#but here: a sincere answer to a bad faith question.

[canmom]

It's set in a Germanic-based country ran by an authoritarian military that actively corrals and abuses a Jewish-coded minority group because they're viewed as monstrous threats to society. And that is JUSTIFIED in the author's opinion and in the eyes of the narrative. It is DIRECTLY antisemitic and specifically based in the kind of genocidal antisemitism the nazis embodied. You don't get to "I don't think it's nazis though:/" that.

presumably in relation to my comments on Attack on Titan in this post.

I admit I’ve had a hard time knowing how best to respond to this message. let’s say, I guess, that I had a similar impression of Attack on Titan prior to watching it. I changed my mind after seeing it. but I realise ‘not actually Nazi propaganda’ may be a tough sell for something with this much suspicion on it.

your tone seems like you think I’m some kind of diehard Attack on Titan fan who wishes to resolve cognitive dissonance by denying the fact that it is very obviously drawing on the history of the Nazis, the Holocaust, and global antisemitism in general in both its imagery and many elements of its narrative. so if it wasn’t clear enough from the previous post, I don’t give a shit about fandom. I don’t care if you love or hate it. I think Attack on Titan is fascinating and worthy of critical analysis, but that’s as much for its flaws as its successes. and for that reason I am trying to understand what makes it tick.

all the same, my reaction would be quite different if I believed the narrative really did try to justify the genocide and other atrocities it portrays.

so if you’re willing, let me present my reading of Attack on Titan; what I think it’s trying to do. I’m not trying to persuade you to enjoy it, but I would like to explain why I think ‘Nazi propaganda’ is not a justified reading, and - whatever the flaws in execution - I believe Isayama’s intentions must have been something else. in short, it’s very much about fascism, but I believe can very reasonably be read as an - forgive me - attack on fascism: an illustration of why people may fall to fascism, the horrific consequences, and perhaps how one might turn away from it.

so. just to clarify the premise a bit: the thrust of Attack on Titan’s later arcs is about how the “Eldians” (the ‘Jewish-coded minority group’ who comprise nearly every named character) try to deal with living in a world where nearly everyone hates and wants to kill them.

the majority of them live (at first, unknowingly) on an autarkic island-state where the whole population is Eldian, but later we learn how other Eldians, including the antagonists of the earlier parts of the story, live in ghettos within the neighbouring “Marleyan” empire and fight on its behalf in return for conditional privileges.

as far as justification, to address this at the start: we learn the Marleyan narrative backing the oppression of Eldians is to claim that all of this is a form of punishment for the abuses of the defeated Eldian empire. now, I think it is a misstep for there to be a concrete reason why people hate the Eldians (history shows that people have never needed a reason) - but as far as whether the narrative bears this out, it’s unequivocal that the alleged sins of this past Eldian empire are just a flimsy and irrelevant excuse for what the Marleyans are doing to them in the present.

nevertheless, this recent empire which is accused specifically of ‘eugenics and ethnic cleansing’ is part of why I think Japanese nationalism, and the concept of guilt over the atrocities of your country, is part of the pot here. I would argue that Isayama’s “Eldians” are not just an allegory for Jews, nor just an allegory for the Japanese. they are constructed out of elements of all of these - and even the Germans as well! it is Eldians who wear those iconic brown cropped uniforms that appear in all the marketing for the show, and it is only quite late in the story that we learn the main characters are ‘Eldians’ and not just the only surviving humans.

still, this does mean Isayama’s story approaches the history and imagery of Nazism, which is already dangerous enough, and also takes a run at the history of Japanese imperialism (hence the first major controversy being with Korean readers). ‘reckless’ would be an understatement, and it’s not really a surprise that it got such a bad reputation.

so, watching Attack on Titan, @mogsk and I were constantly asking each other what is this about?? what is it trying to say? often it’s hard to tell! but I think as we watched a picture emerged.

the major thrust of the final section of Attack on Titan, the part covered in Mappa’s anime rather than Wit Studio’s, revolves around the conflict between two brothers who both represent cartoonishly extreme possible responses for the Eldians. Zeke represents a sort of negative-utilitarian ‘lie down and die’ attitude: he believes that the lot of the Eldians is so irrevocably hopeless that it’s better not to exist at all than just to suffer. his plan for a sort of ethnic suicide calls to mind Gandhi’s infamous remark that the Jews should have willingly gone to the ovens rather than fight the Nazis. (in reality, if it needs saying, Jews resisted extermination fiercely in many different ways, even when the fight was absolutely futile).

meanwhile, Eren, who was previously the protagonist, develops his shōnen protagonist attitude - “if you don’t fight, you cannot win” - into such an extreme ‘us or them’ stance that “the whole world is his enemy”. he comes to believe everyone outside his home island must be destroyed in what we could call this story’s equivalent of a nuclear war: sending a bunch of huge guys to crush everything flat. (despite the dedicated efforts of the animators, in practice this can’t help but come across as very silly, especially when it’s given the hilarious name of ‘the Rumbling’, but whatever, it’s a fantasy story.)

as argued in this article (an article which points at a lot of things but doesn’t really develop them very far, though broadly seems to agree with me that the thrust of Attack on Titan‘s approach to far right ideology is a critical one), Eren’s worldview calls to mind the Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt’s idea of enmity - two incompatible existences where one must eventually be annihilated, and politics as the field of this conflict. in this framing, if you accept Eren’s belief that fighting to the death is inevitable, his conclusion - get them before they get you - follows.

so after the timeskip, Eren goes from being a hot-headed shōnen protagonist to a sort of Yukio Mishima-like figure, a quiet man at odds with the world due to an extreme nationalist ideology, who carries out an act of terrorism in attempt to provoke others to follow his lead. (there’s more to the Mishima link I want to develop, like I think the obsession with sacrifice can also be read in relation to him, but I’ll leave that for the more full treatment.) unlike Mishima, Eren largely succeeds and gets what he wants. (perhaps, rather than Mishima, we might think of the Nazis and the Beer Hall Putsch - like Hitler, Eren turns his imprisonment to his advantage.)

over the course of the season, Eren defeats Zeke and starts putting his plan into motion, becoming the primary antagonist who the other main characters now work to oppose. (their reasons vary: for some their family will be destroyed by Eren, while for island Eldians like Hange, it is explicitly that ‘there is no excuse for genocide’). Eren is supported by the Jaeger-ha faction led by the fanatical Floch, who are unequivocally presented as full-on fascists: a bunch of violent young men throwing their weight around with summary executions and torture in the conviction they’re going to make a new order under Eren. even though many of the Jaeger-ha are former comrades, the sympathetic surviving members of the Survey Corps such as Armin and Mikasa reluctantly commit to fighting and ultimately killing them in order to try to pursue Eren.

the alternative presented to these ridiculous grand schemes is perhaps a familiar set of anti-war story beats you might recognise from works like Gundam: characters from opposing sides spend time among their enemies, realise they are not so different from the Other, and talk to each other to put an end to the cyclic conflict and work towards a common cause (namely, stopping Eren). there are some really juicy dramatic scenes when the former enemies have it out and confront each other with all of their crimes - and try to understand what brought them about.

to set this arc up, we spend a lot of time not so much with Marleyans themselves, but with the Eldians who live in ghettos as hypersurveilled second-class citizens to the Marleyans, showing how their actions arose from their oppressive circumstances. these characters signify a number of possible responses, from eager complicity with the oppressor to conspiring against them according to various ideological lines, but most just trying to live out their lives in a deeply unfair scenario, upholding the few personal relationships they have.

by the point they’re all actually fighting, it’s become very ambiguous who we’re expected to root for. I think this is the point. this story is not about a heroic struggle for survival, it was all along about a stupid and needless bloodbath that grows to consume more and more and more.

a key moment, to me, comes in the final episode to date, which is mostly an extended flashback to the first time the island Eldians - our main characters, the Survey Corps - set foot in the wider world. they bear witness to acts of anti-Eldian prejudice, and later end up spending joyful evening drinking with a group of heavily Turkish-coded characters on the outskirts of the city. in the context, this happy moment is presented in a rather forlorn way: a peaceful ‘what could have been’ if everyone hadn’t been fucked up by empire, complicity, trauma etc. at the end of this episode, we return to the present and see Eren’s plan going into motion.

moments like this to me signify what Attack on Titan ultimately considers valuable: a positive encounter of different cultures. the times things go well for the characters are when they approach the Other honestly and openly; the times it goes poorly are when they close themselves off and refuse to let go of prejudice, and what tends to rescue this sort of situation is a character responding to this with forgiveness. (the arc of the two children from the ghetto, Gabi and Falco, and their meeting with Sasha’s family may be the most direct example of this.)

the same observation goes for the role of characters like Onyankopon (the story’s one Black character, a soldier recruited from a country annexed by the Marleyans, who defects to support the Eldians and is portrayed very sympathetically, at worst a little naive) and the characters from Hizuru (the setting’s Japan analogue, who arrive to make diplomatic overtures and propose an awful plan for how, with their technology, the Eldians can defend themselves in their new geopolitical context). although these are minor characters, the show puts a lot of work into building up their relationships with the island Eldians as part of a broader arc of being forced out of their ignorant, parochial worldview.

I am waiting for the anime to cover it to see the ending. it would surprise me a lot if Eren was not stopped (it would be quite a shaggy dog story otherwise), but I don’t ultimately know what the thematic answer is going to be. ultimately the challenge that Attack on Titan has set for itself is in showing not just the defeat of Eren as an individual, but showing that his entire belief system is wrong. having called it into question, it must provide a convincing account that coexistence between Eldians and everyone else is possible, and conflicts as entrenched as this one can be resolved peacefully rather than by annihilation.

in other words, the story has provided many convincing illustrations of why someone might fall prey to a fascist ideology, and many examples of that going badly for them, but ultimately it hinges on showing the limits of “if you don’t fight, you cannot win”.

so, let’s return to the question of whether it’s antisemitic.

intentionally? i don’t think so at all; the sympathies are overwhelmingly for the Eldians. I don’t think you could possibly read or watch this and come away thinking the author sees the Holocaust with anything other than absolute horror and revulsion.

unwittingly, through carelessness towards historical trauma? honestly, god that’s a hard one. were a Jewish author writing this story, many of the moves it makes would make plenty of sense to me; I’d have plenty of praise for it. but Hajime Isayama is not Jewish; this is not ‘his’ history and the context where he chose to tell his story is a popular shōnen manga that’s mostly about action - the nuances he’s trying to get at are unlikely to be appreciated by a lot of his audience, and it’s easy for people to latch on to the militaristic imagery and sympathise with what he seems to be trying to attack. (I am reminded of when The Man in the High Castle was adapted for television and the marketers decided to plaster every advertising surface in Nazi symbols. at that point it doesn’t matter how well the work in question criticises the Nazis, the damage has been done. Attack on Titan isn’t nearly that bad, but, yeah...)

certainly if I write a story about war and genocide, I try to avoid directly invoking the images of a specific genocide, but instead attempt to construct more of a layer of abstraction. (it is a difficult line to walk, since fiction should address the most horrible aspects of the world. too much timidity strips you of the ability to say anything at all.)

yet at the same time, it is precisely that reckless charge into the worst episodes of history that makes Attack on Titan so fascinating to drill into. it is not content to just be another action/horror shōnen with a series of escalating fights, but trying for something - to me that something seems to be some kind of grand story about the nature of conflict and the world and the forces behind fascism and nationalism. there is some sort of animating force at work here - Hajime Isayama was wrestling with something in the pages of this manga.

now, I don’t think Attack on Titan has any insight to offer on the Holocaust, if it is read as a historical allegory. the fact that the Eldians can turn into Titans and nobody else can - a fundamental difference between Eldians and everyone else - means we’re already far into the realm of fantasy with no real historical analogue.

in real genocides, it is vital to recognise that the first task of the perpetrator has always been to construct the difference between the two groups and make some minor difference salient: to convince some subset of the population who had been living alongside another to see themselves as an ‘us’ and the latter group as a ‘them’. and while Attack on Titan does show examples of anti-Eldian prejudice falling at random on people who are not Eldian but merely suspected by an angry crowd, the existence of that ‘real’ difference does change the scenario. all the other fantastical elements, like shared memories and even time travel, go even further to take it away from a historical model.

