i'm watching loki s2ep4 and it is so apparent that sylvie is everything loki used to be. the anger. the scorn. the righteous rage, the cynicism and the strong opinions and the sharp edges. she represents everything he’s matured out of. put up against how loki's so calm and level-headed in the pie room it just shows how much he's grown as a person; he's the god of mischief, yes, but he's chilled out. don't get me wrong— he still very much has his sharp edges. his knives are still tucked just beneath the surface. but he uses them strategically now, like with brad, and they're not just flying all over the place in explosions where he doesn't really care what damage he causes. he's not soft, but he's steady. he's centered and focused where sylvie's wound-up and almost erratic and it's so interesting because you can literally see how hanging around mobius and the things he’s been through have balanced him out, and now he's logical and composed and he's doing it all on his own. it's literally like watching him have a conversation with his past self and it makes his development that much more appreciatable. i love this show.
198 notes
·
View notes
It really frustrates me how HSR chose to dole out information in 1.2. Ofc, mystery is important and good! I don't need to know why Luocha is here or what he's up to, and Blade's past can remain vague rn that's fine.
My issue is Dan Heng/Dan Feng and how poorly they've explained the stakes of that situation.
Like, think about this:
Do Vidyadharas remember their past lives?
If so, how much do they remember?
If not usually, do the elders get that privelage?
If not at all, why are so many characters worried about Dan Heng being a criminal in a past life?
Does Dan Heng specifically remember his past life?
If not, how did he know how to break the seals?
If yes, can he only remember some things?
If he can remember everything, why is he lying about it?
Is he lying??
How do Vidyadhara powers work?
How does Dan Heng have high elder powers if Bailu is the new high elder?
Do the powers usually get passed down through past lives (so Feng -> Heng) or are they picked fresh every hatching rebirth (Feng -> Bailu)?
How did Feng's actions make all vidyadhara weaker?
What were the actual consequences of his actions?
How did Blade stabbing Heng give him the body & powers of Feng but not the memories/personality?
I wanna make it clear: not all of these need answers. But when it's all either poorly explained or straight up unclear, I find myself struggling to care about the dynamics at play. When JY is sad that Heng isn't Feng, should I feel sympathy that he can't let his friend go? Or, like so many characters say, are Heng and Feng much, much closer than Heng ever says? When the Xianzhou characters can't see past the rebirth thing, it implies stuff about the vidyadhara culture that should flip how we see it.
When Heng distances himself from Feng, we don't know if that's a reasonable thing (like, "guy you never met who looks like you committed a crime so ofc you're not responsible"), or if he's being insensitive ("you got blackout drunk and stabbed someone, but you don't remember now so you don't believe you should be held accountable"). There can be a middle ground in there, but what is the morality here? It might be grey, but I could form completely misguided opinions if I consider JY as rude now when Hoyo actually want us to think Heng is the problem.
It's really late but like. I think the 1.2 quest really needed a moment to explain some of the vocab (all that vidyadhara stuff gd) and to outline the characters' understanding of the context. If JY knows that vidyadhara can't remember past lives and knows that Dan Heng is no different, and that he and Feng are essentially different people, then how is any of his behaviour justified? I understand Blade not getting it (he's crazy), but JY is all over the place.
And as I think about it now, Dan Heng must remember being Feng! Like, he opens the seals for one, but he also recognises the Alchemy commission (and that it borders the vidyadhara realm) even though we know he only saw the inside of a cell during his time on the xianzhou as Dan Heng. So if he can remember then he's lying, but that would mean Hoyo really wants us to think he's not and it's like!! This is the sort of thing you kind of need an answer for.
They mention that Feng's rebirth got fucked up. Here's how you deal with confusion while maintaining mystery:
"usually vidyhadara can remember their past lives, but we fucked up this one so idk" "I don't remember" "shit"
"usually vidyhadara can't remember their past lives, but we fucked up this one so idk" "I don't remember" "cool but we can't trust that"
Like, it's also totally likely that this is answered in game. But I've watched multiple playthroughs at this point and most people I've seen don't know what's going on either.
