Sam: So let me get this straight. You bought Catco magazine. Lena: Yes. Sam: Because Kara was upset that Morgan Edge wanted to buy it and you couldn't resist her wobbly-lipped pout? Lena: No, it's an investment- Sam: And now you're going to go and learn to run a media empire with help from a certain junior reporter who has also never run a media empire. Lena: Well it's my company, it makes sense that I need to be there to- Sam: ... while stepping away from THIS company. You know, the one with your name on it that you are extremely qualified to run. And you're having me step up to take your place here. Lena: I- Sam: Instead of hiring someone who knows how to run a media business to look after Catco for you. Lena: ... Sam: Nope, sorry Lena. There's no way to get this one straight. That is the least straight thing I have ever heard.

you want a new kind of guy, fine, i raise you: the lady i was briefly roommates with in college who once smoked a blunt at a party and then spent an hour confessing earnestly to me that she genuinely preferred reading detailed episode recaps over actually watching the tv show in question

Horizon: Forbidden West #002

Source: Tumblr user arguablysomaya

Varl: This is a map of all the possible places Aloy could have run off to this time. Picture of a global map Vanasha: That's a globe. Varl: Yeah, we have no fucking clue where she is.

ok I have A Lot of thoughts about the staircase confession (well really about Edwin's whole character arc, but all roads lead to rome) but for now I just wanna say that, yes, I was bracing myself for something to go terribly wrong when I first watched it, and yes, part of me was initially worried its placement might be an uncharacteristically foolish choice made in the name of Drama or Pacing or Making a Compelling Episode of Television but at the expense of narrative sense--

But I wanna say that having taken all that into account, and watched it play out, and sat with it - and honestly become rather transfixed by it - I really think it's a beautifully crafted moment and truly the only way that arc could've arrived at such a satisfying conclusion.

And if I had to pinpoint why I not only buy it but also have come to really treasure it, I'd have to put it down to the fact that it genuinely is a confession, and nothing else.

That moment is an announcement of what Edwin has come to understand about himself, but because it takes the form of a character admitting romantic feelings for such a close friend, I think it can be very easy, when writing that kind of thing, to imbue it with other elements like a plea or a request or even the start of a new relationship that, intentionally or not, would change the shape of the moment and can quickly overshadow what a huge deal the telling is all on its own. But that's not the case here. Since it is only a confession, unaccompanied by anything else, and since we see afterward how it was enough, evidently, to fix the strangeness that had grown between him & Charles, we're forced to understand that it was never Edwin's feelings that were actually making things difficult for him - it was not being able to tell Charles about them. 'Terrified' as he's been of this, Edwin learns that his feelings don't need to either disappear completely or be totally reciprocated in order for him to be able to return to the peace, stability, and security of the relationship with which he defines his existence - and the scale of that relief a) tells us a hell of a lot about Edwin as a character and b) totally justifies the way his declaration just bursts out of him at what would otherwise be such a poorly chosen moment, in my opinion.

Whether or not they are or ever could be reciprocated, Edwin's feelings are definitively proven not to be the problem here - only his potential choice to bottle it up - his repression - is. And where that repression had once been mainly involuntary, a product of what he'd been through, now that he's got this new awareness of himself, if he still fails to admit what he's found either to himself or to the one person he's so unambiguously close with, then that repression will be by his own choice and actions.

And he won't do that. Among other things, he's coming into this scene having just (unknowingly) absolved the soul of his own school bully and accidental killer by pointing out a fact that is every bit as central to his self-discovery as anything about his sexuality or his attraction to Charles is: the idea that "If you punish yourself, everywhere becomes Hell"

So narratively speaking, of course it makes sense that Edwin literally cannot get out of Hell until he stops punishing himself - and right now, the thing that's torturing him is something he has control over. It's not who he is or what he feels, but what he chooses to do with those feelings that's hurting him, and he's even already made the conscious choice to tell Charles about them, he was just interrupted. But now that they're back together and he's literally in the middle of an attempt to escape Hell, there is absolutely no way he can so much as stop for breath without telling Charles the truth. Even the stopping for breath is so loaded - because they're ghosts, they don't need to breathe, but also they're in Hell, so the one thing they can feel is pain, however nonsensical. And Edwin certainly is in pain. But whether he knows what he's about to do or not when he says he 'just needs a tick,' a breather is absolutely not what's gonna give him enough relief to keep climbing - it's fixing that other hurt, though, that will.