one particular case where it’s hard to figure out what Attack on Titan is doing is the matter of conspiracy theories. we learn at one point that the Eldian empire actually orchestrated their own downfall as a way to end the war, after which point a specific Eldian family actually secretly manipulated the Marleyan empire for the ensuing hundred years! yet this is no unified Eldian conspiracy; it all comes as news to all the other Eldian characters too, and very soon after revealing this, the manipulator character is killed off by Eren, the hardcore Eldian nationalist.

so like, god, what? this makes absolutely no sense as some sort of narrative about historical antisemitism. like, it’s not anything: it’s neither saying ‘look, antisemitic conspiracy theories are true’ because it’s not like the conspirators are secretly orchestrating things to Eldian benefit; rather it’s as if the ruling class threw their entire people away to the ghettos. yet nor is it ‘the conspiracy theories are a paranoid fantasy’: there actually is an Eldian pulling at least some of the strings. so the only frame it even sort-of makes sense is part of the show’s larger discourse on violence, pacifism and relating to the Other. yet it’s incredibly fraught to bring into a story that’s in part about the Holocaust!

why do that? I can’t even explain it.

and that’s definitely one of the most strained episodes in the whole story - not that things are ever especially grounded, but the idea of a guy putting on a stage show in a ghetto to reveal that he’s been pulling the strings only to ask for assistance in the genocide of his own people is just... bwuh? what is that? it is, throughout, very much manga storytelling: the characters are larger-than-life, and its image of war, however full of futility, is still one with room for considerable sentimentality.

all this is why ultimately I read Attack on Titan as being not so much a direct analogy, but a kind of attempt to drill into the emotional/ideological underpinning of fascism. the Titans are at first presented in a way that reflects the Nazis’ construction of their enemies as monstrous: distended proportions, mindless cannibals, natural features of the human body exaggerated to become a source of disgust, yet all curiously desexualised. at the outset of the story it is a case of heroic humans against monstrous enemy in a war of total annihilation.

gradually this story is revealed to be a complete delusion: the humans are not the last survivors at all but an ignorant bubble in a much wider world, and these Titans are of the same category as the ‘humans’, victims of a sadistic punishment by another human society. ultimately the villain is perhaps imperialism itself, whether under the hands of the warlord who created the Eldian people through enslavement and forced his enslaved wife to become the first Titan, or the rule of the Marleyans who one day came to replace them. the common people of both sides such as Sasha’s family, when they get to speak directly, figure out they are much the same as each other. they do not, in general, want to fight.

but despite everyone around him rapidly maturing, Eren is unable to let go of the proto-fascist worldview of his childhood, and he grows his category of ‘enemy’ larger and larger. for everyone else, despite their best efforts, more and more atrocities get added to the ledger as realpolitik takes hold and they act to defend whoever they define as their friends.

so the story unfolds as a tragedy: on a very simple level it could be read as saying, “this is why nationalism/fascism can seem appealing, but look, this is what happens if you don’t let go of it.” and alongside that it is perhaps trying to paint a path away, a story of characters unlearning nationalism. but at the same time often it seems to be merely observing the tragedy of such a world, taking after Schopenhauer, as that article from earlier argues.

so.

is that sort of project worth invoking the imagery of the Holocaust - a sudden flashback to children in what is evidently a close analogue to the Warsaw Ghetto? it’s not that it’s irrelevant, and indeed it may be better to directly confront that subject than to engage in Nazi military imagery without it ever coming up (c.f. many other shows that use it like Girl und Panzer etc.) yet even after all this, I don’t know! I feel like I could make a case for either stance.

ultimately, I don’t think there has to be a party line on Attack on Titan. if you find it hard to stomach regardless, I don’t blame you. people respond to works of fiction in many different ways.

at some point - probably when it’s actually ended in anime form - I still plan to write a more thorough analysis of Attack on Titan‘s thematic development. I don’t think I’ll be able to provide a definitive ‘yay or nay’ answer. it will always be a ‘challenging’ work and not one I’d recommend lightly. but I do at least think it’s worth the time I’ve spent engaging with it so far, and I hope you can see why, whatever the fuck it is, I at least don’t think it’s a work of Nazi propaganda.

#attack on titan #hope i don't regret writing this. #but here: a sincere answer to a bad faith question. #shoah cw #holocaust cw

[helloaugustmoon]

this is so classic wattpad plot but I literally do not care

Michael Jackson x she/her!reader

·˚ ◌༘͙[Keep The Faith] ! ˊ

Fishing has been one of Michael’s favorite hobbies for some time. Not in the traditional sense - he cannot sit still for long enough to actually go fishing - but rather by his own definition. Whether it be peering at the faces in the crowd at a concert, seeing faces pressed against the windows of cars and buildings he’s in, fishing is a term that Michael dedicates to peacefully viewing pretty creatures that appear just to see him when he’s passing through. In no way is it dehumanizing; he views it as comparing people to other beautiful things in nature, and in a comical sense too, of course. By now, his team is well aware of his traditions when it comes to fishing, only laughing along and agreeing with his comments pertaining to ‘nice fish’, all in jest and never something he’d consider seriously pursuing; he’d feel he had too much power over a fan that it wouldn’t be fair or just, it would be taking advantage, and that’s not something that sits well with him.

That is, until your face catches his eye.

Fan after fan came and went, greeting Michael and taking pictures while he signed their copies of ‘Bad’ and gifted him their most sincere praises. It was certainly lovely, never something he takes for granted, but to an extent, the social scale of the event can become quite tiring. He’s grateful the line is nearing its end, hoping that soon enough, he’ll be able to rest. But when Michael lifts his gaze from the table in front of him and his eyes meet yours, when he sees your smile- he swears to every holy thing he’s ever known, his heart stops. You aren’t screaming or hyperventilating, but you are trembling in a way that stirs the gentleman in him, wishing the circumstances would allow for him to perhaps offer his jacket to you. The smile on your face as you look at Michael is reflected right back at you, and his previous idea of having any power over a fan is single handedly erased by the existence of you. In that moment, had you wished it, he’d have dropped to one knee and ripped his own heart out to offer it to you. One word from you, and he’d do anything for you. All you had to do, was-

“Hi, Michael.”

And he’s yours.

Your voice is the sweetest melody he’s ever heard, and he already knows it’ll inspire more songs than anything ever has before. You are the siren to lull him to sleep, to guide him to the pearly gates of heaven someday, and he is nothing if not a devout worshiper at the altar that is you.

“I don’t want to take up too much of your time, you’ve already been here so long- but, I just wanted to thank you for the music you make and the message of love that-“

Is now and has only ever been meant for you, he realizes.

Words continue to fall from your lips like a steady stream, a peaceful and thought-out poem that touches every part of Michael’s very soul. And he sits there, smiling up at you as you stand before him, in absolute awe of you. The stars of the night couldn’t hope to hold a candle to the ones in your eyes.

“You don’t need to thank me, it’s my pleasure. It brings me joy to know that my music brings you joy, too.” He answers, his own voice softer than he’s ever heard it.

Your smile turns shy, then, and Michael wishes he had the kind of magic to seal this moment in a bottle, or lock it away in a drawer, so that on the lonely nights he foresees in his future he might gaze upon this moment again. You.

“What’s your name?” He asks you, the question feeling more like a desperate plea than a general curiosity, and when you do tell him your name, it’s immediately stitched into the very fabric of his being.

He wants to compliment your name for how pretty it sounds, how well it suits you, how he’ll close his eyes and whisper it to the sky before he falls asleep and wishes for you without being capable of waiting for a shooting star to do so. He wants to, more than anything. But for risk of seeming too forward, Michael only allows his smile to widen, tells you it was wonderful meeting you, that he hopes you’ll have a pleasant rest of your day, and then passes you back your copy of his album - signed with his name and a kiss that he simply couldn’t resist leaving for you.

Michael’s team exchange glances when his eyes linger on you, watching you leave until you are completely out of sight. At which time, he releases a sigh that is impossible to mistake as anything other than a swoon. With his longing being so obvious, a member of Michael’s team steps forward.

“Would you like us to ensure tickets for tomorrow night’s show, Sir?” The security guard offers, and is surprised when Michael only shakes his head, not offering a verbal answer as he turns his attention to the next person in line.

That night, Michael is ringing up an impressive phone bill from his hotel room, rambling to Janet about every shade in your eyes, every intricacy of you, every cadence you spoke in. After an hour, he finally leaves enough time for his sister to actually respond.

“So you made certain she’ll be at the show tomorrow, right?” It almost sounds rhetorical, not to mention sarcastic, coming from Janet - not that either would surprise Michael.

“No, no,” He shakes his head, leaning against the wall as he holds the phone to his ear, careful not to step too far from the cord. “I don’t want to enforce or engineer anything- that’s not love, that’s a script. If I’m meant to see her again, I will.”

Janet sighs at this, knowing Michael’s mind is set and that means he’ll be too stubborn to consider any alternative; his views on love and fairytales are so absolute, he’d rather spend a lifetime waiting for you and loving you anyway, than use the powers at his disposal to set up a meeting that could lead to a love story.

That said, Janet also knows that for you to have captured Michael’s attention so, you must be some girl. Women have thrown themselves at him from the moment he entered the spotlight - for him to not only notice one amongst the rest, but yearn for you so obviously and without any trace of hesitance, you must be something special. For that, Janet can only pray alongside Michael that somehow, some way, you will find your way back to him.

During rehearsals the following day, Michael finds himself envisioning you in front of the stage, using the idea of dancing to impress you, to woo you as his motivation for giving the performance tonight everything he’s got. No matter how bright the overhead lights of the stadium are, he can picture your smile widening when he dances around onstage, pointing at you as a means of dedicating the song to you, and you alone. He intends to do so regardless of the fact you won’t actually be there. Perhaps he’ll point at the stars, lest you see the footage and misunderstand that he’d ever point at another girl again.

The screams of the crowd do little to quiet the thoughts of you that continue to whirl around the mind of a lyrical genius, even when he runs out onstage to greet them. Breaking into the first song of the night, Michael puts his all into his performance as he always does, but can't help feeling that tonight he has a heavenly blessing in the form of your smile lingering in his thoughts, pushing him that little bit harder. It isn’t until the end of the first song that Michael stops moving for long enough to scan the faces he can actually see from where he stands, the distance from the stage to the front row being further than he’d like. Pausing only momentarily for a brief interval of fishing, Michael’s eyes trace over the front row. And then, he does a double take.

His heart must have been playing a trick on his eyes, surely.

He looks back again, feeling an irregularity in his own pulse when he struggles to find you in the sea of faces again, until whoever had been cruel enough to temporarily block the view of you happens to move just enough for Michael to see you again. Front row, clinging to the barricade like your life depends on it. And you’re smiling at him just the same.

His eyes lock with yours, the band behind him exchanging confused glances. By now, Michael should have given the cue for the second song to start, but the perfectionist has been entirely distracted by the very definition of perfect that he’s been waiting his whole life for. It takes several seconds for him to accept the reality that you really are right there, but as soon as he does, the smile on his face is so big he’s concerned it’ll split his face in half. Giving the cue for the second song to start, Michael points right at you.

“You knock me off of my feet now baby, HOO!”

Throughout ‘The Way You Make Me Feel’, Michael’s gaze connects with yours, and he doesn’t shy away from devoting the song to you in every way he can. If it weren’t for the rehearsed role of the woman onstage that he’s barely even noticing, he’d have pulled you up here with him. Instead, Michael settles for pointing at you, winking at you, and holding your gaze while singing lyrics and dancing in ways that leave no room for misinterpretation.

He continues this for the remainder of the setlist, a plan forming in his head over the course of the next few songs. Because now that divine intervention has resulted in you being right here with him again, who is he to stand and do nothing in the face of that? Of you?

With the instrumental for Liberian Girl beginning behind him, Michael sets his plan into action. Against the better judgment of his security, he jumps from the edge of the stage, making a beeline for where you stand in the front row, every face except yours blurring into his peripheral vision, the increasing volume of the screams of the crowd fading into nothing with the way your smile brightens, the closer he gets to you. Realizing how disastrous this could be, Michael’s security lunge forward to lift you over to the barrier, holding back the other fans that try to climb over with you. And then, Michael’s hand is taking yours, holding it so gently, his free hand bringing his mic back to his lips.

“Liberian girl, you came and you changed my world, a love so brand new…” He sings, eyes holding yours with reverie as he guides you by the hand until you’re standing onstage with him.