Hoyo dumped a ton of terminology on us, introduced new factions to the enemy roster (and secret behind-the-scenes alliances between pre existing ones) and then said "here's a bunch of lore that the characters will be openly confused and contractadictory about". I'm starting to miss Paimon requiring simple summaries of every lore plot point in order for any dialogue to continue.
46 notes
·
View notes
Some of your posts about your Finnick fic and ATYD are off putting to be honest. Like, you shouldn't be writing for popularity, it reflects so obviously in your writing.
HUH⁉️⁉️⁉️ HELLO????? what the fuck are you talking about 😭😭 im not allowed to want my fic to get popular???? That's off putting to you, that I want ppl to actually like what im writing??? Will you get a fucking grip??? How could something like that even be reflected in someone's writing? And I only mentioned ATYD once bc a fic being that popular is inspirational, you're acting like mentioning it is forbidden. Before I even started accepting imboxes about the Finnick fic, I said I wanted to write for the Marauders bc I LIKE THE MARAUDERS. gtfo my blog with that shit bro, im not tolerating baseless accusations and hate comments made for the sake of hating
25 notes
·
View notes
Serval Cider. Cider being more or less canonically a furry is my favorite unnecessary plot detail in Chipspeech. I am a furry and I like to think about what different characters' fursonas might be and now I have been given an actual reason to do so.. yippee. I've been looking around to see if other people have made potential Cider fursonas and I found one on twitter from almost four years ago (it is a mouse/rat). Someone tell me if there are any others (or even any ideas floating around) because I am curious.
Furry time below the cut :3
Interestingly enough I had a decently hard time trying to figure out what Cider's fursona might be. This is probably because of my affinity for anthropomorphizations of weird creatures, which don't tend to frequently show up as fursonas (arise my Cambrian brethren). I have not ruled out the possibility of Cider being a weird creature but I could not think of one that fit him well enough. I went with a serval because he honestly kind of looks like one? I do not mean this in a bad way, I really like servals (same kind of cat as Sogga). He just has that vibe. Also he canonically likes cats so I don't think he'd object to it.
Now it's time for me to be boring. The reason I am such a fan of Cider being a furry is (predictably) the whole idea that furries run the tech industry. Afaik the evidence to back up this claim is almost entirely anecdotal, though that one survey from Furscience in 2011 said that around a quarter of all furries surveyed have a degree in tech (plus another ~quarter in other STEM fields) so there's at least one statistic out there. (Generally speaking the Furscience survey is pretty interesting to read through if you're interested in both statistics and anthro animals.) Honestly though the anecdotes seem to be enough to prove that, at the very least, a sizeable percentage of important individuals in tech that are furries given how prevalent they are. In short out of all of the fictional characters I know of the funniest one to make a furry is Cider. A fair amount of furry fandom history is also pretty Cider-adjacent. The way everything lines up is so nice. Fiction does not have to adhere to real world logic but I find it so much more fun when it does. My mind looks like one of those conspiracy boards with all the string connecting different scientific studies and Wikipedia articles I've read to the funni little blorbos. This is definitely normal I promise.
Behold some furry Cider tweets because they are funni (plus him saying he likes cats, that clyp was deleted but it can be inferred). "I was a scientist, last I checked ;)" lmao
Oughh I cannot draw in That Furry Style so I have broken out the chibi(?) style I rarely use because it fits the subject material (furries) better than my normal one? I'm so glad his eyes aren't visible because I can't draw eyes that match this style. The only character I regularly draw in this style is my own fursona but they don't count because their eyes are oversimplified to make up for all of the cephalon details that need outlines. I say this as if anyone knows what I'm talking about. Things I should practice but never do. Oh well. Also the headphones are placed relative to the ear canal at the base of the outer ear. I put them as high up as seemed realistically wearable. And look at the little apple it has ears. Kitty apple :3
Is this entire post going to read like word salad to everyone except me. Hopefully not. I really hope.
