show but has still been gestured at.

dream likes the complicated ones. he's drawn to them. they speak to something in him that he won't acknowledge in himself (he has to be Whole, fully integrated, without reservation, because he is the king and he is the dreaming and if the dreaming ain't whole then the universe is in trouble—but he feels that ache nonetheless).

all that is to say: when people try to portray lucienne as dream's Designated Well-Adjusted Neurotypical Friend, i begin to harm and maim.

[tigergendermoved2tigergender]

Remembering the toxic hellscape that was 2015-2019ish SU fandom and just how much hate the show got is really insane when you rewatch the show after it's been a while. Like the show is good what the hell were any of these people talking about

[weareuniqueandimportant]

YOU SHOULD JUST COMMIT SSSSCIDE... YOU'RE WORTHLESS... YOU VIEW US THIS WAY YOU'RE AN ABUSER A KILLER A MURDERER... TRULY... YOU WOULDN'T EVEN LISTEN TO US YOUR HANDS THEY'RE ON OUR THROAT... YOU'RE WORTHLESS AS RESULT... GO AHEAD... YOUR VALUE IS COMPLETE 0...

THIS POST IS ABOUT LESBIAN FOOD... NOTHING MATURE ABOUT THAT... I LOVE EATING SSSSIDE... THAT IS A TYPE OF FISH WE WOMAN TEND TO EAT TOGETHER... WHY DO THIS TO US 😢...

DAMN... I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS COMPLETELY SHADOWBANNED POST WAS CHECKED BY THE SITE... THAT'S CRAZY... WHO EVEN FOUND THIS...? OH WHATEVER... HA.

[izzyspussy]

i think a lot of people have never been in a truly desperate situation but think they have, and this causes them to pass really harsh judgment on people who made bad choices when either irrational or having no good choices to pick instead, and i really wish people could get some fucking self-perception and work on their compassion skills and not fucking do that as much anymore

[cerealbishh]

"Henry cares for Faran. The Liars normally have to be the ones caring for others. It just makes me melt!" - Zaria on Twitter about Henry(x)

[ghostlyheart]

If your mental illness is a barrier between you and the things you're passionate about I love you!!! If you have to take time off, go at a slower pace than others, or find a different path altogether, it will be okay. Healing and surviving is it's own work. You won't always feel lost.

[yesplsnothankyou]

I only come on tumblr when I'm at the very end of my rope and barely hanging on by a quickly disintegrating thread and I don't know what that tells you about me

[landfilloftrash]

shoutout to my girl eno’s nightmare bc. Hi! What and/or Who the fuck was that ! its gonna haunt her and i for awhile !