The very second there’s enough time in between lyrics, Michael lifts your hand to kiss your knuckles, and that shy smile he’s already dreamt of appears on your face again. With the gentlest movement, he pulls you closer to him, inviting you to erase the distance that he’s desperate to be without, and you’re hardly going to hesitate. You let go of his hand to instead wrap both of your arms around his neck, and Michael has never cursed not having a headset more than on the occasion that he can now only hold your waist with one arm because he’s required to use the other to hold up his microphone. Sometimes, the world is too cruel to comprehend, he thinks. Still, a man can't complain about getting to hold you in any capacity.

“More precious than any pearl…” Michael sings, his voice soft in your ear, intimate despite the scale of the concert itself that surrounds you.

Unable to resist the urge a moment longer, he starts to sway with you in time with the music, melting into the most perfect slow dance on a stage with an audience of thousands, but feeling like the only two souls in the universe.

When the song draws to a close with notes that have you ascending to an astral plane, the crowd screams with enthusiasm like never before, and Michael lowers his microphone. Wrapping both arms around your waist at long last, he leans to your ear to ensure that you can hear him.

“I prayed I’d see you again.” He tells you, his voice so sincere.

“You must be on pretty good terms with God, then.” It’s all you can do to prevent yourself from collapsing in his arms at words like the ones he just spoke.

“I think I must be.” Michael chuckles. “Now, I owe him more than ever.” His arms tighten around your waist, and your heart splutters in your chest.

Knowing that this moment is one that needs to be put on hold for now, Michael sighs, moving one hand to hold the back of your head.

“Would you mind waiting for me, backstage?” He wonders, and when you shake your head into the crook of his neck, his entire body relaxes with relief.

“See you after. Break a leg.” You wish Michael luck, surprising him with a kiss on his cheek and then stepping away from him.

His hand trails down your arm, to your wrist, and holds your hand for every microsecond he can until you slip from his grasp, but his smile is unwavering. Michael watches you leave, waiting until you’re safely situated backstage with his best security guard at your side, and then he blows you a kiss that you catch in an instant. With an effortless, expert kick in the air, Michael breaks into his next song. And he cant help looking over at you longingly every so often, just to check the perfect vision of you is still there, still waiting for him. Still smiling at him.

#michael jackson x reader #michael jackson imagine #fanfic #fanfiction #imagine #imagines #x reader #headcannon #headcannons

[echo]

this is a response to @anarcho-yorpism's tag for me in this post. i'm not directly rbing bc that post is long and it has a lot going on in the notes.

anyway please note all of my responses here are my own, and not representative of Staff or tumblr. i am not T&S and have zero power to make any moderation decisions here.

with that disclaimer:

Predstrogen received a message from Tumblr saying she was banned for "sexual content". If she was not, why was she told this, why were her transition photos removed, and why has she still not been told the actual reason? (I understand not making it public, but it is your policy to tell the user) If she was, what was this sexual content, if not her transition timeline?

i can't really directly answer this for few reasons. firstly, i feel that staff shouldn't talk about her anymore bc i feel this continued controversy will only attract more harassment for her on other platforms.

secondly, as a low-level staffer talking about moderation decisions can get me, y'know, fired. i'd prefer not to do that.

also just like... i want to avoid getting into a narrative of "well she did bad things so she deserves it" or whatever. idc if she broke the rules or not, she didn't deserve what happened.

i know this isn't terribly satisfying to hear, but i'd like to be honest about why i'm not saying more at least.

If you can't answerblegal questions, ignore this question: The NYCLU settlement agreed that Tumblr would fix its moderation so it targeted transfem users less. Why has there been no comment on the settlement and actions taken since? There could genuinely be a large legal case against Tumblr after this, and I love this site and don't want that to happen. Also, wasn't it illegal under GDPR to release her usernames?

i'm not able to answer legal questions. i don't know the exact text of the agreement, but it mostly boiled down to some training and stuff from my personal experience there.

however not as a staffer but as NYC trans human: i would not put a ton of faith in the NYCCHR. they have some noble goals but they are a chronically underfunded city agency that in practice does very little to curb real-world violence against marginalized people. i tried to use them myself when my landlord was kicking me out right after i had surgery and they didn't even get back to me until months after everything resolved. nobody i know in the community out here has been helped by them off the top of my head.

i have sincere doubts in relying on the state to help people here.

A lot of transfem users don't like vague language like "prioritize", especially given point 2 and Matt's statement that improving moderation was not on the agenda. I understand you can't reveal company secrets in an already risky post, but we would like to see the specific actions taken after this, given a lot of broken trust by what @\photomatt has said. Are any of the trans women banned recently for "sexual content" going to have their accounts restored?

i don't know. i'm pushing internally for at least a review of everyone suspended to see if the less egregious stuff can be reversed. but like i said, i don't have a ton of power as i'm not in charge of anything.

and yeah, "prioritize" is vague corpo-speak. i know some stuff is shifting internally and what we said does match what is happening inside. but also... i've been disappointed before.

i can say i'm tentatively optimistic. people are responding seriously, and being asked our opinions for once is pretty nice. but also, systemic stuff is hard. i trust in my fellow workers and i'll continue to fight until i can't anymore.

so... yeah. i genuinely wish i can be more informative here, but what we wrote (and i want to emphasize we here, it was not just me by any stretch!!) is what we can say in an official capacity.

i'm just frustrated, tired, angry, depressed... and also weirdly hopeful?

#me #asks #staff info

[sometimes-men-need-help-too]

Out of curiosity, why are you anti feminist? your whole set up here is kind of odd to me but this specifically baffles me (not out of hate or anything, just genuine ‘what is happening here’ energy). Feminism is just the supporting of gender equality so I don’t understand

-sincerely, some random feminist dude on the internet

Also, I hope your father is okay

Regarding my dad--thank you. The masses turned out not to be cancerous and he had his surgery and is all good now!

Onto the rest:

I'm curious what you mean by your whole set up here is kind of odd to me. Why is it odd?

Feminism is just the supporting of gender equality so I don’t understand

That may be what it technically means, but how people are upholding the movements makes me question it. And I'm not the only one. While I don't view all feminists negatively, I think quite a few have this distorted view of what equality is.

First off, I disagree that feminism as a movement cares about men's issues as much as they claim to. That's not to say that feminists as a whole don't care, because there are those that do and that's great. But they'll often say that feminism is for men too, that they've done more for men's rights than the men's rights movement has, etc. But then they'll immediately contradict this. Consider the reaction that you'll see if men's issues are brought up. If you don't have a problem with it, then you shouldn't be getting angry. But that's what happens. We're told that women suffer more on X issue (whether that is true or not, because sometimes the research is skewed) so they should be our priority. We're also told that it's not a woman's job to fix men and their issues. But that's not what majority of us, I'd say, are seeking. I know I want acknowledgment of these issues. I want there to be less hypocrisy and double standards. I don't think that's too much to ask for.

There's far too much pushback against criticism and questions. Now granted, this may not represent everyone's experiences and I get that. But it's been mine and it's something I've seen on various posts online. I understand that they probably get plenty of questions that are not in good faith, they probably get plenty of assumptions too. I get that. I've dealt with that as well. But there can't be this unwillingness to engage with people unless they agree with you. There can't be an unwillingness to answer questions because you* think it's not your job to educate them. You have to understand how that looks. It looks like you can't properly articulate your point, it looks like you don't have much of a point and it weakens your group and what you stand for.

There's a lack of accountability. I know that with a movement as big as this, it's not something that can be easily wrangled up and fixed. I'm not looking for perfection. What am I looking for more feminists to acknowledge the problems within the feminism movement. Oftentimes, this doesn't happen. I'm told that I simply do not understand feminism and what it's truly about. If I give an example of something that I find to be a problem, I'm usually told those aren't "real feminists." That just feels like a huge cop out. You can't just say that those people aren't feminists because it doesn't erase what's happening. It doesn't erase the terrible things they say. It doesn't erase what we're seeing on those social media pages. Those people will still see themselves as feminists. They'll still keep saying what they're saying while packaging it as feminism. Instead of trying to pretend that they're not part of the movement, there should be more effort in trying to combating that. Speak up. Speak up against the hypocrisy (example: body shaming is bad but penis shaming is different because with how you're acting, you probably have a small penis so it's okay. Or denying it altogether by claiming that only men care about their size).

I want to go back to my first point-I didn't want to make it too long. Men are told conflicting things about their own issues. They'll be told that if they want X issue to be discussed then they need to go make their own post instead of expecting feminists to do it. Okay, so they make their own post but suddenly that's not alright either. That's taken as a sign that they don't care about women's issues. For example, by talking about false accusations, you don't care about actual rape victims or you see all women as liars. That isn't true. And while I don't believe that false accusations occur as little as 2%, 2% isn't zero. There are still men that are suffering and having their lives turned upside down by those accusations. They don't simply cease to happen just because you don't talk about them. Talking about false accusations don't hurt rape victims. False accusations hurt rape victims.

I could go on. But I think this is enough. I hope this answers your question, though I can elaborate further if you wish

*I don't mean you. I just mean in general

#mens rights #answered asks

[sushisocks]

HAPPIEST SEAN HEADCANON AND SADDEST SEAN HEADCANON???

OOOHHHHH ANON, WE ARE IN IT NOW!!!! Good question, good question indeed!! I shall answer to the best of my ability!!!!!

I'll be frank, I had a harder time thinking of my happiest HC than my saddest one, and IDK what that says about me lmaoo but here we are!!

I have a lot of happy HCs for Sean!! The trouble was picking out my happiest among them, bcz some are more silly/funny - like a happy memory or experience I think he would have! - while others are more like. this is something about him which I think is a good/happy thing and that makes me happy. So I'm gonna go with the latter one here, just bcz the red thread of this post will be more cohesive that way njhbjnnbh

So, the HC which makes me the happiest, is supported by a lot of canon, and an aspect of Sean which initially drew me towards him. And it's his genuine interest in people, and his appreciation of them!! I think, despite absolutely having been somewhat disillusioned by the world at large and the oppressive systemic powers which rule it, Sean meets the individual human with incredible good faith!! By that I mean, I think he does believe he has common ground with most people, just by virtue of being alive and surviving in the world, and that is just his approach to everyone he meets in life. There is a sincere sense of empathy and good will in him, and he's not above being proven wrong or staying stuck in a bad opinion of someone. Not that he's above disliking people (we see this clearly with Micah lol), it's just that he's the type to be willing to sit down and have a drink and conversation with almost everyone and anyone.

THAT, to me, says an incredible amount about what Sean thinks of humanity at large, and is why I have this HC of him. And I, personally, as someone who also likes to believe in the good in people and meet them with good faith, have always found this quality of Sean's very appealing!! So it makes me happy to think about, that his exuberance around others actually runs that deep!!!

My SADDEST HC is pretty easy to pick out, as the core of a lot of my sad Sean HC's & thoughts come from the idea that he has self-esteem through the damn floor, similar to Arthur, which he deals with differently - desperately seeking to disprove those thoughts and ideas in what ways he can. It's about him putting out so much affection into the world in the hopes of receiving just a little bit back (and still never expecting it; accepting rejections and unkind comments easily and with a smile because that is what he expects), it's about his need to be friendly & on speaking terms with everyone in camp (save those whose regard he deems unneeded; Micah, and Kieran before realizing he's a victim to circumstance, remedying his approach to him accordingly) and how QUICK he is to step back and try to fix the situation when he realizes he's offended someone in camp.

I think Sean has always read to me as someone who struggles to not only sit still, but to sit with himself, with his own thoughts. Because, how long do you think it takes for him to start spiraling? How long does it take before he starts wondering if there's something he could've done to save his father - starts blaming himself for Darragh's death? How long before the things he was told in reform school - about his intelligence, his worth, starts rearing its head again? It all comes down to a low sense of self esteem, I think, which he seeks to not let himself get stuck on. And that drives a lot of my other sad/angsty Sean HCs, lol!

Thank you for this ask, anon!! It was a lot of fun to think about, though it def took me a lil while to settle on either!! I hope you enjoy my answers ;;w;;

#i also have a hc of him being good with animals. like we know he's good with kids #but i think he's good with animals too like pets specifically #and that makes me happy lol #anywayyyyy #teki talks #sean macguire #rdr2 #red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 meta #rdr2 headcanons #also a specific sad hc i got is #you know that mouth harp he has? yeah that one? he got it from his dad 👍 thanks for coming to my ted talk #asks #rdr asks #meta asks

[scoobydoodean]

I see this held up as major proof of Dean's badness, but couldn't it also be proof of Cas having faith Dean can get past anything without Cas having to change his behavior? The way it's structured the onus is on DEAN to work through it, not others to change or make amends. ---- CASTIEL: You know, Dean, he – he feels things more acutely than any human I've ever known. So it's possible he could work through this. One day, he may explode and let it all out and breathe deeply and move on.