11 notes
·
View notes
last night i fucked up so bad in bg3 lol
spoilers for act 2 under the line
so i was exploring the shar gauntlet, found some rats, read too quickly through their lines and understood that if i left them alone, they would guide me to some treasure. so naturally, everywhere i saw the rats, i followed!!! i was doing some exploring along the way, did the trials (i was so mad at myself because i picked up the game one after one week of vacation and forgot that we could HIDE and had to restart the HIDING trial so. many. times UGH i'm so dumb) anyways
i followed the rats. now you remember that while you're exploring the shar temple Raphael has tasked us with killing an old foe of his in exchange for intel abaout astarion's scars right???? that's what i wanted to do. find the foe. kill him. make my vampire boyfriend happy.
but i fucked up. i fucked up so bad x)
i followed the rats down to some bone pit, where they promptly attacked me without warning. i killed them all. then the guy the rats were made of (?) appeared, he was the last dark justicar of the temple. i killed him too, naturally. he had some good stuff on him, i was happy.
I carry on exploring the temple, with difficulty. i stumble upon a room with some friendly (?) dudes and one big guy who turns out to be raphael's foe that he asked us to kill!!!!! but i don't know that when i find him chilling in his throne room. so i talk to him. turns out the dude has been fucked by raphael (of course), his contract specified that he had to kill every. last. dark justicar. in the temple. but he couldn't, because that guy turned into rats and hid forever!! and by killing that guy, i fulfilled that dude's contract, free him basically.
raphael pops up, is mad at me. because he lost his contracted guy.
astarion is mad at me cause now raphael won't tell him about the scars.
everyone's mad.
i was livid. x)
anyways i reloaded a MUCH earlier save, did not kill the rats, managed to find the big dude ambush by myself this time, promptly killed him without mercy (poor guy he was just being played by raphael in the end) and then at camp raphael showed up and astarion got what he wanted. also i wanna kill cazador so bad (((((((((((((:
and then i went again and killed the rats lol
13 notes
·
View notes
BTW Love the growth from OTB, where it's about reassurance and realization, to BTM, where it's about acceptance and growth. God, Louis' queer-coded lyricism should be talked a lot more also
I sat on this for a minute cause I didn't think I was going to answer it, cause if I did it might just be to say, I don't necessarily think it's that simple, and what does being a grinch add to anything! But I realized I do actually have something to say, although it isn't what you were looking for anon, so, sorry about that. See, what I have been thinking is amazing about Louis' lyricism (and has shown big growth between Walls and FITF) and needs to be discussed more is its versatility, its prismatic blank slate qualities even while being so specific.
What I mean is: his signature style is to write lyrics that are straightforward and easily understood as telling a clear story (certain trippy dance numbers excepted obv ;). But what's remarkable is that despite their seeming simplicity and easiness to read, a LOT of his songs can be perceived in a practically infinite number of ways, with every different interpreter absolutely confident in the rightness of their read. So yes, I personally happen to believe Bigger Than Me (and some other songs such as All This Time) are in part about Louis' queer experience. But every lyric that I think that about can also very easily mean something else- they can pass as generic radio songs about nothing, or as songs about experiences non queer listeners have had about any number of things, or as being about his career generally, or in most cases as boilerplate love songs. In the lead up to this album Louis talked about how he wanted people to come up with their own interpretations of the songs a lot, which I laughed at because he then kept saying what they meant to him anyway, but I think I get now why he said that so much just now in particular- I think the way it's possible to make almost any meaning from them is something he did knowingly and with great skill (and put hard work into), and deserves to be recognized. Like maybe one thing he was writing about was the queer interpretation, but then he also made them be about the fans generally and his life and love and 5 other things, while shaping them to be malleable and universal enough that all that fits into these extremely simple lines. And I think that people insisting they know what his songs are about and that it can only be one thing actually erases that work and skill that he, I believe, is rightfully proud of, and that deserves appreciation.
Also it doesn't fit anywhere but I would like to add two other thoughts: one, sometimes part of a song can be about one thing or be literal but other parts can be made up or from something else sometimes for as little reason as to make it rhyme, and two this is a whole essay probably but I'm thinking a lot lately about how Louis talks about being honest in his writing and how people think that means the same thing as being literal (writing about his exact life) and actually something can be HONEST, like can talk about feelings and thoughts that really happened while depicting made up events (see: fiction/ literature generally), without being LITERALLY TRUE (this is a thing that is exactly how it happened in my life) so just throwing that in here also.
32 notes
·
View notes