Like everything else in that scene, there's a lot of layers to him promising Charles "You don't have to feel the same way, I just needed you to know" - but I don't think that means it isn't also true on a surface level. It's the act of telling Charles that matters so much more than whatever follows it, and while that might have gone unnoticed if anything else major had happened in the same conversation, now we're forced to acknowledge its staggering and singular importance for what it is. The moment is well-earned and properly built up to, but until we see it happen in all its wonderful simplicity, and we see the aftermath (or lack thereof, even), we couldn't properly anticipate how much of a weight off Edwin's shoulders merely getting to share the truth with Charles was going to be, why he couldn't wait for a better, safer opportunity before giving in to that desire, or how badly he needed to say it and nothing else - and I really, really love the weight that act of just being honest, seen, and known is given in their story/relationship.

thinking,,,,,,,, darling who has a cryptic pregnancy....... [insert twst character here] reacting to it,,, maybe you and floyd and you're both a little dense because neither of you could have ever guessed. T_T

"what do you mean you were pregnant this whole time???? i thought shrimpy just got softer. :D" - floyb mindset.

in floyd's defense, he has no idea how human pregnancies work. he slept through that part of land boot camp!!! fell asleep the minute the professor started droning on about how humans don't lay eggs like mers do. jade can only chuckle (maybe he knew, but in classic jade fashion he won't tell because it's much more entertaining to sit back and watch everyone slowly figure it out) and azul is shaking his head in disbelief. had he known, he would have prepared well in advance to lend a helping hand. and you're just so amazed because maybe you were told you're unable to get pregnant, but somehow it happened and you had no idea all this time.

thank you to floyd and his mer virility for doing what was thought to be the impossible!!!!!! <3

a typical day in the new potter home

baby harry: stay away from my daddy, he's mine!

regulus: we can share him, yeah? we're all mature grown ups.

baby harry: no, i'm the only mature grown up here.

regulus: oh, is that so?

baby harry: yeah, and you're being a little baby and stealing my daddy.

regulus: i'm not trying to, i promise, we can be a family!

baby harry: ...

regulus: would you feel better if we play murder?

baby harry: yeah!

*james walks in and harry just has his hands on regulus' throat trying to choke him and regulus is like hissing and baring his teeth like a vampire and james is just like ...genuinely what the fuck*

baby harry: daddy we’re playing murder! regulus is the one being killed.

james: yeah… i see that bud.

*james sighs and turns around and lets them get back to it*

james, on the phone: sirius, your brother and your godson are trying to kill each other again

sirius: WHAT DO YOU MEAN AGAIN??????

james: they usually think i don't notice

sirius: AGAIN, JAMES? AGAIN?

shared effort with @canyouhearmyfear

Owen: I can explain.

Jack: Can you?

Owen: If you give me thirty seconds to think of a lie.

one more post about how much i love zoro and this specific zolu dynamic, where at the end of fishman island arc, after the feast and celebrations, jimbei tries to tell them more information about the navy and blackbeard, and zoro is (supposedly) sleeping through that whole conversation

but once luffy calls his name (right in the next panel after the pic above) he's immediately up and awake and paying attention properly (and noticing like both luffy and sanji that something didn't feel right)

funniest take on the “are cody and obi-wan having sex in clone wars” is the concept that a bit into the war all the commanders are giving cody shit for being such a simp for general kenobi and he’s like, does - does everyone here think i’m not sleeping with the general? and theyre like wh

what?????????????????????????

and cody goes, i thought that thats what everyones been harassing me about for the past year. what are you guys talking about

[bly voice] the past YEAR we’ve only been fighting this war for THIRTEEN MONTHS!!!!!!!!!! CODY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rhysand: What is your worst quality?

Feyre: I can be uncooperative

Rhysand: Can you give me an example?