I see what you mean in a general sense, and it's extremely possible that Cas is thinking about his own past fights with Dean and Dean forgiving him, and from the perspective of the critique you have in mind that you're refuting, I agree. But of course deancrit casgirls will forever insist that Cas has never in his life done anything harmful to Dean either accidentally or on purpose, so any time Dean might dare try to hold him accountable for anything, he's actually just making shit up and being toxic and controlling, so here Cas is just apologizing for his own abusive relationship. You can only get their take by being deliberately obtuse/disingenuous.

That said, the context of that line (from 15.13 "Destinty's Child") is Cas answering soulless Jack's question about whether Dean will eventually forgive him for murdering Mary.

CASTIEL: Hey, Jack. JACK: Cas, you know what's good about being dead? CASTIEL: Uh, as I recall, very little. JACK: Well, when you come back, you – you really get into all that life is. Hot, cold, sweet, spicy, funny, scary. CASTIEL: And are you? "Into it"? JACK: I want to be. But I don't... feel things the way I used to. Before I lost my... CASTIEL: Your soul. JACK: I used to feel things. In my bones. It was glorious, and sometimes unbearable. But I felt them. Now, I understand joy or sadness, but... I know those things aren't in me. I understand why Sam and Dean were angered by what happened to Mary... CASTIEL: By what you did to Mary. JACK: Yes. I see that I've caused them pain. And it's clear that things have changed. Especially with – with Dean. Will he ever forgive me? CASTIEL: You know, Dean, he – he feels things more acutely than any human I've ever known. So it's possible he could work through this. One day, he may explode and let it all out and breathe deeply and move on. JACK: How long will that take? CASTIEL: I don't know.

And yeah—I have seen people refer to Cas's little speech here as "condoning child abuse" and other bullshit. Because how DARE Dean not forgive soulless Jack for murdering his mother (something soulless Jack is unable to actually really acknowledge he did). I mean clearly any time someone murders your mom because she made them mad and threatened their sense of security by asking if they're okay and saying their concerning actions can’t stay a secret… That’s just natural understandable stuff! You need to forgive the person who murdered her instantly and if you don’t idk you’re kinda overreacting don’t you think? :/ I mean your mom probably deserved it kind of anyway for reading the room so wrong and talking about getting a person help. And I mean if you don't forgive the person who killed your mom or do anything trying to stop them from hurting more people you're really a child abuser... toward an adult... who murdered your mother in cold blood and is unable to even understand why it was wrong in any sense other than an intellectual one like he read it from a book... preferring to refer to it as "What happened to Mary" instead of acknowledge it as something he himself did because he was mad and felt threatened—which is what he circled back to in "Jack In The Box" too. It's only when Jack gets his soul back that he's able to actually feel true empathy, acknowledge his real actions and the gravity of them, and give an actual sincere apology. Because his soul is actually important—something this fandom refuses, by and large, to notice.

Anyway, this fandom's take on Mary's murder and soulless Jack vs. regular Jack is overwhelmingly a bag of wet third grader vomit and feces so what can one expect?

#mail #soulless jack killing mary is popularly regarded as an accident... but it's pretty transparent that it wasn't? #or rather it was on purpose but he regretted it the second after it happened. but that is still. Something he chose to do. Not an accident. #He saw her as a threat to his relationship with Sam and Dean and he acted. #This is indicated right before he kills her. He admits it outright also right before calling it an accident which unravels that whole idea. #It wasn’t pre-meditated but in that moment he wanted her to die. She was going to tell everyone there was something wrong with him. #And he did not want that. #It wasn't an accident and he can't handle his own culpability because it threatens his belief that he can make things be the way they were #before it happened. Which is why he killed her to begin with! He didn't want anyone to know/think anything was wrong with him! #And just like soulless Jack just wants everyone to forget about it and act like nothing happened and he's fine... #Many fans want Dean to forget about it. They want Dean to believe and say and feel and think that Mary did not matter. #And that being upset at her literal murder (even if it was an accident—which it was not) is bad and evil. #And Sam's great capacity for numbness (which we already saw in season 13) strengthen's their own lack of empathy for Dean #in a situation that in real life they would understand unless they're actual psychopaths. #It's only because Dean is a character in a narrative representing the need/capacity to be loved and accepted at all #that these demands that his thoughts and feelings bend to everyone else's emotional needs become so disturbingly intrusive #dont feed the stans after midnight #and cas is my best friend #hot girl cas

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Do I even need to introduce myself this time?

Fuck it, it seems people will assume the worst in me, so this will be my last bit of defending myself.

This is why I'm on anon, because I was afraid I'd say one wrong word and people would latch onto it.

I'm sorry I didn't see how invasive the question was to people.

I am not transphobic. What I meant by the "immune" thing was that I'd eat his pussy out as much as I'd eat her pussy out as much as their. I don't factor if someone is trans or not, like I don't factor if they're a guy or not. It does not make a difference to me.

Something to be respected? Absolutely. Something that would be a turn off? No.

I didn't mean to hurt/insult anyone. I didn't mean to sound like that. I didn't mean to intrude. I thought my, how does it go, local friendly sex witch would be able to explain to me something that I didn't understand, or explain kindly why that's not good of me to ask.

Sorry I'm bad with words and conveying meaning. And the wonderful situation I am in now is that if I explain that that is due to my autism, people would accuse me of making up excuses. Because that's how it goes, even on "the autism website".

I just wanted to be able to see others' perspective. I just wanted to understand. Hell, I was even grateful you engaged back in what I thought was good faith.

I am trying to be a good person, as much as I can. Maybe I'm not successful. That's not up to me to decide. But I try. And I'm sorry I failed this time.

I didn't know. I wanted to know. I didn't know it was wrong to want to know.

So yeah. No more from me. Hopefully this... Saga ends here. But I have a feeling it won't, that I'll go down as that Problematic Anon that will be mocked for years. I have a feeling people will assume the worst in me, accuse me of things I never said, and I'll just have to sit down and take it, because how dare I be wrong on tumblr, how dare I seek insights from other people, how dare I ask?

So yeah. Ignore this ask if you want. Delete it, if you want to. Answer it and poke holes and break down every word and twist it and turn me into a monster. I don't care anymore.

Singed, confused, corrected, burned at the stake, bi person

so a fun thing is that asking an innocently insensitive question, which you did, is actually a fine and totally normal and even good thing to do, especially when doing it in a setting like my blog where that's, you know, the order of the day

what is actually a huge dick move is deciding that you are being burned at the stake when people point out how your questions were harmful to them, the people you were asking questions about. receiving feedback you don't like is a necessary part of asking questions, because if you aren't open to that you're not asking in good faith.

it's also, hi, sorry for saying this, fucking ludicrous to claim that you have to "sit down and take it" because you are asking anonymously! no one knows who you are! this will have absolutely zero long-term repercussions on you! by all means, continue blogging as usual!

I sincerely want the best for you, and that does include unlearning this massive victim complex you're currently operating with.

[rosalind-hawkins]

Ryo for the meme?

So sorry for the delay on this one! I kept having issues with my draft not saving and needing to start over.

I sincerely think Ryou was my first favorite character from Yugioh, even before Kaiba, if you can believe it.

1. Why do you like or dislike this character?

When I was first introduced to Yugioh, what struck me about him and made me latch onto him was the obvious emotional pain. At the time I was just starting to figure out my own depression and anxiety that my family was oblivious to, and I think I just related to that lack of support. I guess this is the answer for Question 25.

2. Favorite canon thing about this character?

How excited her gets about food, actually. He and Joey are probably almost equally enthusiastic about it, and it's adorable.

3. Least favorite canon thing about this character?

How they changed his dad in DSOD. I preferred it when the dad was an oblivious nerd just trying to give his son a cool gift instead of being a power-hungry weirdo.

4. If you could put this character in any other media, be it a book, a movie, anything, what would you put them in?

This probably sounds silly, but I want him living his best life in a Pokemon game with a team that he's bonded to, getting to live an RPG adventure just like Monster World, but a little bit safer. I want him taking a nap leaning on his Altaria with an Absol curled up at his feet, looking like it's asleep but keep watching. And don't forget his floaty little Shuppets hovering about.

5. What's the first song that comes to mind when you think about them?

Friend of Foe by t.A.T.u. because I watched so many AMVs at the time that I was introduced to Yugioh. The song captures his poignant and desperate confusion with his own life and identity.

6. What's something you have in common with this character?

Honestly, aside from Question 1, nothing specific comes to mind aside from general nerdiness. I used to have a bad sweet tooth, like I imagine he does, but not so much anymore.

7. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like?

Making him a sweet spooky boi with 27 tarot card decks at home that dresses like he's going to bible study. Also, a big one is giving him visible scars from all the stuff Y B has put him through: the arm, the left hand, the chest.

8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

I wouldn't say despise. Not sure I'd say I dislike anything the fandom does with him too much

9. Could you be roommates with this character?

I imagine he's a night owl, so as long as he keeps things quiet at night, we wouldn't have a problem.

10. Could you be best friends with this character?

Definitely! We could probably introvert in the room together, doing our own things, or chat about art.

11. Would you date this character?

Again, I'm married, but if I had the chance and Y B was gone for good, absolutely.

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?

I've actually always headcanoned that Ryou had a Catholic mom and she tried to pass on her faith to him, but it didn't fully stick, necessarily. This isn't from nowhere, I swear. In the church scene in season five, in the English dub, Ryou goes into the church saying "I should be safe in here" after running from a disembodied voice. I think that means that he must have some small level of faith if he thinks the church itself will ward off the evil.

13. What's an emoji, an emoticon and/or any symbol that reminds you of this character or you think the character would use a lot?

🥰👀🙏🤷‍♀️🤔

14. Assign a fashion aesthetic to this character.

Galaxy Goth - Give him star earrings and glittery platform boots. Give him galaxy print leggings and an illusion neckline shirt with sheer/lacy sleeves. 👌👌👌👌👌✨✨✨✨✨✨ Hell, make it femboy too, he could rock that so hard. Make it pastel galaxy goth, it works just as well. Dress this boy up.

15. What's your favorite ship for this character? (Doesn't matter if it's canon or not.)

You know I can't ever just pick one ship. I'm a multishipper. It's never just one.

Euroshipping, Minorshipping, and Puffshipping are my top three.

Mumbleshipping, Rollshipping, and Teaseshipping are my top poly ships for him.

Honorable mention to Graceshipping, cause I think he and Ishizu could be so damn sweet together, and that's my #1 straight ship for him.

16. What's your least favorite ship for this character?

Tendershipping, actually. I don't hate on it or people who like it, and I have a soft spot for some of his ships, but I just can't see Yami Bakura the way a lot of the fandom sees him, and that's where it comes from. I don't wanna get into it because this isn't a Y B post. I'll just leave it at that. No hate here, just a different perspective.

17. What's a ship for this character you don't hate but it's not your favorite that you're fine with?

Deathshipping. I can appreciate some of the art and some of the sillier conceptions of this ship, but I'm not personally into it.

18. How about a relationship they have in canon with another character that you admire?

I haven't read the manga, but I've seen enough moments from it of Ryou and Joey together (included what looked like stealing a camel together), and their bond in DSOD was too adorable. It made me so happy to finally see somebody standing up for Ryou.

19. How about a relationship they have in canon that you don't like?

Obviously I wish he didn't get so roughed up by Y B.

20. Which other character is the ideal best friend for this character, the amount of screentime they share doesn't matter?

Normally I'd leave ship characters out of it, but I can't help it: Ishizu, Joey, and Duke are my top picks here.

21. If you're a fic writer and have written for this character, what's your favorite thing to do when you're writing for this character? What's something you don't like?

I play around with different versions of what's Ryou's mentality can be like after Bakura is gone and what the lasting impact is. There's a lot of options there, which is why I don't write just one version of Ryou.

22. If you're a fic reader, what's something you like in fics when it comes to this character? Something you don't like?

There's a lot of things that people do with him. I love when people flesh out his relationship with his family and

23. Favorite picture of this character?

EVERY PICTURE HE IS PRECIOUS

But him with the banana.

24. What other character from another fandom of yours that reminds you of them?

Okay, gonna try to stick to canon personality with this.

From Touken Ranbu, Nikkari Aoe. He seems sweet and normal on the surface, and then he'll suddenly say the weirdest occult crap to you with the most normal smile and you just want to back away slowly. And then you realize, oh dear this man's a weirdo. An absolute weirdo. (He's the one that can see ghosts after all, there's a real connection over that.) (He gets two gifs because you need to understand what a weirdo he is.)

From UtaPri, we've got Shion from Heavens. He's a quiet shy boy on the surface with soulful eyes, but still waters run deep. I feel like they're both easy to underestimate.

And from Nanbaka, I can't really explain why, I always associated him with Seitarou Tanabata. Maybe because they share the spiky Christmas tree hair, idk. Maybe I just think they'd be good friends.

25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now?

See Question 1.

26. FREEBIE QUESTION!!

This boy is helpless in the kitchen. He's gonna have to count on his partner to either cook for him or teach him how to cookl

#ryou bakura #bakura ryou #answered ask #ask #headcanon #kira-quartz

[colourcontest]

Could you please tag your Palestine posts? I get wanting a bigger reach, but constantly getting things about genocide on the site I use to escape from reality can be a bit jarring. Thanks!

I understand why you're asking for this, but the answer is no. If you don't want to see it, unfollow me. My reasoning is as follows:

If I were a victim of a genocide, I would not want people filtering away the posts informing people on how to save me and people like me.

As a white Brit, people like me are allowing this to happen. I cannot in good conscience do what they are doing.

You are on anon, which is… kinda suspicious tbh. I get being awkward about asking stuff off anon, but you could have DMed me or asked me in private. I'm generally a polite person imo, and I'd probably be more gentle if there was a person attached to the question. But I have no way to know that you aren't somebody who just… doesn't care about the genocide.

A lot of the posts are tagged by the OPs to gain more reach. Which means you could block the tags and they'd be hidden anyway if this was actually affecting you.

As I've already said, you can literally just unfollow me. This blog has been inactive for ages. You are missing out on exactly nothing.

I know I've been harsh here, and I don't like it. But there's a genocide going on right now and this is all I can do about it. There's something about the way that this ask is worded, along with the fact that you could filter this anyway, that makes me think that this is probably in bad faith.

If It isn't, I am sincerely sorry (/gen) and if you DM me or send me an ask off anon I can reply privately and try to explain myself in less-harsh words. But I don't have the patience right now for this.

#answered asks #Agh I hate myself for how rude this comes across but I just Can't. #There's a genocide going on and I understand wanting escapism but asking people to censor it? #Feels a little dodgy y'know. #My tone is all over the place here I'm sorry for that also

[mel-loly]

MELLL YOU ARE LITERALY THE BEST!! so sad that you had a bad day :((( you always deserve the best you are amazing even if you dont see that!! and i will always tell you how amazing you are even if you dont agree, im lucky yo have someone like you in my life/someone like you wanting to be with me and im super happy everytime you talk to me!!

answearing you question i am ok im just having a bit of a headache but i will be fine <3 ily!!!

I- I......I'm literally crying right now, and I'm REALLY not joking....My day really was pretty bad, I just didn't want to say that because I didn't want to worry you or something, the only thing I want rn and that I promised myself is to see you happy, to see you well, so- I... I just.. I love you so much, Mike, I love you so much that I think 30 or 40 minutes have gone by thanking God for having you here, being so kind and loving to me, and everything went in its time.. It may have taken a while, and that I have suffered because I really always loved you, but it was worth it, and I'm glad it was like this and not in a hurry, because of that we are now here, together! It may be platonically, but if you saw how happy I feel to be with you even in a different way, you would know too how happy I am to have received this ask after a very difficult day...

Thank you so much for everything, Mike, not only for sending me this ask of affection and love, but also for everything, for being who you are, for being faithful, for always being with me at any time, for being sincere and respectful to me also too.. Thank you a lot, for everything, I love you, Mike, and I love you for real, I don't love you for the way you treat me, but for who you are, for who you showed yourself to be and still show yourself to be someone more special than anything in my life, because you are amazing, someone who has always made me happy with everything you do, not EVERYTHING but you understand what I mean, right?? Lol- at least I'm sure that now I'm with the right person, and even with the person I always wanted to be with! Without lying- my dream was this, being with you, so.. Yeah, I'm super happy to be with you, and now I'm even happier to receive your affection so loved and kind, that I always love to receive, in a difficult day! Like- as I always say and God always knows I'm right, "you always make my days better". Anyways- thank you so much for everything Mike, you are amazing, with a big heart and very kind, I hope I can repay you all that affection when you need it too/or not need and want anyways! I know it won't be AS good as yours but I will always do my best to see you happy, I love you a lot, my special kind silly💛

Oh, I hope that in all this time it took me to answer you it has already improved a little, if not- I will pray for you! I hope everything goes well! ily a lot more!!! <3333

#peço mil desculpas pela demora e pelo baita texto melancólico como sempre- #é que hone realmente o meu dia não foi bom. então.. eu tô bem sentimental se é que você me entende... #mas mesmo assim de novo. muito obrigado por tudo! sem você me dizer tudo isso- eu provavelmente nem iria dormir direito-- #te amo muito. muito. muito. viu!?!!? muito obrigado. meu amor/p💛 #sweet asks #asks #king duo #melple #mike manple #manple the silly #manple creator #manple #not my oc #my beloved oc #mel creator #mel loly #my oc character #i'm mel and this is my blog✌️ #my art blog #art #my art #my art <3 #art mel #my art style #my platonic silly #chibi art

[llycaons]

ep41 (1/2): unironic 3zun shippers are so fucking stupid

I've always liked these water-carriers. not too heavy or bulky, but also probably not for more than one or two people

he's almost unrecognizable here. I don't know what it is about him

stupid idiot taking a bite that's way too big and needing to chew on it and looking stupid. you're on camera. take smaller bites you fool. look at yourself

worth noting that whatever grace he lacks in biting and chewing bread he makes up for tenfold in the speed and grace with which he stood and bowed. absolutely seamless

yeah this sucks. jgy genuinely does face harassment and discrimination from trueborn cultivators who enact violent classism and entitlement upon him

he LITERALLY didn't. you pieces of shit!

I don't agree with all of nmj's choices, because I think his evaluation of wen qing is narrow-minded and inflexible, but it's clear why he has a reputation for justice, why sl and xxc wanted to deliver to to him, and why lxc is friends with him

his robe here is so nice

still one of the funniest parts of the story. bro he literally saw you. and immediately with the trembling and the wide eyes and the denial. oh he's so good

yeah the things he throws out in desperate bids not to be killed...man will say ANYTHING

nmj putting together the pieces to declare this first-degree murder. correctly! I've seen AUs where he's a lawyer and I'd definitely prefer that or a detective to a cop

hm, a lawyer who goes to leather bars after hours. and the gym. yeah, I've got it all mapped out

hey now. this isn't fair. it's not like he paid all those people to talk shit about him. he may have played up his vulnerability in order to appeal to nmj and get protection from him, but is that really that bad?

actually wait this is so funny. nmj is like 'why the FUCK did you murder all these guys what's your game' and jgy is like trembling eyes full of unshed tears on his knees 'I am just grateful that....I got to meet you' you are such a bullshitter answer the question bitch!

DON'T SAY THAT NIE LACKEY. HE OBVIOUSLY CAN MURDER YOU. HE JUST KILLED YOUR CO-WORKER

I mean he didn't have to be such a huge dick about it and torment nmj like that or actually kill anyone? did he? he couldn't have just knocked them out?

I do wonder how much of his behavior is related to his resentment of the nies given that he started planning the murder of nmj very soon after this for no other reason than 'he got mad I murdered his commander and then kicked me out' dude he gave you a top political spot and then spared your life after murder what did you WANT

oh I know there's a shot just like this with lwj and wwx

yeah. god damn, jgy you are so so good at lying to people and gaining their trust and then stabbing them in the back

LOVE THIS SHOT. entering a brotherhood not out of camaraderie but to protect someone else who can't see what you can. sincere 3zun shippers are so stupid. nmj is never going to trust jgy again after even one lapse, he's there because he loves lxc and he wants to keep an eye on jgy. lxc loves both nmj and jgy, and has full faith in both of them. he's right about nmj, but he's a little love-drunk around jgy imo and jgy actively manipulates him further. jgy meanwhile is trying to get close to nmj to kill him and to lxc to use HIM for protection. it's delicious. I've said before that I think jgy is lying to lead lxc on, but nmj clearly hates him and doesn't trust him and he;s trying to murder nmj in turn for like, nothing. so yeah this would never romantically. obviously. it just goes against their characters far too much

his flirting is so funny. nmj is NOT pleased

whenever he says these things he like, readies himself for it then delivers the words he wants to say. like taking a breath and diving in. it's not something that I would comment on usually because some people do talk like that, but knowing he's lying make it seem that much more of a performance

cleansing is so so pretty but the evil version is very noticeably off...and like deliberately so. it SOUNDS evil. nmj. dude. you didn't hear it?

god he is so invested in his event planning

he's right though

YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE THERE. DUDE.

the fact that he's crying? dude. come on

#cql re-rewatch

[macstarli]

Different anon but curious how you'd respond to the criticisms that Logan has a drinking problem and would be a total hedonistic playboy alcoholic throughout his adult life with Rory and that Rory would cheat on him because she cheats on everyone and then lies to herself about it rather than being honest and taking responsibility? I love these two but these criticisms stick with me and make me worry they wouldn't be happy??

Hi there! So glad you decided to stop by. I took a bit of detour in the beginning, I hope you don’t mind or think I’m being condescending. This is just something that I think about a lot.

Because the first thing I think is actually important here, is that I think how we watch television is incredibly emotion driven and a lot of what we (or at least I) do afterwards is to intellectualize our emotional response by saying x is why I respond to that couple or z is why I don’t respond to that and that kind of removes me from the characters a bit and if I don’t like a character or I’m frustrated with them I’m really aware of their negative qualities. For example Rory and Lorelai tend to really, really frustrate me for a number of reasons and when I then go to re-watch the series it’s always nice to remember, that they also have plenty of really good qualities and are much more fully realized and complex character than they seem like in my head when they bug me. So if you’re talking with someone who responds negatively emotionally to Rory and Logan, they might have a lot of good reasons ready for why they respond that way and it’s going to be very focused on the negative and that means their read on that character is probably very biased towards reading even their more neutral moments in a negative way, because they are already annoyed with them. And you can’t really argue with that, because the bad moments do happen and you can’t really prove that if someone is attributing bad intentions to someone that they’re wrong. It’s just how that scene feels to them. And maybe it just doesn’t feel that way to you. Because I really do think it’s all about emotion. Especially in a visual medium like television where you can see the actors and how they portray those intentions like we do in real life. And I think we then try and back it up with examples from the text to say ‘I believe he’s sincere because he did y’ or ‘I don’t believe he’s sincere because he didn’t do a’. But the emotional response comes first I think. And our emotional responses will absolutely be very personal to who we are as a person, our likes, our dislikes, our preconceptions, our previous experiences and that means people will respond very differently to the same thing. And all of that is a very long way to say, there are lots of valid interpretations of a television show and I think sometimes when we talk about them too much we get too far removed from the actual characters and too stuck in the interpretation of them, either our own or someone elses. So if you’re really worried about whether they’d be happy or not and you haven’t watched the show in a while, maybe watch it again? Remind yourselves what those characters are actually like, including all the good stuff, and why you really like this couple and that your good faith reading of them is just as valid of them as someone else attributing loads of bad stuff to them.

Because my honest answer is, of course it is absolutely possible that Rory and Logan end up being the worst version of themselves. Because yes, they both have negative traits and behaviors and if they lean into that, they’ll become what I consider to be a worse human being. I don’t choose to believe that’s what happens, but nobody actually knows. I mean, they’re fictional, but they’re supposed to be humans like us and humans like us change and not always for the better. But there is no way I see that future as certainty for them or even a likely one.