Feyre: No

genuinely confused why so many people are saying things like “i’m tired of the will they won’t they i wish they would just tell us if it’s gonna happen or not” (kinda defeats the purpose of will they won’t they?) or from the bummy stans “i wish they would shut down buddie fans once and for all” (both real posts i saw)

just wondering how y’all think watching a show is supposed to work? they aren’t going to come out and say either way until it happens in the show, don’t know why you would think it should go any other way.

they aren’t going to do an interview about episode 7 just to say “yeah tommy’s here for now but don’t worry he’ll be gone and we’ll get buddie going” like that’s not how it works, interviews in the middle of a season are purposefully vague and sometimes intentionally misleading, that’s kinda the point. this isn’t the type of show they want you to be able to predict, of course they’ll mislead us on purpose when they get the chance.

it’s very unlikely that any interview will reveal where the show is taking this, and no interviews yet have said strictly one way or the other so i’m not sure why people are acting like they have

Andrea: I'm up for buying it, but why do you want to sell the company your girlfriend works for anyway? Lena: Kara's not my girlfriend Andrea: Okay, your partner Lena: She is CERTAINLY not my partner! Andrea: Well, what would you call it? Lena: She is... a woman I know. Andrea: Really? Because I heard you've been dating for like two years. Lena: We weren't DATING. We were just. Often in the same place. Andrea: Andrea: So you broke up huh? Lena: YES WE FUCKING BROKE UP. Now do you want the damn company or not?

Peter: ..and then she ran into a wall and-

Sirius: I’ve done that before

James: I don’t doubt that

Remus: then what happened?

Peter: and then..

Marlene, Dorcas & Barty: [laughing in the corner]

Matthew committing war crimes with that tongue

-Leon Draisaitl, probably

"they're not war crimes just because you personally feel attacked" -- connor mcdavid, very tired, really wishes leon would just hit that already and stop talking to him about it

a difference between the experience of reading the natsuyuu manga and watching the anime which is only interesting to me is that there's no distinction between special chapters and regular ones in the anime. the reason i find that interesting is that the specials are, so far in my reread, the only chapters that spend any time completely outside of natsume's POV. when we see other characters' perspectives in regular chapters, it's typically part of an extended monologue or a memory being transmitted to natsume, so we're still not really leaving his perspective. the only times we leave his POV are when he's physically not present in a scene, and in those instances we usually don't get any narration or interior monologue from the other characters.

tanuma in "a suspicious visitor" is the only exception i can think of off the top of my head, though i'm sure there are others i'll get to and just don't remember at the moment. the scene between matoba and ban at the end of the homura arc, for example, is outside of natsume's POV by necessity but is pure dialogue with no interior narration because these are not characters to whom we have that kind of access! (for more on matoba's elusive subjectivity see sp15, says tumblr user worldunbent.)

the special chapters jump all over the place; so far i've gotten to chapters from the perspectives of little fox, an unnamed youkai, nyanko, tanuma, and hinoe (although hinoe's chapter is framed as a story she's telling natsume, so it could have fit in a regular chapter). they have a separate numbering system from the regular chapters, are much shorter, and almost always come at the end of volumes*. in the anime, however, there's absolutely nothing to distinguish the episodes adapting the specials from the ones adapting regular chapters other than the POV shifts, which gives anime-only viewers a very different impression of how the series approaches character interiority. i don't think there's anything wrong with this as an adaptation move and it's pretty much necessary, but it's just notable because in a series that's all about how people see the world differently, the choice to make such a distinction between chapters in the protagonist's POV and chapters from everyone else's POV is a significant one.

the reason i'm paying so much attention to POVs in this reread in the first place is because i've been listening to the podcast media club plus and jack, who is pretty new to anime, keeps pointing out the constant perspective shifts in hunter x hunter and the other hosts are like, "yeah, that's normal." this post from another listener expands on how and why it works as a genre norm in shonen battle anime/manga specifically. so now i'm just cursed to be hyperaware of POV shifts in anime/manga, and given that the three series i'm reading/watching at the moment are hxh, dungeon meshi, and natsuyuu, natsuyuu really stands out in how rarely it leaves natsume's head in the regular chapters. i guess i need to go read some more shoujo for a larger sample size lol

*i have a chapter spreadsheet 🤓 and the exceptions to this are sp18, which is just stuck in the middle of v22, sp20, which is the second-to-last chapter of v24, and sp21, which is the first chapter of v25. i understand the placement of sp20, which is "intermission detectives" and makes sense to have as an break between regular chapters, but i'll have to figure out what sp18&21 are doing when i get to them.

obsessed my coworker who doesn’t know who john lennon and nancy pelosi are, thinks crack is legal in the us, thought it was illegal to get copyrighted tattoos (like anything from disney or any major company), has 3 tattoos dedicated to this random dj she’s obsessed with, and left work early today to go get a marvel tattoo after finding out it was legal