For the question if Logan has a drinking problem, I think it kind of depends on how you define a drinking problem and about which time frame we’re talking. I’d say in Season 6 he’s definitely relying on alcohol as a coping mechanism regularly. He’s really unhappy about his future, he can feel the time running out until that future gets there and he responds by using alcohol to numb himself. That’s not healthy and I’d say definitely indicative of a problematic relationship with alcohol. I do not think we have ever seen anything in the show that indicates that he is an alcoholic. Now I do think, that if he were once again looking at a unhappy future that he didn’t feel in control of and he didn’t either find a different coping mechanism or a way to get back control of his life and turn it into something different, he might become an alcoholic, because he’s predisposed towards depending on alcohol as a way to cope. But again, I don’t think that’s the likely outcome. Based on what we’ve seen and who I think he is, I’d be much more certain, that he’d find a way to get out that situation and get back control over his life. And for that I think it’s important to remember, that he doesn’t really seem wildly unhappy during the revival. Working with his dad isn’t something I’d have chosen for him, but he seems okay with it and dealing with his dad, like he’s managed to come to a place of acceptance when it comes to his family, which is a fairly healthy place to be in. And here a lot of it depends on how you read the infamous engagement, which we don’t know a lot about, so no one can really be right or wrong about it. Now I’m not thrilled with the fact, that he’s okay with marrying a woman he doesn’t love, I want more for him. And if it can’t be Rory, I’d want him to be happy with someone else. But I guess since she’s his first love and it seems like he never quite managed to move on from that for years and years, eventually he gave up and just went with the family plan. Maybe because he does want a partner and children, even if it isn’t with the woman he’s in love with and he doesn’t see that as an option anymore. Either way, I don’t think he’d be getting married if he hadn’t decided he was okay with it. It’s not what he really wants, but he can’t have that anyway, so might as well do this. I don’t think he’s lost control of his life to someone else, although I do kind of hope, that maybe finally really closing the door on Rory (or so he thinks) shakes him up a little bit and makes him think about what he wants out of life, because while I do think he is in control of his life, I do also think he’s lying to himself a bit, when he thinks he wants a life that doesn’t involve being wholeheartedly in a relationship with the person he’s sharing his life with. And I think loosing Rory (again) and maybe the idea of something, somehow in some future (maybe just doing what they’re doing for the rest of their lives), which was kind of filling that place in his life, wakes him up to the fact that his life is missing something he really wants out of it.

Personally I don’t believe that he would ever marry a woman under the pretense of being madly in love with her, when he’s very clearly not, so I don’t think him and Odette a love match on either side. I think he would definitely know how cruel that would be towards her. And I also don’t think we have any kind of definitive proof that he’s trying to hide Rory. He’s got her boxes in his apartment, she stays over frequently, he goes out to the family restaurant with her and just out in general, he talks with her on the phone with Odette asleep next to him. Yes, he goes to the balcony when Odette calls his name when Rory ends things, but I don’t think that means he’s definitely hiding something. Even if Odette knows about Rory, I can understand why he’d still want privacy for what is clearly an emotional phone call. So I also don’t think the fact that he’s cheating on her means he would absolutely also cheat on Rory. Just like the bridesmaid thing isn’t somehow proof, that he would definitely cheat on Rory.

Being willing to “cheat” (if you can even still call it that) in a relationship where both are okay with cheating is very different from cheating on a partner who you’ve promised monogamy to. The second is a betrayal of your partner and the first one isn’t. And I don’t think we’ve seen any evidence that Logan think it’s okay to betray your partners trust. It’s why during the bridesmaid fight he was so vehement, that he didn’t think they were still together when it happened. Because he wouldn’t have done it, if he’d thought that. He knows cheating is wrong in a monogamous relationshop, he says himself he had no inclination to cheat and I have no reason to believe he was lying when he said that. In fact, I really believe him when he says, that sleeping with the bridesmaid wasn’t some thing about finally being free and getting to do what he wants, it was about coping with a break-up that really hurt him. Because that what his coping mechanisms were for a very long time. Alcohol, parties and sleeping with woman. Not exactly healthy, but hey, lots of coping mechanisms aren’t healthy. And since he was dealing with a break-up, it makes doubly sense that he’d think that getting this thing (sleeping with other woman) back, that he’d always enjoyed before, would make him feel better about loosing Rory. There’s a reason he was reluctant to get in a relationship in the first place, he firmly believed that being free to sleep around was what he wanted out of life and there’s nothing wrong with that and it’s why he avoided commitment. Because again, he knows it’s wrong to cheat in a committed relationship and he has no interest in lying to someone about his intentions and hurting them in the process. And I think it’s actually really important that once he did commit, he was all in. I don’t think we ever really get any sense from him, that he struggles with being held back by his relationship or that he misses being able to sleep around. Not even before the first break-up, before he actually does go back to that and learns “oh shit, this is no fun anymore, I just really want to get back together with Rory” and he then has proof, that the life he currently has is exactly what he wants and there’s nothing there for him anymore, even before all of that, I don’t think we ever see any sign of him thinking he’s missing out on something. So no, I don’t see anything that means Logan is destined to cheat on any partner he’s ever gonna have or even that it’s likely that he would cheat in a relationship with a partner he has committed to monogamously. He knows it wrong, he doesn’t want to hurt his partner and I don’t think sleeping with lots of woman even holds any appeal to him so there isn’t any kind of interest in the first place. He’s been there, done that. He knows there’s nothing there for him.

None of that means, that I can’t see any future where he feels stuck for some reason in an unhappy marriage and falls back into old coping mechanisms (not habits, that’s different) like alcohol and sleeping with woman and even justifies it to himself, if he feels betrayed by his partner or that they’re the reason he’s stuck in this mess. He’s human and we know that these are things he seeks comfort in, so it could happen. I just don’t think it’s all that likely he’d let himself get stuck in circumstances that would bring his worst traits to the front. He knows he’s felt stuck before. For a very, very long time with his family. And that feeling of being stuck and no in control of his own life definitely brought out some not great behavior patterns. But he realized he could get out. He took responsibility and he held himself accountable and I don’t think he has any intention of getting stuck again, because he knows he doesn’t want to feel like that again or fall back into those behaviors. We all have a whole bunch of positive and negative traits. And we probably all know that certain situations don’t exactly bring out the best in us. I think Logan knows who he wants to be and he knows what doesn’t feel right and I think he’d work to get out a situation that made him feel like that.

Now, Rory… Yes, there is a pattern there of Rory sticking her head in the sand when it comes to the end of a relationship. I’m trying really hard to think of a time she actually ends a relationship herself and I can’t think of anything. Maybe the end of Season 3 when she tells Jess to stop calling? Granted, the relationship was already pretty over at that point, but still, she drew the final line under it. And I think that’s actually kind of significant since he’s also the only boyfriend, she then never actually goes back to. But yeah, the Dean/Jess debacle, kind of the Dean/Logan thing, where she again just drags things out until her boyfriend ends things for her, definitely the Logan/Jess thing. And it actually really bothers me, that we never see that get properly dealt with. It all gets swept up in the accident and Rory apologizes (not really for her behavior, but for letting him leave, which what?), Logan also apologizes and tells her it’s all his fault anyway and she just lets things end there and he apparently never finds out what she did. After the huge fit she threw about him not telling her about the bridesmaid, she just never tells him about this. I don’t love it.

Oh, and I’m not gonna talk about her sleeping with Dean while he’s married, because I don’t think actually think the fact that she can rationalize away someone elses promises is all that indicative of her willingness to break promises that she made herself. I think that’s a very different thing.

So, in all fairness in the grand scheme of things, I don’t think the Jess kiss matters that much. I think Logan deserves to know after all the shit that had just happened and it was definitely a cruel thing for Rory to do, because she absolutely could have stopped Jess when he leaned it, but she didn’t. She set out to punish Logan and used Jess in the process and that’s not a healthy thing to do. But when it comes to cheating, it kind shows that she isn’t actually all that likely to cheat. She was unhappy in her current relationship, she was mad as hell at her partner and she had a rational for justifying it to herself after the bridesmaids. If you’re likely to cheat under certain circumstances, those are pretty compelling circumstance. But it was one kiss, she didn’t enjoy it, she didn’t want anything more. Yes, it’s really sucky, that she thought that was line she could be okay with crossing, that she thought she could justify betraying her partner like that (because she told him they were back together, he had every reason to believe she was faithful to him and she knew it) but it turns out when it cames to it, she wasn’t actually okay with crossing that line. Because Rory has a habit of trying to think through her emotions, when most of the time that’s just not how emotions work. You can try to understand emotions by thinking about them, so you can do something about them, but you can’t really think “Well, this emotion doesn’t make any sense to me so I’m just gonna stop feeling it”. And I think that’s the bigger issue that the kiss was a symptom of.

Because if she’s that upset with Logan, she shouldn’t have gotten back together with him She should have stuck to her guns, said ‘yeah, I understand what you’re saying, it makes sense, but I’m still really mad and it still really hurts’. That’s valid. It’s okay that she was mad and feeling betrayed, even if Logan didn’t do something horrible. Emotions don’t have to make sense. But Rory went with it, because she thought she should be fine with it, so therefore she was fine with it and that meant getting back together with Logan, because she loves him. Rory’s not really at her best when she’s thinking about what she should be doing and feeling, rather than what she actually does feel and wants to be doing. Especially in her relationships. That’s why the Jess and Dean debacle happened. Because she thought she should be with Dean and therefore that’s what she was going to do and it was a huge mess for everyone involved. Because surprisingly having made a decision she doesn’t actually want to be making, she is then horrible at the follow through.

And that is definitely an issue and she should be working on that. And I know the revival doesn’t make it seem like she has, given the whole Paul thing. That also definitely makes her totally okay with cheating. And you can’t even try to argue she only does it, because it’s Logan, because there’s also the wookie. So I don’t actually have a great insight for Paul. The dinner at Lorelai’s makes it very clear, that he is serious about this relationship, that is also definitely long-term, and there is no reason that Rory should be this okay with just continuously ignoring this apparently committed, long-term boyfriend, except for the fact that they somehow also just never see each other, because I guess that’s funny? I’m not even sure, when he finally breaks-up with her in the end how long it’s been since they’ve spoken or seen each other. It can’t actually be a whole year, can it? Because if they hadn’t seen each other in a year and it took that long for him to dump her, that is not any kind of human behavior. Although that fits with a lot of that storyline. Anyway, I’m not going to say a lot about that relationship, because I don’t know what to say, other than I don’t think Rory considered herself to actually be in that relationship. Now it’s shitty, that she used him like that. That’s horrific behavior. She should have just ended things the moment she realized he was getting far more serious than she was. It’s horrible that she didn’t, because she apparently kept “forgetting” and just couldn’t be bothered to make this a priority for five minutes. I really don’t know what to say about any of that. The one thing I can say is that hopefully she will never again be able to delude herself into thinking that the fact, that she doesn’t consider herself to be in a relationship is a good enough reason to do whatever she wants even if she knows someone else has good reason to think they are in a relationship. Especially considering how hurt she was over the bridesmaid, where Logan (unlike herself) had a pretty good reason to believe he actually wasn’t in a relationship any longer.

The good news is that I don’t think Logan would ever put up with Rory and Paul’s non-relationship relationship without talking with her about her obvious lack of commitment to that relationship. To be fair, I don’t think anybody would. That was an insane storyline for a stupid non-funny joke. But either way, I don’t think Rory would behave that way in something she’d consider an actual relationship with someone she considers an actual boyfriend and Logan would definitely notice if she did and end things in a timely fashion, because if he considers himself her boyfriend, he’s actually going to, you know, want to see her occasionally and talk about their future. It’s definitely not progressing to an unhappy marriage, because he would never ask if she was acting that way and Rory would never say yes if that’s how she felt about him.

The other good news is that Logan calls her on her shit. I’d say the most dangerous time for them when it comes to cheating was when Rory was freezing him out after the bridesmaid fight. Not just because of what happens with Jess, though like I said, if you’re going to rationalize and justify cheating, those were the circumstances to do that in, but also because this is Rory’s pattern. She stays in a relationship that she doesn’t actually want to be in at that moment and because she doesn’t leave people, she drags things out until she meets someone else and then at the very least emotional cheating is going on, which means physical cheating is much more likely to “just happen”. This is what happens with Dean and Jess and although it doesn’t get that far, because Dean ends things (again), it kind of happens with Dean and Logan and I’m guessing it’s what most people mean when they say Rory is going to cheat on Logan. That things are going to get hard, she’s going to want out but not actually get out, someone else “shiny” is going to come along and then she’s gonna cheat.

And it would be good, if Rory learned to break that pattern by herself by just getting out when she wants get out. Or maybe even learn to voice her issues in such a way, that they can try and work through them, before it gets to the point of her wanting to leave. Because in all honesty, other than maybe the end of Season 7, Rory doesn’t ever really want to leave Logan. Even with the bridesmaid, she’s angry and she’s hurt, but that’s because she loves him and she does want to be with him. It just hurts so much, that in that moment she maybe shouldn’t be. And at the end of Season 7, she still doesn’t actually want to leave him, she’s just not capable of giving him the relationship he needs so she can’t keep him. Even in the revival she is obviously still in love with him. And this is not some kind of fantasy. They’ve been together long term. They’ve lived together. They know each other, good and bad. I’d say, odds are, if they get back together they’ll keep wanting to be together.

And if Rory does end up doing her thing, of not talking about what’s bothering her like she did with the bridesmaids, Logan isn’t just gonna quietly let their relationship reach the point where he’s still in it, but she isn’t.

He very explicitly called her on it, when she pulled that shit after the bridesmaid and when she pretends there’s nothing to see in response, he’s not having it. Because he knows her and he knows their relationship and he definitely knows when something is wrong and he loves her and he wants to be with her, but he has no interest in letting her treat him like that, because there’s no point. Either he calls it out and they actually figure something out or he calls it out and things end, because it’s already over anyway.

Now we don’t actually know what would have happened after his trip if there hadn’t been that accident. I actually really would have liked to see that, though. I think Rory dealing with her complicated emotions and working through them either by herself or together as a couple is a much more interesting story than the quick fix of “I almost lost you”. So I’m guessing when I say, I think they would have been capable of working through that, but I actually think the way they handle their arguments in Season 7 bears me out on it. And I do think we see some of Rory being honest and taking responsility in her relationship especially during that season. I'll be honest, not quite as much as I'd like, but I think that's mostly because Season 6 really bugs me in that regard, but that was done and dealt with in Season 6, so it's actually good and healthy they don't keep digging it up. But still, Season 6 to me feels the most lobsided when it comes to their relationship and I think Season 7 shows some growth for both of them, which is a good sign for their future.

So yeah, I think they’ve got a decent foundation to work with and I don’t think if they got back together an unhappy marriage with lots of cheating and alcohol is in any way an inevitability. I hope this really, really long answer (sorry) is at least kind of what you were hoping for with your ask.

#long #ask #rory x logan #logan x rory #gilmore girls

[flhoarder]

Let’s call that more or less done. I will still direct people to my response post and answer questions, but rest assured, my terrible and juvenile sense of humour stays. I will explain what I actually think about something on a serious post if asked, but my stupid joke posts will stay stupid because I’m not smart. Things will get exaggerated, things will even be grotesquely exaggerated depending on who you ask. I apologise only for when I have a bad attitude or come across as rude, but I won’t apologise for what looks like a take on a post of mine when there’s not meant to be one. Yes if someone isn’t sure and asks, I will say “oh actually I didn’t intend for it to be taken seriously” and I hope that doesn’t come off as the Schrödinger’s asshole situation. It’s always been the case where most, if not all of my posts are just meant to entertain people who have similar sense of humour as I do (my condolences to these people /jk)

Nothing is ever going to dissuade me from thinking up stupid posts and post them. Some of them should probably stay in the draft, but hey, not everyone has common sense. Even people whose opinions are something like “you are going too far for a joke because it strays from canon too much”

Yes. My posts will stray from canon, sometimes too much, and they will continue to be that way. Yes. They are stupid. Yes. They are oversimplified and over exaggerated and do not faithfully represent canon whatsoever. It’s never meant to be informative, it’s never meant to be a thinly veiled opinion hidden behind a shitpost, and I will never claim otherwise. Sincerely, that’s where I’m at and that’s where I’m coming from consistently on this blog.

But it’s fine on both sides. It’s always a potentiality when you make posts in any fandom. People responding to my posts whatever their attitude may be, it’s all fine. If a post bothers or upsets you, it’s counterintuitive for many to assume OP comes from any place of good faith. And that’s why I respond to every post and try to explain myself. Most people don’t know about this account or what I post here, and not everyone has the same attitude as I do about certain things a large amount of people are passionate about. And that’s a good thing. This fandom benefits from serious discussions, I’m just not adding to that myself. I’ll try to gently guide away people who are a bit more serious than I am about these posts as soon as I can manage just to save everyone’s trouble (and this isn’t to be dismissive, I just don’t think it’s a good thing to let misunderstandings percolate for too long, I don’t imagine it to be nice when you draft out a discussion/argument/response to a post and OP comes back with a ‘LOL it’s not that deep bro’. That’s when it becomes disrespectful and exasperatingly so. Another thing is with the intention to only post shits and giggles, the last thing I want is for people to be riled up and get angry about them, it really is just not worth it. Frankly I also don’t want that level of stress for myself either. So I try to put my disclaimer in early before many spend their time on things like this.) and you are certainly welcome to block me if you don’t like what you see here. No offence taken, it’s not personal.

The only thing that is personal is if I myself come off as an asshole in any discussion and if I am, please let me know, I’ll fix that.

#I’ll keep this post up top for a little bit so anyone who cares sees it #my bullshit my rant i am the captain of my own ship and all that crap #oh this is for #de #de posts

[startledstars]

what I wish Christians would do

(thoughts from someone who used to think this was the dumbest religion ever)

there’s another post coming soon about my experiences with “Christians” as an immigrant living in the deep south

but basically, the sentence “Jesus Christ died for your sins” made my eyes roll back into my head to watch my own brain cells commit suicide

because it’s like... who’s he, what “sins” and I don’t remember asking him to do that, so thanks but no thanks

and when they said things like “Jesus is the son of God” and “the Bible is the word of God” all could hear were some dangerously arrogant, unverifiable statements. How could a book written by men be accredited to God? How could God, an incorporeal, asexual, disembodied force, have a child? (And where did they get off calling God “he”? Seems like some bs invented by misogynists who fail to see that women have created, sustained, and nurtured life for millennia.)

“Faith” was their explanation, but it was actually a mixture of fear and willful ignorance, because they thought they’d go to hell if they asked too many questions. They knew their beliefs couldn’t stand rigorous testing. Many, if not most professing Christians are guilty of not being able to defend their faith. If they read their bibles, they’d know that their own God commands them to “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect [...]”

another thing that irked me to no end was the cross itself. It’s a torture device, yet Christians seemed to venerate it. Those graven images of Jesus in nothing but a loincloth, each rib clearly visible (though there’s no mention of him starving before his crucifixion) made my stomach turn. Is this a religion that celebrates pain? Do they look at this image of a weak, miserable, emancipated man- a man barely looked human in his final hours, yet declared that he was God- and see their God? (Not to mention the commandment, “You shall not make for yourself a carved image.” Seriously. Have y’all ever cracked open your own books? If I sincerely believed there was a book written by God -the actually creator of the universe- I’d read that thing cover to cover multiple times.)

basically, I wish Christians lived out their faith. I wish that they’d embody kindness, peace, and forgiveness so consistently, the people around them would wonder how it was possible. “Where does their joy, hope, and love come from? Why do they seem so untouchable? How can I get what they have?” These are the questions the world should be asking about believers.

If the Christians I knew ten years ago educated themselves and gave real answers to my questions, my life might’ve changed a lot sooner. I sincerely wish I became a believer at the age of 15 instead of 24. I wish Christians tested their own faith more rigorously than anyone else would. I wish they’d ask themselves, and God, the most difficult questions imaginable. If God is who He says He is, He knows your questions before you ask, and had the answers ready before He created the universe. (Though the answers we receive in this life will not be perfect or complete, He gives enough for people to make a choice.)

So, here’s a little q&a that might help you understand the Jesus thing better.

Q: Pain. Suffering. Disappointment. Loneliness. Evil. Why God do this? >:-(

A: God (and only God) uses bad things to bring about a greater good. It’s easy to see when you’re older, how that boy who didn’t love you back would’ve been a terrible influence if you’d gotten together. How not getting into the school you wanted to was better for your future career. How suffering abuse made you a stronger, more empathetic person, able to withstand pressures that would destroy those who didn’t survive the same experiences. For evils where we can’t comprehend how anything good can come, God will find a way.

Q: Well that’s easy to say. God “uses” pain but He never had to suffer like the real victims do. Calling a God like that “loving” is either dumb or evil.

A: (though that wasn’t really a question lol) that’s where Jesus comes in. He suffered loneliness, betrayal, fear, disappointment, public humiliation, and every type of physical pain imaginable in his last hours. On top of that, while on the cross, he drank the cup of God’s wrath. (This is a little hard to wrap your head around) but basically, all the punishment that should justifiably go to the rapists, murders, liars, thieves, and every other sinner for every sin committed from the beginning to the end of time— Jesus experienced every last bit of it, alone, on the cross.

God is not far removed from pain, and God does not ask anyone to suffer anything He didn’t willingly suffer himself.

The Christian worldview answers the questions of pain and evil better than Buddhism (I tried to detach from suffering and desire and only ended up feeling dead inside. Human beings are meant to feel, want, suffer, and grow stronger) Islam (I compared Mohammed, who lived a wealthy, comfortable life and took many wives, the youngest of which was only nine years old when he consummated the marriage, to Jesus. I mean no disrespect to Muslims; this was simply part of my own process for testing my faith) Hinduism (the religion I was born into, with its myriad of stone and metal Gods who made me walk in endless circles with my hands palms pressed together but never answered a single prayer. The doctrine of Karma meant the beggars I saw as a child, some with their limbs cut off, were being punished for crimes committed in a past life they couldn’t remember.) Atheism (which believes in order arising from chaos, life from non-life, consciousness from ‘emergent properties,’ no objective right or wrong so why does anything matter, including pain?)

#spiritual awakening #spirituality #truth #new age #ascension #Jesus #God

[yhwhrulz]

Morning and Evening with A.W. Tozer Devotional for April 19

Tozer in the Morning God's Word Gives Light

"I'm sorry. . . . I'm a stranger here myself." That is the only honest answer. Others are sometimes given, but they are never valid answers. They spring out of pride or error or uncritical and wishful thinking, and they are not to be trusted. It is no good asking for information of another who is as ignorant as ourselves. We are all strangers in a strange world. Is our state hopeless then? Is no answer to be had? Must we live in a world we do not understand and go out into a future of dark uncertainty? No, thank God, things are not as bad as that. There is an answer. We can find light. Our questions have been answered. "From a child," wrote Paul to Timothy, "thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." It is the universal t estimony of the saints of the ages that when the light of the Scriptures enters, the darkness of spiritual ignorance vanishes. God's Word giveth light. It has answer for every qestion that matters. The merely curious question it ignores, but every real inquiry made by the sincere heart is met with full light. It is important that we search the Scriptures daily, and more important still that we approach them with faith and humility, bowing our hearts to their instructions and commands. Then through faith in Christ we cease to be strangers and become sons of God.

Tozer in the Evening In the Pursuit of God - Apprehending God

O taste and see.

Psalms 34:8

It was Canon Holmes, of India, who more than twenty-five years ago called attention to the inferential character of the average man's faith in God. To most people God is an inference, not a reality. He is a deduction from evidence which they consider adequate; but He remains personally unknown to the individual. He must be,' they say,therefore we believe He is.' Others do not go even so far as this; they know of Him only by hearsay. They have never bothered to think the matter out for themselves, but have heard about Him from others, and have put belief in Him into the back of their minds along with the various odds and ends that make up their total creed. To many others God is but an ideal, another name for goodness, or beauty, or truth; or He is law, or life, or the creative impulse back of the phenomena of existence. These notions about God are many and varied, but they who hold them have one thing in common: they do not know God in personal experience. The possibil ity of intimate acquaintance with Him has not entered their minds. While admitting His existence they do not think of Him as knowable in the sense that we know things or people.

Christians, to be sure, go further than this, at least in theory. Their creed requires them to believe in the personality of God, and they have been taught to pray, `Our Father, which art in heaven.' Now personality and fatherhood carry with them the idea of the possibility of personal acquaintance. This is admitted, I say, in theory, but for millions of Christians, nevertheless, God is no more real than He is to the non-Christian. They go through life trying to love an ideal and be loyal to a mere principle.

Over against all this cloudy vagueness stands the clear scriptural doctrine that God can be known in personal experience. A loving Personality dominates the Bible, walking among the trees of the garden and breathing fragrance over every scene. Always a living Person is present, speaking, pleading, loving, working, and manifesting Himself whenever and wherever His people have the receptivity necessary to receive the manifestation.

The Bible assumes as a self-evident fact that men can know God with at least the same degree of immediacy as they know any other person or thing that comes within the field of their experience. The same terms are used to express the knowledge of God as are used to express knowledge of physical things. O taste and see that the Lord is good.' (Psalms 34:8)All thy garments smellof myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces.' (Psalms 45:8) My sheep hear my voice.' (John 10:27)Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.' (Matthew 5:8) These are but four of countless such passages from the Word of God. And more important than any proof text is the fact that the whole import of the Scripture is toward this belief.

What can all this mean except that we have in our hearts organs by means of which we can know God as certainly as we know material things through our familiar five senses? We apprehend the physical world by exercising the faculties given us for the purpose, and we possess spiritual faculties by means of which we can know God and the spiritual world if we will obey the Spirit's urge and begin to use them. That a saving work must first be done in the heart is taken for granted here. The spiritual faculties of the unregenerate man lie asleep in his nature, unused and for every purpose dead; that is the stroke which has fallen upon us by sin. They may be quickened to active life again by the operation of the Holy Spirit in regeneration; that is one of the immeasurable benefits which come to us through Christ's atoning work on the cross.

But the very ransomed children of God themselves: why do they know so little of that habitual conscious communion with God which the Scriptures seem to offer? The answer is our chronic unbelief. Faith enables our spiritual sense to function. Where faith is defective the result will be inward insensibility and numbness toward spiritual things. This is the condition of vast numbers of Christians today. No proof is necessary to support that statement. We have but to converse with the first Christian we meet or enter the first church we find open to acquire all the proof we need.

A spiritual kingdom lies all about us, enclosing us, embracing us, altogether within reach of our inner selves, waiting for us to recognize it. God Himself is here waiting our response to His Presence. This eternal world will come alive to us the moment we begin to reckon upon its reality.

I have just now used two words which demand definition; or if definition is impossible, I must at least make clear what I mean when I use them. They are reckon' andreality.' What do I mean by reality? I mean that which has existence apart from any idea any mind may have of it, and which would exist if there were no mine anywhere to entertain a thought of it. That which is real has being in itself. It does not depend upon the observer for its validity.

I am aware that there are those who love to poke fun at the plain man's idea of reality. They are the idealists who spin endless proofs that nothing is real outside of the mind. They are the relativists who like to show that there are no fixed points in the universe from which we can measure anything. They smile down upon us from their lofty intellectual peaks and settle us to their own satisfaction by fastening upon us the reproachful term `absolutist.' The Christian is not put out of countenance by this show of contempt. He can smile right back at them, for he knows that there is only One who is Absolute, that is God. But he knows also that the Absolute One has made this world for man's uses, and, while there is nothing fixed or real in the last meaning of the words (the meaning as applied to God) for every purpose of human life we are permitted to act as if there were. And every man does act thus except the mentally sick. These unfortunates also have trouble with reali ty, but they are consistent; they insist upon living in accordance with their ideas of things. They are honest, and it is their very honesty that constitutes them a social problem.

The idealists and relativists are not mentally sick. They prove their soundness by living their lives according to the very notions of reality which they in theory repudiate and by counting upon the very fixed points which they prove are not there. They could earn a lot more respect for their notions if they were willing to live by them; but this they are careful not to do. Their ideas are brain-deep, not life- deep. Wherever life touches them they repudiate their theories and live like other men.

The Christian is too sincere to play with ideas for their own sake. He takes no pleasure in the mere spinning of gossamer webs for display. All his beliefs are practical. They are geared into his life. By them he lives or dies, stands or falls for this world and for all time to come. From the insincere man he turns away.

The sincere plain man knows that the world is real. He finds it here when he wakes to consciousness, and he knows that he did not think it into being. It was here waiting for him when he came, and he knows that when he prepares to leave this earthly scene it will be here still to bid him good-bye as he departs. By the deep wisdom of life he is wiser than a thousand men who doubt. He stands upon the earth and feels the wind and rain in his face and he knows that they are real. He sees the sun by day and the stars by night.

He sees the hot lightning play out of the dark thundercloud. He hears the sounds of nature and the cries of human joy and pain. These he knows are real. He lies down on the cool earth at night and has no fear that it will prove illusory or fail him while he sleeps. In the morning the firm ground will be under him, the blue sky above him and the rocks and trees around him as when he closed his eyes the night before. So he lives and rejoices in a world of reality. With his five senses he engages this real world. All things necessary to his physical existence he apprehends by the faculties with which he has been equipped by the God who created him and placed him in such a world as this.

Now by our definition also God is real. He is real in the absolute and final sense that nothing else is. All other reality is contingent upon His. The great Reality is God who is the Author of that lower and dependent reality which makes up the sum of created things, including ourselves. God has objective existence independent of and apart from any notions which we may have concerning Him.The worshipping heart does not create its Object. It finds Him here when it wakes from its moral slumber in the morning of its regeneration.

Another word that must be cleared up is the word reckon. This does not mean to visualize or imagine. Imagination is not faith. The two are not only different from, but stand in sharp opposition to, each other. Imagination projects unreal images out of the mind and seeks to attach reality to them. Faith creates nothing; it simply reckons upon that which is already there. God and the spiritual world are real. We can reckon upon them with as much assurance as we reckon upon the familiar world around us. Spiritual things are there (or rather we should say here) inviting our attention and challenging our trust.

Our trouble is that we have established bad thought habits. We habitually think of the visible world as real and doubt the reality of any other. We do not deny the existence of the spiritual world but we doubt that it is real in the accepted meaning of the word. The world of sense intrudes upon our attention day and night for the whole of our lifetime. It is clamorous, insistent and self- demonstrating. It does not appeal to our faith; it is here, assaulting our five senses, demanding to be accepted as real and final. But sin has so clouded the lenses of our hearts that we cannot see that other reality, the City of God, shining around us. The world of sense triumphs. The visible becomes the enemy of the invisible; the temporal, of the eternal. That is the curse inherited by every member of Adam's tragic race.

At the root of the Christian life lies belief in the invisible. The object of the Christian's faith is unseen reality. Our uncorrected thinking, influenced by the blindness of our natural hearts and the intrusive ubiquity of visible things, tends to draw a contrast between the spiritual and the real; but actually no such contrast exists. The antithesis lies elsewhere: between the real and the imaginary, between the spiritual and the material, between the temporal and the eternal; but between the spiritual and the real.

The spiritual is real. If we would rise into that region of light and power plainly beckoning us through the Scriptures of truth we must break the evil habit of ignoring the spiritual. We must shift our interest from the seen to the unseen. For the great unseen Reality is God. He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.' (Hebr 11:6) This is basic in the life of faith. From there we can rise to unlimited heights.Ye believe in God,' said our Lord Jesus Christ, `believe also in me.' (John 14:1) Without the first there can be no second.

If we truly want to follow God we must seek to be other-worldly. This I say knowing well that that word has been used with scorn by the sons of this world and applied to the Christian as a badge of reproach. So be it. Everyman must choose his world. If we who follow Christ, with all the facts before us and knowing what we are about, deliberately choose the Kingdom of God as our sphere of interest I see no reason why anyone should object. If we lose by it, the loss is our own; if we gain we rob no one by so doing.

The other world,' which is the object of this world's disdain and the subject of the drunkard's mocking song, is our carefully chosen goal and the object of our holiest longing. But we must avoid the common fault of pushing theother world' into the future. It is not future, but present. It parallels our familiar physical world, and the doors between the two worlds are open. Ye are come,' says the writer to the Hebrews (and the tense is plainly present),unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel' (Hebr 12:22-24) All these things are contrasted with the mount that might be touched' andthe sound of a trumpet and the voice of words' that might be heard. May we not safely conclude that, as the realities of Mount Sinai were apprehended by the senses, so the realities of Mount Zion are to be grasped by the soul? And this not by any trick of the imagination, but in downright actuality. The soul has eyes with which to see and ears with which to hear. Feeble they may be from long disuse, but by the life-giving touch of Christ alive now and capable of sharpest sight and most sensitive hearing.

As we begin to focus upon God the things of the spirit will take shape before our inner eyes. Obedience to the word of Christ will bring an inward revelation of the Godhead (John 14:21-23). It will give acute perception enabling us to see God even as is promised to the pure in heart. A new God-consciousness will seize upon us and we shall begin to taste and hear and inwardly feel the God who is our life and our all. There will be seen the constant shining of the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. (John 1:9) More and more, as our faculties grow sharper and more sure, God will become to us the great All, and His Presence the glory and wonder of our lives. O God, quicken to life every power within me, that I may lay hold on eternal things. Open my eyes that I may see; give me acute spiritual perception; enable me to taste Thee and know that Thou art good. Make heaven more real to me than any earthly thing has ever been. Amen.

Copyright Statement This material is considered in the public domain.

[pennypensive]

...hello, I guess?

So, I've arrived. I don't know what to say or how to navigate or anything like that, but I figured I've read enough "curated" content that I may as well join this supposed hellsite.

Generally, I am a lurker. Lots of reading, very little commenting or liking or any other interaction. But if it's amenable to whoever might be out there, I was thinking I could maybe say something here? Somewhere anonymous, where I don't have to post in the "correct" community and where absurdity sits adjacent to cold sincerity.

I hurt. I want to write about it somewhere, or otherwise write whatever comes to mind. Maybe this will be the only thing I ever post, but maybe not? Plenty of people use the void of the internet to do self guided therapy, and regardless of how or if the void answers, I will at least have externalized some stuff. I'm pretty good at handling bad-faith feedback if it's not coming from a source I'm close to.

I could start my ramblings with this post, actually. Recently, I've been reading a lot of Danny Phantom fanfiction. I've been a little obsessive, really. And it's pretty much all the same genre: his identity is revealed to his parents, who are sent reeling, but ultimately step up and become exactly who their son needs. They recognize how they've hurt him and strive to change for him, no questions asked, no holds barred. Fics that don't have this specific outcome are either abandoned, ignored, or forgotten by me.

I've come to the understanding that I see myself in these stories- or at least, idealized versions of me. I see myself as the protagonist with a dangerous truth, and I see my parents as an antagonistic force that comes around to my truth with absolute and abiding love.

Even without personal details, a reader could assume a lot about me at this point. I'm clearly anxious. I love my family, and they love me- but I'm afraid they might not "if they only knew." Perhaps I'm alone, perhaps I have a good support network. I pretty obviously am very introspective, as I'm literally psychoanalyzing myself in this paragraph. There's a thousand parallels to be made with the LGBTQIA community, and it would be easy to guess I am in the closet or an egg or some other metaphor.

I'm gonna just go all in on metaphors, if that's alright with you. I'm sort of in the closet, I guess- but not in that way. My closet is filled with atheism, and I live in a house of Christianity. I've painted the door with giant "DEPRESSION" labels to dissuade my parents from trying to open it. I jammed the lock with lies. I've been in this closet for a long time; it's actually quite roomy. But I am still cut off from the rest of the house, and I so much want to come out.

Mom, if I told you that the god you pray to has done nothing but hurt me, would you listen? If I told you how much guilt and fear your god instilled in me, would you understand? If I told you that your god of love taught me how to hate, would you hate me in turn?

Dad, what do you even think of all this? What do you believe? You don't respond to things the same way I do, and it's impossible to imagine your reaction. You're so understanding at times, and so judgemental other times. Your kindness is boundless, until it suddenly isn't, and all of a sudden you say things that are unbelievably cruel or ignorant.

I hurt. I want my mom and dad. But no matter how close we are, I can't touch you. I'm in an invisible environment suit, and you know it, because you're not stupid. I can hear the unspoken things you ask when you talk to me, and I put so much subtext in my answers. I am so, so, so careful, because I can't bear to see what would happen if the suit was breached. I don't know what I would do if the air I breathed was toxic to you, but I already know the air you breathe is toxic to me. I've lived with a door between us for a decade now, and I don't know if I dare open it.

I love you, I love you so much it hurts. I know you would still love me, because it's not in you to stop. What I don't know is if that love would overcome the pain you'd feel, the betrayal, the fear. I hope it would, but if I can't believe in your god of love, I don't know if I can believe in your love, either.

#religous trauma #parents #I love you but I don't trust you and that hurts so much #good support system #not therapy #but kinda therapy?